OVERWHELMED

I thought I would adapt quickly and easily to life in Cape Town, but that hasn't been the case. My first week here was completely overwhelming.

The reason I thought it would be an easy acclimatisation was that I'd visited here twice before. They also speak English here and I had given myself a few days to settle in before I had to start uni. Most of my previous moves - Thailand, Japan, Korea, Peru, involved going to a place that I'd never been, and that spoke a foreign language.

The difference with Cape Town is the danger. You hear SO MANY stories, and it is ranked as one of the top ten dangerous cities, so I'm trying to be street smart. But that is stressful and can be exhausting if you're thinking defensively all day every day. Also the people here are so varied. Unlike the other countries were I've lived and people all look similar, here you have the blacks, the "English", he Afrikaans, the Zulu, the coloureds, the Cape-coloureds, and so on. And each group seems to have stereotypes associated with them.

There is very obvious segregation in some of areas I've seen. Like in Wynberg were Dani stays, we walked on the main road to get some dinner. It was full of people, none white, and some who passed comment as we walked by. We were the only whites in the fast food restaurant we visited and it didn't feel too safe walking around the train station area. Wynberg is only a small area (suburb) of Cape Town, not a big place at all.

After eating we fancied a beer, but couldn't find a bar anywhere in that part of town. So we crossed a park to a street running parallel to Main Road and were instantly transported into another world of nice bars and middle-aged white people. It was very bizarre, and maybe it's bad or racist to say that I felt much safer there, but I did.

I'm sure I'll adapt and just need to find out where one should and should not go. But at the same time, I don't want to be confined to any boxes or stereotypes of where I should/can eat, visit, drink, etc. We'll see...