Mzoli's (South African cuisine and culture)

Finally, after living here for about a week and a half, I have experienced South African cuisine and culture.  The experience was, of course, put on by my new best friends Mike and Trevor of the 2WayTravel company (check out the Botswana and Vic Falls Camping Safari…I’m going to try to do that for Spring Break!).  The group of about 40 people, all Ida Cooper’s darlings, met at the Tugwell Jammie stop (like the BC buses).  We all packed into two minibuses and we were off.  To the heart of South Africa.  To the epitome of cuisine and culture.  To the townships.

The scene was unknown territory.  Here, in the middle of clotheslines, filthy streets, and houses made of tin, sat the crowded and well-known Mzoli’s, a restaurant famous to Cape Townians.  We parked on the sidewalk, squeezed between numerous other cars from the city.  From there we were instructed on what the protocol was.  First, you were to buy drinks from the Chill House, and then you were to head into Mzoli’s and find the table that had been reserved for us.  Let me help to set the scene for those of you unlucky enough to never have the chance to happen upon Mzoli’s.  The Chill House is a tin shack on the opposite side of the road from the restaurant.  This is where you buy the alcohol.  This is where the men behind the iron bars quickly take your money and pass you back a six-pack of the famous African beer, Black Label.  In front of the Chill House, three or four tables are stationed along the street.  At each there is a man, dressed in rags, mismatched clothing, and shoving trinkets of cups and glasses made of beer and wine bottles at you. 

Across from the Chill House sits Mzoli’s.  In the U.S. I’m not even sure we would consider it a restaurant.  There is no building that is Mzoli’s.  Instead, it is one massively large tent, with clear plastic down the sides doubling as windows and walls.  Inside there are numerous tables, all filled with empty bottles and cups.  People are standing around barrels used as tables.  People are dancing.  People are smoking.  People are enjoying themselves, as is expected from Friday-Sunday, here at Mzoli’s.  The music gets louder as you walk to your table, but the music gets better as you sip on a Black Label.  However, the scene gets more surreal.  As you sit, surrounded by friends, enjoying a drink and laughing and talking, you can’t help but notice the people on the other side of the plastic wall.  Through the “window” you see two men, one holding a rack of sunglasses, the other sunglasses and plaid fedora hats.  They try to persuade you to buy their goods, walking back and forth from one end of the wall to the other, hoping and praying to get your attention.  Next to them is a little boy in a blue sweatshirt.  He is holding is stomach and reaching his hand out to touch the “window”.  He puts his hands to his eyes and squints against the sun, struggling to get a good view of what you are eating inside this sacred tent.  This is South African culture.  A mix of poverty and depression amongst song, dance, and company.

Next, came the South African cuisine.  For a starter, we were given bread, but not just bread.  Trevor, one of the travel guides, heaved a blue trash bag onto the table.  From the bag came smaller green shopping bags filled with these balls of dough.  Grabbing at the bread, it immediately spread its grease down my fingers, the heat from the oven burning my hand.  I was hungry and chowed down on this grease ball, food at last.  What happened next was a mix of memory and shock.  In my hands I held a piece of my childhood.  It was South African fried dough, it was the Minnesota state fair, it was the circus, it was the wind whipping my hair as I rode a merry-go-round.  It was beyond delicious, better than I would have ever imagined, and throughout the time we waited for the main course, I helped myself to two more…whatever they were called.

As our table began to get restless, standing up and swaying to the beat of the music, the meat of the day finally arrived.  Before us, were laid two trashcan lid sized plates of meat.  What type of meat it was must be left to the imagination.  There were some sort of sausage links, something that looked and tasted like chicken wings and legs that had been covered in spices and sauces, and then some kind of red meat that had also been slathered with herbs.  Along with the meat, we were given two big bowls of something that looked like mashed potatoes.  Upon questioning, I was told the white stuff was in fact a substance made of flour and a plethora of other ingredients.  Everyone grabbed at the food.  There were no utensils and there were no napkins.  This time I had listened to the email from 2WayTravel advising everyone to expect to get the clothes they wore extremely dirty.  So I happily gorged my face with unknown meat and flour mixture and wiped my hands down my Mahtomedi basketball shirt.  The table ate, drank, and celebrated this great South African tradition.

But once again, looking past the clear walls of the tent, the scene was different.  The men continued to try to sell their goods, and the little boy in the blue sweatshirt continued to stare.  Once our hunger had been ebbed by the delicious food, there were still scraps of meat on the trays.  Suddenly, my friend Jessie whipped around in his seat and began to talk to the little boy in the blue sweatshirt.  “Are you hungry?” Jessie asked the boy, pointing his hand to his stomach.  The boy nodded and Jessie proceeded to produce a long link of sausage from the table and pass it through the crack in the tent out towards the boy.  He smiled widely at us and took a bite of his sausage, tightly secured in his small and dirty hands.

After a while more of talking, dancing, and drinking, our guides schlepped us from the venue and pushed us again into the minibuses, making quite sure we were extremely uncomfortable and tightly packed in.  But the trip had been an extreme success, and I can now finally say that yes, I have indeed tried South African cuisine, and yes, in fact, I do love it.

Off to get ready for hump day!

(The first picture is of Mzoli's, the second is one of the balls of bread...the picture doesn't do the size and amount of grease justice, the third is the tray of meat, fourth is the flour mixture, and the last picture is of the little boy in the blue sweatshirt with his sausage!)

 

Peninsula Tour

A week ago today…

I awoke at 6:45 am and was out of the apartment by 7:30am, just in time to see the sun beginning to rise over Rondebosch, just a touch of pink and orange peaked over the far off mountaintops.  By 8 am, the some 400 study abroad students at UCT had boarded the coach buses for the Peninsula Tour, a tour of a lifetime.  I was innocent to the spectacular nature I would encounter, the horrific manmade poverty, and yet the dazzling of some unknown places.

            We made our way through Cape Town, passing a Hilton hotel, the World Cup stadium, the old World Cup stadium, and the Waterfront (the ritzy part of town).  After we made it through town, our scenic drive to the tip of the peninsula began.  The views of the Atlantic Ocean and the mountains were remarkable.  I snapped picture after picture of the dark blue ocean and the great mountains towering over us as we drove.  Our first stop along the way was Bantry Bay.  

We unloaded the buses, stretched our legs for ten minutes, and then hopped back on the road.  By a stroke of luck, I had happened to choose to sit in the window seat, and never have I been happier.  My face was pressed to the glass for the entire day of driving.  The views were much of the same on the way there, but every time the angle of a mountain changed even slightly, I was there to document it.  A little while later, we stopped again, this time at Simon’s Town.  In Simon’s Town we passed many vendors, selling their wooden masks and marble animal carvings, and walked on past to Boulders, a Table Mountain National Park.  There we walked down a rickety wooden pathway to the beach, where a plethora of tiny penguins were sunning themselves.  It was unreal to see these black and white animals walking around on the sand, coming in and out of the water, and climbing up the hills of greenery.  The sun was finally rising high into the sky and the ocean sparkled.

After driving a bit more inland, we stopped at a township called Ocean’s View.  As we slowed down into the town, the sites of rich mansions built on the mountains of South Africa were replaced with yellow apartment buildings, endless clotheslines between buildings, and blank stares of the citizens.  Trash littered the streets filled with dirty puddles.  The buses pulled into the community center, protected with barbed wire and guards, and parked.  We were shuffled into a gym packed with chairs.  After a short speech from the community center’s director, we were offered to help ourselves to the buffet tables full of food they had set up for us for lunch.  There was a sort of spicy salsa to eat plain, some rice and potatoes, some sort of red meat, and an assortment of beverages and deserts.  Once everyone had time to eat and settle back into their chairs, we were treated to performances by the community centers multiple talent groups.  We watched belly dancing, a young girls dance group, three older women dancing, a sort of theatrical mime/dance by two boys, a tribute to the younger Michael Jackson, along with hip hop dancing from older boys in the background, and listened to an acapella singer and two boys rapping.  All in all the lunch break was a great success and left me in awe at how well these young adults had excelled in such a condition as theirs.

Right away it was on the road again.  We enjoyed the scenic beaches as we traveled the final kilometers to Cape Point.  We parked, and immediately rushed from the buses to climb the stone path to the top of the point, where a lighthouse stood.  At the top, I felt like I was above all the world.  

I was surrounded by ocean, but beyond that could just barely see continued mountain ranges.  However, the lighthouse wasn’t actually at the farthest point of Cape Point.  You could only see the farthest point, which looked to be home to a smaller lighthouse.  Positioned next to the lighthouse we could reach was a pole with signs pointing to various major cities of the world, and their appropriate distance from Cape Point.  

From Cape Point was a great view of the Cape of Good Hope, neither of which are the southern most points of Africa, though many think they are.  As the number of people at the lighthouse grew, we made our way down the stone path and onto a dirt one leading to the Cape of Good Hope.  Walking along the edge of the cliff from point to point, I could see the white sand of the beach and the incredibly aqua colored ocean hitting its shores.  Never in my life have a seen such enticing water!  Finally, the whole group reached the Cape of Good Hope, just in time to take a few pictures and then head back down the mountain on a slippery zigzagging path.

At last by three we were back on the buses heading home.  This time we took a less scenic route, and the tour guide popped in a movie about the wonderful South Africa.  It was at this time that we passed many men and women selling firewood by the road, and I saw the group of people huddled by a brush fire, with the sight of mansions on the hill behind them in the distance.  The trip was successful, and I will forever by knowledgeable of the tragedies of the lives of many South Africans, and yet also of the beauty that appears untraveled at the peninsula.

Off to get ready for the first day of class tomorrow!

(The first picture is of Bantry Bay, the second of penguins at Simon's Town, the third is Ocean View's own Michael Jackson, the fourth is Cape Point, the fifth is the sign, and the last picture is of the Cape Of Good Hope)

Devil's Peak Hike

At 10:30am, we began our hike to Devil’s Peak, what is said to be the hardest hike up Table Mountain.  Our tour guides, Michael and Trevor, had warned us multiple times that people should not be signing up for this hike if they were not in shape, for it was an extremely strenuous hike.  Most of us just laughed these cautions off.  We assumed when they spoke of people who weren’t in shape that they really meant fat people, but were just too hesitant to say so (of course we were to be proven wrong.  South Africans have no problem spitting the truth, and this should have been a sign to us).  Nevertheless, I came to the “strenuous hike” as prepared as I could be.  My backpack was loaded down with a rain jacket, toilet paper, my lunch of a peanut butter sandwich, green apple, and carrots, three nalgene water bottles (two were my roommates), two regular sized water bottles, a cliff bar, sunglasses, my phone, my camera, my roommate’s camera, baseball hats, and a plethora of many peoples’ sweatshirts and jackets.

With a group of about forty study abroad students, we easily made it to Rhode’s Memorial and then hiked onward up the mountain.  The sun was blaring down on my back, and my bandana did little to mop the sweat dripping down my face.  Every thirty minutes or so we took a rest to let the rest of the group catch up and to replenish our bodies with water and snacks.  I constantly grabbed my camera out of my pack to snap pictures of the scenery and the heavily inclined terrain we were ascending.  After about an hour and a half of hiking, the guides informed us that the rest of the way to the top would have to be taken with caution.  And so the obstacle course of rock climbing and shimmying along the edge of cliff-like mountains began.  Multiple times I was forced to grab for the stalks of plants as I looked over my shoulder and down the mountain, causing my balance to waver.  We were literally holding our bodies as close to the mountain as possible to ensure we didn’t fall off.  

But at last, after a strenuous three and a half to four hour exhilarating hike up the mountain, we made it to the top of Devil’s Peak!  The view, as it had been during the entire climb up the mountain, was immaculate.  There was a clear view of Downtown (which refers to the inner city part of Cape Town), Observatory, Mowbray, Rondebosch, and of course varsity (college, UCT).  The view expanded for miles until we laid eyes on yet another set of mountain ranges.  Table Mountain stood directly to our left, and we had a clear view of the harbor, Robben Island (where Nelson Mandela was held captive), district six (a well known area during apartheid), and the World Cup Stadium.  For about thirty minutes we reveled in the indescribable views and discussed how no picture in the world could do such an experience justice.

            The two and a half our descent of the mountain brought an end to the climax of the hike.  The downhill was nasty to my knees and the slippery stones were in no way welcome.  Everyone was tired and the whole hike down was much quieter and drained of energy.  It was hard to see the path down and the battle scars from the brush on my legs continued to grow.  With only about half an hour left down the mountain, on of the orientation leaders who had come on the hike rolled her ankle.  Let’s just say, she wasn’t really prepared for a strenuous hike, as she wore jeans, flimsy tennis shoes, and her purse for the hike.  The guides told us to continue to the bottom and they would try to help her down.  But, as we reached Rhode’s Memorial, we all heard a loud buzzing from above us.  A helicopter had been called in, and she was being lifted from the mountain.  Though that wasn’t the most exciting part of the hike, it definitely added to the day as a whole.

            At 6:15 pm, Colleen, SarahCatherine, and I finally made it back to our apartment.  We showered, scouring the dried sweat and dirt from our bodies, ordered an extra large cheese pizza and cokes, and sat back to watch Fever Pitch on tv, which here is called The Perfect Catch.

Off to skype my dad!

(The first picture is of me sitting on Devil's Peak, looking out over Cape Town, the second is of many of the hikers climbing the very side of of the mountain, and the third is the breath-taking view of Cape Town from Devil's Peak, well worth the 7ish hour hike)

The First Few Days...

So here I am in Cape Town, South Africa.  And here I am to share with all of you my adventures of the next five months.  But, I thought I’d start by sharing with all of you a little bit about Cape Town…or what I have learned in the past few days…so you can get the gist of what it is like here. 

Let’s start with the most obvious elephant in the room.  Apartheid in South Africa ended a little less than 20 years ago.  While that is quite a long time for some, not much progress has happened here in terms of living conditions.  Most blacks and coloreds (South Africans use color only as a form of identification, and not as a derogatory term) still live in the townships they were forced to live in many years ago, and the houses of whites still stick out like a sore thumb on the hills of Table Mountain.  The mix of poverty and wealth mixed together is astounding.  Today, on the side of the road I saw a man and woman collecting sticks from brush to make a fire.  They were curled up in blankets.  It was getting close to dark and at night there is a chill in the air, and clearly the side of the road was their home.  In front of them stood a stack of chopped wood.  Presumably they made a living by selling this wood on the side of the road.  As I was situated a bit up a mountain, passing this couple while on a tour bus, I looked over the couple and into the valley.  Across the valley stood another mountain.  Scattered all along the lower hills many mansions had been built.  Here, with one look, I could see richness and prosperity and extreme poverty and hardship.  It’s true what many people say, the mix of rich and poor in this city is truly unsettling.

On to the weather.  Technically it is winter here in Cape Town.  Winters are mostly full of rain and the temperature can be from 40°C-70°C ballpark (though they measure temperature in Fahrenheit).  However, lucky for me, I have yet to spot a drop of rain…knock on wood.  Though there has been no rain, the weather here is quite tricky to decipher.  I quote my coordinator here at UCT, Ida Cooper, when I say “Cape Town has it’s own microclimate and can have four seasons in one day.”  In the mornings and at night it has been relatively cold, and with no heating in the apartment, I have had to bundle up in pants and sweatshirts.  But suddenly during the middle of the day, the heat of the African sun becomes unbearable and I find myself in shorts and a t-shirt.  Basically, the winters here are extremely unpredictable.

Now of course I couldn’t talk about my life here without discussing food.  But, the food so far has been a bit surreal.  Cape Town is mainly known for its meats, and odd ones at that such as ostrich, crocodile, and warthog.  Without much of a steady cuisine to call its own, Cape Town is filled with restaurants of all types, as is usually expected in big cities.  It is a bit weird though that while I’ve been here I’ve eaten Indian food, Italian food, and American food, but not yet any South African food.  I have, however, succumbed to the South African ritual of drinking tea instead of coffee.  Most of you should know by now that I am a huge coffee drinker, and have at least one cup a day, usually two, sometimes three.  Thus it was quite the letdown to find out the coffee drunk here is mostly instant, unless of course you find a fine coffee house.  The norm is to drink tea.  True is the saying when in South Africa, do as the South Africans, and that is what I will do.  Currently I have purchased for myself some green tea.  I bought the tea on my first shopping trip as a real person.  I suddenly have no meal plan and no parents to cook for me.  I have to fend for myself now in the kitchen.  So, on my first grocery store run in Cape Town, and my first grocery store run ever done just for me and not my family, I purchased mainly the necessities: milk, orange juice, eggs, cheddar cheese, green apples, carrots, chick peas, bran flake cereal, butter, pasta, wheat bread, and of course green tea.  This all came to a total of R150, a little over $20.

Finally, let me describe to you where I am living.  I am living in Devonshire Hill Apartments, 13 Grotto Road, Rondebosch.  The apartment complex is gated and houses at least three buildings that I know of.  Rondebosch is the name of the sort of area I am living in, though it’s still a part of Cape Town.  My apartment door is gated and the door itself has two locks, so three locks in total to lock and unlock in order to get in and out of the apartment (But I’m not complaining...make it 20 locks, as long as I don’t get anything stolen, as crime here really is as common as people drinking tea).  Before getting into the apartment, if one turns around, there is an amazing view of Rondebosch and the areas beyond until you see another mountain range.  Walking into the apartment, there is a stairway on the right, a bathroom and the kitchen to the left, the living room in front of you, and the dining room with a balcony, attached to the living room.  Both the living room and dining room boast immaculate views of Table Mountain.  Up the stairs is a shower and sink room on the left, a second bathroom with just a toilet, and a single bedroom.  To the right is a double room with big windows and a single room with a balcony, both again harboring views of Table Mountain.  My room is the single with the balcony.  It is small and sparse, but the view is like a dream.

I know I said I was done but there are still a few more subjects to touch on.  The Internet.  The only free Internet here is in the library at UCT (University of Cape Town).  Thus I was unable to let my parents know I was safe until a few days after I had arrived when I was finally able to pay R5 for 15 minutes of internet at an Internet café.  There is also a shop down on Main Street that offers wireless if you buy their goods.  Here at the apartment, you pay for Internet per megabyte.  Unfortunately, pictures that pop up all over any site on the Internet take up a lot of download space, a lot of megabytes.  Therefore, I had to unclick a button that automatically downloaded images.  When I go to Google the “Google” image no longer comes up and facebook is a bore because I can’t see anyone’s pictures.  I am really now only using the Internet for email or to look things up.  Now, money.  The South African currency is called Rand.  There are approximately R7 (seven rand) to a dollar, everything here must be divided by seven to obtain the amount in dollars.  Because of this, everything here seems relatively cheap.  On a taxi ride one night I ended up only spending R10, a little over $1.

Off to celebrate Nelson Mandela’s Birthday!

(The first picture is of my first shopping trip, the second is the first sunrise I witnessed from the front door of my apartment, and the third is a sampling of what some of the Rand bills look like.)