Wo, Oh, What I Want To Know-oh-oh, Where Does The Time Go?

But it's just a box of rain,
Or a ribbon for your hair.
Such a long, long time to be gone,
And a short time to be there.

-Robert Hunter


Shiiiiiit. In 7 days I'll be on a plane coming back to America, a land that only exists in distant memories right now and seems like an entirely different sphere of reality. I've been in South Africa for almost 5 months now, and though it seems like I've been here forever, it also seems like I just got here. The thought that Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away right now is a joke to me. But, at some point, all good things must come to an end, and I guess I'm ready to come home.

This three week finals period creates a really strange transition period. By having nothing to do except study and take finals, it's almost as if you spend your time waiting to go home. It's hard not to quantify statements with time - why can't it all be one developing story? - and having a definitive end to an experience forces you to think of everything relative to that end. It's kind of a shitty feeling, but being able to see the light that is the land of the free is some solace. However, an end also makes you reflect on how and from where you got to that end, and in what ways your perceptions of events have altered forever. I'm not going to be able to fully comprehend just how differently I'll process things back home until I've been there for a bit, but I can say with full authority that the way I view life here in South Africa is drastically different from when I arrived in Joburg all those eons ago. A full on retro/intro-spective post is in order, but it's not coming until I've had some time to really think and have some time to write.

For now, I'll leave you with a very brief list of my two best decisions and my two biggest regrets while I was here.

It's The Best Decision You'll Ever Make, Bru
1. Living in the dorm, Liesbeeck Gardens, in a flat with one other American and two other UCT students, rather than living in the CIEE houses with 11 or 12 other Americans. Instead of living in an episode of The Real World, I instead got to live as a part of the real world. Living in the dorms forced me to learn how to cook (and I definitely learned how to cook, trust me, I feel pretty damn confident in the kitchen now, just as long as I have my peri-peri), better my cross-cultural communication skills (one of my flat mates is from Langa, a township outside Cape Town, the other is from Zimbabwe), and be a lot more independent in general. Students living in the houses share a fridge, steal each other's food, and are constantly watched over by an RA. Living the dorms, I've eaten better than I normally do at home, had no problems with anyone interrupting my privacy, and learned to function as part of an international community. I cannot stress how great a decision living in the dorms was, it shaped the scope of my semester only slightly less than...

2. Dropping my graduate level Economics class and picking up my African Instruments and African Music Ensemble classes. I would have been killing myself taking this Development Economics class, especially given that there was an introductory Development Economics class for 2nd year students that I never took. Instead of spending probably 10 - 12 hours a week doing work for this class, I wised up, gave it the "Fuck, I'm only in Africa once" treatment, and decided to take these music classes. I learned how to play the djembe and am pretty confident in my djembe skills (all of Pomona College will hate me for bringing my djembe to school, the sound waves literally travel for 4 kilometers), and dicked around on a few other African instruments. Plus, I got to know an African music legend - Dizu Plaatjies - and learned how to re-skin a drum. By getting half of my semester's credit for playing drums for an hour and a half every single week (there was no outside work, either, and I didn't really consider going to class much of a chore, more like a privilege), I totally changed the feel of my semester. Never was I overloaded with work, never was I stressed about not being able to complete an assignment (and if I was I could've just banged on some drums). I had so much free time (which I used to cook, read, or pool together and take a vacation) which I would not have had had I stuck with the econ class. Gator - I know you have limited class flexibility next semester, but if you can only choose one class of your own it has to be African Instruments. And Elan, next fall when you're in Cape Town, you better take it as well. And pass it along to those going in the spring. And so on. I want Dizu to have a constant supply of Pomona students until he decides to retire.

Well, Maybe I Should Have...
1. Volunteered. This has got to be my single biggest regret about my time in Cape Town - how volunteering never worked out for me. I wasn't about to change up my class schedule to volunteer - classes obviously take precedence - and the people in the CIEE Volunteer Office were not helpful or accommodating in the slightest. I tried to go to PASSOP, but wound up feeling like I was being used as a tool for socialist propaganda, and wasn't at all into it. The one time I did successfully volunteer (teaching baseball to kids in one of the townships with Laura) it was a really great experience. I wish CIEE had been more accommodating in trying to find me volunteer opportunities that fit with my schedule. Or I wish I had skipped one of my classes once a week to go volunteer. Or something. But my flatmate Zach said that volunteering may have been his best decision here.

2. Attended the meetings of the clubs I joined. I never really got in touch with people at the Golf Society or the SCUBA Society, despite joining both clubs, and as a result didn't get to meet as many non-American UCT students as I could have. I wish I had been able to play golf more (I gotta say, it might not have been worth it to lug my golf clubs all across South Africa just to go golfing four times), I wish I could have gone to events with the SCUBA people, since they seemed pretty cool, but it just never panned out. That said, it isn't the end of the world, because I feel like I got the chance to meet and get to know quite a few UCT students by living in Liesbeeck. According to our program director, most people cite not meeting enough international students as their biggest regret, and this certainly was not the case for me. I feel lucky for that.

Well, it's back to studying for my last final. As of 11 am Cape Town Time (that's 1 am in California, if any of you feel like celebrating in spirit with me) on Wednesday, November 17th, I'm FREEEEEEEE! Make sure to watch the USA vs. South Africa soccer game on ESPN on November 17th - kickoff is at 9:30 pm here, so that's 2:30 pm on the East Coast and 11:30 am out in Cali. I have a ridiculous costume, a ridiculous beard, will be ridiculously drunk, and am a ridiculous human being - look out for me on the TV!

Under The Çea

Man, I'm not even sure where to start to talk about the past 8 days - I have no idea how to organize all my thoughts in a coherent order, no idea how to order the pictures for them to make sense with the text, no idea how to adequately explain my time in Tofo. But, I'll try my best.

For starters, this was a trip of a lot of firsts for me. My family has never taken a full on beach vacation with absolutely no plans the entire time, so this was my first experience just straight chilling on the beach for an entire week. Tofo was the first place I've ever been where prawns and calimari are cheaper than chicken, pretty much across the board. First country I've ever been where the colonized language isn't English. First Portugeuse speaking territory I've ever been to. First time I succesfully hitchhiked (we had to get to the ATM and didn't want to walk). First time I'd seen the power go out and no one even blink an eye (this happened literally every single day - the power would go out for no apparent reason, perhaps from the wind or someone sneezing, and no one seemed to care). First time not getting sunburned at the beach and not getting seasick on any of my dives. First time going below 30 m (100 feet) below the water. First time spending over an hour underwater on a single dive. First time seeing any fish bigger than me on a dive (we saw a giant 7 foot potato bass that must have weighed about 250 kg). First time having anything go wrong under water (I panicked on one of my descents because the current was really strong, wound up overexterting myself and breathing too quickly, and couldn't recover so it felt like I was breathing through a straw. I thought I was going to die, but I decided to just go back up to the top of the water, take a 5 minute break, and try again, and got down no problems). First time flying on a commercial plane with under 10 people on it. First time sleeping with mosquito nets (and let me tell you, they don't really help. The mozis will find a way into your net and bite the shit out of the one inch on your body where you forgot to apply bug spray. I woke up every morning with 20 new bites in a different place.) I'm sure I'm forgetting some things, but you get the idea.

It was eerie how similar Tofo was to how we anticipated it being. The beach was so fresh that you could literally hear the sand squeaking with every single step you took. The water was so clear and blue that you could see the reef you were sitting on top of on almost every single dive, even up to 20 meters below the surface.The backpackers we stayed at, Fatima's Nest, was exactly as we expected it to be: built entirely on sand, located on the edge of the beach, with little straw bungalows in which we stayed. Gross running water (literally brown, I felt cleaner washing myself in the ocean than in those showers, needless to say the shower I had upon arrival back at my dorm was unbelievable) and a bunch of hippies staying there. The only natives who spoke anything close to resembling English were those who worked in the local market trying to sell you shit (Mozambique has the coolest art I've seen in all of Africa, I definitely capitalized on it). The service in the restaurants was the slowest I've ever seen - it literally took them 30 minutes to take your order and another hour to prepare the food, every dinner we ate lasted upwards of 2 hours. Everything was unbelievably cheap - the average dinner was between $3 - $5 for a fat plate of calimari, prawns, fish, chicken, whatever you wanted, with the most expensive dinner being $12 each, including drinks, at the single nicest restaurant in all of Tofo. Beers were about $1.25 for a pint, and water was under $1 for 1.5 liters (you can't drink the tap water). The only white people living in Tofo are those running the tourist attractions: diving centers, activity centers (for surfing, fishing, ocean safaris, etc.), and hotels / hostels, and none of them live there for more than 4 years. All the white people know each other because there are so few of them, and the only dude who has stayed there for more than 4 years is this guy named Arthur (who was one of the guys we hitched a ride from) who has been there for 17 years. The transition in vibe from New York to Southern California is about the same as it is from Southern California to Tofo - these people are literally on their own planet. I've never been in such a chilled out, laid back, lazy town in my life, I don't see how anything ever gets accomplished there. We asked one of our divemasters, Scottish Dave, how people stay sober in Tofo. His answer: "They don't."

The reason we decided to go to Tofo is that it is one of the highest reputed dive sites in the world. Home to the densest concentration of whale sharks in the entire world, and notable for the huge amounts of manta rays, sharks, and just unbelievable reefs and fish life around the reefs, Tofo is any diver's wet dream. I had heard that dive conditions in Tofo were difficult, but scoffed at the idea - what are difficult dive conditions? You get underwater, everything is super chill and moves in slow motion, nothing can possibly go wrong. Little did I know the strength of the currents in Tofo. Of our seven dives, four of them had us holding onto the reef for dear life so we didn't get blown off by the ripping currents (on one of them we still did get blown off the reef). I hate touching shit under water because I never know when I'll accidentally lay my hand on a stonefish or scorpion fish, both of which blend into the reefs and are incredibly poisonous. But I had no choice but to hold on to these reefs. Definitely the most techincal dive site I've ever been to, but leaving Tofo I feel a much more confident diver: I feel like I've braved some of the toughest dive conditions around, and have learned to not overexert myself and how to relax in a ripping current, both keys for conserving your air so you can a. extend your dive and b. not end your dive with a splitting headache. Our longest dive lasted 65 minutes underwater, our deepest dive hit a maximum depth of 32 meters - that's 107 feet for those of you who haven't been brainwashed by the metric system like I have. We saw some unbelievable wildlife (as I talked about above), and, in retrospect, had some hilarious experiences, though they didn't seem funny at the time. The first incident was on one of our dives with just me, my friend Charlie, and two guides. I accidentally kicked two lion fishes (very poisonous) and a blue-spotted stingray with my flipper, and didn't realize it at the time, but saw the lion fishes and turned around to Charlie to signal for the lion fishes by putting my hands by the side of my head and shaking my wrists with my fingers extended (if you look at a lion fish you'll know what I mean). He, though, thought that I had realized that I had kicked these fish, and was turning around to show him the motion for "Ooooh, I'm so scared of these poisonous creatures". Luckily, they didn't retaliate, but Charlie did a hilarious impresion of a pissed-off lion fish after the dive. The second incident involved this one dumb Australian bitch. She was one of those people who doesn't live an experience by experiencing it, but rather by photographing it the entire time and looking back on it after the fact. She literally was looking through the LCD on her camera the entire time she was under water, and wound up kicking me probably 5 or 6 times on the first dive of the day and another 4 on the second dive. On the second dive, she even managed to get her camera tangled up in my regulator, and I had to pull it out of my mouth and lost it for a good 15 seconds (holding your breath and not being able to find your regulator under water is kind of scary, but you have to control yourself) before finding it again. I almost yanked her camera away and threw it as far as I could, but decided instead on flipping her a double bird. We got back up on the boat 30 minutes later and she told me that I should really watch where I was going while I was under water. I couldn't even do anything but laugh my ass off, and Scottish Dave heard her say this and he started cracking up too. Sorry to qualify her as some Australian bitch, but that's exactly what she was - a dumb fucking Australian bimbo. But, in retrospect, a pretty funny story.

Unfortunately, we didn't see any whale sharks or mantas on any of our dives, despite going to the world famous Manta Reef twice. Though they're normally out in full force (in fact, this year has been particularly high for sightings, according to our dive masters) throughout the year, we hit an uncharacteristic dry patch. The dudes at our dive center, Peri Peri Divers (no wonder why we chose them), felt bad for us, and decided that we could do an ocean safari for free instead of paying the $50 (1800 MZM) to go out. Though there are no guarantees on the ocean safari, since whale sharks are hard to spot, we got really lucky and spotted three different whale sharks and got to jump in and snorkel right next to them. These things are fucking giants - the biggest one we saw was 9 meters - and you can literally swim up inches away from it and it won't do anything to you so long as you don't touch it. I got right up in it's face and felt my heart pumping adrenaline, it was really unbelievable to swim right next to these things. After snorkeling around with the whale sharks for a while, it was time to head back, and Charlie and I consented that we wouldn't be seeing any mantas in Tofo. Too bad, but given everything else we saw, not seeing them was some of the best bad luck I've ever had. Right as we were about to start our jet back to the shore, the skipper spotted a manta, and before he could even finish saying the world "Manta", Charlie and I were in the water chasing after it. Those things move really quickly, so we only got sight of it for about 20 seconds, but seeing how large those things are and with what grace they move, man it was really cool. It was almost as if it couldn't have been scripted any better (unless, of course, we saw mantas on every one of our dives, but given the circumstances...) It was a really fortunate end to our ocean adventures, and everyone at Peri Peri Divers was stoked that we had seen our mantas.

I'm sure I'm leaving out a lot of details about our trip, but you get the idea. Overall, it surpassed all expectations, and was probably the single most chilled out vacation I've ever had. I totally changed my attitude on the beach - I never used to like lying around doing nothing, but I loved it this trip, and had time to read Nelson Mandela's 800 page novel, "Long Walk To Freedom", and listen to a lot of tunes. I feel way more confident in my ability as a diver, and I feel as relaxed as I have in memory. Tofo is one of the weirdest places I've ever been, but was the perfect site for a nice week long vacation right before finals start. I hope I'll be back again some day and will see some more mantas and soak up some more sun, but until then, I'm back in the real world and no longer in paradise.

Does Apartheid Still Exist at UCT?

Definitely not my best work ever (papers in South Africa aren't supposed to be eloquently written, they're supposed to get your point across), but still an interesting subject nonetheless. The video was part of my non-standard submission, and is of me walking from the bottom of Lover's Walk (close to the bottom of Lower Campus) up to Upper Campus. Think about how the mountain serves as a reference for much of the campus, and think about how gaining elevation creates a sense of aloofness and removal from the rest of Cape Town. And that song - I'm gonna make it blow up all over the US once I get back.
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Being a white, American student at a university located in a city still overcoming the atrocities of apartheid gives me a perspective different than most. Not feeling connected to either the past or to a certain subgroup of society allows me to look objectively at how people behave. The city of Cape Town itself still is rooted in apartheid: the way in which it is spatially constructed, with rich white communities located at the foot of Table Mountain and poorer black townships sprawled across the Cape Flats, makes it difficult for Capetonians to escape the legacy of apartheid in their day-to-day lives. As a result of forced removals, it is tough for those living in Cape Town to achieve true integration. If you were to talk to the higher-ups at the University of Cape Town, I bet they would have you believe that this wasn’t the case at UCT; that UCT was a race-neutral space in which everyone was truly equal. However, after spending a semester at UCT and observing the way in which people behave here, I firmly believe that this institution still has remnants of apartheid engrained into it. As a result, I argue that, to some palpable extent, apartheid, in its literal sense of the word (separateness), still exists at the University of Cape Town.

The motivation for this study doesn’t require much explaining. It’s important to understand the dynamics of the space you are occupying, especially if it is an unfamiliar space. I go to a small school of 1400 in the United States, and being part of a student body of upwards of 20,000 gives you a totally different perspective. I wanted to get a firm grasp on student life at the University of Cape Town, and saw no better way to do it than to conduct a study examining how narratives of the past are (or are not) still present today. Universities are heralded as spaces of progressiveness and of forward thinking, and I wanted to see if this was the case at UCT, an especially interesting task in post-apartheid South Africa.

To examine the question of whether or not apartheid still exists at the University of Cape Town, our group took a three-fold approach. First, we did a study of the architecture and spatial makeup of the campus. It is certain that the way a space is constructed dictates the way people behave in that space, either knowingly or subconsciously, and so understanding the structural design of UCT was crucial. Next, we looked at student behavior on campus. We were looking to see if black students sat only with other black students on the Jammie steps, or if white students walked to class only with other white students, or if coloured students ate only with other coloured students, etc. If this was the case, it could be argued that segregation was still prevalent at UCT. We also examined enrollment in different faculties based on race: was one faculty relatively dominated by black students, while another relatively dominated by whites? If so, it would indicate institutional segregation. Lastly, we asked several students if they thought that apartheid still existed at the University of Cape Town. We left the question intentionally broad so that it was open to individual interpretation. Analyzing these three different dynamics allowed us to better evaluate to what extent apartheid still exists at the University of Cape Town.

Originally founded by an act of Parliament in 1916, the University of Cape Town moved to its current location in Rondebosch in 1929. The institution was constructed as a site of prospect; it self-consciously exists apart from society and is placed on a hill so that students may “look down” on the rest of Cape Town (Shepherd). When you walk the campus of the University, you’re supposed to feel in awe of the space you’re walking. Many of the buildings exhibit Rhodesian architecture, displaying symmetrical windows and columns that create a sense of order and rigidity. The campus is organized around the Summer House, the little white building right by the freeway (Shepherd). Originally, the highway didn’t exist, and you could continue walking from the Summer House straight up to the steps of Jameson Hall. You were supposed to start your walk to campus from the bottom of Lover’s Walk and walk in a straight line all the way to the very top of campus, gaining elevation the entire time. Walking this very path, you notice that the entire campus is constructed in reference to Devil’s Peak – the Summer House is perfectly lined up with it, as is the statue of Cecil Rhodes that sits at the top of the rugby field, as is Jameson Hall, the center of Upper Campus. Jameson Hall was constructed as a “temple on a hill”, and was modeled to be an exact copy of the Jefferson Library at the University of Virginia (Shepherd). All of these factors give the campus an air of aloofness and strict order. If we accept the argument that the way a space is constructed dictates the way people behave in that space, it is hard for students to escape the colonial implications of the University of Cape Town.

Nick Shepherd speaks about the University of Cape Town as three universities in one: the colonial University (from its founding until 1948), the apartheid University (from 1948 – 1994), and today’s University. He notes that today, there is a sense of simultaneity or co-presence of the “old” Universities with the “new” one (Shepherd). He doesn’t even have a name for today’s University, as he cannot distinguish how the University has fundamentally changed as the result of the end of apartheid. Combining this idea with the above idea about people’s behavior, we arrive at the bleak reality that there are still structural remnants of apartheid at today’s University.

When you walk around campus, student segregation is almost immediately palpable. You’ll predominantly see whites walking to class only with other whites, or blacks eating lunch only with other blacks. Though the Jammie steps serve as a race-neutral meeting ground for all, you’ll often find that there are subgroups of uniform race scattered across the steps. Why does this happen? One likely explanation is that students feel more comfortable associating with other students of the same race. This isn’t the case only in South Africa; the same holds true at many American universities, but people are less willing to talk about it there. This may not be a reflection of white oppression of black and coloured students; students may simply feel like they have more in common with other students of their same race. However, it is hard to ignore years and years of oppression, and it is possible that students today still inhabit their parents’ views, contributing to racial segregation on campus.

Perhaps more notably, racial segregation is evident in enrollment in the different faculties. Humanities and Law tend to be dominated, relatively, by white students, while Commerce, Engineering, and Science have significantly higher relative percentages of black students. Though there are uniformly more white students than black students enrolled in every faculty, this reflects the fact that there are nearly twice as many white students as black students at the University of Cape Town. There are two different likely explanations for this discrepancy in enrollment. First, English is a second language for many black students. Humanities and Law classes tend to be more reading intensive than Commerce, Engineering, and Science classes, thus making these classes more inaccessible to black students. The language of math is universal, and is thus understood by all. Second, jobs associated with Commerce, Engineering, and Science majors are considered to be more professional than those associated with Humanities and Law. Many black students are coming from disadvantaged backgrounds, and want to chase higher paying, more secure jobs so they can provide for their families. White students, on the other hand, often come from more privileged backgrounds, and can afford to study subjects in which they have no intentions of making a career, as they will be supported by their families.

This institutional separation poses several problems. First, it makes it harder for students of different races to work together in the classroom, and hopefully foster relationships that linger outside the classroom. Second, primary and secondary schooling for black students is of substantially poorer quality than that of whites across South Africa, especially in maths and sciences. This makes it more difficult for blacks, as they want to enroll in faculties that they deem more professional, but they don’t have the necessary skills to succeed in that area. Overall, it is impossible to deny the institutional and spatial segregation observed at the University of Cape Town.

Perhaps the most important aspect of our study was student interviews. Even if the legacy of apartheid is engrained in the University through its architecture and institutional segregation, how students feel is the key marker for judging whether or not apartheid still exists at UCT. We are most concerned with how students feel, for if they believe that true integration and equality exists on campus, the institutional and architectural aspects of apartheid don’t carry as much weight. If, however, black students feel that they are awarded fewer opportunities than white students, it is an important indicator that apartheid still has holdovers on today’s University.

We interviewed both black and white students, both from inside South Africa and foreigners, and the results confirmed our beliefs: black students feel that the legacy of apartheid still plays a role in campus life today, while white students feel that the University is a space of equality for all. Several students noted that white students tend to hang out with only white students, black students hang out with only black students, etc., going as far as saying “segregation on this campus is definitely evident”. This carries into the classroom, too, where one student, Shanda, told us that whites tend to sit in the back of the classroom together, and that black students will sit in the front few rows since many of them are on bursaries and want to honor them to the fullest extent. Busi, from South Africa, suggested that campus disparities today are dictated more by class than by race, but that class is an extension of race. “People just need to get outside their comfort zones”, she told us, “and hang out with new people”. One white student, Colin, observed institutional segregation in the classroom. He said that there are almost no black kids in any of his humanities classes, and thought that black students tended to stick to sciences and engineering. Colin acknowledged that segregation is present to some extent on the campus of UCT, but noted that UCT is far more integrated than the University of Stellenbosch. He attributed the limited segregation to the fact that, “Black and white people have different cultures, so they function within their own groups.”

Considering that whites were (and still are) the beneficiaries of apartheid practices, it’s unsurprising to find that their opinions on whether or not apartheid still exists differ from those of the black students. This is especially troubling, given that those in a position to change the culture at the University of Cape Town (i.e. the executive board) are mostly white. Therefore, it’s unlikely that a fundamental change in campus culture towards equality will come from the top; it needs to come from shifting attitudes of the student body. One student echoed this sentiment, and said that it will take at least one more generation before we really see integration, since hopefully by then racism won’t be engrained into the minds of students.

The word “apartheid”, translated literally from Afrikaans, means “separateness”. In this sense, though apartheid isn’t legally instituted anymore, its legacy still has real effects on South Africa today, even at the University of Cape Town. Though students may not realize it, there is no doubt that they are subconsciously affected by the Rhodesian architecture of campus. Segregation of students, both socially and institutionally, is a reality of student life at UCT. Students of all color will acknowledge this fact, but white students will tend to attribute it to the existence of different, but equal, cultures. Black students, on the other hand, will mostly argue that segregation is a result of the institutionalization of the legacy of apartheid. Though it is hard to totally escape the past, given that the present reflects learned histories of the past, we hope that with time students will undergo a fundamental shift in attitude and start looking at everyone as truly being equal. Only then can we achieve true integration, both at the University of Cape Town, and throughout all of South Africa.

Songs of Myself

This month's playlist is a bit more diverse than last month's - I've had a few different phases I've gone through during the month. What started off with west coast jazz transformed into down home dirty blues, and eventually melded into new-age African music. But all of it comes together to make up my playlist for October 2010.

Syeeda's Song Flute - John Coltrane, Giant Steps
Mama Tried - Grateful Dead, Skull & Roses
What Is Life - George Harrison, All Things Must Pass
Po Black Maddy - North Mississippi Allstars, Shake Hands With Shorty
Skinny Woman - North Mississippi Allstars, Shake Hands Wih Shorty
He's Gone - Grateful Dead, Dick's Picks Vol. 21
Sibuyele 915 - Amampondo, Feel The Pulse of Africa
You Ain't Goin' Nowhere - Bob Dylan & The Band, The Basement Tapes

A few quick notes: Amampondo is my African Instruments teacher's first band, Nelson Mandela's favorite. I've got a few CDs of theirs, but my favorite is Feel The Pulse of Africa, a great live recording. Sibuyele 915 is the perfect Sunday afternoon BBQ track.

Album of the month definitely goes to "Shake Hands With Shorty" by the North Mississippi Allstars. These guys just straight bring it. The entire CD has the feel of a live recording, as one song often molds into the next (as is the case with Po Black Maddy > Skinny Woman), but has really raw production on it. This has quickly climbed onto my list of 10 albums I'd bring with me to a desert island. If you don't have it, get it.
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Great Success

Getting a visa for Mozambique requires that you have a passport valid for 6 months after the date of departure from the country. I'm leaving Mozambique on November 3rd, my passport expires on February 5th. You do the math. I have a plane ticket to Mozambique already, despite this problem. My dad was not thrilled with my decision to get the ticket without assurance that I would have a visa. Well, Dad, worry no longer. I went to the Mozambique Embassy today and they issued me a visa, no problem. Either they don't know about the regulation, or they just don't care. Either way, one thing is for certain: I am getting into Mozambique.

Land of endless beaches, fresh seafood, whale-shark and manta-ray SCUBA diving, and cheap women (I'll let you decide which of those I made up) here I come!

The Drakensberg

What better time to pick up and leave Cape Town for a short vacation than right in the middle of the second-to-last week of classes? I only wound up missing one full day of classes (since I don’t have Friday class and my classes were cancelled one day), but my two friends who came with me skipped three full days to make the trek out to Drakensberg, located in the province of kwaZulu-Natal. We hopped on the plane to Durban on Wednesday morning and had arrived by 2 pm. After a massive feast of authentic Indian food (Durban is known for it’s high Indian population) and a quick journey around the city, notably down to the beach, we jumped in our car and headed for the city of Underberg, located at the foot of the Sani Pass.

The drive to Underberg was treacherous – I’m still not entirely accustomed to driving on the left side of the road (though you don’t have much choice but to adjust), am not the world’s best stick driver (save your comments, Dad), and, to top it off, there was thick fog for a huge part of the journey. And I mean THICK – I could barely see 10 feet in front of me, and was following the reflectors in the middle of the road. Thankfully, there were no sudden turns, and after four hours we arrived safely in Underberg (though it should’ve taken only two and a half).

We arrived late Wednesday night in Underberg, and given the fog and the darkness we had no idea what the landscape looked like. Waking up in the morning was one of those “wow” experiences – we were clearly no longer in Cape Town. Mountains surrounded us on every side as far as the eye could see. My friend Nick mentioned that he felt like we were in the Swiss Alps, I thought it was a bit like Tibet or Nepal (shout out to Erin Phelps!), but either way, we were definitely out there. We spent Thursday driving the Sani Pass, the only drivable path between South Africa and Lesotho (more on Lesotho soon). I’m very glad we decided to hire a driver to drive the Sani for us – it requires a 4x4 and tons of experience. You see cars flipped over on the side of the windy road as you ascend into Lesotho. We took our time getting up the Sani, stopping to take in its majestic beauty along the way. The drive was certainly highlighted by the Twelve Apostles (the name of one of the ridges of mountains along the side of the Sani) and learning about smugglers. A few Besotho people (people from Lesotho) make a living by hiking through the mountains around the Sani Pass and smuggling up to 30 kg of weed at a time – yes, that’s almost 70 pounds of weed – on their backs. Obviously the South African border patrol is smoking their shit, otherwise they’d be aware enough to stop them from getting it in – these smugglers literally walk within 200 meters of the border post and rarely have problems. Once we got to the top of the Sani, we were met with one hundred kilometer per hour winds (according to our guide, you know it’s 100 km / h when you can’t walk straight into it), a strict border patrol (you’re not allowed to take pictures there, but that didn’t stop me), and the Sani Top Chalet – the highest pub in Africa. We stopped for drinks on the way back into South Africa – now I can say I’ve had a drink while being as high as you can be in Southern Africa. (Read carefully, family members, it’s not what you think it means.)

The Twelve Apostles at the Sani Pass

Brother Jack makes it all the way to Africa's highest Pub

Anyway, now I’ve probably sparked your interest in Lesotho. What’s that? You’ve never heard of Lesotho? It’s a tiny little country totally inside of South Africa – if you didn’t know better you’d think it was just another province. Lesotho is the only southern African country that was never successfully colonized (due to its mountainous terrain: more than 75% of Lesotho sits at over 2000 meters above sea level, and the mountains act as a natural border keeping out invaders, think China style), and has managed to remain an independent monarchy throughout its history. When you enter Lesotho, you feel like you’ve travelled 100 years back in time: there’s no electricity throughout the entire country (except for the capital), and so there’s no phone lines, no internet, no TV, no heat except for fires (a huge problem, given that it’s fucking freezing that high up and people have open fires inside their huts made with mud and cow dung walls and floors, and thatched-wood ceilings, you do the math). For a good portion of the year, women live alone in these huts, called rondawels, taking care of up to six children, despite only have one bed. These children will sleep in the bed with their mom (if they’re lucky) or, most likely, wind up on the floor. Men, from the age of 14, spend these months in isolation in the mountains sheering sheep – they each live in their own rondawel, living only on a huge bag of maize meal (to make pap, similar to grits). They will travel to the villages (which are run by women, since all the men are gone) to trade with the women for random goods: homemade beer, bread, warmer clothes, etc. They pretty much will not eat any fruits or vegetables. Think about the nutrient deficiencies – someone you think is 40 will turn out to be 17. According to Wiki, Lesotho has the 5^th lowest life expectancy of any country at arousing 42.6 years, and is one of the only countries in which men are expected to live longer than women, on average. It’s also the 9^th poorest country in the world. Seeing how these people live was really eye opening – this is the Africa that most westerners think about (though don’t get me started on Western perceptions of Africa – did you know it’s just one big country and that lions walk around in the streets?). A really humbling experience, even though I was only there for a few hours and only saw one village.

Inside the Besotho hut

After returning from the Sani Pass, we got in our car and set out for Bergville, about 3 hours north of Underberg. Underberg is considered Southern Drakensberg, while Bergville is Northern Drakensberg. We stayed at a hostel called Amphitheatre Backpackers on the recommendation of my friend Matt Misbin (who had stayed there on his travels in South Africa), and upon arrival we knew it would be super chill. The dude working the desk, Josh, was a big goofy white dude with dreadlocks. We pretty much instantly found out he is originally from Observatory (about a 10 minute walk from Mowbray, where my dorm is) and we bonded over Wednesday night 2-for-1 drinks at Stones. We chatted with him for a while before going to sleep early in preparation for our hike the next day.

On Friday, we hiked to the top of The Amphitheatre and to Tugela Falls, the second highest waterfall in the world (meaning it starts at the second highest elevation, not it’s the second biggest drop, but they definitely get you if you don’t realize what they’re talking about). The view up there is supposed to be unbelievable, and from the pictures I’ve seen, it really looks like it. We were not so lucky with the weather, though, and the fog kept us from seeing even 30 feet in front of us. It was also cold and rainy – three out of the ten people on our hike turned back – but the hike was still pretty cool. It was especially rewarding when the clouds would break for just a bit and you could get the slightest idea of the rock formations around you. The picture below is what it was supposed to look like – I only wish I had seen it first hand. The coolest part of the hike was going down two sets of chain ladders, maybe the most serious ladders I’ve ever been on. At each set of ladders you had two choices: one that was anchored into the rocks at every rung, and one that was only anchored in at the top and in a select few places along the way, meaning the ladders were swinging free. Take a wild guess at which one I did. One of the key things I’ve learned in Africa: I’m only 20 for so long, I’m supposed to be doing stupid shit like this now and not when I’m older, I may as well do it while I’m here. On our drive back to the hostel it started to hail (but I thought Africa was all desert where it was 100 degrees every day and jungles where you can see rhinos everywhere you turn!), but thankfully we were covered. The hike was a bit disappointing, given how cool it could have been, but such is life.

What the Amphitheatre was supposed to look like

Zach on the ladders

The next day, instead of doing a hike through our hostel, we did our own day hike on Josh’s recommendation (he told us it was his favorite day hike in the entire Drakensberg). It was a much clearer day, and we could finally get a sense of the grandness of the ‘Berg. We started off by hiking along a level path around a bunch of mountains (when you think of Drakensberg, this is what you think of) until we reached Rainbow Gorge, which we slowly prodded our way up to the top of. The path was crazy and involved a lot of bouldering and rock climbing, as well as creativity in making your way up, and was a really cool hike. It almost felt like we had left South Africa and had arrived in a Costa Rican jungle, minus the rally monkeys and the extreme temperatures. The end of it was a straight scramble up a river – I definitely fell in and got my feet really wet – and we knew we had reached the end when we physically could not go any more because of a huge rock wall. The coolest part of this hike was definitely arriving at what we deemed The Giant Rock. A really creative name, I know. This rock was trapped between the two sides of the gorge and was suspended about 8 feet above the ground. It was pretty damn cool to see in person (we’d seen a picture of it the night before), and, of course, we took photos of us “holding it up”. On our trek back to the car, the clouds hovering over the highest mountains broke and revealed snow – that’s right, snow in Africa at the beginning of the summer. Very unexpected.

Damn my camera gets nice colors

I haven't been working out, I swear

Sunday arrived quicker than we had thought possible (this seems to be a recurring theme – how is it possible that I only have one month left here?), and we had to make our way back to Durban to get on our plane back to Cape Town. I woke up Sunday morning with food poisoning and felt like shit, so Nick, despite having only driven stick a few times in his life, manned up and got behind the wheel and got us back to Durban safely. Can he now tell people that he can drive stick? I’d say so – if he can make a 3-hour drive on the wrong side of the road without getting us killed, he’s good in my book.

Overall the trip was a huge success. We had a very chilled vacation (we decided to do Drakensberg instead of Namibia because Namibia would have required a lot more driving and a lot more sticking to a schedule) and saw some really cool shit. Leaving Cape Town makes you realize how influenced by Europe Cape Town truly is. It also makes you realize how spatially segregated it still is. While in Cape Town, I don’t entirely feel like apartheid is a thing of the past (in fact, I’m doing a project for one of my classes on whether or not apartheid still exists at UC). However, I never had that looming feeling while in Durban or anywhere in the Drakensberg. It’s crazy how the most progressive and developed city in all of South Africa (Cape Town) is still also the deepest rooted in apartheid.

One random final note: one of the guys working at the South Africa border patrol told me I looked like Jesus. I’ve now gotten Jesus, Mr. Moses (from that guy on Table Mountain), and Chuck Norris (from the kids who I taught baseball to while volunteering). I’m still waiting on Abe Lincoln. Why would I ever shave?

Are You Ready For Some Football?

When I was deciding which semester I would go abroad I had two key factors to consider. If I went abroad in the fall, I'd miss football season. If I went abroad in the spring, I'd miss the Beer League playoffs. Ultimately, I decided that I only have the chance to play in the Beer League playoffs a few times in my life, and I could watch football for the rest of my life, and as such I would go abroad in the fall. Little did I know how crippling not having football would be.

I've watched football every single Sunday I've been at Pomona College. I've watched football every single Sunday for as long as I can remember. I always find a way - even if I'm out skiing - to watch the games. I hoped that it would be the same in South Africa - maybe I'd be able to stream the games over the internet? (Haha, in retrospect this is hilarious, internet here is so slow it's a joke and you have to pay for the amount of bandwidth you use, so streaming a game would cost me a fortune.) But, as the first Sunday of the NFL season passed without me seeing a second of action, I knew I was in for it. I even tried staying up until 2:30 am on the first Monday night of the season to watch the Jets vs. Ravens on ESPN, since my dorm has a television. Much to my dismay, ESPN was showing rain-delay tennis instead of Monday Night Football. I was furious! But, deep down, I understood that there isn't much of an audience for football down here, and I begrudgingly accepted that I would have to wait until Thanksgiving to get my first taste of some pigskin.

I'm not sure what prompted me, but last night I decided I had to try again. I went to sleep early, woke up at 2, and went down to the TV room. I switched the TV to ESPN, and before the picture could even load I heard the defining "Bom bom bom bom" of the Monday Night Football theme song. I threw up my arms in a Johnny Drama-esque fashion with a loud "VICTORY!". I couldn't believe it - real football! One of the happiest moments of my study abroad experience thus far.

(On a semi-tangent, every single commercial throughout the game was for ESPN. I mean EVERY SINGLE ONE. Be it for the upcoming NBA season, a scrimmage between the Lakers and FC Barcelona this Friday, Spanish League soccer, ESPN's soccer website, ESPN's cricket website, the MLB playoffs, or the plays of the week, literally every single commercial was ESPN related. I guess it's hard to sell air time at that hour, and that the NFL really doesn't appeal to the average South African.)

Though the game was a blowout, I wound up staying up through the third quarter before crawling into bed around 5:00 am. Did I have a Tuesday morning meltdown? Absolutely. But I could not have cared less - I had tasted the forbidden fruit and borne it's benefits. I remember now why I love America so much - the NFL.

Volunteering...Finally

I wrote earlier in the semester about how I would be volunteering with LEAP, a school in Langa (one of the townships) dedicated to improving the quality of black education, particularly in the areas of math and science. However, due to my schedule, I wasn't able to volunteer at LEAP. I went to talk to the CIEE volunteer coordinator and told her my scheduling problem, and she suggested that I either "not volunteer or change my class schedule" so I could volunteer - both seemed like ridiculous suggestions. (As an aside, the volunteer coordinator is a complete bitch and treated me like shit, and I sent an email to our program director telling him about my experiences with her and how it had made me not want to volunteer, and then about a week later got an email from the volunteer coordinator that simply said "I'm sorry if you felt like I acted disrespectfully towards you" - what a fucking clown.) In the end, I decided not to volunteer with LEAP, and to try volunteering with an organization called PASSOP (People Against Suffering, Suppression, Oppression, and Poverty; an organization devoted to improving refugee rights).

I went to PASSOP a few times, and though I agreed with it's objectives and practices, they did most of their cool stuff at night. I could only make it during the mornings, and the dude there (Braam) was having me edit his papers and reports and to help with fundraising. I wanted my volunteering experience to be one where I could see a direct impact - I wanted to work with the affected people and see their faces. I didn't want to be an intern for this dude, which is what it seemed like I was doing. To top it off, he's a complete socialist and told me that a. Israel is 100% in the wrong for its conflict with Palestine and doesn't deserve to have a homeland, and b. Fidel Castro is one of the greatest modern leaders and that Americans are idiots for not recognizing it. Alas, after a few visits to PASSOP, I decided that it wasn't worth my time, and decided that I wouldn't be returning. I thought my chances for volunteering were totally blown, and I knew that my biggest regret about this semester would be not being able to volunteer.

Last week, though, I got a call from my friend Laura (we bonded over the fact that we're both Mets fans - a bond unlike any other) who asked me if I wanted to help coach some youth baseball team on Saturday. My first thought was "I thought they don't have baseball in this country", but my second thought was "Hell yes!" I wound up going with her to Philippi, another one of the townships, and spent the day with kids aged 4 - 17 playing baseball. The youngest kids had never played before; the oldest had been playing for a few years and were definitely better than I was. I finally had my chance to volunteer - we weren't really coaching these kids, we were more hanging out with them and throwing around a ball and having batting practice and just talking. The youngest kids didn't even know how to catch a ball using a mitt, something which seems completely natural to almost every single American. But as they learn to squeeze the ball when it hits their mitt, and as they succesfully catch four or five balls in a row, you can see their little faces light up. It's really special. This is the volunteering experience I was looking for.

We spent the morning with the younger kids and the afternoon with the older kids. The older kids have a full team of their own (their season starts this coming weekend), and we didn't so much teach them to play as we did a. hang out with them and b. play with them. We played the field while they batted against one of their pitchers, and then had the chance to face their live pitching. This was the first live pitching I had faced since I was 13 - I stopped playing baseball after Majors, and the point of Beer League pitching is to put the ball in a place where you can hit it. Needless to say, I was a bit rusty, and got put in my place immediately: down on strikes in 4 pitches. All the South African kids laughed at me, since they thought I was some great baseball player, but I got over it pretty quickly and they accepted that I was just trying to play some ball like they were. I was accepted as one of them.

I'm hoping to be able to go back a few more times to play with these kids. Though it was fun to actually play with the older kids, I want to work more with the little kidlings. They are hilarious, and watching them learn the game is really special. This has got to be the chillest volunteering opportunity that CIEE could have given us (even though they didn't), and I am looking forward to going back to Philippi.

Hello Again

It's been a while since I've written - I've either been really busy or really busy doing nothing. When you have nothing to do, it's really easy to do nothing (seems obvious enough). But these last few weeks have been very chilled, highlighted by hikes up Table Mountain, and visits to Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens and Old Biscuit Mill. Nothing too exciting, so I'll keep it short.

I decided to take after my good friend Clayton and start keeping a playlist for each month. If I find myself coming back to the same song again and again, I'll add it to the list. It gives you a way to chronicle what you've been listening to, and I bet it'll be pretty cool to come back in a few years and look at how my tastes have changed and evolved. That said, here's my September 2010 playlist:

Cowgirl In The Sand - Neil Young, Live at Massey Hall
In The Midnight Hour - Wilson Pickett, In The Midnight Hour
Santo Domingo - Rodrigo Y Gabriela, 11:11
For You Blue - The Beatles, Let It Be...Naked
Dissident - Pearl Jam, vs.
Doo Wop (That Thing) - Lauryn Hill, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) - Marvin Gaye, The Very Best
Sweet Virginia - The Rolling Stones, Exile on Main Street
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart - Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

Two notes on the above songs. First, that version of Cowgirl In The Sand might be the defining Neil Young song for me. If you haven't heard it (or, for that matter, the entire Live at Massey Hall Album) do yourself a favor and pick it up. Apparently Neil Young secretly lives in Cape Town and is married to a Capetonian - I haven't seen him around but definitely have my eyes peeled. Second, the lead acoustic guitar on Sweet Virginia - I can't even describe it, it's just perfect. Makes me get goosebumps when I listen to it. After seeing Phish play the entirety of Exile on Main Street on Halloween last fall I started to get really into the album, but nothing like I've gotten into it here. I've never heard anything like this album. The Stones manage to find a way to all play on different beats (I'll call it "playing around the beat", if you will) but still have a definite structure to their songs. It gives a really airy and down-homey feel to the album. Pick this one up, too. You will not regret it.



I gotta say, my two new favorite bands that I've started listening to since I got to South Africa have got to be Wilco (I really hope you're reading this Elan) and Radiohead. I really dig Wilco's lyrics and pentatonic jams - though a lot of their songs use the same chords they find ways to use them differently. And I don't know why it took so long for me to discover Radiohead, but damn they're talented musicians. And their producer - that guy has got an incredible ear.

A few random musings before I gotta run..

1. The best way to avoid beggars is to put on a pair of headphones and sunglasses. It totally removes your connection from the outside world.
2. Peri-peri is the best spice in the entire world. Think a spicier, more flavorful cayenne pepper. I'm definitely bringing a few bottles of it back with me. I can't remember the last time I made a dinner that didn't incorporate peri-peri in some form.
3. You know you're an old man when you wake up from napping with your arms behind your head and then can't raise either one straight up. Man my shoulders are fucked up.
4. You know your beard is in full force when a random dude on Table Mountain approaches you and tells you that you look like "Moses. You know, Mr. Moses. From the Bible." Definitely not shaving til I get home.
5. Wireless internet works in the dorm roughly 10% of the time.
6. Why eat regular beef when you can have ostrich instead? Ostrich burgers, ostrich bolognese, ostrich steaks. You name it, I promise you it's better with ostrich.
7. Not being able to watch football (because the stream requires too much bandwidth and because they don't have CBS or FOX or NBC in this country and ESPN decided they would rather show random tennis matches at 2:30 am on Monday nights than Monday Night Football) has got to be one of the must crushing parts of being here. I'm fiending hardcore. When I get back to the US, don't try and contact me on Sundays.

That's all for now - I can't believe I only have 50 days left in this country. Got a lot of cool stuff planned: music festival, trips to Namibia and Mozambique, and, two days before I leave (and the day of my last final) Bafana Bafana vs. USA at Greenpoint Stadium. It WILL be shown on ESPN, and I WILL get on TV. Somehow. Hopefully I'll be allowed back into the US after I'm through.

Victoria Falls: Adrenaline Capital of the World

I must say – going into this trip I thought that Victoria Falls was going to be totally lame. It seemed to me like we had way too much time there, and we had to pay exorbitant amounts of money for the extra activities. That said, I think that the three days I spent at Vic Falls were the highlight of the trip, and I will never forget all the crazy shit I did there.

After a hectic morning crossing the border from Botswana to Zambia (which included putting our truck on a ferry), we finally arrived at the falls around 4 pm. Though we’re now in low-water season in Zambia, the amount of water rushing over the top of the waterfall was unbelievable. In fact, in rainy season, you can barely even make out the cliff that the water flows over – it’s just a sheet of water spraying mist at you. Probably a totally different experience to see it in March as opposed to September. We explored the falls from the Zambian side for a little over an hour, and then decided to get crazy. (This deserves it’s own paragraph.)

The view from the Zambian Side

I had heard that there were calm pools of water literally at the edge of the falls that you could swim in. Notice I didn’t say that they were safe to swim in – people die every year doing this type of thing – but you could swim in them. I didn’t believe the myth until I saw people walking right on the edge of the falls, and upon seeing them I knew I had to make it over there. At around 5:15 we trekked over to the high side of the waterfall (the sanctioned viewing area is opposite the falls) and found a few local guides who were happy to take us across the top. We carefully maneuvered across the top of the falls for around 30 minutes, holding hands to keep our balance and fight the strong current trying to take us over the edge. We were told to fall forward if we needed to fall so that the current wouldn’t sweep us over the edge, leading to sure death. As we got further and further away from land the sun got bigger and bigger, closer and closer to the ground – another beautiful Lion King-esque sunset, this one from on top of one of the seven wonders of the world. Eventually, we reached the Devil’s Pool – it is real! – but by the time we had gotten over there the sun had virtually set and it was approaching darkness. Six of the ten people we had walked out with were begging the guides to take us back so we wouldn’t have to walk in the dark (and, as they warned us, avoid the hippos which come out after the sun sets) – not me. I was at the Devil’s Pool – there was no way in hell I wasn’t going in. Our guide showed us the way – jumping off a twenty foot cliff into the pool – and the four of us, powered by the biggest adrenaline rushes of our lives, followed suit. The pool definitely wasn’t deep enough – I hit my foot on the bottom and sprained my right ankle – but my adrenaline level was too high to even notice. We all approached the edge of the falls – literally could see the drop – and decided we had gotten close enough. No point in pushing it too far, we’d seen exactly what we’d come for. I cannot remember the last time I felt so alive as I did right then. An unbelievable feeling. The walk back was definitely sketch – we were fighting the dark and had to rush and I wound up twisting my left ankle as well. Another battle wound. I didn’t care. It was totally worth it.

The view from right next to the Devil's Pool at the very edge of the falls

The next morning I woke up with my right eye almost swollen shut and totally crusted over – hooray pink eye. That wasn’t going to stop me from rafting the Zambezi, hailed as one of the mightiest rivers in the world. Nor were my two sprained ankles, or my surgically repaired shoulder. I wasn’t missing this rafting trip for anything. Our leader fashioned me a hilarious eye patch (unfortunately I have no pictures since we weren’t allowed to bring our cameras rafting – if you wanted pictures you had to buy them) and off I went, the ultimate gimp, to raft the Slambezi. With one eye. I’ve been rafting before and have seen what I thought was some serious white water. Nothing compared to the Zambezi. Nothing I could’ve imagined could have prepared me for the Zambezi. Their Class IV’s would have been Class V or Class VI in the US. Their Class V’s had 14-foot waves crashing down on you. They wouldn’t even let us raft their one Class VI – rapid 9 – since it was “bad for business”. Most of the river wasn’t extremely technical, just insane amounts of white water that would flip you whenever it felt like it, no matter what you did. Every single boat flipped at least once throughout the day. We flipped three times.

While rafting the Zambezi you are at the mercy of the river. Mother nature is stronger than measly humans. If the Slambezi wants to flip you, it will. Nothing you can do. (I know I just said that but it needs repeating – think about your rafting experiences and how foreign this seems.) Our guide, Tembo, has been working as a guide for ten years. He’s flipped eight times in one day before. As we would approach a rapid he would describe it to us – what the rapid was like, what we needed to do, and almost every single time he added at the end “and then we’ll see what happens”. Only so much you can do to fight mother nature. We managed to make it through the morning totally unscathed, despite being warned that it was the more difficult and scarier part of the river. After lunch, our confidence was high, and we got straight rocked. We got flipped on the third rapid after lunch, named Mother. It shook us all up – I got stuck under the boat for a second, and when I finally made my way out got submerged under waves and was struggling for breath through the end of the rapid – but it was definitely good to get flipped once to get a sense of what it was like. Then, on rapid number 16, named Terminator 1, one of the guys in our boat got thrown at the top of the rapid. We got him back in, only for our boat to be flipped under three seconds later. We all floated down the rest of the rapid cracking up that we had managed to flip again. But it wasn’t the end – we flipped at the very start of the next rapid, aptly named Terminator 2. I swallowed a huge amount of water because I was laughing so hard that we had flipped again. This time, however, the joke was on me – I got a huge gash on my nose from the raft hitting it and a huge gash on my elbow from scraping it against a rock. All worth it. After three flips we had had enough, and after that we were intense even on Class IIs. Definitely the most intense day of rafting I’ve ever had in my life.

After going to the doctor the following morning to get my pink eye medicine (they didn’t know how to work a credit card machine, so I had to do it for them), our whole group crossed the border (the bridge that you see above, which people also bungy jump off of) to Zimbabwe. We first went to a local market, where we were hassled incessantly to buy or trade for their goods – so much so that it became uncomfortable. Everyone tried to guilt trip us into trading for their stuff, and it definitely worked. I wound up with a lot of useless shit, but it makes for a funny story.

After the market, we went to see Vic Falls from the Zimbabwe side, which we had heard was far more badass. Indeed it was – you can see five parts of the falls from the Zim side, as opposed to only three parts from the Zambia side. I got totally drenched walking along the path opposite the falls – the flow on the Zim side is so much stronger than it is on the other side. The weather seemed almost rainy, despite the fact it was totally sunny away from the falls. I could barely see the falls through the mist; I can only imagine what it’s like during rainy season. I hadn’t truly appreciated the might of the falls from the Zambia side, but this made it totally clear. So much better than the Zambia side, no matter what any Zambian will tell you.

The falls from the Zim side - notice how much mistier they are

The next morning, the last of our trip, I decided to get really crazy and go hang gliding over the top of Vic Falls. It wasn’t exactly hang gliding, since we had an engine to get us to cruising altitude and didn’t have to ride the thermals to start, but after we got up there we turned off the engine and rode them. It’s pretty crazy to feel the differences in air pressure smack you in the face. The ride over the falls was, of course, unbelievable, and allows you to appreciate the beauty and extent of Vic Falls unlike looking at it from the ground. There’s just a giant gorge in the earth – it drops off out of nowhere and comes back up on the other side just as quickly – and such a huge volume of water flows over it (I think my guide told me 500 kiloliters per minute, but that seems low to me). From on top of the falls you could see the beautiful rainbows rising really high – higher than the falls themselves. You could also see the mist created from the water hitting the river below – that, too, rose above the falls. To top it all off, we saw a huge pack of elephants, as well as a huge pack of hippos. I can’t think of a cooler place to go hang-gliding, and I definitely don’t think I’ll ever do it again since I felt really weird afterwards for a few hours, but there was no way I wasn’t going to do it while I was there. That became the theme of Vic Falls – “I’m here, there’s no way in hell I’m not going to do (insert crazy activity here)”. I’ve never felt so alive in my life as I did after leaving Vic Falls. If you are an adrenaline junkie and haven’t been, book the next flight. You will not regret it, unless you accidentally slip and go over the edge of the Devil’s Pool.

Chobe: The Real-Life Lion King (Minus The Lions)

After three days in the Delta of fending off spiders, swimming in grimy water, and basically rolling around in elephant dung, I was, needless to say, stoked for my first shower of the trip. Unfortunately, I had to be that dirty hippie on he bus ride from Maun to Kasane, where Chobe National Park is located. The drive to Chobe was filled with roadside animal sightings - cows, horses, and goats crossing the road every few kilometers; giraffes, ostriches, and gansboks (a type of antelope) chilling right next to the road; and, as we got closer and closer to Chobe, elephants. I saw so many elephants on the ride in to Chobe that I had almost become desensitized to them by the time we reached Chobe - almost.

We arrived in Kasane in time for a hurried lunch, before heading down to the water for our sunset cruise down the Chobe River. Our cruise took us only a few kilometers downstream into the park over the course of three hours, but I don't think I've ever seen as much wildlife in one sitting as I did on this ride. Let me tell you: getting plastered while floating down the Chobe River and watching animals as the sun set behidn me - it was truly sublime. Our pontoon boat (see, Carrie, I now know what a pontoon boat is) took us through the African "four corners" equivalent, where the borders for Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Namibia meet. A bit cooler than the Arizona-Colorado-Utah-New Mexico dealie. We could literally watch Namibian elephants change nationalities to Botswanan elephants in the course of two minutes.

The cruise reminded me more of the Lion King than anything I’ve ever seen in my life, though there were no lions (I still can’t believe I have yet to see any lions here, we came close on our game drive in Chobe but couldn’t see them through the thistles of the bushes). I’ve never seen so many different types of wildlife chilling side by side, grazing on the grass, and not paying any mind to each other. On the same island, I saw hippos, buffalos, and elephants – three of the most dangerous animals in the world – all just kicking it right next to each other and doing their own thing. Pretty cool. We saw a bunch of other animals: kudus, impalas, a few fresh-water crocodiles, a water monitor, and a huge pack of baboons. One kid on our trip managed to get a picture of baboons having sex – one of the funniest pictures I’ve ever seen.

The highlight of the cruise had to be the ride back, when we spotted a pack of about 20 elephants on a ledge right next to the water. The sun was setting right behind them, and, through the camera lens, literally silhouetted the massive animals. One elephant in particular seemed to be posing for the camera – the dude who I caught in the picture below – and loved the attention of he people. Very different from the elephants in the Delta, who were afraid of humans. The sunset cruise spoiled me and will forever ruin how I look at safaris – I will never again see that much wildlife in one sitting (until I’m back at Chobe in two years doing the exact same sunset cruise, right mom and dad?).

We awoke early the next morning – try 5 am early – so we could be en route for our 6 am game drive. I had learned the hard way on my last safari in Hluhluwe-Imfolozi – it’s cold as hell in the morning in Africa. Even if you think you’re going to be warm since you’re in Africa, you are wrong. I was the only person who brought gloves and a hat – and I was the only person who wasn’t freezing my ass off. Literally seconds after going through the gate to the park, we encountered a pack of elephants. Chobe is famous for it’s elephants – home to 120,000 of them. In fact, it has so many that it’s become a problem since they knock over too many trees and eat too much of the vegetation. Definitely not a problem for me to see that many elephants though. Like the previous night, we saw an insane amount of wildlife: water buck, hundreds of impala, baboons, hippos, buffalos, a huge snake, kudus, giraffes, zebras, jackals, hyenas, and, most hilariously, a baby warthog and its mom sparring. As I mentioned above, we were right next to a pack of lions, but couldn’t see them through the thistles. Weak. The highlight of the game drive was, again, elephants at the end. We saw a pack of about 5 or 6 right next to the road – literally feet away from the edge of our vehicle – and one of the babies started posing for us. Doing it’s elephant thang, making them elephant noises, the whole shebang. Thankfully, it didn’t charge at us like the baby elephant did in Hluhluwe in July. Really cool to see an elephant so close that you could reach out and touch it.

I mentioned this above, but it’s worth noting again: the animals in Chobe seem unphased by humans. In fact, I think they like showing off for humans. They know that the humans in the park are not going to harm them, and our guide said that they don’t even see the game trucks as people, but as vehicles. The vehicles have never hurt them, so they’ll get up nice and close to them and pose. Very different from the animals in the Okavango Delta, where the majority of the humans they encounter are poachers there to kill them. This makes both places extraordinarily special: any wildlife sighting in the Delta is a treat, while Chobe is amazing because of the amount of animals you see and how close they are. It’s reputation as the best game park in all of Africa stands pat, as far as I’m concerned.