Sunday... our day of rest

I gave Maura a little lay - in by heading down the hill to pick up our egg and cheese sandwiches from the little old lady in the corner shop. When a Africaaner man struck up a conversation with her about his grandmother from_______, I didn't quite catch the name, and said she might have known her, that she lived there from 36 to 48 before coming to Cape Town and later teasing that they might be cousins, missing teasingly that they might be cousins, I realized that this woman was at least in her late 80's maybe older. I knew she was old. And then I felt a little teary for how few of the greatest generation was left and started missing my daddy. It was my parents' anniversary yesterday. Their generation had gifts that we will miss. They had faults, as we all do, that were part of their culture; but they had a strength and a courage that I think we could use about now. And even though, they willingly participated in segregation, which I then and now have a hard time reconciling, they had a compassion that is conspicuously missing in today's conservatives. She smiled at me today when she took my order. I think she has a hard time with new orders and mine has never varied. It is always the same and that makes things easy. I'm understanding that more these days.
As I waited for our order I looked at the newspaper stand, particularly South Africa's version of National Enquirer - Would You Share Your Wife?  Some soccer player's dreams of marrying some woman shattered my her father saying over my dead body... Some things are the same all over the world, aren't they? The sad part is how the headlines of these tabloids and the supposedly real newspapers have come closer and closer together. I think I may buy some of next Sunday's issues to take back to my students for next year... because I'm always really thinking about ways in which I can stretch their world and educate them beyond the textbooks and the classroom mode. I'm already thinking about having them research how students are educated in other countries. Hell, most of them can't even name four other countries.... Africa... that's one, right? One of the things I definitely want to do more of is to use research to combine English with history and science. What most people don't know about the evil common core is that it just uses practical application more than anything... really thinking and applying skills... It's just that so many children, including me - I was one of those children, do not expect what you do in school do make any sense with what happens in the real world. I'd like to bridge that gap whenever possible. When I decided I was going to South Africa with Maura, I had my students research different aspects of South Africa that they were interested in... one of them being the baboons. When they found out that sometimes they drifted into the neighborhoods they were all big and bad how I should scare them away... and then they did more research and it was No, Mrs. Capps... you shouldn't do that. You might get hurt..... I loved it.!
But I digress... often....
I took our sandwiches back and as we ate them we discussed our options. The sun was actually shining so we looked on the internet to see if the Cable car to Table Mountain was open... It was closed due to rain and gale strength winds. We looked out our window and said, "WHAT?" But it was as our driver Richard had told us yesterday, That's Cape Town weather... four seasons in one day.
We finally decided to take a bus downtown and walk around, get something to eat and maybe go to eventide at the Church of England church downtown and then get a taxi home.
The buses only run once an hour on Saturdays and Sundays so we had about a 10-15 minute wait as I am notoriously early for everything. I watched across the street as a man hobbled on his one leg and crutches from one trash can to another to see what he could find. Everyone else ignored him.  There were at least 7-8 people waiting at our bus stop across the street and many more people on the other side. He finally crossed the street and it seemed like he knew to come to me. He just stood there with his hand out and I struggled with myself that this was surely one of those times to break the rules. What if he did go out and spend whatever I gave him on alcohol. If I man ever needed a drink, it was this one. Before I could reach for my money, my daughter told him to leave me alone and he hobbled away. He has haunted me ever since (as she knew he would).
Downtown was pretty much deserted. Almost all of the shops were closed and very few venders were on the streets. We did actually end up making a few purchases... a beautiful zebra sun dress for a friend of mine's granddaughter... I was looking for my twin nieces but the prettiest ones were not in the right sizes or at least I wasn't sure enough... and I hated not to get one for someone's beautiful girl child.... plus I had to do what i could for the local economy, right?

We walked down the gardens where the government buildings are (including the national library) and took pictures. There were many people out, including a political rally that was mostly just speeches where we sat and listened for a while. We made our way to the museum which was mostly animals and geology and ancient history more than any modern history... giving some "native" history but very little and fairly paternalistic. There is a region here that our geologists Nicholas and Lydia would like... and being brain damaged.. the name just left me... Karoo????  anyway.. there was a whole section on that and its significance to the history of the Earth. Perhaps later my brain will regroup that information.  It was much more of a natural history museum which I really liked although we didn't realize it was going to be that way when we entered.

We were pretty tired after all that and took a taxi back to the hamburger joint at the bottom of our hill. Maura's back just will not stand up to a lot of walking combined with safari bouncing and hours of hardback chairs in the library. This restaurant is actually the whitest place in Cape Town and I'm embarrassed to say that we've now eaten there 3 times. And the service is really pretty terrible. But they have the best vegetarian sloppy joe (it's actually supposed to be a burger) that I've ever had. Very spicy with a generous amount of jalapenos and spicy sauces with chickpeas and lentils and then fries with more great spices and cheese.. and I'm ready to go again as I write about it... and still in the shadows is that poor man with his hand out....


I will add pictures later