On Vacations

But one must go to the Mother City. It is fabulous. fantastic. fearsome. free and frivolous. i run out of effs. Consonants aside, what can't you get in the Cape? The Cape put the bounce back in my swagger, the pot back in my belly, the, flow back in my rhyme. So like James Brown, I am back and perhaps wearing clothing that is a mite too tight.

How was it? Well. There was the Beau Monde walking around shirtless (Thank You Gay Men). And there were weathered old jazzmen playing some Cape-unique tunes for free (free. FREEEE!) at the waterfront. Not to mention the five young turks at Asoka killing me with their rendition of Caravan (free. live. jazz. every. tuesday). Thrown in some whales, a little Table Mountain and wine tasting...we acha tu.

There were disgruntled taxi drivers defending the dubious notion of Black Entitlement. There were charmingly gregarious Afrikaner tourguides wistfully recounting the histories of Stellenbosch. Sommeliers, gourmet Kudu, unique ecologies. Cheap t-shirts, expensive cars, rolling rrrrrrrrrs. And so much more. The rainbow nation lived up to its promise of diversity, however uneasy the mixtures may have been at times.

To experience all that and get to come back to Dar es Salaam at the end of it is impossibly delicious. Have a restful, and appreciative week. And don't, no matter how tempted you are, raise bail for Yona and Mramba. Your kids need the schoolfees.

A propos Ethiopian food: La Dee and I went to Addis in the Cape to 'greet'- after all, these guys are practically our living room in Dar. It was...different. Fine, you know, just not nearly as wonderful as the original. And the food was a bit meh- anemic menu, comatose flavors. Mama came over to chat after the meal and when we broached the subject of the taste difference she revealed something interesting: the Cape food is bland because she can't import the flavored, cultured butter (ghee-like stuff) that imparts so much richness and depth of flavor to Ethiopian food. South African laws don't allow, blah blah blah, pasteurization, blah blah blah, food safety. Pity.