BOOKS

TABOO by Jorgen Ruud is an excellent book about Malagache culture. It is the result of twenty years spent living in the country amongst various tribes. I am surprised by the Christian influence I see here, because it was avoided in the book. 

The Prodigal Son is a story about a professor who responded to the call of a painting by helping mentally disabled people. It pronounces each of us to reflect both sons and the father. It is important to me because the calling of the painting reminds me of my path to Madagascar.

Maverick in Madagascar is about a man who walks down the northern half of the west coast of the country in search of information about Vazimba. According to legend, they are pygmies. This book details some typical interactions for a vazaha; they are valuable to me because the author is an experienced traveler.

A Place on Earth, by Wendyl Berry is a book about a fictional town in Kentucky at the end of the second world war. Young people die, old people grow. One point made at the end of the book is that everyone goes through enough to kill them.

Blindness, by Jose Saramago, is a book depicting an epidemic in which people are only able to see white. The ending is not very climactic: I am unsure, after finishing the book, why the blindness struck. 

Meanings in Madagascar, by Oyvind Daal, is an adaptation of a doctoral thesis on the language and culture of the Merina people around Tana. The author spent almost two decades in Madagascar. He uses an analytical tool that his father created to study the difference between frames of reference. The presentation is very good. There are many proverbs in this book. One is, "When walking, be like a chameleon: keep one eye on what you face and the other on what you passed." 

Oranges are not the Only Fruit, by Jeannette Winterton, is about a girl adopted by an evangelical who wants the girl to become a missionary. The girl is a lesbian. Exorcisms are attempted but she is strong. Her story is woven with short fairy tales. My favorite line of the book says that changing things that are not understood is the true nature of evil. 

Emma, by Jane Austen, is a romance novel set in High bury, England. There was no allusion to a war and they use horse drawn carriages. Emma changes from wanting never to marry to appease her widower father to wanting to marry a close family friend dear to both her and her father. She does this by experimenting with the love life of Miss Smith, who is of lower society than she. When Emma finally convinced Harriet she can look to higher society for marriage than that into which she was born, Smith chose the family friend of the Woodhouse family of Emma. After this, Emma realized she loves that man, her Mentor, Mr. Knightly. 

A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess, is a book about a young boy who commits crimes and listens to classical music. He is betrayed by his gang and sent to jail. After resuming his mischief in jail hen is selected for a program that associates negative feelings with violence. He is let out of jail into a world where police beat people. An author whose wife his gang killed takes care of him until he tries to use him as a political pawn to subvert the corrupt government. He tries to commit suicide when he finds that even classical music give him bad sensations. While hospitalized, a governmental figure plays the same game with him as the author. The trauma rids him of the association between sickness and both crime and classical music. He resumes his life of crime as a young adult until it gets boring for him.

CONVERSATIONS WITH Myself, is a book about Nelson Mandela that gives a personal perspective on the giant of activism. His discipline is admirable and his routine is encouraging. He always says something good about the conversation topic. 

The Nature of Psychotherapy, by Karl Jaspers, is a short book urging those administering care to mentally ill patients to distinguish traditional therapeutics, such as hypnosis and association, from philosophic engagement. The book was nice to read, and but the distinction is silly. In the latter, the doctor acknowledges as a thinking human being while challenging core principle of the patient and bringing those of the doctor up for discussion. To a certain extant, all therapeutics must acknowledge the patient and offer a method of living other than the one by which the patient lives. The book was nice because he suggests that when giving care, the doctor must be objective to the patient while acknowledging that the process is changing both doctor and patient. I said it before, but it made me think that all therapy should be conducted in a classroom, where the teacher is the primary caregiver. This way, there is a standard with which to modulate the doctor patient relationship: the opinion of the class. 

A Case of Curiosities, by Allen Kurzweil, is a novel about a boy who is recognized by an Abby for his drawing skill. The boy is put to work under the Abby as an enameler. He becomes an inventor, relating mechanics to art. There is a lot of misery and art of comedy throughout the book.

The Book of Five Rings is a book by Musashi Miyamoto. It describes the way to strategize as a method of winning that is not dependent on one technique or another but on overpowering the spirit of an enemy. It was very vivid to me in the opening. As the book drew on, I became a bit bored by the frustrations of the writer.

Dhamma Pataka

This post covers the period from April 15 to May 1.

I went from Anzac to the train station in the morning because of the ten o'clock check out time. I found a baggage drop point at the station and after leaving my stuff, I started to roam through the nearby markets. There are a rows of temporary buildings on a raised platform above the trains next to a huge taxi rank. It is sunny and the structures are the white. I ran into Bashir. He offered me some pot. I gave him some Rizzlas. I read until the train left. I talked to a card dealer on the train. After a three hour trip to cover around 125km, I got out at the Worcester station. Someone advised to avoid walking, so I got a lift from the family of the card dealer to a hotel that wanted about one hundred USD for one night. I got someone from the center to take me there. Kevin showed me to room nine.

In the morning, after a group sit, he assigned me to be the helper of Blessing. Blessing is a maintenance guy. We insulated the Dhamma hall in the morning and in the evening, we installed space heaters. I talked to Ziya, a Flemish woman serving long term while I ate. Of course, men and women are not supposed to eat together, so that was a mistake.

The next day, Blessing and I cleaned the hall and put in the mats. People arrived in increasing frequency until the evening meal, miso soup. The orientation was somewhat uneventful.

The course started on the morning of the fifteenth. We took vows of silence. We also promised to abstain from killing, stealing, lying, sex, and drugs. During the first three and a half days of meditation, we focused on breathing, in Anaconda meditation. The first day we are to be aware of the natural breath. When we meditate, we breathe through the nose. The second involves concentration on the nose, to see what sensations arise. On the third day we feel for the touch of the breath, equanimously acknowledging sensations as we encounter them. The aim of the first three days is to develop awareness.

I felt like I was digging out bad habits. As old students, we are not supposed to eat after noon, sleep on luxurious beds, or engage in any form of sensual entertainment. I slept on the floor, took lemon water at tea time, and kept other activities to a minimum. I did wash a lot of clothes throughout the course. Occasionally, I took walks for exercise, but I was careful to avoid both looking at the landscape and being idle in the sun. There was a storm on day one and it was very cold for the next two days. I told the teacher that I have difficulty being aware of my breath without controlling when I inhale.

On day three, Saturday the twentieth, we started Vipassana meditation, a body scan. I underwent immense pain during instructions for this type of meditation. It forced me two change posture twice. I wanted to stick with Anaconda. The discomfort was less intense later. I moderated the pain by using techniques of scanning that that were not yet taught in this course.

On the third day, the instruction is to scan part by part from head to toe. The rule is to. Move from one spot when a sensation is on that spot. On the fourth day we scan the left and right limbs simultaneously. On the fifth, we move from toe to head as well. I tell the teacher that I feel my awareness of the part of the body that I scan. He commended my trouble as an achievement. On the sixth day, the instruction is to increase the area of each piece, cutting back to small pieces when scanning is difficult. I started to follow the daily instructions, with the help of reversion to Anapanna under stress. I asked for permission for these reversion from the teacher on the seventh. He advised me to continue.

On the seventh day, the instructions are the same as the sixth, was but we are to be aware for extended periods of areas where there is either no sensation or a gross sensation. On the eighth day, we practice Vipassana with a free flow from part to part, slowing down to focus on areas on which either no sensations or gross sensations arise. We are also invited to choose a random point on the surface of the body. We are to wait a sensation arise. After one does, we continue. On the ninth day, the main instruction is to continue working without being excited that the course is almost over. Additionally, we can target points on the interior of the body. the tenth day, the instruction is to give metta. That is to feel goodwill towards everything.

On the last few days, I did not change postures very much. I made an effort to stay on the surface of my body as much as possible. There was no instruction to do so. I was curious about my bone structure. I partitioned the parts of my torso based on the the spine. Also, I made an effort to take entire hours for either Vipassana or Anapanna, but not both. Neither was there an instruction for this. I was able to sit over ten hours on the last few days.

Breakfast was a highlight. There was bread and either porridge or oatmeal. Also, both cooked prunes and fruit were available. I drank tea with breakfast and I drank ginger water with lunch. I found there to be too many fennel seeds in a few of the lunches. I unknowingly put way too much Marmite on some bread on the miso night.

There was a big difference between this and the first course I sat. New students were allowed popcorn in the evening! Ugh, it was so intoxicating a smell. I saw two guys use olive oil in a weird way: one drank it straight, another put it is fresh squeezed orange juice.

I met some cool people there. Luc, the male manager, has traveled for ten years. My roommate is an Israeli living in Fish Hoek. He advised me to practice daily and complimented me on being involved at such a young age. The guy next to me was an Californian traveling the world after selling a condominium. A guy, Luyanda, told me about a wedding tradition in which the groom bargains with the parents of the bride about a price for the bride. The funds transfered to the parents go to wedding gifts. I told him about my life during the summer of twenty ten and the following academic year. He was a great listener. Joe a business man who ate a live baby mouse in China. He has a big hard rock album collection. Igor told us that the evolution of humans from the beginning of the universe brought us to the level of involution, in which we look inside ourselves in order to reach the next stage. He is staying for long term service. He eats slowly and moves gracefully. Peter, a new student with whom I ate miso, gave me a chance to put into perspective my previous experience with Goenka teaching. I was not frequently able tell Olwetho from Luyando. I met a cool guy who ate ridiculously fast and slept little. He wrote a fantasy novel when he was thirteen. He asked me, about a orientated of magnets, whether it will lift a car. He is a certified chef and he like to hike.

Marcus is a really genuine guy who believes everything to be findable in anything. We got a ride with Susan from Marissa, a girl from Providence trying to establish an Acro Yoga class in Cape Town. Susan is a a hybrid between a teacher and a caregiver that worked in a chicken factory.

I took a bed in 33 South Boutique Backpackers on Trill Street in Observatory. The main road has a anarchist bookshop. I started a novel by Kurzweil. There was a poetry reading going on behind me. I got a delicious herbal tea. Two guys walked in with some music equipment in the late afternoon. The singer laughed a lot. He had a great voice.

I talked with my parents in the evening. The canned vegetable curry I bought was not good. In the morning of the twenty ninth, I ate some complimentary breakfast. The jam was so delicious. It was made from fruit grown by the owner. Also, were good chocolate muffins. I spent the day in City Center after Madam Taitou, an Ethiopian restaurant. I had a nice thyme tea. I had roasted greens, potatoes with cabbage, and a spiced chickpea blend served with sour wraps and salad. In the evening, a man tells me that when Apartheid ended, another one started. First there was suppression of non whites, now there is suppression of non blacks.

Tuesday was quite hectic, but it was really fun. I went to Wynberg in a taxi bus to retrieve the package my mom sent. I walked through both some busy streets and a beautiful residential neighborhood. I caught Alf while he was working on his bike. I had pasta Primavera in Pasta Primi. I didn't like the olive oil but I sat near a guy who seemed to know about computers. I took another taxi bus to Newlands. I walked through a very ritzy area. Lots of the trim was green and most of the buildings were white. I grabbed some yogurt at a Wackaberry. I tried to get red velvet but I got some berry flavor that totally overpowered the cake batter. I realized, while championing this mistake to offset the difficulty of a prolonged but mild ascent to Newland Ave., that my tastes are changing.

The Malagasy Consulate greeted me a bit awkwardly. I was told by the door guy that visa applications are accepted in the morning and processed in the afternoon. After I assured him I just wanted information, he showed me upstairs. I got a form that I didn't read. Instead, I started talking about staying in Madagascar for a year to learn the language, culture, and rice farming. A woman said I could get a three month visa extended while in the country. A man said that is not alright. He said in this world, people are things. He asked what I am. I said that I am a United States citizen. He says that long term visas are issued to investors, missionaries, and researchers. There is a lot of paperwork to be done well in advance for such issues. He suggests I commence.

I get a delicious vegetable samosa from a Shell station. After taking a bite, I return to the station to ask whether it is really vegetarian. I get on a final taxi bus that is banging hip hop. I am so happy that I get off early to go to a pool hall. I chicken out because people inside glare at me as I approach. Instead, I run some errands. I eat a late dinner.

I spend the first of May on the Internet. My adapter broke so I go to an Internet cafe. I spruce up my resume, buy plane tickets, get a travel plan for one of my bank accounts, and learn that one of my bank cards has outdated information. That account is now frozen until further notice. Lunch I take in a Chinese place. I get my new favorite dish: rice with vegetables and brown sauce. An employee of the hotel anddrives me to the airport. The guy and girl next to me talked about skiing in Vermont. They switched seats abruptly before I joined the conversation.

I have an easy night in Joburg although I did find it odd that there was no sink in the kitchen of the airport hostel. Barcelona had it worse, losing 7-0 to a BAY. Before security in the Cape Town airport, I get a mean bowl of muesli with for and yogurt. It wasn't as good as the Jomsom variety, but diced honeydew is noteworthy.

South Africa

Arrival in Johannesburg

I get into South Africa with little issue. I can stay here until June. I talk to a bunch of cab drivers Shoestrings Airport Lodge. I get in a small cab with a guy. Unfortunately, he doesn't know where it is. Since I don't have the address, I give him the address of a backpackers lodge in the township Soweto. I get totally rinsed on the trip AND the lodge is full. So the receptionist has someone pick me up to take me to a bed and breakfast that is four times the price. The lady who picks me up is a novice driver. She takes me to an cash point so I can keep handing out money. The first one eats the card of the women in front of me. Another one next to a KFC is out of order. Finally, I get some cash from an ATM in a grocery store.

It is not late when I settle into my room. I walk up a hill to some fancy restaurants. Now, the houses in this neighborhood are small. The plots are, by my estimation, between a quarter and a half acre. They all have tall barriers around their perimeters. None of them are two story buildings. The restaurants are fancy and packed. There are some guards in the street. I decide not to eat I am any of these restaurants. The reasons for this are that I am depressed about the amount of money I already spent today, I am not dressed well, and there are fast food joints up the street. On the other hand, to get to the fast food by the ATMs, I do have to walk alone in the dark in a neighborhood new to me.

Fortunately, there are some nice sights: I pass a house in which Mandela lived that has since been converted to a museum. Also, I get a good look at a 458 Italia. I eat in an English style fish and chips place that is out of rolls. I drink grape Fanta with my meal. On the way back, I inspect a memorial for the student uprising of 1976. In my room, I watch a debate on poverty in which Tony Blair argues that government is the key to decreasing poverty.

With two Norwegian girls, I enjoy my own full English breakfast in the morning. I accompany them to Park Station downtown in a taxi bus for one eightieth of the price I paid the taxi last night. I use the Internet cafe to find a place to stay for tonight. I finds four fast food restaurants in the station. None of them have meat other than chicken, which is a shame because I had eggs the morning. So I go to Nanny's and there I order a bunch of side dishes, the best of which is flame grilled corn on the cob with a spicy sauce. I get a peanut butter smoothie for desert and eat while talking to a guy, Brill who works in the station. He takes me to a Vodafone store where I get a $25 data plan for my tablet. This is liberating since I can now use the internet where ever I have phone signal.

My next step is to get a cab to the hotel. It is mid afternoon and the hotel is nearby. A guy in the taxi rank says that it isn't safe for me to walk to the hotel with all my stuff. The cab costs me $10 despite its being 1.5km from the station. Also, this trip is the third time in a row my taxi has been stopped by the police.

The hotel is under construction, but there are dorms available. Alone the a small room with two bunks beds, I am enjoying the WiFi access when Simon enters. He is a hairstylist that is looking for a location to open a cosmetics store. He has a girlfriend in Botswana who studies business. Simon and I go out to eat. I tell him about my plan to live in the bush. He gives me some advice about girls. We talk a bit about meditation before going to sleep. I get ripped up by mosquitoes in the night because my skin is not tough, no one turns off the light, and there is a broken Window.

In the morning I get breakfast at a posh cafe across from the hotel. I read about John McAfee in the January 2013 issue of Wired magazine. I walk by many nice spots around lunchtime in order to eat KFC... It was worth it. I see the movie, Django, at the Rosebank at night. Where are those guys from that are taking Fox and others to the mine at the end? Fox makes a slick cowboy. Really everyone was good. The scene where the dentist tells of Hilde was wild as they danced around the personal space of the other. Hilde really seemed to understand the style of Tarantula.

View from Joberg Hostel

Because I found some mosquito repelling coils, I am able to stay up late using my damn data plan and I miss the train to Cape Town in the morning. At the train station I eat at Nandos again to try their chicken. For fifty rand I get a leg and thigh (1/4 chicken...) with a bowl of spinach. It's alright but it makes my nose run even though I ordered mild. For sixty rand, I got a chicken burger, four wings, chips, and mashed potatoes at KFC. Since I wasn't full from Nandos I got some bitong, which is South African beef jerky. I bought a hardcover about Mandela before leaving the station.

So I got a room in Melville International Backpackers lodge to see a different part of town. I meet a German dude, Chris, who finished his bachelors, worked for a year, then started traveling. The place has WiFi with unlimited data between 8am and 10am. Chris and I talk about energy use because his background is in the economics of oil and natural gas. We go to a bar with some Dutch chicks from from he hostel. They are here to study the relationship between parents and students for a bachelor thesis. Everyone is really polite at dinner. I have a mushroom risotto that is pretty good. The gin and tonic is way to strong. I switch a two hundred rand bill for two one hundreds.

In the morning I laze around eating some bread another lodger left. Eventually I get on a mini bus to go to town. I saw the cab driver that took me to Melville. He shouted out to me. I scurry around trying to get on the right bus. I buy a button down shirt to keep warm. It is packaged and I don't bother to try on this fine blue piece of apparel. The package says it contains a large long sleeve shirt with a sixteen point five inch collar. The lady at the counter does not accept the hundred rand bill that I got from one of the Baltic peoples I went to dinner with last night. She says that it is smudged. I pay with some other bill and I resume my quest for the Apartheid Museum. No one seems to know what it is. I get on a bus. While waiting for it to fill, I see the host of the hostel I which I am staying doing some shopping. I forget his name so I don't say anything. We depart. After a short distance, the driver stops and asks whether I am going beyond the museum. I say no, he points to a museum. I get out. I go into the Museum of Africa because it is free and here I am. I see a nice exhibit on political cartoons. Yalo is a prominent figure.

After an hour, I go get some food at a corner store. I get fried fish, a spicy bean and onion salad, and a peach Tropika juice with that smudged one hundred rand bill. The juice gets a ten out of ten. Get more, world. Anyway, I go to a wild taxi rank under a building. I pay a guy who direct me to a taxi under the advice of its driver. Then we talk the driver takes me to the Apartheid Museum, I pay him. Luckily, I spent only a buck fifty on the trip, redundant pay included.

The museum is cool. I receive a non white ticket, so I have to go through a certain door. The story starts with the discovery of gold in a land where natives have ancestors from easy back. There's a rugby group parading around, but they hardly get in the way of the exhibits. The temporary exhibit on Mandela features a 37 painting portrait of him throughout his career. I get a coffee half way through. On my way back to the spot I left off I see Chris. I finish looking through the museum. Chris is still there when I get to the end of the account of the oppression of the non white people. We wait for his guide.

I go to the Spar grocery store. The prices are good: a bunch of snacks for traveling tomorrow run me eleven bucks. When I return, no one is around to go out to eat, so I go to a Mexican place a block away. I get a fat portion of nachos. Oh, but, before dinner, I had a delicious mint Magnum.

I sort out my Nexus in the morning of the fifth so I can enjoy it on the train. I take a cab to the train station. In Park Station, I get a chicken samosa, some Chicken Licken wings, and more snacks for the ride. When I am in the snack shop I see an old lady following a boy around my age. She asks me whether I am coming or going. I start to say I am leaving. Before I finish, she tells me the boy got robbed right outside the station in broad daylight. I don't think to ask the boy whether he is alright. The lady and a store clerk start a rant about safety and such.

I am in economy class, with two seats for the first six hours. There are lots of kids in the car. This is good because I feel safe enough to take out my tablet. Never was crying a problem. I was really impressed with the mother sitting in front of me. As soon as her girl made a peep, the mom was up wrapping the baby to her back with a towel. She started a little jig and the baby was placid in seconds. Another thing of note about the ride: there were a lot of vendors walking the aisles selling things like beer, cigarettes, chips, ice cream, and candy. The scenery of the last few hours, from about eleven to four on the sixth, was really beautiful. It started out like Arizona with small mountains in the distance. Eventually, the tracks seemed to be the only thing at the bottom of a valley.

CAPETOWN

I stop at a top notch KFC to relieve my hunger before heading to a hostel. I had a wrap with fried chicken, a hash brown, and mayo. It reminds me of the Chrunchwrap Supreme by Taco Bell. The cab is not expensive.

Capetown Backpackers is a really nice place. I talk to family until like ten o'clock in the evening. I haven't had a conversation with Sam for too long. Anna looks healthy. My parents are really taking care of me even though they are so far away. I get some Thai food at a place around the corner. I meet a drummer named Claude. He takes me around Long Street. We look for a spot to play pool but we have no luck. I agree to meet Claude in the morning to smoke pot, but I don't get out of bed in time. Am I now, too lazy to smoke?

Ugh ok on Sunday I laze around. You know I walk down long street looking for a long sleeve shirt. I get an ice coffee in a market. There I sit next to a group of about eight, one of which is a girl. I stop in the store that I had the shirt I like most. It is made in Nepal. None of them fit right so I dip back into the cold. I go to a service on sex at the Common Ground Church with Shirley and Sam. I start to think that Christians have to give up on either marriage or abortion to maintain position of on one of the two. I liked the bit in which the speaker quotes Jesus saying if one arm does bad, chop it off the body. That is why I switched hands: my right arm did wrong.

Dinner at Shirley was with the aforementioned Tobias' and two other girls: Nike and Sipokazi. The former is a houseguest of Shirley. She is starting an orphanage. She studied philosophy at Leeds. She went into finance in Dubai where she met the latter, the who works for the UAE airline. We talked about the church service. We mostly talked about the cause of the recession. Sipokazi told us that a man she was serving died while flying. Sam gave me a synopsis of her job at an Internet marketing company. Shirley is a wonderful woman who teaches art from her home. The women were really a pleasure for me.

The following morning, that of the seventh, I studied both philosophy and math. In the afternoon I went to the waterfront. I walked around a really fancy mall looking for a shirt like the one Serif wears in the movie, Matrix Reloaded. A button down with no color will suffice. I ended up with a ten dollar button down shirt from Pick 'n Pay. It's got a collar. I enjoyed both space heaters and a White Russian at a bar outside the mall.

Dinner I ate on the Waterfront, at Moyo. The waiter brought me a bowl and a pitcher of aromatic water for me to wash my hands. The bread was like pita bread but softer, thicker, and more moist. It was very good. I got fish with very nice breading. It was beady. The cheese plate I got at the end was the best. It was local cheese served with a toasted bread, fruit, and jam. I enjoyed all this with a too tall stout.

I watched the first half of the Manchester United versus Manchester City fame in a bar, Raffiki, near Cape Town Backpackers. In the morning I got myself out of that hostel. I made my way about half a click to another hostel that has pool tables, Anzac.

After settling, I head towards Long Street. On the way I stop for some groceries. I eat a dough all that is as big as half of my head. I get some turkey food on the way to Lion's Head, a peak separating Camps Bay from Longstreet. It was such a climb. I was panting. But the views were breathtaking so I still think I am in shape...

I make myself some rice with MSG for dinner. Wow, it was good. I can't believe the English don't get to enjoy the luscious flavor enhancer. I met Keenan, John, Mathew, Kohls, and Hannah at the hostel. Great people they are. John and Hannah were generous with swaz. The former is an ex call center boss from Johannesburg talking up the culinary art in Cape Town. The latter is both a DJ and a photographer. Keenan and I had only brief contact but he has some nice red shoes. Mathew is a German who likes Cape Town and he does some wild looking graphing on his tablet. Kobus is a guru of pleasantries. He is also quite willing to discuss spirituality.

The morning of the tenth was more busy for others than for me. I mixed sweet corn and rice for breakfast. Mateus was fooling around on his command station. I caught the last half of a service in a nearby church. I bought a small book by Karl Jaspers in the church used book store. I read for a bit in Company's Garden. Mateus met me in the street on his way to get peanuts for the squirrels. He suggested I go to Camp's Bay. I agreed, so he put me on a bus. It is a regular tourist attraction. In retrospect it was sort of like Laguna Beach. I read some of a book by Goethe while eating a grocery store sandwich. Since it is like a play I am reading it aloud.

Health notes: I have a rash on my left knee. My new nail is rotting.

I enjoyed a delicious chocolate shake in a restaurant, Primi, on the beach. There I finished watching the cartoon, Escaflowne. It features a guy trying to control fate like an ancient civilisation using human will as energy. Well, at the beginning, the guy represented the influence of consumers on television shows they watch.

Back in Cape Town, I got some dinner in a restaurant Claude recommended that serves Asian food. After spilling my Lassi, I met a guy who was peeling hard boiled eggs while he told me that Jaspers must be smart. I don't realize I need to hand my receipt to the chef. Reading the book, I learn that a component of psychotherapy is showing people they are worthy by discussing their organizing principles.

Bashir, a young guy who became homeless five months ago, and I eat dinner on a bench. He tells me that he liked to ride trains. Now the guards do not let him. His course is electrical engineering. In the evening I watched a crazy version of Spiderman that I never heard of before. It is better than the one with Kristen Dunst but it seems to be lower budget.

On the morning of the eleventh I buy a red shirt at a store Johan recommended. I visit and laundromat and I visit an Internet cafe to sort out my tax return. There were no upsets to this schedule. I lounge at Anzac for much of the afternoon. Kobus tells me he had a row with a colleague while he is preparing for a team building meeting. I head north on Longstreet until a bus guy offers a ride to Green Point. I visit Sea Point first. I eat a Hake fish cake that finally make me forget about the sweet, cloudy, giant dough ball I ate a few days ago. Then I walk through Greens Point until I get to the stadium. I get in a bus to Longstreet. I can't commit to any spots on Longstreet so I try to walk back to the lodge. There I smoke with Johan. I try to meditate but I fall asleep. I awake from my own farting. Unhappy, I continue meditating until I feel like I tried.

The morning of the twelfth was both wild and hectic. I finished the book by Jaspers at a Parisien patisserie, Cassis. There is no way for me to avoid the conclusion that I enjoyed the atmosphere despite spending five USD on tea and an apple treat.



My next mission was Table Mountain. I decided to take the cable car. It had no polls to support the cables. Actually, I learned from Errol, an employee, a thick stationary cable supports two that move. The floor of the cable car rotates. I descended on foot. It was quite pleasant. I had snacks enough for me and a blackbird with orange on the bottom of the wingtips. Two ladies picked me up as I was walking back of the the road and they took me all the way to my hotel. How nice is that?

In the evening I talked with all the boys. The main thing we were talking about was whether it was good for the world that China is getting ahead of the United States. Some notion I had of politeness is just unsuitable for this environment.

 

In the morning I arise at 10. Oh and my appointment with a doctor is at 10:15. I make it there by twenty to eleven. The doctor has a look at the boils on my knee right away. He hopes the cause is Staphylococcus and he fears it is something from Madagascar. He  pops the pustules for both cleaning and sampling. Eighty US bucks and one giant carrot cake later, I find myself in a park on all sorts of biotics.

On Sunday I go to Simon's Town from Cape Town via a one hour SOUTHBOUND train. It is quaint. I have sushi. I read philosophy on a hill. I talk to a girl from Chicago on the train ride back. She just started to meditate. I get a great pizza from Sgt. PEPPERS ON Longstreet. It has salami. 

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