The domed orthodox-churches of Ukrainian Village, spread below the balcony, sparkled in tones of dusty pink as dusk turned to night. I was swooned by the lemon-garlic mussels Scott prepared after a day of us cycling through the various Saturday markets of Chicago. By the time he gave me a solo performance of the ballad “Wildflower,” on his banjo, I was knocked into a silly stupor. It was a first date that soon had me rolling into a romance that consumed my head. I was on my way to the moon so fast, that I found myself splattered when Scott announced his move to Philadelphia after a mere six weeks of dating.
Thus it began. In eager Shannon-style, I would not be down-trod by the man who didn’t need me. No, I would stop holding out for romance fantasies and take myself on board to do the things I’d been waiting for. Travel. And not just any travel. To South Africa. My mother’s land.
I seem to have a lucky knack of figuring out what it is I want and then doing whatever it takes to get there. Sometimes it starts small. It usually has nothing to do with people, but everything to do with goals. In sixth grade I learned about the Peace Corps and grew large dreams in my heart to one day dedicate myself to people less fortunate. By the time I was 22, I’d made it to my dream art schools and was successfully pursuing community organizing instead of art. It was time to go after the next goal, a Fulbright Scholarship to take me to South Africa.
My university papermaking professor drilled it into my head that there is no need to go into debt for education and travel. The money is there but it’s just a matter of finding it. A Fulbright Scholarship would give me the resources to plan a trip to South Africa and at the same time would provide me the flexibility to design my own course, rather than taking chances with the Peace Corps. And, I must admit, the prestige of the award was something of great appeal.
In the month of June I had four months to radically prepare a valid reason for going, to find structural support from South Africa, and to carefully craft an application that would win the hearts of every panel member of the Fulbright Committee. At the time, I was chest deep in a couple of different rape crisis projects and knew that this was the area I wanted to target. Combining my art background, I came up with a series of art workshops to guide survivors of sexual assault through their experiences in a way that would empower them to move forward in the world.
In my application, I boldly wrote that I wanted to uncover how the act of creating could be used to counter the violence the country faces daily. Specifically I stated that, “My time in South Africa will challenge what I perceive about how creating can be the antithesis to social destruction and a stimulus for social change.” I wrote about how my few visits to South Africa as a child had been pivotal to my life and my art. I discussed how the patchwork of metal wrestling cardboard, plywood supporting tarps and fabric stuffing holes moved the visual artist in me. Ultimately, my point was to suggest that South Africa has a need for an art that becomes inclusive, not exclusive, and that has the power to inform, challenge, and strengthen communities.
I poured hours and dollars at Kinko’s faxing late night letters to the internet-defunct SA and spent frantic days at the office networking for relevant overseas contacts. I forfeited several hot dates to focus on my application and was weary by September 29th. After submitting my application, life became a game of waiting and of mentally balancing the prospect of not getting what I so desired.
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In January 2007, my grandfather’s Alzheimer’s had matured, leaving his body and his mind helpless in a dark room in the Karoo. Yearning to see this great man one last time, my mother and I trekked to SA to help out with the nursing of his final days on my uncle’s farm. I had no experience with death. The double entendre was getting to be in South Africa again after 5 years, with the knowing that I would soon return to live there, all the while grieving the potential loss of Grampie.
It was my first visit to the Groot Karoo and to my uncle’s new farm, Riverdene. By the time we reached the farm, the sky was pitch black and the low-lying mountains could be seen as dark shadows against the backdrop of stars. We crept into the old farmhouse, creaking along the thick, wooden-planked floors in a state of deep sobriety, preparing ourselves for the shock of seeing Gramps on his back. In a darkened room, there he was, in his hospital bed, the distinctive little mole peering at the ceiling from his chin. His skin was scaly and rough from years at sea and farming a multitude of unsuccessful crops.
But he was slightly lucid. After Aunt Patty’s urgings, he grunted and turned his head to see my mother’s shining face, wet with tears. “Hello my pa,” mom said chokingly. Patty asked him if he knew who had come to visit. After looking at me, he said, “Shenandoah and Andes Mountains.” His humor had not been lost! My name being similar to the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and my mom being named Andrea, I was shocked his crippled brain still knew us. That was a lucky hour and the only one like it we had for the next 3 weeks.
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Three weeks of sweat inducing work. The deep heat of the semi-desert summer brought with it red roman ants, scorpions, poisonous boomslaangs (tree snakes), mosquitoes, but worst of all, flies. Each day as my grandfather worsened, the flies would land on him like an old horse. It would take three women, Patty, my mom, and myself, to turn my grandfather every two hours. We would vigorously massage his skin with ointment to prevent bedsores. At first we could still feed him with a spoon, but eventually we had to move to a liquid diet and feed him with a syringe down the back of his throat.
Those days were heavy. We felt so much disgust with the state of this man’s decline, the loss of dignity and the lack of control. It was if death had already descended and we were preventing it from taking its course. I remember mom brushing his teeth and the black decay that had already begun to form in his mouth. His moaning swept the house and his last days felt like a prison of sorrow.
I had to return to Chicago two days before Gramps passed away. The aching chills of Chicago’s endless snowdrifts, brought on heaps of depression. Within a week, my Fulbright rejection letter arrived. Things couldn’t have felt worse. I knew that I would make it to South Africa, that it wasn’t just a folly for a prestigious award that would lead me there. But with the absence of the patriarch of my mom’s family, having such distance from the loss and suddenly trying to imagine myself “there” doing these ridiculously ambitious projects, I slumped. What exactly was it that I was trying to do and who was I, really, to embark on such an overwhelming project? The Chicago winter continued to bite me through the soles of my shoes and I rejected the environment for my bed and hours of unrealistic TV series on countless DVDs.
Many hours, antidepressants and sick days later, I emerged with my Plan B.
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Photo borrowed from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/14252535@N06/1818193540
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