“Blown Away”

Cape Town Beach Attempt Round Two: Camp’s Bay Edition

Liesbeeck Gardens (my dorm) is sponsoring a trip to Camp’s Bay, a beach that is supposed to be much prettier, bigger, and less windy than Muisenburg (the beach experience from hell, if you refer to an earlier post…) We arrive and it is just that! By far the most beautiful beach I’ve ever been on, this huge expansive beach with its bright blue waters and white sand is reminiscent of Miami- still windy though. We’re pummeled with sand all day but thankfully find some rocks to hide behind. We’re hanging out with some Liesbeeck UCT students named Pious (a pudgy nerdy-looking dude from Uganda, who calls himself a “player” and gets progressively creepier), Simba (I KNOW! But it’s apparently a common name in Zimbabwe…), and Tamu (Simba’s friend from Zimbabwe). We end up having great conversations with these dudes about the issues of human rights and politics in Zimbabwe, the benefits of life in America, the lack of fathers in black communities, etc. Simba and Tamu have transferred from a university in Zimbabwe to UCT this past year because of the worsening political crisis in Zim. Mugabe has finally agreed to share power with new prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai, who is supported both by the Zimbabwean people and the international community. Over the course of 18 months, power is supposed to be fully transferred to Tsvangirai Zimbabwe has struggled with corrupt elections, rights suppression, and human rights atrocities involving political unrest for a long time now. This conflict has turned Zimbabwe, once the fertile and wealthy bread basket of Southern Africa, into a country that prints hundred trillion dollar bills that are only worth wiping your behind on. There are a lot of Zimbabwean students here, but Zimbabwe has closed its borders, so Simba and Tamu are some of the lucky ones. Talking to them makes me want to delve deeper into African politics.

            In other news, let me ask you what would be a good beach day without a shouting match with a crazy popsicle-selling Arab man? Well, for me at least, the two seem to go hand in hand. After we were having some good conversation and sun-bathing on this beautiful beach, a skinny middle eastern man comes up to us with his cooler selling water and ice cream. Our large group isn’t interested and so hardly pays attention to him. Then he starts saying how he’s Middle Eastern and so if we don’t buy his ice cream, he’s going to start throwing bombs all over the beach and kill all of us. He calls himself a terrorist bomber and keeps repeating that he’s going to throw bombs all over. At first, his hysterical jabbering was just the faint backdrop to my beautiful beach day- but once he started spewing those horrible threats and perpetuating stereotypes about Middle Eastern people… I snapped. I told him that he shouldn’t be saying those things about his own people and that he needs to get some self-respect and that he should leave and get away from us. No matter how much someone wants to disrespect me and Americans or Koreans or whatever, I’ll keep my cool, but once you starts dissing your own people- that’s when I KNOW you’re messed up. He got fired up by my comments and started saying calling me “Ching-chong-ching Ms.China” and saying I should go back to where I came from and that he was going to bomb China. I replied quite calmly “that’s fine, because I’m not from China, you dumbass.” Other students started shouting at him to go away and finally he puttered off still mumbling things about China and bombs. In addition to the annoying-ness, while we were walking back from the beach to our dorm in a big group, one of the petite shy girls got grabbed by the wrist by a large scary man on the street saying he wants "a white girlfriend". She kept saying "please let g of me... please let me of me..." but not being assertive at all because she was so scared. We all start yelling at the man and ask him what the hell he thinks he's doing. He doesn't let go for a good couple minutes and finally I lose my cool and tell him to get some freaking manners. He's like "what are manners? Ms. PERFECT!" Wtf? Clearly he doesn't know what they are... Moral of this story- there are all types of crazy all over the world. After a little more sun, a yummy veggie burger and shake, I had forgotten all about it! The beach is definitely the best cure…