four week sand timer

The memory of annoying everyone with my facebook countdown to coming to South Africa is still fresh in the memory so I shall skip the return gesture and simply say that its just over four weeks until I return to the UK. That's 31 days. Or 738hours 52minutes and 58seconds (as I write). Thank you iGoogle counter for that info (other internet giants are available).

So I thought I'd hit you all with an update on how things are post-holiday (interestingly, I think if you plotted one's IQ across your lifetime, you'd find that each time you use a latin pre-fix in your lexical selections, there would be a small but significant rise...). Put bluntly, IT'S ALL GOING DOWN.

We got back knowing that six weeks, while being a third of our time remaining, would be very busy and speed past faster than you can say sh-

That's fast.

And right we were. I was in the cinema last night with my cell group (we were watching a film, not hiding from the feds or anything) and my leader, who came on holiday with us, said 'it's been four weeks since we left for holiday. It doesn't feel like that'. After not so gently reminding him that it probably didn't feel like four weeks because it's only been three, I was still amazed at how quick time flies. I think one day someone will invent a plane that gets from London to Beijing in only 20mins, fueled only by time. There's a solution to fossil fuels right there. It's hard to beleive I'm not paid for these ideas.

Since we got back we've begun the run down to the musical show we're putting on the school we work in. I say 'we' are putting it on, but really Izzy and Jenny have worked like...like something that works a lot...and have taught each class (thats eight classes, 247 children aged under 13) a different song, poem or play. It's hard enough teaching kids relay races (trust me) so goodness knows how they've done this. Anyways, in the last week they've gone into overdrive and had us all helping out. This weekend we were all making costume, props and scenery.

I was PARTICULARLY proud of my free standing long grass that I designed. When I look at it I often think I should go into a grass making-related job. And then the last two nights we've (again, I've done nothing in this but sit around and watch) painted two massive backdrops, one of jonah and one of a jungle scene. And I mean massive. Like even I couldn't touch both sides if I stretched both my arms out reaaaaally wide. It's mega.

I've also been working on the 2009 Calendar I'm designing (you should all buy one) which is nearly done. As part of it I've been interviewing a lot of people about why they work here. It's been very inspiring actually. To hear the hearts and drives of people and why they work for little money and little praise to help whose around them, yet they all do very different jobs.

However the goodbyes have begun and it's beginning to dawn on me how much it's going to hurt to leave this place. One of our friends who was here over the summer leaves tomorrow and she said goodbye to us yesterday. She'd only been here 2months but she wasn't exactly overwhelmed with joy at the idea of leaving. I think I always thought that because I know what I'm going back to (my Masters) and I know I'm doing that to get back to a place like this one day, that I'd be fine with it. I don't think that anymore. It's beyond my imagination (which is quite saying something you will agree) to see how I will feel driving out of the big gates of this place for the last time.

But poor show from me to end on a bum note, the last 31 days will be fantastic. The show is on Saturday, we are finally having a meal in one of the black communities which will include some intriguing foodstuffs, we've going to a beautiful area known as the Draconsburg with the grade 6s and 7s for a weekend, there's three new Oasis volunteers coming out in August, and there's plenty of hard work and fun to be had doing PE at the school and working at DMPR!

my best holiday photo as voted by Kat and Hannah

"A photo is but a hand's grasp for creation's beauty, much inevitably slipping
through, unable to be captured"

four score and ten

On my recent trip to Cape Town I had the joy of visiting Robben Island (Robben meaning ‘seal’ in Dutch); the island off Cape Town that was used as a prison from the 1920s up till the end of apartheid in South Africa. It is most famous, naturally, for being the place that Nelson Mandela spent 18 years of his imprisonment in his struggle against white oppression in South Africa.

While the tour was not long, the memory of the Island will, I hope, endure throughout my life. I bought a t-shirt which depicts Robben Island as the centre of the sun, shining light out across the rest of Africa. They say that some of the greatest experiences happen not in the outside world but in the human heart and mind, and if they don’t say that then they should because I’ve just said it and believe it to be true. I certainly had a big experience on that Island.

What struck me most was the bringing to life of a story I’ve read about. In many walks of life you have to experience something to truly know about it. After being to Robben Island I feel I truly know about what Nelson Mandela and others were willing to do and go through for what they believed. From the large and unsheltered lime work quarry to the unjust and oppressive wardens, and from the small cramping cell rooms to the year after year of captivity of once in a lifetime hearts and minds; he fought daily against these things and come 1990 his passion and commitment to the fight was still strong.

The question that both laid me low and raised me up was this: after four score and ten years of life, will I be able to say I picked a battle and fought for what I believed in no matter what?

It is never too late to take up arms.

Go to Cape. Stay in Cape. Holiday.

Hello friends and welcome to the first part of my three-part Cape Town blog (although there could well be a linked fourth part later on because I’m going on a game weekend tomorrow but we’ll see), this first extolling the beauty and majesty and legendary status of Cape Town.

So yeh, I just got back from Cape Town yesterday as part of our team holiday. Out of our 4months working here we have two weeks holiday built into our budget and timescale. If I’m honest I didn’t really want to go on holiday when we first arrived, mostly due to an ignorance of how tired one gets working in another culture, pretty much non-stop and with a recurring inability to say no. So when it came to leaving for the Cape I was more than looking forward to it.

We had decided on Cape Town a while back and although there was quite a lot of stress in booking things thanks to us not having a credit card blah blah blah, we booked 9 nights stay at a backpackers in the middle of Cape Town and boarded our Mango flight. That is, a low cost airliner called Mango. After all, mangoes themselves are yet to evolve the ability to fly.

After a two hour flight from Durban we arrived into Cape Town at 23.30 and in comedy fashion upon arrival there were some people sleeping in our room and were promptly asked to move. We chuckled to ourselves as these two accommodatory misfits (see how the italics long word and unusual consonant combinations make it look like an original Latin word) were shown the correct room and new sheets etc. placed onto our bedding arenas.

In the morning we discovered the marvel of walking. You see when you’ve lived on a prison site for 2months and not been allowed to walk anywhere outside due to safety reasons, walking is no longer a lengthy chore but rather an extended blessing; sort of like what the hand written letter now is when held in the same light as the e-mail. We probably walked for 30mins up to an area known as the Waterfront. We would go on to spend a lot of evenings here. We did however nearly die on the way due to a potent combination of the ridiculously short length of the green man on the crossings, the six lane traffic and the frankly moronic traffic ruling that cars can turn into streets even when there is a green man and people are crossing. You’d think they had overpopulation issues or something.

Anyways, the next nine days were glorious in all but weather, and here are the highlights. Read it as a travel guide, an open journal or just don’t read it. The choice is yours.

Highlight #1: Table Mountain

I don’t think I can stress this enough. Table Mountain is a-maz-ing. Since we began talking about holiday, Kat insisted she was desperate to get up Table Mountain. I didn’t really know why and wasn’t that bothered but by golly was it worth it. I think I’d go to Cape Town just to be up there again.

We went up on the first full day there. Thankfully that day was sunny and clear (and trust me that was a real ‘thankfully’, we never again saw Table Mountain fully due to the cloud and rain in the other eight days). We only decided to head up about 3pm and so there was no time to hike it and we got the cable car up.

There is little point in my trying to describe the views and experience of being up there so I won’t. Just look at these photos and know that if you ever go to Cape Town, go up Table Mountain because it’s phenomenal.

Highlight #2: Cape Point

Commonly held as the meeting of the two oceans and the most southerly point of Africa (both of which are factually erroneous), Cape Point is the base of the Cape Peninsula and a beautiful place to go. We took a tour bus down from Cape Town and it was a lot of fun.

We first went on a little boat ride to Seal Island (clue is in the title) and saw hundreds of seals just hanging out on a large rock area or floating in the water. It’s pretty funny because apparently they have a concentration of blood vessels in their flippers hence why they were lying upside down in the water with their flippers in the air to warm up. They look a lot like dead flies. Only larger obviously. And without wings.

We then stopped at a Penguin Colony on the way which was worthwhile if not a bit dull. In the words of Jenny, ‘they smell and they all look the same, it’s a good job they’re cute’. I wonder if penguins could say the same thing about us.

We then headed to the main reception of the Cape Point nature reserve and had a picnic lunch and then used bikes to cycle around to the Cape of Good Hope. If anyone’s has seen the music video to ‘love generation’ with the little kid cycling through loads of beautiful places, then it was just like that. Jonno and I headed to the front of the group and soon managed to lose everyone entirely. However it was just so much fun cycling by the coast on these massive open roads with big turns and long straights. We also played the waving game where you get points for getting people in passing cars to wave back at you. Jonno won 4-2 (I did also nearly fall off my bike trying to regain ground on him). On our journey we also saw a Porcupine and some Ostriches. I think that 30mins or so was some of my best time in Cape Town.

After the cycle we then hiked from Cape of Good Hope (which is the most South Easterly point in Africa) over the mountain to Cape Point. It was a lot of climbing at times and it did decide to rain on us during the walk, but it was enjoyable nonetheless and the views were once again awesome.

At Cape Point we went to see the lighthouse although it was raining a lot then and wasn’t much fun. We did however see a Japanese tourist wearing oven gloves as standard hand warming utensils. We showed our cultural sensitivity by laughing and trying to take a photo. Sadly we failed because he hid from the rain and ran away.

On the way back we stopped off at an Ostrich farm and they ate seed from our hands. They are crazy animals.

All in all it was a very informative, enjoyable and fantastic sight-seeing day. Thoroughly recommended by myself.

Highlight #3: Robben Island

We were very fortunate to get to Robben Island on more than one count; three counts in fact. Firstly was that when we arrived on the Waterfront on the first day we happened to walk past the ticket office and saw that they were booked up until our last day so we made the decision to buy there and then. A good decision. However had we walked another route, we probably wouldn’t have gotten les billets (that’s French of ‘the tickets’ FYI).

Second the weather was not good in Cape Town while we were there. I have never seen that much rain in my life. It literally poured with rain for at least a few hours each day. This meant that we heard some Robben Island tours were canceled due to unsafe sea voyage. Gratefully ours was not and the weather held for that morning we went (it did however tip it down again in the afternoon).

Third was that I didn’t read the ticket and the taxi was late. We were meant to be at the quay 30mins before leaving time (11am) and I booked the taxi for 10.30am because it was only a 5min journey. However the taxi did not come until 10.45ish and at that point, when looking for the refund policy, I read the 30mins thing. Oops. So we told the taxi man and responded as all responsible taxi drivers should. He ran three orange lights and a red light and we got there with an ample 6mins to spare. And the whole 30mins thing was obviously just a fragrant and blatant lie to get people there early and avoid last minute passengers. Didn’t work on me BECAUSE I DIDN’T READ IT. HA.

So yeh, we headed to Robben Island on our worthy sea vessel, the ‘Sea Princess’. There was however nothing princess-like about our jerky, rainy and uncomfortable 25mins ride. There was a few cases of ‘vomit-ahoy’ among the hundred or so passengers. But we did arrive in one piece and got on a coach which took us around the island.

The island is actually quite big; much bigger than I expected. I think the man said it’d take about an hour to walk around. We went to the lime quarry where Nelson Mandela and the other political prisoners worked a lot, and to the other prison areas that people were held in. It was strange for me because I’d read A Long Walk to Freedom (Mandela’s autobiography) before I came out so this was putting colour and shape to stories I’d read.

We then went into the prison block that Mandela and the other high-risk political prisoners were kept in. We were taken round by a guy who had spent 7 years captive in there. It definitely added a lot to what he was saying. He told us all about the living conditions and daily life. We saw Mandela’s cell which although was obviously just now a clean and empty cell, you knew in that moment you were looking deep into a long enduring twenty-six year battle between oppression and freedom (there’s a nice bit of rhetoric for you, but you see what I mean).

It wasn’t a long tour of the Island, but was definitely worth every Rand spent.

Highlight #4: Restaurants

One thing I definitely learned off my parents in family holidays is that it pays to go cheap with lunch and breakfast and then eat out really well in the evenings. Thanks to the exchange rate ‘really well’ eating turned into ‘first class’. I think we had three big meals out, one for Izzy’s birthday, one for Jenny’s birthday and one for our last evening in Cape Town. In those meals I had two of the best steaks in the history of the world (it was the same restaurant so I know it wasn’t a one off!) and I ate crocodile. Oh yes. I wasn’t sure whether to have it but I thought it’d make a good story one day…

‘What’s the weirdest thing you ever ate?’

‘I ate crocodile in South Africa’

‘Wow, South Africa, what were you doing there?’

‘Well...’

Genius I am.

The places we ate in were the nicest restaurants I’ve ever eaten in. We looked totally out of place and it was great. I don’t think anyone has eaten better food, or probably ever will, than we ate in Cape Town.

So there are my four highlights; Table Mountain, Cape Point, Robben Island and Restaurants. Other things we did do included the Castle of Good Hope (which is actually a fort, much to our annoyance), go on an open top city tour bus (it rained), go to the Aquarium (not as good as London's aquarium Megan!) and had a windy day on the beach rock scrambling.

It was a fantastic time and one of the best holidays ever, certainly in recent times. Cape Town is for my part and from my experience, the most beautiful city in the world, for sure.