new home!

It seems these days I don’t have quite as much noteworthy news to report on the home front of Cape Town. Slowly, day by day, my new environment is soaking in. There are many changes to my life that have happened since coming here.

I spend the first 10 days or so with cousin Robyn in the suburb of Bothasig, which is about 30 min outside Cape Town proper. I spent a lot of time with little cat Lulu and drinking instant coffee as it’s a car-centric area that kept me feeling pretty couped up most days.

Last Friday I was able to move into distant cousin Margaret’s lovely, empty flat in Oranjezicht. It’s a sweet flat, perfectly suited to one. It’s part of a much larger complex, though luckily I have my own garden full of hydrangeas and lavender and a view of Table Mtn. I write, now, from a little sunporch that opens onto the garden (where I have recently connected with a couple resident lizards!!!). Table Mountain, which is bordered on either end by Devil’s Peak & Lion’s Head summit creates a crescent. In this crescent the area of City Bowl is nestled below the mountains and borders on the industrial waterfront. Oranjezicht is located within this city bowl.

I’m getting to know Cape Town, slowly but surely and finding it is a most difficult place to be without a car. There is about a 2.5 mile radius surrounding my current flat so that I can walk almost anywhere within the City Bowl. However, Kirstenbosch Gardens, Rondebosch, Observatory, Camps Bay, the beaches & the townships are all located on the other side of the mountains and are thus very difficult to reach on foot.

Safety is a definite concern here. I could bike, but it would need to be in a group setting since bike-jacking is a major issue. There is a whole system of trains, but apparently only one of them is safe enough to ride on a regular basis - and the station itself is a 25 minute walk away. The buses…well, they exist and for those that know the routes they’re accessible and affordable but they don’t really cater to people like me who have no clue! And then there are taxis, which are big minibuses usually packed with 10-15 people at a time - cheap to get around in, safe-ish to ride within the city, but not safe if going to the townships and other outlying areas.

With all these transport concerns…it seems inevitable that I need to buy a cheapo car. I’m definitely not minding the walking, but it is limiting at the end of the day in terms of what I want to do while here. Almost all non-profit agencies are based in the townships where the need is.

While it feels no less safe than Chicago to be traveling about on foot during the day, the night brings me into my flat and here I meet myself! It is good to be living alone as I’ve been living in other people’s homes for a year and half now. I have the freedom to play music, leave dishes unwashed for a night (if I wish), to bathe with the bathroom door open, etc! Nice independence to be granted, but it is at the price of not knowing anyone else!

Lucky for me, I do have a rally group of cousins who have all sweetly taken me in. Let me give you an intro: there is Robyn, who is my age and the one cousin I have consistently seen every trip to South Africa. She manages a beautiful boutique hotel that overlooks the sea. A nice perk is that it’s quite close to where I live so I anticipate we’ll be seeing a lot of each other while here. Just today I had her over for lunch - I adapted a Jamie Oliver recipe for crostini with parma ham, fresh figs, and mint. Couldn’t find any figs and have tons of oregano in my garden, so instead we did rye bread toast with parma ham, fresh litchis, fresh oregano & a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and olive oil on top. YUM! None of you, my readers, must ever die before tasting a fresh litchi, they are absolutely divine!!!

After Robyn, there is Georgia, who’s a good 6 years older than me and was always an idle to me growing up. Georgia is the daughter of my mom’s beloved sister Lynne and lives close by in a suburb called Table View. When I first arrived you may have seen postings of baby Rebecca on my blog - this is Georgia’s first daughter. Georgia has a background in graphic design and is a very creative spirit so we get along quite nicely.

And then there’s long-lost Genneth, who I’ve just recently met for the first time since I was four! Gen is a stylist for an interior design magazine in SA and she lives about a 20 minute walk away. Already she’s introduced me to some friends in the art crowd here and it seems evident that we’ll get to see a lot of each other.

My teaching gig is a bit up in the air, but as schools open on Wednesday, I am gearing up to start my work then, even if it is only temporary. I have found a couple of possible opportunities to do work elsewhere and am seriously interested in a economic-development papermaking project located in the Khayelitsha township which sounds right up my alley. So, yet again, trying to stay flexible and see where it will all go!

To wrap up, I will be staying here probably at least til June, so pencil in this address:
xxxx Please email me for address details.
My cell is 011-27-76-373-5773