By tinavisc
This past weekend was spent at Rocking the Daisies, an annual music festival held about 1.5 hours outside of Cape Town. Youngsters, Oldsters, and everyone between gather for 4 days of rockin', rollin', and campin' on the Cloof wine estate in beautiful Darling, South Africa. Besides the gale-force winds, the weekend couldn't have been more perfect. What stuck out to me was the diversity of the crowd, much like that of Cape Town. Different races and religions joined together garbed in a rainbow of neon socks and face paint to celebrate music and that joie-de-vivre. As an American in the crowd of the Daisies festival, I stood out more than I expected, and certainly more than I do around my university's campus. Upon hearing my American accent, many South Africans around me and my fellow Americans were suddenly inundated with inquiries as to our nationality. I suppose many foreigners stick to the major cities when traveling around South Africa, so our presence was as much a surprise to them as their interest was a surprise to us. All in all, the festival was similar to those in the States.
We battled the wind to keep our tents together and upright, we were denied showers for four days, we cooked bacon and eggs on a burner the size of a candle, we lost shoes and cash, but we were reminded of our humanity in this world -something so valuable to remember so far from home.