Annalog

It’s a dark, rainy Friday morning here in the Western Cape. I woke up thinking it was still early morning. The started off quietly, and I woke to do laundry in my building. It may be a quiet day in Cape Town, but up north in Zimbabwe, the run-off elections have begun.

The day is finally here. According to Reuters on The New York Times, the runoff election between incumbent president Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai started slowly this morning. Down here in the the center of Cape Town, everything is quiet. The main headline of the paper this morning read: “Mugabe defiant to the end.” (more…)

As we were driving back from the Cape of Good Hope on Friday afternoon, we stopped the car by the side of the road. The sun had just come out after a rainy, cloudy day. It warmed up, and finally, we could dry off.

It’s hard to write about the events of a day several days after. The chronology gets confused and, more often than not, it comes out in a flood of separate anecdotes. I apologize for the crazy chronology.

The car had been sitting in the garage at our building on Roeland since Friday afternoon where I had parked it after our road trip. I offered to give Alicia and Chelsea a ride to work before taking the car back to the rental place. Sat down in the driver’s seat, depressed the clutch, added gas. Nothing. Just what I needed.

I woke up this morning with a headache. I opened my mouth to speak and nothing more than a croak came out. I hit the snooze button again and again, slowly realizing that I needed to return the car. (more…)

On Friday, I took a cab to a car rental place off Main Road in Cape Town. I picked up an old, junky manual transmission car and drove with Alicia into City Centre. We had planned all week to go driving around the countryside. Instead of the clear day we had hoped for, fog rolled in and it rained on and off throughout the day.

I left my flat in the morning and Alicia and I took a cab that cost far too much out to the car rental place. I sat in the driver’s seat and slowly got used to the feeling of sitting on the right side and driving on the left side of the road. Surprisingly, it didn’t take too long to get used to it. (more…)

I got a number of photos in the paper this week, the one posted below amongst them. Shooting press conferences provides photographers with the great opportunity to play around in the field without missing the action.

I took this image on a slow shutter speed using my external flash. As I depressed the shutter, I twisted the zoom ring, and it created this great effect. I learn so much in the field simply by experimenting.
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I awoke Monday morning to the sound of wind whipping around my building. It was a cold and gray day, and periodically the sky began spitting rain. The week has continued much the same way, and my gold-colored pashima has been a god-send. It was just like California–blustery and cold, then mild and warm.

Last night I stayed in and watched a bit of the soccer match (France v. Italy). I went to bed early though in an attempt to catch up on sleep. Still, it was a struggle to wake up 8 a.m.

The World Cup in 2010 will be in South Africa. I think it would give me a perfect excuse to come back here in two years, after I have graduated and before I need to go and get a job.

Refugees staying in tents outside His People Christian Church in Cape Town hang their clothes to dry. Since the xenophobic attacks three weeks ago in townships around South Africa, refugees have fled to camps and have since refused to return.

Church bells ring outside, a reminder that today is not just any other day of the week. It is Sunday morning and already I am at work.

Over the past year, this has gotten to be routine. Back in California, I go to work every Sunday by noon. Which seems like a break compared to now. But I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t secretly love waking up at ungodly hours of the day (and night).

For the few who do wake up on Sunday morning to hear the church bells ring share in a special time. The city streets are deserted. (more…)

It takes a while to stop feeling like a newbie in the newsroom. Hours spent in the office talking with fellow reporters, going out on assignments together.

As an intern, I will never get the luxury of feeling settled. In less than seven weeks I will be headed back to the United States, done with my brief stint working in South Africa. And by the end of August I will be back to the life of an editor. I will take every advantage of the time I have to shoot this summer (winter?).

I hadn’t been in the office for more than two hours when I was already going out on assignment. Out to a pre-primary school in a suburb of Cape Town. One assignment of many.

I arrived in Cape Town, South Africa last Friday night and have only just been able to get an internet connection.

The morning after I arrived, a bus full of the interns set off on a wine tour of the countryside. We drove through the country stopping at three vineyards. We slept at the last vineyard, Arabella, before driving back home this morning. I slept all day and woke up to go to dinner with my roommate.

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