“Paved Paradise (Big Yellow Taxi)” – Joni Mitchell and
thousands of cover artists
Tuesday September 3rd 2013
Tuesday September 3rd 2013
Tuesday started with a charming trip to “Yours Truly”, a
café on, you guessed it, Longstreet.
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| The gang at Yours Truly |
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| Yours Truly |
After satisfying our appetites and our caffeine addictions
we walked through Cape Town to the District Six Museum. District Six was once a
fantastic cultural hub of Cape Town, often likened to Bourbon Street in New
Orleans. The neighborhood was a civilization all on its own, made up of very
close families and an incredible sense of diverse community. Sadly, in the 1970’s,
as part of the apartheid regime, the 60,000+ inhabitants of the District Six
were forcibly relocated in order to make room for a Whites Only community.
The museum is a gorgeously curated collection of photographs
and artifacts from before residential area was demolished. There are a lot of
first person narratives of what life was like in District Six, and many of the
people who work at the museum actually lived there. Even after the destruction
of the community, the former residents of District Six have maintained a strong
bond. Walking through the museum, I desperately wished I could have seen the
neighborhood in its heyday. The black and white photos on the walls gave me a
tiny glimpse at what a fascinating and vibrant place it must have been. The unfortunate
history of the place affected me very deeply while walking through the
exhibits. I never get used to gazing at the horrors committed against one race
by another.
After District Six we walked over to Green Market Square – a
large tented bazaar of crafts and souvenirs and extremely aggressive sales
people. I spent a lot of money and got a lot of souvenirs. Christmas shopping =
done!! It wasn’t as much fun as I had hoped it would be though. The sales
people really stressed me out and I was horrible at haggling for prices.
Next to the market was a food court type place that we hit
up for a cheap lunch while we showed each other our souvenirs. We also
commiserated with one another over our empty wallets.
That night, my friend Brittany had invited us to a braai/
party at her house in Cape Town. I’ve been so blessed to meet so many welcoming
people at Rhodes. In talking about our respective vacation plans, anyone who
said they were going to Cape Town offered some kind of invitation to hang out
or feed us or give us directions or company. We were really excited to be
invited to the home of someone we hadn’t known two months before. Thanks
Britt!!
My directions took us straight to Brittany’s house no
problem, a beautiful home protected by an impressive wall and an automated gate
security system. We hesitantly parked on the street suddenly nervous that we
were in the wrong place or we weren’t actually invited. The neighborhood had no
street lights and we felt like we were just sneaking around in the dark. I
called Brittany to let her know we had arrived at last, but she didn’t answer
her phone. After about the 5th phone call we all just started
laughing at how ridiculous we looked and felt, standing on the drive-way in
front of a security gate, listening to the thump of the music inside the house.
Derp.
At last, Brittany came out of her house and led us in to the
party, where we were greeted by a bunch of strangers. We felt super awkward,
but everyone was really nice. We spent the night talking and playing games and
dancing to the music. It was a definitely an experience I won’t forget.
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