breaking sticks

I could tell last night when I started examining the ceiling structure of my parents’ home, daydreaming about how much pressure it would take to blow the roof off of the house as my grandparents were talking about one of their friends, that it was time for me to get out for awhile. I have been home for nine days in a row now, minus a night that I spent at my sister's apartment in New Philadelphia. That is a lot. Now, don't get me wrong: I love my family and love spending time with them, and it has been an absolutely wonderful homecoming for me. But four days of sitting and chatting and eating (and yet more chatting) in small rooms with the same people; sleeping half the night on one couch and half on another; and waking up in the middle of the night- twice- in panic that my father's newly mounted deer head (graciously covered with a sheet for my benefit) was going to come alive and reclaim its body, I was staring to get a bit squirmy, to say the least.

I feel guilty when I'm angry and anxious, and I've been angry and anxious for several days now, maybe weeks. I haven't exactly figured out why. But there has taken root in me a strain of bitterness that wasn't there before. This disturbs me a great deal, especially during the Christmas holiday.

So this afternoon when all other forms of distraction- checking e-mail, reading, cleaning, leaving voice mails on cell phones of my friends, had failed to improve my mood, I finally decided that I should go out for a walk. The sun was shining, so there was no excuse, I told myself aloud. So I slipped on shoes without socks, a coat without gloves, and a hat without a top and headed out to the woods behind our house.

It was a good time of day for a walk, the time when the sunlight is just right to make everything softer and easier to take in, sort of like what a candle does to someone's face in an already lighted room. As I started walking through the tufts of brown grass in the Christmas tree field to get to the opening of the path, I thought about how odd it is that we refuse what we know to be good for us. Well, at least I do. Walking, being with friends, sitting still, saying hello to God, why is it that I avoid the very things that I know will help to make me feel somewhat better?

To be honest, I had come out for this walk with the intention to break sticks. (Not exactly the sort of serenity you expected, hey?) Along with visions of blowing off the roof, I had been daydreaming about whacking homeruns in a championship softball game, then jousting, and then chopping wood. I'm not even going to try to begin to analyze the symbolism in all that; all I knew is that I was agitated and felt like breaking sticks.

I passed up some fairly good-sized branches at the mouth of the path, where the wild turkeys always scratch around in the summer and the fall, figuring that I should save up my energy for something nearer a woodpile (so at least this might be a semi-productive venture). Then I walked by the maple tree with the large grapevine and brought my hand to my mouth to stifle a giggle or a groan, I'm not sure which, remembering how I had bloodied my gums after an attempted Tarzan swing on a vine some summer when I was younger. In the process, I spooked about four deer, their white tails flaring up in false flags of surrender as they bounded over the hill. Luckily for them, I had had no delusions of grandeur in spearing deer and so continued peacefully down the path.


Entering a clearing, I remembered my purpose and half-heartedly picked up a nice, semi-rotten branch and smacked it against the nearest sapling. Neither the sapling, nor the branch made out very well, and I felt so sorry for the tree that I gave it a little pat in an attempt to cheer (and straighten) it back up. The next branch I picked up, on the principle of my purpose, was a much sturdier piece of poplar. Bracing myself in the proper branch-bashing position, I pulled my arms back and - whack!- the other half of the branch promptly punched my right shoulder in return as I cracked the branch in two piece. Sucker! I could imagine the tree taunting. Rubbing my shoulder, I mumbled some choice words to the trees and kicked up a few leaves, deciding that I was over the whole branch-breaking thing and wanted to go back to the house.

Without the distraction of looking for good branches to break on my way back, I began to notice how green the moss still was at this time of year. I had missed fall, so the brown emptiness of the woods felt too rushed. Sniffing the air, I tried to see if I could still smell fall, in the leaves on the ground, but could only detect a faint odor of cold. A few steps beyond, I bent down to peel a patch of moss off a small rock and sniffed gently, satisfied. Yep still smells like moss, wet and sharply earthy. Beside the rock, I roughed up a few leaves with my hand, but still couldn't smell anything, so I put both hands on the ground and stuck my nose right down on the forest floor. Smiling and wiping my nose, I decided, simply, that the ground smelled only like wet, rotting leaves, fall, or winter.

After a few minutes more, I reached the woodpile in the clearing in front of the back porch, empty-handed. The wooden bench where family and friends sat on to roast marshmallows or hotdogs, (or veggie dogs), had lost both of the armrests; the charcoal ring from earlier fires was barely visible with all the leaves. A few feet beyond that was the tree house my father had built for my sister and me, now missing at least half of the roof and piled full of rubbish and wood. Our initials, scratched with charcoal, were still visible by the stairs: RCL, Rachel Cook Leah, depending on how you read it. Looking once more to the condition of the tree house, I thought about how soon it would need to be taken down, broken, stripped, and maybe even thrown into the fire as fuel for some other gathering.

But not now, I decided. Now I will go inside, light candles, write thank you cards to my family, and ask my friends what they think of camp fires in December.

no, i did not get eaten by a lion

well, i've neglected this blog for quite some time now, to my dismay and embarassment. rather than try to catch up on the month or so missed, i'll start with the most previous events and work backwards.

It is a rainy and relatively cold Sunday afternoon here in Jo-Burg, and I've just returned back from services at Melville Union Church and am sipping some rooibos tea. I'm also trying in vain to get the local classical music station to come in through my clock radio but getting mostly static and random bits of Indian music, traffic reports, and African language talk shows. To be really corny, I guess I could say that parallels what my own thoughts have been like recently: constant static while searching for my classical Western tastes and values, jumbled up by South Africa's complex realities of race, history, desparation, and violence.

This morning's message was entitled "Dealing with Doubt," focusing specifically on Psalm 73:

Psalm 73 (NIV)

BOOK III : Psalms 73-89

1A psalm of Asaph.
Surely God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.

2 But as for me, my feet had almost slipped;
I had nearly lost my foothold.

3 For I envied the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

4 They have no struggles;
their bodies are healthy and strong. ^[a]

5 They are free from the burdens common to man;
they are not plagued by human ills.

6 Therefore pride is their necklace;
they clothe themselves with violence.

7 From their callous hearts comes iniquity ^[b] ;
the evil conceits of their minds know no limits.

8 They scoff, and speak with malice;
in their arrogance they threaten oppression.

9 Their mouths lay claim to heaven,
and their tongues take possession of the earth.

10 Therefore their people turn to them
and drink up waters in abundance. ^[c]

11 They say, "How can God know?
Does the Most High have knowledge?"

12 This is what the wicked are like—
always carefree, they increase in wealth.

13 Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure;
in vain have I washed my hands in innocence.

14 All day long I have been plagued;
I have been punished every morning.

15 If I had said, "I will speak thus,"
I would have betrayed your children.

16 When I tried to understand all this,
it was oppressive to me

17 till I entered the sanctuary of God;
then I understood their final destiny.

18 Surely you place them on slippery ground;
you cast them down to ruin.

19 How suddenly are they destroyed,
completely swept away by terrors!

20 As a dream when one awakes,
so when you arise, O Lord,
you will despise them as fantasies.

21 When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,

22 I was senseless and ignorant;
I was a brute beast before you.

23 Yet I am always with you;
you hold me by my right hand.

24 You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.

25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

27 Those who are far from you will perish;
you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.

28 But as for me, it is good to be near God.
I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge;
I will tell of all your deeds.

Now, I'm still sorting this all out, but I became extremely sad and nearly angry after reading this. Melville Union is relatively new church, intentionally founded as a racially diverse, service-oriented congregation, which I really enjoy. So looking around during the service, honestly, all I could envision when I read verses 3 and 4("For I was envious of the arrogant, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they have no pangs; their bodies are sound and sleek. They are not in trouble as other men are; they are not stricken like other men") was the speaker as a black South African and the "wicked" as white South Africans. I don't quite know what to make of this reaction. Certainly, while I've been here, serious questions of justice, God's will, and forgiveness have come up relatively frequently as I sit in church services, or small group studies, or in traffic behind stuffed taxis and just drop my jaw at the absolute inhumanity of apartheid and the ultimate humanity of forgiveness.

One of my first experiences in South Africa was wondering into some kind of Christian campus organization function at Wits and hearing past leaders of the group describe the changes of the organization over the last 20 years. Well, obviously apartheid issues came up (fyi: I was the only white student present in the group of about 425 people) . One scene that a middle aged man described continues to both inspire me and trouble me: members of his group - both black and white- would meet together in the mornings to pray. But often, as the gentlemen recounted, they would be praying for seemingly opposite things - a white student praying that his Afrikaans brother would not get killed in some government appointed raid on a township alongside a black student praying that HIS brother would not get killed by soldiers in that raid. Now how does one even begin to sort out ideas of justice in that?

By the end of Psalm 73, the speaker picks himself up and realizes that the things he envies are just "dreams" or "phantoms" in the RSV, and that God is his ultimate desire, that the day of justice will come.

I don't know what it is, but I just feel impatient and even guilty after this passage because the depth of suffering is so much greater for some than for others. So does increased suffering make their faith stronger or just more desperate? I don't know.

-------

In any case, last week, I took a bit of a holiday to Kruger National Park in the northeastern corner of South Africa. Kruger is one of the ultimate tourist attractions in the whole country and probably Sub-Saharan African in general. I travelled with a friend from the US who was visiting SA with her two other friends (all women who worked for the US Forest Service in some capacity).

We left early Monday morning to drive towards the northwestern edge of the park at the Phalaborwa gate. From Phalaborwa, we headed east to Letaba, then south to Olifants and Lower Sabie, and finally exited the park at Crocodile Bridge. The three ladies then dropped me off at Nelspruit where I caught a Greyhound bus back to Jo-Burg, while they headed further south to Durban.

The entire experience was amazing, and a bit too much for me to describe adequately right now, so I'll just give you some highlights. Basically, I felt like I was reliving the hours of National Geographic videos about Africa that I watched as a young tot.

My absolute favorite part of the trip was a sunrise bike ride at Olifants camp. Our gang joined an Austrian couple and two young male guides at 4:00 in the morning and drove for about 30 minuets in a safari vehicle to get to the trailhead. At 4:00, the sun is already starting to come up over the horizon in a sheer orange purple blaze across the sky, so everything looked grey and just slightly gilded. On the way to the trail, we spotted three hyenas and a leopard which is fairly unusual. By 5:00, the whole sky was lit and we began our ride through the bush towards a lake. Once at the lake, we stopped for breakfast with the hippos, literally. I munched Marie Biscuits and gulped Powerade about 20 feet from a herd of hippos and about 40 feet from a crocodile. There was even a little baby hippo playing around in the water, which received lots of oohhhs an ahhhs from the group of mostly women. Even I had to oohh and ahh a bit; I was such a tourist.

We ended up seeing all of the Big Five (lion, rhino, leopard, elephant, and buffalo) plus some other pretty amazing mammals and birds. The four of us combined took thousands of pictures - no joke. I can only post a few of my 200-some now because my internet bandwidth is very low, but hopefully I'll be able to post additional ones soon.

Well, scratch that, I can't post any pics.

things that make me smile after 5:46am

1. the thunderstorm that woke me instead of a damp sunrise
2. that the mosquito i smashed about four hours earlier is still stuck to the wall
3. thinking of yoda's wiggling ears, but realizing that it was too early in the morning for me to even attempt to wiggle the one that i can (i caught the end of the SABC3 movie last night - some star wars episode)
4. having a second shower from the runoff as i stick my head out the door under the arboretum
5. black (clean) shirts
6. rediscovering accidentally songs in my itunes library that talk about rain -when it is raining
7. that 2% milk leaves just enough swirl in my nescafe to require stirring it away with a spoon
8. clothes hanging on the line that aren't mine
9. lacy suds from wet footprints mixed with spilled laundry detergent on my steps
(ending this list with nine instead of 10)

Eastern Cape: East London

So my original post that I had typed about the Eastern Cape disappeared into slogger land, much to my dismay. However, the word must still get out, and I wanted to give you at least a general idea of what I did in the Eastern Cape before I move on to other interesting things...like Soweto (yes, a shameless plug for a future entry).

East London

Thursday, October 12

Flew from Jo-Burg to East London, a city along the southeastern coast of South Africa, where I met and stayed with the Vasi family. The Vasi's were my East London hosts during my previous trip to South Africa, so it was wonderful to reconnect with them again and have more time for conversations other than very early in the morning and late at night.

Nolan, the father, is a manager at Nedbank; Lee-Anne, the mother, runs her own events management company and is also teaching business management at Damien, a private high school/college; Tyrren, at 10 years old, is one of the sweetest and most considerate girls I've ever met; Kaitlyn, at 8, is just downright ornery and full of energy, but always ready to give a hug or a big smile to anyone who will take it.

Thursday evening was mostly spent catching up over a dinner of hot lamb curry, going with Lee-Anne and Nolan to church, talking to Nolan about BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) and East London development, and catching a bit of sport.

Friday, October 13

Went with Lee-Anne to Damien for the morning. The students were around 18 and learning basic percentage rules. The atmosphere was a bit tense because the day before, a group of girls from Lee-Anne's first class stormed out to verbally and physically attack a girl in the next room (I'm not sure why...I think something to do with a guy). In any case, Lee-Anne gave them an ear-full about that in between calculations. And, as I told her later, the students listened because I think it is one of the few times that an adult has actually cared what happens to them.

In both classes, the students were pretty jolly and polite to me. I talked with them a bit during the classes and then during break time outside, and they could not believe that I looked like a "normal" person (I'm guessing that was supposed to mean that I didn't look like the American girls in movies). All in all, the bunch is a little rowdy with some serious family/personal issues, but an energetic and fun group nonetheless.

Nolan picked me up from Damien in the afternoon and I went back home to chill and read the paper. After Lee-Anne returned home, we chatted for a while about the students, teaching, racial issues in the classroom, etc, and then went to pick up the girls from school. From there, we did some grocery shopping, picked up the girls from school, and then went for ice cream and waffles.

Returning back home, Nolan was in a rush trying to prepare for his Burger Bash that evening. After organizing the groceries, I assisted by frying bacon for the first time in my life and then making hamburger patties for about the second time in my life. Kaitlyn graciously provided me with directions on how to do all three of these tasks.

Both Nolan and Lee-Anne have large, extended families. Nolan’s family is Indian and most of his immediate family lives in the same neighborhood so they get together quite often. Lee-Anne’s family is colored (term for mixed-race) and is split between Cape Town and East London, but they still make it a point to have family reunions, etc. Similar to situations in the US, this family togetherness is becoming more unusual in many middle-class families as the children leave to work in Jo-Burg, Cape Town, or Durban.

So as a result of all this happy family stuff, I spent half of the evening trying to remember the in-laws and sister’s names, and whose kids were whose. I put my success rate at just under 50%.

The other half was spent trying to eat discreetly around my burger (I soon gave that up…Nolan’s mother was giving me the motherly eat-up-your-food-stare), and trying to decide if I should join the women who were talking about church, hair, perfume, etc, or the men who were mainly concerned with the cricket match, rugby teams, cars, etc. After trying to add something to each (and learn cricket rules at the same time), I finally gave up and went to play blind-man’s bluff upstairs with the kids (more fun, anyway).

After everyone went home relatively early (9:30, 10:00pm), the evening ended with Lee-Anne and me catching the last part of Jeepers Creepers II (Friday 13^{th, remember}).

I went to bed quite content. It had been awhile since I had been part of a family, with all the quirks and charms that come with it.

Saturday, October 14

I was awakened early with Nolan looking for his golf clubs or something (golf on Saturday mornings with his brothers) and finally coaxed out of bed by Tyrren peeking and giggling through the door. Saturday was sleep-in day for the rest of the family, so Tyrren and I made ourselves comfortable with cartoons and coffee, respectively.

Later, Lee-Anne and I went downtown to the Ann Bryant Gallery to view the opening of the MTN Messages and Meaning Exhibit, which has since received good reviews. The exhibit features beadworks, paintings, and works from major African artists including William Kentridge (South Africa), Kwesi Owusu-Ankomah (Ghana) and Yinke Shonibare (Nigeria).

(http://www.buffalocity.gov.za/news2006/oct/oct4_mtnexhibition.stm).

The Ann Bryant Gallery is a beautiful Victorian style mansion, and as we were walking around in the garden area, Lee-Anne mentioned that many couples have their wedding pictures taken here. But then, she matter-of-factly added that she and Nolan were not able to have theirs taken in the garden when they were married since they were not white. Walking around in such a beautiful area, looking at art, interpreting the pieces with the Sesotho-speaking student, everything seemed happy and fine and together, and this comment snapped me back to remember that what I was doing just then would not have been possible twelve years ago.

After we finished with the gallery, we took a bit of a stroll along the beach area, and then Lee-Anne dropped me off at the shopping center while she had her hair done. I generally just walked around in a daze and then found my way into a bookstore. Luckily, Nolan rescued me from the mall about an hour later and we went to his Mom’s house for the family ritual of Saturday samp and beans lunch. The stuff wasn’t bad, but whatever sauce I put on it required me to drink about five glasses of water. This was cause for much giggling among everyone, but I joked that it must be part of my initiation into the family.

Lee-Anne and I were supposed to go with her friend that afternoon to Mdantsane, the second largest township in South Africa, but the friend cancelled, so we went back to the shopping center. Now granted, East London is a sleepy town compared to Cape Town or Jo-burg, so shopping is one of the main forms of entertainment, but sheesh! Actually, no, shopping is a major activity among middle to upper class South African families and the malls are packed on weekends with people buying—everything. South Africa is experiencing a consumer boom at this point, as more and more people have enough disposable income to buy things that they couldn’t buy before. You can see this as you walk around in the mall: people are dressed way up to go shopping and the whole atmosphere is just loud with BUY BUY BUY. I may be over exaggerating a bit because I personally find this obsessive consumer craze a bit sad and discouraging not only in South Africa, but in the US as well. But that is another matter and I shouldn't be so harsh...

However, there is cause to be concerned with all of this shopping because the consumer craze is also fostering huge percentage of people with enormous amounts of credit card debt. Gael Beckett and I were talking about this one afternoon and she gave an example of furnishing a living room. Instead of getting a couple of pieces at a time, what many families are doing is buying everything for the room and then charging it on a card. There are obviously several factors that go into that decision such as a sense of entitlement, reaction to not having, etc, as Gael the psychologist explained, but really, it is a huge cause for concern.

[In fact, as I was riding around in the truck in Mthatha a few days later listening to the SABC, there are now several radio adds and programs encouraging people to save money or invest it and to pay off credit-card debts, as the interest rate is going sky-high].

But enough of my grumbling about shopping. Lee-Anne and I had a good time and we even chatted with two of Nolan’s sisters while were there (imagine that!).

From the mall, we went to another family gathering where the guys were catching the end of the rugby game and once again the ladies were chatting about stuff. Unfortunately, I did not have my swimming costume, but I played outside with the kids for awhile by the pool before coming inside to do the men-and-women conversation hop again. After a quick snack and a brief synopsis of the game from the men, everybody piled back into their cars to get ready for an extended family member’s 21^st birthday party.

21^st birthdays are a big deal in South Africa—everybody is invited and everybody comes. This one was no exception and the sisters joked that the entire Indian community of East London was in attendance.

To turn 21 without a child is a cause for celebration and part of the reason for big 21 birthday bashes. 21 is also the coming of age marker. At this particular party, each family member and a few friends made a short speech about this girl and how she has grown up, etc. Then there is a toast and the feast begins. (I must say that by Saturday, I had grown more accustomed to strong curry.) We (Nolan and the family gang) left just as thing were getting started at about 12:30am – these 21^st bashes usually last through morning.

I slept pretty well that evening.

Sunday, October 15

Tyrren and I were once again up in the morning – after making her some coffee (and drinking it for her), I packed up my things, said my goodbyes, and boarded the Greyhound from East London to Mthatha. I have a feeling I’ll be back in East London again, sometime, so for me it was more of a see-you-later, rather than a goodbye.

East London left me with warm fuzzies, home-made cards, thoughts about the challenges of being mixed-race in South Africa, my quota of shopping malls, and habit of saying "is it?" and "yesses!"

a couple of pics

Okay, so here are just a few pictures from the Eastern Cape...more coming...it just take a long time for them to load here.

This is once of my favorite pictures from the whole trip. I took this shot after we finished a meeting with the villagers and hiking our way back up the hill to pass out the fruit trees. The lady was thrilled to pose for me :)

In the village shown here, all of the men had been involved in some type of mining (mostly gold or platinum) and all of the women had husbands who were miners at one point.

waiting to cry

I have been waiting to cry for a long time now. And yet, the tears do not come. I want to cry for the old lady who sells The Daily Sun from a tattered cloth bag by the Wits robot for R5 (which I have yet to buy: not today, Mama, not today); the boys I run past in the morning, still sleeping under the trees in the park just beyond the chichi Moyo café, just beyond the young father with his two children feeding yesterday’s bread to the ducks. I want to cry for the deepened creases in the young mother’s face as she struggles to readjust her suckling child just as I am poised to shoot them both with my digital camera. I want to cry for toes sticking out of shoes, shoulders sticking out of sleeves, ribs sticking out of torsos, and for my own distracting fear of sticking out. I want to cry for these things, because these are the things for which you are supposed to cry. And yet, my eyes are dry. And yet, I have no tears.

The closest I came was at a bus stop at a village I failed to take the name of on the way to Mthatha. But I guess maybe it doesn’t matter that much – the name—the signs become the same. The din of broken taxis and hawkers and women muttering in the street. Dogs and cows with too-obvious bones. A grim confetti of Coke and Fanta bottles and orange peels and plastic bags and plastic wrappers in every color, all mixed in among silver condom packets dressed-up in red AIDS ribbons. The billboard ads featuring youthful couples behind the banners of If you love me, wait, or Protect. For me; just below them, at eye level, tacked on the street signs by the fruit vendors and liquor stores, the more matter-of-fact signs proclaiming Safe Abortions, Call 096 442 1196 in yellow lettering splattered across a faded blue background.

And it was only because a man was wearing two different colored shoes that this place, this particular bus stop, has stayed in my memory as a place for tears. And it is only because I had to lower my head to see around EMERGENCY EXIT and below it, ns) that my gaze encompassed his crippled stride. And it is only because the dirty tennis shoes with the heals cut out (hooked to the bottom of two skinny legs in cut-off blue sweat pants) were different colors- the left one white, the right black – that this person has existed for me as a human being, as an individual, as a man, rather than another line of texture within the dingy collage framed by my exit window.

In front and behind me, gunshots blared from a TV screen where Denzel Washington is playing a character that has just shot three men in an attempt to save a girl from being kidnapped in Mexico City. The noise caused me to jerk my attention from the man out the window to see a chubby young boy in front of me, laughing.

A place for tears, but my eyes remained dry.

---

I think the first time I cried for Africa was when I saw the children fall into red dust at the end of Cry Freedom. The second in a squatter camp outside Port Elizabeth. Then, it was over the dainty pink flowers on toilet paper after finishing Hotel Rwanda. And the last time came suddenly as I walked through a stack of African literature on the sixth floor of Alden library two weeks before my flight to Jo-Burg. I had just placed a book of black and white photos of South African townships back on the now nauseatingly orange shelf when I had this sudden stab of despair for the sadness I will never understand. Head down, I stretched out my hands as far as they would go to brush the spines on both sides of the aisle in an attempt to know and ease this suffering at the same time. Whether it was because I couldn’t reach or a particular title I came across, I don’t remember, but I ended up on the tile floor, sob-gagging, for the better part of an hour.

I have not cried since.

---

Where are those tears now? Where are they now that I am in the red dust?

Where are they now that I am here and want to cry for this place; for these people?

Maybe the problem is that I cannot yet cry for myself.

I found a dimpled spider, fat and....brown

So I had my first exciting encounter with African wildlife early this morning. A rather serene and peaceful beginning of the day by all normal standards, as I stepped out of the shower, I noticed something quite large and spindly situated in the space between the door and the wall. On closer inspection...JEEPERS!... a huge spider! (no really, like bigger than the palm of my hand...to me, this counts as big) After a quick moment of panic, I stealthily slipped around the door, armed myself with some denim, cotton, and plastic bags...and sent an SMS to Matt, asking if the thing was poisonous (knowledge is power, right?!) After twenty minutes of me checking my phone for a reassuring message and the position of the spider, I decided to suck it up and handle the situation myself, or else the thing was going to end up either in my bed or my drawer the next morning. I rigged up an impressive set of spider trap gear, I must say: plastic bag fashioned to a bent clothes-hanger for the capture basket, double plastic bags wrapped around my hands (no poisonous fangs could puncture two layers, for sure), and a cooking spatula from the sink, still with remains of last night's curry on it. I would have added a bag over my head for extra protection, but then there is that whole suffocation thing....

In any case, after only a few false starts and one itty-bitty scream, I managed to nudge the thing into my handy trap bag and promptly deliver him through the bars of my bathroom window. All those concerned with the spider's well being will be happy to know that he/she crawled off just fine into the bushes and will hopefully spread the word about my inhospitality.

Matt, gentleman that he is, came by about 45 minutes later to make sure that I was still alive and to offer the comfort that it was probably not a poisonous one. Great, I thought, at least I don't have to feel guilty for releasing him near your bedroom window.

The end. I guess as long as I don't come across any sting-rays, I'll be fine.

Lesotho Hike

Over the long weekend (Monday was a national holiday - Heritage Day) I went on a three day hike with the Wits Explorers/ Explorers Society of South Africa (ESSA) to Ts'ehlanyane Park in Lesotho, the country in the southeastern part of South Africa.

We were a party of seven: Two Wits Students from the USA (myself included) and five ESSA members. Leaving for Lesotho from Jo-Burg late Friday afternoon and returning late Monday evening, we covered about 35 kilometers (~ 22 miles) of rugged uphills and downhills in three days.

This was my first overnight hike and I had an amazing time. We followed a really old route through the mountains, complete with stone path structures and cattle/donkey scat from who knows how long ago. On both Sunday and Monday, local Lesotho men joined us for lunch. These guys were incredible: one of them trekked up and back down the mountain every day for something (?) and the other walked up and back in a day to gather what looked like long reedy plant stalks for building materials. The trip leader guessed that we were the first Caucasian people to take our specific route: I don't know if that makes us crazy, arrogant, or ambitious- probably all three.

This is at the crest of our first summit on Saturday afternoon. It was quite warm during the day, but dipped below freezing at night.

At the crest of way point five on Sunday morning. From here, we continued up along a ridge a bit more and then made our way down into a steep valley to camp for the night.

Sunrise in the valley on Monday morning, about 6:15am. Some of the foggy stuff is actually smoke from a veld fire that started the night before.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was actually heading back through Lesotho after we finished the hike late Monday afternoon --- not because we were done scrambling down 45 degree angles (okay, maybe I was a little glad to be done with that), but because we were driving along the roads just as all the schools let out for the day. We received, returned and initiated several enthusiastic waves from schoolkids and other people near the road. My favorite response was from a group of young boys playing alongside the road. One boy was particularly excited to wave:he was wearing what looked like a belt of soda cans strung together on a piece of string and was banging on them like drums while chasing the other two kids around with a little walking stick/pole. But once he saw us wave, he dropped the pole, bent his knees in the air in what I guess what a jump, threw up his hands above his head, and gave us one heck of a smile and a loud yell as we passed. I must have been smiling for at least three minutes afterwards.

This is a shot from the road through Lesotho looking into the valley and mountains from where we just hiked.

An attempt to capture an amazing sunset heading back Monday evening on the N5.

what AM I doing here

I am living in a "cottage" next to the private residence of Denis and Gael Beckett. They have three children: Meave, Emma, and Matt. Denis is an author and journalist, Gael is a psychologist, and Matt (who still lives at home and attends University of Jo-Burg) is a semi-pro cyclist and sports trainer. Other members of the family include Billie (the handy-man), Stella (the house-keeper) and Jonah? (the gardener). There are also two white dogs, but I forget their names.

Here are some pictures of my living area, kitchen, and bedroom:

a hug

Yesterday afternoon, about 16:00, I went out for a stroll around Zoo Lake, a nice park area about a seven-minute walk away from my residence on Westcliff Drive. Several signs throughout the area note that the park has - and continues- to pride itself on being a place where people of all races gather to enjoy the outdoors.

One of the most obvious changes that I have noticed in my thinking while I've been in South Africa is a distinct consciousness of my race. I have suddenly become white. I analyze and attempt to control my actions based on the inescappable knowledge that I am white in and African city, in an African country. This awareness started even before I arrived: I remember sitting in the waiting area for South African Airways in Washington, D.C. debating whether I should type on my laptop, should strike up conversations with the various different people around me, etc. When I did end up talking to the future passengers, they were all white: tourists heading on safari, farmers heading back to review their crops and manage their estates, and a couple of other white students like me. All the time I was talking to them, I could not help but feel a little ashamed, wondering what the African lady sitting behind me was thinking about our conversation...

Since I have settled in my suburb of Jo-Burg, I continue to struggle daily with how my facial expressions, body language, and even the tone of my "hello" comes across to the African people I see daily on walks down the street, in the local Spar grocery store, and on the street corner outside the church. I think that really this worry has made me paranoid to the point of being less friendly: the harder I try to appear friendly, or more accurately, the harder I try to communicate my apology and some sort of acknowledgement that somehow I understand (which I will never fully be able to do), the less friendly, or whatever, I become.

With this worry and fear in mind, I must admit that I was startled about what to do when a small black African girl, a toddler of about two, ran over to the path where I was walking and gave me a hug. Walking hand-in-hand with her mother, a graceful lady in a denim jacket and dress pants, she had smiled at me with a huge-fearless grin and I graciously returned her smile and gave a little wave. But then she broke away with her mother and ran about 10 feet down the hill to where I was standing, I was worried that I had done something--wrong.

While I admit that I am not the most graceful with children, normally, if a young child approachs me in that way, I would immediately bend down and obligingly talk back to them in whatever little gaggle he or she happens to be speaking. However, when this girl ran towards me, I just sort of stood there and looked down at her. But, disarming my fears with her cute little hair-bows and still-glowing smile, I warily looked over at her mom, who was still standing the 10 feet away from me and not looking at me, and bent down to "talk" and smile. She immediately responded by grabbing my shoulder and babbling on. I must have stood there for about five minutes, intermittingly talking to the girl, looking over at her mom, standing back up, and then crouching back down again. Finally, I attempted to make gestures that she go back towards her mom, but it really tood her mother's call and eventual hand to convince her that she should go. Still smiling back at me, I waved goodbye and offered several compliments to her mother on her cuteness, etc. She smiled softly at me, and then proceeded to lead her daughter up the hill.

I stood there for a couple minutes more afterwards, thinking, with a bit of shame, about how my fear of how I would come across to this lady almost made me shun a small child just wanting a hug.

No wonder people so often say that their hope for the future is in children.

Tallulah

The signs tell me that I can rent almost anything around here. Rent-A-Painter! Rent-A-Realtor! Rent-An-Attorney! Rent-A-Dog!

I fell for the add that said Rent-A-Wreck, and that has made all the difference.

Rent-A-Wreck is a car-hire service specializing in cheaper rental cars – with the first 1000 Kilometers Free! Recommended to me by my landlord and neighbor Denis, the least I can say for the company is that there is no fear of me renting-an-attorney and suing for false advertising.

I called the place about four days after my arrival in Jo-Burg. Crippled by my lack of standard shift driving skills, I had to shame my little female American self into asking specifically for an automatic car. For all of the other car-hire services, this (I’m assuming the automatic) immediately made the price go up almost double.

“____ (rental car service) Yes, how can we help you?”. The voice is usually male, with some mixture of a British, Sesotho, or Zulu English accent.
“Yes, I wanted to get some monthly quotes on a rental car.”
“Okay, we have a nice car here for only R 595 per month. It comes with insurance, power windows, power steering…”
“Sorry, is it an automatic?”
“Ahhh, no ma’am,” drawing the hhh steadily higher until it finally drops into the no. You need an automatic car, hey?”
“Yes,” I grumble, sheepishly, silently admonishing myself for never having learned to drive one of my father’s numerous standard-shift vehicles.
“Okay ma’am. An automatic car gonna cost you R 950 per month.”
“Oh. All right, thank you anyway.”
“Ja, So you want the car, ma’am?”
“No, thank you.”
“Allllrrright…..”

Rent-a-Wreck, my last resort, was much more egalitarian in its pricing and service.

“Allo… Rent-a-Wreck.”
“Yes….Hello??....”
(an unmuffled pause, during which I can hear a metal clanging like a dozen wrenches have just been dropped on a concrete floor, and some incomprehensible shouting).

After about three seconds, the clanging stops.
“Hello?” I try again, a bit louder and more British, as if that would help.
“Yeess, Rent-A-Wreck,” answers a high, nasally voice. “Can I help you?”

Eventually, the guy tells me that they have a white automatic car coming back the next morning. He reassures me that he will give me a call when it comes in, and if not, to call him.

“Okay, great. Thank you.”
“Pleasure….”

Three phone calls and two-and-a half days later, a reddish car arrives at 9 Westcliff Drive. I paid R 100 extra to have it delivered to my residence, and as it rolls through the gate down the drive, I wonder if the fee was actually to drive it or push it.

The car is a shiny orange red, 1983 Mazda, hatch-back automatic. It looks like it has had its fair share of bumps and bruises along the way: the rear bumper is twisted up on the right-hand side into a sort of demure half-grimace; the lower edge of the body is not exactly straight, or solid; and as I was signing the forms on the hood of the car (promising that I’ll pay the R 3000 if the car is stolen, noted twice, so “sign here, too”), my hip found a rather accommodating dent along the right side of the front hood.

“Great,” I said, finally finished signing my name to all the blank spaces in the Terms of Contract. “Anything else?”

The middle-aged guy (I forget his name) grins, and the caps and fillings along the front of his mouth briefly catch the glare of the late afternoon sun. “No, no, ma’am,” he chuckles. “But now, I teach you about the car, okay?”

He folds my signed forms, passport copy, and other various forms of documentation with a crooked crease and stuffs the pile in a yellowing scrapbook alongside another stapled stack with a passport photo showing a guy with a beard and a turban. Well, at least I’m in good company, I think to myself, as he slams us together in his book.

Sitting in the driver’s seat, the guy proceeds to explain how to start the car, set and release the handbrake, lock and unlock the gears, and something to do with the alarm. When he finishes, I lift my head up which he takes to be understanding, though I’m really still trying to figure out how plugging something called The Immobilizer into the right side of the dash actually turns the car on. Nonetheless, I reassure him that I understand, and yes, I see the after-hours phone number.

Right before he goes, he points again to the license plate and registration number on my yellow copy of the form.

“Make sure you tell them this number if you are in an accident, a fender-bender, whatever,” he grins.

“Okay, right, I think I have it,” I reassure him and shake his hand, African style, to seal the deal. As he walks away with the scrapbook under his arm, I cannot get rid of the feeling that I’ve somehow been had. So I return his cap-and-gap grin with a toothy smile and shut the gate behind him.



Driving


After my friend from Rent-A-Wreck leaves, I inspect the car a bit further and determine that its most redeeming quality are the black plastic slip-closures, the kind that might be used to hold shoes together in a store, that secure the hub-caps to the wheel. I then open the car and sit in the driver’s seat, pretending that just sitting in the seat and looking around at the mirrors looks like I’m doing something semi-constructive towards the process of driving. After exhausting all possible angles with which to view the car from the driver’s seat, I take a deep breath, insert the key, and turn it to on position. Click. Click. Click. Nothing.

Oh, right, The Immobilizer, I remember, and plug the little chip into the dash and try again. After a deep pneumonic shudder, the car turns on and I brace myself for drive position, only to find that I cannot put the car into drive. Oh, right, I remember, the gear-lock. Sucking in another gulp of air, I cautiously undo The Immobilizer, turn the key again to off, unlock the gear-lock and start again. Looking behind me, I put the car into what I think is reverse, give it some gas, and move… nowhere. Wonderful. Not wanting to plow the car – and the house post – that are both about four feet from my back bumper (or to fry my nerves any more), I relinquish the idea attempting to drive (after all, there is always tomorrow!) put the car in park, turn the key to OFF, take out The Immobilizer, and step out of the car. A bit shaky from the whole nervous ordeal, I am still trying to regain my composure when:

Brrrr!! Brrrr!!! Brrrrrr!! Brrr!!!! Brrrr!!! Brrrr!! Brrrr!!!

Looking quickly to the door of the house, to the gate, to the electric fence, and then to the sky for good measure, I finally realize that the sound is coming from my car. Oh right, I remember, The Alarm. Turning dizzily on my heels, I stumble back to open the car (which is, of course, locked), turn the key to START, plug in The Immobilizer, and finally turn off The Alarm.

As I am surveying, once again, the view from the right side of the car, Matt Beckett (the son of Denis and Gael) emerges out of the house and asks incredulously, “Everything okay here?”

As I jump out of the car and excitedly explained me sitting in the car, trying to reverse, The Immobilizer, the parking and gear thing, the proximity of the house-post, etc., he calmly asks if I would like him to back up the car – and does so without trouble. Right, I think, feeling a little sheepish. No problem.

“Good luck driving, okay?” says Matt, standing a safe distance away as I put the car in drive and inch toward the gate.

“Thanks!” I attempt to say in my most courageous voice, but it comes out instead a muddled “Spanks” like I am chewing food or something. As I pull out of the gate and gas the car into a right-hand turn, I taste the saltiness of blood and realize that I must have bitten my tongue.


The Great Trek

So my first adventure on the left side of the road began at about 15:45 the afternoon my car arrived. Assured that I had plenty of daylight still left for the spring day, I bravely gassed the little red bugger out onto the great wide world of Westcliff Drive. The first thing that I noticed was a) “gassing” the car equals maybe accelerating at 20 k/hour – downhill b) power steering must not have been standard when this thing was put through the production line. In any case, I only backed up traffic just a bit until I arrived at a Traffic Circle. A traffic circle, to my knowledge, was supposed to work something like a stop sign only you didn’t have to stop depending on who has the right-of-way and which direction everyone is going…the exact rules are a bit fuzzy to me. In any case, the reality is that whoever is the boldest car seems to declare the right-of-way, even if you were there at the same time and it seems like you are supposed to go first. The result for me, was, of course, I went last, because neither was I bold, nor could I out-gas (out-petrol?) the BMWs and Mercedes facing me around the circle. So I waited patiently and swung around the circle, straining my back and coming clear off the seat with the effort of steering the thing 180 degrees. Thankfully, I recovered quickly and remarkably ended up still on the correct side of the street. Bravo! I congratulated myself and flashed anyone who would have been paying attention a big smile (hey, I needed all the self-confidence I could get).

The plan was only to go around the block making as many left-hand turns as possible, but of course, between me muttering to myself left, left, left I’m driving on the LEFT side of the road and keeping a keen eye out for pedestrians, dogs, and sudden kombie stops, I inevitably got myself turned around somewhere around Westmeath and ended up facing a great string of rush-hour traffic – in the right turn lane - along Jan Smuts (the main highway next to my neighborhood, named after a famous Afrikaner General and government official).

I looked to my left, traffic. I looked to my right. More traffic. There was no turning back, no way out. Trying to plan out both my exit strategy and my exiting prayer, I sucked in as much of the veracity of Smuts as I could, looked right, looked left, and looked right again, and in light of all the voortrekers before me, floored the puppy in a right-hand-turn up a hill. When I finally recovered the sense to notice my bearings, I realized that I was not only still alive, but accelerating up the hill at a blazing 40 k/hour. With all the obstacles confronting me (um… a right-hand turn?), I thought the fact that only two busses passed me and one car honked in my direction to be signs of a fairly well-managed escape route. Even better, the radio had suddenly risen out of static-land and was blaring some gospel-sounding music in an African language. I chimed in with the one word I could understand: “Hallelujah, Hallelujah!”

Needless to say, my route home was a bit more of a challenge. After about five more wrong, right-hand turns and several chances to practice driving in reverse when roads suddenly turned into private driveways with scary gates, dogs, and large warnings in Afrikaans, I was once again back on Westcliff drive. Making it successfully through both gates, I managed to put the car about where it was supposed to be, park it, de-mobilize The Immobilizer, turn the key to LOCK, and lock the gear shift. Feeling a bit smug about still being alive, I stepped out to see Denis stiffing the air with a humorous, but concerned look on his face.

Ambling around the back of the car, he stated matter-of-factly, “Smells a bit like oil, doesn’t it?”

Yes, I agreed that it smelled like something was something burning. But at that point, as long as it wasn’t me, I didn’t really care.

When I asked Matt, who owns an ancient Ford Truck named Billie (that still takes leaded petrol), what to name my car, he referenced the following scene from Cool Runnings:


Sanka - So what should we call her?
Junior - How about Tallulah.
Sanka - Tallulah, sounds like (something cheap). Where did you come up with that?
Junior - It's my mother's name.

Tallulah it is.

Afterword (or Foreword?)

So after my first driving experience with Tallulah, the others have been progressively more...interesting. Mastering the route to and from Wits University with the fewest tours of private drives and fewest friendly greetings from kombie drivers and other people in a hurry has taken about a week -- not bad, considering.

It is when the thing is parked that it turns into a bad comedy show, with me as the unlikely (and unwilling) emcee.

It goes something like this:

(the comforting sounds of spring - auto traffic and numerous squawking hadedas - blanket the serene spring afternoon at Westcliff drive. Rachel, the American student, has just arrived back from school)

The gates open, one, then two, and the little red car, Tallulah, barrels down the brick lane with enough clanking and gurgling to assume that everything is okay. The car is placed in park, the key turned to LOCK, The Immobilizer out, the gear shift locked, and the car door shut. Ahhh...quiet descends on the lovely front garden and tucks it neatly away...


For about 15 seconds.

Then:

Brrr!!! Brrr!! Brrr!!!

Oh right, the alarm. It has gone off so many times, no matter which combination of LOCK, The Immobilizer -out, shut, walk; The Immobilizer-out, LOCK, shut, walk away; Walk away, Brrr!! Brrr!!, ON-OFF-LOCK, The Immobilizer-out, shut, run away, Brr!!! Brrr!!; ON-OFF, The Immobilizer -out, crawl through the window, and run, Brr!! Brr!!; that I'm beginning to wonder if it is (friendly) reminder from the car that I should not be driving.

More important than the car's concerns for me, of course, is the relative sanity of everyone else around the neighborhood. Since the alarm sound comes from INSIDE the electric fence-guard-dog-ADT-Armed-Response-System-double-gated-walls, I'm just waiting for 1)everyone to switch their systems 2)some guy in a black armored suit and a gas mask to pop over the fence and shoot me (well, I guess at least I have the dogs on my side).

Also, with Gael running a psychological consulting business right next to where my car is parked, I'm fearful that somehow my car alarm is going to go off right in the middle of someone's life epiphany and sent them through the roof for good. On the more positive side, however, I could be bringing in more business.


A Jump-Start to a New Beginning

So, after a series of about ten alarms in a row, I finally called Rent-a-Wreck to ask them how to get the alarm to turn off on a regular basis. Their advice: switch a knob on the overhead dome light to the middle position: ON-OFF, The Immobilizer-out, shut. Okay, I said...I'll try...

The trick succeeded in shutting off the alarm, but of course, the dome light came on - and stayed on. Faced with the choice between dome light and insanity, I let the light shine.

The result was that the next day ON = click, click, click. Nothing. Luckily Billie, who helps with odd jobs around the house, was around that morning to push his own worn down bakkie over to my car to jump it. Tallulah lives again!

Today, however, was the last straw. All had been going fairly well, really: the night before, the light was off, the alarm was off, and the window was even rolled all the way up.

But this morning: Key -ON-The Immobilizer -in - START- nothing. No nothing. Not even a whimper. The gardener could barely contain his amusement - and he is here to see the show only once a week.

Needless to say, Rent-A-Wreck has taken away Tallulah. May she (and Denis, and Gael, and Matt, and Rachel, and the rest of Westcliff Drive) rest in peace.


Now all that remains is--what to name this white wreck of a car....