Cape Town...once again, we decided to come here for a couple of weeks while it was cold and snowy in Germany. Travelling with turkish airlines, which despite the political situation in Turkey, is still the best option when you have too muchequipment. We arrived safely in South Africa...well, all but not my euqipment...
After tons of phone calls with the German Turkish airline call center, the turkish airline baggage claim department and the Cape Town airport, I finally could pick up my equipment 4 days after my arrival! Yes...my trip started 4 days later than expected. Lucky me, Eddie and Philipp helped me out with their gear, which allowed me to go sailing! Awesome! In the first days, we had pretty good conditions and than the wind paused for some days: time for hiking Lion`s Head and to go a little bit of sight seeing. The food market in Hout Bay is pretty worth visiting and also the pinguins in Simon`s Town: funny, little guys! Mainly, we are eating tons of good food and spend our time doing yoga and waiting for the wind to drop in. I am also pretty impressed about how the city is developing. I have the impressions that since my first visit 5 years ago, the amount of waste, which you see along the streets, decreased and people take better care about the environment. Additionally, a lot new malls and appartment blocks are under construction. An interesting fact about South Africa is, that they are handeling much more refugees than the EU. Assumption say that 3 to 7 million people asked for asylum in the last years. Most people are coming from the sub-saharian region for security or economical reasons. Nearly 90 % of the request are denied (in general, it takes years to receive a status), but during this time people are allowed to move freely and to work, which are fundamental points for a selfdetermined live and for integration. However, I am not so much familiar with the South African refugee politics and for sure there are a lot of things which are not perfect, but it makes me wonder: we should see the "refugee crisis" as a global thing and not just as an European or German problem and it also makes me believe that people back home should get more open-minded. We cannot solve these problems by building walls or by simply sending the people back. New and global solutions have to be found, since most people would prefer to live back home, if their lives are secured.
