cape town charms

Cape Town. This post could easily be pages upon pages of stories. To narrow things down, I'll try to modify some of the impressions I scrambled to write in my journal in our few moments of rest during the orientation. Without further ado...

- Thursday night I put on pajamas but never slept. I was trying to finish a paper due on Monday (only two pages, but yours truly has not written anything academic in three years and struggled a bit), a paper I would repeatedly work on in early early morning hours in our Backpackers. The alarm that I didn't need rang at 3:35 am. The shuttle arrived at 4:15. Six exhausted scholars arrived at the airport at 4:45 (why, shuttle company, did you make us think we needed to get there so early?)

- Fast forward breakfast, much waiting, and one sleepy 7:30 am flight. We descend on Cape Town past mountains covered so densely in clouds it resembled rocks coming through ice. After arriving, we're taken to the Mountain Manor Backpackers in a shuttle playing a typical Cape Town style minstrel song that's way more energetic than we are.

- Lots of meeting and greeting. We're 31 scholars in all, mostly from South Africa (Durban, Grahamstown, Cape Town, Bloemfontein, etc.) as well as Mozambique, Botswana and a few South African scholars leaving later this year to destinations north.

- At noon, we leave to the Mvula school in Nyanga township. Townships, formed under repressive apartheid policies and still a striking part of the South African life and landscape, are like another world from the comfortable surroundings of downtown Cape Town or Jo'burg suburbs. The school has been funded in large part through Rotary. Students had prepared a concert, a dance, and a brief play for us. We watch and then explore the school on our own. One of the students, a boy named E., decides he will be my tour guide and so we run through halls, see the library and computer lab, and E. meets all of my new friends.

- We rush off to Cape Town's council chamber where the deputy mayor of Cape Town presents on the city and answers many questions. There's a small reception for us after. (I'm beginning to wonder what day it is and how it's still the same date as that morning. It's only about 2:30 pm.)

- After a quick break, we head to Lion's Head in Table Mountain National Park. Thirty-one scholars, some Rotarians, our scholarship coordinator, and a handful of others trek up the mountain, stopping around halfway to climb onto some rocks and have sundowners: drinks and snacks enjoyed around...sunset. As we wander through stunning views of Cape Town, I have a moment of sheer contentment as I realize: I am in South Africa. I live here. I am in Cape Town, which is beautiful and in the same country as where I live. Newfound energy overtakes me. We head back down the mountain and arrive at 31 drums lining a path and a drum teacher named Jonathan welcoming us to a drum lesson. He reminds us that we are looking onto the sunset over the ocean, Robben Island (where Mandela was imprisoned), Cape Town, Table Mountain and Lion's Head. I am happy.

- Day 1 (yes, one), ends with dinner at the house of the Rotarian who organized the whole weekend. Lovely curries, which are plentiful in South Africa, salads, and cake await, and it is only here that we realize how extremely exhausted we actually are.

- Day 2. Less to report here. At 7 am we leave for the Royal Cape Yacht Club which, as one might imagine, is beautiful. We eat breakfast (and drink multiple cups of coffee) on the deck and are all too soon whisked away from the beautiful day into a conference room where, for the next 10 hours, we learned all about Rotary and our scholarship. I did manage to talk a walk through the docks of yachts during lunch with some of the other scholars.

- At night, we go to a carnival sponsored/organized by Rotary. "Wear clothes that can get smelly and dusty," we're told. In two shifts, we man the calamari tent and for one and a half hours I become part of a fried calamari making machine. I decide that I have until now always underrated the goodness of fresh fried calamari, and that drinking cider makes any activity better. As does teamwork with friends. After our shift, we wander the carnival and find tents for most every nationality, as well as a salsa band. You all should know how I feel about that :)

- Day 3. Sleep count for the last three nights: perhaps 10-11 hours. We "sleep in" and I spend the morning walking around the neighborhood of our hostel. At 8:45 we leave for Cape Town's waterfront. It's Dragonboat racing time and in two teams we learn the skill of this ancient art and race three 200 meter races. It's a gorgeous and hot Sunday morning. My boat was named Karma. We lost all three races.

- Soaking, we head to the Red Cross Children's hospital, the only pediatric hospital in all of South Africa. It's received a lot of funding from Rotary. We tour the wards.

- Our final "official" stop is the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, where we picnic in a shady spot and have our final orientation session. After this we wander the gardens, find ice cream, and enjoy the late afternoon concert with "Malika and Friends." There are mountains and a lot of grass and flowers and great music, and we're sitting with our new Botswanan friends having a great time.

- Deciding that we're not spending the last night indoors, a group of us heads back to the waterfront for a late night dinner at Quay Four, where I share a kilo of prawns (HUGE prawns) for $10, calamari, and delicious blackened fish. Sometime after midnight we get home, play a round of cards, have some drinks, and chat under South African stars (there are so many, even in Cape Town) on the rooftop of the hostel.

- Three hours later, we get up, head to the airport, and by late morning I'm back in my dorm room again. Still finishing that paper.