Taking my vitamins

(Political cartoons. Second one a counter attack to the outrage and rebuttals. He is being sued I am told.)

Durban is a delight. My first day I awoke at dawn (momentarily) and peeled back the curtain to see a rose sunrise splashed across the horizon, which was two-thirds round, round, ocean. Drinking nescafe and obligatorily admiring their obese sea-lion-esque labs, I saw whales spouting! (okay, moment of sharing: wrote “whales sprouting” stared at it for a sec, ‘something is wrong about this. Then realized, and struck me as hilarious. Sprouting!) There were dozens of dolphins cavorting amongst their own breakfast of sardines. The water was quiet. Auntie Raj told me she calls it a tea-cup sea when it’s like that. Staying with Nikita’s family and their friends was a window into a large family. Her parent’s relationship, forged in the Apartheid resistance movement, is the kind everyone dreams of. Or, the kind I dream of anyhow. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a partnership more tender and respectful. She told me, “Watch them- every morning it’s like they fall in love again.”



Some of the tension, and most all of the cold, is alleviated here. Walking the tree-lined avenues, meeting interviewees at Botanical Gardens where symphonies play, used bookstores, curling amid funky décor and ordering hummus, sipping coffee in sunlit street cafes- all of these things are welcome. My enjoyment of them can feel vaguely guilty, because I appreciate these things for their familiarity. But I have long given up trying to find the quintessential “South African” experience- it is all South African, just as it was all Indian. The 7-11s in Thailand were Thai!



I’m also at the point in my year where I make real vegetable soup and squash for dinner, where I transcribe in the corner and read Jared Diamond’s “Collapse” (my find!). In Spain the difference between Emily’s lives and subsequent attitudes and I was so clear- she was so interested in making friends with everyone, “Where are you from? How long are you here? Where are you coming from and where are you going next?” And I was just happy to be with a familiar soul and tired of asking and answering those same questions; I am meeting people all the damn time. I love it. Of course I do. But today for example, after three interviews, one rape disclosure, I am exhausted. I had real connection, I made them feel comfortable, I described my project for the thousandth time. I am not lonely. But I am a bit weary. And I just don’t want to play nice with the other backpackers.



Like the veggies (whose need I feel after too much hearty South African fare of meat pies, “chips”, billtong, and bunny chow), the solitude and my new book are my nutrition. Another job application is my nasty vitamin pill. I am fortifying my cerebral cortex. Though the academia of Wits University was tantalizing, I don’t really want to go right back to school even if the economy seems to want me to- instead, I need to keep LEARNING other ways. I cannot wait to go to Portland’s public libraries! We are so damn spoiled with educational opportunities.



I do have this sense of… Not quite getting to the heart of the issues here. My interviews are satisfying, interesting, similar, but my research stays on a safe level. The Medical Research Council says that there are 40,000 rapes per month in South Africa. ONE THOUSAND RAPES EVERYDAY. Interpol says SA leads the world in rapes. The facts are more than sobering, they are crippling. A new fear- being raped and becoming HIV positive. These conversations are moving, but I am on Florida and Davenport road, I am not seeing the townships, the grit, so apparent in Jo’burg, is hidden- where are the drug pushers? The children sniffing glue? The cornrows being done on the corners? I keep wanting rip off the facade, “5,000 toddlers are raped every month! 20 infant rapes per day here!” One out of two women in South Africa will be raped or violated. I feel frustrated, impotent- my questions feel futile- “What is the point of The Vagina Monologues?” I ask, and here, I wonder, I need answers. “What does it mean to have it here?” I am trying and trying to focus on the individuals, how these young women’s lives were broken open, how they now feel stronger, inspired, validated. Nombuso told of having her first baby at fifteen, of not knowing anything about sex, about her babie’s father stalking her, raping her. She paused. And then segwayed, “I think I am strong for leaving him. And that’s why I did The Vagina Monologues. We have to tell girls about these things!” But these statistics are looming, and threatening to swallow the beauty. Can I do this work my whole life? Will I be able to keep believing in humanity? … There are some books and films that capture life’s ephemeral and epic yet mundane qualities- every now and then I get a glimpse of this perspective for my friend’s lives, ever so rarely my own. Oh, I don’t know how to explain this. Gonna go eat some "grenadillas" ie. passion fruit, to feel some vibrancy.

Howziit. Stayed in Jo'burg, hey.

Accidentally spent nearly two weeks in Jo'burg! Interviews, outdoor rock music festival, rare rain made the coziness that much more appealing. I went to uni with Niks during the day, and between interviews just revelled in a university setting- I was feeling nostalgic and strangely drawn to go back. Until I went into a classroom! Got sucked into the daily life of a beautiful family, and felt so at home I procrastinated leaving. Like Ana in Brighton, Nikita welcomed me not only into her heart and insight about The Vagina Monologues, but brought me home with her. Her fourth/fifth generation Indian South African family were an amazing transition- daily curries so comforting. I am covered in lab puppy hair- I have no doubt at least a kilo made its way into my backpack. Their incredibly tight knit family made the uniqueness of mine shine anew. Her mum, Auntie Janie told me, "You have no sisters?" No, none. "Well, now you have Nikki." I got goodnight kisses along with all the other "kids" and am driving down to Durban with them today where I have gazillions of interviews set up with her cast for the next three days. Then I head to meet Mollie and woof! So excited to get my hands in some dirt and see some greenery after Mumbai madness and Jo'burg cemented and gated cosmopolitan entity.

Severally Alone

Jo'burg feels oh so different from Mumbai, though there are parts that are eerily familiar. I admit I let myself be intimidated. How does fear form? In warnings, in an extreme sense of not belonging, of standing out- being the only white person in sight. In an emergency button I'm supposed to push in case someone tries to break in during the night, in, "so I'll just ask directions" and "umm, no. Don't talk to anyone" Everyone, black, white, foreign, local say to be in by darkfall- which means 5 pm! Because of the cold and the fear I feel strangely hibernated tucked in to wait out a violence that will probably not come, but whose presence seems lingering. Venturing to the market felt like an adventure- the way people were talking I pictured- what? gangs roving the streets? Instead, it was a sunny crisp Sunday afternoon. Could have been any inner-city area. I saw a literal craigslist of agitated white handwritten papers with crowds pressed in. It felt surreal, people lined as though watching parade or army pass by- but staring instead at a wall full of overpriced non/possibilities.

Babies are the warmest people I have seen. Securely strapped to their moms' backs like sleeping spherical precious cargo. I want their security- or even the comfort of caring for a little person. I imagine they are tiny sloberingsnoring furnaces- even warmer than the sun that settled over my own shoulders and back as I sipped endless tea- trying to imbibe warmth and confidence.

The minibuses felt incredibly familiar, and safe to me. It felt like AMIGOS, or like Mexico city. I love watching everyone on their way to work, school, the drivers joking with each other, instead of shooting up as I'd been told.

I slept under four blankets, the tip of my (I swear) growing nose frigid. While the chimes chimed, and the dog orbited my "cottage," the inexplicable movie of my dreams unfolded. They say you don't imagine strangers, but I have never met the man I loved last night. Only I could see his bruises. I traced the texture on his back where he had been beaten with wood. The grain pronounced in his epidermis like a wood cutting. We were trying to save a child.

The city felt untouchable, impotent, from the 50th floor of the Carlton Center. It made me feel lonely and as though I could never understand or touch anything about this place. I love the quotes at the beginning of 'Maximum City'; "We are individually multiple" (Kabir Mohanty) and "I am severally alone" (Kumar Gandharva). The Soweto Artists gallery was the perfect anti-venom- Peter's colorful chalk pastel rubbed off onto me, and the grassroots single room filled with dancing, pain, music, AIDS, poverty, gossip and flirtation calmed me in a very real way.

I've lightened up and am so very mobil that there is none of the distracting "settling" in that normally eases me into a place. This nomadness, my utter lack of a plan that is in fact necessary- knowing this is almost the end, and that Dawn is coming- all of this swerves me into countdown kind of mind. Is this good? Bad? I think it just is. So much of life IS; value judgement free because of its inevitability. I am not an advocate for passivity, but the moments we have the least control can be oddly liberating.