Raining with the Sun: Darren and the “Big Cats”

I slept poorly last night. This had nothing to do with the fact that it was my first night in a completely foreign country, but more due to the fact that I was jetlagged as hell and my clock was six hours behind Cape Town.

Nonetheless, I woke up at 7am to one of the most beautiful sunrises I had ever seen, as well as the sound of wailing wildlife outside my window. As much as I love animals, the sounds of birds waking you up is nothing less than irritating and makes you want to take a large shoe (preferably with a thick sole) and chuck it at them while screeching SHUT THE (fill in the blank with any four letter word) UP!!

I went up to the hostel’s café for a better view (and so that I could eat as well). Looking at the buffet and realizing how incredibly healthy people here eat, I can say with great certainty that I will come back to the states in a few months much slimmer. The coffee here is the best I have ever tasted, with a rich, bold flavor, and super strong.

 Looking at the sunrise, Table Mountain was illuminated by the rising sun, and lion’s head (another part of table mountain) was also illuminated. I must say though, that I have no idea why people say lion’s head looks like the head of a lion. It really doesn’t. If anything it looks like a large lump next to a small lump. No Mufasa silhouette :-(

About fifteen minutes later, although the sunrise is still beautiful it starts pouring and the fog starts to creep over the mountain. Attached is a short clip I took this morning of the mountains right in the back of the hostel I am staying in. I hope you all enjoy it. It’s my first attempt at editing a movie and I even figured out how to add music to it J. I promise I will get better with time, so don’t judge too harshly.

After writing a few emails and further trying to reassure my mother I am alive and doing well, I have a few things I have to do, one of which is going to get a bloody phone, and find a car or motorcycle.

Woohoo I got a phone. Still no car though L

Lunchtime: decided to eat a cheese and tomato sandwich at the hostel bar. No I haven’t had a drop of alcohol since I left Providence. Not because I don’t want to, but because I am simply not in the mood to do so just yet.

 While waiting for it to be made, I meet an older man who goes by the name of Darren. He looks to be in his fifties, and looks like a man who has seen many things. His hands are calloused and rough, and he wears nearly the same attire as Crocodile Dundee, except without the hat.

Before we start chatting I immediately recognize that his accent is none other than from the US. This is the first American I meet while in Cape Town.

Darren hails from Utah. He’s never really there though. Constantly traveling. He’s a conservationist who helps to catch what he calls “big cats” and other large wildlife for scientists to study. Yesterday he was in a park in the Western Cape five hours from CT. Tomorrow, Botswana to help with catching some lions that need to be tagged. His favorite place in the world to be in: Belize. His favorite African country: Kenya.

“Why do you like Kenya the most of all the African nations you have visited?”

“A few reasons. It has the best game and largest amount of wildlife. As soon as you step foot in Nairobi you know it’s an everyman for himself kind of place and you have to watch your back at every step.”

We talk for a solid hour about all sorts of things. Mainly our shared love of travel and politics. Darren is a lover of Obama and a hater of the following (from least to greatest): George W. Bush, Rumsfield, Dick Cheney, and Sarah Palin. According to Darren, Palin is not only severely “dangerous” for our country but also a “moron”.  I like this man already.

Off to explore the local area.

Never mind. It’s pouring and I am too lazy.

Car searching commences. Still no luck. Especially if you are an American.

Fall asleep again (damn it) but thankfully only for three hours today and not four like yesterday. If only I could get rid of this frickin jet lag faster.

Ate nachos covered in Kumasi cheese for dinner. Very yummy. Strike up another interesting conversation with two Dutch girls who have just come from the Limpopo province where they were doing volunteering work in orphanages. They are blonde and tall, and the bartenders give them more than enough attention. I thought the bartender was 27 or 28 at least. I find out he’s 21.

Another long day tomorrow including finding some damn transportation/avoid being ripped off because I hold an American passport and possibly explore the marketplace. Move in is tomorrow (yay!) for me into my flat which, (supposedly) is a two minute walk from here.

This weekend I put going to Robbin’s island and hiking table mountain at the top of my list.

Bon soir,

Carolyn

Up, Up, and Away

At the moment, I am currently at JFK International airport at gate B28 in Terminal 4 for the South African Airways flight 204 to Johannesburg. It’s 8:57 am, and my flight boards at 10:30 am.

 Has the excitement hit me yet? Not really. I think it’s more due to the fact that I am not only sleep deprived, but also the intense effort required of me (physically) to go through the god forsaken airport security that torments most travel goers has made it so that I am irritated with traveling already.

Oh TSA how I love thee.

Saturday night live did a wonderful little skit about TSA agents. They showed how if you wanted to get a more personal touch to your traveling experience, your best bet would be going through an airport security checkpoint, where TSA agents not only bark at you about not putting your cell phone and laptop in the same bin, but also, they give you a more “personal touch” when you set off the metal detector.

 You will receive nothing less than the deluxe man handling treatment by the

TSA agents. I personally set off metal detectors at airports every time I go through one. Today, I set off the alarm because I had metal bobby pins in my HAIR. Naturally, they pulled me aside to receive their well known “pat downs” where I was touched in the most sensual way possible that was within legal limits.

After my TSA agent “encounter” I went to the gate and camped out to sleep in a chair. When I woke up from my cat nap, the plane began boarding, and therefore I retrieved my things, cut in line, and boarded the plane headed for Jo’burg. Approximate flying time to Jo’burg: 15 hours.

My thoughts on this:  o_O

Arrive: 7:53 am in Jo’burg on Monday morning. Weather: sunny and a breezy 4 degrees Celsius. Went through customs where I had to put my luggage through a scanner. While I was standing by the carousel looking sad and confused, a lovely young woman in her early thirties came up to me:

“Allo sweetheart why do you look so gloom?”

“It’s been a long journey and I am impatient with how slow the carousel loading is going”

She looks at me then laughs. “Clearly you haven’t been to Africa before. Here everything is slow. I can say that with great certainty, because I am African”.

I smiled a bit then proceeded to watch out for my oversized luggage.

“Where are you staying and for how long?”

“I am staying in Cape Town for three months”

“No one is traveling with you?”

“Nope. I am flying solo here and back.”

She looks at me with a quizzical look. “Well honey you are so brave for so young a person. How old are you and why are you going to Cape Town?”

“I’m 21, and headed to Cape Town to do volunteer work with HIV in adolescents.”

“My, my, my. You are quite courageous for traveling all this way without having anyone you know nearby. I think you will be fine in Cape Town. It’s a wonderful city with much to offer. I’ve traveled all over the world and lived in New York, Sydney, Australia, and Jo’burg, and I will tell you that Africans are the nicest people you will ever meet. Cape Town is the most beautiful city in the world, and your experience there will most definitely change your life forever. I’m going to grab you a trolley so that you can put your luggage on it.”

After grabbing me a trolley, she gave me a hug and wished me well. Her last words to me were “The most important thing to do while you are there is to have fun”, and with a turn of her frame she disappeared into the crowd.

For the first time in quite some time, I didn’t feel so alone and felt somewhat comforted by her words.

Next stop: Cape Town

Welcome to Cape Town

Arrive in the beautiful yet rainy city of Cape Town at approximately 12:15pm. Meeting me, was the lovely Petra, a colleague of mine who hails from Belgium and who was kind enough to help me with my luggage and hostel stay. The first thing I noticed was how not only were the cars manual, but also how they were built so that the driver’s seat is on the passenger’s seat, (by American standards) and the roads are built by the British system in which everyone drives on the wrong side of the road.

 The city is absolutely stunning, surrounded by large mountains, an expansive oceanfront and many quaint houses built along the side of the mountain for as far as the eye can see. While we are driving along the very confusing highway system towards the area in which I will be staying, Petra points out a few things, such as lion’s head, table mountain and devil’s peak (all peaks and features of the mountains surrounding CT). While she is doing this I look like an idiot trying to absorb everything in.

We arrive at the hostel, where I check in and Petra lets me go to settle in and take care of a few things. I check my emails, and check in with my panicking mother who I calm down and assure that I am doing fine.

So my friends, my adventure begins. Tomorrow I am going to get a phone and figure out how the hell I am going to get from place to place in this sprawling gem of the Western Cape.

Until tomorrow~

Carolyn

5 days and counting. . .

“Why do you have to go there?”

My mother asked me this very question not too long ago, after I had told her I was headed to South Africa. Her reaction was not that surprising, given that her oldest child was about to embark on a 10,000 mile journey to Cape Town, South Africa. My closest family is in Spain, which was still significantly far away from Cape Town (approximately 7,000 miles). Also, the fact that I was going into “unfamiliar” territory with a dark history with the Apartheid not too long ago scared my mother. I had never been to this continent before, so I am completely unaccustomed to everything in regards to South Africa.

 I really can’t blame her for feeling this way. The rest of her two children (my younger sisters) were about thirty seconds away from leaving home to attend their respective universities. My younger sister Ana, was about to enter Jacksonville University and the youngest of us three, Marina, was matriculating at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Both are graduating in two weeks, and although I am sad I can’t go see them graduate (and possibly watch my mother faint from the emotional aspect of it all) they understand that I have to go on this journey and engage in research and explore this mystical land that has captured my interest for quite some time.

Before I can begin to write about my adventures (which I haven’t even really begun yet) I think it would be fair to at least tell you all what exactly got me to this point in my life in regards to my upcoming journey to South Africa.

It all started my freshman year at Brown when I enrolled in a spring semester course entitled “ENGL0130: Critical Reading and Writing II: The Research Essay” taught by the fabulous Lisa Egan. I went in the course, because I took Professor Egan’s ENGL0110 course and really loved her. She’s a great professor who gives phenomenal feedback on your essays which I can say with certainty helped me become a better writer. It was in her spring course that I wrote an essay on HIV and the amount of economical, political, and social effects it has on a nation when a certain portion of the population suffers from it. Naturally, it most affects a nation's heath care system. As you may or may not know, South Africa, Lesotho, and Swaziland contain some of the highest prevalence rates of HIV/AIDS in the world, with approximately one in every four adults being afflicted with HIV.

While I was preparing for the topic (in terms of outlining) to discuss with Professor Egan, a fellow student approached me after class one day and asked if I would interview him in regards to the topic because he said he had personal experience with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. I was hesitant at first to include an actual interview in my paper, but he seemed very eager to do the interview so I obliged. I interviewed this young man, and found out that he hailed from Lesotho, a landlocked and enclave nation nestled inside of South Africa. He fascinated me in what he had to say in how HIV/AIDS was viewed by his countrymen, and how they reacted to someone who was HIV positive. I included the interview in my essay, and even Professor Egan was thrilled to see me include an actual first hand account of how this young man encountered HIV in his country.

After I had written the essay, I was intrigued by HIV and how it affected sub-Saharan Africa. This along with the young man’s narrative was the driving point for me to learn as much as I could about this infectious disease. He sought me out after the class ended, and continued to discuss this with me at the end of the summer of my freshman year, and it was since then that I have had the pleasure and honor of calling the young man a great friend who I know will continue to be so for a very long time.

It was over the next two years that I began to take courses in other areas of academia, namely, Anthropology, Sociology, and Public Health in order to learn more about the effects of infectious diseases in developing nations. It was next in the fall of 2010, while taking another course entitled “PHP1070: Burden of Disease in Developing Nations” taught by Dr. McGarvey that I first learned of Dr. Mark Lurie, a colleague of Dr. McGarvey’s who not only was a South African native, but worked on various HIV projects throughout South Africa.

Of course I had no choice but to track down Dr. Lurie, and with many attempts (public health people are extremely difficult to get a hold of) I finally set up an official meeting in Starbucks and told him of my interest in working with him. It wasn’t until the next semester that I finally convinced him that I was truly dedicated to going to South Africa that he emailed my resume and cover letter to Dr. Catherine Mathews, a colleague of his in Cape Town who worked in the (HIV Component) of the Adolescents Research Institute at the University of Cape Town.

I won’t go into the specifics of the project today, but I will say that it intrigued me enough I began emailing Dr. Mathews and Dr. Lurie continuously in order to make this research trip happen, and through many long nights and elaborate emails and editing, I came up with enough financial aid through grants and a fellowship that allowed me to make the trip happen.

Today I am exactly five days from boarding the flight from JFK in New York to Johannesburg, South Africa then to Cape Town South Africa. I have many feelings about my impending travels, but I have to say that the strongest feeling I am experiencing is excitement. Every time I think about my trip not only do I get this strange adrenaline rush, in the sense that I am viewing this equally as an opportunity to research on a subject matter that I am interested in, as well as an adventure where I will be exploring the Western Cape, and enriching myself in all things South African in terms of it’s culture.

The next time I write an entry I will be in New York at the airport, about to board the South African Airways flight that will take me to Jo’burg (as it is called by the locals). At the moment, I am still in the process of getting ready to go, and still have a thousand and one things to do. 

My last thought before I go, is that I would like to thank everyone who supported me throughout the process “pre” South Africa and those who are supporting me throughout my duration while I am there. 

Above all, I want to thank the young man who helped to ignite my passion for my research and purpose in going to this area of the world. You know who you are and I won’t name you here because I know you will get embarrassed. ;-)

So, I hope you all check into my blog to hear about my adventures, and I will update everyday (although they may not be as lengthy as this first entry) about my experiences in the Western Cape.

Stay tuned~

Carolyn