Iconic shops of Cape Town - Kismet Supply Store

It really is the best hardware shop in Cape Town! Kismet, on the corner of Batts Road and Park Street, Wynberg goes back to 1957 when it opened as a corner store by Mahood Mohamed Fakier who still runs things today. What is great about them is that they are always open it seems, and will sell in small quantities too - most of the big hardware shops only sell stuff in great, pre-packaged quantities. Kismet means luck or destiny in Arabic.

Coffee and roses

Chart Farm, adjacent to Wynberg Park, is one of Cape Town's most enjoyable places to visit. They have the most wonderful homemade cakes and really classy coffee, and some great lunch dishes. There is always a table, inside or out on the terrace, yet its never empty. And after indulging you can walk around their magnificent grounds, with views that sweep from False Bay over Table Mountain to Table Bay, and pick your own roses. (R4 per stem - an absolute bargain!) A children's paradise. There is a farm stall with homemade preserves, and fresh veges and fruit and a little nursery selling roses and compost.

The corner caffee

A typical scene in Batts Road, Wynberg - one of Cape Town's olderst suburbs.

Carnival time

Queuing to get into the Community Chest Carnival at Maynardville Park in Wynberg. It began as a theatrical garden party in 1954 and has evolved into an annual event that all indigenous Capetonians just can't resist. Famous for its variety of food stalls, this unique carnival raises funds for some 400 social welfare organisations that the Community Chest supports - from healthcare and rehabilitation to child support and care of the elderly.
Interesting to read that a carnival is associated with the period just before Lent in the Catholic religion. Its origins stretch way back in time.

Eat, pray, heal - Franco-African style

In Wynberg, where Piers Road is intersected by the railway line, is the newly-refurbished Lion Voice Tabernacle. It is also the Frigo Robert Shop that sells sacks of flour, "produits alimentairs"and other stuff. There is also a barber (where you can have your hair beautifully braided), and a car panel-beater. It seems to be patronised exclusively by French-speaking people from North Africa who, typically, are much more stylish and elegantly attired than us locals. Not quite a red building Jane and Chris, but watermelon pink. Because it is cold and wet today, it was all looking rather gloomy and deserted.

Dutch diamond

Driving through Wynberg I often take a short cut past these rather pleasing townhouses in Oak Ave/Devonshire Rd, and always wonder about their history. Today, looking them up in the book Wynberg: A special place by Helen Robinson, I discovered that in the 1930s a Dutch entrepreneur, Rozelaar, purchased the land and built a factory on it. He then encouraged a group of 60 diamond cutters from Holland and Belguim to come to Cape Town on a two year contract to establish a South African branch of his father's firm in Holland. He also built the Hollandia Flats opposite the factory to house the workers and their families. Funnily enough, a canal runs between the townhouses and the factory - providing another link with Holland. The diamond cutters thrived during the 1930s and early forties, and local youths were apprenticed to the firm. Many of them stayed on when their contracts ended. The diamond business closed in the 1980s and the Hollandia flats were converted into comfortable townhouses. The area is now mainly residential with not a a factory in sight.

Bleak days

Another bleak, rainy day in Cape Town. This is the Dutch Reformed Church at the top of Carr Hill in Wynberg. It was re-built on old foundations in 1897 (the original church having been established around about the 1830s). In 1881, the Dutch Reformed Synod decided it would like to keep the congregation pure white, so it built the Sending Kerk (Mission Church) nearby for "coloured" folk. Of course, today things are different, but it does leave a bit of a bitter taste.

Grey

Main Road, Wynberg has some very interesting old buildings - some of them rather dilapidated but very picturesque.

Take your seats

Every summer, Maynardville Open Air Theatre in Wynberg puts on a Shakespeare play, and this is without doubt the highlight of my theatre year. We have been going as a family for many, many years now, and each performance has been wonderfully fresh and creative. Just as Shakespeare's plays were intended to be performed! It is such a treat to see what interpretation has been put on the chosen play.
This year was The Taming of the Shrew, complete with Italian Cirque-du-Soleil-like performers and life size animal puppets and two comic performances from Darren Aurajo as Tranio and Juliet Jenkin as Grumio that were outstanding! Interestingly, it was The Taming of the Shrew that was the first play to be performed here in 1956.

Open

Yesterday evening we went to an opening of an art exhibition at In Fin Art - a well-known art gallery and shop in the Chelsea area of Wynberg. In the Window you can see a painting by Zimbabwean artist Wendy Rosselli who now lives and paints in the seaside village of Kommetjie in Cape Town. Well worth a visit!

Under African skies

Long queues at the Wynberg Home Affairs offices as Zimbabweans escaping the appalling tyranny of Mugabe in their country, apply for work, business and study permits through a new four-month long project by the Department of Home Affairs to help Zimbabweans living in South Africa. A Government news report said that the department had received 33 117 applications for permits.

Walking through history

Bright sunny days in Cape Town for the time being. On Saturday I joined a wonderful walk through the old village of Wynberg with social historian, Dr Helen Robinson, who also used to be an actress. This old house, she said, was the first magistrate's court when Wynberg become the magistrative centre of the Cape after 1838 when all slaves were freed. (See website
http://www.oldwynberg.co.za/history.htm)