Cape Town 1 (October 3)

Everyone has always told me Cape Town is a beautiful place, and I have to admit it is an amazing blending of mountain, sea, and city—although there are still large areas of township shantytowns that have not healed from Apartheid. The Cape Town 2010 office—and both hotels I am staying in during my month here—are all in what is known as the Cape Town Bowl. This is the site of the original Dutch settlement, surrounded on three sides by Table Mountain and two of its spurs , the most famous one called the Lion’s Head. The fourth side was Table Bay and the South Atlantic ocean, but over time the water has been pushed back by land fill and the Bowl is now 2/3 of a mile from the bay. The convention center where the congress will be held is in this filled area, as is the primary tourist area which is built on Victorian era docks along the water. Most of this is very new built during the preparation for the World Cup.
My first hotel is on the old main street. Entirely by accident I chose one that sits right by the National Legislature, the cathedral (where Desmond Tutu was archbishop), the mother church of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (where Andrew Murray pastored), and the Company Garden, which was originally where fruit and vegetables for the ships was grown but which is now a beautiful park. On a darker note, the Slave Lodge which is now the museum of the history of Apartheid is also next to the hotel. It’s about an eight-block walk to the office, where more and more of us are working as the Congress nears. I generally take off between 7 pm to 8:30 pm, and I know some folks are staying several hours beyond that. Although walking around any part of the town except the tourist area on the water is not recommended after dark, I stay on the lighted streets and there are lots of security guards—pretty much on every corner.
Today Scott and Holli Rebney (Scott is the Director of Administration and the person giving me most of my tasks until Lindsay Brown arrives) borrowed a car and after church we drove down to Simon’s Town to see the penguin colony. These are African penguins, the one species that does not live in the Antarctic. They are nick-named “jackass penguins” because they sound just like a donkey when irritated—loud, too. You can get within a couple of feet of them, and they pretty much ignore you. Humans have not been their predators, so they have gotten used to us.
The pictures are of Table Mountain and the “Tablecloth”— a cloud that pours over the mountain almost every afternoon—as seen from the office windows, and also from the Company Garden. And of course penguins. The black spot behind those in the foreground is a mob of several thousand others in the background!