cleaning July 3, 2008

I have a few bits of housekeeping to attend to, of various varieties.

My father, the proofreading english geek, has informed me that my spelling is not up to par. I would like to publically adress the issue, knowing full well that adress may or may not have two d’s and that publically, with my luck, has only one L. I have no spell check, people. Well, i do, but it doesn’t speak the same language as us. I tried to explain the problem, but it was, unfortunately, the second of my experiences of France fiercly defending its right to deny any ability to speak english. The first was that jerk who didn’t give my service at the apple care service counter, mostly because at that point, my halting, poorly congugated french had left a mess of half formlated phrases and incomplete thoughts, and some quickly sprewed and tightly wound english polysylabic insults (which he could not understand) all over the floor. The joke’s on him really, he’s the one with a playstation-and-doritos belly and nose hair that doubles as a moustache. 

anyway, the point is spelling is a waste of neurons, there is usually a device that does it for me, but i am currently without, so suck it up!

I still, i promise, will tell you about the adventuresome adventure of couchsurfing, but i have been living on this farm for a whole week now, with not much to occupy my mind. While i haven’t really moved, except for back and forth, up and down, and side to side in the repetitive motions of weeding, harvesting, and repotting, my mind has gone for quite a long walk. I hope it has a map, i’m starting to get worried.

The Farm itself is only about 5 or so acres. To give you an idea, imagine if the Brady bunch went on vacation to France, but on the decent over northern france, the plane colided with laura ingalls wilder’s family in a buggy, flying through the air all hopped up and super happy from some pills they bought off a gyspy in Paris. in the heat of the collision everything fused, and landed here to start a little hippie farm. I have no proof about the pills, but i don’t know the exact use of all of the medicinal herbs in the greenhouse . . . 

They make cider and apple juice, and jam, and bread. They pick fresh leaves for tea, inclucing stinging nettles which Charles says are purifying and one of the most nutritious infusions you can drink. I tried it and it tasted like leaves. But who knows, maybe very purifying leaves? They have sheep, and chickens (an a rooster who today i named Fred so i had something to yell when he repeatedly climbed on to my compost heap and decided to stand exactly where i needed to dig. again and again.) and the healthiest stream i have ever seen. At the entrance, for the visitors, a collection of nostalgic recreations of farm machinery from the olden days is scattered merrily about. Its all too cute and earthy for words. 

The two horses, Einouk (Winook) and Toucout (toocoo) are very good, and have begun to trust me i think. They are a little skittish, especially Einouk after a bad accident involving a gate, a plow, and a very negligent young german boy. But that is a story for later.  What i really sat down to talk about is . . . poop.

My job here this week, more than anything else, has been the compost management technician, or if you like, the pooper scooper. When chasing down crap from a variety of hooved creatures, you begin to think about the nature of it. Compost, when well managed, is the richest thing in the world for plants. Its like gold on an organic farm. I’m not scooping poop off the ground, I’m picking up golden nuggets that others would so carelessly toss to the wind! Shame to waste such precious nitrogen-filled goodness. But the thing is, all it is is crap if you leave it around. Without pulling it to a central location, allowing it to breath, and waiting for it to react to its brethern, its just, well, you know. 

And that got me thinking about the metaphorical crap; the bad jobs, failed attempts at flight at age 5, the losses, relationships ended, violence, hatred, fear, the friends left behind, the fights, muggings, murders, and moments of hopelessness. (notice the aliteration? its the little things.) I think we all need to start a compost pile. Colectively and individually. We need to pile our crap in one place and let it sit there for a while, heat up and release all that pent up energy so we can grow some tomatoes. OK, maybe the tomatoes was a streach of the metaphor, but you get the idea eh?

 

PS there is a gyspy wagon in the front yard. it has to be posted.

Museum Proposal June 30, 2008

today being my day off, although i wrote as recently as 2 days ago, i figured i should take advantage of the opportunity, and also it helps kill time while i baby sit my charging ipod. I have discoved it is acually possible to be too serene and peaceful. I need some twisted hearted artist to croon sad bits of lost love and angst into my ears while i happily yank radishes out of the ground. Thy have become, I believe, my new favorite vegitable. Did you know they are actually spicy? Spicy vegitable that sometimes grows in odd shapes? we will have to be friends.

The farm is quiet, and serene, and a bit too cute (litterally, its a tourist farm complete with a freshy painted nostalgic gypsy wagon, which is acually kinda cool . . . very kitch.)  The thing is i have all these tid bits from Paris and South Africa that i need to get out - i kept notes since i travel largely in my head, even when i am with others, without you, these random, largely useless thoughts would be entirely lost. 

before i forget, be a good citizen and read the news. This story says a lot about the nature of a lot of things . . . http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92022168. 

In Paris i read way too much Hunter S thompson, and for a short period wanted to try and impersonate him in style, until i realized that his quirky genius cannot be recreated. None the less, it is a side dish today, for one day only.

A fluke navigational error left me at the bank of the Seine, close to the Louvre. After a brief consultation with my guide book, i determined to lower my age to 18, place my passport and drivers license in my imaginary grandmother’s purse, and my imaginary grandmother in bed, exhaused, at the hotel. Like a fairy godmother, an imaginary grandmother can open doors to netherworlds, such as the Louvre. 

What lies within those walls is not a museaum, but a twisted prision. it’s hostage, tourists. Forced to take photo after photo of king Billy Bob’s diamond encrusted bedpan, and Queen pimple faces clear skinned portrait she paid double for,  they are slaves to a misconception. Art does not live in the Louvre. OK maybe it summers there. But the point is that most of the stuff in the Louvre is just that: stuff. From very rich, very dead, French people, or pictures dictated to the artist by the very rich, very dead French people. That’s it. It’s not the meaning of life, or even the meaning of art. Art is not stuffy. It doesn’ lie around all day with a velvet rope and a fifteen euro ticket between it and the world. It is the thing that expresses whatever it is that connects us all. If all that holds humanity together is king Billy Bob’s bedpan, then we are in trouble, although it would explain a few things. 

Anyhow, I am putting forth a proposal to the Bord of Directors at the Louvre for an imediate intervention, outlined as follows.

 

- Remove all statues from the museam. Replace with human statues, mimes, whatever you want to call them. They can be recruited from the homeless population of Paris and the salary will be a tax write off, most likely. There only job will be to hold still and stare back at the tourist, delivering a running commentary. For instance, my vision is that once ever hour, the Venus di Milo breaks down and shouts, “For god sakes, have some courtousy. i am aware that I lost both my arms, but do you have to make such a big deal? put down that god damn camera, yankee, and your kid just sneezed on my leg again, give him a kleenex will you? Great, my robe is slipping, can somebody pull it up?”

- Now for the the “objects d’art” section. We switch out squatter furniture, consisting of make shift benches made of milk crates and vases that are simply empty beer cans, with the gold benches and the crystal vases of the very rich, very dead French people.  We leave the rest, except for a simple switch of an antique setee for a threadbare living room couch from middle a class family. The last addition is a playboy pin up above the bed of Louis XIV. The mona lisa can stay with the addition of a digital thought bubble installed above her head that changes every 5 minutes. 

- All entry fees eliminated. The entry requirement will be the recitation of an oath, that can be translated into several languages.

I (insert name) understand that the objects that are within the building i am about to enter are not art. They are the products of artistic processes that occured often under economic and political coersion, and often are merely records of the sad state of artists around the world who must stoop low and turn tricks to the masses, selling their mechanical ability to recreate optical reality like cheap whores to the wealthy and powerful, and in modern times, tourists. I acknolwedge my membership to this group. I pledge that i will do my best to free my mind and the artist hands from the shackles of museaums, worldwide, from this day forward. 

Once this policy has been applied at the louvre, I hope to propose it to the Met in NYC (although they have already made it free, they don’t enforce the oath), and other testements to antiquated notions of art that are about as useful as a palm pilot to an elephant. 

stranded with a broken engine. middle of nowhere. South African winter - walked down and back up the mountain and picked up hichhikers and tried to hitch ourselves, from mounted guards? June 28, 2008

Hey there. So i have some catching up to do !  I am going through the post-sojourn turbulance of goodbye. It happened when i went to South Africa, and it continues now, in France, amonst the goats, greenbeans and kitchy old time farm nostalgic recreations.

The last weeks in Durban were a whirlwind. I am still working (a bit) on the project with my classmates in South Africa, so in effect the semester continues.In the last few days I said goodbye to Sara, became closer with Avery, who throughout the semester grew farther and farther away from the party hardy clique that developed upstairs, although i can’t really think of any of them as part of a clique. Living with « normal people » for a while now that i am more comfortable with not being one of them, has been good, i harbor less resentment for all the taunting of my childhood, i think.  There is not one of them that I could’t find a positive aspect to, although a few that i wouldn’t choose to spend time with simply because we have nothing to talk about. really. at all.

They were all on a trip though,in the last week i was there, and there were only 3 of us in the flats for about a week. If my mobility was limited before, it was, in comparision to living essentially alone, a dream.  Without walking buddies, or people to split cab fare with it was difficult. The flat was quiet though, good for reading and thinking, both of which i try to do more often than not. I took to running alone just to get back at the streets of durban, as well as out of the flat.  I never run unless being chased by something large and scary, like complete paranoia and the subsequent loss of liberty.  Finally on Monday I made my escape with Sidney to the Dragon (or Drakensburg, or just the ‘burg) mountains. To save money, Sidney hooked us up with his dads membership to the mountain club of South Africa, which has a small cabin-like house in the burg. It has no electricity, gets water through a filter from a stream, is only accessable in a 4×4, etc . . .

Sounds great right ? relaxing, hiking, no crowded city full of people that can only seem to see each other through suspicious sideways glances, just the mountains. Remember that last part, about the 4×4 ? we didn’t have one. Oh yeah, we should of thought of that.

On the second day we walked up and down the mountain to the chic resort (stopping only to jump on the giant trampoline in their playground) to buy several cans of oil for the oil tank that now resembled a tin can lantern made during the craft session of my 5th grade camp. The rocks, or rather, the tips of the boulders that we traversed, in the pitch dark 6 PM hour, had puntcured it and  we had dripped oil, oh so earth friendly, all up the pass. There was none left, at all.

After a picturesque but anxious hike back up, (about 3 hours . . .) we packed the car and cleaned the house, and threw the oil into the tank while simotaniously jumping into the car, and tried to make it down the mountain before it all dripped out. 3 cans later we were down the mountain to the first mechanic, who, fortune had it, couldn’t help us. We bought more oil and  lead-footed it to the next town, the oil escaping almost as quickly as it went in. We only stopped for hitchhickers – a karmic policy set on the way to the ‘burg.

And then we became a pair of hitchhikers ourselves. The oil was gone, the engine was very upset. And then we somehow ended up in the ditch. (after we stopped, and tried to move the car in neutral with the engine off, but without the engine activated power brakes, we were pretty much unstoppable in the less possitive sense). We were the lucky recipients of group cooperation. After a long period of multi-lingual humming and hawing, a group of Zulu-speaking school girls (and me) pushed, and a couple with a 4×4 from Pretoria, on the way to the Ferrari filled resort, pulled and we were on our way, towed behind the 4×4, thanking god for gas-guzzling, pollution-causing, obnouxiously large vehicles for the egos of the rich. We did this while finishing our trail mix, and contemplating turning on the (we thought) defunct battery to listen to music.

The repair took all of the next day, but it was all OK because we ate really awesome leftovers of the butternut and brinjol with lentils and rosemary curry mixture concoction that we had made on the mountain, and we explored winterton, ad nausium, and tried to impersonate each others accents, which still makes me laugh. (my afrikaans sounds more like Al Pacino than Afrikaans, which originates from Dutch).  I made it back in time to pack and say goodbye, but the repair I helped pay for and the unexpected night in the first B&B we could find in the ½ horse town of Winterton, South Africa pushed a ten dollar trip into one that ate half my Paris budget. Which meant i was going to have trouble eating anything in a couple of days !

I crept out the gate at 4 :30 in the morning, in the peaceful quiet before the first koobis make their first rounds, and the early rising inhabitants of Durban rise to put in another day. As I drove through the city, I chatted with the cab driver, who was the only night shift cab driver in the history of Eagle cabs. I used my limited greating-level Zulu for the last time (for now) and we chatted about the future of the country. She suggested if they just removed the men it would all be OK .  I don’t think it would really do a whole lot for population security, but it’s worth a try.

In Jo Burg I wept a bit.  However it wasn’t tears for leaving, it was for fear of being trapped in the JoBurg Airport for the rest or my life.  Fine print, it turns out, is really where it pays to be meticulous. I mentioned before my newfound distaste for South African Airlines, no ? I could speak of it for pages and pages, but until you have battled ambivolent paper pusher after ambivolent paper pusher, when your trans-oceanic, inter-continental 12 hour flight leaves in less than an hour, you cannot fully share the resentment i hold in my heart for this company. SAA taught UKZN, South African Government, and maybe even the US IRS everything they know of inefficiancy, rude service, and sensless policy. I couldn’t check in for the flight without ALL of the information from the origional credit card that bought the ticket (if you guessed it wasn’t mine you were right) being faxed, along with way too much personal info about the credit card holder, to SAA. It is entirely possible that every member of SAA has the (now defunct – don’t get any ideas) credit card information of my father. I made the flight. All went as planned. All was well. I slept well on the plane, ate things that fell into the SAA idea of a « vegan » meal, which included cheese that not even my seatmate wanted to touch.

Then London, and adventures layover land where I sent postcards that acually ARRIVED in less than a month ! and then Paris, and croissants, and all of that which i will update soon, promise. Now I am here, and exhaused, (i worked behind a plow today. To give you a vision is simple : blisters.  It is late and tomorrow there are more chickens to chase ( we don’t eat them, just their unborn, unfertilized children. I wonder what the Christian right wing crazies think about omlettes.) and more vegitables to decaptate ! it’s actually very fun !

 

American in Paris June 24, 2008

well, here I am, In the computer room of a pair of lovely empty-nesters in the Parisian suburbs. They are at work, and I am avoiding the backache associated with living like a turtle until i meet up with my next host, tonight.

Paris has been a whirlwind of pedestrian and velocopedstrian activity. I have been avoiding posts due to the nature of French keyboards, which are all mixed up and seriously cramp the style of my anglophone fingers. It has been too long though. I just hope that this struggle to place the As Ws Zs and Ms correctly is not all for naught - you have probably stoped reading by now, this thing has been dorment for so long. Or you figure i’m just making this stuff up when i get bored. Maybe I am?

Anyway, Paris!

Its been good - my French has moved up the rungs from awful to just plain confusing for everyone else.  Most communication attempts go like this; (translated)

me- bonjour
them- bonjour
i say something like, “where is the bathroom,” or “i need a train ticket to saint cloud ,s il vous plaît”
i get a puzzled look
i repeat with an adventurous pronunciation, hoping that that was the problem
puzzled look
them or me, whoever breaks down in the staring contest first - “you speak english?”
oui
OK i tell you (give directions in Frenglish (both langauges mixed), speaking slowly, and loudly, repeating words often, drilling their message into my brain like speed addict with a jackhammer)
me; i understand, I understand oui, ok (but alors, i don’t understand because their english is as bad as my french, and i while i was nodding yes like a bobble head on a vibrating motel bed,  i figured out how to buy the ticket myself on the machine, or watched someone else come out of the bathroom and in doing so located it, spotted a streetsign or a menu i had overlooked and now my biggest problem is extracting myself politely. )

and so it goes.

I have walked i think, the length and width of paris about 5 times over, snuck into about half of the tourist sites for free, and eaten about a million croissants.

Here’s the thing about that though, every piece of food in France has meat, fish, cheese, or crème involved in it somewhere. none of which leads to a happy stomach, so for the past week and a half, my diet consists mostly of crossants, bananas, and occasionally curry veggies that i make for my hosts and myself. But that last one takes time, and effort, and a stove - none of which i have walking around Paris, avoiding the Metro so as to save my tickets for the trips when i am taking my bag house to house, and dog tired (for lack of protien. good luck finding tofu in a boulangerie, pâtisserie, or boucherie, or toting eggs from house to house without serious reprocusions). I, by no means, am complaining though. I love the croissants, I find that there is no better anecdote for a long tired day than a binge in the boulangerie. It’s great - and they know it too, the cheaky devils. They don’t even give you a bag for the bread half the time, they just wrap it in paper and twist the ends, just a little though because they know that you will untwist that sucker before you are on the next block. Its sick really. I think it gives them the same pleasure that bookies must get from taking bets, or coke dealers from selling to strung out junkies, or retail stores managers selling overpriced shoes to souless young women looking for a pick me up. Its all the same in my eyes.

I had notes for a long post - ever since my original in progress was lost to the digital nether - my hard drive is no more, and i miss her sorely. I could post an obituary, but all of her work is inaccessible at the moment, and i would be an injustice to leave an incomplete list of her accomplishments. suffice it to say that she was a loyal soul, and that she will be with me in spirit, and in outer body casing with a new hard drive in a few days.

The notes though -

OK - the Eiffle Tower is a quagmire to me - it’s not really as big as i thought it would be, and it serves no purpose other than to mark a long surpassed archetectual benchmark - Its utilitarian facade is a ruse. there is no use for the Eiffle Tower! ha. It is oddly pretty though.

I pulled one over on my fellow countrypeople, “miming” in front of the louve. I was really just holding still while covered in white makeup and not speaking. Unfortunately, most of my profit margin was lost when i decided to spend the spoils on a can of spray paint and be a participatory statue, one that can be defaced, in front of the Centre Pompidou (modern art - you think it would go over well, no?). I don’t think people got it. and worse, i didn’t even get the croissant money from my miming deviation that I got before, standing in front of the Louve.  I would have made more too, if that nasty little rent-a-cop hadn’t come up and said, quite harshly, “c’est interdit!” and sent me packing. Fun while it lasted though, especially because they were all American tourists (and the odd Japanese tourist too) taking pictures with the “French mime”. I laughed a lot on the inside, behind the paint, if you will. The moral of the story is that it pays to be uncreative and dull, pander to stereotypes, and remain incommunicative.

Other news . . . Saturday was the fete d’la musique and i watched  funk band do James Brown covers with a French accent ( git up off of zat tang!). the Tromboneist was wearing a full body gold spandex unitard with cat ears built in, and dancing his tail off, (literally, i think there was probably a tail at the begining of the set that then dissappeared), along with the rest of the band. It was amazing! I also saw my host playing in his band, saxaphone, with a bunch of other adorable retirees that play old standard jazz and whatever genre “cruella devile” fits into. they weren’t too bad! The concerts were all over the city and the burbs, but i chose to go to Versailles to see the gardens and the Château (snuck into that one too) and Jaques’ band.

i still have to write about my last week in SA, which was good, but also will explain my street performance attempts. And my couchsurfing experience, which has been good, but always different than what I expect. stay tuned. My Anglo keyboard is so close i can smell it.

An open letter June 16, 2008

Dear South Africa,

I am writing this to say goodbye, at least for now. I don’t know when I’ll be back. You should know that despite your effort to thwart it, I have grown to love you.

I arrived with the infatuation of a the recipient of a mail order bride. You were over idealized and superficial in my mind. I saw you as perfect, your people as struggling to recover and rectify the errors of history, but now enlightened, Your resources slim, but justly distributed, I arrived with the idea that because your history was so marked with injustice and violence, that the scars would be a constant reminder to always fight the gravitational pull of those cycles.

Now I see how foolish that was. There is no utopian land of rolling hills filled with hand holding sing alonging multi-ethnic, non-sexist, non-racist, non-homophobic people. There is not even a utopia filled with people who are all trying to be those people. Anywhere. It was unfair of me and I apologize.

What I have found has been wonderful. I was impressed with the warmth of the cab driver who brought me to the airport, and with the woman who offered me a place to stay when I thought I was stuck in Johannesburg. I was won over by the strangers who gave me rides, let me sleep on their couches, and helped me find the right combis, the love from the friends I made, and the smiles (not the sketchy leers) from people on the street, or in the supermarket. I was overwhelmed with your natural beauty, South Africa, the mountains and the ocean both. The desert, I’m sure is gorgeous but I will save that for next time. The music and the art and the things that are created out of you say so much about who you are, and what you have witnessed. The food was amazing. I am in awe of the people who live with you, their ingenuity is unique and inspiring. It is truly something to be proud of. I can say I am proud to be your friend, if you will have me.

But as a friend, it would be remiss of me not to mention a few things. We all have flaws, and I will be the first to admit that we in the United States have several too. Actually, that’s a good place to start. You seem to enjoy US pop culture quite a bit. While this is amusing, please keep in mind that the materialistic, misogynistic, and generally mind numbingly repetitive messages in US pop culture are probably the least useful imports you could have taken. It is only reinforcing what is already not a strong point. You have so much good stuff of your own! We should be importing from you! Ubuntu (spirit of shared humanity), and passive resistance, and the Braii, strong ties to family, and really really awesome music, innovative recycled materials for . . . everything. (housing, clothing, shoes, artwork, floor mats, earings, seriously you can make something of nothing and anything out of something!) – all of these are severely lacking in US society.  There are a few other things that I think you really need to work on. I think you know what I’m talking about. The people that you live with look at each other as enemies first, and human beings or potential friends later. They are too often unwilling to step outside their comfort zone and meet people who they wouldn’t otherwise know. It troubles me, and I don’t know what else to suggest other than smiling at each other once and a while, for no other reason than your shared human DNA. I know it’s a bit awkward, but try and include one another – Zulu, Xhosa, White, Zimbabwean, Mozambiquan, Congolese, Coloured, Indian, and in between – we are all human beings and everybody has something to learn from somebody else, myself included.

I had more to say, but then, South Africa, you interrupted me for a few hours with your beurocracy. Its OK, you were just saying goodbye in your own way, through rude service, mismanagement, and absurd rules that seem to be made up on the spot, just for you. I have faith that one day you will have it all sorted. In the meantime though, i think that i figured out where the government learned to be so overwhelmingly ineffective, South African Airline must have held a clinic. It is possible that the University of KwaZulu Natal was also in attendance.

I feel like we have more solid understanding of each other now. The honeymoon is over, I’m flawed, and as prone to paranoia as the next person, and you are flawed too. But in the end, we had something to learn from each other – and I see a lot of good in you.

Thanks for the good times, and the bad times too, they both taught me a lot.

-Dani

PS – Tell the men that its not flattering to be stared at that way, or spoken to with those assumptions. I would have liked one walk in peace, without commentary on my body being thrown at me from the street. It’s at best amusingly pathetic and at worst infuriating enough to drive a self-respecting woman homicidal. They will know what I am talking about. (forward that message to France as well, s’il vous plait).

Also, tell that guy who took my bag to please send my postcard? It was to a lot of people back home and it took a while to write all of that in “South Efrican” English. I was quite pleased with it.

i was feeling a bit reflective . . . May 29, 2008

With the semester wrapping up I am busy with one of my favorite activities- adventure planning! The next two months will be epic. I am couchsurfing (with non-dodgy people) in Paris for two weeks, trying to spend as little as possible. Outside of food and maybe bike rental there are only a few museums that I will have to pay for, and even fewer if I can convince the folks at the Centre Pompidou that I am only 18! (I’m only half joking . . . )  After that I am working for room and board with 2 very good looking horses and a pile of vegetables and dirt in northern France, a few miles from Brionne. You could say I am going there to “veg out,” but that would be a horrible pun, and misleading too as I will be working very hard. I have bicycle borrowing privileges, and a whole lot of land to run around and climb over, on my own feet or on top of one of the two horses.  The family I’m staying with seems really cool, and hopefully I will be fluent in French by the time I come back!

 

About half of our house is gone to Mozambique, Botswana, and other parts of South Africa so things have been quiet at home recently. Classes are finished and I am responsible only for helping my research team with our project in a local high school, and finishing a small project for my service learning class. I’ve been trying to spend next to no money which is kinda tough. The best strategy I have found is to use peanut butter and tea to appease my stomach, and then eat dinner that I cook (mmm . . . ramen!) – No more going out! From here on, at restaurants I order water, maybe with lemon if I’m feeling a bit loose pocketed.

 

On Sunday I went to streetwise for the last time. The carnival that Skye organized was a huge hit, and the circus workshop that I ran went over well. Facilitating teambuilding with a group of rowdy boys who don’t speak fluent English probably was the hardest and most rewarding thing I have done in South Africa. I doubt that it will really get them to change their ways of solving conflicts (grab what you want, punch the person who you took it from) but maybe it’s a start. I certainly learned a lot from those boys. They are very brave and very intelligent, and I have a huge amount of respect for them.  I actually think I was getting to a point where they respected me too! The last time I was there I noticed a significant decrease in sliminess and an increase in more meaningful interaction. Despite knowing everything that is wrong with it, there are a few that I wish I could scoop up and take home with me Angelina Jolie style.  Then again, I thought that about the penguins in Cape Town as well.

 

The past few months have been a blur, and I’m really not sure what I will take away from being here. This semester has not been at all what I suspected. Despite my best intentions, it has been very difficult to become immersed in South African culture. The issues of safety mean that cabs are the only mode of transportation outside of rides from friends. Friends usually end up being young men who either make assumptions or have motives (although there are a few diamonds in the rough; friends in the true sense of the word). This makes transportation either expensive or emotionally draining as my travel buddy and I try to subtly play up the just friends vibe. To defray the cost, and because it just makes sense this means that going out usually entails a large group out of the larger group of 13 of us piling into a cab together.  I love most of my flatmates and get along with them well enough, but when you go places with people it makes it difficult to meet other people. Needless to say this made it difficult to integrate into volunteer work outside of our service learning placements, meet South Africans in any meaningful or prolonged way, or even consistently stay out of our flats after 5 pm, when the sun goes down.

 

I am a bit bitter, I will admit. Having my independence stripped away, my ability to relate to people easily, taking classes with lecturers enamored with PowerPoint (which is not only boring, but makes me question their intelligence which only makes it harder to sit still while they talk at me) and never really having peace of mind when it comes to crime (“take my bag but please don’t stab me just for fun as you run away!”) has been frustrating.  It is a bit difficult to talk with South Africans about South Africa as well. For some reason very few of us (the Americans) have any South African female friends, and 90% of the men have very shallow interactions with us, as their intentions are generally very shallow. This applies to old men (i.e. – 70 year old man in the corner pool bar) young men (i.e. – the 6-14 year old boys at streetwise with whose goodbye hugs I have learned to be on guard for wandering hands), and almost everybody in between.  I really look forward to being looked at by men as if I were a sack of potatoes, or even better, a sack of potatoes that they might have a lot in common with to hold a conversation about. I wouldn’t mind being ogled and proposed to if it came with a good discussion. The topic I know the least about and that interest me the most are the most difficult to bring up. Racism, cultural assimilation and cultural hybridity, the ungodly rape rate of this country, poverty, corrupt leadership, the gap between rich and poor (which makes the grand canyon look like a crack in the sidewalk) - all of these things if brought up just right run the risk of offending a precious handful of friends. Similarly, a lot of people I meet tiptoe around American (or rather USA) politics afraid to offend me. (Once I make it clear that I have no affinity towards our current regime thing get less tense).

 

I am anxiously anticipating the culture shock to come in August, (and in June when I get to France). My prediction is that you all will think I’m paranoid, locking the doors behind me in the daytime and counting the people on the street, keeping track of their position and mine in relation to the nearest exit route, and never keeping my money or my debit card in my wallet.  I’ll probably piss you off a bit too, disregarding minor crises as trivial. I don’t allow myself to be bothered with problems anymore.  It is to the point that I sometimes become disgusted when catch myself in my apathy. I forgot to tell our program coordinator about how I had my bag taken from me (forcibly) outside our apartment a few weeks ago. It was the most scared I have ever been in my life, not because I didn’t want him to take my bag or because I was upset about its loss, but because petty crime so easily escalates here. There seems to be so much hatred and exclusion that other people are seen more often as potential opponents than allies. Once it was over and I was in the flat, our locks were changed, and I bought a new purse I all but forgot about the incident. That is, of course, except for a heightened awareness of my surroundings.

 

All of that said, I will be sad to leave.  There is a lot that I will miss about South Africa, and in particular Durban.  I have really enjoyed working for Yasmin. Having a routine, a way to fill my afternoons, and free food on top of it made being here so much easier.  It also gave me an odd kind of insight into South Africa, how people approach me and react to me, and how I am expected to act and react to others. This really is a beautiful place full of generally kind, loving, and open people.

 

Hopefully the recent violence here will calm down before an all out war breaks out, and hopefully Americans will not begin to be targeted. I am planning to fill my remaining time here either volunteering to help with relief efforts for refugees, or traveling for a bit, or both.  If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read a newspaper more often! (That is meant in a playful way, I know it sound like it’s not, but really it is. still. get informed.)

Cape Town! May 7, 2008

To my right a large purple building houses a bar and a head shop, to my left is a 3-story tourist art market. Vegetarian restaurants send out siren-like scents of falafel, curry, quesadillas, and veggie burger goodness.  In the background the clouds billow over the flat overshadowing Plateau of Table Mountain. Best of all, everyone; men, women, black white, Malay, Indian, Colored, and bright green, single, in couples, gay, straight, young and old walk freely around town.

Cape Town was a byproduct of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) that used the cape as a rest stop for sailors.  The San and the Khoikhoi ethnic groups originally inhabited the area, but now there is a mixture of Xhosa, European, Colored (in south Africa this is not a derogatory term, but a race group composed of the offspring of different groups) and descendents of Malay slaves. Each neighborhood has a rich history: long street with its European charm, district six with its stories of eviction and discrimination, and the cape flats, known for a unique type of Cape Town jazz.  Unfortunately because of a lack of reliable transportation and a lack of time, we only heard about district six, cape flats, the Malay quarter, Robben Island, and the top of Table Mountain, which we had hoped to abseil off of! 

The first day we arrived and were taken on the “magic bus” from the airport to the waterfront, where among shopping malls and camera flashes we wandered like turtles with our homes on our backs towards the Robben Island museum. Discovering that they were booked solid the whole 5 days we were there, we disappointedly explored an exhibit entitled art against apartheid – which was actually very cool!  It was Freedom day, a national holiday celebrating the end of apartheid, and so there were not only tourists but Capetonians about and celebrations to be had! We caught the end of a free opera concert and sat in front of the Green Dolphin, a notorious jazz venue on the waterfront before heading in for the night.

Cape Town from the air

 

 

The Cape Town Waterfront - That is Table Mountain in the background

4 of the 5 days in Cape Town we couch surfed, which is a really amazing international phenomenon.  People open up their homes (and couches) to travelers and allow them to stay for free, (or for a well cooked meal) giving them sometimes a way to get local information and good advice.  Host can choose to be background checked and former couch surfers can post feedback to their profile. Terrance, our host, had wonderful couches and a very excitable small dog whom he treated as though it were his child, but with more lenient discipline. Terrance gave us a few good tips on where to catch the bus as well as where and how to go, and his friend Chad drove with us down the cape peninsula and climbed up to the top (or the bottom?) of cape point on Friday. 

 The first full day we were there Sara and I headed straight for town, and jumped out at long street, exploring shops and bookstores, and art markets.  I talked with a lot of the vendors in the Pan African market and was really interested to find out where they import their paintings and beads, sculptures etc from.  Most of the tourist art sold on the street is made in Mozambique and the Congo, beads from Ghana, masks from Cameroon, stone carvings from Zimbabwe, and wooden colonial sculptures (colons) from Cote d’Ivoire.  The art made in South Africa seems to be largely made of recycled materials and use bright colors, which I really love. I broke down and bought a purse made of two old records, some canvas and some plastic tubing. Baby elephant walk is on one side of it. The South African National gallery and the VOC gardens (the company gardens) were interesting and beautiful respectively. Some really incredible work was in the gallery that made me think a lot and also that gave me a more personal idea of what it was to be an artist during Apartheid.

 We rounded out the day with Terrance, Chad, and another American couch surfer over a few beers, and then went to a concert that was either too experimental for us or too unrehearsed, I couldn’t quite tell.

 Day three was a logistical nightmare that did not yield cars, beetles, buses, or motor scooters to move us around Cape Town in the middle of which we attempted to keep our spirits up and kill time by watching a movie at an arthouse theater. La vie en Rose, a movie about the life of Edith Pief, was a great movie but didn’t manage to lighten our increasingly fatigued step.  The day did, however yield a few entertaining stories, and we took out the booking agent that tried to help us for drinks on long street, listened to some amazing spoken word and hip hop artists at an open mike, and got an interesting cab ride home from a recent Zimbabwean immigrant.

 Thursday we took the train down the coast to Simons Town, saw some penguins, ate some samosas, made dinner for Terrence, Chad, and our friend Sydney from splashy fen. His band was touring Cape Town for the week and he put us on “the list” which was fun to say. After his gig and some emphatic dancing with my newfound record purse yielding some interesting bruises on my arm the next day, we called it a night.

 Chad took us down the peninsula, a solid one to two hours drive, on Friday and we stopped in Muizenburg at one of his friend’s houses on the way back.  The beach in Muizenburg, decorated with the well known brightly colored changing houses, was alive with creatures of the sea. Amoeba-like organisms schloopted and schleepted along the sand.  Jellyfish threatened to land under my feet, or I threatened to land my feet on the jellyfish, I’m not sure what.  After that we collapsed at a long street backpackers despite our best intentions to go out and see live music just across the street!

 

I was both disappointed and relieved that this thing was just a plant washed up on shore

 

 

Sea Creatures (they WERE alive!)

 All in all, it was a wonderful week, and I would gladly live in Cape Town for a solid portion of my life!

as requested April 27, 2008

So, below, as requested, is my apx schedule for the rest of my life . . .

 

April 27th - Party in Cape Town - climb table mountain, see Roben Island, and generally have a time to write home about.

May 3 - Return to Durban

May 4-June 2 work my tail off finishing the semester before the semester is actually offically over

May 10 - turn 21 and TALK TO YOU PEOPLE ON SKYPE (cough cough, mod 90? that saturday morning (afternoon for me here)? Zoe? - ehh?

June 2 - June 28th ish - travel southern Africa by backpack - possibly with Sara, or Nosipho (SA friend) Mozambique for sure, if not Malawi etc . . .

July - WWOOF in France - hopefully near Paris - maybe on a really cool artist commune i have found!

August - visit Tara? (by the way, Tara, is it still cool if I visit you in august for a week or two?)

August 15thish - go home home - MI - for a week or so

August 24thish - go back to Mass and find a place to live! Find my bike! Yay!

Finish college

the end.

I am going to Cape Town tomorrow!

The story about the time that Felix, from Streetwise, took Skye and I downtown to meet some kids April 23, 2008

I went downtown with Felix, who showed up in his big puffy marshmallow jacket. Skye and I crammed ourselves into the front of his white pick up truck with him, the person in the middle riding side saddle over the gear shift.

 

We just go and talk with them he says. The boys must decide to leave the street on their own. 

 

We ask apprehensive questions like “where are we headed tonight, exactly?” and “how many of the boys leave and return to the street?” and wonder about the wisdom of going to point road after dark.

 

We drive past shadowed faces cast on the sidewalk from streetlights above past the raw bars across windows peeling iron and the women and men rolling their life’s possessions down the street on a cart wearing second hand Adidas track pants with the lining peeking out the bottom and shoes with no laces. Felix points to a place with an abandoned blanket on the ground and tells us that two boys were there, but now he doesn’t know where they have gone. Maybe they will be there later, he says.

 

We drive past point road, where the Nigerians sell smuggled drugs.  Unlike the rest of the city we have seen, which has been quiet, this area is full of chatter and hard business. We pass a drug dealer mid hand off, a voluptuous woman in a short red dress standing near the street, a group of raucous men outside of a bar.  Felix sees a few children down a side street but says that he won’t waste his time because most of the children on that part of the road just want to sell you drugs.  We turn the corner and head for the beach.  At Joe cools, a popular nightclub, the car is parked and we walk, apprehensive, behind Felix towards a pavilion just off the parking lot.

 

I have seen kids here before, I remember. The first day I was in Durban when I gave half of my bunny chow to a kid that was begging for money before we picked up the MSU group from the airport.

 

As we approach, the smell of glue hits me in the face and lingers behind my temples. There are about 10 kids sitting on a step, and when Felix approaches they recognize him.  They greet him and he asks them how thing are, how they have been doing.  When they see us and say hello they say that they know us.  They know my sister, they say.  Huffing glue out of empty liqui-fruit boxes and plastic bags, they ask us our names and where we are from. I get a hug from several of them, and sit down next to an Indian girl, thinking that she might know more English that the rest, although their English is not too bad, I discover. I ask her name and if they stay around this place or if they go other places too.  She says she stays here just for a bit, to check on her friends, that she stays with her family in Phoenix, a township near the airport. She has two brothers and two sisters, she says. I ask if she is younger or older than most of them, or if she is in the middle. “I am the youngest. But I come here and I’m naughty!” she squeaks with glee at this. I laugh with her, she is high and I’m not sure if she really is just a visitor or not.  We say goodbye and take care, walking down the beachfront walkway looking for kids nearer the arcade. Its closed so we head back to the car.

 

I don’t try and tell them that what they are doing is bad, says Felix about the glue.  I just talk to them as they are.  When they want to come to streetwise they can, but they have to show me that they want to. So I will say, I will be here at a certain time, and I will meet you.  If they show up to their appointment, then I will talk with them, and the next time I will say, ok, I don’t want you to be high when I talk to you the next time.” Slowly he gets them to commit to the idea of changing. It has to be their idea though.

                             

They used to sniff shoe glue, but Felix says that now they use something stronger. My head still throbs from the smell.

 

“I have so much respect for those boys,” he says.  It is a hard transition between the street and the center, where someone is telling you when it’s time to eat, and when to do chores, and when to go to class.  It’s not easy learning new rules.

 

We continue down town towards the Spar on Point rd, recently renamed Ghandi rd. Ironically, violent crime, hard drugs, Theft, gunshot wounds, prostitution and corruption are synonymous to the road.  This is where Felix says he won’t follow kids during the day.  We stay in the car and Felix talks to kids out of his window.

 

On the side of the road Felix spots a young boy with long eyelashes and big Nigerian cheekbones that pull his smile wide.  He is wearing an oversized soccer jersey and a pair of rolled up baby blue polyester pants.  Felix talks with him and the boy smiles and laughs like he has finally got to talk with his favorite uncle at thanksgiving dinner. He takes us around the corner where he says that there are some other boys, the ones that he stays with.

 

He walks there and we drive around the block to meet them further up on a one-way ally. They are huffing glue as well, and we shake their hands through the car window.  Felix chats with them and one of the young boys leans over and honks the horn of the car curiously, and smiles a bit embarrassed when it sounds.  We head away, and the boy tells Felix that we should tell the people at streetwise that they should treat the boys well, because maybe even though they like Felix, if they go then the people at streetwise will not be nice to them.  I laugh at the thought of Sister Helena, the kind eyed old nun who runs streetwise, ever hurting a hair on any of the boys heads.

 

As we head home we ask Felix how long he has worked for streetwise and what he has seen.  In the past ten years, he says, people have taken more responsibility for their lives and for their children.  There is hope, he explains.  With the government, as neglectful as they can be of some things, the idea that people aren’t on their own, or even just help getting housing or a job, gives people reason to care again. He says that he sees fewer street kids now than when he started.

Lemonade April 8, 2008

I am making lemonade. It’s my new montra.  The tatoo on my pinkie toe has been taunting me and so i am taking matters into my own hands.  I am accepting the lack of freedom to move around here, and the inability to connect with the outside world past sundown, and making lemonade out of lemons.  

I am attempting to supervise my own off the books independent study on film history and mastering aftereffects (if any of you film nerds have pointers send em here - graphic design even?). class starts at 5 and goes til 8 twice a week. Ha.

Also - big news here (and should be big news everywhere) Robert Mugabe has LOST  his election in Zim - who knows if his sucessor will be any better, but couldn’t be much worse than him! if you have no clue what i’m talking about follow this link. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89279913

This weekend was a great. Friday night Sara and I went to a concert that my friend Syd was playing at with his band and another band from Tenn. USA called the Red Flecks.  They had been touring together since i stayed with Syd and his friends at Spashy Fen, and i have to say, they were both in my top 5 acts of splashy.  We ran into a lot of people we knew, but due to the glorious amnesia that often accompanies such events as 5 day music festivals, about half recognized us.  Entertaining, entertaining!

Having crawled home at 4 am i spent the next day sleeping and reading and watching TV shows on DVD borrowed from my roommates.  But first i walked down to the market with kate, drew, and kristen and people watched the playground while they shoped.  (they bought tasers . . . at the craft market . . . )

Sunday we made pizza (and by we i mean other people) with contributed toppings, and then ate it together crammed into one room watching king of queens on TV.  It was really kind of cute.

I’m hoping to make it to capoeria today - on the sly so i can have some “me” time with no other americans around!

 

OH! and youtube is now possible in the computer lab - molly, enrique, and victoria (david too but you probably don’t read my blog because i don’t really know you) good work. I will attempt to post in different fonts from now on as tribute to you wonderful wonderful video.