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

Patriotic Pelargonium Pride Parade!

After watching Carte Blanche's feature on the German pharmaceutical rape of the Eastern Cape's pelargonium crops, the budding (no pun intended) gardenista in me jumped at the idea of expanding my gardening repertoire from my current succulents obsession, while simultaneously raising awareness about this mass pillage. The local Xhosa whose sole source of income comes from the trade of pelargoniums (for their potent medicinal properties) to the local and foreign pharmaceutical giants are being blindly robbed - specifically by one German company (who have, ironically, always been such avid anti-apartheid supporters...)
But, my bugbear with South Africans (and though it seems to be universal human nature - but I'm picking on ourselves because the health and future country of ours is my life's purpose!)  is twofold:  that though this kind of corruption has been brought out into the open via the mass-watched medium of Carte Blanche, how many of us will actually step into the breach and take personal responsibility to do something about? And we don't need to fix the problem as a hugely maginficent South African superhero, but we can, as Mother Teresa says: "We can do no great things,
only small things with great love." Do you even ask yourself, when faced with a specifically South African problem or tragedy, ask: "What small thing can I do to help? How can I be a small part of the solution? What small thing can I do - out of great love - for my country and my people?" How many of us use our lack of time to bow out conveniently as a coward? Or say just one person (i.e. ME. YOU) could never hope to make even the slightest dent in the problem? Well... For starters, God has given us creative brains, compassionate hearts and a conquering will. We can CHOOSE to NOT unthinkingly follow the trends of the herd. We can come up with a solution that fits in with our unique personality, talents and situation within the South African social and working scene. Perhaps we could boycott said German pharmaceutical company by not buying their products and also raise awareness among friends and colleagues to do the same. Are you a letter-writer? Blog it. Write to newpapers and magazines - and suggest solutions readers could act on.
Oh yes. My second bugbear about The Pelargonium Problem: did anyone notice it was not a South African source of corruption? So many of us (here and abroad) hang on for dear life to this sick notion that the rest of the 'first' world is NOT corrupt. This is a 'first' world country - that has always professed support for a liberated South Africa - hypocritically robbing the previously oppressed and STILL poverty-stricken among us. Sies, man! Grab our South African reality by the balls - and DO one SMALL thing: for you, for us, for our children. (It's a blerry mission to get a British passport; infinitely easier to do one small thing out of great love.)
Bugbears aside, my passion for succulents never stops growing (too many accidental puns today...) And though I've only ever been partial to roses, I am cultivating (groan *pun*) a new love and respect for our South African flora. Pelargoniums, here I come! (Hey - maybe one of us could donate pelargonium cuttings and seeds to the blighted pelargonium farming community highlighted by Carte Blanche to replace their pillaged stock and save them from spending their depleted livelihood on seeds? And don't so cowardly accuse me of idealism, capiche?)


PS. Another tiny step made with great love and a leap of faith? Read, research, reach out! Discover more at The Pelargonium Project blog!

Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom - let your email find you!

Random rambling...

Having neither internet at home nor time to sit at my PC with a cup of coffee to write up a storm, I've decided the best time and place to write is on my Blackberry! And so I shall brave the perilous finger/knuckle/wrist agony that comes from tapping away at the miniature keypad to satisfy my word-lust! (For some reason, I can't upload my posts to my Blogger blogs - and Wordpress just won't install... Grrrrrr!! So quite how I'm going to update from here ANYWAY is still an irritating mystery...)
I'm gatvol with my Safrophilia blog: because the name just seems too generic and not specifically 'me' enough... So I will try to transfer the relevant blog posts to my Soutpiel and Navel blogs sometime this week! I also want to begin writing more magazine and newspaper articles focusing on my obsessive passions du jour : expat vs repatriation, South Africanness, and mothering/parenting issues informed by attachment parenting vs 'breaking them in like a horse' parenting a la Gina Ford. As one of my favourite GP-Mommy-Bloggers says: parenting is not about 'managing an inconvenience'! (See, I am already cantering happily along on my high horse and I'm not even writing a topically specific blog post! As arrogant as it may be perceived to be so opinionated, it is actually a critically vital part of being human and being a self-actualised, unique individual - as long as one's opinions are not a form of approval-seeking copycatism. Opinions are both matters of the heart and the mind, so should also be well-researched and thought through.)
Getting progressively more 'naar' typing here in the backseat of an exceedingly bouncy bakkie, so time to adios before our arrival at the dilapidated but still entertainingly educational Port Elizabeth aquarium!

The Bitch at the Braai

Yet another month goes by without internet at home. Was it really FOUR months ago that I last blogged here?? So much has happened that, to merely reiterate the cliche, I wouldn't know where to begin! But that doesn't matter because I'm going to leave that all out and bring you up to date on where we are at right now:
We are still living in Grahamstown (Eastern Cape) and I am finally beginning to feel like I belong in this dusty, gossipy little 'city'! At the beginning of December we moved into the accomodation the school converted for us from what used to be a boys' dormitory - hence the lack of internet and phoneline: it all has to be approved by the governing body, yadda-yadda-yadda. Being right across the road from the school means that I have the use of the car because Craig walks to school. Layla and I also spend an hour or so actually at the school - having tea in the staffroom during breaktime, helping Amy* in the library, sitting in on the music lessons, watching the (world class!!) marimba band practise, playing in the primary school's playground etc.
*Amy: Amy and her husband and 18month old Tom are also recently returned from the UK as of three months ago. So watch this space for more confirmation and information that it is the right thing to do to come home!
Anyway - that's all desperately boring compared to what kept me awake last night: what happened during our braai last night!
Picture this: Wors, chicken kebabs, lamb chops. Salad. Garlic bread. Coke. Red wine. Simple, unextravagant fare, but a feast for the average South African. (And if you know what it's like to furtively braai so your British neighbours aren't offended by the braai smoke - and to have driven all the way to the South African shop for astronomically expensive wors - then you will understand just how much more beautiful and meaningful it is to braai on home soil!) And the point of that parenthesis is that the South Africans who entered into the very heated argument with me last night have NEVER lived away from South Africa --- and they are adamant that there is no future here, they want to move overseas etc. (You know the story.)
Anyway, back to what was actually argued about. I can't really even remember what started it all off - but whatever it was snowballed out of control too quickly for me to keep my heart under lock and key. And so it was that I placed my heart on the table for all to see - and I think they mistook it for a lambchop! They stabbed at it with forks and spat it out again: I am distasteful, apparently, in my own particular South African outlook. I was defending the fact that South Africa is quite normal as a country. The particular point-in-fact was the corruption in our government. And when I reflected back at them the recent corruption by MPs in the UK who funnelled money into their own accounts to buy second and third houses for themselves, I was looked at as though I was an inexperienced little child who had no right stepping into their little bitch-and-moan. Ag, there is so much, much more that I want to tell you about this whole thing, but my free-mommy-time is running out (as usual) but I PROMISE to try and write again in the next few days before I forget the specifics of the debate. If only I could have recorded it on camera: it was a perfect microcosm of our whites' political attitudes du jour.
(a little note re: the post title: I am obviously The Bitch at the braai, but the 'bitch' is also the  aggressive and apathetic bitch-and-moan. Just thought I should point out to you what a literary genius I am *wink*)
Here is a quote from the novel by Andre Brink I'm reading at the moment, "An Instant in the Wind":
Too white for the truth.
What a brave man to have written this story in 1976... I think that if you can arrive at the point of realising, if you are white, that the truth does frighten you/make you aggressively defensive etc, then you have arrived at a place where you can begin to invest in the present state of our country as a South African. That critical moment of change in perspective in just one mind will ignite the change in the other minds around it. But why is the white mind so lazy and terrified to apprehend the truth then? Hmmm...
Here are some recent pics of our continued and increasing joy and peace at being home.

Granny and Layla share the most special of kisses only grannies and grandchildren share - and something so frustratingly, saddeningly impossible on Skype...

My bedside table: an antique hand-embroidered 'lappie' from my best friend in Cape Town, a silk scarf that belonged to my late mother-in-law, my late grandfather's bottle of Old Spice from the 1960s...

Layla playing with our neighbours, Darry and Lukes, washing the tricycle they have given her. They also lived in the UK for awhile, but are another proud and very happy returned South African family! (We just never managed to make friends like this in our little English village... Lovely friends, but still somehow detached...) It was, um... bloody lonely!! (Apologies to Jody and Dylbo who we gratefully met in the last two months of our stay in the UK!)

Layla's first camping trip in the Wilderness! It was incredibly special to see my little girl experiencing all the magic of these idyllic Wilderness holidays that made my girlhood so magical...

To hear the hero-worship in Layla's hysterical glee as Granny pulled her along in the canoe is something, again, that Skype just fails at heartbreakingly!

And what could replace the perfect 'South Africa as home' combination of the Spur and Granny?!

Layla wouldn't let me put her warm top on before a braai - only 'Teve' (her beloved Uncle Steve) was allowed to!

Adios for now. Another post later this week detailing the attitudes expressed during the Bitch at the Braai.

Liefde,
Lisa