Autumn. Fires. Cold swimming. What relief is in the air. The fires devastated about 300 hectares of the 25,000 hectare Table Mtn National Park, so all in all Cape Town was quite lucky. For me, just a blip on my radar when I opened my windows early morning on Wednesday to go to work. A lovely crisp autumn air tinged with woodsmoke...mmmm....until I heard the helicopters madly flying overhead. The fires were well under control by the time school started but later in the day the wind rose and they flared up - I saw an amazing forest of trees just by the highway crippling in a blaze. Such sorrow. But for the mountain, regeneration. It now sits still, blackened and ready for the autumn rains to bring on new life.
I've been swimming regularly during the heat for the past couple of months, growing strong frog legs and have started to condition my body to the cold water of fall. Yikes, when I say condition, I mean feeling my lungs bulge (or are they shrinking) in my chest, aching as I gasp each breath to swim forward. I've been trying to hike quite a bit as well and have attained a lovely expansion in myself from that as well.
And with these shaky cold-water breaths and hiking shod feet, I am starting to find my place in the city. I am constantly astounded by how international Cape Town is - full of people from all over. And more often than not, running into them more than the "locals". I've met a lot of ex-pat Ghanaians, Kenyans, Nigerians, Germans, Dutch, Italians, Americans & Canadians - funnily, not as many Brits as you'd expect. But I've also met a nice handful of people who are local. Mostly ladies, each unique, helping me to acquaint with the city in different ways...via eating, cooking, hiking, winter coat-shopping, moon gazing, dancing. My calendar is starting to become regularly full and I must admit that because I'm connecting with most of these people, I'm becoming more full as well.
On the horizon... I've finally made a site-visit to a paper making group based in Khayelitsha, but I'm uncertain of how that will pan out. It is in dire need of help and about $10,000! It was started in 2000 and the studio was given equipment and the physically disabled participants taught the skills necessary to make paper. Minus, the skills to operate a business successfully. I wouldn't go so far as to say the place is a dump, but it is in need of many helping hands. Financially, it's not viable - no one makes a salary or even a regular wage so most participants consider themselves volunteers - however the original point of the project was to create jobs!!!
I'd be considering myself superwoman to be able to un-trench them. So right now I'm sitting with many letters to write, funding to procure and mustering a second-wind to assist with this "lost" cause situation. These lost causes are frequent - people with money/skills starting projects for "the needy", eventually leaving them for other demands and the project collapses.
In the meantime, I'm trying to make sure that's exactly what doesn't happen with the library I'm restoring (pictured below). I'm color-coding everything, creating a log, and hoping to involve the ever-handy presence of the 7th Grade prefects. Right now, however, I don't think we have enough books in the various reading level ranges for each student to take out a book. So finding more books is also a problem - I'd ask my fellow-Americans back home, but know the cost of shipping would far outweigh the benevolence of donating old books. Current thought is to have Americans donate used books to a local school or library with corporate backing that would then match $2 or $3 for every book donated to go to African schools. Then, everyone wins. Anyone have some networking strings they could pull?
If only you could see the smile on my students' faces when I lend them a book to take home. No one would be driven to drink at the end of a long week, only driven to give books! I'm all ears, so if you have any ideas, there's more than one eager teacher here willing to carry them out.
p.s. top 2 photos not taken by myself, found on www (don't worry, Dub, I wasn't that close!!!)
