Cities always have a personal scent. A kind of nose that does not slap you forget. Whenever you return to the same place you remember the distinctive smell that there learned to chew. Cape Town I smelled nothing. I was surprised, but I realized its lack of aroma on the first morning that I missed the city and thought about it. A bad omen. If a city does not smell is not got soul. I was looking for and this morning I found. I did it on a train from Central Station and down into the south, patient Kalk Bay (a wonderful fishing village). They stumbled with the smell and realized I was looking for, fucking, she missed the smell of misery. Maybe, as a reflex, I came to Africa thinking I should find the air thick creates absolute poverty. In Cape Town there is white, Europe smells, my city; no scent. Go, without realizing, I fall into the trap of great Kenyan writer article, Binyavanga Wainaina, that bounced in the first post (I recommend reading it). "The real Africa is poverty?
I entered the train with four friends, great people and I will talk later (have really interesting stories), and decided to go to second-class cars. We paid the blockbuster first without even informing us that he had tickets cheaper, but Natasha and Steve wanted to go in the caboose. Of course, we were the only targets of a wagon full of dozens of black people doing the same route, although most of them are not going to Kalk Bay, but the township home. The smell of that train was, at times, nauseating. It was not very consistent, but there was a strong trail of misery that he hesitated to escape through the many windows that were opened.
A small avalanche in the train
Beside us, a mother trying to hold a girl with big eyes and cute face. Far, some guys playing cards on the floor. Before them sat a man dressed from head to foot with bags (until the hat was a sack). Three kids use their phones for music and dance. Gradually the car was filling, bursting at the seams. Suddenly, the train stops at a station near a ghetto. It is an avalanche. Seems to have been a robbery. There is money lying on the floor. Shoving and shouting. Salen, when opening doors, in a rush. The wagon is almost empty.
Everything was photographed. All that was passing. Natasha wanted to take the camera, but we told him not to. Actually, the only pictures we were there, not them (understood us as a reference). We were the "rare" in that car. I think of times in my life have I looked curiously at a black man in the subway. How would I feel if all those who had had a camera and I had started to take pictures? Why do we insist on going in a wagon that I probably never would climb in my city if I say that is full of white workers like me? On the other hand, get on that bandwagon but would not escape scenes from my imagination. "I'm a curious guy", tell me. I am, but these situations always create ethical questions.
We walked along the sand, glass filled; are still some tents and the background a large group of people preparing barbecue
Kalk Bay on the scene is repeated. Cinthia Carles and tell me that in summer this is the beach of choice for blacks. People camping and sleeping in the sand. There is dirt. The smell, in part, not gone. We walked along the sand, glass filled; are still some tents and the background a large group of people preparing barbecue. The fish port, tied with string, exhibits and sells it on the floor. Some sea lions come up there to eat the leftovers being poured sellers. In a pool of blood-tinged water woman strives to clean a fish. Smells like fish market. Street music livens up a place full of charm. We returned to the station and eat at a restaurant overlooking the ocean. The color of the people of our environment has mutated. Cover 20 per head (a fortune for this city). We return to Cape Town and along the way I wonder: Why I think today I saw a real-life crack this site? "Because most? Why not be more excited to have? ¿Being different? Why all at once?… Why has been my best day since I landed here?
