Athlone Towers

The Athlone towers were part of a power plant in a suburb of Cape Town. This power plant is about 50 years old but has not been in use for a while. These huge towers were a well known landmark in Cape Town because you can see them from virtually anywhere in the city. The towers are very close to Langa (where we were this weekend) and the demolition of the towers was scheduled for Sunday at 12 noon. This was very emotional for Capetonians because it was such a significant landmark. Since the towers were not being used, they were tearing them down to build more housing in the area. We got out of church at 11:30 right in time to change and hurry to watch them come tumbling down. I was positive they would not fall at exactly 12 noon because we are on African time here. There is basically two ways to give someone a time. There is "now now", which means pretty much right now or in the next few minutes and there is "just now", which means in the next 20 minutes to some people and in the next 2 hours for others. Needless to say, things are rarely on time and often late with no consequences. People get there when they get there. Well, the whole city assumed we were on African time as did I. The demolition of these towers that we had been waiting to see since we arrived in Cape Town in July occurred at 11:56am, 4 MINUTES EARLY. Everyone missed it including the people who won a free helicopter ride to see it. We were running down the street when we heard the boom and saw the smoke. I was disappointed that I missed it but now it is more comical because of the uproar it caused for going off early.