Fine...not fine.

Since I seem to get the most reactions when I post pictures, I will end this post with a couple of shots I took during early morning hikes. Some have you might have seen in on Facebook already.

I got up at 5 am a couple of mornings, to climb the Lion's head and see the sunrise. A very satisfying thing to do, I can tell you. And the hike allows to goback home, have a shower and still be in the office on time. I did the same thing last Monday. Although it was a national holiday, and we didn't have to work, I got up at 5!
I know what you are not thinking: what does the national holiday celebrate? I have asked a couple of South Africans that very question, and they didn't know. Heritage day? That student massacre thing? Day of independance? I looked it up for you, it celebrated "human rights day", and more specifically the fact that human rights were included in the constitution ("grondwet" in Dutch). Well, that sounds good enough to celebrate. But wouldn't human rights be a given? In the country that invented Apartheid, it sure wasn't. And now that country has one of the most progressive consitutions in the world.

Paying traffic fines is not really a human right, but more of a civil duty. And one I will have to fulfill since I managed to harvest two traffic fines. Not happy with that, I can tell you. One fine I got for not being able to produce a valid driver's license. I have an international driver's license, but I simply forgot to carry it on me that day. So after a lot of feeble searching, stuttering and blushing, I had to listen to the traffic officer explaining me I got fined. I could not think of any valid excuses, which made the experience sting even more.
The second fine was for not displaying that Shafeeka (my car) is registered. Of course she is, all her paperwork is absolutely fine. But it turns out I have to display that as well. One of the many papers you get at the traffic department, has a round disk with dates, codes and lettres on it. That disk goes against your window. If the officer can't see it, he'll fine you even if you are ok with your paperwork.
Now, I am sometimes quite gullible, blue eyed and overall not sceptical enough. As was the case now: I knew every car had a sticker on its window shield. So did mine. So when I got my papers, I asked if I didn't need a sticker. The lady answered that they were out of stickers.
"Ok, ma'am, but don't I need to stick anything to my windshield?" was my shrewd question. The reply: "We know you got registered". So I thought that was that, end of story. Very gullible, not sceptical. I had this mental image of tax voucher stickers (wegenvignet) you find in Switserland or Austria you know: sticker with details printed on it. I assumed that they would be able to key in a code in a system to check. But that is not how they roll here. Here they are talking about a sticker on the one hand, and a paper disk you cut out on the other hand. You get the stickers in most of the garages and gas stations, they are all over the place.
So it is only when I held the fine in my hands that I started asking myself more questions and uncovered that I simply had to cut out the dates, codes and letters in a nice round shape and stick it to my window with a normal sticker...

So what is a very human reaction in such a situation? You try to blame someone else! Try to dodge the fine, say you didn't know and mumble "no one told me". My colleagues didn't tell me because it is either common knowledge if they are local, or -for the other expats- because they bought their cars off a official dealer that took care of it. I didn't, I bought off a private person so I had to do everything myself.
But I would not have a good case in court because on the paper, right next to the disk it says:





















Case closed... I'll have to pay. But I am now waiting for the reminder to come first. Maybe the adminsitration doesn't come through within these two years. A bit risky though because they actually come and arrest you, throw you in prison and all that if you don't pay fines...




And now for those pictures.... you can find more on http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=155546&id=730443433&l=5bbb9efa05

Safety blanket

I am a man on a mission, and the name of the mission is Mission P.
The reason why and the ill hidden pun will become clear shortly.

Cape Town is moving into autumn. At least, that is what the calendar tells us, because I don't notice it. By my standards it would still be Summer. Days are still clear, hardly a cloud in the sky and the sun is blazing. Yesterday was the worst day of all. Temperatures peaked at 45C and it hardly cooled down in the evening.
Initially I hadn't noticed that it was that hot. I jumped into Shafeeka and hit the road. We ended up in beautiful Stellenbosch, a short hours drive from my front door. Shafeeka transformed from a VW Golf into a little oven on wheels because man it was hot on the road. Shafeeka doesn't have airco (that's from after her time, don't tell her because it upsets her) so I usually open the window to cool down. It is the best feeling, normally. This time there was little to no ocean breeze to cool things down, and the air coming in felt like a hairdryer blowing in my face. Closing the car window would make it worse of course, so I could only power through.

In Stellenbosch I just parked somewhere randomly and started walking around. I love exploring a town like this. In Europe it is as easy as pie, you park around the biggest church or market square and off you go. Why the market square? Well that is usually the centre of the town, and all major roads lead towards it. You see, most places that date back a while are all built like wagon wheels: market and or church in the middle, main roads leading from the outside to the centre square and all that. The Medieval design you know. Fair enough, but in the middle ages they had nomads here. Hunter gatherer tribes, moving around. They didn't really build anything. If three lumps of clay would have been placed on top of each other, that would have been considered a brick watchtower. So certainly no wagon wheel designs for cities. Usually towns here are just one main road, fanning out in a couple of side roads. And they are so small that you have to start breaking 2 kms before the first houses or you'll only stand still at the other side of town. Paarl, Ceres, Franschoek, Muizenberg, Simon's town,... all the same thing. So I was quite happy to see that Stellenbosch was a bit different.
I had deliberately aimed for the Stellenbosch university. The campus is stunning. Check out the pictures, isn't that a campus where you would like to (pretend to) study?

It was only when I walked around that I noticed how hot it was because I had less energy than usual. I scurried around from left to right, looking for cool liquids to drink. Smoothies, milkshakes, juices, water, I drank it all. I felt like a water balloon about to burst. But I seemed to transpire it all. In spite of the vast amounts of fluids I downed, not a drop of fluid would ehm, dawn down there.
Hence Mission P. I kept drinking in the hope that some moist would make it to my kidneys. I had to switch to beer to make it happen, but it worked.

So yesterday must have been the hottest day since I came here, and the hottest day for Capetonians in a long time too. Usually the evening cools down nicely thanks to an ocean breeze.
A lot of houses, and car owners, count on this breeze because they don't have an airco installed. Nor a central heating for that matter. This time, the night did not cool down at all.
It must have been around 35 degrees in the middle of the night. Colleagues told me this morning how they moved to their basement to sleep. Deprived of a basement, most of them just had a tough night like me.

After a successful Mission P, I opted for a Mission ZZZ. Window open, no sheet, that's how this cat normally sleeps. Not possible, too hot. I don't have a fan, and didn't have any clothes to take off any more. So the experiments started. I first took a cold shower. Helped a bit, and only for a short while. Then drinks with lots of ice. Not so much. New steps had to be taken, but it was hard to think of better ideas with the drowziness of half sleep in my head. I decided to soak a big towel with cold water and hang it on a rack next to my bed. Theory: the coolness of the wet towel would radiate on me, it would absorb the vicious heat and overall get rid of the deprivation of sleep. Hail the towel! Practise: not so much. So there I was, half awake, feeling too hot with a wet towel dripping next to me. Touching it felt nice. So I touched it some more. I don't know if I first started hugging it or not, but the soaking wet towel ended up draped over my entire
body. That's right, I slept under a cold wet towel, in my bed. And it worked. Laugh all you want, it improved the situation. I even ended up wetting the towel again (in the sink, not Mission P)
because it felt so good.
Not a feat I'd like to repeat. I added a big fat fan to my shopping list.

Luckily, tonight is a lot cooler. So I'me hit the sack.

yours,

W.