Route 62 begins near Montague two hours from Cape Town, and runs through breath-taking, steep sided gorges and wide mountain valleys. Like any great highway out of the busy city into the big open spaces, it quickly numbs and calms the fretful soul. A beguiling amnesia is carried by the wind and the short season of forgetting begins. We caught a final image of Table Mountain in the misty distance from the hills beyond Paarl before the exertions of Cape Town seemed to fade finally. Just beyond Robertson, a family of baboons on the roadside signalled our passing into another world.
Montague is a sleepy town with charming architecture from an age long gone. People say not much goes on here. But wait. It has a very excellent restaurant. Just don’t tell Sally Weatherall it may beat Suzi’s in Paternoster. Mimosa Lodge is just off the main street, overlooked by the high spire of the imposing Afrikaans church building around the corner. The garden room we have taken for the night is, as Karen says, “to die for”. After two bottles of Windhoek beer and a Karoo lamb curried stew, Montague starts to get even sleepier as I write under a bamboo shade in the garden.
To my left in this small rectangular offshoot of a very large garden, is a line of banana trees under planted with nasturtiums. At the end is a sweep of bamboos next to a cluster of tall fennel. In the corner lemon verbena lops over onto the grass. On the right is a long hedge of jasmine. In the middle, next to where Karen is reading, there stands a thick lime tree. As it is now late in the afternoon, a gentle breeze is generating a symphony of aromas and the bitey ones have come out for their food. I was thinking of how much Margaret, now awaiting take-off at Cape Town International, might have used this peaceful time to reflect on her amazing trip. I was also thinking of the three men adjacent to our lunch table who exuded such menace and made me want to leave, and the charming, elegant old woman called Anna who asked to sit with us and gave her life story, and the book I just picked up from a second hand shop, “Bury Me In My Boots” by Sally Trench, which I first read in 1973 at a counselling centre for the homeless in the crypt St. Martin-in-the-Fields.
Contemplating this beautiful and quickly fading afternoon and looking to the feast ahead, I cannot really suppress the memories of my time last night with a small gathering of St. Kizito volunteers in a humble and welcoming home in the middle of a poorly lit township. As I move between these worlds, I am learning what it is like to hold them together. The beauty of the garden and the beauty of the small gathering appear to me as a miracle.
The same miracle.
Friday 30 October 2009
Tuesday 27 October 2009
Its alright for you
The man stood outside on the corner of the Institute for most of the day, a sandal on one foot, the other bare. On the opposite side of Somerset Road is the Cape Town Harley Davidson show room right next to the Cubana bar and nightclub. Cubana closes at 4am. It makes a lot of noise, so once a month the manager calls to the Institute with a donation for R3000. You might chuckle to think that the monks of the Institute are carrying on something of a protection racket in reverse!
Somerset Road is a main artery into the city from Camps Bay and Seapoint passing the new football stadium half a kilometre away. In June 2010, the month of the World Cup, no one will be allowed to enter this area by car or by foot without a pass of some kind. The Institute will close its doors because street kids don’t get passes. Everything and everyone will step to one side for this much vaunted tournament.
In the late afternoon Fr. Michael and I were taking a beer outside Cubana as we waited for Karen and Margaret to join us. A middle aged white woman tried to sell us a hat. We declined with stern expressions hoping she would pass on quickly. Sensing we would not budge she gave up and simply asked for some money. We declined. She left with the words “Its alright for you” left hanging accusingly in the air. These barbs woke me up at 3am as I composed a blog in my sleep.
There is another young fellow, Johnnie, who sits on the pavement outside the Institute on Chiappiani. He has been through the programme several times. As the winter approaches he commits a petty crime to get himself into prison during the cold weather. The rest of the time he hangs out hoping he will get some food and whatever else is going from those who pass in and out of the gate. He usually does and today Karen had bought him a sandwich from the Spar newly opened at Cape Quarter.
As we crossed the street, the man with one sandal was being moved on. Karen said she would split the sandwich but Fr. Michael said he would take care of the kid around the corner. As I passed, I noticed the dried white froth on the corner of his mouth and the poor condition of his thin frame as he held the sandwich aloft saying a quiet thank you. It was as if it were a meteor from outer space. Karen wondered out loud if he would manage to open the hard plastic wrapping.
Then there is the lady with the hats. And there is always the question “why one and not the other?” How do we make this call? I am none the wiser as I sip my morning tea out here in Milnerton by the sea.
Somerset Road is a main artery into the city from Camps Bay and Seapoint passing the new football stadium half a kilometre away. In June 2010, the month of the World Cup, no one will be allowed to enter this area by car or by foot without a pass of some kind. The Institute will close its doors because street kids don’t get passes. Everything and everyone will step to one side for this much vaunted tournament.
In the late afternoon Fr. Michael and I were taking a beer outside Cubana as we waited for Karen and Margaret to join us. A middle aged white woman tried to sell us a hat. We declined with stern expressions hoping she would pass on quickly. Sensing we would not budge she gave up and simply asked for some money. We declined. She left with the words “Its alright for you” left hanging accusingly in the air. These barbs woke me up at 3am as I composed a blog in my sleep.
There is another young fellow, Johnnie, who sits on the pavement outside the Institute on Chiappiani. He has been through the programme several times. As the winter approaches he commits a petty crime to get himself into prison during the cold weather. The rest of the time he hangs out hoping he will get some food and whatever else is going from those who pass in and out of the gate. He usually does and today Karen had bought him a sandwich from the Spar newly opened at Cape Quarter.
As we crossed the street, the man with one sandal was being moved on. Karen said she would split the sandwich but Fr. Michael said he would take care of the kid around the corner. As I passed, I noticed the dried white froth on the corner of his mouth and the poor condition of his thin frame as he held the sandwich aloft saying a quiet thank you. It was as if it were a meteor from outer space. Karen wondered out loud if he would manage to open the hard plastic wrapping.
Then there is the lady with the hats. And there is always the question “why one and not the other?” How do we make this call? I am none the wiser as I sip my morning tea out here in Milnerton by the sea.
Sunday 25 October 2009
Paternoster
We are staying for the weekend at a little place known as Paternoster about two hours drive north of Cape Town. They say it is so called because centuries ago, Portuguese sailors were heard to cry out in prayer as their ships were tossed against the rocks. In the still waters of the bay, these rounded rocks look like whales resting in the sun.
Yesterday, we dropped Margaret off with Sandra Oliver in Velddrif, a town on the mouth of the Berg river well known for its dried fish, its amazing variety of birds and the salt flats which look like empty rice fields. The fish are hung out to dry along the river bank, a process that takes two weeks. The salt is harvested and then made edible in a Cerebos plant at the approach to this very Afrikaans working town. A long way further north is the Namib desert and the vast expanse that is Namibia. The border is a 14 hour drive through a largely unpeopled landscape.
Robert and Sally Weatherall from Appletreewick are with us. He says the little town of Paternoster is the most integrated he has ever seen. In contrast to most other settlements in South Africa, the black and Cape Malay coloured people live in attractive white dwellings in the centre of the town alongside their white neighbours. There are no chilling signs declaring “Armed Response” posted on high security gates here.
Sally, who knows a thing or two about places to stay and eat, was stunned by our little guesthouse on the shore. The Dunes, as it is known, is indeed a gem. And Suzi’s tiny restaurant in the town surpasses the best the Cape can offer. Lamb burgers with pomegranate, Baboti made with a variety of lentils, clams in angel hair pasta, a perfect milk tart. And it was there, too, that we were entertained by Dave, a 74 year old teenager who regaled us with mesmerizing tales in his ex-policeman cockney accent.
In the afternoon, we were guests at a birthday party at the Dunes. Gavin the host invited his neighbours and friends to celebrate with him. It was an intense bite from the rich mixture that is South Africa. A bereaved Margaret from Northern Ireland making a new life, Wendy from Cape Town married to a wrestler called Bronson, Lisa whose family come from Greece has a vine and olive farm with her husband in Stellenbosch, Frank from Eindhoven who moved here from Holland to follow his heart. We spent a hugely satisfying time with this intimate little gathering.
Today we head back to Cape Town and another kind of reality.
Yesterday, we dropped Margaret off with Sandra Oliver in Velddrif, a town on the mouth of the Berg river well known for its dried fish, its amazing variety of birds and the salt flats which look like empty rice fields. The fish are hung out to dry along the river bank, a process that takes two weeks. The salt is harvested and then made edible in a Cerebos plant at the approach to this very Afrikaans working town. A long way further north is the Namib desert and the vast expanse that is Namibia. The border is a 14 hour drive through a largely unpeopled landscape.
Robert and Sally Weatherall from Appletreewick are with us. He says the little town of Paternoster is the most integrated he has ever seen. In contrast to most other settlements in South Africa, the black and Cape Malay coloured people live in attractive white dwellings in the centre of the town alongside their white neighbours. There are no chilling signs declaring “Armed Response” posted on high security gates here.
Sally, who knows a thing or two about places to stay and eat, was stunned by our little guesthouse on the shore. The Dunes, as it is known, is indeed a gem. And Suzi’s tiny restaurant in the town surpasses the best the Cape can offer. Lamb burgers with pomegranate, Baboti made with a variety of lentils, clams in angel hair pasta, a perfect milk tart. And it was there, too, that we were entertained by Dave, a 74 year old teenager who regaled us with mesmerizing tales in his ex-policeman cockney accent.
In the afternoon, we were guests at a birthday party at the Dunes. Gavin the host invited his neighbours and friends to celebrate with him. It was an intense bite from the rich mixture that is South Africa. A bereaved Margaret from Northern Ireland making a new life, Wendy from Cape Town married to a wrestler called Bronson, Lisa whose family come from Greece has a vine and olive farm with her husband in Stellenbosch, Frank from Eindhoven who moved here from Holland to follow his heart. We spent a hugely satisfying time with this intimate little gathering.
Today we head back to Cape Town and another kind of reality.
Thursday 22 October 2009
A Kurd in Green Market Square
I had a Kurdish coffee on Green Market Square. The beans are North African in origin, a very fine blend mixed with milk and sugar and served in a wide-bottomed, copper jug known as a Jezve. It has a long, thin handle made with a different metal which appears rather too big for the vessel but is ideal for tipping out the dark, sweet, mucous liquid. It filled the little cup four times over. By then I had made my mind up. I would have another if ever I visited Kurdistan!
The owner, a very elegant man with deep-set eyes, sat with me as I drank. In between gusts of wind that threatened to put us in orbit, he gave me an animated, fascinating guide to the sad history of his people, a nation that takes in segments of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. Like the Hebrew people of sixty years ago, they are a nation without a state. Baran was born near Mount Ararat of an Iranian Kurdish father and a Kurdish mother from Turkey. Before coming to Cape Town he was a chemist and lecturer at a university in Istanbul.
We will return to this lovely man’s restaurant, the Mesopotamia, for lunch one day before we leave Cape Town. Perhaps we will meet one of the other four (4) Kurds living in this amazing city!
At almost the same spot as the drowning tragedy of two weeks ago, a whale was beached at Milnerton. It is the whale season in this part of south Africa. The epicentre of whale watching is of course Hermanus, a couple of hours from here on the Indian ocean, so the appearance of this large guest here at Milnerton made the front page of the Cape Times. Smaller mammals in wet suits hauled the whale off the sands and off it went into the blue.
Karen and Margaret sat in on a class with the social worker at the Institute. Also called Margaret, she brings with her the most extraordinary calm to these very damaged children of the street, many currently living in a local hostel called Homestead. The boys had been focusing on the words proud, love, happy and sad over a series of lessons. Today each boy was given a piece of coloured card and was asked to put pictures on the card to represent one of the words. A sentence written on the back of the card expressed the word. One boy had written, ‘when I am sad I go sit alone somewhere and cry inside.’ In the background calming music plays. Margaret – the social worker – has an amazing ability to bring out the deep emotions the boys have in a simple non-threatening way through her personality and the way her classes are structured. At the end they all expressed a certain pride at the presence of two approving visitors.
Love and affirmation just does it!
The owner, a very elegant man with deep-set eyes, sat with me as I drank. In between gusts of wind that threatened to put us in orbit, he gave me an animated, fascinating guide to the sad history of his people, a nation that takes in segments of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. Like the Hebrew people of sixty years ago, they are a nation without a state. Baran was born near Mount Ararat of an Iranian Kurdish father and a Kurdish mother from Turkey. Before coming to Cape Town he was a chemist and lecturer at a university in Istanbul.
We will return to this lovely man’s restaurant, the Mesopotamia, for lunch one day before we leave Cape Town. Perhaps we will meet one of the other four (4) Kurds living in this amazing city!
At almost the same spot as the drowning tragedy of two weeks ago, a whale was beached at Milnerton. It is the whale season in this part of south Africa. The epicentre of whale watching is of course Hermanus, a couple of hours from here on the Indian ocean, so the appearance of this large guest here at Milnerton made the front page of the Cape Times. Smaller mammals in wet suits hauled the whale off the sands and off it went into the blue.
Karen and Margaret sat in on a class with the social worker at the Institute. Also called Margaret, she brings with her the most extraordinary calm to these very damaged children of the street, many currently living in a local hostel called Homestead. The boys had been focusing on the words proud, love, happy and sad over a series of lessons. Today each boy was given a piece of coloured card and was asked to put pictures on the card to represent one of the words. A sentence written on the back of the card expressed the word. One boy had written, ‘when I am sad I go sit alone somewhere and cry inside.’ In the background calming music plays. Margaret – the social worker – has an amazing ability to bring out the deep emotions the boys have in a simple non-threatening way through her personality and the way her classes are structured. At the end they all expressed a certain pride at the presence of two approving visitors.
Love and affirmation just does it!
Sunday 18 October 2009
"Your child is my child"
“Your child is my child”. So runs the motto of the St. Kizito movement. In traditional African society, every adult woman was seen as mother and every man was considered father. Kele, the matriarchal figure who heads the board of the movement, recalled she only understood the true status of her real, biological mother when it came to paying the bill for her schooling. For us, as white, western guests attending their annual conference in the vast Khayelitsha township, it seemed both a beautiful and yet troubling idea. For many of the children in this community the adult is often a real threat. In the west, we warn our children not to speak to the stranger. But here, the women who form the membership of the St. Kizito movement have pledged themselves to the motto: “your child is my child”. They are choosing to be mother to orphaned and vulnerable children in their parishes. And it runs against every grain in the modern world.
As we sat in their midst, one after the other stood and spoke – some in Afrikaans, some in Xhosa, and some in English – tracing an unrelenting portrait of love and struggle in this city of much suffering. The morning gathering, business-like and well orchestrated occasionally burst forth in a Xhosa hymn in their beautiful harmonious voices. For those of you who have ever experienced this spontaneous outpouring of song from African people, we were in the gift of that familiar awe and wonder, impossible of words.
More parishes are sprouting groups of mainly women volunteers ready to visit the homes of the most vulnerable children. Typically they want to put shoes on their feet, food on the table, a school jumper on their backs. Some of the families are unregistered, a status in which you are denied any state help of any kind, schooling, health, finance. Some are internal immigrants from the rural areas, some are external refugees from other African countries. What they have in common is a lack of any kind of documentation – a birth certificate, as an example. The result is almost unimaginable destitution.
One woman described the plight of a family with a speechless, eleven year old child without legs. With no transport, they struggled to move him anywhere. They carried him on their backs. The volunteer moved mountains to get a wheelchair. At the meeting she was told it had arrived the day before. She was overjoyed. Another faced threats of violence from criminal elements who disapproved of her involvement with a particular family. There were many such stories on Saturday morning.
In the next six weeks, I will meet with these scattered groups of women and thankfully will be able to give them a few hours of supervision and support.
Our friend Margaret arrived on Friday. She has seen more of the real South Africa in forty eight hours than many do in a dozen visits. As someone said to us yesterday over lunch in Noordhoek, a great many born and bred citizens of this beautiful city have no idea what goes on at the other side of the track.
I want to say a thank you to the many who are following the Capewonders blog. Big thank you to all.
As we sat in their midst, one after the other stood and spoke – some in Afrikaans, some in Xhosa, and some in English – tracing an unrelenting portrait of love and struggle in this city of much suffering. The morning gathering, business-like and well orchestrated occasionally burst forth in a Xhosa hymn in their beautiful harmonious voices. For those of you who have ever experienced this spontaneous outpouring of song from African people, we were in the gift of that familiar awe and wonder, impossible of words.
More parishes are sprouting groups of mainly women volunteers ready to visit the homes of the most vulnerable children. Typically they want to put shoes on their feet, food on the table, a school jumper on their backs. Some of the families are unregistered, a status in which you are denied any state help of any kind, schooling, health, finance. Some are internal immigrants from the rural areas, some are external refugees from other African countries. What they have in common is a lack of any kind of documentation – a birth certificate, as an example. The result is almost unimaginable destitution.
One woman described the plight of a family with a speechless, eleven year old child without legs. With no transport, they struggled to move him anywhere. They carried him on their backs. The volunteer moved mountains to get a wheelchair. At the meeting she was told it had arrived the day before. She was overjoyed. Another faced threats of violence from criminal elements who disapproved of her involvement with a particular family. There were many such stories on Saturday morning.
In the next six weeks, I will meet with these scattered groups of women and thankfully will be able to give them a few hours of supervision and support.
Our friend Margaret arrived on Friday. She has seen more of the real South Africa in forty eight hours than many do in a dozen visits. As someone said to us yesterday over lunch in Noordhoek, a great many born and bred citizens of this beautiful city have no idea what goes on at the other side of the track.
I want to say a thank you to the many who are following the Capewonders blog. Big thank you to all.
Tuesday 13 October 2009
The Monsignor
If you want to meet Monsignor Michael McParland you will find him in the Falkland Islands where he lives six months of the year. The rest of the time he is visiting the other parts of his parish which altogether covers one sixth of the surface of the earth! But for the islands of St.Helena, Tristan da Cunha and St.George, the rest of it comprises mostly uninhabited rock. And fish! He arrived today at the Salesian Institute after a seven day voyage on an Antarctic service ship. He was still swaying gently over lunch.
The Monsignor comes from Middlesbrough, two hours or so from Skyreholme, but its Cape Town where we meet. When a long way from home every encounter can be something of a miracle. I say “can be”. A miracle unseen is like a gift unopened. Of course we dream of the “giver of the gift” waiting for it to be unwrapped. Any parent knows the joy of the spectacle. From the moment of conception, to the time of picking it out, to the moment of frantic tearing away of the carefully prepared package – the goal, the instant of completion, is all about the child’s happy face. I look forward to unwrapping the miracle with this unique man, the Monsignor from the South Atlantic.
We met up with a man and his wife I first met at the end of 2002 in Pretoria in the aftermath of one of those awful coach crashes I have attended in South Africa. Ron was a chaplain at the hospital. He invited me to his church for a service and to his home for Sunday lunch. It was special to have time with him and Melanie as they celebrate a wedding anniversary in Cape Town. Their Baptist community was the first to fully integrate the races in a truly rainbow church. They have kept it up.
On a final blognote, Margaret Batley arrives here on Friday. Like the Monsignor, there will be gifts to unwrap in the many miraculous encounters that await her.
The Monsignor comes from Middlesbrough, two hours or so from Skyreholme, but its Cape Town where we meet. When a long way from home every encounter can be something of a miracle. I say “can be”. A miracle unseen is like a gift unopened. Of course we dream of the “giver of the gift” waiting for it to be unwrapped. Any parent knows the joy of the spectacle. From the moment of conception, to the time of picking it out, to the moment of frantic tearing away of the carefully prepared package – the goal, the instant of completion, is all about the child’s happy face. I look forward to unwrapping the miracle with this unique man, the Monsignor from the South Atlantic.
We met up with a man and his wife I first met at the end of 2002 in Pretoria in the aftermath of one of those awful coach crashes I have attended in South Africa. Ron was a chaplain at the hospital. He invited me to his church for a service and to his home for Sunday lunch. It was special to have time with him and Melanie as they celebrate a wedding anniversary in Cape Town. Their Baptist community was the first to fully integrate the races in a truly rainbow church. They have kept it up.
On a final blognote, Margaret Batley arrives here on Friday. Like the Monsignor, there will be gifts to unwrap in the many miraculous encounters that await her.
Thursday 8 October 2009
Five Went Home
“Five youth went home choosing not to live on the streets any longer.”
I sat for a long time this morning pondering these words, lifted from the pages of the Youth Projects Annual Report.
Five. The number, so small, reminded me of the little boy returning the starfish to the ocean one by one, observed by an older person who said he was wasting his time. “There are simply too many”. The little boy, as he threw the next one in, says, “not a waste of time for this one”. Yet numbers bear a heavy weight in this modern world of performance related donor thinking. These five returned home.
Home. They once chose the streets rather than remain at home. The teachers, the social workers, the outreach team, the project staff all know why. Home for them was a place of pain, rejection, violence and poverty. In today’s Cape Times it is reported that a two year old child was raped and murdered at home. For many kids home is a risky place. But five went home, choosing home over the streets.
Choosing. Something happened to them here at the city end of Somerset Road. As I write I hear Eddy Lennitch speaking in the room next door to a group of 56 young people. “Life is full of choices”, he says to them. To this new intake, on only their 4th day of an 8 week course, these words may seem unreal. By the end, they will have learned they no longer have to be swept along like so much rubbish before a brush. They will have learned something of their dignity as people, their great worth; that they are loved and cherished in this temporary home. They will have learned something that gives them a choice. To leave the streets. And go home.
The streets. There is nothing romantic about life on the street. It, too, is a risky place. The Project report says “Drugs and prostitution remain our biggest problems on the street”. On the next line we read, “One young woman, Carmen, died tragically when she was beaten to death by her boyfriend”. Risky indeed.
1,145 is the number of kids the project staff have worked with in the past year. This is a big number, but each one of them is one, lifted up and cherished. Approximately 80 come in off the street with only the clothing they wear on their backs. Around 20 return to the streets, the only place they know as family and community. Some street kids are just too damaged to adjust and so return to what they know and feel comfortable with. Some time later they may have a further go.
But, “Five youth went home choosing not to live on the streets any longer.”
I sat for a long time this morning pondering these words, lifted from the pages of the Youth Projects Annual Report.
Five. The number, so small, reminded me of the little boy returning the starfish to the ocean one by one, observed by an older person who said he was wasting his time. “There are simply too many”. The little boy, as he threw the next one in, says, “not a waste of time for this one”. Yet numbers bear a heavy weight in this modern world of performance related donor thinking. These five returned home.
Home. They once chose the streets rather than remain at home. The teachers, the social workers, the outreach team, the project staff all know why. Home for them was a place of pain, rejection, violence and poverty. In today’s Cape Times it is reported that a two year old child was raped and murdered at home. For many kids home is a risky place. But five went home, choosing home over the streets.
Choosing. Something happened to them here at the city end of Somerset Road. As I write I hear Eddy Lennitch speaking in the room next door to a group of 56 young people. “Life is full of choices”, he says to them. To this new intake, on only their 4th day of an 8 week course, these words may seem unreal. By the end, they will have learned they no longer have to be swept along like so much rubbish before a brush. They will have learned something of their dignity as people, their great worth; that they are loved and cherished in this temporary home. They will have learned something that gives them a choice. To leave the streets. And go home.
The streets. There is nothing romantic about life on the street. It, too, is a risky place. The Project report says “Drugs and prostitution remain our biggest problems on the street”. On the next line we read, “One young woman, Carmen, died tragically when she was beaten to death by her boyfriend”. Risky indeed.
1,145 is the number of kids the project staff have worked with in the past year. This is a big number, but each one of them is one, lifted up and cherished. Approximately 80 come in off the street with only the clothing they wear on their backs. Around 20 return to the streets, the only place they know as family and community. Some street kids are just too damaged to adjust and so return to what they know and feel comfortable with. Some time later they may have a further go.
But, “Five youth went home choosing not to live on the streets any longer.”
Tuesday 6 October 2009
Robben Island and the Gynaecologists
Cape Town is hosting a convention of gynaecologists. Eight thousand (8,000!) of them have descended on the city and a fair chunk of them were on the 3pm to Robben Island. The scramble to do an emergency delivery would certainly have caused the boat to capsize! It was our first visit to the former penal colony. We had previously tried to get there no less than four times. Bad weather was the usual reason. Last March they were culling rabbits for a month.
Robben Island is a grim place. Its history is grim. Its message is grim. Nothing can hide its grimness. Its curious blend of remoteness and nearness made it ideal as a one-time slave warehouse, leper colony, madhouse and perhaps the best known jail-house in history. The door leading into the block where Mandela was incarcerated is a solid rock positioned on a small rail track. Ex prisoners tell their story. I imagine they sound just like the apostles in the first century, keeping alive a memory, in some strict formula, of their much venerated hero.
Yet the island is beautiful, with its forlornness, its isolation and its wild life. With its breathtaking views of Cape Town, it has a feeling of being suspended in time awaiting a recreation of itself. But the weight of its past bears down on it and its desolate features can only echo its grim memories.
On the voyage to and from the island, we met two people from Jo’burg. Newly married Sean of Portuguese stock and Nadia a Cape-Malay from Durban already had 4 children from their former marriages. They shared their dreams with us. As we parted, we knew they were a portrait of a new life in South Africa, beyond the vision of the blind oppressors of Robben Island.
By the way, the rabbits outnumbered the gynaecologists. The penguins stole the show!
Robben Island is a grim place. Its history is grim. Its message is grim. Nothing can hide its grimness. Its curious blend of remoteness and nearness made it ideal as a one-time slave warehouse, leper colony, madhouse and perhaps the best known jail-house in history. The door leading into the block where Mandela was incarcerated is a solid rock positioned on a small rail track. Ex prisoners tell their story. I imagine they sound just like the apostles in the first century, keeping alive a memory, in some strict formula, of their much venerated hero.
Yet the island is beautiful, with its forlornness, its isolation and its wild life. With its breathtaking views of Cape Town, it has a feeling of being suspended in time awaiting a recreation of itself. But the weight of its past bears down on it and its desolate features can only echo its grim memories.
On the voyage to and from the island, we met two people from Jo’burg. Newly married Sean of Portuguese stock and Nadia a Cape-Malay from Durban already had 4 children from their former marriages. They shared their dreams with us. As we parted, we knew they were a portrait of a new life in South Africa, beyond the vision of the blind oppressors of Robben Island.
By the way, the rabbits outnumbered the gynaecologists. The penguins stole the show!
Saturday 3 October 2009
Table Mountain
Cape Town is not typical of South Africa, and it is hard to say if anything is typical of Cape Town. It is a place of great contrasts, full of life and colour and movement. It is now undergoing perhaps its greatest ever makeover in preparation for the world cup next year. Engineering works everywhere, dizzy and loud. The picture of the sunset to the right shows the almost completed football stadium. Visually it is a stunning city. Table Mountain dominates all before it, a constant presence. Wherever you put yourself, there it is, like an ancient temple of old, declaring “I am bigger than you”.
The Salesian Institute is also very big; it takes up a whole block in the city centre. But, from its upper floors you look up….. at Table Mountain. It is all quiet at the Institute. Next week the kids return, new recruits to the many projects will make their beginning, and it will be a maelstrom of comings and goings. Young people taking up a vital opportunity that will change their lives.
Let me tell you a little about today. Malcolm Pritchard is staying with us until Wednesday. He has been in Harare, Zimbabwe, for two weeks visiting and ministering at a seminary there. We spent some time in Green Market Square in the city centre taking in the many sights of an African bazaar. After a while, Malcolm noticed his camera was missing from his bag – his thoughts were with the missing pictures. It was a bit sombre. He went to the police and we then drove via Camps Bay, Hout Bay and Kirstenbosch back here to Milnerton. As we approached, there was a helicopter noisily suspended yards from our apartment. In the space of thirty seconds we made two discoveries. Malcolm’s stolen camera was in his bedroom and the hovering helicopter was searching for a missing ten year old boy caught in a riptide. The “incident” at Green Market Square paled somewhat in our minds. To complete this picture, a wedding party was doing its sunset photo session fifty metres from where the forensic pathology service were removing the young boy’s corpse. The bridesmaids were wearing black.
Lives changed forever in an instant.
The Salesian Institute is also very big; it takes up a whole block in the city centre. But, from its upper floors you look up….. at Table Mountain. It is all quiet at the Institute. Next week the kids return, new recruits to the many projects will make their beginning, and it will be a maelstrom of comings and goings. Young people taking up a vital opportunity that will change their lives.
Let me tell you a little about today. Malcolm Pritchard is staying with us until Wednesday. He has been in Harare, Zimbabwe, for two weeks visiting and ministering at a seminary there. We spent some time in Green Market Square in the city centre taking in the many sights of an African bazaar. After a while, Malcolm noticed his camera was missing from his bag – his thoughts were with the missing pictures. It was a bit sombre. He went to the police and we then drove via Camps Bay, Hout Bay and Kirstenbosch back here to Milnerton. As we approached, there was a helicopter noisily suspended yards from our apartment. In the space of thirty seconds we made two discoveries. Malcolm’s stolen camera was in his bedroom and the hovering helicopter was searching for a missing ten year old boy caught in a riptide. The “incident” at Green Market Square paled somewhat in our minds. To complete this picture, a wedding party was doing its sunset photo session fifty metres from where the forensic pathology service were removing the young boy’s corpse. The bridesmaids were wearing black.
Lives changed forever in an instant.
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