April Fools Day

We had fun with April Fool’s this morning. Sabrina and David said that their flight was actually an hour before it was and put everyone in a panic.

Later on I asked Kryt whether the giraffes on Table Mountain cause a lot of problems for the tourists and he played along. We got David hook, line, and sinker and had a good laugh.
We toured a township in the van before taking Sabrina and David to the airport. It was really quite sad. Kryt showed us the area where blacks were relocated due to Apartheid. Much of the community consisted of small shacks without any running water. In government-sponsored apartments people slept six to a tiny room and the masses shared the few bathroom facilities. As most blacks could not afford toilet paper, they used newspapers. The newspapers ended up clogging the drains and the toilets, inevitably, overflowed. The apartments, therefore, smelled of urine and feces.

Although most South Africans are in housing now (since the end of Apartheid), refugees from Zimbabwe and descending upon the communities. The South Africans are renting their houses and building shacks in the back of them to live in so that they can make a few dollars. They hotwire electricity and fires are common. A vast number of residents are unemployed and there is a tremendous drug problem. As people are desperate, the crime rate is astronomical. Very, very sad.

After the sobering visit to the township, we bid adieu to Sabrina and David. Kyrt and the Kuffner Klan then headed to see the seals. We boarded a boat near Hout Bay and within twenty minutes or so we were treated to the sight of thousands of seals frolicking in the surf.

Kryt later dropped us off to the waterfront. We headed back to the pub and the boys, once again, ordered huge racks of ribs (they were in heaven!). We stocked up on some new books for everyone (we’re going through them like mad) and this made us all happy. In the evening we watched the Wimbley concert commermorating the tenth anniversary of the death of Princess Diana on the big-screen TV. We all stayed up way too late.