I have been back for over a week now, and New Orleans has delivered on its every promise. I can remember being freezing cold on a Monday morning in Johannesburg–anxious to get in my car because it was the one place that I could get warm–and imagining every detail about walking down Lowerline Street in shorts and sandals: the oven-like heat and humidity–where everything feels just seconds away from combusting, the orange glow of the sunlight (the light in Joburg is blinding and white, something about the hole in the ozone), the mosquito on my arm that (probably) doesn’t have malaria.

So I have been feeling grateful and happy to be home, completing my laundry list of things to do in New Orleans that I missed (the new Insectarium is next, where a friend and I will commence a bug-eating contest). Things here have picked right up at full-speed, and I love that, but I haven’t been able to digest and really synthesize most of what happened in the past few months. 

I was riding my bike in Audubon Park on Thursday morning just soaking up the landscape and the green, when all of a sudden South Africa hit me in one giant sensory overload: I remembered how Soweto smells like orange peels and pot, how Limpopo smells like unripe bananas and ripe body odor, how our maid Thembi wore her hair in a colorful scarf and carried everything on her head, the unimpressive taste of pap and rusks, the feeling of the sea air in Cape Town, the pounding of your heart when you drive through a hijacking zone and check that all the doors are locked.

It was a bit overwhelming. I don’t want to live in the past, but I realized then that I owed it to myself to pick through, acknowledge, and honor my experience rather than just immediately packing it away.  

That is going to be difficult for me because that gorgeous, mad country kinda got under my skin.

Because you woke up this morning wondering where in the hell you could purchase some fine South African art or books signed by famous human rights advocates…

Thank god for the LRC online Art Auction.

in, this, club

The thought of being home boils a wellspring of emotion and anxiety. So does the thought of leaving this place. And these are two very distinct thoughts. I desperately want to be in two cities at once. 

Two weeks ago I was scrambling, panicked, calling the airlines for an open seat back to the US. I don’t know exactly what has changed, but now I find myself kind of squinting, trying to slow down time. I was ready to go, but now I’m not. There are so many things that I’m not sure I’m ready to let go of…

I’ve got my reasonably safe route to work (“safe,” meaning that it’s just unlikely that I’ll be carjacked, slapped, smash-and-grabbed while stopped at a robot). I’ve got things to do, people to see who don’t treat me like an American but rather as just another person in the group. I’ve never felt this is a foreign country before. I’ve got my little Corsa to get around in, along with incredible fucking driving instincts (okay, aside from that time we went to the airport and I took us to Pretoria, which is another city about an hour outside of Joburg). I know that I must stop at traffic circles (though I don’t), I must not turn left on red (though I do), and I must tip the parking attendant (unless he makes me nervous, in which case I have a policy that involves scowling and withholding money). I’ve learned to bribe, to haggle, and to let the taxis cut in front of me no matter how late I am.

I may have changed a bit, but some parts of me are exactly the same. For instance, I still think that Usher’s “Love in this Club” is the most perfect love song ever written. Also, when I see Gracie, Nicole, and Carlee, I will probably just hang on and never let go. Get ready.

South African words and phrases: part 4

Shame: too bad. We say this, too, but not as frequently or in the same tone: “Oh, I got caught in traffic on Beyers Naudé.” “Shame, you should’ve taken Barry Hertzog.”

Sorry: sorry. People say this all the time, and I don’t much care for it. Like, if you trip or bump into something, someone will say, “Sorry!” It’s not a real apology–it’s just a reflex.

oke: short for “bloke.” This one’s great. I started saying it almost by accident. There seems to be a slightly derogatory hint to it, but I suppose it depends on the context. “Check out these okes over here.” I love it.  In my opinion, there just aren’t enough disrespectful names for guys.

stompies: cigarette butts

hooting: honking. Hooting doesn’t really convey the rudeness inherent in honking your horn. But that may be because it’s not always meant to be rude. The cab drivers (who drive mini-buses) hoot at each stop to let the people on the street know how many seats are available. They also hoot to communicate with one another. Adrian, one of my bosses, once told me that you can eventually learn to differentiate the angry ones from the informative ones. It’s been nearly three months and they still all sound the same to me.

**bonus hand gesture**

When someone honks (or hoots, whatever) at you out of road rage (which will happen multiple times a day no matter how carefully you drive) and you want him to know he’s being silly, you raise your palm to face  his car and open and close your fingers like you’re trying to say “blah blah blah” with your hand. I see lots of drivers do this when the maniacal cab drivers lay on their horns, and I think it’s way cooler than flipping someone off (a gesture I would not recommend under any circumstances). I’ve never seen someone raise his middle finger here. Everyone is armed and the traffic is really really bad and the murder-solve rate is like 5%.

this makes me happy

hmmm can you even see this?

woah

Have any of you seen that Guinness advert? Did it come out of the UK? I can’t believe that thing is on television. Wow. 

Wowowow.

If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some man-hating to tend to…

shifting

Just when you think it’s too much, just when you can’t deal with it anymore, there is a shift in perspective.

Mine must have happened sometime yesterday. I spent the morning trying to get an earlier flight home– to no avail– but all of a sudden I saw everything differently. I can see beauty in the ugliness again.

I decided (it’s that easy!) to have as much fun as possible these last two weeks. To leave behind the weighty feeling of responsibilities. Of guilt about work, about hangers-on, about people I can’t change and certainly can’t make any happier.

I think there is a kind of divine selfishness that I have yet to master. I make a crappy martyr. Too much complaining.

Anyway, there is still a bunch of stuff that I still want to do around Joburg, and I want to get some quality time in with the Gunther family. There’s an umlaut on that name somewhere. How do you spell umlaut anyway?

Even the fonts and spacing on this thing are a mess.

(Banging head on desk)

I have been having a rough time lately here in Johannesburg. It makes me tired. I’m tired of things not working. I’m tired of driving interns who can’t get themselves to and from work. I’m tired of feeling guilty for not wanting to help these ill-equipped interns anymore. I’m tired of being mad about the guilt. I’m tired of being nice to unpleasant people.

 

Lately there hasn’t been much going on at work, so I have time to sit and kind of steam about these things. And then I become lazy. And steam lazily. Then I realize I’ve gone like three days without being gracious about anything.

 

These frustrations made it the perfect time for Kathleen and I to make our way to Cape Town for a long weekend. It was so wonderful to feel like a tourist. Seafood, beaches, cleanliness, catering to Western tastes. I’ve never been so pleased to be surrounded by American accents. (Except for a few times overhearing the loud conversations of people patting themselves on the back for coming to Africa. They are very proud of their courage in braving the rampant criminal elements. On the Cape Town water front. Please.)

 

We got to see Cape Point, the bottom of the world (34 deg. 21’ 24” South Latitude, 18 deg. 29’ 51” East Longitude). We saw tiny fat African Penguins very close-up. They are actually called Jackass Penguins, which I think is funny, but the people here don’t like that name so they just call them African Penguins. Also went to Robben Island, which is about a thirty-minute boat ride from Cape Town, to see the prison where Mandela spent 18 years of his sentence. It was where he secretly wrote The Long Walk to Freedom, and when he was finished, he had someone smuggle it to London where it was published while he was still in prison. Neat.

We also went cage diving with great white sharks. It was badass. Pictures to come. We got to meet some cool American undergraduates on the boat. It was so nice to talk to literate, funny, adventurous, compassionate people, however briefly. It was a lovely contrast to the dour pessimism that sometimes rolls into Joburg, overwhelming the good citizens of this city.

 

I just wrote a long post about our trip to Cape Town. The internet cut out and the window shut down, saving nothing.

I want to come home.

Home.

Now!