But I forgot to write one interesting experience that I had on my last day in Capetown. I was standing outside the central Dutch Reform Church, about to go in and see a sculpture that two of the guides had talked about. The Afrikaaners call the Dutch Reform Church the Mother Church and they call Capetown the Mother City.
All of a sudden, I heard a loud commotion from around the corner. Then I saw a man sprinting around the corner with another man chasing him. Right in front of me, the second man tackled the first who, as he went down, threw a cel phone under the car that was parked there. Then a huge crowd came around the corner and surrounded the man on the ground, kicking and hitting him. At least one person in the crowd was carrying a metal tire iron. The man on the ground kept asking: What I do? What I do? and showing his empty hands. Since I had seen him throw the cel phone under the car, it was not hard to figure out what he do.
Immediately, before the crowd could really attack the man, I heard a siren and a police van tore around the corner and stopped. It all happened so fast that I am not sure, but I think that the first chaser may have been in a uniform and may have been a policeman. I can't think how the police car could have gotten there so fast otherwise. The chaser retrieved the cel phone from under the car, the man was put in the back of the police van, and a woman got into the front seat of the police car. I assume it was her cel phone that had been stolen. The police van drove away and the whole thing was over in less than three minutes. Pretty impressive justice South African style.
More food for thought ... the only two countries in the world to have mandated segregation - making segregation mandatory and integration illegal - are South Africa and the United States.
And now on to a waterfall and more animals.
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