First five days in Cape Town

Posted by Mikkel
We have been 5 days in Cape Town. 5 days where I became a car owner and a house dweller, had whiskey shots with the girl driving me home, and compliments about my “African lips.” All in all very interesting days.

To begin with the materialistic account: We were picked up in the airport by Mette and our landlord Keith who immediately took us to our residence in the so-called District Six. District Six is a neighborhood just next to the centre of town which was claimed a “White Group Area” back in 1966. Most of the 60.000 coloured and black inhabitants were forced to move out in the townships on the Cape Flats – approximately half of them in houses provided by the government. The other 30.000 simply had to find out for themselves. There are hundreds of stories of people running out of their house just in time before the bulldozers leveled it with all their belongings.

Our house was one of the few to survive. It is a (for our standards) huge detached house with a garage, a beautiful view over the bay and a compulsory weekly cleaning lady (we had to take her because otherwise she would be out of work!). Today the area is becoming rather “multi-culti”, which is white slang for “not as good as only-whites areas”. Sunday we went to the car market and bought the second cheapest car for sale. It took me three test drives with three different vehicles, but third time it was instant love! A white South African produced Volkswagen Fox back from the Apartheid days. The owner had to fix a few things, but Wednesday I hope to drive it into our garage.

Cape Town is fantastic. Which other city can boost ocean and a 1000 meter close to vertical mountain side smack in your face. The beauty and the dangers are probably the most told stories about this place. So far we have only experienced the beauty, but safety issues take up quite a lot of attention – ours as well as most other inhabitants it seems. Many people talk about the places you cannot go, trains you should not take and stuff you should not wear. American Elina whom we met Saturday is constantly walking around with a pepper spray. I showed my disapproval with this practice by naming her Pepperlina…behind her back of course – I’m not risking anything with an armed American!

We are taking our precautions by not walking after dark, sticking to busy roads and places and using good old common sense. And so far we have only experienced really great people. One of them, Andrea, brought us home after a few beers and some shots in a bar. Normally something we would have objected against, but what do you do when it is too dangerous to walk home and maybe not safe to jump on a random taxi in the street. The toughest part of all this is actually the restrains you are put under compared to at home where you just jump on your bike and go in to town. But as I said earlier: we have only met great people here.

Another one of the great people, Mlamni, a guy our age from one of the townships who has been to Denmark, summed up the difference between the two countries for me. “Denmark and South Africa are completely the opposite,” he said, “I like how everything is so well organized in Denmark, but you go in to a bar and groups of people just sit by themselves for the whole evening.” People here are indeed quite opposite of us Danes: very open and very direct. Something I happily encountered first hand when a beautiful black woman (one out of many) next to me in the bar told me that I had good African lips! We chatted for a bit, shortly interrupted by Janine asking me to get her a drink (she might have sensed the competition!) I told my new acquaintance about my stand with Janine whereupon she responded: “You are crazy, man! Why do you bring a white woman with you to Africa!”

Today I started at my “work” at the City of Cape Town and Janine also started both at the university and the aids-organisation TAC. so probably there's some news on this front within a short time. We are also hoping to visit the Cape Flats and to go surfing this coming weekend. Take care all of you.