Note: no penguins, sharks or seals were hurt in the writing of this post. Unfortunately I cannot say the same for the ostriches, the springboks and the kudus.
The plan was to elegantly finish work around mid September, serenely empty my apartment and sell my furniture and travel to Cape Town in style and grace on the 8th of October. Of course none of this actually worked out quite as planned and I ended up rushing everything at the last second (if anyone wants some second hand Ikea furniture please contact me...). The beauty of life is that it truly is "what happens while you're busy making other plans", to use the wise words of John Lennon.
My journey to South Africa meant a lot to me for numerous reasons.
Firstly it was the very first leg of my around the world trip.I was born in South Africa and lived there until the age of four. My mother was born in Cape Town and spent the first 34 years of her life in the country, whereas my dad moved to the Cape at the age of 14 and left the country aged 37. I grew up listening to the stories of their youth in the country and the image I had of South Africa assumed mythical dimensions in my childhood imagination. As a child I was very proud of being born in South Africa, until I realized that the country had a troubled history and that many people viewed white South Africans as racist monsters. I will come back to this later on, as it is impossible to spend time in South Africa and ignore its difficult past. In a way, South Africa was a return to my roots, I was revisiting a land that helped shape my identity. And aren't we after all, all Africans?
My gran still lives in Cape Town after eighty years and I really wanted to spend some time with her, get to know her better and take care of her. Unfortunately two days prior to my departure we got a call from her neighbor who informed us that she had been hospitalized and they seemed to think she'd had a stroke. At this point more than ever I was very eager to get to the Mother City to be close to her and make sure she would be alright.
I don't sleep well on planes. Perhaps because I spend the flight thinking of what awaits me ahead, of all the things that will happen at destination, but probably the simple explanation is that they are loud, uncomfortable, rattling and 11'000 meters above ground... If any Lufthansa executive happens to stumble upon this, I beg you please, do reintroduce the day flights to Cape Town, I promise you I will buy you a Weizen Bier and a Wurst as a way to thank you (I apologize in advance for any other stupid stereotypes I might abuse in the upcoming 1.5 years). I landed in CT after sleeping for only 1 hour the entire night. My cousin Gabriella, my aunt Anna, and our old family friend Paddy were at the airport to welcome me. It was nice to land on the other side of the planet and have familiar faces there to greet me. I would like to apologize to all those that were present for my miserable appearance and my not so "present state of mind".
Paddy and Carol (Paddy's wife) set me up at their place for the initial part of my stay as my grandmother was unfortunately at Groote Schuur hospital. I spent the first week traveling up and down between the hospital and their house. I don't have enough words to thank them for their hospitality, I consider them to be like family members and consider myself lucky to know them and their son Chris and daughter Natalie.
The first week in Cape Town is a bit blurry in my memory, but I remember the metal detector at the entrance of the Groote Schuur hospital, the huge maze of long corridors in the hospital, the pictures on the walls, that to some extent helped me identify the corridors. Without those pictures I would probably still be lost somewhere in the maze of identical corridors looking for ward D24. To my great relief it turned out that gran was going to get better fast and after a couple of days of visiting her in hospital I was able to pick her up and take her back home to the Southern Suburbs.
In my childhood memory SA is the brighter place, where colors come to life and nature is on steroids. It was the exact opposite of the gray and cold Swiss winter. To some extent I found this to still be true, but it is probably only due to the fact that I returned in the middle of winter and landed on a rather gloomy freezing morning in Zurich.
My parents joined us in CT for the second and third week of my stay, we celebrated my gran's 80th birthday with family and friends at the Mount Nelson Hotel, a beautiful colonial establishment at the feet of the one and only Table Mountain.
In the third week I also managed to get into the water and finally catch some waves. Cape Town is paradise for any water sport fan and it is no different for an addicted surfer.
I have been back for less than a week but I really miss the "early" morning surfs. I would wake up at 6, 6.30 a.m. get to the beach at 7 or 7.30 depending on how fast I managed to get out of my deep sleep state and which side I chose to go surfing.
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| my cousin Gabi and I at Cape Town Stadium |
On many mornings I would drive over to the Atlantic side, destination Long Beach Kommetjie. The morning drive on Ou Kaapse Weg offers glorious views, enough to give me goose bumps every single time. The drive takes you above a small mountain range that divides the Indian Ocean from the Atlantic on the two sides of the Cape Peninsula, with the Cape of Good Hope to the South and the City to the North.As you approach the summit you can see the Indian ocean ahead and then you go around a right hand bend and the scenery dramatically mutates into the Constantia vines and the rear of Table Mountain. The colors a beautiful medley of blues, greens, reds, oranges, yellows, pinks and browns. From the top of the hills the road makes its way down towards the Atlantic coast. My favorite part would be when I would get past the last bend with the breath taking sight of Long Beach and the most violently and beautifully blue ocean you could dare imagine.
I could spend hours raving about the rugged natural beauty of the Cape, I could post pictures of it, but I don't really think it would do it justice. The best thing is you just go see for yourself. It will probably not surprise you to hear that CT: It is hailed as one of the most beautiful cities in the world as officially recognized by Forbes.[6] National Geographic has also listed Cape Town as one of the most iconic cities on the planet and "Places of a Lifetime".[7] Cape Town is also Africa's most popular tourist destination.[8] source Wikipedia.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Town
On one of my morning drives I arrived to Long Beach and the Ocean was F.L.A.T., so I decided to take a drive down South towards the Good Hope national park, past the villages of Misty Cliffs, Scarborough and then back to False Bay (Indian Ocean) via Fish Hoek and Simon's Town. I was rewarded by the sight of a solitary seal surfing the blown out waves in misty cliffs and the majestic appearance of a Whale. I cannot understand why someone would want to kill such a beautiful creature and hope that the effort to save these lovely animals will not be in vain.
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| Down at the Cape of Good Hope |
South Africa is the tip of the African continent. Many people imagine that Africa is a Wild continent, that lacks the luxury of modern day infrastructure, they seem to think that Africans live in mud huts, hunt for their own food and have to run from hungry lions on a daily basis. What many people don't realize is that Cape Town and many South African cities have pretty good infrastructure and offer all kinds of material comfort to those with money.
However it is also true that the country still has large disparities between rich and poor and it is still trying to get over the Apartheid era issues.
Fortunately the country has made a lot of progress from the downfall of the apartheid regime in 1994 to the current day, but the road is still long and there are plenty of hurdles ahead. I was a little upset to see that formally apartheid is over, but that the various "racial groups" still don't really mix all that much.What really struck me as funny is that Cape Town has always embraced religious diversity (there were banners wishing everyone a "happy diwali" in one of the supermarkets, there is halal and kosher food all over the place, and all kinds of churches, mosques and synagogues often in close proximity) and is home to people from all over the world, however the shade of apartheid still looms in the air and it is not easy to see people from the various "ethnic groups" mix. The government has introduced some rather creative policies to try and level out the poor/rich divide and racial divide. These measures are similar to the affirmative action policies that the USA adopted in the 60s. Many white South Africans have seen this as a form of reverse discrimination, one white South African even managed to get controversial political asylum in Canada because he claimed that black people were threatening his right to live and personal safety (I believe that the high court recently overruled the decision and the man was sent back to South Africa where the minister of internal affairs was very happy to welcome the man back...).
I think that the Rainbow Nation has done quite well if you consider all the difficulties it has had to deal with:
the crippling effects of the Apartheid era on a large chunk of the population (such as the Bantu education act that limited the amount of formal education for black people thus ensuring an "unskilled" black population, limiting their potential), major immigration pressure from all over Africa, brain drain (many very skilled South Africans left the country due to uncertainty concerning their future in the Southern tip of the continent and due to the sharp increase in violent crime that happened between the early 90s and the present day), etc. On the other hand it appears to me that the country is sometimes too focused on "racial issues" to be able to move forward and tackle other important issues such as poverty, AIDS, criminality, corruption and unemployment. Despite the fact that I understand the fact that the country does need to re-balance the distribution of wealth, I hope the country will soon become "color blind" and encourage people to "earn" jobs based on merit, not skin color.
I sometimes worry when I look at the world and its problems. It appears to me that the Western world is encouraging selfishness and consumerism. Is this what human nature is really about? I think that we should start working on the notion that we are one global community, one big family and we all have to work hard to ensure that no one gets left behind and that we live together in harmony. ***apologies for the hippie interlude***.
It is refreshing to drive past schools and see black and white children playing together and to think that the country is now trying to find a new harmony. I think the key to the future success of South Africa is education.
It seems to me that in many parts of the country the determination of the younger generations is strong and there is a generalized will to improve things.
I was often surprised when I would occasionally hear South Africans thinking that their country offers far inferior opportunities and infrastructure compared to Europe. I often got the feeling that in some areas SA is better off than many other EU countries.
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| Gran, Mom and Dad with Table Mountain in the background |
Other highlights of my stay in SA were:
-12km suicide run at the Fairview wine farm with Chris and some of his mates. The run was tough, but it was really rewarding to get to the top of the mountain range from what felt like sea level and look down on the wine farms. The Cape has some amazing wine farms and amazing wines that are quite a large attraction for tourists from all over the country and the world.Thank you Sarah, Sean and Amy for making the day fun.
-visiting the Cape of Good Hope with my grandmother and my friend Robin who was visiting from Switzerland.
-catching the best wave of my life so far in Long Beach Kommetjie on the morning before I left to return home.
-in the first two weeks of my stay in Cape Town, we managed to appear on the evening news on national TV, my gran was on the first page of the Cape Times, I had my name on page 3 of the Cape Times encouraging people to donate organs. My dad had us invited to the house of a former Springbok's rugby captain and former minister from the transitional government and first democratic government of South Africa. The minister poured the whole family tea and coffee... An inspiring and very interesting man.
-amazing dinners/lunches/braais (barbecues) with friends and family. The food was outstanding, the company was even better!
-Brekkies at the Olympia Cafe in Kalk Bay with Chris. Thanks bru, really enjoyed it! And that shop was really kewl!
-re-living the World Cup spirit when Bafana Bafana played the USA at Cape Town Stadium (thanks Gabi and Robin for sharing the experience)
-a 5 day stay with my friend Abey in Joburg. It was great to see my friend again and also interesting to visit Johannesburg. We went to the "cradle of humanity", 45 minutes drive from the city and visited this amazing exhibit on evolutionary science, right on the sight where they found one of the oldest Human fossils in the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cradle_of_Humankind.
The Maropeng visitors center is a good example of how good the infrastructure can be in South Africa, the exhibit was one of the most interesting I have seen... it even made evolutionary science seem really interesting and provided some good food for thought. We also visited Mandela's former house in Soweto, a small game park with some sorry looking lions and went to a crazy shopping center that was a recreation of a Tuscan village... in Africa. Being with Abey and meeting his friends was definitely the highlight of my stay in Jozi and I am glad I overcame my fears of visiting what is supposed to be one of the most dangerous cities in the world. My cousin Rob sure didn't help by telling me "Joburg is great, you're gonna love it, I lived there for 4 years and only got car jacked once"... thanks Rob... :)
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| Mandela's former house in Soweto with Abey and friends |
I would love to go back to Cape Town and also to visit other parts of the country (especially J-bay). I am sure that some day I will have a chance.
Things I miss of South Africa:
-the caution "Robots ahead" sign on the roads: South Africans call traffic lights Robots!
-the crazy accents of the Cape coloreds when they speak English
-people walking barefoot in banks, shopping malls, ect.
-the hippie like surfers from Muizenberg that seem to think they are still living the Summer of Love. Peace and love!
-Biltong! (the most delicious snack invented by mankind)
-the best sushi I have ever had
-the mild South Easter (predominant early summer wind)
-the view of Constantia from above
-the Agapanthus on the sides of the highway and the Jacaranda trees.
-the Kirstenbosch gardens
-beautiful Long beach.
-my morning surfs
-watching Isidingo! with my gran
-spending time with my gran
-my friends and family
Things I don't miss:
-the strong contrast between rich and poor
-the howling South Easter
-the security gates/doors/windows, electrified fencing, CCTV, armed guards, ect.
-driving on the WRONG side of the road
-being paranoid about crime in general
-the racial divide
Thank you South Africa for the amazing time!
