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This week in Cape Town……

…..at the Homemakers Expo I lost my heart to a shaggy red bathmat made out of knotted waste t-shirt cotton strips by Sikelela skills development centre in George. They make bigger ones, in purple too, as sofa throws. Statement style that scores highly because it’s a job creation project employing 40 people a, and b, it’s keeping all that waste cloth out of landfills. Also good on the Expo people for the Clock Art initiative where artists clocks raised funds for Habitat for Humanity. Nice.

The Toffie Food Festival in Cape Town’s architectural chamaeleon The City Hall took the biscuit for audacity. Loved the Statistics display measuring how many people there are in Cape Town/use pit latrines/ have TB/ HIV Aids/use cellphones/are unemployed – using cakes decorated with rainbow 100’s & 1000’s. Clever. Fell in love with Taiwanese coffee barrista  Tung-Yuan Lin who took Latte Art to another level and glad I’d had the opportunity to chat to another speaker, US food blogger Julie (Julie and Julia) Powell, on OTHERWISE because she surely drew the crowds at the Fest. Bumped into many of the Mother City’s fooderati. Fun.

On food, discovered Organic at Heart in downtown Wynberg which is all pine tables, juiced vegetables and sprouting veg garden – in an old homestead that once belonged to writer Olive Schreiner! Fancy that.

On storytelling – was part of a narration tsunami on Friday at The Bay Hotel. It was the UCT Graduate School of Business fund raiser: Celebrating Women thro’ Storytelling. Personal stories were released like doves into the ether – from businesswoman ‘Aunty’ Mercia Isaacs; Move magazine editor Thandi Pilasani; Dress Sense guru Catherine Bowen; Fashion Deli designer Thulare Monareng as well as some of the delegates and yours truly. The Bonfire Theatre Company enacted some of them and storytelling facilitator Phillipa Kabali-Kagwa helped grow more.  Emotional, very emotional.

…speak next week – nx