Goodbye, Totsiens

We leave South Africa tomorrow.

I’m in the middle of packing and I just found a pack of peanuts from Turkish Airlines from my flight here.  How can it be that a year and a half has gone by?

How in the world do I do this?  How do I wrap up – summarize – do justice to – say goodbye?

It has been the most extraordinary 14 months of my life. 

I feel like I will never be able to thank people enough:  those here who enriched our experience and those back home who made this epic break-from-real life possible (they who watched our cats and took care of our house and with whom we Skyped each week.)

Right now I am a complete muddle of emotions, memories, hopes, anticipation, happiness and sadness.

Of course I am beyond excited to go home.  To see my family and friends, to give countless hugs and cuddle my cats and get a new job and sleep in my own bed again.

But I am heart-sore (that wonderful term I learned here) at the thought of leaving.  I cannot deny the empty, hollow place I feel in my chest at the thought of getting on that plane tomorrow.  It is the price you pay, I guess, when you find a new place to call home.

This place has taken root.  I have lived a different life here.  I have come to know new parts of myself.  I have learned to love new places, new foods and new people.

What will I do without my rusks and hot cross buns and boerewors and bobotie?  (Clearly lots of culinary experimentation awaits in my Minnesota kitchen.)

What will I do when I long to feel the stillness of the Kgalagadi?

What will I do when I feel like making mince pies with Gill?  Or tasting Anton’s sugar-bean potjiekos?  Or hugging Auntie Angela and playing with baby Micah?

What happens in the freezing cold of a Minnesota December when I long to be in the pool – hot sunshine on me and the 150-pound Rottweiler doing laps?

I will miss Christmas crackers and staying up all night on New Year’s. 

I will miss hearing a minimum of 4 languages (and 4 different kinds of English) every time I go to the mall.

I will miss the proteas and the fynbos and the sea – so much.  The mountains – don’t get me started on the mountains.  I love this country.  From the arid Karoo to the wine lands to the rolling ocean to the mountains soaring everywhere you turn. 

How do you say goodbye?   To the people?  The adventures?

In the time we’ve been here we’ve walked every inch of Cape Town’s Gardens and City Bowl neighborhoods.  We’ve hiked, gone on many a road trip, been on an archeological dig, ziplined, ridden horses through the bush, gone on safari 5 times,  beachcombed, and more importantly – most importantly of all – we’ve spent time with our friends, we’ve celebrated, eaten and laughed with beautiful people whilst here.  We’ve made new family here.  That is the greatest gift of all.

I return to Minnesota with all this in my heart.  With these people, with this beautiful place.  With new words; among my favorites:  liefde, naatjie, potkie, laapie, bokkie, shame, plehzah (pleasure), ag!, dankie, lekker and a few choice swear words that I never learned to spell but which I relish saying with great vehemence.

I return with new poems and new writings that excite me.  I return with a greater appreciation of what is important in life:  love, adventures, family.   I return with a South African family.  I return with a 3^rd home.  First El Salvador, then Minnesota, now Cape Town. 

I want to thank everyone who has read my musings and recipes and adventures.  Deciding to blog during this journey was one of the best decisions I could have made.  It has been wonderful to share all these experiences and tastes and places and people with you.  I will continue to blog.  I still have several trips that we’ve taken to write about and I’ll probably blog about the aforementioned culinary experimentations (and crafts and natural health and beauty and goodness knows what else.)   I’ll write about all the things I’ve learned here and the things that have stayed with me, that will stay with me always.

I am so very, very sad to leave.

But nevertheless, I return, heart-full.  With so much gratitude.    

Bittersweet ... Totsiens Cape Town

I cannot believe it's here.  The last few days of packing have come and gone and soon we'll be off to Mossel Bay, and soon after that, back home to Minnesota.

The goodbye process begins here, in Cape Town.  Nearly a year and a half here and I still feel like I've only just started to get to really know her.  I cannot tell you what a pang I feel to leave this bright, gorgeous, complicated city.

I have walked all over her, have come to love particular corners and buildings.  I marvel at the creativity of her artists and the skills of her chefs and the beauty of her people.  I've woken up many a morning inside a cloud as Table Mountain captures the mist.  I've made friends here.

I'm going to miss so many things.  Company Gardens and Gatsby sandwiches and hearing 5 different languages on any given day and Long Street and even our tiny little apartment. 

I'm trying to not be too dramatic about it all.  Trying to remind myself that I will come back, see my friends again, see the city.  But I don't think I'll ever live here again.  Never be a Capetonian again.  And try as I might to see silver linings, there is an inherent sadness at leaving a place you have loved so well.

Of course you never know.  Maybe fate will bring me back here one day.  Till that maybe-when, I just have to say, Cape Town, I love you.  Cape Town, I thank you.  Cape Town, I'll miss you very much.  Totsiens, beloved Cape Town.

PS:  I'll continue blogging from Mossel Bay, specifically, I have to document our last safari, this time to the Kgalagadi and Namibia.  So lots of pictures of that ... and of course I'll have final thoughts before we leave South Africa all together.

Cape Town: The Castle of Good Hope

Exactly one week from today, we will leave Cape Town.  We're going to Mossel Bay for 6 weeks for Aaron to finish up his analysis ... and then home!

I'm gonna wax poetic about Cape Town next week.  But first, I wanted to share one of our favorite places here in the Mother City:  The Castle of Good Hope 

 

I don't even wanna tell you how long I've been sitting on these pictures.  It's embarrassing.  What can I say?  Aaron and I went one weekend, I snapped some pictures with my little camera ... and then I just kinda forgot about them.  Which is crazy!  Because some of these are among my favorite pictures I've taken here in SA!

Ah well, better late than never, right?  This first pic is seriously one of my favorites of the past 15 months; it is a laughing lion at the front of the Castle:

Here's the Castle itself, the oldest surviving colonial building in South Africa, built between 1666 and 1679 by the Dutch East India Company:

The inner courtyard is really gorgeous.  You see Table Mountain in the background and it houses several museums, a cafe, etc.  We went into 2 of the museums, one of antiques and fine art and one a military museum.  No pictures inside -- sorry -- but they were quite interesting.

It also plays host to historic reenactments.  The day we went there was a guy shooting authentic cannons:

POOF.  BANG.  WOW.

We then took a tour of the premises.  There was a beautiful pool that had at one point been built over ... what a shame, it's really beautiful:

But my absolute favorite aspect of the whole Castle experience was the graffiti carved into the doors of the old prison:

Eerie, but captured in the wood and the golden light of the afternoon, beautiful.  And an intimate, tactile reminder of this beautiful city's dark past.

Cape Town: Townships

I think many of us have heard the term "township."  Around the world, I think the name Soweto is probably just as well-known (if not more so) than Johannesburg or Cape Town.

But it is one thing to know about them or to have perhaps read about them and it is another thing entirely to come face to face with them.

They are the ugliest, most grievous remnants of apartheid. 

During apartheid non-white South Africans were evicted from areas designated as "white only" and forced to move into segregated townships.  Sadly, the end of apartheid did not mean the end of townships and today, most South African towns and cities will have at least one township associated with them.  Many times, there will also be informal settlements ("squatter camps") at the outskirts of townships. 

Many townships suffer from poverty, gangs, violence, overcrowding, poor (or non-existent) sewage, water shortages and illegal (and highly dangerous) electrical use.  I say "many" because some townships (like Soweto, for example) have developed wealthy and middle-class areas.  But they are not the majority.

Aaron and I have been warned any number of ways to stay away from townships.  And it is a very logical warning -- after all, most of the horrible crime statistics associated with South Africa (rape, murder) occur there.  But it is very frustrating.  I feel like there is this whole other side to South Africa that I will never know, or see, or understand adequately.  Of course there are those "township tours" but they feel very ugly and voyeuristic to me -- something seedy about going to gawk and stare at "how the other half live."

The pictures below are the closest we have come to townships.  Noel and Karen drove us around near Khayelitsha one whole afternoon because, in Noel's words, "You must see this, this is part of the real South Africa."  Some of the photos have big splotches on them -- that's from the windows when Noel said we had to keep them closed.  We never left the car.  We never really stopped.  And this is the closest I will probably come to how many South Africans live.

It is as sick and sad as you can imagine.  I find the murals particularly heart-rending.  That bit of beauty trying to survive in such ugliness.