Cape Town, SOUTH AFRICA – UBUNTU “I am because we are”

Strawberry picking with Erin!

The township!

Erin and I had a BLAST on our wine tour in Stellenbosh!

Girls dancing for us in front of Mama Ellen's home

The backdrop of Cape Town is breathtaking. Table Mountain and Lion’s Head tower over this rocky coastal city and as clouds pour over the mountain and fall across it like a tablecloth you feel as if you are in a floating metropolis. Hiking Table Mountain was challenging but fun. The trail (the “easy” trail) literally goes straight up the face, and climbing it is equivalent to walking up the Stairmaster for an hour and a half. At the bottom of the trail, a blond Rastafarian man greeted my two male, hung-over hiking partners and me. “Yellow man,” he called himself and although we were eager to get on the trail, he wanted to chat us up and take photos with us. The benefit being that he gave me some much-needed water along with the criticism that I was a “lazy woman” for not brining my own. We hauled up the mountain to see stunning views from the summit - I felt as if I was looking onto Neverland.

One of my highlights was spending the night in the Gugulethu township. Mama Nox is the local businesswoman who arranges to have tourists stay in the homes of other neighborhood “mamas.” Her house was the central meeting point and from there we were broken into pairs and sent away with our mama. I was paired with a girl named Andrea but neither one of us could properly say our mama’s Cosi name, which had a “click” in it. So we fell back on her English name, “Mama Ellen.” She tried to teach us some Cosi (one of many local languages) but she gave up rather quickly on us stubborn Americans.

The township looked similar to New Orleans 9th Ward, not the run down rows of shacks I expected (which I did see later, I just wasn’t sleeping in them). Mama Ellen’s home was gated, equipped with a TV, toilet, and running water, and had a little room with a bright pink bedspread for Andrea and I to sleep in. Each unsure of what to do now that the three of us were alone in the house, we offered to help her cook. Stavipop is made of mili-mili, which is a corn-based starch that is combined with water to make a thick mush. She taught us exactly how to make it – including a huge dollop of butter, vegetables, and chicken to finish off a simple, but delicious meal. Where is your husband we asked, concerned about eating without him. “Oh at the bar, I don’t know when he will be home. It’s ok though because he’s very quiet anyways, not talkative like me.” So we ate without the absent husband.

Mama Ellen’s passion for the children and the community is my favorite thing about her. Each day after school is out she teaches the local kids to dance. Mama Ellen even rallied the neighborhood kids to give us a private show of the girls dancing! The problem she told us, is that the after-school program is located in a building that isn’t always available and closes early. The kids all cry when they get kicked out at 7pm each evening. She has this incredible goal of purchasing a spot of land and building a community center with a park and soccer field for the kids to have somewhere to go after school. She is concerned that the kids will get into drugs and violence if they don’t have some way to occupy their time. This leads into the Amy Biehl Foundation (which I will go into detail later) which works to do just that – establish programs to get townships kids involved in the arts and channeling their energy positively. It was so amazing to see the way Mama Ellen’s dream was being carried out by the initiatives of the Amy Biehl foundation.

Andrea, Mama, and I sat in the living room (which doubled as a dining room) watching TV and Andrea and I began to wonder if we were going to spend our entire homestay just watching TV. Then Toto, the husband, came home. Drunk. Tanked actually. He stumbled in the door and looked as us like we were two white aliens sitting in his living room. Then he warmed up and contrary to what Mama had said about him being “quiet,” he chatted us up all night. He was very welcoming, if not incredibly repetitive and made it clear that he was BOSS of the house. Mama laughed it off but I found it to be very telling about the current climate of South Africa. Here was this woman, who can only find work 2 days a week but volunteers to teach the children every afternoon. And there was her husband, who out of work, sleeps in till 11 every day and goes drinking every night. Sad, but common story of women and men in South Africa.

Our 6am breakfast was the same milli-milli from the night before, but less thick and more of a watery porridge. Then, to top it off, Mama put MAYO on it. YUCK. We tried so hard to eat it, but it’s the kind of substance that you can eat 100 spoonfuls of and still not make a dent. So when she went into the bedroom to change, we dashed into the bathroom to flush the mayo-porridge down the toilet. Mission success.

I got to go back to the townships a few days later when I did a SAS service visit with the Amy Biehl Foundation. Amy was a young US woman who went to South Africa in the 80s to register blacks to vote. In an abrupt tragedy, she was confused as the white enemy by a group of black rioters in a township. In the middle of the day four men attacked, stoned, and stabbed her in the same township I slept in. Her mother is just as much of a hero, because she accepted Amy’s death as an opportunity to bring peace and education to the townships to prevent future violent acts from occurring. The most amazing part, though is that Linda Biehl, Amy’s mother, forgave all four of the murders during the Truth and Reconciliation hearing, fought for their release from jail, and eventually hired two of them to work at the foundation. If there was ever a lesson of forgiveness, it’s in Linda’s story. Such amazing compassion!

After hearing about Amy and Linda’s story, we toured through almost all the townships - except for Kalelitcha – the biggest and most dangerous one that I couldn’t get anyone to take me to! I did see the shacks and the squatter homes and I learned that often, even if the government pays to build houses for these people, they will often sell the houses and move back to their shacks where they don’t pay rent and can steal electricity from the main electric lines. We had traditional meat at a township restaurant for lunch, then continued to the after school programs that the foundation maintained. We played with kids, saw them perform dances, sing, and there was even a poetry reading!

Back over in downtown Cape Town, there’s the famous Long Street – home to shops, restaurants, and bars. I ventured down it at night to go out and had one great evening with a guy I met from America who had done SAS a few years ago. And I wandered along it during the day, although I must say its more fun at night! I also got to see the World Cup Stadium, go on a pirate cruise (where we saw a gorgeous sunset, whales, and a fabulous view of Cape Town), run along the coastline, pick strawberries, see cheetahs, and do a winery tour of Stellenbosch. I was bummed that my shark dive was cancelled due to foul weather, but I heard the water was freezing anyways. Next time I’m in South Africa I can do the animal stuff – Safari and shark dive – but for this trip the people of the townships, the wonderful wine, and the gorgeous city of Cape Town were absolutely amazing. I am very sad to leave this continent – Africa – home of my heart. But of course, I will be back! Except not Terminator Schwarzenegger style, Ann Jones (a woman who drove across Africa) style!

“Dream, dream, dream the craziest dreams.” –Desmond Tutu


"When you come to Africa, you catch the African disease. It's not malaria or AIDS; it's a disease of the heart. And what it means is that you have a heart for Africa. Whether you ever come back, you will yearn for Africa, you will cry for Africa, you will pray for Africa.
-Bishop Hathaway