A Long Walk to Freedom

The earliest ferry to Robben Island runs at 9am; the reason this is important is that it’s steeply discounted (which is important for some of us who are experiencing a slight case of transitional unemployment). Because the weather in Cape Town is always a bit iffy, the folks that run the ferry wait until 8:15am to decide if ferries will run for the day. Every morning Mike has been in charge of calling Robben Island at 8:15 to see if we should make the trip to the Victoria and Alfred Waterfront (where the boat is launched). Why Mike is always the first one up I still can’t understand. 4 or 5am nights are not uncommon for this kid and yet he’s still the one in charge of rounding up the troops and rallying in the morning. Aka, he’s a machine. Anyway, apparently on Saturday the weather was good enough for the captains because the call was good. Although we rushed as quickly as our little VW Polo would allow, by the time we arrived the ferry was full. The next trip left at 11am so we drank bottomless coffee at the Mug & Bean to wait for our boat.

For those of you who are unfamiliar. Robben Island is home to the infamous Robben Island Prison, where Nelson Mandela spent the majority of his 27 years in prison. For that reason, Robben Island is iconic of the anti-Apartheid movement and is remembered not for its brutality, but as a symbol of man’s triumph over an oppressive regime.

I find it interesting that just over four years ago, the first assignment I received from the University of Notre Dame (as part of the application process) was to write an essay about Nelson Mandela. I now have come full circle and represent my alma mater in South Africa, the seat of Nelson Mandela’s struggle behind bars against apartheid. Since having to write that initial college application essay about Mandela, his story and persona have helped shape who I am and no doubt influenced my decision to come to South Africa in the first place. Visiting Robben Island and seeing first-hand the setting of Mandela’s fight was something I cannot yet adequately put to words. That being said, what follows is brief attempt.

The tour took us around the island and gave us some history. Apparently Robben Island was once a Dutch trading post and later a leper colony. As interesting as that sounds, I was more concerned with its recent history. We saw the quarry where Mandela and other political prisoners spent much of their time. There, they educated themselves and the other prisoners and, in the relative privacy of a cave-turned-bathroom, even decided ANC policy. The level of innovation and resolve of these political prisoners was incredible.

The whole experience reinforced the crushing truth that, while apartheid is officially gone, it didn’t occur that long ago. The aftermath of what happened here in South Africa can witnessed every day, whether on the faces of older generations who remember it as a way of life, the slum townships where Blacks and Colored people were forced to relocate to, or the incredible economic inequality clinging to racial lines. While it’s often easy to be seduced by the appeal of this city, easy is not always good. Visiting Robben Island helped me put things in context and see beneath the surface to further understand my time here.

Yarr, Table Mountain

Thursday morning I awoke and immediately threw back the curtains of my room. The sun was shining and the usual clouded veil over Table Mountain was nowhere to be seen. This was good news. Three other coworkers (Alexis, Mark, Lisa) and I had decided to take the day off to scale the mountain. Of the three-hundred plus routes we could have taken, we picked the one with the coolest-sounding name: Skeleton Gorge. Pretty gnarly, right? Rumor has it the name came from 16^th century Spanish pirates, led by the dreaded Captain Donner. They got shipwrecked and climbed the mountain (then called Mesa Mountain) to hide their booty. On the way they got caught in a vicious snowstorm and were trapped. For months they stayed on the side of the mountain, slowly running out of food. Years later when Dutch explorers were poking around in the rocks they saw all sorts of skeletons and, lacking any creativity, named the gorge after that. Since then, literally dozens of mountain-climbers have searched in vain for Captain Donner’s treasure. Thursday was our turn…

Alright, I’m going to cut to the chase; we never found the booty. However, unlike Captain Donner’s crew, we climbed to the peak and lived to tell about it. We even did so without pickaxes, ropes, or whatever else people usually use to climb large rock formations. Along the way we had to hike up boulders, leap crevasses, use chains and ladders, and even scramble up an honest-to-God waterfall. We met a fair share of people who had turned around because of the treacherous conditions and told us to take caution. While the initial climb to the top was steep and dangerous, once we found ourselves on the top of the table it was a predominately horizontal adventure. That’s not to say it was easy. After three hours of intense battle against Mother Nature (not to mention our bodies) we reached the summit. There, silhouetted against the blue-grey South-African sky was the most amazing sight. A mountain-top restaurant and bar offering as much food as you could fit on a plate for R59 ($7). We all made sure to do the American thing and pile our plates high. I don’t think anything could have tasted better.

After our gorging it was getting late and we were tired. I had planned on going in to work in the afternoon but the mountain had thought otherwise. It was almost 5pm so we took the cable car back down. I couldn’t imagine descending Skeleton Gorge; that was probably Captain Donner’s foil. Unlike him, we four interns lived to pillage and fight another day.

Sports

I know a lot of you aren’t entirely sure what it is I’m doing down here in Cape Town. Hopefully this entry will illuminate some of that work for you.

On Tuesday Grassroot Soccer held a Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) tournament in the township of Khayelitsha, outside Cape Town. The premise of the event is that 14 teams (age 14 – 16) were invited to play in a soccer tournament on Youth Day (a public holiday here in South Africa to commemorate the 1976 student riots in Soweto to protest the education system under Apartheid). The rules of the tournament emphasize fair play and cooperation between the teams. Throughout the day the teams are also encouraged to test for HIV and take part in HIV/AIDS education and awareness activities. This was the first tournament of its kind in Cape Town. We were working in conjunction with a number of other NGOs so it was important everything was taken care of before hand.

We had been planning this event since my arrival at GRS. The weather forecast threatened hard rain and thunder. However, as this is Cape Town and the forecast is never correct, we had a slight shower in the morning followed by sunshine throughout the rest of the day. The shindig went off pretty much as planned. Of the 14 teams, 12 showed up on time; the other two showed up 3 hours late. A tent with a DJ pumped house beats onto the fields. We had lunch for all the teams and volunteers. Members of the local semi-professional soccer team showed up to voice their support. Most importantly though, almost all the kids went forward and got tested for HIV.

The soccer was incredible. Some of these kids had no shoes, no shin guards, and still absolutely dominated. Everyone played with an incredible passion for the sport. You can definitely tell the level of influence soccer has here in Southern Africa.

My role in all of this involved attempting to document and photograph every member of every team, including getting gnarly freeze-frame action shots. In preparing my camera for such a task I accidentally reformatted my memory card and it deleted all my photos…all my photos, including everything from the Netherlands up until now. (Funny thing that Cannon doesn’t include a warning message that what you’re about to do will wipe clean any trace of the last 3 weeks of your life). I know that a lot of times memory cards will create ghost files so I took the camera to the store to have them look at it. Unfortunately it was beyond repair and all I got out of the deal was a newly-formatted SD memory card.

Anyway, because I didn’t want to use my camera for the tournament (in case it was salvageable so I didn’t write over the ghost files) I borrowed a digital SLR (one of those big ones with the telescopic lenses) from Matt, another ND kid in the program. I had a blast using this thing. Maybe I found my calling and I’ll just be a professional photographer. However, as I was snapping away I couldn’t help but notice all the other fancy, high-end cameras in the crowd. I’ll bet the ratio of cameras to players was about 1:1. There were film crews, folks from Nike, the local media, and even a few real professional photographers in the mix. It felt a little overwhelming. I know the coverage is good and it’s important to spread what we’re doing but with so much attention if almost felt a little exploitative. That being said, I saw the video created for a tournament in Lesotho by the same film crew and it was amazing. I’m excited to see what they do with this one.

I learned something new about Africa as well. It seems the more and more you plan for something the less and less that plan will be followed. As soon as we got to the tournament things started going haywire. Teams didn’t show up, we weren’t on schedule, and there could have been better communication among everyone on the ground. The only thing to do was stay fluid and adapt to the situation. That being said, I thought overall the tournament was a huge success. After the long day I was completely exhausted so I devoured a half-chicken with hot peri-peri sauce at Nandos (voted best chicken in the world by ND interns) and got some well-deserved sleep.

Surfin' in the RSA

All right dudes and dudettes. This next story is totally sick …man. So like, here we go.

Surfing enthusiasts will tell you Cape Town is one of the sport’s Meccas. The first weekend here I was able to experience this knowledge first hand. Early Saturday morning I received a phone call from my coworker Mark asking if I would be down for hitting the waves with him and another intern, Tannis. Although I’ve often fantasized about growing out my hair and being a beach bum in some exotic locale I have never actually surfed before. Did I want to risk the freezing cold water? Absolutely. Would I look funny in a wetsuit? I was counting on it. So without much further consideration I decided to devote the rest of the day to getting pummeled by the ocean. Being a decent snowboarder (and a former very-mediocre skateboarder) I’m actually surprised I had never given this aqueous sport a try. I’m thinking growing up in Minnesota, a thousand miles from the nearest coast, probably had something to do with it.

After briefly experimenting with all the wrong ways to put on an obnoxiously bright wet suit I was ready to meet my new best friend – the blue whale of surfboards, a 10 foot buoyant plank which had the tendency to smack unsuspecting Capetonians on its way down to the beach. I nicknamed it the Beast. Although a storm loomed threateningly in the distance, and clouds rimmed the horizon, the sun continued to shine on us the entire day. With the wetsuit the water didn’t seem that cold, even for the Southern-Hemispheres “winter”. Compared to the rugged northern woods of Minnesota and north shore of Lake Superior this whole Atlantic didn’t seem so tough.

Now on to the meaty stuff. Mark, who grew up surfing, gave me a crash course in what to do. What follows was the basic lesson plan. 1) Go in ocean. 2) Find big wave. 3) Swim. 4) Stand up. 5) Surf and look cool…Piece of cake. The first time around I got through steps 1 – 3 just fine, but when it came time to “stand up” I did so only to find that the wave was now in front of me and I sank pathetically into the ocean. Refusing to be beaten I turned around and tried again. This time I made it up. I was officially a surfer! Riding this wave was a kick. It felt a little like snowboarding, only falling tasted saltier.

The next hour or so was spent on steps 4 and 5. Although I can’t say I necessarily looked “cool” I definitely looked upright (a step in the right direction). However, the fun didn’t last long. Surfing requires a lot of awkward swimming motions to maneuver the board in the water. This was very difficult on my shoulder, which had been dislocated last November in a vicious, freak-broomball accident. During my surfing expedition the ball of the shoulder would occasionally “pop” out of the socket a little. Now, I’m no doctor but I can’t imagine that’s healthy…or normal. At one point, just as I was pushing up onto my feet, my shoulder became dislodged and I was unable to put it back in place. With one arm contorted awkwardly I used the other to grip the Beast and weather the wave, body surfing all the way back to shore. Tannis said I should probably sit out the rest of the day. As I popped my shoulder back into place I had to agree with her.

Although my surfing experience was cut short, it was still really enjoyable. Everything aside from the damaging-my-body part was sweet. The next day I started rehab on my injured joint and it’s definitely getting better (I’m sure you’re all worried). I’ll have to figure out a way to fix my shoulder so it doesn’t bother me. Otherwise I’d imagine my career as a professional surfer will end in an early retirement and I’d have to stick to other beach activities – like lounging around or burying people in the sand. Definitely not as cool.

It's a Long Walk Home

It’s official. I’m a working man. 9 – 5, a shared desk, instant coffee, lunch breaks, awkward elevator conversations, and presentations to the boss. It’s a laid back atmosphere at Grassroot Soccer and most everyone working here is young and passionate about what they do. The office is located in downtown Cape Town right next to Long Street, the night life center of the city (coincidence or by design?). The first week on the job was spent getting the feel for the organization and figuring out what exactly I’d be doing. My initial impression of the office revealed a very casual dress code; luckily for me I came to Africa equipped with nice khakis and plenty of dress shirts. These would have come in handy on Friday when most people dressed smart; unfortunately I chose that day to dress down. Yeah, I’m that guy.

I would like to take this time to talk a bit about Long Street and my first (but most likely not last) run-in with the street rogues who prowl the city during the dusk hours. Instead of walking home from work with my coworker Luke (an MBA student at Notre Dame) I decided to explore some local shops. This didn’t last long as everything closes at 5pm (Which makes no sense to me. Wouldn’t stores want to stay open later so people with actual jobs can come in?). So, after a frustrating visit to closed-up store fronts I turned to walk home along Long Street. Not soon after I started walking than a tattooed street-hawker approached me and offered to sell me some sort of phone-card. Declining, I just kept on walking. He followed me down Long Street about a block, still insisting I take his card. After I had ignored him as long as he could tolerate he turns to me and says,

“Look, I am a very bad man and you don’t want anything to happen. So just give me everything you got.” Looking around at the crowded avenue and half-dozen security guards patrolling the streets I couldn’t help but laugh. Really? This chump was trying to rob me in blind daylight? Looking at him with disbelieving eyes I respond,

“Are you crazy? You’re not getting anything.” A stupefied smile appeared on his face and he replied with a slow “okay.” He then turned around and let me continue on my way. I couldn’t believe it. That was quite possibly the worst mugging in the history of crime! I mean, it was just lazy. Absolutely no initiative.

The fun didn’t just stop there, though. Moments later, still in shock by what had just happened, a limping teen approached me asking for money. Not satisfied with my resolute “no” he too decided following me would offer a greater return on his investment. Now wise to the game, I crossed the street towards a department store, thinking this a safe refuge. Unfortunately, like I said earlier, everything closes at 5. Keeping stride he declares,

“Look, you better give me something or I’ll have to take it from you.” Although I realized it was a dangerous situation I couldn’t help but acknowledge the pathetic irony between the two cases. I was now in a less-crowded area and there were no security guards in sight. After telling the young punk off with a few choice expletives I turned to cross the street towards a Shell. About that time another street-friend of his spots us and started approaching. While the first is still insisting I donate to his cause, the other moves to intercept my movement. Unfortunately for them, petrol is open 24 hours. I spent the next 20 minutes in a gas station sipping a Coke and browsing the magazine rack. After my potential muggers had gotten bored and walked away I too turned to leave. It was now getting dark and I wanted to get home so I could get ready for the night…we were planning on hitting up a couple of bars on Long Street.

Mall Rats

I’m writing this first post from my third floor apartment in downtown Cape Town. It has one bedroom, one bathroom, a small kitchen, and (ladies, take note) is located above a shopping mall. I literally have to walk through a jungle of commercial real estate to get to my room. Within a three-minute walk are two grocery stores, three cafes, and about five quality restaurants; I don’t think I’m going to starve. That being said, I have to imagine the whole “mall scene” will get old, fast. Because of these living situations it doesn’t really seem like I’m South Africa yet, although I’m sure that will change when I start working. On that topic, I begin my internship tomorrow. I’m still not entirely sure what I’m doing but will find out soon enough.

Moving on, Cape Town is an eclectic city – one with a deeply troubled past. Although I have only been here a few days the fallout from a history of forced racial segregation is still apparent. While apartheid has fallen and everyone is equal under the law, the economic inequalities are staggering. I don’t want to get too into it on this first post but I’m sure this will be a theme I continue to fall back on.

On a lighter note (or darker, depending on your level of confidence in me) I’m taking my American-trained driving skills to the streets of South Africa. The seven other interns and I have to rely on two shared cars for our transportation needs. Usually this wouldn’t be a big deal; however, in South Africa they drive on the left side of the road (damn British imperialists). What makes this situation messier is the overall lack of automatic cars in the rental-car market. This meant that for the first day I was the only person who knew how to drive a manual Toyota back from the airport. That initial drive to our apartments was easily the scariest drive of my life. I don’t think I’ve ever paid more attention to the road then on that day. Not only did I have to mentally reverse everything going on outside the car, but everything inside the car as well. The clutch was in the same position, but the blinkers and stick shift were both switched. I’m not going to describe the journey in too much detail; just know we made it home safely. However, on the way I managed to stall out once, almost merge into another car on the freeway, follow the lead car (my professor) onto the wrong side of a divided road, and get briefly tailed by a police officer. Needless to say we swapped the Toyota out for an automatic.

Today I had my first encounter with the renowned South African wildlife. We took a nice coastal drive to Simon’s Town and saw about a hundred penguins just hanging out on the rocks. I also learned something particularly interesting about the tuxedo-bird that I think is rather important. I don’t care how many times you’ve seen March of the Penguins or Happy Feet, these animals are NOT all cute and innocent. Don’t pet them; they will bite.