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.
Sunday, 27 December 2009
Friday, 11 December 2009
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.
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.
Friday, 4 December 2009
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.
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.
Sunday, 29 November 2009
though my father and mother abandon me, Yahweh will gather me up (Ps 27:10)
Vulnerable children end up in the arms of Masizame, St Kizito or the Institute because in one way or another they have been abandoned by father and mother. This tragic reality is here for all to see. Inescapable. Whether we are a people of faith or a people of no faith is largely irrelevant. The words of the psalm simply point to the gathering in of the orphaned and the vulnerable by a people on fire with compassion.
On my last full day here I am with the Xhosa speaking women of the St. Kizito project in Gugulethu. I arrived early and waited outside the locked gates in my car. The streets of this vast township are busy on Sunday afternoons with smartly dressed church goer’s returning to their homes and men of all ages moving around from one drinking hole to another. The streets were busy as I set out for a walk. Eventually I met with Thobeka. Simultaneously, a man touched me on the shoulder. He had followed me from the car to make sure I was safe!
We spoke for a while, he and I and Thobeka, about the rivalries between townships, fly tipping, youths on street corners, upwardly mobile blacks moving into places like Constantia in the suburbs and whites moving off the street as a result, whites moving into a township and blacks wondering what they are up to. We embraced the guardian angel dressed as a man and went in to St. Gabriel’s. He had started work at the Institute hostel two months ago and recognised me!
The women talked about their work, some in their Xhosa clicks, some in English. As always the theme is the children in a world of poor and messed up adults. The mothers with young babies to multiple partners, the men who disappear, the child allowances collected by relatives no longer caring for the child, the neighbours caring for children who are not their own. The volunteers are like detectives unravelling knotted balls of wool. Alongside the spectacular story with a remarkable ending is the one that would frustrate a Sherlock Holmes.
Thobeka invited me to her home in another part of Gugulethu to meet her daughter Tamara and beautiful little grandchild. When it was time to leave she insisted on escorting me to the N2. It was not safe for a white man on a Sunday afternoon to stop at intersections overlooked by black men drinking. She left me at the slip road and walked back into her world to get a taxi. I coasted down the motorway to collect Karen and Marc at the Waterfront, ten minutes and a world away.
So ends this time of ours in the Cape.
We return in late February. The blog will continue in the meantime for Cape and Dale dwellers alike.
On my last full day here I am with the Xhosa speaking women of the St. Kizito project in Gugulethu. I arrived early and waited outside the locked gates in my car. The streets of this vast township are busy on Sunday afternoons with smartly dressed church goer’s returning to their homes and men of all ages moving around from one drinking hole to another. The streets were busy as I set out for a walk. Eventually I met with Thobeka. Simultaneously, a man touched me on the shoulder. He had followed me from the car to make sure I was safe!
We spoke for a while, he and I and Thobeka, about the rivalries between townships, fly tipping, youths on street corners, upwardly mobile blacks moving into places like Constantia in the suburbs and whites moving off the street as a result, whites moving into a township and blacks wondering what they are up to. We embraced the guardian angel dressed as a man and went in to St. Gabriel’s. He had started work at the Institute hostel two months ago and recognised me!
The women talked about their work, some in their Xhosa clicks, some in English. As always the theme is the children in a world of poor and messed up adults. The mothers with young babies to multiple partners, the men who disappear, the child allowances collected by relatives no longer caring for the child, the neighbours caring for children who are not their own. The volunteers are like detectives unravelling knotted balls of wool. Alongside the spectacular story with a remarkable ending is the one that would frustrate a Sherlock Holmes.
Thobeka invited me to her home in another part of Gugulethu to meet her daughter Tamara and beautiful little grandchild. When it was time to leave she insisted on escorting me to the N2. It was not safe for a white man on a Sunday afternoon to stop at intersections overlooked by black men drinking. She left me at the slip road and walked back into her world to get a taxi. I coasted down the motorway to collect Karen and Marc at the Waterfront, ten minutes and a world away.
So ends this time of ours in the Cape.
We return in late February. The blog will continue in the meantime for Cape and Dale dwellers alike.
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
coffee and shoes and desmond tutu
It’s funny how it works. While the little everyday weavings of our lives are quietly going on, we have little idea of how the final tapestry is taking shape. The other evening, we had supper with Marc at Il Leone, a fine, friendly, family restaurant. A guy by the name of Judd came over to Karen and apologetically announced he had noticed her shoes. Yeah, right! She had purchased them in a newly opened boutique, next to our adopted coffee shop, La Fonteril in Plettenberg Bay. It so happens they were hand made by Judd’s flatmate Grandt. Erm! Indeed his girlfriend duly lifted a leg to reveal a similar pair in a different colour and pattern. They are only sold in two shops eight hours drive apart. Judd is a master coffee roaster and his new place, “Deluxe Coffeeworks” opened today on Church Street. We went there and sampled the coffee. It was very good!
We were given a master class in coffee from picking the cherry-like fruit to removing the pulp to drying the green beans, all the different sizes depending on which part of the branch they come from, and then the roasting process itself. We learned that all the coffee that Africa produces is bought up by international dealers, shipped to Antwerp, London and New York, where it is processed and packaged. Then some of it ends up back in African coffee houses! Apparently Grandt the shoemaker is designing a coffee themed version of his new creation. Can smell it already!
The blended themes of coffee and shoes and the significance of places.
Il Leone, you blogfollowers will recall, is the place where we met the elegant Emma working on her PhD. She did indeed visit the Institute the following day to offer some of her free time. Margaret, one of the teachers – also featured in an earlier blog – described Emma as “a Godsend”. Her skills were exactly what they had been needing. She is now registering as a volunteer.
The first time I saw Desmond Tutu was in the newly opened Bradford City Stadium in 1986. Today he visited the Institute. Only a little less sprightly, he carried that same blend of charm and loving attention for everyone around him. He went first to the kids in the workshops and lingered with them. He spoke with all who came near him. He recalled his talk in Bradford and had his picture taken with Marc.
Finally, there was the birthday celebration yesterday of another man whose time is given generously to everyone around him. Bro. Peter Simmonds sdb, now 82, was the original creator of the projects on Somerset Road. Though he is a good deal less sprightly than he was, he can still be seen wearing his workshop apron just as he did when he was a young engineer. The first weavings of the tapestry that grew to be the Institute Youth Projects began with this man’s vision.
Among so many other things, he fixes shoes!
We were given a master class in coffee from picking the cherry-like fruit to removing the pulp to drying the green beans, all the different sizes depending on which part of the branch they come from, and then the roasting process itself. We learned that all the coffee that Africa produces is bought up by international dealers, shipped to Antwerp, London and New York, where it is processed and packaged. Then some of it ends up back in African coffee houses! Apparently Grandt the shoemaker is designing a coffee themed version of his new creation. Can smell it already!
The blended themes of coffee and shoes and the significance of places.
Il Leone, you blogfollowers will recall, is the place where we met the elegant Emma working on her PhD. She did indeed visit the Institute the following day to offer some of her free time. Margaret, one of the teachers – also featured in an earlier blog – described Emma as “a Godsend”. Her skills were exactly what they had been needing. She is now registering as a volunteer.
The first time I saw Desmond Tutu was in the newly opened Bradford City Stadium in 1986. Today he visited the Institute. Only a little less sprightly, he carried that same blend of charm and loving attention for everyone around him. He went first to the kids in the workshops and lingered with them. He spoke with all who came near him. He recalled his talk in Bradford and had his picture taken with Marc.
Finally, there was the birthday celebration yesterday of another man whose time is given generously to everyone around him. Bro. Peter Simmonds sdb, now 82, was the original creator of the projects on Somerset Road. Though he is a good deal less sprightly than he was, he can still be seen wearing his workshop apron just as he did when he was a young engineer. The first weavings of the tapestry that grew to be the Institute Youth Projects began with this man’s vision.
Among so many other things, he fixes shoes!
Saturday, 21 November 2009
manna from heaven ... for today!
Paternoster is a place to collect thoughts, reflect. The sea and the wind are the only sounds to be heard in this sunny cloister today as I reflect on a thought that has troubled me for some time.
Almost every encounter on such a journey as we have had here in South Africa, is transient. Like the manna that fell on the desert. Those familiar with this epic story of the Hebrew exodus from Egypt, will recall the miraculous appearance of a dew-like substance on the desert floor every morning. A miracle for those who believe in miracles, but what is most striking is the instruction given to the people. They must “go out and collect the ration for the day … and no one may keep any of it for tomorrow”.
I am persuaded that the gift in so many of these transient encounters is, like the manna from heaven, just for this day. So often we are tempted to collect them like souvenirs for the mantle-piece of our minds or to invest them with a future they simply do not have. To gratify something in ourselves. Disappointment too often follows. Some weeks ago in Plettenberg, I saw something of this in the face of a lady called Virginia.
She was hesitant
Her eyes wearing a wary look
Like a trench coat against the wind and rain of
Gilded promises
Carried by the white man
With the white hair
Sipping his breakfast tea.
I am chastened by these thoughts. Often I have wanted to collect the manna and store it for the morrow. Those in the exodus story who did so found this delicate food had become rotten and foul-smelling.
I am challenged to unwrap the encounter that is meant for today, fully enjoy it, fully honour it, and then move on. The mantle-piece of my mind is far too cluttered!
On the food and wine front! The most satisfying Cape Town eatery, taking into account food quality, the wine list, value for rand, service, and an astonishing view of Table Mountain from the tables outside, is Societi on Orange Street off Buitensingel.
Dare I say it, manna from heaven!!!
Almost every encounter on such a journey as we have had here in South Africa, is transient. Like the manna that fell on the desert. Those familiar with this epic story of the Hebrew exodus from Egypt, will recall the miraculous appearance of a dew-like substance on the desert floor every morning. A miracle for those who believe in miracles, but what is most striking is the instruction given to the people. They must “go out and collect the ration for the day … and no one may keep any of it for tomorrow”.
I am persuaded that the gift in so many of these transient encounters is, like the manna from heaven, just for this day. So often we are tempted to collect them like souvenirs for the mantle-piece of our minds or to invest them with a future they simply do not have. To gratify something in ourselves. Disappointment too often follows. Some weeks ago in Plettenberg, I saw something of this in the face of a lady called Virginia.
She was hesitant
Her eyes wearing a wary look
Like a trench coat against the wind and rain of
Gilded promises
Carried by the white man
With the white hair
Sipping his breakfast tea.
I am chastened by these thoughts. Often I have wanted to collect the manna and store it for the morrow. Those in the exodus story who did so found this delicate food had become rotten and foul-smelling.
I am challenged to unwrap the encounter that is meant for today, fully enjoy it, fully honour it, and then move on. The mantle-piece of my mind is far too cluttered!
On the food and wine front! The most satisfying Cape Town eatery, taking into account food quality, the wine list, value for rand, service, and an astonishing view of Table Mountain from the tables outside, is Societi on Orange Street off Buitensingel.
Dare I say it, manna from heaven!!!
Thursday, 19 November 2009
small shards of a great mosaic
Small and white, enclosed with regular teeth, the cowley shell was once used by slave owners to “pay” their slaves. On the beach at Milnerton we came across poor white men, their faces burnished copper by the glaring sun, their eyes trained on the sand, each looking for these cowley shells which fetch R1 per 25. Worthless to the hapless slaves and of piteous value to these collectors, they are used to make necklaces and bracelets for the tourist trade. They showed us their other finds, ancient fossilized shark’s teeth, old and broken blue crockery pieces from shipwrecked galleons, perhaps carrying slaves in their holds. All worth a few rand to some collector. Across the narrow lagoon inlet black people in their orange tunics collected rubbish from Woodbridge Island beach, their filled bags bringing in the minimum wage of R60 a day.
In a small down near Worcester, displaced Zimbabwean immigrants are prepared to work for R40 or less a day. Two days ago, a thousand locals invaded their informal settlement and tore it down. Now they sleep on a playing field under the stars, the more vulnerable in a local hall. Earlier this year many were put to death in the townships.
Two nights ago, a black Maserati pulled up outside the best Italian restaurant in town, Il Leoni, a block from the Institute and a mere 200 metres from the Salvation Army soup kitchen. As the staff came out to look, other high value, big engines were directed by a policeman to take the one way the wrong way to shortcut on to Somerset Road. A tall, elegant waitress doing a PhD in English called Emma observed wryly with a tired sigh, “Yah, this is Cape Town”.
Pondering on these and many other images in the dead of night, awake because the howling wind caught the scaffolding opposite, making a sound like a rehearsal for a tubular bells recital, South Africa seemed to strain with its great contradictions. We are meeting the tall Emma at the Institute in the morning. She will be offering her free time to the Projects.
And, yah, this too is Cape Town, anotherof those tiny shards of a great mosaic.
In a small down near Worcester, displaced Zimbabwean immigrants are prepared to work for R40 or less a day. Two days ago, a thousand locals invaded their informal settlement and tore it down. Now they sleep on a playing field under the stars, the more vulnerable in a local hall. Earlier this year many were put to death in the townships.
Two nights ago, a black Maserati pulled up outside the best Italian restaurant in town, Il Leoni, a block from the Institute and a mere 200 metres from the Salvation Army soup kitchen. As the staff came out to look, other high value, big engines were directed by a policeman to take the one way the wrong way to shortcut on to Somerset Road. A tall, elegant waitress doing a PhD in English called Emma observed wryly with a tired sigh, “Yah, this is Cape Town”.
Pondering on these and many other images in the dead of night, awake because the howling wind caught the scaffolding opposite, making a sound like a rehearsal for a tubular bells recital, South Africa seemed to strain with its great contradictions. We are meeting the tall Emma at the Institute in the morning. She will be offering her free time to the Projects.
And, yah, this too is Cape Town, anotherof those tiny shards of a great mosaic.
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