girl's day out.

Spent the day in the Company Gardens. After brunch, walked around the South African National Art Gallery. It was overcrowded and the quality of the art was mixed, but it was impossible not to find some interesting (a lot of political) stuff. Then we were attacked by pigeons and squirrels--I had a face-off with one. And took a crazy minibus ride on all of the back-roads to avoid traffic. Barely came out alive, definitely without a regular heartbeat. Ready to watch a live performance at Zula and get the blood pumping again.

copious amounts of cheese

Attended the South African Cheese Festival. Did our rounds in two huge tents full of wines, dips, cheese and crackers, pates, breads, etc. Only to learn that we just touched the tip of the iceberg. No way to make it to all of the tastings, but we tried our best.

afrikaburns: part 3

DAYTIME:

• Painted a design on a tapestry. 
• Took a trip to Alice and Wonderland when we walked through a little door into a tea party that served cupcakes that read “eat me.” 
• Had a personal dance party with our own private dj. Were soon handed cold beers. You know, just because.
• Did probably the best people watching of my life. Some on glowing bikes, some on pirate ships, others in fuzzy-bunny-slipper-motorbikes, or moving concert stages.
• Visited a matchmaking love shack tent that provided heart cupcakes, heart lollipops, wine, and filled out a survey to set us up on a blind date that night. 
• Given shell necklaces to wear.
• Ate bourbon cherries (they came with pancakes in the morning, but we missed it.)
• Sat and talked in the middle of the desert in a little field of glow-stick-y phallic plastic things (the kind you get from Disney Land). 
• Frolicked in a neon-flower garden with children (there were people there of all ages!). 
• Went to a bathroom that had only three walls and overlooked desert and mountains at sunset.
• Watched a yoga class in the same place we later took a long nap in. Were handed baby-wipes to freshen up with by a fairy princess (AKA: little girl dressed in white).
• Ran into my tutorial professor dressed as an avatar. Got very excited that I called the resemblance day one of class.

 NIGHTTIME:

• Painted a face on a canvas. 
• Looked at flying dragons in the sky.
• Walked through a red womb-looking wooden tunnel/sculpture. At one point there were two women in there doing unpleasant things to unpleasant piercings that I care not to rehash in too much detail.
• Got a group of people to dance the Horah (Jewish dance which is like the grape vine in a circle) while we watched Taroh cards being projected on a screen. 
• Saw a man juggling high-tech balls that lit up according to the rhythm he caught and threw them in, and danced to another dj. 
• Hung out in an octopus garden. It was a smallish room, made of cloth walls, full of dangling sea creatures made of string and fabric that glowed under its accompanying black light. Also, one of the walls had Planet Earth projected onto it and had two lawn chairs outside to watch it on.
• Watched a woman spin fireballs around. 
• Sucked on some sour lollipops.
• Returned to Alice and Wonderland to dance to drum and bass. 
• Attended literally the best party I’ve ever been to. In the middle of the U-formation was a truck that had a three-wall living room in the back with comfy couches, framed pictures, and lamps. The Living Room looked out onto a giant Lego man and a huge dance party. There was an insanely amazing DJ who remixed songs including Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and Superstition. The truck also had a wooden sculpture thing that would occasionally spurt fire. Oh, and there were fireworks as well. No biggie.
• Danced in The Igloo (small club that looked like an igloo). Which is where Emma and I returned late-night to chill in nooks that were filled with cushions and pillows.

Our days and nights at AfrikaBurns consisted of floating in between all of these places and our tent, giving (rather, mostly taking) gifts, and picking up old and new friends along the way.

We rejoined reality Sunday afternoon. But I was ready to return to AfrikaBurns before I left.

afrikaburns: part 2

So after being helped by multiple men, a Japanese woman, and a band called Crème Brulee and the Seasonal Fruit, we were back on our way. With nothing surrounding us but sand, dust, and the occasional shrub, we drove another hour and a half further into the middle of nowhere. Shocker. Finally, we drove over a hill and we came onto some lights in the distance. Tents were set up in a giant U-shape, which was so big that many choose to bike all weekend. With a little extra help from our neighbors, we set up our tent in the dark and windy cold and set off to explore a bit.

If you have the time, or don't need to pay for internet by the information, you should look at these pictures because they're amazing. I really don’t know how to describe it, because it was nothing like anything I’ve ever seen before. But I suppose this description begins to touch on the feeling of Afrika Burns: a circus-themed 1960s time-warped version of a communist Candyland combined with a contemporary art exhibit in the desert. 

afrika burns: part 1

Friday, with a car full of 1 cowboy hat, 2 jars of peanut butter, 3 loafs of bread, 4 blankets, 5 girls, and 6 gallons of water, we set off for Afrika Burn(s?) (which is based on Burning Man in Nevada).

This is their mission statement:
“Our intention is to generate society that connects each individual to his or her creative powers, to participation in community, to the larger realm of civic life, and to the even greater world of nature that exists beyond society”.

What we understood: The idea is that a bunch of people camp out in the desert and provide everything for their own survival. Nothing is bought or sold for the duration their stay (Thursday to Tuesday). Things are only gifted with no expectation for anything in return. There are costumes and art installations and tents and parties. The last day, this big wooden sculpture of a man is burned…

So really we had no idea what to expect. Our anticipation only grew on our 5-hour drive—especially since there was so much dust from the desert that we couldn’t see anything in the road ahead or behind us.

Upon sunset, we realized that one of our tires was shredded, our other tire was flat and we didn’t know how to change the tire, or have an extra spare (anyone surprised?). So we became stranded on the side of the road in the middle of the desert. Every time a car passed (all going to Afrika Burn because there was literally nothing else in sight) a fresh blanket of dust covered us. Luckily every other car that passed us stopped. And everyone who stopped was beyond helpful and kind. Coming to Afrika Burn, they were all in the community-mindset of sharing, giving, and trusting strangers. A mindset that we quickly took on as well. As a New Yorker, it was pretty alarming. This is when we realized we were no longer in Kansas (or Cape Town).

baph monsters

I'm not sure how much to include or exclude, on behalf of the kids. I was a little torn about the idea of including specific information--especially since we've all talked so much about the controversy of "slumming" and of being careful to not exploit them. However, they mean so much to me already. I would be leaving out such an important part of my life here if I didn't talk about them. Being influenced by all of those Cosmos and Teen People's out there (or is it Men in Black?), I've decided to refer to them by their initials. Hopefully that's something.

So here we go. It's about time: These kids are amazing. We have a really a special group (though I'm sure everyone says that). They're all nuts. Before we can say, "Moloweni!" (hello!) they are in our arms. They are fireballs of energy who just want to climb and dance and run and be bounced and chased and thrown and shaken all day. We sing their names to the tune of this Xhosa song we learned the first week of orientation. They all know it and all love it. Absolute best dancers. Been dancing and drumming since they were in the womb. We taught them duck, duck, goose. But without the same language and with the desire to help them learn how to count, told them to just say "1, 2, 3, 4...Go!" But the "go" didn't really catch on. So now they think the premise of the game is to count to ten and run all over the place and sit in that spot. Somehow this hasn't gotten boring to them yet and I doubt it will by the time we leave. Little gremlins.

We started the day coloring in hand-writing worksheets ("J" is for "Jester"). Then they made paper-bag puppets they all named after themselves. Followed by some good ol' "Simon says...," which was somewhat lost in translation. What began with us demonstrating, "Simon says touch your knees...Simon says jump three times..." immediately turned into "Simon Knees"...while pointing to shoulders... Okay, so we still have a long way to go.

But it also is amazing to see their development in such a short period of time. For example, K is clearly dyslexic. When copying a word, she writes the entire thing as if it was in a mirror--including her name and the alphabet and all of her letters. But a few weeks ago she wrote it all correctly! Or how Z, who is usually quite the trouble-maker and threw a fit last week, brought a book today and was completely well-behaved the entire class. As a routine, we rounded the day out in a scrambling mess singing the "clean up song," "the hokie pokie," "baby shark," "head shoulders, knees, and toes" and "down down, baby." As long as they're moving their bodies they are apple-pie-happy. Crazy and wild as ever. Never gets old. Rewarded with a star sticker on their hands, they then parade around and flaunt it. If only we could incorporate some nap-time. Then I'd be a very happy camper.

Also, THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE BOOKS, ZEYDE! So wonderful.

obs.erving

Just a few examples of the really cool graffiti in Cape Town. Strangely, I didn't see any of it until Talya. These happen to be in Obs (Observatory), a cool nearby neighborhood.

queen of tarts

Because I am lazy, I've copy-pasted the first review I found online of my new favorite breakfast/lunch place:

Queen of Tarts is such a delightful little restaurant I would recommend it to anyone and everyone! The decor is cute and funky, the service is friendly and very personal. You are greeted with a smile as soon as you walk through the door and immediately feel happy and relaxed! And then there is the food! WOW!! Everything is fresh fresh fresh! A must visit for all those that enjoy breakfast and home made yumminess! And do not miss out on their chocolate tart!

Sums it all up. Only comment I'd add would be: "Adorable."

crystal

Hiked to Crystal Pools with Anna, her sister, and her friend from high school. This was at the very beginning of the walk and was one of the only pics I got to take, before my camera died. But this is what we had to look forward to. It's just one of five of the bodies of water along the hike.

jazz fest

Went to the Cape Town International Jazz Festival for the night. It was really cool. Five different stages. Tons of performances. But because of the insane wind (classic Cape Town), the performer I really wanted to see (Bilal) was moved to an inside stage and was given much later time to perform. After being there for a couple of hours, we decided we were ready to go. Too bad. But still fun.

sky diving. golden.

flying fox

After our adventure, Kase and I clearly hadn't had enough. We felt the need to jump off of a cliff, superman-style on a zip-line type device.

There was a black out at night because Zambia doesn't have enough electricity to always support the entire country. Plus, now because of the World Cup, Zambia has been sending electricity to South Africa. So half of the country will alternate once a week or so to not have any electricity and then they switch. We ended up at a hot, ghetto Chinese restaurant run out of a house. With a group of about 15, we took over the entire restaurant. It was lit by candlelight, and while the food was (expectantly) pretty awful, it was really cool. Returned to the hostel for a late-night dip.

End to the spring break of a lifetime.

story designed to scare my parents

Here were go again. Another border-crossing adventure (this one’s a doozy):

On our way back to Zambia from Zimbabwe, we were supposed to get picked up for free by the Jollyboys hostel. But would have to wait 40 minutes at the border. So the five of us (Kase, Talya, Emma, Anna, and I) hopped in a cab instead. The driver first seemed uncomfortable taking five but agreed to drive us on the condition that Talya ducks when we pass the police checking point.

After driving for 3 minutes, he pulls over to the side of the road. He didn’t want to get fined for having extra people, so he thinks the most logical solution is for two of us to get out of the car. Driver's plan: drop of two now, pass the police, drop the rest of us on the other side, come back to pick up those two, cross the police again, and then pick everyone up so we can go on our way. We yell at him about how this was not agreed upon originally, but Emma and Kase nevertheless get out of the car at a viewing point of Victoria Falls.

Now it’s me, Talya and Anna driving past the checking point. Evidently, the police couldn’t care less and aren’t even paying attention to us. Our driver starts chuckling to himself, while I mutter a string of audible objections, including “this is absolutely ridiculous,” “this is actually not funny,” and “there’s no way you can expect us to pay full price for this shit." He keeps driving and driving further away from our stranded friends, with the justification that there isn’t a safe. By safe, he meant far enough away that the police wouldn’t catch onto his scheme. Talk about irony.

Finally he pulls over to the side of the road. This is when Talya aptly realizes we can’t leave this guy alone with all of our bags in the trunk. I volunteered to stay. So Talya and Anna are on the side of the road, while I return with the driver to pick up the friends we had left behind.

The driver and I return back towards the border, the entire time stressed because now I’m alone in a taxi with all of our bags and have no way of contacting my friends (our SA cell phones don’t work there). We stop at the point we left Emma and Kase, only to find three Zambian men in their place. They speak Tonga to the driver, while I yell at him to tell me what’s going on. Apparently, the police picked them up. The men don’t know where they went.

Before I know it, the taxi driver is off on the side of the road once more, talking to a man in a yellow pick-up truck in Tonga, and begins to shuttle our backs into the back of his "friends" truck. He tells me to get in, that he’s going to look for my friends with the police. I’m confused, angry, and now a little scared. But it doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice. So I get in this car, now driving back to the second spot, not knowing where any of my friends are, with a stranger in a yellow pickup truck, and all of our valuables in the back.

I strike up some conversation with Gabrielle, the yellow-pickup-truck-driver. Gabrielle was an innocent bystander who had never met that cabbie before, but wasn't too surprised about the ordeal. I joke about how this is extremely dangerous and how for all I know he’s a serial killer…Okay, so it’s not really funny. We drive back past the police check point and keep driving to the spot we left Anna and Talya. Then we pass it with no one in sight again. So now I’m really freaking out. Alone and have no idea where any of my friends are.

We’re driving along and in the distance I see too figures walking towards us: Emma and Kase! They had been picked up by a taxi cab full of police(?!) who said it wasn’t safe where they were and were dropped off at the next look-out point. After I’d transferred to the yellow pick up truck, they saw the first taxi driver pass them alone and were convinced that he had all of our stuff and was escaping back to Zim. They soon realized that we wouldn’t have been able to find them at another point, so they started walking back to the first, which is when Gabrielle and I found them.

Anyway, we flag them over, they hop in the back of the truck with all of our bags. We keep driving, I’m still freaking out in my head because I still don’t know where Talya and Anna are. We turn around and the Jollyboys van is behind us with Anna and Talya inside! They’d hailed the free ride we were all supposed to have taken, and could have taken if we'd just waited. Anna's face is pretty representative of all of our reactions. We spent the rest of the drive back rehashing how crazy it all was. Two baboons also happened to casually run by during this time.

So all was well. But it could have gone a million times wrong. Safe and sound at the Jollyboys pool. Mosi was needed and well deserved.

in honor of falls girl

We ventured to Vic Falls today and trekked through the rain forest. Before long, Emma was beside us, looking down and saying, “No, no, no, no, nooooo, no, no.” As soon as we thought these no’s would stop, another string of “NOOOOO, no, no, no, no” would chime in. Ems sliced her foot open. So we wobbled back to a hotel/casino to get some first aid attention for the poor girl. After leaving the pharmacy that happened to be in the casino, there was a torrential downpour. Taking my parent’s usual thinking that there is ALWAYS one day per vacation that gets completely screwed over, I wasn’t too stressed. But we all were a little skeptical about actually making it to the Falls.

Thank you, weatherman. Because the rain soon cleared, Emma was a trouper, and we continued on our way. We finally made it to the Falls to see the most beautiful Lucky Star rainbows suspended in the mist, and cliffs with the most powerful surges of water. For Anna, it was absolutely love at first sight. As soon as we turned around, “Falls Girl” was off exploring, getting lost in her passion and new-found obsession. We walked around for a bit and returned to the entrance, only to realize we just saw a tiny portion of the Falls. So while Emma passed out on a bench and watched our stuff, and while Anna was off on her own, Talya and I walked the rest of the way to see the main Falls. Some great people-watching ensued. Including a younger couple who hired a man to carry their umbrella and take pictures of them making mirror faces. We were convinced that they were Croatian (no offense to all of those Croatians out there)--until we heard their American accents. Shame.

We ate at this touristy Disney world of African culture. It’s usually how I’ve been trained not to travel (my family is relatively cruise-phobic, and I’m pretty phobic of looking and feeling too much like a tourist), but it was a really fun and definitely worthwhile. We were able to pick out warthog, impala knuckle, buffalo, crocodile, etc. for them to cook for us and it was all delicious. We wore some Zambian fabric (not nicer than the ones we bought ourselves at the market, however), people painted dot-designs on our faces, you can have your fortune read, Emma got her hair braided, and we were sung to by our amazing acapella African waiters as a thank you.

When we got back to Shoestrings, we met our friend, Kase! Kase decided to leave his group of traveling friends to go off on his own in Zimbabwe. He was randomly chilling at the hostel’s bar when we walked in. To bolster the random excitement of the night, I saw my first major fight! I definitely never need to see anything like it again. It entailed two big men throwing punches drunkenly over a girl. Chairs were thrown, women were shoved, and one too many plumbers cracks were shown (one is immediately too many, in my opinion).

spring break: welcome to zimbabwe

We soon left Botswana to venture into Zimbabwe. Predictably, there was border-crossing drama. We didn’t have enough money to get past the border ($50 each). So we were given a choice by our driver. We could either spend another hour driving back into town and an hour back to the border to take money out. Or, we could use the black market to change rand into US dollars. We chose the black market. I thought the black market was a shady market with illegal goods all laid out for trade on tables and in tents. Little did I know it is nothing more than under-the-counter trades with random people very much in the open. With a complicated exchange rate, a fee for this black market exchange, and our feeble attempts to simultaneously understand three currencies (rand, US dollars, and kwatcha), we somehow still didn’t have enough money to get across. So we hired a cab—as negotiated by the all-mighty-Emma—to front us the cash and drive us across. We drove forever to the hostel while random elephants popped up right next to us on the side of the rode. We stopped at a police checkpoint when our cab driver got out of the car to slip the policewoman a 5. He told us that it happens all the time. Then we stop again a little while later and begin to back up quickly while I’m passed out in the back. Apparently, we just missed another cheetah, which walked across the road while we were all sleeping! Oh, Africa. Anyway, we finally get there to go to an ATM to find that none of them are working and they are apparently the only ones in town. Eventually, we figure it out that we have to use “universal” account (whatever that means) and we are able to pay this poor man after all.

The cab dropped us off at the Shoestrings Backpackers, which is more like a bar that happens to have some rooms in the back. Feeling like we had drained our funds after safari and exhausted after a long day of travel, we spent the rest of our afternoon having ghetto high tea at the Victoria Falls hotel and hanging out by the pool pretending to be guests. After a nice African dinner, all of us walked back in the dark to the hostel—which we only did upon the encouragement of many Zimbabweans. It was so surprising and cool because, as four girls, it’s something we would never feel comfortable doing in South Africa.

One of the things I found really intriguing and confusing about Victoria Falls was the acceptance and embrace of colonialism. Here it was, these white men come into Africa, claim to discover Victoria Falls, despite obviously being taken there by natives who have lived there their entire lives. And this man is applauded--to this day--by the tourist industry in Zim. This fancy hotel had framed pictures of white men in colonial gear, on top of having black men wearing old-fashioned colonial garb. When I asked this Zim man at a bar later that night, he said it was catering towards the older generation and will likely end when the generation fades out. I'm not so sure. He also had a more nuanced take than my previous all-negative one. He explained that because Livingstone brought over whites who now help their economy, there is an acceptance of the good (of colonialism), as well as an acknowledgment of the bad.

I don't know how much you know about Zimbabwe, but they are politically and economically a MESS. All of this land was distributed amongst the black (unskilled and uneducated) people by president Mugabe and taken away from commercial (mostly white) farmers. So now there is nothing for their economy to really stand on. In addition to corruption, rigging of votes, and violence, there is an insanely high unemployment rate, and hyperinflation (the highest in Africa - as in, a meal costs about 46,000 kwatcha, which is equivalent to about 10 US dollars). Just nuts. And yet, people from Zimbabwe seem to define themselves as being uniquely Zimbabwean because of their immense about of hope and optimism. Emma questioned whether this was an unhealthy form of denial, or a helpful tool of survival. I leaned towards the ladder.

lions, impalas, and elephants.. oh my.

To our great surprise, a group of our friends happened to be at the same safari company as us. So we went on our merry way, joined by Danny, Becca, Brett, Ellen, and Will on a journey into Chobe National Park.

First we took a boat tour. Stuck with inedible food and with no more animals in sight than a couple of birds, we were a little disappointed. But then the ball started rolling. We saw a couple hippos. Which become a huge group of hippos. Then a herd of elephants. Then hippos and elephants. Some more birds and hippos. Even a few birds on hippos.

Fun fact: adolescent male elephants practice mounting each other in the water as preparation for the real deal. Saw it with my own eyes. And after seeing a couple of tiny baby elephants, I’m pretty sure it’s effective.

We soon set off to go on a game drive. Perfection: the nine of us perfectly fit into one jeep. After filming a rendition of “In the Jungle” to soon realize that the sound on my camera is broken, we came upon some more animals. Giraffes. Elephants. Impala. Birds. More elephants. Buffalo. Baboons. All of these animals would hang, run, fake charge, graze, eat, care, or couldn't care less about us, as close as 2 feet away from our jeep.

After some snacks we departed for a sunset drive. Soon after we left the camp, our driver hears something on his radio and starts to disregard the strict speed limits in Chobe. Till we come upon a group of giraffes in a field in the distance. We see them looking at three lion cubs and a mother. We waited and looked for a while--all forgetting that breathing is a good thing to make sure you do. The mother lion creeped up and walked closer and closer towards us, and crossed right in front of the car  into the bush. Our attention returned to the cubs, who pitifully tried to catch some impala (not that I could do any better). After another radio call, we sped again—this time off of the road—zig-zagging in between bush and trees. Just as we turn the bend, we see the mother lion holding an impala she just killed in her mouth, carrying it off to her cubs. Extremely rare for Chobe. We were some very lucky ducklings. One of those times you need to sit back and say, “Yep. I am in Africa.”

After camping there, we went on a morning tour. Stumbled upon the impala’s corpse, which was soon to be eaten by hyenas. And almost caught glimpse of a cheetah (missed it by literally 30 seconds). The best part was that our entire safari just kept getting bigger and better, one serendipity at a time.

We were planning on staying an extra day. But since we couldn’t see how it could possibly get better than that (it really couldn’t) we departed early and hit the road.

P.S. For your viewing pleasure: You can see the joy in our faces. And that was just the beginning of our Chobe experience.