Contrast

I have been here for three days. They have been amazing. On Sunday, we had orientation and took a tour of the city. We stopped at the beach and then drove past the beautiful beach-front property that goes for about $250, 000 here, which seems unbelievably cheap to me, as it is the Malibu of Cape Town. We also drove to the top of Signal Hill and took in the view of the city and Table Mountain. Cape Town is a really beautiful place.

Yesterday, we got our first dose of reality. We took a township tour which stood in stark contrast to the drive around the city the day before. The condition in which the majority of Cape Town's population lives is indescribable. Our tour guide, Richard, was awesome. He explained life in the ghetto in detail to us. He told us some really interesting things, like how the government tried to hide the reality of the townships by putting decent looking houses around some of the ghetto's borders so passers-by wouldn't see how atrocious they were inside. He took us into a barracks that was originally put up to house men who worked in the city. Now it houses multiple families in each dorm-sized bedroom. We met a woman who lived there and shared her twin bed with her husband. Her small children slept on the floor next to the bed and her bigger kids slept in the common kitchen. The other two single beds in the bedroom belonged to two other families. There were five other bedrooms sharing the common kitchen. The kids in the townships are amazing. They went crazy over us. If they see a person with a camera they start posing and singing and dancing. I took video of five little guys singing, "Ole, Ole Ole Ole". The sense of community was unbelievable and the beauty in that, and in the people themselves, far exceeded the glamour of the beach-front houses we saw the previous day. At the end of the tour Shamiel told us the reason that we were headed back into the ghetto. Richard, our well-spoken, educated, multi-lingual tour guide, that I had a little crush on, needed to be taken home.

Today, I went to my job for the first time. It is a great placement. I met everyone who works there and got a tour first. Then I helped a young guy from Zimbabwe find a pair of shoes, pants and a shirt from the donations at the center. Unfortunately, the majority of the clothing donated is for women and children, so we had a fairly difficult time of it. He had a great sense of humor, but despite my laid-back demeanor, our almost-fruitless labor broke my heart. He asked me to pick him out a nice shirt. I gave him a red flannel one, but just wished that I could take him to the mall. I asked him questions about himself and he told me that he was alone in South Africa and that he lived under a bridge. After that, I learned the process for interviewing the new refugees that will be coming tomorrow. Then, I went and made parcels to give the newcomers that contained a small bag of maize meal, and smaller bags of beans, sugar, rice and a can of spam-type meat. If I understand correctly, this and six rolls are to last a person for two weeks. I made a hundred packages, and am excited to go to work tomorrow and meet the people who need them.

South Africa reminds me every day, several times a day, that nothing is black and white - not people, not politics and not the complex social issues that face South Africa, the US or the world.

Africa at Last

After a short flight from Minneapolis to JFK, I waited at the wrong gate - the one listed on my boarding pass - for like three hours. It was entertaining, though so possibly worth it. Across from me was a billboard that said "EMBRACE CHANGE (but please don't go groping it)". Some guy danced, literally danced, past me singing to his iPod. All I caught was "like a puppet on a string," before he pranced off. A little Chinese kid kept coming over and asking me questions like, "Where is the lestloom?" I didn't know. He also asked me, "What time is it?" I told him one, but it was one forty. I am not very reliable, but must look approachable. The crowd just kept getting more Asian by the minute, and no plane landed at the gate I was waiting at, so I decided that something was up. I went to a monitor and found out that the gate was changed, and when I got to the right gate there were people everywhere. I quickly learned that the flight was overbooked. Shit. I better have a seat after waiting for three hours. I met a couple of the other volunteers before we began boarding. When the guy scanned my boarding pass it made an ominous beep, and he violently tore it up. I asked him nervously if something was wrong. He told me that I had been upgraded without making eye-contact. I have noticed that this malady seems to be a common affliction among airport employees.

Flying first-class is great. I have never done it before, but hope to do it again soon. They fed us all the time, and my seat reclined to sleeping position so I slept comfortably for most of the flight. When we landed in Dakar, Senegal I felt it. It was a lump in my throat that made me want to shriek and jump up and down and cry tears of joy all simultaneously. It was the realization that I am in Africa. I was so content to know that. Senegal was something else for the hour that I was there. It was already pushing ninety degrees at four a.m., and the humidity followed the Senegalese bomb sweeping crew onto the plane. They took apart all our seats and made us identify our luggage. If a suitcase went unclaimed it got thrown off the plane. Part of me wished that I could stay in Senegal for a couple days, by I left without touching land or any of the hot airport personnel.

I arrived in Cape Town yesterday evening. I made it through customs without any trouble even though I didn't have documentation of a return flight. I didn't have any baggage issues because I carried it all on. The guy in customs scared the shit out of me though. He asked me what I was bringing into the country, as he inspected my Goldfish crackers. I think he was hungry. He gave me grief about my new phone, asking me if I was leaving it in the country. I told him no, but it wouldn't surprise me. Someone would probably steal it. I decided not to go into possible scenarios with him, though, and just let him keep harassing me. He asked me why it took me so long to get to customs since my flight had come in a good bit earlier. Was this really customs? What the hell? Inspect me for fruit and illegal weapons, and let me go about my business.

Our drivers brought us to the home base, playing funky beats that I would expect from Africa. We definitely passed townships on the drive. We arrived at our house and found our rooms, which are named after the eleven official languages of South Africa. I am in Afrikaans, which is great because I can pronounce it. I have a fireplace, toilet and three roommates. The house is huge, but it's not the Four Seasons. During my first shower I had to stand in a foot of one of the other volunteer's used water. The drain is a little slow. I am not sure whose runoff it was, but my favorite coping strategy is denial and I think it's just better if it remains a mystery. The other constant reminder that I am not staying at the Ritz is the beefed up security. The house is surrounded by a cement wall, the slats of the metal gate are spiked so no one can jump it and it is only opened by our security guards. There is razor-wire and electric fence running around the top of the whole shebang. The view of the mountain is beautiful, if you can look past the bars on the windows. I am optimistic, though. This country has survived a lot and I am determined to survive, and hopefully fall in love, with it.

Tickled Pink

I am not ready for Africa. 

Meghan bought me a purse for my trip as a going away present, and I am still about one-third packed, but other than that I can't say much for myself. I bought all-purpose shoes to take, but they give me blisters. I read Mandela's A Long Walk to Freedom sometime last fall, but that is the only book on my pre-Africa reading list that I have read cover to cover. For the last two days I have been reading Chelsea Handler, and I don't think anything she has to say about her one-night stands is going to be valuable to me in Africa. At least, I sure hope not. Last night, instead of packing or tackling the mountain of laundry in my room that rivals Everest, I chatted online with a Colombian that I thought was mine, but turned out just to be some creep with the same name. The conversation got a little out of hand, but as usual it was all my fault. 

 

Annie: What are you doing? 

Colombian: watching tv 

Annie: Probably porn. 

Colombian: yes porn

Annie: Really? I am so good.

Colombian: do you like porn?

It was a strange question coming from my Colombian, because he should know what I like by now, but I thought it could be some kind of kinky game he was playing. I still had my guard up though, because he hadn't spelled anything wrong yet, so I was suspicious. 

Annie: Do you have anything interesting to tell me? 

Colombian: You tell me something interesting 

Annie: I have nothing interesting to tell. 

Colombian: then let's talk about porn

I knew it! He was found out. My Colombian would have never remembered the apostrophe in the word let's. But I didn't want to jump the gun and ruin the kinky stuff if I did have the right guy, so I asked him to tell me something only he would know. He told me he knew many things. I asked him what color the walls in my bedroom are painted. He said pink. I said adios. My walls are NOT pink. Later when I decided to be old-fashioned and just call the real Colombian, I asked him what color the walls in my room are painted, just for the principle of it, and he said green. My walls are blue. An unmistakable blue. Although, when I told my roommate Logan the story he started nodding when I got to the part about the Colombian saying my walls are green. Logan was like, "Yeah, they're blueish-green. I'd call it aqua." Um, okay. I guess Pottery Barn calls it schooner, which isn't helping anyone, and is just as damn bad as calling it aqua. I definitely learned my lesson. You should always make sure that you know who you're chatting with on Skype, and guys are clueless when it comes to colors.

Oh, yeah. And maybe I should start thinking about packing.  

Wedding Belles

Apparently, I have reached the age where it has become unacceptable to attend a wedding dateless. I made that mistake on Saturday when I attended a childhood friend's nuptials with my friend Kathy who is also single and received an invitation to the blessed event. We decided that it is too much work to find dates, and far to awkward to sit through a ceremony, reception and dance with someone that you don't really like in the case that you are actually able to find some poor sucker to agree to it. Unfortunately, I don't yet have a throng of men on hand to call upon in these situations. So Kathy and I went together, arriving seconds before the bride's entrance, because we underestimated the distance and overestimated our navigation skills. We were good girls, giggling only on occasion and our whispered critiques were mostly nice. I didn't gag once during the slide show, I waited patiently to congratulate the happy couple as they dismissed us by rows and I even stood with the bubble-blowing throng waiting for the couple to exit the church. However, I did not actually blow any bubbles. I have my limits.

On the drive to the reception, Kathy and I discussed the wedding down to the finest detail like any good single girls would. We wondered what time food would be served at the reception, seeing as it was only three-thirty by this time. We figured it would probably be at five, and considered stopping for a snack because we were so hungry. In the process of making that decision I spotted a Mercedes dealership and gushed to Kathy about how the only car I had any aspirations of owning was a Mercedes. We were about to pass the dealership when she asked me if I wanted to test-drive one. Was that even an option? Of course I did. So I shouted an affirmative and she whipped into the lot. We perused for a minute when Larry approached. He asked us what we were looking for and I pulled the old I'm-blond-with-big-boobs-and-I-don't-spend-a-lot-of-quality-time-using-my-brain routine. I told him that I didn't know much about cars. He assured me that his thirty years in the business would make up for my deficiency. He asked us where we were from and I let Kathy field that one. She gave him the name of a town near our hometowns and told him that we were just passing through for a wedding. We didn't even have to lie and he offered to let us take the car out. 

It was a good ride, and Larry provided decent conversation. One of his sales pitches was that Mercedes were theft-proof. He backed this up with a reference from Gone in 60 Seconds, in which the only car on the list that they are unable to steal is the Mercedes. He also told us we could do whatever we wanted with the car, but warned us that any tickets were our own. I asked him if anyone he took out had gotten a ticket and he said that one guy had. He had been going one-fifty in a fifty-five. He told us that the car we were driving would not go faster than one-forty. We told him that could be a problem. It wasn't until he asked us who would primarily be driving the car that we realized that he thought we were a lesbian couple. Discussing it later we realized it made perfect sense. We went to a wedding together, we claimed that we lived in the same town and our story didn't hold any water if we were two single twenty-something females EACH looking to buy a Mercedes. When we left he only gave us one business card. Why would we need two? We could just share it like we were going to share our Mercedes. 

We continued our jaunt to the reception much like Hansel and Gretel with the breadcrumbs, following the trail of purple and silver metallic streamers that cut ties with the couples faux-vandalized car. We, too, lost the trail and got detoured on our journey desperately seeking food, but we eventually found the Holiday Inn. We waited with our fellow guests for the doors to the reception hall to open. We made the mistake of going to the bathroom, because we came out to find that they had opened in the meantime. By the time we got in and staked claim to an empty table for eight, there were hardly any unseated guests. None came to our table. We sat alone at a table for eight. It turned out to be okay, though, because we each ate two salads and, like, three rolls. When an old co-worker and neighbor pointed to Kathy and asked me "Is that your...friend?" with a weird look on her face, I resolved to bring a date to the next wedding. For Christ's sake, we were all from a town of eight-hundred where both Kathy and I worked with this woman. I didn't bring a man with me. Big deal. I shouldn't have to defend my sexuality.   

After eating, we decided to make a trip to the liquor store. Being the classy girls that we are, we knew we needed to get drunk and that it wasn't going to happen on four dollar drinks from the cash bar. I would say, without judgement, that Kathy is one of the most indecisive people I know, so our choice of booze was not an easy decision to make. We had to factor in potency, mixers and the size and material of the bottle because we had to be subtle back at the reception. At the checkout we found smallish plastic bottles of rum. We got yelled at by a cop because Kathy sized it up to see if it would fit in her purse. Right as I was telling her not to put it in her purse because the cop would think she was stealing he said loudly, "You are putting a bottle in your purse with a cop watching," in a tone that made it clear that he thought we were the dumbest bitches he had ever seen. After all, we were pretty conspicuous with the hundred-pound thief wearing a very short, BRIGHT YELLOW dress. Shit, we might act stupid, but we weren't THAT stupid. I defended Kathy by saying, "She's not stealing it, she's just seeing if it will fit in her purse!" We bought two bottles and walked out, heads held high. 

I didn't end up getting drunk, but my high-school principal did. That was pretty funny. I also got to catch up with a few family friends from my hometown that I haven't seen for awhile. It was a good day despite my sobriety, especially considering that I got to drive my dream car for the first time, and was the accessory to the alleged attempted-theft of Malibu by an upstanding pharmacy student. The wedding also made me think, which I generally appreciate. The bride graduated with me, and subsequently met a guy, converted her religion and is now MARRIED. It caused me to think about my choices. I wonder if I really can have it all. If I can, am I making the right choices now to achieve that? If I can't have it all, what will I sacrifice? But then I realize that I am happy right now, going to weddings with my girlfriends and taking off for Africa because I want to. I am happy with no degree, no career, no religion, no man and no kids. I love the unknown, and probably won't have any of the aforementioned things until I decide that having them outweighs the thrill of not having them. I am not ready to know who I am going to spend the rest of my life with, or praying to or working for. Right now I am content with the limitless possibilities that lay before me.