Deserts and desserts

Hello again!! Here I am in the library writing this because I got bored of trying to take a nap. People always nap in the library here it’s honestly inspiring. That may be the ONE thing UCT has going for it.

Hmm I can’t really think of anything to write about from this week nothing weird or out of the ordinary happened...JK GOTCHYA I sure do have stuff to talk about because Afrikaburn.

I think Afrikaburn wiped out my memory because I kinda can’t remember anything before it. I think I went for ice cream a couple times. Oh yeah I got a DANK bagel with Jen and Jham on Wednesday. Like we decided it’s definitely the best bagel in Cape Town. For all my CT people reading this it’s called Max’s Bagels and it’s on Bree St and it’s a game changer. OMG DUH how could I forget we had an incredibly eventful night on Wednesday! I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to write about it but basically for Elena’s birthday we went to this place called Beefcakes that’s kinda like a reverse Hooters. Like mostly women and gay men go there to eat and the waiters are hot bulky guys. Ours was named Vinchenso or something like that. When he first told me I tried to repeat it back to him and was like “Vincheesiel?” like Vin Diesel but with a Ch. He really got a kick out of that but I was serious. There was also a drag show that night which was fun as heck. Anyway I’m not really sure what to say about it we got really yummy drinks and Elena got a little wild and the night went from 0 to 100 real quick and I think that’s all I’m gonna say about it.

Oh and Jham was super being Elena’s counselor so I posted a jokey top 5 post on her wall and it got 30 likes including from THE adam sprinkles broms so that was an exciting development!

Wait Wednesday was so busy I’m stressed thinking about it now I did so much I also shopped for Afrikaburn food and literally ended up preparing for the apocalypse like whenever I’d see a can that’d be good to bring I’d just grab like 3 of them. So now I have a lot of canned fruit to eat. I also went shopping for Afrikaburn clothes with Maddie and like wtf there’s no cheapy trashy mall stores here it sucks. Their H&M is expensive as heck!! Never thought I’d say it but I miss Forever 21 and Love Culture. Mostly though I just miss TJmaxx and Marshalls. RIP sweet deals in South Africa. But I ended up getting a couple good items that I can hopefully rewear so it’s not a waste of money. Good news is I’m going to camp this summer so I can def get use out of things that I’d never actually wear in the real world.

Ok so then on Thursday morning we got driven to the middle of the desert in a big bus and thus started our Afrikaburn experience! I guess I should give some background on Afrikaburn. Ok so it’s basically a regional version of Burning Man. It’s a bunch of people camping in the desert in a “pop up town” so its like a huuuuuge “town” in the desert that doesn’t exist otherwise it’s wild! It’s v hippy but in a different way than reforest fest. Reforest was very hippy in that they were all super passionate about the environment and disconnecting and stuff but Afrikaburn is more like be whoever the heck you want and do whatever the heck you want and don’t care what anyone thinks. It’s also really focused on giving so it’s a gifting economy which means there’s no money. People give out stuff for free with no expectations of receiving anything in return.  The whole thing is set up like a clock, so the main tents are set up in a semi circle and you can walk around it to see what’s up. Sorry ugh this is gonna be hard to describe cuz it’s just so weird and unique. Like different tents had different purposes but a lot of them were just set up with bean bag chairs and mattresses and stuff for people to chill on. But then there’s a body painting tent and a tent that plays movies (s/o Sweet Love Cinema) and a tent that makes pancakes for people and a tent that gives out coffee. There’s one station where people shower naked communally and there’s just a huge line of naked people chilling outside of it. And then a lot of tents chill until night when they turn into a club. Also there are cars dressed up elaborately that just ride around. Also there’s huge wooden art structure things that get burnt down at night and everyone watches it like we’re in a cult. It’s a lot. The best I can describe it is like a week long adult carnival. At night everything lights up and it actually looks like a carnival (if carnivals were friggin huge and spread out and there was no money).

Mostly though the thing that struck me the most was how beautiful and remote it was. Anywhere you looked it was just desert with a faint outline of mountains in the distance. There was nothing obstructing the stars and nothing obstructing the sunset - just pure nature and vastness.

You have to provide everything for yourself, so we brought all of our water and food and utensils and stuff for ourselves. The company we came with provided tents and a gas stove. We ate dinner when we arrived (i had a lovely meal of canned spaghetti and tomato sauce) and chilled for a little before heading into the main area. These 2 men wearing weird stuff came over to us (oh yeah this was maybe implied but i forgot to mention that people wear really crazy stuff) and started chatting us up. We told them that Rachel doesn’t like physical affection so they both went over and sandwiched her in a hug. Half great and funny and half violation of personal space and consent but I think Rachel is ok so no harm no foul!!

So yeah then we went into the main area and I was wearing like 4 layers bc it was heckin freezing and tbh I just wasn’t really feeling it like it was all weird techno clubbing vibes and even tho #abroadchangedme a little bit i still don’t like that so it was a no from me. And then Liv had a headache so after like an hour and a half we were like ok we’re good for the night. And we started heading back even tho we were disoriented as frick and we were deep in conversation when a man in a onesie came up next to us and was like HELLO! And I was like I love your onesie and he was like take it i don’t need it! And i was like wait no please keep it. And we started chatting and he asked us what we were studying and we learned that he was from Malawi and he either did not speak English very well or was on some strong stuff bc he was really babbling incoherently for awhile. And then we started to try to get out of the situation and were like ok well we’re gonna go back and he was like no come with me or like where’s your campsite and finally Liv had to be like “listen John it was nice meeting you but we’re gonna go back by ourselves now”. And THEN and I am NOT KIDDING ABOUT THIS John pats my stomach through my big sweatshirt and says “you look pregnant!” Listen I know maybe it’s a cultural thing but I can't imagine that it’s socially acceptable in ANY culture to tell someone they look pregnant so John I can’t give you a free pass on that one. I was like yep ok I’m done for the night and informed John that that is not a good way to develop a friendship and we finally got him to walk the other way. In conclusion, I am not a fan of John.

We went to bed and I was like frick I think I’m gonna hate Afrikaburn and i started thinking about this blog and how I was gonna name this installment “Afrikaburn: I tried” and braced myself for some tuff next couple days.

But good news, Afrikaburn is a lot better during the day. We woke up around 8 on Friday and had breakfast outside our tent, then we got dressed and were on our way. We tried to stop at the pancake tent but they had stopped serving pancakes (sad) and then we tried to stop at another pancake tent but they ran out when we were in line (sad) the cappuccino tent but they stopped serving cappuccino RIGHT before our time (sad). So the day was off to a pretty underwhelming start. But then we sat down at the coffee place and a nice man named Joe came up and did the most iNSANE magic trick for us and it really turned the day around I think. Like literally I had 5 cards in my hand and then I rubbed them together and had 4 i SWEAR it was friggin wild thank you Joe!!!

Then we started found a place giving out popsicles and finally they didn’t run out right before us! But then we lost Amanda and Liv and Alicia who went to the bathroom but then we found them and Liv had gone topless!!! She is so cool and free and body positive and awesome!! And then Alicia did it too!! Wow I have cool friends!!

I have no idea what we did for the rest of the morning but then we went back to the campsite for lunch and then I tried to take a nap in the tent but bad news bears my tent gave me ALLERGIES. So then I went to chill in the hammocks with Amanda and Jen. And we got gifted really cool sunglasses! I love gifting economies! And we talked about raising kids with Jewish values bc what better topic for hammocking at Afrikaburn??!!

And thennnnn uhhhhh what we did we do oh yeah then we drummed for a little and then we went to Kabbalat Shabbat! That was funny. A family that Rachel stayed with once for Shabbat in Cape Town hosts a Shabbat dinner every year at Afrikaburn. It started out as Kabbalat Shabbat and then just ended up being any Jewish song that lots of people knew. Like literally sang a passover song and henei matov and called it a day. And then dinner yay!

We ended up separating after that bc Alicia and Liv made some Israeli friends (they’re great at making friends) and Amanda and Jen went back to hang w them but Rachel and I decided to stay back and spend time in the Sweet Love Cinema. Ok the Sweet Love Cinema is my second home no joke. They have a million super comfy long red bean bag thingies and they play family movies every night and that is my SCENE. We got there right in time for the start of Sound Of Music which weirdly I had never seen!! Idk why my parents never showed us it I guess we’re just an uncultured family huh!! I got really mad when we got back because I discovered that Julie Andrews never got an oscar for her performance for it wtf!!! #JulieAndrewsWasSnubbed get it trending. But yeah wow I super enjoyed the first hour of it that I got to see! But then I had to pee and had to search for a bathroom for like 20 mins bc dark and then on my way back I saw that nobody was out and there was a big fire in the distance so i was like RACHEL WE’RE MISSING THE BURN WE GOTTA GO!

So we started walking toward the burn and the big structure being burned collapsed while we were walking so we kinda missed it and that sucked. And then once we got there everyone was standing up and that also sucked because 1) I love sitting hate standing 2) I couldn’t see anything. So the next few minutes mostly consisted of me screaming WHY CAN’T EVERYONE JUST SIT DOWN and Rachel being my mom trying to push me through the crowd to get me a better view. Rachel’s the best mom. Finally we got to sit down in the front and THEN this crazy thing happened where people started running naked around the fire! At this point I was so acquainted with naked bodies I wasn’t even phased. It was wild I admit I really enjoyed watching that craziness. An interesting observation is even for how great and body positive it was, the vast majority of people doing it were super skinny with small boobs so just a good reminder to be inclusive in the free the nipple movement and not only accept the nudity that people may find more attractive! Wow my blog has really gone off the rails huh.

Ummm what happened after that oh yeah Rachel and I tried to find the location of the next burn but nobody was really able to tell us where it was happening so we wandered in the freezing cold for an hour which I didn’t love. But yeah then we found it and watched it and when the people started naked dancing again we were like ok been there seen that i think it’s bedtime. So we were walking back to our tent and then this crazy thing happened where Rachel heard Amanda’s voice and we were like AMANDA??? And we found Amanda and Jen!!! We ran into each other’s arms because it had been a whole 4 hours and we thought we were never gonna see each other again!

Then we went to sleep and I gotta say I like camping but a tough thing about camping for me is that I always have to pee in the middle of the night and doing that while camping is not a cute time. That’s all I’ll say about that. But that was day 1.

The next morning we woke up and FINALLY got our pancakes and they were amaaaazeballs. Pancakes here are like thick crepes basically. And you usually put nutella or cinnamon sugar or peanut butter on it and roll it. While we were waiting in line, there were these 3 people doing some interpretive dance with each other for literally 25 mins straight. Like not an exaggeration. Just in each other’s faces waving their arms silently in a very serious manner for 25 mins at 8:30am. That’s the stuff I love.

A nice Israeli man sat down next to us while we were eating! There were a lot of Israelis at Afrikaburn. Rachel aka the queen of bageling had a really fun time deciding/discovering from afar that people were Israeli and then bombarding them with talking Hebrew. Like she’d hear other people talking Hebrew to each other and then come over like “atem m’yisrael?” Haha one time a guy had his name written in Hebrew on his arm and Rachel tried to bagel him with Hebrew and he was like what no I’m from Brazil someone just wrote this on me.

I was super feeling myself with my outfit this day so all my pictures from it look like I’m literally obsessed with myself but oH WeLL it’s afrikaburn we don’t give a hoot!! We headed out and I think we chilled on the hammocks for a little? No we went to the treehouse? Shoot I literally have no idea. I just know we took a lot of pictures. And at some point they were playing Uptown Funk in a tent and i was soooo happy. I friggin LOVE Uptown Funk idc what anyone says it never gets old. We saw Maddie and friends and hung w them for a little and she started going off on her weird obsession with zodiac signs and started telling all of my friends they’re psychopaths bc they’re Geminis okkkkkkayyy maddie solid way to make friends.

At some point we went back to the tents for lunch and I inhaled some bread and tuna and avocado and then we went to nap in a comfy tent. And then when we woke up I was like ok we need to find the massage tent and tarot card reading tent right now. We couldn’t find the massage tent which friggin sucked bc obviously it sucked and the tarot card reading tent was closed so thanks for NOTHING Afrikaburn! But then we actually found another woman who did tarot card readings! It was actually really interesting she told me to ask a question that she’d answer with the cards so I asked “what should I choose for my career?” And I shuffled the deck of cards and she took the 2 top ones and said one of them would represent the positive influences on the answer/decision and one would represent the negative influences. And it was really weirdly appropriate! The positive one was a card that represented intellectualism, art, curiosity, maturity and the negative one represented money, business, banking. So no earth shattering discoveries but interesting that the cards worked so well for my question!

Then what uhhhhh I think we then went to watch the sunset which was UNfrigginREAL like WOW and OH YEAH we came across a wedding in a structure like 2 people legit got married!! But yeah sky was straight pink and we could see the horizon all around and I never wanted it to end but also I was hungry and we were chasing the clock on the next burn so oh well buh bye sunset!!

I ate ramen for dinner like cup o noodles type ramen and I can’t believe how much I love that stuff. It ALWAYS hits the spot ALWAYS. I love it so much more than legit ramen I’m so sorry @japan. Also at some point I had to pee so I got up from sitting and Rachel said “Hannah do you have to go to the bathroom?” and i said yeah and she said “I knew because Hannah only gets up from sitting when she has a good reason”. OK RACHEL OK. People took a lot of swings at me this weekend lemme tell you.

And then we ran to the next burn and it was fine but I couldn’t really see anything what else is new. Also a man told us when we got there that it was a silent burn so we were like ooooh ok sorry and got quiet but I couldn’t see anything so I was just standing silently watching smoke which isn’t the most exciting thing I’ve ever done ngl. And these dumb men kept breaking the silence to do this wolf howling thing and everyone was violently like SHHHHHHH. Then we went to mY HOME THE SWEET LOVE CINEMA but I have TERRIBLE NEWS and it is that the Sweet Love Cinema was playing a boring documentary about Afrikaburn which was not what I signed up for. But we were just there until the next burn at 10. So we sat there until 9:45 and then walked to the next burn and the greatest thing ever happened. Obviously when we got there everyone was standing obnoxiously so nobody could see. And as I was complaining for the 100th time, these girls behind us started yelling EVERYBODY SIT DOWN!!! ONE, TWO, THREE, SIT DOWN!! And we were like omg you guys are our heroes so we all started singing PLEASE SIT DOWWWWNNNN, PLEASE SIT DOWWWNNNN and no joke we got an entire crowd of people to sit down. It was a real happy moment. Ok but then the burn was a heckin conspiracy because it just would not burn and firemen had to come in and take a chainsaw to the structure and we sat there watching a glorified campfire not burn a structure for like an hour and then we were like ok time to go. So we went back and slept and that was the end of day 2!

We didn’t really do anything on Sunday, just woke up and ate breakfast in our chairs and chatted before packing our stuff up. That’s when the funniest joke of the weekend happened when Jen seriously said that she’s not Type A HAHHAHAHA ily Jen my glaringly type A friend girly!! Then we packed up and left bye Afrikaburn!! You were real you were fun and you were sometimes real fun and sometimes just real weird but glad I met ya!! I wouldn’t say the experience was the best of my life or 100% my kind of thing but it was def something I’ll remember and I’m happy it happened. Except now all my stuff is covered in dirt and I don’t super love that.

When we got home we were like GOOD FOOD NOW so we got Asoka and yep you guessed it Unframed ice cream!!

Monday was stupid I have nothing to say about it. Had some good pesto pasta at Cocoah Wah Wah and went to the gym for the first time in like 2 months woohoo

Yesterday we had off of school for a public holiday, so apartment minus Liv rented a car and drove around outskirts of Cape Town. Our first stop was Hout’s Bay. We walked around a bit and some bucket hat drama happened where we didn’t get the colors we wanted and it was real sad but it all worked out in the end. Then we had fish n chips which Alicia had been wanting for months and when we got there she literally started chanting FISH, AND, CHIPS! FISH, AND, CHIPS! It’s funny bc Alicia acts like she’s so chill and we’re all not but sometimes she is very not chill such as the time she was chanting fish and chips.

Then we drove Chapman’s Peak which is this super scenic drive literally on the side of a mountain it’s wild as heck. We kept driving to Cape of Good Hope and drove like 45 mins only to discover that it was like $12 to get in when all it really is is a sign so we were like nah not worth it. So glad my friends are as frugal as I am. So we drove back into Simon’s Town which is this super quaint area and walked around shops. And one of the shops had so many candles!!!! Put me in a shop with candles and I can entertain myself for hours. We went to this bakery that Rebecca said she heard was the best bakery in Cape Town and I’m just gonna say it it definitely was not the best bakery in Cape Town. But it’s ok. Then we drove back. Rachel was great at driving thanks Rachel!! Rachel is also super funny and generous and giving and wonderful and I love her a lot just wanted to say that too!!!

For dinner we got poke and it was REALLY YUMMY POKE and I was so happy bc I have really been missing Poke Loa in my life. And then yeah you guessed it we went to Unframed ok i KNOW we have a problem but it’s only bc we didn’t have ice cream for the first 2 months I was here so once we discovered it I felt like I had to make up for those 2 months uk??? But I made a big mistake with my flavor choice. I got lemon lime basil sorbet which is so good for a couple bites but then it’s hard to eat a lot of. So I kinda sulked the whole time. I suck so much lol

And then I went home and lit a candle and watched the new John Mulaney special which YAY JOHN MULANEY and now we’re back to stoopid school again. I’m currently very much wishing I was home because my cousin had a baby and it’s the first family baby and he’s so smushy and I wish I could meet him! It’s ok to be homesick sometimes!

Hmm I’m not really sure how to end this. How is it May idk even!! I guess time flies when you’re doing the most awesome stuff ever in the most awesome city ever :/ until next time!