The power surge.

The other day I woke up to a loud ‘PA’ sound. Not P.A. by the way, or Pah like your dad. I mean “PAAAAAAA!!!!!!” Like the equivalent of BAM!!! or BANG!!!! but different. It was loud and odd and foreign like some of the people I see at university. Then the smell. The smell of burnt electronics. I am not used to that smell really. I usually stay away from electrical stuff because I end up breaking stuff even more if I tamper with it then if I leave it. Reluctantly I got up, my face  probably looking a bit like the mask from the ‘Scream’ movie, and wondered through the house hoping to find someone to heap all of my frustration on. My dad was home but he wasn’t the culprit. He was staring at the main electical board above the cupboard in our kitchen with a blank look on his face. We worked around the hosue, eventually finding one (and only one) plug point that worked. At least we could keep the fridge and freezer running. It kept me running to, running around trying to find a flippin extension. Then my Dad dissapeared to work and I was left trying to explain to our tenant (whose English isn’t very good) that it is not my fault that the electricity is off and that there was nothing I could do about it. My hand gestures didn’t help much, but soon he went away, and so did the electricity in that last working plug point.  Forget it, I’m going to University.

A couple hours later I was back in my kitchen staring helplessly at our defrosting freezer and not-very-cold fridge. I smsed my mate across the road to hang out. He asked if we could meet at the bakery down the road. It’s like our bar. We sit outside and take turns buying rounds of paddlepop icecreams. Orange, chocolate, Orange, chocolate, depending on our mood.

Me: “Ampt. If I can get there. Might need to help my mom though. Bru this morning something HECTIC happened with our elec. It short circuited or something. (Don’t I sound knowledgable?) Now everything is stuffed”

At this stage my friend Luke was probably already at the bakery sucking the sweet paddle pop nectar and finding my comment extremely funny because… well… his computer and playstation had blown up, leaving his house a little ‘misty’ with the smoke of fried electronics. And lets not forget the smell.

Apparently they stole the cables at the local power station plant, building, thing, whatever… The multiadapter in my room saved both my iPhone and laptop that were plugged in at the time. The surround sound subwoofer in the lounge however, was not so lucky. Now we have new multiplugs with surge protectors in them. I hope Malema puts some surge protectors into his new bunker, he just might need them.

Hey, it’s SA. Just embrace it.

Surfing Umzumbe

The South Coast is beautiful. It’s not a far drive out of the city, but it’s far enough to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Once a year we make the mini-roadtrip to a spot about 80 minutes away from home for our designated week in Umzumbe Chalets. Well, however long we can stay out of our designated week (It usually clashes with something – work, university, prior commitments).

Umzumbe is a tiny beach town very similar to Blythedale, the town I grew up in. The municipality stretches along the coast between Mtwalume and Hibberdene and then inland for about 60 km. Only a very small part of the municipality is built up (The coastal part – no surprises there), the rest is just rocky, hilly open land. Umzumbe has a railwaytrack, a pub, a superette, a bunch of holiday houses, Chalets, a hotel, a backpackers and not much else. It still has that ‘natural’ feel to it – As if it hasn’t yet been wrecked by people (With the exception of a few ugly oversized holiday houses with tennis courts. I’m not jealous). My brother researched the name and found out that it means ‘place of the cannibal’. I checked it out myself. Wikipedia says that the river in Umzumbe (Mzumbe River – Which means ‘bad Kraal/homestead’) is named after a band of Hlongwa cannibals who occupied the valley cannibals who occupied the valley until they were almost wiped out by King Shaka in 1828. You can choose whether or not you want to beleive Wikipedia, I’m more concerned by the fact that they say ‘almost’ wiped out. So… some still live there? Ok, they not gonna live a couple centuries, but maybe they had Cannibal kids or something. I’m hoping they got hungry and ate their kids and ended the human eating thing.

The only real reason my brother and I go to Umzumbe is because it’s a nice surf spot, and it’s always nice to get away from Durban crowded surf and ‘man-made’ beaches into water that is surrounded by rocks, greenary, Dolphins, Whales and happiness. When there are waves, it’s epic. When there aren’t, it’s an epic fail. This year, there were waves, so we surfed. Well, my brother surfed, and I tried. Lets just say there are some things I can do well and others – not so well. But it’s fun, so I try. On this particular Sunday afternoon, I went down with my brother and attempted the paddle. He made it out and was having a great time, I took the scenic route and ended up crawling out of the water onto the sand among some fisherman, hanging my head in shame. I ran back up the beach, along the rocks that lined the side (converging in a sort of ‘point’) and attempted the ominous paddle once again. Once again I chased the fish away for those poor fisherman. Third time lucky? Run. paddle. rip. fisherman. I was done, and don’t give me that ‘never give up’ crod. I got a little sun and a little excercise, and hey, I was down the coast. No-one knows me at Umzumbe, time to get out. Roger came in, asked to use my board and gave me his to take back to the Chalets. I gave it to him, thinking he wouldn’t make it past the rip with my board, but he did. Humiliation. Definately time to call it a day.

I had a flashback to a very strange night in France where a Brazillion guy rocked up at my flat at some stupid hour of the night. The flat I stayed in was underneath a house that rented by a bunch of young adults. One of these guys had had a chat to the wandering stranger and brought him to my flat. ‘Knock, knock, knock’. “You have GOT to be kidding”, I thought. But I rolled out of bed (more like the couch I was sleeping on) and answered the door. That is when I met Thiago. Thiago is a tall, well tanned Brazillion surfer/skater/now yachtie. He needed a place to stay and my flat mates had either secured permanent work, or were away on extended daywork, so I was there alone that particular night. Thiago moved in for a couple days and we had some good chats. He doesn’t drink, is anti-drugs and loves people. Thiago just meditates, skates, surfs, sails and… no thats all I think. He is a great guy to have around, and I have good memories of our train chats and a particular instance where I had shown him a video of cooking surf in Durban. He had become really excited and then pretty melancholy because there are no waves anywhere even near to where we stayed. We would stare at the tiny swell lines as we travelled that all too familiar train ride from Biot to Antibes, Antibes-Biot… back and forth, back and forth and never see anything. The water didn’t swell up, peak, throw, barrel, run. It didn’t even hint at it. The ripples just lapped the shore like my tiny Jack Russel laps the water from her drinking bowl. Once or twice the wind would pick up and there would be a tiny, messy, shore break and we would see two or three desperate surfers trying to catch something, but doing more paddling than anything else. Thiago would suddenly awake from his permanent meditative and reflective state and become alert and excited, wishing he could be surfing too.

I walked up to my brothers car in the parking lot and began getting out of my wetsuit. Thiago would be weeing in his pants from excitement at the surf and swell at Umzumbe that day. That rip would have been his warm-up excercise. He would have eaten that rip for starters in a three course meal. This is just embarrasing, I am ashamed, but there is no-one here that knows me, so it’s fine. I stand on part of my wetsuit with one foot and lazily pull the other up forcing the wetsuit to peel back over it. Then again with my opposite foot. A surfer opposite me looks as if he is about to get in the water. He is talking to his friend and says “It’s looking good, but there is very strong rip…” All I’m thinking is “Damn right there is.” Then he looks at me, this surfer guy, and he says something. He says “You should know all about it, you tried three times!” Now I’m thinking, “Um… excuse me? Have we met?” but my mouth opens and I politely say, “Yes… but my brother is out there.” As if that makes it OK for me not to be. This guys has been watching me! I wonder if he is a decendant of the Hlongwa, but I know he is not because he is white and if a white person had a tribe it would be called ‘the Smiths’ or something unoriginal like that. He’s not going to eat me.

The next day I make the paddle out and get waves. I catch a couple for my Brazillion mate Thiago. I also wee in my pants for him, because he isn’t here to do it himself.

Thats my girlfriend Shelly.

Thats me.

Thats my brother Roger.

My mates Dad.

I love peoples stories. I think they are the things that make life so rich. So I wanted to put in this story that my friend wrote about his dad. Luke’s dad is a man of few words but many stories. The stories that will have you in stitches of laughter, if you are ever priveledged enough to hear them. I have spend many hours in Luke’s house wondering about the tales his father will never speak of. I am sure Luke has as well (more hours than me because he actually lives there). His dad has an atmosphere about him. An atmosphere that you can sense and feel. So I have published Luke’s words for you to read. I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

(Untitled)

Dices bounce, six, four, one, three, five. Coins fly like shrapnel. Many different old pairs of shoes filled with black feet scatter. The air fills with shouts of “Amaphoyisa!”, “Baleka!” and “Khipa imali”. Round the corner police spill out of ‘black marias’; an army of sham bocks.

He says he’s never understood sirens, “it’s like a head start for the criminals”. He’s not a criminal, but his friends are. His friends are criminals for just breathing. They’re just like those dice; black islands stranded in a sea of white. In fact he’s unwillingly part of that sea of white, he’s different though, and he’s not trying to flood those black islands with tsunamis of judgment, hatred and anger.

He’s different. He’s my father, and at this very moment he’s not much older than the flashing numbers on the rolling dice. He was a ‘laatlammetjie’, his brother ten years ahead of him with a sister four years older than his brother.

He recalls that game of dice fondly. Ya they were gambling, but he knows that wasn’t their crime they were being chased for. Their crime was their skin. “Imagine that” he says, “being born a criminal”.

 He grew up with them, the local ‘garden boys’. They weren’t just ‘garden boys’ to him, they were friends. He wasn’t brain washed by community. He never thought with his mind, he never has, not even then. He’s always thought with his heart. He was shaped by experience and friendship, greater truths than that society taught. Now, an older man, he recalls those roots of his anti-apartheid stance.

He was born Douglas Banfield Macdonald. “M-a-c-small d-o-n-a-l-d”. You confuse those letters and you’ve got a whole other Macdonald, a different person, a different clan. Not to mention it’s insulting if you’re Scottish. “They always get it wrong” he says. He was born in Melrose, Johannesburg, to an average family, with an ‘average’ upbringing.

It’s almost strange to think such an eccentric person could be birthed out of such a family at such a time. My father is one of those people who seem to have lived a full life and he’s only two thirds through, who knows maybe only half way.

According to my grandfather he was royalty, maybe that’s why he did things kings dreamt of doing. I never met my grandfather; he never made it to my fathers’ wedding. He made my uncle promise on his death bed that he would continue his research into our family line and our supposed royalty. ‘The Macdonald Clan’, we’ve all been to the castle but that’s about the most research my uncles done. He lies a lot my uncle, but to a man on his death bed; that’s harsh. My father’s not like that, his father should have made him promise. So perhaps my father missed out on living the life of a noble, but he’s still had one hell of an adventure

My father left school having scraped through math with a grand 34%. Knowing where his talents lay he started working in a bank. His exams marks could have told you that wasn’t where his heart lay. Working out a simple two hour time zone change on his fingers whilst strangely counting backwards could have told you that’s also not where his brain lay. Needless to say he never lasted long there.

Moved by the injustices of his era he began to study journalism and photography. I don’t think he wanted to be some major political voice, I don’t know though, I haven’t asked him. It’s not his style, I’m pretty sure he just wanted to be a voice for himself and his own conscience.  In fact he’s always enjoyed the subtle things in life. His protests included sitting on ‘black’s only benches’, and learning Zulu, but most of all in his heart and mind. He made friends with the dark side; no pun intended. It didn’t fill him with poison as he was told , it just filled him. Filled him with exactly what, I’m not sure, but it changed him, perhaps it was just the essence of life.

All in all it seemed my father lived his life in a protest against life. Not the joy and girt of life but the way of life, people ideals of life, peoples brainwashed ideals of life. In some ways the streams of rebellion led to a river against authority. It drove him, not religiously or in any way that it violently consumed his life, but rather in a way that drove his life along different paths.

After studying he left for Italy with some friends who were going there to play rugby and travel Europe. These initial journeys gripped his soul. He wouldn’t have known it at the time but it would form the basis his life. In Italy his claim to fame was going on a date with some famous actress. He says she was the Charlize Theron of his day. His friends actually spotted her; they managed to get her to go to dinner with him after spinning some story. They were good at that. Not admitting they were probably amongst the poorest people in the whole of Italy, they managed to raise enough money to pay for a suit and a dinner. “We got a job pretending we were from New Zealand” my father said. South Africans couldn’t work because of international sanctions. She paid anyway, she didn’t realize it but she would have actually given all of them a meal. My father would have returned as an even more triumphant hero considering he returned with full pockets. Money was tight and food much appreciated.  He always says “Eat whenever you can”, its pearls of wisdom ,for a young man.

On his return to South Africa my father continued with his studies, this time taking up English. He failed. Perhaps too confident in his journalistic background and literary abilities he decided to write a poem for an essay question. It’s strange that that made sense to him at the time, “I can’t believe I never passed, it was an extremely creative poem” he declares. “Yes, but it wasn’t an essay” the lecturer was kind enough to explain. It was here that he met my mother for the first time. She still recalls the first time she saw him: “Everyone knew Doug, he was barefoot wearing a tie dye vest and bell bottom jeans. He had long  sun bleached hair and wore a coral necklace”. Everyone wore shoes and no one wore bell bottoms or vests. Except The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and other musicians such as Small Faces. He loved music and they, his idols, inspired him. My mom never knew she’d marry him 15 years later. My father would be about 38 then.

Come to think about it my father was pretty much a hippie. He was always secretive about his past. In fact I haven’t accumulated most of this information first hand. It’s come from my mother or his friends, or stories he’s let slip and then suddenly stated “Actually no, that wasn’t me, I think it was Taddy”. I’ve also got information from photo albums I’ve questioned and he’s had to explain why there are completely naked people at music festivals. I’ll usually get something along the lines of “I’m not too sure if those are mine” or “Ay ya, some people were weird in those days”. Funny he’s a photographer and they’re in his possession but don’t belong to him, and, the way he wouldn’t include himself in ‘those’ people back then. I’m not that naïve.

My mother also remembers him being very anti establishment. I think that what drew him to the surfing world. He was one of the original Bay locals. His photographic and journalistic background got him involved with Paul Naude and Mike Larmont, and whilst still freelancing, they started the surfing magazine Zigzag. He also worked for the Scope Magazine for a stage. “I put the stars on the nipples” he says. He’s still got an old surfboard shaped by Paul. It simply states in small handwritten letters “Banks”, it was his nickname. I’ve always wondered if it was a dig at his Math abilities. My mom says she thinks it’s because his middle name is Banfiled. Maybe someday I’ll ask him. He still rides that board now. He’s old, but he’s old school, that’s what gives him ‘swagga’.

All these are just stories; they do nothing to tell you about the man. You cannot grasp his character or the feel my father gives you. I don’t think a biography can contain him. There’s something about his presence, his laugh that explains who he is. Pen and paper’s limiting.

The funny thing is if you met him now you’d be in  the mountains of India. Maybe you’d think his some old ‘fogey’ in the only place old people won’t be looked down on for smoking ‘hashish’. Truth is he isn’t. Perhaps he’d be sitting somewhere; writing. Pencil and paper ,never pen. Maybe he’d be with people, he’s most alive then. Or maybe he’d be walking. Always with a stick. Always handmade. He’s a lot like his sticks my father. In fact there are a lot of parallels you could draw between the two. He himself is unique, hand crafted by the hands of life. He still has his first stick, he made when he was ten. He’s a perfectionist, always searching for a straight stick. He’s like that absolute and true. He always said “Life’s a marathon not a sprint, a journey not a race”. Those sticks embody something of his journey. He’s got them all in a tall thin steel barrel in the corner of his house. Many from different places with different people and different cultures. The strangest thing is he never actually uses it for walking. He sort of holds it horizontally, swinging it as he walks, maybe touching the ground every ten steps or so. I’ve always noticed that. I wondered where it came from, I never asked, I never do. A taxi driver answered me one day. He said “Aaaah baba, you are carrying that stick like a Zulu”, my father turned “This is not for walking” he said, “It’s for protection”. “Yes that’s true” the taxi driver answered, seemingly chuffed; “You must protect your woman” he added after seeing my mother. The conversation ended there, no real conclusion, more of a mutual understanding. Perhaps it’s an understanding of life. A lot of his conversations don’t end, he’s like that.

You may not know this but the strength of the wood depends on the angle at which you cut it. An object carved along the grain, rather than across the grain, is stronger. In my father’s life he seems to have known where to cut and what to cut. He’s crafted something. Something beautiful.  Its’ taken a life time.

Written by Luke MacDonald

Nipples.

Nipples. How innapropriate. Almost gross, but not because we are used to them. Why are you reading this post? Doesn’t matter, keep reading. Strange thing nipples. I don’t want to sound crude, but I don’t now why guys have nipples. I get why girls have them, but guys, really? Why? Things like belly buttons, they make sense.  Belly buttons are good for a nice steak and chips when you don’t have a big enough mouth to fit them in. Everyone needs a good ol’ belly button, at least when they are developing in the womb. But not everyone needs nipples (Do they?). My friend told me about a guy who had his belly button removed in some operation. He had to pay money for them to make him a new one, but he decided to keep the money so now he has no belly button. He has a mouth though. Maybe he went out that night and used the money for steak and chips.

Memories of France again. I feel like one of those rugby guys I know from back in high school, seemingly incapable of talking about anything more than the games they won and the girls that they serenading with warcries. When they were ‘something’. They get old but they never realise that their stories do too. So I’m one of those guys about France. But I haven’t told all my stories yet, so they are not old. Anyways, I think this story is worth telling, while we are on the topic.

One night a couple of my friends (girls) went out to party. They came back in the early hours of the morning with a photo of a guy that they met at a club. He had five nipples. Well… has (I don’t think he has removed them or is even planning n it) I didn’t beleive it until they showed me the photo. Two in the normal place, and then three scattered below like a constellation of star on his stomach. He had even added some bling to his little galaxy by piercing one of them. Amazing. Anyway, after telling the story a couple times, I learnt that extra nipples are common. There’s plenty to go around apparently. My friends would respond “Oh yes, so-and-so also has an extra nipple!” or “So-and-so has four nipples!” I imagine Moses commanding a plague of nipples to attach Pharoahs people so that nipples appear on peoples toes and legs and hands and faces and everywhere else. The things that go on in my mind.

So one of my friends tell me this story one day about his friend that bombed a hill on a skateboard or other wheeled device and came short, grazing off his nipple in the process. In it’s place a nasty scab appeared. When the scab healed, there was no nipple. But then after some time, a new nipple sprouted in the place of the old one. I’m not even grossed out, I’m just impressed. I don’t think it’s possible, but it’s a funny story. I googled it to be sure. Apparently it’s not possible. Then I though: ‘I wonder if people are born with only one nipple… let me google it!’  I typed ‘one nipple’ into the search engine. Bad idea. Be careful how you phrase anything with the word ‘nipple’ in it when using a search engine. That was dum, try again. ‘Is it possible to be born with only one nipple?’ I ended up at one of these question-answer forums. People with user names like ‘sunnysideup’ and ‘Junpin Jack’ respond to these sorts of questions, so you can seldom tell whether the person is male or female. I got some answers:

“Yea def. I have only one.”

“My aunt has three.”

“I have a friend with only one nipple.”

“I was born with two, but my right one got cut off…” [Ouch!]

Some of them speak condescendingly. They say things like, “No DUH… they are like fingers or feet” [Forgive me for not seeing the relation].

I love the inernet, what better place to share our nipple stories. I have two in case you were wondering. Anyways, this is a travel blog. Last week I went so Scottburgh on the South Coast for two nights with 13 friends. Camped in the caravan park. Fantastic time. Beautiful sea view, good friends, clean ablutions and not super expensive.  The winter sun here is the perfect temperature and the surf was good. Not far from Durban and makes for a great holiday. Highly recommend it. It’s good to enjoy the beauties of my own country again. Home is a place that I will always want to come back to.

Chocolate milk and couch-surfing.

I only have a few travel stories left to play around with from my trip to France, but I thought I would take the opportunity to share my couch-surfing experience. Many of my friends raised their eyebrows when they heard that I had couch-surfed in Paris. Some of them had never heard of it before and asked me to explain. For the benefit of those who do not know what couch-surfing is, let me explain. But first, let me introduce you to C-S community. 

www.couchsurfing.org is an online community of people from all over the world that share a common interest for travel and shared experiences.They offer up their couches for people to ‘surf’ (sleep) on for a night or a few nights. They often spend lots of time with you and show you around their town or city. Think of it as a cultural exchange experience. They share their home and culture with you and show you around their town/cit, and you share a little bit of your own background and travel experience with them. Some people like to host mainly, some like to surf mainly, and others like to do both. My Paris experience was my first surf session.

Chris was a yachtie like me in the South of France. He had been travelling around a bit and had seen quite a lot. He had made his money at home in SA from ‘selling’ his garden off as parking bays for people watching rugby in a nearby stadium. He had done this since he was young and had saved up money for travelling over the years. It was this money that was now allowing him to see the world. Brilliant if you ask me. His travel Philosophy was simple: Do everything, see everything, feel alive and come home broke if necessary. He had no bonds to his money, it was simply a means to an end. Rightly so if you ask me, because while I can’t claim to be a seasoned traveller, I have learnt one great lesson – there are some experiences in life you cannot put a price on. So while the rugby games passed Chris by in a steady monotonous flow of months and years, the dreams in his heart stood still and secure like the cars parked in his yard and he knew that it was only a matter of time until that key would turn in the ignition and bring to life the potential that lay there dormant. So when Chris had saved enough, he took the money he had earned, stepped out of the front door, and followed his dreams out of the yard.

“You what? You cou… couch-surfed?” Chris nodded. He had seen a fair amount of Europe while sleeping on the couches of strangers he had met over the internet. “The internet? You mean… you just ask these people that you don’t know and they let you sleep on their… couch? For free?” That night I had snuck into the Biot caravan park opposite my flat in the hope of finding someone with a laptop that I could use to skype my parents. (By ‘snuck in’ what I mean is casually stroll in as if I actually stayed there). Fortunately I wasn’t thrown out like some of the other more obvious fakers. My slight, newly developed addiction to the chocolate milk that I acquired at the caravan park shop had kept me well rehearsed in this act of deceit and my regular presence was enough to convince the people at the front gate that I really did stay there. Chris had been kind enough to let me use his laptop to skype my parents, but after I had chatted to them, my discussion with Chris turned to my potential visit to Paris. Unfortunately, the yachts in my case hadn’t done quite enough for me financially, and living a week in Paris seemed like a far stretch as far as my wallet was concerned. I wish I had a marina in my yard that I could charge yachts to stay in. But there was an easy solution to saving some money: Couch surfing. Yes, I confess, I may have abused the ‘system’ slightly, I didn’t know any better. Because (You’ll learn it quick enough) chouch surfing is not about saving money, couch surfing is about really experiencing a place as a local because you are staying with one. But lets be realistic, I’m still a ‘student’ in many respects and we don’t generally have much cash.

Chris talked me through the process of setting up a profile on the site, which is much like a facebook profile. When you want to visit a particular place, you search for the couches in the area and then send out a number of ‘couch requests’ to individuals. First you read their profiles, check their couch specifications, and if both suit you well, you send them a ‘couch request’, requesting to spend one or more nights on their couch. Tell them why you want to stay with them and what you have in common. trust me, they are not just profiles – they are people. Treat them like people, and they will treat you like a person, but ignore their profiles and the only surfing you’ll be doing is on your internet.

I sent out about 40 + couch requests and then checked everyday. Reject, reject, reject, reject… reject reject reject…. Maybe (Hmmm…) …reject reject reject reject reject…

It works on a reference system. You surf, you write a reference for your host, he writes something for you (hopefully). I had nothing. No references. No experience. No anything. AND…. reject, reject, reject, reject… Accept. Two days before I was due to leave with no plan B for accomodation, a man named Fuad replies. We connect telephonically. Night. morning. Night. Morning. train. chaos. Paris.

I spend five nights on Fuads couch in his tiny studio. He sleeps on the floor. He has no bed, his bed is the couch and I’m on it. But he isn’t bothered. He shows me the ins and outs of Paris and we share stories. Fuad was born in Marocco but has studied and lived in Paris for the past 6 or 7 years. He is a Parisian in every sense of the word, but he has not forgotten his roots. We eat baguette’s with butter and dip them in olive oil. We drink Ethiopian coffee with fresh, creamy milk, and we chat over our coffee and food that sits on a little coffee table between us. I continue with my unhealthy croissant and chocolate milk habbit in my spare time. Everything is small. His shower is so small I can barely turn around in it. The kitchen is so small that you can barely do anything in it except make coffee. But Fuad has a big heart. He is patient with my tendency to continually get lost. He is patient when I get lost, after already being lost.

Towards the end of my stay, Fuad takes me to his friends restaurant. We have [French] Fries (I still call them chips) and rolls stuffed with crispy lamb shavings. We drink Schweppes. We walk home full and satisfied. I am a local. Full of local food and spirit. At least I think I am – the Frenchies still think I’m stupid and English. Can’t blame them for not liking tourists, I seldom like tourists. I find them irritating and slow, and Paris is full of them. Those irritating tourists, but I’m not one of them, I’m a local because I stay in a studio in Paris with my Parisian friend Fuad.

My last two nights in Paris are spent in Saint Christopher’s Hostel. Cool place. Arty and clean and full of youth with holes in their ears, noses, tongues and other places. Dreadlocks, and skinny jeans, Mo-hawks and technologies like iPhones, laptops and big, professional looking camera’s. The urinal is like a giant mouth with red lipstick lips as the rims. I’m not a local anymore. I’m a tourist at a youth hostel. I take photos and pee into mouth-shaped urinals. At night I close the curtain to my bed in a room with nine other beds and I miss Fuads couch and his friendship. Before I know it I am back in SA in my bedroom and I am a local again. Right now I’m planning how to get cars into my garden during the next rugby game, but we are miles from a stadium and cars have no access to my garden. Guess I need another plan.

Seriously?

You know you are back in South Africa when you are here two nights and they try steal your mates car. As usually, the security guard knows nothing. My foreign friends, the guys I met in France, cannot understand how we live like that. They say things like “How do you live like that?” Truth is we are just used to it I guess. We joke about things to make them easier to bear I guess, but we are still aware that there are things around us happening all the time. We are all a little desensitized, at least slightly. There might even come that occasion when you walk outside one night and pause for a moment thinking, “Oh, look, they tried to steal my car. I wonder how much repairs will cost.” It’s unlikely you will think much more than that really, because you see, when they try steal a car here in Durban and don’t quite succeed, you are just greatful to still have a car. You almost feel like you have won the lotto or something. You think: “Hey look! I won a car!” The sad truth is, if you make it home with your life, car, wallet and cellphone, you’ve had a really good day.

 A friend of mine told me a story about someone he knew whose house got robbed. The robbers smashed the glass in the sliding door, got into the house and stole some stuff and then ran off. In the morning, the owners of the house got a glass company to replace the glass. While they were busy, the companies car got stolen from the same address. Can you handle? It’s funny really. The car was probably stolen by the same people that broke into the house.

The road that I live in Durban is a hotspot for car theft. The funny thing (which isn’t really funny) is that they keep coming back to the same place. I imagine they just apply this simple formula: ‘if it worked the first time, it’ll probably work again’. But while the roads in my area a little on the shady side, they are certainly not the worst. There are shadier places with more muggers, druglords and tree’s than the roads in my area. One day I cycled up to University for a couple hours of lectures (as was my routine). After being there a while, a notice popped up on one of the PC’s in the university LAN. It warned students to stear clear of the particular shady road I had cycled up because there had been a shootout there. I was perplexed. Ok, so my ADD might cause me a little trouble focussing at times, but I’m not the type to cycle through gunfire and not notice. It turned out that I had narrowly missed the shootout on my way up, but shortly after arriving at University, some men had jumped out of the bush and attempted to rob a house. Someone phoned the police. They came. The police fired shots. The robbers fired back. Then they ran away and the police continued to investigate the scene of the crime. By this time I had forgotten about the notice I had seen in the university LAN and was casually cycling down that shady hill back to my home. I passed a bunch of red tape, a racist guy I knew from a nearby suburb (They are always around when something goes down. Any chance to ‘get back’ at an involved black man who somehow magically prevents them from sleeping at night) and the handful of Police at work trying to figure out what exactly happened. I carried on past them, greatful to still be alive.

I still love this country. I still think it’s beautiful. When I was in France a South African guy I knew got pickpocketed somewhere. I think it may have been Italy. I found it slightly comical and thought, “how on earth!? You come from SA, there is no excuse.” But I suppose foreigners have that vibe about them – that ‘I’m not from here’ vibe. The SA ones have that look about them. The one that screams out, ‘HELLO!’ Which is great. But if you are in France, and you can’t speak French, the very least you can do is try have that look that screams out, ‘BONJOUR!’ because, see, those Frenchies don’t often enjoy that ‘hello’. You don’t want anything about you screaming ‘HELLO!’ Anyways, this guy was walking around and someone saw him and heard that ‘HELLO’ and they grabbed his wallet and dissapeared and that was that.

On my last night in Paris, I took the metro to the Sacré-Cœur with some friends. It’s a really old Roman Catholic Church on top of a hill. At night, the lights of the buildings in the valley make for a pretty site, even though you are never really sure what you are looking at. So we thought that a drink on the bank would be a good idea. After assending a a mountain of stairs we realised that we weren’t the only ones that thought this – the bank was crowded with tourists doing the same thing. We found a nice little open spot on the bank below the church and settled down, but it was only a  short while before we were joined by some unwanted company. Perhaps that little voice was screaming ‘HELLO’ again. Two drunk guys crouched next to us and struck up a conversation. I didn’t hear what they said because their proximity had set off a chorus of alarm bells in my head. Defensively I stood up, grabbed my stuff, backed off and faced them so that I knew were I ended and they began. My friends threw a few F-bombs and soon the intruders left, but not before they had stolen my beer – the one item I had not picked up. My beer? Seriously? Ok, it’d take a bit more to ruin my last night in Paris, but how low do you get? As they walked away the one with my beer now in his hand muttered something about it being his land or something to that affect. Oh dear. He should have just said so and given me the opportunity to respond appropriately.

My look:      ‘HELLO!’

Intruder:     “Hi, this is my land.”  

Me:                 “Oh, I do apologise, I didn’t realise. Please take this beer as a friendship offering.”

It’s true what they say, that crime is everywhere. Here in SA they shoot people, in Paris they just steel your beer and make you beleive it belonged to them in the first place. I’m not sure which is worse. To be fair, I don’t think the two guys that bothered us were actually French.  In fact, besides the stereotype, I found the French in the most part to be very friendly people. But I’m home now  in SA. I have my life, ca… my life, wallet and my cellphone. So I’m having a really good day. And when I walk past people in the street and they see me with that look that screams ‘HELLO’, they smile whether they have teeth or not and I smile back because I still love my beautiful, shady country. I’m still proud to be a South African.

My heart went ahead of me.

There is no substitute for a home. There is a substitute for a house and a car and all the other wonderful and stupid things money can buy, but there is no substitute for a home and no substitute for the friends and family that truly know who you are. When I arrived in Durban airport I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw the two casual looking cops sitting in the entrance with their hats propped up above their heads, neither of them in great shape [the cops I mean, not their hats]. I wondered if they had worked out that it is possible to adjust caps so that they fit properly on your head instead of resting on top of your head. I put it down to local fashion, perhaps I was the unenlightened one. My mind flashed back to a time a couple weeks prior where someone asked me if I wanted to be a cop in South Africa. A cop? I almost asked them if they wanted to be a banana. I figured they also needed to be asked a dum question. But, the truth is I am probably more naive about their country and culture than they are about mine, so I held my tongue and simple said, ‘no’. I grabbed my luggage from the conveyer belt and waited for the sniffer dogs to check that I had left all my drugs behind in France. My parents took a while to arrive, but when they did they arrived with two of my best mates, Chloe and Luke. It is strange how familiar you become with some people. When I saw them it felt as if I hadn’t left at all. It was nice to not have to ask their names or where they came from. It was nice to already know these things. It was nice to not need to ask how they were doing because I could see it in their faces and I hoped they could see it in mine.  It was even nicer to have the opportunity to ask how they were anyway.

My friend Dani gave me a card before I left. It has a picture of myself, her and our friend Tam on it and has these colourful buttons stuck around the picture. On the back it says that I must remember that I have friends at home that will miss me and are praying for me. I carried that card for three months in my flipfile as a reminder that I had friends at home that cared about my life. I carried it around until the buttons started falling off it because it reminded me of home. It’s amazing. We are SO civilised. SO progressive. We have honours, masters and doctorate degrees. We have philosophy and Psychology and we have it all figured out, right? And yet when you strip away the intellect we all just long for the same thing – community. I have some friends that are introverts, but even introverts need friends and family. We join country clubs and become locals at bars, we join internet chat forums and spend hours on facebook but we have the universe ‘figured out’, right? …Right? Then, when all the travelling and fussing is done, we spend two minutes in the presence of the ones we truly love and the ones that truly love us and the entire universe dissolves into the background, our entire lives seem to make perfect sense and the questions of our futures seem immediately resolved even though they are not. Meaning. Purpose. Clarity. Direction.

I am so incredibly blessed to have the family and friends that I do. I often wondered why Christianity is so set on the church. Why God chooses the church to fulfill his purposes, why his entire design is the church. Why he calls the church his ‘bride’, the bride of Christ. God is committed and sold out to perfecting us in the context of local community and chooses it as the place where our love is perfected. C.S. Lewis in his book The Scew Tape Letters speaks about our preoccupation with asking the wrong sorts of questions. Our preoccupations with fashions and trends in writing and history and all these things that direct our attention away from the real questions that we should be asking. Questions like ‘Is it Rightious?’ Like I said, we have it all figured out – We have ALL the answers. All the answers to the wrong questions. I have many complex questions, but for the first time in a while I paused to ask a simple one, perhaps a better, more real one. I asked myself where I belong and the answer at that moment was as clear as day: ‘right here’. Because ‘right here’ is where I learn to ask the right questions about life and rightiousness. ‘Right here’ is where I see things clearly, right here in community.  My travelling is not over and things didn’t work out this time, but I learned that my relationships are one of the greatest gifts that I have been given and I learned that I have far too much material ‘stuff’ tying me down. I learned these things when I picked up my luggage from that conveyor belt, and found that one parcel was not there. One parcel went ahead of me.

A man and his horse.

“You’ll get a job! Don’t worry.” Dani said. “Everyone gets a job eventually”. And besides all my skeptisism, she was right. Well, close enough. Most people (and I really mean most people) do get a job whether it’s after a week or a couple months. The rest get bitten by the Green Mamba (South African Passport) and have to return home after their stingy three month Schengans run out. In my case a job eventually did come around, two weeks before the Mamba struck. In fact, I had two offers in the same week. The first I could not take because of visa issues, the second because of another small, technical issue. It doesn’t matter now, I took a risk and I knew from the beginning that with any risk you have to be willing to accept the consequences of not quite making it. It’s an odd thing when you you give your heart and mind to a dream and a hope. It is as if part of you is birthed in that dream and lives in it. When your hopes are dashed, it is as if a part of you dies with that dream, and no matter what you do it is going to hurt, maybe not forever, but for a while. I gave it my best shot, I did everthing in my power but regardless, there were factors at work that are beyond my control.

My friend once said to me that “Faint heart never won fair maiden”. I still really like that saying because while girls are possibly one of the furthest things from my mind right now, it still proves a very good point. The quality girl is worth getting rejected for, the gold is worth the risk of acheiving only the silver and the dream job or situation is worth the risk of things not working out. Why? Because if we never take these risks in life, our lives are nothing more than a sigle shade of grey on a canvas, void of life and colour and contrast and everything that make a painting worth looking at or even just noticing in the first place and we have no room to live because inside we are already dead. I want to truly live my life and take the chances that are worth taking even if that means failing at the things that are worth failing for. But I want to get to the point of being humble enough to realise that there is a bigger picture and quite frankly, that with all my delusions of grandeur, I am not quite as big as I think. I don’t know as much as I think I do and I cannot make my own ‘luck’ in the way some people seem to beleive they can. Because no matter how much I do to ’cause’ things to happen, there are some things that I cannot control because I myself am not God. And thats a good thing, because I would not do a very good job of being God.

I listened to a talk by Ravi Zacharias on the four tudes (or positions) of prayer. He spoke about solitude, gratitude, finitude and… another one I don’t remember. Anyways, he tells this story that really changed my perspective on a lot of things. It goes (something) like this:

One day a Man’s only hores escaped from his yard and ran away. His neighbour came over and said “bad luck, your only horse ran away”, and the man replied “Good luck, bad luck, what do I know.” The next day the horse came back with a bunch of other wild horses. The neighbour came over and said “Good luck hey, you now have a lot of horses”, but the man replied, “good luck, bad luck, what do I know.” The next day the man’s son had his leg broken after being kicked by one of the wild horses he was trying to tame. The man’s  neighbour came over and said, “Bad luck hey, your son has a broken leg from that wild horse you ended up with!” The man replied, “good luck, bad luck, what do I know.” The next day, the military came aroud looking for able bodied young adults to fight in a violent war that had broken out. They could not take the man’s son because of his broken leg. The neighbour came over again and said,”good luck hey? Your son doesn’t have to go to a war that he could die in!” but the man simply replied, “Good luck, bad luck, what do I know”

Some mornings I wake up and the first thing that comes to mind is that dream yacht with that amazing crew that I so narrowly missed. I am now just a tourist in a foreign land. Yesterday I walked into the cellphone shop with my tatty leather dockside shoes that are falling apart because I have worn them everyday for almost three months and I saw a young man with new shiny leather ones and a white, neatly pressed polo shirt buying his first French sim card. I saw myself in him, the me that was here almost three months ago, in the same shop going through the same ritual. “Hey mate, hows the job hunt going?” I said to him. The words echoing in my head as they rolled easily off my tongue. I had both heard them and said them too many times to remember, but this time was perhaps more sincere. He had just arrived and was figuring it all out, like we all had to. I reeled off a million sentances of advice to him, knowledge I had collected and practiced during my time here and for the first time, I really realised just how much I had learned and experienced during my time here. And so the last couple weeks here are bitter-sweet, but what I take home with me in my memory is worth more than gold. Perhaps I have grown in myself in ways I do not yet understand. Perhaps what happened was a real misortune. Either way, I will take a lesson from Job and realise that I wasn’t the one who laid the foundations of the earth, I wasn’t there when the world was created -I am not God. (See Job 38) So I am heading home – good luck, bad luck, what do I know?

Happy happy mothers day to my very special mother Janet. Your constant love, support, sacrifice and prayer have always been a sourse of great strengh for me.

The ocean.

WordPress is great. I couldn’t work out why I had a total of 39 comments, but 38 were approved and there was a mystery one that dissapeared somewhere. I found it in the ‘spam’ section. I feel priveledged that someone would take the time to read my blog and then still leave me a comment.  Anyways, Mr. Spam, I’m afraid if you would like your comment to be read, you will have to try Youtube, because WordPress deleted your comment. Mr. Spam reckons that it’s vain to talk about yourself too much. I agree. I think that’s all he had to say, but I’m not sure because his comment  dissapeared pretty fast. Anayways Mr. Spam, thank-you for your contribution. Now that I am enlightened I have decided to change my blog focus completely – instead of talking about myself, I will now talk exclusively about lawnmowers.  

It’s funny the direction life takes you. So many times I think that I am on a particular course, I think that I know where I am heading and the next minute I am really confused and not sure anymore. It’s a strange dissonanace I battle to resolve, as if I’m meant to, as if I am in control. Perhaps I am not meant to resolve the dissonance. Perhaps I am meant to embrace it and learn to love it. I think I am. I have heard too many times now the saying ‘everything happens for a reason’, and although this might burst your bubble, I still don’t beleive it. My one roommate asked me why and I said that I don’t beleive it because I could never tell it to a girl who had just been raped or a mother who had lost her child. I told him that you should be able to apply a rule like that to every situation and have it work ever time (or at least almost every time) for it to be feasable in a particular circumstance and that the Bible doesn’t say that, it just says God works stuff for the good of those who love him. This, I do beleive.

On friday night I went to Hopstore with my roommate Daniel and we walked back at a ridiculous hour because we didn’t think we’d be able to catch the train. (This, we later learned, was not the case, but the rate we were walking, the train couldn’t catch us) It is 4km along the coast to Biot. About a third of the way there he said to me, “imagine how many tonnes of water are in that ocean!” I like that thought. I like the thought that the ocean is so massive and that there is so much cool stuff in it. And also not so cool stuff, like blue bottles and jelly fish that sting me when I go surfing. But more than all that, I like the ocean because it reminds me of the bigness of God. It reminds me how very small I am and how little I am in control of things.

I remembered a song I wrote before I left South Africa. I wrote it just after I finished matric. I was at my Granparents house in Cape Town and was staring at a picture on the wall of a beautiful sailing ship with sails full and bright and strong and it inspired me. I had never sailed before, but somehow it inspired me anyway. I was 17 at the time. Who would have known that five years later I’d be working on boats like the one in that picture. I had hardly even been interested in yachts then, but it was sailing on that big ocean, the ocean that I love so much, and I couldn’t help but write something down on a piece of paper. It’s been edited and changed a bit since, but here it is:

Fallable.

Clouds that roam the sky full your lungs with air, and purse your lips as you blow us there. Sails of brightest white contrasting see and sky, billow out like pregnant wombs that are bursting with new life. See that drowns the sun an endless seal of blue, concealing the depths of tears God cried for me and you and my skin a shade of brown as the sun melts down, stealing my warmth as it falls below the ground. We need direction, we need a course, we are fallable but the sea we sail is Grace. Restricted by the shore, but floating on a vast display of space.

A town on a Hill.

In between day working and looking for a job, there is a little time to do other things. I have to click out of work mode often and remind myself that I am in a foreign place with so many beautiful things to see and a history that is richer than my mom’s cheesecake. So much happens in one week here that it is incredibly difficult to set it out in chronological order. It’s all just a big blur of happiness in my mind. I have been trying to keep a running diary on my iPhone but even that is a challenge, so please excuse me if I jump around a bit, but for your sake, I will try my best not to.

As of today I have exactly four weeks until I have to return to my home in Deben. On one hand, I am glad to be coming home to close friends and family and my surfboard and guitar, but on the other, I have come to love France, the local culture and the new friends that I have made here. So it’ll no doubt be bitter-sweet. In the mean time, I will make the most of every opportunity to see and do everything I can.

This past week I have worked on two boats – Marflow and Fathom, both have a great crew and were a pleasure to work for. Dan, my new friend from Marflow and I decided to do a ‘mystery tour’ this weekend. The plan was to take a random bus to a random place and explore, just for fun. So we rallied up our two friends from Kenya, Sarah and Ashley and began our ‘mystery’ journey yesterday morning. However, in the end we decided to follow a friends recommendation and go to Saint-Paul-De-Vence. I tried to get there last weekend but ended up in Nice. Thats what happens when you don’t pay attention. Anyway, after two bus trips and a stupid amount of sour worms and doughnuts we arrived at the walls of town on a bit of a sugar high and were greeted by a cannon. Yes, a cannon. Thats the kind of welcome you get when you visit these places.

The town is one of the oldest medeival towns in the French Riviera and truly is a town on a hill. It is surrounded by a magnificant wall and overlooks deep green countryside and mist bearded mountains. We ate lunch and drank red wine at a quant little French restaurant on the edge of the town and explored the streets, gallery’s, wine cellers and shops. Unfortunately we did not make it to the museam which is a pity because I really love history. But the trip was still really worth while. The rain was unfortunate but didn’t ruin the experience, only the view which my cellphone camera was not quite able to capture anyway. I think a camera is the next thing I will buy. Never the less, here are some of the sights:

They used to have a sign that read ‘Welcome to Saint-Paul-De-Vence’, but they decided that the cannon was more tourist friendly.

I can’t help but imagine how dirty these streets would have been back when the city was new (it was built about 1500 years ago we were told), and as far I understand, the streets weren’t the cleanest places. Don’t drop your buttered toast outside.

The view from the wall. It is a steep dropoff on the other side. If you accidently jumped really high in the air and then accidently tripped on the wall and accidently fell over, you would definately die.

I always like the idea of having a house in a wall. Little bit narrow maybe, some people might have to walk sideways.

A horse made out of horse shoes. There are plenty arty statues and things around the town, like peoples legs hanging from cealings and naked people standing on roofs and stuff like that.

A witch made out of… metal.

Ash and Sarah were trying to see what the tall guy was looking at.

This was in the town chapel. I got a lot of dirty looks  from some people in the pews while I was getting this photo taken but I don’t think the statue minded.

Finally…

I got in trouble for taking this photo. It was in an art gallery but so so good.

For the more curious of you out there, here is a little more history about the town.

Thats all for now. Happy Easter.