I went to The Labia Theater this week to watch a documentary
called One Day on Earth. On October 10,
2010 they filmed in every country in the world.
All of this footage was compiled into a 2 hour long movie that shows
different parts of the world and different statistics. There was a section on all the types of music
in the world with scenes from rural Africa to the North Korean military to
playing drumsticks on the metal bars of the US-Mexico border. The documentary was first shown this year on
Earth Day all over the world in free screenings. I remember what I was doing on 10.10.10 –
it was the day I went door to door in Lincoln to collect money for the
Friendship home, a place that provides safe shelter to battered women and
children. The movie does insinuate the
waste in America vs. third world countries that struggle to provide clean water
to their people.
Saturday morning we walked through the Bo Kapp neighborhood.
It is on the slopes of Signal Hill, or Lion’s Rump. This is where the Cape Malay people
live. They were originally a slave
colony, imported from Malaysia, Indonesia, and various African countries by the
Dutch. South Africa’s first official
mosque is in this quarter. The Afrikaans
language originated in this area as the slaves and the Dutch settlers tried to
communicate. The neighborhood is very
distinctive with cobbled streets and brightly painted houses. We stopped for a Cape Malay brunch up high on
the hill with an incredible view out over the city bowl and Table Mountain.
Every day at noon, a cannon is fired off of the top of
Signal Hill. It has been a historic time
single that dates back to 1806. There
are two guns, the seaside one and the mountainside one. They sit next to each other and are fired
every other day. The gun goes off at noon Monday through Saturday, taking off
for Sundays and public holidays. These
are the oldest smooth bore muzzle loading guns in daily use in the world. The guns used to be fired at Imhoff Battery
starting in 1806, but they moved to Lion Battery in 1902. This is Cape Town’s oldest living
tradition.
15 minutes before noon a military personnel gives a speech
about the history of the guns and the tradition to Cape Town. He then explains the loading and detonating
process. The gun is already loaded with gunpowder only from the day before, and
he reloaded the one fired yesterday to prep it for tomorrow. Then he inserts the shell that will ignite
the flame and the cannon blast. He puts one in each of the cannons because if
for some reason the first cannon doesn’t fire, the second one will need to be
shot to keep up with tradition. No
cannonball is used as the gun fires toward the city center and would hurt
people. He has no control after
inserting the shells because the Observatory in Cape Town that is synced with
the official time sends a signal 18 milliseconds before noon to the cannon so
the blast occurs exactly at noon. Today
the seaside cannon was used, and the blast was loud shooting a trail of smoke
out of the muzzle. I never hear the
cannon blast at work in Mowbray because it is too far away, but on Saturdays if
I am in town then I hear it shoot off at noon.
The gun and its backup both failed once in 2005 and that was the first
time in 200 years that the gun had not fired as scheduled. I witnessed the 64,847 firing of the gun.
We walked back down to Greenmarket Square for some
bargaining and shopping. Every stall
sells similar merchandise so it is a matter of your haggling skills and how
much you want the object. Without fail,
every stall told me that they would give me the special price – this price is
way too high. Usually it is better to go
to these markets when they are closing up or on Sunday afternoons because they
are likely to give you better prices to offload some more merchandise. I don’t recommend going alone because they
take your hand and pull you to their stalls; I greatly appreciate having a
backup to save me from some situations.
If you claim to have no money then they say that they will accompany you
to an ATM if need be because they don’t want to lose the sale. In fact I didn’t have money on me after
buying a couple items so I wasn’t even lying.
Yes family – I bought a few presents for you this weekend. Sorry you have to wait until December to get
them.
A group of us attempted to go to a local show at the
Artscape featuring hip hop dancing Saturday night, but the show was sold
out. Instead we headed downtown to
sample some different African beers at a beer garden. The sweeter one I liked, but the rest not so
much.
Sunday I finally met up with James – my dad’s friend’s
friend who I have been trying to meet since my arrival in Cape Town. The weather was rainy and cold, but he picked
me up in his car and took me to Bellville a suburb of Cape Town. His home was gorgeous, and his family very
nice. He cooked a traditional African
braai in the fire pit in the wall of the living room. We had lamb, chicken, and sausage. They have this adorable pet bunny that hops
around and is super cuddly and soft. It
was really cool to talk about travel stories and find out that they too went to
the Tiger Temple in Thailand to play with baby tigers and pet the adults – it
was so random that we had both done this.
I ended up spending my entire afternoon there.
Leila hosted another supper club Sunday night. We had a delicious 3 course meal taste
testing some new recipes for her.
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