A Breath of Fresh Air

I’m here! Cape Town. Sometimes, just the thought of it sends chills up my spine. I am so grateful and joyful to be here.

After far too many hours of sitting on planes and in airports, I arrived in Cape Town Saturday night around 11 pm. Our program director, Melikaya, and our two drivers, Pernell and Sharky, greeted us at the airport. It took awhile to get to the vans and load our numerous suitcases. (Friends and family, you’ll be happy to know that I did NOT win the award for the most luggage. In fact, I think I fall in the middle range for everyone in my program. So ha!)

I will never forget the drive from the airport to Kimberley House (our house in Obz). Naturally, it was dark, so we could barely make out the silhouettes of the mountains in the distance. [We kept guessing whether we were seeing clouds or mountains, but to our delight, the next day, we confirmed they’re mountains.] The weather was cool and breezy, the perfect remedy to an international flight’s patent stuffy air and claustrophobic sensations. I remember thinking, “You’re here, Sarah. You’ve made it. After all this time, you’re finally where you’ve wanted to be.” I was still in disbelief. I just stared out the window, smiling and marveling at my arrival. Even though we could barely make out details of the city, our entire van was cheerful and talkative, gawking at the “Obz” sign and then at our adorable, quaint neighborhood that I will call home for the next 5 months and possibly beyond.

On our first night, playing a massive game of spoons at our enormous kitchen table, the 20 of us briefly got acquainted. After that, my roommate, Vivian, and I unpacked, organized our room, and chatted for a few hours before going to bed. All of the rooms in the house are different, with their own idiosyncrasies. Ours is an inside room, with no window to the outside, but with a big skylight and a fireplace.

Anyway, on the humorous side, I had my first cockroach encounter while I was crawling into bed that night. It fell from underneath the mantel of our fireplace, onto the top of our desk. Naturally, I ran to get someone else to kill it, but I didn’t scream or squeal to wake up Viv. (You have to give me a little bit of credit for that...) Since then, I’ve encountered at least 15+ more…not only in our house, but even in the Slave Lodge museum we went to earlier this week. I think I’m starting to get used to them, though…

On Sunday, after a short orientation with Melikaya and the landlords of our house, all 20 of us decided to go to the beach. As you can imagine, this was a project, calling the cab company and explaining our need to fit 20 people. But at last, we were driving through the mountains, slightly confused, thinking “Didn’t we tell him Camp’s Bay?”, only to see a few of the most gorgeous views ever, and then descending the mountains to the beach. The whole afternoon was wonderful. It was like being on vacation, actually. I wasn’t expecting to do “fun stuff” so soon, but there I was, laying on the gorgeous beach, staring out at the crashing waves on the rocks and intermittedly back at the posh homes and resorts juxtaposed with Lion’s Head and the Twelve Disciples (mountain/rock formations). It was breathtaking. [Sorry, no pictures yet. I didn’t want to risk the sandy/camera combination…but we’ll go back sometime, and I’ll have my camera.]

On Monday, we started our busy orientation week. First, we visited two of the group’s service sites. (We’re not going to be able to visit all of them, though.) The first is called the Saartjie Baartman Centre For Women & Children (to learn about her story: http://www.zar.co.za/baartman.htm), where my friend Shanelle will work. Then, we went into Langa township, the area I’ll be working in, to visit Vivian’s site, Zimasa School. The staff at Zimasa were so happy to see our group that they asked how many of us would be working there, only to learn that Viv is the only one. I quietly hoped that the people at Thembani Primary School will welcome me the same way. After we left Zimasa, we drove through Langa, and Pernell pointed out Thembani and the LoveLife building, where I’ll work with the Ilizwi group. As you can imagine, I was pretty excited. . I’m so excited to interact with the Langa community. We start the week of February 1.

Visiting the townships for the first time was both a humbling and joyful experience. Even though we didn’t interact with that many people during our brief visit, it was clear that even though townships are rough places, full of poverty and crime, the communities are incredibly tight-knit. It just seems that family (especially extended family) and neighbors mean so much in the townships – a sharp contrast to what most of us are used to in the U.S. The other thing that hit me that day was just how starkly varied South Africa is. I mean, I realize that most societies are like this, with the haves and the have-nots, but Cape Town is very striking in this arena…for example, Camp’s Bay, the gorgeous beach/Malibu-esque we went to the other day…and Langa township about 15 minutes away…and Gugulethu township…and so so so many more.

Then, we drove into downtown Cape Town and met with Judy Mayotte, the woman started the program about six years ago. We got to hear her crazy, amazing life story (perhaps I’ll write more about it later), which was incredibly inspiring, and then we enjoyed some traditional South African things for lunch: basically, everything was made of bread or meat. Ha. Afterward, we went to the Slave Lodge museum that I mentioned…came back to the house to rest, and met back up with Melikaya for dinner at a cute pizza place in Obz.

The rest of this week has been incredibly busy, as well. On Tuesday, we had more orientation business to address, such as meeting a diplomat from the U.S. Consulate and touring Parliament. It was pretty surreal to sit in the room where several of the decisions of the apartheid government were made. Our guide told us the story of one of the officials who was stabbed and killed in that very room. We also visited the District 6 Museum (http://www.districtsix.co.za/frames.htm). Our driver, Pernell, grew up in District 6 before it was torn apart by the apartheid government, so he told us various stories with our tour guide. He’s going to drive us through the area at some point, which will be interesting, no doubt.

Yesterday, we visited our school, the University of the Western Cape, for the first time. We had a loooong international student orientation (incredibly boring), and then a short campus tour. The campus is so gorgeous, which I wasn’t expecting, considering UCT (University of Cape Town) is considered the “better” university in the area. Today, we went back to UWC for a day of hell, essentially. It was registration day, which consisted of sitting in a classroom for about 3 hours, while everyone met individually with an advisor to figure out classes, then about 4 hours in a big auditorium getting registered and filing through line after line. At the end, we at lunch at 4pm, and I’m pretty sure there might be one person out of us twenty whose schedule isn’t messed up. Supposedly, we’ll fix it tomorrow or next week, when classes start. Blah.

Anyway, I’ll work on the photo thing in the near future, so as not to bore you all with a lot of text and no visuals. Also, I’m sure I’ve left out details you may want to know, so please leave comments with questions, and I’ll answer them in subsequent blogs. Capiche? I miss you all!

~Sarah Ann Olivia