A Portrait of Long Street, Cape Town

Sitting on the balcony of our lodging for the night in Cape Town, South Africa, I take some time to just watch the world go by...

The entire evening, football fans are walking up and down the street, donning the yellow and gold of team South Africa. Many faces are painted, the revelers hooting and hollering, while many others are blowing the God-forsaken vuvuzela, a plastic horn which gained international notoriety during the 2010 World Cup. Around 8pm the thickness of football fans on the sidewalk increases, and their joy seems to indicate that their team was triumphant. (It wasn't until the next morning that I learned the team, in fact, fell...to the USA of all teams, just down the street at Cape Town Stadium, during the Nelson Mandela challenge.)

The most flamboyant of all fans is a rather skinny black man, draped in all sorts of yellow and gold, along with the colorful South African national flag. On top of his head he his wearing, or rather carrying, a headdress which towers more than two meters above his dome. It has six vuvuzelas protruding from all sides and additionally consists of a hodgepodge of housewares, including boxes, bags, garland and anything else that is colorful, eye-catching, and blows in the wind. Truly, a spectacular homage to Bafana Bafana (a Zulu term which means, "Our boys," and is the local nickname for the national team).

While the football fans leave the pubs, and nearby stadium, two scantily clad women in high heels take up posts on the street corners. They don't appear to be prostitutes...but aren't far of either. They are both handing out fliers, but only to men. And, not only are they hitting up pedestrians, but also bouncing out into traffic as well, high heels clicking on the pavement along the way, in order to solicit their (stripping/exotic dancing) services to guys in their cars, waiting for the light to turn green.

As I watch the world go by, I take note of the roof of the Grand Daddy Hotel, just across the street from me. Atop the third floor of this rather chic Cape Town hotel sits seven vintage Airstream trailers, imported form the United States. The shiny, aerodynamic mobile homes now sit there for the African traveler who wishes to, as their website puts it, "pimp their park life and flash their trailer trash." (At nearly $180/night that is one experience I didn't need to experience.)

A Cape Coloured woman, who is clearly down on her luck, walks up and down the sidewalk, with a lime green backpack on, asking passers-by for change. She is met with a chorus of shaking heads. She persists with a cabbie, and he finally obliges her with a few pence. (Cape Coloured is a commonly used term here on the cape and refers to people of either mixed ancestry, or those of Malay descent brought to this part of the world, by the Dutch East India Trading Company, for slave labor.)

A man with a bright orange vest scrambles up and down the road, directing motorists as they park along the street. With a combination of whistles and hand gestures the man, working solely on tips, prevents the motorist from hitting the car behind them, or from scraping his fancy rims on the concrete curb. As you handle your business, whether it be for work or pleasure, he'll also keep an eye on your ride. (But be sure to tip, lest you get jacked.) Music begins pumping out of a nearby dance club.

A black public safety officer wearing a neon green vest, armed with only a radio and baton, pushing a rickety mountain bike, calls a young man over to him for an unknown offense. The man, amongst a gaggle of other pedestrians, realizes he is being summoned and only continues walking, now a little faster, away from the cop. The cop motions again, this time raising his voice, only just slightly. The man keeps walking, and begins to jog as the cop starts trying to negotiate the crowds with bike in hand. As the violator rounds the next corner the officer gives up and radios in a description of the offender. A car horn honks.

As night begins to blanket the cape On Broadway Theatre lets out from a showing of, "Cracks in the City," the comical performance of a multi-cultural female foursome. The crowd is well-dressed and mainly white. They scurry along quickly to their waiting chariots so that they might drive off to the comfort of their secure suburban flats or houses with 8 foot concrete walls and electrified fences. All the while bass thumps from passing cars and an errant vuvuzela sounds from the mouth of a tipsy football fan down the street.

A white plain-clothes officer patrols Long Street in an unmarked white pickup with matching topper. On two occasions he stops parked (black) taxi drivers, blocking them in and lighting up the surrounding buildings with blue from his hidden emergency lights. The officer gets out. He is wearing jeans, a navy polo and has a revolver on his hip. He photographs one of the taxis, most certainly for operating without the proper license, and orders the driver to get lost and not to return. The second cab driver is legit and is released a short time after his paperwork is scrutinized.

Around 10pm a small sidewalk cafe next to the theatre closes down for the evening. The balding and middle-aged (white) proprietor shuffles onto the sidewalk and stacks the white plastic chairs before hauling them in, followed by a couple of tables. The lights click off a the door locks.

An angry black transvestite, wearing a shoulder-length blond wig, black heeled boots, a tight short black skirt and grey top, clomps across the street, with little regard for the cars zipping along the road. She is upset and begins yelling at someone (whom I cannot see because they are below me) in an indigenous tongue, likely Xhosa or Zulu (although difficult to say, as there are 11 different official languages in South Africa). After she says her piece she walks away briskly, from the direction she came, only to return and yell just a little more. Again, she leaves.

A car with a noisy exhaust passes by.

Long Street.