A South African Winter
First off, check out the Do the Math trailer (by 350.org)! The documentary is really awesome, only 45 minutes long! The full movie may even be available via Youtube.
Clouds, rain, sunshine. Cape Town truly gets all four seasons in a day!
As the month of May has passed us by, and June has arrived, it is truly wintertime. The rain, the thunder and lightning (and some hail) have finally hit Cape Town.. This past weekend was full of rain showers, parts of sun and clouds, not the beautiful Cape Town weather I was welcomed with back just about four weeks now! (Crazy how time really flies by! As cliche as that sounds...) Anyways, the rain has come, sometimes down-pouring cats and dogs, sometimes a light drizzle. One highlight of this gloom weather is the 'tablecloth' on top of Table Mountain, it can look stunning from a distance.
Friday afternoon after lunch most of us went off to the nursery for a 'plant day workshop'. Michelle and Patrick are the main Planting and Educational Managers and they saw it fit for all of us to be able to show communities how to plant a tree. Most might think it is a fairly simple task, yet there are various steps and guidelines Greenpop likes to promote. Overall, a fairly successful yet fun and casual afternoon out of the office, which finished with treats and drinks as two more volunteers were saying their goodbyes. All of us interns and volunteers and flowing in and out of the office and nursery, so you get use to a continuous flow of people, but it's still sad to see those who you become close with part in another direction.
Saturday and Sunday were fairly casual days, full of rain and more gloomy weather. Somedays it is nice just to relax and curl up with some tea and a good book (Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough + Michael Braungart). But I also have to realize I am not at home, I am in Cape Town and have to make myself get up and out in the rain. I visited a few shops on Long Street, not far from Scalabrini (my beloved home), and also went to the South African Art Gallery, which had a really nice collection of photography. So even with the rain, you gotta get out there anyway! Being from the Northwest it's not like I have never experience heavy rain, even though every time it doesn't necessarily get any more enjoyable.
The clouds gathering above Table Mountain
South African Art Gallery in Company Gardens
Monday it's another busy week at work, preparing for the film festival, Forests in Focus, which has its premier night on Thursday! Greenpop is hosting a film screening (of Award Winning Documentary Shorts) as well as live music and a different speaker over three different nights. This festival is a fundraising event for Greenpop's upcoming Trees for Zambia, where the team goes to Zambia over a three week period to plant 5,000 trees! (Zambia has one of the highest deforestation rates in the world!) An awesome experience, so all the preparation for this event counts, and what a better way of spreading environmental awareness in a fun, cool way than a night out? Another interesting aspect of the festival is encouraging people to bring a USB to the event, and while they are watching the films and enjoying themselves (of course), Greenpop will put the films onto their USBs so when they walk away from the event they are able to share that information with their networks. A great way of continuing the activism and allowing the attendees to host their own screenings or even just sharing them with their close group of friends. In the end, the message is then widely spread and reaches more people wanting to take action.
Cape Town has been chosen as World Design Capital 2014!
Greenpop hosted Creative Mornings last Friday 31 of May!
“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.”
A little bit of (more) awesomeness from Truth Coffee! See more at http://www.truthcoffee.com/seeds-of-truth/