Esmeralda

Johannesburg was never really known for a flourishing joie de vivre. It’s a major financial center that grew out of a gold mining blueprint. Needless to say, most of my free time spent in eastern South Africa 5 years ago was spent outside of the city exploring the mountains of the Drakensberg to the south and the rolling fields of the Veld in the East. Johannesburg was a dud.

But Cape Town… you enchanting siren! You tantalizing temptress! If Joburg was Marlin (Finding Nemo... get with the times), Cape Town is Esmeralda. Esmeralda - a gypsy - was smart despite a lack of formal education, she was beautiful despite being homeless, she was fierce and yet delicate. In that sense, Cape town juggles similarly with a series of conflicting attributes and finds a way to entice you. After 2 weeks “in” Joburg, my motorcycle had clocked about 2000km, after close to 2 weeks here, I’m at 500km.

You could still feel the burdening weight of Apartheid’s lingering ghost in Joburg, and while the scars are still barely healing throughout the country, there is a sense of hope in Cape Town. The city and its people have started to develop the humble beginnings of a new harmony. Sure, the first sight you see out of the airport is a massive black ghetto… These will unfortunately exist for decades to come and there is a violence epidemic that is still rampant but you have to start somewhere. In the workplace, there is still a visible discrepancy, but its democratization, including the hospital, is more apparent here. In a more endearing observation, the youth of the city I have encountered so far have embraced the country’s rainbow nation moniker in a metaphorical middle finger to the old laws criminalizing interracial relationships.

[Queue the Beatles music]

All you need is love. All you need is love. All you need is love, love. Teenage hormones are all you need.

There is a lot to do here. Bars, cafés, museums, restaurants, art galleries, markets, hikes, motorcycle rides, flaura and fauna (penguins, sharks, whales, innumerable birds), etc… It’s all been fun to discover. Even if Cape Town is a tourist destination, a lot of the activities I have done so far (oyster and wine festival, cocktail week, art galleries night) included a majority of locals which adds authenticity to the experience.

It's also during those evenings where I wander a little, soak in the atmosphere, and try whatever street food I can get my hands on. The impetus behind this decision is usually multi-factorial but features mainly three prominent attributes: hunger, curiosity, and masochism. Earlier last week, at the art galleries night, I saw a stand from which emanated a pungent yet pleasant smell. The additional smoke, sizzling hisses, and flash of flame were also used to great effect in angling the white tourist ever closer like a predator attracts its prey. I couldn't understand a word the guy was saying, so I pointed to whatever looked interesting and said "yes" whenever prompted by another unintelligible question. I still have no idea what I ordered. It was meat, I'm pretty sure. There were also onions. A flat bread wrapped the entire thing. Oh, and it was seasoned with molten lava. Seconds after the first bite, my heart started racing, sweat started pearling, and my mouth started melting. I opted not to seek out help from local passersby as the sight of a tall, white, scraggly panicked man with his sauce-soaked beard running towards them might have caused more misfortune than salvation. I composed myself, went to my happy place, and let time heal everything. 

The next morning I went to the bathroom.

My stay here in a nutshell

Groote Schuur (old) Hospital at night

The hospital has become routine despite the horrors you can witness there. Bullets through the spine with resulting paraplegia. Stab wounds to the heart, the neck, the face. Pedestrians being the unfortunate pins of drunken automotive bowling. In medicine, and in emergency in particular, developing an emotional shield is quintessential to your survival in the profession. You simply can’t do your job without it. What is just as essential to your longevity however, is to find some form of venting mechanism. No matter how broad and thick your shield may be, the stains of the job will continue to accumulate, waiting for an inopportune moment to spread through unless you find time to drop the shield and process the ghosts of the past. Everyone finds their way. It doesn’t have to be an active therapy session with a psychologist where you acknowledge each specific case one after another. I’m not sure what my way actually is come to think of it. If I had to guess, it would be during activities where my mind gets to focus on a single thing where I am truly absorbed by the task at hand and everything else fades away. A form of meditation. Motorcycling, music, cooking. You sprain an ankle, you need rest. A brain sprain.

… in Spain falls mainly in the plain.