Lessons Learned

Last weekend (December 2-3), the neighborhood where I live in Cape Town, Observatory, held its annual Obs Festival, a two day festival of outdoor music, food and shops (pictures here taken at Obs Fest). I walked down to it on Saturday night, the day I arrived back from my first shift at Baphumelele, with Duncan, the Scottish guy who does not put solid foods into his body, and Marta, the 19-year old Canadian from my shift at Bap. Like many aspects of Cape Town, at Obs Fest, I felt that I could have been in some funky and multi-racial neighborhood in San Francisco, New York or New Orleans. Bands played on each street corner. Street vendors served sausages, corn on the cob and Castle Lager. Stands sold beaded jewelry and t-shirts with Nelson Mandela’s face outlined in silhouette. Young people with dreadlocks, afros or blonde hair (must be the Dutch origin) milled about. And I had a great time, until…

I walked a half block off of Lower Main Road, where the festival was being held, to use my cell phone. As I stood there dialing, a man ran by and swiped it from my hand. In an instant, he disappeared. Although angry and frustrated, since I just purchased the phone right before I left, I decided that it could have been worse and I would just by a new, cheap cell phone here – something I should have done in the first place. Undeterred, I decided to stay around and listen to a few more bands. A few hours later, about to go home, I reached down to my purse, hanging with the strap across my shoulder in front of my body, unzipped it and pulled out my camera to take another picture. As I did that, I felt a hand reach around me and deftly pulled out my wallet. I quickly turned around to the man behind me – certain he took it – and confronted him. I frisked him, made him pull out his pockets, yelled at him (and, of course, he yelled back), but did not find my wallet.

Fortunately, I had emptied my wallet of all but some cash, my ATM card and NY driver’s license. Unfortunately, I too confidently thought I could monitor my purse well enough and did not take everyone’s advice just to put money in my pocket and carry nothing else. And I was not the only one hit that night: Marta had her camera and wallet taken at a bar, Duncan was pick-pocketed, but caught the guy in the act, and another volunteer had his wallet taken as well. The thieves made out well at Obs Fest!

Sunday was a cold, rainy day in Cape Town, which I spent buying a new cell phone, finding an open money exchanger, etc. Monday, though, was a beautiful day. It is summer here and, while warm, there is always a nice breeze blowing off the Atlantic, making the weather very pleasant. I rode a double-decker bus around Cape Town and visited the South African Museum and the District Six Museum with another Aviva volunteer, Michelle, a 20-year old from Vermont who will soon start working on a nature conservation project outside of Cape Town. After attending the art college in Savannah, Georgia for a year, Michelle decided to move to NYC and work like mad as a nanny during the day and at Magnolia Bakery at night to save money in order to travel the world doing volunteer projects for the next year and a half. After volunteering in South Africa, she will head to India, Nepal, Thailand and so forth. One of her more interesting volunteer stints will be in Nepal where, for a month, she will live with Buddhist monks, teach them English for 4 hours a day and, in return, they will teach her meditation practices.

The District Six Museum in Cape Town is a great, small museum adjacent to the now barren fields of District Six, an area just off the central part of Cape Town. District Six was a vibrant, cohesive, mostly Coloured, community before the 1950s, when the apartheid policies of the Nationalist government kicked-in to high gear. In 1950, the government passed the Group Areas Act, giving them authority to designate later, in 1966, that District Six would be a “white area.” Over the next few years, the government forcibly removed more than 6o,000 people from the homes where they had lived for more than five generations. The homes were bulldozed and the people were scattered along the sandy Cape Flats area southeast of Cape Town. Many of the townships formed at this time, Khayelitsha being one of them. Today, District Six is a wasteland full of overgrown weeds and rubbish. The whites who were supposed to move in refused to do so. The government which is supposed to be giving restitution by building homes and moving people back has taking over 10 years to do so. Like the crime here, District Six serves as a reminder of an ugly blight of a really beautiful city.