Friday

The phone rings and I jolt awake, worried that I have overslept. But its only 7.30am, and the lady on the phone heard me on the radio yesterday and wants me to come teach her patients to bead. No problem.

I could have just slept on and on. Last night I went to bed early-early. Sometimes I feel the pain and frustration of Bianca's life so acutely that I just need to sleep to escape it. And it had been a long day. Seven minibus rides, two security-guards-on-strike train rides, and a narrowly missed gang gun fight. I'm just tired.

I go out and see if the chickens are alright. Tell Lindiwe off, 'hey, be quiet. You can go live back outside with the other girls when you can learn to be nice to them'. Rosie looks sleepy and I panic that she's sick. Mum says they are just cold and sleepy. They haven't touched the cabbage I hung up for them.

Friday is teaching day. Three hours of teaching with my eight students from Congo (DRC), Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia and Angola. Before class I sit and talk with Charles, the centre manager, about his recent robbery - all his memory sticks were taken from his car, with all his funding proposals on. Days and days of work, gone. He teases me - 'you give me stress, why did you dump me?'. 'Hey, you messed up, not me', I say, but he doesn't listen. I wish he could understand. Because part of me wants him back. But he just doesn't know how badly he went wrong.

M class are lovely. Suddenly their English is good, just like that. I have them hooked on beads though, and I think given the choice they would rather not learn any English at all, and bead the whole day long. Every week they bring finished pieces to me that are so beautiful, with new twists on basic designs. We are planning for World Refugee Day. We're going to make lots of stock. We're going to make a fortune!

Charles drops me in Long Street and I return to some ancient haunts. The bead shop, a friend's shop, Mr Pickwicks.

In Mr Pickwicks I just sit, the way I used to when I was 18 and lonely. I don't need a menu. I know what I'll order and so does the cute waiter. The same as always.

The weather has suddenly turned. Yesterday boiling and uncomfortable, with a short smattering of summer rain. Today chills run up and down my spine and the rain falls in the huge dollops that soak through your clothes in seconds.

So I wait. I wait for Erica to finish work so I can get a lift, avoid the rain and the minibus taxis. I've got a funny feeling about the taxi ranks right now. If the gang violence is spreading into shopping malls then surely public transport is next. Half the security guards are still on strike. Cape Town feels weird, suddenly hit by cold and wet, and just as suddenly hit with random violence again. The sudden random violent outbursts punctuate our angst-sodden lives, piling straw after straw onto camel-backs long since broken.

Tired.

Rushing through the wet, flooded streets, a lady from Congo is crossing the same street, opposite direction, wearing a baby on her back, bright fabric, and pushing shopping along ni the baby's pram.

The roads are flooded and there is beauty in the rippling pools of water.

And in the car, driving onto the slopes of Devil's Peak, there is water all around, the tops of city sky-scrapers invisible through the haze. On the sides of the mountain, African mists dance around African trees and I wonder where on earth I am. We look down on the harbour and marvel at the thousands of flickering lights.