Heyy,

The days are passing faster than my posts are being made, but bear with me! I just wanted to share some of my thoughts from day 2 in Cape Town with you.

First of all – everything is so cheap here!! I went off to do some shopping on the first day, paid for dinner and a breakfast and I wasn’t really keeping track of how much I was spending as I was still a bit unsure about the Rand to Euro conversion rate. So I was spending 600 there and 100 there, leaving me with the feeling that I had spent quite a lot of money in one and a half day already, but then I looked over what I had bought and I realized – food is cheap here! 2 full bag of groceries for €20, a full breakfast buffet for under €4 – hopefully this won’t mean I’ll eat, eat and eat haha!

Recording my spendings to attempt to stick to my budget

Now on to some more serious matter (not that money, economics, finance and all that isn’t serious but…)

When we passed Imizamo Yethu, the township/slum on the Hop-on Hop-off bus, it got me thinking.

Just before we passed the township, we drove past these kinds of places:

Private gated areas….

These places are of course very common in Cape Town, but it is such a strange concept to accept. 1km further down the street you see this:

Imizamo Yethu township…

And right across the street, like, if you turn your head 180 degrees, I’m honestly not lying – you see this:

A well watered, extremely green football field.

I knew that there would be a lot of inequality in Cape Town, but just to experience this at such a close hand was very thought provoking. There is a lot of talk about South Africa’s history, the times they went through during apartheid. The people from Cape Town that I’ve spoken to are far from proud of their country during these years. But at the same time, they are very proud of what their city has accomplished since then. Nelson Mandela’s vision and actions are highly valued and they feel they have come a long way since the years of apartheid, and that there is more equality as each day goes by.

Most people feel that the World Cup 2010 was a big milestone for South Africa as this allowed for better infrastructure, Cape Town got a proper bus system in place – and people were united and together they could be proud to show off their beautiful country to the rest of the world!

But when I saw the contrasts that I outlined above, I was still convinced there is a long way to go. I found it quite shocking that there could be such differences so extremely close to each other. Hopefully Cape Town and South Africa can one day have minimal inequalities and as small differences as possible! To me it seems to be a country with huge potential!

– Anna