Cape Town - Fantasy or Reality?

Scheduling left me with a free weekend in Cape Town, and I could not have been “stuck” with time in a more incredible place. Erin and I decided to get up early and drive to Cape Point to watch the sunrise over the Cape of Good Hope, where the Indian and Atlantic Ocean’s collide in a giant upsurge of bubbles and water. Absolutely gorgeous.


We also saw WILD ostriches! How great is that?



After a drive through Chapman’s Peek we stopped at one of the many Camp’s beaches so I could dip my toes in the South African coastline.






From there it was too Table Mountain, where we rode the spinning Cable Car to the top to catch a glimpse of Cape Town from atop the world’s oldest mountain, which is completely flat, hence the name “Table.” When clouds cover it they say “Table Mountain is wearing its table cloth.” How cute is that?





Other cultural events included a traditional Afrikaner waltz dance event evening...


As well as a trip SKYDIVING over the Winelands set against the beautiful backdrop of Table Mountain and a coastline that runs as far as the eye can see. It was spectacular.




From here it’s a few days in Kruger Park then back to “Jozi” before moving onward to India. Huzzah!

The Best Mugging Ever

It happened, as I was told again and again it would; I was mugged in Cape Town, and it happened in broad daylight. Well, it started out as two guys mugging me and it finished with them apologizing and me giving them business cards and encouraging them to start venture teams.


I had just dropped off the stupid Mercedes that has been nothing but trouble the past three days and knew I was already a target before leaving Avis. People watched me drive that bubble car in and they watched me walk out. I moved swift and confident, but what local returns a rental car then wanders toward “backpacker land?” Exactly.

So I was walking down the street and a guy turned out of a warehouse lot, walking toward me. He was looking over my shoulder, so I followed his eyes and realized there was a guy walking about ten feet behind me. I knew immediately what was happening.

The guy in front pulled out a knife and told me to “give him all of my money.” The guy behind stood there so I couldn’t get away. Now, I’ve been robbed twice and a friend of mine who lived in Cape Town explained that it is usually possible to negotiate some arrangement where I give them my money but I get to keep my camera, phone, etc. (as if I had done something wrong in the first place – “keep” my own phone? Come on!). So, rather than be frightened I found myself irritated that I would be targeted considering the work I’m doing to help curb the situations that create thievery and so forth.

Without thinking (total gut reaction) I blurted out, “Hey man, I’m not the problem. I’m just trying to help, okay? I don’t have money to give you and if you take my camera, then I can’t do my job and I’m trying to help you and people who aren’t being taken care of. You don’t want to do this.” They were shocked, to say the least. I just kept going on and on and on about Ashoka, Youth Venture, inspiring change, empowering young people, spending time in the townships and trying to get individuals to take ownership over their communities. A good minute or two into my speech and the knife lowered.

The more I talked, the more the tension de-escalated and by the end of the whole ordeal, we were apologizing to each other for the whole thing. I learned they were only nineteen and twenty, in the city from their township because there is no work. Both their fathers left years ago and they’ve been involved with gangs, drugs and now this. I listened. I showed empathy. By the end of it all, I was giving them my business card telling them all about Youth Venture, encouraging them to get in touch with me and think about ways to improve their own lives and the lives of their friends.

I realize this story sounds totally impossible and sadly, there was no witness, except for the Avis guy who was sitting in his office watching with his mouth open while everything happened. I don’t know how my mind and body knew that was the way I should react, but it did and maybe now we’ll get some teams out of it. The moral of the story? If you’re being mugged, claim that you’re trying to help, push blame onto someone or something else and ask them if they’ve heard of Youth Venture. (I had no pictures of “the incident” so I included a photo of the horrific Mercedes that got me into deep, deep trouble. Ish…

For SAGE, It Starts At Home

Since Youth Venture is new in South Africa, our reach doesn’t yet extend to Cape Town. Still, that doesn’t mean there aren’t amazing young people creating change, which is the point of this global movement. You don’t have to be a YV team to create change; the reality is, we want every person to join in by taking an active role in their own life and in the life of their “world,” whether that is defined as their street, neighborhood, city, country or the whole planet!

With this in mind Erin and I connected with an organization called SAGE that also works with you to support entrepreneurial initiative on a global level. Erin, by the way, is my incredible travel buddy who started her own venture in the US last year as part of NYU’s “Be A Changemaker” Challenge and is now working in the Youth Venture “Jozi” office while studying abroad in South Africa.


While I had heard of SAGE, I had no idea the teams we were going to meet were not only national known, but internationally recognized as well. Our first stop was Serapta Secondary School, where Giovanni, Liezelle, Colette, Bianca, Lacille, Tatum, Chevonne, Brendan and Jarroo had developed a blanket drive for the homeless that brought in more than 1000 blankets a semester, a food drive for the homeless that mobilized the entire school and community, a peer mentor program that had been institutionalized at their high school and was now spreading to other schools in South Africa and a Female Empowerment Organization called GEM that is now forming chapters in multiple countries around the world. The founders were all between the ages of 15 and 18.


What made speaking with them so interesting as that because internet penetration is abysmal in South Africa (only one of the kids even had an email address) their concept of the global scope of what they’re doing and how their project fits into a larger movement was nonexistent, which meant I got to share something entirely new while inviting them to apply for additional support from Youth Venture. Never a bad thing. This, of course, all happened after we talked about Justin Timberlake and what it’s like to grow up near Hollywood.

In search of more SAGE, we continued on to Bellville South High School. Actually, we mistakenly went to Bellville High School (we have yet to get anywhere without making at least one wrong turn. The South Africans call traffic signals robots and while they can’t tell you the names of streets, they can tell you how many “robots” there are at the sixth street off of highway N2, which is not very useful). At Bellville High School lost and looking for directions, the Assistant Principal (clearly incredibly bored) took the opportunity to draw the most detailed map I had ever seen to help us find our way. Thirty minutes later (now 20 minutes late) we were back in the Benz on our way.



Thankfully, Roselere, Robyn, Daniel, Tanya and Ernest weren’t mad that we were late, despite the fact that we interrupted “production” on their new line of bookmarks and candle holders made entirely of recycled materials. In fact, these entrepreneurs design, develop and build more than a dozen “goods” that are then sold in the community at a responsible price, using the money raised to fight social problems in their communities. This now-international social company has revitalized the community and the school while offering a creative outlet for teens who have too much time on their hands and find themselves slipping into bad habits, like drug use and having unprotected sex.


This powerhouse LLP aint’ no bake sale – they finished fourth in the world at SAGE’s annual project competition, held last year in Shanghai, China (which meant we had lots to talk about, as I lived there for the better part of a year). “The first place team was from California,” Tanya told me. “Kanye West produced a commercial for them. We did everything on our own, so we’re pretty proud of our fourth place.” So was I. There model is a shining example of how income generation isn’t a bad thing, and can instead help forward the social goals of an organization. Now in it’s third production year, the SAGE kids are stepping it up a notch. They’ll be expanding their product line and opening a second workshop in the fall. They’re also 16.

By the end of the day we had recruited another ten teams, able to offer vision, strategy and financial support to help them take their dream and do something with it. What I found most interesting is that they’re all students at public schools coming from poor families and yet, they’re still incredibly passionate about their education and their social initiatives. I asked what kept them going and all fourteen of them said the same thing – supportive parents. The real question then, is how society can help those young people who don’t have that foundation at home. No child chooses where they’re born and who their parents will be, but does that mean that if they pull a bad straw, they don’t deserve the same chance to make something of themselves? I don’t think so, which I why I believe we as a global society need to work harder to support children and youth to offer the “back-up” they need in life if someone isn’t (or can’t) offer it at home. That’s my challenge for the day – find a way to at least partially offset the void left by absent parents. In the meantime, just be in awe of what these kids are doing. I am.

Break On Through To The Other Side

After another airport “situation,” Erin & I arrived in Cape Town literally as the fog was rolling onto the tarmac. Ours was the last flight allowed to land before closing the airport. I’m guessing this was my payback after months of bad luck! The car service (there is no public transportation in Cape Town that can be safely used after dark. Heck, there is hardly any that can be safely used during the day) dropped us at our guesthouse.


We both assumed it would be two bedrooms in a shared house. No sir. We, in fact, have our OWN HOUSE - two bedrooms, two bathrooms (one with tub), a kitchen, living room and screened in sun porch. Our hostess with the mostest (Lets call her Tiny) showed us around before giving us our key and explaining how the extremely complicated padlock worked on the door. “Now, what time would you like breakfast served,” she asked. Shocked that there was a served breakfast, we spouted out 9AM for no particular reason. She headed out but before she reached the door Tiny turned to say “Oh, and the whole complex is guarded by electric fence, so don’t worry about safety.” Erin and I had officially broken through to the other side. I went from one room in an electricity-less, quaint township home to my own house behind an electric fence in posh Bellville. This drastic change played loops in my mind all night.


Fast forward to this morning at 9AM, when Tiny and her trainee (we’ll call her Not So Tiny) popped in to deliver our egg and bacon omelets, toast, strawberries, yogurt, cereal, fresh fruit and an assortment of spreads. After devouring our guilty food, we agreed (with Tiny’s advice) that renting a car for three days made more financial sense. Unfortunately, neither of us could really drive stick, which meant we had to reserve the ONLY automatic at Avis, which they were going to deliver to our door at noon.


Noon rolls around and we watch out the window as a BRAND NEW MERCEDES pulls up, Avis woman hopping out in her bright red “Avis jumpsuit.” So now we’re living in our own house behind an electric fence eating omelets made for us while driving a Mercedes around. All I could think was, “Am I really in the same country?” Swinging from one extreme to the other was honestly disrupting my ability to think. Still, we had projects to visit so I signed twice, initialed seven times and promised to give Avis my first-born if the car was stolen, and we were off.

Needless to say, driving on the left side of the road while sitting on the right side of the car for an American who hasn’t been behind the wheel for months was more than entertaining. I broke on through to the other side on numerous occasions. With Erin “maps are silly, I think it’s that way” Gordon to my left, we never actually got to where we were going on the first try. Most notably, on our ride back from Cape Town to “the burbs” this evening, we missed our exit by, oh, 15 miles, ending up in a roadside garage (gas station) after accidentally running a red robot (traffic signal) looking for M15, which was conveniently NOT located between M14 and M16.

After locating said M (again, 15 miles back the way we came) I dropped the shifter into drive and made a right out of the gas station, only, I pulled into the FIRST LANE, which was on the WRONG SIDE here. The fast-moving oncoming traffic (two vans carrying 10 people each) began flashing their lights at me. I looked to the left in an attempt to veer to my side of the rode, but there was a car in the second lane coming at me as well, which left no room for a lane-change. Meanwhile, the guy in my lane is not slowing down and has decided instead to continue to move at 60 miles per hour and just flash his lights and honk his horn, as if that is going to get me to move or something.

I am now completely stopped, unable to go left because another car is coming, yelling at the guy heading straight at me to move in a desperate attempt to avoid using our front and side airbags. He’s not slowing (why, I have NO IDEA. I mean, wouldn’t you slow down?) and he’s not changing lanes, so Erin and I brace for impact, both screaming at the top of our lungs for the guy to SLOW DOWN.

He’s getting closer and closer and closer. No pace change. At this point, I’m wondering who is really at fault for this impending accident. Yes, I’m on the wrong side of the road but he could have ABSOLUTELY stopped in time. Now the van is honestly 25 feet out and I’ve basically resigned myself to the fact that we’re going to crash. Erin throws the map, as if to build a wall between her and the vehicle. 15 feet away and my hands are firmly grasping the steering wheel. I’ve pushed my head against the headrest, in hopes of avoiding whiplash. 14…13…12…11…10 feet (HONEST TO GOD) and all of a sudden the driver cranks his steering wheel and swerves around us, missing the front fender by no more than 20 inches. I turn to my left. Erin’s jaw is on the floor. I reach down to pick it up, put on my blinker and merge back onto the right (left) side of the road, as if nothing had happened.

We eventually made it back to the guesthouse and pulled the Benz behind the electric fence. All unnecessary talking had stopped post-almost-crash. As I popped the gearshift into park Erin turned to me, put her hand on mine and said “great driving today Kyle.” She was 100% sincere. Apparently she missed the whole near-death thing? Still, it would have been one dramatic way to end the World Tour, huh? Huh? Huh?