arb obs

The (relatively) new Loading Zone in the hip and happening De Waterkant area is so quintessentially Cape Town it's painful. The chairs are functional designer chic, the music cutting edge electro and the coffee is said to be better than Eccos (and if you're truly Capetonian you'll know what that means). Naturally the walls are unfinished and the lighting harsh in that industrial/interrogation-room kind of way that is all the rage right now. The top half of the loft-like interior features a range of clothing with jeans that retails for upwards of R2600 and bicycles for an unimaginable amount. That's right, bicycles, because when you're in Cape Town it's all about innovation and being carefully, fashionably different.

I say Cape Town but of course I'm not referring to say, Mitchell's Plein, Bellville or even Sea Point down the road from De Waterkant. This version of Cape Town is all French cafes, bubbling fountains and quaint cobble streets neatly purged of the original Cape Malay population. Instead Germans, models and industry types frequent Indonesian furniture shops, speed about on Vespas and tap away on their apple laptops at painfully pedantic coffee shops. Like Loading Zone.

Because if this little section of the city has given itself over to any form of religion, it is that of fashion. And coffee is seriously fashionable right now. Has it been roasted and ground five minutes before being served? Has the milk been freshly steamed and the beans organically grown? If not you're liable to be excommunicated from this church. Drinking bad coffee is tantamount to blasphemy and not drinking coffee at all will leave you in my position. A renegade, misfit and social pariah- adrift in a sea of baristas and constantly in search of just One. Good. Cup of Chai. Yes, tea- that particular poison considered so distasteful by the High Priests of Coffee (i.e. Vida e Café) they've actually barred it from their stores.

Ecco, also in Hudson street, has taken a more conciliatory stance and I'm told they are in the process of constructing a soothing tea garden to co-exist peacefully next to the current interrogation room where Coffee is worshipped. They even have a shelf full of dazzling varieties of teas from all over the world and a laminated venue listing their flavours and origin. Black vanilla leaves from China along with more creative herb varieties from South America have all made their way here. Everything except the simple Chai: that loveliest of lovely Indian brews that has finally, in recent years, found its way across the rest of the civilised world along with lamb vindaloo, chicken korma and samoosas.

Except here. This tiny, pretentious officious nook of the world that consistently and infuriatingly refuses to serve Chai. And now you divine the real root of my displeasure. Let them have their bright yellow seamless chairs, their concrete walls and the hiss and gurgle of their milk steamers. Just let me have my Chai!! Is it too much to ask? Can Ecco really have an imported range of more than 50 teas and no Chai? "I think we had it once," the waiter says squinting at the evidently painful memory.

Both Ecco and Loading Zone offer me Rooibos Chai. Now you'd think one religious fanatic would recognise another. ROOIBOS CHAI??? COULD THERE BE A MORE HEINOUS OFFENCE??!

You must forgive my outburst. As I write I am miserably, but out of pure necessity, sipping at a lukewarm cup of this drivel. The tea bag (ha! As if Chai could be found in a bag) is all drawn out and it's still the weakest most insipid little trumpet that ever did masquerade as her real mistress.

She is but a poor, poor substitute. But it is what I am reduced to.

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*Update: according to a friend Ecco has started serving Chai. Obviously my wailing and gnashing of teeth when I was last there made a lasting impression.

The darkness that greets you as you throw back the covers is par for the course. You squint at your clock, barely making out the hour hand pointing at the numerals: IV.

You remember going to bed at this time on some nights in your youth.

Your hands stumble as you pour the flask of tea and you narrowly miss scalding yourself. Contact lenses are clumsily inserted, backpack packed and you're out the door- racing to beat the approaching dawn.

Every robot is red though the streets are dead quiet. The rattling of your car bugs you.

Onto Kloof street and the road starts ascending up to the mountain. It's getting lighter now but you can't go too fast around the hairpin bends.

You're finally on the road that will take you there. You've done the winding drive before but usually when it's light.

The car in front of you has had no such experience. It crawls as if there were monsters around every bend. As if no one had taught him how to use the fourth gear. It's all you can do to keep yourself from speeding past him on the blind curve.

Finally you see the others. People gathered, staring. Pointing. You follow their fingers.

It's started and you're just in time. There she is. An improbably red orb glowing on the horizon, floating above a blanket of mist pulled over the sleeping city. Up here on Signal Hill in Cape Town the air is clear.

You watch the moon's perpetually pale face warm this one time to a maiden's blush. She must have been heavily provoked indeed.

It doesn't matter that you're sleepy. That there's no parking or that you've spilt half the tea in your backpack. Not till the unimaginably far-off year of 2015 will you see this again: the earth bending the rays of the sun to set fire to the moon as it is slowly eclipsed.

There's nothing like dying in a blaze of beauty.

Photo by Jason Visagie, News24 User

This is the conclusion I've reached after trying to write my first article for the year.

It's a simple follow-up of a hijacking article. There's some holes in the story so I'm calling my usual sources at hospitals, police and emergency services.

It really is just a routine, formulaic piece.

But maybe people are still in holiday mode and have forgotten how a logical conversation works.

Ring ring. "Hello?"

"Good day, is this the Helen Joseph hospital?"

"Yes it is."

"Hi there, I'm a journalist calling from News24.com, could you perhaps put me through to your communications or PR person please?"

"No I'm sorry, this is Lion of Africa, not the hospital."

After recovering from that Little Britain-esque exchange I call ER24.

"Hello is this Mr Vermaak?"

"Yes it is."

"Hi Mr Vermaak, this is Verashni calling from News24, how are you?"

"I'm very well thanks."

"That's good. Mr Vermaak, can I ask you a few questions about the statement you've just released about the woman who was hijacked in Randburg?"

"Sure you can."

"Thank you. Okay, so you mention that her husband was thrown into the boot. Was he later released or is he still missing?"

"Sorry, can you please call me back in five minutes? I'm doing a radio interview."

.... the world has gone mad today.

I thought I'd leave it to bloggers cleverer than I (i.e., the smart blokes on thoughtleader.co.za) to analyse this one. But my search throughout the South African blogging zeitgeist has yielded no results for the one question I had after the Rugby World Cup. No, it's not how Percy gives his hair that particular blonde buoyancy, or even: is Victor Matfield single? (I just checked- he isn't).


My particular puzzle is this: why was our President snubbed so often by the English players at the end?


We all watched with hearts overflowing as our boys waited their turn to get their medals and finally, 12 years later, their hands on the Webb Ellis trophy again.


But first we dutifully sat through Englishman after sullen Englishman running the gauntlet heavy-footed between Prime Ministers and Presidents.


They shook French Prime Minister Nicholas Sakozy's hand. They stared at the floor as their own Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, spoke earnestly to them. Then they proceeded to push pass the winning country's president, Thabo Mbeki's outstretched hand.


That Philistine, Johnny Wilkinson, looked back at it and carried on walking.


Now, working at News24 has thoroughly familiarised me with that particular animal known as the Paranoid South African. Right about now this species of being will no doubt proceed to say something along the lines of: "He deserved it, the corrupt bastard." To you I say:

The neighbourhood of Mowbray is like an unfortunate extension of Observatory, with all if it's vices and none of it's charms. Trapped between Rondebosch and Observatory it lacks the middle class suburban gloss of the former and the derelict charm of the latter. Mowbray sprawls on either side of an uninspiring stretch of the ubiquitous Main Road that winds through much of Cape Town, cowering beneath the unfortunate back end of Table Mountain.

I'd driven through this stretch many times on my way to other places, flinching at the monstrously yellow Shopright store and Liquor store that dominated an entire corner, with it's assortment of hanger-ons. But this was the first time I was making a stop in this half-way town. (I have an affinity for half-way towns, as some of my previous posts may tell you.)

I was en route to an Indian inspired dinner party, with a number of interesting people I was eager to get to know better. I had even donned part of an Indian outfit from literally a decade earlier: a red embroidered skirt that was a draw string when I was ten and only just fitted me now. Teamed with gold sandals, a chocolate brown top and red beads, I thought I was the epitome of fusion-chic. I'd forgotten to take into account the dozens of little bells that adorned the skirt.

After an entire day of tinkling around the office, inspiring comments like: "Oh look, Christmas has arrived early," and "What IS that sound??" I had grown accustomed to the gentle ringing. But the bergies outside the Shoprite clearly hadn't, as I found out when I stopped to buy some drinks for the dinner.

"Hello angel!!" screeched out one, with the belligerence one would think ill-deserved by any kind of celestial being. I gingerly stepped over him and his compadres, rolled in blankets and propped up outside the Shoprite window side by side, like a row of bent sausage rolls. Their heads and shoulders peeked out their wrappings, watching me jingle my way into the shop.

Capetonians don't really appreciate Joburg drivers. This despite our obviously superior highways, driving skills and ability to navigate without the aid of a giant mountain or two oceans as a landmark.

I learned this much when my car was impounded for parking in a bus space. You see, I hadn't received the memo that this law applies solely to those unfortunate enough to have a GP licence plate, which would explain why every other Cape Town car that parked with me in said place was left behind. Kind of like the rapture without the perks.

The 15th of March marks two month since I moved to Cape so I thought I'd pre-empt the day with a list of  Thing's I've Learned:

What an amusing way to start one's day. I arrived at work to face that now customary Capetonian dilemma... parking. You'd swear you were in London, and I'm not just talking the police on horseback. Parked vehicles line the already ridiculously narrow streets, and Capetonians have a unique ability to park ANYWHERE. On pavements, between trees, up a mountain...

New driver as I am, I've been reluctant to engage in this type of renegade driving. But paying R10 to park a fifteen minute walk away at the waterfront was my only other option. On my second trawl along the street I spotted a parking place about half a metre longer than my car. Well, now was as good a time to practise parallel parking as any, me thought.

I started wrestling with my resolutely NON-power steering wheel, much as Jacob wrestled with the angel. Except that my shoulder was the part that was almost displaced. Out the corner of my eye I saw a man stop on his way to work and look at me in amusement. "That's right, laugh at the woman driver," I muttered under my breath. He was soon joined by another suited man who also looked on, gesticulating with his hands. It dawned on me that they were trying to help, not laughing. Well actually, they kinda laughed the whole way through, too. 

So in the end I manoeuvred my way into the tiny parking space, thanks to my two Samaritan friends. I'm glad I was able to provide them with some amusement for the day. But sheesh, parallel parking is hard.

(It occured to me that I never concluded my "Cape Town Arrival" update. Click for more for a group mail sumary of all that's happened and where I'm at now, geographically and emotionally :)

The library interior come exam time stinks of decadent time usage. Whole hours are frittered away with more relish, conscious abandon and sheer recklessness than at any other time of year. Only in the nail-biting tension of The Night Before an Exam will you find Jock 1 and 2 seated on the steps outside; mandatory muscled shoulders hunched in childlike apprehension. The occasional snort of “bru” and “hectic” escapes now and then purely out of habit. Mostly they just stare into the distance, jaws clenched, books untouched. To their right are the cool ouens: bras straight out the Kaap. They’re rolling their tobacco, lolling their gaits and talking smart. But they’re laughing a little too loudly. They’re a world and a cultural epoch removed from jock 1 and 2 but they know the nervous tension. It permeates this hallowed institution of learning, where print collects and waits silently between hard cover: taunting, watching, daring.

The line to the check out counter is a mile long. People I know stare blankly into my face, the haze of examisitis rendering me unrecognisable. Should I wave? Gloat? Offer a sympathetic shoulder. See, I am done. It is finished. Me, my degree and academics. So why have I chosen to place myself at the locus of this epidemic? Because you see, when you are immune, when yours aren’t the sweaty palms, the dishevelled hair and the glazed eyes, it can be sooo much fun to watch.

What is it about freshly cut grass that is so enthralling? I am literally stopped in my tracks, unable to move on. It's a heady scent that signals Spring like nothing else. Inhaled it has the strength of a thousand crushed herbs, enough to knock you to the ground to experience it at closer range. Can green have a smell? This is it for sure. It is a sweet, earthy aroma; clean and pure, like a newborn babe.

Spring has never caught my attention with so much force in previous years. I often thought that the seasonal change in my part of the world is too gradual to really mark. But this year I've been wowed by Spring: it's intensity of colour and smells, but mostly by it's exuberant, laughing and emphatic arrival. Boy can she enter a room.

Suddently the lawns are carpets of the purest green under pulsing blue skies overhead. Daisies dot the green slopes in splashes of yellow, frequented by gossamer-winged bees. They rifle busily through the pollen heads, plundering the wide open invitations spilled forth by the flowers. A quick sip of nectar here and the bee must be off. A hundred more yellow heads nod and smile in the breeze, silky petals framing the delectable feast.

I totally get what Wordsworth was on about now :)