Our arrival consisted of driving around aimlessly for two hours searching for our backpackers. Which we finally found around 1am on one of the sketchiest streets I have ever seen. After we made it safely past the hobos, we nestled in for a little nap.
"I'll say on behalf of your mother, do not get a tattoo!" Silvia, one of the sweetest people I have ever met, talked me out of getting a tattoo after I told her my mother had previously instructed me to plan on moving out if I came home in April with any ink. Silvia had spent the past half hour braiding and wrapping my hair, while also telling me all about her life and her faith. She is from the Congo and speaks beautiful french and "a little bit" of English. She spends her days styling hair out of her little market booth to give her two sons some spending money, while they study in Cape Town. She continued on and on about how she felt so blessed to be where she was in life and that all that she has is by the grace of God.
"I will pray for you and your friends, I believe it is the young people who are sent to do God's work."
"Do you know how to eat?" The Ethiopian waitress asked us, as we looked pretty stunned at the platter of meat and sauces on our table with no utensils in site. She proceeded to show us how to tear apart the sour bread and literally dig in. It turned out to be quite the delicious experience.
"This is an adventure guys!" This was my attempt at making the six of us feel better about having just boarded a train for $1.80 to spend the next two hours bumping along the tracks toward Simons Town. Shortly after my cheerful comment, the security guard came to check our tickets. "You are sitting in first class, you need to move down cars." We gathered ourselves for the sprint at the next brief stop, down to the third class car. We had been pretty much by ourselves in first class, but we soon found ourselves packed in a train car like sardines with all of the locals. There was a blind man playing guitar and another man in the middle of what seemed to me some old school Baptist preaching. After we had insured our bags were tightly protected under our arms, we broke out in a fit of giggles. This, was definitely an adventure.
"Is the internet workin'?" I asked a blonde headed British girl sitting at the desktop computer at our backpackers.
"What??" she asked.
I repeated, "Is the internet workin'? The lady at the front desk said it wasn't workin'.."
"I don't understand." As she looked up at me like I was an idiot.
"Oh, okay. Like the internet, it's not workin'?"
"I'm not sure.." (Her Skype was pulled up, so she clearly knew.)
"That's okay, thanks!"
I turned around and went downstairs fairly confused with what had just happened. I told Ellen and Charlotte, and Ellen replies: "Maybe she didn't understand your accent. It's pretty thick."
Well this thought had not occurred to me, but was clearly the issue. That poor British girl was probably upstairs thinking "who was the hick who doesn't know how to finish her words..." LOL.
We wrapped up our weekend with a trip to Robben Island to tour the prison where political prisoners were held during the apartheid era. What an extraordinary story that I think is important for everyone to hear from one of the tour guides who was also held there. It was on the rocky shore of Robben Island Sunday morning that it finally hit me, how thankful I am for TBB, and just how seriously awesome my life is.
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