Library Meets Table Mountain

Between the pressure of opening the library doors to the students on Monday and dealing with funding issues for next year, it has been a helluva week. Not to mention finding myself in urgent need of new, cheap housing! To cap it off, I went on a hike up Table Mountain yesterday.

What better way to put the world, my little slip of a life, into perspective? I am sore and cramped but entirely elated today. It was a 5 hour hike, with many stops along the way, with my new friend Joe. He is a rock climber par excellence, so go figure that the entire last hour descending the mountain along Platteklip Gorge my legs were like jelly. I had absolutely no control over my thighs and every plonk of my feet was an effort of deliberation. Even at the finish I was slow to take each step, legs shaking like jello! My little left leg was vibrating uncontrollably as we left in my car, pressing on the clutch. But my, what a finish it was. Topped off by a sunset and later a salt bath, I'm on No. 9, having just made by biggest climb (by a long stretch) ever!

And so, what is the lesson, Miss Teacher Shannon? That the struggle is worth it? I think so. This week has been a ride of tears, of burying my head in the library bookshelves when no one was around, feeling like an absolute train wreck with no obvious track to pop back onto. And so it goes.

I have to share that I feel certain I will be staying in South Africa beyond my January plane ride home. I don't know what I will be doing, but I feel more than ever, with my legs barely able to lift, that I am in the best place for me right now. I've been more challenged than ever before and I am constantly able to push myself, more and more than I ever anticipated. I suppose for a great planner like myself, the biggest challenge yet will be to deal with the uncertainty spread at my feet.

One day at a time. Inch by inch. Is that not why I have a square inch tattooed on my shoulder? The library opens tomorrow and that is an incredible feat. Please, enjoy the photos of the last several Saturdays spent with dedicated volunteers, who aided my in prepping books for check out. Followed by the ever glorious hiker's photographic trail.

Lingerings of May

May seems like an awfully long time ago, but I never managed to upload these photos of my last few days in May before heading to the USA. In those few weeks I said goodbye to Ardine & Karlijn as Cape Town compatriots. Part of Cape Town seems to be a revolving door of amazing people, passing through, on their way out, on their way in. In my current transient state it is incredibly comforting, especially since many people I've met are foreign to SA. However, the major loss is saying good bye so many times. The biggest goodbye has yet to arrive, at the beginning of October, when my cousin Georgia, her husband Mike, and precious girl Rebecca emmigrate to Australia.

It is incredibly rewarding to flip back through all these photos! Truly, a gem of a group of people.

Just a quick description of what you're viewing: A winter sunrise view of the harbour, taken from the school's campus. A goodbye champaign toast on Signal Hill, glasses raised to the sunset with Lions Head in the background. A bunch of crazies dancing the Brazilian Forro.

Anticipation

I've been back in deep winter. What on earth could that possibly mean in a place where the weather is full of splendor on the weekends?! The weather may be sunny/windy, rainy/calm, indecisive/lukewarm, but my body and my mind are in winter of the subzero sort. Conjuring up thoughts of ice crystals on my eyelashes in Chicago, I've been cooped up, trying to make sense of the summer to come, of the year to come (all without the buffer of Christmas music in December)....

I feel like this blog is in a slump. It's been easy to post-date blogs, showing pictures of my travels & to recount (with lots of commas & lots of clauses) all the details of my fancies over the last couple months. In reality, I haven't been so forthcoming with all the ins and outs of my personal life. It's easy to write about the coffees, the international dinner parties, the German films, the penguins, the prospect of lovely dates, traveling to Lesotho, Koyaanisquatsi, amazing hikes, whale watching, good aubergine (eggplant) dinners at home, figs and naartjies, cheap Indian food, and so on (again, the commas). But, the emotions & the nitty gritty feelings of feeling lost are difficult to translate into words. It all seems to have amounted to a lack of good writing.

It's 10:34 and tomorrow is Monday. I've spent the last week in bed with a cold, hacking away at my computer keys, trying to find answers on the world wide web to ease the lack of solution in my life. Tomorrow I will find out if the Anglican Archdioceses will sponsor a position for me to continue teaching at St. Paul's Primary School for the year of 2010. I am nervous as a coot, scarf on, bundled in bed, unable to sleep. With little else to do but write, I find myself here, typing to a mysterious audience.

I'm on this verge of determining my life direction and I want it to keep me Cape Town for at least another year. I cannot put my finger on it now, but I'm tapping into something whole, a sacred part of myself in this place. And yet, my insides are bubbling with confusion. America gave me a real mind-trip because now I'm reflecting on the cupcake bliss of June. It feels all but real as I never hear from anyone except a few members of my family. And that makes home seem even further away.

It has been a busy month back in school. The past 3 weekends have been busy with volunteers, amazing helpers from both the school & the non-profit Organizing for Africa, all helping to ready the library. We've made a lot of progress and in fact this Friday I will open the doors to students to make use of the library! This part of my time in CT has been a long, dedicated journey and it is impossibly exciting to enable students access to books, books & more books.

Over the last 8 months in CT, I benefited from the graciousness of my cousin Margaret, who's allowed me to stay in her flat. Circumstances being as they are, I'm in need of a new place and that is part of the unsettled nature of my current head. I look forward to finding a place to share with others as living alone has led me to devious behaviors, such as watching soapies in the afternoon & taking maybe one-too-many bubble baths out of boredom.

While the flat situation is one part of my anxiety, the other is dealing with funding for my position. Hopefully some of that will be resolved tomorrow, but in the meantime I've been working on a grant proposal to fund me to organize books and libraries for 10 schools in the year 2010. It may be in the end that I work 2 separate jobs with 2 separate sources of funding to satisfy my desire to continue at St. Paul's.

Why is it so important that I stay on there, you might ask? I have poured myself into my work here & I know that the library will be a much stronger institution at the school should I have a chance to work on it longer. I need to involve more teachers, more parents, & more students in the ongoing running of such a place and the only answer to this is guided time. The more time I am able to offer, the more "in-place" the library will remain. The idea is to ensure that it can be self-sustaining without external support. That will take a lot of responsibility on the part of the school & parents. Building a "book culture" is a strong aspect of motivating such responsibility. It might be more than a two year task (this being year-one) but by next year we shall be able to see the impact of having available books for all readers.

I devoted a lot of energy while in the USA to consider graduate level education in the area of Arts Education. As I try to determine my status for South Africa for next year, it feels like a lead weight is keeping my hand from cracking the dreaded GRE book on my coffee table. I feel so secure in knowing education is what I want to dedicate my future to, but I suppose I'm taking my time in working towards certification. It could still happen in 2010, but it might be further away in 2011 or... I feel like a degree in Literacy Education is also tugging at my sleeve and perhaps I need just a little more time to determine if that's the best route for me.

On a lighter note, the book I've been collaborating on with my friend, Maya, is set to be sent to the publishers this week! It is an exciting moment and a long-awaited one. While we certainly don't expect immediate results, we have other buns in the oven. Our next book is just a notion of missing socks, with endless possibilities awaiting an outcome. One more exciting adventure to grow...

I suppose that's a wrap for tonight. Sometimes it takes sending words out into flatland to feel sorted.