Well there had been a lot of build up to this past week and weekend. Arne one of my German roomates had recruited us into his Kalle Trophy months ago, We'd been anticipating the Township wedding for weeks and a 50 Cent concert in Cape Town was a must. Let's start with The Kalle Trophy, a time honored German tradition of drinking and walking on Fathers Day (sssshhhhhh no one tell the gemans that May first is actually Worker's Day). Apparently Arne has been running this tradition for 9 years and he was determined to bring it to cape town. We got quite a crew including Gary, the owner of the Corner Bar, we even did a cruise out to the site of the walk a week in advance with Gary (which involved going to pick him up in Mitchel's Plain on the Cape Flats, keep that in mind for later) We settled on Tocai Forest where i went riding earlier this trip.
The day finally arrived, we all gathered at our house (gary and his wife actually slept at the bar the night before so as to be ready- I don't really know why his wife did, but whatever) and one of our female roomates gave us a ride to the forest(for some reason this is an all male event). We had a trailer for our beer as is tradition, ours was our trash can. Needless to say seven guys with sharpie written t-shirts with necklaces of beer cans were a complete success. It was a national holiday, everyone was barbequeing or braai-ing and drinking heavily. We spent our time walking between campfires cooking our own meat and talking to people. It was perfect, the day was beautiful everyone thought that they had never seen anything so silly as a group of Americans Germans and South Africans towing a big trash can full of beer and meat. Then as usual, there was the dancing, you can't seem to go anywhere without a spontaneous dance party, this is why we always bring our german, Flo with us because he can outdance anyone under the sun and then we can just sit back and watch.
It's always a good day when you wake up and put on a pinstripe suit, and that saturday was one of those days. Arne and I decided to rent suits for the occasion, and if you are gonna rent suits you might as well go pinstripes. we show up at the meeting place painfully overdessed (or in our opinion, spectacular) and head to the township. This was an amazing experience, I can't stress enough how amazing the energy at this wedding was unbelievable. We arrived at her house and the singing and dancing was in full effect, dozens of women in full color african dress chanting and singing grabbing us and pulling us into the circles. After the bride came out of the house in a beautiful home made dress the procession sang their way to the church which if was in the US rather resembled a VFW hall. But this was more of a church than any I've ever been in, the wedding party danced down the aisle to Xhosa songs and the marriage was performed by a "fire and brimstone" priest who did more scolding and warnings about South African society (he at one point screamed that the devil was present during the ceremony, it got eerily creepy when he would switch into Xhosa) than commending the couple. Then Lindiwe (the bride and our house manager) was given a new name and they were pronounced man and wife. Then came the more unexpected aspect of the wedding, the reception. We were under the impression that there would be a braai at Lindiwe's house and there would be a party all night, but actually we went to a school gymnasium where there was an eloquent reception which you would all recognize as a belonging in a wedding, well except once again for the group songs and spontaneous dancing. The African touch?? we sat in two informal sittings where when you were done you got up and someone else took your seat, this created an really cool mix, we got to meet lots of people. I think the only way that I can explain the energy of this event was that in the initial trip to the church one of the few cars that were going accidentally ran over and killed the neighbors puppy, (gruesome I know) but there was no stopping of singing or anything there was too much excitement for the occasion, even the owner seemed not too mind.
We had to leave early though, we had a concert to go to, a fifty cent concert no less on the cape flats. Perfect. It was not as wild as we would have liked though, we thought for sure the scene would be really exciting even though none of us really like the music. Instead it was rather not full, but there were some rather amusing moments watching 50 cent try and act gangster in a city that certainly held some tougher men than him. My favorite moment was when he brought up a group of what appeared to be small children up on the stage made a couple of comments about children being the future or something then asked one of the girls how old she was. "22" she replied and fifty was rendered speechless. Then he tried to play a dangerous game, Guess-Where-That-Guy-In-The-Audience-Is_From. "I've been all over Africa and I can tell where guys are from, that guy is from Angola!!" Nope, South African care to try again fifty? "Well that guy in the grey definitely is" nope Mozambique. It got quite amusing, also at the end of every song he played a gunshot sound, the first few times you saw quite a few people jump, but eventually they realized what was going on.
Recently Gary burnt us two of his favorite movies, we had let them sit about for a while not thinking about them until the day after the fifty cent concert when we decided to put one in. It wasn't a movie it was a documentary about Polsmore Prison, the prison located just outside of town (right next to the US Consulate) and the gangs that call it home. Disturbing and scary. The first scene was of the inmates being strip searched on entry to the prison, each man was made to squat before entry so as to make sure that they aren't carrying drugs and according to the head warden "to prepare them for being raped" Then we met some of the "Numbers" most of whom had come in for just a few years but were now in for life "they prefer here to the outside". Then they travelled out to the Cape Flats where the majority of the gang members come from (indeed the gang is now also an outside of prison gang) They interviewed the Americans which is a gang on the flats complete with there own "White house" where they smoke Tik or Meth. They are the most powerful game on the Cape and have thousands of members, and they are aligned with the Numbers. Then the documentary went back into the prison where the warden discussed the way the prison was broken down, this was perhaps the most bizarre part, they label half the prison "for gangsters only" literally the signs on the walls say gangster section. They might as well say "numbers hangout". He then acknowledged that they don't attempt to stop drugs, rape or fighting/ murder, they just try to keep them from overpowering the guards who they outnumber 100 to 1. well I feel safe just a few k from the prison. Well at least I live in Obz, not near where these gangs hang out.
The next day Tom ran into Gary and told him how fascinated we were with his documentary. "Oh yeah isn't it crazy, there are so many of the Number's that hang out in Obz. They love to go out to the bars here." Perfect, stay away from the tatooed guys in the corners of bars. e
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