I swear I write tons of posts in my head, but once it’s time to type it out, I lose the drive to do so.

buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut: one long post about Ultimate in South Africa coming up!

A little Sweet Micky to set the mood.

This one reminds me of my first communion; it’s called “Ayiti Bang Bang” by Carimi.

Recently, all I’ve been wanting was to have a piece of Haiti with me. I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve been on google for a few hours now trying to find any West Indian community here in Jo’burg (I realized quickly that searching just for Haitians would never yield any good results.) When at Wellesley, just the knowledge that I was a 4 hour bus ride away from home and the Haitian environment that I grew up with or alternitavely a 45 minute ride away from a Haitian community that I wasn’t familiar with was more than enough.

Here, I have a growing feeling that I’m alone. The only thing I got when I searched for a Haitian community in Johannesburg/South Africa was information about Aristide (UNHELPFUL) and the fact that he was leaving the country. “West Indian community Johannesburg” only results in information about the Indian (from India) community and I get nothing if I search “Caribbean”.

When I walk around and hear black Africans speaking in their native languages, I perk up with the hope that I’ll understand what they’re saying: I never do. Now, I’m finding myself speaking in Kreol even though I know that no one will understand me. I’ve lost the ability to care about the fact that I’m talking to myself, I just need to hear the language. I feel like I’m losing my mind by not having any piece of my culture with me.

I just want a piece of Haiti. A while ago, I asked my mother to send me some spices (for Haitian food) because I haven’t been able to find any here, but I think I’ll have to settle for music on YouTube: since she’s really busy (and there’s the whole Haitian time thing) I don’t think I’ll be getting them until the day before I leave South Africa. 

I feel like there’s a hole in my gut, and I never thought I’d feel this way. A very big part of my soul (is that too dramatic?) is missing. Give me Kompa or Zouk, some Diri ak Pwa Kole and legumes (le vert pas le marron)…give me some Pikliz…something! I don’t think I’ve ever gone this long without Haitian-ness.

Beck, if you’re reading this, please tell mom to step on it. I’m jonesing here.

Also, if anyone knows something I don’t, like if there’s a hidden Haitian/West Indian community in Jo’burg that I don’t know about,  please please please send that info my way.

We started Monday around 9 am.  Having planned to picnic at the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, we first stopped at Woolworths to grab the neccessary foodstuffs. The ride to the gardens was surprisingly cheap (but that’s probably because the fare was split 7 ways…).  The gardens are incredibly expansive: we spent almost the whole day there, and I doubt we even saw half of what Kirstenbosch had to offer. I must go back in the future. 

Throughout the day, I had only one goal in mind: take a good profile picture.  Actually, this became the main goal of my next few days of what I’ll refer to as nature trips. The gardens were organized in a way that’s different from the botanical gardens that I usually visit in that Kirstenbosch seems sort of random in a way…things are organized, yes, but not stifilingly so. It felt like I was roaming through a untamed terrain instead of something that was constantly gardened and boxed into greenhouses like the gardens at home.

For dinner we went to this awesome place that basically screams Boston, particularly, the Berklee area, called Royale. This place’s ambiance was awesome, it felt uber hipster, which is fine by me. Vampire Weekend’s debut album played…with the tracks in order which was a really nice change from the usual shuffle/playlist way that restaurants play music at home.  Royale has TONS of veg options which was so refreshing, there was even a vegan burger (The Georgia Brown) that I had to order because it’s not everyday that a restaurant has a  meal that does not have to be doctored to fit vegan parameteres. I demolished that thing. IT WAS SO GOOD.

vegan burger made of black beans and other things…onions mushrooms and sundried tomatoes on top. a mix of potatoe wedges, fries and sweet potatoe fries on the side.

NOM NOM NOM no more

Cait, Jane, me and Jenae

Isn’t South African money cool looking?

After dinner, Maggy and I went to meet a friend that I met a GALA named Alok. Alok goes to a university in California and has just finishied an interning stint at Gender Dynamix in Cape Town [google it :)]  We went to this cool club called Tagore’s in a neighborhood called Observatory. There was an open mic going on that night which was different from the poetry open mic nights that I’ve gone to at home in that people didn’t have to perform poetry to go up to the mic. Every night there’s a topic, and it people are free to “speak to the topic” however they see fit - let that way be through a prepared poem, a song, or just random on the spot speaking. It was really cool. I didn’t go up, but that night did leave me with a poem to write before bed. The topic that night was Politics: Content and Context. Of course the poem I ended up witing starts with the words I’m a gender politician.

Maggy and I ended up back at the hostel around 1 am that night. I think that it’s safe to say that we both left feeling like we’d experienced a piece of hipster paradise once again. Wellesley and Bard hipsters we agreed would have totally eaten that up.

A quick glimpse at Tagore’s.

On the right side is Alok. You can kind of see how dapper he is if you squint.

(I’ve spent enough money at this internet cafe for one day. I’ll post about the rest of spring break in the future.)

A group of 10 (Alex [Bryn Mawr], Jenae, Davis and Rebecca [Emory], Jane [Elon], Maggy and Anna [Bard], Rachel [Vassar] and Cait [Davidson])  of us left Wits early on Sunday moning to head to Cape Town for the week of spring break. We flew Kalula which, in case anyone isn’t aware, is known as a “funny airline.” Google it if need be.

We landed in the early afternoon, and the first thing I saw out of the airport was the gorgeous view. Here’s the very first photo I took outside

Davis, Rebecca and Alex separated from the rest of the group to do their own things for break and the other seven of us headed to Long Street where we’d be staying.

After getting situated in our hostel, which we later learned is the hostel that the locals go to when they’re too drunk to go home at night, we went out to lunch at a bar. This meal while it aestheically gratifying left us either still hungry or sick for the remainder of the day. The decor of the place was really cool too…grafitti everywhere, along with cool paintings scattered around. I ordered fried muchrooms as an appetizer which were mostly fried batter. My entre was a veggie burger that failed at being vegan because I ordered an egg for it. I couldn’t bring myself to eat the burger though, because it was 100% soy (not my thing) I also didn’t eat the egg because I didn’t want to…

We decided to have a quiet night, so we headed did dinner and a movie. We went to the local theater called Labia which we actually thought was a XXX theater at first. We caught a film called Tamara Drewe which is basically your quintessential UK comedy. It wasn’t anything complex, but it was successfully entertaining, and it definitely got my mind off of the tummy ache that had acquired at lunch. After the film we grabbed dinner at a cute little italian place and I tried not to talk too much about how the food on Long Island was a million percent better.

Here’s a pic of me being super cool in Cape Town.

I have been since Sunday. Things have been going going going at a really fast pace, but today I removed myself from the group that I’ve been with and am taking a personal day, so I’ll be posting about what I’ve been up to.

We’re going to act like I’ve been doing this all along though…so just imagine that I’ve been posting about my daily activities since the beginning.

OK. I shall let the games begin.