Cape Town, South Africa - Rainbow Nation

"Hold fast to dreams. For if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly."  - Langston Hughes (Former Cape Town District 6 resident who was forcibly removed from his home because of the color of his skin)

Cape Town, South Africa Slide Show

"Back your feet over the ledge, lean back and wave both your hands to the crowd", said the Abseil Africa guide. He must have seen the fear gripping my body as he smiled and said, "you will be all right, mate." If I had the ability to speak (or move for that matter) at the time, I would have told him that a growth area of mine is TRUST and at the moment, I don't trust walking backwards down a 180 degree drop-off cliff, even if this is the world famous Table Mountain, being held by a harness and a rope, and I don't trust the backup safety mechanisms he just described, and I don't trust him.
Jennifer was 5 feet to my left on another rope and harness and she did not seem to be having the same trust issues as she smiled and waved to the people on the cliff who were obviously happy they were not doing what we were about to do. Jennifer's smile was soon to be wiped off her face. After much encouragement, we both started down the cliff, abseiling together as if this is something people around here do on a date. They kept yelling at us to enjoy the view. Forget the view, Jennifer and I were fighting for our lives! About halfway down, we found out what the "surprise" that they said was in store for us was. The cliff disappeared! There was nowhere to put our feet, so it was a free fall on the rope down to the bottom. When Noah got to this point, he yelled out, "what do I do"? After spinning around many times and eventually calming down, we realized that it indeed was an incredible view of Cape Town. We made it!
Now came the most difficult part - watching our son come down. Most of the time, we couldn't look, but Jennifer was able to get the picture to the right of Noah making his way down the cliff. He made it safely and actually wanted to go back up and do it again so he could enjoy the view without being paralyzed by fear. Oh, to be young again. This abseil on Table Mountain is billed as the tallest commercial abseil in the world. Let's just say it was plenty tall for me and Jennifer.
Our arrival in Africa was a little bit of an adventure. We flew from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Sao Paulo, Brazil to Johannesburg, South Africa to Cape Town, South Africa on 3 different airlines. Unfortunately, somewhere in this chain of travel, Jennifer's suitcase disappeared. At the time of this writing 9 days later, she still does not have her bag. On the longest leg from Brazil to South Africa, I sat next to a professor of forestry from Mozambique who I could tell had a bit of an issue sitting next to an American. But after 6 hours of discussions when I should have been sleeping that covered every topic he could think of and sharing a bottle of wine or 2, we now understand each other's points of view and he ended up offering up his beach house in Mozambique for us to stay at if we travel that way. This is yet another example of the generosity of the people that we have met along the way.
Okay, I admit it - arriving in South Africa was not what I expected of Africa. South Africa has every modern convenience that the United States has and is a well developed nation. We have yet to see an elephant, lion, or giraffe (those are coming later at Kruger National Park) - just an occasional baboon crossing the road. Beyond the abseiling adventure, we spent much of our time in Cape Town getting a feel for the history of South Africa. Dutch rule, British rule, and apartheid contributed greatly to shaping this nation. As we learned about the history of this wonderful country, we had to keep reminding ourselves that apartheid ended in 1991, not that long ago. Unfortunately, the scars of apartheid will take much longer to heal.
Apartheid became law in 1948. People were forced to carry ID cards that identified their race. They were categorized into 4 racial categories in order of social status: White, Asians, Coloreds (mixed race), and Black.  Blacks were imprisoned if they were caught without their cards. We took a boat out to Robben Island, where the prison that held Nelson Mandela for much of his 27 years of imprisonment is located. We were first given a tour by an incredibly bright and interesting man, who was a former leader in the Pan African Congress (PAC), a black activist group. Next, we received a tour of the prison from a former prisoner (prisoner #1883) that was in prison there from 1983 - 1992. You could feel the pain as he spoke of the atrocities that happened in the prison. The prison used the social categories mentioned above to give the blacks less food, more work, and bleaker accommodations.
While the black political activists were thrown into prison, many other blacks were removed from their homes and moved to all black poverty stricken townships. One of the neighborhoods where the blacks were removed from was District Six. At the District Six Museum, we saw pictures of what District Six looked like prior to the removal of it's residents from their homes. It was a vibrant city area that was bulldozed (and still sits mostly flattened today) after the black families were removed. Outside the museum, there is a plaque that reads, "All who pass by, the many thousands of people who lived for generations in District Six, and other parts of this city, and were forced by law to leave their homes because of the color of their skins. Father, forgive us . . .
Some of the people that were forced to move to a township, moved to Langa Township. This township is made up of old dilapidated buildings for the migrant workers, a "middle class" neighborhood and a shantytown with one faucet for the whole town and broken down outhouses. We toured all three of these sections, stopping to visit a preschool, the migrant worker's buildings and the shanty town. It was an eye opener for us, as we could not imagine living under these conditions. Our hearts broke for the children as they came rushing up to us for attention. Noah did a great job playing with the children, swinging many of them around holding them by their arms. Many of these shanty towns are being replaced by government built housing, which is one of the preparation projects for South Africa to host the 2010 World Cup. We can only hope that this project brings relief to these people. Click on the following link to see a video of the preschool children singing to us ==> Cape Town Video.
We have never been in a place where you can drive by a shanty town and 10 minutes later drive by a 5 million dollar home on the cliff overlooking the ocean. Our guide kept calling South Africa the Rainbow Nation. He was referring to the people who come from every type of background from Africa to Europe to Asia. Cape Town is all that and more. There is the ocean, a beautiful waterfront, museums, gardens, mountains, wildlife, and 11 official languages. It is incredibly diverse, complicated, and a wonderful place for us to spend a week despite the loss of Jennifer's luggage. We can only hope the rest of South Africa treats us as well as Cape Town did.
To see a slide show of Cape Town, click on the following link ==> Cape Town, South Africa Slide Show