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 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

The Quickest History of an ex-Soutie's Repatriation Ever!

After crashing heavily to earth from quite shitty burnout, I've decided to end all my other blogs and writing commitments in an effort to simplify my life. Hence this new space where I can write about anything and everything in the context of South Africanness (where before I had a blog for my South African concerns, a blog for random generalities, two separate blog for Soutpielness, and a weekly column about motherhood. And on top of it all, that whole Malema project, my 'news revolution' AND all the newspaper articles I was writing and the resulting radio interviews. Eish - no wonder I burned out! Seems as though multitasking is something my female DNA lacks...) And so, I am back with a vengeance: to write purely from a selfish desire, tap-tap-tapping words out to the rhythms of my own particular heart.
A quick history of our first 3.5 months back in South Africa?
1. Living, as a devout Capetonian, in the Eastern Cape for the very first time, has been both intriguing and a bit of a drag. Grahamstown is hot, dry and dusty - and when the wind blows, there is nowhere to escape to (unless you are a student and the Rat & Parrot can slake your thirst/drown your sorrows for you. But I, alas, am too old at 32, too skint of pocket and - I'm not quite sure that a rowdy drinking hole is the most wholesome environment for an excitable 19-month old princess!
2. Craig's job as a primary school teacher at a Model C/government school is fairly peachy, while I was horribly let down by the company that 'promised' me a job upon my arrival in Grahamstown. No such luck. I should have gotten a written and signed commitment from this chick - but instead, she um-ed and aah-ed for weeks while I pestered her for opportunities. Eventually, I did one day of negligently-taught training and then one day of work, whereupon I received a Harry-casual sms saying I needn't come in the following week as the student had changed to another day. Ho-hum (*seething frustration/sense of betrayal*). Because we worked our finances when we were planning to come home to SA to within a hair's breadth of survival versus homelessness, I naively misplaced my trust in this girl in my excitement to return home. And so, with Craig's teacher's salary, our rent of R5 500 (excluding water and electricity) etc etc, we have had to tighten our belts a little more than we thought (I have lost 5kg!) Thankfully, we were able to still afford numerous doctor's appointments for Layla's incessant ear problems, ranging between R220 and R300 (Eastern Cape vs Cape Town prices) as well as all the medicine needed. (We'll get medical aid next year once I am also working.) When she had a bad fall once Saturday evening when I thought she'd broken the occipital bone under her eye, we took her to the clean and efficient-enough government hospital where, contrary to stereotyped doubts, we did not encounter any gunshot/rape/stabbing victims! (I'm sure there are government clinics and hospitals which have plenty of these, but Settlers Hospital made me proud!) I was also able to use the government mental health hospital for free and get free medication. The cherry on the top? Layla is having grommets inserted in a week's time by an absolutely phenomenal ENT specialist -- as a government patient. WOW!
3. Layla goes to a gorgeous little playschool three mornings a week - her classmates adore her as the youngest little soul among them! (She'll probably be fluent in Xhosa by the end of the year!) Her and I walk to school the three mornings a week, stopping to chat to new friends, neighbours and all sorts of warm, kind strangers. (Admittedly, there is a darker side to how Layla struggled with the move back to South Africa, but I'll leave that for another day...)

It's time for me to get my jersery on (freak thunderstorm and perpetual rain yesterday, with icy temperatures after the most summery winter I've ever experienced with highs sometimes of 30deg!) and walk to 'Little Blessings' and see my Layla's eyes light up when she sees me!