Return to Paint and the Kitchen

Well, I have successfully lived through my first week in the bush. Mind you, I haven't really been "roughing" it. But I have been toughing it out. Those of you who have ever moved in with your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife/lover will know there is a major adjustment period at first. Take that, coupled with not having anything major to do, and you have a rather oddly uncomfortable situation!

However, I've been trying to make the best of it and am continuing to live out Betty Crocker fantasies, including making sweet tea and chocolate chip cookies (out of the last bag of nestle chips!!!). Martha Stewart would be oh-so-proud of the hand painted labels I made for the different plants of the garden. And I believe that Wonder Woman and the Power Girls would be alarmingly impressed at the ferociousness with which I tackle zooming wasps with my kitchen tea towel (albeit takes me numerous attempts to zap the buggers). Even Bob Ross would be envious of my curling hair and my nimble paint fingers. Only thing is I think Farmer John would be little impressed with my failing muscles and flimsy efforts at pulling up the grass in the garden, for in the end the gardener, Myoba, had to lend a helping hand.











It's definitely taking some time to get used to being my own super hero, for during the day, that's all I've got! Johannes and I have been managing pretty well for our first week of domestic-dom. Mind, there have definitely been some squabbles and quibbles and oh, have I a rare one on my hands. I think of all the comments dedicated to "men" and their ways of being...being a bit unpracticed, I've probably always ignore a lot of that. But just imagine, for all the women who complain about their men's preoccupation with their sports -- well, with Johannes, he's preoccupied with finding elephant dung for the garden. Hmmm! But even still, he did all the laundry by hand this weekend and so, I'm in favor of the rare but true!

I will say life is pretty steady here. Kwa Zulu Natal experiences its rainy season during the summer and so the air is thick and sticky. I'd go so far as to say it's the density of New Orleans summer drudge. Johannes rises at 5:30 to begin his work and I struggle to fall back asleep with the brightness of the morning light. Myoba, the gardener/caretaker for this part of the farm, comes by every morning at 8 to collect the trash. He's teaching me spare bits and pieces of isiZulu and so, from him, I gather a very important ounce-worth of social time for the day. The morning tends to be dry and the animals stick to their coverings amongst the tall grasses. The dark, heavy clouds come out at about 3 and the earth starts rumbling in the distance. The birds call out tropical sounds but I have difficulty spotting them from the house. And in all this, I try my best to fill my day from morning til 5:30 when Johannes returns from work.

Our garden is starting to look good. I found seedlings at a nursery yesterday for ZAR 25 cents each!!! I stocked up our herb garden and planted some veggies to give us a head start. I also planted some material from seed, so we'll see if any of it actually makes it to our table. Johannes and I spent ages digging the rows on Sunday and we edged the space with some really beautiful leftover slate he found. Our well-intentioned game drive on Sunday turned rainy, and so, we spent the ride chasing heaps of elephant dung and shovelling it into the back of his massive Land Cruiser. Hopefully, it will make our clay-ish soil a bit more happy. While we wait for our crop, we're lucky the empty, neighboring house has mango trees to offer with the most delicious fruit ever.

Both yesterday and today I dedicated my mornings to looking for work at some of the local schools. The closest "big" town is roughly 25 miles away, taking about 40 minutes with all the dirt roads. Fields of sugar cane line the roads amongst the other neighboring game farms. I met some really nice principals and got a rather great tour of a few schools by one man, Mr. Swanepoel. He introduced me to the Department of Education and everyone I met seemed impressed with my work and ready to take me on The only barrier is the red tape standing in the way. This area is filled with un-qualified teachers and technically, I'm just another one. If I were qualified I could easily get a job in any of the schools of my choosing. But without the qualification I'm only able to fill current vacancies. So far I know of a couple vacancies and those schools are willing to have me, but the transfer paperwork might take 1-2 months to complete....so we shall see if there is work for me in that domain.

Today I visited a farm school much closer - 12 miles away. They seem desperate for good teachers and the life situations of the students seem dismal. Just to come to school these students must walk 2 hours each way. It was like this in the flat, dry Free State -- but here it seems even more unimaginable with gargantuan hills and dense heat to trudge through. I spoke with a teacher + the principal. The teacher, Ludno, asked quite frankly if I were South African. When I explained, he said he'd wondered because he thought there was no way a young, white South African female teacher would dare venture to such a poor, rural school. He's probably right - I think young teachers are a dying breed here anyhow, but I would imagine in the white population they are especially rare. The students all stared at me - probably because they almost never interact with white people. I realize this is a very different part of South Africa compared with anywhere else I have been so far.

I have a butternut soup calling me from the oven, but before I go, I just want to give a few details to accompany the photos/drawings. At the top, the green hill is from the leafy Transkei, which we drove through last week. The graphite drawing + detail are from a piece I started when I went out with Johannes to work one day last week - he had the opportunity to hire a huge planar/saw from Durban to cut up this fallen piece of African Teak. The wood was so heavy and huge, they had to cut it up in the valley where it fell. An extremely beautiful wood, it took these guys over a day to chop the whole thing into workable pieces! The other images are from the garden, seed pods Johannes brought back from Mozambique, 2 other paintings I did in Decembe, + 1 little painting of the view out our bedroom window.

New Year in New Place with New Boy

P.S. I have to add a post-script to alert you to the warthog family sighting I just witnessed. One big mamma and 3 babes, I attempted to get my camera, but I will have to learn to be more sneaky so they don't scamper away from the sound of my loud clomping walk!




























After a 5-day journey up the east coast, Johannes and I have at last made it to our new home on the grounds of Kwa Zulu Private Game Reserve. We arrived yesterday with plenty of time to unpack before his first day of work (today). He is now busy on the 18,000 hectares (44,000+ acres!) of land collecting trees for his upcoming furniture making projects. At times I can hear the chain saw echoing across the masses of trees.
























I’m thinking of Virginia Wolf today and women of times past. I’m feeling a bit like a young bride. I’ve looked out the door a half dozen times, wondering when and if Johannes will be here for lunch. I’ve now swept the floor, washed every last dish, chased a wasp or two, fixed the gap in our twin beds, checked a week’s worth of emails, edited my photos, dug up dirt, planted 2 pots of basil, prepped some chickpeas and lentils for sprouting, toasted butternut seeds and just started cooking dinner our dinner of risotto with butternut squash and chickpeas. And it’s only 1:10pm! In and amongst all that I chatted with Mike, one of the farm managers who stopped by to fix our geyser (hot water heater). He confirmed what I thought: I must keep busy!!! These next few weeks will be a bit boring, he suggested, until I find something to do. And in my housewifely-ness, a girl who has done all her chores and more, I await knowing how my time will unfold here on this beautiful farm. For the rest of the day it will be washing clothes by hand while avoiding the nearby wasp nest and touching up my latest batch of paintings.

Now, I don’t mean to paint a picture of doom and gloom! I’m filling a new pair of shoes and uncertain how to maneuver in them. We drove into the game farm just after noon yesterday, having slept in the rain by the side of a dirt road the night before. The road through the farm to the house is long and windy, full of small hills but rather well maintained for a South African dirt road. We were greeted by a warm, reddish plaster house, tidied and cleaned up just for us. The managers on the farm saw to it that our house was completely equipped with dishrags and soap, dishes and bed linens. There’s a spacious garden, complete with a huge granadilla (passion fruit) hedge and a pawpaw (papaya) tree. There’s a wire fence running the perimeter of the garden to keep the lions and other beasts from trampling through. Johannes and I have plans to make a garden and hopefully a chicken run (no free-range due to hawks)….there’s certainly plenty of space!









Our drive to KZN was roughly 1,600 miles and it took us over 30 hours to drive! Our fully loaded bakkie (truck), kitted out with our clothes, Johannes’ work tools, his motorbike and surfboard, my art and teaching supplies, plus camping material, must have weighed a ton! Mind you, we

didn’t pick the shortest route, which runs through Johannesburg, and we made a couple of detours along the way. Nonetheless, it was a good choice to take 5 days to make the drive. We revisited a campsite we stayed at over Christmas, in Wilderness. From there we went to Ganubi, next to East London, where we stayed with my cousin Paige and her family. After a nice night on a bed, we made way for more camping in the Transkei.

The Transkei is also known as the “Wild Coast” and boy is it wild! Originally, it was a “Tribal Homeland” dedicated to the Xhosa people during Apartheid. The tribal aspects to it remain very visible today. The 45-mile dirt road from the N2 to the small town of Coffee Bay took us well over an hour and half to drive. The roads are plagued with monstrous potholes and the traffic is slow with cows, donkeys, goats and shepherds consistently owning the right of way. The Transkei seeped into my pores, I swear. The sights are unbelievable: All along the coast, the trees weave in and out of each other in majestic groves reminiscent of Tolkein’s lands. The myriads of green hues illuminate each other, creating a Technicolor spectacle. Tree boughs sweep the grounds of the beaches, talking to the rocks and the ambling, mystic cows. Dotting the landscape are mud and cow dung huts, painted electric aqua and peach, making the eyes pop as they trail the hilly horizon. Parts of the coast reminded me of the Cliffs of Mohr and parts of Scotland, dreamy and rambling hills, cliffs tall and austere…but for a second and then you’ll spot women clad in stripes and plaid and floral prints, flashing bright colors, donning large vats of water and lengthy bundles of firewood atop their heads, small babies poking their heads out of swaths of cloth on their backs - and you know you’re not in Scotland.

While in the Transkei we weathered unseasonable rain and lightening storms in Johannes’ sturdy tent, but spent the overcast days rock scrambling along the coast. Over 3 days and 2 nights we stayed at 2 different backpackers’ where it was safe to leave the bakkie unattended, one in Coffee Bay and the other in Umbumvu. We dined on fresh mussels caught by some locals and drank minty, buhu tea that we picked in the Western Cape. Not to mention filling the gaps with strange sheep liver meat wrapped in bacon (Johannes’ choice), some old cheese and crackers and of course, celery with peanut butter!

I see here in this blog today I’m jumping around like a fish out of water, but literally, it has been well over a month since I’ve written in this neglected web journal. I’d like to make mention of a tough last week in Cape Town, during which I was provided with ample love and nourishment from my friends and family there. It was a tough decision leaving Cape Town, knowing that Johannes and I have shortened our agreement for me to stay in KZN. At one point I had thought I’d be coming here for a lengthy year, but after much ado in our newness, we decided one year was a bit too much to chew on for the moment. Too much pressure, too little knowing of one another. And so I left Cape Town not knowing when I’ll be going back, if at all. Not knowing, again, what lies ahead and that KZN might just be another short-term arrangement.

With a lot of flair, I spent my last week in Cape Town delighting in the close-knit group of friends I have collected over the past 12 months. I had the opportunity to go “kloofing” (for which I have no photos) in Suicide Gorge, which consisted of hiking and rock scrambling for about 9 miles, wading through pools of water in a valley, and eventually jumping off of tall cliffs from waterfalls into pools. It was insane and it was incredible! I haven’t ever tested myself in such a fashion and did rather well, I think, despite the ridiculous ass-smacking I got when I hit my tail bone at a rather peculiar angle (it’s still hurting me to sit, after a week in a car!). As you will see from my photos, I was blessed with a lovely last night gathering in my friend Amit & Steffi’s rather crazy banquet style dining room! And so I left Cape Town, fully pumping, grabbing onto the edge of my seat a bit, but in such a way that I am here, HERE, HERE, now, and ready to see what lies next.

One last piece for this epic entry: at dusk last night Johannes took me on a motorbike ride through the dirt roads outside our cottage. Because it was just beginning to mist with rain, I think much of the game had gone into hiding. We saw the usual guinea fowl, but also many Rooibok (red buck), Impala, and as we rounded a corner we surprised 3 gracious, genteel giraffes. I don’t know if anything has ever caught my breath quite like that - we were so close, so bare, so much in the same space. We stood looking [in awe] at each other for the span of a few minutes until they galloped away. I immediately received that moment as a gift rarely given and look forward to sharing more of those with you in the coming months!