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| Cape Town, South Africa |
desmond tutu is one of my heroes and a couple of weeks ago now, i was once again priveleged to visit his amazing and beautiful country, cape town, south africa. i am clear now that there is no accident that is has taken me this long to be here and writing about my experience in his country, partly because i am still processing the juxposition of what learning it has to offer me and again, as in every other port so far, how i will take action locally with what i am experiencing globally. i remember the beauty in south africa when i was here 10 years ago and yet i did not get to experience the dire poverty, illness and desparation of many of its people like i did this time around...
and so i will just write i suppose of some of the experiences i had and how the juxposition lead me to ubuntu.
it all started for me the night before, when we sang the national anthem of south africa for pre-port...all i will say is that the music, words & being with others singing that song together brought tears to my eyes...i wish i could have it playing in the background now for you so you can have a sense of the melody, words and spirit it exudes, but will share this with you when i get home, whether in the background of my slideshow or perhaps you will just hear it playing at my home, when you come to visit. i did not have many plans for what i was going to do in south africa, other than knowing that i had bought a U2 ticket for a lot of money 2 days before, which i was honestly excited about attending, along with 75,000 others!
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| 36 hours of madness! |
we were warned then that the seas may be too rough for us to come into port, but never did i think we would spend the next 37 hours circling around outside Cape Town in rough waters! trips had to be cancelled, tensions were rising and we were all just anxious to be off the ship after 6 days at sea...i know many were just excited to have a little bit of "normal" too, as we heard about the beautiful shops, wine country and the like to do in Cape Town. because i was just going to go with the flow, i was pretty laid back and patient, but i will say, others around me were becoming angry and even somewhat vocal about their plans being cancelled! some of us actually went on the back deck and chanted some hindi worships to the water gods to help bring us to shore...minutes later, we were heading into port!
the next afternoon, we were finally able to work with the port authorities to be brought in and we aside by 1pm. deb and i got off and just wandered around the port area just to get our sea legs again and i decided that this might be a good time to rent a car before 75,000 people came to the port area later that afternoon for the concert that night.
that evening, Marti, Suzanne, Brittney, Dustin and I (along with quite a few other students & LLL's) trekked to the stadium which was right up the hill from the port! i will say that i had not been to a concert with 75,000 of my closest friends for quite some time (aging myself now), but lets just say it brought flashbacks of Days on the Green in San Francisco in years gone by! i will say that their security & crowd control was amazing~the only drawback was waiting to buy a t-shirt in the ONE booth they had for all of us to purchase a shirt from-i happened to get the last green one off the manikin for women! we ended up in row 2 with pretty amazing seats and i was able to bring my video camera in~again, aging myself a bit, i could only remember some of his older classics, although the experience was worth the time spent listening to his new songs and gosh, when was the next time i would have the opportunity to be in cape town listening to U2~carpe diem!
the next morning, deb and i went & picked up the rental car and because of all the changes in plans after losing a day, ended up heading to the wine country on our own! having received great hints from john, the hotel director, Jane & Dwight Allison,Cindy Zomchek and the wonderful memory of Shaun Travers, we put together a full day of locations to taste, with a repeat performance at a lunch place i went to 10 years back where i had one of my most favorite meals ever. the first winery, warwick was definitely the best, with a close second boschendhal and right behind, nederberg. the lunch spot was at le petite ferme, atop a hill overlooking the Franschoek valley~sipping on their wines, enjoying crab cakes & an amazing salad~& for dessert, lemongrass creme brulee-ah, fond memories swept over me from 10 years back with shaun, laurel, bob and bj! it was just as serene and stunningly beautiful today you guys~as if you were here, but you were surely missed! it was a decandent and yet fulfilling day of red wine & food, 2 of my favorite past times and sharing this all with my friend Deb!
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| boschendal winery |
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| lemongrass creme brulee |
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| one degree of separation with SAS! |
we decided to head back to the ship where we were meeting up with others for dinner at FORKS that night. again, plans changed with quite a few folks and we ended up with 7 of us going and having an amazing meal together...that night was another one of those typical sas moments when the 5 of us realized that we had numerous interconnected friendship in common who all told us about the restaurant and must place to be together~so this pic is to all of you, Cindy, Adam, Becca and others!
the next day was also a bit up in the air but after rummaging around for others to join us, we decided to head out again on our own up the east coast of africa to hermanes, where again dwight & jane had mentioned to go! the coastline was spectacular~winding roads, cliffs down to heavenly beaches, including surf spots here & there. these towns were all quaint, pristine & the homes expensive! this was the first time i realized the juxtoposition of the shanty towns leaving cape town and an occassional squatter shacks we would see here and there on our way through quite extreme to the multi million dollar mansions and land along the coastline. it sat there in my mind unspoken, yet clearly present in reality.
we stopped in betty's bay, where we heard was a penguin colony. although i slightly remember folks talking about seeing the penguins near the cape of good hope that last time i was here, i could never really put this together until i realized that the african penguin (better known as the jackass penguin) does not clearly need cold weather to survive....oh my goodness, were they amazingly adorable...yes, i do have a thing for penguins, because of my spiritual guru, jacob glass...you see, jacob doesn't talk in leaps of faith, he just reminds us to take penguin steps everyday towards bliss & peace...so here i was, in betty's bay (i also call everyone whose name i don't remember betty) with the penguins~i truly was in pure joy just sitting & watching them walk...well really waddle and jump from here to there! i even have some of my own footage waddling i will have to share with you later~just use your imagination & have a good laugh on me!
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| being with penguin steps! |
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| a colony of penguins |
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| surfer's heaven! |
we stopped here & there when the spirit or cliff moved us and finally got to hermanes about 1pm. both of us were a bit hungry so we choose a restaurant along the water and had lunch. i ended up befriending the owners, who were a great couple and invited them (of course) to come visit when they are in the states...
of course santa barbara was one of their favorite place they stopped while in the states several years back!
the drive was amazing and we were ready to be out of the car for the remainder of our time there.
the next morning after returning the car, i was a trip leader for the hunger project day trip. there were only 21 of us (suppose to be closer 40) in a huge air conditioned bus that took off for the day with the coordinator of the program on board as our guide for the day. she took us to 3 sample locations of what type of work this amazing ngo does to insure that mainly children have at least one nutritious meal a day. (of course we had lunch enough for 40 as we took off for the day!
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| the red dot club! |
the first stop was a day care facility for approximately 60 children, from age 2 to 6. this was one of the groups they work with to track the poverty & hunger levels of children over time. we spent about an 1.5 hours playing with the kids, but also weighing each child to graph where they were on a level of risk that this project was measuring...you try and get a 4 year young child to take off their shoes and step on a metal box held by a white young person while 20+ others watched....clearly we had our work cut out for us! but really all it took was pulling out some bubbles, crayon books, stickers and whala, you had an engaged & playful child!
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| random loving chaos! |
the second stop was with another amazing man who basically had taken the small plot of space (not land) that he had and put a container on it and built a small library for the local kids to come after school and hang out with him. he had worked with several organizations to get the container for free as well as the hunger project to subsidize some hearty soup he made for the children every afternoon. we ended up leaving all the extra lunch boxes with him to distribute that day to the kids and their families along with a small supply of paper and crayons some of us had with us to contribute to this library-i am clear that i will figure out a way to send more supplies, either through sas or personally~i was able to get his address and a way to get a hold of him.
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| the library |
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| his kitchen where he makes soup daily! |
our third stop was a more rual village which were full of shanty shacks, yet in the midst of it all, we found a woman who had a simple plaster home with a huge garage which she filled up with children from age 4 to 18 everyday for thier one meal. for this stop, we brought food which was a donation from part of our ticket for this trip. she had the children sing an amazing little song they had prepared and were able to sit and just be with them as we both starred at each other in awe and amazement~by this time, by eyes filled with tears as i sat and pondered about what a difference this one woman made in the lives of all these kids in this small village....she did not have much either, yet all she was about was giving back all the grace she was given! i was moved.
we came back to ship that evening and i got caught in this battle with myself of the grace that i have been given to live such a full and amazing life and what little it will take to bring grace to one child's life at a time at home! i have been in contact with the local school now and have promised to come back and share my travels with the children there and perhaps create some type of shared sponsor program with the hunger project in africa and the local school in santa barbara!
when we home, in the late afternoon, and while i was taking a shower, i noticed that my left leg was quite swollen...i did not think anything of it and decided to take it easy~i showed it to randi sue and she said to just stay off it and take some ibuprofen...sure enough 3 hours later, it seemed to bet getting worse, surely not better and so i decided i best check this out. when i went down to the clinic they took my blood pressure and it was sky rocket high~needless to say, dr bill thought best to go and check this out at the local emergency~because we had a long stretch ahead of us to India with a one day stop on an island, we thought that if something was wrong, this was the place to catch it! i suspected that they thought it might be some type of potential clot so best to rule it out! by the time we arrived at the emergency, it was 11:30pm and no one was luckily there! the swelling had gone done substantially but my blood pressure was still way out of line. the er doc suggested that we wait until morning to get a cat scan on my leg to rule out any blockages and thought i was going to be fine. the next day, i returned back and got the ultra sound-sure enough i had what is called bakers cyst~the radiologists assured me that i would be fine and to have it looked at once i got home! relieved i headed back to the ship, thankfully knowing this was a minor setback on my p90X program but not going to stop me from completing the voyage~clearly i was relieved!
i found myself hybernating a bit that night as we left south africa, needing to process the past 5 days of amazing beauty right alongside the oppression and poverty still present in the country along with relief that i was going to be ok. so africa filled me up with gratitude once again for my amazing life, not to be taken for granted for not even one moment!
so there is still much work to do, here and at home...i am again open and available to others now....i declare myself a person with ubuntu...a person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.
i am once again moved to action.
Authentic Connections~committed to a world where peace, passion and love are present for everyone as they transition gracefully from one chapter of their lives to the next.
"Greatness is not in where we stand, but in what direction we are moving. We must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it -- but sail we must and not drift, nor lie at anchor." - Oliver Wendell Holmes
