Uhuru

May 3, 2002-Making A Getaway
(photos:Table Mountain,
Mandella's jail cell)

Computer “Chai” (lives)! I didn’t want to give it a “k’ayna hora” (to jinx as in giving an evil eye), but it has survived the highways and by-ways of Kenya. We held our breath after every ride and Jackson always checked with us to see if we were still up and running. He was a sincerely conscientious guide and put our comfort and safety first. He put in a bid for us to promote tourism in Kenya and emphasized that it was safe to go on safari. I reminded him that it was not long ago that the U.S. embassy was blown up in Nairobi. He agreed that might still be a deterrent for Americans.

I must say that the staff at the tent camp was on the spot when things didn’t go right. When I mentioned my ultra hot shower, they sent a crew of four men over to fix it. They all jammed into the stall and made a mess as only plumbers can. A maid who cleaned it up followed them. David had a blissfully temperate shower.

We’re now waiting for our flight on South African Air to Cape Town. David has only panicked three times since we got to the airport. He thought he’d lost his passport, a boarding pass, and a ticket on separate occasions. They were all found safe and sound where they should not be. We always like to look at the departure board to see the names of places we haven’t been. I decided I didn’t want to go anywhere I couldn’t pronounce.

The faces of passengers in the boarding area here are so white. It was a bit startling. Where are all the black Africans? I guess they’re not flying today. We got hit with another $10/person “insurance tax” but paid it with $20 U.S. cash so we didn’t have to mess with a credit card this time. We shifted the weight around in our carry-on bags in case they weigh them. We’re carrying water from India (we found it at the bottom of a suitcase) and Kenya, granola bars that came to us from the U.S. by way of Australia, and bread and butter sandwiches from our tent camp. We will not starve or dehydrate. When we bought film with our leftover shillings I saw a bill in the cash drawer that confused me. I questioned the cashier and he said it was a new U.S. $5 bill. We’ve been away too long.

I think the Hong Kong brothers made it to Nairobi, but we had to stop to help two vanloads. One was stuck in the mud. Six drivers pulled up and helped push. The second one had electrical trouble and help was on the way. We couldn’t take on their passengers since we were deadheading to the airport. Another “k’ayna hora” is that we never got stuck and we didn’t break an axel.

We went from primitive life to the sophisticated city and it was hard to tell where one began and the other ended. I don’t really think there’s a division at all. As we passed a glistening white satellite substation, we came upon goatherds and gazelles wandering in the road. When we entered the city limits of Nairobi there were still women toting huge bundles on their backs that were supported by straps that went around their foreheads. The swales and ditches along the roads are public domain and were being cultivated by people who live along the way. A truck had jack-knifed and the traditional way to alert drivers was to cut branches and lay them in the road similar to the way we use flares. Never without a machete, drivers stopped to help with this project. We rolled past public housing that make tenements in the Bronx look luxurious. In the city traffic jams, men were hawking wares as they set up a roving marketplace and wove in and out of the slowly limping traffic. It was a patchwork of eras, societies, and civilizations. My last sight of the “wild” was a hartebeest running across a field. His powerful muscles drove him on in pursuit of nothing but the feel of the wind in his face. He epitomized what black Kenyans fought for: Uhuru, freedom.

May 4, 2002-Detainees

The pilot on our flight to Johannesburg was a real card. He announced that one of the passengers decided to go into Nairobi to shop and was not back yet. His luggage was off the plane and we were ready to go. We went. When we were landing the pilot addressed the cabin crew and told them he had a 1 ½ hour drive home and didn’t want them to drag their heels getting off the plane once the passengers were unloaded. They seem to be a folksy bunch. I know this will sound pathetic, but I really got excited about the food on the South Africa Air flight to Johannesburg. There was a marinated salad that actually had flavor and a really nice chicken and rice. The food on safari was so average.

We only had one glitch when we landed in Johannesburg. We were finally at a real airport with shiny floors and high ceilings. It was an airport that looked complete. It was neither being renovated, partially built, nor falling apart from neglect. Aside from admiring the airport, we found out we might be denied entry to the country and have to spend 7 DAYS in the lovely airport. It did not seem so lovely anymore.

They wanted our vaccination certificates at immigration. All those papers were in a suitcase that had been checked through to Cape Town. We had to retrieve our luggage at baggage claim in Johannesburg, go through customs, and re-check them since Johannesburg was our entry point into the country of South Africa. David’s knees got weak. The official said he would keep our passports until we got the certificates for him. David told him we had to make a connection to Cape Town at which time the official stamped the passports. David offered to come back with the certificates but the man said he believed we had them. I wasn’t freaking out since I was having trouble understanding the official’s accent and in my mind things seemed to be moving along swimmingly.

Needle and Haystack

As an added bit of excitement, one of our bags was the last to appear at baggage claim in Cape Town. David was getting philosophical saying that somebody’s has to be last. We picked up our rental car in Cape Town at 11:30 PM after having traveled from the tent camp since 8 AM. We didn’t want to get lost going to the hotel late at night. We’d heard it’s not prudent to be driving around Cape Town in the evening without knowing where the safe places are. We got explicit directions from Avis and they were explicitly wrong. We were looking for the Holiday Inn Waterfront and had to stop at a gas station to ask. They tried to help us, but we went astray again. The place didn’t seem that sinister, but David was punchy and had stopped functioning. To add insult to injury, the rental car had the windshield wiper and directional signal controls reversed from the cars we’d driven in Australia. Every time David went to signal he put on the wipers. It unnerved and irritated him to such an extent that it became a real distraction. I was able to keep track of where we’d been in relation to where we were. I remembered passing a Holiday Inn off the highway and decided we should go there to ask where ours was. We lucked out and a local couple was just leaving that hotel after visiting a friend. They told us to follow them and led us to the doorstep of the Waterfront. We collapsed into our lovely room that actually has sheet rock walls and ceiling and electricity that stays on 24 hours a day. It’s a little piece of heaven.

Tarnished Jewel

Europeans first approached Cape Town as a way station while sailing around the Cape of Good Hope to the Indies. In 1652, the Dutch came. French Huguenots and British followed them. There were battles among the Europeans, among the African tribes, and between the Africans and Europeans. When anything of value was discovered like gold and diamonds, the British solution was annexation of that territory. In the end, South Africa was run by the Boers (Dutch, Germans, etc.) and the British. Apartheid and its evil was institutionalized in 1948 and mostly supported by the Boer population with Brits going along without much protest. It’s hard to imagine the Dutch settlers were so bigoted since The Netherlands is such an open society today. I guess the Calvinist Church of the 1600’s was the instigator for that mind set. When apartheid ended, the country was left with eleven official languages. English and Afrikaans are the most common and most signage is in both. I was surprised by how many people speak Afrikaans as a first language and how many speak heavily accented English. It’s kind of like French Canada. Those here of British stock have an accent similar to New Zealanders in that they say “fush” for fish and “sucks” for six.

We woke up to a stunning sunny day in the 70’s. We drove out to ride the cable car up Table Mountain and enjoyed the neighborhoods along the way. Cape Town seems to be a charming city sprawled at the base of the mountain and hugging the bays. It’s a miniature Sydney, Australia or a huge Queenstown, New Zealand. In any case, it’s a piece of Eden. Living here is cheaper than Australia. In South Africa we might live like multi-millionaires. David had a T-bone steak dinner tonight for $US 4.80. Unfortunately, its affluent white population who doesn’t trust the economy of the country is abandoning Cape Town and are afraid that the violence that has taken hold in the Johannesburg area will intensify here.

We’ve been on many cable cars but never one like this. It’s a huge round pod that holds about forty people standing. As the car goes up or down the mountain, the floor rotates while the glass walls stay in place. That affords everyone a 360-degree view. The mountain is rather steep and we watched in amazement as we sailed past rock climbers. We had breakfast at the top and realized that the coffee bar menu was intelligible. In the country that had overthrown apartheid, there was no such thing as a long black or a short white coffee. We were back in the land of espresso and cappuccino.

We returned to where we’d parked and were happy to see that Bonnie and Clyde had protected our car while we were gone. It’s common here for people to offer to watch your car and belongings for a “donation.” Evidently they perform a needed service and the names of our protectors gave it a unique twist.

We wanted to go to Robben Island where Nelson Mandela had been incarcerated so we drove on down to the ferry. It’s not hard driving here since the traffic proceeds in an orderly fashion and the rules of the road seem to be obeyed and enforced. The ferry dock is in a bustling area of the waterfront centered around an old clock tower and lined with shops and eateries. I got a rush when we came out of the parking lot into a new, modern shopping mall that was spotless. The inventory was clean and the shopkeepers didn’t ambush me. I told David I intended to move in for the day. My statement was prophetic since we had over an hour wait for the ferry and then decided to have dinner at the waterfront when we returned.

I didn’t know if the water here was safe to drink, so I asked people who looked like tourists about their experience. They said they had no problems with the water or with eating fresh uncooked fruits and vegetables. I’m looking forward to my first sandwich with lettuce and tomato in a long time. I’ll also revel in being able to rinse my toothbrush under the tap instead of sloshing it in a glass of mineral water.

Another Prison

We’re once more able to gaze out over the Atlantic Ocean. It’s the wrong side of it, but we’re closer than ever to the U.S. A sign indicated we’re equidistant from Miami, Florida and Sydney, Australia. Robben Island is seven miles off the coast of Cape Town. It ‘s had a long history as a way station for passing ships, a slave trading depot, a leper colony (5100 are buried there), a WWII battery, and a prison. In 1960 the criminal population was increased by the addition of political prisoners. The ANC and PAC civil rights movement had begun and wouldn’t quit until apartheid was dead. Prisoners were put to hard labor in quarries until 1971. Those not working in the quarries were put to work breaking up the rocks into little pieces. In Kenya we saw people along the roads doing that voluntarily just to earn a living. The rules of apartheid weren’t surprisingly applied within the prison walls until 1979. Food and clothing was apportioned by perceived “race” with the lighter “coloreds” getting more than the blacks. No whites were interned on Robben Island. Eventually Mandela was permitted to run a school there and many of the prisoners were ready to take a seat in the new government when they were freed. The last prisoner left in 1996. In its heyday, the island had 450 prison staff and 2000 prisoners living there. Now the 250 staff of the site and cultural center lives and works there. There have been three escape attempts with the only successful one being in 1600.

In the scheme of things prisons are awful places even if they have a million dollar view of Cape Town. We’ve seen our share over the last nine months. Certainly the Hanoi Hilton was worse than this. The conditions and maltreatment of the prisoners in Port Arthur and Sarah Island in Tasmania was more abysmal. No view could make up for the abuse and degradation that took place on Robben Island and the political prisoners fought a worthwhile fight. A lot of the impact of that battle was tarnished for me by the knowledge that today Nelson Mandela has taken the stance of sympathizing with the Palestinians and labeling Israel as promulgating their own form of apartheid. Even though Mandela has come up on my side of several issues and has been instrumental in promoting social action for AIDS treatment in Africa (a great number of people here wear the red ribbons), his anti-Israel position certainly taints my feelings about him.

Toby