Settling into South Africa

I’m closing in on three weeks in South Africa now (tomorrow is the official anniversary – and my birthday – I’m sad to not be able to spend it with friends and family from home). While I still love it here, the last week or so has been an emotional roller coaster as I have struggled to cope with pretty intense home sickness. It’s not that I want to be back in Vancouver, because I don’t. But I miss so badly being able to pick up the phone and chat to someone who actually knows me…and I miss talking nonsense with my friends. Here I am in this gorgeous country, and all I want to do is go hiking and for a body surf to the beach – and I don’t know anyone yet who wants to do the same things. I have to admit that this is throwing me for a loop – but it’s finally starting to get better as I am now meeting more people who aren’t 19 year olds. I’m actually feeling quite at home as I establish daily routines and the novelty wears off. I still think this is one of the most beautiful countries in the world and have to say that apart from missing friends, family and dog, I am content.

I spent an excellent last weekend with an old co-worker for whom I always had a soft spot – Stuart Marchant - and his awesome wife Elaine. They picked me up on the Friday afternoon, and we drove through the countryside and the rolling farmlands of the Western Cape, including townships, rainbow villages where the Cape coloured people live, to the seaside town of Langebaan where they have a retirement nest. I got to experience SA infrastructure at work, including massive road potholes and ridiculous traffic jams literally in the middle of nowhere. I also saw my first zebras, springboks and steerboks. Actually, from Stuart’s patio you can just sit and watch the “bokkies” as they call them, wander through the field. For a Canadian, this is exciting, as was their view of totally turquoise water and world class kite surfers at play. At night we would turn off all the lights and sit outside looking at the stars. There are so many more in the sky here – it looks totally different from the northern hemisphere.

Anyway, I digress. As well as it being great to see my old friends, the weekend involved way too much really good wine and port. Here the wine drinking starts at lunch, continues through dinner, and ends as a night cap. And the wines are absolutely incredible! We ate at some great beachfront restaurants, and I finally got to run into the ocean…it was damn cold! I also had the most South African Sunday imaginable, including watching morning cricket (my new crush Woakes plays for England), and drinking tea while eating a rusk – a South African biscotti type thing. The crowning glory of the weekend was attending my first braai where I was served Boerwurs. I have been hearing about this sausage non-stop from various people ever since I made the decision to come here. It was good! Much better than biltong which is basically the equivalent of the beef jerky red necks back home eat. I had tried it through an acquaintance once before and had to spit it out, so know better than to get sucked into having it again. My immersion into African-ess also continued as we saw some scams such as people by the roadside pretending to be out of gas, people wandering on the highway selling grapes out of boxes, random markets run by Nigerians selling sport jerseys in the middle of nowhere. I also encountered lots of drunk Bergies, these black people who live by the river and pretty much drink 24/7. They are harmless but smell appalling.

I had a really good weekend this week as well. After classes finished on Friday, I went with some classmates to the nearby town of Paarl and spent the afternoon drinking really good wine under a shady tree while chatting about traveling. It was pretty ideal. We then pulled a quick change and headed into Cape Town for the weekend. I really, really, really love Cape Town. We met up with yet more friends of theirs and had a group dinner at this fantastic little café up near the base of Table Mountain, drank jugs of Pimms (my new favourite hot weather drink – forget Sangria) and exploding champagne, and then headed into the CBD to hit up some wine bars and meet yet more interesting people. I think it was the best night out I’ve had in South Africa so far and I forgot all about my home sickness.

The next night I went to a braai in Constantia thrown by a former Alaskan co-worker which also turned out to be quite fun – had some good conversations, made a couple of new potential hiking friends…drank some good port…and was mesmerized by the greasiest mountain of meat I have ever seen. Then one of my new friends (yay, it feels good to use that word) picked me up relatively early so we could get a decent nights sleep for a 6 am sunrise hike up Lion’s Head. But unfortunately a good night’s sleep was not in the cards, as at 3:30 am the entire block was woken by the sound of screaming chainsaws. I thought gangsters were trying to cut down the security gate, but turned out that half a tree fell down in the middle of the street sometime after midnight and the city (god knows how they knew) brought in a big truck and a crew with chainsaws at that ungodly hour. Keeping in mind that a.) this is some obscure, low traffic side street, and b.) nothing in South Africa gets done quickly EVER, we were totally mystified as to where this crew materialized from at that time of night. It went on for well over an hour and the whole block came out in their pajamas to watch. It’s not like anyone was going to get sleep with that racket. Then, the electrical fence started short circuiting for the rest of the night – also a common thing to hear around here. Needless to say, I was supremely unstoked for the 6 am wake up call this morning. It was really foggy as well, so everyone bailed except for Nickel and I, and we hiked the mountain in zero visibility. It was a great hike, but gets really steep and slippery during the very last section. Maybe a little like the Chief in Squamish, with the ladders and chains – but with far narrower walk ways. When we reached the last two minute portion, there was a ladder you need to climb that kind of hangs off the rocks…I eventually made it up after lots of coaxing but in the end my fear of heights got the best of me and I just couldn't do the final stretch.. In my defense, there were lots of other scared people – so I’m not as wussy as I sound. One thing that impressed me on the hike was that every single person we passed said a friendly ‘good morning’. I love that people here are like that – you would never see this back home.  

Everyone, young and old goes to church here – it is a very Christian society. So, I decided to take my friend up on his invite to attend service. Bearing in mind that I have only been to church twice in my entire life, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was mostly in Afrikaans, so I just copied what everyone else did and it made for an entertaining morning. It’s the first time I have sung in a non karaoke bar in a very long time. We next drove through the larger scale and far more dangerous shanty town Kayalitsha on the way back to Stellenbosch – I believe the population is more than two million. This place is really intense –shacks upon shacks crammed in really tightly – some even have second floors. I think it’s quite dangerous to stop and take photos, so I didn’t. One thing that quite impressed me however, is how colourful the shacks are. They are literally a rainbow of sorbet tones. I think it demonstrates that people, no matter what their living conditions, can really take pride in their homes…and somehow the colour imbues a sense of optimism and happiness with their lot. Another interesting sight on the side of the highway was finally seeing the police hard at work (a rare/non existent thing in SA)). They were busy herding, manhandling and prodding stray cows that wandered out from the streets of the township onto the freeway. Seriously – you see the most random things happen along the side of the road in this country – I love it. Nickel also provided entertainment in the form of field stories from his medical work in Namibia, including the tale of a woman who brought her son in for treatment because she caught him having sex with the family dog.

My most disturbing run in of the week happened when I was washing my hair yesterday. A GIANT, hairy yellow rain spider appeared out of nowhere, dangling right in front of my face. I screamed and ran out of the shower. I thought about trying to drown it, but it was so big it never would have washed down the drain. So I had to trap it in a glass. I couldn’t rest comfortably knowing that thing was in the house with me.

I’ve also decided I am not anywhere near being ready to drive in this country, where they rip down the shoulders of the highway as if it were just another lane, going 120. So instead, I have bought my first bike in eons. The first day or two were pretty wobbly and embarrassing, but I’m actually getting used to it. Though I feel like a ridiculous dork with the basket I just had attached. Unfortunately I need it for my text books. Maybe I’ll buy some streamers for the handle bars and a glitter saddle next.

I have to say that we have the most spectacular sunsets here – really mind blowing. And to see the black silhouette of the African trees and Table Mountain against the orange sky is one of the best sights imaginable. Now that I own a bike, I’ve taken to going for a daily sunset cycle around the vineyards in Stellenbosch. It really is a fantastic life.