Lifting media silence... (part 2)

OK, back to the point (heh, get it...), the day after we arrived in Simon's Town my dad, my cousin David, his son, and I went on a Game Fishing charter. Now this is my dad's thing, he loves it and is very good at it, it was just luck that we were able to get all four of us together for it. I was more into the idea of a day on a boat than actually catching fish, but to my horror, for the first time in my life, I was sea sick. Not just ill, full on SICK! It was terrible, I've never been any kind of travel sick before, and it seriously brought into question my ability to follow through on the goal of one-day owning a sailing yacht. But in spite of my illness, we were able to haul in seven BIG long-fin tuna, over 120kg's worth!

The catch was (c'mon, get it...), once we got back to port the charter operators just gave us the fish, no filleting, nothing! Now I ask you, what tourist is EVER prepared to fillet 120kg's of their own tuna? We suspect it was a scam so we would leave the fish behing and they could sell them. Needless to say we were less than impressed... But being the stubborn Matthee's we are, we took as many tuna as could fit in the car (four) to Kalk Bay, a 30min drive towards Cape Town, where we were able to get the fish filleted for us. Our master fish craftsmen (pictured) were possibly the roughest folk in the Western Cape, and we had to have a constant look-out to ensure they did not auction off our tuna to the highest bidder! One hour & two beers later, we had 80kg's of tuna filleted and on its way to our bellies!

After returning to solid ground and my stomach punching itself to spite me for putting it through that hell, we had a nice dinner and a good rest for the next day's adventure: Cape Point!

Our day at the point was great, we had no wind (which is unheard of there) and we saw everything. The Cape of Good Hope is one of the most historically important places in South Africa. Dias was the first to land here, discovering the "end" of Africa, and then Vasco DaGama navigated from here to India which not only laid the foundations for the Dutch East India Trading Co, but it also established the Cape as one of the most important peices of colonial real estate in the world until the Suez Canal. Simon's Town was actually established as a British Naval base to protect the Cape for British interests, and remained so until the 1950's when it was handed over to South Africa. Without this strategic importance its unlikely Britain would have colonised the Cape.

On our return to Cape Town I took my folks via my other favourite wine region: Constantia. Avid followers of this blog will recall my afternoon there, so I will not go into great detail. Basically, Constanstantia was a farm founded by Simon Van der Stel in 1685. Since then it has been split into X wine farms: Groot Constantia (Big Constantia, pictured), Klein Constantia (Small Constantia), Buitenverwachting (???), and Constantia Uitsig (Constantia Outpost). Each farm has its own claim to fame, most notably Groot Constantia with its Gouvernuers Reserve red wine and Klein Constantia for the Vin de Constance, arguably the most famous sweet wine ever made.

Our first stop was Groot Constantia, where we feasted on traditional cape cuisine at their restaurant Jonkerhuis. I had Bobotie, a very Cape style mince curry... mmm... Followed by wine tasting there, then we moved on to Buitenverwachting for more tastes, and on to Klein Constantia for tastes of their all important Vin de Constance topped off with a visit to Steenberg Winery (pictured below). Steenberg was not part of the original Constantia farm, but it is part of the Constantia wine region. It is a housing estate with a golf course AND a stunning winery. Sorry, I need a moment. Wow. And if its not awesome enough that its all together, the winery is stunning in its own right! With views of vines and mountains we were seated in lovely couches outside overlooking a great water feature, and served their entire wine selection by great waiters. I am a bit concerned though, we paid R50 for the complete tasting, which is great value with all the wine you can taste (15 wines), but you can taste a limited range (7 wines) and sit there for as long as you like for FREE! The reason I'm concerned is, I love this place, and I want them to make some money so they stay there and don't change anything!

Returning to Cape Town it was about time for my Dad to head back to Seoul, and for me to head back to work. But as one last hurrah we went to Balducci's for sushi & Champagne to celebrate a holiday we will all never forget and my birthday of course! And to top it off, on my actual birthday we went for dinner at my cousin David's place, a stunning place overlooking the sea, and David made a Potjie and I met my second cousin Tamryn for the first time. A truly memorable couple of weeks!

The end.

Lifting the media silence...

My last post was on 29th October... Bad Simon.

To explain my absence, over November & December I was not only flat out with work, I had my first exam for my Masters course... I basically checked out of normal life for 2 months.

The plus side is that I got through work, and I think I did pretty well on the exam!

The next chapter if my online silence is my parents trip to Cape Town to spend Christmas with their favorite son! Up until this week I had not stayed at home since before X-mas, and I have been playing tour guide & favorite son for the whole time!

Since there is really nothing to tell about November/Early December other than I worked my ass off and the re-attached it, and proceeded to study my ass off, I won't get into that.

Much more interesting is my X-mas & Newyears!! So here goes:

My parents flew in on the 18th of December, the same day I went on leave. We stayed in Cape Town, at our friends house (as my modest lodgings were far from sufficient) in Rondebosch and I showed off Cape Town as best I could.

We went to Signal Hill (pictured), V&A Waterfront, Kloof St, my favorite local cafe's, bars & restaurants, and Pick n' Pay which turned out to be very exciting for them, a western supermarket (I waited outside...). This was topped off by a lovely pre-christmas lunch at my Aunt's apartment complex and lunch with my cousin David, whom I had met last year, but my parents had not seen in decades.

On the 23rd we headed for Franshhoek, a small wine region about an hour from Cape Town. Its smaller than its more famous neighbor Stellenbosch, but in my opinion far better! Franshhoek it where the Huguenot's settled, the French settlers (Franshhoek literally means "French Corner"). The area is set in a spectacular valley surrounded by mountains and is full of Cape Dutch architecture which is simply beautiful!

In Franshhoek we were staying in a lovely little cottage surrounded by grape vines and mountains. The picture above is of our driveway... Nice.

The other great thing about Franshhoek is that it is, without competition, the culinary capital of South Africa. We were terribly spoilt for choice, but we were also late to book, so we did miss out on Bread & Wine, a very famous restaurant there. Our first day there we ate at Rickety Bridge, with possibly the most stunning deck overlooking vines & mountains.

We had a wonderful picnic there which was beautifully prepared and perfect in the summer sun, and for some unknown reason, we were one of only 3 tables there! Talk about undiscovered.

On X-mas day we had a lovely low key Braai (South African for BBQ) with some stunning wine, cheese, dips, and for dinner we had dessert.

Boxing Day (which I found out is actually called Boxing Day everywhere, I thought it was just an Australian thing because people used to always fight at the Cricket...) was spent at Boschendal, a wine estate that makes my mum's all time favorite wine: Blanc den Noir (its like a Rose, but made slightly differently, its made with red grapes, it literally means "white from black"), where we had a proper X-mas carvery. To be honest, its not really a Matthee scene, but it was lovely.

On top of amazing food, we visited some stunning tasting rooms. One thing that has struck me accross South Africa's wineries (that I have visited) is the amount of money spent on the actual tasting rooms. Even some of the biggest wineries in Australia do not put much money into their cellar door's, so its a nice treat! We enjoyed tastings at Rickety Bridge, Boschendal, and Graham Beck (pictured).

At Graham Beck, which I knew as a very well known maker of South African sparkling wine, we were treated to one of my favourite tasting experiences to date. In a very comfortable lounge-bar setting, which has one huge glass wall that looks into the wine making area (you can see EVERYTHING), I paid R75 ($12ish) I was given 5 half glasses of their finest sparkling. With the wine we were given the complete back story from each wine, and they were good stories! For example, the Graham Beck Brut (second glass from the right) was the wine used to celebrate Nelson Mandela's inauguration AND Barack Obama's inauguration. So, for R90 ($17ish) you can drink the only wine that has been used to celebrate the most important man of the 90's and the most important man of the 00's. That's quite an achievement!

After leaving Franshhoek we made a 1 night stopover in Pringle Bay, at our friend's beach house. It was a very welcome stopover, great company, the beach, crayfish (which had been caught that day by Peter) a Braai and great wine! The next morning we headed to Simon's Town, where we would spend New years. (the road from Franshhoek pictured)

On the way to Simon's Town we made a short detour via Chapman's Peak drive, Cape Town's premier scenic drive. Its a rather strange situation though, it has been privatised, and the brain's trust that negotiated the privatisation contract did not specify how many days per year the road must be open, so now its closed most of the year until tourist season comes! That said, it is a pretty stunning drive! We went from Hout Bay, along Chapman's Peak Drive to Noordhoek then on to Simon's Town. (view of Hout Bay from Chapman's Peak Drive pictured)

At Simon's Town we had three goals: visit Cape Point (the first time for my mum), go Game Fishing (my dad's X-mas present), and eat seafood. I'm proud to say we did all three.

We were staying in a B&B right up on a hill overlooking False Bay.

On a side note, False Bay is a huge bay sided by Cape Point, now to sail from India to Europe ships had to pass the Cape of Good Hope (Cape Point) and head north for Europe, but in the days before GPS sailors would often get over-excited and head north from the point before and end up beached in Cape Town.

To be continued....

A personal problem with a public issue.

Let me start by saying: I am opinionated. Sometimes a little too opinionated, so I like to show careful consideration when sharing opinions on potentially contentious issues. That said, I cannot hold my tongue anymore on an issue I have become very familiar with lately: minimum wage and industrial relations in South Africa.

Second, let me make it clear that there are companies out there that vigilantly uphold workers rights and pay, which is why it is so maddening to see other big establishments exploiting the unemployment situation here.

It is common knowledge that many restaurants, including some big chains like, pay their staff on commission, or sometimes not at all, forcing them to live off tips. In the restaurants that pay commission, the rate is usually 2.5% of the waiters sales. That means that if the average spend per customer is R250 (which is a generous estimate), and a waiter serves 30 customers in one night (again, a generous estimate) the waiter can make R187.50 per day, which is not particularly bad, but how can the waiter ensure they get a capacity restaurant filled with big spending customers? And the illustrated situation would be in a rather expensive venue, a more middle class venue (where these issues are rampant) would be looking at less than half of that. The reality is that whilst these days might happen occasionally, due to a tendency for these places to over-staff (because they aren't paying them) most waiters in this situation walk away with R25 to R50 per 10 hour shift, barely enough to cover transport. This practice is illegal, and the fact that some of the biggest restaurant chains in South Africa can still do this without fear of punishment shows there is a LONG way to go.

Another common situation in some of these establishments is hiring only a few paid staff and supervisors and then proceed to hire waiters on "training" for an indefinite period of time, paying them NOTHING until they eventually quit and move on.

The minimum wage for waiters in South Africa is R10.50 per hour. This is still well below what would be considered a "living wage" and was only introduced in 2007.

It can be argued that "commission work" as it is referred to by the government is legal, however the act clearly states that "An employer shall pay an employee the rates applicable for commission work as agreed: Provided that irrespective of the commission earned, the employer shall pay such an employee not less than the prescribed minimum wage for the period worked" ¹

Moving away from the hospitality industry, the Cape Times yesterday reported that parking marshals in Cape Town were forced to pay "rent" for their parking spaces to their employer, SPS, who is contacted by the City of Cape Town to control parking in the city. The system works like this: SPS places a value on an area based on how many spaces are there and how popular they are, this can range from R100-800 PER DAY. The Parking Marshal must then raise more than the specified rent for that day, and extra they keep as their wage, if its less then they must pay the difference out of their own pocket. Parking Marshals can expect to take home R25 to R50 per day, again well below a living wage.² You can find the article here.

You might be asking "why does someone not challenge these employers" and its a good question. In the case of the Parking Marshals, the article sights two separate labour lawyers:

• Labour lawyer Michael Bagraim says the system is illegal under the Basic Conditions of Employment Act. "This is very bad - the whole thing should be outlawed. It's an industrial relations nightmare," he said.
• Another labour lawyer said it was the marshals' choice to accept the job.

When asked about the situation city spokesperson Kylie Hatton had said the council would be interfering in an employer-employee relationship if it got involved.

The laws must be tested and enforced, but until they are unscrupulous employers will continue to exploit South Africa's local and refugee employment base.

I am in the fortunate position of no longer having to work minimum wage jobs, however when I did (in Australia) I had the protection of the government, something I never really appreciated until now. However, if i was one of those affected by the horrific treatment described above I would be asking my government representatives the following questions:

1. When do you plan on enforcing the Basic Conditions of Employment Act?
2. Why does the government (at all levels) not conduct audits to ensure its contractors abide by the law?
3. Why is the minimum wage still at a level which prevents economic upliftment of "the people"?
4. Why has the government not used its almost dictatorial majority in the parliament over the last 15 years to make the unpopular decisions that would actually effect change?

As a new resident of Cape Town I am still getting my head around these issues, and I would love anyone (government or otherwise) to answer those 4 questions for me.

Links:

1. Labour Relations Act (PDF)
   
2. 'This is slavery, but we have no option' - Cape Times, 28 October 2009
   
3. Basic Conditions of Employment Act (DOC)

Onwards & Upwards.

So, its been a relatively big couple of weeks. I got a promotion last Friday, and life has been moving at a million miles an hour since then!

So my job was the Training Manager, now I am the Operations & Quality Assurance Manager, which means I basically run the operations of the company, as well as oversee the training school and make sure everything is lovely. Not rocket science, but it keeps me busy :)

On the studying side of things, I have my first exam in 6 weeks, which is actually not that far away (considering I only really get to study on weekends). The studying is nice, keeps my brain active.

Also, I have found a "local"!!! Its a bar just around the corner called Narona which makes insanely good pizza, and is really nice and chilled out. I went there twice and they already knew my name, good stuff. So things are getting nice and settled :)

So really, there is not heaps to say, but things are good. So thats good :)

Oh, but there is some sad news: my pot plant died, but I hadn't named it yet, so it wasn't technically part of the family yet.

Life Update

So, it has been a while since I last "blogged". Actually its been a month today! Sorry. The truth is I have really not been doing anything that interesting! No near-death experiences, no near-life experiences (to quote some movie I can't remember the name of...). But here is what I have been doing:

On Saturday I took a drive down to Cape Point, a huge national park at the point of the peninsula. This is an amazing area, beautiful and steeped in history. The Cape of Good Hope is where Vasco da Gama discovered a trade route with India, and since then it has been a stop for almost every ship that has sailed East since 1500! That aside, its also the meeting point of the Indian & Atlantic Oceans (The picture above is the Indian Ocean, the one at the top of the post is the Atlantic...)

This bad boy is the husband and father of the Ostriches pictured below, I never realised how cute a baby Ostrich is! and how scary a big make is when his beak is 10cm away from your head! Luckily there was a car between us, lucky for the Ostrich, I would have gone jackie chan on his... never mind.

Cape Point also has Zebra & Baboons. The Baboons are renowned, they can smell food, even if its in your car and they know how to open cars, get the food and close the door again! So you must lock your car, from the Baboons...

Apart from a day out at Cape Point, I have mainly just been working, and working, and working! There has been lots happening at work, so lots of overtime there, and I've been well into my studies, so lots of work there! AND, I'm slowly getting through 8 seasons of Scrubs. I know, I know, I got the life, but its nice sometimes to just put your head down and work...

Oh, Oh, and in about 20 mins, I will know if I have mastered the illusive Carrot Cake! Watch out Banana Loaf, your next!

My new apartment!

So, I have moved from the house in Woodstock, to this apartment in Gardens, and here are all the fantastic views! The one above is of Signal Hill, where at 12pm every daysince 1806 the have fired a cannon so ships can tell the time...

Lions Head, just next to that is the new Greenpoint Stadium (not pictured) for the world cup...

The ever present Table Mountain.

And Lions Head again at night... ah, lovely.

5 reasons why Vegemite is BETTER than Marmite

Now I know its so commonly Australian to LOVE Vegemite, but I do. And its so commonly Australian to MISS Vegemite when your overseas, but I do. And I know every other country in the world is confused about why this is, but it just is, so shhh.

Now there are always methods to deal with this common problem: ship tons of it over from Aus, guilt friends onto shipping tons of it from Aus, OR you could try one of the less superior substitutes, Bovril, Promite or Marmite. I am trying the latter.

Please don't get me wrong, I actually like Marmite, but

Vegemite is better, and here is why:

1. Marmite is runny. Not like liquid runny, more like honey runny. Making my sandwiches in the morning I have to be constantly vigilant that a stray piece of Marmite hasn't found its way on to my freshly ironed WHITE shirt. Vegemite on the other hand is more solid, like smooth peanut butter, you know where it is and where its going!
2. Vegemite works better with Avocado than Marmite. The texture of a ripe Avo mixes with Marmite, while even the most ripe Avo will never mix with Vegemite, keeping the delicious divide known commonly as Crazy Toast.
3. Its an undisputed fact that Marmite is sweeter than Vegemite. This means that if you are at the end of
   
   the month and all you can afford is Marmite and toast for dinner, technically its a dessert, but Vegemite on toast is dinner.
4. Vegemite is the rebel. It has been banned in some US states cus its so awesome. Marmite's awesomeness only got it banned in some Welsh schools....
5. It's better for you. Vegemite is described on Wikipedia as "one of the world’s richest known sources of B vitamins, specifically thiamin, riboflavin, niacin and folic acid", however the same website describes Marmite as having "useful quantities" of the same... Well, I have useful quantities of money, but I'm not rich!

Finally, and most importantly, Vegemite has stirred in me the desire to actually spend time scouring the Internet researching this stuff! Something I must admit I'm not proud of! So there it is, I have given in to the most common and undignified type of nostalgia... Vegemite Withdrawal.