Uh oh, there goes February!

Hmm, for lack of a better title, can you tell that I am a bit stretched! Teaching has me up till 11 o'clock some nights tackling the ever-surmounting grading. I'm finding it impossible to want to mark papers when I come home....thus I've been spending my afternoons baking and cooking up a storm, even finding vast amounts of pleasure in cleaning Johannes' bakkie or weeding the garden. Ay yai! The evenings are thus spent with the buzzing stick insects, praying manti, and moths (who I hope and pray don't attack me with acid again - my leg is still oozing blisters) and the entertainment of my students' english skills (spelling words like conflict get mistaken for cornflake because of the speech patterns!).

Thus, with little time to say too much, I'm going to leave this short and sweet with pictures for fodder. Please enjoy the friendly host of giraffes who wander not far from my backyard and the in-progress photos from the bar Johannes has been building (providing a backdrop for some painting). Enjoy a nibble from Johannes' homemade February 11th birthday cake and an angry snort from the teed off elephant (only one I've seen on the farm).

Bewitched

Life is unfolding rapidly and every day presents some new twist or turn. I now have 2 weeks of school under my belt. Some days I am impressed with how well it is all going. Other days I manage to be stunned by some facet or other.

It’s been an eventful 2 weeks. Finding my place in the school, getting to know and relate to the other educators, creating a platform with my students, balancing home life with school and negotiating the differences of living on a game farm and working in a town with black locals (2 very alternate realities).

I am always amazed with how steep my learning curve can be. When do we as humans ever know enough? When does our learning serve us and when does it stunt our growth?

I had one of the blondest and scariest moments of my life last week when I opened the electric gate to leave in the morning. While out of the car, I heard a noise from behind….only to witness Johannes’ bakkie rolling down the dirt road towards a ditch. Imagine the simultaneous amazement and panic on my face when I realized I wouldn’t make it there in time! Once the car finally stopped (luckily it didn’t have to roll far before stopping, thus little momentum for damage), I hopped in and tried my darndest to drive it over the rocks it had settled on. No such luck. It didn’t help that 2 days earlier I’d flooded my phone in the river! Alas, on my 4 km walk to the farm entrance, I saw the farm manager and he drove me back to winch Johannes’ car out. Where were my brains? By the grace of God, sometimes things do work out okay.

Today I witnessed the byproducts of black magic for the first time. I am still sitting with a heavy, thick fog in my chest. While working out of the staff room for my planning period, 4 boys brought in a limp, dead weight girl into the room. I was the only adult there and made sure someone had called her parents. They set her down on the dusty floor and within minutes a loud, high-pitched scream emanated from 2 classes down. The seemingly lifeless girl on my hands, Zandile, immediately jumped up and ran for the door and started fighting the boys, kicking and punching at them. The boys, stalwart, held her securely when she started tearing at her throat and fell to thrashing on the ground. Mind you, this was no epileptic seizure. Her eyes were tearing, but finally she resisted the need to thrash and I held a cool, damp cloth to her head, having no idea what else to do.

A few minutes later another girl (supposedly the one who had been screaming) was brought, limp and lifeless to another spot on the staffroom floor. She began screaming again and Zandile took to screaming as well. While it was obvious these two girls were on totally alternate planes, their behavior was absolutely similar. I was so impressed with the young gentlemen who brought the girls in, sweetly untying their neck ties, unbuttoning their collars so they could breathe more easily, smoothing down their skirts so their underwear didn’t show. They were clearly practiced in this routine.

I had seen a girl last week, lying on the floor in the staff room and had been told she’d been bewitched and infected with evil spirits. At the time, I had no sense of how on earth that could result in an inert girl who needed to be taken away by an ambulance. I though maybe she was epileptic and these other educators were not educated enough to identify it. But that moment last week prepared me to understand some of what was happening today while these girls’ spirits unfolded on the floor today.

After the girls had tired out, they lay on the floor at haphazard angles, and I looked at my grading sheet trying to figure out how to resume my work. Their dark demons, whether they were real or not, had poured something toxic into the air that made me feel heavy. I talked to some other teachers to understand what I had seen. It felt something like watching a National Geographic episode on tribal culture in anthropology class to see these girls absolutely fall apart.

Apparently there are at least 6 girls haunted by evil spirits at our school. They experience these demons at home and at school. The teachers try to keep the girls separated because they spur each other on. At least two of them see the same black man dressed in a suit chasing them. Because this only seems to be affecting females, I inquired as to it being related to rape trauma. I was told a few of these girls have been raped, so I wonder if culturally this is a way to let go of what we have even in Western culture: inner demons.

Solace. I am lucky to have a place that pours out beauty in a variety of forms. Today, that is what is needed to recover from the weight of such a deep day. Unfortunately, I’m feeling a bit leery of my local insect friends who zoom around at all intervals through the day. Including the moth that excreted some poison onto my leg, resulting in a long 7 inch, burn-like, blistering wound. I tell you, everyday brings something new! Still, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Sebenzakanzima Secondary School

I certainly thought I'd be writing Farm, Part II well before I had fodder for any other writings. Instead, I have news to share: today was my first day at my first paid job in almost 19 months! In what must be my shortest job search to date (1 week), I got an SMS on Monday from one of the local principals I was introduced to last week. I drove to the school, Sebenzakanzima, just outside of the limits of Pongola expecting to fill out the paperwork for an official job application. Instead, I was handed papers titled "Assumption of Duty." I was perplexed, not quite expecting what I was being offered, only to find out another position had opened at the school due to the death of a teacher.

And so, after filling out more paperwork yesterday and obtaining all the available English books possible, I assumed the available English teaching post for Grades 8, 9 and 10. I encountered a few of the other educators yesterday and they, too, were perplexed about me. Not being announced as a foreign volunteer come to save the day, they all assumed I was a white South African. A few made comments about how white South Africans have been fleeing overcrowding at the schools - with raised eyebrows and a glare made for cowering. However, I'm not really the white South African they think they're refering to and I'm also not fleeing.

With almost 250 names on my roster for 6 classes, it's going to be a crazy while ahead for me! I have no government curriculum to work from in a no-child-left-behind based system, so it should be interesting. I inquired today as to the discipline code at the school and, well, beating is an unofficial part of the game. So I made a strong point with my students today that I will never hit them, but that they shouldn't opt for pulling one over on me just because they think they can. In the end, my biggest threat is to send them to the principal, who will mostly likely give them a hiding or 3. It's the best I can do apart from alienating myself from the get-go and losing my new job. So, it's a bit harum scarum.

The classrooms are bare, bare, bare. The students stay with the same classroom all day long and the teachers float. Meaning the teachers all share 2 common spaces as their staff rooms. I'm sharing a desk with 2 other educators, one who kindly befriended me today. She even gave me a hamburger for lunch - it feels like school all over again! The teachers slowly started to talk to me today, but conceptually they don't seem to grasp that I'm foreign....and that I'm not living with my father on his farm nearby (a very strange rumor circulating). Everyone speaks Zulu as it is a Zulu-medium school. I don't understand a word excepting hello (sawubona) and work (sebenza), although I'm surely in the right place to start picking it up.

My work with the students went seemingly well, though there's not too much to report yet. I was so anxious yesterday, sleeping fitfully and eliciting words of comfort from Johannes. I don't know if I've ever been quite so nervous about teaching before. I think I realize that these students have never had a white educator before and was nervous that they wouldn't want to take me seriously. Luckily, they all seem to love learning English which will work fabulously to my advantage in the future!

One encouraging moment today came as the day was closing and I was invited to go to the visitation for the teacher who's place I'm filling. I gave about 8 teachers lifts in the back of the bakkie and we set out for Ncotshane (very difficult to pronounce with a click at the front of the word), the local township from where most of the students hail. The former teacher passed away Saturday, presumably from AIDS as many teachers here are dying from it. The visitations take place during the week, before the funeral which always takes place on a weekend. There is a huge ceremony involving a cow slaughter, so the weekend timing is a must.

When we arrived at the house of this teacher, all the women took off their shoes. As the women were filing in, the first teacher down on the ground, Disa, immediately started singing. The others joined in as they positioned themselves crosslegged on the straw mats. The men slowly entered as well (their shoes still on) and they joined the singing. It was incredibly beautiful and the moment's hesistation where I had not wanted to go (due to a long first day) melted instantly. Different teachers led the singing and the same ones led the group in Zulu prayers and passages from the Bible. It was a quiet house, where the sounds of the contracting tin roof made distinct clickings, along with the chorus of the roosters crowing outside. The old, old black women family members sat back, against the wall, letting the words wash over them, their eyes solemn and distant, but deeply open and watchful, their faces puckered with wrinkles from too much death and too much life.

At the end, I saddled off home after dropping the other teachers in town and carried on my long ride home. Home: where I shocked myself on a game fence yesterday and today where the warthogs greeted me through the long grasses and monkeys cried out from the trees. Not to mention the nice little poop our resident frog, Gregory, left for me right inside the doorstep. This feels like an impossibly unusual life I'm living right now. Truly African, in some ways endlessly authentic -- something I've been after with the culture for a long time. It felt good to be invited in today.

The Farm, Part I: the land & the trees

This weekend I had much more opportunity to view the vastness of the farm where I’m living. It is gargantuan. It spans 30km along one stretch of road and cascades across many hills and mountains deeper into the bush. The property is comprised of 13 previously independent farms, many of which were used for cattle farming.

The conservation tasks that lay before the manager at the inception of the farm, 9 years ago, were colossal. Part of what makes the bush-veld (field) so attractive to animals is the natural cycles of the land. In cattle farming the farmers resist the veld fires and attempt to suppress the natural burning and regeneration of the land. It became obvious to me on our drives this weekend the difference: in the former cattle grounds the veld is overgrown with bushes, especially those called “aliens” or plants that were brought in from overseas that overtake. In the conserved lands, the veld is vast, full of long tall grasses, velvety and rich. The acacia trees in the fields stand alone and aren’t choked out by other voracious plants. In the valleys are lush and thick with water loving trees, such as the tall mung’aro (African teak) trees.

But even in the conserved lands there are some nice groves of trees, filled with names like Acacia Tortilis, Red Ivory, Mung’aro, Kiat, and Mahoghany. All very different types of woods, all offering Johannes the chance of a lifetime to work with some very raw material. The friendly elephants of the farm have a nasty habit of knocking down the trees that get in their way. Which leaves many felled trees, ripe and ready for removal.

Just as Johannes and I arrived, another local woodworker brokered a deal with the farm to bring in a special saw to cut some huge logs on location. For the last 2 weeks, Johannes has been busy every day sourcing new logs in the woods and valleys. The Mung’aro is by far the largest, complicating matters a lot with heavy rains and waterlogged dirt roads. The first big project they tackled was a fallen Mung’aro log, about 5 feet in diameter and at least 12 feet long. The drawing I’m posting here was of this particular log, as the guys were setting up the saw to cut planks. What’s incredibly awesome for a furniture maker in this situation is that they get some very unusual cuts of wood, including edges with the bark along the sides. Additionally, Johannes has the control to keep planks together that originally matched in the tree itself - giving him the chance to make some seamless work that would be otherwise difficult to accomplish with store-bought wood.

The Mung’aro trees grow in the valleys along the rivers. They are thick and strong, with tall trunks uninterrupted by branches, making for nice long planks. But in-situ, they are even more beautiful, with incredibly complicated root structures grappling and curling around the rocks at its base. The saw dust has a divine smell, something equivalent to the smell of cedar, though entirely different at the same time.

There are so many trees to know and I’m lucky to have a good guide giving me their names. Our perusal of logs on Saturday and Sunday gave me a good view into the scope of the farm, though at any given point I probably couldn’t tell you exactly where I am! There are dozens of rivers, including the great Mkhuze River that flows into one of the country’s largest lakes, Lake St. Lucia. There are several incredible cliff-faces, including one that boasts a platform for camping and braaing while overlooking the Mkhuze River (Johannes and I are planning a weekend getaway on this farm, in this place for next weekend!). And what’s more, there are countless entrances and roads to navigate the farm from, making it feel impossibly large. But, with time, hopefully Johannes and I will get to make a lot out of that!

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!