Dope On A Rope

11/29/11, 9:07 p.m.

There is no cohesive way to talk about the notable yet random highlights of the past week or so. Thus, writing this blog reminds me of when my stepmom, Mel, makes smoothies. You throw in a whole lot of edible matter that has been lying around the kitchen, and if it tastes good—great! If it doesn’t, I still have another week here to try to knock out a stellar piece of literature. The smoothie analogy makes me realize how much I am ready to go home. Granted, I absolutely love working at both the daycare and the hospital and cannot fathom leaving the beautiful children. I found out that at a CCS meeting today the head office of the entire Home From Home organization had good things to say about me—I didn’t even know they knew who I existed because I only work in the daycare! However, the strain of living in such close proximity with a lot people at the CCS home base is definitely starting to show, especially since I’m perfectly content to live in my own thoughts much of the time. We have also had an unusually large share of house drama since I got here, like the favorite driver getting dismissed as well as a not-so-favorite volunteer, and an issue of some people keeping alcohol in the house, which is halaal because of the many Muslim staff members. I also feel like I have done everything I want to do and can feasibly do in Cape Town with my budget and time frame, particularly with completing the world’s highest abseil today. This requires a story.

                I knew this afternoon would be interesting just from the demographics of the group. With whom does one go abseiling, other than two other college-aged girls and Raphael, the good-humored, middle-aged man from Haiti who lives in New Jersey? We rode the cable car up to the top of Table Mountain, ears popping all the way, and met up with the Abseil Africa staff for the experience their website calls “Dope on a Rope”. As I learned, abseiling is the same as rappelling, comes from German (ab=down, seil=rope), and was first done by early adventurers in the Alps. Essentially, one walks down a rock face, perpendicular to the ground. After signing our lives away (I thought White Shark adventures already owned my soul) and receiving harnesses, helmets, gloves, and a safety briefing, we hiked out to the edge. The staff was cracking jokes the whole time we were setting up, but for the first time since planning this excursion I felt my stomach coil like a python and my heart start to pound. My friend Kala, who had abseiled before, and I opted to go first. They had us lean off the ledge to take our picture, told us there was a surprise halfway down, and then it was go-time. After the first couple of steps, I peered over my shoulder to see the water of beautiful Camps Bay winking sparkles at me, as if to say, “Don’t look down!” A thousand-meter drop is not something to be trifled with. Because of my indoor rock-climbing experience, thanks to 7^th grade PE class (some things you learn in middle school are useful), everything was going pretty well with intense concentration until suddenly we stumbled upon The Surprise. In reality, we didn’t actually stumble on anything because there was nothing there upon which to stumble. The side of the mountain cut in sharply and completely gave way to open space. Now, I’m not one to curse but you can be sure I was shrieking things I wouldn’t say in a job interview. Kala and I realized the only thing to do was to essentially freefall and try to control our speed as much as possible. After accepting this, I was much more at ease. I accidentally spun around to face the ocean and spent the rest of the way absorbing the natural beauty I will miss so much and singing Eye of the Tiger. Seemed reasonable at the time. After we finally touched glorious, glorious ground, I was giddy with adrenaline and certain that I want to do this again somewhere in the world. We watched as Kelsie and Raphael made their way down the mountain a bit more clumsily, with Raphael even tangling himself up in Kelsie’s rope, and chuckled knowingly when they also discovered the biggest surprise I think I’ve ever had. When everyone was finally 112 meters lower than when we started, we expected our guided hike back to the top, which ended up being a lackluster “Go that way, you’ll find it,” from the staff member at the bottom. After more than 20 minutes of scrambling over rocks and many allusions to the Donner Party, we arrived back on top of the giant table. My opinion is that abseiling is more of an extreme sport than skydiving or bungee jumping because it’s also cognitively extreme. With the other two, you essentially let yourself go and let gravity take over. Today, I felt I had to suppress my mind’s instinct to blank out because you have to be conscious of placing every step and regulating your speed down the mountain. I have never considered myself an “extreme sports” person, but I can definitely see myself doing this again. Heck, especially since every other one in the world is smaller.

11/30/11, 6:03 p.m.

                I’m back after intermission. I just found out today that my friend Ariana and I are in a huge picture together in the Athlone News from the march on Friday! Friday was the first day of an international campaign against domestic violence that’s particularly prominent here called “16 Days of Activism.” A Salvation Army women’s shelter, Carehaven, organized the march along with CCS, so all the volunteers participated in a workshop about a month ago discussing abuse with women from various shelters and painting signs to hold during the march. When November 26^th finally arrived, I donned the official garb of a march marshal, which was a neon green penny about two sizes too big, and grabbed my sign and a vuvuzela. The march kicked off from Carehaven and wound through the streets of the Athlone neighborhood before arriving at a field where there were speakers, performances from a primary school, and facepainting done by some other CCS volunteers and me. The march itself was a bit awkward because they were hoping for a turnout of 1,000, expecting 500, and then ended up greeting about 100 at Carehaven. Plus, the police band never showed up, and we were chanting and making all kinds of noise but the streets seemed deserted. In the end, regardless of what passerby’s beliefs we may have influenced that day, I think it was an important event for the women themselves. Sometimes it’s good to shout what you feel but are usually afraid to say, even if it falls on deaf buildings. “Genoeg is genoeg! Enough is enough! Hands off our women and children! Break the silence, stop the violence!”

                I know I promised an obscure medley in this blog, which is why I want to end with Thanksgiving last Thursday night. There are simply some holidays that shouldn’t be attempted in other countries. Usually the CCS tradition is that the volunteers get a chance to cook by making a traditional turkey dinner, but after a food fight in the kitchen last year the staff decided to ask a restaurant to attempt Thanksgiving. A few of us did get to make pumpkin pie, though, and a volunteer even made vegan stuffing! Although I hadn’t seen turkey here at all before that night, there was indeed turkey, as well as green beans and mashed potatoes. The climate in South Africa isn’t really conducive to the presence of bogs, so cranberry sauce’s esteemed place was usurped by a wine sauce. Nice try. Interestingly enough, the most memorable part had nothing to do with the food. The CCS director asked me to come up with Thanksgiving decorations, so a few days beforehand I cut out a rakeful of fall colored paper leaves with “I am thankful for…” written on them and stuck them in everyone’s notice pouches—volunteers and staff alike. I was surprised that much of the staff took it very seriously, and there were some pretty striking responses. I would never think to write that I’m thankful “for my family members who are still alive,” even though I certainly am.

                I guess there is a spine running through and supporting this blog—gratitude. I’m thankful for the opportunity to see sights, do things, and think thoughts that would not have crossed my path had my life gone on the trajectory set for me ages ago. I’ll be relieved when I touch ground in Philadelphia next Saturday, but my experience in Cape Town will forever be an important part of who I am.

Haai Society Life

11/14/11, 7:44 p.m.

                What an incredible three day weekend! As a 12-week volunteer I am allotted 2 days off, and since I haven’t taken any sick days yet in 8 weeks (at this point I’m in a small minority there) I figured I could afford to take today off to go shark cage diving. But I’m getting ahead of myself. It’s not like I don’t look forward to going to work—that will always be the most significant part of this trip for me. On Friday alone, when my CCS placement director and the South Africa program director visiting from New York came to poke into the daycare, they found me standing on a desk scrubbing years of sticky tack off the walls with paint thinner the teacher gave me. Who doesn’t want to be completely flammable for the sake of 4-year-olds? The most poignant moment of the day and possibly of my whole time at Home from Home was when our token 18-month-old Olwethu, who usually only babbles occasionally or says, “Lifa!” (his older brother in the 4-year-old class) squealed, “Taylor!” It really touched me to know that I’m important enough in his life, especially because he’s one of the orphans from the foster homes, and hopefully in the lives of the other kids at the daycare and the hospital.

                When the weekend arrives, though, I make sure they’re busy simply because there is so much to do in a large urban area that also has expansive natural beauty. On Saturday I got the chance to perform in the Casa Labia museum in the beautiful beachside town of Muizenberg. The cultural director of the renovated Victorian mansion of the Italian Count Labia is an old friend of a CCS volunteer, so she contacted me about doing one of their free afternoon concerts. I envisioned playing in a gallery where I’d be background music but I was placed in a ballroom where a lot of people were having lunch and certainly listening. It went well considering I was playing serious repertoire on a student Armstrong flute (which is like competing in the Indy 500 with a rickshaw) and I even made R30 in tips. After the performance and my complimentary lunch a waitress came up to me and told me a man from the birthday party in the dining room (where I popped in and played Happy Birthday) wanted my contact information for gigs with his band. I went in to tell him that I’m American and only here for 4 more weeks, much to his disappointment. I almost had my big South African break, though!

                                On Sunday, several of us had planned to take a day trip to Hermanus, which is famous for whale watching. Unfortunately, after I had woken up early and gotten prepared, I came downstairs to find out all the boat tours were cancelled that day because of rain. The dismay didn’t last long because we found ourselves baking a spice cake and making lunch with the kitchen staff, to whom I’ve gotten much closer lately. CCS has severe rules about relations with staff, so it’s unfortunate that I won’t be able to keep in contact with them after this is over. We found out that Bongi has a boyfriend, Leonard, and that they will actually be getting married soon, so our cake had lavender icing and jasmine flowers on it and I wrote “B [Heart] L” on it and did the piping. We didn’t go anywhere or do anything particularly South African, but surprisingly it was a really meaningful morning to me. Then in the afternoon we went museum-hopping. You wouldn’t expect a Jewish museum in South Africa to be of much interest or importance, but we ended up spending much more of our time there than the South African National Gallery. My favorite part was an exhibit going on right now on Zapiro, the alias of the political cartoonist Jonathan Shapiro. I don’t know why it never occurred to me to look into political cartoons during something as political turbulent as apartheid and its aftermath, but as he said himself, "At age four, I had nightmares about monsters. My mother made me draw them. It was a kind of exorcism. The monsters disappeared, but I didn't stop drawing. At 29, I was still drawing. There were other monsters to draw."

                This morning I woke up at the lovely hour of 4 o’clock in order to be ready for the van that would take us on our 2-hour ride to Gansbaai, where we would set off on a boat for shark cage diving at 7 a.m. Due to circumstances that were never really revealed to us, we were actually picked up at around 5:30 and didn’t get there until 8:00. Needless to say, we were more antsy about an already slightly nerve-wracking experience. They gave us breakfast and huge orange raincoats worthy of Captain Ahab and we set out on a 15-minute ride to the shark spot. It was actually disconcerting how close we were to shore in the grand scheme of the entire ocean. Great whites do swim to shallow waters here, and beaches like Muizenberg have shark spotters, a flag system, and an air horn. We hadn’t even donned our wetsuits yet before a 12-foot-long shark took interest in the tuna head on a string and the chum with which the crew were teasing it. The cage held up to 6 people, and I was in the second group. After you put on some weights and goggles, you slide in through an opening on top and climb like monkey bars over to an open “regulator,” which was our breathing apparatus attached to a communal air tank on the cage.  Apparently this was the only company that offered such a device and usually you have to hold your breath and come up for air. We were only submerged a couple of feet but it was really convenient to stay underwater as long as you liked. The water was warmer than I expected, but it was also my first time in a wetsuit. In related news, I discovered post-wetsuit-hood hair is a good look for me. But I digress again.

                It was a lot like fishing where you wait around for a long time and get bored looking through the murky water at the school of fish that’s interested in the tuna head, and suddenly WHAM. The crew shout, “Haai!” (Afrikaans for shark) and there’s a great white shark charging near the cage. They never rammed into the cage but we did get jostled around. As soon as I was sure its mouth was far enough away, I actually reached out and touched the tail of one through the bars! Before we got in, they warned us that when you recoil as a reflex when the sharks swim close the breathing tube sometimes becomes strained and a little compromised, but I never had that problem. My face was pressed up against the bars every time we had a sharky greeting, which happened about 4 times. After the third and final group had their chance, they asked if anyone wanted to go again. Much to my surprise, a middle-aged man and I were the only ones who jumped on the offer. For the first time on the hours-long trip I was getting seasick in the cage and the water actually felt cold, but I’m glad I did it because a shark came even closer. An underwater thumbs-up is even better with someone you’ve never met before but with whom you are possibly risking your life.

                On the way back, we saw some of the last of the southern right whales because they are moving on in their migration after being in this area for a couple of months. Earlier, I was kicking myself for not seeing the whales sooner on my trip and for the missed Hermanus trip, but we saw a 55-foot-long one wave to us and what looked like a mother and a calf frolic under the surface and even make use of their blowholes. Once we arrived back on land and received lunch, we watched the DVD they created with footage from the day. If there’s one overpriced tourist item I’d actually buy on this trip, it would be something like that, so I succumbed. Besides, one always needs evidence for true gloating rights for doing something like cage diving, right?

                With the Garden Route trip last weekend where I ventured all the way out to the Eastern Cape for ziplining over waterfalls, a primate sanctuary, a trunk-in-hand walk and feeding elephants at an elephant sanctuary, witnessing bungee jumping off the world’s highest bungee jumping bridge but valuing my life too much, waiting at a baboon family-induced roadblock, and doing a safari at a game reserve, I’d say I’ve been doing a good job of keeping myself occupied. I feel so fortunate to have these experiences at such a young age, and I know I’m going to have some pretty great bucket list items checked off by the time I get back. As for now, I’m eager to go back to work tomorrow and see Olwethu waddle over and chirp my name again. As magnificent as they are, I’m fairly certain that’s something great white sharks can’t do.