Cape Town: The Mother City

Finally we were on our way to the big city – Cape Town!  It was vacation time and we were ready to have some fun.  We were split up into two mini-buses for the long 7 hour drive.  To break it up, we had a number of stops on the way for food and bathroom breaks.  From Friday, April 22 to Tuesday, April 26 we had two tour guides named Mike and Trevor leading the way, whom we got to know them really well.  Mike began his tour company called 2-Way Travel about five years ago and it was Trevor’s first week.  This would be 2-WayTravel’s first time working with the St. Ben’s/St. John’s group.

The other bus, driving through the mountains on the Garden Route.

What an interesting bus ride it was.  Sleeping, journaling, reading, playing Pokemon on Gameboy, going stir crazy and my favorite part – dance parties.  When the song “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” came on, we all got up and danced our hearts out.  The other bus passed us by and we sang to them.  I’m sure it was quite the entertainment for them.  Later, Joey and I had a dance and sing off to “Bye, Bye, Bye” by N’SYNC.  Even though I probably won, I was impressed by Joey’s dedication and commitment to the moves.  The drive was also very beautiful – it was called the Garden Route and goes all along the southern coast of South Africa.  We were surrounded by huge mountain ranges for the majority of the drive.  I took way too many pictures, but I just could not put my camera down.  

Huge mountain ranges on the way to Cape Town.

We arrived in Cape Town after dinner time, so it was almost dark out.  On our first night we would be staying in the Tambo village, a section of the Gugulethu township of Cape Town.  A few years ago, Mike set up a program with Mama Nocks, a women living in Gugulethu.  She and a number of other women in the township host tourists, students and volunteers for up to a week at a time.  The business has grown a great deal over the past couple of years and is a wonderful way for families in the townships to create an added income.  Steph and I signed up to live together in Mama Mavis’s house.

Guguletu - spelled Gugulethu in Xhosa.  In Xhosa, the 'h' is silent in 'th'.

Initially going into the township stay, I was a little nervous because I did not know how safe it would be.  However, Gugulethu’s safety and living conditions are much nicer than that of Missionvale’s back in Port Elizabeth.  On the outside, Gugulethu looked like any other township - lots of tin shacks and garbage everywhere.  But, going inside Mama Mavis’s house, I was pleasantly surprised with how nice it was. Her house consisted of a living room, dining room, kitchen, 3 bedrooms and one bathroom.  All of the rooms were relatively small and on one level.  

Mama Mavis's bedroom where we stayed.

Mama Mavis was a sweet old woman.  Her English was very well and she told us of her mission trips to China and Angola.  Dinner was delicious – chicken, potatoes and samp, yum.  We hung out in the living room with her four grandchildren – an 11-year-old girl, 10-year-old boy, 4-year-old boy and 2-year-old girl.  The older kids spoke fluent English and we had great conversations with them.  They both attended private school outside of Gugulethu – this was a great surprise and I was happy to know they were getting a good education.  The girl was a runner, loved studying technology and wanted to be a fashion designer when she grew up.  The boy loved all sports, especially soccer and cricket.  The younger kids were absolutely adorable – they just wanted to sit on our laps and we played with them until bedtime.  

Me, Steph, the kids and Mama Mavis

It was really eye opening when I drew back the curtains and looked outside the bedroom window in the morning.  Township life.  Bam.  Tin shacks and dirt ground.  No fences or grass.  How can someone be successful in life like Mama Mavis still live in such a place?  That’s the life for most black people in South Africa.  It is too much work to try and move to middle-class housing when everyone just lives in the townships.       

Since it was indeed Easter Sunday, it was time for church.  This was definitely not a typical Easter Sunday Mass for me though.  I put on some jeans and walked through Gugulethu to the local multi-cultural township church, Khanyisa Community Church.  We began service with some Xhosa and English songs, singing and dancing along.  Mama Mavis was out of her seat praising the Lord up and down the aisles.  She and all the children were such a joy to watch.  Then a group of teenagers performed a lyrical style dance routine and a skit as well. 

The main speaker for the service talked for about an hour.  He discussed a number of Biblical stories and their significance to life today.  He had a Xhosa interpreter as well so that was interesting to hear.  Towards the end of the two hour service, some parishioners went up to the front of the room to be “healed.”  One woman fell to the ground and began shaking and screaming.  They told us not to worry, in that the woman had demons and was trying to get rid of them.  This was definitely an experience.  I did not know what to think.  It was a reflection of traditional Xhosa belief though, that demons can enter your life and stay within families and generations.  Throughout the service I had to continually remind myself that it was Easter Sunday.

Lunch was interesting as well.  We went to a place called Mzoli’s, one of the Gugulethu hot spots for young people to come hangout and drink.  It was absolutely packed.  Since it was raining, everyone was stuffed under a huge tent.  I was astounded that all 29 of us even found enough tables.  The appetizers were passed around in a plastic bag – huge fried pieces of dough.  So greasy, but so good.  Drinking a beer on Easter Sunday was quite the feeling.  Mzoli’s is famous for their meats.  We literally passed around a gigantic metal tin full of the greasiest, fattiest, juiciest lamb chops, chicken and sausage I’ve ever seen.  No napkins, plates or silverware made for one messy meal, but boy was it tasty.

Crowded at Mzoli's - passing around the meat and plastic cups.

The weather was not getting any better, so I was a little worried we wouldn’t make it to Robben Island.  Luckily, that wasn’t the case!  Robben Island is an island in Cape Town that has been used to isolate people since the 17^th century.  At one point it was used as a leper colony, but it is most famous for jailing political prisoners.  The most well-known was President Nelson Mandela, who was kept on Robben Island for eighteen of his twenty-seven years in prison.

Robben Island entrance - sign in English and Afrikaans

Here is a very brief background on South Africa’s political history and the significance of Nelson Mandela and Robben Island.  In 1948, apartheid was established in South Africa, separating whites from blacks, coloreds and Indians.  The whites, which are only about 9% of the population had control of the government and did not allow blacks to vote.  Nelson Mandela became a prominent political figure in the liberation struggle, eventually becoming South Africa’s first president under a new democracy in 1994.  Apartheid and the liberation struggle that emerged was basically like the Civil Rights Movement in the US, but on an extremely larger and much more oppressive scale.  I encourage you to learn about it if you have not done so before!  

So we got on the ferry and unfortunately had to sit in the lower section with no open windows.  This was the start to a not-so-good ferry ride for me.  With the combination of the turbulent ocean and foggy windows, I started to feel really sea sick.  I got super hot and dizzy.  It was rough.  After 20 minutes we finally got off and the breeze felt really nice.  For some reason, I pictured Robben Island to be very small and really only have enough room for a prison.  It was much bigger than I expected.  We got on tour buses and rode around with a tour guide for a while.  She was very educated and spoke with a soothing voice.  Some of my group started to fall asleep – oops.  

The dreaded Robben Island ferry.

Got off to see Table Mountain, but we couldn’t because of the fog, so that was a bummer.  We also saw the limestone quarry where the political prisoners worked for 40 hours a week.  The sad part was, they didn’t even need to use the limestone. It was also really bad for the prisoners’ eyes because a) the dust that got kicked up and b) the sun reflecting on the rock walls.  One good thing about the limestone quarry was the cave.  Mandela and his comrades would each take turns in the cave and write something on the ground in the sand.  This cave got nicknamed ‘the university’ because each prisoner learned from each other. 

Tour guide and thin mat on the floor.

Next we took a tour of the prison.  Our tour guide was an actual past political prisoner who went to jail on Robben Island in the 1970s for protesting as a high school student.  There are both group and individual cells on Robben Island.  We began in a group cell, which began holding 15 prisoners at a time.  They had to sleep on thin mats on the floor – so sad.  To shed some more light on political prisoners, they were never criminals, but only jailed for being part of the liberation movement or basically their belief system.  The African National Congress (ANC) was Mandela’s political party.  The ANC was banned in 1960 and went underground, so if you showed affiliation to the party you were jailed as a political prisoner.  Anyway, the group cells switched to bunk beds later so they could hold twice as many people. 

 

Bunk beds in group cell.

Then we went to the individual cells which were extremely small.  Each cell had a box with something of the prisoner’s and their picture.  The first one I walked in belonged to a musician so there was a trumpet.  That was really neat.   

Trumpet inside of one of the storage units in individual cells.

Mandela's garden in plot in the corner of the courtyard.

Next we went out into the courtyard that was surrounded by all four of the individual cell sections.  It was crazy to be there, because Mandela spoke a lot about this courtyard in his book.  In one corner, Mandela had kept a garden as well.  then the tour guide showed us which window was Mandela’s.  We all took turns looking inside Mandela’s cell.  It went by pretty fast, but it was just crazy thinking that he lived in that tiny room for 18 years.  I am barely even 18 years old!  I can’t imagine living my whole life in one cell. 

Nelson Mandela's cell

Penguins waddling around on Robben Island - so cute!

We walked back on our own to the gift shop and ferry.  On the way we saw tons of penguins.  They were so cute!!  Took lots of pictures with them too.  We really wanted to take them home with us.  Before we got on the ferry we even saw a seal by the dock – so cool! The ferry ride back was just as difficult as the way there.  This time I was prepared though.

Seal on dock when boarding the ferry back.

Dinner was at a place called Dock’s, and it was literally right on the dock right after we got off the ferry.  For dinner I had a North African cuisine – a vegetal cous cous – very tasty.  For dessert we walked over to Haagen Daas for some ice cream.  I tried this flavor called banoffee for the first time.  it was a combination of banana and toffee.  Probably the best flavor of ice cream I’ve ever had.  It was a nice way to end our first full day in Cape Town.  More blogs to come about the rest of our time in Cape Town!