First of all, thank you all for commenting (for those of you who have commented). Keep 'em coming.

Today was a day of complete contrast. I have been living in a very “normal” part of Cape Town, but like every other place in the world, Cape Town has very rich areas as well as very destitute areas. Today, we went to one of the most famous Afrikaner Vine yards as well as Lwandle Township, where the museum that I will be working at is. If you’ve ever seen a poor village, you’ve seen them all. Lwandle is just like any other neglected area of the world. It was originally a migrant labor camp for only males, but has since been renovated into single family homes, which are by no means “home-y” or cozy. We took a small tour of the township where I met the following young boys: Mxabo, Thembela, and Mxabo (jr., I guess!). Side note, the “x” in Mxabo’s name is not a x, but a click... Xosha is everywhere here. Its known for being a “click” language as it has three different clicks in their alphabet. They are here:

The three youngsters followed us around and begged for food and money, but we were advised not to give them anything as they would continue to beg until we left. Instead, we plan to give gifts on our last day. At one point, one of them, Thembela, I think, put his hand in my brown bag and I had to scold him. I felt bad, but stealing is not down with me.

Being in such a poor place was eye-opening and incredible. I could babble about how awful it was, but I won’t bore you with those. Let’s just say that I felt bad eating lunch and didn’t eat much. Feeling selfish was easy.

However, I did not realize how awful and poor Lwandle was until we went to our next destination: the vineyard. This vineyard isn’t any old vineyard, but has a long and important Afrikaner history. It was started by a servant of one of the first Dutch settlers and is HUGE! The vineyard went on for miles, the house was extraordinary lavish, and the gardens were just ridiculous. There were over 7 gardens, e.g. an herb garden, a peony garden, a “japanese” garden, etc. Here are pictures:

It was crazy to see the complete contrast in living and lifestyles only about 10 minutes apart. In ten minutes I went from extreme poverty and social repression to a lavish and ornate plantation with over 10 buildings for one family alone. It was ridiculous. I felt uncomfortable walking through the rose garden knowing that there was such horrible poverty so close by and that my R2 cup of wine would seem out of this world to those in Lwandle. Horrible contrasts, beautiful contrasts, no?