For more photos please go to: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B0H91V5eCkkjbmk2cnA2NE1CV3c&usp=sharing

I’m on the couch sneezing and coughing my way along from a -too much fan on me at night -cold. we’ve had so little load shedding this week (president’s state of the nation address thursday may have something to do with it – more on that next week) that i was surprised to see ‘no internet connection’ come up half an hour ago. I’ve settled into life here a little more this week and i knew that was the case when rocking up to work greeting my new friends Annabelle, Ester and Kerrie (counsellors and admin) felt like the normal start to a day. I’ve definitely felt more safe here this week. I’m not sure if it’s that I know more about the place now or whether I’m just getting used to it. Either way it’s good and I feel a little silly and self-indulgent for devoting so much time in my blog to my fearfulness. but it’s all part of the process hey.

Last week was a week of culture. And cape town put on a good show. it started with a design battle hosted by friends of design in heaving thursday night bree st – 3×3 designers given 30 mins to design posters based on a theme. I ate my 20 rand microwave warmed bourie(local sausage) roll (minus roll) slathered in creamy mushroom sauce (to die for but nonetheless a strange combination), cheered and clapped at the right moments and happy-snapped their designs while missing my sister and thinking about how great a graphic designer she’s going to be.

on the friday i was whisked off to a quirky japanese dance theatre show in stellenbosch by jenny’s friend micah. stellenbosch is basically a city built around an afrikaans university. even though it has the usual African dichotomy of the ‘have’ and the ‘have less’ sides of town, it is smaller, quainter and more homely with a main street humming with cafes, bookshops, boutiques and bars. I was told we were there when all the cool people hang out – late afternoon. I think the nicely dressed couple on the table behind was on a tinder date. micah, super friendly, expressive and open about his thoughts on life made an ideal conversation partner as we ate butter and spice braaied smoked half chicken with red cabbage and mint salad from a restored old school cafe/restaurant with organic fruit and veg, coffee and snuggle corners and then we went shopping. micah forced (;)) me to enter the very hip cotton on shop (familiar?) because today was too warm for pants. i mention this event purely for all the lady readers out there because of the sales attendant. Tall, smooth creamy mocha skin, dark fall-into-my-depths eyes with a definite twinkle, snuggly beard calling out ‘touch me!’ (are you surprised steph?!) …. delicious south african man. I considered asking him out during our brief flirt until I saw him fold a hoodie with a ringed left hand. Bugger.

the evening was spent drinking a free local sparkling rose – god it was good – snuggled under a blanket in the second row of a green-surrounded amphitheatre, watching a dizzying, outrageous Japanese dance theatre piece. loud punchy music with short videos interspersed with men dancing and dancing together, skits playing up south africa – ‘a for… b for … c for …l for (couple cleaning, the lights going off and jumping into bed together, lights coming back on and back to cleaning, lights going off again and back into bed…) ‘loadshedding and o for…’ (man jumping across the stage with one shin tucked up into his shorts) ‘oscar’. the audience pretty much spat out their wine.

on the way home we fell into a happy silence until the gps directed us to go past mitchell’s plain. it is something i was wondering about gps use here. you can’t just follow it blindly and take the quickest route. especially at night. micah told me that there are areas you avoid; you never stop on the side of the highway even during the day and that police patrol bridges and some now have a roof and sides covered because people have been known to throw rocks to make you swerve so they can hijack you. he said his cousin had been hijacked and tied up in his own garage and his car used for a bank robbery. it’s just their reality he says. they got lucky. that night I’m alone in my flat and i shut all the windows. rather sweat.

The next night I hit up a meetup at spier wine farm. On my way (I check out all the bridges and) i drive past khayelitsha and langa townships: colourful aluminium shacks pressed up against one another jostling for space amongst the dust, most with lines of electricity joining a central maypole, some with satellite dishes. looking at the kilometres of lives lived in this way is a smack to the chest. Spoilt first world foreigner pity. I’m not quite sure what i do with that yet. Or how i feel about what i feel. The wine farm is just 5kms up the road. It is a constant mindfuck here; you’re asked to switch from first to third world and back again within minutes and adjust your feelings and activities accordingly. It’s like watching an arthouse film from a gold class cinema recliner. but here you’re in the movie and and people don’t go home to their mansions and perfect lives (but are they really??) at the end of a shoot. How does your heart keep up with this?

I’m jolted out of my drive by the large white gates of spier wine farm. It sports a big lily padded lake with a water fountain surrounded by well watered grass patched with couples and families soaking the afternoon sun like happy lizards. There’s a powerful calming energy from the sombre watchful mountain range in the distance- I could stare for hours. Halfway through the evening of wine mixing and juicy burger ravishing i slip away from the group to secretly meet up with him again in the softening light. Steady, unjudging, real; he’s like a firm hand on your shoulder. I drive home listening to the classical radio station, calmly alert.

Last week I had my first clients. I wasn’t sure how i’d go. Would there be stuck silences like with my first client last placement where all thoughts would freeze in my head? would i, to recover, blurt out questions or statements that afterwards I’d play over and over in my head scolding myself? With that in mind I ferociously tackled my reading on the weekend- the mega-manual from the service and notes from last placement. And slowly my grip on the books loosened and my shoulders released. The more i read the more it felt an old favourite book off the bookshelf. The morning of my first client I wrote out a running sheet for the session and befriended by this, my bulging notes book, confidence (how bad can it really go?!) and a decent dose of nerves I welcomed the lady I had the privilege of counselling. I won’t say I didn’t sweat or that my brain wasn’t switched on high (at one point I even thought ‘what the hell am I doing??’) but i kept my cool and calmed the self doubter in my head. She even seemed to have less to say. When asking my client at the end what aspects of the session worked for her she replied ‘all of it! Can I come again next week?’. I drove home a little quicker that day looking a bit like a gangsta with local hip hop pounding in time to my pouting head nods.

So far I’ve had two outings on main road Woodstock on foot (if you want to be a true local you have to mingle with the locals right?) The first time I wore my travel belt under my top (no one was going to mug me!) but I felt a bit silly especially when ferreting around for my phone in a shop (no one should be digging around down their pants in public!). I had had a short list of things to get: wireless keyboard – ‘we don’t have any’, fish shop – shut, 5 Rand shop – also shut, mugging – none. Not a complete loss.

My second outing was more successful (minus the ending). I had decided the night before that the iphone minus 20 (just kidding Zinz) my sister had kindly lent me for the trip needed a permanent rest. so i headed across to the trusty cash crusaders on the corner. i could buy a samsung galaxy s3 mini for the same price as a large huawei (but what is this huawei??). upon perusing the camera my new friend Tamzyn (Tammy) came across the previous owner’s undeleted photos: man posing next to motorbike with heels and suspenders, man with one leg on a wooden box in jockstrap… which we giggled over at the counter. So i left with a different phone and a desk which we wheeled across the road in front of people revving their engines at the sometimes optional red light (robot. My bad). in the car park i was handed over to Christian the security guard from the Congo. ‘I helped you yesterday when you were parked in right?’ with a french lengthening of his vowels, so we start our chat with an immediate familiarity. turns out he is an author writing a fictional piece about life and morals with a spiritual bent. he reminded me of over qualified taxi drivers back home. he chuckled about promoting his book in Australia and offered up the secret to passport applications (bypass the Dept of Home Affairs and go straight to the Constitutional Court!) before breaking into an animated french conversation on the phone.

in the afternoon it was time for the 5 Rand (55 cent) shop on Main Rd which i knew was going to be an experience and even the road there didn’t disappoint. it seems there is little point to having robots for pedestrians. people cross when and where they like, with or without kids, their eyes strong, assessing the gaps for dashing opportunities. taxis, buses and cars drive swervy lines on straight roads. In the shop it was similar. but this time someone wanted to grab my skottle (gas bbq) kettle. No way! i had my money tucked between my jeans and knickers (btw this is not the same as that damn money belt where you have to fiddle with a zip) and watched as two scruffy girls caused havoc with ‘hey Chinaman, where’s the valentine’s day mugs?!’ (hmmmm) and ‘don’t yell at me!’. ‘shu!’ (mum and dad you know this noise)…it was happnen here.

My final stop was spar (which is not a wellness facility). i had tasked myself with trying out the key supermarkets here in my first month. this was the last. The first had been the pick ‘n’ pay near my work which I discovered was heaving anytime of day. it was a steady battle amongst locals interspersed with loud American medical students and a few others to make it through the bustle. The low ceilings made the space feel hot and tight and I used my trolley to carve out a pathway through. The pick ‘n’ pay at canal walk mall (otherwise known as canal walk minus the c) was like aussie kmart and coles in one, spacious and bright with clothes and appliances and a large selection of health food items for prices that at home would be normal but here are crrraaiizzzeeee. here the demographic were the well dressed types who liked malls. woolworths was in the same price category but for the whole store. preened ladies coming from yoga with perfect make-up; confident ladder climbing types with chins up and bulging wallets; families with stirn eyebrowed mums scrouring the shelves followed by the ironed casual shirt dad saying ‘no darling’ to children in the trolley. i noticed that almost all their veg was pre chopped and bagged for today’s ‘busy lifestyle’. i bought kingklip for dinner that night and made it dad’s way ovenbaked with tomatoes, garlic, onion and chillis doused in butter. mmmm…. two helpings. I hear from jenny that Woolworths has copped some slack from the local Christian community for selling halal hot cross buns last year. i don’t know where to start with that one.

So my final supermarket was kwikspar…to kwik shop (couldn’t help it guys sorry). here I felt a little more comfortable again amongst students, professionals and a mix of cultures. i didn’t need much so i got my new phone out to take some photos of common saffa items not so common at home while being stalked by security. common observations from all supermarkets. 1) biltong is standard including kudu biltong. throw it into your basket as you wait in the queue like some smarties. 1b) if you like the biltong and want to combine its flavour with random other things no need to diy. you can practically buy anything biltong flavoured 2) lots of double cream yoghurt mmmm…. 3) meat, lots of meat and if bbqing you’ll be happiest in the dedicated braai sections 4) you cannot buy zucchini larger than your middle finger, nor is its name zucchini- it’s marrow 5) one person will scan your shopping, one will pack (into bags you pay for) and one will help you put them in your car for a tip 6) 1 ply toilet paper is commonplace here; anything more will cost you around 80 rand (9 bucks) for 9 rolls 7) if you like sauces move to South Africa. I have never seen such heavily laden sauce aisles. (I now understand dad’s pantry at home!)

i arrived home loaded up and was greeted by the chirps of the local children in the yard eager to chat. Sarah-Marie with a head of braids tied back into a thick bundle says she wants to have children one day but doesn’t want to get married. in fact she already has babies in her tummy. hmmm… She’s 8. I turned to look at the other children and felt a scuffling hand at my pocket. it was a hand wriggling around the top of my leg more than searching, almost like someone trying out something they’d seen but hadn’t yet mastered. i look down to Sarah-Marie’s little arm retreating from under the laundry basket I was holding and her running off to my ‘do not…..!’ there was nothing there to take. but she did take a bit of my heart. An 8 year old girl in my apartment block. ‘shu’. I feel sad that I now keep my distance.

So my supermarket shopper review process has confirmed what i thought. Like Coles and Woolies back home I want to support the big money grabbing corporations as little as possible. I google search organic fruit and veg and I find Harvest of Hope. It’s a Khayelitscha NGO that trains local people in organic farming so they can farm for themselves and sell to the public. About 80 rand a week will get you a box of veg per week delivered that will feed 1-2 people and a good feeling about yourself. You can even do a tour of their garden. My first box arrives Tuesday.

Ps. Interesting thing I heard this week on the radio: Mugabe the Zimbabwean dictat…I mean president fell on stairs at the airport. 27 of his guards punished for not preventing it. Immediately following Mugabe demanded all pictures of him to be taken down. This of course prompted a flood of doctored photos of him moonwalking, surfing etc with the hash tag #mugabefalls. Feel free to add your own or take a look.