more snow on the way

Hard to guess how many books are written on the need for busy humans to slow down. Shelves in airports and train stations are abulge with them. We snatch one and browse it to fill the time between travel spurts. But then, along comes the snow. And for a time life begins to move again at a gentle pace. The goings-on in our villages and fields cease to be a blur as we are forced into slow and careful movement. The art and babble of conversation returns to the dry stone walls and the hedgerows and the warm snugs of alehouses. Somehow this easiness draws us away from talk of gloom and failure and the growl of worries, pacing in wait for us.

Though it is all very temporary, it is a time of rest, like an extended Sabbath.

It is also a time to look into the eyes of a neighbour and notice the life that is in them. Time to make space for listening to their heartbeat. There is a farmer in a village near us whose wife has passed away. He speaks about his grief and his newly discovered cookery skills. Time spent with this man enlarges our picture of life and its possibilities. There is a much younger farmer who leaves the pub early to get a restful night so that he can go out into the darkness of the winter morning to do his work. He is declaring his dream of following into his father's and grandfather's shoes.

The deep snow reveals to us the slow and rhythmic journey we are all making. If only we would take more notice. More snow on the way in the next few days.

cain and abel and the man in the bmw

On the way from the airport today, I moved out to overtake a slow lorry on the M65. A driver in a BMW came up very fast behind gesticulating unmentionable four letter words. Funny, isn't it how many foul language gems have four letters. But the really sad thing is the fact that I was able to lip-read them all. I looked at him for a while in my rear view mirror. He was in a rage. Tail-gating me for a few miles, he overtook on the inside, wheeled out in front with all the aggression of a four year old in a playground, finally coming to a halt four cars in front at the lights by the BMW garage in Colne. For a while during this episode I felt he could murder me.

Cain murdered Abel because he was angry. Actually, he wasn't angry with Abel. Abel made the mistake of quietly getting on with being Abel. No, Cain was mad with God. The whole episode is the first expression of sibling rivalry. Got us all off to a great start! Look it up in Genesis 4.

The man in the BMW needs a spell in the city of Cape Town. Every morning and evening during the rush hour, drivers weave in and out of lanes. And mostly to no obvious advantage. Although I did discover it did make a really big difference at times. Fr. Michael of the Institute sagely reminded me that drivers would tolerate any manouvre as long as you gave adequate notice. The traffic flowed and there were no killings. I did wonder today, though, about the guy in the BMW.

It wasn't a young guy wearing a hoody. Or a shaved head wearing one of those caps. The BMW driver on the M65 was at least 70 years old.

Scary.

notes from 35,000 feet

I sat on the Boeing 777 en route to Dubai absorbing the shock of such an abrupt end to our time in Cape Town. Absorbing too some uneasy feelings that our lives had been changed but not knowing yet just how. For in this time of transit, I felt suspended between worlds high up in the atmosphere, the action of memory like a frantic random slide show in my head, disconnecting from one world, reconnecting with another, fragmented, dizzy and unsettled. Images of Gugulethu were disappearing in my rear view mirror while images of Skyreholme were taking shape on the horizon.

From the beginning, this blog has been about "the colliding worlds" that, among other things, make South Africa what South Africa is. The wound inflicted by apartheid remains open and ugly. In the main, black people bear this wound with dignity and generosity while they yet have to bear the burdens of poverty and inequity which remain fully fifteen years after the 1994 elections. Then, for the first time since 1948, coloured people were allowed to vote. Black people, who had never been allowed to vote, voted for the first time.

To a quite staggering degree, white people remain very rich in South Africa.

Black people remain very poor.

But there are other worlds in collision here. The coloured man who drove us to the airport says he has a daughter who was recently interviewed for a job in the civil service. The outcome - she failed - left him believing his daughter was "not black enough". Affirmative action, as it is known, favours the African, and African is defined as black. Not white. Not coloured. Black.

Anecdotes like this tend to give life to what, in the end, may be an urban myth. Another urban myth goes something like this, "black people cannot run the country, transition to black rule was too quick". But then a rich man disclosed to us his view that the ANC government has rescued the finances of South Africa. He believes they are financially more competent than the apartheid regime ever was.

Such is the view from 35,000 feet.