adventures on the flats
Saturday night Carrie and I headed out to Muizenberg (beaches and low-key people) and then Tim, Beth, Amreetha and I had a superbly nutritious dinner of chocolate, bread and cheese on the beach. After that was an anthropological adventure with Will, Jess and Rahel ... ask me about it later. I think the story can only be told in person :-)
Then on Sunday Amreeta, Will, Beth and I headed out to Khayelitsha on the Cape Flats to meet Sizwe again - the guy who runs the Kwito/hip-hop program for kids on the Cape Flats. as we boarded the train, one of the station attendants ran out to us, yelling, "Wait, wait! You're on the wrong train! Where are you going?" We told her Khayelitsha. She stopped running, and said, "Oh, okay. Right train then." Sizwe met us at the station and we walked to his home with him - he's a celebrity! in the streets everyone knows him and ran up to meet him - his dancing has made him a legend in L-Section of Nobukqwe. We interviewed him, then a few of the kids in his program, and then they insisted on doing a dance show for us. The amazing thing about going to Khayelitsha as a white person is that you become a sort of instant celebrity, which is on the one hand, of course, fun and on the other incredibly awkward and depressing ... people are falling all over themselves to show you around and treat you, in a way that I'm not entirely comfortable with. we caught a train back to town and then were shown more overwhelming hospitality at John and Jean Comaroff's house. and then, come to think of it, in another stroke of hospitality, Kim doled out some free tickets to the Aqua Opera, a combination jazz/opera medley on a floating barge on the waterfront. Leah and I went with Lannie, and it was a completely enchanting experience - fire-throwers, dancers on stilts, and some of the best voices I've ever heard.
today after class Leah and I went out to what we *thought* was a Valentine's Day dance in Athlone, that Thandi (a girl we met at the Athlone Stadium on Friday) had invited us to. it turned out to be the Mr. and Ms. Valentine's Day pageant. beauty pageants seem to be pretty much the same everywhere, but it was fun nonetheless :-) afterwards I wanted to come with them to hang out in Khayelitsha, but after waiting an hour for a bus I decided it was better to come back to town ... and thus I find myself back at the internet cafe with a big bunch of pink flowers I have NO idea what to do with.
happy Valentine's Day!
Then on Sunday Amreeta, Will, Beth and I headed out to Khayelitsha on the Cape Flats to meet Sizwe again - the guy who runs the Kwito/hip-hop program for kids on the Cape Flats. as we boarded the train, one of the station attendants ran out to us, yelling, "Wait, wait! You're on the wrong train! Where are you going?" We told her Khayelitsha. She stopped running, and said, "Oh, okay. Right train then." Sizwe met us at the station and we walked to his home with him - he's a celebrity! in the streets everyone knows him and ran up to meet him - his dancing has made him a legend in L-Section of Nobukqwe. We interviewed him, then a few of the kids in his program, and then they insisted on doing a dance show for us. The amazing thing about going to Khayelitsha as a white person is that you become a sort of instant celebrity, which is on the one hand, of course, fun and on the other incredibly awkward and depressing ... people are falling all over themselves to show you around and treat you, in a way that I'm not entirely comfortable with. we caught a train back to town and then were shown more overwhelming hospitality at John and Jean Comaroff's house. and then, come to think of it, in another stroke of hospitality, Kim doled out some free tickets to the Aqua Opera, a combination jazz/opera medley on a floating barge on the waterfront. Leah and I went with Lannie, and it was a completely enchanting experience - fire-throwers, dancers on stilts, and some of the best voices I've ever heard.
today after class Leah and I went out to what we *thought* was a Valentine's Day dance in Athlone, that Thandi (a girl we met at the Athlone Stadium on Friday) had invited us to. it turned out to be the Mr. and Ms. Valentine's Day pageant. beauty pageants seem to be pretty much the same everywhere, but it was fun nonetheless :-) afterwards I wanted to come with them to hang out in Khayelitsha, but after waiting an hour for a bus I decided it was better to come back to town ... and thus I find myself back at the internet cafe with a big bunch of pink flowers I have NO idea what to do with.
happy Valentine's Day!