Impressions of Cape Town

This is the most difficult post for me to write so far because at the moment I am overwhelmed. There are so many experiences coming my way and so many utterly new sights and sounds that there is no time to process anything before something else I see or hear knocks me over. Let me try to give you some ideas.

I reported to homebase (the place where I live while volunteering here) on Saturday. Ours is the largest group of volunteers CCS South Africa has placed, so instead everyone living in the regular homebase, that is for this summer called homebase 1, with 31 volunteers living there. I am in homebase 2, housing 21 volunteers in a rental house. We are in a suburb called Rondebosch, home to the University of Cape Town. My roommate Pat is my age (we are the oldest of all the volunteers) from Saskatchewan, Canada. The people in our house are fantastic--interesting, engaged, and open, and it is truly like an extended family. The only downside so far is that our room had a mold infestation, and I am allergic to mold and became very sick yesterday. This is rainy season, and everything turns to mold or mildew. The workmen were here for a good part of the day cleaning and painting with an anti-fungal paint, so we shall see if that improves things.

Sunday and Monday were orientation days, with meetings and presentations and do's and don'ts, as well as tours. Cape Town is the crime capital of the world, so the don'ts were extensive and at times frightening. Many people in the townships travel in informal mini-van taxis, many of which are not road-worthy. Foreigners trying to travel in them could well end up anywhere and be subject to the actions of opportunistic--and often desperate--people. We are advised to take taxis from only one company. We are never to go anywhere alone, and preferably in groups of three or more. At night we are not allowed to walk anywhere but must take a taxi. The staff here definitely impressed us, and we are taking precautions as advised. We have also had presentations on HIV/Aids, the history of South Africa, and township life. We toured Cape Town and along a coastline reminiscent of the Pacific Coast Highway. We went to the top of a mountain called Lion's Head, just next to the famous Table Mountain, where the views were breathtaking (so was the ride up the mountain along hairpin turns on a crowded narrow road with no guardrails). We also went on a township tour, but that deserves a post all its own. I have seen houses of people who are extremely wealthy, middle class and comfortabel homes, modest suburbs, townships with what I thought the worst abject poverty imagineable until I saw the shanty towns with shacks that I could blow down with my breath.

Yesterday was the first day of our placement. I will be helping in a class of 6th graders and also helping to set up a library in the school. They have a room set aside with the only television and VCR/DVD player in the school, but the room is full of furniture stored there, and the books on the shelves are old donated books just thrown on the shelves in no particular order. Another volunteer, Kara, an attorney from Oregon and I are going to try to figure out what they have and get it organized so that it can be used. The head of the school, Mr. Davids, is very happy to have us do that.

No one went to placement today because Cosatu (the Congress of South African Trade Unions) was on strike, and there were marches in all South African cities against rises in prices of electricity, oil, and food. The teachers in my school were planning to march, so I am eager to hear about it tomorrow. Several of us spent the afternoon at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, rated as one of the top five botanical gardens in the world. It was even more beautiful than I thought it would be.

Must sleep so that I am ready for tomorrow.