A Week Around Cape Town

We wanted to write a quick entry before we begin a week volunteering in a remote village a few hours outside of Kampala, as we are guessing we will not have internet access. Since we last wrote we spent a week in South Africa that could not have been more fulfilling and beautiful.

After a “quick” re-route of our botched flight from Arusha to Dar, we only had to make three stops to finally get to Cape Town (Arusha>Nairobi>Harare>Johannesburg>Cape Town) but still arrived on

schedule.

We met up with our friend (and co-worker) Kim Cash and spent a couple of days exploring the beautiful Stellenbosch wine country outside of Cape Town. It’s like somebody picked up Napa and planted it in a mountainous valley in Switzerland. We hiked through the hills to a waterfall, enjoyed wine tasting, explored the town, and had fantastic meals.

The added bonus of the time in Stellenbosch was to spend time with our friend Songo, learning about all the great work he is doing in his township of Kayamandi just outside of Stellenbosch.

The township sits right next to a vineyard and serves as a very immediate example of the contrasts and complexities that are prevalent throughout South Africa. It's breathtaking and heartbreaking at once. Kayamandi is one of the nicer townships, but there are still squalid living conditions, lack of access to fresh water, extreme poverty, and it’s very hard to earn any kind of a living. Despite all of this, there is a great sense of hope and pride and possibility and community and Songo is leading this charge. He’s already collected over 100 bicycles to keep kids active and off the streets, and provides life skills and coaching in addition to the simple joy of just being able to ride bikes. We are just missing a fund-raiser he’ll be doing in about a week, but will be contributing to help keep this and other projects in the township going strongly.

We said goodbye to Kim and Songo and explored Cape Town for a few days. Court was able to visit Wola Nani, connect with her mentor and supervisor, Moira Jones, and will continue to stay connected by donating to Wola Nani and providing consultative services from the states. Unfortunately Nate wasn’t able to meet Moira, but he was able to finish his presentation for the Ugandan clinic.

This productivity allowed for some more adventuring and sight-seeing! Robben Island, Table Mountain, and Cape Point all offered unique perspectives on the history and surrounding environs of Cape Town.

We also got to catch up with an old (to Courtney, new to Nate) friend Vanessa and her new husband Sean. Their wedding took place about three hours outside of Cape Town in Cederberg – a rugged, rocky, sweeping, openness of land that has similarities to the Grand Canyon and the Canyon Lands of Utah. We made new friends from South Africa, Namibia, the UK, and Zimbabwe (including six adorable little flower girls who had been adopted, and in many ways rescued, by Vanessa’s cousins). We also got a chance to do a bit of hiking and see some amazing 6,000 year old rock paintings before saying goodbye to South Africa and heading off to Uganda.