In Cape Town

I'm in Cape Town now. IKapa in Xhosa (the leading 'i' indicates a noun - iColgate is toothpaste.) I got here about 2.5 weeks ago. The first two weeks were quite demanding as I was teaching from about 9-5 each day and preparing for the next day in the evening. On top of that my house sold last Wednesday and there were the final back-and-forths. Turned out the roof and electrical work weren't in good enough shape for the buyer's inspector. I went along with the contractors' estimates and escrowed about $10K for repair work. All that kept me busy and not only did I not get time to write I didn't even go out dancing.

I started again last Saturday evening: tango at La Scala in Cavendish mall. It was nice to see people I knew from previous visits. One of the advantages of Cape Town over Göteborg is language. Most of the conversations were in English, helping me feel like I was part of what was going on.

As I think I wrote earlier I decided I did break my right foot's 4th toe while at tango camp. Saturday was the first time I wore my latin heels, which puts more weight in the toes. I was pretty ginger in dancing and felt rusty. They dance differently here than in Gbg or Santa Fe (regional accents) so most of the dancing was more like calibration as I would not infrequently lead something not often done here, or in a different manner.

Sunday I went salsa dancing at Buena Vista Social Cafe. I've joked about how weird it is to go to a Cuban place and see pictures of Castro, Ché, etc. Growing up in Miami, with a father and grandparents who lived in Cuba for several years before the revolution, I think I have some idea of what Cuba is like. But Miami culture, more in the older generation, is very anti-Castro and is a branch from what Cuban culture was like in the mid 1950s. Some years back in Santa Fe I went by the Cuban restaurant there. The lunch menu included sandwiches, including "The Castro". In Miami post-Mariel I remember (or misremember) that a local radio commentator's car was fire bombed not because he was pro-Castro but because he wasn't anti-Castro enough. I can't imagine a Cuban place in Miami ever selling a sandwich with his name.

Again it was great to see familiar faces from last time and have women come up to me and hug me and welcome me back. Cape Town is a more demonstrative place than Gbg. I got caught up a bit with what's going on in the local salsa scene, and got to show off some of my foreign dance accent. Best was dancing with Lenine again - we've got a great connection when dancing which brings out something extra in me.

On Saturday I started looking for a place to stay while in the Mother City. I hit various Cape Town vacation rental sites looking for an apartment available for a month with broadband and within 10 minutes of city center, available for a month and under R300/day. The hardest of these was the DSL connection. But I managed to find one. Here it is: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=-33.922463,18.384542&spn=0.002555,0.003428&t=k&om=1 . It's the apartment building in the middle with the light blue roof, on the corner. I'm on the corner next to the largish road, Kloof St. i haven't met the owner as she's out of town - in Norway.

I moved in Monday day. That evening I went to tango class as El Cacha. Tuesday was the weekly tango event at a restaurant in Cape Quarter, which I think is in the center of http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=-33.922463,18.384542&spn=0.002555,0.003428&t=k&om=1 . If not, it's in the same image. I was there at night making it hard to know what's where.

There too I started feeling rusty. As the evening progressed I got more back into tango. (Hmmm. That last sentence isn't correct English but it works. What about "I regained more of the sense and feeling of tango"?) I had some excellent dances, wth the caution that there wasn't enough space. The restaurant didn't have much floor space so some things I couldn't do.

Tonight was a bummer. I misread the time for the milonga class as 9:30 instead of 8 pm. It read "3 August 8 - 9:30" and I think what happened is I read it as "August 8th, 9:30pm" because US dates are "month day" and not "day month" like it is in most of the rest of the world. I thought 9:30 felt late but I knew that normally there's a practica from 9-11pm nd figured it replaced the practica time slot. Nope. Sadness.