The Violets in the Mountains have Broken the Rocks...

Grooves: Plush (Rory Eliot - who I had the honour and joy of befriending when I worked as the art director for a fashion brand in Cape Town a few years ago, and we sponsored him and his band in clothes and publicity/gigs.)

Beverage: Earl Grey (it's that delicately decadent bergamot it's scented with... hmmm...) from a white teapot, festooned in painted pink floral filigree - and sipped from a cup handmade by Nosiphiwo: from the forming of the virgin porcelain, to the painting and glazing. (Hence why I recruited her so quickly into the Oodade ranks!)


Weather: deliciously cool, calm and drizzling with a misty rain that transforms my garden into a rainforest paradise!



After my last blog entry about the glories of our Makana municipality, the reactions it catalysed made me realise just how mindblowingly heart-based this whole South Africa/UK is: people react, their hearts volatile, and their brains not quite engaged. Facts are ignored, and fears and ideals blindly embraced. {Because I absolutely avoid conflict whenever possible in my lust to be loved and liked be everyone, writing about such a layered and paradoxical situation is pretty tough. I find myself wanting even those who negate what I have to say to accept the experiences that have shaped my understanding of the 'in vs out' South African dilemma. To accept my facts and feelings as a kind of living parable about how the grass can be greener on the other side only if you water it with your pro-UK convictions, and taking extra-careful care to tend the weeds of homesickness that creep into the garden of your heart, mercilessly.

A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself.  Forests are the lungs of
our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.
                                                                               { Franklin D. Roosevelt }

I refuse to have an emotional attachment to a piece of ground.
At one end of the scale it's called patriotism, at the other end
of the scale it's called gardening.
{ Bob Shaw }

 

As the gardening guru of the book I'm reading says, "Weeds are a mirror of the condition of the soil - so pay attention to them and use them to read the condition and health of your soil." (I ad-libbed that - sorry, Jane!)  Weeds can be suffocated, blow-torched away, pulled out at the roots or poisoned to death. Or, they can be seen for what they are: a symptom of the poor condition of the soil : acknowledged, weeds can be a blessing. Weeds can spur you into redesigning your garden, getting you more in touch with your earth, improving the health of your soil --- and, as a consequence, the fruits it bears. (Let's hope that wasn't too obscure an analogy?!)

 

The violets in the mountains have broken the rocks.
{ Tennessee Williams }

Anyway, as someone who thrives on getting so messy with paints and glues and other random art materials that it has shocked the socks off some people, I've not really taken the same pleasure in getting dirty in sand and soil. But perhaps that's more to do with my terror of the spiders that lurk behind leaves, ready to pounce! But, since buying The Virgin Gardener and reading my pops-in-law's Jane's Delicious Garden, I've had an epiphany: we are one with the earth. (Not the New-Agey sort of 'One', but 'one' in the sense that ... (*oh gosh* I've been reading an anthology of quotes about gardening -- and they're all so perfect : the most perfect and practical philosophy, that I can't quite find my own words now... And to simply cut+paste a thousand quotes onto this page would be an enormous cheat... I think I'll go away for a few days to dig deep for my own words about this discovery that is slowly changing my life: my outlook, the pace at which I live and love, my priorities... Come back in a few days, ok?)

In the meantime, here are some of the fruits of my labour: each one a miracle that heals, delights, soothes and excites.  (My favourite plants right now are succulents - and, quite fortunately so, what with this Eastern Cape drought which means water is too precious to waste on acres of lawn and thirsty plants! When we move into our new little plekkie at the end of the month, I'm going to get rid of most of the lawn and replace it with vegetables and succulents, layed happily between winding paths of stones...)

Jasmine JazzTea & Municipal Magnificence!

Hot already at 10am. I have the morning to myself - and over the moon about the new look I created for my blog this morning: fresh, happy-happy-happy and real!
Sipping: steaming jasmine green tea.
Grooves: Thelonius Monk
Social State: thought I was alone, but my house has been hijacked through the Trellidor nogal by a lightning-bolt of somebody's errant ginger cat: last time I tried to chase outside for fear of a sneezing/eye-itch attack, we ended up in the bedroom, with him almost getting stuck as he scrambled and slipped on the wood floor to take refuge in the two-inch dusty blackness beneath our bed! (This is the second cat visitation we've had - and probably due to the birdfeeder Layla and I put up in the peach tree in the garden a few days ago... Ah, the cycle of life...)

re: this post-title, I've been wanting to write to our local municipality to thank them for making me a very happy and smug South African citizen. (And before any bitter reposts are slung my way, I will say that - yes - there are some sh*tty bits to South African municipal/governmental issues, but there are also good and bad bits to every other country in the world: e.g. the postcode-lottery in the UK on which hospital you end up in!) Anyway, I'll put my happy experiences in point form for the sake of keeping you here (*wink*)

1. My very first Sunday evening in Grahamstown, and it's time to bath Layla and get some supper on the go. It's the middle of winter, and darkening out. And we are suddenly plunged into a most primal state of electricitynessless! Now what?! Nothing showing on our switchboard. Our neighbours all have electricity. Hmmm... On a Sunday evening, who can we call? Not the Ghostbusters - but the emergency number for the Makana Municipality. Expecting the Electricity Department, someone (damnit, I meant to remember his name!!) answered, "Fire Department. How can I help you?" Turns out Grahamstown is such a small place (a genuine dorpie) that whether your mains have burst or your house is ablaze, all emergencies are routed to the same place! Within 30 minutes, two guys arrived in their Makana Municipality bakkie at our door, looked at the switchboard and had as sorted in no less than 10 minutes! Oh yes, and may I mention they were Xhosa (intelligent, skilled, professional, friendly) and they didn't try to steal or pillage?! (*Very wry chuckle*)

2. Another great moment that made me proud was after 3 months of anxiety about the dangerous crossroads a few metres from our house, seeing a beaming (and sweating!) municipal worker picking up the orange cones (do they have a proper name?) after painting bright, white yield markings on the road! Awesome!!

(Gosh - that tea was good...)

3. After really getting into the brilliant recycling thing in the UK with their red and blue crates, and the way they alternated the black household refuse bin with the brown garden waste bin, I missed the lekker feeling I got from minimising my waste there. In Grahamstown, there are no black bins! I was a bit appalled, and quite ashamed to find myself thinking the 'Welcome To Africa' thought... Seeing the black rubbish bags thrown out into the street each Morning, only to be ripped apart by foraging bergies and dogs, dirty nappies, rotten food and broken glass strewn everywhere, made me angry-sad-confused-deeplydisappointed ---- but it also galvanised me into action! I phoned the municipality's sanitation department, expecting (thanks to news-induced stereotypes) apathy, but was instead met with eagerness and interest, as well as information about a plan to introduce recycling to Grahamstonians who're apparently notoriously hardegat about not bothering to recycle! And what happened? Nothing? Nope. A few weeks later, exactly as promised, my packet of black refuse bags arrived, so that I could spend the money I would normally have spent on black bags on either clear or orange plastic bags, which would then act as the receptacle for all recyclables. These would be collected by the same rubbish truck, but taken to the recycling plant which is overseen by an NGO creating employment and environmental care.Well done, Makana Municipality! And, THANK YOU!!!

4. Because my job at Kip McGrath turned out to be a stunningly empty promise on behalf of it's manager, we haven't been able to pay for medical from Craig's teacher's salary after paying R5 500/month rent: and Layla's ears have tormented her (and me) with sleepless nights and irritable days, so when the GP here said it was imperative she have grommets, we were crestfallen. How would be solve our daughter's pain with no money? But, our kind doctor got us in at the local government hospital as state patients so that an absolutely phenomenal ENT oversaw the initial investigation and operation, and our GP and the other doctor in his practice did the anaesthetic: and all for nothing. (*Sjoe... Wow...*) And to top it all off, every single hospital staff member was impeccably kind and efficient. The building, inside and outside, sparkled with being clean, and cleaned with great care and pride, with lovely art adorning the walls and smiles on every face! The whole Day Of The Grommets is an entirely other story which I'll save the next rainy day - but here is the picture of a completely pain-free Layla, post King Cone ice-cream!

Back Home - 4 months and counting...

Since I last had a chance to write, I decided to send my little princess to playschool 5 mornings a week as the seeming randomness of only going on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays confused her - so as of this week she'll be at school every day, which also means that I can start writing again! (Not being able to write was, and I'm not exaggerating, like drowning. And drowing very, very slowly.)

Twice-a-week updates are what I'm aiming for, though I'd write every single day if I could! But there is so much happening at the moment, that I'll need to use this time that Layla is at school more wisely than I have ever used time!! For example, our house at the school (where we'll only be paying about a fifth of what we pay now (i.e. R5 500/month) and I think/hope that'll include water and electricity as well!) will be ready for us by the end of the month - so I've got to try and pack up our things here without Layla actually seeing me packing the boxes. Twice since we've arrived back from the UK, I've needed to repack our boxes when I was in Cape Town: first, when the boxes arrived in South Africa via Allfreight's fabulous service, and I needed to unpack them to check what was damaged/what I wanted to take with me back to Grahamstown. And then second, when I was in Cape Town two weeks ago, I spent many hot hours in my parents' attic sorting through the random bits of furniture and repacking my stuff for freight-by-truck to Grahamstown. And both times, Layla's anxiety levels skyrocketed upon witnessing this packing of boxes. Seeing just how perceptive and deeply sensitive my child has made me rethink my entire modus operandi of parenting... But more about this at a later stage.

And then there is the matter of me finding work for next year. Perhaps an art teaching position at St Andrews? And if that doesn't pan out, then I'll focus on setting up a studio for the collective/co-operative I've set up with two of my friends. At the moment, we're each working from home, but if I can find a space for us to work from together for next year, then we'd be able to work that much more quickly and efficiently! Our company's name is Oodade which is the Xhosa word for 'sisters'. Inspired by the work my sister commissioned me to do for her space at Kamersvol Geskenke, as well as by the bond of sisterhood I share with my fellow South African women, Nokwayiyo and Nosiphiwo arrived in my life like sunshine and blessings with their grace, warmth, joy and industrious talent! I'll link back here to the Oodade blog I've set up (*wink*)

Not much Safrophilic news there, but I thought I sommer just had to write AND to explain my long absence from these pages.