Lion's Head Hike

This past Monday evening we decided to take a sunset hike up to the top of Lion's Head Mountain for a picnic. It was initially a steep dirt pathway that carved sharply against the slopes of the hill. The smooth terrain soon transformed as the rocks crumbled into bluecheese-esque blobs. The trek got a little trickier as the path morphed into stair-like jags, but not hard enough for the two dogs that bounded past us with their tails wagging like locomotive flagellum. The propelled up their custom off-road pathway and made it look so easy. We made pit stops for the winded and cherished the hazingy stunning panorama of Table Mountain, Signal Hill and the waterfront dock. We climbed the last portion that required the use of steel handles and chains that were implanted into the stone, then arrived at the relatively flat top that was scattered with fellow picnickers. One crew was on their weekly\y hike/picnic triple date which, by observation, they had mastered. As we munched on our corner store snacks and subway sandwiches they indulged in shrimp skewers, white wine (don't forget the ice in the Tupperware darling!) and cheese & crackers. We all shared the same magical view of the endless Atlantic Ocean that looked like a sheet of rippled smooth leather. Sharp rocks protruded out of the coastal waves with currents swarming around them. Bree thought that one was actually a whale swimming in the water. Four boats were anchored between Robben Island and the dock, and they ignited with lights as the sun set. Cliffs hung parallel to the bustling city below Ro and Kenzie swung their feet against the wind that was starting to chill. Although it was rather cloudy, enhanced the tablecloth effect over Table Mountain and beautifully blurred the line between the sea and horizon. Once we realized the looming darkness, we scurried down the “recommended route” of the hill that brought us to one last sunset view which had enhanced into a crease of hot pink against the dark grey clouds. Turning on the flashlight made me think of my nights at camp arrowhead during the summer, so I started to sing camp songs. Ro and I, with the holidays constantly on our minds, managed to draw an outline of a Christmas tree made out of the lights of the city- one edge was carved out be the coastline and the other along signal hill. The roads between them created the swooped tinsel and the neon lights of stores formed the ornaments. The city shined with a stagnant, static flutter of lights that went for kilos and kilos.

The Final Countdown

Less than two weeks until we're back in the states! Trying to soak in the life of Cape Town without getting preoccupied with leaving this amazing group. Lais and I have been blessed with an amazing homestay family, who is really hip and relaxed- our Dad's name is Fergie (we catch ourselves singing Fergilicious numerous times a day) and he is an ex-navy engineer who used to work at the waterfront port as a ship bolter and welder. Before that he worked for 6 months at a time at sea on oil rigs. Now he has a private workshop in his garage where he is welding in his jumpsit and cap all day on furniture, railings, and other steel products. Mom works as an anaylist for a petroleum company here and welcomed our estrogen open-armed; she has three sons (Shadli-30-technical engineer/works with steel with Dad, Shahin-27-IT guy, and Hisham-20-works the night shift for Walmart telecommunication customer service). We have a pet pitbull mix, Titus, who is a friendly 12-year old stalky fellow who roams the streets and nibbles on our dinner leftovers, and a pet bird Charlie who Fergie trained to make kissy noises and cat-call whistles. Our rooftop provides us with the perfect 360 view of Signal Hill, Lion’s Head mountain and Table Top Mountain- we’re at the top of the hill of Bo-Kaap that is lined with brightly painted houses (it reminds me of Old Town Puerto Rico that has a law that houses can’t be painted the same color as their neighbor). Mom has cooked us delicious cape-malay food like Frikadelles (fish or beef mixed with spices, garlic, ginger, bread  and an egg- similar to a homemade burger), and beans and rice that have hints of cardamom (throw back to India!).

This weekend Mark hooked us up with a private van tour of the peninsula with his previous director of World Teach, Peter, who is in essence a guidebook of South Africa and Cape town from his history of teaching, living, and working here all is life. We went through Camps Bay and Clifton Beach that were swarming with people playing beach volleyball and sitting under the umbrellas of quaint restaurants. We drove along Chaplin’s Peak on a road that was carved in the hill and paved by POW’s and is now owned by a company to promote black empowerment but has created new tolls and charges for the population. We climbed down to the stoney waterfront and held Perriwinkles- mini starfish- and snails that held tight to the granite rocks that were glazed with bird poop from flocks of gulls that swarmed around us. We saw a wide beach that is well utilized by horse stables close by and has houses with grey thatched rooftops that look like a mixture of the Goetheanum and the Houseboat from Kottayum in India. We entered the Cape of Good Hope National Park that inhabits over 1300 species of flora and fauna- many of which are mutually exclusive and are unique to this single area of the world. Troops of baboons, ostriches and zebras usually can be seen milling around but we only spied a couple baby baboons on the roof of a house and picking from a trashcan at Cape Point. There are little white monuments topped with crosses for both Vasco de Gama and Bartolomeu Dias for their historical maritime influence in the Cape. We drove through a seaside fisherman’s town that has some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the area due to the lack of presence from  a patriarch for most of the year. We also stopped at Kalk’s bay for a glimpse at the harbor that was scattered with colorful boats-even one named the Taj Mahal (what are the odds..).  

Yesterday we had a site visit to Kaylitscha which is a township just 20 minutes outside the city center and was historically created by the government during their messy period in the 80’s to relocate blacks in matchbox houses. We sat in a one-roomed church that had a banner at the front of the room “HIV no boundaries. You are Living with HIV. You are still my brother. You are still my sister in Christ”. Monwar and Zemtse spoke to us about their community outreach projects in support groups and social development for those suffering from HIV and AIDS. During our walk around the township we saw that inequalities are thriving in not only housing, access to water, electricity and sanitation but in employment, malnutrition, alcoholism and violence. We spoke with a representative from the Treatment Action Campaign about their efforts to provide treatment and preventative technologies to HIV/AIDS patients and to the community, and then spoke to Zemtse in her house-converted-support group facility about her struggles with supporting HIV patients, alcoholics, orphans, rape victims, and elderly in the community. The day was capped with 10 of us running/walking in the Twilight Community Chest 5K Silly Run around the city center  that consists of over 20,000 participants that dress up in crazy costumes and run/walk/drunkenly stumble around the city in support of over 400 local organizations. Mike and Greg wore silk dresses that they for some reason had from China, Colin wore her traditional Indian Salwar Kamis and I safety pinned 9 running numbers all over me (leftovers from people who had last minute dropped the run). It was a beautiful run down Long street that is now glistening with Christmas lights, and through the Company Gardens towards the huge red inflated Coke arches- commercialism shone through as only powerade and coke were provided at stops to runners. Returned home to some card tricks and Arabic lessons with the family- trying to learn a few words a day! Bahebak!

Leaving the "Land of Hope"

The academic program in Zwelethemba, "The Land of Hope", finished with a bang with our case study presentations that were held in more of a workshop setting, which enabled us all to really delve into the topics that our classmates researched over two days in a casual setting. The research questions were: "How do individuals in Zwelethemba negotiate which healing method to use, between Traditional, Religious and Biomedical?", "What are the determinants of health among farm workers and their families?, "What motivations exist for safety mothers? What compels them, why is there a need and why do they respond?, "How do grandmothers acting as primary caregivers in Zweletehmeba perceive their health to be affected by this role?", "What are the barriers to seeking ARV treatment in Zwelethemba?", "How is Traditional Medicine valued in Zwelethemba" and finally my group's "What is the role of community gardens in Zwelethemba?". Our Food and Nutrition group had a lot of fun stumbling upon gardens (we visited about 5 in the village), and speaking with the caretakers and school representatives about what was grown, who funded the garden and ultimately who uses the vegetables. We learned that much has changed with the recent influx of commercial grocery stores so the prevalence of personal gardens has decreased while gardening education in newer generations has decreased.

 The end of Zwelethemba was much more emotional than expected with our host mother reciting her mantra "I will not cry I will not cry" under a broken breadth that was filled with sadness. We all ended up teary together, but she blamed the “onions” that she had chopped that morning. I know her mind was with God that morning, who she always turns to in times of stress and sadness. “Grandma Titi”, our mentally-disabled neighbor who is always jolly and hugging, forcefully trust-falled into a final embrace with each of us and held us tight. She shook her finger at Max as she said she didn’t want him to leave. We waved to Mom through the window as we drove away, and her pearly white smile beamed as she blew her children goodbye kisses.
We drove through the cloud-shadowed mountains past Worcester towards Cape Town and alongside Display vineyards that striped the countryside. Susan explained that through her research on child labor in vineyards she discovered that these pristine and polished vineyards are placed alongside the road to tempt and deceive tourists of the actual work that goes into picking individual grape clusters and cutting them in a shape that resembles the continent of Africa. The slopes of the mountains were dusted with rough rock formations and dry shrubbery, and bright purple-blossomed trees sprung up like soft cotton balls along the countryside. The clouds lay so close to the earth and were sandwiched between mountains with their peaks just poking through to the hazy robin-egg blue sky. As we entered into Cape Town I felt a twinge of culture shock, with the pure cream columns of chic hotels planted firmly on the concrete grid of the city- a sharp contrast between the dusty pebbled shantytowns of Mandela Square.

Zwelethemba

Two weeks in Zwelethemba was an enlightening experience on the effects of the apartheid and poverty in a Township of Capetown. The dirt roads, shanty metal scrap houses and flocks of orphans were juxtapositioned by mountains that seemed to be painted against the bright blue sky and cottonball clouds (it reminded me of the wallpaper from Toystory). The scenery was so beatuiful that it looked like it two dimensional, or from the desktop background of Dad's PC. We stayed in a house that went above and beyond my expectations. I lived with Max and Mackenzie who were amazing additions to the wonderful family. We got so close with our host mother, who worked so hard to keep us happy and comfortable but treated us like her own children by having us take turns doing the nightly dinner prayer and dishes and encouraged us to keep our beds made and rooms tidy (I can hear real Mom's voice now when I get home and face the looming task of unpacking). Our host father works at the Cape Town military base in the transport sector of the logistics department, but took a week leave this past week so that he could spend some time with us- quite the mellow guy. We all had class and lectures about a 15 minute walk into the town at the library, where we had some really interesting guest appearances from an HIV panel (including a traditional Sangoma healer, a pastor and an adherance counselor from the local clinic), a panel of Host mothers (who described the lifestyle of Zwelethemba and their experiences with apartheid), a physician from the South Africa TB Vaccination Initiative, and from the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Organization who had  unique presentation of rapping and motivational singing. They gave us all CD's of their music that is a mixture of many langauges (there are 11 national languages of South Africa). In Zwelethemba they speak the Xhosa language which characteristically includes 4 clicking sounds (one of the only clicking languages in the world)- it was really tricky but we had many trials with family and children who tried to perfect our clicking. In the spirit of Thanksgiving all of the students prepared Thanksgiving dinner for their individual homestay families, and Susan (one of the country coordinators) decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to create a mini documentary (she's a film making teacher on the side of her anthropology and health career)- called "Thanksgiving in Zwelethemba". She filmed many of the preperations of the makeshift traditional dinners and interviewed students and homestay mothers on their experiences- I was featured telling Thempsi (a homestay mother and the main homestay organizer, and activisit in Zwelethemba) the story and history of Thanksgiving and had to flashback to elementary US history- but I think Ms. Pavlides would approve. We prepared a roast chicken with lemon sage stuffing, roasted butternut squash, mashed potatoes, sauteed mushrooms, gravy and a peach-blueberry tart. The family loved it so much that our host brother ended up standing and scraping the leftovers from the serving plates. I had some pretty deep homesickness that day, and got a little emotional on the front step of our house while chatting with the fam who was all together in Connecticut- during the teary phone call my favorite adorable child, Soso, came over with his dusted bare feet and jolly smile and sad with his head on my shoulder and gave me a hopefull thumbs up as I walked inside. The sadness was bridged when we had such a magical experience with the homestay family, we were so happy that they enjoyed the meal (that tasted eerily similar to what we would normally prepare at home) and I couldn't have asked for a more unique and amazing experience on one of my favorite holidays- it was so special to share a glimpse of our culture with them.

5 minutes left at the internet cafe- bullet points here we go!
- had farewell Brii (barbeque) last night with delicious food, and amazing entertainment from a group of girls who performed traditional dancing and singing (that made Gemma and cry and get goosebumps).  We performed the Gumboot dance that we learned earler that day, that comes from when the men would dance in the mines and do lots of rhythmic slapping against their clunky rubber boots.
-arrived back in Cape Town today, met our final homestay families- house is beautiful, has a beaitufl rooftop deck (perfect for homework, working out, and working on the tan- and has a gorgeous view).

Will catch you up on the rest of the trip I promise!!