From Moscow on the Hill With Love

According to legend, "Moscow on the Hill" was what many called the University of Cape Town during the apartheid years. The nickname was a bit of a double entendre, derived both from that apodictic red slate rooftops that characterize Cape Colonial architecture and that cover most of UCT's buildings, but also from the supposedly dangerous left-wing politics that emanated from campus.

The red rooftops remain, and the campus still occupies these stately grounds in the hills of Rondebosch, in the shadows of Table Mountain. UCT is one of South Africa's elite campuses, and like its peers (Wits, Rhodes, Stellenbosch, Natal-Durban) is breathtaking in its beauty. It sinmply feels like a great university. This morning the clouds enshrouded the mountains that overlook campus even as campus overlooks a large swath of Cape Town's surrounding areas.

I am taking a break from working in the African Studies Centre Library, which is no longer in the African Studies Centre proper, but instead has its own new facility in the main library. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the head librarian here is Sandy Rowoldt, who was in charge of Cory Library at Rhodes up until a couple of years ago, when she got the position at UCT. She has been tremendously helpful, as she always has been for me -- I am at that point on this trip where I am cherrypicking, as many archives have some redundancy, and in any case, my projects do not really focus on Cape Town politics -- maybe my next new project will, seeing as I'd love an excuse to have to come and spend a few weeks or months in Cape Town. This afternoon I will spend some hours at UCT's Manuscripts and Archives, which, oddly enough, IS in the buidling with the African Studies Centre, as the head archivist over there found 3-4 collections I need to see.

I am not certain if I can surpass last night's sundowners experience -- a friend of Doug's took us out to Melkbosch to a pub with a large patio and lawn that provides an unparallelled view of both the city and of Robben Island at its closest point to the coast. The sun set just to the west of the island where Mandela and hundreds of other prisoners spent time at the behest of the Apartheid state. I walked on the beach promenade and on the streets of Ses Point for hours yesterday, and got my first real serious sunburn of the trip. But it was well worth it. Today we are having sundowners elsewhere on the beach, and then perhaps a braii. But first, I have some more paper collections to investigate. My research is wrapping up. Soon it will be time to start filling blank pages.