My brother's travels - Cape Town
Hello my favourite family,
Cape Town has been good. Weather here changes very fast - nice and sunny now but last night was really cold. The days can be over 20 degrees but the nights have dipped to 3-5 degrees. Got myself a space heater, which only worked a few days ago because the house circuit was blown. Or something. In South Africa, there is a saying, "just now". It basically means "later", but does not indicate a specific time. So when we told our landlord to fix it, he said he'll do it "just now". Sometimes just now means 5 minutes later, or in our case, about 2 weeks later.
University of Cape Town is on the foothills of Devil's Peak, which is basically a 15 minute walk from the main road, as my classes are on the upper campus. It is quite high up, we can see views comparable to the height of being on top of Bukit Gasing. Most richer people (Whites & Chinese) drive their own cars, and fortify their houses with lots of barbed wire (not the little spikes used on Ma's house but more like those huge ones used in the Vietnam war). Many houses also electrify their fences, and I've even seen a house that keeps snakes (?!) on their compound as a deterrent against break-ins.
There are lots of wildlife, including abundant birdlife around the area. Classes just started this week. I'm taking some post-grad honours courses as well as upper-level undergraduate workshops. Lectures are a little less organized but there are tons of readings. I saw a really good documentary called "The Black Road" about the conflict in Acheh which won some Mumbai Film Fest Award not long ago. It's actually quite [thought] provoking (and graphic) about this American journalist who lived with the rebels and saw them being tortured and killed by the Indonesian military just before the tsunami hit. The director of the film is guest lecturing my class...in about 10 minutes.
Got to run now. Please send my love to everyone!
Love, T
Cape Town has been good. Weather here changes very fast - nice and sunny now but last night was really cold. The days can be over 20 degrees but the nights have dipped to 3-5 degrees. Got myself a space heater, which only worked a few days ago because the house circuit was blown. Or something. In South Africa, there is a saying, "just now". It basically means "later", but does not indicate a specific time. So when we told our landlord to fix it, he said he'll do it "just now". Sometimes just now means 5 minutes later, or in our case, about 2 weeks later.
University of Cape Town is on the foothills of Devil's Peak, which is basically a 15 minute walk from the main road, as my classes are on the upper campus. It is quite high up, we can see views comparable to the height of being on top of Bukit Gasing. Most richer people (Whites & Chinese) drive their own cars, and fortify their houses with lots of barbed wire (not the little spikes used on Ma's house but more like those huge ones used in the Vietnam war). Many houses also electrify their fences, and I've even seen a house that keeps snakes (?!) on their compound as a deterrent against break-ins.
There are lots of wildlife, including abundant birdlife around the area. Classes just started this week. I'm taking some post-grad honours courses as well as upper-level undergraduate workshops. Lectures are a little less organized but there are tons of readings. I saw a really good documentary called "The Black Road" about the conflict in Acheh which won some Mumbai Film Fest Award not long ago. It's actually quite [thought] provoking (and graphic) about this American journalist who lived with the rebels and saw them being tortured and killed by the Indonesian military just before the tsunami hit. The director of the film is guest lecturing my class...in about 10 minutes.
Got to run now. Please send my love to everyone!
Love, T
posted by smathi @ 1:33 am
1 Comments:
At 10:21 am,
Anonymous said…
hmm...have i missed something along the way? why is T in south africa?
anyway, just an update...baby ben is walking already! he's so full of smiles for everyone! hope everyone get a chance to see him soon...at least before the terrible twos! hee hee.
milton
Post a Comment
<< Home