Funemployed

It has been far too long since my last post but not having a computer makes updating this blog rather difficult. Fortunately, as of last week, I have purchased a new computer and once again have the internet at my fingertips. Actually, calling my new laptop a computer is a bit of stretch seeing as that it is no bigger than most hard back books and weighs less than Bernie Madoff’s wallet. Called a netbook, the new laptop is a significant downgrade from my beloved but now stolen Macbook but it is capable of the basic computer functions I need for my travels: internet, webcam for skype, word processing and a hard drive that can hold more than a 100 songs and a few pictures without running at a sloth running through rubber cement speed. I actually think this is going to be better for the rest of my travels because of its ridiculously small size and weight (who am I kidding, I miss my Macbook more than Phil Mickelson misses opportunities at the US Open). But enough with the tech talk, a lot has happened in the past month in Cape Town including my move plans to move from the Mother City at the end of the month.
For starters, my time at the South Africa Human Rights Commission has come to end. As you may have picked up on in one my last posts, I was rather frustrated with the lack of work being accomplished in the office on a day to day basis. This, coupled with the realization that I was missing out on Cape Town opportunities because I was stuck in an office doing nothing (nothing actually being an understatement), I decided to give the job a two week grace period to see if conditions improved. Surprise, surprise, office productivity came to more of a standstill than I ever could have imagined and after two weeks I graciously thanked the Commission for my time there, said my goodbyes and haven’t looked back since. So for the past month I have been unemployed (if you count an unpaid internship being employed) and enjoying every minute of it.

Being funemployed actually requires a lot more effort and planning than one would imagine in order to stave off the boredom that can result from not having daily responsibilities. Luckily Cape Town has so many different activities at its disposal to keep one entertained that I have been able to stay quite busy, even finding that as my time here comes to an end there will still be plenty of things left undone. Below, in no particular order, is a list of a few of things I have been up to in the past month.

1) Scuba Diving. Not having done a dive since acquiring my open water PADI certificate while swimming with whale sharks and manta rays in Mozambique, I decided it was time to progress in my new found hobby. Cape Town has a plethora of diving along its lengthy coastline and the winter months provide prime diving conditions because the visibility is the best it will be all year. My first dive however was at the Two Oceans aquarium in the huge tank used as a home for sting rays, one large sea turtle, various types of fish, some of which were the slightly smaller than Gary Coleman, and five ragged tooth sharks. Needless to say I was terrified of becoming the shark meal of the week but I kept telling myself that the aquarium wouldn't offer such an opportunity if death was a possibility. My fears certainly didn't subside when the dive master's method of preventing any curious shark from coming too close was a stick no bigger than a baseball bat. Really, this is supposed to stop a 2m long shark from taking a chomp out of my leg? Thankfully the peg leg/club never had to be used and the half hour dive was extremely enjoyable, even when the sharks came within a few feet of my head. We even had an audience of school children "oohing" and "aahing" over our dive, one of the kids, as over heard by a friend of mine, saying to his classmate how brave we were. I would have gone with naive or stupid but I'll take a compliment when I can get it.

My next dives were part of the Advanced PADI Course that I started in Mozambique. To get this certificate, I needed to have completed five speciality dives out of a list of around 15. I had already completed my deep dive so I signed up for a wreck, navigation, naturalists and peak buoyancy dives. Cape Town waters are much colder than anything I encountered in Moz and the visibility does even begin to compare but the dives were still great. On my wreck dive I managed to see one very inquisitive seal (which I wasn't too happy to see considering they are the primary diet for Great Whites), an octopus and jelly fish the size of a basketball. I am hoping to continue my diving education (next step is the Rescue Course) in hopes of one day becoming a dive master. Although an ambitious goal, diving has quickly turned into one of my new favorite hobbies and I am looking forward to many more diving adventures.

2) Surfing. I finally decided to jump back on the horse after my disaster attempt of trying to surf in Mozambique except this time lessons were definitely going to be involved. A good spot for beginners is a place called Muizenberg which luckily happens to be only a half hour train ride away. For my first time I went with a some friends for a group lesson from the Surf Shack. I wouldn't call my surf performance a success by any stretch of the imagination but I was able to stand, albeit for only a couple seconds, by the end of the day. I found it very weird that I could enjoy something that I failed at over 90% of the time but I left the beach that day loving surfing. Since then I have tried to go at least one or two times a week for a morning surf, getting better slowly, let me re-emphasize slowly, but surely every time.

3) Cape Town Sightseeing. For some reason or another, I found that after living in Cape Town for the past few months there were far too many things I had not done or seen. Looking back, I managed to check off a lot of Cape Town "must do's" including: Robben Island, climbing Table Mountain and Devil's Peak, visiting a slew of musuems such as the Castle of Good Hope, the District Six Museum, the old Slave Lodge, the SA Natural History Museum, the Jewish Museum and its Holocaust Centre. It would take me far too long to write about each experience but the high lights included the two hikes (both were on picture perfect days) Robben Island (even though the tour itself was too rushed but thankfully saved by the tour guide who is used by the Museum for touring all the foreign dignitaries including Obama last fall) and the District Six Museums (including the awesome bakery next door that served delicious cheesecake and brownies).

4) Watching American Sports. I know, this one probably seems pretty lame to most people. I am living in Africa and shouldn't waste my time watching Sportscenter USA at 8AM and again at 7pm. Some people might even argue that I should instead focus my sports obsession on the local South African sports which are insanely popular all across the country. But for me, soccer will always be the sport than can end in an unsatisfying tie, rugby will always be the sport I have to argue against with American football and cricket will always be the sport that makes less sense than Paula Abdul judging a singing competition. I love my American sports, miss them more than anticipated and have no shame about staying up until 3AM to watch the Derek Fisher perform post season magic again and the Lakers smush the Orlando Ron Jeremy's. I circled my calendar five times over when I found out I could watch the NBA draft live and enjoyed every minute of staying up from 1AM to 5Am to watch it. A small but worthwhile price to pay for some home-cooking comfort. Being able to watch ESPN has been an unexpected bonus I pray for in thanks every night before I go to bed. Seriously. Please, no judging.

5) Preparing for post Cape Town life. In the first week of May I did a road trip with a group of friends along the Garden Route, a stretch of highway that takes travelers through various small South African towns each chock full of various activities and adventures. Some of the high lights on this trip included bungee jumping from the highest commercial jump in the world, riding an ostrich and cage diving with crocodiles. But the relevance of this trip to my last month in Cape Town has to do with the fabulous bed and breakfast we stayed at in Knysna, the ranking "best town" in South Africa for the past two years. I managed to stay in contact with the owners of the Bamboo Guest Lodge following our trip in the hopes of maybe finding some work in the town later on down the road. Soon enough I got a call back from Jaynie, one of the owners, offering me a job working at the bed and breakfast both as a helper for day to day operations as well as help on their expansion of their business next door. I quickly agreed to the offer and will be moving to Knysna July 1st, just in time to help with the nation wide famous annual Oyster Festival. I am hoping that the festival provides more than just an opportunity to gorge oneself on oysters considering that I hate the taste of the "boogers of the sea' but I am looking forward to the new chapter of my African adventure.

Again, these are only a few of the things I have been doing in Cape Town for the past month. I guess my next post will be from Knysna and I promise to include pictures. If anyone is curious, there are some pictures of facebook that capture my last month in Cape Town. I'll let you decide which ones correlate with the above stories and which ones involve late night shenanigans at the local bars.

Speed Bump, Not a Road Block

With everything going as well as it has been on my African adventure so far, I figured sooner or later I'd cross paths with some bad luck. Unfortunately the bad luck I was anticipating turned out to be really bad luck and now I am left without my laptop and the back pack I have had strapped to my shoulders since my junior year of high school. The story goes as follows:

On Sunday, I had just got back from an Internet cafe and brushing up on the latest worldly current events. Since I no longer work at the SAHRC, my free Internet connection no longer exists and I have to resort to the occasional internet cafe, not bad but not ideal either. When I got home I put my bag with my lap top in it on the floor and then met up with some friends to go to a braai (the South African word for BBQ). This was around four and in less than five hours I'd be back in my room only this time the value of its contents would be significantly less.

I had left my window slightly cracked like I had done 90% of the other days I had been living in Cape Town, thinking nothing of the consequences especially since burglary bars still gave me the comfort of safety. Needless to say, I was in a state of utter shock when I returned to my room and found my covers thrown around the room and my backpack missing. I ran to the window to find the burglar bars still intact but the window wide open. I couldn't figure out how the theft had occur ed until I noticed a large stick laying just underneath my window. I went outside to find a robber's weapon of choice, a large stick jerry-rigged with a wire hook used to lift my back pack and its contents through the window and somehow through the burglar bars.

Getting your possessions stolen sucks, plain and simple. Especially when your possessions include something sentimental (my back pack) and something expensive (my computer). It has taken me a few days to come to grips with my loss and the realization that the case I opened with the South African police fruit has less of a chance of bearing fruit than Christopher Reeves to star in the next Superman film (filing the report was actually hilarious, Barney Fife even would have laughed at the "investigation"). The worst part about this whole incident is that everything else had been going extremely well, including finding a paying job starting in July. I hate to have to cut this post short but I thought it was necessary to explain why I haven't written in a while and why my posts will be more sporadic until I get a new computer of some sort. I hope this message finds everyone well and I promise on the next post to only include stories that are interesting and upbeat.