Capetown (part 1: Mostly About Sharks)

My first sight of Capetown was at night as we drove down the twisting highway through the mountains that surrounded it. It came into view and all I could think was, this is no town. This is a sprawling, sparkling beauty of a city. The lights went on in all directions until they stopped, at the deep blackness that could only be the sea. This was what happened to a city when it had room to spread out.

We couldn’t enjoy it quite yet, though. First there was the minor hell of returning the rental cars to get through. At a strange airport in a strange city, we were of course immediately lost. We finally managed to get rid of the cars, (which we had seriously considered at one point just ditching in a parking lot and making stupid Imperial Car Rentals go try to find them themselves) got picked up by the shuttle to our hostel, and were driving up Long Street by 1am.



Our first impression of this street that would be our home for nine days was pretty much pure insanity. Every building was lit up and crowded, the streets were swarming with people. Music was blaring, people were shouting, the cars were bumper to bumper. We got out in a daze. After six hours of driving ending up here seemed like a dream. Our shuttle driver had given us our keys, so we unlocked the heavy wooden door and made our way quietly up the stairs to our rooms. Katie, Lindsey, Liz, Scott and I shared a room – with Luke, who was only staying for three days then going to Mozambique, on a mattress on the floor. Nouria, Jerica and Sheneita were downstairs and shared the room with three other girls.

Before bed, we stood for a moment on the large wraparound balcony that gave us a view of most of the street. Directly across from us one of the clubs was packed, loud music pumped from its open widows and its own balcony was full of people. We could hear everything from the window of our little room, but we were so tired I don’t think any of us cared.



We slept late. Our tired bodies only waking up when the intense sunlight coming through our window, and transforming our room from bedroom to sauna, became unbearable. Outside it was not much better but we were distracted by our first site of Capetown during the day. In the sun we could see Long Streets white Victorian architecture enclosing small crammed together shops and restaurants. Towering above it all, against the blue blue sky was the wide flat cliff of Table Mountain.

The next morning Katie Scott Liz and Luke left to hike up Table Mountain. The rest of us, having no real desire to hike up a mountain in the heat, decided to take the cable car up at a later time, and instead went to the beach. Because it was by a city and not more isolated, as we had begun to get used to, this beach Clifton Beach, was more commercialized and crowded then we were used to. It was still beautiful, though. The mountains surrounded us in the distance, the sand was white, and the water was crystal blue and directly from Antarctica. It was so cold I could step in for less than thirty seconds before my feet turned numb.



The next day we celebrated Easter Sunday by going shark diving. We were picked up a little after 5am, the sky only just beginning to transform from black to that early morning dark blue. The van was full of other young people whose idea of a good time was also to get up at 5am to go swim with sharks. The ride was long, around two hours. I nodded off for a while and when I woke I could see the sun, just rising, burning red over the mountains. We stopped at a little building and got of the van, stretching and yawning. We paid, signed our life away on a few forms, ate a small packed breakfast, heard a few facts and instructions and then were off to the bay to get on the boat.

The boat was not small, but it was not big either. Especially with a large group of hopeful shark divers crowded on board. We all found a seat for the ride out to open water, though. I sat near the rail, enjoying the bright sun and the still slightly misty feeling of the morning air. The ocean was calm, but the boat rode high in the water bouncing rhythmically up and down. I saw signs of seasickness on some people, including some of my friends, and I was glad that my dad had somehow associated bumpy rides and turbulence with “fun” when I was little.



We stopped maybe twenty minutes out, in an area known for its migratory birds and near an island with a large seal population. If we had just kept going eventually we would have hit Antarctica. As soon as we stopped and the first piece of bait, tied to a rope, was thrown over the side, a shark was spotted. This was apparently pretty unusual, usually they had to wait a little for the sharks to find them. This one, I guess was eager. We scrambled to the side of the boat, grabbing for cameras that weren’t out of their cases yet. The shark was beautiful, small for a great white, which still means it could probably have eaten me in about two bites. I most clearly saw its fin, slicing through the still water, just like in the movies. We were ready and looking around now, and more started coming. Some tried to attack the bait, making enormous splashes, so large that in all the foam and angry movement I could only get glimpses of grey fins.



Then I got to go in the cage. I had put a wetsuit on, which was making me slightly cold and damp. The cage was tied to the boat, all the way submerged in the water except for a little room for our heads. I dropped into the cage to join the four other guys already inside and moved to the edge, grabbing the inside rail. We waited, staring, for a shark to come near the bait. When the captain saw a shark he would yell “down!” and we would lower ourselves completely underwater, our eyes straining to see the shark swim past. I often didn’t see the shark underwater- despite the weight belt that had been dropped over my shoulder, I still tended to float up a bit, and I wasn’t always looking in the right direction! But then I saw it. We submerged and there was a great white shark swimming right towards me. It’s its mouth I remember. It was like staring into some enormous dangerous, living piece of machinery. A mouth that could break any of us in two without a thought. We had been warned to keep our hands and feet inside the cage, not because they might become food but because a shark could press up against them when swimming by, and the scales could scrape us. I hadn’t thought of that much while in the cage, but at the sight of that mouth I checked my hands and feet and found myself moving back a little. And not, I think, because I was worried about scrapes.



Between the shock of the cold Indian Ocean, the amazement at having an up close experience with a shark, and the simple enjoyment of being in the water in a beautiful place on a beautiful day, I was feeling pretty happy when I finally climbed out of that cage. I spent most of the rest of my time on the boat, lying on the bow in the sun, occasionally holding things for seasick people as they threw up over the side, and spotting more sharks. We headed back after almost four hours, the sharks starting to lose interest and most of us content. The total at the end of the day: 7 individual great white sharks. The smallest 2 meters (about 6.5 feet) the largest 3.5 meters (about 11.5 feet).

Road Trip

I’m updating! Here is the first week of April break- Capetown will come soon…

After finally getting our rooms packed up and everything stored in padlocked rooms, we left Grahamstown around noon on what was probably one of the hottest days of the semester. Opening the windows as we drove down the highway only managed to blow more hot air on us. It was a relief to pass through Port Elizabeth and get closer to the coast and the cooler sea air.

We got to Jeffreys Bay in the late afternoon. Our hostel was called “Island Vibe” and set right on the beach. Made up of a bunch of low, wood buildings it was crowded with other vacationing backpackers. We had a small dorm room that we shared with three other people. We didn’t do much there, just relaxed, enjoyed the beach and celebrated our first day of vacation.



We drove off the next day, all of us a bit tired from a fun night, toward Tsikimma National Forest and Djembe backpackers. Arriving in the evening we were given most of the run of a large cabin, down the road from the main building. I was happy to sleep in the large open loft with its wood panelled walls and garreted roof. It was rainy that night but we made the short walk to the main building for a drink. We sat around the outdoor fire, still burning in the drizzle.

The next morning we were up around nine, and packed around ten. We said goodbye and drove the twenty minutes to Storms River and the world’s highest bungy jump. The bridge over the narrow gorge was certainly high and the gorge was definitely deep. We said farewell to Lindsey and Shenita as they strapped on their harnesses, promising to tell their mothers they loved them if they died, and made our way to the view point. From where we stood, looking at the platform balanced right in the middle of the arch of the bridge and under the road, everything looked tiny. The people were indiscernible, just movements in the shadow. The first person jumped, and the cord looked like a piece of string. Like the dolls tied to string that I used to launch from the backs of chairs in pretend bungy jumps. Yes I remember I used to do that. I sometimes got bored of playing dress up with my barbies.



I had brought my new camera with me, so I used the zoom to look for our friends. They were some of the last to go, falling straight, the cord loose and trailing behind, until suddenly, it snapped and their bodies hurtled up again, and then down, until they were just softly swinging upside down, in the shadow of the gorge.

After that excitement we went back a little further into the Tsikimma forest to go on a ziplining tour through the canopy. Standing on platforms at the tops of such huge ancient trees was amazing. And the ziplining wasn’t bad either!



After lunch we headed again for the coast, to the small beach town of Knysna. We stayed in a small house down the road from the quiet downtown. Filled with shops and restaurants, the town and waterfront reminded me a little of a beach front version of Old Town, Alexandria. And behind the more expensive stores, in the parking lots of the supermarkets, the large Rasta community of Knysna has their vending stands. Bob Marley t-shirts, knitted caps, jewellery and herbs of all kinds are in plentiful supply here. Jerica made friends with a rasta named Brother Charles. His dreads falling past his waist, he would smile showing the gap where his two front teeth used to be, and tell us the healing properties of the herbs he was selling.



After two nights in Knysna we left for a small beach house right outside of Mossel Bay. Probably the nicest place we stayed at, we had the whole upstairs to ourselves including a large tv and a kitchen. We walked up the road to the beach which was incredibly beautiful in the early evening light. A small river ran into the ocean- over the bridge running across it the sun was setting, and opposite, over the water the moon had just risen. We drove into the city to pick up some food and wine, and used the barbecue area (or braai area as we call it here!) to make dinner of hamburgers and sausages.



The next morning we had planned to go shark diving, but we had been warned by the very nice owner of our beach house that no sharks had been spotted in a while. So, not wanting to waste a trip, we decided to cancel and wait until Capetown. We drove over to the Cango Caves near the town of Oudtshoorn instead. Carved out of the side of a chain of mountains, the caverns were beautiful, and hundreds of millions of years old. They reminded me very much of the Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, although I think some of these formations were even older. Walking out on the observation deck after our tour I noticed the mountain across from us dotted with forest fires, sending white smoke into the blue sky.

By late afternoon we were driving away from the caves and, finally, toward Capetown.

A Good Time in the Middle of Nowhere

Our third weekend trip was to the Ganora farm in what’s called the little Karoo. The Karoo is desert land that covers a major portion of South Africa. The little Karoo is the smaller, semi-desert area, about three hours from Grahamstown. The farm was beautiful, surrounded by rolling hills covered alternately with tall grass and huge cacti. It wasn’t near any other house or town for miles. Just sheep. Lots and lots of sheep. And many dogs, all Jack Russell terriers which would often follow us wherever we walked. Two of us each shared a comfortable room that had been converted from a horse stall. After arriving around five, we had dinner in another converted barn, in front of a stone fireplace. Outside it was so dark and clear that we could see the milky way. We lay on our backs in the darkest part of the driveway and just stared up for a while, spotting shooting stars. We went to sleep early and one of the dogs slept on my bed.



The next morning after breakfast and a visit to the pet owl and meerkats, we went on an extremely long but mostly enjoyable hike through the canyon that made up part of the farm. Although South Africa is going through one of its worst droughts on record, the farm had just gotten a little rain so we ended up walking through the river that ran through the canyon a lot and getting entirely wet and muddy. The rain also filled up the small rock pools in part of the river, so Alice and I stopped and went swimming for a bit. The inside of the canyon was beautiful with steep rocky walls covered by flowers and bushes. We could hear baboons, on the very tops of the walls, calling to each other with hoots and barks. When we looked up we would see them for quick moments running across the cliff face.



After our hike we drove a short distance to the Brewery, where the owner brews and sells his own beer. We were still sweaty and muddy from the hike so many of us just took our shoes off and walked in barefoot, to sit down at tables in a small green backyard. We were served a delicious lunch of different kinds of cheese, meat and bread. And of course, beer. I’m not much of a beer drinker, but the beer I had, which the owner said was brewed with a little honey was probably the best I’ve ever tasted



We then made a short stop at the little town of Nieu-Bethesda (not much like the US Bethesda) and at the Owl House. Owned by a woman named Helen Martins who went a little crazy living isolated in the tiny town and began to obsessively decorate her house, turning it into a piece of art. Sculptures surround the house, mostly of people, many of nativity scenes. There are also many of owls, as the name suggests, and small shelters constructed from green glass bottles. The inside of the house was all color. The window glass was all different colors, each room carefully painted in red, or yellow or green. Huge mirrors in the shape of the small old-fashioned hand mirrors hung on many of the walls.



We went back to the farm and most of us rested for a while. That evening we were shown the many, many fossils that had been found and collected on the farm, all older than the dinosaurs. We learned that while we had been hiking we could have quite possibly walked past a few 350 million year old fossils. The karoo is apparently one of the few places in the world where fossils this old are discovered and the farm is often visited by scientists and researchers. Many of the fossils discovered are in museums throughout Africa. I was most impressed by the man who showed us the fossils. He had apparently discovered most of them himself. He had no formal training, I think, he was not a scientist or a professor. He just, as he said, had a “knack” for spotting a fossil when most of us would see a rock. He went through the fossils showing how one was a piece of jaw, another the impression of leg bones. As soon as he showed us we saw it, but I have no idea how he managed to see that jaw in the ground in a pile of rocks.

The next morning we walked to a couple of the caves where we could see cave paintings by the San people and the Khoi. We then said our goodbyes to the farm owners, and to the dogs, and started the drive back. We stopped on the way at a national park and walked up the high cliff face to get a view of the Valley of Desolation. I don’t know why it was called that. The valley was in fact quite beautiful with a large lake and a small town in it. Not very desolate at all.



Next week is the end of term and April break! We will be driving up the Garden Route to Capetown…

Two Worlds, One Week: World 2 Amasango

Walk down High Street, past the cathedral, past the traffic circle and you come to Grahamstown’s now closed rail station. Past the old stone station and the one engine of an antique train sitting in front of it, down the unused tracks is a small building with a barbed wire fence around it. The Amasango School looks like any of the other slightly ramshackle houses in the area. The only distinguishing feature is the small white van with “Amasango Career School” printed on it.

This Monday was the second time Alice and I had visited Amasango. The first time, last week, had been a bit of a bust. Not realizing the school day ended at 2:00 we came too late in the afternoon, as school was ending. We still met some of the kids and walked around a little bit, but it had obviously been an incredibly stressful day and everyone there looked exhausted.

We arrived at 12:30 and were fairly randomly directed to a third year classroom. The year which a child is placed in is determined by education level, not age, so it was not exactly the typical age group of third grade students. Their ages ranged from 10 to maybe 14 or 15, maybe older. It was their “playtime.” The teacher had finished lessons for the day and the students were free to play in the classroom. Some of them were drawing, on scraps of paper with pencils or writing pens. Others were playing cards with a deck that seemed to have six black eights. The older students sat in the back talking and laughing like most students everywhere do when given the chance. Some children just sat, their exercise books still sitting in front of them. Two were asleep, with their heads on their desks. Alice and I didn’t really know what we were doing, so we just plunged in.

I sat with two of the smaller boys as they showed me what they were drawing. One of them was very interested in drawing houses. Or one house, really. A square with a flat top and sloped sides with a door in the middle. Inside he drew one bed and cupboards, outside a waterspout and a long row of steps leading to the door. I asked where he lived, and he told me the Eluxolweni shelter, the other boy got up and led me to the door to point out the brown brick building on a hill across from us. The shelter for street children is where most of the children who come to Amasango live.

I met many other students, tried, (and mostly failed) to remember and pronounce their names. I’m not going to attempt to spell any of them. The older students were amazed I didn’t know Xhosa, and I told them they would just have to teach me. I don’t think I am going to be a very good student, although I do know ‘molo’ means hello and ‘unjani’ means how are you?

It was as I attempted to explain where England was to one of the older boys, while simultaneously trying to think of the right thing to say to the girl who looked at my wavy hair with jealousy and asked why it was so soft, and right after trying to help one of the younger ones with a math problem, that I realized how inadequate I was for this job. What these kids really need are ten more teachers, counseling, and school rooms stocked with school supplies. Instead they get some college students.

I am out of my depth, but so is everyone who works here. Jane, the teachers, the staff, the security guard who sits all day in the doorway of the school office. Thursday we will be coming at 8:30 in the morning. I plan to bring some books, and a map, to show everyone where England is.

Two Worlds, One Week: World 1 Amakhala

Our second weekend trip was to Amakhala game reserve, about an hour from Grahamstown. I had had a late Friday night spent dancing at one of the clubs with some of my classmates from political science who were all feeling a little celebratory after finishing an essay. The club, Slipstream, was having a supposedly “indie music night” but it was more like an ‘American music from the 80’s night’ which was also good. Music in South Africa can be a strangely touchy and racialized subject, actually. The music that is usually heard in clubs or blasting from a student’s open window is very different from the music usually heard in America. Not that its not American, most of the music is- but hiphop and rap which are often heard in clubs in America are still considered “black” music and only the “black” clubs and bars play it. Clubs and bars that are more frequented by white people play techno and often old American songs that were popular in middleschool. We Americans, not being picky, will go to any of them, although sometimes we have had trouble getting white South African friends to go with us. No one admits they don’t want to go to a black club, they just say its in a bad neighborhood or its ‘dodgy.’ Slipstream, seems to not have as much of a reputation for being either black or white, but to attract more of the offbeat crowd.


Any ways I didn’t really want to get up early to charge my cameras and pack but I dragged myself out of bed and we arrived at Amakhala in early afternoon. This huge lodge was no backpacking hostel. A huge white house with a living room and five bedrooms was all for us. I got a beautiful room to myself with flowers on the pillows and a white claw bathtub in the bathroom. We walked up a little path to the building that held the dining room and we were served lunch. Then our ranger came and picked us up in an open jeep and we took a three hour drive through the park. I can’t name or count the animals we saw. We saw a herd of giraffe hanging out with zebra, we saw a mother and son white rhino and an extremely rare black rhino- only 3,000 of them exist in the world. We saw two cheetahs lying in the grass. It was an amazing experience.



When we got back we went to dinner and then downstairs to the tiny room that had been converted to a pub to hang out with the other rangers and the owner of the lodge, Bill. Sitting in the little room, surrounded by animal head trophies (most of which I think were killed for overpopulation reasons or found dead- but still not the decorations I would have chosen) and leafing through the scrapbook one of Bill’s granddaughters had made for him, I started to feel like I had stepped into some completely different reality. A version of South Africa, with ‘high tea’ and black servants that had existed long ago, and some people had just decided to stay in. I looked at the photo of Bill in his highschool uniform in the 1940s, pictures of the gamepark fields covered in flowers and at the old man, sitting at the bar, drinking his gin and water. It would be so easy, I thought, to never leave here. To sit in this bar every night, and go look at beautiful animals every day.



We all somehow managed to get up the next morning for a 6am boat ride down the river where we saw monkeys, gorgeous birds, and a humongous lizard, and then a drive over to the lion side of the park. The lions were being shy though, so we didn’t see them, but after everything else we hardly felt disappointed. I didn’t want to leave, but as we drove out of the gate I was glad. Even Alice couldn’t stay in Wonderland forever.

Elephants!

Yesterday we took a day trip to Addo Elephant Park, about an hour away from Grahamstown. An American we met named Wren who got a scholarship to go study music all over the world, rented a car and drove us over. Not sure what we would see as it was the middle of the day, not considered the best animal watching time, we drove quietly through the main gate and rolled down all the windows. We immediately spotted a couple animals: a kudu (an antelope/deer type animal) hanging out by the side of the road, a meerkat, some warthogs, a big pretty bird of some kind.



Coming to a turn in the road we were lucky enough to decide to turn right, because only a few minutes later we came on one of the watering holes which was surrounded by elephants! They are amazing to watch, so graceful. I read later in the brochure how elephants are contacts animals, they like to touch each other, and it seemed very true, they were always constantly grouped together, always aware of the other, in what seemed to be a very caring way.



One of them so wanted to get to the rest of the group that he had to cross the street, through and in front of the dozen cars that had stopped to watch the elephants and right in front of our car! It was wonderful, you don’t truly realize how enormous an elephant is until it strolls in front of your car.



By the end of the day my list of animals seen consisted of elephants, kudu, warthogs, zebra, red hartebeest, leopard tortoise, meerkat, ostrich, big bird thing and either buffalo or a big cow. Not bad for about three hours. This weekend we go on an overnight trip to another game reserve. Maybe we’ll see a lion…

Weekday Things

Since its been a while I’ve split this into two posts- but if you just want to know about the elephants just skip this one!

I’ve been in South Africa for four weeks now. A routine is starting to come together of usually morning classes, walking into town to do whatever errand I need to do, and sometimes to have lunch with someone and in the evening either doing work or going back out for a drink or ice-cream or whatever.

Thursday Alice and I met with Jane Bradshaw, the woman in charge of the Amasango School, the place where we will be volunteering. I was incredibly impressed by her. I know what liberals aren’t always received happily here but you could tell Jane was the real thing. The kind of person you can’t believe can possibly be able to do what she’s doing, but you’re so glad she does. The kind of woman who started this branch of the Amasango school pretty much on her own and has been running it ever since, dealing with stories of homelessness, drug addiction and teenage pregnancy. Who no matter what she does often sees kids immediately drop out when they go back to mainstream school. But who still couldn’t help choking up when talking about her worry for one of her volunteers who had gotten very sick that day and had to be hospitalized. She cheered up after talking about it though, and after a piece of the Madhatter’s carrot cake, and Alice and I arranged a time to go down to the school next week just to see the place and figure out where we would best fit.

Thursday night a group of us went to the Old Gaol for open mic night. As the name suggests the Old Gaol was converted from a jail- its now a backpackers lodge and bar. Through two big double doors there is a large front room with tables and to the side a smaller room with couches and the bar. A side door in the large room leads to the large stone courtyard. The wind rustled between the stone and I looked up and there were stars coming out behind the clouds. Its was still early, Nouria planned to sing and wasn’t sure when to come, so there was no crowd yet. Just a group sitting around a hookah and a few others leaning over guitars. The only light was the few lit lamps on the set up stage and the cigarettes hanging from most people’s mouths. Stairs up the side of the courtyard led to a balcony in front of a row of cells that have been converted into little bedrooms. Some of the students from the Netherlands are staying in them and one of the students, Milou, let us see her cell. It was much nicer than you would imagine, with a large bed and bright orange walls. Not much in the way of windows though… I sadly forgot my camera but I am definitely going back some time and taking some pictures.