Cape Town: How do I journalism?

If anyone's wondering why I haven't posted in a few days, which I'm sure you are, since this blog is the only reason you get up the morning, it's because I didn't do anything during my four-day weekend. I went to the beach and slept and read books. I did go to a little museum on Saturday, where I learned that during the American Civil War, a southern ship (CSS Alabama) captured a northern ship (Sea Bride) off of the Western Cape (where I am). So that was cool.

Anyway, today I got a story about an old house. Which was all I knew about it when they gave it to me, so I was like "Wait, what am I doing?" and my editor was like "GTFO and report." Because journalism practice states that to teach a young journalist how to do journalism things, you have to make them do things they don't know how to do at a moment's notice. Make sense?

Thus, I found myself in one of the Times' white compact cars heading down the highway with Courtney, one of our photographers.

We ended up at a whitewashed cottage overlooking some kind of chemical plant. The woman who owns the place opened the gate so we could pull in, and we were greeted by two adorable Pekingese dogs upon getting out of the car. They were the cutest things ever. The smallest one was really friendly and would put its tiny paws on your knee while it gave you a look saying, "I am adorable, so you should pet me."

Anyway. Reporting.

The house was built in 1710, so I think it was one of the oldest buildings I've ever been in. It turned out I was reporting on it because there is currently a debate about another old cottage. The opposing cottage was built in the 1870s and the man who owns the property wants to demolish it to build a parking lot for his restaurant. The Heritage Committee just told him he can't do that because of the historical value. He contends that it can't be restored because it has no foundation so it isn't worth preserving. The woman who owns Klein Zoar, the cottage I visited today, begs to differ.

It's a beautiful house. It still has a thatch roof, which needs to be maintained regularly for a whopping $45,000 on EACH SIDE OF THE ROOF. The floors are cow dung. (Am I making this sound nice yet?) The doors are low, even for me at 5'4, but it's a really cozy space and they have the old-school original hearth and oven. For someone who likes rustic/small/old things, I was quite happy with it. The point of the article is that this woman, who restored and lives in a 300-year old cottage, doesn't believe that the other cottage is impossible to restore and can give an expert opinion on what should happen to said cottage. I came back and wrote and I think they're publishing it tomorrow.

I also made the worst phone call EVER today, when I called someone else for this story. I keep forgetting that I don't really know my phone number yet and most people here don't have caller ID, so you have to leave a return number if you leave a message. So I get to the end of the call and I go, "Call me back at...uh..." and then I flounder for a minute until I either remember my number or I make something up. Today it was bad though, because Abby was looking at me from across the desk and I started laughing because she was looking at me while I was leaving a message. And I said, "Stop looking at me!" also while I was recording this message. So this poor man, whenever he gets this, is going to be like, "Who the hell is the Times hiring these days?"

On a more serious note, Abby spent the day reporting on an 18-year-old who was run down by a car and got taken off life-support on Sunday (he was declared braindead by that point). She did a really admirable job with such a sensitive piece, especially since she had to talk to the father of the kid, who was trying not to cry during the whole interview. I don't know the family, but they are in my thoughts. I can't imagine what it's like to lose a child. Hats off to you, Abby. Even if you did ruin my phone call.