Quirks of Cape Town
All cities and countries have their quirks and Cape Town is no exception. Overall, we’ve enjoyed our time here and have found that it’s a city with a lot to offer: great climate, lots of outdoor activities, Western amenities, and quality of life at prices that are very reasonable compared to the US. It’s the quirks that really give this city some character, though!
Load Shedding
One of the most frustrating aspects of being in Cape Town, or any part of South Africa, is the unreliability of the national power company. Essentially, some portion of their infrastructure is always broken or requiring maintenance. Depending on how much of the power plant and grid is out of service at a given time they may do rolling blackouts, which they call load shedding. However, due to the nature of the failures, it’s not easy to predict when this will happen.
Load shedding schedule for our district
The first time this happened to us, we just assumed it was a fluke. Even in the most advanced countries you get occasional outages, right? But we soon learned that this is a regular occurrence. We’ve since had numerous outages which quickly becomes tiresome and inconvenient. It’s summer here and losing the air conditioning in the middle of the night can be quite uncomfortable! Not having power when you’re supposed to be making dinner is also quite inconvenient.
Thankfully, there’s an app for that. The power company publishes a schedule of outages based on what zone you’re in. They have eight “stages” of outages, which dictate increasing frequency of outages in each zone. So we can see for any given day what times power will be turned off based on what stage happens to be in effect at that time. Of course, you also can’t predict what stage it will be, but at least you can sort of plan around it.
The sad thing is that this has been going on for years and there’s no end in sight. Shortly after we arrived in Cape Town, the chairman of the power company resigned due to his inability to solve the problem and the company reports that this problem will continue for at least three more years. Most of the locals we’ve asked about it say that the root problem is corruption and misdirection of funds. The power company seems to claim that the power rates are too low and they are demanding a major increase (40+ percent).
Its a sad state of affairs and seriously limits their ability to attract foreign investment. Who would build a factory or bring a call center here? We’ve been told that it’s difficult to even install solar panels on your home (apparently the power company doesn’t like it when you don’t have to buy from them) to insulate yourself from the outages!
Parking Guards
Parking in Cape Town is kind of a mess to begin with. We rented a car for our stay and have found it challenging to understand the parking situation. Many places the legal spaces are well marked and in some there are clear signs indicating limits (e.g., two hour limit). But many places that seem to be illegal parking are widely used. I mean, everybody seems to just park wherever they want. And I mean anywhere, whether it’s marked no parking or not, even if it’s just the smallest shoulder on the side of a busy main street.
The car guard outside our apartment.
The extremely high unemployment and widespread parking challenges seem to have evolved the existence of unofficial “parking guards” on many city streets. These guys have no official capacity and aren’t employed by anyone (note that in some parts of the downtown area there are official parking people to collect parking fees, and some businesses do hire people to guard and manage their parking lots). They simply stand on the street wearing a shabby yellow vest and help direct you into a parking spot and will “guard” your car while you are off doing your thing.
When you return, they expect you to give them a small tip in exchange for this service. Generally, the tip is anywhere from two to ten South African Rand (about US$0.15 to $0.70) with a typical tip being about five Rand (about US$0.35). Could you not tip them? Sure, and about twenty percent of people don't, as there’s really no recourse. Once or twice I didn’t have any coins and I just told the guy so and, while disappointed, he didn’t give me a hard time.
The place near our apartment where we park most, the guard introduced himself to us (Loyiso) and is quite friendly, which of course earned him a little extra from us (bigger than usual tip, or the occasional cookie or piece of fruit). That is, until we found that someone had stolen the hubcaps from our car. In general, they are almost always courteous, if not outright friendly. At least twice I've been guided expertly into a parallel parking spot that I never would have thought I could fit into. Although I perfected parallel parking while living in Massachusetts, doing so in a place where you’re driving on the left in a manual transmission is still pretty tricky for me!
Begging
Yes, there are beggars and rampant poverty in every city in the world. And I've been in major cities on every continent in at least twenty-five countries, rich and poor, so I've seen plenty. But I can honestly say that this is the only place I've been approached with a plea of “I don’t want money. I’m so hungry. Please, can you buy me some bread?” This happens regularly both on the street and even in the grocery store.
In the US, and other places, many people have an assumption that beggars will take your money for liquor or drugs. Indeed, we’ve been told by some locals here in Cape Town not to give to beggars because they will only use the money for drugs. And I've seen plenty of beggars at major traffic intersections holding the signs we're all familiar with walking between stopped cars hoping for handouts. I have no way of knowing what they will do with any money they get, but they are largely indistinguishable from their counterparts in the US and elsewhere.
However, I can say that I've seen a number of people on the street that are clearly (to me) just plain starving. One woman asked us to go to a nearby store to buy diapers for her child. It’s difficult to experience, especially so frequently. Carrie and I try to remember to bring a peanut butter sandwich or a piece of fruit with us when we go out so we have something to give them.
Secret Love Project
The Secret Love Project is an art and charity project whose mission is to spread love, help the less fortunate, and build happier communities. This manifests in a variety of ways around Cape Town. There are signs posted randomly throughout the city that look like ordinary street signs—they appear to be the same size, shape, and material as regular traffic signs—but they only contain a heart on them. Hearts are painted, stickered, and otherwise incorporated into fixtures and landmarks throughout the city. It’s an experiment by the artist Michael Elion to encourage people to embrace love and be kinder to one another.
The project also gives out thousands of heart stickers to the homeless for them to sell on the street for twenty Rand (US$1.40) per set. The homeless seller keeps all of the proceeds from these sales. Over a hundred homeless people participate in the program.
Miscellaneous
Some short, interesting facts and observations:
Traffic lights are called robots; roundabouts are circles.
South Africa has eleven official languages, including English, Afrikaans, and nine tribal languages.
Unsifted flour is the norm (which was a surprise to Carrie when she went to bake some brownies).
Virtually no one at our upscale local gym puts any of their equipment away when they’re finished with it.
Ostrich meat is available in almost every grocery store we’ve been to—and it is tasty!