Africa The journal

I’ve been robbed!

 

Journaling has been fun and therapeutic.  These are journals that I sent while in Africa with my impressions and reactions to what I experienced.  I hope you enjoy them.

 

Be the change you wish to see

Click on the monkey to go back to home

to the previous page

But before I get to that I have to write about Boulder Beach.  After returning from my week long tour of the garden route [I’ll write about that later]  I realized I only had two days left in Cape Town.  Sunday was perfect beach weather and there was no better time to see the penguins.  South Africa is home to these cute little birds who love warm beaches and warm water.  Who knew!?  Not wanting to go alone I rousted up the three college students who also rent rooms from my landlady.  Onowanda is 19 and the poster child for the young Africa Woman.  Independent, kind, and assertive she is in her first year to become a chemical engineer.  Onowanda makes up her own mind.  She was born in the same town as Nelson Mandela, and has the same birthday as he.  She is very proud of that.  After her father left, her mom had to go into the city to earn money leaving the kids alone.  At the age of 10 she became mother to her brother and two twin girls.  There was a house keeper who came some times but she was basically in charge.  Onowanda remembers those nights when there was no food for dinner.  Now she is on her own and learning who she wants to be.

Pule is from the northeast part of the country.  A little older he has a fiancé and a child.  One night he was telling me about the manhood rituals he went through that almost killed him.  As part of this rite of passage each boy has to prove he is ready to be man.  A group of boys are turned loose into the bush and must survive on their own for 3 months.  Alone in the bush.  Real lions… real snakes…  really no stores.  Not even a Blockbuster!  He had to be hospitalized for malnutrition and dehydration.  This is nuts… he thought, I don’t have to prove myself in this way.  He is going to be an electrical engineer and likes having lots of creature comforts around him.  Who can blame him?  And then there is Skulk.  He is the only white one and he is very very white.  About 6’2 tall and thin as a rail he is the genius of the bunch.  He is smart and studies very hard.  So hard in fact that he convinced a college review board to let him skip the first three years of college.  He skipped the first three years of college and is majoring in astrophysics!  The down side is that he hasn’t done much with people…  we’re all trying to change that.

I had to pry these three away from the books by promising a free train ride and admission to the beach.  That didn’t even phase Skulk… all I got was a grunt.  So I drew him a picture. “Skulk you can come with us to look at penguins or you can stay here and look at papers.  If you want to stay that is fine.  Then when you are older and telling your kids about how you spent your youth you can tell them about all the papers you stared at.”  It worked J

We all hopped the train and took off for Simons Town.  Aptly named the beach is strewn with huge boulders all this way and that.  Some too big to climb, still others big enough to dodge under them.  They make little coves and small beaches where the penguins like to hang out.  Between these huge rocks is the pretty white sand as soft and our lake Michigan sand.  The warm salt water is perfect for swimming and is Caribbean blue in color.  It’s paradise.  But what really makes this unique are the beach bums.  Some of them have two feet and some of them have two flippers.  People and penguins stake out there own territory right next to each other.  I mean you can get so close you have to be careful not to step on them!  It’s just the cutest thing you ever saw.  All these creatures swimming and walking around on the sand [the penguins are the ones without swimming suites].  After 2 hours I had to drag the college kids away from the beach.  “Come you guys I promised to get you back so you could study…”  It’s funny how things change.  Skulk was red as a cherry even in the bright sun.  “Did you put sun tan lotion on?” I asked.  “What?”  He said.   “I don’t get it Skulk… you skipped 3 years of college but don’t put sun tan lotion on under this very hot sun.  How can that be?”  In his thick Affricance accent he jokes, “  Zhare  zeems to bee a mizzing link  ya…”  We all laughed.  Skulk has come a long way.  I will miss these three roommates.

One day left in Cape Town.

Monday morning and everyone is leaving for work or school so I left too.  I decided to take the train in to town and see those things I missed last Saturday.  Doing the tourist prep  I took my small camera… hid some money in a secret pouch,  loaded my decoy wallet and put my real wallet in an unusual pocket with a zipper.  Over kill?  I was starting to think so…   It was a Monday crowd, sullen, quiet,  recovering from the weekend and mustering courage to face another work week.  We all shuffled like cattle in to the waiting train which had barely enough room to stand let alone sit. “So this is first

class?,”  I said to the man next to me.  He murmured something and looked a way.  This is going to be a quiet trip I thought…

I but was fearless!  No little old granny today.  I am a seasoned travel now.  After all I have been on a train 4 times already!  I have gone all the way to Simons Town on a train and returned fingers and toes in tack!  I am a LOCAL!  Skillfully I maneuvered myself to the train door and when it opened all of us… the whole mob of people in the train emptied on to the platform like one gelatinous blob moving methodically toward the exit.  We oozed though the exit gate all of us savvy commuters separating toward our private destinations.  Me?  I’m heading for McDonalds for an Egg McMuffin breakfast.  Man if that isn’t commuting I don’t know what is-

Munching down my carbo/fat sandwich I studies the map and found an interesting place called Green Market Square.  Oh at last!  A square filled with vendor stalls selling every type of African craft you can imagine.  Spoons, and textile; ostrich eggs and masks, spears, statues, and hats.  Hats!   I know someone who wants a hat.  After haggling a little on the price [talking them down 50% is part of the fun]  I reached for my wallet and GONE.  My wallet was gone.  I have been pick-pocketed… I’ve been mugged!   I was robbed!

Now my South African experience is complete.  All that crime you read about… well it happened to me. and the incredible thing?  I have no idea when it happened.  On the train, walking over here, in the market… I have no idea.  Whoever did it was very skillful and I never felt a thing.  Not only am I totally surprised, but I actually admire the skill.  Very clever.

You may be thinking I am taking this rather well…  It turns out both me and my assailant were surprised for you see the wallet he/she took was my decoy J  It was the one I specifically set up in case I got robbed.  I only lost 10rand, or about $1.30.   I wasn’t the only one shocked that day!  Good for me J

It was a perfect day.  I found another market and bought a pair of beautiful figurines that are antiques.  I talked him down to 1/3 of his asking price and felt pretty good about it too.  I saw the Slave Museum [terrible… not the exhibit… what we humans can do to each other].  There is a natural history museum with a great collection of ancient rock paintings.  I sat in the botanical gardens for an hour or so and just watch people.  It was one of those days I get when I am sailing… doing one thing at a time…  fully enjoying every second.

Time for lunch.

While I was eating a man with a large bouquet of flowers came to sell me some.  “Where is your woman?”   “She passed away,”  I said.  He said how sorry he was and started talking about his flowers.  He has been selling them for a long time now and that makes him very happy.  “I am a mason by trade and I can get work when I want.  But when I lay bricks my life goes bad.  When I sell flowers I make people happy and I am happy too.  I am happy when I do what God wants me to do.”  “I write poems.  Would you like to hear one of my poems”, he continued.  “I would like that very much!”  He recited a poem he had written which was about a minute long.  Lyrically it was on the level of ‘roses are red… violets are blue’  but no one could top the sincerity.  “You are selling Love,”  I remarked.  “Yes,  Yes  I am selling love.”

“Let me tell you a secret.”  It was now my turn to share.  “I don’t think love is a human emotion.  No.  Humans are not the only beings who can love.  Love is the movement of God between two individuals and when we reach out with love both individuals feel the warmth of that energy.”   “I know that!”  Said the flower man with great excitement.  He went on to explain the same concept in his own words and commented on how few people understand what loving really is.  “Learning to love someone else is a very difficult thing.  Just look at all the number people who try and fail!”

So here is the thing.  This man and I are very different in so many ways.  We are separated by 10,000 miles.  His culture is very different from mine.  I am a mid-western American, he is a Cape Town vendor.  He is Muslim I am Christen[ more or less];  he is colored I am white.   He is 41 I am… older.  Yet we reach the very same conclusions.  How can that be?

“God is Great.” says the flower man.   “God is Great,” say I.