Hero or Sponge?

Analytically browsing today's news to see how much good news there was in comparison to bad, I happened upon this article: Baby saved from rubbish dump. Sadly ... no! Hang on! I am ashamed to admit that I succumbed to exactly what I'm trying to fight: all these negative stereotypes about South Africa, staged as 'facts' by the media. Right up until the 'n' of South African I typed before I thought, "No ways, this HAS to be a universal problem. We're not the only country that struggles with poverty... or postnatal depression..." But before I jump up onto my beloved soapbox, let me just say that I am impressed with News24 and Die Burger journalist, Kobus Pretorius, who managed to make this story more than just a wallow-in-more-apathy story by proactively introducing us to solutions to the problem and the heroes providing these solutions. (Check out - and support! - Molo Songololo in any way you can. "Molo Songololo" is Xhosa for 'Hello Millipede'!)

Isn't it strange how, when I initially read the news story, my first reaction was one of, "It's such a South African problem." This knee-jerk reaction is what the scaremongers and our mainstream media rely on - and in some ways, it feels to me like we're being controlled like puppets by our media. Think of all the times the news hypes something up, like petrol increases, swine flu, the recession, only for it to pass by with very little of the impact they forecast. I like to call this 'awfulising'; that is, when something gets spoken about from a completely blinkered and biased perspective. You will even notice this in your everyday interactions with colleagues, family and friends (and, let's hope not, maybe in yourself!) Awfulising functions like the most vicious circle, devouring any joy and hope in its path. Awfulising is a a sickness that starts with one and corrupts us all. A pandemic. The sad paradox is that the very opposite is true of truth and peace and loving joy: it is almost a Sisyphysian struggle to reverse the damage wrought by being relentlessly negative - but thankfully, it is not impossible. I think victory begins with us as individuals. We can choose what we allow into our lives (i.e. choose the newspapers you read etc.) and we can choose how we convey ourselves through life. Do we allow the negativity in the news to paralyse us into passive, unthinking sponges? Or do we confront the news with our emotions and minds fully engaged, ready to do whatever it takes to make a difference? Don't get me wrong - I'm not advocating saving the world. It's about being a proactive human being in your own world. For example, take the story of the little 8-month old abandoned princess. Read the story, and minutely examine your gut reaction and your thoughts. Instead of allowing your mind to be controlled by stereotypes, decide to examine the situation more deeply. Hunt down the real facts behind the story. Brainstorm ways in which you could personally effect change. Even if all you do is change your own mindset from an awfulising one, this will make a magnificent difference! It affects how often you smile, how deeply you feel, how you talk about things. This is as contagious as the sunniest smile!
Reading about Molo Songololo, I wracked my brains for ideas on how I, personally, could help them help our children. Because I don't have oodles of cash, at the moment all I can do is send a small amount in donation. But what I do have plenty of is contacts and access to the internet. Solution? 1. Email the charity to find out how I could specifically help them, also asking interview-like questions. 2. Write a story about them, with their contact details, for publication. 3. Generate dialogue about them with my friends and contacts to raise the charity's social profile (and hopefully their budget too!) and increase awareness of the issues surrounding abandoned babies. I could also suggest blankets, clothes and food be donated to Molo Songololo (and yes, I am STILL crimson from that ridiculous faux pas on live bloody radio! lol)

PLEASE leave your ideas about how you initially react to 'bad' news (if you're brave enough to be that honest!) and if you would like to join me in my quest to revolutionise the South African media one editor at a time ;)

PS. SAfm want to feature me again - this time for a ten minute slot on their Sunday evening show (faux pas and all!) And this weekend, I'm going to be interviewed as part of a documentary about returning South Africans! The media are taking notice! So leave your name as part of your personal commitment to this revolutionary adventure!

PPS. After reading page after page in the world's news about abandoned babies in Chine, Argentina, England, America, Germany and Kenya (to name a few), my heart bloated helplessly with anguish... I couldn't bring myself to look at another article about just how many babies are left for dead - and that's why, instead of writing about it as a world-wide disease, I told you about Molo Songololo and how to become a hero yourself!

Faux Pas Poephol...

An unusually early morning for me - but at least the dark English nights are getting shorter and shorter! YEEHAAA!! (I can tell you what - there is NOTHING more disturbing to the African soul than this perpetual darkness that is the deep bleakness of the English winter. When I was teaching at a little school in Kettering in the very pregnant months before Layla was born, driving to school in the pitch blackness and coming home in it too, was incredibly disheartening... ).................................................. inbetween that first paragraph and now, SAfm called me for my interview and EISH!!!! I'm not too sure how I feel about the whole thing, but I wish I could have been a bit more prepared. As my dad warned, they tried to catch me out with a HIGHLY political question about Malema and this R250 million thingymajig in the news this morning... And I made a disastrous faux pas - and there's absolutely NO WAY on this sweet earth that I can go back in time to change it :( I mentioned how a child psychologist and blankets could be sent to the family of the young girl murdered in Pretoria a few days ago... but I was actually thinking about my original blog post the whole interview was based on in which I wrote about how, if you read in the news about a little baby having been raped in Khayelitsha, you should be spurred into action - e.g. to phone the paper and see how you could help: send blankets, food or maybe, if you're a child psychologist offer to do some pro bono work with the child and her family. Bugger. Bugger. Bugger. My heart's prayer is that I haven't upset that girl's family with my foot-in-mouth disease...)

{ in memoriam }

Today I am finding it hard to write, let alone to even think straight... You see, one of my most special friends, Jules, woke up this morning to find her baby son had died in his sleep. Writing about it seems somehow wrong, and yet - also the only thing I can do. My heart pounds with a sick sense of sacrilegious guilt, but also the desire to honour her and her son, Jude, in the only way that I can.

I can only hold her in my thoughts like this - in words, and ask you to add your prayers to mine, because Jules and Simon live in Cape Town. So far away that I cannot drive to her house and tell her I love her, and hold her. So far away that we lost touch over a petty misunderstanding for more than a year, while we were both pregnant and new mommies - a time we should have shared, because we used to chat constantly about it with incredible yearning in our younger years. (Surely it was just yesterday that we met in the corner of the Primi Piatti lounge one late afternoon after work, and when Jules replaced her usual order of red wine with a non-alcoholic beer, she didn't have to explain that special smile on her face...)

It was only a few weeks after that, and Craig asked me to marry him - and then suddenly we were in England - and I was pregnant too. Jules came over to the UK, 6 months' pregnant with precious Jude, to shoot a wedding - and we planned to meet up somehow in the short window of time she was here. But between me and my incessant, debilitating nausea and vomiting, and Jules's mounting frustration with indifferent friends, we misinterpreted each other so tragically, that we stopped contacting each other in our imagined hurt. The thought of travelling via a daunting number of trains from Northampton to London with my new talent for unpredictable emesis was beyond my scope of possibility - but Jules felt she wasn't worth the effort. If only she had known the truth of my heart then. I feel like our emotional separation can partly be blamed on our physical distance apart; were we in Cape Town, this would never have happened. I would simply have phoned her, and she'd have heard the exhaustion in my voice and instinctively, and with her habitual kindness, understood. It was the double misinterpretation of our text messages back and forth that caused this sudden rift in a friendship that had run long and deep and true for so many years...

About 6 weeks ago, she sent me a message on FB, and we've been emailing each other - trying to catch up on each others' journeys inbetween being mommies and artists. Her last email to me expressed how much she loved her son as 'the MOST adorable child under the sun'... And to think I have been 'too busy' to reply to that email... I had so much I wanted to share with her, so many questions to ask her. And now, I can never ask those questions. Ever. I dreamed about Layla and Jude playing in the sand on Blouberg beach together, while Jules and I sat nearby, chatting and skinnering like old times - our eyes saying everything when words fail us.

This is why I am moving home. Home is where your heart has sent down its roots. Into the rich, deep earth that is hearing your friend's car turn into your driveway, jumping to pay for your coffees before she does, wrapping up that perfect book for her birthday you just know she's been drooling over all year but couldn't afford, picking up her little son when he falls because you love him like your own...

(I don't know how many of you noticed the 'PS' to my last blog post where I mentioned Jules and her photography? Before she was married to Simon, she worked as a temp doing random secretarial work -- and photographing things so exquisitely and with such tender clarity, that we all took notice and spurred her on to follow her magnificent talent! It became a figurative and a literal voyage. An exploration, an adventure, a pilgrimage... She travelled through Europe, and then eventually all the way back from London, with Simon in their sturdy and well-equipped Land Cruiser, through Israel, Egypt, Sudan ... all the way to their goal and destination, Cape Town. Her catalogue of photographs from this journey make visual the endless depths of beauty she so effortlessly gives us with her heartfelt, creative vision. We started writing a book together based on this African adventure, but I was 'too busy'. Today's tears cannot wash away how sorry I am, Jules.)

Only four more months to go.

Balls to the Wall: FIFA 2010

The last week has been what some might call 'insane'. Layla's molars are pushing through her tender little gums, making for a desperately miserable little bub who just wants to be either in her mama's arms, on her lap or no less than a strict 1-metre radius away. Hence why there has been zilch writing on my part.

As I type, she sits behind me on the floor, unpacking the box of Craig's heavy collection of Stephen King books we're going to ship home - each book preciously hunted down at many consecutive car boot sales last summer. Anyway, that's besides the point. What I've been wanting to write about is the FIFA World Cup - of which yesterday marked the 100-day count-down. It feels like just yesterday when I drove to Cape Town International to pick Craig up when he was still so ardently trying to woo me into the holy state of matrimony, and flying down from PE every other month - and seeing the giant digital countdown below the advert for FIFA 2010 with 600-and-something days to still go! And now, only 99... And it's not just on our South African minds - the whole world is watching, even the sweet old man who helped me put petrol in yesterday in the village of Brixworth!

Putting petrol in has got to be one of the things I am simply going to ADORE leaving behind me when we come home in July! I have no idea why, but I find it quite a humiliating experience - and ---------- eish!! I think I'm going to have to finish this when Layla has all her gnashers above the gumline. Give me a few days (hold thumbs!) and I'll be back with a vengeance ;)

Wanna Hear Some Good News?

Before he even asks how my day was, Craig asks if I read The Herald. That's how important the news is to him. I find reading the news a chore, a bore and mostly, something to ignore. Corruption, rape, murder, robbery. There is hardly ever anything to make you smile, reminisce or inspire.

I've actually often felt that, what I shall henceforth call 'The News', preys on the human mind's natural tendency to be drawn to the negative: moths to flames. It's a bit like gossip. Have you ever noticed how macabrely delicious it is to have a fat skinner about So-and-So who was caught doing such-and-such? Isn't it the same with The News? It never fails to cause me great existential pain to see why News like a baby being raped must be exposed and brutalised by so many eyes who, when they read it, seldom think about that specific child, but instead blow it up into generalisations (e.g. the crime in this country is out of control) and self-centred ruminations such as, "Thank goodness my child is safe." It is as if The News is simply reflected out like so much bad energy, instead of it becoming absorbed and then acted upon in a positive way. Perhaps money could be donated, or time, or clothes. Communities could gather and increase their sense of community policing. But instead, all The News seems to do is strengthen the apathy already out there, and ANAESTHETISE everyone into an unthinking, unfeeling, passive herd.

And so it was with kismetical delight that I stumbled upon South Africa - The Good News! as well as MyZA At last!!!!!!!! Hang on a minute - did I hear someone calling me 'Ostrich'? I am not 'in denial about the facts of South Africa' as someone recently said to me, but I seek to make myself aware of ALL the facts. And by that I mean that I actively look for the good news about South Africa, and try to view the negative news with a social activist's perspective: i.e. if you read about a baby being raped in Khayelitsha, allow your (righteous) anger to compel you to action, by calling up the newspaper and seeing if there was a way you could get a parcel of food or clothes and blankets to the child's parents; or if you know of a child psychologist, phone them and ask if they would be willing to work with this child on a pro bono basis. (Have I been watching too much TV? Is it only lawyers who do pro bono work?!) The other thing I do when people throw SA's crime problem in my face is counter it with facts about the crime in other countries. i.e. like how in the UK you are not afraid of a poor person mugging you for your spare change, but terrified of children. Kapish?

Wouldn't it be incredible to see everyone boycotting The (Bad) News, and switching over to The Good News until The (Bad) News underwent a radical transformation? I wonder what impact this would have on our collective South African consciousness? I could bet my HEART that a miracle would occur!

PS. For exquisitely heartfelt art-photographs of Africa, visit Jules Comley's website. (Her and husband, Simon, travelled down through Africa from London to Cape Town in their Land Cruiser a few years ago - it was how they decided to make their epic trek back home after quite a number of Soutie years oustide of London.)

Homesickness or Head-sickness?!

Come rain or shine, hell or high water, Craig begins his day with a cup of coffee and The Herald. Besides the fact that he wishes his coffee was a 'regte egte koppie Ricoffy', reading the South African news is his way of maintaining his roots while we're living abroad. More importantly, his reading of The Herald connects him to Port Elizabeth and the Eastern Cape. If a place could be a religion, Craig would be the most zealous and fervent Port Elizabthanite! But what is so intriguing about this ritualistic reading of a newspaper from home is this: reading about home is the LAST thing I would choose to do precisely because it reminds me too much of NOT being home. Each to their own, I suppose. Last year, bursting at the seams with a Layla-bun in the oven, watching Madiba's birthday being screened by the BBC was so excruciatingly painful I fled the tormenting sweetness of Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika for my bedroom upstairs, my pillow damp with being plain pissed-off with myself for choosing to come to England a second time. Being universes away from my parents and Craig's parents while their first grandchild was on its way continues to weigh upon my heart. To explain the extent of the guilt I feel for having prevented my mother from proudly rubbing my growing belly cannot be explained away in a self-indulgent blog post... But anyway, I'm getting carried away. What is so incredibly interesting is how each South African has their own 'heart-balms' they use to soothe the aches of the immigrant-soul. I would love to hear from ANYONE who reads this blog (yip - that means you!)about their own personal heart-balms. (-4C outside, and the soft, white snow --- no longer so exotic -- tumbles down from ashen skies... you can actually hear the snow falling, a hushed susurration - a blanket. Now too dangerous to drive, I'm kicking myself for not remembering to buy loopaper and the aubergines I needed to try my Bengali dish again! But - as a consolation, I have Radio Algoa and a glorious cup of rooibos warmly reminding me we will be home just now.)

Getting back to what I was saying about reading The Herald, since we made the decision to return home, I've been able to read it quite happily - with none of that angst that comes with living in denial about how darn shitty it is to live in another country. England, to be precise. (Maybe it's not so bad in Aussie?) And because we''ll be based in the Eastern Cape, I decided to get involved and register as a user so I could comment on the various news articles. Admittedly, I rushed rather unthinkingly to make my first comment. What a disaster!! The article in question involved various government officials flying to Bloem in an air ambulance to ... wait for it: watch a soccer match! Merely for the sake of making a comment, I jumped in and said something about moving back to South Africa from the UK. Needless to say, the other users climbed in with their apathetic South African aggro - and I'm still smarting from the humiliation of exposing myself without thinking. SO much of what is supposedly 'wrong' with South Africa can surely be blamed on the kind of attitudes exhibited below.

It's a big adjustment coming back to SA. I know the weather in the UK is a big factor on quality of life but think carefully about coming back. After Jacob (Loverboy) Zuma's state of the nation speech, I don't see much of anything getting better...this country is on the way to being Africa's richest banana republic.

The above user, I am absolutely, vehemently, adamantly certain, has never lived in England. Sure, the weather's not great - but it is more the pervasive, beige chill of the country as a whole that is a problem for an African who lives life in full colour! My advice to him? Travel a little - it's an instant remedy for blinkeritis.

The next user deserves a swift lobotomy-by-snot-klap. Only a white person would say something with such heartless cruelty that rings frighteningly of Adolf Hitler's 'Final Solution',

Aids is our only hope.

This oke says he lived in Germany for 2 years. And honestly? Two years in another country is more like an extended working-holiday than actual emigration. The first time I lived in the UK was for four years - and time and again, it takes between 4 and 6 years for the reality of it to set in. Mr Germany - if it's so bad in SA, go back to Germany for another four years. And actually - don't bother coming back. We don't need wet-towels like you.

think real hard before coming back. I immigrated to Germany for two years and made the biggest mistake of my life coming back...from structure, 1st world services to corruption and chaos. I urge you to think carefully.

This next quote is from someone living overseas - and thinks he as the right to decide what 'civilization' is! The crime in South Africa is a problem - but there is a serious problem with crime in England too. Children murdering children. Psychotic, knife-wielding teenagers. Terrorism.

are you utterly crazy? How can you think of giving up life in relative civilization to return to the third world shambles SA has become? I myself would rather die where I am right now than ever return to that corrupt hellhole.

I wonder if this guy has ever been personally touched by terrorism? On the 7th of July 2005, I called my sisters to cancel our date to meet them in London to see the Frida Kahlo exhibition at the Tate Modern. Quite why I cancelled is hazy to me now, but thank goodness I did! That was the day London and the very trains I was going to be travelling on were targeted by terrorists. And to be very honest, I can rationalise poverty-induced crime. I can even understand the anger behind not-having and the violent hijackings and robberies that result from this. Don't get me wrong: I still lock my doors etc and believe ANY crime is wrong, but there is a degree of humanity in much of our South African crime. i.e. hate, anger, fear, hunger - and simply not knowing any better for lack of opportunity. But terrorism? No. There is nothing in the terrorist that I can relate to as a human being. I am choosing to take the necessary safety measures when I am back in South Africa, and living with the reality that I could become a victim of violent crime. But this is a much more tolerable choice than continuing to live in a country that is hated and continually targeted by terrorists.

Last but not least, Homecoming Revolution has been a magnificent source of encouragement and practical advice, and besides receiving their newsletters, I recently joined their Facebook page. And there, I couldn't help but comment again - though this time, more thoughtfully. The comment I replied to:

What home-coming revolution? They left of their own free-will because they didn't want to be a part of the New South Africa. The damn racists. Let them stay where they are.

This meneer , as I saw from his photo and name, is black - and I'm not just talking about his mood! He and our aforementioned Nazi friend should get together and have a lekker chat. That wouldn't accomplish much, I suppose... But wouldn't it be great if they could see how racism, as a double-sided coin (or is it 'sword'?) is the very cause of all their issues regarding the state of our nation?

"Invictus" partially reviewed!

How many films has this film-addict seen since her child was born 51 weeks ago? Zilch. To only see snippets and beginnings of films feels like sacrilege, or a violent dismembering of my imagination! I'd rather actually not watch any films than this. Anyway, self-pity aside, Craig put 'Invictus' on for us the other night while we sipped our usual poison, munched our way through matching pepperoni pizzas and tried to entertain a rumbunctious, over-tired Layla. Half an hour into the film, not even having been able to hear above Layla's happy squawking if the 'South African' accents were a good copy or not, I had to make the irritated decision to pause the movie so I could get Layla off to bed.

But................ what I can say about the film is that Morgan Freeman is a man with such gentle strength and quiet dignity as to be the only actor capable of doing Tata Madiba the homage he deserves. Other roles that Morgan Freeman has portrayed impacted heavily (and not just on me - but the whole movie-watching world, I think) as a collective, iconographic sort-of influence on Mandela's persona in the film. If you think of Freeman's role of God in 'Bruce Almighty', his portrayal of a prisoner in 'The Shawshank Redemption', and another - slightly more obscure one - the blind piano tuner in "Danny The Dog" where Freeman's character is endlessly kind, wise and all-seeing. (If you never thought an action film could EVER be poetic and a work of art, you're wrong! Four years after seeing it, and my heart pounds a little faster...) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> my two brothers-in-law are making us boerewors rolls for lunch and then we're heading to a pub called 'The Aviator' at the aerodrome nearby: I'll have to finish up writing later ;)

...........After my pint of Guinness, I took Layla in my arms and follwed Craig and his boets to survey the vast grassy airfield, bereft of sunshine and blue skies, and sporting only a thick grey mist - probably why there were no planes to be seen. Two, most definitely African, couples walked into the glass-encased viewing space - and Craig and Co. exited politely -- while I, probably too inquisitively, chatted to them and asked them if they were also from Africa. "Zimbabwe," the one lady beamed. I don't really know how to explain this, but black people from Africa living in the UK look African - as opposed to looking like black Brits. Does that make sense? I don't know if it is something in their body language or their demeanor, but over the span of six years of fellow-African-spotting, I have never been wrong. Quite what it is continues to elude me. To use words like 'humility' might have a slightly racist slant... but there is definitely something Africans exude which is somehow magnetic, like a deep drumbeat, a vital heartbeat. And actually, to be quite honest, many white South Africans living abroad also emanate this same power. For example, arriving at Terminal 5 in June last year to fly to South Africa, Layla - at 3.5 months miaowed hungrily for a feed. And do you know, that bench after unbudging bench of waiting English passengers simply looked the other way in an obvious act of protecting 'their' space. But, a few benches along, an older woman waved us over, her smile telling us the same thing as her passport: she was South African! She shifted over to the most cramped corner of the bench, making it seem like the most welcoming oasis of calm and benificence. Within minutes I had Layla latched on for a feed, her frantic cries at last appeased, and Yvonne and I were chatting the hind legs off donkeys! (I still actually have her email address scribbled on a torn scrap of paper in my wallet... I must email her!)

Gosh - what a tangent that was!! The Zimbabweans.
"We watched this cool film, 'Invictus' - have you seen it?" I told them I had watched the beginning half hour - and Morgan Freeman was hailed by them as the perfect man to portray Madiba. They had actually all seen "Danny the Dog" - what a stroke of serendipitous African kismet! I could have chatted to them all afternoon... But the boys were on tenterhooks, trying not to look impatient as they waited to leave for the next game of rugby, so Layla and I bade adieu - and my heart felt a little (no, a LOT) lighter for having met them.

Time has run out for the day - and I'm going to head to bed to read a couple more pages of Julie/Julia but which I continue to read with slightly irritated skepticism, knowing how Julia Child really felt about 'The Project' and that Julie actually divorces her husband in real life. Yes, in real life.