Tag: Cape Town

  • Coworking in the Tavern of the Seas

    Cape Town has long been a destination on many travelers’ bucket lists. Named the best place in the world to visit by The New York Times and Telegraph in 2014 for its picturesque views of Table Mountain and Lions Head, Big-5 game parks within a few hours’ drive, and a peninsula peppered with semi-private beaches,…

  • Where Are You, Gary? Have You Killed Anyone Yet?

    It was Valentines’ Day. David and I didn’t have plans, but that wasn’t unusual. Holiday celebrations are a luxury of the settled. We’d spent the past three months so disoriented by this land of opposites, by driving on the wrong side of the road and by Christmas in the summertime, that holiday traditions felt like…

  • Conversations: Gypsy Bar

    One evening, I had drinks with a black friend at a gypsy pub at the foot of the mountain. I say black because it would matter, when he said, unprovoked, “What some people don’t understand is that the whites came and built everything. Some black people just want to take it all without working. They…

  • Conversations with the Tribe

    “The gardener is Luke. He’s wonderful, he’s from Malawi.” I follow Bronwen’s elegant pointer finger to the smiling man on the lawn. His grin splits his face into deep lines. “How are youu?” he calls. … “Don’t worry about making friends,” Amanda says.  “We’re not as cliquey with foreigners as we are with each other.”…

  • The Sangoma

    The clapping of their feet on the pavement reached a crescendo as they rushed into the alley where Prince hid. They looked wildly to the right and left. They wailed from deep in their gravel throats, the beads clacking in their hair, on their necks, on their arms. Prince crouched in the weeds, knowing that…

  • The Carousel of Houses: Part III

    In the afternoon we sat together on the couch, waiting to move again. Including hotels, it would be the fifth and hopefully final move in two months. We fanned ourselves in an amicable silence. We don’t always analyze our fights anymore, at least not right away. Before Spencer, we performed constant maintenance. Ours was a…

  • The Carousel of Houses: Part I

    On New Year’s Eve, David was in the middle of his nightly relaxation routine, putting a rack of ribs on the barbeque, when we got a call from the rental agency woman. “I just wanted to make sure you found accommodations for tomorrow,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to be homeless!” We were supposed…