The End

Now that we are all home and Real Life has slapped me in the face and I'm pretty adjusted to the time change and we are blowing up facebook like nobody's business, I've been thinking about this trip and realizing that what made it so incredibly awesome is FRIENDS. I really did not think I was going to make friends on this trip. It wasn't a negative thought; I just didn't consider that it might happen. I was caught up in the geography and packing and photography and culture and didn't think about the actual people that I would be traveling with.

I spent the day at work, my first day at school with a new group of students, and I gave each class a little presentation on my world map. I told them about the long plane flight and the southern tip of the continent and visiting township kids and singing in a choir. I sighed to all of my colleagues about how wonderful it was and the sightseeing was fantastic and how jetlagged I am and my brain is scattered in a million directions. I couldn't convey to either group, though, that the best surprise of this trip was making friends with all of you.

We bussed, we slept, we drank, we dance, we sang, we posed, we snapped photos, we screamed, we hugged, we dressed up, we climbed, we cried, we laughed, we ate, we shared, we saw, we loved.

I know it wasn't all perfect and there were real moments of hurt. But as I've been thinking back on our trip today, I have not been remembering the history or the culture or the scenery. I've been thinking about the Robes and Slippers evening, dancing at the Irish pub, sharing the front seats of the orange bus, hugging on Latifa, idolizing Ben's camera, collecting shells during whale watching, sleeping twelve inches from your roommate, trying on clothes, mugging for the Go Pro, playing in flight trivia, jumping on the beach, laughing laughing and laughing.

Thank you for making this trip so wonderful. You know who you are.

Dubai pt 2

The burka is really creepy.

Dubai is a pretty horrible city.

Now that we have these generalizations out of the way, I can describe my amazing Dubai day with Sean and Julie. We landed at the tender temperature of 105 degrees, and by the time our bus comes and we check in, it is a full blown 115! Breakfast in the hotel cafe was uninspiring.

After several misadventures with the ATM, maps, taxi, and a change of pants, Sean and I set out for the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa. But first, we had to walk through the biggest mall in the world, Dubai Mall. Both are incredibly large and incredibly empty. (Ramadan!) Sean shows off his clumsy side by somehow dropping his sunglasses and simultaneously spilling his water bottle all over the floor when I handed him a single Mento.

Burj Khalifa's infographic displays are quite masturbatory. "The best, the best, the best, we are the best, please!!!" they seem to scream. The Burj Khalifa employs at least fifty Asian men and women, each of whom is assigned a very specific duty. For example, there is the woman whose job it is to point to the elevator, where we are met by a fellow whose job it is to press the elevator button, introducing us to the elevator operator himself. Upon reaching the 124th floor, we pass by the revolving-door window-wiper. A lady forcefully directs us in posing for some very awkward photos. (Are we allowed to touch in photographs in Dubai? It's funnier if we just stand side-by-side.) We are two of five people on the top deck today, so all this cleaning and hosting seems a bit superfluous.

The view from the top is dusty and hazy and rather limited. Besides the pool directly below us, (124 floors below us,) everything looks tan. Grayish, yellowish, tan. We can just barely make out the "Antarctica" sand bar at the base of the "World Islands." The skyscrapers to our north look empty. The barren desert to our west looks sad. We are high up in the sky but there is nothing to see.

So then the next rational thing to do is eat. We find a candy stand and then a grocery store in the mall and head back to the hotel to eat (can't eat in public! Ramadan!) and pick up Julie. It is fucking hot.

Julie is waiting in our hotel room, watching the sports channel because it displays the time on the bottom left corner of the screen and our hotel room DOES NOT HAVE A CLOCK. We are seriously slumming. After we gorge, we go downstairs to the cafe and have a "light refreshment." Sean gets in trouble for walking across the room to the lunch display because we have only paid for light refreshments.

Spice souk! I buy some aquarium rock chocolate candies, mint crystals, and cinnamon. Julie and Sean buy a lot of real spices that I cannot personally handle, like pepper and cumin. One merchant lets me be his "assistant" and handle his "money" for his "sales" with "Americans" who are not very good at "bargaining." I take some pictures of the bright blue indigo, which I very much want to purchase, only I cannot think of a single use.

After the best hour-long nap of my life, we reconvene in the hotel lobby donning our "What Would Sue Do" tshirts. Everybody loves them, including Sue herself. We take ourselves and our tshirts on a dinner cruise on an old spice boat on the Dubai Creek. Our tour guide tells us proudly that it is "the only natural thing in Dubai." I am not alone when I think that is depressing. Dubai is like Las Vegas without the people and the fun and the electricity.

We have three hours at the airport before our plane boards and I spend it all with Sean. We do some races on the moving walkways (running the wrong way, of course), stretching, buying water for everyone and their mother, visiting the pharmacy twice, changing over our money, and otherwise being ridiculous. It is crazy fun.

On the plane, I pop a Dramamine and sleep for eleven hours. I am out from before take-off until Seattle. Even I am impressed. I have just enough time to walk a few laps and watch a crappy movie before we land. Passport, baggage, customs, and we're through!

Goodbye South Africa

Sad day, we are leaving this beautiful country. It is good we are going home, because everyone is on edge and about to snap at each other. I am sad because it means an end to summer vacation.

I spend some quality time with Leena at the airport. I find the exact things I need in order to call this trip a success: playing cards (each card a different wild animal) and Mentos (strawberry yogurt and COLA! flavor). We pick out engagement rings. It is a fantastic hour away from the group. We board the plane and I am sitting next to Bria and Ben! Unfortch, this flight is full and we are too close for comfort. But! I am still next to the window and I get to gaze out as we lift off and turn to the north.

South African is stunning. The region is marked by tall, rocky mountains pushed up out of the earth. Around the mountains are soft, green areas, some in criss-crossed farming patches. The ocean curves around the cape, white waves lapping at the sandy shores, white waves hitting the rocky tip. These mountains have good posture and stnd straight up in a row. You can almost see the techtonic actions that took place to create such proud, straight peaks. Southern Africa is not savana or sand sea or jungle or dirt. South Africa is lush and healthy and molded into many shapes. As the plane turns, the sun is setting and the cabin is filled with a pink light. Goodbye Africa!

KO SAN and CLICKS and TABLE MOUNTAIN BEACH

...Or is it KoiSan? (Lonely Planet spells it "Khoe-San")

This was our "cultural" day, which did not live up to my expectations. The !Khwa ttu reserve and museum was nice enough, it just wasn't ENOUGH. Like, it felt fake. When I saw the Aboriginal groups in Australia, I knew it was fake and put on for the tourists, but there were a lot of artifacts and there was face painting and music and enthusiasm. The KoiSan place resembled a painting in that it wasn't alive.

BUT! I did learn some things. For example, the KoiSan people hold the Eland and Praying Mantis sacred. I don't know why, I was preoccupied by our tour guide Ivan's beautiful smile. And dimples. According to Casey, the praying mantis plays a part in their creation myth. Sean says he watched a video of two praying manti getting it on and then she ripped his head off. (He had to leave the building afterwards to cool off.) I learned that the KoiSan people encompass thirteen language groups, which include 5 different clicks, one of which is a kissing sound. I also learned that the KoiSan people have tee-pee shaped huts made out of sticks that are tall enough to stand in but not quite wide enough to lie down in.

We took a tractor ride in the cold mist and it was so effing cold that they had fleece blankets waiting for us. Mine had a hole in the middle and so I wore it like a burka. It was very calm and peaceful. Also slightly eerie - a giant beast could have jumped out of the mist. We tried to make fire in the KhoiSan way which is the same as the Chumash Indian way -- rub a stick so hard that it sparks. (We failed.) If a KhoiSan man couldn't start a fire, he couldn't get married. He could, however, wear a spectacular leather loincloth while running around the bush.

I bought a cool necklace made out of ostrich shells that was actually meant to be a belt. It took me so long to pick it out that I missed the incredibly boring lecture about the KhoiSan people going on upstairs. After a lunch of couscous and roasted vegies, we walked around a bit as the sun burned away the fog. James pulled me and a few others over to a pond and we watched these bright yellow birds flit in and out of their cone-shaped nests.

Then we peaced out of there! Back to the hotel! With a stop at an incredibly scenic beach looking out across the bay at Table Mountain. Smiles! Jumping pictures! Cartwheels! Pictures, pictures, pictures! Sunshine! We are in South Africa!

Township Kids

Fabulous, fabulous day. I think this was a highlight for everybody. Thanks to friends who posted pictures on facebook so that I can remember what actually happened here.

After finishing the Amy Biehl Memorial Concert at the university, we boarded the bus to visit the kiddies in the Amy Biehl Foundation after school programs in the township schools. If you want to know what a township is like, watch the movie Tsotsi.

First, we stopped at a bench dedication. The bench was all mosaic-ed up and bore the message, "Hit a woman, hit a rock." A group of young girls in the AB program had felt like they did not have a safe space at school. They worked with the counselors to build self-empowerment skills and co-opted a bench in their school to be for girls only. They then moved on to create this bench for the whole community. A speaker reported that many women from the community had visited this new bench today to show their support. My aunt Naomi was here in South Africa a week before me with her play on domestic violence. She would really like this.

Next, we walked across the street to the school. It looked like a pretty typical one-floor rural school, except unlike LAUSD, nothing was paved with asphalt. The grounds were covered with dirt or cement or grass or car-tire gardens. The buildings were arranged in a giant square pattern with a huge courtyard in the middle and smaller courtyards and gardens in the corners. The classrooms had chalkboards and some chart paper on the walls but were otherwise bare. In many rooms, the tables and chairs had been pushed to the side because the children were dancing.

Dancing, dancing, dancing! There was a lot of activity here! I don't know if they were all doing performances for us if this was their usual thing, but we did get to see a lot!

• Drumming and dancing in a classroom. I was peeking through the window at these talented kids. This rhythm and dancing thing is so enviable. You don't see it like this in America. It's an African thing.
  
• Marimba and dance performance in the main courtyard. This was really incredible. Tall skinny boys pounding on those marimbas, kids in pairs twirling and hopping and shaking and rockin all in unison. Man, can they dance! Bending the knees, bouncing up and down, shaking the butt, clapping and skipping. I could watch them all day. ACC dutifully stood in amazement, cameras help high to record.
  
• School choir. We practiced some of our songs with them, like "Lean on Me" and "Akheko." They will be singing with us at the Youth Spirit Awards. Then they sang their African songs on their own and it was awesome! Though not quite all on key, they had powerful voices and certain songs were accompanied but interesting dance moves. We did "Train" and they LOVED it. The boys in the back were echoing our "chuga chuga" as soon as we finished. Someone handed out all of our sheet music which seemed like the most generous gift in the world.
  
• Passing out friendship bracelets. What a hit!
• I got bored of the choir room, so I walked outside and joined a group of little girls doing chants and dances in the dirt courtyard. They did a version of "How Funky is Your Chicken" which also included the lines, "Hit your caboose" (that's where you slap your ass), "Turn your caboose" (that's where you twirl your ass around in a slow circle), and "Shake your caboose" (that's where you pump your ass in and out as you get closer and closer to the ground). None of this was sexual in any way, just fun dancing. The girls were delighted that I could shake my butt along with them. Then we did a name chant in which you spell your name and the group shouts out something in Xhosa. I love these girls and wish I could spend the whole afternoon with them. Maybe I need to go back to teaching elementary school?

I think everybody was really sad when it was time to get back on the bus.

Amy Biehl Spirit Awards concert

This concert was weird. On the one hand, we were in the Cape Town Convention Center. Official!!! We were even listed on their scrolling announcement ticker in the lobby. On the other hand, the seats were not nearly filled and it felt like yet another concert that was poorly publicized.

Whatever, whatever. The crowd cheered out when we started in on "Asikatali" and continued cheering and dancing as we sang "Singabahumba" and "Akheko." They loved it when the Amy Biehl kids choir came out to sing with us. They loved it when the Amy Biehl kids sang on their own. Appreciative audience.

I guess this is what we came here for, but the previous concert at the university really seemed like the pinnacle of meaningful and inspiring. This was just icing.

rehearsal and Gerhard

Our first choir fail!!!!!

This rehearsal took place at SACS high school, an unfortunate name to be sure. Us girls were in full make-up and sweats in preparation for our night out. Thank goodness, because it was the first time we were to meet GERHARD, the cute, pixie, accented, demigod, brass band conductor. Everyone has a crush on Gerhard.

Rehearsal was long and brutal. We cannot click to save our lives. It was awkward singing with the brass band. Bradley knocked a microphone off the stage. The boys had to move rows of seats on and off the stage. The lighting was horrible. Everyone was hungry. The only upsides were meeting Gerhard and meeting the jail bait bass player who stood right next to me during "Africa." And watching everyone fall in love with Julie and Carmen during "Pie Jesu."

One more upside is that we discovered that the hallway floors are hideously slippery. Slip n' Slide, y'all.

Nature Day

The Cape of Good Hope! We spent a long time in the bus this morning meandering down the left coast of the cape. Latifa narrated the whole way. We passed by several small bays, a road on the tippy-tip edge of the mountain, and townships after townships. We stopped at a few points and took pictures against the backdrop of ocean and green mountain. This area is lush and beautiful. I taught Dan how to do a planking picture and the group of us took our first jumping picture. I think? This day is somewhat of a blur since there was so much green and blue and ocean and mountain and beauty. I cannot do the pictures justice. Stunning.

Then we saw the famous South African penguins. They are cute, waddling around on the sand. Some of them still had their baby fluff around the neck.

Last, we visited the Botanical Gardens. Sadly, we only had about twenty minutes here, which was a real shame. I'd say we got to walk through 2% of the actual park. Saw some Proteas, the Golden Bird of Paradise, several ficuses (my favorite tree), and a lot of grass.

wineries

A LOT of drinking goes on on this day. Besides the winery samples, there is also wine and champagne on the bus and wine during lunch and wine at dinner. Some other things that happen include:

• Hanging with Philip, Ben, and Sean amidst the bizzaro and disturbing sculptures around the sampling building, including a life sized headless torso, a body half submerged in a puddle, and a doll holding a cage. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but it's that kind of weirdness. I wish I had pictures so you, too, could feel uncomfortable. Oh yes, and we made up raps.
  
• Overcast sky and on-and-off drizzling.
• Champagne video featuring a gold leather vest be-suited Ms. South Africa host. There are audible giggles in the theater when she walks on screen. Also a champagne cork popping and foam shooting out in the manner of MAN ORGAN EJACULATE. The choir cannot contain itself and we dissolve into full on laughing and shouting. We are visiting this place due to a recommendation of their intro video. WE ARE HERE WHOLLY BECAUSE THE VIDEO IS SO AWESOMELY BAD.
• Is it today that we completely fall in love with Latifa, our bus tour guide?
• Tommy buys a calfskin messenger bag.
• There are many, many group pictures. They are all terrible.
  

Going Out

I was on since before we even stepped into the elevator. Wearing jeans and Bria's tank top, belt necklace and eye liner to the max, hair greased back and pre-rockin' to Beyonce in our hotel suite. Met the boys in the lobby and we are off to Long Street.

Our first bar was dark, crowded, and writhing, the way I like it. Full of Africans. Downed a vodka coke and danced with my group. Rihanna and Britney blaring over the speakers. I think I was having more fun than anyone because they decided to skip out and we walked down the block to the next place.

Our second bar was an Irish pub. Large, roomy, full of smoke, full of white people, full of bad dancers. DJ on the synthesizer with a face mike, karaoke singing all of his songs. Here we have Bon Jovi, Journey, Shaggy, can't remember what else but it wasn't very rhythmic. Seany is all over the bar making friends. He meets an American, Steve from Delaware, and the consensus is quick that Steve is adorable. I talk to him and find out that he's here in Cape Town volunteering for the year. He lives in a shit apartment. The boys trade phone numbers.

Vodka sour shots! We meet some Irish fishermen at the bar.  I talk to the DJ. He learns that we are American and in a choir and now we're his for the rest of the night. He spends a lot of time with us. The music gets better. There is some spontaneous kissing. More dancing. Carmen is loving the DJ. More dancing. Sean now knows every single person in the bar. More dancing. I drink glasses of water.

Third bar! Gay bar! We climb out of our cabs and into a dark, half empty room. Unenthusiastic karaoke is going on amidst the thumpa thumpa. I make friends with a Xhosa dude who immediately picks me up to dance. He sings me the Click Song and offers to come by our hotel to teach us. I karaoke to "Shoop." More vodka sour shots. Philip and I do a lot of mirror dancing. Carmen is not allowed to drink anymore. The gays are all over Sean. There is a lot of sloppiness going on. The Nigerians show up and my Xhosa friend warns us we should leave. Bria has taken a picture of every male in the room.

Carmen and I venture downstairs to use the bathroom but there are things going on in the corner so we duck outside. Wait for everyone to make it into a cab. Stumble out at our five star hotel. Go to sleep for we have a busy day of sightseeing ahead.

shitty goodbye dinner

Oh, this evening sucked. Baladucis restaurant at the mall. I was very tired, everyone was being super cliquey, the food was shitty. Thank you Paul, Carmen, Liz, and Casey for saving me.

(**The upside is that I hung with Liz and Casey for the first time! And tasted malva pudding, finally.)

Table Mountain

I seem to be one of few people who got a lot of sleep last night, although I did hear the vuvuzelas from the stadium across the street as the soccer game let out and the fans streamed the streets in front of our hotel. So I woke up this morning well rested, after getting eight hours – the most on this trip so far. It was a bright and beautifully sunny day! After a back and forth and back and forth and up and down between the lobby and the room and breakfast and Carmen's room and back to my room again, I found out that the cable car WAS in fact running, so I ran upstairs for a fourth time (really I took the elevator) and woke up Sean (who was passed out in last night's clothes) and changed my clothes for the third time and met Ben in the lobby (who had just completed a 5K) and we were off! With some help from Chrighton Dula, a friendly but racist cabbie.

The road actually goes halfway up the mountain until the part where earth gives way to stone. From there, we took a round cable car up to the top. The cable car had 360 degree windows and of course Sean suctioned his camera onto them. The view was stunning – we could see the whole cape bay area.

The top was not actually smooth flat. I had this notion for some reason that the mesa would be smooth like an actual table, like bowling lane smooth. No. It was flatish, but we walked along large rocks whose cracks were filled in with tiny plants. There were a lot of tourists on the top of the table, but it wasn't crowded. The air was perfect and it felt really good to walk around.

From the top, we could see all the places we had been this past week: our hotel, the stadium, the wharf, Cape Flats, Robben Island, the rocky cliff where we took our first jumping picture (and where I taught Dan how to plank), Cape of Good Hope, False Bay, and the white sand beach where we took our final jumping pictures. We could see the green and rocky peaks of Lion's Head and the Twelve Apostles on one side and the Atlantic and Indian Ocean further beyond. The weather was perfect. The sun was shining and we took a lot of panoramic pictures. It was kind of a relief to be without the big group and just make decisions between the three of us. It was really a fantastic morning with good company and a perfect way to end the trip.

SAFARI!!!

I PETTED A LION!! This is the most exciting thing on the safari! Plus we got charged by an elephant! Plus we saw rhinos! And springbok! And ostrich! And zebras! And Elands! And buffalo! And some boring birds!

Here are some things I learned on our safari trip:

• The Cape Buffalo is the most dangerous of the Big 5 animals.

• Rhinos use their second, smaller horn to protect their eyes when fighting.

• Rhino poop does not smell like shit. (It does not smell like anything, actually, because it is made up of dried grass and not much else.)

• An elephant will give a warning before it charges you. If it swipes its trunk across the ground in front of you, it means business.

• Frances James has not lived for 64 years to be trampled by an elephant.

• Our guide, Dennis, is super hot.

• An elephant penis can weigh up to 68 kilos.

• Dennis is as big as an elephant penis.

• A lion's fur is soft like a house cat.

• Zebras are gray when they are born, and develop their stripes as they age.

• Springbok are like gazelles in that they are small and graceful and their hind legs are longer than their front legs, but unlike gazelles, when they run, they actually spring up into the air kind of like a kangaroo. I heart gazelles and now I heart springbok. (When you say “springbok,” you must roll your “r” and pronounce “bok” with a shortened “o” as if you have a South African accent. “Sprrrrrringbuk.”

• Springbok never drink water; they get their moisture from plants and dew.

• Casey and Liz are super great safari partners. We totally rocked the front seat.

• Ostrich have super sharp claws on their feet that can tear your torso apart.

• It is preferable to be stomped on and pecked at by an ostrich than to fight it standing up and risk being clawed open.

• Dennis was attached by an ostrich once on a walking safari and he had to spend seven days in the hospital. He chose to get stomped on but forgot about the power of the beak. He suffered broken ribs.

• Eating springbok gives some people who shall remain nameless serious bathroom problems.

whale watching and southern tip

I decided long before this trip that I was not going to participate in the whale watching activity, on account of it being on a boat. In the ocean. For several hours. Many of us decided that it would be a good day to duck out and go to Table Mountain instead. But when we told Latifa our plan, a look of pure sadness fell across her face as she conveyed how much we would miss out if we stayed home. She was so sad for us and her voice was so utterly filled with devastation that we all changed our minds and decided to at least travel with the group and sit in the bay while the whale boats went out. Anything for Latifa.

I am so glad I went, because I ended up seeing some beautiful things. I walked around the shore with Carmen, Ben, Sue, and Mark. I collected sea glass for Sue and it was there that we spotted our first whale! He was very close to the rocks and was just sort of frolicking around, not really going anywhere fast and not doing tricks, either. There were a few flaps of the tail and then after several minutes, he was gone. Though it was overcast and sprinkly, it was nice being outside. Also we saw some rock hyraxes, which I taught my students about in 4^th grade at TIOH. Related to the elephant, these small, furry things live in Israel, too.

Later, we headed up to Cocos restaurant (no relation) where we could watch the bay and eat at the same time. On the way, we saw our second whale. This one was moving fast and we could only see its back as it passed by the road. At Cocos, I got a delicious cheese melt. Then the boat people came back and we land people felt smug that we saw the same number of whales as them but didn't have to suffer on the rough water. (Several people did get sea sick.) I watched an incredible video of Sami sleeping slumped forward and Tom Reinsel holding onto her life jacket from behind so she wouldn't slip off her seat into the ocean. At the restaurant, we had our best whale sighting – a whale breached (jumped) totally out of the water and slapped back down again, repeated five or six times. He lifted his whole body except the tail out of the water. It was total Planet Earth quality. I'm hoping someone has it on video. (Probs.)

At this point, the buses split up and the lazy ones returned to Cape Town while the more adventurous trekked on to the southernmost tip of Africa, where the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean officially meet. This was my first time on Cyril's bus since the airport. There was palpable excitement on this new bus, being filled with people who chose driving and oceans over drinking and sleeping.

The route to the tip was gorgeous, passing through a landscape we hadn't seen before on our trip. Rolling green hills, pasture land, bright yellow fields of canola, idyllic sea-side villages with white-washed buildings and thatched roofs, meadows and a meandering road. Many remarked that it resembled Ireland. It was green, green, green. The sun was out and everything was fresh and happy.

At Cape Agulhas, brown and gray rocks sliced through the water, earning the nickname “The Place of Needles.” The water was turquoise, clean. Small waves lapped against the shore. The water was 10 degrees warmer than at the Atlantic. The Atlantic and Indian Ocean currents actually meet at the Cape of Good Hope, where we were the other day with the lighthouse and the hills. That's where the temperatures mix and theoretically create water turbulence. At this location, the oceans' names change, simply by virtue of being at the southernmost edge of Africa. Some old mapmaker drew a vertical line from here down to Antarctica and declared the left Atlantic and the right Indian. (If you take into account science and nature, the water here is all Indian Ocean.) We took pictures near the marker in a big group, alone, with an American flag (weird?) and a South African flag.

The beach here was covered in rocks. Big, sharp rocks about 6-8 feet sticking up at the shoreline and smaller pebbles on the beach. All the beach rocks were round and polished so smooth. I spent a good ten minutes trying to come up with a reason to take some home. You know, the ultimate Sophie's choice about taking and keeping (and later not wanting) versus leaving and missing. In the end, I realized the perfectly round pebbles would be perfect for a game of mancala (that I could keep in my classroom), and loaded about 30 rocks into my pockets before I was called back to the bus.

On the way home, we drove through the same lovely hills that were now strewn with flocks of sheep and herds of cows. Paul and I had some heart to hearts about camp and teenagerhood in the back of the bus. I played a game with Sue and Kelly wherein Sue correctly guessed all of the furniture and décor in my apartment. Cyril passed out single serving bottles of South African liqueur Amarula, which is like Baileys but fruity and equally delicious. Kelly, Sue, and I buttered up Cyril and got a second bottle each. Everyone was getting drowsy and there were many rows of people lying down and sleeping. At 4pm, we passed our first stop-light since the morning. The setting sun over Cape Bay was beautiful. We rolled into the hotel 2 hours later than expected, but it was a fantastic afternoon.

Did I mention the balsamic vinegar chips I bought? They were divine.

Aparteid History Day

Today we went to the District 6 Museum and Robben Island. District 6 was formerly a multi-cultural neighborhood in the heart of Cape Town. Blacks and whites lived side by side with Indians and Jews. The government first assigned the Blacks and Coloreds to go live in homelands and townships outside the city, then bulldozed over buildings. Obviously, this was a bad thing. The museum is dedicated to preserving the memories of how the neighborhood used to be, and contains hundreds of photographs from the 1950s and 1960s. Someone preserved all of the old street signs and the back room is full of family recipes embroidered on cloths. The entire floor was a laminated hand-drawn map of the neighborhood, and former residents have filled in their names where they used to live. Everyone took a bazillion pictures.

Then we took a ferry to Robben Island, the location of the prison in which Nelson Mandela was held as a political prisoner. The ocean was quite rough, and apparently there was a lot of sea sickness below deck. I stayed on top where it was blustery and wet and super cold, but the rushing air felt good and we all had a panorama view. Most sadly, a huge flock of birds flew dramatically in front of us right as the boat rocked over a particularly large swell, and when I took out my camera to capture the incredible bird formations, I lost my balance and totally ate it on the deck of the boat. The hand holding the camera smacked down, sticking the lens and effectively rendering it useless. Shame! Fortunately, I have camera insurance at home to get it replaced and can get photos from the other 64 people on this trip. But still totally sucky because I just bought it two weeks ago and spent a lot of time shopping, learning the shortcuts, and really liking it!

On Robben Island, we had a very dramatic tour guide for our bus trip around the island. The whole thing reminded me of Alcatraz and the book Al Capone Does My Shirts, which is about Alcatraz, on account of the extraneous prison community, like the guards' homes, the caretakers' houses, the school for the caretakers' children, etc. Mandela's cell was in fact tiny. A square room painted blue with a single window over a single bedroll. The two tour guides we had were very informative, one being an overdramatic storyteller and the other a former prisoner. Everyone took a bazillion pictures.

I can't really say that I was moved on this tour. I was a little distracted about my camera and knees were hurting and it was drizzling on and off and I was freezing. As the line of choir singers filed in front of his cell to take a picture, I kept thinking how bizarre it was that Mandela's jail cell has been turned into a shrine of sorts. The history foundations could have told us any of the thousands of square cells was the one that Mandela lived in, and we would have believed them. Is that cynical? I'm just not so moved by a room that has no personal markings whatsoever. Glad I went, maybe it will mean more for me later.

The Africa Cafe

Welcome to Africa dinner!

The Africa Cafe was the absolute perfect place to go for our Welcome Dinner. The walls and light fixtures were created out of recycled materials, like glass wine bottles and aluminum can tops. The food was family style and it was out of this world. Their website is http://www.africacafe.co.za. Here is the menu in order of tastiness:

• Vetkoek: fried bread balls made out of rainbows and unicorns. These were like African donuts. Everyone agreed that this was the best dish. I would love to find a recipe online and try to replicate it using my brother's deep fryer.
• Mozanbican Sprout Salad: Though this was a simple salad of greens, sprouts, avocado, beets, and nuts, the dressing on top was crazy good. Will probably never have this again, but I can dream about it.
• Cassava Bread: almost like an asiago cheese bagel but flat.
• Malawi Mbatat Cheese and Sim Sim Balls: sweet potato and cheese balls fried with sesame seeds. These are not as good as the red bean and sesame balls at Whole Foods, but delish. Soft and warm. Gooey inside.
  
• Dhanya Dip: white yogurty dip with lots of stuff in it.
  
• Vegetable soup: flavored with seaweed, apparently. Very tasty. Did not resemble seaweed.
• Carrot Cake: meh.
  
• Xhosa Imfino Patties: like a fried spinach burger.
  
• Umngqusho: that "q" in the food is a click sound, fyi. Mix of samp and beans. Not memorable.
  
• Egypt Koshery: rice, lentil, and noodle salsa dish. Not terribly exciting.
  
• Tanzanian Mango Chicken (did not eat)
• Botswana Seswaa Masala (did not eat)
• Cape Malay Mussel Curry

After all the food, the waiter ladies walked from room to room singing and dancing and playing the drums. I watched their performance in four different rooms. I'm sure someone has this on video somewhere. Super highlight of the trip.

Amy Biehl memorial

We started with the African freedom medly, the men singing very slow and loud with the women echoing. As soon as the percussion started in, the ladies in the back cheered and started clapping and dancing. We finished “Gabi Gabi” and the crowd started to clap, but we jumped in with “Asikatali” and they went wild! Smiles of recognition lit up the faces of the Amy Biehl women, and they all started singing along. The workers in the back were singing and dancing and cheering and whooping, and many older men and women were swaying in their chairs. We were singing and smiling and crying and it was the best reception we've ever had. Imagine singing civil rights songs to a crowd of African Americans right after the Civil Rights Act was passed. Maybe that's a bad comparison, but that's what it felt like. When we started “Singabahamba,” everyone was just high on the emotion in the room.

“Pie Jesu” was next, and so many of us were moved to tears with the soaring harmonies and absolutely beautiful sopranoes of Julie and Carmen. It was stunning, even in the small, hot room and piano and violin as the only accompaniment. “In Remembrance” was beautiful, even though it was not our best performance. The gospel songs KILLED. The percussion, the dancing, the clapping, the awesomeness of Julie / Diana / DTP, the full harmonies, the songs with African origin. They LOVED the gospel. And then the audience was cheering, “Encore, encore!” in their accents, and we sang out “Akekho” to more dancing and singing. The ladies in the back came up and sang with us and it was exactly what we had all been waiting for since we dreamt up this trip over a year ago across the oceans in Los Angeles.

school concert

Our first concert was one big choral fail! In a totally funny, awesomely bad, no regrets way. It was at a school that resembled Hogwarts with the coats of arms of houses on the walls. We played in an auditorium with bad lighting that was about a quarter full. Gerhard the brass band conductor showed up in a dapper blue, yellow, and orange getup. (We are deeply divided about whether Gerhard is gay or not, and this getup pushed him slightly in the Oscar Wilde direction.) A microphone was knocked off the stage during rehearsal. In the first act, I got terribly post nasal drippy and thought I was going to gag my brains out and so serriptitiously had to unwrap and put one in my mouth and hide the wrapper somewhere while dancing in the front row of the stage. THEN as I was enthusiastically swaying, one of the cough drops that I stored in the waistband of my pants (because of sans pockets) fell down and lodged itself around my thigh. HOT!! In the second act, while the men were singing Kharumi, my right contact popped out of my eye. A little shrivled, I had to get it moist before popping it back in, so I put it in my mouth. (Insert easy joke here.) As I blinked it into place, a minty feeling overcame my eyeball and I realized that I had been sucking on menthol cough drops for four hours. Fun!

The second half of the concert actually went great. “Train” was fantastic, “Bye and Bye” rocked the house, and Gerhard spent most of the set gazing amorously at the soloists. I'm not going to mention “The Click Song” because it will ruin my good mood. When we got back to the hotel, I tagged photos for an hour and then slept the best seven hours of my life.

Togetherness Lunch

In between wineries, we stopped in a small Dutch Reformist town while it was drizzling and ducked out to a lovely empty restaurant on the edge of the main street. We were the only people there and so had a beautiful and loud lunch with wine. Our restaurant had just opened a few minutes prior and so we were the only people there in our back room. We shared our hopes and dreams and memories and said some of those inside things that aren't secret but don't always get a chance to be given to others. I learned that Bradley's first CD purchase was Ace of Base, Philip's most memorable musical event was when the Philharmonic had to restart a program because someone's cell phone went off, Robert's first TV watching experience was more formative than any movie, Bria has a hippy mom who introduced her to Radiohead, Ben watched Basic Instinct too young and scarred him for life, and Sean is really sweet and friendly and helped make this lunch moving for everyone. (But he really needs to stop smoking.)

Robes and Slippers

Our hotel room is fucking ridiculous awesome. We peeked into our rooms and immediately erupted into shrieks and yells and yips and jumping like a Real World reveal. Our hotel room is nicer than my apartment. Nicer and bigger. And the walls were painted gray but it did NOT feel depressing. In addition to our two bedrooms with matching super fance bathrooms, we have a living room section, a dining room, and a full kitchen. With a dishwasher. And a washing machine. And an Ikea Expedit shelf full of wine glasses.

In order to keep in the mindset that we are very important, we created a rule that when you enter our room, you must wear robes and slippers. We are very serious about this. As we all reclined on our fake ostrich skin couch and sipped champagne, the boys called to come up and hang out. We conveyed our rule. Even though they whined and begged, we kept firm and eventually they acquiesced and arrived at our door with robes over jeans. This is like when my students pretend to follow the dress code and wear a collared shirt buttoned ever so slightly over a non-regulation tshirt or tank top.

Don't you hate when you have to fart but you are surrounded by people, so you hold it in and hold it in and hold it in until it goes back into your body? And then when you finally decide to let it out, you have to like surround yourself with pillows? That's what we talked about at our Robes and Slippers party.