$0 = A LOT OF RANDS

We’re here!!! Another 11.5 hour flight later, we are finally in South Africa. It has been kind of a strange day. We landed in Cape Town this morning and were greeted by CIEE people dancing and singing. Brought back memories of the glory days at summer camp. The “Bug Juice” theme song definitely came to mind.

We got the on the bus that would take us to campus and met a lot of the people in our program, everyone seems really friendly and excited to be here. We checked into the dorm rooms in the Graca Mishel building at the University of Cape Town where we will be staying for orientation and until Saturday when we move into our houses. We were freshening up and Ellen and I were both incredibly thirsty. As we were talking I could literally see her eyes shifting back and forth between the sink and me. She asked me if I thought the water was safe to drink. At this point, I realized that she didn’t care what my answer was. I would not have been surprised if she had pulled a Bear Grylls and drank her own pee, preferably while talking about it an Aussie accent. That’s how bad this thirst was. Finally we gave in and decided to drink it and deal with the consequences later.

We ate lunch at Galito’s in a neighborhood called Rondebash. Galito’s is probably the South African equivalent of KFC. Wouldn’t have been surprised to see a Nelson Mandela/ Colonel Sanders love child as the logo. The food was pretty good, and I tried a typical South African cornmeal dish called pap. I didn’t realize that it was supposed to be eaten with something else—a sort of tomato onion chutney goes on top to give it flavor—so I ignored the suggestion of the Galito’s waitress and ordered it by itself. I came back about 2 minutes later with my tail between my legs and head down. Always the sweetheart, she took pity on me said, “I’ll show you how to eat.” You know someone has lost faith in your capability to function as a normal human being when they offer to show you how to eat.

After lunch, we stopped by and internet café, where I threw a fail Mary trying to send emails and use Skype. The internet connection was really slow and after I hit send, it took forever to go through and kicked me off the computer before anything went through. Definitely a reminder that although we are in a very industrial part of Africa, we are still in Africa. It just seems like everything operates a little slower here. There is no rush and no instant gratification. Once we got back to the Graca Mishel dorms, I started to feel really sick. I was really feverish and had a throbbing headache. Ellen was wonderful took care of me and brought me water and drugs while I lay down for a while. I don’t know what I would have done without her. I ended up missing our first session of orientation because I couldn’t stand up without feeling like I was going to faint. Around 7, I woke up in a cold sweat—I think the fever finally broke.

Feeling much better, I joined Ellen and 12 or so of the other people in the program who were downstairs drinking wine. The box of wine instructed us to “Enjoy It and Endorse It.” Although everyone seemed to be enjoying it, I don’t foresee us making any ad campaigns or public service announcements about it in the near future. Taylor had told me that a club called Tiger Tiger is fun on Tuesday nights, so Ellen and I attempted to rally the troops. Initially a few people seemed up for it, including Will “The F-ing Man” (yes, he was born in New Jersey) but eventually they ended up flaking on us. So Elle, Danny (one of our friends who is a USC Aepi for those who know him) and I decided to take matters into our own hands. We got a cab out to Tiger Tiger, which is situated on the 2^nd floor of a mall. When we got there, the bouncer informed Danny that he wouldn’t be allowed in because of the dress code. Imagine the bouncer at Dave & Busters at the local mall telling you that you were underdressed. I thought he was kidding at first. We ended up going down to another bar called “Tin Roof”. When we asked for directions, we were told to go “straight past the ‘ADULT PLAY’ sign and turn at the African drums,” which we took to be a good sign.

We were amazed by the cheapness of drinks in a non-American and non 9-0 bar setting. 2 vokda sodas, 2 vodka redbulls and 2 beers only set us back 63 Rand, or $7. This was both great and terrible news. The three of us ended up befriending a group of Portuguese South Africans who were absolutely hysterical. One of them, Gino told Ellen and I that for Americans, Cape Town is the best city in the entire world. His main argument was that there are gorgeous women. C’mon Gino, know your audience. But as he was explaining the strength of the American dollar and just the friendly attitude towards Americans in general, he asked Danny how many dollars he had. Danny said that he was broke, so he had zero. In a winning response. Gino looks at him and says, “Zero U.S. dollars is a lot of f-ing South African Rand!” And I think Gino might be right. Something he said towards the end of our conversation caught Ellen and I off guard. He basically insinuated that the black South Africans were responsible for “running our country into the ground” and advised us to stay away from them. We didn’t even know how to respond. People talk much more openly about race here than we do at home, and a lot of times it is a really positive practice. But this instance seemed indicative of a deeper-seated racism. Strange and a little off-putting, but a reminder than apartheid wasn’t that long ago.

-Becca