Cape Town... Day 1

“Rest in peace, you’ve told us lots of stories…”
(A quote that is traditionally said in an African funeral)

Well it’s been my first official day in South Africa. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to actually blog so I’m blogging first and seeing if I’ll be able to upload these later. Or maybe it will be one long blog post at the end of the trip, but who knows. I guess I’ll start with the trip over, with a total of twenty-four hours of travel time and sixteen of that on a plane alone… we were all pretty exhausted to say the least. It was sort of an interesting experience, which I’m not sure how to explain. Either way we were pretty excited to actually reach land. My first actual glimpse of South Africa was of a sunset over Table Mountain, which was an amazing sight. The first night we went to this restaurant/bar called News City, which was pretty good and all but I was too exhausted to really enjoy it and I was excited to get back and get some sleep. Also the Forty Winks hotel is really nice, I have to share a bed with my roommate Keith but who really cares at this point. It’s just awesome to be here.

I slept hard through the first night and breakfast was pretty good, from there we headed straight to our township tour. This was a crazy experience… Not gunna lie it hadn’t really felt like we were in Africa yet. I was feeling sort of disconnected from this place until we visited this church, after visiting a youth center. First of all the church was in this large hanger like warehouse, painted aquas, blues, and purples, with loud speakers set up for the preacher (also there wasn’t a cross anywhere to be found). At first glance it was just sort of loud and overwhelming, with people singing and praying quite loudly. What shocked me most was what came next, a young man came up to be with his hands out, I wasn’t sure what he wanted until he took my hand in a hand shake. I then started to notice others were doing the same all over the church; everyone was embracing each other welcoming them including us… Many people, women and men, came to hug and shake our hands welcoming us. This was just very weird for me in a sense, I’m not much of a touchy feely person, but this was really kind of different. We continued from there into the actual township, to find that man older males who were not attending church had already begun drinking. It was hard to see the poverty of this place, what was harder to see was the children. They approached us tentatively at first, but then became interested and started to follow us. The first boy who I interacted with sort of hung around me for a while and kept trying to get into my pictures. Yet when he asked for money, and I refused, he left looking sort of embarrassed. I felt sort of bad after the encounter too, sort of like I had done something wrong. Yet other soon came and I began to interact with them. Two such boys were very funny, as they ran and play fought with each other constantly. What worried me though was the fact that they kept marbles in their mouth, not sure if they were chewing on them or what but we were all nervous that they were going to choke or something.

I made two interesting friends, one named Theo, the other I couldn’t understand and am unsure that he even spoke English. What touched me the most was when we began to play, it was simple at first and I didn’t really think too much about it until they kept urging me to play with them some more. Really it was nothing, they would hold my hands as I walked and they would say “1, 2, 3, JUMP!” and as they jumped I’d sort of strong arm their jump higher, shooting them into the air. Before I knew it other boys began fighting for my attention and it was… well… fun and neat to sort of make a quasi connection with these kids half way around the world. I’ve been able to make connections with kids before back in the states, but it was fun to see some of the same mentalities in these kids. Enforcing the fact of how similar we really are. I let the kids write their name in my journal because I knew I couldn’t remember them by myself. These are some of the friends I made today Theo, Lantu, Sinazo Leke, Sisipho, Esoha, Akons, Sikota, Habonka, and Zukhaye.

What was hard to think about later was the fact that the reason why so many of these kids were so attached to many of us were because they just don’t really receive much attention elsewhere. Most of their Mothers have died of HIV and in most cases these kids are made to stay with elder family members and such. It is really weird to think about how far different American childhood is to this one township, we’re always told not to talk to strangers let alone play with them, and these kids are not only just wandering the streets alone but warmed up to us quite quickly. It was also sort of hard leaving, getting on the bus afterward I pulled out a bottle of Purel. Many of the other kids around were asking for some and I knew that I needed to as well, but I felt sort of guilty about it… sort of like I was washing my hands of them and returning to my fortunate life… while they go back to return to not much at all.

Afterward we went and had lunch by the harbor, I had the “Earth and Sea” which consisted of chicken wings, sausage, French fries, and calamari… interesting to say the least. From there we got onto a Ferry to Robben Island (spelling), where the large Apartheid prison where Nelson Mandela was held. Not gunna lie, I crashed on the boat ride over, but then upon waking up I realized just how high the wake was as we made our way to the island. These swells weren’t really for anyone who gets just a little sea sick. Anyways the Prison tour was pretty interesting, and I guess the island was also a Leper colony before it was a prison… Anyways I got some really interesting pictures, and even managed to see some penguins! I guess I don’t have too much to say about the island it’s self, it was pretty scenic and stuff, and educational for sure. Looking at my notes I wrote something about how there was one inmate (who’s name I forget at the moment) who wasn’t allowed to actually speak to anyone for several years… and when he would see his fellow inmates at a distance he would grab some dirt and let it run through his hands. This was his way of saying, “You are the Sun and the Earth, you mean everything to me. Fight until you get the land back.” (Or something like that ) I also found it odd that the tour guide kept referring to people as comrades, which makes most Americans think of Russians… go figure.
Afterwards was an amazing Dinner by the harbor. I sort of went all out and had Antelope and local wine… pretty awesome =) I’m trying to keep this as short as possible, even though this is already fairly long, so I’ll be ending it here. Either way this was a pretty intense day and was the first day I really felt “In Africa” and in some way apart of it.