More Adventures in Cape Town...

Now that we are in our fourth week here, the demands on our time by CCS are fewer, so I am planning to spend the whole school day at Blossom Street Primary several times this week. The children in all the groups I am working with need the help so badly.

This past weekend, several of us drove out to the wine country and the town of Stellenbosch. Lovely countryside once we got there, but passing through the Cape Flats was depressing, as usual. Miles upon miles of shacks - of the 40 minute drive, it took us about 30 minutes to travel past the enormous slums of Cape Flats townships: Langa, Athlone, Guguletu, Nyanga, Khayalitsha, etc. These are all communities started when the apartheid government kicked people of color out of the southern suburbs (such as Rosebank - where home base is), the downtown, and the Table Bay areas. Some communities, like District 6, were even leveled (yes, homes which some of these people had lived in for generations). Folks were forcibly moved to the dusty, barren, sandy, windy wastelands of the Cape Flats - where the Cape Town airport also is. So that is why the first sight people see coming into town are these miserable areas where the shacks crowd up one against the other, with outdoor toilets stacked in a row opposite the hovels, which are fenced off from the highway. These shacks are electrified by webs of wires hanging down from the street lights. People spill over the fences and hang out in the grassy strips along the highways. This is also where the children play.

Passing these scenes makes it difficult to enjoy the prettier places I am traveling to visit, especially the opulent vineyard establishments surrounding Stellenbosch. The contrasts are just too great. And Stellenbosch was a very white town!

On Sunday I was privileged to be able to join a group hiking in Orange Kloof (a ravine) on Table Mountain. One can only hike in Orange Kloof with a permit and the elderly mountain man type with whom we hiked had one of these. Actually, it was Clem, the husband of the woman who conducted the walk out from the cable car station on Table Mountain the previous Sunday, when I was up there with Michael Arrowood. Clem picked me up at 7 A.M. and we walked with the others (all South Africans) up a fire road and then up a rocky trail to a green ravine where we saw the day's prize, the glorious red disas (wild orchids) disa uniflora. Smaller blue disas were also spotted along the way, in addition to many proteas, ericas in bloom, and a huge lycopodium, among other treasures. The high point/low point of the day was when the group misunderstood Clem's directions pertaining to the huge water tunnel through the mountain he brought us to. We thought he meant for us to go through the tunnel and the folks at the front went charging on down the 800 steps in the pitch black darkness of the wet, cold tunnel. I, of course, followed - never quite sure I am understanding the South African English anyway, but Clem and one other did not. The steps ended in nothingness (I never got there) and I turned around when the group headed back. All the way up those steps - only this time one could see because of the light at the end of the tunnel, where Clem stood. Apparently he had shouted for us but we never heard because of the sound of the rushing water. There was a wet railing to hold onto in the darkness going down - and no idea just how much of a drop-off it might be if one missed a step. So, needless to say, the way was made in baby steps. Heading back UP, one could see that falling off the staircase would only result in a drop of several feet - not hundreds! What I learned is how important it is for a hike leader to be VERY specific about what he/she says...one never knows how people might be perceiving the words they hear. Apparently, this had never happened to poor Clem before and he has taken many, many groups to the tunnel. He was so worried about us...me, especially, because I was the most senior of the group (excepting him) and a foreigner to boot!

You ask about the weather? Too hot! It was in the mid-90s on Saturday and also warm on Sunday except that in the green ravine where we hiked there was a cloud cover and breezes which kept it cool.

You ask about the pictures? The top two are from the District 6 Museum (those signs are from streets now missing from what was District 6), then there's Clem and the adventure in Orange Kloof - and me emerging from the tunnel of darkness. Sorry those disas are sideways...