Cape Town - The Real World

Minus the cameras and an even ratio of boys to girls, on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, I landed in what feels like an MTV Real World house. At the moment, I am living with 10 other orphanage volunteers in a house owned by our sponsoring organization, Aviva, in a Cape Town neighborhood called Observatory.

Actually, its a very nice old house, complete with daily maid service, 4 newly renovated bathrooms, a large braii (bbq grill) on the back patio, a wrap-around security wall, electric fence and cans of pepper spray hanging by the front door to take with us when we leave or to grab if anyone knocks on the door. (In fact, two Aviva volunteers were mugged right outside the house just the other week.) And, the other volunteers are all very nice and fun. There is only one guy amongst our group, from Scotland, whom I have not seen put any solid food into his body since Friday - he's a rugby player and really does enjoy his pints of beer! The women volunteers have come mainly from Holland (the Dutch government will pay them for their volunteer work), but also from the UK and Canada. The average age of the other volunteers is 23 but, fortunately, there is one woman from the UK who is my age and another from Illinois who is 59 years old. And despite being unsafe, as is the whole of Cape Town, I like the neighborhood of Observatory a lot. It has an artsy, bohemian feel with many funky restaurants, bars and shops and reminds me of New Orleans, with two story homes that have 2nd floor wrought-iron balconies.

So the problem? 10 people. 3 bedrooms. Bunk beds. In addition, Aviva has some volunteers who work at other sights outside Cape Town, but who come into Cape Town on the weekends and use the house as a backpacker-type lodge. As one of the 20-somethings rolled into the bedroom the other night at 5:00 a.m., giggling the whole time she tried to climb onto the bunk bed right above me, I realized why I gave up roommates many years ago!

The 10 of us will work and live out at the orphanage in shifts of 3 1/2 days on and 3 1/2 days off. When we work, we will live out at the orphanage. When off, we will live back at the house in Observatory. My shift starts tomorrow, Wednesday.

Before our first shifts begin, we spent this past weekend sight seeing and enjoying some Cape Town sporting events. We climbed up Table Mountain, rode bikes down the Cape Peninsula to the southern most tip of Africa at the Cape of Good Hope, visited African penguins at a penguin colony near Simons Town and, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, watched South Africa beat India in a cricket match at Newlands Stadium. (Pictured here, South Africa at bat; flags flying after South Africa scores a 6; me eating a double frankfurter (that is the way they came, I swear, two foot long hot dogs per bun!)). The cricket match lasted 8 hours and I did not understand the rules until midway through, but I loved it and am really enjoying Cape Town. As I said in my blog about all the good of Cape Town, I find this to be one of the most beautiful cities with no shortage of entertaining activities. However, now having had another 4 leisurely days here, I'm ready to begin what I came to Cape Town to do, learn more about the orphan and HIV/AIDs crisis here in South Africa while helping out at the Baphumelele orphanage.