Together at one Table: Cape Town: February 2007

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Some pics from China

Along the Karakol Highway, Far Western China, near Pakistan

Monday, February 12, 2007

Nuclear Power and Strange Men

Last week we went to a nuclear power station near Cape Town. It is a small plant producing only 1800mw about 1% of SA's power. Most of the SA power is from coal. The plant was nice. It is surrounded by a natural reserve..a gov rec to keep people from dying in the event of a meltdown. The nature reserve encourages people to come and recreate, walk, run, mountain bike or watch the animals. They have zebra, an assortment of antelope, and lots of snakes. They also have some nice dune plants. The power plant is located on the coast..it uses seawater to cool its reactor coolant.

The other day, a guy that lives with me was walking alone by a train station, lost. He walked down a couple allies that turned out to be deadends..then on the third attempt he was met by three men who had seen him walk down the dead ends and return. The three men yelled at him, went through his pockets and took his bag then ran off. They took his wallet, watch and knife from his bag and his cell phone from his pocket. They ditched his bag in a bush, which he recovered.

The other day the other guy I am living with woke up from a nap around 6pm to find a man in his room. They man asked him if peter was home. There is no peter in the house. My roommate told him there was no peter and that izaac lived next door. He then went to Izaac’s room and found izaac. The man said they had met before at the waterfront. Izaac was confused and asked him when as he let him out of the house. The man said last year when izaac was in iowa. A few minutes later my housemate noticed his camera was gone.

Last week a girl next door woke up to find her computer missing, her window open, and a ladder conveniently leading to the ground.

So there you have it. Things look normal and safe, much like they do in the us. Modern shops, houses, streets, clean looking people. But there is crime. We will see if I experience it first hand.

Monday, February 05, 2007

Devil's Peak, Cockroaches, Township

Table Mountain From Devil's Peak at Sunrise

On Thursday we went on a township tour, something I think should have happened several weeks earlier. It was an interesting experience, but nothing like what I was imagining. Townships here are informal settlements that are recognized by the government and therefore receive roads, electricity, water, waste removal and other services. They are basically shack or shanty towns that are built on unused land. I was expecting to see something similar to the shanty towns in India, Thailand or China. This place was nothing like what I had seen before. It was much nicer.

The shacks consisted of a variety of discarded building materials assembled about a central frame to enclose an area on average roughly 10ftx10ft. The insides of the shacks that I saw were very well furnished; all had beds and a kitchen type counter. Some even had home entertainment cabinets. Shacks in India had nowhere near this amount of furnishings. Most had an assortment of cooking utensils around a fire ring, and a blanket on the ground for the bed.

The people in the township were also much different to those I had seen in other countries. There were a few older women walking around, and a few young kids playing in empty lots. The township has a school, and it was full of children. Again this was nothing like shanty towns I have seen elsewhere. There were no dirty kids and people and there weren’t people just sitting around out of work. The people that were in the township also did not appear to suffering from lack of food or disease. Unemployment is huge here, 26%, but it wasn’t apparent in the township, or at least this township.

I suspect that this township was different than the others. I suspect the reason we had a tour in this township was its level of ‘development.’ I suspect that other townships are in a lesser state.

Friday after class, Izaac and I climbed Devil’s Peak. Got to the top around 7pm had some dinner and watched the sunset. It was beautiful. Then the fun began. I didn’t bring a sleepingbag to SA. Izaac did. Impromptu camping on Devil’s Peak was a good experience in demonstrating the use of a sleeping bag or bed roll.

Cape Town and Robbin Island

Izaac at our campsite, ie grass in between rocksI brought some warm clothes for the adventure, long underwear and a wind jacket. The clothing was adequate for walking around and sitting around watching the stars, but inadequate for sleeping. Whenever I would fall asleep my body temperature would drop and I would wake up cold. The wind did not help. Cape Town, also known as the cape of storms, is windy most of the time. The wind kept changing directions and I kept moving around in the rocks finding calm places to try and sleep. I didn’t sleep much. I got to wake up and see the stars progress across the night sky. Sunrise came at about 5:30 and ended the night of no sleep.

Table Mountain and the Atlantic Sunrise was again amazing and after a short breakfast we walked back to campus.

Moonrise

In addition to the limited clothing/sleepwear I went for a bare minimum on food. I guess bare minimum would be no food. But I brought food. I brought 8 rusks, four for dinner four for breakfast. Rusks are a Swedish biscut thing…they are baked in loaves, sliced then baked again so they are completely dry and hard. They look like small biscuits. All turned out well, but I was hungry well before lunch on the way back down.

Cockroaches

So there are a few in the house. For me they add value, entertainment and curiosity value to the house. Sometimes you are surprised by one looking for food. They are fun to watch and rather cute. Others in the house are less pleased with the cockroaches. They prefer them dead, scream when they emerge, and run away upstairs or on top of furniture. From their elevated perch they yell at me to kill our little friends. I don’t understand.