Before arriving in South Africa, I was able to make a 24 hour stopover in Amsterdam to visit my friends I met in a high school exchange program through Dalton, who are both currently attending the University of Amsterdam. They took time out of their busy exam schedules to house me, feed me, and provide a very jettlaged me with entertainment including visiting a street filled with many of the popular university hangout spots. I also had the chance to wander around on my own for part of the day to revisit a city I only remembered from a distant past.
My first week in South Africa was spent exploring Johannesburg which unfortunately was primarily confined to staring out from the windows of a mini-tour bus. However, we did see some pretty great museums including the Apartheid Museum and the Hector Pieterson Museum. We were able to get a peek of the dichotomy between Joburg as the financial capital of South Africa, and Joburg as housing one of the countries largest slums. We would come to see that these same disparities remained a prominent theme throughout our stay in the country.
Our arrival in Cape Town was epic. As we drove along the highway approaching the colossal Table Mountain for the very first time, all of our jaws dropped simultaneously. Table Mountain never fails to mystify even the most seasoned mountain dwellers. The first backpackers' lodge we stayed in was a place called the train lodge which consisted of a set of retired passenger cars turned into stationary low-price accommodations. Despite the infinitesimally small and claustrophobic rooms, the lodge had a pool, a bar, and five star views of the mountain. On the morning of our first homestay we were hiked Lion's Head mountain to see a view of Cape Town as we had never seen it before. Needless to say, the first week in Cape Town was full of countless joys and fascinations.
Our first homestay was with primarily Xhosa-speaking families in Langa Township. The township was approximately a half hour drive from our classrooms so we regressed from fully-independent university students, to students who rode the bus to school daily. We had our first introduction to South African cuisine (two words: MEAT and STARCH) and began to practice some of our Xhosa language skills. Our families, although residing within the same township, were from a range of socioeconomic brackets, and each household was filled with a range of different experiences. While the highlight of my friend's homestay was probably decapitating a chicken in her backyard in preparation for a funeral ritual, some high points of my experience were marked by attending family gatherings and spending copious amounts of time with my homestay brother, his cousins, and a newborn kitten in the family.
During our Langa homestay we had a few excursions, the most important being to Robben Island, the maximum security prison where many resistors to apartheid were detained as political prisoners. Interestingly enough, the island holds more than just the prison - it also houses a community where the families of the prison guards and prison administration historically resided. There is still a small population living on Robben Island, and entirely perplexing to me is the fact that many weddings take place there. The 3-week homestay in Langa went by in a jiffy and before we knew it we were saying our goodbyes at the homestay party. I cooked a meal for my family on the last night: they liked everything but the greens, go figure.
Before heading to the rural Eastern Cape, our program took us on a detour excursion to unwind and prepare for what was ahead. We stayed in Simon's Town which gave us our first taste of Indian Ocean waters and encounters with the warm-water penguin colony at Boulder's Beach. My friends jested that the penguins didn't know that apartheid was over as I was the only one to get bitten by a penguin when it suddenly became territorial. We also made our way to the destination spot Cape Point, which contains the Southwesternmost tip of the African Continent: The Cape of Good Hope. We were met with breathtaking views including that of where the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean meet. As if the excursion wasn't great enough already, we had our first ostrich sighting upon heading back to our Simon's Town lodge.
We glimpsed the expansive rural life of South Africa through our homestay in Tshabo village in the Eastern Cape. Our faculty prepared us for the worst: no running water, no electricity, no sewage systems, just us and nature. However, not one of our homes was lacking electricity, and although we had to make major adjustments in our hygiene patterns for the 10-day homestay, the lifestyle made it much easier to bear. We spent tons of time with our siblings which inevitably resulted in following around packs of neighborhood children, and we benefited from adapting to more organic sleeping patterns. Although aspects of rural life were refreshing, one had to realize that we were still amidst ubiquitous poverty. The village was almost entirely populated by women due to the migration of men to cities as well a shockingly high level of substance abuse deaths. And although we did not know the statistics for our village, rural settings are where health issues such as HIV/AIDS run rampant.
After concluding our rural homestay, we got a taste of what native South Africans, surprisingly, rarely see: wild life. We stayed at a backpackers lodge in the Eastern Cape that was in the heart of nature with direct access to a misty beach and miles of sand dunes. The first morning in our cabin I woke up to the sound of feet pattering on the roof and was surprised to find small monkeys climbing through the trees and trying to get a good look at me once they realized I was awake. On our game drive at a nearby game reserve, we played with elephants, pet cheetas, and spotted classic safari favorites such as lions and giraffes.
After the Eastern Cape we flew back to Cape Town and made our way to Stellenbosch, home to a large portion of South Africa's Dutch and British Afrikaans-speaking people; those historical classified as "White" or "European" under apartheid. We toured many a winery, and took our classes for the week at Stellenbosch University, nestled in a quaint college down with abundant foliage and cafés that were both adorable and delicious. Because of a holiday our homestay in Stellenbosch was cut short, and directly after we continued to !Khwa ttu, a Khoisan cultural education center in the Western Cape. The Khoisan were the first hunter/gatherers and pastoralist peoples to roam South Africa's land, and centers such as !Khwa ttu made an attempt at linking the tourism industry with a reclaiming of these historic roots.
For our final 10-day homestay, we stayed with Muslim families in a predominately Muslim section of Cape Town called Bo Kaap. Formally known as the "Malay Quarter" this area houses people of Malaysian decent who are ethnically referred to as Cape Malays. Although classified unfavorably under apartheid, Cape Malays somehow got to keep their prime realty overlooking the city of Cape Town. The area is known for its colorfully painted houses, and it's savory South-Asian delicacies such as samosas and curries.
For the last month of our program, we separated into small groups, moved into apartments in Cape Town, and had the entire month free to pursue our independent field-research on the topics of our choosing. This month-long period also gave us the freedom to explore the city in ways in which we had been previously limited since we had been living with families and attending class daily. I, with four other girls, found a lovely two bedroom two bathroom apartment, fully furnished with awe-inspiring views of the city and its mountains. One of our favorite destinations for the weekend was the Old Biscuit Mill, a run-down mill turned farmer's market with mouthwatering foods and a wide assortment of crafts. We were also pretty thrilled about having the chance to control our diets for the first time while being in South Africa: almost needless to say, we commenced the month with a detox.
We spent the last few days of our program at a retreat in the woods debriefing and unwinding. We rafted, frolicked in the grass, and sat around many a camp fire drinking hot cocoa. However we did not swim seeing as swimming in fresh water was not covered by our program's insurance policy. Although following this retreat our program concluded and most of our group returned to the US, a couple of friends and I decided to continue our explorations. My friend Nora and I took a road trip on the infamous Garden Route, where we experienced magnificent landscapes, jumped off the highest bungee bridge in the world, went waterfall ziplining, and dawdled in an off-season beach town called Plattensburg Bay. Upon arriving back in Cape Town we shamelessly indulged in all of the city's touristy delights from visiting the aquarium to taking the cable car to the top of Table Mountain. My last day in South Africa ended beautifully with a classy and satisfying round of afternoon tea at the Mount Nelson Hotel.
