Week 1: In the Mother City

Kuungana Crew   Photo credit Jason Piersialla.

Writing this a week from taking off from Twin Cities, Minnesota. After a 36+ hour travel experience, I arrived to beautiful Cape Town, South Africa. It has been a great first week that is somewhat surreal as I write this looking out onto beautiful Table Mountain with clouds creeping over it.

Table Mountain from my Cape Town flat. Photo credit Dave Mathias.

Before getting more into the first week though a little background is in order. For those that I haven’t talked with about this or even met, I am on a travel experience with a program called Remote Year. It is an opportunity to live in four different countries (South Africa, Morocco, Portugal, and Spain) for a month each with 53 other amazing people.

Our Remote Year group name is Kuungana which means connect in Swahili. Most of the people are from the United States with a handful of others joining us from countries including Singapore, Canada, China, and Australia. The ages range from 19 to 60 years old and the backgrounds are super varied.

People come on a trip like this for a reason. Some are doing it because they are looking to find life purpose, some are simply looking for an adventure, some are looking to make a change from a relationship or career, some are doing it for professional enhancement, and some are doing it searching for some unknown thing. Personally I have a number of reasons I am doing this but certainly hoping to have better balance where this could translate into a longer term periodic work-adventure experiences is a motive. Additionally, simply the sake of going on an adventure and living in different countries are also motivation.

As for my fellow Kuunganas, I feel like I am just starting to get to know these amazing people that decided to take a leap on this journey and excited to learn more. It has been great to get to know people one conversation and experience at a time. Imagine in future posts I may highlight some individuals, if they are willing to let me do so.

Me, Kelli, Janine, and Mo catching lunch at cool Ethiopian spot after orientation. Photo credit Dave Mathias.

Some highlights from week one in no particular order:

• First world-third world: I was warned by my friend Viv, who is originally from South Africa, to expect a first world-third world experience and that has certainly been the case. Right away my Uber from the airport provided reality of third world as you could see the townships where people sustain. In fact, it has been a constant amount of panhandling anytime I go out and more than I have seen in any American city. There is a strong contrast in equity and while official apartheid may be done, the results of apartheid and class gaps is overwhelmingly present. The extreme poverty is balanced with what is a paradise-like setting with the fancy bars and restaurants all around next to the beautiful waterfront and mountains. I look forward to participating in the Positive Impact projects that we are doing this month and will write about in a future post.
• Cool roommate: After being married and living with Jen for 19+ years it has been a long time since I lived with anyone else. During Remote Year sometimes you will have one or more flat mates and sometimes you will not. This first month I have Jae as a roommate and he is from St. Louis and pretty easygoing ex-military late-30's guy that now has a construction business with a business partner at home.
• Getting some laughs in: A group of us went to see Jim Gaffigan when he was performing and thoroughly enjoyed it. The lead off comic was a South African comedian from Johannesburg and it was good to get that perspective along with at same time seeing the famous Jim Gaffigan that I had never seen before.  

Jim Gaffigan was hilarious! Photo credit Casey Cunningham.

• New vocabulary. When I travel I do like to pick up some language and at least make an attempt at learning words and phrases from cultures. In South Africa there are 11 official languages but most people in Cape Town speak English making it easy to communicate. A couple new words from the first week though are “lekker” and “kak”. Those familiar with these are laughing right now. Lekker is a common word loosely defined as tasty, sexy/hot, or cool/sweet while “kak” is a common swear word translating roughly to shit in English.
• Local connections. One of the things I wanted to make sure to not lose out on is making real connections and learning from those in each of the countries I am a guest. In the first week I had several good conversations with locals and two that were longer and especially stood out. They both gave me different perspectives on local culture and history. One conversation was actually a business conversation I had and the other was a conversation with a local hospitality manager.
• Poker from afar: This morning (Sunday) I woke up a little after 3:00 AM Cape Town time to play poker with some friends back home in Minnesota. This was our annual championship tournament and more about bragging rights than anything else. Yes, I am proud to say I took home the 2018 Bartlett Cup but at same time more proud to be able to have a good group of guys to have laughs with and willing to include me from across the world with creative use of technology. 
• Getting to know each other: On back-to-back nights we did a talent sharing night which was basically done to inform each other what we did professionally and skills willing to share with the group. That way we can engage with other better and potentially have professional opportunities that arise. Then, we did Pecha Kucha which is a more personal story of ourselves we did with one slide and 30 seconds. Both helped us more deeply understand each other. On Saturday we had our official Remote Year orientation which was surprisingly engaging and again helped us better understand each other.

RY Orientation Kuungana. Photo credit Dave Mathias.

• The Mother City is beautiful: Cape Town is known as the Mother City and it truly is beautiful with mountains around it and located on the ocean front. It has a ridiculous number of great restaurants and cafes and a long lineage of being a liberal city. Plus it is really easy to get around and significantly cheaper than the Twin Cities to live. I really have enjoyed walking around the city a lot and taking in the sights and people.

Checking out the waterfront. Photo credit Dave Mathias.

• Time is different: Cape Town is a lot more laid back and there isn’t a sense of urgency to so much like there is in the United States. This can be frustrating when going to a restaurant for lunch and you want to get back for work, but it also can provide opportunities for enjoyment if you embrace it. There are different levels of South Africa time that are used “just now”, “now now”, “now”, “right now”, and “present time” and these have very different meanings. Be aware if you hear “just now” or “now now” you may be waiting some time to get complete.
• No news is good news: Traveling for this last week and not being as exposed to news has been enjoyable. Yes I periodically get some key information from things like my Ozy Presidential Brief and Up First podcasts but I enjoy not being so locked in. At same time there is a crazy amount of information going back and forth of our Remote Year group on WhatsApp and Slack and trying to better balance what to engage in or not.  Something I definitely want to achieve from this adventure is some better balance.
• Remote working: We have a great space to work in Cape Town and a large number of people seem pretty dedicated and excelling in their career or growing their business. My challenge is trying to balance my workaholic nature and the beautiful environment and wonderful experience opportunities we have. This week I have several experiences lined up but also a lot of work-related items. Part of this trip is there to help me better balance these things at the same time being able to have more joint work-adventure experiences.

Well that is some of week 1 highlights and plenty more I missed. If you read this far thank you and hope you enjoyed it.

Thank you to my wife Jenn and my business partner Matt for both being understanding as I do this experience and everyone else in my life that has been so supportive in months leading up to this.

One of Cape Town's beautiful beaches.  Photo credit: Daniel Stepner

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My plan is to write a post weekly over the next five or so months in part to record things for my future self but also to share with the many friends and family that wanted to stay on top of my travels.

Wherever you are I hope you have some fantastic experiences to start of the New Year!

#remoteyear #kuungana #capetown #southafrica #africa