Singing and Dancing

Yesterday was another great day. Beautiful weather! Nathan and I decided to go to the Waterfront and check out what was going on there. The waterfront is a lot like 3rd street in Santa Monica with performers and shops.

We spent most of the day in silence with our jaws dropped. The city can have a very strong vibe to it. One group of performers in particular were amazing. They were young Zulu dancers. They sang in Afrikaans (dutch mixed with native African languages) and danced like I've never seen. I kept this part in there even though it makes me sound like an idiot. The dancers were actually Xhosas and the language that they speak is Xhosa. It is amazing to me how little I knew about South Africa before I went there. Afrikaans is spoken by the Afrikaners and the so called coloured people. What an idiot, huh? Their voices were not perfect but they sounded great anyway, they sang with such power, belting out every word. Their dancing was even more energetic. 6 or 7 women and 7 or 8 guys, each dancing together in a sort of traditional dance that looked like freak dancing mixed with tap dancing, mixed with drumming dancing, mixed with 1000 grams of caffeine. It was amazing.

In fact, dancing and singing seems to be a large part of South African culture. people seem very free to dance and it seems to bring them such joy. We saw many people dancing in the city and all over the city parks.

We left the wharf after about 3 hours. 2 mini highlights, I saw about 10 jellyfish and now I am terrified to go in the water, and also the Nike store is the only store that is equally as expensive as the US.

Back at Cape Town city we walked around some more. The city is just fun to walk around. We spent some time in a giant garden in the middle of the city where they have 1,000 of exotic plants and trees and also some amazing birds. People just go to the park to relax and unwind. One group of guys must have been a musical group cause they were sitting around a guitar playing a song and just singing whatever came to mind. One guy had a paper and pen and would write down the words that came out. And they were amazing! Beautiful voices, in perfect harmony, singing in Afrikaans and it just sounded so good. I sat and listened to them for maybe 20 minutes. I really wish music and dancing were a larger part of American culture. As I write this, I can hear singing from outside where church has started. It sounds like gospel music.

Today we are off to Cape Town again for museums and apparently here is live music at the wharf tonight.

Love,

Adam