Week 5 - "Do you still see the fireflies blinking September, and do you remember?"

As I write this week, leaders from all over the province are gathering in Johannesburg for Provincial Synod, which is the equivalent to General Convention for the Episcopal Church.  I’m still here in Cape Town, but I’m excited to hear how it goes. My fellow Cape Town missionary, Amanda, is there.

I really cannot believe that it is September 30 and the end of my first full calendar month in Cape Town! It’s been a good week though, and I’m excited to tell a bit about it.

Last weekend was a long weekend here in Cape Town; Friday was a public holiday.  24 September is Heritage Day in South Africa; it’s an entire day devoted to the celebration of the diverse cultural heritage of the nation which makes it the country that it is today and gives South Africa the nickname “Rainbow Nation.” It’s also considered National Braai Day, so naturally, many people hold braais. In case I didn’t mention this before, a braai is essentially a backyard barbecue.

In honor of this holiday, many of the museums in town were FREE. I always consider museums a worthwhile investment, so this is exciting. Amanda and I took the train into Cape Town and checked out a couple.  We spent the morning wandering around the Iziko Slave Lodge, which is housed in one of the oldest buildings in town.  Some of the things that we saw included maps of slave routes, artifacts made by slaves that reflected their home culture, a slave memorial, & a mock-up of a slave ship. My favorite parts were the political cartoons, the artifacts from Ancient Egypt (always a weakness for me), & the Nelson Mandela exhibit.  There were at least five rooms devoted to the life of Mandela. Each room was filled with big banners with photos and paragraphs on his life. It was like walking through a biography. It was a lot of reading for a museum, but it was so interesting to learn so much about Mandela’s life!

After the Slave Lodge, we had lunch at the café in the crypt of St. George’s Cathedral (don’t let the word crypt defer you – it was awesome) before heading to the South African Museum, a natural history museum. We checked out cave paintings, an exhibit on Darwin, the African Cultures Gallery, and a sea-life exhibit. The sea-life exhibit narrowly beat out the African Cultures Gallery as my favorite part.  The immense blue whale skeleton reminded me of the immense blue whale in the Museum of Natural History in New York City and was impossible to miss. One of the things that I found most fascinating was this deformed sperm whale jawbone; it was shaped almost like a question mark. Apparently, sperm whales can survive with these jawbones, but I can’t imagine how. There were also some crazy looking fish there:

The long fish is white with these gray leopard spots on it and red fins; they can grow up to eleven meters long. The round one interests me because the females can lay 30 million eggs at a time. How crazy is that?

    I promise I’ve done more this week than think about fish. Every day, I’m thankful for the support of all my friends and family who have supported me in my journey; I carry you all with me in my heart. The other day, while on my way to the train station from work, I could not help but be amazed at the beauty around me. To the left is Table Mountain; to the right, I can see the ocean. Then, straight ahead, down the hill is the city center. Awesome.

Songs: “Change” by Carrie Underwood & I have to acknowledge this other one only because it plays EVERYWHERE here (but I insist that it is no reflection on my personal taste!!!!) “Baby, Baby, Baby” by Justin Bieber