South Africa

Now that the trip is over, I'm spending some time going back and finishing some posts that I skipped over. There's obviously a lot to say about my last few days on the ship, and the re-entry into regular life. To be honest, that process has been confusing and challenging, and I'm not quite ready to write about it yet. In the meantime, here's my post for South Africa, which I began about two months ago. I've said to a few people that it would be impossible to pick a “favorite” port from the voyage, but South Africa still stands out as one of the most eye-opening and compelling.

[Written 3/3/09]
I've been reflecting on my time in South Africa every day since we left. It's been difficult to begin writing because my experience there was so rich and moving, and I still don't know if I can do it justice by writing. I'm going to jump in with day 1 and hope that at least some of the intensity can come through.

On our first day, I got the chance to visit Robben Island. The island has a long and painful history of It was originally used as a quarantine area for lepers from 1836 to 1931. In 1959, during South Africa's apartheid regime, it was converted to a maximum security prison for political prisoners. Nelson Mandela spent many of his 27 years of imprisonment on the island.
After the ferry ride to the island, the tour began with a bus ride around the island's perimeter. It was a little weird. Our guide spoke in a voice that was cartoonishly dramatic, and poked fun at the nationalities of everyone on the bus. This combined with the shocking and devastating facts about the island's history made the experience a little bizarre. I guess it's hard to balance the island's status as a tourist attraction with its intense past.

Our guide hosted the tour for Barack Obama several years ago. When they stopped near a cannon that was intended for use during World War II, the guide said to him, “Senator, please do not tell your president that we have weapons of mass destruction.”

The tour underwent a change in tone after we left the bus for the walking tour. Our second guide was imprisoned on the island at a young age, for participating in student protests. As we walked through the cell areas, he described the pain of taking part in a hunger strike while the guards forced them to smell cooked food, and rewarded those who broke the strike. He also recounted how apartheid affected even the jails: prisoners were allowed better diet and accommodations depending on their race.

I left Robben Island with mixed feelings. I was definitely moved and intrigued by what I saw, but I know that the tour could have been more poignant. The island obviously still has a painful connection to many South Africans; it was only completely emptied of prisoners in 1994. But it's strange that they lead the tours so casually. Our first guide thanked us for touring and supporting the island's workers in a time of widespread unemployment. Are they afraid that visitors won't return to the island if it's too depressing of an experience?

That night, I attended a fantastic theatre performance. One of Semester at Sea's previous professors manages a theatre in Cape Town, and we saw a pretty wild performance. It was called “Pictures of You” and I would describe it as dramatic mime. No dialogue at all, character masks, puppets...fantastic lighting and sound too. The director spoke to us beforehand, and mentioned that the play has been popular with speakers of many languages as well as the deaf community. It was really compelling. It centered around a husband and wife with dark secrets underneath the surface of their marriage. I was amazed at the complexity and clarity of the nonverbal storytelling.

I spent the next day freely exploring Cape Town with friends. The heart of the city reminded me a lot of San Francisco. Just a crowded downtown with lots of traffic, stores, and busyness. We did stop by some craft markets, which were similar to the ones in Namibia, with friendly salespeople. These guys were a little more honest with us though...everyone in Namibia wanted us to believe that they did all the craftwork personally, even though the stall right next to them had the exact same items. (“Look at my hands! Very rough. Hard work.”) The South African merchants let us know if they bought the items.

The pre-port lectures on South Africa gave us the harshest warnings about crime. We heard so many horror stories of muggings and robberies. One speaker mentioned that South Africans consider themselves lucky if, in the case of a break-in, all their possessions are stolen but their family escapes safely. So, we were all on edge when we arrived. Luckily, no one on the trip ran into anything too serious. On that day in the market, though, Jonathan noticed that we had been targeted by a group of kids. Jonathan jabbed me in the side and said under his breath that we needed to leave. He motioned for me to look, and kids in two different directions had their eyes on us. One of them had previously asked Jonathan for money, which is apparently a method they use to find out where you keep your wallet. We scrammed.

Later that day we checked out the local aquarium, which was cool. Giant spider crabs are eerie. One student here later told me that when she visited the same aquarium, there was a group of young school children there on a field trip. One of the aquarium employees told her that the students were from a township, and it might be the last time in their lives that they get to see live fish.

That evening, we joined up with another group of students from SaS and ate dinner at a fancyish pizza restaurant that overlooked Table Mountain, and explored the nightlife, which wasn't too exciting. We did hang out with some local white college-age guys, who were like caricatures of male models. Way tall, tight clothes, spiked bleached hair...outrageous. We didn't talk to them about anything important but I did learn a little about fashion.

The next morning Jonathan and I woke up early to bus into a township and participate in a Habitat for Humanity building project. The organization brings together volunteers to build homes for local people that the government selects based on their economic eligibility. On the way there, driving through the township, I got to see the first area of real poverty we have come across on this voyage. Homes are mostly put together with scrap metal and wood, although a lot of the ones we saw had running water and electricity (which is illegally split from power lines, but the government doesn't bother them about it). Our driver explained that because those amenities were present, we were in the nicer section of the township. In addition to those homes, there are new buildings which have been assembled by Habitat for Humanity or similar organizations. They're simple, but a huge step up from the other shelters. As we drove, literally every resident, young and old, waved enthusiastically and smiled.

When we arrived at the building site, we met the leader (who volunteers his time) as well as several local builders. The Habitat rules say that the house's future owner must help build the home, and put in a certain amount of hours on future homes. The guys were really spirited, taught us some of their slang, and talked to each other in one of the local languages, which was fascinating to me. The building's foundation and cinderblock walls were finished when we arrived, and we spent the whole day working on the house's roof. That involved a lot of human-chaining to move tiles from a pile across the road, fixing the roof's insulating material to the roof, building some of the roof's frames & nailing them into place, and finally moving all the tiles to the roof and nailing them down. Seven or eight hours flew by, and by the end of our day we were looking at a nearly completed roof. It's amazing how quickly the houses are built: 30 days to turn an empty lot into a finished home.

After the work was done, some local women served us a homemade meal, which was delicious. We also got a few minutes to interact with some young kids who were kicking around a soccer ball. Although our work was brief and I was just one of many workers, to know that I helped create someone's home is an incredibly satisfying thought...especially when I consider that to many of the township residents, receiving one of those houses for their family is dream come true.

---
We just finished our one-day stop in Mauritius. It was a very welcome chance to slow down and catch my breath. The nonstop nature of this trip is wearing down on a lot of us, including me, but today's catamaran and snorkeling cruise was definitely refreshing. If you're like me before the trip, and you haven't heard about Mauritius, it's a 2040 square km tropical island east of Madagascar. Its population is mostly French-speaking people of Indian descent, and its beaches are pristine. Our catamaran stopped in two different locations for us to jump in the water (which was very warm) and snorkel. I saw lots of colorful fish, some little squid, a young giant clam, and a sea turtle and a school of dolphins from a distance.


[Written 5/7/09]
There are just two days left to cover from South Africa. Some of you might have read my friends' posts about our Table Mountain climb. Now, I haven't read Jonathan's post, and I'm not sure exactly what he wrote that made someone freak out, but right after he posted I got a scared email from my mom, and a couple of scared emails from other people telling me how scared my mom was. I should set the record straight: I did not come close to dying on Table Mountain. I thought I was going to die, which is an important difference. Here's the story.

Table Mountain overlooks the whole city of Cape Town. It's a startling and beautiful backdrop. On our fourth day, Jonathan, Taylor and I decided to pay it a visit. We had heard that there were many trails that we could climb to the top, and that most were fairly easy hikes. Right before we left the ship, we ran into a friend who mentioned that her friend Ari was looking for a group to go with, and asked if he could tag along with us. We said sure.

As the four of us left the ship, we passed through the usual crowd of taxi drivers that flocks to the ship. Early on in the voyage, we learned to ignore them and walk farther away from the ship to search for better fares, but this time Jonathan and I recognized Mousta, our driver from the night before. We trusted him, and asked him to take us to a good trail to hike the mountain. He dropped us off, pointed to the beginning of a trail, and told us that it was a quick way to the top. That was Ignored Warning Sign #1. If we had taken a moment to think, we would have realized that the quick way to the top of the mountain means the steep way.

Right before we set off on the trail, we snapped a picture in front of the trail's sign and map route. Closer inspection of that photograph reveals some interesting details. If you look past Jonathan's grin, the sign contains a written warning which reads something along the lines of “DANGER. India Venster trail is strongly discouraged for inexperienced climbers” (Ignored Warning Sign #2). The trail's pathway was outlined in yellow. Some sections were marked in a solid line, and others broke off into vague, dotted lines (Ignored Warning Sign #3). At the time, we didn't notice any of that. We just snapped the picture and hurried onto the trail. The beginning was steep and a little rocky, but not too difficult.

Early on, we ran into a group of three hikers who carried a bunch of professional climbing gear. Their plan was to break off from the trail and go climbing near the mountain's top. They told us that India Venster is the most direct way to the top (Ignored Warning Sign #4). We asked if it was difficult, and they said not really, and then immediately afterward asked if we had ever climbed before (IWS #5). We said nope, and they said, “ah, you'll be OK.” They said we didn't need any equipment, and that the only difficult sections were three sets of “scrambles” up some rocks. That didn't sound too bad to us, so after they told us the general route to the top and recommended that we follow the painted yellow footprints, they wished us luck and split off from the trail.

We eventually learned what a scramble was. The trail lead up to a steep rock wall, and then ended. The wall was maybe ten feet high. We had seen a yellow footprint shortly before, so Jonathan decided to climb up and see if he could locate another. At the time I thought he was wasting his time, because I thought any normal trail wouldn't include real rock-climbing. He hoisted himself up, walked a distance, and then called back that he saw a footprint. Ari, Taylor and I followed, and once we reached the top we took a good look up at the mountain. When I saw it looming overhead, saw the jagged boulders and a rock field in the far distance, and the top, way way up, it became clear to me that I was in a little over my head. Our route crossed back and forth beneath the tourist cable car lines. Thinking back, I find it funny that we took the exact route that people built an entire cable car system to avoid.

From then on, the journey became very focused as we just dealt with one step at a time. Even in the easier sections, I was on all fours for stability and leverage. Every few minutes we would stop and look back. The cars parked far below us turned to specks. During one section of more difficult climbing, I lost my footing and Jonathan pulled me up by my wrist. Another time, while we were scaling a narrow ledge, the weight of my backpack would have made me fall backward, so I took it off and carried it by my side. Aside from those two moments, though, the scariest idea to me was not falling, but losing the trail and being stranded overnight on the mountain.

We kept climbing. We didn't run into any people until we reached the open rock field and saw a family of three climbing down in the opposite direction. We were initially relieved to see them, but soon learned that they were intending to climb up, but had lost track of the trail and were heading back. We knew it would be nearly impossible for us to climb down the way we came, so we kept going up. It turned out to be the directions of the original three climbers that saved us. We looped around the right side of the mountain and met one final intense section of climbing where we had to wedge ourselves in a crevice between two boulders and hop back and forth to reach higher ground. After that, we knew we were close. The trails began to combine, and we ran into a man who had taken a different route up, but was familiar with ours. We followed him the rest of the way, and emerged on the plateau on top of the mountain.

We celebrated with hot chocolate. At that point, I felt victorious, and like I could tackle any hurdle. For me, finishing the climb might be the most personally motivating experience of the voyage.

We took the cable car down.

On our last day in South Africa, I took a Semester at Sea organized trip to Khayelitsha township, the place where I had worked on the Habitat for Humanity house two days before. The trip gave me a chance to spend some more time considering the lives of the people that live there. I was surprised to discover that the township is designed like a miniature city. The placement of peoples homes and stores is actually well organized, and easy to get around. A company had set up various cheap payphones for the residents to use. As I mentioned before, the section of Khayelitsha that we visited is very well developed compared to other townships which can be more desperately poor.

Like before, we were greeted with smiles and waves. Our tour stopped at a well-known bed and breakfast place which was founded by a local woman. She told us that the local people are aware of the aid that comes from American citizens, and that the kids in the townships are taught that Americans should be welcomed as friends. She also said that people in the township do not want pity for their poverty. “We are a proud people,” she said, and even though some are desperately in need of help, they want to be seen as a strong, culturally rich community.

We visited a local church, where a service was being held. The congregation sang music that was soulful and beautiful. Outside the church, we had the chance to buy some handcrafted artwork. On the way back to the bus, really young schoolkids held each of our hands and walked with us. It occurred to me later that they were probably instructed to do that, but the gesture was still sweet and moving.

Elections were coming up, and we passed by a political rally on our way out. People shouted and waved signs for their party as we drove by. One of the saddest aspects I saw of the township is that people who are unemployed just sit idle for much of their days, but participating in politics gives them a worthwhile place to put their energy.

My time in South Africa was eye-opening in a lot of ways. Like the voyage as a whole, it offered me exposure to the dynamics of the world, as well as unexpected insight into myself.


Don't touch that dial. More to come...