shitona stick
Cousin Kim in South Africa (cont'd)
10/12/1999
Once again, Cape Town refuses to disappoint me. This morning, after a very early breakfast at the hotel buffet, Angela and I decided to explore the city before our meetings. The buffet was filled with all types of fruits I have yet to see in any country I have traveled to, and weird meat minces, which I am finding out are some bizarre type of monkey gland brew. Yes, monkey gland minces.
Despite advances in the abolition of apartheid, every service worker I have seen here is black, and they are very anxious to remove your plate the minute you put your fork down, finished or not. We then walked around the city exploring some of the market places. At risk of wanting to buy everything I saw, I decided to make my list, check it twice, and then decide later in the week. The crafts are amazing, beads, jewelry, masks, clothing, paintings, woodcarvings, all sorts of bizarro curios.
Then it was on to the lectures. Our first lecture was bringing spirituality into cyberspace. It was basically futile as it applied mainly to the setting up of web sites, but the most interesting thing about it was the students. In the front row, we had two of the strangest looking white people I had ever seen. The woman was dressed in a Wal-Mart bought Cleopatra outfit, complete with Sally beauty supply ogelvie blonde perm and looks like a pump feels like a sneaker shoes. She had a crown on with a plastic snake coming out the front of her forehead in custom with Cleopatra's supposed third eye snake that struck and killed anyone who lied to her, as depicted in the ancient Egyptian wall carvings.
This woman's counterpart, a Mormon looking anemic dirty blonde, in a caeser-esque toga looking thing, carrying a staff with a huge white plume at the end that reminded me of those cheesy made to look Renaissance pens. They sat in the front row and talked of their ancient Egyptian religion and their practices. To each his own. Then, just as the professor was getting excited about his mouse pad and modem, in walks Reverend Pat, as I will call him/her/it. Dressed in brown monk like robes, complete with shaved head and prayer beads, this monk had a very high voice and what appeared to be cloaked breasts. Of course, it sat next to me and coughed through a hello and an attempted handshake.
I squinted to see its nametag to figure out what it was, but to no avail. It interrupted through the entire lecture about it's prowess on the Internet and all I could think of was it in some type of chat room for teenage nympho girls who are HOT4U. Scary. After the lecture we made it across the amphitheater where hundreds of hippies were being led through a meditation, which of course I had no clue what was going on and walked right in the middle and demanded to know why everyone was tilting their heads in the same direction. The next lecture was on Moral development in a pluralistic society. It was fascinating despite the woman I will call an uptight Mrs. Roper (Three's Company pop culture reference) from Wisconsin wearing a plastic bonnet constantly interrupting the lecturer with sophomoric questions concerning Her Lord.
Then on to a few other uneventful lectures and back to the hotel. Waiting for the cab we were accosted with the Jesus tabernacle choir sitting on the lawn directly out of some Billy Jack film singing about the love of Jesus and strumming on guitars. After walking around again, I was too tired for any more doings and decided to call it a night. A beautiful sunset over Table Mountain and I am ready for bed. Looking For Mr. Goodbar is my bedtime story on South African TV and it makes me miss Miami Beach. Don't you just love Diane Keaton in dingo boots? Tomorrow is another long day and I wish everyone the best back home wherever you are. Kisses Kimberly
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