Apartheid Museum

Sunrise in Johannesburg, blazing a brighter red than I can recall seeing before. The orb seems unnaturally huge; burning my retina as it flashes through the thick canopy of leaves covering the largest manmade park in the world.  I’m looking out over the Koppies (“small hill” in Afrikaans) at one of Joburg’s most spectacular views, from Melville suburb’s highest point. Albeit, from behind a laptop. I’ve got a second coffee on the go at Pablo Guest House while attempting to carve out an itinerary for this last-minute jaunt. I’d jumped on a plane from Cape Town with Ashlee, a friend who grew up here. Her father lives in a looming school house stuffed with antiques, which she has the grand job of sorting through and selling on.

Thirty feet underwater, somewhere on the False Bay coast near Simon’s Town in the Western Cape, South Africa. I’m getting battered by a strong current, deep in a kelp forest. I squint upwards and spot a pair of flippers. Kicking... upwards. My friend Abie is in a pickle. First of all, she’s vertical — not desirable in diving gear — and I can see now, she’s tangled. Brown kelp fronds the girth of beer cans shoot up all around us, forming a confused mass. I panic but try not to show it. Being buddied up with an old mate for a genuinely dangerous sport — you’re expected to know what you’re doing — has its downsides. I realize we are the responsible adults I’m looking around for.