Another Long yet Rewarding Day

Again, the day started early, this time 7am, not as early as other days actually, but I hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep. After breakfast, I headed down the gangway to meet the rest of the group for the “Township by Bike and Interactive Soccer” SAS trip. Once it was time to leave (Howard and Krystal were also on the trip with me), we boarded the bus and made our way to the township. Once outside, we were introduced to our bikes, made our choices (a few people got ones that were too tall for them, like Krystal), and began the tour. Biking through the township was a lot of fun, especially watching many of the other students who haven’t traveled on a bicycle in a long time (they were wobbling a lot and falling off a number of times). One thing I definitely feel is that traveling through an area on a bicycle is by far one of the best ways of doing so. You are going faster than walking (allowing you to see more), but you are also going slower than a car and in the open air (allowing you to experience more of the sights and smells of the region). And like walking, you can stop whenever you want. The township itself did not seem as bad as I thought (at least yet). I was expecting to see slums, dirt, and broken-make-shift buildings, however there were relatively good roads, the buildings were well walled and roofed, and it was not really that dirty. This is probably because the guides were not taking us to the bad parts, for reasons such as safety. Our first stop was a children’s facility. There was a basketball court and sports facility/gym, which were recently built to provide the children with a clean and safe environment, and a place to escape the turmoils of their world and develop away from those problems. Also there was a “Life Centre” which treated the kids of sickness and illness, but also was there to help treat kids that had acquired AIDS/HIV from birth, blood transfusions, etc. This made me sad, that children had to suffer from such ailments and lose their childhood and innocence due to the problems they were facing, which were mostly aftermaths of apartheid and discrimination that the local Africans had faced on the past few centuries. Then I saw a sign: a gun symbol, red cross-out mark over it, and said “This is a Gun-Free Zone.” This really made me realize the horrible situation that these residents were living in, that even in a children’s facility, they have to put up such a specific sign to help keep the violence away from these kids. At the same time, I also felt pity for the people who committed such acts. As I learned from our guide later, these “criminals” were often victims of disturbing backgrounds, psychological diseases, poverty, etc: again, many problems that were results of past discrimination and apartheid. Next we stopped at a new train station under construction. As the guide explained the situation of local transport and other such issues, I noticed something behind us: a restaurant in a shipping-container. That’s when I realized that there were a number of other restaurants, stores, and even homes that were located in such containers, breaking the perception I had that this township was not “that bad.” We then made our way to local residence buildings, where we stopped by a tiny building with a flimsy tin garage door. Opening it we saw the entire walls of the building covered in painted hand prints of children, the children living in the nearby buildings. This was one of the “dance studios” for “Happy Feet,” an organization that taught children, from a very young age, a type of African dance with clapping hands, stomping feet, and clapping feet. This was also a way to “distract” children from the troubled world that surrounded them and give them something to enjoy. After looking at the insides of the building, and learning a short dance routine, we made our way to the school. First arriving at the school, it seemed relatively nice, but I was not going to let the looks deceive me. We entered a preschooler classroom, where we were greeted by the kids there singing a number of songs including the South African national anthem: they sounded adorable. We gave the class some art supplies that we had brought with us, and then went to the main square of the school where we were treated to the school’s gospel choir and happy feet dance troupe. The gospel choir had beautiful rhythm, pitch, and voices, and the dance troupe consisted of highly talented dancers ranging from preschooler to middle schooler (it was great to see a 6 year old go to the front of the group and lead them on a sequence). It was then our turn to show the dance group and the school our dancing skills, and we proceeded to embarrass ourselves (we failed for lack of a better word). Then, the entire school and we made our way for the soccer field. The school’s soccer team was already practicing on the field in their uniforms and proper soccer equipment. We thought that we were going to get destroyed, until we started playing. It’s not like the players were not skilled, I felt that they didn’t really know how to play as a team. Although the game went into penalty shootouts, we pretty much owned them, which made me feel bad. I feel like we should have let them won, but I wasn’t playing during the shootouts. It was then time for us to take our leave. We got back onto our bikes and exited the premises. We stopped at the shipping container shop of a local medicinal man. This was a very interesting experience, as we got to see all sorts of traditional medicines used by such medicinal people, many of which were bones and skins of animals. We took turns entering the shop in groups of four, talked to him for a short while, and then were blessed by him. Our next stop was a place of many variations. First of all we saw some pretty intense slums, like the ones I was expecting to see, with walls made out of scraps and garbage, like the ones I’ve seen in India. Then there was an entire group of very new houses that even had solar panels to provide their own electricity. The only problem with these houses is that there wasn’t really any occupying them, since most people who had to money to afford them would just leave the township all together. We stopped at a local restaurant that was actually officially recognized by FIFA during the recent World Cup. Inside we enjoyed some African bread and fresh orange juice before leaving. On our way to the buses we stopped in a more town-like area of the township with stores. There a man approached all of us with some drugs and an alcohol-smelling breath. Immediately our guide and a number of locals began yelling at him for making a bad impression on us and shooed him off. After that fiasco, we reached the buses and left for the ship. When we got back, Krystal went off with some friends leaving me and Howard alone. Neither of us had been to the FIFA Stadium in Cape Town yet, so we got directions for it on the ship and headed back out. We got there within 15 minutes, and boy was it big. I actually had to sweep my head a little bit just to be able to see the whole thing. We found the entrance and got tickets for the next tour. Inside the grounds, we first entered the reception hall and waited for the guide. The stadium was really cool looking, but not as amazing as I thought it would be. It was definitely spectacular, but the entire stadium was built mostly of just concrete (even the wakeways outside and fence), and the outside was covered by a cloth like material. As soon as our guide arrived, we started out tour of the 7 levels of the stadium. As soon as we got inside, I was taken aback by the sheer size of the grounds and stadium seating area. I could not imagine that only 3 months before, 75-80,000 people were flooding this stadium and world-famous soccer players were fighting it off. We started on the second floor, then third floor, all the way to the sixth floor, where we enjoyed a view from the top in a box seat. Then we went downstairs to the first floor and visited the locker rooms (which was amazing) and the stadiums jail.... that’s right, the stadium had its own JAIL for rowdy spectators or other such police reasons. Then we were allowed onto the main field. Although we were not allowed to actually stand on the field, we were able to touch the grass (wow, I know right) and standing down there, where the players sat on the side and coach barked on the ones on the field, really made me feel like I was kind of there (I could actually picture the roar of the crowd). Our tour was then over, so Howard and I headed back to the ship (right after going to the bathroom and using a sink faucet that shot out water like a rocket, and made a quick stop by the nearby McDonalds [of course there is one right outside the stadium] to see what it was like). After getting a little bit more internet time in the mall, and dinner on the ship, I was invited out by Drew. So Drew, Bria, Lorlei, Amy, Jenn, Veronica, Kevin, and I headed out to first the Green Dolphin, then Mitchell’s, then Long Street, then the Green Turtle Karaoke Lounge (where I engaged in karaoke for the first time ever; I sang Billie Jean by Michael Jackson with Drew), and Dublienese (where we got to see a live band play some popular teen music from the back in the states. By that time it was late, and yet the others still wanted to go out. However when it began raining, and we began being followed by some homeless people who were probably trans-gender and trying to help but just be really creepy at the same time, we decided it was time to head back. Once back to the ship, we checked to make sure the other taxi made it back alright, which they did, and then called it a night. It was late, and today was an intense day: township by bike, soccer with kids, FIFA stadium, and a fun night out with my friends. It was a good day
-Nimish
October 7, 2010