On Top of the World

This picture was taken at about 9:30 this morning at Lion's Head, part of the magnificent Table Mountain range in Cape Town.  To my left in the distance somewhere is my apartment.  Every morning when I get up, I get to see this site from the other side.  I can barely make out where my flat is up here, but from my kitchen and bedroom windows, the top does not seem so far.  Optical illusions.  Is this blog even real?

And to think I was going to be my usual self and cancel.  It seemed like a great idea last night, but when you're cuddled with the warm blankets, this "reason" now seems entirely unreasonable.  But I forced myself out of the house and had a fantastic (and not easy) experience.  I huffed, and I puffed.  I cursed my tobacco habit, but once on the top, I couldn't remember any of these excuses.

To my right is Ntsiki and then Marcella.  Marcella and I have known each other for about 5 years.  It was love at first sight, what can I say.  A Colombian native, we met through a mutual friend everybody calls The General.  Incidentally, The General and I met in Cape Town in 1997.  It was my first job back in the country.  I remember still living in the USA and everybody saying "It's going to be so easy for you to get a job, having an American Degree and all."  They lied.  None of the "contacts" I'd made who promised me access had bothered to stay in contact, even after repeated prodding.  It was a hard lesson in human relations, but worth every second.  You need these hard knocks in life to set you on the straight and narrow.

It had taken me 6 weeks to land this job, and my mom was still asking me "exactly what it is you're doing"?  Actually, not much has changed.  My mom still asks me the same question, but I've made it work for so long now that she knows that I'll be ok, whatever it is I am or will be doing. I was an associate producer on a documentary series called Africa, Search for Common Ground.  It was produced by Ubuntu productions, and I remember landing in Cape Town and thinking:  "I am never leaving here.".  Well, I left, and came back, and left.  And now I'm back again.  Like I said, not much has changed.

I've cleaned two loads of laundry.  The oven has been simmering with a Kgomotso's Pocco Bucco (using pork instead of veal, and then of course I didn't have celery and carrots so I had to improvise, hence my signature on the dish).  I'm grilling cougettes and pumpkin.  For the past 3 days I've been fermenting mabele to make Ting, a sour traditional SeTswana, sorghum based grain that also used to brew traditional beer.

I'm drinking red wine and taking a break from cooking to write this.

Excuse me.  Lunch is served.