I had a rather unsuccessful day last Thursday at work- it began with me catching a part of my shirt on the bathroom door as I was leaving and literally tearing a huge hole in it in a very…unlucky area. Luckily I had a jacket with me and was able to go buy a new shirt and change in the ladies room at the Women’s Legal Centre before our weekly victim empowerment meeting began.
Another winning moment occurred during the meeting, when my cell phone fell off my lap and exploded on the floor. I bent down under the table to get it and on my way back up I SLAMMED my head into the table (shocker, I know). The meeting came to a screeching halt, and, after a pause, the head of the Women’s Legal Centre said, “and what school did you say you went to again?” Life: 2 points; Cary: 0.
When the meeting was over, I found out that my boss was not going back to the office because she had had to fire her “domestic worker” a week earlier for stealing (this apparently meant she could not stay at work for the full workday). I decided to follow her lead, and instead of going back to the office, I wandered among the stands in Greenmarket Square to buy some last minute souvenirs. While I was shopping I heard the unmistakable voices of Americans, and sort of accosted a group of American tourists like a lost dog starved for human affection. I don’t think they were excited to talk to me as I was to talk to them (me: “YOU’RE FROM CALIFORNIA?? THAT’S AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!”), but after being away from home for 2 months I REALLY miss fellow Americans. After leaving Greenmarket square, I was able to buy a medium sized duffel bag/rolly suitcase from a woman in the street for $23 in order to transport all of these souvenirs back home.
On Thursday night, we went to one of the nicest restaurants in Cape Town, a French place called Aubergine. The food was delectable and I think the ratio of servers to us (Hirsh, David, Jim and me) was about 4:1. From the aperatifs to the amuses-bouches to the dessert (I even had them bring out a special cake for Jim’s birthday), it was really a delightful meal.
Friday was kind of a weird day at work. There was definitely a negative/tense vibe in the air, because the whole office received an email around 11:00 am notifying them that their semi-annual work report was due that very day. So there was a lot of sighing and huffing and whispered conversations going on. Jim and I had a leisurely lunch and then wandered around some of the streets nearby checking out the vendors selling wire art. Wire art, a uniquely South African art form, is very, very popular in Cape Town and you can find it just about anywhere-- it basically involves artists making industrious use of wires, beads, and other scrap metal to make all sorts of cool figurines, keychains, jewelry, etc etc. Jim bought a wire man riding a wire bicycle that had wheels that actually turned. Note to family and friends: you will probably be receiving wire art in some form or another.
Random note about my gym: There have been a few interesting facets of my Cape Town gym-going experience. The other day I was running on the treadmill and my eyes were sort of wandering around in boredom (side note: I can't wait to be back in a place where it is safe and not weird to go running outside early in the morning). My eyes rested on the collection of black birds staring at me from the rafters lining the top of the wall just below the ceiling, and I suddenly realized that it is just not normal for there to be birds in a gym. How did they get there? How are they going to get out? Have they seriously been there this entire time and I'm just now realizing that THIS IS NOT NORMAL??? But I just kept on running and the birds continued to stare at me.
The other hilarious part of this gym is that every time I look through the glass walls into the room where the exercise classes are held, the women in the classes are always doing the most embarrassingly ridiculous-looking things. Sometimes they are doing this kind of angry electric slide dance while moving laterally in a circle, facing each other. Other times they are doing sort of belly-dancing hand motions while flicking their legs out in the front of them Russian-style. One time I saw them actually doing the macarena. This has provided the majority of my gym-time entertainment throughout the summer.
On Friday night, we went to this place called "House of Kink" that we heard had great tapas and drinks. When we got there it was very soon apparent that we were definitely not cool enough to be there-- all the girls had on super trendy clothes and heels and cool jewelry (in stark contrast to my jeans, the weird boots I bought from a street vendor 2 months ago because I could only fit a few pairs of flats into my suitcase, and a pretty ugly gray zip-up hoodie I bought at Pick n' Pay). Also, the cocktails were all named things like "S&M," "The Ben Dover," and the "Family Jewels," and reading their menu was quite the experience. Despite the awkwardness in ordering (which involved me having to ask for an order of their "Dunk the Skank," or chips and tomato-cheese dip), the drinks and food were delicious and we had quite a good time sitting outside on the deck (away from the burlesque show footage being displayed on a large screen across from the bar inside).
On Saturday morning, we all got up early to meet Nick and Dave at the Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock, which is a little village of different markets, one of which is this huge organic food market (the "Neighbourgoods Market"). There are also lots of little craft and interior design stores.
The food market was definitely my favorite part. It was filled with fresh local produce, hand-made cheeses, all sorts of delicious fresh bread, specialty fine foods (think festive little jars of chutney and pesto), and all sorts of stands that cooked food for you right there: crepes, pizzas, thai food, and my favorite, the "Dutch Fryer," who made you delicious little balls of pancakes and then smothered them in butter and sugar.
The Dutch Fryer:
The market:
There was also an enormous bead shop compulsively organized by color. We took pictures in different sections according to our outfits-- here is Nick in front of the blue beads and me in front of the purple beads.
We had planned on hiking table mountain that afternoon, but it was windy and cold and dreary outside, so we nixed that plan. David and I wandered around lower Kloof street and browsed in a variety of antique and craft shops. I bought more wire art, and that was pretty much the extent of it.
Safari
On Sunday morning I got picked up at 6:40 by a small Indian man in a minivan to go to Inverdoorn, a game reserve about 2 and a half hours northeast of Cape Town. The only other people in the van were a French couple. Our route took us through the wine region and then up a very windy road over a mountain. We stopped along the way for a photo op of the gorgeous view at sunrise.
There were beautiful views of a river called "stony river" (logically named because there's barely any water in it and a whole lot of stones) that snaked around the mountain. Our driver kept assuring us that it was "only drunks who accidentally drove off the path" and met their death on the rocks below. I asked him if he was drunk, but he didn't hear me. We saw a few baboons scurrying across the road at one point. After getting over the mountain, we passed "Wolves Gorge," the place where the very last wolf in South Africa was allegedly killed (SO sad :( ).
Our driver took his job VERY seriously, and tended to very suddenly announce self-explanatory things at the top of his lungs into his microphone headset (to the three of us sitting directly behind him in the van). As it was still dark when we headed out of Cape Town, the three of us were still a bit groggy and trying to sleep. Our driver either didn't notice this or didn't care, because he kept SCREAMING things into the headset, like "WE ARE ON THE HIGHWAY" and "WE ARE DRIVING UP A MOUNTAIN." He also really liked to point out unfinished bridges and train tracks that didn't have train cars running on them (there were a lot more of these than you would expect). Sometimes he would say "OK I"M GOING TO BE SHUTS UP NOW" into the headseat, but then just after we had closed our eyes again to try to get back to sleep, he would discover some other extremely urgent thing to tell us and blast us awake again with a booming headset announcement. He also had this really disturbing-looking stuffed animal sitting on the dashboard which appeared to be a giraffe with a baby's face wearing a South African flag as a bandana.
We stopped in Ceres, fruit country, to have breakfast at a Wimpy (kind of like a Wendy's). Our driver made sure to announce (several times) before we stopped that THERE WOULD BE A HIS AND HERS [bathroom] AVAILABLE AT THE WIMPY. We got back in the van and kept driving along the "Forgotten Highway" (called that because there is never anyone on it), and as we got closer to Inverdoorn, trees suddenly disappeared and the pavement turned to gravel, meaning we had entered bush country. Our driver told us that there were a lot of nomadic sheep farmers in the area, and pointed out a lot of houses without roofs because the owners took the roofs with them when they moved to a different place. Then the gravel road turned to dirt, and since we were running a bit late the driver was really hauling ass. There was one point when we went over a sudden declivity and the van was actually flying through the air for a solid three seconds.
We reached Inverdoorn and turned onto a smaller, bumpier dirt road in the middle of nowhere. Our driver announced "WHO WILL BE THE FIRST TO SPOT AN ANIMAL? IT WILL BE ME." About 2 seconds later I saw a bunch of springbok (a smallish kind of antelope that is all over South Africa), and then I kept seeing more as we were driving. Apparently our driver had not seen the springbok because he kept shouting ANY SECOND NOW I WILL FIND SPRINGBOK AND POINT THEM OUT TO YOU. I didn't say anything.
The grounds of the game reserve were really beautiful, and there were all sorts of guesthouses where people stay overnight.
I had some tea and waited around by a large open fire pit until 10:30 when my safari was supposed to start.
Here is the 4x4 we took out:
There was only four of us on the safari- our guide, a youngish South African woman, and a couple from Kentucky. I sat in the very back of the 4x4 because it was the highest seat (also the bumpiest).
We started in the area where the lions are usually found, and after finding fresh lion tracks in a bunch of different places, we finally found a couple of lions lounging in the sun. When we got they got up and moved into the shade, so we could barely see them anymore. They were definitely too far away to take any good pictures of with my camera phone, but they were really cool looking (and giant). (Also, the people from Kentucky whose nice cameras had not been stolen agreed to email me the pictures they took on our safari). We carried on and saw a red lechmere, which I think is a kind of antelope but it's actually mostly a water dwelling creature. Strange. There were springbok all over the place, which we learned can go their lives without ever drinking water- they get some from plants, and the white of their faces absorbs sunlight so they don't overheat from the sun. Damn evolution is cool.
A bunch of springbok:
We found a big group of buffalo, wildebeest, zebras, and ostriches hanging out all together. We got to get really close to them all, even though our guide said she "doesn't trust buffalos a lick." She wouldn't even turn off the 4X4 to be able to talk to us, because she said "knowing her luck it wouldn't start again, and then we would be in trouble." Hm.
A buffalo having a lazy Sunday:
We saw some "orricks," which are a kind of antelope that apparently kill more people than any other animal on the reserve. That's because they lay around a lot to conserve energy, and people who think they are dead, sick or just really docile walk up really close to them and then they jump up and attack. Interesting.
We set out again, and as we were driving we saw a lone giraffe walking slowly and solemnly off in the distance. I was getting really excited about that and trying to take pictures with my camera phone that doesn't zoom in on anything, when I heard someone yell "RHINO!!" I looked ahead of us and ambling along along the path in front of us were two rhinos, a male and a female. They were SO huge and cute and fat! The female rhino had a MUCH longer horn than the male, but they were both equally adorable (I'm sure I wouldn't have thought they were quite as adorable if they had turned around and charged the 4X4 with those horns).
Zoomed in (my camera phone is terrible):
We also saw a lot of "kudu," another kind of antelope.
We were introduced to a plant called "Euphorbia," or "yellow milkweed," which our guide told us had very very poisonous milk inside of it that can a person go blind. I guess people used to take it and smear it on animals' sides in the shape of a brand, which would make the hair fall out and grow back in a different color (better than branding them in the usual fashion!).
We saw more and more giraffes as we kept going. My favorite were these three, just ambling along single file,
and this one, who looked at us extra quizically,
and then ambled away.
Here is my favorite giraffe pic of the day- I love the way the trees look behind him.
We saw holes where aadvarks live (but no aardvarks), and an OWL sitting rather haughtily in a tree we passed. Our guide was really excited about this-- apparently you rarely ever see them. After staring down the owl for about 10 minutes, we moved on to where the cheetahs hang out. Did you know there are only 6,000 cheetahs left IN THE WORLD? I thought this was very sad. The cheetahs didn't look too worried about this though, and they just looked so sleepy and comfortable all curled up in the sunshine on a little mound of dirt. It made me want to go nap with them, but our guide told me I would probably be attacked/killed if I got out of the 4X4. I did not get out of the 4X4.
Back at the ranch, I was served a lovely three-course lunch with my new friends from Kentucky. I was being watched the entire time by the small Indian driver, however, and I gathered from his not too subtle watch-checking and weight-shifting that he was anxious to get back to Cape Town. Since the French couple that had driven up with us was staying the night at Inverdoorn, he was just driving me back to Cape Town. I was REALLY tired from a long day of sun and excitement, and I wanted very badly to just nap on the way back. This, however, was not to be. The driver explained to me about 5 times and in 5 creatively different ways that the route we were taking back to Cape Town this time was less direct, but would take less time. I put on my headphones to try to get some sleep, but I kept noticing the driver reaching for his headset and then starting to speak into it. Since there was no one else in the van except me, I felt very much obligated to listen to whatever he had to say ("IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS I WILL BE ABLE TO ANSWER THEM"; "WE ARE NOW ENTERING A TUNNEL"). Sometimes he would just point at things or gesticulate widely until I realized he was trying to communicate something and gave him my attention. He also had a painfully irritating ring on his cell phone that was the sound of a rooster crowing.
I got back to Cape Town around 6:00 and got a good night's sleep.
Today, Monday, our weekly staff meeting started about an hour late because Alison, the director, didn't show up until 10:30. She called me into her office after the staff meeting and told me that I should print out my report, put it in front of her, and then come back 20 minutes later to force her to give me feedback about it. When I came to get her feedback she was EXTREMELY excited and told me that not only did she want to include my paper in the materials they will eventually be giving to the UN for their victim empowerment research contract, but she also wanted my permission to submit the paper to the Stellenbosch Law Review. I told her she could do whatever her heart desired with my paper, as I currently have no other plans for it.
At 3:30 I left work (a bunch of people from the office were already gone) and I went to the Mount Nelson hotel, the most historic and beautiful hotel in Cape Town. Russell had surprised me with a gift certificate to their spa, the Librisa spa, and I was finally getting a chance to make use of it. The spa was EXTREMELY beautiful- it overlooks gorgeous fountains and a swimming pool, and the interior is very luxurious. I had a great facial and a pedicure and then hung out in their lounge area in a big squishy white robe and slipper-sandals while my nails dried. Quite a relaxing day.
Part of the Mount Nelson hotel:
Tomorrow is my last day of work. The office is having a farewell lunch for Jim and me, and the office coordinator is taking pains to accommodate everyone's dietary preferences (mainly my vegetarianism, and the fact that Mukelani doesn't eat bread). It's also Jim's birthday tomorrow so I'm going to try to pick him up some sort of cake on the way into work. Then I'll be packing tomorrow evening and then I fly out on Wednesday! I can't believe I"m really heading back home. I had an AMAZING summer but I am ready to get back to friends&family, running outside, cooking and having a refrigerator, ketchup that doesn't taste like sugary tomato soup, etc.
In parting, here's a picture taken from my window of Table Mountain and the cloud they call the "tablecloth" (how clever)
A bientot,
Cary.
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