Frank in Africa ‘08

howdy people,

1 of the things people seemed to worry most about when I told them about my trip and what we would be doing was the Concert at the townships in Capetown called Phillipi, yes, people have guns here, yes there are shootings here all the time (I have no proof but even the locals say so), what I got to see of the townships is that they’re pretty much the same as the other townships in the other countries.

Not a damn thing happened while we were there with thousands of euros worth of equipment, the concert was even a bit of a “failure”, not many people showed up and the power kept going down. the location was beautiful though, it was near an old Cement factory, an big old concrete building with lots of old rusted metal, I was more interested in taking pictures of that place than the whole concert, but I had a job to do, so I took pictures of rappers and kids. I think we’re using the cement factory for the videoclip so I hope I’ll have time to take some cool pics.

The local rappers here have some real talent, little kids from the townships who grow up eager to be famous rappers and really have the talent to make it if they were giving a chance. It’s kinda strange to see some of them wearing Eminem shirts though, but maybe that’s just me.

not much else to report right now, internet still isn’t working here, so far South Africa has been the worst when it comes down to the internet connection, I mean Malawi was slow but atleast it worked… I think the people we rent this place from dont understand that we need internet to do our work… oh well… thats something for another blog post, I’m complaining too much as it is…

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just wanted to let everybody know that my cellphone got “stolen”, when we went from Malawi to Namibia we made a stop in Johannesburg SA, some bags were opened, and I suspected mine had also been opened (it was a mess), but I wasn’t missing anything…

Last week when I went up devils peak I figured it would be a good idea to take my phone with me, so I could call someone if something bad happened, but my cellphone was nowhere to be found…

“lost” or “stolen” you decide, doesn’t make a difference, it just sucks that I lost some phone numbers and adresses, but nothing that can’t be recovered I guess (if you’re 1 of those people that demands a postcard, mail me because your adress was in my phone)… I hadn’t used my phone since the day I left home, I’m not much of a cellphone user, so to me, it really doesn’t make a difference.

Tags: South Africa by Frank
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hey hey blog readers, whats happening?

I’ve been in Capetown South Africa for like a week now and I guess I’ve gotten used to being back in civilization, to me this place isn’t africa at all, I haven’t been doing much fun stuff (besides playing some pool and having some beers with the guys) mostly because there’s lots of work to be done, the project for this country seems like a lot more work mostly because everything is more professional and there are a lot of small last moment things that people need that end up our (Beers and mine) plate….

For example, the Producer of Assalti Frontali wanted to hand out some CDs with beats to the workshop participants, resulting in me and beer having to burn 10 CDs in like an hour while still having to do our own work at the same time, sometimes I feel people forget we’re actually doing a lot of work…

I’ve been working at the SABC studios a lot, in room C4B in case you’re wondering, it’s a radio studio booth, with Mics and Headphones, Padded walls, soundproof glass through which you can see the Radio Studio, and double doors. I don’t like being in that place because it’s near the ocean, and knowing that without there being a window for me to look out of, simply sucks…

The artists have recorded 1 song so far, and today they’ll have to do 2 more, the song they made isnt something I like, but I believe the quality is pretty high. The Italian rapper has a little too much energy for me, he’s funny but sometimes I’m just done with it…

Today I start work on the final episode of South Africa 1, which should be done and online on sunday… after that I think there might be a free day, I dunno what I wanna do yet, but if anybody who’s been to capetown has any good suggestions, let me know…

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sooo after we arrived in Capetown me and Beer somehow managed to free up a day (an afternoon) so he could go surf, and I could climb the mountain I see when I talk out of the door of the house each morning, It’s not table mountain, it’s 1 of the peaks next to it, it might be called “devils peak” but I’m not sure.

So at 11:30AM or so I was finally ready to go, I had packed everything I needed (first aid, photo camera and video camera). I walked down the street to the Kwik Spar or whatever the grocery store is called, and got some Water, Coke, Orange Juice, Mars bars and some other snacks, I felt like I had everything I needed so I headed straight to the mountain.

After walking for a bit there was this huge hospital (good to know in case something would happen) followed by a lot of fences and 2 big busy roads which I couldn’t cross. So I started walking a different direction, following the road, hoping I could cross it somewhere. I walked passed the Capetown University and through a not so safe looking part of town (which you can estimate by the amount of drunken people on the streets before noon). After a good hour of walking the wrong direction I finally managed to cross the road, there was this strange dutch mill at the start of the crossing, which felt really out of place.

After walking up hill for about 20 minutes (through a pine tree forest, which smelled like you’d expect it to) I realised how sick I was, there was slime everywhere and I started to think about going back because at the speed I was walking/climbing and with all the slime I started to get trouble breathing. So I stopped… for a while… and drank some water… I found out that the water I had got at the grocery store wasn’t water at all, it was honey mellon flavoured water, gross… but I had no choice, I had to drink it…

I decided to keep going and soon after starting to walk again I had to stop because of a big fence that was in my way, I followed the fence uphill and it soon ended. There were 2 african men chilling under a dead tree (there were a lot of burned down and fallen down trees) and for a moment I got worried about the equipment in my bag and what could happen. but nothing happened, and I continued.

From that point on “nature” really started, lots of small bushes, and small plants with spikes/thorns, there were a lot of different smells around, and a lot of birds and small lizards shooting under rocks and dead trees. at first there was just 1 small path uphill but later on looking down I noticed there were lots of bigger paths all over the place, and it looked like the path I was on was the steepest of them all.

After another hour of walking I came across an old fort, with a bunch of old cannons, the fun thing was that the fort was covered in radio antennas and satelite dishes, I looked at the view for a while, had a snack and took some pictures. you could see the whole city and the coast with the harbour.

I spend most of the day walking around on that mountain, over small man made paths and stairs, and managed to get from 1 side to the other, from where I could see table mountain and the carpet of clouds flowing over the top, which looked pretty impressive.

I had to hurry back because it was getting late, and I got home just before dark, everything was fine and I felt like I had a great day, even though there wasnt a single muscle in my body that didn’t hurt

Tags: South Africa by Frank
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