Katherine's long weekend

South Africans love their holidays.  We had a long weekend this past week because Friday was Good Friday and Monday was Family Day.  At my internship (at Black Sash) on Wednesday, I tried to contact several other offices in search of information for a social security project I am working on, but my boss told me it was a futile effort because many offices were already preparing for the holidays and stopping work two days before the Easter weekend actually began.  I laughed because at home I don’t think closing down an office two days before the holiday would go over very well with many people.

Since I had four days to relax, I decided to visit my fellow intern, Vera, at her apartment in Somerset West.  Elly, another fellow intern, and I took the train from downtown Cape Town to the Somerset West station.  While it is only a thirty minute drive to Somerset West, it was an hour and fifteen minute train ride because the train stopped every thirty feet.  In the morning we went to Monkey Town.  It is a monkey sanctuary where there are over 250 monkeys.  Sadly many of the monkeys are there because they had abusive owners.  We were the ones in the caged in area so that the monkeys could roam around freely as we followed them through our caged tunnel.  There were several signs that said “DO NOT TOUCH THE MONKEYS” and of course Vera did not listen.  She decided to touch one of the spider monkey’s arms…that did not go very well.  The monkey stared screeching and reached out to grab her!  We saw several different types of monkeys including chimpanzee, marmoset, and spider.

In the afternoon, Vera took us for a drive down the coast of Somerset West into an area called Strand.  The drive was very pretty and reminded me of the Cape Peninsula drive that heads toward Cape Point.  The road snakes right along the edge of the mountains along the Atlantic Ocean. 

In the evening we came back to town and went to a section of Cape Town called Green Point.  It is located in between downtown Cape Town and the Waterfront.  Elly, Vera, her friends, and I dined at the restaurant called Cubana.  It was interesting to hangout with white South Africans.  Most of the South Africans I have come into contact with are not white and seem to be much more in touch with the problems of the country.  Vera’s friends did not mention anything about the problems in South Africa.  They considered Elly and I brave for taking the train and riding minibus taxis because they would not do such things.  Little do they know, but the minibus taxis are highly entertaining and they are missing out by not taking them.