Day 29 – Cape Town, South Africa

Sept 26th

Walking around town
We landed in the beautiful, colonial Victoria and Alfred Waterfront early in the morning. After disembarking, Becca and I headed straight for Long Street, which we heard was the main boulevard through town. Along the way, we came upon Cape Town Station (main train station) that had a mini market springing up along the outside. Most of the goods looked like they had “fallen off a truck” or otherwise been stolen. We looked from Christina’s stolen cell phone, but had no luck. From there we walked north through Green Square Market to find Sipho, an amicable tourist information guide. We chatted with him about the current government turnover and past apartheid, while he walked us to Long Street to his favorite restaurant Mama Africa. Overall, he felt positive about post-apartheid changes since he could now talk to white people and walk wherever he liked, but he was still apprehensive because developing middle class of successful blacks were not sharing their prosperity with others. He believed that for the most part only those well-connected blacks were truly benefiting at this stage.

Addis in Cape
Since Mama Africa was not open, the owners directed us to Addis in Cape, their favorite Ethiopian restaurant on Church Street. We walked into this Arabian oasis with ornate, gold embroidered umbrellas covering the ceiling with dark wood tables and reclining chair scattered about. Our waitress Charity did her best to explain the menu and meal process. We ended up ordering two half-and-half dishes to share. We ended up with a selection of doro wot (chicken stew), yegeb alic-something (spicy lentil dish), tibs (beef with onions) and misir wot (lamb stew). After Charity brought around a pot and kettle to wash our hands with warm water, she brought out this white, foamy bread rolled up like a towel. With pieces of the foam bread in our right hand, she instructed us to grab the food using the bread since there were no utensils. It was the most interesting meal I had the whole time, and it was absolutely delicious. The flavors were milder than what we expect in India, but their use of coriander, ginger, garlic and turmeric was very evident.

District Six
After lunch, Christina and I went on a township tour. Along the way to the District 6 Museum, we saw the Castle of Good Hope (oldest building in Cape Town), the Groote Schuur Hospital (world’s first heart transplant in 1967) and a famously, unfinished raised-highway (architect killed himself). When pulling up to the District 6 Museum, we saw the most-notorious, apartheid prison that consistently drove prisoners insane from torture. Essentially, the museum commemorated the area of district six and its heritage in apartheid. In 1966, District Six was declared a “White Group Area” by the then-ruling National Party. Due to orders for ‘slum clearance,’ all buildings except religious ones were demolished, forcing 150,000 people (mostly coloureds or blacks) from their homes to the Cape Flats. A large part of history and Cape Town culture was destroyed and residents are just today trying to bring pieces of it together to commemorate it in the museum. Currently, the area is still mostly undeveloped and can easily be spotted from the top of Table Mountain as the grassy area in the middle of the city.

Townships (slums)
From there, we visited Langa, the oldest township in Cape Town. Established in 1901, farm inhabitants resettled in Langa under the belief they posed health threats to the city that was recovering from the bubonic plague. It mostly consisted of governmentally organized housing, which resulted in unpainted, cinder-block square houses. They were all made of uniform size and shape regardless of family size. Since the first residents rented the houses from the government, they were not allowed to make extensions, resulting in many bedroom shacks that spring up along side the road or back yards. While in the area, we visited Gugu s’Thebe Arts and Culture Centre, which was established in 1926 and is a vibrant cultural center that educates residents on handicraft skills. They teach Langa residents to make pottery, paintings, sculptures and figurines from anything they can find (which is mostly items we would consider trash) to sell to tourists and visitors. From Langa, we headed to Gugulethu or “Gugs,” which was established in the 1950s to house migrant workers from the Eastern Cape. Men were forced to leave their families and live in cramped male-only hostels at first. When families arrived later, informal settlements and shacks built up haphazardly. As we walked down the sidewalks, there was a pungent smell of braii (Afrikaans for BBQ) and meat as men cut and sold whole pigs and cows on the sidewalk. On our way out of Gugulethu, we saw the Amy Biehl Memorial (commemorates white student who worked against apartheid but was victim of white-hate crime) and the Gugulethu Seven Memorial (commemorates seven shot dead by white soldiers).

Birthdays!
Since it was Becca’s 20th birthday, we all headed out for shooters and traditional South African drinks. While walking along Long Street, we choose Café Mojito for dinner due to its outdoor seating that would allow us to celebrate without disturbing too many people. The first round of ‘springbok’ shooters was in honor of Becca of course. (Springbok is the national animal of South Africa.) While we swapped bites of Hawaiian burgers and Caribbean chicken nachos, we had a passerby take a photo. The man, whose name was Paka, turned out to be a allegedly, famous actor in South Africa. None of us really knew if he was telling the truth, but apparently his show is called ‘Criminal Intent’ on channel 1 on Thursdays at 8PM. He also just finished some American movie called Vanilla Gorilla. I think it was all a load of crap, but I got him to buy the birthday girl and I drinks as well as pay for half my meal. After enough time laughing and chatting about, we crossed the street to dance at Fiction for a few hours. When Goldie showed up, her cousin Aton (who lives in South Africa) took us to another club called Mercury for a feel of the techno scene before heading back to the ship.

Highs and Lows
My “high” was seeing a cow sacrificed on the lawn of a Gugulethu resident. My “low” was not finding Mama Africa open after Sipho’s enthusiasm for the food.