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.