Sympathetic Soutie's (Slightly) Grim Grumblings

Autumn has arrived amidst the bucketing down of a thousand cats and dogs. Dramatic, dark and very, very wet. For the first time in my life I am actually tempted to buy an umbrella! Even seven years in the UK didn't cause me to do the umbrella-thing -- despite its notorious reputation as the rainiest of places. (A red umbrella, brand spanking new, still lurks somewhere in my cupboard: a bon-voyage gift before I left for my second stint in the UK. Suppose the giver thought it an apt gift? I'd have preferred them to have cancelled my flight!)

Today, however, is a delectable 30degC. Now I need an umbrella for the sun! Anyway - my boet arrived in Cape Town this morning for a 4 day visit with his wife and my niece: almost two years old, and meeting her for the first time sans the veil of Facebook.The thoughts I can't seem to squish and squash away into the already overstuffed back corner of my mind are these: I haven't seen Shane in 10 years. Will we see each other again in our lifetime? Will this be the first and last time Layla and her new cousin Kyla see each other? Or are our relationships destined to be lived out and filtered through Facebook? Not an unhappy conundrum I feel like writing about today but should probably be explored. A question rolled around in all of our ex-expat or expat hearts like a sticky, dirty marble we'd prefer to ignore.

I managed to write a (brief) post on my Contemplating My Navel blog this morning - and I touched on the new friendships I have with two non-Soutie expats: a Korean family, and an Indian family. Head over there for a squizz!
Time to get back downstairs and soak up as much time with my brother as I can. Before it's too late. ( Grim, but true, eh?) So, ciao/adios/totsiens till next time.

Wild, Wild Wailing Wanting!

Eish. No blogging in over 2 months of wordlessness. So - where to begin? Hmmm....
Perhaps a few little jottings about the Mother City? Cape Town, the cradle of all that I am, the archive of all my most precious, magical memories.
After two months back in Cape Town, it seems surreal and preposterous that I ever actually chose to live away from it. England for 4, and then another 2 years (reneging on my vow to never return to the muddiest of isles!) A year and a half in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape -- dry, a little too rustic and quaint for this Capetonian and distinctly and painfully lacking in friends and family. (Sjoe - it feels soooooo good to be writing again.)
'Bananas in Pyjamas' is on the TV, babysitting Layla in her new granny-made buzzy-bee 'tutu' --- so I'll make hay-words while the TV-sun shines!

A lekkerly special adventure I took Layla on, was to meet up with my sisters and Layla's little cousin, at Mouille Point's lighthouse, and walk across to the Blue Train - where I remember being joggled and boggled around inside it, around and around the simple little play-park, the turquoise sea glittering a little way off. HELL of a noisy - to the point of near-pain and temporary tinnitus - Layla adored every minute of it, especially the pitch darkness of the tunnel. Nate, her little cuz (2 months younger than her) wasn't quite as excited about it all - not surprisingly with all that cacophonic rumbling! He had a similar sort of reticence when Layla called him into that yellow sound-pod at the Iziko Museum (remember from all those school outings? the glass submariney thing under the gargantuan whale skeleton?) Layla fell immediately in love with the symphony of whale-song that fills the pod - but Nate would only venture in once, gingerly, with a Marie biscuit for Madame MarineBiologist! Conversely, he is such a rough-and-tumbler - frighteningly fearless - where Layla is hyper-cautious, whining for my hand to climb down even the lowest little step. Amazing, the little people!

After that, it was the V&A Waterfront for lunch and two exhausting tantrums from an overtired prima donna. (No, not me!!) Tantrum #1: That 'Build A Bear' shop. (*groan*) Layla spotted a pink surfboard. And 'wanted' is the most extreme understatement of the century. And Nate just watched his cousin, worried about her and absolutely angelic in his not-wantingness! Tantrum #2: The ferris-wheel. Damnit!! Layla's current l'il passion is the fun-fair. And her sighting of the ferris-wheel ignited another state of 'want' that caused me to hunt through my wallet in frenzied desperation for R40 for the ticket, instantly slapping a silencing smile on her tear-wet face. And then... that crushing claustrophobia of parental realisation that: there was not enough money in my wallet to pay for the ticket, and not enough con-artistry in my arsenal to talk her out of her VERY bitter disappointment. Yebo. Fun at the fair, eh?
Last week, however, I was able to make good on my promise to take her for a ride on the ferris-wheel. (The ticket was R80, by the way. Under 3's go for free.) And - the views from our little spot of circling tourist-heaven left my heart hammering in 'And I live here!' bliss, awe and gratitude.

No more animated (in every sense of the word) bananas bouncing around on the TV, so time to do the 'adios' thing!
Love,
Lisa

The Write Stuff (*snigger-worthy pun*)

Princess Goofy-Ballerina : 30 months old already!

MUCH has been consuming my midnight, noon, morning and every-other-time-of-day oil - from greenly snotty noses, phlegmy coughs (my personal favourite) and crochetty toddlers to writing, writing and more writing! Of course I am  having an absolute ball - but I ache for the day when Layla can go to playschool. (113 days of aching to go, koeksister. Vasbyt en sterkte!)

A very efficient new website for soon-to-be expats, Just Landed, caught my attention on Twitter. Though the editor is keen for me to be a features writer for them, focusing on the South African's experience of living in the UK, I am more busy with writing and guest-blogging than I ever thought I could be! Hopefully we can reach a happy compromise?! Despite the fact that I know I will never be an expat every again (unless kidnapped by force -- and then hopefully by a devilishly handsome Italian who would feed me only dark chocolate, red wine and romance by candlelight in his Tuscan villa) my mission of passion for the expat phenomenon deepens with each home-soil month. Perhaps a book is waiting in the wings?

There are so many of us expatters and ex-expatters (the ones in the UK are the cowpatters!) writing about our journeys and joltings that it proves just how life-changing, mind-opening, heart-growing and trajectory-altering the expat experience is, whether permanent or temporary.

English Snowscape by Uber-African, Dave Rieger

A friend of mine, Dave Rieger, a South African expat in the UK's East Midlands, has also begun writing (at last - and what a treat!) His style? He is expertly cynical satirist with such sophisticated (dry!) humour that it often takes me a mini-eon to catch his quips - but he also pushes my thinking-boundaries. His most recent blog post details a business-related adventure through the mango plantations of Brazil. Being quite the photographer as well, his blog is definitely worth subscribing to! Here is the link to his blog: A Ramble From Mpondondo .

Here are links to my most recent articles (and always juiced up with lots of eye-candy!

My first two blog posts as a writer for Boutique Mademoiselle Vintage (a Canadian e-magazine that specialises in all things vintage)

*Blame It On Chanel
*Two Teaspoons of Wishful Thinking (where I nepotistically but still genuinely celebrated my sister's jewellery business-boutique!)

There have a couple of updates to my own 3 blogs:

*A Self Indulgent Little Yarn
*Expats & Eskimo Kisses
*Sublime, Sublime Simplicity  (farmhouse zen: a recipe with eggs in tomatoes!)

Also recently published at an SA magazine reviewing e-mag, Hy-Se-Sy-Se
headed up by poet&wordsmith, Elsibe Loubser.
*The Metaphysics of Knitting (my story is below the first one!)

As always, I THRIVE on feedback and comments (however cheeky!) So - leave
your thoughts, or even a simple 'x'  as an encouraging kiss!

Grahamstown, Fled (again...)

I'm cramped into the over-packed back of our 4x4 bakkie while Craig navigates us safely from Grahamstown to PE on the notoriously dangerous N2 - terrorised by giant kudu at night, and giant arseholes by day. Overtaking on blind turns is apparently the most fun to be had on this bleak, rainy day in the bundu - and everyone's playing except us! The low-cloud's massively decreased visibility adds a bonus bullet of fun into this Road Russian Roulette. (*eish*)
A few months ago, we were witness to an all too regular South African statistic: a taxi accident that left limbs, and screams, and blood steaming off the summer-tar -- the minibus a crushed accordian of dead and alive. It had only just happened... I desperately wanted to stop, to console or offer my hands in help...but with my little girl in the car, I had to let it go. (At least there were already about 15 cars parked along the side of the road. We crept past too slowly; wordless prayers poured from my eyes: tears.)

(The length of the journey and unrestricted access for a Blackberry addict to her device resulted in the additional 2 photos: my to-do list for when I get my internet set up on my laptop this afternoon (13 months to the day since our arrival back in SA!!) - and my poison for 'ce soir': a Leopard's Leap Shiraz Cinsaut!)
'Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.' Albert Camus

A-maize-ing!

I guess this should really be a post for my 'Samp & Sushi' blog which is an emaciated little waif of a blog --- and some advice that Blackberried to me yesterday suggested I may just a few too many blogs... So: I'll 'hide' that one -- and if I am overcome by a desire to write about South African food -- I'll do it here, ok?

One of my favourite things is the juncture between culture, food and graphic-design/packaging : and exactly why I chose this packet of Ace porridge from the breakfast shelves in Pick 'n Pay! I certainly know more than a handful of South African who would reject it with scorn for the exact same reason I chose it: it's Africanness. How just looking at it amongst the rest of the Kelloggs and Bokomos tells you about a dry, dusty red road, and the long walk home, her groceries gracefully balanced upon her head, and slumbering toddler upon her back. It must be the unfettered absence of visual seduction: no strong cardboard boxing, or glossy, hallucinogenically gaudy graphics emboldened by brand ambassadors we can't say no to: the jean-size dropping, white leotarded brunette brandishing her tape-measure like an accusing snake, or the 'Mommy, I want ________' cartoon-lures.

For me, the Ace packaging makes me taste the maizey soulfulness of my gran's 'pap en wors'. It sings to me about the samp-and-beans of my schoolday afternoons. Perhaps, though, it is a reminder of poverty: your own? those whose less-ness terrifies you, or exhausts your nights with guilt? I know a few older South Africans who even struggled to digest the concept of cous-cous (pun unfortunately intended) : that it wasn't an 'African' food but an African food. (Do I need to explain that? Leave me a note in 'Comments' if I need to!)

(I've got a horrible boomerang cold, and a dramatically different toddler to entertain solo till 9pm - so best I conserve what brain and body energy I DO have!)

Liefde as altyd en vir ewig, my Suid Afrika,
Lisa

'Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.' Albert Camus

MY hindsight, YOUR foresight : grab it by the balls!!

As absolutely, bloody marvellous as the Internet is, there are some vile little flaws that daily drive me bananas. For example, just as I finished a painstakingly heartfelt tweaking of a prior blog post and hit ‘publish’, all my changes had vanished. Ka-boom – in a puff of Google-smoke!

C’est la vie, non? A year on into our homecoming, and this is perhaps the lesson we have learned most exquisitely. Now, remember that ‘exquisite’ can relate to both pleasure and pain. And pain there has certainly been. As you will see in my previous post, I was unable to sugarcoat the disappointment and trials of the last 12 months, even though there were a number of cowardly moments when I wanted to delete the post before publishing it. That yellow-streaked pride of mine at being such a devout South African recoiled in horror at my honesty. It screeched, a banshee, in my ear: “Why on EARTH would you hand yourself over on a plate for those expat-wolves that hunt you down? Do you WANT to die a slow, Mzansi death, listening to the cracking and crunching of your bones between their teeth?” But, I had always been honest in my pro-SA liturgies – though that never required courage - only passion and joy. Now, I had to let my pride slither off me, a sad little snake, and be bravely, terrifyingly real.

Being this honest made me realise the coming home is not for the faint-hearted or the cowardly. Coming home requires every ounce of strength, love, compassion and patience you had no idea you were capable of. And the truth is that you don’t possess it. Your homecoming draws it out of you, teardrop by sigh by sob – until, a year later, you find yourself astounded at the deep, exhilarating depths of your heart, where peace is the air you breathe in this canyon of your heart. (Yes, yes, the drama, the drama. But how else could I describe a journey that tears your dreams apart? A journey that unravels who you are, so that you pick up the Ariadne-thread of yourself right at the beginning, knitting yourself together again, in a stronger, more intricately beautiful stitch.)

I wrote that article for you. So that you can reap the rewards of my (kinda humiliating) hindsight. Do not let your heartache overwhelm your head.

1. WAIT for the very best job – IN the town/city that makes your heart sing (and where your mother can drop off a milktart and a box of tissues when you’re sick, or where you can have a family braai every single night if the mood took you, and the piks could sleep in Aunty Mandy’s room while the conversation sizzled hotter then the wors.)

2. And SAVE, SAVE, SAVE, damnit!! When my sister shared a mouldy, grey little flat with a mix of Brazilians, Polish and Aussies in London, she was so hellbent on saving, that she would use only one, papery square of already 1-ply toilet paper --- or drip-dry! (My nugget of wisdom? It may be hellishly miserable for a year, but if you can starve, scrimp, scavenge and save, you will come home to the comfort you deserve.)

Saying that, it really hasn’t been as bleak as I made it out to be in my previous post – I just wrote it on a particularly sad and blue day. So, to even out the little sadnesses, here is a list of incredibly precious South African moments that have blessed my heart in the last 53 weeks:

The wild vastness of the African sky… that if you gaze into it for long enough, you will into its turquoise sea of peace.

Starlit braais in the middle of winter after a balmy, dry day spent in awe of the African sun’s luminous and loving warmth.

Samp-and-beans made especially for me by our nanny who still works for our family, and who used to walk to pick me up from playschool when I was three – and whose cheese snackwiches rival Jamie Oliver’s most gourmet sarnie!

A spectacular moment of Africanness: Regal, graceful Nguni cattle walking across the road --- in the middle of the town, and in the suburbs. The delight of its surreality made me actually slam my brakes on, mouth agape in wonder! (Other variations on this very Eastern Cape thing that continues to be a novelty for this Mother City girl are the wild donkeys let loose to graze the pavements’ grass --- and, on one occasion, to rummage through our garbage bags all the way down our driveway! There have been herds of pedantic goats stuck, undecided, in the middle of our road. Driving back from Joza (the location) and executing my first (immaculate!) emergency stop since my driving test in 1997, so I could protect a mommy-donkey and her little one who decided he needed a drink of milk, and stopped in the middle of the highway for a dawdling suckle. Bonus? Flagging down a passing Department of Roadworks vehicle, I was bursting with pride as out the car spilled smiling and efficient Department of Roadworkers, who – with infinitely gentle patience – coaxed the pair safely across the road. (I was proud because the flak our government gets blinds us all to what they DO get magnificently right! There have actually been many moments of municipal efficiency in my last year here in Grahamstown, and – the odd, random minor catastrophe (though those are only hearsay – and probably a gross exaggeration. *wink*)

I could go on for pages and pages and paaaaaages, but let me say adios for tonight --- and see you sooner rather than later. (I always say that, don’t I? Eish… sorry….) But: there is light at the end of my erratic-blogging-tunnel: I have a benefactor who is gifting me with the blessing of internet so I can write full-time! I can finally have those daily word-parties I’ve been dreaming about --- and make a nice little living from it!

And so, on that triumphant note, see you (I promise) soon.

A little Soutie...

It has taken me a month (or maybe more) to overcome my dread of Blackberry-cramp to write a new blogpost. Sorry, guys. But better late that never, huh?
In the last month I've spent more time in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth than Grahamstown. Craig and I have both been unable to help hating, ever more frustratingly, the winter of our Grahamstonian discontent - hence why we take shelter in our hometowns so often and for so long. And more and often, much to my repatriated pride, I'm beginning to wonder if our decision to flee home was just a wee bit too hasty? Perhaps if we'd rearranged our living and spending arrangements, and stayed on another 2 years, we may have been able to return to South Africa with the ability to buy property : and also to have waited for the best possible job-offers in Port Elizabeth. (I didn't mention settling in Cape Town: my dear, darling husband is VIOLENTLY averse to the apparent iniquity of (my) Mother City... *sigh/adolescent_eye-rolling*) And though these thoughts of a too-hasty-return plague us more and more often, the deep joy and peace of being in Africa, and in the divinely appointed bosom of our wonderful families still (kind of) keeps these almost-doubts at bay.
Our little house, decrepit, devoid of storage so we drown in cyclic chaos and regularly prone to heavy flooding and blocked drains hasn't helped our sense of homecoming serenity. Even my life-creed of: "what is healing but a change in perspective" didn't help, despite the gorgeous idea of Anais Nin's: "In chaos is fertility." Our most recent little domestic crisis is an about-to-overflow septic tank right at our front door!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (I'm not a fan of using more than one or two exclamation marks, but this sh*tty problem is the final, final straw. Really.)

When we first got to Grahamstown, we rented a delightfully quaint Settlers cottage with a 'Bible' front door (a wooden cross set into it) and warm, creaky yellowwood floors that gleamed with the polishing of 200 years of feet. (See pic insert) The garden's dappled shade saved us from the dry, summer's heat - and this garden taught me to cherish our indigenous floral heritage --- and to develop a succulents obsession (and a minor cuttings-kleptomania!) We also indulged in almost nightly braais - slap-bang in the middle of 'winter'. Glorious. Heavenly. Utopic!
And then, we moved into the school's accomodation: a miniature section of a boys' hostel, replete with a urinal and two small and low-set basins. Fab. Utterly v*kken fab.

Ag - I really shouldn't complain - but hell's bells: the fact we still pay rent for this humiliation... Aai, aai, aai...
But having to live like this, with pilfering and sloppy builders, floods and frog infestations (I didn't mention that, did I?) is humiliating and exhausting. The other thing about moving into such a tiny little dorpie is that I am so far away from the my family, AND there are no jobs for me as a writer and artist. Unless you are a teacher or lecturer, there is very little scope for a meaningful career.

And so, my advice for those of you planning a homecoming is this: save your geldtjies bedonderd -- and make sure the city or town you choose to settle in contain your family, friends and career opportunities.

PS. A big, big 'sorry' about my unusually sombre approach in this post, and even though I nearly deleted it all (twice!) I felt that we should always give what we have learned to others.

'Men must live and create. Live to the point of tears.' Albert Camus