I arrived in Cape Town on Sunday around midday. My sister was visiting from Switzerland, and
she joined my brother Andre and his wife Lerene to meet me at the airport. I picked up a car at Avis, and then Suzi and I
made for my Airbnb.
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Once I’d cleansed,
we went grocery shopping nearby, and then I prepared a meal. Andre and Lerene joined us, and we had a
great time reliving the past and catching up on the intervening years. Suzi doesn't allow pictures of her to be uploaded online, and as she is in all the pictures taken with Andre and Lerene, I won't post any here.
I’d
planned to visit the Home Affairs office on Monday to apply for my new smart
ID, which is a credit card style ID that has replaced the old ID book in use
when I became an adult. To that end, I
drove into Cape Town centre, parked and headed in. The queue reached outside the building, and
there were notices about appointments, pictures, cash payments, etc. I was soon defeated, turned and
departed. I’d thought also to renew my
driver’s license, which would be expiring the following year. This, too, was shelved when I was told about
similar exhausting queues. I decided,
with only five days in Cape Town on this trip, I’d not be wasting any time on
official matters. Instead, I headed out
for a drive. Making a few wrong turns, I
doubled back twice before finally ignoring Google’s navigatrix and following my
gut. Within a few minutes, I was on the
slopes of Table Mountain, overlooking the Foreshore, the V&A Waterfront and
Table Bay.
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Then I took myself to the
same waterfront, enjoyed a meal and a wander.
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At
this point in my tale, I forget the order of events, as I discarded the paper
upon which I kept my notes, and I left way too much time after returning to
Taiwan before putting down my thoughts.
At any rate, this holiday turned out to be a mad rush to catch up with
everyone within five days. So instead of
presenting it in chronological order, I’ll simply mention all the activities as
they pop back into my mind.
I had arranged from Taiwan to meet some friends at Artscape Theatre for a production of Sarafina. This must have been a high school production
as the tickets were rather cheap, and I was thrilled that around twelve of
my friends wanted to see it with me. (Four
had to pull out in the end, and one of their tickets was taken by
another.) Juliet and her daughter
Eryn, who long ago lived in Taiwan, came to watch. Richard and Rachel, with whom I’d established a friendship during my London
days, were also there. Also present were Beth and Franz, who have
been friends since I lived in Cape Town.
Sue Davis joined us – she’d been my boss before I left South
Africa. My sister also joined. We nearly didn’t make it because I got stuck
in the Waterfront parking with a faulty ticket, and then took some wrong
turns. I had all the tickets! I did get there, though, and we sat before
the show started.
Sarafina is a show about the struggle of black
people against the apartheid government of South Africa. It is somewhat dated now, angry and
confrontational. Since the struggle was already
won two decades earlier, I could not thoroughly give myself to the
performance. On the other hand, the
music was great, and the acting was believable.
By the end, I was on my feet with the rest of the audience, dancing and
clapping.
Over the course of the week, I spent a little
time in Cavendish Square shopping centre, where I bought some books. Most are by South African authors, while one
is by a Nigerian. I took a drive down to
Muizenberg with Andre. Here I had plans to see first the mother of
one of my friends in Taiwan, and then Ben and Simeon with their two kids.
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I caught up with all my friends (though I
failed to take pictures with all of them), with the exception of one who couldn’t
make it into the city from his country home, and another who is currently
living in Europe. Many of these friends commented on the heat, especially in the first half of the week, when the mercury reached 36ºC. I laughed it off as play-play heat - that temperature is coupled with 100% humidity in Taiwan.
