Week 6 - "Letting go & holding close to all the things that mean the most..."

This past week, Cape Town bid farewell to the YASCer before Amanda and I: the fabulous Emily Beel. I was sad to see her go, but wish her the best is all she does. I was talking to Emily during her last days, and it was interesting to see her at the end of this journey Amanda and I are just starting.

Last Saturday, the day before Emily left, I went with her and Suzanne to this place in Salt River called the Old Biscuit Mill. From the outside, it didn’t look like much…at first. Inside, it is a wonder. In addition to being filled with wonderful, artsy, colorful little shops, there is a huge tent of decliciousness. In honor of Saturday morning, they do a kind of flea market (hence the magical food tent). The food tent was definitely the most exciting. There were tons of venders selling all different kinds of things. Not only were there your basics of coffee, tea, cookies, and produce, but other things you could find included: quiches, cakes, tarts, samoosas, pies (meat as well as fruit), thin crust pizza, smoothies, cupcakes, pasta/rice mixes, omelets, potato pancakes (with a wide choice of toppings), wine, liquor, beer (they even had Boston lager), and that’s just what I can remember. It was pretty epic. I settled on a mixed berry smoothie and a lamb pie, which was essential lamb and seasoning baked in a warm flaky crust which surrounded it on all sides. It was kind of like eating a lamb-filed croissant; I’m not sure that description captures the full degree of deliciousness that this pie was though. For dinner later, I picked up a few little quiches. They have this flavor of quiche that’s seems quite common here that I haven’t seen before in the US: butternut and feta. It is rather magnificent.

Another weekend highlight was the church service at St Paul’s in Rondebosch. Sunday evening, I attended the University of Cape Town (UCT) service there. It’s always a wonderful way to spend a Sunday evening, and I enjoy my time with the students. What made this particular Sunday evening a bit different was the fact that I was speaking at the service. In lieu of typical sermon, I spoke about my experience in campus ministry throughout my years at Delaware and on how incredibly crucial that journey was in getting me here today.

My sixth week here has been a good one; let me tell you a little bit about my daily life here. Monday through Friday of every week I’m in the Anglican Students’ Federation office 9ish (depending on public transit) until 4. I work on lots of different tasks there, but right now, my focus is getting everything ready for the chaplains’ conference in late November (Thanksgiving week). A new project for me this week is a Bible study; last night was week one of four of my Bible study at the Ansoc (Anglican Society… aka campus ministry) house at UCT. We’re studying Esther, a short book with one of the more interesting women in the Bible and a mysterious lack of mention of God or prayer. In our first evening, we made it all the way through chapter five; anyone who remembers ECM’s BrewHaha Bible study will understand why I’m astounded by that kind of progress in one hour. Over the course of the hour, I saw found connections to Jafar from Aladdin (Haman reminds me of him), Rataxes from Babar (I initially thought of him because when I heard the name Xerxes, I thought it was him, but I’ve since remember that the evil rhino’s name was Rataxes and not Xerxes – silly me) (Why do I even remember this stuff?), & Gaston from Beauty and the Beast (Haman wasn’t content to just go to dinner with the king and get what he wanted; he had to kill Mordecai because he considered Mordecai an unpleasant sight on the palace steps. It’s similar to Gaston, who couldn’t just make another play for Belle; he had to rile up an angry mob and “kill the beast.” Gaston’s only better than Haman because Gaston got a rockin’ musical number, but in the end both villans meet dramatic, untimely ends). I’m not sure exactly what it means that I’m making all these connections to cartoons rather than the wide body of work that I’ve read as an English major. I would like to believe that it means I think outside the box, but I’m not entirely convinced. Oh, one more thing – anyone ever see the crazy religious stuff going on in Battlestar Galactica (the new one)? It’s not just the names, or the fact that the good guys are polytheists, while the “evil” cylons believe in one true God… Anyway…

So a goodbye, a flea market, some amazing food, work, a Bible study, and my crazy pop culture connections. That’s the week in review, folks. Thanks again to everyone whose love, prayers, and money have supported me on this journey. I’ll close with a few interesting current events I saw on SABC News last night:

• Yesterday, Charlie the Smoking Chimp died. While it is very sad that a chimp would get addicted to cigarettes, if you Google this guy and check out some of the pictures, you’ll see why I think the footage of him is absolutely hilarious. For the record, he wasn’t trained to smoke; he picked up the habit from zoo visitors. To think, all these year people have been worrying about zoo visitors feeding zoo animals. Despite his struggle with nicotine, Charlie lived to the ripe old age of 52, which is quite impressive for a chimp. 
• Rhino poaching is a big problem and has made headlines recently.
• The rand (South African currency) is getting stronger. When I got here, 1 USD = R7.25. Two nights ago, it was 1 USD = R6.86
• The SA government is considering expunging the record of ex-convicts after a few years of being out of jail, since these former prison inmates often struggle to find jobs. 
• Since we’re talking about headlines, I’ll finish up this post with one of personal interest.