Day 83: Beach and a Babysitter!
Today was Friday, and we decided to have a relaxing day. That sounds ridiculous for people in our current position to say, we realize. After breakfast and school, we walked to the beach nearby with a fully packed lunch picnic prepared by the hotel.
Do we feel absurd having two hotel workers walk ahead of us carrying picnic baskets of gourmet lunch and all our chairs and umbrellas? Yes, yes we do. Totally.
The beach near us is pretty empty, huge and kid-friendly. We read our kindles while the kids made a sand castle and played in the waves. Willa got a sunburn.
A Jehovah’s Witness in a white button-down named Bilson came over and chatted us up. When he realized we weren’t going to convert (“I appreciate what you’re doing man but it’s not for us.” – Teddy), he asked if he could say a prayer for us. Crouched there in the sand and prayed for our family which was honestly kind of nice.
Around 3 we headed back up because …a babysitter was coming at 3:15!! Miranda, the hotel’s executive housekeeper and local mom of three, showed up to play with our nerds while we got a massage. Truly over the top indulgent and heavenly.
We need to get more babysitters because our children are starving for human contact. She’d barely walked in the door before they were clawing at her to tell her all our trip stories, teach her how to play their card games and show her every single item in their meager toy bag.
They barely noticed when we walked out the door, and they’re usually kind of sad/clingy with new sitters.
A 90-minute massage for $68? Ok!! It was lovely.
We came back to the room and showered for an early date-night dinner down the road at The Fat Fish. Our reappearance and re-disappearance barely registered with the kids, who were so in love with Miranda.
On the way to the restaurant, I ran in to pick up our wash and fold. So luxurious! So CHEAP!
The Fat Fish was good. I got a parmesan/chili crusted white fish that wasn’t too spicy but instead had a perfect kick — or, as our waiter said, “just a little tap on the shoulder.”
Given the white, white, white crowd in the restaurant, we turned once again to a constant topic of conversation these past few weeks: Race in South Africa.
As I’ve written here before, we’re in no position to comment in any kind of deeply informed way — I can only tell you what we’ve seen in our 5 weeks here: Very little mixing.
Lots of white patrons in restaurants and mostly black servers. All the cute South African luxury brands and trendy boutique shops and artists etc. are either white-created or, if there’s a black element, it’s as a “social” component “supporting” some group, but still all appears to be white-run.
Again, I could have this all wrong and that could be completely unfair. We’ve parachuted in for five weeks and probably come with plenty of our own preconceived notions.
But, it’s seriously stark to our New York eye…and we’re as white as it gets!
As one friend put it, “Apartheid worked.”
Feels like something that will take 600-800 years to bury/resolve.
