Every now and then I step out to do some photography for an NGO named Innovate SA, or Innovate the Cape, as they were formerly known. I think. Anyway, today I managed to broaden my NGO-photography clientele to include GTP, or the ‘Greater Tygerberg Partnership’. These guys, like Innovate, are doing really cool things in the city of Cape Town and it was a privilege to listen in on what the youth of Cape Town are thinking and doing behind the scenes to improve our city. The fact that I got paid to take some photos, drink some coffee, and get a tour of the hotel that hosted the event is an added bonus in my mind.

The Hotel itself is fascinating, being easily the greenest building I have ever ventured into (barring a mud hut in Kwa-Zulu Natal) and is in actual fact the greenest hotel on the African continent. Their recycling of water waste, energy creating gym equipment, geothermal power thing going on in the earth, wind turbines, solar panels, et cetera are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg – an iceberg that may be the last one standing if the real ones continue to melt…

All in all, there is hope in this country, and I am grateful yet again to be a small cog in the human machine of South Africans hoping to make a difference through doing honest work, and paying my taxes. I wish I didn’t pay tax – like one would in Dubai – but I’d rather endure the difficulty of living in this tumultuous country than live a life of ease over in the east. Middle or Far. Though I would like to venture out there to take some photos. Like in Istanbul, Turkey. Mmmm.