Week 3: Robben Island, Mama Africa, and WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS!!

Last Sunday, we spent the morning visiting Robben Island Prison, where political prisoners were kept for many years before and during apartheid. Famous prisoners included Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, current South African President Jacob Zuma, Robert Sobukwe, and many others. A former prisoner showed us around and told us about his own experiences in the prison.

Much like the outside world during the apartheid era, the prisoners were split into units based on race and were treated differently so as to divide them and prevent an uprising.

White prisoners received larger and nicer meals, as well as better living quarters.

All of the prisoners were forced into hard labor at a lime quarry, where they were so overworked that many died from health complications related to the work.

Nelson Mandela's eyes were so damaged from the constant exposure to the sun that he had to have many surgeries after his release, and as president, the press could not take flash pictures of him.
The former prisoners would take shelter in a nearby cave whenever they could, and they also used this opportunity to privately teach one another to read and write.

After the prisoners were released, many came back to visit and left a rock in this pile.

We got to see Mandela's single cell, which is how all of the particularly politically dangerous prisoners were kept: isolated and alone.

We also saw the small garden where he once hid the manuscript of his first autobiography, and I got a picture holding it outside the garden! I highly recommend reading it as an overview of the course of the anti-apartheid struggle, but read the abridged version if you're short on time.

After coming back to the Waterfront, I popped into the Cape Town Book Fair. I had already seen Auma Obama as a part of the book fair, but I was interested in attending a few more sessions. I got some fantastic books on music and some magazines, and met a few authors. I also chatted with a few people at the African Economic Research Consortium tent and got a bunch of free booklets on their recent studies! They also told me to pop by Nairobi for a visit (yes... .because that is so easy) and to apply for an internship next summer.

Then it was a fairly regular work week. On Monday I work late, until about 8:00, and then met my roommates at a burger joint (not exactly my ideal place to eat). Everything on the menu was meat, except for mushrooms. So I ate my mushrooms and we listened to a reggae band-- the bassist's mother had been in the store that my roommate works at, and had insisted  that we go listen to her son play that night, and then she made the reservation for us. So there we were! We talked to the band afterwards and they invited to us to come hear them play elsewhere and they joked that they would make me come up on stage and sing with them... so I'm not sure I want to go.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, I had more chances to go out into the field at work. On Tuesday, I got to hear a script that I helped write read to study participants in the coloured neighborhood of Parkwood. It was really cool to watch, even though I couldn't understand the interviews, as they were all in Afrikaans. On Wednesday, I went to a township for the first time. We were in Khayelitsha, which is ENORMOUS-- it's got to be larger than the city center of Cape Town. This was a really interesting experience. I began to notice that there is a wide array of levels of income in townships. While many people live in shacks (although sometimes they can afford houses but choose not to buy them, since they have homes in the Eastern Cape and will return to them after they earn some money in the city), others live in large, beautiful homes. The cost of living in the township is much lower than in the city, of course, so many people choose to live there even when they have the financial ability to leave. The other thing I noticed was that absolutely everyone owns a TV, regardless of financial status. All of these interviews were conducted in Xhosa, which is a click language, and it was so interesting to hear it spoken all day long! I would love to learn it at some point.
Thursday night was one roommate's last night. I was home sick during the day and feeling terrible, but felt that I had to say goodbye to her properly. We had dinner at Mama Africa on Long Street, which serves tons of traditional African food. I couldn't eat much, but I had crocodile, which tasted like a tough piece of shrimp. It's quite good.
On Friday, I returned to work, and all of the interns (I believe there are 10 of us now, although some were out sick) left work at 5:30 to go to the junior rugby world championship game! It was South Africa versus New Zealand, and South Africa was the underdog. Since I had already seen a match, I actually knew most of the rules and could follow the game fairly well. This made it even more fun, since I didn't have to keep asking someone what had just happened. It was a fairly close game, but South Africa pulled ahead around halftime and stayed ahead until the end!! It was an amazing game, and the audience was so excited when we won! I had my South African flag out and the whole stadium did the wave about 8 times.
Our Saturday was a relatively calm one. We had been planning to travel along the Garden Route, which is the southern coast of South Africa, but we were all sick and it was supposed to rain all weekend. So instead, we finally had a chance to check out our neighborhood. We went to an excellent market just a few blocks away, which was full of delicious foods, from fresh bread to fantastic sushi. We had crepes and bought some fresh fruit and bread to take home with us. We'll definitely be back whenever we have a Saturday free (although this is pretty rare).
We then went to the Thailand Trade Show that was happening the local conference center. We wandered around and looked at fashion and jewelry, and bought some "just add water" curries. After that, we wandered around the Waterfront, popped into the Cape Town Diamond Museum and learned about the history of diamond mining here in South Africa, and then came home to catch up on The Bachelorette! We also spent a couple of hours at a nearby bar watching the Spain vs France football game (YAY SPAIN!) and made some new friends! We had never been to this bar before, since we usually go to the one on our block. The servers were so nice and chatted with us all evening. When my roommate didn't like her meal, they not only gave her another one for free and didn't charge her for the first meal, but they also gave us free drinks. I had yellowtail, which was pretty great. Needless to say, we'll definitely be back! We need a fun place to watch the Euro Cup and later the Olympics, since our TV doesn't work.
Today (Sunday), we all finally got to sleep in and be a bit lazy. This evening, we're going to hear The Creation (Haydn) with the Philharmonia Choir of Cape Town and a local orchestra. We got second row orchestra seats for only R120! I love how relatively inexpensive things are here!
More updates to come soon!

Week 2: Complete Insanity

This past week was incredibly busy. But what else is new?
Monday night, my roommates and I went to Narona, a local pizzeria, where we posted our last blogs. As we were getting ready to head out at 10 PM, a girl just outside the restaurant (only a few feet away from us) was mugged! None of us noticed it happen, but suddenly everyone in the restaurant was running outside-- the bartender actually jumped right over the bar and started sprinting! Since I had seen this happen before, I assumed that the girl had been mugged and, sure enough, the people who had run outside came back empty handed and called the police to report that the girl's laptop had been taken. Although we felt terrible for the girl, we found out quickly that she hadn't taken the necessary precautions: for one thing, her laptop was out in the open instead of concealed in a bag, and she was talking on the phone, completely unaware of her surroundings. Needless to say, we booked it back to our apartment, clutching our belongings and watching our surroundings carefully the whole way home.
Tuesday night, we heard about a local rugby game in the World Cup stadium and we simply had to go!

It was the junior (U21) rugby world cup, and the South African Springboks (the junior version of the professional team, aka the Babyboks) were playing England. Although South Africa was the favorite to win, they had to score 4 tries in order to advance. And they did! Both teams were excellent, but the South African players seemed more like a team, whereas the English players seemed to shine only individually. We did our best to blend in by buying beers and Springbok hats, but we stuck out like sore thumbs since we knew absolutely nothing about the sport.

Two little boys (14 and 8 years old) sat next to us in the front row and explained the game as it went along. I can only imagine how frustrating it must have been to have all 8 of us constantly asking questions, but they seemed happy to tell us all about the game. I quickly discovered that my favorite part is when the ball is being thrown in from the sideline (much like in soccer) and the receiving team lifts up a player like a bunch of cheerleaders in order to catch the ball high above the heads of the opposing team (called a line-out). They always seem to choose the largest player to hoist up. It's quite amusing.
On Wednesday, I took my roommates to another film festival viewing, but this time it was on rugby (clearly this was a theme for the week). The short film at the beginning was called Strong Bones and it followed a small all-female football (meaning soccer) team from one of the Eastern Provinces that participated in a league known as "the granny league." All of these women were grandmothers who were encouraged by health workers to start exercising, and thus, the granny league was born. It was super fun-- I hope it becomes more widely distributed! The feature film was called Progress and was about a poor rugby club, called Progress, from an eastern township. They had been able to improve greatly since the end of apartheid and even managed to beat Stellenbosch, in northern South Africa, which is the wealthiest rugby club in the world. The movie followed the lives of the players and was excellent. We got to hear from the director, editor and producer afterward and we heard that the club is still doing quite well and is projected to do even better next year.
On Thursday and Friday, we went across the street to a sports bar to watch Euro Cup games. We met some interesting locals and made friends with the bartender, so I'm sure we'll be back throughout the Euro Cup and then for the Olympics in late July, since we don't have a television.
Saturday we awoke early to head out to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope! On the way, we stopped at Boulders Beach, where there are tons of African penguins. They were ADORABLE (ask anyone who was there-- I was freaking out). I learned that if I was patient enough, they would come out of their hiding places and walk right up to me! I got pretty close to a few of them.

What cuties! We also saw some baboons along the way!

Then we moved on to Cape Point, which is popularly known as the point at which the Indian and Atlantic Oceans meet (although the true meeting point is a few miles away). The views were absolutely incredible, although it was so, so, so windy (hence the hair)! We could barely hike up!

 (the lighthouse and I matched!)

Then we moved on to the Cape of Good Hope, the southwestern-most tip of the African continent! Once again, the ocean was beautiful and the views were incredible. We even got to see the monuments dedicated to da Gama and Diaz and their journeys to the Cape of Good Hope. We saw some baboons and even two wild zebra along the way!!! Although the zebra were a bit too quick for me and I couldn't get a good picture in time....

Here's a fun Where's Waldo-esque game: can you spot the two zebra in this picture?

More posts to come on work, daily life, and Robben Island!
P.S. The answer to the poll was.... there are 11 official languages in South Africa!

A Wild Weekend

Well. I had quite the weekend.
A few friends and I went straight from work on Friday evening to the Waterfront cinema, where there's a fantastic South African film festival happening now. We saw a movie called "Umbilical Cords" about mother-daughter relationships across cultures. It was incredible! It seems like the film was rated well during the festival, so it will likely be coming to more countries soon. Keep an eye out for it! (P.S. hi mommy!! It made me think of you and miss you!)
Then Saturday morning we awoke bright and early to hop on a double-decker red sightseeing bus. We went everywhere from Camps Bay beach, where Leo DiCaprio vacations,

to the Constantia winelands. Groot Constantia is the oldest vineyard in South Africa. The vineyard is full of beautiful 17th century Dutch buildings and it's set in the rolling hills north of Cape Town. Unfortunately we had to catch the last bus back to Cape Town so we only had half an hour to rush through a tour and tasting! The wine guide thought we were quite hysterical and gave us free Groot Constantia wine glasses!

We ran back to the bus (bewaring of baboons, as per the signs posted all over the vineyard)

and an employee told us the driver wouldn't be there for an hour. While we moaned and groaned, he suddenly went up front and started driving. Capetonians love to make fun of us Americans..... we're so gullible.
We went down to the Waterfront for a ferris wheel ride and some dinner. One of my roommates got zebra and I tried a piece-- very tender but I'm not sure I'll try it again.
Sunday morning was the highlight of the weekend!!! We took the cable car up to the top of Table Mountain (1000 m above sea level) and then got hooked into harnesses and abseiled (repelled) down 362 feet! Insane!
We had a safety lesson and got to practice descending and jumping on flat ground.
Then it was time! We ambled over some rocks to get to the jumping off point. After we got hooked in, they had us lean over the mountain edge to test our safety harnesses------ terrifying!!!

I went down with my friend Melinda, who was even more petrified than I was. It took us both a moment to get going, but once we did, we had the most amazing view!! I got used to lowering myself and soon I was jumping happily down the rock face. Then, halfway down, the rock face just disappeared! We free-floated the rest of the way down. Yes, I did repel down THIS:

A little map to help orient you:

After everyone was safely back on land (albeit steep, slippery, rocky mountain land) we hiked back up to the top for about 45 minutes.

We were huffing and puffing by the time we got there, where we saw a sign pointing to the path up that we had taken, which read:

Oops. We took the hard path.
We had a quick lunch at the top of pizza and beer to celebrate, then headed back down and continued sightseeing the rest of the day!
We were all so sore when we woke up and went to work this morning, and I expect we will continue to feel this way for a while. Abseiling is tough work. It was a truly exhausting weekend, but I can't imagine having had more fun.
Soon I'll post about spending some time "out in the field" at work, interviewing grant recipients in some of the poorest neighborhoods around Cape Town, and also about more aspects of life here!
Stay tuned!

Oh, and we met a dassie at the top! It's closest relative is the elephant--- isn't it oh so obvious?
I may hike back up the mountain so I can get him and take him home with me. SOOOO cute.

First Weekend in Cape Town

We arrived last week in Cape Town and were immediately swept into tons of excursions and activities (for some of us, we did all of it on no sleep). The day we arrived we scoured the neighborhood for some groceries and then headed down to Kloof Street, an extension of the famously exciting Long Street, for some delicious food. The next day we headed off to the V&A Waterfront, which is essentially a boardwalk and tons of shops, restaurants and performance spaces. Everywhere we walked there was tons of music-- including a fabulous a capella group from the townships! I chatted with them for a bit and ended up buying their CD.
We ate at a rather fancy traditional South African restaurant, and I had a traditional Capetonian dish: snoek (a white fish) with apricot marmelade sauce. It was fantastic! Almost everyone else had the ostrich, which was apparently delicious. Try it if you have the chance!

The next morning I started work at the Economic Policy Research Institute (learn about it at epri.org.za). It's been really tough but great so far. We've spent a few days learning STATA, a modeling and statistical software, and it's a bit like learning a foreign language. Not easy!! But today we were assigned to some fantastic projects and I'm excited at the prospect of working on some really interesting poverty studies! More updates to come soon!

London Layover

After a pleasant half-full flight from Dulles to Heathrow, during which I was actually able to lie to down and relax, I arrived in Heathrow half an hour early. I had exactly two hours before I was supposed to meet another intern traveling on the same flight to Cape Town that evening; it turned out though that our planning was less than careful and we never ended up finding each other. After a few hours of waiting, I finally decided to head into London by myself, since I still had about 8 hours to kill before my connection. In the less than four hours I had left in London, I managed to see Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and Parliament, Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London. I also had a fabulously British lunch of fish & chips and pint of lager. London was incredibly busy prepared for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee ceremony, celebrating her 60 year reign, and the Olympic Games; both Heathrow and Buckingham Palace were a mess. I was sad I couldn’t stay one more day for the kick-off of the Diamond Jubilee weekend!

All in all, even though my few hours in London were rushed, I was so happy to have the chance to see the little that I did, and I know I’ll be back sometime, hopefully soon, to see more of the city (and the countryside). And now I've got two months in Cape Town! As I'm sure it's clear from the photo of Lion's Head peak, Cape Town is absolutely stunning. I've been here for barely 12 hours and I'm in love!