Crime-ing, Bike-ing, Wine-ing

I'll start this entry talking about some of the crime stuff that has been going on lately. We have had stuff stolen from our two houses on Church St on two different occasions now (ipods, wallets, cell phones) and then Jeremy got his laptop jacked from his room. A lot of this took place this past Saturday when everyone was out of the houses because they were getting fumigated (yes, a lot of people had fleas in their beds and there was an ant infestation in Phil and Pat's room. It was disgusting. Luckily I wasn't one of the people to have any issues in my room, but nevertheless I still got my room done just in case). IES and our security company have been looking into it, but it is clear that having one security guard at the house isn't enough to keep our shit safe if we are all gone for the night, or multiple nights which is how its going to be in a few weeks when we do our homestay, and then when we go to Joburg and Kruger for April break. There have been suggestions that maybe one of the security guard either stole the shit or helped facilitate it, but some of them have also been known to get drunk on the job or fall asleep so that's a possible explanation too. Heine, who was my boy, got fired for smelling like alcohol on the job, and Roy also got fired for being drunk on the job. Its sad because those were two of the guards I talked to the most, but I actually never had any idea that either of them were drunk whenever I was talking to them.
Either way, theft here is really common and it is becoming more apparent to me as I have now been here for almost 2 months. The other day I went to go get pizza with Moses in Rondebosch, and as I was walking towards the pizza shop I saw a car parked kind of half way up on the sidewalk. Someone was dumb enough to leave their car window open and right there in the middle of the afternoon some guy was just reaching into the car and stealing the person's wallet and cell phone. Its sad but at the same time, how can you be stupid enough to leave your car window open with your cell phone and wallet in there? Either way, we have started to become really anal about locking all our doors. I've been putting my laptop in my closet a lot of the times when I leave the house and I am generally too scared to sleep with my windows open and my door unlocked no matter how hot it is.
On to more happy things... this past weekend a group of us went to Stellenbosch, which is a generally white, Afrikaner community about 30 or 40 minutes east of here that has a ton of vineyards in and surrounding it. It kind of reminded me of Cape Cod actually. We got there on Saturday morning via the backpacker bus, and checked into our hostel, which was really cool. It was kind of half outside, half inside, with a ton of awesome communal space with couches and a pool table and kitchen and a pool. We ended up hanging out there for awhile later on in the day after we walked around downtown. It's a pretty quaint little town but there were some cool shops and stuff. I've come to realize that a lot of the white culture here makes me somewhat uncomfortable, and I noticed it a lot in Stellenbosch because of its white population and Afrikaner history. The white Afrikaners were the party in control during apartheid and you can kind of tell how elitist they were/are. When I was in the hostel me and Suzy met this American girl who was visiting South Africa for a few days after spending a few months in Tanzania. We talked for awhile about the differences between Tanzania and South Africa, and how racism is so much more of an issue here whereas it isn't really present in Tanzania (she said that you certainly stand out if you are white but that's about as far as it goes). She was saying that the night before, her and her boyfriend went to a bar in downtown Stellenbosch and it was all white blondes playing heavy metal and she kept having to do double takes to make sure she wasn't in Nazi Germany or something like that. Obviously that's an extreme comparison, but I see where she is coming from. Of course it is not that extreme at all anymore, but many of the local whites I have met here have been snobby and I have certainly heard my far share of racist comments. However, I don't want to generalize about the entire white population, because I have certainly met plenty of non-snobby, un-arrogant whites here as well. I suppose its just more than I expected and it kind of took me off guard initially.
That night in Stellenbosch we went to this restaurant called Moyo, which is based at one of the vineyards that we visited the following day. It is entirely outdoors and there are treehouses everywhere. It was an all you can eat buffet of traditional South African foods and there were dancers and drumming going on everywhere. It was really cool but at the same time (of course I can never turn off my anthropological approach lol) all of the workers were black and most of the customers (although certainly not all) were white. It just made me feel like, to an extent, people come to Moyo, an overpriced although definitely an experience of a restaurant, in order to feel like they are getting a "traditional African experience." While I may not know exactly what that is given that I am in South Africa, which has the highest level of development on the entire continent essentially, I know that you are not getting such an experience by simply going to a fancy, unique restaurant.
The next day we woke up early to go on a biking tour of 4 Stellenbosch wineries and vineyards. It was completely awesome! There was one relatively intense uphill part, but other than that (and the irony of going wine tasting, getting somewhat of a buzz, and then hoping on a bike? Although it is legal to do so in SA) it was a pretty easy ride and it was a lot of fun! I now know some more things about wine that I didn't know before, like how to smell it and then drink and search for the aromas in the taste of the wine. I really loved the end of the tour when we got to absolutely tear it up going downhill through the windy vineyards. We also stopped right before our last stop at a dam and went swimming in it. It was pretty gross water but either way it was refreshing as hell.
I'm finally starting to ACTUALLY feel like I live here and its pretty amazing. I'm so glad I still have about 3 months left and don't have to think about what its going to be like to go back yet. Of course there are ups and downs to both, but at the very least right now I'm glad that I will be able to enjoy the rest of my time here and continue to further my experience.