The end of day three was my first night on the town. We ventured to Mojitos, a Caribbean style restaurant for dinner, due to their ability to first, accommodate a party of 18, second, serve us alcohol, and third, do so cheaply. The menu didn't really make me happy, but the people were there and that is what counts. I had a jumbo sized long island iced tea to start, which was incorrectly made with too much coke, ruining the flavor of the drink, and then a Caribbean iced tea, which was far too bright in color for me allow it to sit around for an extended period of time. I had a burger to eat, which was upsetting to me as I hoped to live more locally. I bonded with a different set of people during dinner, but did not spill any drinks this time. I sampled a few of the local beers and it seems that Castle is one of the most popular South African beers.
Following dinner we continued along Long St, the main collection of clubs and bars within the city, and looked into dancing at Mama Africa. There was music, but we were getting hustled into a cover charge so I joined the party looking to leave and made it back to the apartments. More bonding, and my first juke box performance ensued. A good night out, a late night out. Maybe we should leave that to the weekend from now on?
We got the chance to visit Parliament downtown today. The first thing I noticed, being dropped off a few blocks away, was a suit store. I saw this fly-as-hell silver pinstripe suit, my perfect 40 regular, for the equivalent of $50. I remarked to Jason that I would without a doubt be buying a suit while I was here, and that it reminded me of the old Hong Kong, where my father and his Navy friends would stop off and get handmade suits for rock bottom prices. Of course, the exchange rate has an awful lot to do with this. I did not get the chance to stop off at the time, but I will return before I leave Cape Town, that is for sure.
The South African government is broken up location wise, completely different than the US. There is no Washington, D.C., where nearly everything takes place, but rather three key locations. Pretoria is the capital, where the executive branch is located, but the parliament is in Cape Town and the constitutional court is located in Durban. I have no clue why this is, but it is. The Parliament building contains an awful lot of history, being the place that apartheid was created and put into place, and also where it was abolished. The ANC is the ruling party, and will likely not be going anywhere soon. The reason for this is not necessarily the people's approval of the job that they are doing, but rather due to emotions. There is some disappointment, but because the ANC was the party that defeated apartheid, the African majority within the country will have a difficult time not keeping them in power. The same affect has been seen in the US, as votes are often cast with emotions and not rationales. We did get to see a bomb sniffing dog do a sweep of the main chamber, a routine as there is a bomb threat nearly every week. It should be noted, however, that no bomb has ever been found within the parliament
.
Our next stop was District 6. This was the first part of the trip that I really did not enjoy in any aspect, but that wasn't the fault of our leaders nor district 6 itself. To give some background, this is a part of the city, centrally located, where a vibrant colored community once lived. Under apartheid, the community was completely forced to move out and their homes were demolished. The land remains undeveloped for the most part, and have just recently been opened for claims by the original residents. It really was a fascinating story, but the people who told it were not worth a shit. There exists a district 6 museum, which is staffed mostly by its former residents, to tell the story for what had happened. Our first guide took us through a welcome room of sorts and talked as long as possible seemingly just to take up time, the tour guide simply took us to a spot, talked, and left, and the last lady acted like, and pardon my language, a pretentious bitch and told the TSiBA students that their generation doesn't understand where their family came from. I know this pissed some of them off, and we promptly ignored the rest of what she had to say and left as soon as possible.
Earlier in the day, we had decided to do a group dinner. Because we feasted late in the day for lunch, we pushed back the dinner to 9:30. We made a list of what people wanted to bring, went to the store, and all went big and bought groceries. I was going to do my signature portabello mushrooms with goat cheese, but the store did not have portabello mushrooms or goat cheese, so that was out. After a short struggle over my internal recipe book, I settled on lemon pepper chicken. The ingredients were simple, lemon pepper and chicken. The results were magnificent. In fact, everyone brought something amazing to the party. We had absolutely amazing food, and an absolutely amazing time. I am starting to believe that ten pounds will be gained while in Africa, at least. The success of dinner prompted the decision to create a weekly gathering, every Wednesday after our grocery run for a pot lock style dinner. Music and dance to ensue. The only bad part of the dinner portion was spilling red wine on Rachel, and spilling sangria on the porch. Both my fault.
Peace and Love from Cape Town,
Scott Stephen Smith
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment