somewhere south of the border

The "bump up" is one of the better things that can happen to you when are about to travel, to hear that, "Sir you no longer, in E15, you've been bumped up…"

On Friday I got one of those pleasant one liners as I was about to board for Joburg and even at seven am this person who is generally only socially decent after 11, managed a quick smile of sorts before walking to the plane.

I am always amazed at how Cape Town is perceived by Joburgers, it's the classic East Coast-West Coast, New York-San Francisco scenario playing itself out except that JHB should not be mentioned in the same sentence as New York.

JHB apparently is all zest and zeal, "red and yellow" energy, it's all pace and drive and it gets things done. I admit that Cape Town is a lovely seaside village and nobody here is really trying to complete with the land of Egoli (eagerly) perhaps this week in the 20-20 cricket final but generally we've conceded, we've chosen not to part take in that little rat race.

I guess that when JHB eventually pauses from all of the rah-rah it will discover that it's actually not that exceptional and that it is probably people from the coast (I include Durban) who are propelling it to make those "gigantic industrial" strides at great sacrifice.

Whenever I have worked with people from JHB, I have never thought that they were very exceptional, in fact I often find that it is all hot air, they talk a good game, they imagine that they are movers and shakers and much to their disappointment we kind of ignore them and quietly get on with what needs to be done. Cape Town does have a problem of leaving bundles of "urgent" work in its inbox realising that tomorrow's another day and that procrastination is easy. But as we continue to dance with time, not foolishly trying to beat that clock we do eventually get things done, it’s a dance which has a frustrating rhythm but a rhythm which we have embraced.

On Friday afternoon after a successful workshop which we managed to finish in less than three hours because I wanted to get home, I stood outside the Parktown offices waiting for my transfer, surrounded by electric fencing and anticipating a sluggish commute in the early afternoon traffic I felt vindicated, I felt glad that I wasn't in that race.

And I know that while it's not a popular view but we are miles ahead of 'the game', because at least we are honest in knowing that we are a simple, little, fishing village somewhere down South of the border where we don't have to impress anybody with our feats although we sometimes do manage the odd exceptional thing.