The Father

I don't think I've ever encountered so much Catholicism in my life as I have in South Africa.  Not because South Africa is Catholic - it's primarily Protestant.  Rather, because, the Catholic missions in place in South Africa are a source of great wisdom, knowledge and sustainability within the communities where they work.  The pervading issues of homosexuality, molestation and women's rights are far from reach in these mission thresholds.  They are more concerned with the pressing needs of the local population - which include HIV infection, orphaning, child parenting, abuse, and hunger.

It is through the Father here that I have seen an immense love for community and a stellar example of one who has given up their life for the service of others.  I have been to the Father's house several times for traditional Liverpudlian meals, cooked by him, and have been given a tour round his small parsonage.  His room is bare, no less than one would expect from a priest, no pillow, no thick duvet, only a blanket and fitted sheet.  His home is scattered with books and he cracks me up by listening to the Afrikaans radio station - he's trying to learn Afrikaans.  He began his Sesotho studies by attending a Grade One classroom at a Primary School for a year; an impressively tall white man, sharing at a tiny desk with a half pint a quarter of his size.  He is now fluent in Sesotho and presents all his sermons to the black community in their language.

The Father has a terrifically difficult job, for a South African.  He must deliver sermons to 4 parishes on Sunday. Two in townships and two in the surrounding, predominantly white towns.  So not only must he engage with the absolute poorest of the poor, he must also engage with two separate and very different cultures from a place of love without judgement.

I complain it's a terrific sacrifice to only return home once a year.  But the Father only returns home once every three years, to England.  The Father has lived in 3 different parts of the world, serving missions and learning their languages, before landing up here - where he has been 7 years and is now a citizen.

At any given moment while visiting in his lounge, drinking tea that is utterly too sweet (because he refuses to give me a 1/2 teaspoon, claiming it's ridiculous), at least five children will pop round.  To each one he'll caress their little face, pat them on the head and give them an orange or two to take away.  Another few knocks on the door, informal settlers will appear with buckets, requesting a dip into his well.  His little home is a source of refuge.  Even for me - with the appeal of foreign, not local, company and a different perspective.

He has found a niche within each community, however I have been privy to the complaints in the English community.  Yes, this great man has a terrifying fault with the locals.  He stinks.  His hygiene is what one would expect of a hippie, but it's deliberate.  He doesn't wear deodorant and only bathes twice a week, or so I've heard.  The congregation has taken immense exception to this poor protocol and it has often been the topic of the dinners I've attended.  It's difficult to know how this issue is perceived in the Sotho community, considering there are many a staunch, smelly armpit there; yet the Sotho people are some of the cleanest, well-bathed and manicured people I know.  Cleanliness, is the holiest way out of poverty in Africa. One may be poor, but their stoop will always be clean, the sink empty of dishes, the clothes washed daily and pressed to perfection.

Honestly, it's irrelevant how the Father smells.  People in small towns always want something to complain about and in this case it's the priest.  But I am in awe of the Father. He's the kind of priest who will punch someone in the face for raping their niece.  And he doesn't care about the implications of collecting hitchhikers on the road.  I don't know what's in his head and he's probably not a pure Mother Theresa, but in my book, he sure comes close.  His regard for humanity says it all.

Ricki

After almost two years in the wee town of Viljoenskroon, I have started to pick up on some characters.  It's a slow place where most people stick to themselves and avoid outsiders.  It's not a place where you can swoop into the local pub and figure everyone out in 2 seconds flat, simply because so many people are in hiding.  Often you'll find only three people enjoying happy hour on Friday.   It's the type of place where people slowly emerge and their characteristics only become remarkable after witnessing repetitive behaviors, or worse, after hearing the pervading gossip and history shrouding their reputation.

I don't mean to make fun.  Nor do I mean to make nice. I have observed a lot and feel it's time to take some stock in these characters on the page.  What I write in the coming month (or months, depending on how quickly I deplete my small town stock) will derive from my interactions, but not necessarily a deep or thoroughly researched knowledge.  I won't pretend to know someone I don't, but rather engage my inner-voyeur through probing the presenting elements and facts surrounding their "plain view" personality.  These portraits may be short, but altogether they should provide a more complete mural of this Viljoenskroon town and farming area.

: : : : :

First up is Ricki*.  Rail thin, she works the internet counter.  A bit apologetically Afrikaans, she doesn't fit the mold.  Her 19 year-old peers all seem to be wearing bright flashes of red or turquoise with fingernails to match and well-maintained, over-zealous blonde highlights.  Ricki wears shirts with designer razor slashes and almost exclusively black, white and silver.  Her midriff tends to peer out a lot, suggesting her lean body is too long for most apparel.  With morbidly pale skin, I can't help but wonder if she's trying to look like the wanton medieval victim in the video game ad printed on the side of the hard drive.

Rwanda

I never posted this and feel I should share the photographs and thoughts of my few days in Rwanda.  Rwanda still lingers with me and is a beacon of hope, whilst also glares a flare of warning for future generations.


The Rwanda of 2011 offers so much more than the drama of "Hotel Rwanda" would allow your mind to anticipate. Seventeen years post-genocide. Rwanda. Seventeen years democracy. South Africa. The visit to Rwanda allowed me many reasons to compare the complex state of SA to a place that has found a positive groove post-conflict.  It's not really fair to compare the two, but that 17 mark is inevitable.  Rwanda is small and whilst it experienced an absolute wretched, traumatizing horror in one year - South Africa is many times the size in area and people and cultural diversity and she had over 40 years of slow, debilitating, and deliberate oppression and overhaul.

But for the eventual tourist, Rwanda escapes the African cliches.  Dirty.  No.  Unsafe.  No.  Untimely.  No.  Full of beggars.  No.  Chaotic.  No.  It was clean, well-ordered, traditional, deepest dark at night and still, safe and filled with the spiritual warmth of good people.

But the funny thing that still remains: prisoners dressed in pink serving out their sentence from local tribunal, Gacaca court hearings for certain genocide contributors.  It's a thin waft on the air, but they are there.  And the ghastly historical museum full of skulls...  Not to mention the issue of avoiding any attributions to the past "faux" cultures of Hutu and Tutsi.  Because if you know anything about Rwanda, you will know that the cultural divide of Hutu and Tutsi was based on colonial Belgian artifice. A brief understanding from Wikipedia states: 

The definitions of "Hutu" and "Tutsi" people may have changed through time and location. Social structures were not stable throughout Rwanda, even during colonial times under the Belgian rule. The Tutsi aristocracy or elite was distinguished from Tutsi commoners, and wealthy Hutu were often indistinguishable from upper-class Tutsi. When the European colonists conducted censuses, they wanted to identify the people throughout Rwanda-Burundi according to a simple classification scheme. They defined "Tutsi" as anyone owning more than ten cows (a sign of wealth) or with the physical feature of a longer nose, or longer neck, commonly associated with the Tutsi. A person could change from Hutu to Tutsi by obtaining enough cows to acquire the status. Full article here.

Now, to avoid future conflict, students, children, and youngsters, no longer reveal (or even know) their cultural identity.  This erasure of the past could come to haunt.

For now, Rwanda is on the up and up.  They are training their varsity students overseas and building their nation from the ground up.  They have resources and they are applying them to the correct channels, at least it seems for now.  It is stunningly beautiful and hilly.  They have the sweetest tea and most toxicly sinful hot sauce imaginable.  To plan for 2012 touring, certainly.  But for 2020, I'd say keep watch on the Truth and Reconciliation in this country.  It is not popular to present a dissenting voice in popular politics and I imagine that will take a long time to improve.

Vaginal Room

My mother has begged.  The internet has forgotten.  Blogger has an updated interface.  And all but 2 followers remain.  What can I say? I have a little steam in the Engine again and feel like writing.  Writing may be a practice, but it also requires a certain amount of stamina and perspective to be worth anyone's time reading.  As this is a blog and not a personal diary, it's worth writing something worth reading.

My apologies for the 10 month delay!  My new blog, www.thepiedkingfisher.wordpress.com, has kept me happily busy and inspired and has little demand on my brain, enabling more freedom and creativity.  Food is just easy like that.

But the past 10 months have not passed without incident.  They have not been boring, nor have they been the most fun.  This 29/30th year in my life has me feeling the consequences of being on the cusp of adulthood and wondering when life will ease, and still I know I have yet to meet the darkest place.  May 1st passed this week and it was the one year anniversary of something unmentionable that happened last year.  Perhaps that was why writing felt impossible.  Perhaps that is why, one year later, I feel I am emerging to a better place.

It's not really worth recalculating the past year.  I know that one of my biggest personal hurdles in life is letting go.  It's hard when you have such a great memory!  But it's a burden and it's time to stop adding it up for some irrelevant subtotal, just to feel worse.  So here's moving on. A very short story - "Vaginal Room." At which point, if you know me, you may choose to stop reading (although this is not sexual, but medical!):

To top an off-year, I suppose it was time I encountered some, well, let me be subtle - female problems.  I'm sure you may have known from the heading.  But it was high time.  I have had few complaints for my cogs and chambers since reaching puberty over half my lifetime ago.

I had taken out the trash. Which, to most urbanized, citified folks would mean "taken it out to the curb."  But since I live on the veld and there is a wide expanse of rubbish heap 20 feet away (luckily on the windowless/road-less side of the cottage), it really meant taking the trash, neatly tied in a grocery-size parcel, to the front door.  So that Johannes could walk it the further 20 feet.  I hate taking out the trash.  Maybe it's because I always associated that duty as my brother's responsibility.  It's absurd, but I'd rather clean a toilet.

My little children neighbors being the restless creatures that they are, stumbled over to our house at some point mid-morning to help with the endless weeding and tying up of bean vines.  Before I knew it, they were into the trash bag, searching for goodies.  And that lurch.  That gulp of a golf ball in the throat.  The paling of the face.  The evil knowing that they might find my baby pink, discarded "cream" applicators.  In Afrikaans "room" applicators.  And knowing there was no way I could explain it in the lightning-speed seconds before they were discovered. Immediately, upon alighting her hand to the so-called reinvented gem, 10 year-old Mammekie was playing with my medical tools.  Disaster.  What could I say?  The shock upon my face melted into complete horror and absolute bewildered embarrassment.  The saying "One man's trash is another man's treasure?"  She ran off into the horizon pumping that ridiculous little baby pink tube into the air with shrieks of laughter; unbeknownst to her, the heart wrenching sound of my own sighs disappeared into the ether.

I promptly called Danielle.  Only a woman could know.  Absolute horror.  I'm so glad Johannes has taken to burning the rubbish as his second calling in life.  "Room" saviour.

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!

My first enemy

It only took about 27 months for me to make an enemy in South Africa. For years I have had the Dalai Lama’s quotation attached to my email, “In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.” While it certainly sounds intelligent and I strive to abide by such holistic principals, I have never really needed to apply this principal in an actual situation. In my world of 2010 the word enemy seems obsolete. How can a community-oriented person, like me, really afford to make enemies? No, I am not a saint. Not having enemies doesn’t bar me from having certain opinions of others and them of me. Understandably, my world of no-enemies comes from a certain privileged place of 1st-world heritage, class, education, etiquette training, great personality (please chuckle) and luck.
Last night it didn’t take much. After a long, trying week that tested some of the important community relationships I’ve been working to build, I just wanted to go out for a sweet gin and tonic with a couple of friends to celebrate the week’s end.

In Viljoenskroon, the bar options are limited. And the choice of where-to-go is entirely based on “who” I go with. For instance, a black person would never feel comfortable in a white bar – even if they went with friends. Lucky for me, white people are almost lauded when they attend the black bars, well, because it’s so rare. To be frank, there are 3 white bars “in town” and 1 black bar. “Town” means Viljoenskroon or the white part. In Rammolutsi “the township” aka “the location” aka the black part, there are myriads of taverns to choose from. A tavern is a place to buy a beer with chairs and tables and a bar is a place with a bar and a variety of liquor. So, Friday night being the night I went out with siblings Andrew and Bronwyn, we ended up at one of the limited white bars in town.

So Pikie’s Pub it was. The long and short of it, I was introduced to a farming peer of Andrew’s. In other words, a Boer. Boer being an Afrikaans farmer as they’re commonly referred to here. I think in some instances it is used as a derogatory term, but it depends on who’s saying it. After our brief introduction, the slew of typical questioning ensued, or so I thought. “How do you find Africa?” Usually after that question comes “How is America?” But that didn’t happen.

“You want to go back home.” Statement.

“No, I’ve lived here two years.”

“Yeah, well Africa, most of it’s working, there are just those 1/3 of people who don’t want it to work.”
“Well I wouldn’t have stayed if I didn’t appreciate the place.”

“You Americans, what are you doing with all your wars. Going into other countries and killing innocent peoples. Like Vietnam. You fucked up.” Statement.

“Well, I’m not supporting the wars, but what’s so different about going to another country to kill people and killing people in your own country?”

At this point the bloke was absolutely, 100% totally disinterested in what I had to say. He wanted to talk “to” me, not “with” me. And he proceeded to get 5 inches from my face, spitting on my skin, blowing his hot alcoholic breath beneath my nostrils, and went on a tirade, a verbal assault on my Americanism. He didn’t once ask my politics. He just assumed. And he assumed that I thought he’s a racist (well, after the night, I would guess he probably is), but “who are you to come to this country and help these people? These blacks, they murdered 2 whites on the farm on Wednesday. And they assaulted two small white children yesterday. And you think we [Afrikaaners] are racist?”

The man wouldn’t stop. And he was huge. I told him to stop talking to me. I told him he was talking kak. He wouldn’t listen. He went to the other side of the bar and yelled “Go back home to your fucking America. We don’t want you here.”

Wow. Like I said, 27 months in this country. I had been warned about the belligerent nature of many Afrikaans men in bars – including my English-speaking white friends who’ve been beaten-up in bars just for being English-speaking. However, I have never before given any of that real credence since I hadn’t witnessed it personally. I generally like giving the benefit-of-the-doubt. Yet, here I am in the Alabama or Arkansas or Texas of South Africa and I finally have had a real taste of how deep the divisions lie. I knew some (not all) people are totally disinterested to see my participation in the black community. But I have never been attacked for caring, though that’s not to say people haven’t thought that before.

It felt really raw leaving that bar. The guy calmed down. Everyone apologized for him. But not he for himself. His meek wife even apologized – I thought to myself, “it’s you I feel sorry for.” I thought, “why am I bothering to learn this language of Afrikaans?” I thought, “what the hell am I doing in this place?” I thought, “I will never be one of any of the communities here.” It’s a harsh reality, but it’s so true.

While I argue against some of the white people who take issue with me dropping in from the outside, there are also black people who would probably prefer my visit was up already. I don’t believe in a lot of the politics put forth by the ANC because it exacerbates racial divisions. I don’t fit in. Point blank.

But I am lucky to have a found a small holding of open, loving people in this community, white and black. And in those circles I do fit in. By now, those of you reading this may be thinking, “Shannon, darling, go home!” or “Shannon, you sound so unhappy! This is not the place for you.” But, by the grace of some God, I am here because there is work to do and I get to be part of the small forward movements in the lives of many children. And I cannot tell you how happy that makes me. If only the area was filled with the magic openness of 10 years-olds! If only people become more in-touch with the child in their heart of hearts, that part that enables them to love.

In the meantime, I have an enemy. There’s no time like now to become more challenged by practices of tolerance. How will I ever understand the struggle for blacks to love whites and vice versa if I myself have not had to learn to tolerate blatant attacks of racism and ill-will?