A Serious Problem

What I believe to be one of the most pressing issues confronting South Africa's youth today has come to my attention this week. The problem that I'm referring to is the presence of novelty T-shirts. Shirts with messages including, "I'm Sotally Tober" "A Weekend Wasted is not a Wasted Weekend" "I Can See Uranus" and "Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful, Hate Me Because Your Boyfriend Thinks So," need to be stopped immediately. Why anyone would buy a shirt like that is beyond me. It's a serious problem. Half of the South African population at UCT (real statistic) wears these shirts, and it blows my mind that how ridiculous and unfunny these shirts are. Its something you wear when you're 15. It baffles the mind.

That's not all I have to say today about South African clothing. Something else that bothers me and it is absurd that it does is my favorite South African clothing store, "Polo." But wait Nate, isn't Polo an American brand? Not so fast, my friend! There's nothing Ralph Lauren about this Polo. It's the same logo except backwards (The fact that I even notice this is a true testament to my going to Con.). It drives me crazy. Backwards! That's a pretty silly thing to be bothered by.

This week I learned how crazy pronunciation of Afrikaans is. Like not at all what you would think. UCT's Hospital is called Groote Schuur. Obviously it's pronounced Grewt Sh-ur. Nope! It's actually pronounced Hrewt-A-Ski (You got roll that H in the back of the throat). I don't think there are any pronunciation rules for this language, its just putting letters on paper and assigning other sounds to them.

Friday night, I had a fantastic experience. After doing a number similar to the week before (minus the wine at the bus stop) and getting stranded in downtown CT at UCT's campus there, I met some people coming out of a play who taught me about Jammie Surfing. It's riding the UCT Jammie Shuttles and standing up while the bus is in motion. This is fairly tame unless you get a driver like the one we had this night. Clearly intoxicated. As soon as someone would stand up here would SLAM on the brakes sending the surfer flying forward. These are busy roads even at night and he was just slamming on the brakes. Totally dangerous. And funny. Because that's how SA is, the more dangerous it is the funnier it probably is as well.

Went to a rugby game last night. I realized I don't understand the intricacies of that sport at all. The basic gameplay is very similar to real football. But then they just punt for seemingly no reason, and there are strange things that happen like guys get lifted from time to time. But it was fun nonetheless, Western Cape Stormers rocked the Wellington (NZ) Hurricanes 30-8.

Found a bar where they sell cans of Guinness, bottles of Beck's, and Pilsner Urdquell for R12 (less than $2) How are they making any profit? Those are all imported and usually cost a lot more everywhere else. Maybe that's why there's so much poverty here (not funny), but seriously it makes no sense.

We embark on our tour of the Garden Route (SA's Southern Coast) next week. Should be a blast. I have no idea what our plans are. But ostrich riding is at the top of my to-do list. Maybe meet some locals and go hunting. That's probably not true, but sounds exotic. Rune wants to go to Monkey Island, I don't know what that is, but it sounds touristy and I like it. And Monkeys. I like monkeys.

Xhosa is an impossible language to speak. Comprehension is up though. Test on Wednesday and Thursday. I should be fine though. Wish I could keep learning this language at home, way more fun than Spanish.

River of Dreams by Billy Joel, the soundtrack to my childhood memories, has been on repeat on my computer this week. What a great album. Billy Joel in general is fantastic. This had nothing to do with travel/ SA, but it needed to be said.

A friend asked me how big the Conn football stadium was last night. For obvious reasons, this is hilarious.

Townships Are Burning in the Western Cape

If I were to write a book, that's what I would call it. I think it has a great poetic ring.

Not to mention that's constantly happening. Townships are always burning, and I have no explanation for this. But yes, so my book waiting to be written will be called "Townships Are Burning in the Western Cape."

This week was low on the adventure scale. My only real adventure could be titled " A Tale of NonViolent Protest." It all started on Friday evening when I got done playing soccer (pretty much all I did this week) and got home at around 7 only to find out that we had taxis ORDERED for 7:30. The thing about taxis is when you order them, you can't negotiate the price and you get ripped off. So ordering taxis is essentially spending my money without asking. This doesn't even mention the fact that there always taxis parked a 2 minute walk from our house. So in 30 minutes I needed to get showered, changed, and since we were going out I wanted to save on money at the bars, drink some at home. So I decided I would check the Jammie Shuttle Schedule (the free UCT bus service) and see if they were going downtown any time in the near future. And they were, at 7:40, still a time crunch, so I figured I would bring my wine on the bus, hope the restaurant has some kind of BYOB policy, get it uncorked at the restaurant. So I rush through the shower, etc. and run to the Jammie stop, get there 5 minutes early only to find out the bus left already, so now I appeared to be screwed. My friends had left in a taxi, and the next Jammie didn't leave until 8:55 (55 minutes after our dinner reservations). But my choices were spend about R50 on a taxi myself (An exact contradiction of my act of protest) or wait an 1:20 for the next bus on the other side of campus. I chose B because I'm cheap and on a budget. So I walked across campus which was absolutely deserted on a Friday at 8, and took a seat at the Jammie Shuttle Stop with my bottle of wine and proceeded to wait. (In retrospect this story is not that exciting) The story essentially ends with my drinking my bottle of wine at the bus stop and talking to this guy from Uganda about how inefficient the Jammie Shuttles are. Not exciting. I'm sorry I even told that story.

This week I also learned that I don't know what a CV is. And my task for Inkanyezi (volunteer organization) was to teach the kids how to write a CV. I taught them how to make a resume, because I don't know what the difference is.

Also this week I decided that this place isn't a place I could ever LIVE. It's the ultimate vacation spot, but its so close to the US in a lot of ways that the things that are really different or missing from home seem to stick out more. Because of this I've decided my next extended trip will be well off the beaten path, I currently have my mind set on Mongolia (I don't think you can get further off the beaten path than the least densely populated country in the world) Well except maybe Pacific islands, or Chad.

There are 10 countries in the world that have 4 letters. (The one you'll always forget is Chad) No one ever remembers that one. Laos, Oman, Iran, Iraq, Figi, Peru, Chad, Cuba, Togo, Mali.

I have very little to say today.

The train yesterday (the one that is free on the weekend) was so packed. I've never been more squished anywhere, ever.

Speaking of trains, a girl riding a bike was hit by a train on a Stellenbosch wine tour. She's a legend. Just broke here arm. But where in the world is it easy enough to ride a bike off the road and directly onto train tracks (South Africa was the answer).

The weather looks okay today. Very hot, but I have no work, so I may try to hike Devil's Peak or Table Mountain.

My next post will be better.

I'm also totally cut off from the news, I've mostly stopped using the internet during the week. So if anything big is happening in the world, I don't know about it. It's very strange to be so cut off.