Superdog

The Daily Voice, Cape Town's always entertaining tabloid, devoted nearly three whole pages yesterday to a story about a dog who saved its owner from being beaten by her husband. They've dubbed the little mutt "Superdog."

This is the text of the teaser that ran on the front page:

Meet Ouma the Superdog.

This feisty bitch saved Christmas and her owner's life.

She took on a man many times her own size to rescue Carol Isaacs.

Ouma jumped into action when Emilio Isaacs tried to stab Carol to death.

Carol says: "She jumped on him, bit his neck and wouldn't let go. She only let go when he dropped the knife."

The canine crusader then stood guard to make sure Emilio did not get near Carol.

Because of Ouma's dogged determination, Emilio fled with his tail between his legs.

Carol says: "She saved my life. She's my hero."

The story on the inside refers to Ouma as "the Super Bitch," and says that she left Emilio "bloodied and licking his wounds," and with his "ego between his legs."

And there's this: "After biting Emilio into submission, the madman upped and fled the house howling in terror."

You can click each picture for a close-up of the page.

If further evidence was needed that this was not like the sort of journalism I might have found back home, there is also a lengthy and graphic first person narrative in the middle of the story by Carol describing in detail how her husband sexually assaulted her. And there's a much deserved rant by her against the police--and a bit from a woman who runs a domestic violence center--for failing time and time again to protect her from her estranged husband.

You'd think that something of such a serious and disturbing nature wouldn't really fit into the same story as a picture of a flying dog in a Superman cape. You might think that there's a place for humor, and this isn't it. And you might suspect that the woman depicted in the story would have a major problem with the article if something like that did happen.

But you'd be wrong.

Heading North

Katie and I took a little road trip in the two days before Christmas. Due to a little problem I had with an expiring visa, I had to leave South Africa and re-enter the country to get a new one. So we took a casual little drive up to Namibia on Friday, and came back on Saturday.

I didn't have high hopes for this trip. It was a necessity, not a luxury. We were told by everyone who knew the drive that it was beautiful, but I guess I was a little skeptical. The road up to Namibia, after all, is the major North-South artery connecting Cape Town and Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. I imagined the road would be like I-5 from L.A. to San Francisco, or I-95 from D.C. to New York. I was prepared for traffic jams and eight-lane freeways, for holiday traffic and backups at the gas pumps at the Vince Lombardi Rest Stop.

I was not prepared for this:



There wasn't even a line down the middle of the road.

The scenery was like one long and wonderful nature film, moving from beautiful wine regions just north of Cape Town to the jagged Cederberg Mountains to a series of plateaus to increasingly more arid tableaus that were fascinating for their vast emptiness. There were some tiny little towns and some interesting place names, like Vwfmylpoort, a mountain pass described in our Rough Guide as "scrabble-winning." At one point right before the border, we drove through a series of hills--or, more accurately, gigantic rock piles--that looked like they had been swept up by giants. Then we came down a slope to the Orange River and the border post, and after a brief stop, back out into an even more expansive semi-desert on the edges of the Kalahari that was unlike anything we'd ever seen before.

And there was adventure along the way, as well. At one point, with Katie asleep in the passenger seat, I saw three mid-sized trucks approaching. And as the first one passed us, I saw the back of the third one tip. Even as the first two trucks kept going toward the horizon, I saw the last truck head off the road into a shallow gully, and land on its side in a gigantic pile of dust.

This happened about an hour and a half into the trip, and about 8 a.m. So we weren't too far out into the wilderness. There happened to be a small town nearby, and some kids were out on the road and saw the whole thing happen. So as I am pulling off the road, these kids in grungy t-shirts are already running toward the truck. When I get there, the first of what turned out to be three occupants of the cab is standing on the side--now the top--of the truck and reaching down to help the second guy out. They assure me everyone is okay. Petrol is leaking out of the chassis. I offer the use of my cell phone. They think that's a great idea.

Katie has already fished the phone out of our bags when I get back to the car, and we walk over there just as the third guy gets out of the truck rubbing his shoulder. They call their boss and have a conversation in Afrikaans while the local kids sort of mill around underfoot. This was clearly the most exciting thing that was going to happen on this particular stretch of the road today, so they were in no hurry to go anywhere.

But in the end, there wasn't much we could do. They arranged for someone to come and help them, and assured us they would be fine. And with their truck's wheels still spinning idly and with petrol dripping slowly onto the dirt, we wished them well and went on our merry way.

The drive up to the tiny town where we had booked a hotel took eleven hours. That was a lot of time in the car, and certainly by the end we were very ready to get there. But our glimpse at southern Namibia made us anxious to get back when Katie is done with her studies. We want to spend more time on the Orange River, and see the Fish River Canyon, the Namib desert and the silver sands of Etosha National Park.

And the drive proved something else: Swamp Thing is up to the job. Our little beater of a car didn't complain once as we headed off into the desert. The temperature gauge didn't waver as we sped along at 80 miles and hour in the 100 degree heat.

The pictures we took--most of them by Katie from the car window--don't really capture the expansiveness of the scenery. But you can take a look here.

This one of our car's shadow, taken at around 6:30 a.m. as the sun was just coming up, is my favorite.



The kicker to the story is a little bit of a downer: usually, the South African government gives out 90 day visas to all and sundry. That would have been perfect, since we plan to fly to London on March 24. But the Home Affairs official who got my passport was in a very grumpy mood and didn't understand a particular piece of paper I had that showed why I didn't need to show my departing plane ticket (there's another long story to do with that, but it's for another time). So this power-tripping functionary told me that she was only giving me a 30 day visa. I may have to do the whole thing over again in a month.

Apartheid Wounds

It's been a busy few weeks. And I have another article in Newsday today to show for it.

The story is pegged to the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was a body set up soon after the first democratic elections in South Africa to attempt to uncover some of the atrocities committed by the apartheid government and the people fighting against them.

The most interesting part of the story was when I was able to interview Alex Boraine, who was the deputy commissioner of the TRC, and one of those who had laid the groundwork for some sort of body of this sort for many years beforehand. And the most surprising part of my reporting was what he told me: he and others really think the government had hurt the process of reconciliation.

I was set to write a feel-good story about the legacy of the commission, but ended up with something a little darker.

Spilling the Secret

I had a travel story about Cape Town in today's Newsday. The full story is here, but below is an excerpt that I've annotated with links to some of our earlier posts on this site...

The beauty of a trip to Cape Town is, you get lots of credit for going to Africa, for heading all the way around the world, for supposedly risking life, limb and malaria, and you're still never more than five minutes from the nearest world-class day spa.

The availability of such high-quality pampering should be the first clue that life for tourists is not hard here. On the contrary, life is incredibly easy. The city is absolutely lovely, the food fantastic and the local wines superb. But that doesn't mean you have to let your friends and relatives in on the secret.

The only people I've clued in to Cape Town's easy living - and I've been living here since March - are the ones who have visited. We've taken a blood oath to keep the secret. They return home and go on about how they had to rough it, without mentioning the friendly people, cosmopolitan ambiance or world-class restaurants, and then they throw in a sympathetic word to our mutual associates about the hardships I'm enduring.

Among the hardships: the spectacular view from the top of Table Mountain, the ocean of blooming proteas at the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden and a half-dozen quaint beach towns just minutes away.

If you come, I ask that you please continue this tradition. Certainly don't tell anyone about the incredibly civilized South African tradition called the "sundowner," wherein friends gather on the nearest beach or balcony and greet the sunset with a raised cocktail or glass of wine.

Instead, when you've polished off that cocktail, pull out those postcards with big lions on the front - the ones you purchased earlier in the day at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, the city's classy shopping area by the harbor - and jot down a quick note that plays on whatever misconceptions your friends and relatives might have about this corner of the globe: "Help," you might write. "Surrounded by wild animals and/or carjackers. Running out of food. Send help ASAP."

And then go shopping.

Thar She Blows

It's probably downright rude for us to be complaining about the weather here in Cape Town, seeing as its generally about 80 degrees Fahrenheit here and the Northeast U.S. got an early taste of snow these last few days.

But, seriously, take a look at this forecast.



Yes, those identical pictures that provide nice little graphical representations of what the weather will be for today and the whole of this week aren't little sunbeams. They're swirling wind gusts.

As in, batten down the hatches, baby. It's blustery out there.

This is apparently a typical forecast for Cape Town in the summer. As a friend told us recently: "The wind blows so much that eventually it just drives you crazy."

And then she made a cukoo face to make it clear that she was already halfway there.

In the News

There were some great stories to come out of South Africa in the past week or so...

The entire country has rallied to the cause of Kabelo Thibedi, a hapless, unemployed guy who snapped in the Home Affairs office on Wednesday. Home Affairs is responsible for issuing everyone's ID booklets, which are as essential as having a Social Security number in the states. And Thibedi had been waiting for two years for his.

When he waited in another long line on Tuesday only to be told that his ID book still wasn't ready, it was the last straw. He came back on Wednesday with a toy gun and used it to take a Home Affairs supervisor hostage. When the police came, he had only one demand: just bring me my freakin' ID book.

So they did. It took them six hours to process it and fly it up from Pretoria by helicopter, but they got him his ID book.

While he was waiting, Thibedi did a lengthy phone interview with a radio station in which he explained the many jobs he had been offered and was unable to take because he didn't have his ID book.

Of course, when they delivered the ID book, it was part of a ploy to capture him and end the standoff. He was arrested, but he's now out on bail and it seems like half the country wants to pitch in to pay for his legal defense. He's quickly becoming a folk hero. Read a few stories about him here and here.

In other news, this is the third year of the South African version of American Idols (or should I say, of the South African version of Pop Idol, since we ripped off the British too?). This year was the first time that a non-white person won. She's a former apple picker from the Cape Town area. Now she's got a big recording contract and she's rushing to apply for a passport because her new label wants to take her act overseas. Click here to read her story.

Lastly, there was an incident in our neighborhood on the night of Halloween where several kids got shot, drive-by style, by someone armed with a paintball gun. One kid got hit in the chin at point-blank range. Now they've found and arrested the culprit, and it turns out he's a man of the cloth...of sorts.

That is, he's a minister who is also a furious opponent of gun control and who has gotten in trouble for smuggling guns into countries where there are coups in progress. The paintball thing was his way of protesting against the pagan origins of Halloween.

And his kids were the shooters, apparently. He says they were the ones armed with the paintball guns.