On my last night, Colleen Zulich invited me to the University of Cape Town business school alumni happy hour. Colleen did an exchange program at Fuqua where she met my brother, James, and she also knows Maya. She organized the event which was held at a bar right on the water in Granger Bay. She is Ms. Social Butterfly and introduced me to many of the wheelers and dealers of the South African business world. I managed to chat with a few people including he founders of S. Africa’s version of Groupon (recently bought out by Groupon) and the General Manager for the African Art Institute. Colleen is a portfolio manager for her family’s company, Princess Diamonds.
The past few nights we’ve formed an eclectic posse at the hostel. A normal night consisted of sharing travel stories on the balcony and then heading out to the “usual spots” on Long Street. The motley crew was comprised of:
- A French-Scottish model/musician recording and auditioning in Cape Town. Say that three times fast.
- A German student pursuing his masters in political relations and doing research in Cape Town, Stellenbosch, and Jo-Burg.
- A Canadian who has been traveling for a few months, volunteering at orphanages in Asia and Africa and will head to Latin America next before he starts at Berkeley business school this fall. After that, he will most likely work for his parent’s diamond company. Soon-to-be baller, shot-caller.
- A Brit who is traveling around the world with one goal in mind - have fun. Next stop, Moscow.
- An Australian who quit her job as a journalist to backpack around the continent and has no intention of returning home soon.
I grabbed some coffee at my favorite breakfast spot, Maramoto, and said bye to the owner who, come to find out, has a son at Franklin College in Lugano, Switzerland right down the road from where my parents used to live. Clynton and his sister picked me up and headed to one of the open air markets that have become quite popular recently. Clynton was a great tour guide this trip and is basically an encyclopedia of facts about South Africa. Not to mention he’s charming, witty, and incredibly handsome (I know your reading this, Clynton). We visited the Rhodes memorial and the University of Cape Town campus where his sister is studying to be teacher before heading to the airport.
Agriculture, mining and hospitality/tourism seem to be the lynchpins of the economy. The Anglo-American Mining Company is the largest private sector employer in the country. Maya and I had also chatted about the promise that the country holds and people/companies should take note of the opportunities here. Wake up and smell the coffee. There has been a 116% increase in tourism since 1994. They have the longest wine route in the world. Durban is the largest port in Africa and 9th largest in the world. The Rand is the most actively traded emerging market currency in the world. The population has a re-newed confidence and drive after the success of the World Cup. The list goes on.
It’s a stunningly beautiful country with so much possibility and I can’t wait to go back! All the pics are here: http://bit.ly/hLaFjz
In A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway said, “That is why a peasant has wisdom. Because he is defeated from the start.” This quote kept recurring in my mind when I was in Gugulethu last week. Oliver shared this picture from Cell-Life’s recent trip to Nigeria to set up the program with the IVHN. Look how cute these kids are! They have nothing but are so full of joy. I don’t mean to downplay the poverty, crime, or other problems in some of these areas but many of the poorer people I’ve met during the trip have been the happiest.
I took a break from Cell-Life and walked over to Mothers2Mothers to have a chat with Maya. She is an incredible person and born communicator. Maya came to M2M as a consultant last fall but the program has grown exponentially in the past year so they needed to bring her on full-time as a communications coordinator. Maya studied power and the disempowered for her thesis at Johns Hopkins and then went on to pursue a Masters on urban disempowerment. During her studies, she came to the conclusion that the law shapes who is in power and who is not –so she enrolled at Yale Law. She concluded that the public had the power to change the law –so she entered into journalism in order to reach the masses. She worked for MSNBC and ABC World News for many years but when the broadcast led with stories about tanorexia and Britney Spears, she felt her original purpose for entering the field was lost and she wanted to go back to helping people on the ground level.
Dr. Mitch Besser, the founder, has been doing clinical work in South Africa for years. He had been treating women with HIV but realized he wasn’t getting through to them on a deeper level to influence long lasting behavioral change. One day, he invited another woman into the room to talk with an HIV-positive mother-to-be and it all clicked. They chatted away and the HIV-positive woman completely opened up. These women needed to talk to someone they could relate to, someone they trusted. This is how M2M was born!
Maya said that thanks to the CEO, Gene Falk, they have a razor sharp vision and mission. Therefore they do not get mixed up with the hundreds of others of HIV-AIDs organizations. They have always focused strictly on maternal health and have controlled their growth well. The main communications issue is explaining the diversity of the continent to most Westerners. Each province has its own unique culture and social taboos so even though each sites follows the same model, they are each tailored to that particular community. Maya and Dr. Besser have a blog for Forbes which is a great platform to explain the organization, the intricacies of the health issues here, and to provide insight into African culture. Check it out! http://bit.ly/hLEZRR
At this point, they haven’t had much U.S. media exposure but that is about to change. On March 14th, Robin Roberts from ABC’s Good Morning America will be doing a segment on M2M which will be broadcasted from the V&A waterfront. They gave some of the mentor mothers flipcams to document their day-to-day activities at the sites. They are really thrilled about the upcoming piece.
Recently, M2M partnered with HP to digitize their health records which will significantly improve the monitoring and evaluation of the sites. Soon they will institute a mobile aspect in which mothers will be sent treatment reminders through sms text messaging along with other services. Info on that partnership can be found here: http://bit.ly/heHdgO
The 80 staff members at headquarters are extremely friendly and passionate about their work. They are driven to help stop the spread of HIV and it was a pleasure to meet them this week!
What about Bob?
Last evening, I met a 21-year old aspiring journalist, Dave Thomas, who was on his way home to the U.K. after studying in Zimbabwe (“Zim”) for four months. Dave was taking a Doxy so I immediately asked where he had been living. We talked a lot about Zim and Mugabe, who they referred to as Bob, probably to take away the fear and horror associated with the name Mugabe, somewhat diminishing his power. His professor has met Mugabe and said he has several academic degrees but also claims himself that he has a degree in violence. I remember reading a report last year on the political rape that occurs there during nearly every election. It was horrifying. He is 87 years-old and still rules the country through violence. Scary.
Dave said there were a few independent papers in the country but its quite dangerous to work there, especially when you cover politics - his beat. He has already had internships at the Cape Times (local Cape Town paper) and The Financial Times. Pretty impressive for someone his age. He is hoping to get a job working for the FT magazine, This is Africa. He also gave me a brief overview of the newspaper industry in Africa. I gave him my business card and said I would keep my eye out for any jobs if he promised to accept my pitches in a few years.
We also discussed Cecil Rhodes (Zimbabwe and Zambia were formerly Rhodesia) and he described Rhodes’ grave which sounds pretty ostentatious. I guess that’s what you would expect for an ardent imperialist and founder of De Beers. Bling bling, money ain’t a thing.
The Company Gardens here have a large statue of Rhodes with the famous quote inscribed below, “Your hinterland is there.” The Gardens originally served as a “refreshment stand” for the Dutch East India Company to re-stock the boats with fresh foods during their journeys back and forth between Holland and East Indies. A canal system was introduced to water the gardens’ fruits, veggies, medicines, and herbs that thrive(d) here. On our bike tour last week, we learned Cape Town has the highest density of species per square kilometer in the world. Thats more than the Amazon which boggles my mind. This includes the mosquitoes that apparently attacked me last night.
“…In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed…
…It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.” - Invictus by William Ernest Henley
Image from “Mandela: Comrade, Leader, Prisoner, Negotiator, Statesmen” exhibit at Iziko Slave Lodge.
Kat and I attended Mass at the cathedral yesterday where the choir sang “Stand By Me” and Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” accompanied by traditional African instruments during the service. We couldnt help but crack up. We had a nice day at the beach and the girls headed out to Namibia this morning for what promises to be one of the hottest rides ever to the sand dunes in the country’s national park. Hertz raised the rental rates in the past week due to all the unrest in northern Africa. Although there doesn’t seem to be any trouble in the country at this point, violence can spread quickly.
This morning, I started with Cell-Life (www.cell-life.org; Twitter @Cell_Life), a non-profit organization which originally started as a research project at the University of Cape Town in 2001 and now works in partnership with the Cape Peninsula University of Technology. Cell-Life provides context-specific and cost-effective technology-based solutions for the management of HIV-AIDs and other infectious diseases such as TB. The solutions have potential for even broader application to other diseases.
Cell-Life primarily contracts with NGOs, clinics, and government bodies to implement three core technologies - Intelligent Dispensing of Antiretroviral Treatment (iDart), Cellphones For HIV (C4H), and EMIT, a mobile and web-based data collection system.
- The iDart system was developed in collaboration with the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation to aid pharmicists and clinicians with the proper distribution of ARV drugs.
- C4H uses various cell phone functions (SMS, GPS, USSD) to do the following - mass messaging for prevention, peer-to-peer supported counseling, linking patients and clinics, building organizations capacity, mass information for positive living, and monitoring and evaluation of programs. In December, they signed a contract with the Department of Health in S.A. for monitoring their HIV testing campaign which will allow the country to reach their goal of testing 15 million people for HIV by June of this year! Cell-Life is charged with implementing the technology in all 7,080 facilities around the country. A great interview with Managing Director, Peter Benjamin, explaining this project can be found here: http://bit.ly/i5S727
- EMIT, a mobile and web-based data collection system, helps groups easily carry out surveys, questionnaires, and capture important information during HIV prevention and literacy sessions.
Today I met with Oliver, a marketing associate here, that runs the marketing and PR departmentss. He’s probably about 1-2 years older than me and wears many hats. He gave me a bit of an overview of the organization and I got to work helping them large-scale program they are launching with the Institute of Human Virology in Nigeria. They are hoping to raise more public awareness of the work they are doing so I’ll be assisting Oliver with some social media/media relations work. Information on this particular program can be found here:
http://www.cell-life.org/component/content/article/129-cell-life-in-nigeria
“I suppose that the word Cape is from the French cap; which is from the Latin caput, a head; which is, perhaps, from the verb capere, to take - that being the part by which we take hold of a thing: - Take time by the forelock.” - Cape Cod, Thoreau
Table Mountain sunset pics: http://tinyurl.com/68tqqqr
Another day, another Rand.
More pictures from Lion’s Head, Camps Bay, Simon’s Town and Stellenbosch: http://tinyurl.com/6cr3ajn
On Friday, we hired a local guide to take us on a vineyard tour in Stellenbosch. The girls went to the market and bought “vintage” dresses off a random table since they wanted to pick it up a notch. Our guide, Jamie, was hilarious, knowledgeable, and gregarious. A great combo for a tour guide. We visited two estates and one cellar in the town of Stellenbosch. Rachel had to conduct a skype interview in between tastings so we made a(nother) pit stop for gelato. Stellenbosch is an adorable university town that reminds me of Berkeley, yet another similarity to San Fran (Three S. Africans have said Cape Town is often compared to S.F.). The scenery was great, the wine was tasty and we may have learned a thing or two. I even got to purchase my middle-namesake wine at the first vineyard on the Paarl (Pearl) route. St. Cecilia is the patron saint of music and bottle has a piano and music notes on the label. Along the way, Jamie pointed out the Afrikaans monument - the only monument in the world dedicated to a language. Afrikaans is one of the youngest languages in the world derived from Dutch. We felt like we were leaving a friend when Jamie dropped us off but he may take me to a township this week.
Yesterday, we picked up the car and rode along the coast to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. The natural beauty is unreal. We managed to spot a few fun animals - ostriches, baboons, lizards, snakes, and some penguins - and could DEFINITELY tell where the Indian Ocean and Atlantic Ocean met (wink). We returned to the city, headed up to Table Mountain for sunset and bid Mary adieu after we dropped her off at the airport. We got a few drinks in Camp’s Bay and met two Scottish doctors on holiday. It was one of their birthdays so we ordered him a brownie and sang to him.
I basically feel like a local now. Another day, another Rand.
Mary and I took an hour long train ride along the coast to Simonstown for a quiet morning on the beach. And, by beach I mean sitting on the grass under the shade fully covered from head to toe. Mary did some watercoloring, a staple activity during her travels.
When we returned, Katherine, Stephanie and Rachel greeted us bleery-eyed after a flight from Zanzibar. Table Mountain was too foggy so we decided to watch the sunset in Camps Bay. Our singing cab driver belted out his rendition of Jackson Fives’s “I’ll Be There” as he drove and told us of his previous singing career. During our picnic, the girls shared stories from the 5-day hike up Killi and four months living in Tanzania. They were so excited to have all the luxuries of civilization again. Steph couldn’t contain here excitement in the grocery store - “Oh my god! A smoothie machine!” They said they probably had 5 beers collectively over the four months in Tanzania so drinks were in order. We toasted over some wine while watching the sun set. The wine helped wash the Doxy down. They’ll have to take Doxy for about another month. Both Katherine and Rachel got malaria in Tanzania. They each had two parasites but the average Tanzanian has 20-30! At the restaurant, we met a group of South African men who were having their monthly get-together. They joined us at the Dubliner bar for a few pints of Castle Lager, a South African brew served everywhere.
After another delicious breakfast across the street at Maramoto, the girls went shopping for some new threads and we’re off to Stellenbosch for a vineyard tour.
Lion’s Head = conquered.
Yesterday afternoon we did a quick hike up Lion’s Head. We were accompanied by the University of Cape Town men’s rugby team (founded in 1882!) for part of the way. We played damsels in distress and warned them that if anything went wrong they would be carrying us down. I don’t think they agreed to that. At first we were worried the fog would block the views, but as soon as we went a few hundred feet up the mountain, the fog subsided and the views of Cape Town and surrounding bays were superb. In this picture, I’m on the summit with Table mountain and the “Twelve Apostles” range in the background. We came back down and had a quick picnic before heading back to the hostel to watch the French “Amazing Race” being filmed outside our hostel. Of course, Mary went and chatted with the crew. We met four Brits who were on a gap year doing literacy research before heading to university next year.
Earlier in the day, I went to M2M and Jamie and I talked about ways to amplify their social media presence. I also helped Jamie develop the organization’s Wiki page which is harder than I thought since you want it to be all-encompassing and easily digestible without being overwhelming. I was supposed to chat with Maya but she had taken a mother to get her child tested that morning and there were delays at the hospital so we’ll meet next week.
Today, we’re headed to Simonstown and Katherine arrives this evening just in time for a sunset picnic on Table Mountain.
