The (left-side drive) roadtrip

I have come, in recent years, to have a special fondness for cave paintings. I was delighted then, to find out that petroglyphs can be found throughout South Africa. The trick is just getting to them.

I was disappointed when I realized, that, since cave paintings aren't necessarily what every tourist wants to see, there aren't many bus tours or organized cave painting sightseeing adventures available here. In order to get myself to the nearest rock art site, I would need to rent a car and take matters into my own hands.

This is problematic for a few reasons. On the most basic level, I've never rented a car before in my life. I have also never driven on the left side of the road. Another problem stems from the travel habits I have developed over the years. In India, I pretty much gave up on ever planning anything. Beyond buying a train ticket, there just aren't a lot of things you can successfully plan in advance in India. You roll into town and cross your fingers that the hotel your guidebook suggests still exists and that they'll have a room for you. You get places by asking people on the street where to go and paying them $1 to drive you across town. Most countries don't work that way, yet I still apply my "the best plan is no plan at all" mentality to everywhere I travel. My travel planning skills have further been stunted by my growing dependency on my wonderful, Hotwire expert of a fiance, who takes no greater pleasure in life than booking hotels, finding things on maps, and designing weekend getaways, leaving me with no responsibilities other than going along for the ride and taking pictures.

When it came to getting to the cave paintings, I guess I didn't do quite enough advance planning. I did think enough in advance to book the rental car and the hotel and to look up some directions, but on the whole, it wasn't my best effort.

My travel companion Graham and I set out from Cape Town in our shiny rental car (with a sweet, Iphone-friendly audio system) on Saturday morning. Driving on the left turned out to be not as freaky as I imagined it would be, but it was still a little confusing. Getting into the car, Graham and I would decide "do you want to drive, or should I?" Decision made, we would approach the vehicle and both walk to the wrong door. Once in the car, I would reach down for the gear shift with my right hand and find myself grasping the air. Once in motion everything felt fine--it's easy enough to follow the car in front of you--but any time I had to turn, enter a parking lot, or maneuver clockwise around a roundabout, things got more confusing. I can understand two lines of cars moving straight down the left side of the road, but all bets are off when turning as my brain tries to grapple with the sight of cars coming from seemingly random directions.

I had thought to print directions to our hotel, but hadn't put much thought into how remote the area would be. I guess the hotel's website, which lists the location by GPS coordinates rather than a street address, might have been my first clue. The website shows a hand-drawn map with the nearest town marked then a squiggly line leading to the location. For no logical reason, I assumed the squiggly line equated to about 10-15 minutes of driving, but it turned out to be closer to 45 minutes down a remote country road. The drive was stunning though. The closer we got to our destination, the more our surroundings looked like some mashup of Middle Earth and Mars.

The Traveller's Rest, as the spot was called, was a quaint collection of "cottages" in the wilderness. After finding our cottage we immediately set out for the main attraction: the cave paintings.

I take great pride in the fact that I had the foresight to book the hotel nearest the petroglyphs, so from our cottage we only had to take a short walk to get to the entrance to the "Sevilla Rock Art Trail."

The paintings were everything I had hoped they would be: funny little humanoids, cute animals, freaky monster-looking things, etc. The trail had nine cave painting sites in total, so it was a nice hike to track down each one and crawl around on the big red boulders. The brochure didn't give the best description of the origins of the paintings, but I later found out that that is because very little is still known about them other than the rough estimation that they are between 1,500 and 2,000 years-old. We got slightly lost on the walk back from the caves, but found our cottage again just as the sun was going down.

 

 (You should see a photo slideshow here. If you don't see it, update your Flash settings or click here.)

I don't know why I assumed ancient cave paintings in the middle of the South African wilderness would come with a variety of full-service restaurants nearby, but that's what I assumed. So one of my travel planning oversights was not packing any food or wine. In need of both after our hike, Graham and I high-tailed it back to Clanwilliam, the nearest town, to see what we could find before everything closed for the night. We made it to a wine store just before closing time. Then for dinner we found a very strange hotel restaurant which had limited vegetarian options but an adorable, friendly cat, so it pretty much worked out.

After checking out of the Traveller's Rest the next morning we returned to Clanwilliam for breakfast. We found a small cafe, where, because of a lack of tables, we ended up sharing our meal with a an Afrikaner woman and her pre-teen daughter, both of whom had impossible-to-remember Afrikaans names. The daughter was distraught over the death of that actor from 'Glee.' The mother was one of the first people in a foreign country I have ever met who had not only heard of, but had actually visited the state of Oregon (usually I have to explain it as "a rainy place north of California where Nike and The Simpsons come from"), where her brother is married to a naturopahtic (of course) doctor.

After breakfast we pressed on toward our next hiking destination. In the same area as the cave paintings, there are supposed to be some large rock formations--something along the lines of Arches National Park in Utah. They sure do look awesome in all the guidebook pictures. Too bad I failed to figure out how to get us to them.

Part of our failure to find the rocks was my own fault for not figuring it all out in advance, but I won't take all of the blame. All of the maps I looked at of the area--Google, my guidebook, and our little rental car GPS--were infuriatingly vague and they all made it appear as though the rock formations are somewhere near the town of Citrusdal. Citrusdal has a tourism office, so I assumed if we went there everything would fall into place. I don't know why I assumed a tourism office in a tiny farming town would be open on a Sunday, however, and it wasn't. Driving around country roads where directional signs are scarce and what information there is is written in Afrikaans further complicated the issue.

After a long, country road drive to Citrusdal, an awkward offer of directions from a Citrusdal local, and closer examination of our variety of vague maps, I realized the rock formations were about an hour behind us in a direction that would have been inconvenient to back-track to.

Crestfallen, we pressed on toward Cape Town. At least we acquired some cheap and deliciously citrusy citrus from a Citrusdal citrus farm.

Desperate to make up for my heinous map reading error, I located in my guidebook an alternative stop for our drive back. Near the wine-growing town of Darling, there is a wildflower park marked in my guidebook. This being the middle of South African winter, I was doubtful that any wildflower would be there, but we tried it anyways. It turned out to be a lovely, meadowy spot. Only some flowers were blooming--including, surprisingly, a lot of wild calla lilies--but we saw some cool birds and it was a nice place to stretch our legs before the drive back to Cape Town.

We didn't get to see the big cool rocks. But we did see the cave paintings and the flowers. Though my strange travel habits may have had something to do with that, the same habits have taught me that a 50 percent accuracy rate while traveling, while only half successful, is not necessarily half bad.

Flush

It's time we talked about bathrooms.

Once, sitting at a table of well traveled people, I heard someone say, "Oh, you've traveled a lot too. We should swap poop stories sometime."

It's true; the more you travel, the more awkward bathroom situations you find yourself in. I can tell you about my friend's moment of desperation squatting over a dirty toilet with no toilet paper in rural India when he opted to re-purpose a page from his passport; I can tell you about my vomit-and-poop-ridden 23rd birthday; I can tell you about the super efficient toilets of the Tokyo airport, about tribal outhouses in the mountains of Thailand, about not being able to find the flusher in several different situations, and about having to share slimy hostel bathrooms throughout Europe with the young, the smelly, the drunk and lusty.

But I'll spare you all the details.

Like many aspects of life in South Africa, toilets are a topic that come with racial, social, and political connotations. Access to sanitation is actually becoming such a divisive issue here that there have been a series of protests recently in which demonstrators dump human waste on or around politicians.

It's pretty disgusting, but it's hard to blame them, especially considering the numbers. Only about 60 percent of people in this country have a flush toilet in their home, according to 2011 census data. But here in the more affluent, urbanized Western Cape (the province where Cape Town is) that number jumps to almost 90 percent. It's another reminder that most experiences I have had in South Africa have been comparatively luxurious and pretty anomalous to the average South African lifestyle.

The facts are even harder to swallow when I consider that my toilet situation here has been pretty noteworthy. Having experienced my share of international commodes, I can say with some degree of certainty that Cape Town could well have some of the best bathrooms in the world.

From the moment I arrived in Cape Town I have been impressed. The cleanliness! The spaciousness! The privacy! The abundance of toilet paper--two ply!  But the best part is the stalls. In the USA we get thinly walled cubicles that leave your feet exposed. The gaps between the doors are usually big enough for snotty little kids to stick their faces into. The locks only work occasionally. There's never a coat hook when you need one. In Austin once, I remember going into a bar restroom and having nothing but a translucent Texas Longhorns shower curtain to separate me and my bare butt from the rest of the world. Capetonians wouldn't put up with that. Most public restrooms stalls here are designed with a solid, floor-to-ceiling wall between you and the next person doing their business. The doors are both soundproof and smellproof and nary a lock is broken. They don't usually have paper towels, but the hand dryers are almost always the super efficient kind that blast air hard enough to blow the skin off your hands.

As is the case in the UK and in most former British colonies I've visited, the one drawback of the bathrooms here is the use of the two-spouted sink--one tap for icy, one tap for scalding--which, as far as I'm concerned is totally useless, but then, you can't have everything.

The bathrooms here have been so nice that I don't think I would have taken them for granted in the first place, but knowing how many South Africans are fighting for access to nicer toilets really puts things in perspective. I really had no idea South Africa's facilities would be such a glaring lesson in wealth divides for me in this country, but I did know before I arrived here that investigating the porcelain thrones of South Africa would be a high priority for me for a different reason.

You see, this is my first time in the Southern hemisphere and I've heard all my life about the reverse effects of gravity on the flow of toilet water down here.

 

(My journalism skills are really being put to use here, no?)

Of course, as soon as I landed in Cape Town I totally forgot which way water flows in the Northern hemisphere. Can anyone help me out here? If you're on the top half of the globe right now, just do me a favor and go flush for me. I'm fairly sure I recall American toilets swirling counter clockwise, but now that I know that my South African toilet is distinctly clockwise flowing, that might just be wishful thinking. I do so want this myth to be true.

If anyone can confirm for me that it is true I will be unspeakably happy.

The protest

Just around the corner from where I work in Cape Town I see the same blind street musician performing almost every day.

It came as quite a surprise earlier this week when that guy, whose name is Lunga Goodman Nono, started making national headlines.

According to several witnesses, Nono was playing on his usual corner on Monday when six police officers dragged him through the street and smashed his guitar--his only livelihood besides his disability check--claiming that he didn't have a permit.

The incident drew viral attention on South African social media. Nono's guitar has since been replaced, he's been offered a record deal, and funds have been raised to pay his police fines.

Yesterday a protest with a little over 100 people took place where he usually performs in Cape Town's Greenmarket Square. I covered the event for News24. I spoke to protestors and also managed to track down Nono's wife and her cousin. His wife only speaks isiXhosa, but her cousin was able to translate.

Watch the video on News24.

The Festival

USC was kind enough to send Shannon, Graham and me on a little field trip to a town called Grahamstown (no connection with Graham the person) this weekend. Grahamstown is the home of Rhodes University and of South Africa's National Arts Festival, which they conveniently scheduled during our visit to the country.

We left on Friday morning and returned Sunday night. To get to Grahamstown from Cape Town we had to take a short flight to the city of Port Elizabeth then ride in a bus. As it happens, there are several privately owned nature reserves between Port Elizabeth and Grahamstown, so driving between the two it's easy to spot zebras, springboks, giraffes, and wildebeests from the freeway. If you know me at all, you can imagine how I squealed with delight every time this happened during the hour-and-half-long drive.

We stayed on the campus of the university. It's amazing how colleges kind of look the same everywhere. My little dorm room had the last tenant's stickers on the wall, the hallways had silly construction paper decorations taped up everywhere, the women's bathroom had a poster explaining one's options in the event of an unwanted pregnancy. On top of the familiar dormy ambiance, Rhodes University literally looks just like Occidental College--big white buildings with red tile roofs, early 20th century architecture, green spaces punctuated with weird sculptures--the whole deal. It was eerie. 

I digress--you're here to read about the festival.

Since we only had one full day, it didn't seem like we really had enough time to get the whole Arts Festival experience, but all things considered, I think we did pretty well. First of all, we got media passes. Media passes are fun because they get you into places for free and they let you take pictures even when photography isn't allowed for the laypeople.

I was taking photos for News24 which you can view here.

In my short time in Grahamstown I managed to squeeze in three little music/dance shows, two really weird modern dance shows, one one-act-one-man play, two jazz concerts, a performance by Chinese acrobats, a church service which was supposed to include more marimba music than it actually did, and a little bit of shopping at an open-air arts and crafts market. I also drank beers at several new places.

 

(You should see a photo slideshow here. If you don't see it, update your Flash settings or click here.)

Of course, some shows were better than others, but as a former theater critic, I've learned to tolerate watching the whole spectrum of the embarrassing and weird things people do onstage.

A big highlight was the Soweto String Quartet. They were enjoyable not only for their snazzy, zebra-striped jackets, but also for their music. In fact, their music is so popular here in South Africa that apparently even Nelson Mandela is a fan.

I'll leave it to them to finish this post:

Mandela and the newsroom

I am working at the largest online news company in South Africa and the media environment in this country has been a little tense in recent weeks.

Nelson Mandela was the first black president of this country, but he is also a living symbol of the anti-Apartheid struggle. Many South Africans feel a strong emotional connection to him, not necessarily as a politician, but as the face of their tumultuous history.  Many South Africans even refer to Mandela by terms of respect and endearment: Madiba, or Tata. Mandela is a few days shy of his 95th birthday and he has now been hospitalized for one month. Many assume these are his final days.

When he entered the hospital in Pretoria (other side of the country from Cape Town) on June 8 with a recurring lung infection, the local media immediately took notice. Within a few days, the international media had taken notice too.

Almost as long as Mandela has been in the hospital, journalists from several local and international outlets have been camping outside the hospital. One organization, reportedly, is even sub-letting an apartment across the street from the hospital to get better views and satellite reception from the balcony.

While those journalists have been waiting for weeks, tweeting, photographing, and reporting any signs of activity, other journalists are preparing from the office. Articles, undoubtedly, have been written in advance about Mandela’s death. Organizations have created plans for how to report the information when the time comes. Portraits of Mandela with 1918-2013 written on them have likely already been photoshopped.

It’s a little morbid, but is it wrong?

If you trust user comments, it certainly is. “Vultures!” web users have written under photos of journalists sitting outside the Pretoria hospital, “Leave the Mandela family alone!”

The Mandela family has expressed varying opinions on the matter.

“I just think it’s in bad taste, it’s crass," Makaziwe Mandela said about the media’s treatment of the situation in a scathing interview on national television.

On the other hand, Mandela’s wife, Graca Machel issued a statement thanking supporters—including the media—from around the world saying, “We have felt the closeness of the world and the meaning of strength and peace.”

In the age of the Internet, we are more connected than ever. That has allowed people worldwide to share their expressions of concern about the ailing political hero. But it has also put a heavy responsibility on media outlets.

News24’s slogan is, “Breaking News. First.” It’s a promise to deliver information as fast as technology will allow. It’s also difficult standard to maintain. 

The speed of Internet news demands that the media must be prepared to report information quickly, but social rules say it’s impolite to pay attention too closely. So for now, our job in the media is a little awkward.

Double discrimination

The first green card for a foreign spouse in a same-sex marriage was issued in the USA this week. But the USA is not the only country in the world where gay rights and issues of immigration are hot topics.

Xenophobia has been in the news a lot recently in South Africa. This country receives more refugees than anywhere else on the continent. Unfortunately, as the refugee populations rise, so too do tensions between locals and foreigners.

Many refugees in South Africa face additional discrimination because they identify as LGBTI. Homosexuality is illegal in 38 African countries. In some countries, it is a death penalty offense. South Africa, on the other hand, was the first country in the world to outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation in their constitution. South Africa has by far the most liberal laws regarding LGBTI rights on the African continent. But as many sexual refugees find out, homophobia still exists in the country.

My friend Shannon is interning with an organization called Passop here in Cape Town. She has been working with LGBTI refugees and helped me connect me with some interviews so that I could make this video about the issue.

Watch this video on News24.

POTUS

Being a journalist is pretty cool.

Remember when I saw the president of South Africa?

Well, last night I saw the president of the United States.

Contrasting the two experiences is somewhat funny. My News24 coworker who was with me at both events admitted she was more excited to see Obama. "Does that make me a bad South African?" she asked.

When I saw Jacob Zuma, my coworker and I heard about the event in the morning, walked a few blocks from our office to the South African government buildings, then breezed past security to hear the president give a very brief PR-stunt-style speech alongside American actor Danny Glover. I was able to get in with my foreign driver's license, and I stood an arm's length away from Zuma.

Seeing President Obama wasn't quite as easy.

First of all, this is the most expensive presidential trip in history. Obama brought massive amounts of security along with him on his three-country tour of Africa, including, but not limited to, an aircraft carrier docked offshore with a fully staffed medical trauma center, bulletproof limousines, and Marine helicopters. The Obamas also canceled the family safari they had scheduled in Tanzania because the nature park was posing too much of a logistical challenge for the presidential snipers.

My colleagues and I had to submit scanned copies of our passports to the White House about a week in advance of Obama's visit. Then we had to wait until the day before the event to find out if we would be able to get in. Four of us submitted requests and the US Embassy only granted permission for three of us to get in--no explanation offered.

Obama wasn't scheduled to speak until about 6 pm, but we had to arrive at the event venue with all of our equipment at 11 am. We then had to leave the equipment there so that security could rummage through our stuff and sniff through everything all day. We came back at 4 pm and were issued our official White House badges and escorted to our official press area. The press area was separated from the audience by a little divider and the audience was separated from the podium by a little divider and several security guards.

 I wondered why the sharply dressed man in the press area next to me wasn't snapping photos like all of the other journalists, then I realized he was a secret service guy.

Obama touched on predictable points about Africa in his speech--government corruption, poverty, women's rights, development. He also paid homage to Nelson Mandela (who is still in the hospital after three weeks) throughout his speech. 

But my personal favorite part of Obama's speech was when he told an anecdote about his time at Occidental College. I don't think he saw my fist pump though.

Obama looked and sounded pretty much just the way I thought  he would in real life. The one thing that struck me from hanging around snapping photos of him for an hour was that this guy is amazingly photogenic. I ended up taking over 700 photos and hardly got any where he's making funny faces. What a pro!

See my best photos from Obama's speech on News24.