Cape Town Chronicles

They dig their own holes

2007-08-07T11:32:00.000+02:00

“They dig their own holes!” he said like he was still amazed by it. "They don't have a Moses* to do it for them, they have to do it themselves". The person speaking is a 28 year old Afrikaans guy from the North West Province in SA, who recently returned from a 2 year stay in New Sealand. There he worked as a construction worker. New Sealand is rather popular among white South-Africans as a place to live; higher wages, less crime, no BEE** (and perhaps no black majority?).

He goes on about how being a construction worker there differs from being one in SA. A "construction worker" in SA pretty much just supervises the black labourers (who are the actual construction workers). This is also the case with miners for instance. A miner doesn't dig out the gold himself; he supervises the black people doing it.
When I asked my mother-in-law for some advice to clean the mildew in the bathroom she said "I use Handy Andy every month to prevent it from growing". Just a tat curious I asked my boyfriend if his mother actually used the Handy Andy herself or if she got the maid to do it. "No of course she doesn't di it herself", he answered slightly annoyed about the fact that I asked questions ' I already knew the answer to'.

* A derogatory name for black people
** Black Economic Empowerment (a system of positive discrimination for black people to undo wrongs of the past)

Traditional healers

2007-06-08T13:06:00.000+02:00

The lady in the picture is a sangoma, a South African traditional healer. That is a person who through communication with the ancestors tries to cure a person from both mental and physical ailments. Contact with the afterlife gets made by, for instance, making music or burning certain herbs. In two of the pictures you can see her closet full of herbs and medicine.
Sangomas are very important in the african cultures. 80% of the black people in South Africa don't go to a western docter, but to their local sangoma. In the battle against HIV/Aids this is not always a desirable thing, since most of them don't get the concept of a virus, don't prescribe ARV's and with certain herbs and unhygenical methods make the problem worse.
On the other hand, because of their status they can play a key role in the fight against The Pandemic. A couple of months ago I visited a pilot project which was aimed at getting sangomas to participate in the struggle against this awful disease.
The project leaders had a difficult time in explaining the nature of the virus and that it will never leave a persons body. Sangomas think that when the symptoms of a disease are gone, the disease itself is gone. Therefore some of them have claimed to have cured Aids, because after they treated an ill person this person looked healthy again.
The sangomas who participated in this project were very open to the 'western' way of fighting Aids. When I asked one of them why, she said " because our people are dying and I cannot help them".

Outrage

2007-05-08T10:30:00.000+02:00

"What is that?!?", with eyes wide open my boyfriend turns to me. He is obviously very shocked by something. Its two years ago and we are driving in my car in Amsterdam.

"What's the matter?", I return the question. I don't see anything that could cause so much disbelieve. We're in a one way street, cars parked left and right, some pedestrians and cyclists doing their thing. Basically, an everyday picture in the nations capital. He points at the vehicle in front of us. It's an ambulance...a pet-ambulance to be precise.
"You have ambulances for animals?"
"Ehh..yeah".
"Do you see with what kind of equipment that thing is geared out? Do you know that in SA most ambulances for human beings don't even have that?".
".....sorry?"
(Ashamed by this discrepancy I feel the need to apologise for this display of wealth.)

Since then he has shared this encounter with all his friends and family in South Africa. I cannot even count the times I turned my head away in shame being the only representative of my country in the company present.

In the Dutch national elections in November a Party for the Animals participated. It got two seats in our parliament (of the 150 seats in total). Of course all the campaigns of all the political parties revolved around the things that are wrong in Holland. But how bad can it be in a country were a Party for the Animals actually gets into parliament?

Stuff

2007-02-14T17:21:00.000+02:00

There is a lot of stuff in SA that I love but cannot get in Holland when I go there. Some examples:

- Crushed garlic in a jar. In Holland I have to get smelly fingers.
- Wood to make a braai with at every petrol station. I don't even think I can get wood to burn in the outdoors in Holland.
- Dozens of choices in moisturizers with 15 SPF
- Underskirts for dresses and skirts that are a bit too see through. In Holland they stopped selling them after the eighties I think.
- Cream soda and Sparletta
- Everything from Woolworths (I know, I've written this before, but its soo true)
- Cotton percale linen for the bed

- Parking in city centres
- Dippas crisps in the green bag from Simba
- Threesome chocolate from Beacon
- Fairview cream cheese with black pepper
- Zapiro cartoons (He is just the best)
- Mussels the size of a fist
- Carrot cake and Lemon Meringue pie. No clue why these are not widely available in Holland. I mean, Dutch apple pie does get boring after a while.
Of course there is more, but I know for a fact that most readers of this post don't even get this far.

A quick peak into the old days

2007-02-14T17:09:00.000+02:00

(Dubble click on the picture to see a bigger version)

The power of long blond hair

2007-02-07T11:59:00.000+02:00

(Blondes in Northern Europe are everywhere)

The impact of long blond hair in South Africa is many times bigger than in my native Holland. Spoiled by endless streams of girls and women with golden locks, the average Dutchie doesn’t even look up when a blondie walks past. In SA I find this to be quite the contrary. Natural (!) blonds are pretty scarce. So when you are one, like me, it actually works out as a benefit.

The other day I rented a trailer. The minute I stepped out of my car, ten guys (customers and personnel) turned around to watch me. The man, who checked the trailer I was to take out, had a smile on his face that could not be wiped of. Kindda got the feeling that he was chuft to get the blond-girl-job. After a more then thorough inspection of the trailer, he hooked on my car. I signed and wanted to drive of. But then the manager of the place stormed out and double checked everything. He even went as far as to jump on the trailer the see if it was secure enough. This was much to the amusement of another client who mockingly inquired if he would get the same treatment.

Besides this I had guards walking me down the street, a female fitting room attendant getting me three different sizes (while the other customers had to get their own), colour copies for the price of black and white, a customized fotoprint for free and innumerable smiles and glances.

To be clear; it’s not that I am vain that I notice stuff like this. It’s just that in Holland this never happens to me. So it must be the hair then, right?

Blood Diamond

2007-01-24T08:51:00.000+02:00

Leonardo DiCaprio is a quite accomplished actor, but can he pull of a South African English accent in front of a total South African audience?
Yesterday we went to see Blood Diamond, DiCaprio's recent movie in which he plays a South African diamond smuggler. For the part he left home his American accent and learned to talk like an Afrikaner who speaks English. I must admit that it was hard for me to concentrate on the story, because I knew that the whole audience was secretly grading his accent.

The first of many 'all right's went down south, literally; he sounded more like an aussie. A wave of laughter went through the audience because of so much ignorance. Shocking!
The second big roar was when DiCaprio called a soldier 'doos', which means 'cunt'. This time it was more a laughter of pride, as if everybody was thinking 'isn't that a great word we have?'
On the other hand; a shiver of shock went through the cinema when he shouted the K word (k*ffer) to he's his black companion. Maybe because its pretty much the worst thing one can say (like the American N word)? Maybe because they already feared the further stigmatising of white South Africans this movie could cause? Maybe because some of the whites present secretely liked to hear out loud again? Maybe....

But all in all he did a pretty good job pronouncing all the ja's, jaja's, all rights, bru's (brother) and apartheid's.
Well done, Leo. You past the test.

Let's go to the park,ehh... golf course

2007-01-18T09:26:00.000+02:00

"I am getting fed up with Jo'burg, maybe we will go to England", a girlfriend tells me over the phone. Although statistically the Western Cape is the most dangerous province in SA, people in Jo'burg seem to be more concerned about there safety. "We never even walk to the stores, although they are around the corner. I just don't feel safe", she continues. Since she heavily pregnant with their first baby I ask her if she will ever take the baby out for a stroll around the neighbourhood. "No! If you wanna walk you have to go to a golf course. I am really sick of it". Last X-mas I was over in Jo'burg and rather enjoyed it. Because houses are cheaper there than in Cape Town people have a nice place with a spacious lush garden, often a pool. Very relaxing. "That's it. Your house is like a safe haven with gates around it, but you can hardly leave it. You are so lucky that you're in Cape Town". The suggestion of moving here is cast aside. There is no money to be made in Cape Town. If they do decide to pack up and go to London, they would be the 2nd couple I know which has done that in the last six months. Another couple left for the safer pastures of England after they were high jacked in Jo'burg with their 3 kids in the back of the car. The only reason they still have their wedding rings is because they hid them in the nappy of the baby.

Every month

2007-01-16T10:37:00.000+02:00

This is the amount of medicine (ARV*syrops and vitamins) a 6 months old baby with Aids has to take every month. Since most of the time HIV goes hand-in-hand with a TB infection it usually is even more, since the TB medicine is not displayed. The medicine has to be taken three times a day and causes lots of problems for caretakers.
First and utmost it's the taste. It is very bitter. Most kids don't want to take it and resist fiercely when its administered to them. As a result a lot of life saving medicine ends up being spilled. It only takes a couple of inaccurate doses of the medicine for the child to get immune against it. I don't think I have to explain that that is a bad thing. In SA health practioners only have access to 2 types of ARV medicine for children. So if the one doesn't work anymore, there are not a whole lot of other options.
Another problem is that the medicine needs to be refrigerated. Many people with HIV/Aids are poor. If they do have a fridge, it often doesn't work because of a lack of electricity.
If people don't have a fridge they get capsules to break open and dilute in water, but breaking open capsules almost always causes loss of medicine.
The amount of medicine has to be measured in an exact way. A lot of kids are raised by their grandmothers who have lost a lot of eye sight. For them it is very difficult to read the scale of millilitres on the squirt.
The ARV medicine for children comes in syrup form. It has a low concentration of medicine, because it's originally created for babies. To make sure that older children get enough medicine in their system the volumes have to be increased. To remind you, the amount of ARV's in the picture is for a 6 MONTHS old baby. Just imagine how much that will be when a child is two or three years old.
( A kid has to be at least five years old before it can switch to ARV’s in tablet form)

*= Anti-Retro Viral, the medicine used when a person gets Aids

Decadence at its best, part I

2007-01-12T11:59:00.000+02:00

Living ON the beach and still having a swimming pool, that is decadence at its best for me.
As you might have noticed in the title; this is part I in a series, because I know for a fact that I will come across more examples of pure decadence in this city, where the gap between rich and poor is the highest in SA.

Spoiled to the bone

2007-01-04T18:14:00.000+02:00

I am getting very spoiled in South-Africa.
To start with: WINES. Each and every restaurant has an extensive wine list with a choice between at least 10 whites and 10 reds. Big was surprise when I was in Holland a few weeks ago and ordered wine. The following conversation emerged.
ME: I would like some wine please. (implying: bring me the wine list, please)
Waiter (W): Red or White?
Me: Red
W: Ok. (And he wanted to walk away)
Me: Sorry, but kind of wine do you have?
W: House wine
Me: ....
W: .....
Me: What is your house wine?
W: Ehh...I believe its French. Its very nice.
Me: Ehh...ok...
I didn't have the hart to ask for the kind of wine, merlot, shiraz, cabernet etc..

The second thing is: the service at petrol stations. I won't be the first and certainly not the last Dutchie who goes back to Holland, drives into a self service petrol station and sits there waiting for a person to come and fill up the tank, meanwhile complaining about the slow service.

(If you look closely at the picture you can see the guys in the background chatting and waiting for the man in the red shirt to fill up their tanks. What can I say? Attitudes rub off!)

Kaapse Klopse

2007-01-02T15:52:00.000+02:00

Today is the kick off for the annual Kaapse Klopse; the new years celebration of the coloured people in Cape Town that dates back hundreds of years ago. Organised in bands and dressed in colorful satin outfits they march through the streets. It takes thousands of people months of practicing to put on this event. Fortunately for them it is not a once off event. The KK will continue till February.
And as the pictures will show you, its a party for the whole family. At least, if you are on time to get a good spot or when you can climb high enough!

The Xhosa Joan Collins

2006-12-13T17:00:00.000+02:00

Now, this is obviously a 'Mama'*

"You use 'mama' for women one generation older than yourself and 'sisi' for those who are about the same age", the Xhosa**-teacher explained his classroom full of pale white students. We had just learned the words for 'hello' (molo) and 'how are you?' (kunjani) and it was time to move on to the proper naming of the Xhosa people you encounter. "But what if you call some-one 'mama' who in fact is only slightly older than you?", one of my co-students wanted to know. Will that person be insulted?

But what about her?

The classroom begins to buzz. Apparently most of them had the same thought. "Once I stood up for an old man in the subway in London and he got angry", a guy says, "and everybody knows that women can be insulted easily if you think there older than they are". Are Xhosa women as sensitive about their age as western women? Is it a compliment if you say 'sisi' to a woman who is actually a 'mama'?

And her?

The teacher laughed at this display of westernized thinking. "It is a sign of respect to call an older woman 'mama'; no one will regard it as an insult". A doubtful hum went through the room. Nobody really truly believed it. In our minds we were thinking what would happen if we ever encounter the Xhosa-version of Joan Collins or Cher.
As a safety measure I made sure to learn the word for 'lady' (nkosikazi). No one will ever consider that an insult (I hope).

* picture courtesy of Herman Warnich
** Xhosa is one of the eleven official languages of SA. It is the home language of both Mandela and Mbeki.

The three wise (wo)men

2006-12-12T10:52:00.000+02:00

What if the three wise men were women instead?
This Afrikaans X-mas card gives the answer.
It says:

It would have been very different if were three wise women who followed the star.

They would have asked for directions and would have arrived on time, taken pieces of cloth as a present, helped out with the baby, cleaned the stables and prepared food. Then they still would have felt bad for not being able to do more. Merry X-mas.

(Dubble click on picture to enlarge and read the text)

Mandela vs Cruijff

2006-12-11T11:31:00.000+02:00

Question: who is more famous world wide former SA president Nelson Mandela or Dutch soccer legend Johan Cruijff?

My South-African friends claim its the first one, I am inclined to go for the latter. What do you think?

No House of the Rising Sun

2006-12-07T15:06:00.000+02:00

The old (apartheids) flag of SA as portraited in a bar in Cape Town

"That song The House of the Rising Sun was not allowed in South-Africa, because it’s about a whore house", says my companion while we’re talking about the U2 and Green Day song. "My father is therefore very proud of the illegal copy he has got somewhere". But if you don't know it is about a whore house than you will never pick that fact up from just the lyrics, I reply. He shrugs. Apparently that didn't matter to the apartheid-censors and apparently it wasn’t hard to get bootleg copies too. I know his father and he doesn’t strike me as a guy who knows people who know people, if you know what I mean.
Apartheid was first and utmost a crime against the black people of South-Africa. But there were some other 'side-effects'. An example of that is the strict censorship that was applied to everything that was against the 'morals' of the nations' leaders. (The irony of which always makes me laugh). Every song or book with the smallest reference to boobs, nudeness, sex, anarchism etc. was banned. It must have been some dull Sixties here. Once I enquired after the presence of hippies in the country in those days. Yes, there were youngsters with long hair and weird clothes, was the answer. What did they protest against, I remember asking? The silence that followed spoke for itself, I guess. Demonstrating was forbidden. Not just for the anti-apartheid activists, for everybody. As a dentistry student my (white) father-in-law and his fellow students were not allowed to demonstrate to get fluoride in the tab water to prevent cavities.
Erotic magazine were allowed though! Only, gold stars were covering up the 'good' parts of the women. Ever tried to scratch those stars of the paper, I asked my South-African boyfriend once. Of course, he said. "But it never worked. They were printed in the paper".

What is weird about this?

2006-12-07T10:57:00.000+02:00

The top picture is taken in Amsterdam two weeks ago, where it is supposed to be winter. The bottom one I took today from my balcony in Cape Town, where the summer holidays are coming up.
Rain in Cape Town during the summer is weird, bathing in the sun with leaves still attached to trees is weird in wintery Holland.
Global warming it must be?

Back from....

2006-12-06T17:21:00.000+02:00

A warm welcome to all my readers. Its been a while since I updated my website. The enormous delay was caused by several circumstances of which a trip to the Netherlands and moving contributed the most to the silence on my website. Apparently it is not possible in South-Africa to move one day and have the ADSL moved the other day ehh week, I mean. (You have to grant them a small waiting period, right?). Anyway, I am back online now.
Besides a trip overseas and a change of apartment we also got into a road accident in Namibia. While driving 120 km/hours one tire of our bakkie burst, which caused us to end up upside down. Thank god the four of us all lived, although one friend of mine experienced some awful head injuries.
The doctor in Keetmanshoop patched her up while telling us all about his Dutch wife. How hard headed she was and stubborn etc...Since three out of four of our travel party are Dutch we were very interested and asked where she was from. (Holland is small;between the three of us we probably know 99% of the places there). Turned out she had never been to the NLs! She's born and raised Namibian, but as a third generation Dutchie from her fathers' side she regarded herself Dutch before anything else.

Lunchbreak in Stellenbosch

2006-10-27T10:53:00.000+02:00

For Sale?

2006-10-27T10:44:00.000+02:00

"Do you want to sell your van?" 400 euro cash. Call Albert

What do you think. Is it worth the money?

The Best of...

2006-10-16T11:42:00.000+02:00

Ever planning on travelling to Cape Town? Here are some inside tips from an outsider...

- Best Lunch spot: Olympia Cafe in Kalk Bay. From the outside it looks like a closed down night club, but the food, pastries and cookies are the best. Try the croissant with feta and grilled vegetables.
- Best Climb: Lions head. You probably expected to see Table Mountain listed here, but Lions Head is a little bit easier plus while climbing you get a 360 degree view over the city.
- Best Park: Kirstenbosch. Unfortunately you have to pay to get in, because it is a botanical garden, but it is worth it. Especially in summer in combination with a Sunday afternoon concert. Take a picknick.
-Best Fish Food Experience: Die Strandloper in Langebaan (or it's brother in Yzerfontein). Basically it is a fish braai on the beach. The food is prepared under your nose. Lunch starts at 12h and finishes 7 courses later at 16.30h. BYOB (wine and water will do)
- Best Cheese And Wine Lunch: Fairview in Paarl. It's cheap and delicious. Order wine, a salad and pick all of the cheeses on the menu you fancy. The portions look small, but once you start eating it with the fresh ciabatta you get with it....mmmmmmm. Don't worry; it will be enough.
- Best Ice Cream: Sinnfull in Camps Bay. Be prepared to stand in line.
- Best Beer: Black Label. It is fresh and a bit creamy, not bitter. If you wanna drink a lot without getting drunk to quickly, try Windhoek Light. It fresh, but still real beer.
- Best Supermarket: Woolworths, if money is not a consideration. Otherwise, Checkers.
- Best German Deli And Supermarket: Who can do without? The one on the ground floor in Gardens Shopping Centre. Great Salami, great sausage. They even sell stroopwafels, drop and pea soup (which are not German at all, but Dutch).
- Best Cinema: Labia on Orange. It's a lovely little old theatre that shows art house movies for only 25 rand. The lady behind the popcorn counter can get a little stressed when she has to sell tickets too, but deep down she is a lovely woman.
- Best Place To Go For A Sunset: Signal Hill. You can drive there and pick any view of the city you want. Bring wine.
- Best Pizza Place: NONNA LINNA. Yes, in capitals! It is by far the best pizza I ever had. Thin crust, right amount of cheese, golden oldies next to surprising new varieties and inexpensive, great seasoning. The fresh pasta is good too.
- Best Smoothies: Kauai.
- Best Beach: I like Camps Bay, because the bars are just a stones throw away, but when the South Easter is blowing it is better to go to Clifton no. 2 or 3. (There are 4 little beaches in Clifton, each of them has a number, insiders think there is even a Clifton 2,5 which is basically a little strip of sand that gets covered completely when the tide is high)
- Best Place To Go To For A Day And Escape The City: Langebaan Lagune. Do not get fooled by the little town of Langebaan itself, which is ugly and fallen prey to property developers. Go into the National Park and drive all the way up to Church Haven.

(This entry is NOT sponsored by any of the businesses named or any other for that matter)

North and South

2006-10-10T09:50:00.000+02:00

I still cannot get used to the idea of X-mas in summer. As a Northern Hemisphere girl I don't think I ever will. The X-mas decorations for this year are already available and this girl is checking them out. In her shorts, her flip flops and sleeveless top! Aren’t those supposed to be a thick winter coat, leather boots and jeans with panties under them? So for all you Northern people out there: here is a little taste of X-mas in the Southern Hemisphere.

It's worse when they're white.......

2006-10-07T11:45:00.000+02:00

Although in general black means poor and white means rich, it doesn't mean that there are no black people who are rich or white people who are poor.
The other day I took a walk and within 10 minutes I came across these two white beggars. I have to admit that seeing white people on the streets has more of an impact on me than when I see black people beg. Bad isn't it? Like it is worse when beggars are white than when they are black. The only thing that makes me feel a little less awful is that Nelson Mandela himself made the same observation in his Long Walk To Freedom when he encountered a white beggar back in the fifties.
Since coming to o South Africa I am more aware of the differences between the different coloured people in the world. I.e. I am convinced that when a certain disease would kill hundreds of people a day in France of Germany or the UK the rest of the (western) world would stumble over each other to help or intervene. I don't see that in South Africa where HIV/Aids takes hundreds of lives a day. Sure, there are a lot of NGO's and people helping out. But a massive intervention? I don't think so.

Oh, in case you are wondering.....The guy in the top picture lives of a state pension of 850 rand a month. His rent is 700 rand a month. He worked al his life in the shipping industry as a welder. I asked him if he didn't save for an extra pension while working. Sure, he answered. But he has taken all the money out of the funds early and spend it on (in his own words) "cars, motorbikes and beautiful women".

Crime sells...

2006-09-29T17:32:00.000+02:00

Funny Afrikaans II

2006-09-18T09:46:00.000+02:00

Here are some more examples of Afrikaans that the Dutch think is very funny:

Melkskommel - Milkshake
Krimpvarkie - Porcupine (Egel)
Verkleurmannetjie - Cameleon
Haanpartij - Bachelorparty (male)
Hennepartij - Bachelorparty (female)
Kopskuif - Changing your mind

New democracy in old room

2006-09-11T14:13:00.000+02:00

"It is actually amazing that I am sitting here", the parliamentary journalist of Indian decent says.
The place: the Old Assembly in the South African Parliament.
The event: a committee meeting on a pending strike of immigration officers*.
The Old Assembly Room is the room where during the apartheid years the plenary meetings of parliament were held.
“Do you think about it a lot, that only 12 years ago no coloureds, no Indians and no blacks where allowed in here?” I asked her. Today most people present are black or coloured, one or two white faces can be seen.
“To be honest; never", she says a little bit embarrassed and adds that she never thinks about the struggle anymore.
For decades people have been fighting against apartheid and now, twelve years down the line, it has become as normal as breathing for most people.
It is ironic: with freedom comes also the freedom to forget the pain of the people who fought for that freedom.

*= the MP's express their concerns South Africa's image. Queues of people waiting to get past passport control and in to the country are the last thing the host of the World Cup Soccer in 2010 needs.

What to expect when visiting a Rugby match

2006-09-04T08:52:00.000+02:00

Of course there is the biltong guy dressed in the colours of the club...

Then there are the 'braaiers', the people who arrive early so that they can braai between the cars on the field that is designated as parking area for the occasion. The people in this picture have a nice little corner for themselves, but that is unique. Normally is happens behind the car so that there is easy access to the meat and drinks in the boot of the car.

For the non-braaiers there is the wors sales person to fill the hungry (beer) bellies

Since it is not allowed to bring alcohol into the stadium, people have come up with resourceful ways to get there hands on brandy-coke, a drink that is as vital to the game as the ball itself.
Little plastic bags filled with booze are stuffed in places like the hood of a jacket. In the stadium it is mixed with coke. This method requires somewhat of a steady hand.

After the game there is again an opportunity to braai !!!

Should she stay or should she go?

2006-08-25T11:58:00.000+02:00

After her performance in at the AIDS-congress in Canada, the call for the firing of SA minister of Health Manto (Tshabalala-Msimang) is louder than ever. The conference-stand of SA was said to be filled with no more than some "salad-ingredients" like onions, beetroot and lemon juice. These veggies form the core of her remedy of HIV/AIDS and not ARV-medicine (HIV remmers in Dutch) as most people would like to see. For a lot of western people it is incomprehensible that she can stay on as a minister since in their eyes her lack of support for ARV's causes more people to get infected and/or die than necessary.

On the sight of the Mail and Guardian people can post their opinions on the question:
Should Minister Manto loose her job?
I am showing you some of the fragments posted on the site, to show you that the discussion isn't as clear cut as it is in most western eyes:

"I am fully behind our minister, and as one of the people living with HIV, I have been following wome of the natural methods and they work well for me. My CD4 count was low and I used natural herbs and it was boosted. Different things work for different people. Let us not push for the western medication in so much that we become rigid and not want to try some other things that work."

"It is about time that people understand that Ministers implement government policy and not their individual ideas.If people are not happy then why don`t they vote for the DA and reinstate grand apartheid."

"Quite odd is the fact that a bunch of white people are trying to force a black person to do all in her power to improve the suffering of the poorer blacks affected by her decisions and unclear communications."

"It seems to me that TAC is pushing for pharmaceutical companies' interests ahead of common sense, while masquarading as a mouthpiece for HIV positive people. "
(TAC is the Treatment Action Campaign, an organisation in favour of ARV's, LK)

"And I dont understand what's the hullabaloo is about, coz Manto stated clearly that in addition to people taking ARV drugs they must maintain a healthy diet. She never asserted that people should disregard ARV for beetroot and garlic.
Its only cynical white media, which is hell bent on twisting her utterances, to mislead poeple!"

"Government is also for traditional medicine, which has served millions of South Africans and Africans very well over centuries and millenia. The problem is that even though there is anecdotal evidence that natural herbs do work, the legacy of apartheid insured that these were never regulated or tested."

A response from the USA:
"...have you ever wondered just why it is that HIV and the HIV tests are only going off on the least accepted human beings on this planet of Gay men and Black Heterosexuals. In particular, the poorest of the blacks that suffer from poor hygiene, poor nutrition, bleek and highly stressed lives?
If the west had been fortunate enough to have such as Manto and Mbeki at the helm, there would have been no false declaration of HIV as being behind AIDS, that was given on the White house steps of the most Homophobic president, with no scientific proof of the statement being offered."

For the whole statements go to www.mg.co.za

Windy city

2006-08-23T15:40:00.000+02:00

Cape Town is (in)famous for it's South Eastern wind, also called the Cape Doctor, because it prevents smog from forming. However, I wonder if this strong wind doesn't also take lives now and again cause of the objects that makes it fly around in the air. In this picture you see the outside table of our neighbours hanging in the tree and driving a car on the day all the trash cans are outside, waiting to be emptied, can also be very risky business.

They didn't want better lives

2006-08-21T17:35:00.000+02:00

" Those people didn't want to be upgraded", the 70 year old Afrikaans woman said after I told her of my visit to the District Six museum. This museum tells the story of the Capetonian neighbourhood District 6 that was destroyed by the apartheids regime because it was "unhealthy" and " too crowded". It reality the land was designated to become a white neighbourhood, so the black and coloured inhabitants had to go. The pictures of the people leaving their house reminded me of the deportation of the Jews in WOII to the ghettos. Wagons full of household belongings pushed forward by beating down people, faces drenched in grieve...

(The District 6 museum itself)

I told the Afrikaans lady how shocked I was and what an outrageous thing to do. But she had her own views; " These people lived in old and dirty houses. We gave them new, better houses, but they didn't want them. They didn't want a better life". Better houses? They were send to the townships of the Cape Flats. Better life? They never complained. The people of District Six loved their vibrant neighbourhood.

Talking to the Afrikaans lady felt like talking to my grandmother; set in her ways and very unlikely to change her mind. It made me wonder: was her view of things the way the apartheids-regime communicated it to the white people back then? That the coloured people were an ungrateful bunch? Or did she come up with her analysis all on her own?

These are not voters....

2006-08-21T17:06:00.000+02:00

These are not people waiting in line to cast their ballots. These people are waiting for ....

the icecream of Sinnfull in Camps Bay, the best in Cape Town! Icecream-lovers are waiting up to 20 minutes to get a taste of flavours as Wildberries-Cream, Aero (Bros) chocolate-ice cream, Toffe Fudge Hazelnut, Butter Pecan, Cookies and Cream, Peppermint....

For my mother

2006-08-21T16:04:00.000+02:00

Whale watching

2006-08-15T10:53:00.000+02:00

Every year between july-december the Southern Right Whale comes to the south coast of SA to mate and give birth. One of the most famous whale-watching-towns is Hermanus. If you're lucky you can see whales mating as close as 10 metres from the shore. And if your don't see any whales you can always watch the watchers.
(That little black and white thingie on the right side of the picture directly above is a whale. Double-click to enlarge pictures)

VegiWHAT?!

2006-08-08T17:41:00.000+02:00

A meal in SA isn't complete without a huge portion of meat. When I told my boyfriend that in Holland the guideline for the daily intake of meet is 100 grams his eyes popped out. "But that's only one sandwich!"
Yesterday I was preparing dinner when he peaked over my shoulder and saw that I had 'only' taken 150 grams of boerewors out of the fridge for him. (I chopped a pack of 500 grams into 3 portions) So he dived back in there and took another piece out. He must have eaten about 350 grams of wors (sausage).

The other day at the McDonalds I noticed for the first time that there was no veggie burger on the menu. Needless to say that my asthonishment wasn't exactly shared by my SA companion "Of course there's no veggie thing here, who eats that?"
Once a friend of mine was stupid enough to ask for a veggie burger at a fastfood restaurant. She got a bun with onion, lettuce, tomato and mayo!

The menu above gives you an idea of what people eat here for breakfast. Special attention for the Plaasjapie please. With 200 grams of steak it contains more meat than a complete steak dinner in an average restaurant in Holland.

Don't give them money or alcohol

2006-08-05T12:28:00.000+02:00

The hunting trip I referred to earlier, started of with going over an extensive list of rules. Since there are guns and people involved it can get dangerous. Most stuff was pretty standard like; don't drive around with a loaded gun; always point the gun upwards; don't shoot a bok who fell or trembled over something, please give him a fair chance; don't wander away from the place at which you were dropped of, you might end up walking into some others shooting range.

Two of the rules really stood out for me. Those were the ones that concerned the people who came along to locate the animals and drive closer to the hunters. They were local (coloured) people. According to the farmer we had to treat them with respect. "You will see that I will treat them with respect and they treat me with respect and I want you to do the same". Wow, treat people with respect? Does he really have to explain that? According to my South-Africans friends there are still lots of white people out there who need to be reminded of that. The second rule was: " Don't give them money or alcohol. Otherwise they will come back for it time after time and bother not only you but also the people who come after you. If you really want to give them something you can give them some food". We're still talking about people here right? Not dogs?

X-mas in July

2006-08-03T16:47:00.000+02:00

X-mas in SA means sun, sea and braai. That is...the one in december, because the 'European' idea of X-mas (snow, slay rides, pine trees, cold outside while it's warm inside, etc...) has gotten some roots here as well. In june/july there are X-mas festivals being held in several places i.e. Tulbagh, because that is the time of year the weather in SA is most similar to the situation mentioned in the all the European and American X-mas songs and movies.

Hunting (not for sensitive viewers)

2006-08-03T14:07:00.000+02:00

Last weekend we went hunting. I've always been against hunting, although I never did it myself. In order to actually find out what it was I was opposing I went along. I am almost ashamed to admit that I kinda liked it. Lying in the beautiful Karoo (semi-desert), hearing the birds tjilping, watching the small animals and flowers making their way through the rough and dry landscape. It's a bit like fishing. You have to wait for the animals who won't be rushed. While you're waiting in silence all the stress fall of your shoulders.
I didn't shoot anything cause I missed.

The animals that could be shot were different types of bok; springbok, blesbok, gemsbok. The hunting season lasts for three months, during which a maximum of 25% of the population can be shot. After a bok gets shot the butcher will make sausage, ribs and steak out of it. The skin will be sold to a tradesman and the guts are left in the field for the animals to eat. The skin of springbok gets sold for only 3-5 rand a skin, that's around 50 eurocent. I was very surprised by that since a bag made out of springbok leather will cost you around 400 rand (50 euro).

Snow!! (The real stuff)

2006-07-26T14:33:00.000+02:00

Snow in SA! It's more common then I thought. Every year there is a snow season in the area of Ceres, an 1,5 hour driving north of Cape Town. There is actually a snow club where SA's can ski for about two to three weeks per year.
It was busy in Ceres when we went there this weekend. The minute we walked into the Tourist Information Centre the guy asked us if we were looking for the snow. He advised us to get a snow-map(!) that would direct us there. The snowy fields and roads were covered with people throwing snow balls and building snow mans.
And of course there was the inevitable Boerewors and coffee stand; the only two things the couple behind the stand and braai sold. Talking about bare necessities!

Land of milk and honey

2006-07-20T12:01:00.000+02:00

On my way back from Holland I encountered a Dutch couple at the airport. The two 50 year olds were beaming with energy. When they learned that I lived in SA they looked at each other and said simultaneously;
" We are going to buy land in South-Africa! In Somerset-West!"
" Well", I replied, " Then you are just in time, because the government is planning on making it a lot harder for foreigners to buy land"
"I heard sometime like that from a friend of ours", the lady said and turned to her husband "Isn't he going there now as well to buy some for himself?"
"Yes, he his", the husband replied.
" The government is making it harder because the purchases of wealthy foreigners are driving up the prices so much that locals find it almost impossible to afford property, especially in the Western Cape", I explained.
"Really? So we are just in time then!”, the man replied happy.

The corridors at airfields are pretty long so the conversation continued until we reached gate 16.
"Isn't it wonderful to live in SA? I mean; it's like the land of milk and honey", he asked me.
Just coming back from Holland with it's small gap between rich and poor and all it's healthy, well fed people, I couldn't help but reply: "I don't know, there's so much poverty and misery. A lot people are uneducated and unemployed, they live in shacks. Every day I get confronted with the fact that I have it better than most. I loved being in Holland where so many people can afford the same things I can and where poverty is hidden".
Obviously this wasn't what the guy had expected and he fell silent for a little while. "Yes of course, but what about the wine, the diners, the climate. It's wonderful!" and he turned to see if his wife was still following him. "Let's go!”. And off they were.

Safe strawberries

2006-07-17T17:31:00.000+02:00

The safety in Holland is a blessing compared to SA. People there don't realise it enough, but it's great being able to sleep with the windows open, to step into your car and throw your bag next to you without the worry of a high jack, biking back to your house at 2 o'clock at night, and so on...

One of the things people in SA have a hard time believing is the following; in the Dutch countryside there are little unmanned stands next to the road where one can buy farms products like flowers, fruit (strawberries, apples and pears) and potatoes. The money that one pays for this, has to be put in a little jar on top of the stand or in the postbox of the house behind it. THERE IS NO ONE WHO CHECKS IF PEOPLE ACTUALLY DO PAY AND THERE IS NO ONE WHO CHECKS IF ANYBODY IS STEALING THE MONEY IN THE JAR. You don't believe me? Look at the pictures for proof.

First time victim

2006-07-17T16:42:00.000+02:00

First of all I would like to apologise to all my readers for not publishing any new posts on this weblog for so long. I was in the Netherlands for some time. During my absence there was a breaking and entering in our house by which my laptop got stolen. Now I have a new one (thank god for good insurance) and am back to blog. It is the first time I've been a victim of SA's huge crime.

The persons who robbed us were two 14-year old boys. Because my boyfriend interrupted them in their quest for our (expensive) goods they didn't steel that much: a laptop, my mini-disc recorder, shoes and my whole CD-collection. All the cd's I have bought over the last 12 years, including my very first...George Michaels Faith. It's awful. I try not to think about it to much otherwise it hurts.

As some icing on the cake they pooped in front of the door and wiped their butts with my boyfriend's best jacket.

A little break

2006-06-27T12:36:00.000+02:00

The CTC are taking a little break in the Netherlands. Too bad that the worst referee of all time managed to work Holland out of the World Championship Soccer prematurely. (Of course the players were not to blame!)

Maybe there will be some posts from Holland, maybe not. In any case will this site be up and running again from July 10 (2006).

Gangs, Drugs en Aids

2006-06-15T14:12:00.000+02:00

Als verse free-lancer in Zuid-Afrika (ZA) heb ik nogal veel vrije tijd. Om die nuttig in te vullen heb ik vorige week vier dagen ‘stage’ gelopen bij E-news (van Etv) in Kaapstad, zeg maar het RTL nieuws van ZA. Onder het mom; het kan nooit kwaad om een kijkje in de keuken op een buitenlandse nieuwsredactie te krijgen.

Drie van de vier dagen liep ik mee met een verslaggever. In die dagen ben ik getuige geweest van een drievoudige gang-moord, een drugsverslaafde moeder die de drugs TIK (een soort crack) tijdens haar hele zwangerschap bleef doorroken en dat open en bloot vertelde voor de camera, terwijl ze haar baby in een hand hield en haar rookpijpje in de andere en als laatste de problemen die hulpverleners tegenkomen bij het verstrekken van HIV remmers aan HIV positieve kinderen. Kinderen krijgen de remmers in de vorm van siroop, omdat de beschikbare pillen veel te sterk voor hun kleine lichamen zijn. In de praktijk komt het erop neer dat moeders twee per dag grote hoeveelheden siroop aan hun kind van bijvoorbeeld twee of drie jaar moeten geven. Ik heb zelf geen kinderen, maar het schijnt nogal een onderneming te zijn, waarbij veel siroop –en dus belangrijk medicijn- verloren gaat. Hoe dan ook, in vier dagen kreeg ik alle grote problemen waar dit land mee kampt in een notedop gepresenteerd.

Verder waren een aantal mensen druk bezig met het maken van een necrologie over Nelson Mandela. Bleek dat ze tot op heden niets op de plank hadden liggen! Ongelooflijk, maar waar. Ook heeft CNN al lang geleden contact opgenomen met Etv om gebruik te maken van hun faciliteiten als Mandela dood gaat en de grootste tv-produktiemaatschappij in ZA heeft strategisch onroerend goed aangekocht, bv. het huisje tegenover het geboortehuis van Mandela.

Vijf van de zes tv-verslaggevers op de redactie in Kaapstad zijn vrouw (er zijn intotaal 5 redacties verdeeld over het land) en ook het hoofd van de nieuwsafdeling is een vrouw (overigens een niet erg geliefde, maar dat heb je niet van mij). De redactie is heel erg ‘nieuw’ Zuid-Afrika. Veel jonge mensen, alle kleuren door elkaar en de blanken in de minderheid. Ik vond dat er een heel leuke sfeer hing. Hoewel een behoorlijk aantal mensen zeiden dat ‘er veel interne politiek is, maar dat is zeker overal zo?’. Vooral de sfeer onder de vrouwelijke verslaggeefsters was goed. Ze helpen en steunen elkaar heel erg bij het maken van een zo goed mogelijk product.

De lonen zijn laag. Tel je zegeningen in NL, ook ben je misschien niet erg tevreden. Een van de verslaggeefsters verdiende twee jaar geleden 3000 rand per maand (375 euro), terwijl ze in haar eentje de redactie in Durban gaande hield. Sindsdien is ze maar met kleine stapjes vooruit gegaan. Ik weet zeker dat ze nog geen 800 euro per maand verdiend. (en zo heel veel goedkoper is het leven hier niet hoor!)

Na afloop van mijn ‘stage’ vroegen een aantal mensen of ik bij hen bleef. Ze waren nogal verrast te horen dat Etv geen buitenlanders aan neemt en dat die kans er dus niet inzit. “Tjee, ik hoop niet dat als wij naar het buitenland gaan we op dezelfde manier worden behandeld”, reageerde een van hen. Tja...

Gangs, Drugs and Aids

2006-06-14T17:21:00.000+02:00

Last week I 'interned' at E-news, the newsbroadcast of Etv. It was a quite an experience. In four days I witnessed the reporting on a gang related triple murder in Belhar, the problems of providing ARVs to children with HIV and a mother who used the drug TIK all throughout her pregnancy; in a nutshell a the major problems South-Africa is dealing with. The issues journalists encounter here are much more burning then in Holland. Don't get me wrong. I know the Netherlands is no problem free paradise, but at least 90% of the population has access to good health care, decent education and a fine house. Furthermore, people in Holland don't have to walk the streets while being afraid of getting mugged (or worse).
Besides from the news Etv was working on documentaries about Nelson Mandela, that will be broadcasted after he dies. The crew working on it really won my respect. The first 70 years of Mandela's life there's hardly anything to work with, only a few pictures and three minutes of film at the most. Try to turn that in a documentary that (all episodes together) has to last more then a couple of hours. One thing really stood out for me. In the last couple of years the recording of Mandela's Rivonia trial was re-discovered. It was on a tape they couldn't play in SA anymore, therefore they had to send it to England to recover the sound. Turns out on it you can hear Mandela giving his speech in which he justifies his actions for the ANC. "In my life I have fought against white domination and black domination...". That speech, remember it? After it he was shipped of to Robben Island. The images of his release never seize to give me goose bumps.

(Upper photo: redactie E-news. Middle: Tik mother is holding drug pipe in one hand and baby in other hand. Under: Cameraman puts up camera during shoot)

We are sooo goo-ood!!

2006-06-12T15:15:00.000+02:00

(Source: The Star and Business Day)

Xenophobic and sexed up Holland?

2006-06-01T11:09:00.000+02:00

This is the Dutch news that made it into South-African media since I'm here (excluding the stuff about soccer and the World Championship in Germany)

- Open house in the red light district. Prostitutes in Holland opened their windows for the interested public and gave free lap dances. (Cape Times)
- The biggest political party in Rotterdam wants Dutch to be the only language spoken in the city. This mostly to discourage immigrants to talk in their native tongue (Afrikaans news)
- Famous MP and moslim critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali will loose the Dutch nationality and be expelled from parliament, because she lied about her background when she entered the country after fleeing from Somalia. She will leave Holland and go to the United States. (Cape Times)
- Pedophiles launch political party. Pedophiles in the Netherlands are starting a political party to campaign for lowering the legal age for sex from 16 to 12 and to legalise child pornography and sex with animals (Cape Times)
- Dutch nurse encouraged HIV positive daughter of MP to diet on garlic, olive oil and onion instead of getting ARV medicine. The woman died. Critics say that with ARV she would have lived years longer (A weekend paper, forgot which one)

What kind of image will South Africans have of Dutch people?

(NB: Although I tried supply a complete list, I am not stating it is, I don't read all the papers and don't watch all the news broadcasts all the time)

Just pick 'em of the street

2006-05-30T12:56:00.000+02:00

Last week I tried to get my hands on some tickets for the rugby match SA-France in June. Monday morning at 8 we were standing in front of the Checkers supermarket waiting for the doors to open so that we would be the first ones to get tickets. Checkers/Shoprite has the monopoly to sell rugby tickets in SA and you've guessed it, where there is a monopoly, there is very bad service.
When the doors opened we raced inside to find the printers off-line. We were not the only ones there. Two white guys where as flushed and stressed as we were. Time was ticking and in other supermarkets tickets were being sold. The lady tried her best, but nothing...One of the other guys grabbed his phone and said in the receiver: you go to sea point, we will go to Mowbray. Wow! Somebody is organised. I dropped my boyfriend off at work and raced on to the supermarket in Mowbray.
It was a weird situation when I entered. The dudes from the other supermarket were there already (i don't know how they managed to do that that fast, flying?), but they were not alone. Ten black men were standing with them waiting. Waiting, because here the printers and/or systems were also off line. The tension was building up now, because we all were aware of one thing...THE INTERNET. While we were there waiting for stupid machines, people at home were booking online. Why didn't we do that? Because we're in Africa here and even Africans realise that unless you're holding the tickets in your hand there is always something that can happen to screw it up.
The one dude was again very pro-active. Take five of them and go to Rondebosch Shoprite, he said to his white companion, who immediately left with five black guys following him. What is that about?, I had to ask him. Well, you can only buy ten tickets per person and I want 120 tickets so I needed some more people, he said. Where did you get them? Oh, I just picked them of the streets in front of the supermarket. They were hanging around there.

To make a long story short. I didn't get tickets there. I raced back home and after ten tries I was able to book tickets online. We don't have them in our hands yet, so every night we go to bed praying that when we go and collect them they will be there.
Oh, did I mention I am not even going to the game myself? The tickets are for my boyfriend and his friends.

Tampon crisis

2006-05-17T08:24:00.000+02:00

Besides great poverty, a lack of democracy and an inflation topping 1000% Zimbabwe is also dealing with a Tampon crisis. Menstruating women are using anything to control the bleeding i.e. rolled-up newspapers. Health organisations fear for the health of these women, because the wounds in their vaginas make them more vulnerable to the HIV virus. And Zimbabwe isn't a very nice place for women to start with. Their life expectancy is 34 years, the lowest in the world.
The tampon and sanitary towel crisis started when manufacturer Johnson&Johnson left the country due to the crisis and Zimbabwe was forced to import these goods. The inflation has made them unaffordable for anyone except the elite. The minimum wage is 6 million Zimbabwe dollars a month, 20 tampons cost 3 million Zimbabwe dollars.
When an MP tried to raise the issue in parliament, government ministers couldn't stop laughing.

Autumn in a vineyard

2006-05-16T15:46:00.000+02:00

Still waiting

2006-05-15T07:58:00.000+02:00

I' m still waiting for a letter someone send me last year may. It contains some pictures so I was quite eager to receive it, but I decided to give it up after two months of waiting. That's a reasonable period right? Or am I being very hard on the South African postal services?
On feb. 12th of this year I posted two letters to Amsterdam, the Netherlands. One arrived ten days later as planned, the other arrived two months (!) later.
A month later I found out that sending a card from Cape Town to Jo'burg takes as long as sending it to Holland (when it arrives according schedule that is).
I realise I am spoiled by the postal system in Holland. When you post something there it arrives according to plan and you don't have to send anything via registered mail, the regular service is reliable enough. Here everybody is very quick to ask "do you have a tracking number?" the minute I start complaining about missing letters. No, I don't. Isn't the postal service obliged to deliver ALL the post safe?

One last comment about post: our house doesn't have a post box. I so take that for granted that only when was I about to receive mail I noticed that wasn't even possible, because of a lack of space for the postmen to throw it in. Turns out that because of the security complexes lots of people live in (and the gates that go with those) hardly anyone has a post box attached to the house. They all rent a p.o. box. Ours is 500 metre down the street where we live in. And don't ask me how people in some townships receive their mail. The stone houses can receive mail, but what about the people who live in self-made shacks? Do they ever receive mail?

(Some of the things that did arrive)

Sunset on Signal Hill

2006-05-12T12:07:00.000+02:00

( Double click on picture to enlarge)

I'll be back

2006-05-11T12:48:00.000+02:00

Zuma is back, just as he promised. Or at least he's willing to come back and become the deputy president of the ANC again. The ANC is not as eager, but really doesn't have a choice since they agreed to take him back if he was found innocent of raping the daughter of friends. But things aren't over for him yet. In July he has to appear in court on account of corruption and some of the things he said in court have raised (more) questions about his character. I've written it before but to refresh the memory some examples:
- He (the former leader of the national Aids council) took a shower after the sex with HIV positive woman to decrease changes of infection
- She was wearing a skirt and had her legs crossed instead of neatly next to each other, ergo: she was asking for it
The list is longer, but I hear it here all the time, so I'm getting a bit bored of it.
One of the things he said after the verdict kindda stood out for me. He was thanking his supporters for standing by him and not 'judging' him before the trial was completely over "in contrast to the educated people of this country, who found me guilty before the trial was finished. You know the constitution better then the so called wise people".
After that the crowd of mostly unemployed people cheered. Some of them had actually quit there job to go to Jo'burg and support their hero. He's their absolute champion, he's alsoborn and raised in a poor, uneducated family. But what is their leader telling his fans? Education = bad? One thing is clear though. The woman who accussed him of rape, can't live in this country anymore. She's packing her things and is leaving for an unknown destination. (Zuma's fans are a bit unpredictable, that's why)

Verdict update

2006-05-08T12:23:00.000+02:00

Monday May 8th, 12.20u: The nation is waiting for the verdict. It's expected around 14.30u.

3.14u: Zuma is found not guilty of rape

After-apartheid kids

2006-05-04T12:20:00.000+02:00

SA has had democracy for 12 years now. That means that there's a whole new generation who wasn't alive during the apartheid. The Mail&Guardian tried to find out what these kids now about the nations struggle and went to different kinds of schools and talked to kids from all colours and background. Here are some of their findings:

A 14 year old girl from Soweto was asked which foreign country she would love to travel to. Answer: "Robben Island, because it has all the history I want to see, where Nelson Mandela stayed and more about the way they lived"

A white boy from Jo'burg "Black people are cool. I like their music and I like how they dance. Its better than white culture. They got sangomas (traditional healers) and stuff and we only have churches"

A black boy from Pietermaritzburg responding to what was apartheid . "A white person would buy first in a shop even if you were there first". He also wasn't a fan of politics " Political matters have resulted in many councillors getting killed. I just heard on the news that some councillors got killed recently"

A boy from Soweto shares his thoughts about the USA. "There are better opportunities there and less poverty. There are no hobos and street kids. I also would like to see how celebrities like Mario and Chris Brown live".
A boy from Jo'burg agrees with him "I think people there don't steal like in SA. There's crime there, but it's not worse like ours. i think I'd feel safer there". Another boy would love to go to the USA to "see lots of things and learn about them and then come back and help black people. The economy is big there".

(source: Mail & Guardian, April 28 2006)

The mountain has disappeared

2006-05-03T16:04:00.000+02:00

Behind the round tower in this picture you should be seeing Table Mountain, but it has been so cloudy these last days that is has completely vanished from sight.

Freedom

2006-04-27T15:58:00.000+02:00

Today it's Freedom Day. It's celebrated on the day the first democratic elections were held in SA in 1994. I think it's a great reason for a holiday. When I think back of '94 with those long lines of people waiting to cast their votes for the first time in their life, I get the shivers. So impressive, such a great moment.
South-Africa isn't just free for the South-Africans themselves, to a lot of other people it means freedom too. Two days ago we went into town, because we had something to celebrate. The waitress we had, spoke with a beautiful french accent. It turned out she was from the Congo. "Things are bad there", she explained herself. She and her sister managed to get to South-Africa. The rest of her family was still there. The thought of them made her look sad.
After dinner we went to our car, where we were approached by a man. He asked, no begged, if we would listen to him. He explained he was a refugee from Sudan and needed money to get to Plettenberg Bay, where his brother was staying. He showed us the piece of paper with the directions and the money he had saved up until now. It was 40 rand and he needed 85 rand for the taxibus. He started crying. He lost all his family in the war in Sudan and was breaking down in front of our eyes. He hadn't eaten the whole day because he was saving his money for the bus. We helped him out. There are a lot of beggars in SA, but a grown man crying for money is an uncommon and awful sight. I feel bad at having even the slightest doubt about his story. I so hope he got on that taxibus and is ok now.

I miss

2006-04-27T14:52:00.000+02:00

Things I miss from the Netherlands:

- Riding my bicycle to a bar where my friends are waiting for me
- Hidden poverty
- All the good fried food: chips with mayonaise, frikadellen, kaassoufflees and those little bami and nasi-thingies you get at parties
- Going to the market to browse and buy some fruit
- Running next to the river Amstel (in Amsterdam)
- Visiting my mother on an impulse
- Going to a park
- The cold air when winter is coming
- The newspapers (compared to the ones here, they're not as bad as the Dutch think)
- Cheap cable television
- The low fat chicken wraps from the Burger King
- Visiting a friend's home, just to end up drinking wine on the couch and making comments about everything and everyone
- The Hennes&Mauritz and Vero Moda shops
- Talking about politics and making jokes about the politicians (and everyone knows where you talking about)
- Big bags of M&Ms
- The columns of Jan Blokker

Bakkies

2006-04-23T11:31:00.000+02:00

A bakkie is a pick-up truck and South-Africans love them. They carry around anything in them, even people. Not just on dirt roads in the country side, also on the high way where cars do a 150 km/h. The first time I saw that and cried out: "oh no, look at that, it's so dangerous! They can't do that". At that time, I was still used to Dutch standards and the Dutch way of upholding the law. In Holland it would never fly and the driver would have been pulled over by the police in 5 minutes. Now I'm used to this. A lot of it has to do with money. In Holland it's safety first. In South-Africa safety gets compromised because of money, work, labour. I.e. a lot of employers drive around their workers in a bakkie. For them it's too expensive to get safe transportation for their workers and the employees themselves have no money for their own cars. I've seen bakkies with up to 25 people in the back! Of course the people in the back are never white (except a few kids who are fooling around). Sometimes you can even see a white driver with an empty passenger seat next to him and 6 people in the back.

Winter's coming

2006-04-19T22:18:00.000+02:00

Camps Bay, wednesday 19th april, 16.00u

It's getting winter here. I told myself to take full advantage of the last sunny days. So that's what I've been doing for the last three weeks. Because as it turns out, the step from summer to autumn/winter isn't as clean cut here as it is in Holland. In the Netherlands you praise the lord for every nice day after September 15th. Here you don't have be stressed about missing the last nice day, because after that there's another and another and another. Today it was 25 degrees. A fine beach day as you can see. 25 degrees in Holland is almost a heat wave! I wonder how much more days there will be when I rush to the beach because I don't want to miss out on the last hot one of the season.

Millionaires

2006-04-18T09:16:00.000+02:00

Half of Africa's 75.000 millionaires* live in South-Africa. And they show it. It would take me over a year to see the number of expensive cars in the Netherlands that I see in Camps Bay on one afternoon. In a way, that's weird because Holland is a very rich country, but people don't seem to show off their wealth like they do here. It's rather normal seeing a Lamborghini or Ferrari on a Friday afternoon cruising around the Camps Bay boulevard. Porsches, BMW's and the latest Mercedes are standard issue of course.

The houses are no pieces of cake either. Every day I pass these beautiful apartment buildings with views to die for and I imaging myself living on one of it's floors. But then my boyfriend helps me out of my dream "It's one house, not a block of apartments". Not that it makes that much of a difference, I wouldn't be able to afford it either way.

* in case you are wondering...yes, dollar millionaires, not rands, but dollars.

Beachboy

2006-04-12T00:16:00.000+02:00

Zuluboy

2006-04-10T18:18:00.000+02:00

What would SA be like without Jacob Zuma? A lot more boring that's for sure. The rape trial against him is starting to resemble a Hollywood picture (a bad one though). Remember he is charged with raping a HIV-positive family friend? Last week he appeared in court to testify and some of the stuff he said is so amazing, that I can't keep it from you.

Remember, while you're reading, that Zuma was the head of the National Aids Council of SA, the country in the world with the most HIV-positive people in the world

- He knew she wanted sex, because although she was wearing a skirt, she had her legs crossed in stead of neatly next to each other.
- After the sex/rape he took a shower to lower his chance of getting infected
- He couldn't refuse the woman sex even if she's positive. It's against his Zulu upbringing to deny sex to a woman who is aroused.
- There were no condoms, but he did have sex anyway because he was head of the Aids Council he knew the risks for a negative guy having unsafe sex with a positive woman and they were small enough.

I really don't know if I whether to laugh or cry. The damage he's doing with the stuff he's saying is huge. Zuma is a hero to a lot of people.

I have seen Rutger Hauer!!!

2006-04-09T20:51:00.000+02:00

Hihi, it was in a bar in the V&A waterfront on saturday. I wanted to go over to him and kiss his feet, but something stopped me. Pride maybe? Never really thougt I had a lot of that, to tell you the truth. Anyway, he's in town to shoot a movie. That happens quite often in Cape Town. Everywhere you go is either a film of photo shoot going on. It's relatively cheap to do that here plus there are mountains, beaches, rivers, lakes, vineyards. In short, it's not only my dream, but also that of a director.

PS. I am not sure if I want people who don't know who Rutger Hauer is, to read this weblog to begin with, but just to be complete; RH is a Dutch actor who plays in Hollywood-stuff like Sin City, Batmans Begins, Blade Runner and Blind Fury.

A Metropolis of 3 million people on Sunday

2006-04-09T20:10:00.000+02:00

Big, bigger, biggest

2006-04-04T11:23:00.000+02:00

South-Africa has a shopping mall culture. The malls are immense. You can spend days there without seeing the same shop twice. For people from the States this isn't something new, but for me as a Dutch girl it's quite an experience going there. The biggest malls in Holland consist of one shoe store, three clothing stores, a supermarket, a bakery and a butcher. Not here though...It starts when you arrive in your car and have to choose one of many entrances to the parking garage. If you choose poorly it means one or two kilometres of walking before you get past the supermarket and foodcourt to the nice little stores. I found this out the hard way. After you park, you MUST remember the number of the space you parked in, i.e. Dolphin D2 or Elephant W25. If you don't you will get lost and end up walking around for 30 minutes trying to find your car. I also found this out the hard way. Then in the elevator up to the stores. When get out of the elevator remember the stores around you, otherwise you will never find that particular elevator ever again. Guess how I found this out.
Then shop till you litterally drop. Make sure you wear comfy shoes and comfy clothes. If you want something cheap and basic go to Edgars, Truworths or Woolworths. Older women go to Milady's or Donna Claire. Young women go to Foschini or Queens Park. Guys (older and younger) go to the Cape Union Mart, Stuttafords or Truworths Man. All of these shops you will find in almost every mall in SA. The lack of variation sometimes is annoying.
SA people are like people in the rest of the world, which means that you see a lot of bored men waiting for their women outside the shops. In one mall I saw a special corner for these men, with leather couches and a big tv playing sports.
After the shopping you want a drink. You can choose between a Mugg and Bean, a Nino's or all the fastfood chains you can see in the picture on top of this post. It's the foodcourt in Canal Walk in Cape Town. It is huge. I think 500 people can sit there at once.
Sometimes it's nice and entertaining going to a mall, but I definitely prefer the sidewalk cafe's and little shops in Cape Towns Long street. Going by car to a mall and seeing no daylight at all seems like a waste in country with a climate like SA's. But I understand that it's safe, it's efficient and the only way, because a lot of cities in SA don't have an old city centre like a lot of cities in Europe do.

Let's compare! NL vs SA (part 1)

2006-03-30T19:56:00.000+02:00

NL = the Netherlands SA= South-Africa

- In SA you can drink water from a little stream in a forest, in NL you will die, get sick, if not people will think you're crazy anyway
- DON'T put your degree on your business card in NL, they will think you are showing off, but please do in SA, so people will know you actually had an education
- In NL you obey all the rules, in SA just the ones you like
- Bribing a policeman in NL is stupid, in SA it's smart
- Don't expect crispy chips in SA, don't expect soggy ones in NL
- When a man says 'yes' in NL it is 'yes', when a guy says that in SA it can mean 'yes', change to a 'no', then to a 'yes' again and end up in a 'no'
- When women say 'yes' in NL and SA it means 'no'
- In SA there is a stunning view every 30 km, in NL there are none
- In NL it's summer for 5 weeks in year, in SA it's 5 months
- Get an expensive car in NL and people will frown upon you for showing off, in SA it's still showing off, but people think will you deserve it

If you have any suggestions concerning this topic, please leave a comment!

Meet the Boer bull

2006-03-29T09:31:00.000+02:00

This is the Boer bull. A gigantic dog created during the eighties in the lab of dr. Wouter Basson a.k.a Dr. Death. It is a guard dog breeded specially for "south-african circumstances" or so the add said in those days, in other words; the dog had to protect the whites from the blacks. The advertisement slogan worked very well, because the boer-bull was quite popular among Afrikaners.

A town as in a Western

2006-03-27T10:41:00.000+02:00

Empty dusty streets, a dog barking in the distance and some Coca Cola cans being blown around in the wind. This is the town of Sutherland at 10.30u on a Sunday morning. We arrive in our bakkie (pick-up truck) in the search for some coffee and petrol, but everything is closed. The lights at the two bed&breakfasts are off and the gasstation is locked up tightly. There is a sign thats says that it will be open on Sundays from 11.30-12.00u. We drive around the couple of streets until we finally see some movement in one of the guesthouses. No, no coffee or breakfast on Sundays, the maid says, we are closed on Sunday. If we want food we should go to Andres Kaffee on the other side of town. But he will only open his store at 11 o'clock, after church. What about petrol? There is one gas station here and it will also open after church, she says. Of course, that explains the remarkable trading hours. We drive towards Andres Kafee. A handful of people is already waiting. Here and there groups of people appear in the streets. Aha, church must be out! A minute later the door of the Kaffee is openend. It turns out to be a small supermarket, which gets it Kafee-status from a little corner where it sells some pastries. Not on Sundays though. Our hopes for a cup of coffee are shattered and we get some water and crackers. At the gas station there's a small queue of cars. Apparently more people take advantage of the half an hour of trading. We wait for the guy to fill up our bakkie. Yes, he accepts credit cards, only he doesn't really know how to work the card-machine. We show him, get into bakkie and drive off to the nearest town. Hopefully in a 120 km we will be able to get some coffee.

A beautiful day

2006-03-24T20:19:00.000+02:00

We spent the day at one of the best places on earth. It was at "Die Strandloper" (the beachwalker) in Langebaan. That is a restaurant where you spend the whole day eating fish, walking around, swimming and drinking. You bring your own booze and they get you food. And what food that is! It started with mussels, gigantic ones, they make the ones in Holland look like shrimps, after that grilled fish, followed by a fish paella, crab/crayfish, snoek, angel fish... I'm problably forgetting something. Between all the fish you could eat as much freshly baked bread with homemade marmalade and real butter as you liked. Wow. And everything was cooked right under your nose; the fish on the braai, the stews in the black iron pots and the bread in old round ovens heated by wood. Even the guy who played guitar wasn't annoying, as those restaurant musicans usually are. He gave the place a nice relaxed athmosphere. What a day is has been..............

The cure for AIDS

2006-03-21T16:27:00.000+02:00

Source: South African Minister of Health Dr Manto Tshabalala-Msimang

Every day is childrens day!

2006-03-21T15:27:00.000+02:00

Today is another Holiday in South-Africa. It is Human Rights Day. A day only celebrated after the apartheid-era (of course, ha). They choose March 21, because on that date in 1960 there was a big demonstration against the stupid Pass Laws, under which black people couldn't move around without having a document that stated that they were working in a certain region. The demonstration ended in a bloodbath. 67 people were killed. The event became known as Sharpeville, named after the place where the demonstration was held.

SA has a bit too much Holidays if you ask me. There are twelve. Although this year there was one more, because voting day (march 1) was declared a Holiday as well. Of course that pissed most of the businesses of, because no work means no money. But the government thinks that there are people out there who need a whole day to cast their vote.

The list is:

New Year's Day [1 January]

Human Rights Day [21 March]

Good Friday

Family Day (Easter Monday)

Freedom Day [27 April]

Worker's Day [1 May]

Youth Day [16 June]

National Women's Day [9 August]

Heritage Day [24 September]

Day of Reconciliation [16 December]

Christmas [25 December]

Day of Goodwill [26 December]

The Day of Reconcilliation was also celebrated during apartheid, but then it was called Gelofte Dag. On this day the Afrikaners remembered the victory of 150 boers over 2000 Zulus at a place now called Bloodriver. The battle was a result of land negotiations turned sour when the Zulu's didn't keep their end of the bargain. The Afrikaners thought is was Gods will that they (with the guns) won and the others (with the speers) lost, so they made a Holiday out of it called Gelofte Dag or the Day of the Covenant.
As you can see every family member has his or her own holiday. The women, the children/youth, the worker or provider and the Family as a whole.
I remember Mother's Day back in Holland. Every year I would ask my mother; when is it finally childrens day? Every day!, she would always say, which frustrated me big time. I am happy for the South-African children that they actually have a REAL one, because it means one day less of school.

(pictures courtesy of Herman Warnich)

Upstairs, Downstairs

2006-03-20T11:12:00.000+02:00

In all the restaurants I have been to, the kitchen personnel is black and the customers and the waiters are white. For my South-African friends these observations sometimes are getting a bore, but I can't help it. The traces of apartheid are still everywhere. There is no way getting around it. Black means poor and white means rich (besides a few exceptions). Blacks work for shitty wages in the kitchen (150 euro a month) and whites consume.
It's not just the money that's causing the gap, it's the whole lifestyle. The other day I was in a black township and suddenly there was a neighbourhood of really nice houses. " That's the middle class area", my (black) companian explained. And I realised that a lot of black people don't necessarily aim to live in white neighbourhoods, but that they wanna live in the better parts of the townships. These areas are so big, that they are cities on their own with poor, middleclass and rich parts. Deep down I've always believed that black people wanna live in the white and better parts of the cities (this often goes hand in hand). It's part of my ideal image of South-Africa, where in years to come white and black will be living next door to each other, children of all colours playing in the streets together, black guys borrowing a drill from their white neighbour and actually returning it. I guess I have a dream. But the more time I spend in this country the more I start to believe that that will never happen, that there will always be a " white" and a "black" South-Africa. I just hope that in the years to come black doesn't automatically mean poor.

A Declaration of Love

2006-03-18T17:31:00.000+02:00

You never let me down

No wish stays unfulfilled
The choices you give me are superb
You're taste is even better

I never met anyone like you

You make everything so easy
Wether it's just me or a group

You're always there to give me the best

Everything seems to stay fresh like a spring-morning

as if I only got it yesterday
It's hard to tell you what I like the most about you
The list is just too long

(No sponsorships were generated to create this post)

DEAD

2006-03-17T09:44:00.000+02:00

Everyday three children are murdered in South-Africa. That means that today it could be these three boys.
I also wanted to publish a picture with the number of women that gets raped everyday. But I don't have a photograph with that many women in it. Every ten minutes one gets raped, so that means a 144 each day. Try to fit those in one picture!

You've got AIDS, ha ha ha

2006-03-16T10:48:00.000+02:00

An employee of the South-African bloodbank told one of the blood donors that she was HIV-positive as a joke.
The 19-year woman said the employee phoned her on her mother's cellphone on Tuesday. "He said it was the blood bank and he had very bad news: I was HIV positive," she said. "I was utterly shocked and burst into tears, and said it couldn't be true. Then he said it wasn't really true, he just wanted to see how I'd react if he said something like that."
The guy has been suspended.

Hard Times

2006-03-15T16:45:00.000+02:00

How's your husband doing?, we ask the 50 something white woman we meet at the airport. She sighs. Times are hard. He's being retrenched at work. This is a fancy word for getting fired to make space for a black or coloured person. (There is some kind of financial plan included, though.) Her husband is 53 years old and has been working at the same company for almost 30 years. Now he has to go. The (white) people at our table are all outraged by this prospect. It's unfair, they say. I don't wanna be this foreign I-know-it-better, but I am not sure what to think. The apartheidsregime caused so much inequality. There has to be some kind of plan to give black and coloured people in South-Africa a chance for a better life. If they don't force change, the jobs will stay in white hands for years to come. But when it's you who's getting fired, I totally understand that you are angry.
It's sad, that a new form of discrimination has to undo the wrongs of the old form of discrimination.

After the drinks we leave and wish the lady well. She needs it, she says, because she's not sure if she will be able to get her husbands Mercedes E-class out of the narrow parking.

Aren't you married yet?

2006-03-14T16:35:00.000+02:00

If I had a rand...I mean a euro, everytime somebody in South-Africa asked me if I am going to get married soon, I would have been soooo rich.
I am 27 years old and have been together with my (South-African) boyfriend for 17 months. In the Netherlands that means that you won't be getting married for years, here it is exactly the opposite. My initial response is always that I am still very young, but the faces of the people who pop the question tell me otherwise. The next logical step in conversations like this is the kids-issue. When and how many? Right, how do I tell people who think I already should have been married, that I consider myself still a kid and that up until the age of 34 I'm not even considering it?Anyway, marriage is big here and I must admit South-Africa is the cut-out-place to do it. People are getting married on Game farms, Wine estates and in the Drakensberg. That is so much better than the dark, smokey room behind the local pub where the Dutch tend do it. The only good thing about that being the continuous stream of booze. When your glass is half empty you will already be getting a re-fill. And believe me, at some Dutch weddings you are very, very, very grateful for that. The picture of the blossoming bride in this post was taken at the Twelve Apostels Hotel in Cape Town. She was celebrating the most beautiful day of her life inside a building. I must admit - I don't get that all. The beach or the winelands are just a stones' throw away, why not there? But maybe I should hold my tongue until I decide to tie the knot myself.

It was unprotected

2006-03-12T19:03:00.000+02:00

Finally the most important question has been answered. Did Zuma use a condom while raping/having sex with the HIV- positive AIDS-activist? Yes, it was unprotected, he admitted in court.
This case has been dominating the papers for months now. Former vice-president Jacob Zuma was charged with rape of the woman (31) at the end of last year. He says it was with her consent.
The first week of court hearings is over and it was dirty. Zuma is quite a notorious figure. (he also has to appear in court for corruption) Everywhere he goes he draws a crowd of fans and one of foes. His supporters have burnt pictures of the alleged victim and attacked a money transport vehicle outside a bank at the court. Well, since you're there, why not make the most of it? The people who are against him, say that it's amazing that the former vice-president of their country is charged with the two crimes that occur the most in South-Africa: rape and corruption.
Newspapers have been writing pages full about this trial, but ever since the beginning I have been wondering if he did it (whatever it was) safe or not? It is publicly known that she has AIDS, so it is one of the first questions on everyone's wants to know. Now we do.

Oh no! Not here too....

2006-03-12T11:42:00.000+02:00

One of the things I don't miss from the Netherlands are those dreadful bachelor parties that would hit Amsterdam on a regular basis. Grooms-to-be forced by their buddies to wear a monkey-constume sweat their way through the last minutes of freedom. For some reason the "friends" always find it more amusing than the guy in the suit.
Yesterday I went to watch a Rugby game in a bar and turns out: they have the same stuff here. Look at Obelix in the picture. First I thought he was hired by the bar as a mascot or something. It was a bar with 350 kinds of Belgium beer, so it could have been. But then I noticed the drunk guys next to him with a vile smile on their faces. That can only mean one thing; a bachelor party. But he wasn't the only one. An hour later this groom walked in on his slippers. Read what's on his shirt and guess how many times he got lucky. And of course where there are grooms there are also brides. I have one request for bachelor parties to come. The costumes can stay, but please, please don't ever take your friend the last night he/she is on the loose to Durbanville! Anything is better then that. It is ok to live there. Nice and safe for the kids, affordable houses, lots of parking, fine for the occasional Rugby game on a big screen, but to party....I don't think so. Let me give some cross-references for the people who are not from SA: Durbanville is the Almere of Amsterdam, the New Jersy of New York and the Saint Denis of Paris. How much fun is that?

Cinderella-story: a poor white girl from Holland

2006-03-09T11:01:00.000+02:00

I am previously disadvantaged!
That is a politically correct term for people who suffered under the apartheids regime, so that basically means everyone who lives in a slum or on the streets. I can hear you thinking; how does a white girl from the Netherlands who just started living here all of a sudden becomes prev.disadvanced? Well, thank you for asking.
I found it out the other day when I made some inquieries about a job at a newspaper here in South-Africa. As a foreigner it's quite a hassle to get a job in this country because of working permits and because there is affirmative action. That's another politically correct term meaning positive discrimination for black people.
Anyway, the conversation with the paper went like this (after asking for the right person)
L(that's me): Hello, I am calling about the job. Is it a problem that I am Dutch?
The right person (TRP): Not that I know of.
L: Is it a problem that I am white and female?
TRP: Well, we look at one's capabilities before anything else, but besides you are female so that makes you partly previously disadvantaged. That works in your advantage.
There you have it. Because the apartheidsregime treated anyone who wasn't white and male more or less like shit, I now have a better chance of getting a job here. Isn't that great?! I must admit that after this I look differently at the poor black people on the streets. I feel a connection. I understand their struggle. Just to give you an idea of how hard it is for the previously disadvantaged in this country I inclose some pictures of the houses these people live in. Try to see if you can pick the one I live in.

Black, black, black

2006-03-07T22:59:00.000+02:00

And then everything went black and i couldn't do anything anymore.....black house, black city and black computerscreen....
For the last three weeks we are experiencing the most awful powercuts in Cape Town. Not just one that lasts for three hours, gets fixed and doesn't occur anymore, oh no..... These powercuts happen every day and last for about 4 to 8 hours a day. The sudden boost of electricity when the power gets switched back on made our television screen pink and worst of all; made the computer crash. Everything gone! Pictures, word-documents, you name it, we lost it!
The reason for all of this is one broken powerplant and one that can't supply the demand for power on it's own. The shortage will last until June.
The economic damage is huge. The total estimated loss is already 1 billion rand (134 million euro) and that doesn't include the money I paid to get my laptop fixed! But besides from the business-losses there where other hardships to endure i.e. it's 20.00u, you're about to put your rented DVD on (a brand new release you actually fought for in the videostore) and FLOOP! there goes the power, or what to think about not being able to get the one Big Mac you allow yourself to have that year because the doors of the MacDonalds can't open, or being a student and wanting to get a nice cool drink after a boring lecture by candlelight and the cafe's can't open their shields (see picture).
What can one do? Play a game, read by candlelight or have sex. The last picture shows you with what option we went.

Still counting...(updated)

2006-03-02T19:10:00.000+02:00

I can't give an outcome of the local elections yet. The counting still continues. Although it looks like 49% of the voters went to cast their vote. Not a very high score for a country that has a democracy for only eleven years. The ANC has won most of the town and cities, but Cape Town is yet indecisive. The latest news is that the ballots of 500 stations still have to be count here.

PS (March 9, 2006) Surprise, surprise...the ANC has won the elections!
Nationwide they got 70,3% of the vote. The biggest opposition party Democratic Alliance (DA) got 13,8 and the Inkatha Freedom Party from Chief Buthelezi got 4,2%.
Cape Town had a quite remarkable outcome. The DA won the city by getting 41,85% of the votes. The ANC " only" got 37,91%. The difference between the nationwide outcome and the local one in Cape Town can be explained by the fact that the DA got a lot of the coloureds to vote for them. There are a lot of coloured* people in Cape Town (and the rest of the Western Cape province) in comparision to the rest of the country. They are not happy with the ANc anymore, because they seem to cater more for the black people then the coloured.

*This basically includes everyone who isn't downright black or white or Indian: a mixture of malay, indian, white, black and people who descend from the indigenous San or Khoikhoi people.

"You are a racist!"." No, YOU are a racist!!!"

2006-03-01T16:11:00.000+02:00

It is local Election day and the pot is calling the kettle black. The ANC supposedly only helps the blacks and opposition party DA only has the interests of the whites and a couple of coloureds at heart.
For weeks the mud wrestling has been going on in the newspapers. Especially here in Cape Town it is bad, because the DA (Democratic Alliance) can actually win the elections here; in contrast to almost every other city or village in this country.
"Take back your city" is says on one of the DA posters (or " Vat Oor" in Afrikaans). Take it back from who?, one ANC-member asked himself in the paper; from the blacks? That would be racism. No, WE are not racists, the DA replies. The ANC is racist. They don't give equal opportunities to coloured people, who also suffered from apartheid. And so on, and so on......
In the meantime I wonder if the majority of the voters are actually interested in this. They just want the free houses that were promised them eleven years ago, and the toilets and the electricity. Lots of people in townships still have to use buckets as toilets, which they probably have to search for in the dark because electricity hasn't reached their shacks made of cardboard and iron yet.

Funny Afrikaans

2006-02-28T13:44:00.000+02:00

It took me quite a while to take my boyfriend serious when he talked in his own language, Afrikaans. To me it sounded like some funny version of Dutch, that small children speak in the Netherlands. Now, after a couple of months I am used to it and is it only on rare ocassions funny. Like the other day, when I heard somebody use the word
" laat-lammetjie" where the Dutch use "nakomertje" (Both words refer to the youngest child of a family when is way younger then its older siblings). Here some pictures of Afrikaans signs to give you an idea.

And for my Afrikaans friends: I am so sorry that I think your language is funny, but if you are honest you will have to admit that you think Dutch is to laugh at. POES is a word we actually use to address a cat and when we say KONT we don't mean the intimate part of the female body.

Big Braai

2006-02-27T14:21:00.000+02:00

"What kind of animal is it?", I ask my host after he - with the help of two other men- puts the spit into the big black braai. "A lamb. but it's only a small one", he says, while he picks up the start cables of the car battery that's attached to side of the braai. After making contact the spit starts turning. He closes the door of the braai en we get ourselfs some drinks. Suddenly half an hour later shouting sounds from the braai-area. Oh no, the braai de-railed!!! (I must admit these are two words I thought I would never use in one sentence). From all over the garden guys are running towards the braai to help out in this emergency. After two minutes the whole lamb tumbles down and takes the coals with it. I poor myself another glass of wine and give some unwanted advice, based upon my experience with the 20 cm aluminum dispensable bbq I used in Holland once.
The situation is resolved quickly though. It takes five men only twenty minutes to get the lamb back in the braai. This time it stays put. Three hours later, the lamb is done and I get myself a big plate of salad.

What Winter Olympics?

2006-02-25T14:37:00.000+02:00

"Do you watch the Olympics?" is asked every time I get a call from Europe these days. Ehh right...Olympics....well....not really to tell you the truth. In fact, without those questions I wouldn't even have remembered that there were Olympics going on. Back in the Netherlands there was no escaping it. All the papers, news broadcasts and talks in supermarkets would centre on the question: How did our ice-skaters do?
Not in South-Africa though. It is the middle of summer here and today is another hotty. I don't even think that South-Africans know that there are 3 athletes from their country participating.
Poor skeleton slider Tyler Botha and skiers Alexander Heath and Oliver Kraas. All that hard work to qualify and nobody seems to take any interest. The papers and news don't mention it and the big screen in the bar in Camps Bay we hung out yesterday featured the Rugby game between the Stormers and the ACT Brumbies. But enough about winter and sports, the beach and my towel are waiting!

(Picture: Camps Bay, friday february 24, 18.00u Sa Time)

2006-02-22T17:43:00.000+02:00

Hout Bay