Robben Island + Lion's Head

Sorry I haven't been updating regularly! Things have been getting busy here. The first few weeks I really didn't have any work, but now it's starting to pile up. I'm in four classes: Xhosa, Archaeology, Service Learning, and HIV/AIDS.

Xhosa is fun, it's only 2 units and almost no work. We haven't learned that much so far... I can say really basic things and ask basic questions. They also taught us a few Xhosa songs... which are really hard.

Archaeology is great. The professor is like Indiana Jones, except older. We had class last week up at his office and there were bones and skeletons and rocks and artifacts everywhere. He's also hilarious, in this dry British way, so everyone in the class is always really engaged. He also realizes that none of us intend to become archaeologists which is actually great because, as he said in class a few weeks ago, "I'm only going to tell you the interesting things." We literally sat outside one day and tried to make handaxes.

Service Learning is okay. The class part is maybe a bit too theoretical and we talk about things I don't really care about sometimes, but I like where I'm working and hopefully I'll get a lot out of it. I work at Linawo Children's Home. It's this orphanage in Khayelitsha with 15 children, ages 1-13. It's challenging finding something for all of them to do given the huge age gap. The older ones tend to help take care of the younger ones a lot though, and there's a lot of really inspiring things that I witness there. Most of the kids were abandoned or were orphaned from AIDS, and just seeing them all take care of each other and thrive is amazing. I'm going to actually bring my camera there soon to take some photos for the Stanford Centre, so I'll upload some.

The HIV/AIDS class is... interesting. We're working in this township called Dunoon and basically following around these community health workers as they deliver soup to patients. I don't really understand the tie in to HIV/AIDS, but no matter.

We went to Robben Island one day. It was a good experience, I'd say, mostly. We drove around the island on this tour bus and they talked about it's history. Even though it's famous as the prison where the apartheid regime kept political prisoners, it has a much longer history. It was a leper colony for many many years and also a military base during WWII. The prison itself has been restored and cleaned. Because of this it's lost all of its grit and prison-ness. I thought I was just walking through dorms. It invites comparison to Alcatraz simply for its notoriousness and islandness. When I went to Alcatraz, however, they hadn't cleaned it and it was still crumbling and falling apart in places. It felt like a prison. The visit to Robben Island felt like a very closely controlled and monitored tour of something that had never really existed (just because it has been changed so much). The tour guides there are all former political prisoners, which sounds cool, but is actually really sad. Most of them are there solely because they can't find jobs anywhere else (unemployment in the black community runs higher than 40%). This is something they can do and get paid for, but not something a lot of them want to do.

We saw Nelson Mandela's cell. For reasons I talked about above, it's also lost some of its power. After reading Long Walk to Freedom (read it), I know there was more to the place than what I saw. Nothing negative was really mentioned about the prison even. I think it was still good to see it though, even if it did feel like a tourist show.

We also climbed Lion's Head this week. It was absolutely beautiful. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves, but even they don't do the view justice.

Other than all that life in Observatory is great. I'm having a lot of fun living in the house with all the other people. The food in the house is so-so, but there are a lot of really really good restaurants nearby and they are all CHEAP. Some of the other students here have starting joining clubs and things at UCT. Last night I went to this frisbee party which was funny. Half the people there were Americans, and the other half were people from random other countries like Serbia and New Zealand and Zimbabwe. Apparently half of the students at UCT are international, so I guess it wasn't surprising.

Some people in the house bought a used guitar and I'm learning chords and things. It's hard, I wish I had bigger hands. Okay, I'm leaving to go climb Lion's Head again.

Some pictures:

After sunset.

Top of Lion's Head.

Robben Island

The Peninsula and Mzoli's

I forgot to mention that we had a braai (that's South African speak for BBQ) with an a capella group from Stanford called Talisman about two weeks ago. They sing African songs and come to South Africa during spring break every year to tour. And they're amazing. You should look them up.

Some other funny South African sayings:

lekker = good, great, happy, amazing, fine, etc. can be used in almost any tense or setting i.e. "I feel quite lekker" or "these are very lekker" even an exclamation of "lekker!" is appropriate.

just now = like in 5 minutes "I'll do it just now"

now now = like in a while "I'll do it now now (i.e. NOT now)"

howzit = standard greeting to be answered with "no, fine" if you want to say you ARE fine

is it? = is it? BUT they use it for EVERYTHING... "I like potatoes" - "Is it?" (i.e. Do you really?)

mawembi = Xhosa greeting for multiple people, you can say molo if it's just to one person - people say molo sisi and molo bhuti quite often (hello sister / brother) or molo tata / mama if they're greeting someone older

unjani = how are you? in Xhosa

Okay, enough of that. Let me talk about what I did today and yesterday!

Yesterday we woke up really early (too early) to go on a peninsula tour. We got on the bus and drove to Hout Bay which was amazingly picturesque. We stopped on the wharf and some people got fish and chips and calamari. It reminded me a lot of places like Half Moon Bay just because it had a small town feel and there were seagulls everywhere. Our guide, Colleen, talked about the bay and apparently it has the highest density of great white sharks anywhere in the world. There's an island off shore called Seal Island where there are TONS of seals and the sharks basically just circle it constantly and eat seals. Yum.

We drove along the cliffs until we got to this place called Chapman's Peak where we could see all of Hout Bay and the sheer cliffs on the other side. (This place makes Devil's Slide look weak- if you google "the sentinel" and Hout Bay it's this sheer cliff that drops like 2000 feet straight into the sea.) Got out, took some pics, yadda yadda yadda.

We kept driving until we got around the other side of the peninsula. We stopped at Muizenberg briefly and kept going until we got to this small town where we had lunch (more calamari yum).

Next we drove all the way to the end of the peninsula (and saw ostriches on the way!) We got to the Cape of Good Hope and got out to walk to the end of Africa. It's not actually technically the end because Cape Agulhas is farther south, but I guess this cape is more dramatic? It's also more important historically, which I won't get into here. The walk was actually more of a hike because the cape is NOT flat. There are two lighthouses on it. One has this huge pole with arrows pointing to a whole bunch of major cities in the world and gives distances to each. The other one is at the very tip of the peninsula. We didn't have much time here so most people didn't walk all the way to the end, but I was like umm no, and I ran to the end, took one picture and ran back. As I was running back I saw a Dacie. They're these cute little animals about the size of squirrels whose closest relatives are ELEPHANTS. I wanted to keep it, but I didn't.

Next we drove to Simon's Town to see the penguin colony! Apparently it started in the 1980's with just two couples of penguins, but today there are around 4000 penguins there. You can walk up really really close to them and take pictures, so that was pretty cool. And they walk exactly like you would expect penguins to walk, so funny.

I don't know how long that day took to read, but it took 12 hours to do, so I was exhausted last night when I got back and barely woke up in time to go on the trip today to Mzoli's.

Mzoli's is this giant meat market in the township of Gugulethu. It's become very popular with both locals and tourists and it was definitely an experience. Basically you go buy your meat in one part (it's basically like a butcher's shop - there's chicken, beef, pork, lamb, etc.) and then you take your meat over to another part of Mzoli's where there are tons of BBQs and they cook it for you. So many people go that sometimes it can take 3 hours to get food. When you do get the food it's kind of hilarious. It's literally just a giant bowl of MEAT and everyone digs in. No utensils, no napkins. It's a vegetarian's worst nightmare. AND there's live music, and as the afternoon goes on everyone kind of just ends up dancing in the street. It was great.

Here are some pics:

Oh hey penguins.

Whoops, forgot to mention we saw baboons!

The Dacie. Elephant's closest relative.

The end of Africa. But not really.

Hout Bay

Top of Table Mountain (old pic)

Cape Town

A lot of people have been asking me about what's been going on in South Africa, so to skip the repetitiveness of telling everything multiple times I just made this. It should also give me a good place to post my thoughts in the future and to upload some pictures for everyone to see!

So to start-- I've been here for almost exactly three weeks and A LOT has happened. I guess I should have been writing as all this was going on, but whatever. Here's a quick / maybe-not-so-quick / not-totally-thorough recap:

I got here three weeks ago on a Thursday after the longest series of flights ever. San Francisco to Minneapolis to Amsterdam to (finally) Cape Town. Managed to fall asleep on the plane. Thank you Advil PM and free wine.

The first few days I spent just kind of settling in and exploring the surrounding neighborhood. The Stanford house is insanely nice-- there's a hot tub and washing machines and a whole bunch of other stuff I definitely didn't expect from Africa. There are 24 students here in total, most of them Juniors like me, most of them cool (at least so far), and they've been a joy to get to know over the last few weeks. The house is in a neighborhood of Cape Town called Observatory-- it's a pretty lively area of town and there's a ton of restaurants and bars and stuff within a few blocks of the house.

I took the train to this beach called Muizenberg with one of the other students the first day I got here and it was absolutely gorgeous. I'll upload a picture but it doesn't do it justice. There are a whole bunch of colorful little huts along the beach which we were told date to the late 1800's. Apparently, women then would use them to get dressed in their bathing suits (or bathing costumes, as they say here).

We went through a few very long official orientations to get us used to the neighborhood and University of Cape Town (UCT). UCT has an amazing campus, I'm actually pretty jealous. It's so pretty. Very east-coast collegiate... kind of. It also has an amazing view of most of the city. What I like about it is that it has the hustle and bustle that Stanford lacks. There are constantly students walking around and it's exactly like what you might imagine a stereotypical college campus to be like. Unfortunately, none of the classes we're taking are actually at UCT, they're all at the Stanford Centre which is about a ten minute walk from the house.

We had a ridiculously exorbitant (is that a word?) welcome dinner at a restaurant called Africa Cafe in the city center. Apparently it was like $50 a person. Yay private schools. Anyway, the food was delicious and came from all over Africa. We had dishes from everywhere. Curries, flatbread, fish, calamari, fried yams... People also came around and painted our faces which was pretty cool.

We were also lead around the city center (where all the big buildings are) one day and briefed on how to use Cape Town transportation. I'll probably elaborate on this more in future posts, but there's basically the options of taking a train, a taxi, or a minibus everywhere. Observatory (I'm calling it Obs from now on because that's what the locals do), is maybe 15 minutes away from the city center (also called the 'city bowl'- if you see a picture you'll know why). We walked through the Company Gardens which are really lush and beautiful and have an interesting history. I'll talk more about this later but Cape Town was originally a Dutch colony used as a refueling station of sorts for the ships going around the Cape of Good Hope to the far east to get spices. Whichever company had a monopoly on the spices, I think the Dutch East India Company, built the gardens to grow fruit so that the sailors could restock on citrus and not get scurvy. Apparently, the gardens are much smaller than they were when originally built, but they're still great to walk through. Cape Town is the legislative capital of South Africa, so parliament also sits in this gorgeous house within the Company Gardens.

We walked through the Malay quarter of Cape Town where most of the Muslims live. The houses in this part of the city are famous for their vibrant colors. I'll upload some pictures. Our guide, Colleen, talked a lot about the history of the Islamic and Indian populations in Cape Town and the important roles they played during Apartheid, but I'll talk more about that later.

We toured through District 6, which is basically kind of a wasteland at the moment (there are a few houses), but used to be an incredibly vibrant and important area of town for black South Africans under Apartheid. That was until the ruling party decided that the land was much too valuable and forced the residents to relocate to other parts of the city. The story of District 6 was used as inspiration for the movie District 9. Again, I'll talk more about this later because I don't want this post to be too long.

We also went on a township tour (which I feel kind of weird about because on one hand it does introduce us to and is a good way of seeing the rampant poverty that affects the majority of South Africans, but on the other hand... it did feel kind of like a zoo). We drove through Gugulethu and Kayelitsha which are two townships that together hold about 2 million people-- most of whom live in shacks and barely have access to running water and electricity. You can stand on one end of Kayelitsha and look over the sea of aluminum buildings and dirty alleyways and NOT see where it ends. It just goes on forever. So many people. We stopped by this small memorial in Gugulethu in the exact spot where a Fulbright Scholar from Stanford was killed in 1993 during the violence leading up to the first democratic elections. The student, Amy Biehl, was helping register and educate black voters and was a few days shy of ending her year-long stint in Cape Town. She was driving some friends back to their homes in Gugulethu when her car was stopped by militant anti-white youths belonging to an organization called the PAC. They attacked her car and she was beaten to death. What followed is a pretty amazing story (I'm pretty sure there's a documentary). Her parents created The Amy Biehl Foundation after learning of her death, and the three people convicted of her murder were later pardoned by the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (TRC) in 1998 (I'm not entirely sure of the history, but I know the TRC was created in order to ease racial tensions and to pardon some of those that had been convicted of racially motivated crimes prior to 1994). Amy's parents met with the three who had been convicted of killing her and allowed them to be pardoned. I'm not entirely sure what happened next, but I do know that at least one of the three is very very involved with The Amy Biehl Foundation today and has worked extensively with her parents to curb future racial violence. I could go on and on about how Apartheid has affected everyone in South Africa and continues to affect them today. There are so many stories, some horrifying, some inspiring, and I'll definitely sprinkle them in as I ramble on.

On the other extreme, we also went to Camp's Bay and Clifton. I'll post pictures so you can see. These are the beaches on the Atlantic side of Cape Town and contain the wealthy population of the area. Million dollar homes sit on the beach and the cliffs leading down to the beach. The view is amazing and dramatic. Seriously, I'm looking at pictures I took there right now and they don't do it justice.

I've also gone on a few really long amazing hikes up Table Mountain. One thing I haven't mentioned yet is how mountainous and hilly everything is here. The city bowl sits in between four mountains. In increasing order of size: Signal Hill (which you can just drive up), Lion's Head, Devil's Peak, and Table Mountain. If you're looking at pictures, Table Mountain is the one that... looks like a Table.

Both hikes I've been on started at Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens (amazing-- there are summer concerts there which are also really cool), and went up this trail called Skeleton Gorge. They probably named it that because of it's steepness. So steep. It was more of an extended, natural version of a stairmaster than an actual hike. We got to the top of Table Mountain and the view was incredible, we could see all the way across the Cape Flats. Millions of years ago (maybe thousands, I don't really pay attention), when the sea was higher, Table Mountain was underwater so there's actually sand on top of it in a lot of places (also apparently sea caves and fossils). We walked across Table Mountain and rode the cable car down into the city bowl.

Okay, I'm going to stop this entry now because I'm getting tired of writing. There's a lot more that's happened though and I regret not starting to write this earlier. I'll kind of fill in things though as I remember them. I still need to talk a lot more about the townships and the history of South Africa. Not to mention my day-to-day life and classes and this ridiculous rafting trip we went on down the Breede River a week or so ago.

For now though, here are some pictures of the places I mentioned in this post:

This is the city bowl from the harbor. You can see the taller buildings of the city towards the left and Table Mountain in the background. There's usually fog rolling over the mountain which makes it really pretty. I totally forgot to talk about the harbor, it's called Victoria and Albert Waterfront (V&A) and is another one of the more prosperous parts of the city.

This is Camp's Bay. The houses here sell for millions. The mountain peaks at the top of the picture are called the Twelve Apostles (there are twelve of them...) Oh, and the water has a ton of Great White Sharks.

Part of the Muslim quarter. Colorful houses.

Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens

Muizenberg colorful houses.