The way the cookie crumbled

There is a beautiful quote by Goethe: “one must ask children and birds how strawberries and cherries taste.” It’s a romantic reminder to look at a world in a new light. It did not take a child or a bird to remind me of this, but a 6ft siren that went by the name of Taylor. Not quite as novel, I know, but bear with me- I’m trying to make lemonade here.
Taylor was an American tourist, roaming the streets of Cape Town looking for the Africa she had read of in Heart of Darkness. She was tall. She was blonde. She was foreign. I was drooling. While there were no lions or cannibals in the near vicinity, I offered to show her the South African culture.
Shebeens provided an escape in the days of Apartheid. People of all races could converge in drunken revelry, sing in mutual empathy, and dance until the darkness of the time seeped from their shoes. Even if you’re looking for a drunken misadventure today, a shebeen is where you will find it.
Now please don’t tell Taylor this, but I had never been to one before. I claimed to visit there every Saturday, that it was my local hot-spot to get down and mischievous. I was lying. I just wanted to show that I was cultured. I’m not proud of myself, okay. But did I mention her legs?
Coming from a privileged background behind the high walls of the Northern suburbs, this was a new experience. The experience I found, however, was foreign. The music was alien, the beer was sour, and the food was tough. I was a tourist in my own country, a sightseer in my own city. I wanted to run for the hills, and take the blonde to a mall or something she would be more familiar with. She must have been petrified, and my chances with her wrecked.
But like the child or the bird, she was experiencing the shebeen with a joy that rarely comes in such a pure form. She was dancing with a child, she was drinking the local beer, she was smelling the rich wafts of payella from the kitchen. She made me see my world through her eyes- and it was beautiful.