Postcard: Cape Town - I Do Words

The customs official smiles blankly and stamps my passport, “Have a good holiday.” He hasn’t at all processed that I leave here January 1^st but go to India part of that time. It must not matter, I hope. The other passengers crowd the baggage belt, doing that thing where everyone stands too close for anyone else to see their bag. Mine drift past, behind a short Indian family and a set of tall, bleached Afrikaaners. I resign myself to another round, then dodge and dart, duffel, gear bag, trapeze wrapped in baggage tape and reluctantly surrendered at Schipol, no-one, no-one anywhere in the world thinks American security is good enough.
 
He runs around the end of the dividing half-wall, wraps his arms around me, nearly sweeps me off my feet but that I’m always worried I’m too heavy and I don’t pick them up. Yes, it was right to come. No, I’m not a fool. Cape Town is a swath of darkness between the airport and home, a flash of a grubby cluster of low-built houses, a shantytown clinging to a rise. His suburb is white and gated and guarded, he scans a fingerprint to raise the gate.
 
I’m here. I’m in Africa. How’d that happen?