MMMBeki! Ba, Bou, Doo, Dop!

Where to begin?
It's been a while, and I'm sorry about that. Between hectic-ness, nothing to update, and lack of time, I have not been the dedicated blogger the world deserves.


First, let's talk politics.
South African history is being made. About ten years ago, there was a gigantic arms deal involving lots of Top People in government, including ANC president Jacob Zuma and South Africa's first post-Mandela president, Thabo Mbeki. (The ANC is the African National Congress, South Africa's majority party to which both Zuma and Mbeki belong.) Both Zuma and Mbeki have been involved in corruption charges that have gone to trial. Zuma's trial finished just this month and he was found not guilty. There are obvious, pink elephant-sized questions about his innocence, since a great number of Zuma's supporters threatened to incite civil war and large scale violence if he were found guilty. It obviously wasn't worth the bloodshed to send him to prison.

With Zuma's innocence officialized (is that a word?), several government factions next set their sights on Mbeki. This is where I get confused, but basically the ANC had a meeting last Friday to decide whether or not Mbeki should be president. And they decided to recall him, or in more basic terms, to fire the country's president. Mbeki then chose rather to "resign". It took a weekend to sort out who would be the acting president. First, it was Speaker of the House, who would have been South Africa's first female president, but she resigned along with Mbeki. In fact, FOURTEEN ministers loyal to Mbeki handed in their resignations (that's more than 1/3 of the cabinet). Among the ministers who resigned was Trevor Manuel, the minister of finance. The rand (South African currency) crashed briefly, then strengthened, weakened again, strengthened, etc., throughout the course of the afternoon, until Manuel was asked to retain his post and agreed.

So the president is out, the temporary president is in, cabinet is shuffled up, and Zuma is set to be elected as president come scheduled elections in March (unless they call early elections to deal with the political crisis).

Imagine this in the States. The Republican Party fires George Bush, they put somebody like Rudy Guiliani in temporarily, McCain is guaranteed the presidency next year, the secretary of state, treasury, defense, and attorney general (among several others) all resign, and the dollar goes up and down by the minute. This is history, people!


What else, what else?
I made it out to Kirstenbosch Gardens, which is one of the most renowned gardens in the world. It was like Meijer Gardens to the 1000th power. It has this crazy view of the mountains and is absolutely enormous. The tracheostomy sister I work for used to have a house IN Kirstenbosch because her stepfather was the director!

I also had some more animal sightings. I saw a whale JUMPING out of the water. From afar, yes, but as someone who has barely even seen a whale before, it was REALLY cool to see. They are huge. I had a staring contest with a seal (it won). And then we were able to get fresh yellowtail fish that had JUST come out of the bay. Yummmmm...

Wednesday was a public holiday: Heritage Day. I'm not quite sure how to celebrate heritage (as opposed to the easy holidays like President's Day). Anyway, it was also South African National Braai Day. If you remember, a braai is just a barbeque, and it's what South Africans are good at. I stuffed myself into a delicious oblivion.


Unfortunately, I made the poor decision to get sick. I'm stranded in bed for a few days with sinusitus and a fever. Lots of Groundhog Day, 7-Up, and shortbread. The doctor said that the fauna on the mountain goes pollen crazy and all of it sweeps down into the city. Apparently if you haven't lived in Cape Town for awhile, you're doomed.

I just recently hit the halfway mark of time here. I know the remaining time is going to go sooo fast. Hopefully the weather will improve (it's been cold and wet forever) and I can hit up all the things I want to do before I go. I'll be a much better blogger from now on, even if there's nothing to report!

Cheers,
Erin