Braai-bing

Today I was involved in a car accident. Nothing bad, don't worry, I am fine and Shafeeka only has a couple of scratches on her back bumper. I left home to go on a shopping spree (which I still did and I bought some nice clothes but that's besides the point) in Canal Walk, a mall some 15 kms outside of Cape Town centre.
As I was waiting to turn into a street the car behind me was pushed against Shafeeka because a taxi had slammed it in the back. Luckily no one got hurt, the taxi driver, the man in the car behind me and his wife and child, and lil'ol' me, all unscathed. The two other cars were in a bad state though.
The taxi driver was speeding, and because I was waiting right behind a little hill to take a turn, he couldn't see me and the other car standing still. He slammed the breaks, but too late, with the known consequence. The taxi driver looked subdued, of course, but also very tired. His eyes were little slits, and he worked a bit slow. My hunch is that he just ended his 24 hour shift and was exhausted.
You see, most taxi drivers have to work 24 hour shifts in alternating days. So one day of driving, one day at home, etc... You often see the drivers sleeping in their cars, somewhere along the road for that reason. I have spoken with quite a few taxi drivers and most of them have this kind of rotation. Obviously that makes me wonder about issues as safety and reliability, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear that these types of accidents are quite common.

The little family had Malawian nationality, and when I presented my Belgian passport to the police officer I saw a slight hint of confusion taking over his face. As if he was thinking: "Three cars, three nationalities? Jasses!".
That might have been the reason that he dismissed me rather fast. Within 5 minutes I was allowed to go. I was spared the hassle of written testimonies and other paperwork. A quick look at Shafeeka's behind was enough to assess that I had no damages to claim and apparently that means I was no longer required to stay.
I hope the Malawian family will be able to sort things out with the taxidriver, because my gut feel tells me they will face a lot of hassle to get their damages paid out.


In earlier posts I told you about my dutch friend and colleague Florens, who became a father here in Cape Town shorlty after we arrived. His wife Claudia and their baby daughter Charlotte went to the Netherlands for a three week holiday. That means that Mr Florens regained a bacherlor status - to a certain extend of course. It was very easily decided that we had to do all kinds of things that you can't do with a baby carriage, and possibly a wife attached to it. Hence the mountaint trip I told you about, and a couple of parties of course. I also suggested to give Florens a township experience, by going to Mzoli's.


Mzoli's is a bouchery in Gugulethu, one of the biggest townships of Cape Town. They offer a very simple yet fun formula: You go to that place, order your meat, and they'll braai it for you. You can then eat it whilst enjoying the crowd and a beer bought in the local liquor store (which is basically a garage turned into a store). All of this steeped in township flair, which mainly means a lack of organization and hygiene, a good portion of chaos a lot of very friendly people and overall a lot of fun.
Over the years, Mzoli's has become a hangout for people that want to see and be seen. They drive up in their (sometimes fancy) cars, show off their sound systems, have a drink and dance and chat a lot. The success is slowly but surely changing the area. More garages are turned into shops or bars.
However, if you want your legendary Mzoli meat, you have to stand in line for a looooooong time, and you have to fight your way to the braai where you have to try to get your meat braai-ed before others do.
The first time I went there, me and my friend Rob decided to bribe one of the guys in order to jump the queue. But much good did it do, after a while we found out everyone was bribing the cooks!
The most amazing part about going there are the people. It is so easy to strike up a friendly conversation. And it is not an exception that someone tells you how much they appreciate it that white people are coming to a township to party and see how the majority of the South Africans really live. Those are often older people coming over to shake your hand and thank you for coming. I imagine its because they really experienced the days of apartheid the fullest (apartheid was only abolished in 1994).
Still if you go there, you shouldn't forget you're in a township. Crime rates are high, a lot of thieves and robbers are lurking, waiting for a chance to jump you. You're often warned for this, but so far I haven't seen, heard or experienced any of that. Let's hope it stays that way.

Flippin' fish, gorgeous gorge and other things...

41 days to go till the world cup… a countdown mentioned everywhere on a daily basis: in shops, on the radio, in the office, on television,… and while Cape Town and the rest of South Africa is counting down, I am counting up and… reach 6 months. Yes, highly estimated reader, I’ve been scurrying around on this speck of the globe for half a year now. 25% of the assumed time I’ll spend here. Does that mean that I have had enough? Not at all! It only makes me realize how I have to hurry up to do all the things I want to do here before I relocate.
In line with this thought, I have done a couple of wonderful things in the past three weeks, too much to mention in detail one post. So I’ll have to stick to a brief description and make sure I have a lot of pictures to acquiesce in your longings.

First of all, I’ve had quite a few friends from work visiting me from overseas (a nice expression essentially meaning “everything outside Africa”). I had my share of touring Cape Town and surroundings and eating out. Because with so many lovely places to dine, and at such prices, that is what you do.
I have become quite adept at giving tours in and around Cape Town. Soon the wine lands and Cape Peninsula will have no more surprises for me.
Although all these visitors had very different backgrounds and interests, they were all stunned by the beauty of the landscapes. And none of them were raped, mugged, cheated on, threatened or anything. So if you still had doubts of coming here, start planning and let me know when you’ll be coming.

Next to all of those visits, I went camping again. This time I was invited by a frolleague (friend + colleague) to join him on a trip. It must have been the first time I went away for the weekend without Shafeeka. She wasn’t angry with me, so I take it she didn’t mind. We went to the Cederbergen area, to a remote little place called “Suikerbossie”. We had a braai (not a barbecue because that runs on charcoal or brickets in stead of wood) and beer, and tried some fishing. I even bought a fishing rod and hooks and bait and all that, to do the proper fishing thing. I had tried fishing before in my life, but without the proper gear and no success (not sure if it’s correlated), so I went all out this time. The prey was yellow fish, and I am still not sure whether that refers to its behaviour or its colour. In a fishing manual it said that this type of fish usually bites between midnight and 6 am. And sure enough, almost at the exact stroke of midnight, we finally had movement on our lines. Two fish at the same time bit the bait on our two rods. Unfortunately our coordination was left to be desired at that time, on the account of us having to wait so long and having had a drink or two. I’ll rephrase: we were too drunk to reel in the fish. We broke one line, and on the other a fish the size of my under arm slipped out of our hands. But off hand, the best fishing experience I ever had.
Next to that, we went to a gorgeous little gorge not so far from where we camped. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

An other big event worth spending some ink on is my visit to Maputo. One of the projects I have been working on evolves around contract negotiations with the terminal in the capital of Mozambique. It wasn’t a long trip, and not far either, but it was an interesting experience. We only spend one night there, and were of course focused on the meeting at hand so it was not like I was able to explore the city. Still it was very clear that Maputo is in a whole different category than Cape Town. Buildings and roads seem to be crumbling down. Quite a few roads were tarred before, but are turning into sand roads again. Here and there are potholes, some so big you could lose a 4x4 vehicle in it. Service in bars and restaurants is even slower than in South Africa.
As most countries in Africa, Mozambique is struggling with widespread corruption, lack of education, failing government apparatus and virtually no public infrastructure (roads, trains, waterways,…). I saw the clichés of lack of planning and low sense of urgency confirmed. All of this is very present in the terminal as well. I’ll illustrate with some anecdotes next to the pictures.

The terminal does not have good paving, in general. Causing basic problems as you can see in the picture.

These gentlemen work for Damco (a sister company) and were at the terminal to sort out an issue with a bulk delivery of coal. The bags were broken. To illustrate the lack of planning: there was no dedicated area for bulk goods, they just dropped the bags where there was space and it was convenient.

Below you can see how the wheels of a tractor are slipping. The tractor had to push a couple of train wagons forward, because they did not seem to have a proper engine train. The big buldozer did not have problems pushing the lot forward.

A bulk delivery of sulfur ( a toxic if I'm not mistaken) was piled up somewhere in the terminal. The wind blew it around freely.

The two cranes are quite old and need some work. The terminal has very big plans to change the infrastructure and the way they work. Soon the improvements will be visible.

If you want to see more pictures on both events, please go to this album and the other

Take care!

W.

In search of the bunny.

I'm quite convinced now that the easter bunny is a European rotant. Not an African one at least, because I haven't seen it hopping around here, let alone found some chocolate eggs. And I even went looking more than 200 km out of Cape Town but nothing. I did see some very nice sights, let the pictures speak for themselves (below).
I took the opportunity of the prolongued Easter weekend to go camping in the Cederbergen ("bergen" means mountains). I refrained from wild camping for a number of reasons: it was just me by myself - alone, it is very dry and didn't want to start a bushfire, and they have creatures here that can actually kill you. So I chose the certain safety and mild comfort of a camping site. And next to avoiding the aforementioned risks, I also found hot water and some genuine South Africans as company. Very talkative guys that don't shy away from a drink. Actually it would not be a lie to say they really liked a drink, although they were still very well behaved. As so many drunken people do, they started talking about politics in South Africa. The inspiration did not only come from the alcohol in their circulation, but obviously also from the recent brutal murder on a prominent extreme right Afrikaner politician named Eugene Terreblanche. Mr Terreblanche had some terrible beliefs and was also killed in a terrible way. Food enough for conversation around a camp fire.

The trip itself was awesome, although not flawless. I made some rookie mistakes that are simply ridiculous, really. I had decided to go camping on the very last minute, so in my haste to throw my stuff in Shafeeka's trunk I had forgotten a few essentials. I didn't have fire, flash light, mousquito repellant and to top it off: no tent pegs. So I had to improvise a bit to sort things out. Luckily I found some easy solutions quickly. I broke the legs of a broken camping chair I'd found in pieces and used them as pegs. A local shop provided matches, candle and mousquito repellant. So I undid the shameful mistakes. Hikingwise it was not the best trip either. But this time I was not to blaim. The road I had chosen on my brand new map was - just like the desired easter eggs- simply not there. I was looking around for it, walking through the area, following the river along which the road was supposed to run, but could not find the pathway. After more than an hour of crashing through the bushes, whilst tapping a long thin stick in front of me to scare away snakes, I found myself walking through a dried out part of the river bed. I would have powered through if I hadn't been alone, but my sensible side won it over my reckless side and I made my way back. It took me an other hour and a half to lumber through the thicket and through the river but I got back without problems. It was a bit frustrating but satisfying at the same time. Can you have those two feelings at the same time? I think so; I was happy being out there in nature, trying to find my way by myself, but frustrated that I couldn't get to the top of the mountain I had planned to climb.

The Cederbergen area is very beautiful and is yet again very different from the winelands, the Table Mountain area or the Atlantic Seaboard. It is famous for its citrus plantations. In springtime it is supposed to be full of flowers so I will definitely go check that out. And I would like to see some San (Bushmen) rock art there too as they have quite a few sites with those old depictions. You can also visit the rooibos tea plantations there which is an other reason for me to go back.

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.