.

Twenty-seven-years-old, he runs a sandwich stand on Long Street that's owned by his older brother. On my first day in Cape Town two months ago, he yelled at me in greeting as I walked by. Every time after that, he'd do the same, so I said, "You've got to stop yelling at me, man. I'm afraid to walk by you!"

Finally, I bought a cup of coffee from him. We talked.

Like I've said in another post, his father is colored, and his mother is white, of English extraction. On his ID, he's simply indentifed as white.

A good man, he's always cheerful. We joke around.

"You're a total whore, man. You flirt with every woman!" I said.

"They're beautiful."

"Hey, that's a good attitude. I hate guys who always judge women. She's this, she's that, but then, look at you, man!"

"That's right. Ha, ha!"

"Hey, you didn't say hello to her!"

"Which one?"

"That one."

"I didn't see her."

"She's offended."

"I can't say hello to her if I don't see her."

Like nearly everyone here, he speaks Afrikaans and English, but he's trying to learn Khoisan on his own. It's not easy, because there's almost no resource online, and his neighbors on Long Street don't speak it. The shopkeeper across the street, for example, speaks Somali.

He's never been outside South Africa.