Africa 2001, Week 5 (or so): Cape Town health clinics, Gay Goth Night, and Tim's sudden goodbye

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Cape Town was the reason we went to South Africa in the first place. Tim had gone to Wharton for grad school and he signed up to join alumni and students of their healthcare management program for a volunteer stint at the city's medical clinics. We built the trip around that. Only later did we learn people call Cape Town the best city on earth.

I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. At the risk of sounding jaded or elitist, what I saw was a hybrid of places I’d already been. Table Mountain, looming over the city like a blockade against the rest of Africa, is like Anchorage’s Flat Top. The gargantuan mall at Victoria & Alfred Waterfront is New York’s South Street Seaport with more escalators. Long Street, the heart of the famed night life, is a bunch of anycity, anywhere bars. They’ve even got seals in the harbor, just like San Francisco. We ate Mexican food, went to a Scottish pub, watched American movies.

Of course, that makes it the best city in Africa.

Africa 2001: Week 4 - Matthew's Smile and the Cintsa Violin

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Biltong is South African jerky. It's available in beef, boar, and many more wild game options. As we drove south in a rental car from Hluhluwe toward Cape Town, Tim and I basically lived on it. Pringles, too.

We stuck mostly to the N2, the major southern highway, mastering the art of the South African highway pass. If you’re being overtaken, you pull halfway on to the shoulder. When the other driver gets by, he flicks on the hazards. You flash the brights. Thank you. You’re welcome. Polite at 90 mph. You gotta love it.

Mile after mile we listened to CDs we’d heard too often or radio stations whose geographical range far exceeded their musical one. You can’t get away from them and they don’t play anything you want to hear.

Once, we hopped on a smaller road to see the countryside. Chickens, goats, cows, impossibly full taxis, and ubiquitous brush fires made the driving high stress. People were everywhere – commuters sitting in the brush waiting for a ride, shoeless children running home from school, fat ladies with babies on their backs and bundles of sticks balanced on their heads walking back to their grass-roofed huts. We were rushing through a land that hurries for no one.

Through the better part of a week our only stop of consequence was in a town called Cintsa. We spent two nights at Buccaneer's Backpackers.

In the morning Tim and I paddled a hostel canoe up the nearby river until it was too shallow to continue, then drifted back at the water’s own pace. Big black and white kingfishers and tiny bright blue and orange ones yelled at us and skimmed along the banks, always staying a few trees ahead. Two birds with bright red heads and green bodies ate invisible fruit deep inside a tree. Cormorants lined the shores of the river mouth.

As soon as we returned from the two hour canoe ride, I left Tim and went with a bunch of other guests to a local school for a concert. In true African style, all eight of us squeezed into one open-top jeep. My head was two feet above the roll bar and my feet were inside the frame of an old seat. I really didn't expect a violin to cut me to the core that day.

After about twenty minutes our driver, a hostel employee named Mike, pulled into the parking lot of a local school. No kickball field, no basketball hoop, no cars, and no sign of a nearby town. There were three teachers, two older women who looked like nuns in civvies and a man named Matthew.

The students, who ranged in age from five to fourteen, flashed excited, shy smiles while we squeezed into their tiny desks, our knees folded high above our hips. They welcomed us with the national anthem: "United we shall stand/Let us live and strive for freedom/In South Africa our land." The song echoed off the damp, posterless walls and empty bookshelves.

All the girls wore dresses. Some had colorful dots on their face that looked tribal but might have been some sort of global teeny-bopper fad. Several boys wore cut-off indigo coveralls, hand-me-downs of the African workingman's uniform. A few were shirtless. Many were bare foot.

With Matthew's guidance, all forty children performed traditional African songs I'd never heard before and Christian classics barely recognizable through the thick accents. Kumbaya sounded like it always does.

They foot-stomped, heal-slapped, and finger-snapped to rival the best of off-Broadway. One brave girl took the stage alone and serenaded a ceramic frog. Her schoolmates came barging back into the room for the frog prince's royal wedding.

A ceremonial stick-fight degenerated into a playful stab-fest.

Older children laughed when the little ones didn't know the words, the rhythms, or the dances. A happy-eyed child of about 5 repeatedly jumped into the fray only to be knocked around like a pinball, disappear amid the sea of legs, and come crawling back out all teeth and joy.

Children who weren't performing sat coyly among the tourists.

Matthew translated lyrics, introduced acts, and shepherded his disorganized flock with amateur magnificence. He was the first to clap and the last to stop. The show was his gift to us because we cared to show up.

At the end, he asked all of us to point out our home country on a map that two of the older boys held above their heads (the walls were too damp and fragile for tape or tacks). USA, Germany, Switzerland, Northern Ireland, France - the names alone made the students' world a little bigger.

An English woman introduced herself and explained that she had been teaching violin to street children in Soweto, near Johannesburg, for the past several weeks. She asked to play and Matthew agreed.

He gasped and choked back tears when she opened the case. "I've never seen one in person before…maybe once or twice on TV."

She raised her bow. The room was still. And then she played. Classical music filled the room. The notes floated from grin to silent grin. Matthew was frozen, his smile so big it seemed like his face got wider to accommodate it.

When she offered him the violin, nobody breathed. He placed the pad on his neck, peeked at his audience and with one self-conscious stroke shattered the air with a cat-skinning screech. The room erupted. African children squealed. American and Europeans clapped, hooted, and howled. The nun-like teachers stamped their feet and jiggled in their seats, laughing without a sound.

Matthew enjoyed the ineptitude more than anyone. After a little guidance he played two of the most beautiful notes I've ever heard. Glowing with pleasure, he handed back the violin. The woman put it in its case.

Before we left, Mike the driver took up a collection to pay for basic school supplies and much-needed building repairs.
I forked over 50 Rand (about $6.50) and headed for the jeep, taking care not to step on the schoolyard chicken. The children were singing inside as we pulled away.

At dinner that night, a little voice in my head kept saying, “$6.50? 6 freakin 50!” I found Mike the driver and gave him the $50 that Hidde had rescued from Tofo. He promised to bring it to Matthew, who's probably smiling still.


After an overnight stop in the sleepy town of Swellendam, Tim and I arrived in Cape Town to do some volunteer work.

(note: The Christian Science Monitor originally published a big chunk of this installment)

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Africa 2001: Week 3 - Maputo, Gildo and a night we won't forget

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When Gareth called off our final dives in Tofo, Tim and I joined Nicky, Marti, and Anna in a scramble for the morning bus from Inhambane back to Maputo. The others had already left for it. If we got there in time we could travel again with our happy 9.

Sprint up the beach to Bamboozi, settle tabs, shower, change, corral our stuff, run back to town with packs on our backs. From there, Gareth gave us a ride to what passes for a major intersection so we could get a taxi. Instead, we got a ride from another dive guide. With time to spare we caught up with the others boarding the pleasantly empty bus. We were back in Maputo by nightfall.

In the morning, many left. Tim and I stayed with Nicky, Marti, and Anna. Why leave three fun, witty, eye-catching, 21 year old British girls? We went to see the city, five beaming white faces in a sea of thousands of black ones. We wandered around dirty gray streets amid fading architecture that was stooped and faded like a once-handsome old man. We found a market full of fruit, nuts (ever had a REALLY good cashew?), crafts, fish, and sundries. We haggled, stared, bought little and had fun. We checked out an old fort. From there we walked to a ferry to Catembe, a small village across the water (what water I cannot say).

Someone had told we absolutely had to have a drink at a restaurant there with an amazing view of the city. We never found it. Instead, we found a down-trodden African stereotype kind of place with chickens and goats roaming the streets. There was only one place that looked like it might have beer.

The waiter greeted us with a halting, "Good Afternoon, would you require some service?"

“Yes, please.”

With a clap and a smile he blurted, “What can I getcha?” Within minutes we learned his name was Gildo, he'd recently worked on the crew for Will Smith's "Ali" (filmed in Mozambique), and learned English in Secaucus, NJ, when his Mom worked at the UN High Commission for Refugees. He said she won the Nobel Peace Prize. He loved the States but went back to Africa because New Jersey was too rough. Plus, he felt an obligation to give his own country a shot.

Over the course of a few hours we had a couple of rounds and sampled everything on the menu -- both the prawns and the clams. When we boarded the ferry back, Gildo was there. I admit to a brief twinge of alarm. Stories I'd heard about the dark side of Mozambique and the dangers of exotic travel crept into my mind. Was he following us? Was his presence really a coincidence?

In any case, he came in handy when the ferry man refused our tickets. Gildo explained to us that the two ferries that go back and forth all day on the same route using the same docks are not affiliated. Our round trip tickets were for the other boat. We paid 50 cents each and kept chatting with Gildo.

Back in Maputo, he asked where we were going. We said, "Africa bar." He said, "Me, too. My buddies are picking me up." His friends Papa Joe and Thomas offered us a ride. As we piled into their van, I wondered if this was the start of an amazing night or a decision I'd regret until my (possibly imminent) death. When we didn't stop at a police checkpoint, I got even more anxious. "They have no reason to stop us," said Papa Joe.

But it's true that the Mozambique police were notoriously corrupt. Inside the bar, Gildo introduced us to John Paul, who had been to San Francisco once; Tony, who looked local but was Australian; and hordes of others who spoke varying degrees of English but were always happy to meet us. The band kicked in with a strange local mix of African beats and Latin sounds.

I swam merrily in a sea of laughter, carefree conversation, high-fives, hand shakes, and back slaps. The ladies draped their arms around Tim and me. Nicky showed the world an unexpected tongue stud. The lead singer in the band, with thick glasses, missing teeth, and a cheap red baseball hat, sang his heart out in what must have been Portuguese. He backed off the mike, put down his guitar, and did a little old man shuffle that set the crowd roaring. Our cheeks hurt from smiling so much. Tim beamed, "You know that feeling when there is nowhere else on earth you'd rather be?"

In a quiet moment, I asked Gildo if there was any message he wanted us to take home. What was it the world needed to know?

Africa is not what you think, he answered. It is sad, poor, messy, and bogged down in its own history, yes. But there is a new generation, a generation of Gildos and Papa Joes and others. They thank the older generation for all they have done, and want to give them comfy seats in retirement. The Africa Gildo envisions won’t be Europe or America. It will be Africa, always. It will succeed because sorrow, poverty, and strife do not demand pessimism. If the Africans, like Gildo, who'd been able to get out come home with their skills, brains, and optimism, they can build a better life for themselves, their families, and their countries. Together they can break the cycles that hold Africa back.

Then he saw a friend across the crowd and dashed off for another warm hello.

I had just read Kerouac's On the Road and there I was in a city I'd never even heard of before in a bar filled with different colors, tongues, and creeds, with one of my closest buddies making new friends, feeling good, and sharing pints with Gildo and the hope of all of Africa. The night washed over us. Tim danced through the room quoting Dean Moriarty: Blow Man Blow!

Several hours and another bar or two later, our new friend Tony gave us a ride home.

I don't know if Gildo’s vision has a shot. He may end up another shattered African dreamer. I hope not.

We rode the high of our night with Gildo through the next day.

To add to the joy, stuff that Tim and I had left in Tofo made it back to us. I had forgotten my jacket, with $50 in the pocket, in Gareth the dive instructor's truck. Not a big deal, really, since I hadn’t brought anything I wasn’t willing to lose or spend. Tim was a little more desparate. He had left his toiletry kit, complete with his glasses and additional contacts.

The host at our Maputo hostel told us our best shot was a woman named Alexandra who would be coming from Tofo in the next couple of days. We sent a fax to Gareth using a number he'd given me that was actually for a fax machine at another dive shop, since Gareth himself had no phone line at all. We wrote up some elaborate instructions on where to find my jacket, Steve's stuff, and the mystery woman named Alexandra, as well as how to find us in Maputo. Failing that, we suggested he mail it to the hotel in Cape Town where we’d be in a few weeks. He could use my money for postage and “his troubles.” We faxed it off, full of low expectations.

The next day we happened upon Hidde, the Dutchman from Bamboozi, crossing the street. “Tim. J.J. I have your stuff,” he said with a wave, seemingly oblivious to how unlikely it was that the fax went through, they found the jacket and dop kit, the buses ran, and he bumped into us in the middle of a city almost 500 miles away from where we’d last seen him. In fact, all he knew was that someone gave him our stuff and told him to look for us at the hostel in Maputo. When we asked what he would have done had he missed us, he gave the only reasonable answer: “Spent your fifty bucks.”

Anthea and SarahJane were with him. We spent the day together, fending off the street vendors who sell everything from sunglasses and CDs to Vick's Vapor Rub and cigarettes. Anthea put on quite a show dealing with them: “How much for the tiger balm?...What have you got there?.... Ahh, no, I’m grand, thanks!... Ooooh handbags! Now why would I want a handbag when I already have 2 rucksacks and three other bags.” I bought carved monkeys – Speak, See, Hear and the lesser-known Think No Evil – from a talented young artist named Tosh. He gave me a small carved bird as a gift “for his friend” (I lost it later). He wanted me to stay. I told him I had to go back to America to see my Mom. He understood.

We ate dinner in a fish market outside town where you could buy fresh food by the kilo, give it to the restaurants out back to cook as they see fit, eat a delicious meal, and then wait interminably for a taxi.

The next morning we left Mozambique on the “luxury coach.” It had a toilet and nobody had to sit in the aisles. At the Swaziland border a patrolman kept street urchins out of his country by chasing them with a whip. Swaziland is small and soon we were back in South Africa.

Tim and I were off to Hluhluwe, a national park on the far east coast of South Africa. The girls, now our friends, were off to Lesotho. It was a sad departure made easier by being quick. The bus made a special stop for Tim and me on the shoulder of a major highway at the bottom of an exit ramp. As it pulled away we waved goodbye to Anna – the easy-going, always game, calmly pretty centerpiece of the trio; Nicky – the modest babe in blend-with-the-crowd clothes who told me, “A beard suits you, but probably because it covers the fact that you’re butt ugly;” and Marti – athletic, quick with a room-filling smile, and never ashamed to admit when Montezuma was knocking on her colon. We would miss them.

The next few days passed in a flash. Ivan, the owner of Hluhluwe Backpackers, had been a professional hunter in Botswana. Once they started stocking private farms with big game and charging millionaires thousands to shoot captive animals, he retired. He'd been to Ohio once. Twelve Zulu men and women worked on his staff. In the previous 6 months, 9 had lost a family member to AIDS.

Our first day in the area, Tim and I walked for 12 miles around False Bay, seeing only a few warthogs and a solitary hiker. We moved south to the town of St Lucia and saw some hippos and crocs. In the woods by the river, we found a troop of vervet monkeys. They stared at us, too. We hung out together for twenty minutes or so, just yards apart.

Everywhere we went there were birds – red heads, orange bellies, stunning green wings, long white necks and bright yellow feet, humble little brown guys flitting among thick bushes. Each one new to me.

In 4 days we had to be in Cape Town. By car, it’s at least 24 hours of driving. We hopped the Bazzbus for an uneventful ride to an uneventful night in uneventful Durban.

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