December 11, 2009

moving to High Level

oki my peeps,

a long awaited update, I assume...
I left you, wondering if I would have the keys in time and if the moving company would come. Well, they did. Everything went according to plan, in spite of it being plan B obviously.

After a couple of calls and a fair amount of driving around in taxis, I held the keys to the flat in my hand at exactly 9h23. At 10h the movers would be there. That's about as close as it can get, isn't it? But it's the end result that counts, so I headed to my flat with a big smile on my face. The guys from the moving company were in time, which only made me feel more elated. So I joined the guys, basking in the sun, waiting for the truck to arrive with my stuff. After a while, still no container, the leader off the pack received a call. He broke lose of the pack, headed my way, holding out a phone. Was he holding is head down? The leader of the pack, showing signs of defeat? The voice on the line confirmed my feelings, something was wrong. They forgot to pick up the container.
One doesn't need to know much about container shipping to understand that having the actual container in the place it needs to be (preferably on time) is the essence of the whole thing.

I left the guys waiting for the container whilst the moving company (not Maersk you cheeky reader) rectified their mistake to pick up my things at the apartment I was happily abandoning. I even squeezed in a nap I think. And then, surely enough, the container arrived at 13h00 sharp and the movers could start working their magic. Well, "magic" is a massive overstatement because it was a simple matter of dragging heavy boxes up 3 flights of stairs. But I was the elated one, remember, and I saw all these things coming out of the cartons just the way they were stuffed in there, in Mechelen, thousands of miles up north and several weeks ago. So it was magical to me.
You have to take the part "just the way they were stuffed in there" very litterally. These mover guys in Mechelen did not ask a lot of questions, they just executed. So if I said "everything on this shelf", everything on the shelf
was put in a box and shipped. That includes a bowl of half eaten hazel nuts, a cup with -now moulded- tea, receipts from supermarkets, an envelop with 100 EUR worth of meal vouchers (maaltijdcheques),...

So now I am a resident of the Mazoli building, on 129 High Level Road, appartment 15 in 8005 Green Point (virtually the same as Sea Point actually).
Although the movers unpacked a lot of things for me (including the ridiculous number of glasses I had with me), still not everything is unpacked. Mainly because I took an unfurnished apartment and need to buy a nice cupboard still. And a table and chairs, couches and maybe something else... good thing it's the shopping period.

Now the next big thing to get in place, and actually the crux of any type of free/social life, is a car! It looks like I will have one next week. And I will tell you much more about it then. And I will also tell you about how I claimed the title of Nonkel Wouter because a little baby girl was born this week.

Please check out the pictures I uploaded on the move here

December 02, 2009

something wicked this way comes,

wicked, wack, weird... tomorrow should be the big day. My stuff will be delivered to my new flat tomorrow, in sound condition I hope, and in due time... The observant reader must have noticed my reserved expression. The issue is namely that I don't hold the keys to the flat in my hand. I'll save you the details, it all comes down to HR not doing their job diligently. They work thoroughly, but slow, which resulted in them paying the warranty quite late (today). But I'm not too worried about the outcome, I'm still confident I'll be in the flat tomorrow. I will just have to run around more and make an extra effort to get things organized.

Running around and making efforts, that is exactly what I did last Saturday (after my previous post). From the list of things to achieve, I succeeded in only half of them. Much to my dismay. No, in reality "dismay" is too big a word, but it's fancy... so I'll use it anyway.
Saturday started with me running around the City Bowl (center part of CPT), looking for a scooter to rent. All scooters were rented out, not that there were that many to begin with. That resulted in me being late at the bank, finding the doors closed. I comforted myself with some exquisite sushi and headed to Voortrekker Road, a long street with a lot of car dealers. It's quite a stretch so that means a taxi driver had a good day, at the expense of, well, me... To add my frustration - by know I had used quite a lot of nasty vocabulary already- most of the flippin' car dealers were closed. No progress made, money not well spent.

Sunday was the exact opposite. A friend-colleague of mine ( we should definitely find a word for a colleague who is also more of a friend, like a friegue or colleand or just randomly "a clort" - should I start up a facebook group now?) took me out of the city. We ended up in a small village called Mamre. As road tripping will teach you, you can always expect unexpected things to happen. In this case we ended up in a brimful church, with us sticking out on the first row and as the only white people. This is the point where I should tell you that I was "dressed down". It is a little trick I do when I go out, to stand out a bit less. I wear simple clothes, no bag pack, nothing fancy that would entice thieves. Now in this case we were "just going out the city" so I dressed down extra. I had selectively chosen a T-shirt that didn't smell too much, and shorts I would wear to paint stuff. So there I went, into that packed church with everyone dressed up in suits and their best clothes. A moment of self awareness. The men were all in suit and tie, the children clean from head to toe, the women with nice necklaces and other subtle jewelry. The grandmothers all wore a scarf, over their head. Goodness me! Was this, in some strange twist of reality, a muslim church? No, it was clearly a christian church. But a scarf, really? Surely it's a sign of their backwardness then? Settled in their ways, these christians did not evolve like we and they did not become modern. Has to be! But the priest was a woman, quite a young one at that, and she made jokes in her sermon. That is very progressive, very modern, isn't it?
Leaving that aside, I was still on the first row in shorts, with incredibly pale legs lighting up the room, it seemed. Someone had pushed a book in our hands, which contained all the songs. They sang a lot. The entire mass was in Afrikaans, much to my benefit. The melodies and texts were just like the ones we have in church, so I felt very confident to squeal along "In genade, groot en ryk, bou U, Heer, u koninkryk" etc... (have a look at the building, it dates from 1818, could have been standing anywhere in Europe, right?)

After the very interesting mass, we headed out to a wine farm. Did the tasting, had an exuberant lunch and enjoyed the ubiquitous sunshine. You will understand I was very glad with this day out. Thanks very much to Georgina, my freague, colliend, clort...

Now wish me good luck for tomorrow! If all goes well, I should have an interesting series of pictures next time!

If you want to get a feel of where I will be staying, have a look at the inlay at the right. I will move to High Level Road in Sea point.

November 27, 2009

the first month

We have reached the very symbolic 4-week mark, meaning I am here officially one month. And I am getting restless.
As usually the case when I get a bit restless, I can't exactly tell you why. Is it because I am not in my new apartment yet? Is it because I am still spending time browsing ads, this time for a car? Is it because so many evenings look alike? No clue. Probably a bit of everything, either way I have a faint feeling of frustration.
Fortunately I have a way to cope with that: making more plans. I like having plans, primarily because I can assure myself I will do something (slightly more) useful than just hanging around. Plans serve as a benchmark : I can compare possible other activities to the one planned and see if they are better. If the activity is deemed less interesting, based on my very subjective and arbitrary judgment, I might still do them if other factors justify that: uniqueness, involving unknown third parties, overall cost (monetary, opportunity costs, search costs,...), time or other constraints. To sum up a lot of BS: I like having plans when I feel restless.

So the plans for this weekend are (non exhaustive, not compulsory list):
- finishing the book I am reading
- finding a means of personal transport, i.e. a scooter of some sort
- leaving the city bowl for a significant amount of time
- watching the rugby game on Saturday (Bokke VS Ireland)
- go and hike in Kirstenbosch Gardens (see right inlay)
- deciding on a car
- go to bank to pick up bank card
- go and check out the switching on of the X-mas lights
- to be determined

I think it is mainly because my situation hasn't changed much in the past weeks that frustration is building up. I have found a place to rent, as I mentioned before, but I still don't hold the keys in my hand. Reason being that HR are not as efficient as I would like them to be (sharp contrast to Belgian HR). My container still isn't customs cleared. I still rely on taxis to get around in the City. I still haven't found something interesting to do on weekday evenings,... and all those things are interrelated.

But the coming week is very promising: Tuesday I should get my keys, Thursday they will deliver my stuff at my apartment, Friday there is the staff party, and there is the lottery of the World Cup groups which means there will be plenty of activity around the city. Already they are putting up extra decoration and there is a sense of excitement.
Everyone knows this will be a very important moment. News stations from around the world will take this opportunity to look at how the preparations are going. Still a lot of preparations to do in these final 200 days - the organization does not take chances on safety - let's look at the stadiums - but what about those vuvuzela's -...

November 22, 2009

a place to stay

I can start this post by telling you all I have found a place to stay. I still remain a bit weary though since the paperwork is not completed yet. I will only be sure once i'm lying in my bed in that apartment.
I'm proud to say I kept my promise and I will have a nice guest room for all of you that will come over to visit Cape Town, and me. I ll give you more details on the apartment and pictures once I moved in, that should be next weekend or shortly thereafter.

The weather changed for the good. It has been warm and cloudless for the past week, and 30 C every day without fault. Luckily there is a cool ocean breaze that makes it very pleasant to walk around.

I was invited by a colleague to go and see a movie in premiere. I confess that I am a bit of a social slut these days, in the sense that I jump at every chance I get to go out and do something with someone. In this case I was also informed that there would be 8 other women. So I double jumped. And there were indeed a lot of other women: there was the mother in law, the 15 year old daughter and her friend, the sister in law... Needless to say my expectations lied in a different age category. But it was a fun night out none the less.

Yesterday I helped Nelis, a Belgian colleague who has been here for a year already, move. He lived out in one of the further suburbs and had a nice house for him, his wife and their two cats. He's now moving because his wife has found work in a suburb on the other side of Cape Town. In all fairness: the move was not a lot of work. The lion share of the work was done by the moving company who had a large truck and 6 guys to fill it.

It was a big rugby day yesterday. There were lots of games on, so I parked my butt on a chair in the Irish pub down at the Waterfront and watched all of them (Scotland won from Australia, yey!). The nice thing is that you usually can have a bit of a chat with other spectators. This time I got more than I bargained for. I ended up with four guys who work in a restaurant in an other part of Town. Nic was by far the most talkative one, Tony is from Angola and Louis and Levy are originally from Congo. It was their night out because they work 6 days a week and not on a Sunday. So they go out, talk, have a few beers and just have a good time. And that is exactly what we did.
It was great to see how easily they took me up in their group. I was very relaxed the whole time, but still on my guard. It is one of those situations where I'm sceptical because some things are happening that I (western individualist) am not used to. The thoughts that are quietly yet noticeably in the back of my mind are: Would they want me to pay for the whole bill (a popular scam in Shanghai)? Do they want to take over this table? Do they just want to pick my pockets? Do they want to find out where I live so they can come and empty my apartment? It is not something one does deliberately, and I can feel very ashamed by it if is dominating my thoughts. But nothing those guys did indicated they would want to do such things so we just had a couple of rounds together.

They filled up the hours effortlesly with their simple stories brought with too much drama and big gestures. What was an epiphany to me was that they were quite demanding to the staff. I don't like asking waiters for too much, I even have difficulties sending back cold soup, but they were asking a whole lot of things. Nic wanted to change his glass because he was given a low glass with a handle, like a german beer glass. "That spoils my evening! It is not a manly glass. I need a tall glass, bruh. This is a glass for coffee!" Tony wanted to change channels on the TV and asked about 5 waiters to do that... and on and on. So here you had guys, waiters themselves, demanding a lot. And I started to realize that I feel akward whenever a waiter is serving me. Usually, halfway through your meal, the waiter comes to ask if everything is ok. I just nod or say "yes yes" so convincingly that it is probably clear that I don't want him to be bothered by what I want. Is it because I am afraid a master - servant relationship would occur?
I had a cold lasagna the other day but still told the waitress everything was perfect, and here you had Nic asking for a vuvuzela (the horn that makes a lot of noise) or the waitresses' number in exchange for his money... So I figured I will have to ease up and be more relaxed when waiters are around.

Louis is the only one not working at the restaurant and would best be described as the uptight guy that wants to come across as the intelligent type. He craves attention and goes to look for a new "audience" whenever he is not part of the conversation. To illustrate: he started dancing in front of the musicians at the Waterfront, where around a hundred tourists were gathered to look at the street musicians. Then he continued to take over one of the xylophones after he had asked a 60+ old women to dance with him.
When we were introduced and he found out that I am Belgian, he started talking about the relation between Belgium and Congo. A topic that unsettles me slightly as I don't really know what to say or do (see right hand side why). He called me his uncle and he was my nephew. And he tried to drag me in a discussion about why the Congolese were never given Belgian nationality although they were part of the Belgian kingdom. And that Belgium should be more involved in Congo just like the UK, US and China are doing good business. I guess I should make the suggestion to Karel De Gucht to start up the dialogue (?) with Congo again.

November 16, 2009

First Post

hello All,

sorry to keep have kept you waiting for this blog. Hope you can understand I had quite a few things on my mind and it is not easy finding a decent internet connection. I am at the office now and still struggling a bit.

Quite a few things happened in the past 14 days.
First of all, I had a great send off by friends and family. In the past weeks I have had to say many good byes, which was weird because it still feels like I won't be away that long... but that might still come. Either way I am very glad to have seen almost all of you before I left.
I had a good flight. Even the baby - because there is always at least 1 baby on a long distance flight - kept its (cute little) mouth. Upon arrival I found my luggage immediately, and had a driver waiting for me at the exit. To top all things off, I was brought to a very nice hotel. Perfect ride, almost. At the hotel they didn't know I was coming. But a cup of coffee and a few calls later that was sorted as well.

The first week at the office was quite busy from the very beginning. Of course there is the pile of paperwork to wrestle through (insurance, bank account...), a househunt to start and next to that I had to immediately join high level meetings with the top guys about a big contract that will be negotiated soon. A dive in deep water, but an interesting one at that. I wouldn't have wanted it otherwise.

The first Friday night is easy to sum up: farewell drink for a MISE colleague leaving to Dubai and watching a rugby game in a bar. I'll leave it up to you to estimate how many beers that took. Saturday was dedicated to house hunting, Sunday was the day of the Big Walk. The Big Walk is an annual event where thousands of people walk 10-20-40 or 80 kms on one day to raise funds for charity. It all ends with a festival like happening. It was a lot of fun even though it rained quite a lot.

The second week was filled with visiting apartments, work and looking for a car. I would have liked to be able to say that concludes the search, but alas.

Last weekend I joined a couple of colleagues at their house to have a braai and watch the Bokke play France. The braai was a result of 8 men going grocery shopping: too much meat, a few rolls and a small bag of lettuce that was left unopened till the end. It must have been the thought that counted. The same goes for the national anthem sung by a rastafari at the beginning of the game. It was a complete embarassment. The guy sounded like he had sworn never to sing one note right, and was very enthousiastic about it. He squeeled for the entire stadium and thousands of viewers on television, inducing the rage of the Bokke fans (look on youtube). Fortunately for the organising country, he was assigned by the SA embassy. I think he better stays in France for a while.