2-17th Feb. 14

So, I know that it has not become common to have a travel blog... well mine isn’t a travel blog. At least not literally since I will be here for the next 11 months. It is technically a living away blog.

So I have now completed 2 weeks of staying in Cape Town and my oh my... the place is ab-so-lutely beautiful! The mountain and the beach, and the oceans and the people, the buildings, the weather… it’s great!

Places I’ve been to so far... Long street J(last night), Camps Bay, Sea Point, Claremont-Rondebosch, Obz (Where I live), Milnerton… I have decided that I want to explore and I must say I have done quite a bit. The University itself is just breathtaking---in terms of physical appearance. The location. And the history itself is quite rich (my faculty is built on a slave grave yard)

Its more so very interesting to live in a place so full of diversity but so young.... in that it has just been 20 years since the end of Apartheid... indeed the lecturers, preachers and everyone really is still on a phase of moving on...  wouldn’t say that the Apartheid effects are long gone.. I think they are very much there and it will take a long while to get them out.

The people are very race conscious and it is my opinion that blacks are more racist than whites. A friend explained this to me and said...it is much easier for the oppressor to ‘forgive’ and forget than for the oppressed. I also learnt that the dropout rate from university is alarming! An international student told me that the blacks who were in their class at the end of the course were only Africans from other countries and the natives dropped out along the way.

It’s interesting that there are places where seeing a black person is as rare as seeing a dog laughs... I guess it has a lot to do with the cultures we grew up in? Camps Bay for one is a place where my friend and I were the only blacks present in a beach packed to capacity... the only other black person was a lady living benath a rock at the beach who left the place after a few minutes of our arrival. Cafés and other ‘white’ place also its very rare finding blacks.

There is a sense of camaraderie among the black people. When I walk around in town and even here at the university, whenever I meet a black person, they will start my talking to me in their mother tongue…. And continuing until I speak in English telling them I do not understand whereupon their countenance falls and they become suspicious… so I should better my statement and say there is a sense of camaraderie amongst the South African blacks.

I cannot fail to speak about sexual orientation when it is such a glaring aspect of Cape Town... there is absolute ‘freedom’ in expression of physical love whether hetero or homo. This was such a big shock to me especially coming from Tanzania and Uganda where the topic is not only taboo but finding two men kissing on the road is as rare as seeing a hen’s teeth. So you can be assured that adjusting to that, will take time.

None the less, Cape Town is sooooo diverse! The nationalities, races, colors that I have seen here make the statement that Arusha is an international city ring false.

The weather is good… alternating from very warm to mildly warm so summer wear is in stock now...

I have a church that I go to... called His People Church... it meets at Baxter Theatre which is near UCT and has amazing services. I thank God for that.

First impression on Cape Town… I love it!