rafting to namibia
This past week at University of Cape Town was “study week,” a week allotted to all students after classes end to study for finals. Naturally, we figured we would get a lot more studying done rafting and camping on the Orange River, the river that divides South Africa from Namibia.
At 5:30am on Saturday, Pine, the owner of the guide company picked us up in his “bucky.” Taylor and I sat in the enclosed trunk of the car, don’t worry there were windows. It resembled a cell, den, whatever twist one might want to put on this hot, sweaty space that we rode in for eight hours both ways.
In between naps, every time I awoke on the ride was a different scenery. From wine country, to farm areas, the colours started getting more and more scarce, desert-mountains appeared slowly, and people became more and more scarce.
We arrived at the base camp to explore the orange river, sit in the sun and swim for hours before a camp fire and delicious braai. After the first night of sleeping under the breathtaking African stars, we were headed on our rafting trip down the river.
Our two leaders, John and Mark securely attached everything to the rafts, and we were off, paddling right and left down the river.
The landscape around the Orange River is so fascinating. Every different scene looks like the cover of National Geographic. The river is clear, mostly calm, with fish jumping and so many different types of birds that our leaders pointed out along the way. In the river, different rock formations with heart-shaped holes and waves imprinted in them. Next to the river, is green, lush vegetation, from tall reeds, to trees to flowers. But just beyond the green is brown, rocky desert mountains. You can almost see the lines when it changes from water, to green, to brown.
The second two days of the trip, I paddled in the back, the back paddler is the person who steers, lots of man power. I am so ripped now, gosh. I succeeded in this situation for the most part. Once, I drove Laura and I into some thorny trees, and managed to get stuck over a couple of rocks. Never fell out though, and gosh my muscles are ripped.
The most adrenaline provoking moment was when Taylor and I went through a rapid called “entry exam.” We hit a rock from the side and were stuck. All of the sudden water filled our boat completely, almost taking all the supplies out and through the rapid. We were told to sit still if we hit a rock, because otherwise we would flip the boat, fall out, and potentially get stuck under a rock, which would clearly not be a good plan. John came and tied the boat to a rock on the side so we managed to get some of the water out and step out of the boat. We were saved with our hearts pumping. We walked up the side of the river with the boat so we could ride through the rapid without hitting a rock.
We also went through rapids in what were called “nappy runs.” A nappy run is when we put our life vests over our legs, to look like a nappy (diaper), and ride down a rapid sans boat in “cocktail position,” feet up, hands out, head up. It took us a while to get out into the water for fear of hitting a rock and drowning, but once we pushed ourselves, it was completely worth it. We also did a cliff jump into the water, which was also quite a thrill.
At night, the boys cooked delicious meals for us over the fire, we told awful ghost stories, drank boxed wine, peed in the woods, and slept under the stars. We came back with many layers of dirt, almost dreaded hair, sunburns and bug bites, all the best parts of coming back from a camping trip, gotta feel accomplished am I right?
condom drama.
condom scandals + South Africa’s HIV/AIDS issues….
we are the champions.
Last night, the South African Springboks won the Rugby World Cup. I could not think of a better time to be in South Africa (except maybe in 2010).
We watched the game at a bar called Springboks, appropriately. We reserved a table a week in advance, because this is the biggest event of the year, everyone, and I mean everyone, was out for this event. Every square inch of the bar was filled with green and gold t shirts, booze, and large screen televisions. Before the game, during the game when there was a good play, and after the game there would be random singings of “Olay, olay olay olay….” And other South African songs, and just intense screaming in general.
I usually do not get into sports, but since I’ve been here, I have learned how rugby is played, and I actually enjoy watching the over masculing, tough sport, especially because the energy around me when I watch it is always so joyous and positive.
80 minutes was up, and the whole bar stood on tables, many broke, and everyone screamed and cheered, and hugged strangers. For an hour after the game, everyone just stood and screamed with open-mouthed smiles. As we waited for a cab to pick us up, we screamed some more outside.
We then went to Long St, where the street was blocked of cars, and the biggest dance party I have ever seen was in the street. Everyone who was anyone was screaming, dancing, hugging in the street. Why pay to get into a bar or club when it is outside? It was the most fun, happy, exciting night I have had since I have been here. I wish the Sprigboks could win every Saturday night, although if that happened I would probably completely loose my voice permanently.
South Africa is not only a great rugby team, but South Africa really could use this win. This win really brought everyone together. Dancing on Long Street, there were black people, white people, coloured people, young people, old people, college students, homeless people, everyone with a common reason to sing, shout, dance and smile so wide that the whole country’s cheeks hurt today.
uct…american state school.
Yesterday was the infamous University of Cape Town Beach Braai. When searched for on YouTube, you receive a video result of scantily clad girl shakin’ it. Everyone says that it is the biggest UCT event of the year, and I could simply not miss it.
We drove almost an hour outside Cape Town to Silverstroom beach, because apparently UCT has been kicked off all other closer beaches because of happenings at previous beach braais. Our minibus pulled into the parking lot of the beach, and there were tons of cars set up, tailgating the beach braai. People running around with handles of Jack Daniels, urinating on the side of the road. It was soooo college.
In the beach braai, there were many grills set up with many many kgs of meat cooking, and many different DJs playing hip hop with people dancing around. On the beach, there were the stereotypical beach sports, volleyball soccer. And stereotypical college girls in bikinis and muscular men trying to win the girls attention.
We lounged in the sun, drank spiked juice, and hung out with our friends, so college, so great.
green dolphin.
There is something about sipping on a glass of wine in front of a live jazz band on a Friday night.
There is something about the guitar player, with brown sneakers and a wrinkled untucked shirt, biting his bottom lip, all about the music.
Something about it when the melody ceases to play and the drum is alone, silence and the drummer.
Something about when the singer pauses, waiting to jump on the next verse, closing her eyes, counting with her lips and thinking about the thousands of combinations of magical melodies she can concoct next.
Cape Town on the first real summer’s night, wine, and jazz, quite a composition of an evening I would say.
rabinowitz, cohen, goldstein, cohen.
Familiar names crowded the Jewish Museum of Cape Town, Cohen, Rabinowitz etc etc, they really bring me back home to Jewton, MA. Anyways, previous to my visit to the Jewish museum was quite informative. I knew about the large Jewish population, mostly in JoBerg, but I had not realised how long the Jewish people have been in South Africa, since the 1800s! Got some great fun facts, like the founders of De Beers diamond company are Jewish (not such a great reputation…hmmm)
In the next building is the Holocaust memorial and museum. It was also quite informative, but a little bit dry. I say this after having visited the museums in Washington, D.C. and in Israel, which were two of the most emotion provoking experiences of history that I have ever had. The one in South Africa was informative, especially putting the Holocaust into a South African context, which I appreciated and did not know a lot about.
But there is something about the two museums in Washington and Israel that have the real artefacts, the piles of shoes and spectacles, that make genocide real, and this museum had many photographs and no real artefacts, which made it more like a living text book than a real piece of history.
Another difference that I noticed is that in the Israeli Holocaust museum, every exhibit refers to the Jewish people as “us.” It makes it more real and more personal, but in South Africa, there are just too many types of people to say that, the Jews are “they” at the holocaust museum, making the whole experience a little bit less personal.
Putting the Holocaust in the context of South Africa and apartheid that occurred during this lifetime is discouraging. Not only did the Nationalist government side with Hitler, and denied many Jews the freedom to live in South Africa, but this blatant killing and torture, human rights offences occurred in this country in my lifetime and is still occurring everywhere. The words “torture,” “mass killing,” “inferior race,” “ghettos,” come up too many times to count in this museum and in this country everywhere. I just need to keep remembering the words “freedom fighter,” “liberation,” “survivor,” also do come up, giving hope in people.
on the ocean in gale force winds.
The CIEE adventure field trip this Saturday was a field trip to the quaint, coastal town of Hermanus. Just an hour and a half’s drive from Cape Town, the smoggy, sometimes scary sentiement of Cape Town proper transforms slowly to a bussling town on the water, laden with outdoor restaurants, coffee and ice cream shoppes, post card stands and music playing, among families and tourists with children’s faces ice cream-clad and parents too blissful to care to wipe it off.
In Hermanus, Quinton and Felicity, our surrogate parents, signed us all up for sea kayaking. In our amnesic moment of the weather on the Western Cape as often sunny and still in the morning to hurricane –style winds in the afternoon, we sidned up for the latest slot at 1:15 pm, so we could gallivant in town and bask in the sun on a grassy knoll.
At 1:45pm (1:15pm South Africa time), we headed down to the brightly coloured kayaks. The guides warned us that it might be a tad windy on the ocean and we would have to paddle hard, but hey I’ve been at the UCT gym, I can pump it up in a kayak!
About ten minutes into the ocean, Tam and I were ahead of the group, eager to see the seal colony just ahead, when our guides informed us that gale force winds were upon us and we had to turn around right away.
Unfortunately, our eager attitudes caused the wind to take us quite far away from the rest of the group, and where we had to steer to land. But we paddled hectically against the wind and against the waves that were growing larger by the second. At least we were not the other group that had completely gone astray. The guide yelled at that group like they were about to die.
We made it back safely, without seeing any seals or whales. But hey, now I can tell people I kayaked in gale force winds, in an ocean highly invested with sharks and whales, right?
reality.
Taylor and I were walking home from school on this gorgeous, sunny perfect day in Mowbray, when we passed something that did not go with the theme of the sentiment of the weather. A homeless man who appeared to be deceased. We immediately stopped our chatter of plans for renting a car and driving to the beach every day after finals, and were in complete silence as we walked by. Another few seconds passed once we were past him, and Taylor just says quietly, “Was he, breathing…?
“No, he definitely was not breathing.”
“Well, can we do something about it?”
There was nothing to do about it, what would two, young, vulnerable American girls do in this situation? Pick him up and drag him to the morgue? Go find a nice police man that would make everything all better? The rest of our walk back to Lieesbeck was a chilling imposition of reality on a summer’s day.
huge by choice.
Mavis and I have a new activity, which is going to the UCT gym in order to obtain cute bums and out-lift all of the muscle men there. We are usually the only two females at the gym, besides the girl that is half of the “gym couple” that gets some sort of satisfaction from their relationship by sweating among many other people. There are many gym regulars, and we are becoming them, because the other regulars get worried when they do not see us one day.
The regulars are plentiful and always entertaining to watch make funny faces when they lift heavy things. There is the gymnast that loves using the cute bum machine. There are the guys that have arm muscles larger than my head and compete who can lift more kgs than the other. There are the guys who have all the weight lifting accessories from gloves to belts. And my favourite, the guy that has a shirt that on the front says “UCT Gym.” On the back, it says “Huge by Choice.” We must obtain one of these shirts and cut off the sleeves for our bulging muscles. It is quite necessary.
We are working on conquering many weight lifting apparatuses, we have conquered many, our latest being the oblique machine, which is just quite fun to go back and fourth, and easy! We must get the lying down arm machine, because the fact that I thought that the pin that Mavis put on top of the single weight we were trying to lift but failed might be adding weight is kind of a sad story.
Today, we stole my roommate’s weight lifting gloves, and we plan to get some weight lifting belts with maybe some rhinestones on them that spell out some sweet nicknames that we have yet to determine. I will sure keep you updated on this front.
queen at the ballet
“I am going to the ballet tonight, but oh don’t worry, its all to Queen music so I am not a huge dork.”
On Friday night at the Artscape theatre, we ventured to the ballet, and yes, the entire ballet was all to the music of the rock band Queen, and it was awesome. No offence to my ballet enthusiast friends, but the ballets that I have seen have not always been that different from each other, so it was nice to see something completely different. Ballet with lots of men in sparkly hot pants is not something you see every day, am I right?
Every time the two singers started a new song, I was still surprised that I was seeing Queen at the ballet. I just thought “Oh my god, its Queen!” at the beginning of almost every song.
It was also nice seeing some sex and ballet mixed together. Why not show off the beautiful, sculpted bodies for which the dancers have worked so hard to achieve, with adding sparkles to everything? I will say, that the sparkly hot pants and ballgowns completely added to the show.
My favourite song was naturally Bohemian Rhapsody, when the main male character came out on a trampoline, what else would he come out on, seriously?
