Surviving Stellies: Day 2

I wake up surprisingly not hung over. Though it's early and the morning and a game day, Pierre agreed to take us on a walk around the University. Quynh and Pierre get an early laugh because Xtina texts me to ask about the hoodie I supposedly promised her (I really thought she wouldn't remember). Currently in negotiations to swap for a Stellenbosch sweatshirt.

Stellenbosch is like a bizarro Dutch colonial Yale, with more affluence surrounding the campus than New Haven. Stellenbosch has a bunch of residences (Res's? It's a lot of s's together) that you apply to get into, each looking like a small hotel. More often than not they are also single-sex, so there frequently are Res mixers so that you can finally meet people of the other sex. There's a three-story student center sponsored by one of the banks that looks like a mall. And is comparable in size to many of the actual malls I've been to in Cape Town. Cheap food, Matie gear, miscellaneous shops- if Yale ever found space to put one of these in, I would be so, so happy. Essentially it would be Broadway with a roof over it.

We walk through the library, sort of designed to look like a boat, and admire the creation of South Africa through a bunch of old maps dating back to when it was first colonized by the Dutch. Wandering through campus, we see the electrical engineering building where Pierre works, a statue whose asscheeks are clearly worn from people rubbing them, more residential halls where Pierre has gotten in trouble. He tells us of how on nights when everyone is out, there are frequently fights between different res's and different years, and that people constantly are getting pulled away and hit with cricket bats.

After the tour, we pick up Stew again and go to the Stellenbosch Market, their version of the Old Biscuit Mill market or the Farmer's Market at Yale. This incarnation is held at the Oude Libertas vineyard and parking is overflowing. Most of the vendors have taken shade under green tents or one of the main vineyard buildings. The usual fares are there- fresh breads and dips, coffees, clothes- along with some more "exotic" foods- shwarmas, seafood platters, pies and samooosas. We walk around and sample as much as we can. Stew and Quynh have a very involved conversation about pestos. I'm almost convinced to get beef biltong again- Namibian beef is so damn good. The atmosphere is wonderful though- an eclectic South African soundtrack of blues, tribal music, and soft jazz plays as crowds wander through, many clearly wearing sunglasses on a somewhat cloudy day to hide their hangovers, many whom I watched get said hangovers the night before.

As we sit on a stoop and eat our food, Pierre and Stew meet up with their friend Robinlee and talk hockey and university gossip while Quynh goes into the art gallery. These 3 have really been involved in hockey, and Robinlee and Pierre have done so at very high levels of play- impressive club teams, even national teams. We stay for a few hours and then head back home to watch a few episodes of Entourage and so Pierre can get ready for his match.

Walking across the street to the hockey pitch (he has an ideal house for someone who plays hockey), we see the traffic circle getting jammed once again (I don't know why traffic circles are so popular because they are incredibly hectic to go through) as high schoolers (some whom Pierre coaches) go in and out for their games. The young kids have great private school uniforms with really nice colorful blazers. Though this is a college game, not many people are at the stands yet, and not many people really end up coming. It's a brisk day, countered with bottles of beer and cups of hot cocoa from the clubhouse. The pitch is surrounded by mountains, and Pierre says that sometimes when the ball goes out, all the players stop and just admire the sun setting in the sky and creating red-purple hues against the peaks.

The game is a fairly important one against Durbanville, a school north of Cape Town, for 3rd place in the standings. Unlike the high school games, there aren't any cheerleaders (with their conservative outfits a la Stellenbosch) or crazy fans (with shirts rather than chests painted to spell out words), just some classmates and older people. But soon we are met by Malie and Chris who have come to hang out with us since we missed them at Terrace the night before. Chris doesn't really remember seeing me because he blacked out for a good part of the night (they love beer pong here).

The game ends up being a really sloppy 2-0 victory for Stellenbosch, as the four of us just chat about the night before and Malie's adventure dealing with a catty fabric store owner in Cape Town. Though Malie has to leave, Chris invites us to a "chill dinner party" at a farm outside Stellenbosch. We oblige and meet Pierre after his game to discuss the plans. While he has to go get some drinks at the clubhouse and talk with alumni, we have his keys so we can get our stuff.

Pierre gives us warning that his key is a little tricky. It's clearly a bit bent in the middle, and, as he describes it, "you just have to keep wiggling it in there until you can turn it". Quynh initially has a lot of problems getting the key in. I give it a try and turn the key 180 degrees in a direction it definitely should not have been turned. It reminded me of an episode of the Rugrats where Tommy tries to escape daycare by making a key out of play-doh, though that key may have worked. A little more turning and SNAP, the key breaks in half.

Quynh and I just give looks of death to one another. Because this is a South African house, the security is quite tight and all the windows have bars. Also, the doors have latch locks, so it's almost impossible to break into them. The car keys are inside, along with all of our possessions, and Pierre's roommate has gone out of town with the only other set of keys. We send urgent texts to him, and within 15 minutes he comes rushing over. Apparently this has happened before, so the plan is to boost Quynh so she can sneak into an unusually large gap in the bars by one of the bedrooms and disable the alarm system in time so that there's no trouble. We also have to look as unsuspecting as possible, because Pierre and I to the outsider look like 2 colored guys trying to break into a house in a predominantly white neighborhood, which could prompt a lot of trouble. Needless to say, we successfully break into the house, thank Pierre for his hospitality, and set off, though we will probably see him again before the week ends.

We meet Chris at a gas station and follow his truck to the farm. It's getting dark, but we can see that we are driving through multiple vineyards and beautiful countrysides, snaking through forests and eventually driving around the property belonging to Chris's friends. Quynh reminds me that Chris works for a winery, so we realize that this dinner is actually at a wine estate.

As we pull up to the house, it's a FUCKING MANSION. Gorgeous wood paneling, sound systems, large open rooms with long dinner tables, beautifully upholstered sitting rooms, a fireplace outside between buildings- this is a fantastic place. We've found our way to the Jordan Wine Estate and meet Christy and Alex- the two kids of the owners. Also there is Storm, a guy we had run into at Terrace with Alex and who Quynh had talked to previously. The three of them look like standard beach kids, very tan and buff (well, not Christy) and laid back. Most white South Africans I've met are pretty built and unusually beautiful.

We just chill outside for a while by the fireplace and talk about school and going out and traveling. They are all friends with Chris and it seems like people come up to the estate quite often, especially because it has a hill that overlooks everything including Cape Town that is beautiful when all the lights are out (also, we learn how "keen" and "mission" and "bleak" are popular South African slang). Hookup culture comes up, and South Africans are not shy and pretty liberal with this sort of thing, talking about people that they want to bag.

As we're outside drinking more wine (Jordan of course), Alex braais up a storm- stuffed chicken, steaks, corn- it's an amazing spread, and we eat in a room that is surrounded by scenery. Eat, drink, and be merry- how the hell do we end up in these situations? After a nice dinner, we head over to the entertainment room and play some pool and listen to some techno. Unfortunately, we have to leave early (11 pm) because we need to get back to Cape Town and wake up early to go the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens the next day. Heading to the car, we notice that the garage is open and there we find Alex and Storm admiring some of Alex's "farming experiment"- huge ziplocs full of weed. Beautiful looking weed. Living on a vineyard is so nice.

Driving away, neither Quynh nor I are quite sure of the path that we took. After testing a few roads and being unsure, we end up on one that is taking us up a hill, a hill that I don't remember going up. As I start to reverse down the hill (because there's nowhere to turn around and driving through the vineyard fields would be blasphemous), my back window is still fogged up and then I feel a big lurch.

Shit. I'm in a ditch. I've backed the back tire of Jack into a huge irrigation ditch. And this isn't like a regular dirt ditch- this is a ditch lined with bricks and right up on the start of the vineyard. Quynh is freaking out, worried that we're going to have to tow it and call the car company and all this crap. I look and there's no real damage to the car, and only the back tire is stuck, so it doesn't look like it's going to be much trouble. Quynh calls up Chris, who drives up to see what the deal is and just laughs at our misfortune. This prompts him to call up Alex and Storm, who both also laugh at our situation. Two well-meaning pretty decent Americans stuck in a ditch at night in Alex's grandfather's vineyard.

Alex first wants to tow our car, but his truck ends up not being able to pull it out. Storm's idea- smoke the J that he has been rolling since he drove up and just wait until the morning to deal with this- an idea that's not terrible, but that isn't really helpful to us (though I'm glad someone else wasn't freaking out). We finally settle on having Chris, Alex, and Storm lift the side of the car while I try to drive out, an idea which works beautifully and we're free from the ditch. We drive home and laugh about the past 48 hours. Again- how the hell do these things happen to us?

Surviving Stellies: Part 1

Somehow we have made more friends in Stellenbosch than in Cape Town.

Friday afternoon we had plans to drive into Stellenbosch to stay with our friend Pierre, whom we had stayed with the last time we were over. We got to his place around 5 and just crashed. Pierre was taking it easy because he had a hockey (read: field hockey, which is played by men everywhere but America), but he offered to take us for a walking tour on this mountain overlooking the Stellenbosch sports fields. It’s a very similar hike to East Rock, accompanied by his huge Weimeraner named Faustus. The more he tells us about US (University of Stellenbosch), the more it sounds like Yale in terms of structure- lots of Res’s (equivalent to our college system), with a system of old white men behind it and funding it. But US has kept a lot of its conservatism and whiteness- it’s about 10% colored and 10% black, but still classes are taught in Afrikaans, and heated conversations pop up on occasion regarding race relations and even between kids of English descent and Afrikaners because of old scars from the Boer Wars, when the English opened a can of whoopass on South Africa (at least, the 2^nd one was. Pierre has the wonderful combination of being both colored and part English). A lot of the kids at US come from neighboring farms and winelands in the countryside and from families who have been at US for years.

After listening to some FreshlyGround (download them ASAP, if you’ve heard the remake of Waka Waka it’s also them but their music by itself is pretty chill), Pierre decides that he won’t do any work and will go out with us. But first we need to get some dinner, so he brings us over to his friend Stewart’s place. We had met Stewart the last time we were in Stellies and he’s a really nice guy, very English and traditional. He lives with his roommates Grant, Mike, and Dirk (not present) in a beautiful flat outside of campus that costs $200 US to rent (this for a gated community that is like the apartments on the corner of Edgewood and Park, but 5 times nicer).

The guys are all really funny and all fellow hockey players. We chat and watch youtube videos of US and Yale and LED sheep art while they cook some burgers. Mike tells us of his current scheme growing rainbow trout in a friend’s lake so that he can sell them to local restaurants, carefully reciting all of the prices and numbers he’s memorized in preparing offers to said restaurants. We also hear of a drinking activity called the Strawpedo, essentially a much faster version of a beer funnel that sounds mesmerizing. They enjoy making fun of Mike for being from Bellville, which as we’ve always heard, is like the “white trash” part of Cape Town. So as we were driving in Pierre’s incredibly beat up car, we joked about pushing our seats all the way back and getting arm and leg extensions so we could drive Bellville Style. Pimp my Ride with X to the Z Xzibit, Cape Town edition.

Pierre convinces Stew to come out with us, so the four of us head to the Brazen Head- an Irish pub that we had watched the World Cup game at the last time we were in Stellies. During this car ride, Pierre also reminds me of a few things that I had forgotten had happened from my last night in Stellenbosch.

1) Dmitri coerced me into helping to pay for the weed by taking R60 out of my pocket. He really made an impression on these kids because they all remember that.

2) We got stopped at a roadblock on the way to bringing Dmitri back home. Both Pierre and I had definitely been drunk, and Dmitri was stoned out of his mind and shouting in the back seat, prompting me to yell “Everyone look as sober as possible and don’t talk” before Pierre reluctantly presents his license to the officer.

3) I met a kid named Storm

4) Dmitri decided to freestyle for the entire party and dropped a few bars about his time in Cape Town, including beauties like “Swam with a shark/ain’t no walk in the park”

Brazen is packed. Since US has just come back within the week, they have had their version of Camp Yale (which lasts throughout the semester) since Wednesday. As we wade through tons of US kids (or as I called it, the White Sea, not to be racist or anything), we find a little table and grab some beers. It’s at this time that I recognize someone in the next room- and it’s not a good thing. The guy who had been bothering everyone at Mr. Pickwick’s when we were watching the World Cup final on Long St. has magically appeared at the bar. My freaking out is drowned by the shouting and slamming of glasses on tables around me, but I try to avoid eye contact as much as possible for fear that he’s tried to dial the fake number I gave him at Mr. Pickwick’s.

We’re there for a bit, and then we decide to move on to Terrace. Terrace has undergone some renovations and now has a bit more space for people to stand. It also has lost its food license and subsequently its pizza oven because the oven was sort of in the middle of where people would be, causing pizzas to occasionally smell of Castle and have the tang of vomit. But Terrace is exactly like Toad’s, just a little nicer, but the same sort of place where your shoes get stuck to the floor, you try not to touch anything in the bathrooms, and the dance floor is open grounds for hookups and the occasional sexual act.

We had gone to Terrace with the intention of meeting up with our friends from the wine tour. And occasionally we ran into them- a really drunk Nick and a really drunk Chris both popped up at various parts of the night. Pierre introduces me to Terrace’s (and Stellenbosch’s) signature drink- Cane and Cream Soda, a green concoction made with cream soda and cane alcohol (which is supposedly illegal in the states) that is absolutely delicious. And I imagine has the same effects as grain punch.

I meet this girl who comes across the room and starts to dance with me. She looks sort of young but we start to introduce ourselves. I tell her my usual spiel about being an American college student and she hits me with this: “This is my first time sneaking out of my house”. WTF? Based on my knowledge of South African youth and the clubbing scene, that puts her at around 15. That’s younger than my sister . She leaves soon after with her other young looking friends but gives me her number in case I’m ever back in Stellenbosch.

Pierre, Stew, Quynh and I are still hanging out. Pierre and Stew are definitely restraining themselves, but know a lot of people in the club. They soon introduce me to one of their female field hockey friends. We get to talking, and to say the least, I may have promised her my Yale hoodie and now she is programmed into my phone as Xtina. Her friend also comes along, and possibly inadvertently flashes Pierre as he tries to show her ways to get the bartender to serve more drinks later in the night. I also somehow end up dancing soekkie with her. I’m not sure how Afrikaner guys learn how to be so nimble, but it’s just not for me.

A note about Terrace’s bathrooms: they are disgusting. Any place that has a urine basin (quite a large basin at that) is pretty disgusting.

We leave for the night and go back to Pierre’s. Though he gives us the option of partying until 6 am at another club, we need to save our health.

Diversity Day, St. Joseph's Style

Acker car rentals seems to have an issue with cars breaking down as of late, because our American coworkers also had their car and their backup car break down.

Today we had what was essentially a “diversity day” workshop for our staff. Although we did not walk around with index cards and have to get people to guess what ethnicity our card had based on imitations and stereotypes, it was quite a learning experience. Led by a woman who worked for SA Petrol, it was 3.5 hours of cultural awareness training.

There were a few cultural tidbits I picked up from it that I had never known before.

- Most Xhosa names have some sort of meaning behind them

- In Afrikaans culture, daughters are named after their grandmother, their grandfather, and their mother in that order

- Xhosa and Afrikaans people tend to be really loud. Really loud.

- During apartheid, stores in bantustans/homelands could only sell 27 types of products, so many items are now referred to by the one brand that was sold (e.g. Colgate toothpaste, plastic bags being known as Checkers). Even in the townships, those specific brands are still painted on the fronts of the take aways

A breakdown of the racial hierarchy

1) White

2) Honorary white

a) Chinese (because of trade) (although other people I’ve talked to have said that Chinese were thought as either black or colored)

b) Japanese (because of trade, especially stuff like Kawasaki and Hyundai)

c) Important black people (e.g. black entertainers, so that they could get rushed treatment at hospitals. Dave Chappelle’s racial draft would have made Tiger Woods white anyways)

3) Indian (because they had spices and money and could afford more land)

4) Colored

a) Cape Colored

b) Bastas

c) Griqua

d) Mixed

e) Cape Malay (though they tried to claim Indian descent)

f) Colored (yes, colored colored. From the Eastern Cape which was mainly Xhosa)

5) Black

Every day tends to be another lesson about apartheid. That’s how much a part of their lives it was (though I’m sure it was the same for most oppressive “regimes”). Entire colored families could all have different races on their identity documents if the mother and father weren’t the same race, and thus have children removed and placed elsewhere if they looked too white.

Talked with Mrs. Patterson. Got edits for our 11 page paper and we’re almost done. 2 more days of work.

The Whale and the Lion

Because Jack decided to die, we couldn’t do anything on Monday except wait for Moosa to get me so that I could fetch the car. They made fun of my hard luck finding a nice South African (read: colored) girl, and made more fun of Quynh’s “poor taste” in finding an Afrikaner guy. Also, hookups are called “contacts” here. Which gives a whole new meaning to my cell phone contact list.

Once Jack was back (the Cam belt snapped so they replaced it), we decided that we would take day excursions to places that we still wanted to go to before we leave.

Tuesday- Hermanus, land of the whales. Situated an hour’s drive west, Hermanus is the site of the annual Whale Festival and is apparently the world’s best land spot to watch whales…when they’re there. And since Quynh lives in a suburb outside of Chicago, she’s really excited to see whales because she’s never seen them before.

Before we left, we talked relationships with our secretary Magda.

We left at 11 to try and make it to Hermanus while it was still nice (26 C for a winter day is bonkers). We decided to take the coastal route so that we could travel along the sea for a bit before turning onto the road for Hermanus.

After briefly getting lost somewhere along the beaches in Strand, we figured out where the beach route was (hint: find the beach, then drive on the road next to it). Glorious. GLORIOUS. The sea looks pearly blue as you drive along the mountains (yes that’s right, not only are there beaches, but also stunning mountain ridges). We kept pulling over every few kilometers to take pictures of us doing various things and getting slightly different views of the coast (mountains moving about 2 yards to the right in every different spot). At one point, we pulled over and found that we had stumbled upon a pack of baboons chilling in the grass, little baby baboons falling over one another and big papa baboons looking menacing. As tempting as it was to get out, we didn’t want to risk having a baboon jump into the car (though I’m not sure if it is illegal to transport baboons here. If a squirrel jumped into my car in New Haven, it wouldn’t be illegal. Unless I gave it rabies or strapped a laser onto its head and then released it in, say, West Haven).

And the beauty continued. Deep valleys lying between two peaks, filled with rocks and overhangs painted to resemble alligators and dinosaurs. Flowers, crops, and even more vineyards lining the sides of the roads. The occasional resort hotel, appealing to those who love living in the middle of nowhere for a few days. I imagine if I lived in Arizona or California, these trips wouldn’t be nearly as exhilarating or exciting. But since Virginia Beach’s highest point is a landfill covered with sod and turned into the city’s largest playground, affectionately named Mount Trashmore (to the beach kids- remember the April Fools Day when they said the mountain was going to explode because the trash had decomposed and the chemicals were creating pressure under the surface?), I’m constantly in awe.

We finally drive into Hermanus around 1:30 or 2 and get a meal. The tourism center tells us that the best plan of action is to go along the “cliff walk path” and just hope for whales. The path winds along the coast and passes many rock formations, including a really impressive one called “the amphitheater”, which looks exactly like a Greek theater. Aristophanes would have been impressed.

Hermanus also has a quirky thing called the whale crier. When I first heard this term, I imagined the old fisherman guy who is on the front of a Fish Sticks box living in a small hut on the beach. The whale crier is a person you can call up and ask if there have been any whales sighted so that you don’t waste your time driving to Hermanus, which really doesn’t have a lot of other things going for it aside from seafood and nice views while you eat said seafood. Coincidentally, the whale crier’s whale radar broke the day before, so she could not tell us if there were actually any whales around.

Unfortunately, we never saw any whales. Lots of beautiful blue ocean, but no whales. We did however have dinner at a “tapas” restaurant, at which I made the incredibly unwise decision to eat an entire bowl of chicken livers by myself. This a day after my host mom packed me a bowl of tomato stewed ox tripe, complete with little ox hairs floating in my rice. Usually I like tripe, but usually the tripe is cut into little pieces rather than something resembling a tongue.

The next day, we decided to hike up Lion’s Head after work. From Cape Town, there are 3 major mountains you can see- Devil’s Peak, a jagged looking mountain that supposedly isn’t easy to climb; Table Mountain, a long, flat range that I hiked up before; and Lion’s Head, named because it looks like a reclining lion. Really, if you’ve ever seen Aladdin, it looks like the lion’s head that forms in the sands of Agrabah that bring you to Jafar’s lair.

By the time we drove up towards Lion’s Head, it had started getting cloudy on the mountainside. Emily had told us the trail should take about 45 minutes to get up, which seemed sensible until the super-steep section that comprises the second half of hiking. The trail didn’t seem to exist in these parts, instead yielding to huge slabs and boulders that you had no choice but to climb. At one point, the trail forks and you either choose the recommended route around the mountain or the expedited route up the mountains. Of course I choose the more dangerous route.

This route involves chains, because the only other way to do it would be to have equipment. There are occasional footholds and handholds hammered into the mountain, but otherwise you are hoisting yourself with a chain up a sheer wall. Which was a lot more fun than it sounds.

After more climbing up jagged precipices and sharp ledges, we made it to the top of Lion’s Head in about an hour. Whereas earlier in the hike we were able to see the bays and the city and everything, at the top we were surrounded by clouds. And more clouds.

On the hike down, we passed by a bunch of kids wearing American college sweatshirts who ended up being people doing a semester abroad/exchange program through UCT. It was just funny to see an inventory of universities coming towards us, including one girl who gladly shouted “Yale sucks” upon seeing my own sweatshirt.

I'm on a (Ferry) Boat

On Saturday, we were due to go to Robben Island, the island where Nelson Mandela spent most of his prison sentence. Unfortunately, as I was driving to Quynh's house, Jack decided to die. Literally, I was driving and all of a sudden the accelerator just gives up and I slow to a stop in the middle of a turn lane just 2 blocks from Quynh's house. Luckily a nice guy helps push me to the side of the road while Quynh meets me.

When the mechanic gets there, he informs us that our cam belt has snapped, a repair that should be able to be done in a day (just replace the belt), but mysteriously all possible repair shops are "closed", so we are stranded without a car and rely on the help of Moosa to drive us down to the Waterfront to catch the ferry.

The ferry ride is quite nice. The boat holds about 300 people and is docked right behind the Gateway Museum. The weather has luckily held out for us, as the bay is just sunny and blue, everything you could ask for a day in which you have to sail across to the island. As you sail out of port, I feel like I could be leaving like a Greek island, just replaced with the mountains of South Africa and the houses of the flats extending across the land.

Robben Island is named so because there were seals on the island (seal, Afrikaans- rob). When you sail into port, it smells like bird...shit. There's something like a natural port set up of interweaved stones, all covered with white splotches of birdshit. After stepping off the ferry, you are met by tour buses which initially take you around the island to see most of the general buildings. Our guide, like most South Africans, is full of very strange jokes involving how strict he is, but his grandfather had been imprisoned on the island.

The houses are very Dutch colonial and very prison-like. They are all almost identical and plain and would probably make any prisoner crazy out of boredom. But the island itself is beautiful- strangely, maximum security prisons tend to be in awesomely beautiful locales (Alcatraz?). It's strange because people still live on the island- staff, families- and still use many of the old apartheid facilities. One of the more profound things we saw was the rock quarry that all the political prisoners had to work in, now with a monument made of rocks placed by the ex-prisoners a few years after their release. It literally is just a pile of rocks, but when you see how big the quarry is, how big the open spaces where prisoners just sat and broke rocks all day are, it's really quite moving.

The strangest part of the tour is when we went inside the prison blocks. Robben Island has employed former political prisoners to conduct these tours- the one we had was a very nice, old man wearing a beanie too big for his head who had been sentenced for "high treason". He was incredibly cordial and outgoing, even making jokes that "the prison was ours" and to make our "short walk to freedom" after we left the prison. You could see his face had been worn out from years of imprisonment- he could barely recognize his family when he was released and didn't even know that he had a son, whom he inadvertently made him buy cigarettes. It's a very strange thing to see people who spent their whole lives trying to figure out ways to get out of Robben Island being paid to go back and walk through their actual cells, show where they were tortured and where they were refused food and where they hid documents. It would be like paying old Jewish women to lead trips of concentration camps. I don't know how they have the strength to do it other than it being a presentation of their life, an enlightening of other people to what they had to endure for years.

Spur: The Official Restaurant of the South African Family

I'm sorry I haven't posted in a while. I have about 10 pages of posts ready to publish. Unfortunately, I think I may have angered the IT guys at my work because I've become famous for surpassing my internet bandwidth cap on a daily basis (I haven't been allowed to use the internet for 5 days).

About a week and a half ago, it was my host mom's birthday. For dinner, she decitht we would go to Spur Steak Ranch.

I've been waiting to go to Spur for quite some time, because we considered it one of the most racist things we had ever seen, especially in a country where racial tolerance is still just a rebellious 16 year old (Mandela arrived in 1994). Spur is a Native American-themed restaurant, complete with little Native American boys as mascots. From personal experience, anything with feathers has never really been kosher in America (just ask Wiliam & Mary, who had to remove the feathers from their WM logo and whose mascot went from the Tribe to a green blob named Colonel Ebirt to an unusually mannish looking Wren).

Each of the many Spur restaurants (probably more than 100 through southern Africa and the UK) has a vaguely Native American/Western/Southwestern/Midwestern/hey we saw this in a John Wayne movie name. Examples: Golden Spur, Acapulco Spur, Alamo Spur, Apache Spur, Coyote Spur, Pasadena Spur, etc. I ended up at Cherokee Spur, in the lovely Wynberg Mall.

Spurs are billed as family restaurants. Because of this, almost every Spur has its own "Play Canyon" where kids can reenact cowboys and indians. They are also sometimes Halaal and even have free wireless. We were something like a family of 16 and found a table of our own in the back where we were free to watch the U20 Women's World Cup (Marek and Sebastian were quite happy to see a German team dominating South America because there were some big German girls on that team). Everyone was chatting and passing around coupons for free meals and I talked to Fredre about her upcoming wedding.

Spur is supposed to be a steakhouse (and damn, do they have good ribs and burgers). Everything comes with chips and onion rings. But Spur is so much more multidimensional, with sections on the menu called "El Gran Mexicano", "Chicken and Schnitzel and Seafood", and even their famous Tom Two Arrows breakfast. And all of that can be topped with their famous "Monkey Gland" sauce (apparently it got its name because in some old South African hotels, chefs couldn't please the Afrikaans crowds with their fancy, sophisticated European sauces, so they just mixed bunch of prepared sauces from bottles and gave it a funny name and they loved it).

As much as I didn't want to, I thought Spur was pretty delicious. I even stole a placemat documenting some spinoff of the Trail of Tears but in the founding of Spur. I stil have no idea why a Native American themed restaurant is the national restaurant of South Africa, but hey, it's pretty good. Hung out with Moira's kids/fiancees for the rest of the night and just played FIFA. So South African. But I learned 2 more things.

1) South Africans love this candy called wine gums. They're just gummy candy(a bit harder than you'd expect) that are literally blocks that say the names of alcohol- bordeaux, port, champagne, sherry, etc (drinking is big here. baie big). But when you taste them there's no hint of alcohol or real flavor other than sugar.
2) Around where I live, there are a lot of people who just run convenience stores out of their houses. Lucien went to go pick up some beer, and since the bottle stores were closed, we literally stopped outside of a house, ran inside, and bought some 6 packs of Castle. And apparently there are a few houses like that on that very street.

Things That People Have Tried to Sell Me/I've Seen Sold in Cape Town

Being sold stuff in the streets is not an unusual thing wherever you go. But some of the things I've been haggled for/seen sold just driving on the streets are fantastic. Among them:

Whips (the guy even hit my car with it to show its effectiveness)
Copper handcuffs
Jumper cables
Electrical wires (so that people can steal electricity in the townships)
Granola bars (every morning)
Fish (both legitimately at marinas, and not legitimately out of the back of a car)
Produce (mainly oranges, along with potatoes and peppers)
Dog kennels (some of which are bought by homeless people to burn)
Lumber/sand/concrete
Smileys (whole roasted lamb heads, popular in the townships)
Impressive collections of tupperware
Newspapers
A woman (well, I think it was a woman. or rather, now she's a woman)
Inspirational DVDs (through the window of an ice cream shop)
Car washes (literally, in Khayelitsha, boys attack your car with squirt bottles and squeegees and expect some money from you. but most of the time they can't hear you if you don't)
Joke pamphlets (usually very bad jokes or unusually macabre jokes)
Traditional herbal medicine/weed
Haircuts (so many barbershops and beauty salons in containers along the street)
Chickens (live)
Free car alarms
Ostrich eggs and other fine African handicrafts
Refrigerators, sinks, and doors
Black garbage bags (really popular)
Country flags
Country flag rain jackets and capes (literally, a flag with a hood and sleeves added on)

The Finale

Sadly the World Cup ended on Sunday. And sadly, the Dutch, who I’ve supported for the entire cup, went down 1-0 in a brawl of a game to Spain (though I did appreciate the adaptation of Ole, ole ole ole! to Offsides, offsides offsides offsides, regardless of whether that was correct). Madness hit the streets of Cape Town, where a pro-Dutch crowd sadly watched as the South Africans who had luckily bought Spanish gear before the game celebrated their victory.

Although I’m going to miss the frequent commercials telling me that it’s Ayoba time and to Feel It because It is Here, or the little boy who screams Ke Nako (we can/it’s time) before every game, it’s been a fantastic month of games to watch. And with Waving Flag and Wakka Wakka still at the top of the charts, it’ll always feel like the World Cup here.

My host dad said something really interesting the other day while watching an interview Shakira gave in Johannesburg for a girls’ program she was speaking at. “Did you hear Shakira’s accent? I really enjoy walking out and hearing different people’s accents here at the World Cup. Because before, only white people used to be able to travel. And now people from all over are able to come here. It’s fantastic man.”

It’s little things like this that make me realize how much of an impact this World Cup has had on post-apartheid race and class relations. While Quynh and I stood at the fan park for the Netherlands-Uruguay game, we were surrounded by people of all races, students, foreigners, businessmen- all talking to one another, blowing each other’s vuvuzelas, mostly cheering for the Dutch (a revelation in itself given the Dutch’s reputation from colonial times and their association with the former Afrikaner government). I was always told to avoid taking public transportation (and even my colored family avoids taking trains late at night because if you go any further from the city than our area, you have an increasingly higher chance of getting robbed), and yet I could take the train back from Green Point stadium with people of all types late at night without any worry. If the biggest worry your government has to face is Paris Hilton’s marijuana-toting friends or someone breaking into England’s locker room, I’d say you’ve succeeded.

I was also reminded by how small the Yale bubble makes the world. While in Cape Town, we've had 2 Yale friends- Emily and Tasnim. But while sitting at the Old Biscuit Mill, a hipper, more upmarket sort of farmer's market held in what used to be a factory that made teabiscuits and cookies, we ran into our friend Jake Amatruda. We've only met Jake once or twice dating back to the orientation for people going abroad to South Africa, which is where we met Tasnim. This visit, however, was even stranger because, to our knowledge, Jake should have been somewhere around Durban, which is way far away in the northeast, working with Grassroots Soccer with some former Piersonites (one of whom has a bowl that is in my former roommate Chris's possession). So we spent the day catching up and driving around with Jake's parents who had come to visit, leading to us eating springbok and ostrich while watching the Germany game. South Africa has also done something to our sleep schedules, as all 3 of us were passing out in the middle of the restaurant. Also, I really need to go on a safari.

The Drunchies and Other Musings on my Diet

Before I came to Cape Town, I was warned that I needed to be constantly vigilant because of its high crime rates. After living here for a month, I feel like the most dangerous risk to my health is the food.

Chapter 1: Late Night Eats

In 3 years of college at Yale, I have sampled just about everything you can eat after a long night of drinking, partying, and Toad’s. As much as I love the butcher-paper plainness of a #3 at GHeav (with it’s mozzarella, lettuce, and chicken cutlet glory smothered in honey mustard), the thick, gummy texture of my traditional fish ball udon soup or the spicy nuttiness of sesame wontons from Ivy Noodle, or the delightful fresh green tang of pesto chicken pizza from Est Est Est, Cape Town may have won my heart.

Cape Town’s late night fare is influenced heavily by both English/Dutch and Cape Malay culture. The second time I went out with Fredre and Gareth, I learned about Cape Town’s love for pies. We’re not talking apple pies like cartoon grandmothers left on window sills to be stolen by animals (Capetonians bluntly call those tarts)- these are manly pies, pies that I could see the knights eating after a jousting tournament and then ravishing the town wench. These pies are about the size of your hand, if not a little bigger. Forks are somewhere between optional to unnecessary. So far my favorite flavor has been steak and kidney, though chicken and mushroom and peppersteak are also good. And vegetarians, do not fret- spinach and feta pies have been spotted.

The second dish (which I have seen but not sampled) is the chow- essentially a bigger sandwich, usually rectangular in shape. With Pierre, I saw the chip chow, a big sandwich with steak, lettuce, tomato, cheese, and of course chips (fries). But another delicacy that I’m waiting to have is the bunny chow- essentially a loaf of bread filled with a meat curry that Moira really likes. Originating in the Indian communities of Durban (in the north), bunny chows exist around here, but aren’t as appreciated as the king.

The king of course is the Gatsby, named because of its resemblance to the hat that the Great Gatsby wore. And yes, the Gatsby is impressive enough to merit being capitalized. In my book, the Wenzel is a symbol of late night perfection- easy to eat, messy enough to lower your guard and enjoy it to the fullest, filling enough to not want more (though sometimes it happens). Here, the Gatsby is the South African response. The Gatsby was created by people in the Cape Flats, mainly a colored community here in Cape Town where I happen to live, as a way to eat their leftovers in a creative way (think the post-Thanksgiving sandwich or the Wawa Gobbler). Literally, you take a long loaf of bread and jam as much shit into it as you can.

My first experience with a Gatsby was a few weeks ago, when I had part of a Vienna sausage and a steak Gatsby, gatsbies which my host dad said weren’t worthy to be called gatsbies because they were small (about Wenzel size). For Quynh’s first experience, I told her that we had to go to the best. And that’s how we ended up at Golden Dish.

Golden Dish is strikingly like Alpha Delta. Sitting in the Rylands area of the flats, it looks like a run down restaurant save for the big neon sign outside. Parking attendants hustle cars out from the curb, and my parking attendant persistently jokes me for my inability to parallel park under pressure. When you walk in, the restaurant looks like it’s breaking multiple safety codes but is still bustling. Most places that serve gatsbies are owned by Indians or Muslims, and this is no exception. A long glass case extends for the entire front of Golden Dish, displaying snack foods sitting under heat lamps- sausage rolls (like pigs in a blanket), samoosas (triangular pastries filled with beans and meat), donuts, and éclairs, among other things. People of all types wait in front of us- Muslim women wearing headscarfs, black construction workers, World Cup volunteers, a white rasta, businessmen, whole families- this is the food for the masses.

The Gatsby that we order is called the chicken full house Gatsby- the biggest one you could order, and at R72, $1-2 US more than the Wenzel or GHeav. The pictures of it on the menu look like a loaf of bread having a C section to reveal the remains of a garbage disposal, but it looks delicious. Seeing it presented to us, it actually looks to be the size of a newly born baby wrapped in butcher paper. At about 2 feet long and weighing a few pounds, the chicken full house Gatsby is awe-inspiring.

Other than chicken, the Gatsby was loaded with cheese, seasoned chips, thousand island dressing (an unusual favorite in South Africa), 4 fried eggs, and lettuce and tomato for good measure. We cut it into 4 pieces- traditionally, Gatsbies are to be cut into no more than 4 pieces, and in restaurants you can’t get them cut into more than 4. And you usually don’t eat them by yourself- often they are shared by entire families. Traditionally you also drink something called “Cabana Juice”- a packaged drink made of skim milk and fruit punch, but I subbed a nice bottle of Windhoek beer.

If the Wenzel was a prostitute, the Gatsby would be its overweight, Siamese twin madam smoking a cigar when you met her at the brothel. Biting into my piece was a shameful piece of heaven- the fries are delightfully pungent and sharp in their spices (almost like Old Bay seasoning), but mix well with the cheese and dressing. There aren’t many vegetables to mask the large pieces of boneless chicken, but it’s the eggs that make you self-conscious. After eating a quarter, I just wanted to go run some laps to make myself feel better about what I had just done. It’s such a heavy sandwich and you feel as if you’re eating years off of your life, but it’s so good that you just keep going for more. And eating it is a precarious operation, trying to find the right grip and the right way to wrap your fingers so you don’t lose any of the goodness inside. Quynh and I essentially split the sandwich (her host mom eats a small bit of mine not because I couldn’t finish it but because I’m generous) and attempt to watch the Spain/Germany game, during which she promptly falls asleep and I last until 10 minutes into the 2nd half. Food coma at its finest.

I still have to sample the milkshakes at Mr. Pickwick’s, but from what I saw on the menu they look damn good. Anyone who makes milkshakes with Jager must be right.

Chapter 2: Daily meals

I lucked out in my host family in finding someone who would cook most of my meals. Unfortunately, Moira cooks some heavy food.
First off, our house (and Cape Town in general) has interesting habits. Milk mainly comes as whole milk (called full cream milk) and is in bags, as jugs are an innovation of the last 2 years based off of larger American portions. Milk and eggs are also routinely left out. The house also doesn’t really have a lot of produce, especially vegetables. Often, my lunch and dinner end up being super carnivorous. The other day, my lunch was a sandwich with butter AND mayonnaise (WHY???) and fried eggs. Occasionally I get something like cheeseburgers (not always made with real beef and using sliced bread) or biryani. One day, my dinner was literally a rib, a chicken wing, a sausage roll, and 2 pieces of mozzarella chicken. And if you tell Moira you like something, you’ll get a large quantity of it. That’s why the house has such a large repository of Tang (yes, the orange drink powder) and sweet chili sauce on my sandwiches.

Also, springbok (the national animal of SA) tastes just like a gamy beef pot roast and has the same stringy texture. And ostrich is surprisingly tender and lean for a red meat. And biltong (their version of jerky) is moist and wonderful.

Vyr de Julie- The Sequel to Stellenbosch

After waking up from the debauch that was Saturday, Dmitri, Quynh, and I never wanted to see wine again. Someone ate all my potato chips (Dmitri) and left them scattered through my back seat. Somehow the three of us acquired a total of 7 wine glasses. And a lemon that looks like a lime. Then we made the long drive back through wine country, recounting all the crap that had just happened to us.

Since it’s the 4th of July, we had wanted to do something with all the Americans (read: Yalies) we knew, but only Emily could make it. After finally showering and eating some food, I headed out to pick up Emily from Observatory and then Quynh to head to Cape Point, the southernmost point in South Africa.

None of us have made it all the way down to the point before- each of us has taken our own trip to the seaside towns but that’s it. Quynh and I are still tired and Emily has retold a story of her going to a club named Gandalf’s with a VIP section called Mordor near her house.

To be super patriotic, I’ve brought my big American flag and put it in my back window and brought a miniature one for my dashboard. As we drive down towards Muizenberg, the sort of gateway to Cape Point, I’m left to think of a few things about driving. Quynh already hates how I drive because she says that I drive too fast and follow too closely. Neither of these are that true. But my car (its name is Jack- or at least, that’s what the guys at the rental place named it) has been holding up well.

Fun facts about Jack:
1) He’s a very old Toyota Corolla
2) In order to start Jack every day, I have to unlock a huge padlock off my gearshift, activate the immobilizer to lock my car, and turn off my anti-theft device bypass. Or else the car shuts off and I’m fucked.
3) The radio (which detaches or else my car would probably have been smashed into by now) doesn’t always work, signaled by really loud buzzing
4) When the radio does work, it only plays out of the front left speaker
5) Jack doesn’t like to go more than 120 km/hr or else he vibrates violently
6) Jack always has this whooshing sounds that makes you think the windows are open

Fun facts about the Cape Town road network:
1) Highways are split up into national roads, which can take you anywhere through South Africa, and major roads, which get you through the cities and towns
2) Highway signs are often posted way too far to the right, which forces me to count lanes whenever I have to follow them
3) Normal street signs are often little concrete markers right on street level rather than signs elevated above you, so it’s impossible to know where you are
4) Highways like to twist onto themselves, which make for impossible to read signs
5) Sometimes the signs are in Afrikaans, which is even more difficult
6) Robots (stoplights) don’t mean anything after 9:00 pm. There are actually laws that let you drive through lights if you think that there are creepy people waiting to smash into your car
7) You can’t turn left on red
8) Drivers in Cape Town are incredibly aggressive. When the driver ahead of you turns it is expected to overtake the car.
9) Walk signals do not turn on for very long
10) Speed bumps are bigger, longer, and hurt your car more
11) Taxis are the most godawful drivers on Earth (I’m pretty sure you have to have a criminal record, and cops reportedly don’t mess with them because drivers have shot at them). They have no respect for things with wheels, including the horse-drawn carriages that also share the road.


As we pass Muizenberg, I get excited because there’s both a huge water slide and mini golf (sounds just like Virginia Beach eh?) that I convince Emily we have to go back for sometime. Traffic is really congested because it’s a one-lane road and there’s construction and it’s a sunny day. In winters in Cape Town, it’s really a race against the clock to do nice things because almost everything here is weather-dependent. And with the influx of tourists for the World Cup, that race has a whole lot of people in it.

The most entertaining part of our drive is that there are signs along the road warning you of baboons and penguins. So of course we have to investigate both. On the way to Cape Point, there is a famous beach called Boulder’s Beach where penguins can be found walking around. Now, this was a split-second decision, because it’s already around 3:30, and Cape Point closes at 5:30 and we’re not that close to it yet. But how can you pass up penguins? I decide to wear my flag as a cape for the day as we go out and walk on the boulders, taking more hipster (read: disposable camera) pictures. At one point I try to see if I can use my flag like a bullfighter and act as a toreador with the penguins. Apparently penguins are more resistant to visual stimuli than bulls (quote: “It’s like the running of the bulls. But with an American flag. And penguins”- Quynh Do).
We jump back on the road, and I know I have to really speed to get down to Cape Point so it’s still light out. The number of baboons signs increases (alternating between triangles with exclamation marks that just read “Baboons!” and more detailed signs about the eating habits and health risks of baboons), as does the beauty of the sea and beaches alongside the mountain.

As we drive along the long, winding ridges of the mountains in this part of the peninsula, we notice that the cars are stopped ahead. This is because baboons have started to have sex in the middle of the street, and quite aggressively. There are mother baboons with little baby baboons clinging to them walking around, and uniformed animal control stand in the road with big stick with hooks, warning people in cars not to get out. There’s even a sign that is specially put up in this situation sponsored by Avis Car Rentals telling you of the dangers of baboons (I wonder if Avis covers for monkey-damage in South Africa? Or my car company for that matter). Of course I circle back so we can get a bunch of pictures of the baboons frolicking.

By the time we finally make it to Cape Point, we have driven through rocky valleys and hills and gorges and it’s 4:30. The land could probably be used to film movies set on other planets. As we walk up to where the lighthouse is that tried to warn ships that Cape Point exists, we see hundred of tourists shuttling back and forth, and get an occasional “Happy Independence Day!” from people who see my flag cape. We even run into my German housemates who have taken the day to also see Cape Point. Chinese/Japanese tourists also love taking pictures with the flag. I made an effort to jump onto rocks and elevated ledges to parade the flag. That’s called patriotism.

The view is wonderful though. The water is deep blue and we’re looking at where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans supposedly meet and blend together. If we had more time we would have gone to the beach (where there were apparently ostriches running around) or to the Cape of Good Hope, but alas all we could do was look around and take our pictures. We also didn’t want to be late leaving or else we would have been charged R500 for no real reason.

Driving back, we stopped by a store selling African crafts (think the wooden sculptures of large game animals you see- those stands are everywhere) so the girls could take pictures inside a wooden hippo’s mouth. As we continued on, we could see the sun setting, and so we managed to get the radio to work so we could play the Lion King soundtrack as I ran around outside with the flag and we took pictures of the sunset. If that’s not hipster I don’t know what is.

We stopped to get dinner in Kalk Bay at Cape to Cuba, a very famous restaurant that is Cuban themed. And of course, Cuban themed really means Communist-themed (complete with a huge stained-glass Lenin). It’s a good seafood restaurant right next to the train line that runs up the coast back to Cape Town, and full of chandeliers, kitsch, and Americans who loved my flag cape. Also a plus- you get free Che Guevara stickers with your receipt. That’s the sort of Communism I like to see.

In Vino Veritas

I normally hate getting drunk on wine unless said wine is from a box (note: South African box wine is top notch). I also feel like I constantly have to be sophisticated as I drink wine and hide my drunkenness, as opposed to the chaos that is created by games of Slap That. Most of these things were forgotten on Saturday.

South Africa is famous for its wine, and people often take drives on the “wine routes” to sample. This weekend was even better, as it was the Stellenbosch Wine Festival, an ode to grapes and Bacchanalic debauchery. Originally Quynh and I thought we were going to have to take an American named “Enrico” with us who was staying with Quynh’s host mom’s (Patsy’s) friend. We soon found out that Enrico was actually Dmitri, a Brazilian-Russian guy who went to Wesleyan and is now attending law school at BC. Dmitri had followed a girl to South Africa and was doing a program in Pretoria, but then the girl broke up with him, so now he has a plan to hook up with girls “from A to Z” (from Afrikaans to Zulu). I tried to up the ante by persuading him to hook up with a girl who spoke each of South Africa’s 11 national languages. He would fail in this task miserably later that night.

The drive to Stellenbosch is incredibly scenic- at least, the latter part of it is. As you drive towards the airport away from Cape Town, you pass all of the townships that we normally visit. It’s like an old, dusty Western town (or like Australia when it was a penal colony). We had Kid Cudi and tasty Thai Chili potato chips and were rolling down the road through farmlands and wineries, some of which had ostriches for no real particular reason (maybe they pick the grapes). You also pass the township of Kayamandi, traditional home to poorer workers from the various vineyards- it’s very strange to see it nestled into a place as rustic and posh as Stellenbosch.

Once we arrive at the Doornbosch park and ride, we head towards the main tent to purchase our day passes, festival vouchers, and complimentary wine glasses for R150. We also get a bunch of free stickers, saying things from “Serious Spitter” to “vyn fundi” (I know a lot about wine) to “Taste With Care”. From the park and ride, you can take shuttles on various routes to the wineries of your choice. The main station is a funny combination of white tents and couches that you imagine popping up at a P. Diddy party, free sushi and massages, lounge music, and burgers from Spur, a lovely Native American themed restaurant that is everywhere in South Africa. Not to mention the Exclusiloos- the nicest port-a-potties you will ever see, with clean rooms and very nice scents. I don’t know how you get into the luxury mobile restroom business but these guys have their system down.

We jump on the shuttle and get to Lanzerac, the oldest vineyard in Stellenbosch, at 9:30 in the morning. Luckily I had a big breakfast in the morning to counter what would come next. Here, you could taste 5 different wines and enjoy some chocolates. The pinotage (apparently a specialty in South Africa) was marvelous, as was a honey liquer which was literally honey with the after taste of alcohol- thick as maple syrup but 26% alcohol. We had a nice talk with the woman at the bar since we were the only people there and enjoyed some chocolates with our lovely red wine. Because we were the only people there, we also got to do a barrel tasting- tasting wines from barrels in various stages of maturation. Depending on what stage it was, you could taste the oaken flavor of the barrels or the grape picking up its acidity and color.

Technically, you aren’t really supposed to drink the wine at a tasting- you sip, take in the aroma and flavor, then spit and cleanse the palate with water. Oops. By the time we left, we had somewhere around 8-10 small glasses of wine. We also managed to finagle a tour of the cellar, seeing the dark rooms where the barrels are aged to the large steel vats where they finish. Afterwards we took a stroll outside to look at the countryside and the surrounding mountains. The vineyard has a smart tactic of planting special trees next to the vines so that they can test it for disease before it affects the grapes. And all the while, we talked with the tour guide from Botswana and took hipster pictures in front of grapes and barrels and sunny landscapes.

Jump on the bus at 10:30 and we’re off to winery #2- Neil Ellis. Whereas Lanzerac is old, rustic, like a really nice leather chair, Neil Ellis is minimalist but cutting edge, spacious and sunny but not overwhelming. It is intentionally understated. Here we could have 5 more wines as we sat tableside to the sunny fields of Stellenbosch. It was like a South African Sound of Music- I could imagine running with Julie Andrews wine-drunk and singing ridiculous songs to fight off the Nazis.

The three of us were just inhaling wines, even forgetting what glasses we had in front of us. The manager of the vineyard was a younger guy, but very educated about his wine (his father owns it) and would even give us extra wine other than our 5 to let us taste “better vintages” than the ones they originally offered. Quynh was clearly getting redder and eating an entire dish of olives by herself, while Dmitry and I feasted on breadsticks and talked about the nightlife in Pretoria and Cape Town. And the hipster pictures continued (with even our disposable camera coming out for cameos).

Winery #3 is Zorgvilet, a much more happening winery with a grill, food, and a guy dressed as a purple monster (no idea why, but I was drunk and I approved). Dmitry and I bought some more hot dogs and continued to taste wines. Here, there were multiple brands selling, so obviously we had to try all of them. Had we made it through all of them, we would have tasted 15 in total. I think I made it to somewhere between 6 and 8 before I decided to climb into a tree and wait for the shuttle. Afterwards we get back to Doornbosch and wolf down aforementioned Spur burgers. Carnivorous alcoholism.

We then made the wise decision to go to a station where Dmitri had heard you could taste 60 wines. Like we needed 60 more wines. But this was Bottleary Hills Center- essentially the Super WalMart (here it would be called WalMart Hyper) of wine and olives. Both floors were stocked with fridges of wine and all sorts of good stuff, which we proceeded to taste. It was around this time that we met a large group of South African college kids who went to U. Stellenbosch. We made friends and added them to our merry bunch and decided to go together to Bellevue Wine Estate.

(A note about U. Stellenbosch. It’s a very conservative, white Afrikaans school in the countryside. Classes are conducted in Afrikaans. It’s seen as a huge party school and many kids barely pass their classes if they don’t drop out. They also can major in winemaking and have a famous wine-tasting society. But it’s a pretty sweet school).

Quynh had been really excited about Bellevue because they had tractor rides (her Midwestern-ness really picks fun times to come out). As we go around the estate, there are nice benches and a cat as we sample a few of their wines (I’ve lost count at this point). We soon get the call for tractor rides, and all of us jump onto a huge wagon that takes us out into their vineyard.

If anyone knows the song “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, this would have been the time for that song to be blasting, or for all of us to magically appear with banjos and guitars and large objects that can be used as percussion instruments and play it. A bunch of college students, most nicely dressed for a wine tasting (even I will admit I threw on a nice collared shirt and had my aviators on for this day) taking pictures of one another as an old man explained his cultivation of grapes to us. EPIC. You could see mountains, valleys, fields, blue skies- it was the field of Elysia (or even just the fields that Maximus walks to in his death visions in Gladiator).

When we got back to the center, the Stellenbosch kids talk about watching the World Cup game at a bar, which we all agree to. From Bottleary Hills, we all have to get back to Doornbosch where are cars are. But of course, we can’t just go. Malie tells me I need to help her pick out some wines for the trip, so we grab a few R30 bottles with nice labels.

Literally, this trip should take no longer than 10 minutes. But we all have complimentary wine glasses and a bunch of bottles of wine (including a nice one I had picked up at Neil Ellis). The bus ends up being filled with 2 groups- ours, and another South African girl and her girlfriends all about our age celebrating the main girl’s birthday. As we drive off, everyone is just standing up, dancing to music, and pouring one another glasses of wine. We don’t even know these people and we’re just getting our drank on. Epicureanism at it’s finest. Bacchus would be proud.

At Bellevue we had discussed our need to watch the game (especially Dmitri and another Brazilian guy Manah, who needed to ensure that Argentina didn’t win or else the apocalypse would blow up all the favelas in Brazil). We end up going to a sports bar very late in the game, and all shocked that Germany is giving such an ass-kicking to Argentina (Why Maradona didn’t give Mascherano any help in the defensive midfield or Messi any help to free him up forward still boggles me). And somehow, I’ve ended up with a beer, which I don’t remember ordering but I still take it on. We’re now even drunker and now hungrier, so we all head to a pizza place called Sgt. Pepper’s which has gourmet pizza.

At this point, I’m sort of in a wine-induced daze. Some of you know the feeling- you know where you are but you don’t really but you do. We all caravan there and start eating, which from my memory I was doing pretty ferociously. I also do not remember paying for said meal. By this time, I’m exhausted from drinking wine all day and I start dozing off. But Pierre (Dmitri’s host mom’s son and Quynh and I’s acquaintance from a few weeks ago through Patsy) arrives, looking to bring our second wind. At some point Pierre throws napkins in my face and pours sugar on my head for catching me dozing off. But we persist. And soon it is declared that there shall be a house party at Chris’s (one of the guys from Stell who has been hitting on Quynh the entire night).

Of course, since we have had all the wine, we need to get even more alcohol. And of course it’s late, so most Stellenbosch liquor stores are closed. That’s when Pierre and I get the bright idea to go into Kayamandi and buy liquor. That’s right- we went into the townships to buy liquor. Dmitri had never seen the townships before and was intrigued by it all. We all head in and buy brandy and coke from a heavily gated place where Pierre points out a guy who will bring you where you need to buy liquor at 4 am.

The house party has started by the time the 3 of us get there. Quynh is surrounded by dudes, and I accompany (not really partake) Dmitri outside so he can smoke some stuff he has procured from the Stell kids. We watch the Spain/Paraguay game outside and everything is fantastic. Though some of my favorites from Stell leave, the rest of us head to a nightclub called Catwalk.

Now I’m already wary of places called Catwalk because of its namesake in New Haven, which is a strip club that I’ve heard very unsavory things about (including a friend who paid a stripper to go home because he felt bad that she had to strip). The place was typical of a lot of club experiences I have had in Cape Town- the music is a strange mix of hip hop, followed by really hard and intense techno, followed by something like the Counting Crows. It’s like someone used iPod shuffle but on a schizophrenic’s music collection. Again, my luck with the ladies has bottomed out and, when I’m just tired of being there, I end up sitting next to a practically comatose Dmitri, who is now feeling the effects of South African weed and is sitting like a gargoyle with a hood on a bench. Combined with the fact that the club is kinda seedy and the bouncer is a very old man, Catwalk is not for me.

After indicating to Pierre that Dmitri looks dead, we drive him back to Pierre’s house (where all of us are spending the night), while Quynh is being entertained by the other guys. When we go back to pick up Quynh, I imagine that we are done for the night and that we’re all just going home. But Pierre has other plans.

We instead go to another sort of shady place that Pierre says is a big deal that we’re going to. What it ends up being- a soekkie party. A frickin soekkie partie. For those who don’t know, the soekkie (pronounced socky/sucky) is a dance that Afrikaans kids usually do which is essentially doing waltz/ballroom steps to loud pop music. And is usually done in socks to help with gliding. So imagine some big burly kids doing spins and dips- that’s what we were witnessing. Somehow we take more shots with Pierre and just chill there for a while as he meets up with some of his friends from the STell hockey (read: field hockey) team. It’s a big deal for Pierre to be at one of these because he is colored, and this is traditionally a white thing to do. After being there for a while, Pierre is hungry and heads to the gas station with some of his friends for some food.

It is there that I see another glorious late night South African creation- the chip chow. A chow is similar to a Gatsby in that is essentially a loaf of bread with lots of crap in it. The chow uses a square/rectangular piece of bread, something like ciabatta, and scoops out some of the inside and then puts in the fillings (a bunny chow, made in Durban, is this but with curry instead). Meats, cheeses, vegetables, and of course, chips (fries) get stuffed in the sandwich. Had I not just consumed bottles and bottles of wine, I would have loved to eat it. But my stomach was not in a place to do this, so I refrained and looked on longingly at his sandwich. As we sat outside, Pierre was just belligerent and ranting about hockey and women and race relations (it always comes up). Some of his friends left to go drink more at a field at a winery somewhere, while we finally headed home. 3:30 am.

Community AIDS Care and Late Night Cravings

While we’ve been conducting our research, we have come across some really neat AIDS programs that are taking place in the townships. Etafeni is a program that started in a black township called Nyanga. It is literally one of the best examples of a grassroots organization I’ve ever seen. In my public health classes, we always use grassroots organizations and horizontal treatment of disease as almost standard responses to ways to improve health care in developing areas- these guys have been listening.

Though mostly funded by international donors (as most places here are), Etafeni sought to make facilities and programs that would not only help out the infected, but also the affected (a phrase I’ve heard repeated many times at the AIDS programs I’ve visited). They have a daycare that serves children of all ages in the community and gives them free food. Their school is also free, unless you can pay the R150 payment every year (an amount which is peanuts and is never pushed). The younger kids have opportunities to learn music (so many marimbas) and do alternative activities like dance and yoga. There are leadership and job placement program that help kids out with their resumes and put them into temporary jobs while Etafeni searches for more lasting ones. There’s even an income generation program, where mamas from the area can come and learn how to sew, do beadwork, and make other arts and crafts which are subsequently sold at Etafeni’s store (along with products donated by other shops), and whose profits go back into the program. The nutritionist at Etafeni has even started a program where Etafeni grows its own vegetables and herbs (along with employing men from the community to work the gardens instead of committing crimes), and even teaches other people in the community how to start their own gardens so their children can improve their nutrition.

On the medical side, Etafeni has home-based carers who do follow-ups in the community and ensure that people are getting their medicine and going to clinics regularly. They essentially have to know the entire community and rely on tips to find people who need help. Etafeni also has a very impressive AIDS testing program, even using a Tutu Mobile Tester (YESSSS) to go out into the communities and run HIV and TB tests. The clinic proudly displays a PEPFAR plaque (the only time I’ve not had a negative reaction to seeing a PEPFAR logo) and pictures of success stories and ways to prevent TB, one of which includes a sticker that looks like the stop signs we got at Sex Signals saying, “Stop TB. Open the Windows”.

The other program that has impressed me is Yabonga, more of a counseling program than an all-inclusive prevention program. They take people who have tested positive and use them as counselors and therapists to lead support groups at various clinics in the townships. We got to witness a particularly gruesome talk on STI’s, complete with the pictures of syphilis and genital warts and gonorrhea that you saw in high school that made you never want to have sex (or something like Mean Girls- “Don’t have sex because you will get pregnant and DIE”.) The woman we talked to was proud to disclose her status and uses her confidence to try and get other people to disclose their status and receive treatment.

Our home interviews are going fairly well now. We’ve traveled to the sea and back to find people with about a 60% success rate, as many people move to the Eastern Cape or just run away (my township talk will be in a later post).
Later on Thursday, I got a call from Fredre to come out and celebrate Gareth’s 30th birthday with them at a hip-hop club in town. The unfortunate thing- I would be driving. Since the car Fredre was in was full, I took her (and the beers she was drinking) to town. I literally had 5 minutes to get home, scarf down some food, and get ready for the drive out. Gareth was high out of his mind and couldn’t stop shouting at me and saying that I looked like a lumberjack, which distracted me enough to misjudge my reversing and hit the bumper of my car against Angelique’s house (no scratches though, but Fredre, who is already afraid of European drivers, was now leery of my driving from the start).

The club we went to was a little one, but had 2 sick DJs playing old school Hip Hop mash-ups. Fredre was starting to feel old because she ran into a kid she used to babysit there, and I made things worse when I told her that this music was probably the music I was conceived to (more likely my sister, but possibly me as well). Afterwards, we headed to a gas station to grab some late night eats and to let Gareth try to find some of the FIFA World Cup stickers he is eagerly collecting. I found out that in Cape Town, people love getting pies at night. And these aren’t fruit pies (those are tarts, I was told quite plainly in line); these are meaty pies. Sort of like the frozen chicken pot pies your mom would leave for you to make if she was away (maybe that was just me). They’re about the size of your hand and damn good. A cute drunk girl in line kept insisting that I get a peppersteak pie, and who am I to ignore a cute drunk girl?

Damn that pie was good.

On Friday we had team-building and a “Christmas in July” party for all the kids. Our work has been running a team-building program this whole week where the staff is divided into teams and has to accomplish various tasks from knitting to building a cardboard house (the one day I wasn’t doing home visits and participated, I had to play a version of Taboo with Christmas terms, but American Christmas terms, which don’t exactly mean a lot to South Africans. Even the Christian brothers I was reading to couldn’t get the damn names of Christmas carols). The last task was to have a blindfolded person make a paper Santa with our instruction, which we managed to win. While we were setting up for lunch, I had to diffuse a few fights between an 8 year old boy (one of my little ones, Keano, who is the most troublesome and outgoing of my ward) who was picking on a 21 year old girl (she’s a little behind developmentally) and a very nice deaf girl (who is significantly bigger than he is). Also, everyone here knows magic. I know I can juggle and stuff, but our frickin financial director had a magic wand and magic scarves that he had out of nowhere (he also apparently did a run of Godspell for 6 months, which I guess I should have seen coming). We also ended up having lots of talks about race relations and Judaism. I’m not sure why it’s such a popular topic because there really aren’t that many Jews in South Africa, but people were talking about Gaza for an hour (I was either talking about growing up in the South or burritos or the difference between pudding and cake at that point).

Also I made my first successful drive into the city to watch Uruguay v Ghana. Uruguayans should all flee Cape Town after Suarez’s handball. I understand everyone’s argument that he was justly punished under the laws of the game and that Ghana didn’t take advantage of their PK (Asamoah Gyan couldn’t even stand up after the game because he was crying so hard), but if FIFA is going to make little kids carry out a Fair Play flag every game, they might as well count that goal because Suarez was not playing fair. During the game I was also bought whiskey and Plays (Cape Town’s favorite energy drink) by a random guy with a wig who kept declaring that the Olympics would come to Cape Town. When bald guys wear wigs it scares me, but when bald guys wearing wigs buy me drinks it’s even scarier.