Minibus to Heaven

The last week has been wonderful, and not in the the oh-my-god-I-can't-believe-I'm-in-Africa kind of way, but more of a comfortable and homey kind of way. It's funny how quickly one can settle into a routine, even when relocated to the other side of the world, ten thousand miles from home. Things seem easier already. For example, I take the train from Obs to downtown Cape Town daily and now without that "toddler lost in Macy's" look on my face. Good thing too because that look, I've learned, makes you the perfect targeted customer for things like sunglasses and World Cup jerseys and "street meat." (Which I may or may not have tried one drunken evening and I may or may not admit is delicious.)


My volunteer internship with iKapa is getting off to a pretty slow start. The schools here keep striking, so that means there aren't any after-school dance classes happening in any of the centers. I actually only taught one day last week and there were about 15 teenagers who giggled behind their hands when I started talking to them. I had the kids introduce themselves one at a time, and learned after about the third one that if I wanted to retain any dignity I had better stop trying to pronounce their names. I taught hip-hop and they actually picked up pretty quickly. It was interesting to see what type of movement was natural and what they struggled with. Any kind of "groove" step or anything with rib and hip isolations went over well, while specific details like angular arm placement were much harder for them to master. Overall, they did great, had fun, and said they "loved American dance." At the end of the class one boy, probably around eleven years old, came up to me. I expected him to thank me for class or ask some question about the steps. Nope. Instead he just wanted to know if he could have the large silver ring I wear on my pointer finger. Oh yeah, and he wanted to poke at my iPod.

The absolute best thing about the internship is the time I get to spend in the car with Buyiswa. She's the director of the outreach program, but is about my age and was raised in one of South Africa's townships. She's sweet, fun and absolutely hilarious. She loves to throw out American music one-liners. For example, they other day she figured something out on the computer after about 40 minutes of effort, and when she did, turned around and proclaimed, "What's my name!" (In a SA accent, this is a bit more like "Wuus ma neaam!") Beyond being funny, Buyi is also a great source of information about the history and culture of South Africa. Despite the fact that I don't feel all that useful here in my internship and the constant change of plans makes a schedule-oriented person like me want to rip my eyeballs out, the car rides with Buyi always make the day worth it.

This weekend was freezing and drizzly, but was still a lot of fun. One of my housemates interns with a winery in Costantia and she was working at a wine expo at the convention center downtown, so we went on Friday night. It was a fun opportunity to rub elbows with Cape Town's elite, and do the whole swirling, sniffing, sipping dance. On Saturday I went with a bunch of the VAC interns to a famous Braai (BBQ) called Mizoli's in one of the townships. Basically, you cart in a ton of meat and they throw it on a huge grill for you. In the meantime, everyone sits at these large round tables under a tin roof overhang and bops around to the African house music. There's something really awesome that happens here that I enjoy very much.... Men dance. And they dance by themselves. And they dance by themselves while their friends just sit there and talk to each other. It's like, if the music strikes you then what the hell, up you go... dance it out! So brilliant. So there we were, watching the dancers, waiting for our trash can lid-sized platter of various cooked animal to arrive at our table, and we decided to take a trip to the bottle store in the meantime. Andrew, one of our program guides, lead us across the street (past the kids playing and the stray animals and the craft vendors) and into the liquor store. But this store was much less a "store" than it was someone's house- complete with entire family sitting around in the living room shooting the shit, mama cooking a meal on the stove in the tiny back kitchen, and squirmy siblings running around chasing a soccer ball. So there we were, a bunch of awkward foreigners, and before I could even question it, ahead of us in a beam of golden light was an open fridge. Bingo! Beer for sale.


Something really cool happened today, and I'm not entirely sure why, but South Africa decided it was time to demolish two HUGE water towers that stood prominently in the city scape. We set out at about eleven, as the demolition was scheduled to happen at noon and we didn't know if it would be now or now now or just now or African time or ACTUALLY at noon. So we hopped in a minibus. Now, I've taken only a few of these minibuses so far, but I can already tell it's going to be one of my favorite features of Cape Town. These prehistoric versions of the modern minivan zip around, in and out of the traffic, pull over, drive away, honk, and yell things at you, without any regard for common curtsey or decency. The typical minibus operation takes two guys to be successful- one to actually do the driving, and one to lean out of the van's sliding door while the vehicle is in motion and yell destinations at people. There have been times when I've been walking down the street that way and a minibus coming this way stops and yells at me over and over and over and over and over, "Rondebosch?! You wanna go to Rondebosch?!" And then I'm subjected to an intense few moments of horn honking and probably 32 eyes glued to me (because they pack so many people in those damn things that everyone is sitting on everyone else's laps and therefore have no patience for this little white girl who may or may not want to go to to where they're going). In the end, they usually drive away JUST as I realize that crap, maybe I DO wanna go to Rondebosch, when I had in fact been heading the complete opposite way. It's a weird, mind-trippy, pushy, inconvenient, uncomfortable, sweaty, sketchy operation- and I really enjoy it.


So, another great thing about this weekend is that we planned a big trip (a vacation from my vacation). Two of my housemates and I are going to fly to Durban next Saturday. Durban is supposed to be a cool little coastal, surfing town around the other side of South Africa which happens to host an enormous Indian population. From there, we are going to get on Baz Bus, which is this hop-on, hop-off bus that takes backpackers all over the place. The plan is to go up into Swaziland and stay in a treehouse hostel near a game park that's supposed to have hippos just chillin' at it. We will get off the Baz in Johannesburg where we'll stay for a night or two before heading out to Mozambique. From what I've heard, Mozambique is complete paradise and beyond that, is supposed to be more like "real Africa." I hope to get a little snorkeling in as well as sailing / sport fishing and of course proper lounging at the stilted beach bars. Gotta remember to stock up on Malaria meds this week...

...Anyway, sorry this was a long one! And also, sorry for the lack of good pictures. I keep forgetting the damn camera is in my bag! (Sorry Dad!). Please send me your comments and emails. I haven't heard from some of you yet (family, where you at?!) Love you all, and I hope everyone is doing well. California summer weather is finally behaving itself I hear?!

Love always,
Leah