Get ready for a long post!
My first international flight was 24+ hours long but surprisingly not as bad as I expected it to be! Thanks to several nice airport employees I had my seat upgraded on my 15 hour flight, and had my own personal guide whisk me to my gate when he realized I was minutes away from missing my flight (consider getting long lay-overs when landing in a new country because customs can take forever).
The Basics:
I believed that moving to Cape Town wouldn’t be a huge culture shock considering its similar colonial background to the U.S., but there are definitely some major differences and a lot that I am still learning. For one, there are 11 official languages in South Africa including Afrikaans, English, Ndebele, Northern Sotho, Sotho, Swazi, Tswana, Tsonga, Venda, Xhosa and Zulu. However, there are many more languages spoken here that are not recognized, many of them being indigenous languages. Trevor Noah describes this complex system of language in his book “Born a Crime,” which I highly recommend (it was a required reading, but it made me laugh and cry and everything in between!) He explained how multiple languages can fly around during one conversation, but most people understand the gist, and respond in their own tongues. However, when visiting shops and on the roads the colonialist languages, English and Afrikaans, are the primary ones in use.
My home for the next six months is called Charlton House, and is student housing that accommodates about 20 people. This house is under 24-hour security, with an actual human sitting at our gates whenever we arrive home. Each student gets their own room and bathroom, with buckets included. Due to the water crisis that happened a few years ago, Capetonians had no choice but to become extremely water conscious. This means taking short showers, collecting that water in your buckets, and using the collected water for other purposes such as flushing the toilet (only flush for #2). It took me a few failed attempts and an enlightening conversation with one of my professors to figure out how the showering system works, and I’m still learning. The outlets are few, and I found a little mouse while trying to search for one under my bed, but that is a story for another time.
The Studying:
I arrived in Cape Town late Sunday night, and I had class first thing Monday morning at 9 am. The walk to class is long and filled with about a million flights of stairs, but my surroundings are so beautiful I don’t mind making the trek every once in a while. When we wake up early enough, a few of us catch the Jammie, which is a bus that drives us over to the University of Cape Town (UCT). I’m currently taking an honors course that has been compressed into four weeks and is jam-packed with excursions and field trips, but actual classes at UCT begin in February.
The fun:
As we are 12 eager students excited to explore a new city and living in one house, there have already been several fun-filled trips around the city. So far we’ve visited several grocery stores and restaurants within walking distance of Charlton House, hiked down Signal Hill, had a beach day in Camps Bay, and did a little shopping at Cavendish mall. While at the mall, class, Camps Bay, and at Charlton House we have experienced load-shedding. During load-shedding power is cut off for certain areas of the city based on a schedule in order to curtail energy demand. During this time many businesses close down completely, and I imagine the economic losses are major. During our tour of the city we got to see the beautiful, colorful neighborhood of Bo-Kaap, which managed to remain a “coloured” designated neighborhood through apartheid. Our tour guide explained that the neighborhood is currently struggling with gentrification and general disrespect of its religious culture. We also witnessed first-hand how violent things can be in Cape Town. As we were walking through the city we saw an awful moment of gendered-violence. A man, who claimed to our tour-guide to be a very violent gangster, left a woman crying after hitting her. To our surprise no one in the area did anything and when we told one of the security guards patrolling the street he laughed as if to say “what do you want me to do?” This was a testament to how common domestic violence is in the city, and a wake up call to those of us who live in our bubbles of safety.
On a less serious note, beside this incident and the occasional lack of power, our outings have mostly been successful. Ubers are extremely affordable here, and the Jammie offers a second option for transportation. One of my favorite places so far has been Simon’s Restaurant at Groot Constantia wine estate. Our professors treated us to a delicious three-course meal, several bottles of wine, and a beautiful view of the vineyards (which are a huge agricultural crop grown in South Africa.) So far the first week was tiring, yet full of excitement and so many new experiences in a short amount of time. Look forward to more detailed and personal posts as I get a little more free-time!
6 Months in Cape Town 