My First Rugby Match

Friday night football?  Try again.  Friday night rugby!  Rugby is football to South Africa, but it’s better. 

A couple weeks ago, my roommates and I met up with the Boston College kids, here on a service trip, again.  This time we only had to walk down to Main Road from our apartment.  We all met at Cocoa Wah Wah on Main Road, a small bakery and restaurant, for some pasta and sangria.  Then, it was off to Newlands Stadium for South Africa’s favorite sport.  Currently, the international team, the Springboks, are in New Zealand for the Rugby World Cup.  But we settled for the next best thing, and watched a match with the teams from the national league, comparable with the NFL in the U.S.  The Sharks versus the Western Province.

 (Newlands Stadium)

The night was cold to say the least, and it was raining.  The group found seats on the first floor and farther back so the balcony above us shielded the rain.  Because of the rain the stadium was far from full, but Trevor, the 2-way guide who came with us, said it is usually packed.  The lights of the stadium were shining bright and the rain was falling hard as the two teams finally came onto the field to start the match.  Maybe it was because they don’t wear pads, maybe it was because I was in a foreign country, maybe it was because this sport was completely unknown to me, or maybe it was a culmination of them all…but whatever it was, I had the greatest time and in two 40 minute halves, I fell in love with the sport.  Though the fans were sparse, there was no lack of cheering and the screaming crowd engulfed me in their celebration of the game. 

I sat in the cold, my eyes never leaving the game, asking questions of Trevor, cheering, and sitting in amazement at the vendors walking around the stadium.  In the U.S. we have the usual cold drinks and the usual popcorn, cotton candy, and regular candy.  In South Africa they more than one up the U.S.  There were boys walking around with these huge black backpacks, which turned out to be huge containers of hot water.  On the sides were shoots holding plastic cups and a long spout that the boy could pull to the front of him to fill a cup with hot water.  But, of course, it wasn’t just hot water it was hot chocolate!  The boys carried around instant hot chocolate to make right in front of the fans. 

 (Hot Chocolate Vendor)

But the best vendor of all was the donut man.  Yes, they sold freshly baked donuts covered in chocolate. 

(Donut Man)

But enough of the atmosphere, back to the game.

As I live in Rondebosch, I am supposed to be a Western Cape fan.  However, Trevor and Megs were Sharks fans and pulled us into their group.  As the game progressed I learned a few of the rules.  The ball can only be passed backwards.  What is called a touchdown in football is called a try in rugby and is worth 5 points.  A kick through the goal post is worth 2 points.  A scrum is when the two teams lock heads and kick the ball around in their circle until it is kicked out. 

(Scrum)

Sometimes the ball is put into play by throwing it to the two teams from the sidelines, and each team lifts up one of their players to try and catch it. 

(Lifting up players to catch the ball)

Lastly, the game doesn’t end at the buzzer; it continues until the play is dead, which doesn’t happen as often as in football.

The first half of the game was a bit slow, but by the second half it became a lot closer.  In the end, the Sharks won 21-19!  It was my first rugby match ever, and it certainly won’t be my last.  The UCT rugby season is just beginning, and I will be sure to attend their games, as I am now an expert.

 (BC at the Rugby match)

Off to read my first birthday card and first mail I have received here in South Africa from Meredith “Meremaid” Behm!

District 6 Museum and Robben Island

At 8:30am Meg, one of the employees of 2waytravel, picked up my roommate SarahCatherine and I at our apartment.  A group of Boston College students were/are in Cape Town for a volunteer trip, about a week and a half, and we planned to meet up with them to visit the District 6 Museum and Robben Island. 

First, we went to the District 6 Museum.  For those of you who are unaware, before apartheid District 6 was a thriving cultural part of Cape Town.  However, as segregation and apartheid became prevalent, blacks and coloureds were forced from their homes to townships and eventually the entire district was destroyed.  Now, the land has yet to be used for anything except to add a little green to the city.  The museum is on part of the district, but otherwise the land is in limbo as former residents are applying to the government to reclaim the land they once called home.  The museum is a place for former residents to share their pictures, stories, and objects with the rest of the world.  In the middle of the building is a large hand drawn map of District 6. 

Former residents come and sign the map where they used to live and many have drawn in their shops and other landmarks that had been important to them.  Along the edges of the building is the history of the district along with pictures and artifacts from the former residents.  There are multiple artistic projects created by residents along with old street signs hanging from the walls. 

From the ceiling hang cloth pictures of important resident of the district and at the back of the room are quilts made by residents, along with a large tower of streets signs, built above a mound of dirt from District 6.  Among many other things there is a long cloth that former residents had signed in marker, which have been stitched over so it never fades, and a second cloth for visitors to sign if they have been touched by the museum.  One of the girls from the volunteer trip signed the cloth for BC. 

As we stood there admiring our schools signature, another student pointed our direction to another message written a little farther down on the cloth.  It was a message written by the first lady herself.  And here, below, is that exact message. 

The museum was beautiful.  I felt like I was in the memory box of an unsurpassable amount of people, all having added bits and pieces of their lives to project.  It was a privilege to have been let in to such a significant memory of the past.  I got the shivers walking around and taking in the life of the vibrant community and yet the hardship that could never be forgiven or forgotten.

After the museum, we drove to the waterfront.  SarahCatherine and I separated from the group and enjoyed burgers on the water, bathing in the sun as we watched seals swim around the water below us, and listened to the music of a water taxi docked at the nearby ramp.  As the sun grew hotter the rest of the BC students met us at the clock tower.  From there we made our way to the boat launch for Robben Island.

Unfortunately, by the time we boarded the boat the decks were full and we were forced to sit inside the boat.  We enjoyed an informational video about Robben Island and the people who occupied it, and arrived at the Island within twenty minutes.  SarahCatherine and I took no time boarding a tour bus, getting separated from our group in the mean time.  Nonetheless, the choice was a wise one.  Our tour guide informed us that many of the other tour guides were young and naïve, only driving from spot to spot to let the tourists out to look around.  Our guide let us take stops, but didn’t let us get out.  Instead, he made it his mission to incorporate the home country of all the tourists on our bus into the history of South Africa and better yet how these countries eventually led to the political imprisonment of many people on Robben Island. 

We saw…

1.      The Leper Graveyard—Robben Island had previously been home to those inflicted with leprosy so as not to infect the rest of the population.

2.     The house/imprisonment room of Robert Sobukwe—the founder of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) and the only prisoner in solitary confinement.  Our tour guide informed us that he never had visitors and thus his vocal cords had hardened when a visitor came at last, because he had been alone so long, never talking.  He also informed us that he communicated with the other prisoners with hand signals when he was out in his garden.

3.      Multiple churches

4.       The house that has been recently built for the governor to stay in when he visits—Hilary Clinton also stayed here on her visit to the island

5.    The actual town—about 150 people are currently living on the island

6.      Views of Cape Town from across the ocean

7.     An old pub where guards used to hang out

8.      A cannon built for WWII that was not completed until after WWII

9.       One of the Lime Quarries—this particular quarry was the one in which Nelson Mandela worked.  Our tour guide explained that the sun shone so strong off the lime that many workers became blind, while sunglasses were not provided until much later.  Nelson Mandela’s tear ducts can no longer produce tears and he therefore cannot have flash photography taken of him.

 (Lime Quarry where Mandela worked)

10   And finally, the maximum security prison that had been home to all the political prisoners before the prison was closed in 1991.

This time, we got a tour of the prison.  I leapt off the bus and the group was greeted by a jolly looking man with a bit of a belly, his Robben Island Museum shirt tucked into his pants, and sporting a ­­­baseball hat.  He was an ex-prisoner.  The man told us he was arrested in 197­6 and sent to Robben Island.  He explained that while he was a political prisoner, he was not as big a threat as others and was therefore placed in a communal cell, whereas leaders such as Nelson Mandela were housed in single cells in a different block.  He pointed out his cell window to us as he explained a bit about life in prison. 

 (Our guide pointing out his cell)

They were only in their cells from 4pm-6am, otherwise they were outside doing work on the island.  To keep themselves sane the prisoners participated in poetry readings, dance, song, and recreational sport.  A bit of information that came as a shock to me was the fact that they were tortured.  Our guide shared that one man he knew died of torture because he would not reveal any information.  They also smuggled in political readings and newspapers, along with communicating with the leaders in the single cells by sending messages through the cooks, who worked in all the blocks.  Next, our guide walked us around the prison.  He showed us the communal cells that held up to thirty people in bunk beds (mats were used until 1974) and through various courtyards to the many blocks within the prison.  He told us how much the prisoners hated the mailroom because they opened all the letters the prisoners received and showed us the place where prisoners were tried for various crimes while in prison. 

Finally, he brought us to a special courtyard.  Along the edges was a garden where all the political readings and things smuggled into the prison were hid in bottles and cans, and the corner where the prisoners dumped their bottles of waste at the end of the day, though they carried it with them all day long for bathroom purposes. 

 (The garden where all readings were hidden)

And of course he pointed out the fourth window from the left…Nelson Mandela’s cell.

 (Mandela's window fourth from the left)

At last he brought us down the corridor, and showed us Mandela’s cell.  It had been set up to look like what it would have looked like when mats were used; there was a trashcan, bedside table, and mat with blankets.  And that was it. 

 (Nelson Mandela's cell)

I hugged our guide goodbye as he showed us the way back to the boat.  As we walked back in the blazing sun I couldn’t help but think about what our bus guide had explained to us; the ex-prisoners cannot find jobs.  They are undesirable for work and therefore fall in with the rest of the 45% of the Captonian population that are jobless.  A bright side to this misery is that many of the ex-prisoners have become employed by the museum and every six tour buses employ another ex-prisoner.  So people, make your way to Robben Island!

White Shark Projects-Shark Cage Diving

The day began at 4:25 am.  A van from White Shark Projects, a shark cage diving company in SA, was to pick us up outside our apartment gate.  As WSP is located in Gansbaai, SA, approximately two hours from Cape Town, our van drivers must have gotten up at a little after 2 am, to come and fetch us.  It was dark on the drive to Gansbaai, so the van slept until we arrived on the coast.  We were greeted by two women, and shuffled into a sort of house, out of which WSP works, and told to help ourselves to a breakfast table of cereals, muffins, toast, eggs, and yogurt, along with milk, juice, and coffee.  It was about 7 am. 

We all dragged our feet to the breakfast table, and ate while the women passed around forms to fill out, along with emergency contact numbers.  My hand shook as I filled it out, dear god please don’t let them need to call my dad for any reason.  One by one we slipped our bathing suits on under our clothes in the bathrooms, and listened to Gerald, our boat driver, give us a few details and a brief outline of how the day would go.  The group consisted of 18 SSA (Semester Study Abroad) students and one man from Australia.  We were all bundled up in our clothes and the companies own bright orange wind jackets, and helped into life jackets.  Then it was up the ladder onto the boat, slipping the boat into the water, and we were off onto one the most exhilarating and terrifying experiences of my life.

We took the boat about twenty minutes from the shore.  I sat in the boat, freezing my ass off and second-guessing my decision to embark on this fearful journey.  But the sunrise was beautiful, sparkling off the water and hitting our eyes.  

Sea gulls flocked our boat and one of the crewmembers cut a chunk of tuna from the bucket and fed them from his hand. 

As we sailed on, the wind whipping my hair, one of the crewmembers began preparing the chum.  Chum is a mixture of cut up tuna fish, fish oil, and ocean water.  Once the boat has slowed down and is getting nearer to the place where it will anchor down, the chum is poured, bucket by bucket, into the ocean.  The hope is that the sharks will smell the chum, and follow the trail to the boat.  And so we sat for a bit, after the crew (the driver, the videographer/boss of the trip, and three other hands on crewmen) had anchored the boat and spilled more chum around the boat.

  They also threw a line, a tuna fish attached, into the water, pulling it back and forth along the water.  Suddenly, after mere moments of the fish hitting the water, the fin of a shark emerged by the side of the boat.  The first shark I had ever seen with my own eyes! 

 Quickly, Andy, the videographer and boss, passed around wet suits, seven ply (whatever that means), booties, goggles, and weighted belts to group number one.  I, of course, had volunteered for group number one, the first five divers to enter the cage.  I struggled with the wetsuit.  It was thick and tight and impossible to get on!  At last I squeezed myself into the suit, pulling the hood over my head and zipping myself into the most claustrophobic piece of clothing known to man, zipped on my booties, wore the weighted belt like a sash, and strapped on my goggles, which covered my nose and forced me to breath through my mouth only.

I was the last of the five to enter the cage.  The cage had already been lowered into the water, with about two feet still above, and was strapped to the side of the boat.  I climbed down the rungs of the cage and was immediately engulfed in the 10.7°C Atlantic Ocean.  I gasped for breath, the cold was almost unbearable.  But it was too late.  The crew closed the top of the cage and readied us for our first trip under the water.  We started with our hands holding the top of the cage above us and our feet on the yellow roped rung of the cage. 

When the crew yelled “down, down, down”, loudly and with a bit of aggression, we sucked in air and pulled ourselves below the water, slipping our felt under a bar at the bottom of the cage and holding onto the red bar with our hands.  The scene was unreal.  Schools of fish brushed right by my face, but in an instant it was over as I ran out of breath.  The trial run was unnerving, but it was finished, and I knew how to continue.  The underwater camera I had bought was useless, the crew commented.  The water was murky today and it would be hard to see a foot in front of you.  As we gabbed with our heads above water, the crew immediately yelled about an oncoming shark.  I breathed in and pulled myself below the water.  Looking left and right I couldn’t see much, the water truly was foggy.  But, out of nowhere, a flash of gray came into view directly in front of me and the tail of a great white shark flapped against the corner of the cage, my corner, right in front of me! 

It was exhilarating and deathly frightening at the same time.  And that was the closest I got to a shark.  For the whole of the twenty minutes the five of us were in the cage we saw three sharks, one of which came directly towards the girls to my right, close enough for them to see its teeth and the scars on its head.  

 At last it was time to get out of the water.  The experience was incredible and I am so very glad I participated in this momentous event, but the water was cold, I couldn’t breathe, and I was ready to get out.

After I had been in the cage, I sat on the upper deck watching everyone else.  I had a much better view of the sharks from above; the water was beautifully green and not nearly as murky from above as it actually was in the water.  While we were out on the boat our group saw six different sharks total.  The crew told us we were extremely lucky because they had taken a group out the day before and had only seen one shark for about thirty seconds, and all the boats around us that day had not seen any!  We were the few lucky ones.  We were lucky enough to see a baby shark swim up to the cage and bite it, getting stuck for a few seconds while we got a perfect view of a baby great white shark.  We were lucky enough to watch a 3.5 meter shark take the bait of tuna fish whole, leaving us a hookless rope, and yet a shark tooth wedged in the buoy attached to the rope. 

We were lucky enough to have gorgeous sunshine the entire morning, continually beating down on our backs, glimmering off the Atlantic, and making it easier to warm up after we exerted incredible efforts to pull the wetsuits off ourselves.  The morning was a success, and by 11 am we were already on our way back to shore, leaving behind us the sun, the Atlantic, the great white sharks, and the most exhilarating memory I have ever made.

 Back at the house we were served soup, bread, juice, and coffee, and one of the crewmembers played us the video footage he had been taking throughout our trip on the ocean.  The video was for sale, and I bought it.  It was expensive, but I want to be able to show everyone and anyone that I have gone shark cage diving in South Africa, the only place you can go shark cage diving, in the peak season, not to mention at the same time that the lame U.S. was celebrating shark week on the Discovery Channel.  Oh, and by the way, did I mention I went with the same company that Ricky Martin and Nicholas Cage went shark cage diving with? 

 But the point is, ask me about shark cage diving and I’ll tell you about it, then I’ll do you one better and show you the actual footage.

By 12 pm we were on the road back to Cape Town.  However, our driver made a pit stop in Hermanus, an ocean town known for whale watching and it’s famous whale festival, and I saw myself some whales. 

Needless to say, the day was an extreme success, well worth the money, well worth the lack of sleep, and well worth the constant smell of fish, still found in my clothes I worn on that most special day.  It’s a no brainer that if you ever have the chance, go shark cage diving.

Off to celebrate National Women’s Day tomorrow!

(1. Sunrise at 7am, 2. Our boat, 3. The sun as we got into the water, starting the day, 4. Fish eating out of the crewman's hand, 5. Chum and frozen tuna fish, 6. Throwing out the line, 7. Me getting into the cage, 8. Group #1 in the cage, 9. The shark that hit the cage by me, 10. Dive group #1, 11 & 12. Great white sharks! 13. Shark tooth, 14. Sun/water as we head for land, 15. Nicholas Cage and Ricky Martin, 16. Artsy cage, 17. Artsy boat, 18. Whale at Hermanus)