Happy Blackout Monday! (part II)

I forgot to add my favorite blackout related media coverage in the South African press. "Load shutting" may alternately be called "load shedding," the terms are used interchangeably. So the SA issue of Cosmo last month included this headline on the cover: "Shed HIS Load" and published a story on romance during the black outs. On a similar subject, the SA issue of Real Simple magazine had a story on how to artfully camouflage barbed wire under climbing plants.

Happy Blackout Monday!

From 8-10:30pm on the dot, one of the only things that runs on time in South Africa, the power goes off in my neighborhood. This is part of the "load shutting" plan enacted by Eskom, the national power monopoly, that attempts to ration electricity and stave off the impending and inevitable shortages. Even though household consumption accounts for only about 20% of all energy consumption in South Africa, these rolling blackouts sweep through the whole country in staggered sets about twice a week. (We also have one on Fridays from noon to 2) The whole situation is gigantic mess and just an example of shockingly near-sighted political and economic planning. In the townships, the blackouts, of course, last much longer sometimes, according to a friend who lives in Langa, stretching up to 7 hours. I have a good enough candle set up that I never have too many problems, but it just reminds me how far this country has to go in terms of infrastructure and how really Third World it is once you venture beyond the downtown tourist scene. I feel like so many people visit and never see beyond that.

mugging on main road

On saturday, I had what I would consider the archetypal Capetonian day: in the morning, I went with my friends to a weekly farmer's market in Woodstock, a neighborhood near mine, full of organic produce and beautiful dresses made from Nigerian linen and rooibos iced tea in mason jars. You come out of this charming market in a revamped mill thinking what a cool, cosmopolitan and uniquely charming city this is. Then off to a concert at Kirstenbosch, the botanical gardens, and again you are just overwhelmed by Cape Town's beauty and vibrancy. And then, naturally, on the way back from the video store you see someone being violently mugged across the street from you. It all happened very very quickly but the mugger was ultimately unsuccessful in his attempt to steal this young man's cell phone though there was a fairly scary tussle involving pepper spray where we think that after spraying his attacker, the victim had it pulled away and used on him. There were five of us on the other side of the street, me, two of my friends and a couple we didn't know. The male half of that couple ran across the street and as soon as the mugger realized there were people watching he took off. But the audacity of the crime really terrified me; there were cars everywhere and obviously people on the streets and it couldn't have been later than 8:30. Very unnerving.

Namibia I

I need to discuss break in segments since there is just too much to talk about all at once, but here is an exemplary moment. I went on an overlanding trip from Cape Town up through Namibia to the Skeleton Coast (so-called because of all the ship wrecks that the cloud formations caused) and then back again to SA. Everything was so overwhelming and different and desolate but here is one of my favorite experiences:

One morning we hiked up to the top of Dune 45 (all the dunes are numbered) and saw the sunrise and the way it made all the sand change color. It was so so beautiful. We then got in a bakkie (a flatbed truck) and drove out with a San guide for a walk through the desert. As expected he was incredibly knowledgeable about all of the flora and fauna but the most fascinating portion of his talk was also the most basic. He explained that theoretically, the river could flow all the way from its source in the mountains to the sea but over time the dunes merge with each other due to the wind patterns and block its path. As this occurs each blocked off area grows incredibly lush (at least for the desert) but then itself will die once the dunes behind it merge and cut off its water supply. The result is a kind of petrified forest in the middle of the red sand that feels like a Dali painting come to life. (The one we visited that you can see pictured here was 1000 years old. The wood is too hard for any animals to eat so it only decays very very slowly)

But I found his unwavering acceptance of death, of change and of the inevitability of both to be incredibly moving. There was no resentment in his explanation of what happened to this place, even though its existence would have made his and his family's life easier. The implication in all that he said was that this was simply the way nature intended it, we can only go on if we accept that it is far more powerful then we can ever hope to be.

hell on wheels

Here is a much belated posting on perhaps the defining feature of my life in Cape Town: the minibuses. Cape Town has no public transportation system save a complex and somehow (criminally) organized system of vans. Many have a nickname proudly displayed such as “Prison Break 3,” which seems to have no Prisons Break 1 or 2 hanging around, and two employees: the driver and the “door dj” whose job it is to yell out the destination in an accent and tone that you really never hear anyone else anywhere else use. I ride these fairly frequently in spite of their shoddiness since they only cost R5 (about 60 cents) but have had three exemplary rides:

 

1. On the way to the beach, our minibus gets pulled over by the cops. Since the police force is incredibly corrupt we get a little nervous but soon realize that there’s a fairly legitimate reason for pulling us over…we are all riding in a stolen vehicle. Our driver is subsequently maced, hand-cuffed and led off to the station while we all got our R5 back and proceeded, naturally, to the next available minibus.

 

2. On our way back from Stellenbosch (the wine country north of Cape Town) we had to take two minibuses and transfer in Belleville where fellow Hoya Meg Hathaway attends University of the Western Cape. Our first bus had 21 people in it. Just to give you an idea of exactly how overcrowded this was, we couldn’t get up a hill. People almost had to jump out and push. We also ran multiple red lights, probably because once we had enough momentum to get going we just couldn’t slow down lest we never start up again. But this was nothing compared to…

 

3. Our second bus. Which ran out of gas at a busy intersection.

(The photo is of me and my friend katie on the second minibus to the beach that day, post-brush with crime)