Hey everyone!
So this has been the first normal week in awhile. Volleyball, shawco and volunteering at the hospital have all started up again. This is also the first week in about 5 weeks where I haven’t had multiple tests and papers, so it’s very nice.
So I feel like I should give a little info on transportation in Cape Town because it’s very unique, frightening and straight up Africa. Trains are 5 rand for most rides which is roughly $.75. It’s nice because it’s so cheap, but is ridiculously overcrowded, smelly and can feel pretty shady. It really isn’t safe to ride the trains once it’s dark and most white South Africans would never dream of riding them ever. I like them because it makes it easy to get to the beach and it is always a different experience. Another way to get around is through cab companies. These are the cabs that we call to order and there is a meter. This is definitely the safest option, but also the most expensive. We use these when we are going out at night to get to where we are going. Normally, we then use a different kind of cab to get home. The other cabs don’t have meters and you have to argue the price before you get it. The cab drivers are usually disgruntled because they feel like they are getting ripped off no matter how much you are paying them. It really isn’t safe to ride these alone either, so if we use them we use them with big groups and with guys. When there is a huge group of people we usually call Al, who has a huge van and Ida, the woman who looks after us, recommended. He is pretty cheap, knows us and knows a lot about Cape Town and what is good to do and what’s not, so it’s nice to ride with him too. The final and most noticeable forms of transportation are the minibuses. The minibuses ride up and down the main streets yelling at pedestrians to get in their vans. They have a man hanging out the window shouting and whistling things like “Caaaaappppppeee Towwwnnn” and “Wyyyynnnnbeeerg” and they will even call out certain individuals to try and get them to get in the van. The streets are usually very noisy due to the minibuses and it will be strange not hearing them in the streets when I get home. A minibus ride costs 5 rand and you just ride it until you want to get out along the ride. The minibuses take in as many people as possible. The people who are running the minibus often have us sit on each other’s laps and squish 4 people onto 2 seats etc. The minibuses seems pretty frightening from the outside, but once you’re inside and used to them they are actually pretty fun because it’s such an adventure and unlike anything else. (I know when I am driving the van at home I will probably have the urge to pick people up and charge them 5 rand to ride down Naper) (We also pretended that Nababeep was a minibus when we were on our way to Nambia by shouting out the window and we actually had a lot of people flag us down) Every minibus has it’s own personality and some even have names. Some of my favorites are Sexy Lady, Dream Believer, Prison Break (which I’m avoiding riding) and Wave Rider. A lot of the minibuses blast music, others are pretty chill with older guys running them and then some are just run by a group of friends having fun. There are also normally weird signs and creepy stuffed animals in them. You should never be the first one on the minibus, or the last one off, you should never get on if there are only men on it and we shouldn’t ride them after dark. Again, most white South African would not be caught dead in one, but we really like them. It makes it a lot easier to get around during the day on the weekends and is an exciting mode of transportation.
On Thursday I went with some of the other girls in the house to Pancho’s in Obxervatory, which is a Mexican restaurant. Pancho’s is one of the few places in Cape Town which has decent Mexican food, so it’s the place to go when you are craving it. Tostitos chips are super hard to find here, so it’s always nice to be able to have them. The place is always full of American international students who come for the great margaritas and huge portions. South Africa doesn’t really have the concept of salsa or guacamole down. The salsa is just kinda a sauce and the guacamole is just sorta green and creamy. So whenever we do find Tostitos chips, it’s better to just make our own salsa and guacamole which we have down a few times.
Last Saturday we took a minibus to spend the day downtown. We went to a burger place for lunch. It had great burgers and really good milkshakes (and again, Cape Town is pretty lacking with their ice cream/milkshakes for the most part). I will definitely miss ostrich burgers when I get back to the states. We walked around and went into some stores on Long Street. We then went to a market where there were lots of vendors selling African knickknacks. I really need to start buying souvenirs because the dollar is getting worse and prices are going up as the World Cup approaches.
Marie, Kathryn and I then took a minibus from there to the Green Point Stadium which was just built for the World Cup! The stadium is hosting different sporting events during the months leading up to the World Cup as “practice runs.” You could tell that they aren’t quite ready for the main event yet, because there wasn’t soap in the bathrooms and most of the security people didn’t really know what they were doing yet. We walked around the whole stadium and it was much different than any other stadium I have been at because on one side were the huge mountains and on the other side the ocean and waterfront. It’s in a beautiful location! We went there to see the South African U-20 team play to the Nigeria U-20 team. (Well really I went to see the World Cup stadium because my family leaves South Africa the day the World Cup starts) South Africa’s team was much better than Nigeria’s team, but they ended up losing. I actually wasn’t impressed with either of the teams, I think the Mangbro players are better than most of them. There seemed to be a lot of babies on the team, who whenever they fell would stay down and delay the game for like 5 minutes and then get up and be fine. That happened several times in the first half alone. The goalie was carried off the field in a stretcher, so I don’t think he was actually faking, but I have my doubts about everyone else.
On Sunday, we went to Hout Bay for a sunset cruise. I was picturing a yacht, but it was actually a speedboat which is so much better!! The boys went first on their “bru’s cruise,” as they called it. While they rode around we went and relaxed at a restaurant that overlooked the beach, which was really nice. Once the boys were done, it was our turn. The water was really rough for us, which I was very happy about. I love fast boats. When my grandparents had a house at the Lake of the Ozarks, I used to love when my grampa would go fast and we would stand at the front of the boat to feel the waves and get splashed, so it was a bit of a flashback to childhood. The boat caught a lot of air and we got really wet a few times. We went all around Hout Bay which is a really good place for photos. We went around to a few different beaches and even saw a shipwreck from the 90’s. We went to “Seal Island” (but not the one they show on Shark Week, that one is a little further out and around where I went shark cage diving). There were hundreds and hundreds of seals all lying on top of each other on the huge rocks. When the seals saw us, a lot of them jumped into the water and swam to the boat which was really cool. We ended the ride by doing lots of doughnuts and figure 8’s in the water and getting even more wet. We grabbed calamari and chips afterwards before heading back home. Such a fun day!
I volunteered at the hospital on Monday again and am getting the hang of it more. I was in the same ward as last time which was nice because I had some of the same patients then. One of the girls is very demanding and requires a lot of attention, so I usually end up hanging out with her a lot. Her parents are never there and it seems like she has been there awhile. She cries a lot when I can’t meet all of her many demands, but she also calls me Auntie, so I think she likes me well enough. She didn’t enjoy me reading her Junie B. Jones though, so obviously there is something terrible wrong with her besides the huge halo contraption that she wears.
Volleyball is getting a little more intense again. This week they had me playing setter, which was very weird for me because I have never been a setter. I have always been a good passer and hitter, but setting always came slower to me, but I did well with it. It’s sort of tough figuring out what position I should be playing here because they don’t play with a libero, which I’m used to.
SHAWCO started up again this week too. The kids were pretty rowdy and we had to give them a lecture on respect because of it. I felt very old lecturing kids about that sort of stuff, but it did settle them down. We did stuff on nouns and long division this week. The kids struggled a lot with the long division, which is understandable because it’s hard for any kid. It’s especially hard for them because they learn maths in Xhosa in here, but we explain it in English. The kids who caught on early ended up explaining it to the others in Xhosa, which seemed to help a lot. The language barrier does create issues when we are teaching the kids, but for the most part their English is very good.
Sadly, we lost our fist soccer game this week. We knew that this was going to be the hardest game because we were playing the top team and we are number 2. The team was actually full of American students as well, which was pretty funny. It was weird because we didn’t recognize any of them and at this point we at least know the faces of most of the American students. For awhile during the game we thought they were actually South African players posing as Americans to fool us (their name was The Americans), but we found out after the game alas they were actual Americans who play for the UCT men’s team. We should play them in the playoffs and hopefully we can beat them then because we didn’t play as well as we could have.
Yesterday, we started the day at Old Biscuit Mill which is always amazing. I got my usual ostrich burger because it’s so good that I doubt anything else there could compare. I also got robust ice tea which is really good here and caramel ice cream. I have already decided that when my family gets here on in 5 weeks or so, Old Biscuit Mill will be their first stop on that Saturday morning.
Kathryn and I went to the UCT rugby game later that day. I have made a bucket list of things I want to do before I leave Cape Town, so I was happy to be able to check off rugby. There were 3 games going at the same time because rugby is so big here that UCT has multiple teams, but we watched the top team. I had noticed at the soccer game last week that there weren’t any white players and with rugby I noticed there weren’t any black players. You still see segregation everywhere in South Africa.
9 of the housemates went to Beluga for dinner last night too. It is one of the top 60 restaurants in the world and it was delicious! They have great half off sushi and cocktail deals during certain days of the week, so it was really cheap too! It was a really nice restaurant and I definitely want to go back! We walked to the waterfront and ate ice cream across the street from the World Cup Stadium. I know that it will be cool seeing the stadium on TV when I get home and make me miss Cape Town even more.
Hope all is well with everyone! Chicago weather seems to be warmer than Cape Town weather most days now!
Cheers from Africa!
Megan
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