Sounds and Feel of Cape Town

I’m not sure there is any real way to explain what the sounds and smells of living in the suburbs south of Cape Town has been like for the past three weeks in words. In many ways I guess this would be the same as trying to write out what eating a chocolate cake is like, but here goes.

At my host family’s neighborhood in Retreat, dogs are barking all the time. Everybody seems to have one and many live out in the yards for protection, so the sounds of dogs barking in the background is pretty constant. For that matter they tend to be running around the streets quite a bit too and I am not sure if they are strays or if people just let their dogs wander around during the day the same way some people let their cats wonder. For that matter I think I have seen a total of one cat my entire time here, they don’t seem to be popular pets in South Africa.

There is also the high pitched sound of foreign automobile horns all the time. Honking here is a way of life, and in the cases of the white mini busses that transverse the city, a way of business. Cars and vans honk to pick people up, they honk to say hello, they honk to say get the fuck out of my way, I think they honk just to make sure it still works. They honk and honk and honk and make the cab drivers in Chicago seem a bit civilized at times. No not really.

Racing engines are also the norm. Everybody here is hard on the gas or hard on the brake and it is not always easy to tell if they are stopping or not. For instance the stop sign near the corner of my surfing project seems much more like a suggestion than a requirement. They tend to run stop lights here too and pedestrians should beware when crossing the street even if you have the right of way.

Retreat has a large Muslim population and a mosque is located about 6 blocks from my host family house. Sometimes in the mornings I can hear the calls to prayer before sunrise in the darkness of my room. Not too loud, just quietly in the background letting me know the day is about to begin.

The Metro line is electric and has a high pitch whine to it when running but for the most part is pretty quiet except for the clack and squeal of the wheels on the rails. It does emit a high pitch siren noise every time it approaches a road intersection that sounds much like a siren an ambulance would make. In the mornings I can also hear the train in my bed as it runs up and down the tracks and crosses Military Road by my rail stop.

The train also has a damp smell to it sometimes as people leave the windows open and when it rains, the water comes in and covers the floor. Not too bad but on rainy days it has that damp smell of wet foam sometimes. When it is not raining and the windows are open there is the sound of the train as it runs down the track and the wind as it whistles through the windows. It also sometimes has the slight smell of urine on the older rail cars but nothing too bad. The Red Line on the El back home typically smells much worse.

At Muisenberg beach there is the ever present dull roar of the surf as it comes in. There is also the sound of the wind that often is blowing around the mountains that hover over the False Bay. The same mountains often create their own climate and on certain days the sky can be totally clear but the tops of the mountains have clouds covering them. For that matter they can create their own micro-climates too. It can be cloudy and raining in Muisenberg and be sunny and warm in Cape Town 15 miles away.

People here slip between English and Afrikaans quite a bit. Afrikaans is a form of old Dutch and goes back to the days when South Africa was a Dutch colony, and like the Dutch in the Netherlands, their conversation is very sharp and harsh sounding. It is also interesting to note that Afrikaans is very similar to 200 year old Dutch and it is fairly easy to understand if you are from the Netherlands. I have been told by a few Dutch volunteers that listening to it is similar to if we went back 200 years and listened to the founding fathers speak in old English.

People here are loud and that takes some getting used to. The normal tone of conversation is rather loud and at times I don’t know when people are just talking or when they are arguing. Through in the harsh and nasal tones of Afrikaans and you don’t really know when somebody is pissed, excited, or just having a normal conversation. Loud voices are everywhere on the street and like dogs barking, you kind of get used to it and it takes a minute to realize something is not right. For instance a lady had her purse snatched on my train car the other day and at first I thought it was just a normal conversation when she began talking loudly as the train pulled out of the station. But her voice was soon joined by many more in the car and the train ground to a halt. Lots of yelling on the platform and they did get the guy in the station by the way. Or at least I saw the transit police pushing a guy around and that guy was clearly not happy about it.

Pan handling is also the norm here when you are in Cape Town. I don’t get it in the suburbs but when I venture into the city I am very much a target. They are polite and sometimes it makes it hard not to give them something but there is also so much of it. In Cape Town there were always people sleeping on the street, often without shoes around the train station. Additionally in Muisenberg there is always several people sleeping under the train tracks on our way to the beach. I’ve never been asked for money from them, however and it is much like Chicago. When you are downtown on Michigan Avenue you will get asked for money over and over, just like Cape Town. In my neighborhood in Uptown I never get asked by the people on the street or the people sleeping under Lake Shore Drive, just like Muisenberg. Not many tourists in Muisenberg or Uptown so that probably has something to do with it.