District 6, afternoon tea and the bothersome zebra

I promised to blog more of South Africa and time has gone by.  One of the odd things about coming home, is my soul immediately seems to go off on another safari of its own taking all my better selves with it I am left with bratty spirits tearing down the wallpaper in my skull and crying over spilt milk and all sorts of sins and treasons, known and unknown.  The skull smiles as skulls do and the body gets on with business.  It even cleaned the windows this time, so that was something.  Gin shuts the trouble up at night like bonjela on a teething baby.  In the fullness of time, however, there’s a tiny doorbell in the head and back comes the soul with all her sweet children and she tactfully ignores all traces of the mayhem that has been.

 All this militates against giving a coherent account of  what I saw all those weeks ago.  It also makes me wonder what witnessing actually is when it can be bifurcated in this way. And never mind the vagaries of the brain, travel is such a mixed bag.  Some things are annoyingly disappointing.  Take the zebra.  It is so unsurprising.  We’ve all known it from alphabet books and the real thing is just as neat and smug and nicely designed as its picture.  Not a hair out of place, not a tasteless or misjudged stripe.  On the other hand – the Victoria Falls overwhelm and humble expectations.  But more of that later.  To get back to Capetown and my days with Jun and Caiden.

After the hop on hop off bus day we’d earmarked the District 6 museum as a place to visit and we were glad we did despite Caiden deciding to go ballistic and bring reproachful looks from all the Spanish tourists who were there listening to an account of the outrageous decision to bulldoze the suburb and implement the odious principles of apartheid.  “Shush” said a senora.

 And the museum was like a church in a way. The floor was a map of the place as it once was and the walls featured simple old photos – no clever technology or enlargements.  A little bedroom had two single beds with old candlewick bedspreads and around the hall were suitcases containing random personal items.  A long hanging made of simple cotton was suspended from the upper gallery and on it were embroidered names  and messages from the old residents. Rusting street signs were places here and there and on the risers of the stairs that led to the gallery. One part of the wall of the museum had been plastered white with bits of towel and clothing poking out.  Pressed into the surface as though it were a biscuit were the legal definitions of the four categories that made up the population in the 1960s – black, coloured, Asian and white.  Understated and difficult to make out but devastating all the same.

We left the museum with our wild child feeling there was probably more to see, and adjourned to a coffee bar which featured Black Insomnia, the strongest coffee ever.

On advice we had booked ourselves an afternoon tea at the lovely Lord Nelson Hotel built in 1899.  Six fluted columns marked the beginning of the drive through rolling lawns with sculptures here and there.  Understanding that ”neat casual” was prescribed for this function I put on a dress for the first time in months and felt curiously vulnerable with naked legs.  Jun looked lovely as usual in a dress that went up to the neck in a formal manner. 

We entered the tea room and in its centre was a vast table with a glass ball of roses in the middle and beneath this every cakey delight under the sun including meringues, éclairs and little chocolate balls on sticks (which immediately caught Caiden’s beady eye).

 A chandelier hung from the splendid ceiling and discreet wall fittings supplemented its light. Peculiar, slightly ugly convex mirrors were set high up on the walls and there was a muted floral carpet under our  feet . Nonchalant cadences wafted from a grand piano and people were sunk  into lime green damask chairs and sofas holding their teacups  with triple decker plates of savoury morsels in front of them.  It was all very elegant.  One thing we hadn’t reckoned with.  We hadn’t brought Business Class, the stroller to strap in Caiden and Jun’s unusually formal dress made the secret narcotic of breastfeeding impossible.  What’s more he could reach the little chocolate balls on sticks and kept  running up and taking more and more.  But the tea itself was exquisite and served in little glass pots with pretty cups.

It was only afterwards as we sat on the lawn and Caiden rolled down the little slope with squeals of glee that I thought how ridiculous and tasteless it was of us to  ape the colonial enterprise in this way.  Was there in fact a glimmer of contempt in the service we received from the staff – all black of course.  Were the silly little morsels of sandwiches a little skew whiff on our triple decker plate?  What a nonsense to eat this way, especially in a country where poverty was an issue for many.

 Caiden came rushing up the grassy slope thirsty from his gambols. “Opa Opa” he said. There was nobody around on our huge green lawn so Jun lifted up her dress and let Caiden crawl inside.  He said something in Japanese from deep within and Jun laughed.  “He says he’s found me”

I envied his oblivion and his certainty about existence. 

There in Capetown nothing seemed simple at all. Perhaps that’s why the zebras annoyed me so. They seemed to be demonstrating how easy and graceful it was to be the way they were.  It just doesn’t seem possible for us humans.