Cincinnati: What have we learned?

I always like to process these experiences by trying to figure out what I have learned from them. With no further ado, here are my lessons from South Africa:

I. Personal Lessons

A. Listen to your body. It probably knows what you should or shouldn't be doing.

B. Push yourself. "If you know your limits, you will never surpass them." You're more likely to accomplish amazing things if you push yourself as far as you can go and beyond.

C. I'm awesome. Oh wait, I knew that one before this trip.

D. There is always another way--when one door closes, another opens.

E. If not, why not? (Also, if so, why so?)

F. Go with the flow. Most of the awesome things in my life have been the consequence of spur-of-the-moment decisions and a willingness to go off the beaten path.

II. Work Lessons

A. Dealing with management is an art. It requires a great amount of patience and social skill, but is essential to success in your career. Practice makes perfect, I hope?

B. That said, you have to ask for what you want. And if it's important enough to you, fight for it. No one is going to hand you success on a silver platter, and you have to find a balance between what your bosses want and what you want.

C. Let your work speak for itself.

III. Travel Lessons

A. The world is not as scary as you think it is (most of the time). Don't let fear or uncertainty stop you from traveling! (Unless that fear is substantiated by something like a civil war in the country you want to visit. Then don't go, stupid.)

B. Travelling is a surefire way to achieve self-growth. That doesn't mean you'll like it, but change is good for you. Challenge yourself.

C. Bad things happen, unfortunately. There is no advice that will keep you from being mugged, overcharged, losing your luggage, getting lost, etc., 100% of the time. Accept it and move on.

D. Common sense and intuition are great ways to avoid 90% of the bad things that happen to people in foreign countries. If you feel like you're in danger or that something isn't right, get out of there. It could be nothing, but you also could have just prevented catastrophe. Nothing is more important than your own well-being--is that something worth gambling with? Here are some other tips in the same vein:

      1. Safety is a state of mind. Always be aware of your surroundings and where you're going.

      2. If you're lost, don't act like it. Walk with purpose--standing around looking confused is a great way to get herded somewhere you don't want to go, where you may be mugged or worse.

      3. Don't be afraid to be rude. People are obsessed with politeness these days, and I'm not saying it's not appropriate most of the time. But if someone is following you, harassing you or pressuring you, tell them to fuck off. Sometimes, you have to be a jerk to get people to leave you alone.

      4. DO NOT EVER get into an unmarked cab. Anywhere. Period.

       5. Try not to carry your passport on you if you can avoid it. Most things are replaceable, but it's a HUGE hassle to get around without a passport in a foreign country.

E. Packing: This list has everything essential for international travel.
    1. Wallet (credit cards, money, ID)
    2. Passport!!!
    3. Phone

Other than that, just throw shit in a bag and it will work out. Trust me.

Well guys, this is the end. With over 2000 views and 50 posts, the past year has been amazing. As far as I know, I'm not going abroad again anytime soon, but if I do, anyone following this blog will know. Thank you for all the amazing support!!! I hope to see you on my next adventure...

Cape Town: You can't come back unless you go away

I woke up this morning to Nina flipping the on lights in our room and saying: "Lynne, get up! We have to be out of here by 12:30 because they booked more people for these rooms!"

This was at 11:00 am.

Apparently, Daddy Long Legs booked the apartments for tonight and didn't tell us that we had a specific checkout time after we lived there for two and a half months. Because I only brought one bag besides my backpack, and it could actually be a carry-on bag if I weighed less, I was OK. I just pack light, and I had already packed most of my stuff. But the next hour and a half was a frenzy of us trying to get ourselves in order before leaving the country. We don't fly out until 11:30 pm.

After our ungracious exit from the apartments, we put our luggage in a room at the main hotel down the road and headed out to while away the next 11 hours before our flight left. Lauren had been wanting to go to the Bo-Kaap, a traditionally Muslim neighborhood, and I knew how to get there, so we headed up that way. We came upon the Wale Rose restaurant, which was having a buffet special, so we headed in for lunch.

We got to sit on the roof, which has a beautiful view of Table Mountain and Lionshead, as well as the colorful houses of Bo-Kaap (something it's famous for). The food was amazing--the buffet included the best mutton (lamb) curry I've ever had and some awesome biryani, which as far as I can tell is rice, lentils sauteed onions with some other stuff.

Anyway, it was just a lovely way to spend part of the day, especially after the rude awakening of the morning. We took our time and ate way too much food. To top it all off, there was a parade through the street the restaurant was on. We still don't know what it was for, but people were dressed in green, white and red as well as really sparkly clothes, and there was a marching band. All in all, a great way to spend the last day here--exploring a new neighborhood and getting awesome food.

I can't believe we're leaving today. I'm excited to go home, especially given the last two weeks, but as the novelist Anatole France said, "All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another." 


There is something gained from every place we visit and person we meet, even if it's an unpleasant lesson or realization. And I have actually enjoyed most of my time here--Cape Town is an amazing city, and I can't wait to visit again someday. I've met some wonderful people and learned important lessons. 


This will be my last blog post in South Africa, but stay tuned for one or two more once I get stateside. For closure and all that, you know. 


I'm excited to get home. But I am also sad to leave. 

Cape Town: I'm going off to find myself. If I'm not back before I return, keep me here

So this week sucked.

I have never had this much anxiety. The bright side of all this is that I have been forced to confront the nature of my anxiety. The built-up stress from work, school and living abroad, the death of my beloved grandparents last December and anxiety about my future are probably all big factors.

What I've learned at the Cape Times is that I never want to work at an actual newspaper. This may not seem that shattering to most people, but that's what I went to school thinking I wanted to do, so this is a rude awakening for me. Luckily, journalism is a flexible degree, and paired with my international studies major I am sure I will be able to find something. I think I was also worried that my parents would be disappointed that they sent me to journalism school to study newspaper/online and I don't ever, ever want to work at a newspaper. Ever.

All I want to do is write. Both fiction and non-fiction. A lot of the skills I've learned in journalism school have really helped me towards that ambition and given me other marketable skills I wouldn't have gotten from a degree in English or Creative Writing. I am great at tracking people down; I can write well and think critically about information and where it's coming from. I know how to find a place to start on difficult projects and take constructive criticism on my work. And I have gotten a lot better at writing and learning from the things I read; authors I like and don't like, and the things I like and don't like about them so I can avoid or incorporate those things into my own work. I can also create a marketable product; I know how to define and target a specific audience and make content interesting to them. I can even work with others...if I have to.

Not that I'm trying to write a cover letter for life here. Part of this blog is just hashing out what I've been thinking about this week. But I do know that I can find work somewhere else, and that I will put my college education to good use.

I've also gotten back in touch with my creative writing this week, with many thanks to Vivian for her encouragement. Given that she teaches writing as a tool for healing and coaches people on novels, she's pretty well-qualified to push me on defining my own writing. I did miss it; writing is a lot of work and requires a lot of discipline, but I find it fulfilling.

So I'm feeling hopeful about the future. The anxiety has not subsided yet, but I have confidence that once I get back stateside and get to relax for a few months, it will. My English Bulldog Silvestre, aka the Love of My Life, tends to make me happy no matter what, so I'm excited to get back to him. And my family, I guess.

I'm also planning on going out to Kansas City to visit one Abigail Dennis, which will be great, and will give me a chance to apologize to Rhonda Dennis in person for Skyping her drunk and half-naked. Sorry Rhonda, and I appreciate the hug you sent. Somehow, I feel like this post is not reassuring you of my stability.

Yeah thanks to everyone, especially my parents, who actually got a call from my professor about this and were actually really worried. Sorry about that. I love you.

Finally, sorry for writing my goddamn memoir right here. I just have a lot of feelings, OK? I fly out of Cape Town on Sunday, so this may be my last post in SA...time flies when you're reevaluating your life.

Cape Town: Exhaustion

So this week, I went to work on Sunday and Monday and then got bulldozed by an intense panic attack. I ended up having to take the rest of the week off.

FUCK FUCK FUCK MY BRAIN IS CRYING

People always ask me what sets off these attacks when I have them, and I have no idea. That is part of why anxiety is so difficult to treat; it's different for everyone and often the cause is not immediately apparent. Work has been very stressful, so I think that's a big part of it.

"Flames. Flames on the side of my face...heaving...heaving breaths..."

My father also pointed out that I haven't taken a break in a long time, and I realized that I've been in motion for about the past two years. The longest break I've had in that period was the three weeks between Uganda and my junior year of college. I also only just realized how harrowing Uganda was. I was in danger a lot of the time and was constantly on alert, which you have to be when you're in a place like that. I'm pretty sure it wasn't the most beneficial thing to my nerves and general well-being. I don't regret going there, but I don't think that I've actually recovered from it yet. To those of you who were reading this blog during that period of my life (Uganda), I think you were aware of the stresses I was under way before I was, in terms of the stuff I was dealing with there.

Anyway, I think my body just reached a point of shutting down. Luckily, I leave a week from Sunday and I'm going home for three months, where I will sleep, write and watch bad TV and nothing interesting will happen and it will be great.

This is all I want.

I also went to a meditative center today that was recommended by the lovely Vivian Warby, who is our person here in Cape Town that takes care of us. She also gave me a lift home from the center, which is kind of far away, and it was great spending time with her. I am feeling a lot better after today. Thanks to Vivian, Katherine, Paula, Doug and my roommates for putting up with me and supporting me during this stuff.

Sorry about posting all about me! But I wanted to let you guys know that this is happening, and hey, I've told you guys about all the places I've thrown up on the African continent and made an ass out of myself over the last year. I figured if you were interested in that, you would want to read about this.

Cape Town: CLIIIIIIMB EVVVVVVVV'RY MOUNTAAAAAAIN

Before I get into the meat of this post, I just want to say that one of our reporters at the Cape Times was stabbed over the weekend. Gang violence is getting worse here and it's becoming increasingly apparent that when reporters are involved, the police are unlikely to intervene. Please keep him in your thoughts, as well as the Cape Argus reporters who were recently robbed at gunpoint.

On a more cheerful note, this weekend, four of the Northwestern interns from Johannesburg came to visit us and do various things in Cape Town. They stayed with us and we finagled the room in our apartments for them to sleep. (Dan is still living with us, so basically everyone in the world was staying in our apartments, especially the one across the hall.) Abby, Lauren and two of the Joburgers jumped out of a perfectly good plane on Saturday after three of the Joburg kids had spent the previous day getting drunk out in wine country.

But none of that's important, and you know why? You know what I did this weekend? I climbed Table Mountain. I climbed THIS:

"Dear Diary, mountains are high as fuck."

I climbed with Anna, another of the Joburg kids, up through Platteklip Gorge. It made Lionshead look like a hill. I felt bad because I had to keep stopping--Anna is a triathlete, and I am not that. I'm not even out of shape, because I've never been in shape. It was very, very steep though, and eventually we got high enough that the altitude took a toll on both of us.

It was a cloudy day, and there were clouds settled on the mountain, making it only possible to see for short distances most of the way. It was incredibly cool--as Anna said, it was like being in a movie. It made the whole mountain look primordial and wild, and it helped that almost no one else was stupid enough to hike that day due to the cold, the wet and the cloud cover. It was quiet on the path--there were parts where all you could hear was the trickling water and your own breathing. The rock was full of small waterfalls, as was the path, and the green, bushy fynbos grew all the way up the mountain. (Fynbos is the native fauna of the Western Cape; it grows low to the ground and much of the plants have beautiful flowers.)

Anna was the perfect companion because of her positivity and her interest in the formation of the mountains and the plants. Finally, someone appreciates everything I learned from Danny last weekend...no, seriously though, I don't actually know anything about the natural wonders of the land here. We're both interested in it and appreciate it, and it was nice to have someone to wander in nature with who wondered at it as much as I did.

I thought I was going to die due to the toughness of the hike, but when we made it to the top, it was amazing. It was a beautiful view--Cape Town is on one side, and the sea is on the other. I also felt invincible, and I'm always going to remember that hike when things get tough (or seem tough) in my life.

Cape Town: Jackwagon

It's been a long week, kids. On the bright side, I got a piece published about a cyclist who is riding his bike from Grahamstown, South Africa all the way over here to Cape Town. That's more than 11 hours driving (if you didn't stop anywhere). He's doing it to raise money for the grandson of his childhood domestic worker. The grandson, Dumela, just lost his mother to illness, and his father is irrelevant in his life. He is now in the care of his grandmother and aunt. Sesiwe, Dumela's grandmother and the domestic worker who essentially raised this cyclist, asked him to help her grandson--they are a poor family. So he's taking this bike trip to make sure all the funds necessary for Dumela's education are taken care of. It's a sweet story, because it's clear that he really considers Sesiwe as family. She still works for his parents (she's now in her 60s) and has been with them since he was a baby. He was telling me about how he rode around on her back before he could walk.

Anyway, here's a link to the story: http://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/cyclist-hits-road-for-orphan-1.1301874
And here is Gunther's (the cyclist's) blog: http://gunthermarx.blogspot.com/

Moving on, I spent yesterday writing about a flower show (woo hoo! Plants and shit!) and today about some almost-smuggled snakes and geckos. So yeah, chugging along over here.

If anyone follows South African news, you'll know about the Zuma painting that has recently raised so much controversy lately. If not, here's the story: a white satirical artist, who was notoriously anti-apartheid back in the 1980s and early 1990s, painted a picture of Zuma in the same pose as Lenin in a notorious propaganda poster. The kicker is that Zuma was, essentially, rocking out with his cock out in this painting.

"Well, Ingrid, I think that the shading highlights the conflict between the abstract and reality...good God, is that a penis?!"

This painting was not very well-known until Zuma decided to bring the gallery to court for displaying this, after they refused his request to take it down. His case is that this painting "violates his constitutional right to dignity." 

There is no constitutional basis for his claim. He's just angry that someone was so disrespectful towards him, or whatever you want to call this painting. The African National Congress (ANC) is also furious; many officials have said that it should be burned, but who writes the checks that buy their seaside villas? Zuma does. 

This is a clear case of censorship--the painter is exercising freedom of expression, and the painting is not hurting anyone. This artist has also been painting things like this for years. Based on what I know about his work, he likes to use sexual imagery to represent power and patriarchy, and Zuma is...well, he hasn't exactly been a white knight to SA in terms of the way he's used his power. Of course, the ANC has also pulled out the "DAT'S RACIST" card, as it often does. If it can't be legally removed, it's labeled as racist or in line with old apartheid policies. The funny thing is that there is a black artist who also painted a picture of Zuma with genitalia, and nobody said anything about that. 

Anyway, the big news here is that yesterday, two men defaced the painting as it hung in the gallery. We watched in horror on our TV in the newsroom as it was painted on. E News, the main news channel other than the public station, SABC, happened to be there for another story (I still think they were tipped off--that's too much of a coincidence, and it was hugely sensational footage) and caught it all on film. The first man painted red Xs over Zuma's face and penis, and the other man dipped his hands in black oil paint and just smeared the whole canvas. This is what it looks like now: 

The security guard, of course, didn't arrive until the painting was already ruined (again, suspicious. This whole thing looked staged to me.) The case is still going to court, presumably because there are still millions of pictures of this painting online.

I just found this to be an incredibly interesting example of political dynamics here. But it does make me worry that when the day comes that another party can compete with the ANC on a national level, that the ANC won't let power go. It seems that it's only a democracy as long as everyone votes ANC. 

Garden Route: And then we never saw her again.

So, I spent the last three days with my fellow interns driving part of the Garden Route, which is a long stretch of South Africa that starts in the Western Cape and goes through into the Eastern Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal, two other provinces. We started out from Cape Town and stayed in a town called Oudtshoorn on Friday night and stayed in another town called Sedgfield on Saturday, then came back today. Here's a map:

We actually made it all the way out to Tsitsikamma National Park and also stopped in Plettenberg Bay.

On Friday, we headed out at about 8:30 with our rental car (Avis gave us a white VW Polo, because for some reason they trust a bunch of 20/21-year-olds with nice cars. Weird.) We made it out to Oudtshoorn and stopped in at our hostel by 2 pm, then hit up the Cango Wildlife Ranch.

We had to go through a guided tour of the ranch, which includes cheetahs, lions, tigers, antelopes, snakes and crocodiles. It's essentially about conservation, because a lot of the exotic animals (like tigers) are in danger of going extinct because of habitat destruction and poaching. Public Service Announcement: Help these animals! At least don't hunt them. Or burn the forests where they live.

Anyway, the real point is, WE GOT TO PET SOME WHITE TIGER CUBS. We paid extra for that, but how can you pass up that opportunity? They weren't as thrilled with us as we were with them, but they allowed us into their enclosure and sat down for a while to let us pat them. THEY WERE ADORABLE. For everyone who knows how much I love baby animals, you can understand how excited I was about this.

The others petted the cheetahs, but I had something else in mind: giant snakes. I got to hold a roughly 100-pound albino python named J.J. and I was so happy. He didn't even feel alive; he just felt like a heavy plastic weight over my shoulders. He tried to wrap his tail around my neck once (for perspective on how big he was, I could barely put both hands around him) and I was like, "J.J. stop trying to kill me." He also wrapped his tail around my leg as I was leaving, and he is strong, so it took me a minute to shake him off.

After our animal encounters, we got dinner at an incredibly Afrikaaner restaurant--Oudtshoorn, from what I can tell, is an Afrikaaner stronghold--and headed back to our hostel, Karoo Soul. It was the nicest hostel I've ever been in, and I kind of wish I could live there.

We headed out early on Saturday morning, because we needed to get out to Tsitsikamma National Park because Abby, Lauren and Nina had planned to bungy jump off of the world's highest bungy bridge, which is out there. Zach decided he wanted to go ziplining in the Tsitsikamma Forest, which left me with nothing to do. I checked out the Park's information center and found a brochure for a hiking guide named Danny. I called him up and asked if he was doing anything that day, and he was like,

"I didn't have anything planned for today, but we can go hiking! I'll pick you up in ten minutes."

While it may seem like a terrible idea to go off into the woods alone with a man you've never met, I did it anyway, because I am the master of doing potentially dangerous things. As it turned out, Danny is a really nice guy. He's actually Swiss but met his wife in South Africa and moved down here for her about 12 years ago. He became a tour guide because his European education didn't apply here, so he had to find a job he was qualified for. And damn, does that guy know about trees. I learned so much about trees in two and half hours, you guys don't even know. Ironwoods, yellow woods, Black Witch Hazel...I also learned about the soil and sediment of South Africa, i.e. why plants grow the way they do. The second part of our hike was on the old National Road built in the 1800s, which is now just a dirt road. Danny told me about the elephants that had found their way around the gorges before humans--all herds of elephants in the area migrated the same path for thousands of years, which is how humans were able to navigate Tsitsikamma. It was a really fun hike and I learned a lot. When my friends came to get me, they told me that when they had left me at the Info Center for Danny to pick me up, they were like, "And we never saw her again." Thanks guys. I love you too.

We headed back through Plettenberg Bay and to the Afrovibe hostel, which is basically the best party hostel in South Africa. There were shenanigans, but for once, I wasn't involved. I went to bed early because I was tired. Today, we headed back through Cape Agulhas, which is the southernmost point on the African continent. So now I've actually been to the southernmost tip of Africa! Woo hoo! It was a beautiful drive through the backroads of SA--there's so much open land, but it's also really mountainous. It's just a beautiful, beautiful country.

The road trip was amazing, all in all. Not just the cool stuff I did at Cango and Tsitsikamma, but just roadtripping around SA with my friends was really fun. Thanks guys (especially Abby, who did most of the planning)!