Money Money Money

One of the things I love most about travel is getting to work with new forms of monetary exchange. My father is a bit of a numismatist so I must have inherited the love of foreign currency from him. I've got a nice little (very little) collection of coins from all over, including Mexico, Columbia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Iraq, Kuwait, and Sierra Leone. Well, now I can add South Africa to that list!

And I think that by far South African money is the most attractive. I remember how excited I was when I saw my first purpled $5 or $20 bill, I forget which now. It was so pretty! Well, S.A. bills are gorgeous. Each one is a different colour AND a different size, with a different image and animal head on it.



I finally collected one of each! Unfortunately the 50, 100, and 200 are worth too much to just let be, I'll have to convert them back (on the other hand, since I lost money on exchange charges going from $>R, I could lose more going back from R>$ and maybe it won't be worth it after all...)

Don't even get me started on the exchange rate!

Also, coins! These come in 5, 2, and 1 Rand form, and then 50, 20, 10, and 5 cent. (I very cleverly said something the other day to the effect of "you don't need to spend a 'rent'!" - see what I did there, combined "Rand" and "Cent"! ... sorry) You'll notice a lack of pennies here. The thing is, the worth of the cent has so depreciated here that it costs more to make the coin than it would to spend it, so they've ultimately phased the penny out of existence and all prices are rounded up. So that's interesting...

Anyway, the coins themselves are also beautiful, each one has an indigenous animal or a plant on the one side and the country's coat of arms on the back.
Except that the arms have changed recently so there are "new" and "old" versions of the coins, the new ones having the new arms and "South Africa" in all 11 languages represented. The only drastic difference is the five Rand coins, which now look a bit like I remember the 2 pound coins when they came out in England years ago.
Hmm... these pictures don't seem to have 1 rand coins on them... oh well!



My favourite coin is the 50c piece, (which is only worth about a nickel at the current exchange rate) because of the strelitzia bloom...

Anyway, speaking of blooms, we're just headding out to the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens this morning! So I must be off to fill my nose with anti-allergy goodness...

The Plans

On the 1st I thought I wasn't leaving until the 15th, so I took one from fifteen and thought I had 14 days - two whole weeks left. On the 2nd I realized it's the 14th I fly out of here so suddenly I lost four days and realized I have only just over a week. Here are the plans:

Monday 5th - Errand running at N1 City, including picking up more postcards and little gift items for presents, and getting my ring adjusted. Hopefully we'll also get some clothes altered.

Tuesday - In the morning we're going to the Kirstenbosch Gardens for tea. In the evening we're planning to go to Carol and Eddie's for poitjiekos.

Weds - We're hoping to go up Table Mountain, if the weather cooperates. (Sometime during this day AJ is doing a lecture on Taize music. Because he's awesome like that.)

Thursday - It's Erica's birthday so we're going to Vergelegen in Somerset West. If we don't do the poitjiekos on Tuesday we'll do it now. We may also go over to UCT (University of Cape Town), as I've been invited to check out the Anthropology Department there (assuming any of the faculty are in to show me around).

Friday - The day time is reserved for anything I haven't done yet. This may include going with Tony to Klipfontein to hand out AIDS packages*, or maybe do something with Father Ntuthuzela(sp). In the evening I plan to go out clubbing with either Glynnis and her daughters or Dita.

Saturday - The 10th is when Kathy is having her wedding, and the Bethkes will be completely busy with that. I don't know if I'm invited, but even if I am I feel it is NOT appropriate for me to be there, so I've arranged to be "kidnapped" by the Govinders for the day. They'll come get me in the morning, and hopefully this is when I'll get to see the Cape Medical Museum, Two Oceans Aquarium, and Hout Bay.

Sunday - I'm kind of hoping we can have a repeat of New Year's day and have a nice picnic on the beach again, (but this time I'd like to do a little more splashing in the water, so I can tell my brothers I was in the ocean looking for sharks for them).

Tuesday 13th - I'm hoping to go and check out Learn to Earn, one of the organizations here in Cape Town (actually Wynberg) which benefits from Mocha Club's efforts. I noticed that there are train stations here in Thornton and Wynberg, and wonder if this wouldn't also be a good day to try out riding the train...


EDIT: 4 January 10:40pm

I've just been speaking to my great aunt in Oxford about, amongst other things, my future travel plans. I really feel that the next place I need to go is home to England, and she says she'd be all to happy to have me. I'd like to go during the summer, and one big thing I've wanted to do for awhile now is go see Cornwall, and tour cathedrals. I've got the crazy notion in my head that if I work my rump off and get myself out of the financial rut I sort of dug myself into last semester I can get the money together to invite a certain South African organist along for a couple weeks as well. Play a little "you show me your country I'll show you mine" (except he's already seen more of the states than I care to, and he's been to England as well, but no matter!) Time to start planning the next blog!!

Day 20 - Up to a mountain farm, and the rural Western Cape

Today we got up extra early, grabbed a lunch, and took off with some of Andrew-John's people from St. Stephen's choir to visit a farm on a mountain several hours away. (Names of towns and people such to come!)

It was a joyful journey from beginning to end. The landscape is absolutely stunning; you cannot imagine, and I cannot appropriately describe. There was a valley, and there was a mountain, and great beauty all around. I'm still in awe, so very much blown away by God's incredible creation. (I wish I didn't have to travel so far to feel this stunned!) You can practically see his hands mixing and folding the matter of the earth, shaping it just so, and scrapping little feng-shui lines across miles and miles and miles!!

Unfortunately, I dropped my camera just as we were getting out of the car! It smashed the display, but still takes pictures okay; I just can't see what I'm taking pictures of, so I snapped and snapped and snapped away just to be sure. Now I have to go through almost 250 photos and weed out the completely useless ones and then bring down the reallly awesome ones, and even then I know that there's no way a picture can say enough words (1000 won't cut it) to convey the majesty of the views.

There were seven of us altogether, and I felt like I connected deeply with the other six people there. Our hosts, our driver, our other passenger, and my dear friend... I feel like time moved totally differently there, and that I spent months getting to know each of them.

After we strolled the property we had a braai (in a different tone from the last one - I got to cook the beef myself at this one!) then went for the most hilarious, spirit-lifting drive around the mountains. We went through some rural areas, and I really hope my photos of that stuff came out.

There's a different attitude altogether there. The people use the road for walking on like a really nice comfortable path, until a car comes along and then they move to the side, and WAVE like they know you! And you wave back, and it feels so friendly and loving. At one point we saw ahead of us a guy with a heavy looking bag in each hand. Cheekily AJ suggested we all wave at him vigorously and see how he handled the situatoin. We did, and as we sped off watched the guy deftly switch the bags to one hand and wave back at us!

Have you ever bitten into a piece of fruit, just to eat it, and suddenly it bursts in your mouth, all flesh and juice and flavor sweet and tart and for a split second you're awash in the experience? It was like that for me, except it was like my heart biting into a piece of joy, and it flooded my whole chest for a minute and I laughed so hard it leaked out of my eyes. I don't know why that touched me so deeply; we weren't being cruel but we were having a good time with the man, and he was so generous with his greeting...

I'm so in love right now, with everything and everyone. I wish you could have been there with me (all of you); and I wish these photos wouldn't be totally crap so at least I can give you a taste of that juice that's still dribbling down my soul.

Day 19 - Rhode's memorial, and accomplishing things

We went off early (relative to when I got up) this morning to meet with Kathy and Natalie again for early tea/breakfast at a cafe thing at Rhode's memorial. Today was the windiest day, something I had been expecting since I got here.

Breakfast was nice; had a drink called Milo which is sort of like hot chocolate, BUT quite different. Nice though. It took forever for us to get the bill, though; it got extremely busy, then they lost the folder with our order in it. (Should have taken that as a sign and just left, but it's important to maintain integrity.) We eventually got it, and I nearly overpaid when I misred my portion. I still haven't got a grip on how cheap food is here. They make such a fuss over a drink being something like 11 rand. That's barely a dollar. In America you're lucky if your drink is under $2, and usually hangs around the $3 mark, especially if your meal is cheap.

Anyway, I'll talk about that another time maybe.

I didn't actually learn much about this Rhodes guy yet either, so I'll do some research and tell you about it. For now... pictures! (Because that's what this blog is about.)


Kathy and Natalie (who I always seem to catch only side-views of) I've met, but this new guy is Kath's husband Andrew. They live in Oxford now, which cracks me up (because I have a very different picture of Oxford in my head than they have.)


So this is Rhodes, I guess. Did you know Zimbabwe used to be called Rhodesia, and that name comes from this guy?
Hella creepy poem there under his face. Weird...

See the twin [inactive] nuclear towers out there? The house I'm staying in is somewhere around there...







So far I've seen lots of city, town, beach, mountain, and garden, but here I got to look at the lovely forest also available. The SMELL of those trees is incredible.
I think America takes the sense of smell for granted. We sell super strong perfumes and body sprays, but the natural smells of our world are suppressed. Here I have reveled in the reek of a pile of rotted potatoes on the sidewalk, the fragrance of a rose bush in full bloom, the tantalizing smell of cooking food right when you could do with a nosh, and now the overwhelming scent of pine. I think the trees are happy to smell so good.

And speaking of both beach...

And mountain...

Group photo!


The happy couple...

Kathy says she's "a real African girl" and that this proves it. Though there were plenty of parking spaces she just drove her car up the side of the mountain, put it in park, and left it...

ROFL


Okay, so the rest of my day has been spent updating this blog (check out backdated posts from a week ago!) and working on scholarship paperwork. And drinking tea. Lots of tea.

I might go see a movie with Tony tonight; a S.Af. comedy called Mr. Bones. I'll let you know if it was any good. ;)

Why the hell am I here?

There are at least three distinct reasons I am here.

The first is the obvious one. I'm here on holiday. I've needed to get away for some time now (I could go on for pages about how badly I've needed to get out of the country and why). And I really needed this vacation to be one of healing, recovery, getting refreshed and preparing for the next onslaught of chaos, something that was definitely NOT going to happen at my family's home or in Dallas.

That reason also goes hand in hand with the second, which is I came to visit my friend. I was invited here months ago, and when the opportunity arose I accepted it and pushed for it to happen.

The third reason is to get a glimpse of my future.

Shortly before I met Andrew-John, I was undergoing the beginning of a major transformation of my life which is still going on. My relationship with God is such that he has this habit of speaking to me quite loudly and clearly, but not giving me any hint of his intentions. I think some people might envy that, but it presents its own strains, especially because its hard for people to understand (I really can't concieve of the inability to beleive in His existence - makes it hard to communicate with "nonbelievers", whose existence I don't believe in sometimes!) and thus help me when I need support.

Anyway, up until that point I had what I think is the "average American" view of Africa, which basically comes from Disney's The Lion King mixed with flashes from the occassional world news article telling us about another genocide or famine or peak in the AIDS crisis, picturs of swole-bellied fly-covered big-eyed children sitting in the mud outside of a dusty lean-to.

You know what I'm talking about.

So, quite abruptly God landed this message in front of me which went something like "Hi. You're going to Africa." Then hinted something about AIDS, and wandered off again, leaving me to WTF for weeks.

Africa?? AIDS?? Two things I know next to nothing about, and really don't care about either. I mean, of course I care, because I care about people, but I don't really have any vested interest in those things. Can't you send me to places I KNOW something about? Can't I do work with something I'm interested in?

Sure you can. Now, go learn and get interested.

Then he thought it would be funny to throw several people and circumstances into my life; it was like watching the stars move into alignment with very little subtlety.

So here I am. I have no idea what I'm doing here ultimately. I leave it to God to work that out for me, but I tell you what, the biggest hardest lesson to learn is how to surrender to His will. Especially for someone who craves control as much as I do. Even the act of surrendering has to be a surrender. Do you understand that? Thinking "I will surrender" is contradictory to the act of surrendering! If you have truly released control, you know that you don't HAVE any control over whether you surrender or not. You can't put anything in God's hands; it's already there!

There is no conclusion for me to draw. I can't really take this revelation and plan anything around it. God doesn't tell me his intentions; he guides my actions, and I have to trust him. It's scary.

To realize I don't really know WHY I'm here...

To BE. That was something I learned on the beach yesterday. We were all walking along, going nowhere in particular, and I noticed... the thing about walking along the beach is it's one of the ultimate ways to just Be In The Moment (something countless self-help books try and teach you). When you're making your way across the sand, rarely are you looking very far ahead of you, and it would be stupid to try and look back. Most of the time, you're staring at your feet, still moving forward, but step by step only aware of where your foot is now, and the feel of sand between your toes, maybe water around your ankles, the ocean moving in and out beside you... Just Now.

Day 18 - picnic on the beach in Blouberg

I really had no business feeling as good as I did this morning, so it hit me a bit later one. My skin felt weird, like it was buzzing, and I was kind of dizzy. Tried to stay hydrated, but mostly I was just getting my just desserts.

We had been planning to go to the beach for some time, and I had almost forgotten that we'd planned to do this today. Mostly I just want to show you the photos. My mum's going to be so jealous!

It was disgustingly wonderful. You can't pay for days like today. The weather was gorgeous, temperature, humidity, sunshine, wind, all bloomin' marvelous. The food tasted delicious, the sand was soft, there were areas with shiny colorful pebbles... I could hardly believe it.

It made me realize how perfect this vacation has been in every way. I feel so refreshed and ready to take on next semester. Well, we'll see...

Photos!



Those waves looked huge, they would have covered me completely, but by the time they reached us they were all foam.


This part of Cape Town is called... something-or-other Point?

And you can't take photos without getting a view of Table Mountain. I can see why Capetonians are so obsessed with it.



This part of Cape Town is called Blouberg ("blou" means "blue"). You can see why...


You could see Robben Island from this beach, but not very clearly. Look just there on the horizon line. (At one point I was using these guys as a reference point to make sure I got it - my camera is hard to look through when it's THIS sunny!)



And then of course picnicing! Mmm... Fresh baked rolls from the shop that morning, sausage balls, cheese and salad...

My geliefde, watching the ocean...

I don't know WHAT is going on with my hair in this shot, but it's the only one I have of me at the beach...

Some clever person made a sand figure of Table Mountain!

Aww...


Wonderful day. Kind of want to do it again, maybe for my last meal of the vacation or something...

Day 17 - Fabulous and Smashing New Years! (Let this be a lesson to you.)

Some time ago I was at a frat party and was surprised to find several bottles of hideously cheap champagne going around. I drank this as an alternative to the $%*& beer they had, and Everclear jello shots, and even learned to chug from a bottle. Until last night that's as drunk as I've ever been, and you could barely call where I was at much more than tipsy.

There were two approved fireworks displays in Cape Town, and one of them was over the waterfront. AJ happens to have a friend named Freddie who lives in a house with a spectacular view...




So off we went around nine in the evening. Had to go through some heavy scary traffic and up some serious hills to get there.

The do actually turned out to be at a neighbors house two doors down. You should know, this is a seriously wealthy part of town. These people are rolling in it. Freddie and his partner apparently own three houses in Cape Town; that's Serious Business. (So I was a little nervous, to be honest. That and AJ also 'warned' me that pretty much everyone there would be "pink" - ie. "gay", though I haven't yet asked if that's just a family term or a South African thing, and if it refers to just gay men or lesbians as well... *shrug*) I had no idea what to expect. (The thing is, I was afraid things might be too posh and dull... or they'd be too "pink" as it were. I don't really "do scene". But then, neither does AJ so if that had been the case we'd probably have split early.)

It was really quite nice. Everyone was friendly and interesting and all.


Oh! The two in the foreground are a couple, and their son was there with what looked like a girlfriend. So!

Oh yeah, there was some dude in a kilt who would occassionally break out into a highland jumpy dance. Go figure.

Guy in the red shirt=Freddie.



There was an absolutely glorious hot tub which I am envious of. One person stripped down (quite skillfully I might add; we saw nothing, despite the fact that he was wearing nothing) and got in for a spell.


AJ was quite the responsible driver. A sip of champagne for him and loads of food and he was good for the night.



*sigh* So there was champagne. LOTS of champagne. And I eventually did get arse-over-tits, but it didn't really hit me until right at the end. I had a great time and can recall all of it with fair clarity... right up until we walked off. I vaguely recall stumbling down the street to the car, and AJ tells me I greeted the parking attendant with great enthusiasm...
And then vomitted pretty violently in the car. (Managed to get much of it out the window though.) Had to be undressed and put to bed at about 2am.

Well, no regrets. I'm an adult after all. And I needed that. Even the getting sick. I was purging myself of a lot more than food last night and it felt good.

The Bethke's weren't too pleased to deal with me, and I'm sorry about that. They did a great job cleaning AJ's car, but I think I'm still going to have it taken in and professionally seen to. I cleaned my own shoes and clothes, [Edit: with further help actually; AJ very sweetly helped me get my shoes back into a respectable state and Erica does the laundry] and I'll find a way to apologize to Tony and Erica (who's still pretty steamed at me).

And then I woke up bright and shiny at 8am, because the world is not fair like that. I seem to be nearly immune to hangovers. We went to the chapel and had Eucharist, and I thought that was just about the nicest thing ever.

SO! Lesson learned! Champagne is the thing that hammers me out like a piece of metal, and it comes on very suddenly, very quickly, and very powerfully. The first time the dog bites you, shame on the dog. Second time, shame on you.

I don't imagine there'll be a third time. I like to have things happen to me for the sake of the experience, but stuff like this is not worth repeating. I don't like the fact that I said things which I don't remember. Not being in control of one's faculties is unnerving.

But Happy New Year everyone! May you thoroughly purge yourselves of the crap from 2008 and enter 2009 in a right spirit. (For me I think that's going to be a more conservative one.) CHEERS!