The ad said something in the line of 'I'm a filmmaker with two rooms available in my house, one is big, one is small, email me if you're interested.'
Fiancé went with to see the place.
'Hello?' I called at the dilapidated stoep as my ever supportive fiancé parked the car in the cobbled street, against the extremely steep hill on which the house is perched. The house is squashed between two other identical homes. In spots the plaster peels from the walls. On the balcony upstairs a bright hammock swung easily in the wind.
'Hello!'a young, friendly voice called from somewhere upstairs. I peered through the trellidoor of the open front door. Wooden floors. Bicycles. Surfboards. The faint smell of cat litter. A sunburnt nose and blonde head appeared around the corner of the stairs.
'Come to look at the room?' she asked with a friendly smile. Turns out the filmmaker is a young woman, not much older than me. I smiled back.
'That's me.'
Maybe it was the wooden floor, the African prints that hung in front of the windows and the way the place reminds me of my seaside home town, Mtunzini. Maybe it was the fact that I would be taking over the room from an artist, who'd created a little corner full of his drawings - a corner I knew would be just perfect for writing - and that the other, third housemate is a photographer. Or maybe it was the fact that the filmmaker had pictures of Rwandan dancers up in her room and told us that her mentor had advised her to stop making all her films for charity and actually start charging. Maybe it was just the fact that these people recycle. But everything just felt right.
Bo-Kaap, here I come. I can't wait :)
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