Cape Town – The Good

After Zimbabwe, Cape Town seems like paradise. I had always heard that Cape Town is a beautiful city and, indeed, that is true. We flew into Cape Town from Zambia on Monday, November 6th, just as the sun set behind the mountain chain that runs down the cape peninsula, turning everything multi shades of pink, red and orange. After checking into our hotel, Linda and I walked to the Waterfront (something like South Street Seaport in NYC, but on steroids) and had sushi – I really thought I had eaten my last sushi for the next 14 months back in New York just before I left! Since I will spend most of the next 2 months here, I was ecstatic to see all sorts of shops, restaurants and cultural activities at the Waterfront. I think Cape Town will spoil me before I head to Kenya in January!
Cape Town reminds me in part of San Francisco, in part of Auckland and in part of San Diego. Table Mountain (pictured), a 1073 meter mountain smack-dab in the center of the city, forms an imposing backdrop along with the Atlantic and Indian Oceans that make up Cape Town’s coastline. The city is vibrantly colorful, especially the pastel painted facades of the buildings in the Bo-Kaap area (pictured above), a district near the center of the city that has a strong Cape Malay Muslim influence. On Tuesday, our driver, Yusef, himself a Cape Malay Muslim – and someone who is going to get to know me quite well as he drives me around on weekends in December – drove us throughout the city, and we had lunch in Bo-Kaap at a Cape Malay / Indian restaurant called Biesmiellah.

Part of what also makes Cape Town a fascinating city to me is its “coloured” population. As I have just learned, South Africans use the term “coloured” to refer to a mixed race people with strong Cape Malay or Indian heritage. Unlike in the U.S., coloured does not mean black. Over half of Cape Town is coloured. About one-third of Cape Town is black. The coloured people’s history and relationship with black Africans is complex, partly because during apartheid, although by no means treated well by whites, they were treated slightly better than the blacks. As a result, there has been resentment by blacks towards them. Yet, since they were still extremely oppressed, many collaborated with blacks to resist apartheid policies. Like blacks, coloureds could not vote, they had to carry passes, and they were forcefully removed from their homes and dumped in townships. But today, not all coloureds support the ruling African National Congress, as many feel it does not always support the coloured person's best interests.

We had a great home-cooked meal at the home of a coloured friend of Linda’s, Debbie, on Tuesday night. Debbie also will become a good friend of mine in December as I seek out the company of familiar faces – and I also hope she can teach me a lot more about the coloured population’s past and present here in Cape Town, for I’m very fascinated by it and by how different the race relations have been and are here compared with the United States.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, Linda, Leigh-Ann, Greg and I also visited townships and more programs which I will describe in my next blog entry. On this stint, we did not get to do a lot of other wonderful Cape Town activities, like visit the wine country, go whale watching, dive with sharks, or see a cricket match…but I’ll get around to all of those when I’m here in December!

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Just a personal note, since my blog lags a bit behind where I actually am in my travels. I have been in Cape Town all week. Linda left today, Thursday, and I parted ways with Leigh-Ann and Greg as well. It has been fantastic to travel with them these past two weeks and they, especially Linda, have taught me a lot. I will get to see Leigh-Ann and Greg again in January when they are back in Kenya, and Linda in late May back in Johannesburg.

So homesickness immediately set in as soon as they left. I walked again down to the Waterfront for a greasy fish & chips lunch by the water, then took a long jog along the coast. Fortunately, tomorrow I will fly to Namibia to meet up with one of my good childhood friends, Christy. I’ll be in Nambia until Thanksgiving, then its back to Cape Town where I will begin work at an orphanage here on the day after that. I have no idea what my internet situation will be while in Namibia, so if you log into my blog and do not find a new posting, check again in a day or so…I love keeping everyone up-to-date with this so rest assured that I’m frantically running around Namibia looking for a connection in order to get back in touch with you. I hope you are well.