The Pied Kingfisher

Early morning, late evening; God's happiest partners make two dots of love on the wire fence along the banks of the shiny vlei. Long beaks, a black and white collage of feathers, these kingfishers are one of my top varieties of South African birds. They offer furtive glances to one another. When one picks up to fly, the other follows. You know where you see one, there must be two. It is an aberration of nature for kingfishers to fly solo. For as much as I've been alone, I still want my kingfisher to be on the next tier of the fence, glancing over at me, morning and night.

Drop in the Night

The moon was a miracle to behold in the wintery African sky yesterday evening. At 8pm, the full moon was busy exposing the whole farm in a spill of silver glow. And then. The earth's shadow intercepted the sun and a haze of dark spread slowly over the full orb. For over three hours, a group of us sat entertained at the Botha's house.

From the bottom right, the moon was slowly stained grey and then red, as though a rooibos tea bag was bleeding onto a papertowel. At the height of the evening, the moon hung like a cherry-on-top, conjuring up sugary delights in the mind of my tastebuds. Orange liqueur. In-season blood oranges. Gumdrops. James and his Giant Peach. Gooseberries. Candied rose petals.

Gravity and winter's chill pulled a huddle of youngsters and grownups alike into the centre of a large trampoline, our bodies covered in sleeping bags and immersed in giggles; from here we watched the magic take over as the moon shone a bit more dull, steeped in the orange of the sun's bent rays and coloured a bit deeper from the sulfur deposits of Chile's recent volcanic eruption.

The moon travelled through the center of the Earth's shadow and I savour this moment for my mouth to remember. Orange drop.


Photo Credits:
ALAIN JACQUET of Johannesburg, South Africa, top and bottom
Derek Keats of Johannesburg, South Africa - middle photo.

Ponies and Circles: Part I

A 60 kilometre road takes 3 hours to drive at an approximate speed of 20 km/hr (12 mi/hr), cobbled with loose stones, potholes and drinks of water. Thick lines of water trickle from every orifice in the hills' crevices, bubbling out into the roads and larger tributaries, gurgling across bridges. Mist fingers through mountains, sweeping around snow caps and edgy rock faces, dripping into valleys, eventually merging with the drifts of smoke leaking from every hut. Pools of sun highlight thatch rooftops and striped balaclavas, atop bounding, medieval horsemen cloaked in woolen Basotho blankets. Shimmers of white flicker across mountainsides as angora goats gloat and bleat. My little white "Twinkie" shines and rattles through the morning, rousing laughter from the shepards, children and horsemen at the size of the smallest car to ever challenge the rough roads of Lesotho. Our trip, barely starting, was already historic in the fresh Lesotho landscape.


Ten days and 9 nights marked my longest camping trip ever, shared with my ardent Johannes. After eight months in Belgium, Johannes' request for his time in South Africa was to spend as many waking moments outdoors as possible. We strutted across some of SA's worst pot-holed roads to land our first night in Maseru, the capital city of Lesotho.


Maseru begs for love from the first sighting of the border post; litter is strewn across muddied roads and throngs of people bust forth from Taxis and alight the stands of magwenya (fetkoek) and pots of steaming pap and cabbage. Nestled amongst some pretty sizable hills, Maseru is a bubble of the usual African chaos that South Africa tends to lack: cacophonous honking, insidious overtaking cars, blacked-out traffic lights, overloaded trucks with pieces of wood and furniture threatening to topple, and hoards of people walking home from work - bags of maize-meal balanced overhead and hips wagging to the speed of Africa-time.



We arrived in Maseru a day early, realising that heavy rain-fall might impact the drivability of the roads. We camped one night in a soggy spot, overlooking a mid-sized dam - we were the only campers as the rain fell and the mud froze into thick cakes. Even amongst the rain and the cold, there's nothing quite like making a fire on a cliff to the sounds of sangomas delivering the souls of customers through the beating of drums and a chorus of chants.



Our picturesque drive to Semonkong was easier than expected, although slow and, at times, a bit treacherous. Lesotho has a very limited system of tarred roads and it took us an hour on tar and 3 hours on dirt to reach a location only 100 km (62 miles) away. The dirt roads steadily decrease in quality the further they are from Maseru. The traffic we passed was limited to a couple of Taxis, a bus and a few bakkies - nary a small compact car to be seen! The majority of our passing roadsmen were actually men on horses and donkeys, as the "Basotho pony" is the mainstay in Lesotho Department of Transportation. It's a chicken and an egg scenario; which came first the bad roads or the ponies? Well, most likely the lack of roads encouraged equestrian development and with the introduction of horses to Southern Africa in 1653, the paths and trails running across the Maloti and Drakensburg mountains have been etched into the geography for hundreds of years. With the majority of the population surviving off subsistence farming, a greater infrastructure of roads will probably never be a possibility, considering the severity of slopes and passes throughout the rippling mountain ranges.

: : : : :

Foible, gaffe, blunder

It has been decided; in an effort to write more, I must write less.

Today let's work with the more inane of my recent experience:

My cat, Arrow, created upheaval by bringing a half-dead pigeon (which she surely felled and maimed) into the house and tossing its feathers - EVERYWHERE. Let me just say, dead bird on my door-step = okay. Half-dead bird in my house - not on your life. She has been duly told never to half-kill again. Stupid cat!

In an effort to describe the concepts of EMPHASIS and VARIETY to my all-black, post-Apartheid design class, I brought up the image of one black person in a room of white people - HA! - (of course paired with the similar idea of a white person in a room of all black people [me] or a person in a red shirt in a room of all blue shirts). Crikey, I really wasn't thinking! .... an all-too-easy foible in this part of the world. Or maybe gaffe is the better word to use.

I only discovered AFTER I ran my new oil lamp for 2 hours in a room darkened by a power outage that my lamp-oil was only intended for "well ventilated areas outside". My poor white cat is now grey and her mouse? Well definitely not white anymore. Everything is covered in grey soot. Ouch. Blunder.


Definitely make sure to turn the cap fully tight on your hot water bottle in the cold of autumn. Otherwise your bed might wet you. Happened last week. Idiot's slip.

Do we actually get smarter as we get older or do we just find new ways to make old mistakes?

Pulled strings

A volunteer recently wrote that coming to South Africa was both one of the most heart warming and heart breaking experiences of her life. This pretty much sums up my day-to-day. Rarely does a day go by where my heart isn't pulled hard in both directions.

Sometimes I realise my heart has become a bit more hardened by these experiences, that the emotions on my face don't always reveal that which is in my heart. And for those who know how easily my face and tears have betrayed my feelings in the past, this is a huge shift. I suppose as we humans get older, we do begin to change; we realise we can't so easily get away with crying and facial honesty anymore. We adapt to the world - for me this has been an unwitting biproduct of a challenging environment where one really does have to change face in order to cope.

: : : :

Six year-old Thabo (renamed for anonymity) pulls on my heart strings as often as he can, virtually every day. Generally it is in the good heart warming fashion. The second I pull up my driveway, he runs over to help me carry in my bags (partially curious, I know, to find out what I've been busy buying). In the evenings, as soon as I turn on the tap, he bolts over from his catty-corner plot to help water my garden. Whether it's watering the jasmine by hand or moving the sprinkler through the maze of spinach, beets and tomatoes, he is eternally eager to be of assistance - and therefore, of notice.

Through my organisation, I've started offering a class to the surrounding village community called First Fridays. Fifteen youngsters ranging in age from 5 to 16 join in for arts, crafts, and drama games. We had one such class on 1st April and the two hours went by swimmingly well. Until Thabo locked up. Someone older had taken away his broom during clean-up time and he would not budge from his position (right in front of a particularly dirty corner). The older kids were trying to sweep around him and Thabo remained frozen in a little ball, crying.

I must admit, dealing with tantrums is not my speciality, nor much in the realm of my experience. I decided to intervene to a) console Thabo and b) to get the group back to order. I tried to move him elsewhere, which was probably a bad decision! The little guy almost bit me in the process and it just exacerbated the situation. I was actually shocked, based on Thabo's past devotion, that he would dare try to bite me. I decided to let Thabo alone.

For almost twenty minutes he sat, steadfast in his position. The class was wrapping up. We were looking at the pictures they'd been busy working on, giving out verbal acknowledgements for the "most glittery," the "most orange," the "most stripey," etc. Still, Thabo sat, unbudged. Finally as I handed out stickers he managed to emerge from his personal holding cell to collect.

That was Friday and it wore on my sleeve all night. Saturday, yesterday, I was busy working at the arts centre and heard screaming coming from the yard opposite. I saw the old man Fezile beating down on something and realised it was Thabo. Gogo (grandma) was carrying him through the yard, angrily kicking a bucket as they waded through the grass. The screaming ensued. It absolutely pierced my heart.

Because of my role in the community (where I have to be careful with all relationships and try not "to judge"), I have learned to distance myself from the tragedy that is corporal punishment in the classroom. But this was my first time witnessing it in the home. It really did make the stick-beating they use at school seem like a slap on the wrist.

Honestly, even now, I'm not judging. I know Fezile and Gogo are grandparents, from a different era, with a limited idea of what discipline looks like. But it doesn't mean seeing my baby, Thabo, hurt, kills me any less.

Yesterday evening I decided to pay Becca and Phindi, Thabo's aunt and uncle, a visit to find out more about the poor boy's deamons. I've always known he is an orphan and wondered if there was some trauma from that which played into his strange behaviour the day before. Let me repaint the picture Rebecca laid out for me:
"Thabo was still nursing on his mother's breast at two years of age, when his mother passed away. He was inconsolable and his grandparents didn't know how to handle him. To keep him from crying, they spoiled him. When he was 4 or 5 years he became very ill. That was when the doctors discovered he was infected with HIV - most likely from his mother's breastmilk. He has since been put on treatment. But something changed in him while he was ill. He can now hurt anyone and not really know what he's doing - and I mean, really hurt. Now he's still spoiled. And if he doesn't get his way, sometimes the only way they know how to handle him is for Fezile to discipline him. It's because he wasn't raised by his mother."

Now it's Sunday morning. I suppose I can't do much different to what I'm already doing. I feel a bit useless. Many people use the word "devastated" too easily. But I am devastated, in it's full form, for this little guy. After the beating yesterday, I walked by Thabo's house to turn on the water pump in the school. Thabo scampered behind me, happily, and I handed him the key - so he could do his favourite thing - unlock the door. I am not so hardened. But Thabo has still managed to open a new part of me, a part that continually seems to open manifest as I form new relationships with more and more children. It's a chamber of the heart that is exponential in its pathways; the more doors you open, the more chambers there are. You realise there is no limit to the love that can be expressed towards children. Consequently, you also know there's no restriction to the amount of hurt you can feel on their behalf.

Have a seat

A messy brick stoep. Littered with empty seedling trays, 10 small pieces of firewood, and bags of elephant dung. A wire tomato-and-cheese sammie grill is propped up against the house. Brick towers-of-Pisa, almost toppling, have been scattered here, there and yonder by small children playing house. Small apricot pips are strewn about, also from the children, who climb the tree in my yard for summertime treats. And two beaded, Zulu gourds, are left haphazardly across the yard from the children’s games. Welcome to my home.

I’m baking a quiche in the oven and a bit restless because the rain prevented me from expending my extra energy on the garden. The hours one spends alone can sometimes stretch on for what feels like days. Especially on a day like today, where I haven’t actually had one full conversation with anyone. I wasn’t even graced by the perky presence of the neighbourhood gang, who was also rained-in. It becomes easy to forget what day of the week it is.

Little things keep me occupied. Sweeping. Washing dishes. Taking a bath. Closing windows and curtains. Cooking. Reading. Playing with my new kitten. Looking at my phone periodically to check for messages. Opening a beer. Taking out the compost. Applying insect repellent. Singing. Observing a candle. Spraying my cat with water for climbing the curtains. Thinking about dinner. Considering words.

The mind wanders endlessly. Routine and habit keep the mind hemmed in. I really should learn to meditate. However, at times, I feel like I’m doing relatively well keeping sane.

The Free State is a wide, open expanse full of contradictions and lots of sky. In August the winds howl and blow fine red silt through even the best-sealed eyelids. The rain seems to be all the farmers discuss, when it’s going to come, how overdue it is, how heavy it is, how persistent it is, how it’s going to kill their crops, how it can stop now, how it’s going to be worse next year, how this is one of the best crops they’ve ever seen, why, of course, how this amount of rain was to be expected. The heavy steam of a hot, heavy rain hanging in thunderous clouds in the distance can loom for days. The electric storms would make even Ben Franklin jump. The dry heat could peel even the darkest skin darker. And the wintery cold that seeps through the concrete walls makes housing interiors seem a terminally ill architectural concept.

This is where I live. The landscape is not extreme. The people are. Extremely warm. Extremely gracious. Extremely moody. Extremely racist. Extremely diverse. Extremely archaic. Extremely monolingual. Extremely multi-lingual. Extremely barefoot. However, probably no more than 3 of these in combination.

Some of the richest, most dependable South African turf is spread across the Free State. More specifically, the northern Free State churns out some of the finest mealie crops. In turn, this lines the pockets of the farming families who’ve toiled this land for generations.

There’s not much else beyond farming. It’s all a big family tree of jobs associated with agriculture. Grain silos, grain mills, peanut factories, fertilizer production, soil testing, machine depots. The government gainfully employs many citizens as teachers, police, municipal workers, and officials, however the productivity of these operations barely rival that of farming. There seems to be little to gain from a venture within government, other than a ripe salary; thus much of the area is stunted by a lack of motivation to go beyond what is expected.

Everything seems in plenty here. Money. Poverty. Inferior education. Children. Good health. Poor health. Abandonment. People with cars. People without cars. HIV. Crops. Hunger. Religion. Absenteeism. Rivers flow full and dams spill over into the dirt roads, plaguing my anxiety as I attempt fording large puddles with a small Korean tool, also known as an automobile. Tin roofs blow and spiral away in Dorothy-fashion off proudly kept shacks. The clouds drift absent-mindedly above a patchwork of fields, solid, red-tile roofs and weak roofs, held on tightly with sundry bricks, chicken-wire and tires. Only the quiet looms far away; the rural sounds of crickets, doves, owls, bats creep in steadily and the drums of the sangomas [witch doctors] and nightly shebeen [tavern] crawls keep the civilised corners in steady rhythm. Those with open eyes cannot rest easy. For all that may be present in excess, there is a simple pulse that most cling to as they strive to live in this place.

Sunday Morning View

Sunday morning, two weeks after my big move, I’m finally feeling capable of lying in and enjoying the view. The busy domestic in me has been tireless in sifting through boxes of papers and allsorts, collected in duration of 2 years. It’s amazing how many items one can amass in such a short period. That said, this is the first time I’ve unpacked my full collection since I lived at Margie’s in Cape Town well over a year ago!

A very large portion of my belongings were stored in an unused garage and were steeped in rainwaters from a faulty leak for a good portion of the rainy season. Imagine the tears, pulling out all of my teaching resources and books, notations on birds, wooden spoons, journals, and clothing…sopping wet and full of mildewed stains and damage. I’ve managed to reclaim a lot; the rest I just have to let go. Miraculously, my artwork remains in minted condition - someone’s reminder to me to be glad for what I do have.

: : : :

Upon returning to South Africa, after my three-week trip home to the USA, I also find myself “at home” here. The caw of the guinea fowl at night and the hum of the morning doves are all part of the greater landscape. The sweeping of the dust from my floors, although constant, feels effortless and normal. The nightly ritual of closing all the windows and curtains to keep the bugs out is just another part of the everyday fabric.

However, my transition to a new space brings with it new delights, marvels and intrigue. A selection of the new sounds and textures and societies: The screeching of an owl or bat or mouse (?) that consistently scares the dickens out of me at night. Soft, sinkable earth out the front door. The music-drowning sound of rain on a tin roof during a storm and the music-forming tinkle of a tin roof drizzle. Sunken mud roads, closed from heavy rain. New grass roads, full of the tickle of long grass on my car’s underbelly and the THUNK of hitting a porcupine hole. The smell of grass at the start of an evening rain. The odour of bog after too much downpour. The morning rumble of the tractors. The flapping of wings when startling a flock of birds. The ever-present call of “shannono” from my new neighbours, Mahase (12), Mammekie (9), Kathleho (5) and Bulelane (2). The thinly worn textiles of my neighbours’ blouses and trousers, pitted with holes, bosoms and shoulders hanging out through the weave. The daily clicking of clippers on the hedges or tin being tinkered-with on the chicken coup by Ntate Fezile, tending his family’s garden. The relentless quest for work and money from this new community. The polka-dotted patterning of the path from my house to the arts centre, formed by very busy ants in the freshly turned soil. And, of course, the cry of the roosters.

More than anything, I am enjoying being the master of my domain. After living with another family for 6 months, I am relishing being in my own kitchen, drawing lines in the dirt for my upcoming garden, having a separation of my office from my home space, and delighting in the independence to listen to any-type of music at all levels of sound. I think the lack of personal space from the past half-year had a larger impact on me than I ever realized. I treasure this moment to be on my own.

Glamour, love, snow peace and chocolate to mud, grass, dusklight and happy chaos

From this....

Parisian chocolate displays at killer prices

New Year's glamour queens

NC snow on Boxing Day

Johannesie in Paris

Oh, Target, you got Kim to buy a patterned shirt! We actually match.

....to this:

Klein huisie on the long-grassed prairie

A lot of color to view from my desk chair

First I got stuck ...

Dusk from the stoep at the arts centre

Yes, one extreme to the other: nights of sweating under heated blankets to nights sweating from the summer heat. Days of pulling on long underwear and enclosing my neck in scarves, just tasting the clarity of chilled air to mosquitoes working their way up my blouse to bite my wee bosom. Lover in Paris for fourteen hours to the friends that mud-bail my poor suctioned car. Daily planner filled with family lunches and coffees to agendas for a new era of rural art. French policeman that won't give you the time of day to children that will wash your car for free just because... Not one side better than the other, well spare the French policeman. More writing soon to follow!