Memoirs of a Train Jail Survivor

Molo ungani! Today is the one-week-left-in-Cape-Town mark and I've been running around trying to pack everything in. While it seems like I've done a million and a half things since I've last written, it also feels like Rockin' the Daisies was just yesterday. Funny how that happens.

Two weekends ago, on Friday morning, I had a particularly good minibus ride. When I hailed the taxi, it screeched to a halt, opened the door and placed (shoved) me in the front bench seat in the middle. It was kinda like when you're little and you ride between Mom and Dad, except for Dad had four gold teeth in a row and Mom was an off-duty, 18th year-old minibus hustler. I liked this little guy a lot and he happily answered my million questions about his lifestyle. He told me that he worked 15 hour days and sometimes didn't come home with any profit at all- that is, if he hadn't played the game right that day. He referred to it as a "game," this cut-throat competition for passengers. He also told me that his biggest life's ambition was to go to Paris. First step, I decided, must be getting himself off the minibus entitled "Sweet Baby" that constantly retraced its sweet little steps down the Main Road. He asked to marry me, but I don't think he realized that doing so wouldn't ensure him any kind of fame or fortune. Quite the opposite, really. If he wants to be homeless and sleeping on an Australian street, I'm his girl!

So, I guess last Friday was fated to be an interesting transportation day. I set out to spend the day in Simonstown- a quant, rustic little beach community around the Southern Cape. Only once had I taken a train in this particular direction, so I bought what I believed to be the correct ticket, crossed under the rails to get to the opposite platform and eventually boarded. The ride was long so with iPod hooked to head, I closed my eyes and semi-dozed off. In a flurry, I awoke to an influx of train security people demanding to see everyone's tickets. I handed mine over, not at all concerned, only to be pulled off my "first class" seat (I had been advised to always ride in this car) by my white freckled arm and thrown onto the platform. There was definite upheaval around me and as I asked what the hell was happening, a large woman barked "You have third class ticket. You in FIRST class car!" Shit. Thanks, South Africa. I stood on the platform for a second and exhausted myself trying play the "dumb foreigner" card to each and every guard. In reality, I WAS just a horribly unfortunate, mistake-making tourist on that day. Eventually, I was pushed down a cement staircase after a procession of Xhosa speaking, angry, angry individuals into a cell under the train tracks. It was kind of like one of those riddles we all used to tell. A little Californian girl is stuck in a cell. There is one guard, lots of other people she can't understand, a table, two rats, and a rod iron gate. How does she get out? Your first answer might be: She pays the R40 fine and they release her. Pssh. That would be too easy! See, the little Cali girl has forgotten all her cash today (seemingly the ONLY day this has ever happened). Stumped?? One by one, fines were paid and the holding cell drained a bit. I begged and pleaded with the guard, but to no avail. He was not keen to let me go for free and revealed my only other option: to wait under there for another couple of hours (or in African time, maybe days) until the regular city police would come and take me to the station. There I would pay R300. NOT A GOOD OPTION! So then, I did that thing that you'd never think you'd do in a situation like that, I started to cry. Just a little, but never the less, it was the tight throat kind of secret cry that makes you feel the worst and look the most pathetic. Just when things were starting to look impossibly bleak, a guy about my age who had heard my desperate pleas handed over a a couple bills, a few toward the guard and a few toward me. It was almost like the clouds parted and a golden beam of light had shown down through the cracks in the dingy cement ceiling. With my "PAID" stub in my hand, the metal gate swung open and alas, I was freed from train jail. I escaped without as much as a scratch and with a good story to tell, but had my 20-something train jail angel not been there, you all could be paying yearly visits to your favorite South African prisoner.

Last sunny Saturday, a bunch of fellow VAC interns and I were transported into Nyunga, the oldest South African township, for a a braai. We were promised street soccer, good food, and more playing children than you could pack into FAO Schwarz- and that's exactly what we got. The children were ridiculously cute and crawled all over everyone like we were a living, breathing, Aryan jungle gym. While I didn't attempt to kidnap any of them like I had in Mozambique, I did fall in love about 6.5 times. The .5 refers to the little girl who befriended me only so she could steal my chicken bone... rascal!

The rest of the weekend was pretty slow and the weather finally behaved enough to lay out at the beach on Sunday afternoon. Come Monday, the clouds rolled through again and loomed over Cape Town for the whole beginning of the week. Even local Capetonians seem rather perplexed by the fickle weather. I mean, it really SHOULD be warmer by now. Instead, it constantly pulls this moody little maneuver where it will be sunny and gorgeous and then BAM. El ficken nino. Watch it shape up just as I step on an airplane- it's already looking that way.


Last week I really began to enjoy spending time with the iKapa professional dancers in Guguletu. I am forcing my friend Nkosikhona to teach me native gum boot dancing which came from the South Africans working in the coal mines. It's a rhythmic dance involving clapping and slapping the sides of their heavy boots in all these sorts of ways. It's definitely a "man's dance," but I just absolutely love it. Nkosi laughs at me when I constantly request to learn a new step, but I'm starting to really pick it up. Might be trading tap shoes for gum boots pretty soon here.

(iKapa Dance Theatre Dancers)

This past weekend was cold and rainy, but I still got some fun activities in. Friday, a herd of interns caravanned up to the beautiful wine country of Franshoek to go chocolate tasting at a local chocolate factory. In the evening, I journeyed down to the waterfront to meet a friend at Oktoberfest at the Paulaner brewery. If you've never seen large African men in lederhoisen, you're truly missing out. Saturday I went to Old Biscuit Mill, surprise surprise, and ordered an ostrich burger for lunch. This large, awkward, silly looking bird just might be my new favorite delicacy. Up along the South African garden route, somewhere I didn't get to go unfortunately, one can actually ride an ostrich. I hear they put a bag over the poor animal's head so it runs around like a feathered maniac. Sounds quite fun, if you ask me, but I'm sure that Bay Area animal rights activists would have a field day with this one. On Sunday, I visited the Two Oceans Aquarium which was pretty cool, but after being spoiled by the exquisite Monterery Bay Aquarium, it's really hard for any water and fish-filled establishment to measure up.

(Lydia and I in front of the Cape Town Stadium - the one they built for World Cup)

Yesterday, I decided to get a little bit festive. Seeing as though Halloween is looming and is indeed one of my favorite holidays, I set out to the local Pick 'n Pay to get some ingredients to make something, anything, Halloweeny. I first inquired about canned pumpkin. It took 3 employees to tell me that, oh no, they don't have that. Figures. Well, surely there would be just whole, carve-able pumpkins then? Mmmm nope. None of that either. Ok, I know, could I make Rice Crispy treats? YES.... they have the lovable American cereal! And hell yeah, I know they have marshmallows here. But, my options are: strawberry, kiwi and lichi, mango, cappuccino, coconut, ice cream cone shaped or fish shaped. No damn regular ones! I left the shop with two large butternut squashes, a huge box of Crispies, chocolate flavored marshmallows, red and yellow food coloring and some black poppy seed-looking sprinkles. Back at the home front I set myself into a Halloween baking frenzy and ended up getting a little overzealous with the red food coloring, thus producing treats that much more closely resembled raw ground beef. The second batch I made was a little better but still sort of looked like someone threw up pumpkin into a baking tin. Mmmmmm. After my culinary adventures, I carved the butternut squash jack-o-lantern and it actually came out alright.

(Intentional cross-eyes)

So this is my last week and I'm starting to get really weirded out by it. In many ways I am ready to come home, see all my friends and family, and carry on with the pre-Sydney planning. In other ways, I feel like I've just barely begun to hit my stride here, know my way around, have a routine and develop some great friendships. When next Tuesday approaches and I throw my suitcases in the taxi, I expect to have pretty wicked mixed emotions about it.

I hope everyone is getting their spookiness on over there! Really, I expect well carved pumpkins and bumpin' of jams like Thriller and Monster Mash. I am sad to be missing out. I know I am coming home soon, but I still love all your comments, so holler atcha girl! Ha. See you soon!! <3 L