Chapter 1: The Cape | Day 2, Arrival

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It’s 9am, South African time. I just sat down to breakfast in the narrow window-lined dining area overlooking the courtyard and small outdoor pool of our boutique hotel - Blackheath Lodge. Tara and I returned from a 3-mile walk along the ocean promenade this morning with the sun rising over the eastern cape of South Africa and are famished. Our stomachs finally synced up with the time zone. But I’m jumping ahead - I left you somewhere over the Mid-Atlantic, nearly a day ago, so let’s catch up with each other shall we?

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“Richard, do you need to go to the bathroom” I ask my neighbor. This nice old gentleman from Des Moines has been trapped in his window seat since leaving Newark 13 hours ago.

“How much longer to go?” He asks.

“About 2 hours.” I reply.

“I’ll be fine” he says. “I’m like a reverse camel, Royce.” He smiles.

I learned at the start of this journey that he was returning to South Africa for a 6th time as part of a succulent-hunting tour group. I asked him if he had heard of the one book I read in preparation for this journey, “The Power of One.”

“Ah, I haven’t, but I think I’ve heard of it”

“There’s a little boy who befriends an older man, and they go on adventures in search of desert plants and succulents!” I share with enthusiasm, realizing immediately that he might mistake my excitement for an invitation to go on a rendezvous with a stranger.

“I’ll have to read it” he says, turning back to the window. Is he blushing?

The bulk of the flight had been uneventful. I sleep a few hours, start the series “Better Call Saul”, journal, sleep, read, repeat. Surprisingly, 15 hour flights fly by. I notice on my TV screen that we are traveling at nearly 700 miles per hour with the help of a 130 mph tailwind. Those Portuguese sailers first pioneering this Cape suffered for months if not years. Enduring a sleepless night is nothing. Suckers.

A few minutes later, Richard opens the window shade, light pours into the plane and I am greeted by a massive mountain range looming over a deep blue sea. This is not what I expected at the edge of the continent and am mesmerized. His discomfort from my succulent solicitation returns I’m sure, as I scramble over him to get a good picture of Table Mountain and Cape Town through the porthole. We’re in Africa. Holy shit, we’re in Africa!

At customs, I’m asked where we are staying. I have no idea, I remark. I’m still in shock over where we are. Maybe it’s the jet lag. Or the melatonin. My head is in the clouds. I’m trying to let all of this soak in. He stamps my US Passport with no further questions. A simple reminder of the privilege I carry as an American.

Bags in hand, we make our way through a gauntlet of smiling drivers, displaying various names. There is a calm and professionalism around picking off each of us, unlike my experience in Mexican airports. I spot ZIMMERMAN on a gentleman’s card, and make my way over. A smiling man shakes my hand, and introduces himself in a thick English accent as Hamid. So much for my Corona lime, I think to myself. This is definitely not Cancun.

Scott and I notice an ATM on the short walk to the parking garage, and stop to gather some local currency, the South African Rand (ZAR). At 18 ZAR to $1, we feel like we’re robbing a bank. As we rejoin the group, thousands of Monopoly-colored money in hand, Hamid asks with a humorous chuckle whether there is anything left in the machine. Funny guy. Is this money even real, I wonder.

Our drive to the Seaside district of Cape Town takes us first by a sea of corrugated houses, sprawling into the horizon.

“This community spreads north for 35 kilometers and houses the Africans or Blacks, you might call them” Hamid tells us.

I’m amazed not just by the chaos and mass of humanity, but by the satellite dishes dotting nearly every structure. No running water, toilets or open space, but each tiny shelter has a portal to the modern world, mounted aloft. When did our basic needs fall below modern comforts on Maslow’s hierarchy, I wonder.

“What’s the population of this shanty town?” I ask him.

“Nobody knows. Especially since Covid, the amount of immigrants from Eastern Africa and elsewhere can’t be determined”.

“Is this government housing?” I ask, as the shanty’s give way to low structures that resemble military barracks.

“No, this is where the colored’s live. We were forced out of Cape Town when apartheid happened. I still remember. I was 8 years old at the time.” Hamid reflects.

“Do you live there now?” Scott asks.

“No, we just found an apartment a block from where I grew up and live once again in the neighborhood of my childhood.” He responds proudly.

“When did apartheid begin?” I ask. “Wasn’t it right after World War II?”

“1948. But they moved us after that.” He shared.

8 years old, I pondered. He was 8 when his family was forced to leave the city, making way for the whites or Afrikaans to occupy the choicest real estate near the harbor, residing peacefully in the shadow of Table Mountain along the water’s edge.

Scott and I continue asking questions, and Hamid helps us understand the dark history of this complicated country, while we are soaking in the absolute beauty of a setting sun, reflecting off the calm blue waters of the Southern Atlantic.
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We learn that Hamid’s mother is white and his father Indian, categorizing him as a “colored”. The poorest, and lowest on the rung of apartheid society were the blacks or Africans. The coloreds were in the middle - usually Indian, Asian, or of mixed race. They occupied a place in society that enjoyed more rights than blacks, but were not considered part of the elite class.

The whites have historically stood above all others, though representing only 1 in 5 of the South African population. They are divided between the British whites, who showed up around 1800, and the Afrikaans - the white descendants of the Dutch, who sailed here in the 1600s.

“How is life amongst the various races now?” I ask with concern.

“Much better.” Hamid shares. “Everyone has equal rights today. The right to vote. The right to live wherever they choose. That is one reason that so many African immigrants are now here. Because of their equality and opportunity. But it is not easy to get ahead. It can take 30 years for an apartment to become available by the government.”

Reflecting on that conflict, that past, I find myself drawn closer to Hamid. Closer to his country. Closer to his history. I have made more black friends in the last 5 years than the 40 years preceding and there was something beautiful in knowing that we were now being welcomed into a community that had long been tormented by ignorant people who shared my skin color.

And, turning off the Ocean’s promenade, up a narrow tree-lined street, Hamid pulls to a stop in front of a quaint little white-bricked building flying the Union Jack. After 24 hours in Ubers, planes, airports and a racial time capsule, we have arrived.

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