We've been in a furnished apartment just off the beach for over a week now and thought we had a house lined up until the asking rent was hiked to half again as much as we were told.  So we have to find a place pretty quickly to accommodate our furniture when it arrives.

Here is a picture of our living quarters--the window looks over another bank of apartments to the ocean.

Here, below, is the view from the balcony with one of two walkways that lead over the dunes to the beach.

And here is a closer view of one of the walkways and the windflowers that adorn it!

A few days back in the morning a huge, beautiful double rainbow settled over the ocean.  It's the first time I've seen a rainbow entire.  This picture captures one end, with gulls flying alongside.

We made it down to Cape Town for the Unitarian service on Sunday.  It's a very small group, but it traces its founding to the mid-1800s.  They have staying power!  The church building is historic and quite small.  The minister would like to grow the group, but I didn't see any place that would accommodate children--so that could be a problem.

We're trying to determine a good source of news about the area and have been told by someone who seemed to have liberal instincts that the "Cape Talk" program on a.m. radio is a balanced source and the Cape Times is the best local paper.  Meantime, there have been major demonstrations over service delivery to a settlement area in the Khaylitsha area, south and east of Cape Town proper, and traffic was stopped on major arteries into the city two Fridays ago, as the ANC threatened to shut down the city (the Democratic Alliance, rival of the ANC, controls both the city and the region) over this issue.  So there is plenty of tension.

We know that there is widespread poverty among the black and "coloured" population here (and the worst segregation in S. Africa) and that services to townships and "unofficial settlements," including especially education, are very poor.  However, we have also heard that the government here is the most progressive in the country--a paradoxical situation to say the least.

As for us, while we see that this is a beautiful place, its beauties are enjoyed by some and not the others, who trudge the roads morning and evening coming and going from work in the homes of the well heeled and returning to homes cobbled together out of corrugated metal.  I am reading works by a black S. African writer, Zakes Mda, which are helping me to see the life of the settlements from the inside.  If you are interested, try Ways of Dying.