Africa Is Tough

It's often said by gung-ho Saffers, as they nonchalantly pull a 3-inch devil thorn out of their bare foot, or assess the challenge of crossing a bridge consumed by a raging river, that 'Africa is not for sissies'. Accompanied by a proudly puffed out chest and a knowing chuckle. Africa is for 'die manne' (Afrikaans:real men) and in all truth life here is, and always has been, pretty tough in any language. Which probably goes a long way towards explaining it's appeal for some.

A continent of incredible beauty and warmth of both landscape and people, Africa doesn't bend or adapt to the will of humans. It is what it is, take it or leave it but boy, at it's best there are few, if any, comparable places on earth. 

Him Outdoors and I are taking an extended R and R in Diani, a Kenyan coastal gem south of Mombasa. Hardened African travellers as we are, the blistering heat and relentless humidity have worn us out and we have the activity levels of moribund sloths. We share our lovely accommodation with an assortment of European swallows, all but two of whom are regular returnees spending two months every year basking in the moist blast of Diani's summer. Escaping the post-Christmas chill of Germany, Denmark, Norway, Malta and Bulgaria they believe this is paradise and from the comfort of our pool loungers under thatched umbrellas we limply raise our hands in agreement.

As they say, another bloody perfect day in Africa

Mother Africa, however, has a wicked way of reminding us not to get too comfortable in Eden - there are snakes in utopia. Not that we've seen any and other than an impressive collection of insect bites HO and I are coping but our international friends and neighbours are less fortunate.

In the four weeks we've been living here, one young German guest suffered an epileptic fit whilst kite surfing and her poor parents had the anguish of their first trip to Africa to collect her 24 year old body. This is every parent's most unimaginable nightmare and our condolences felt hollow as we mentally hugged and counted our blessings of our own safe and healthy offspring.

Two weeks later, another German contracted Malaria which is a complete mystery as none of us have seen a single mosquito in the compound but there you go. Hans is a Diani regular and travels with his testing kit and malaria meds so it was picked up early and treatment begun but as soon as he was well enough to travel, he changed his flight and skedaddled out of Dodge.

Last week it was the turn of the Norwegians, one of them was laid low by what appears to be a stroke and is comfortably in the care of Diani hospital before they, too, cut their 8 week holiday short and flee north.

The new arrival, a Brit expat now living in Malta, is in a constant state of siege by cockroaches and ants drawn in their droves to torment her. Our suite of rooms is ant and roach free but next door the sound of furniture being moved and shrill shrieks is our nightly entertainment. 

One doesn't want to tempt fate but it seems a bit unfair and harsh of Africa to unleash these plagues upon her visitors from the north; not at all the warm ubuntu (Zulu: humanity) welcome travellers to these lands generally receive. 

They Know Our Every Thought

Whoever ‘they’ are. The use of our personal technology by unnamed spies to silently soak up our needs and interests has moved out of the domain of conspiracy theorists and into the realm of the average Joleen’s every day. Jokes about Alexa and Siri joining the conversation are old hat but perhaps we should be more concerned about how widely our personal lives have been invaded.

Computer whizz Number 1 Son was scanning my new and rather sexy silver slimline laptop with an anti-virus programme a few weeks ago when an alarming message flashed up. “XYZ CORP IS WATCHING YOU THROUGH YOUR WEBCAM”, it warned. This machine had been out of the box and plugged into the internet for less than an hour, and my eyes bulged saucer-like. No 1 didn’t blink, he simply clicked and tapped and did something or other before casually saying that indeed, our phones ARE listening to us, capturing key words and phrases for marketing purposes. And who is policing this? Who decides what is of interest to a retailer and which conversation marks me as a potential master criminal or revolutionary?

Actually, does it matter? It’s a damn violation of personal rights for whatever reason.

Not long after this rude shock, a friend posted on Facebook how weird it was that the day after a conversation, you know, one of those one on one, face to face chats she’d had with a mate about a particular product, her page streamed advert after advert for it. She joked that her phone must have listened in and well, yes, it probably did.

Around the same time, I mooched into the Kameraz store in the Mall of Rosebank and snaffled a fabulous second-hand lens for my beloved camera. Less than 24 hours later my Facebook page was brandishing adverts for Kameraz. Let me make it clear, I haven’t lived in Johannesburg since 2008; in fact, I’ve lived outside of South Africa for over 2 years now. Even when I lived in SA, the Mall wasn’t a regular haunt. I hadn’t done any internet search for this particular lens; it was an opportunistic purchase from a super-helpful salesman. So how did a random shopping purchase end up linking to my social media? Easy, someone explained, they track your location via your phone. This does not make me feel better!

But the royal icing was slapped on the scary cake yesterday. A week or so ago we bought a packet of pasta from a little grocery store in Diani. Diani is a tiny town on the coast south of Mombasa, Kenya, with exquisite beaches and not much else, especially in the way of shopping emporia. Taped to the bag of pasta was a small bottle of coconut oil, some sort of informal shop promo. Now, all I know about coconut oil is that Him Outdoors buys jars of the stuff for his breakfast fry-up from the cooking oils shelf and I pick up the odd bottle from the haircare section but this bottle gave no indication what the oil was to be used for – hair or eggs. The thought of adding coconut oil to cooking pasta curdled my stomach, this surely couldn’t be the intention?

The devil finds work for idle hands so I turned to Google for help, and began typing in the brand name.

Parachute…

And Google answered before I typed another letter -

 

Parachute coconut oil

Now, I don’t know about you but if I was going to rudely finish someone’s sentence, and it started ‘parachute’ I wouldn’t finish it with ‘coconut oil’. Club, training, jumps, accidents, material, supplies..a host of other words and phrases spring to mind. How the devil did Google link a crudely cellotaped bottle of coconut oil, which was not rung up at the till, or discussed within earshot of a computer or phone, to an internet search?

We can’t explain or understand it either, our best guess is that Google used our location to presume that the parachute I was looking for was a never-seen-before brand of coconut oil.

There is no denying it was useful to find out so quickly that I was holding a bottle of hair oil but this ‘smart’ technology has now overstepped my boundaries.

How to reclaim our privacy?

When She Ran Out of Lives...

Much loved Speckle the Wonder Cat ran out of lives this week. After an initial meltdown, I pulled up my big girl britches and decided that she deserved to be honoured with more than tears and gut-wrenching pain; after 10 years and a barrel full of stories and memories, the life skills she taught me rather than her abrupt and devastating end is how I choose to remember her. From the moment in White River SPCA when as a 6-week old kitten scheduled for the 'list', she climbed the wire gate until she could look me in the eye and utter a teeny 'mew', (it worked, obviously, we adopted her!) to the last time I saw her, this loyal, adoring family member wrapped her furry paws around my heart and that of HO too.

Crossing the identity boundary
Speckle led the pack in terms of trans-species boundary crossing. I'm not sure that she truly thought she was a dog, it's more that she blazed her own behaviour patterns that were, well, rather more canine than feline in nature. For instance, how common is it for a cat to:
- growl at strange people arriving at our door. Yeah, cats growl at each other and dogs. But people?
- see off invading dogs and cats that dared to step foot on our property. No matter the species or size, she'd take them on. Her slender frame and unique lack of any sort of coordination played against her, so she usually lost and retired injured, chunks of fur and skin left behind on the battlefield but not before the invader gave up. Tenacious, brave and fiercely loyal, she brooked no encroachment or threat to her 'humans' and home.
- have a bottomless pit of affection and continually demand it from people. Anyone in our home had no choice but to pet her and allow her to lie on their laps or sleep on their bed. She was utterly mad for people, couldn't be petted and stroked enough. Aloof? Standoff-ish? Not a chance. She was the cat version of one of those annoying dogs that won't leave you alone.
- completely lack the teeniest ability to climb or jump. Seriously. She was appalling. 9 out of 10 attempts to leap onto the couch ended with her falling back onto the floor. She never got the hang of landing with her front paws, it was always an awkward 'all 4 feet in the air, scootch forward a bit and land' which usually went wrong. The number of times she aimed at the dining table, landed on the cloth and continued sailing across the table to be dumped on the floor on the other side was legendary.
- enthusiasm - Speckle 'spoke' sign language - with her tail. It was always upright, waving back and forth. The tip curled and unfurled with gay abandon, she was always so HAPPY. Like a festival flag or a parade banner, that tail was brilliant. It never once slashed in anger, she was incapable of that but oh my word, in constant motion her tail was a thing of happiness and delight.
- forgiveness. One could be unkind and say due to a shortage of brain cells and limited memory, her infinite and unconditional forgiveness for any ills done her was less a matter of choice but of mental (in)capacity. I choose to believe that her unstinting loyalty and love, given with a full heart and without expectation, endowed her with the ability to forget the rough push off a lap or being shut outside for being a nuisance and to simply, with unbounded glee and happiness, leap upon us and resume delivering her love and affection at the next available opportunity. No grudges held or pouting sulks, just sheer delight at being with her human.

Speckle joyously loved living life every day; she never gave up and possessed a brave heart overstuffed with an abundance of love and absolution. And yes, she was oblivious to the 'box' of her species. She lived her life her way, stepping over unseen boundaries and being true to the spirit she knew she was. These are fine qualities for people, too; Speckle's way of life is something to aspire to. Simple minded it may be, but hell, she filled every cell of her body with happiness and affection. 

Overcomplicated and analytical as we humans are and so often eager to take offence and burn bridges, wouldn't it be a happier world if we took life with a healthy sprinkle of Speckle philosophy?


She featured in a few blogs over the years:

https://lightlygreen.blogspot.com/2012/09/a-wicked-person.html

https://lightlygreen.blogspot.com/2015/01/a-tom-and-jerry-style-catastrophe.html

https://lightlygreen.blogspot.com/2017/09/i-married-cat-whisperer.html

https://lightlygreen.blogspot.com/2017/11/luggage-allowance-for-cool-cats.html

https://lightlygreen.blogspot.com/2017/12/cats-on-safari-beginning.html

Asking for a Friend...

The things we do for our friends! Picture the scene - an active business-owner with limited free hours keen to broaden her network and meet new people. Of the opposite sex, because making friends and having adventures with her own gender falls easily to her.

Courageously, she (let's call her A. Nony) decides to take the high-tech road and offer herself up to the internet matchmaking services. A. Nony is bright, interesting, creative, fit, fun and seriously attractive but like many, found it difficult to describe herself in the tedious 'About me' sections so she called upon a friend to help. Me.

A. Nony has style - not for her a phone call plea, I was invited out for coffee and bribed asked to assist in return for a bottle of bubbly. Deal! Bargain on my side because she's an easy sell. NO, not like that! Her extensive list of fine qualities flowed effortlessly from the keyboard and I 'fess that it was the easiest bottle of fizz I've ever earned.

Bravely, A. Nony placed herself front and centre in what I like to call the Fresh Produce Market of Love and settled down to wait for the responses to dash in.

She waited.

And waited.

And waited.

And gave up.

The months passed and the FPML fell out of mind until during some girly support chat with another well-read and learned friend A. Nony decided to try again. 

I TOLD you she has nuts!

A. Nony dropped me a note to update me about her plans. With the assistance of the friend and no small quantity of wine, various male profiles were perused, discussed and, truth be told, discarded. 

I was irked, it's true. A. Nony enriches all with her bright, sunny and engaging company and should be snapped up by anybody genuinely interested in meeting an independent woman of substance. She's a quality gem and I felt driven to get involved and make things happen. It's what we women do for each other!

'Research' is an intellectual word to describe 'googling' and internet snooping but research the market I did. The UK's Top 10 Internet Dating Sites. Better still - Best Dating Sites in the World. Yup, I was thinking big.

In the interests of gleaning as much valuable info as possible and taking one for the team before reporting back, I joined a highly recommended, international site and completed the odious profile required. It stopped short of my blood group and I think the site ended up knowing more about me than my family or therapist. Forget the Fresh Produce Market of Love - I was gutted and splayed out like a salmon fillet in a Fish Market of Desperation.

PING! Within an hour, the notifications began rolling in. Martin in Tottenham. Peter from Oxford. Kyle of Texas. Quentin in Queensland. Bingo - the trick is to think REALLY big, on a global scale.

Excitedly, I let A. Nony in on my findings. "You're fishing in too small a pond. Set the filters to International and see what comes in. Worst case, you get an overseas holiday out of it to meet face to face." 

"Well," she rejoined. "I've touched base with someone living a few hours away. He gets an opportunity to engage my brain and who knows? If he lives up to his chat he could be a winner, he sounds intelligent and witty." 

"Yeah, but Peter from Oxford is a Biomedical SCIENTIST! Think bigger. Global scale. Out there are men who know that a woman's largest sensual organ is between her ears, not her flaps!"

"Write a blog. I dare you. Meanwhile, I'll keep things on a smaller scale, thank you." This lady is not for turning. 

Ah, well, perhaps A. Nony has a point. Baby steps, darling. Baby steps.

Today, loving local. Tomorrow - the world!

Sleeping With The Enemy

Collaboration is a noun that I love. To me, it oozes positive energy and a willingness to work together with a strength lacking in the pallid synonyms 'partnership', 'team' or 'alliance'.

Say 'collaborator' and the noun sours like last week's milk. 'Collaborator' carries enough weighty baggage to sink Titanic II even faster than her predecessor. Images of roughly-shorn French women, swastikas tarred on their faces and chests, stripped to the waist and paraded in front of jeering crowds coil insidiously around the letters.

C O L L A B O R A T O R.

Nasty.

Cue the superb Jersey War Tunnels, the finest museum I've ever visited. Walk through the achingly cold corridors dripping with moisture; stare down unfinished tunnels that echo with heavy falls of water from the ground 34 metres above. Listen to the recorded sounds of slaves hacking into the shale rock, explosions and rock falls. You are no longer an audience, you are standing in the tunnels as they are hacked into the hill; your breathing speeds up and your heart pounds with...fear. The experience is so real that 77 years drop away and you are THERE. I'm not ashamed to confess that I was frightened at times and the awful sounds of war and hard labour banging around the chilly walls were beyond disturbing. Turning tail and getting out was tempting; it was way too easy to imagine what the slaves and forced labour endured in the construction. 

Setting all that aside, the museum curators have identified the Jersey collaborators and recounted stories of their collaboration and their fate after the war. Beyond that, the curators have gone to extreme lengths to challenge visitors to put themselves in those shoes and make their own decisions on whether to defy or to collaborate with the German occupiers. Scenarios are posed and you are asked to 'vote' on whether you would have denounced someone in that situation.

It's a brilliant perspective to present, throwing the judgement grenade right back at the audience. No, I didn't vote on any of the scenarios although I read them through carefully and considered what I may have done but truth be told, it's an impossible question to answer. I know the outcome of the war. I've had years of exposure to books and films about the war, both fiction and non. The extent of the Third Reich's evil abominations are known to me and I've never personally endured such deprivation, suffering and horror. I simply cannot put myself in the shoes of someone facing those decisions and it would be sanctimonious and hypocritical for me to make those choices now.

To balance the equation (and another reason why this truly is a great museum) visitors are presented with four situations -  all involving decent, handsome, presentable and polite young German soldiers. Would you let your child accept an ice-cream from one? Invite another to sit at your fireside and smoke his pipe while talking fishing? Respond to a polite greeting from a third on the street? Take in a soldier's laundry in exchange for extra food rations? 

SLAP! There you have it. The average German soldier wasn't an evil beast or a pompous fool. He was YOUR son, brother, husband, father. Far from home, lonely and missing his family, his children, his friends and his life. Fighting because it was his patriotic duty or he was conscripted (don't allow the 'I was following orders' cop-out to dilute the sincerity of hundreds of thousands of soldiers fulfilling their national obligation and obedience). 

Imagine this, if you will. In 1940, England left the Channel Islands to fend for themselves and, with access to information on the isolated islands restricted to German propaganda with odd titbits from the Allies, islanders didn't know what was going on. THEIR war was lost, they were ruled by Germany and as the years ticked by, what were their options? The last real news they got from the outside was the British call for boats from the island to assist the retreat from Dunkirk. Then they were told England had abandoned the islands and were given 24 hours to pack up their homes and lives and hop on a boat heading to Southampton and what was to most of them, a strange land.

From 1st July 1940 life changed staggeringly for those that chose to stay and those that didn't manage to board one of the ships as the Occupation began. A new government, currency, time zone, laws - even the side of the road you drove on changed.

Hope, faith and confidence can only take you so far. It's human nature to adapt and carry on - evolution happens in daily life, not just in millennia. By the time January 1st 1944 rolled around, how many islanders in all honesty still believed the Allies would win the war? How many had truly accepted that this was how it was going to be forever and got on with living as normal a life as possible?

Polite, handsome soldiers willing to lend a hand with a bit of heavy work or share some badly needed rations and treats probably didn't seem much of an ogre any more. Would it harm to accept an ice-cream or go to a dance in the mess hall? At that point in time, did fraternisation wear the stench of 'collaboration'? 

The overwhelming message shared in the tunnels was to NOT judge the choices of others. Those who suffered terrible deprivation at best and lost loved ones at worst naturally agonised at others enjoying the fruits of fraternisation and collaboration. Yet if the war had ended differently the diverse choices would have been viewed through a different lens.

Anger, frustration, pain and vengeance make bitter bedfellows. However, it is extremely difficult to understand someone's decision to denounce a neighbour, knowing it would lead to certain deportation and possible death for hiding an illegal radio.   

But what if the collaborator, after so many years of war...
- was protecting/providing needed food or medication for someone,
- genuinely fell in love with a soldier,
- sincerely believed that the war was over, won by the enemy, and making the best of a new life,
- was threatened or had family threatened to force cooperation,
- was promised news/release of a captured family member,
- actually admired Germany / wasn't loyal to Great Britain BEFORE the war,
- felt abandoned by England and changed loyalties,
- was unaware of the horrors of German 'Lebensraum' and how it turned Europe into a slaughterhouse.

Every collaborator had their own reasons for their choice just as every resistance member had theirs. There are two vantage points in history - victor and vanquished - with groups of people behind each point. Post-war, we have the luxury of looking back and pointing fingers - we know how the story ends. We know about the Holocaust and the unspeakable insanity of Germany's leadership. Our knowledge gives us a wider assortment of options to make informed choices. But if the jackboot was on the other foot and the Axis powers had overpowered and conquered all, our view of collaborators would be different today.

The War Tunnel curators are to be applauded for bridging the community divide upon a small island, a divide which saw family, friends and neighbours skewered on opposing sides. In South Africa, Archbishop Desmond Tutu bravely headed up the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in an attempt to uncork boiling emotions and safely release the power of healing into South African society. Rwanda found a unique way to repair, reconnect and remedy the trauma and suffering of the 1994 genocide.

The tender shoots to find peace and create a future after unspeakable cruelty, horror and trauma are rooted in a non-judgemental and empathetic look at motive. What drove the decisions made by ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances?

It's a useful rule of thumb to adopt across much more than global warfare. From family conflict to ethnic violence, does understanding the opposing point of view feature strongly enough in resolution efforts? I fear that too often, we simply run out of steam and/or resources and limp to an exhausted halt. Reparations, bitterness and revenge (key factors in the eruption of WWII) then become the order of the day. 

If we understood why people sleep with the enemy, would our social empathy grow beyond the need for enemies?

An Old Pair of Shoes

A Mary T. Lathrap poem published in 1895 birthed a reminder to practice empathy: Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. 

Empathy I have in spades but it has to be said that patience was out of stock when the genetic mix of my creation was brewing. In short - I have none! 

Which is why I've so quickly realised how far I've come with personal development since beginning this chapter as a professional Carer. Even I can appreciate how my tether has expanded and stretched over the horizon as I slowly breathe and relax through watching a dear old lady struggle with the thought process of deciding whether or not she'd like a cup of tea. Or where the gravy should be poured over her lunch. Or whether she is warm enough or needs a cardigan. 

The Carer mindset has invaded my body on a cellular level to the point where I understand there is a process operating at a leisurely pace and frankly, why shouldn't it? Where has dashing about really got us? 

Another lesson taken on board is appreciation for an able body. Suddenly, the lumps and bumps, cellulite, crinkles and wrinkles don't feature as star attractions when thinking about my corporeal being. It works. I can stretch, reach, bend, sit, kneel, crouch, walk, climb stairs and even break into a lumbering run of sorts if pressed. Without thinking and with minimal preparation as well. Sure, I heave myself up off the floor and often grab onto something to assist the lift but overall, my body works just fine. It's operating better today than it will be in the future and grateful for this I am, especially when watching my poor clients struggle with movements I don't even think about.

It's been good to spend time with people still possessed of sharpness of wit and their own teeth at 97 years of age. It gives me hope!

One thing I'm not enjoying, though, and can't get my head around is the misery of interrupted sleep. Nor have I developed the ability to nod off quickly. Night after night, I lie awake between calls anxiously telling my buzzing brain to switch off NOW. That is something I envy my clients - their ability to doze off at any time, then wake up and continue reading the paper, eating or carry on with whatever they were doing when the urge to snooze overcame them.

Still, all things being equal, experiencing the reality of life for people in their 8th or 9th decade is a sharp reminder that this, too, lies in our path and I honestly and truly hope that folks will show great forbearance and understanding when I dither and dother over the choice of cream or ice-cream with my fruit salad. Especially when the answer is ALWAYS fresh Jersey double thick cream!  

Karma Chameleon

We can skim along life's surface like a water boatman, without impression or impact; or plunge into it like a hippo, creating a swirl of suction and disruption that says 'I'm here, watch out!' I like to wallow and submerge, snuggling deeply into life and making it my own. It's there for seizing and shaking, carpe diem and all that, and why not?

Making the best of what's delivered to my feet is all very well but the startling ease with which I slipped into a life unimaginable just 4 months ago is unsettling, to say the least. 

I find chameleons fascinating and charming and will spend time watching them change to blend into their surroundings. But for people, adapt or die is rather dramatic; few of us ever have to face that choice and while 'it is what it is, just accept it' gets me through and over many challenges, there is something, well, shallow, about changing one's own skin so to speak and slipping into another lifestyle without pause or hiccup.

Born in England and raised in South Africa, I've long considered Africa to be my heartbeat and England my cosy, snuggly slippers. Comfortable and as easy as it is to live in the UK compared to the helter-skelter of Africa, there is something about the drama, colour, noise and vibrant human warmth of the continent that has ruggedly grasped my heart and soul and won't let go.

Or so I thought. Until I arrived in England one chilly December afternoon.

Less than an hour after landing, I was repeatedly asked for help by travellers trying to navigate Thameslink rail system. During many years of travel to the Netherlands, UK, New York and even Paris, I became accustomed to being stopped and asked for directions - it rather thrilled me because I felt that I looked 'local' and saw that as rather a compliment.

Now, I question my loyalties and skin-deep partisanship. How can I consider myself a true African while loving the astonishing choices and benefits and sheer comfort of living in a First World country, with easy access to everything you need and a whole bunch of things you didn't realise were possible, let alone needing them? How the hell did I lose my Saffer accent so fast and master the public transport system so quickly? Now I raise my eyebrows and sigh impatiently at people hesitating on the London underground, or fumbling with tickets when a quick tap with a bank card will do.

Who IS this person of such shallow roots and loyalties she swirls across the ocean like a rainbow iridescent splash of oil on water?

I like living here in England.

There, I've said it. So far, two months in, I've suffered only fleeting moments of homesickness. Worse, I'm scouring travel specials - do you know how cheap it is to go to Cuba from here? Prague, Turkey, Croatia are just a stretch across the channel and the pound, at least for another month, still buys a ton of things the ZAR can't even contemplate. Plans to fly south in early Spring are changing - there is so much to see and do here and Africa isn't going away. 

Truth be told, I'm somewhat shamed by my shallowness and how easily I discarded who I thought I was for creature comforts.