Change In Plans

ON TOP OF TABLE MOUNTAIN

Greetings from Llandudno, Cape Town.  It is hard to believe, but we have been in South Africa (and Namibia) for seven weeks.  We are finally gearing up to move on to Australia on Monday.

In our final days we have been scrambling to see friends, to run errands (e.g., shipping 50 kilograms of stuff back to Tennessee), and to do all of the Cape Town things we really like to do. 

On Thursday we went surfing and spent time on the False Bay coast.  We also went to a few art galleries that India had read about, and wanted to see. 

One of the galleries featured a South African photographer named Pieter Hugo  (http://www.michaelstevenson.com).  Hugo had a well received exhibition in New York last year, featuring large photos of tough-looking Nigerians who kept leashed hyenas, pythons, and baboons as pets.  Very freaky. 

The exhibition we saw yesterday was a celebration of “Nollywood,”  Nigeria’s film-production industry.  It is the third-largest film making center in the world (after Hollywood and Bollywood).  The photos were re-creations of scenes from Nollywood horror movies: a lot of death, gore, destruction, and mayhem.  As Zola and I walked around, he kept repeating (almost Rainman like), “This is very disturbing, Dad.  Very disturbing.”  Finally he said, “I’m going to have nightmares from this, aren’t I?”  No nightmares yet, but I’m not sure this was exactly responsible parenting on my part.

We had an amazing dinner last night at a new restaurant way down in Noordhoek called the Food Barn (www.thefoodbarn.co.za).  We met our old, old friends Sven and Christelle, who we had otherwise not had a chance to see on this trip.  As always, they were brilliant company, and their daughters (aged 13 and 11) were very sweet to Zola and Tallulah.  For most of the dinner, all of the kids played outside together on a little playground, and then lay on the grass, watching the stars. 

Immediately after we sat down, the waiter brought me a bottle of champagne, and said that “a friend named Ernest had sent us two bottles as a gift.”  I don’t know anyone named Ernest, so I told the waiter there must be a mistake.  He insisted on giving us the wine, and throughout the dinner I kept wondering aloud who Ernest was, and why he would send me wine.   Sven, Christelle and India wondered along with me, but suggested that we accept the mystery gift and enjoy our good fortune. 

As we drove home,  I mentioned Ernest the Munificent again, and India started to laugh and laugh.  She said, “It was Sven and Christelle!  Duh!  Of course it was them! I can’t believe you fell for their trick!  Ha ha ha!”  Ha ha ha, indeed.  They all kept very straight faces about Ernest throughout the whole evening, but must have laughed themselves silly later.

This morning, we finally completed the hike up Table Mountain.  India ran the 15 kilometers to the base of the mountain, and all four of us did the 90-minute climb together.  Tallulah actually walked about a third of the way up, in Crocs no less, and rode my shoulders the rest of the way.  Zola complained a little during the middle 30 minutes, but was a trooper.  At the top he said, “This was the best hike ever!”  

Sitting outside the cafe at the top of the mountain, we ran into another old, old friend, named Itumeleng Kgaboesele, from my time teaching at the University of Cape Town in 1991.  I had not seen Itu in nearly ten years, but his appearance had not changed a bit.  What has changed is that the very clever, confident undergraduate I knew 18 years ago has become one of the most prominent investors and entrepreneurs in the country ().  Such a good guy, and so deeply deserving of his successes. 

We raced down the mountain, sped home, changed clothes lickety-split, sped off again, and managed to be only 10 minutes late for lunch reservations at The Round House restaurant ().  The restaurant is practically within spitting distance of the Table Mountain cable station. 

The Round House was built by Lord Charles Somerset in 1817 as a  hunting lodge, “to shoot lion, leopard and buck on the slopes of Lions Head mountain.”  It is now a World Heritage site (!), sitting on a forested mountainside, in the center of a big nature reserve, overlooking the Atlantic.  It is a five-minute drive from the center of Cape Town.

In the old days (ie, the 1990s), The Round House was run by an eccentric French woman of a certain age.  She played Edith Piaf singles on a phongraph, flirted outrageously with her male guests, and served French food swimming in reductions and demi-glaze.  India and I probably had dinner with her 15 times.

Apparently the building was then abandoned for several years, and has just recently reopened as a new high-end, European bistro.  We sat outside with our friends, two couples, while our collective five kids played barefoot in the grass below the lodge.  Somehow, three very pleasant hours went by.

LUNCH AT THE ROUND HOUSE

One of the kids from lunch, Alec, came home with us, so he and Zola could have a play date.  The boys ended up boogie boarding in the freezing Atlantic for about an hour and a half, until the water had numbed their feet beyond feeling, and the sun had set over the ocean.   I was in with them for the last 45 minutes or so, treasuring their laughter and bravado. 

INTREPID BOOGIE BOARDERS

Our time in Cape Town has been great. 

Unfortunately, I upset the Never Never Land atmosphere by accepting a full-time, six-month assignment in New York, starting on April 20th.  India and I have been discussing this opportunity for months, but I think we hadn’t fully internalized the implications of it until yesterday.  Essentially, our trip, and our time as a 24/7 family will come to an end (temporarily?) then.  

We are working through the logistics (complicated) and the emotions (complicated), and also trying to think through the longer-term questions of where and how we want to live.  Obviously, these are conversations we need to have at some point anyway.  But it definitely feels as though I have somehow poured a cold bucket of uncertain reality on our beachside idyll.

As with everything, we will work through it.  In the meantime, we will enjoy our last days in Cape Town.