The Last Word

Well, it’s Thursday, the night before the day I fly away, and I am in that weird time between here and there. It’s been an excellent trip – full of things I had hoped for as well as things I had dreaded – and now I am ready to come home. I miss my front porch and the delicious ability to walk to the corner store at any time of day or night. Not everything is greener over there, of course. I would very much like to retain the late-nights-without-fear-of-early-mornings; the yoga; and the new lazy walk I’ve been cultivating. But something tells me board meetings and work commitments may soon render these lovely habits a distant memory. While I cannot imagine returning to the regular everyday, I guess all that is also exactly what I am most looking forward to.

And now, although the daily writing habit is one I am determined to preserve, it is time to bring this little ‘blog experiment to an end. I gather from emails that many of you have been following along with the tape, turning the pages with the bell or in your own time, but either way, finding something to interest you along the way – and I just want to thank you for taking the time it takes. Writing this has been a great way to keep my own journal (something I have never been very good at), but also knowing people are out there reading it has been an extra incentive.

And now for a moment of complete self-centeredness (as if a ‘blog weren’t enough). Some of you out there will know that I very much do not like flying. So tomorrow (Friday), wherever you are (for Vancouverites, this is at about 8:30 in the morning as you are trying to get out of bed/on your way to work/having your coffee break…you know who you are; for Torontonians, it’s around early lunch time; and in Britain, it’s got to be tea time. I think Angola’s close enough to be the same as my time zone, so Jeet, that’s 5:30pm for you) – anyway, wherever you are, please think about wide open fields for me and I will try to absorb myself in your thoughts as opposed to my own about just how tiny and confined the seat I’m sitting in actually is.

After about 32 hours in planes and airport bars (there’s a country song in there somewhere), I will be home in the evening of the 21st. I expect the weather to be gorgeous, so please arrange this for me. And I guess that’s that.

Love to you all and see you soon!

s.

A few more furry friends

For this one, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...


Not one of the big five, but pretty cool anyway.


A little version of one of the Big ones.


The Rhinos were particular plentiful on our last viewing day. This was the first...we soon found ourselves smack in the middle of a grazing herd. Very cool.


There were two of these guys, mostly sleeping and completely unconcerned with us being so close (and we were close, it's not just a good zoom lens). Finally this one looked at us and then went back to sleep. The other one rolled over and stuck one paw in the air - just like Kali!


Taking a nap after devouring an Impala (parts of which were lying nearby...We were about three feet away and very very quiet.

Well, it has been a hectic ten days or so since I last wrote a proper post.

Since then, I’ve been to Durban where my father and I were whisked through the city to see all the places my dad used to roam when he was a kid. That part of the country is so different - lush and green and pretty much hot all year round. In the summers it's stinking sweaty, but now, at the beginning of "winter" it's perfect. We were in a B&B just a few minutes from the ocean and had just a little bit of beach time.



He left here when he was 17, under dubious circumstances that may or may not have involved an assault on a police officer (something for which he would have received extremely harsh punishment at that time). He returned to Durban for his father’s funeral but that was the last time he was there – about thirty-five or forty years ago. For a little bit of history, the area he grew up in, Cato Manor, was dismantled in 1949, following the passing of the Group Areas Act which said that Indians, Coloureds, Blacks and Whites had to live in separate and specified areas. Cato Manor had been a thriving, mixed community build by Indians who were brought into South Africa after 1860 to work in the sugar fields and factories. There were large houses there, a lush landscape, and a solid community. Now, it is an informal "Black" settlement built of corrugated steel and converted freight containers. Barely a trace of what was there before. It's an odd thing to drive through such a place, to be sure. Our guide, a cousin of my dad's pointing out from the car, "that was where the Govender house was. Oh, it was a big one." and "that was the tree the father's all used to sit underneath to talk" and "that was where your greatgrandparents were buried because there were no crematoriums. Now it's a deserted football field". Doing the trip to Durban with my dad was really the reason for my being here in many ways and I continue to think about how to make something real for myself out of everything I saw and heard there in such a short period of time.


The Talking Tree

After that whirlwind visit, I was on to Johannesburg, with enough time for a six-hour tour of the city and Soweto, one of South Africa's most famous townships.


A veiw of Johannesburg - most of the office towers you can see in this shot are almost completely empty - with only the storefronts being used, often as shops in the day time and "drugstores" at night.

Soweto is another fascinating place - full of contrasts, from the dirt-poor informal townships to the many memorial sites to the now blooming wealthier areas to rival any middle-class neighbourhood.


"Old" Soweto


New Soweto

Again, strange to be a tourist in these places, but you can't really go into townships on your own. Our guide lives in Soweto and she was very good at striking the balance between an honest description and a hopeful one - with a lean towards the hopeful that was fair, I think, from what I saw.

And then, of course, it was safari time.

For those of you who didn’t know (I didn’t), The Big Five are so-called because they are the five most dangerous animals to hunt. If you shoot one and miss, they don’t just think, ‘oh maybe I’ll get out of here before s/he tries again’. Nope. They think, ‘You little shit. You think you can kill me? Try again, sucker…” and then charge. Well, I have now sat mere feet away from all five of these reckonable creatures and have come back suitably awed.

I won’t bore you with the whole list of 32-odd creatures seen and identified, but I will show you a few of the best photos (I think) to emerge from the experience. In short, the safari was completely excellent. I still feel buzzed just thinking about it. Took lots of photos, spent time with a really great group of people, ate surprisingly yummy food, had way too little sleep for reasons of late night socializing and early morning sightings, and saw some beautiful parts of the country too.

I have now returned to Cape Town ready to buy some souveniers, see some family, and return home to bask in the lovely memory of it all.

And now, just to tease you for the next installment, here is one pretty picture from Kruger National Park. If I gave you all the big ones all at once, you'd probably wander off and never return. So here is just one with more to follow...(Actually, I'm running out of time and left my other little camera 'chip' at home, with some of the best shots on it, so the tease is entirely accidental...sorry!)...stay tuned for more...



love to you all,

surya

Monkeys in the road

Advanced warning - there are no pictures with this one. I've just landed at a hostel in Johannesburg and am trying to catch up with emails and let you know I'm still here. Just spent a fast four days in Durban tracking down the lost places of my father's youth and meeting monkeys on the road. Got toured around by some incredibly generous distant relatives and started putting together some of the many pieces that is my father's life before me. The Govender family sure had some adventures! Everywhere we went people knew the name...in that nodding, 'oh, the Govenders" kind of way that made me want to sit them down with a beer and get the goods! But now I'm exhausted and grateful to have a few days where I can just be on holiday. Here for two nights, then off on safari... Saying that makes me feel like I should be wearing khaki shorts and a silly hat with a rifle over my shoulder and a history of oppressing people in my rucksack...

Anyhooo...That's about it for now. Photos (the best one's yet, I hope) and more stories to follow when I get back to Cape Town. 'Till then, keep well all and dream about monkeys.

Love you,

Surya

What Freedom Means

Well, it's a beautiful day. Finally. We've had some grey weather the last little while and I have been suffering with a bit of vertigo so it feels like the world has cleared up as my head has. But now I'm happy, warm, and apparently on even ground again.

Thanks to everyone who has let me know that they are still hanging in there and reading these sporadic messages. It's very nice to know I'm not hollering into the void.

It was a quiet week. Partly because I couldn't seem to stop the world from spinning (don't you hate it when you can't control the universe?) but also because I am so reliant on other people to get out there and this particular family seems to have it's own definition of time. I did manage to get my cousins to take me out the other night - we did a bit of bar hoping before ending up at a great little jazz club on Long Street. There is so much great music here and I have been craving just such a hit. I will pick a cd and share the tunes when I get back.

We (my dad and I) are heading off to Durban for a few days on Saturday and then I am on to Jo'Burg and a four-day safari. Durban is where my dad grew up - specifically in a place called Cato Manor which was one of the first areas affected (and destroyed) by the Group Areas Act of 1948 (or '49?). It will be a intense trip I think - it's so hard for him to experience these places and articulate what he's feeling - but a necessary one. Then he comes back to Cape Town and I go on to Jo'Burg (All by myself! Wow!) for a quick one-day tour of the crucial sights before I whisk off for a four-day safari. I can't believe I'm going on safari! Then it's ten more days in Cape Town and home again, home again.

Yesterday was Freedom Day here - the first time all South Africans were eligible to vote - and guess where I spent it? In the mall, of course.



See all those little things that look like people at the bottom? Well, they are people. Thousands and thousands of people. It was a gorgeous day, sunny and hot but with a bit of a breeze. And this place (seriously one of the biggest malls I have ever seen in my whole life - kindof reminiscent of Las Vegas, all crammed inside a sprawling stone box) was PACKED! I looked everywhere for a "Freedom Day - the Freedom to Shop" sign, but I guess there's no place for irony in a consuming world.

Such is our experience of the New South Africa. No - not completely - just a part of it. As for other experiences in the last week, I went to temple again - this time for Kavadi, which is the Hindu festival of atonment.



On this day people walk across fire and spear themselves with things in order to atone for past sins. No fire walking at our temple but there were a couple of people going into trances and pushing pins through their toungues, and of course lots of singing, tablas and food. An interesting day all 'round.

Also had a family dinner.


Me and dad with uncles and aunts.

And that about does it for now.

Love to all,

s.

Grab a cup of coffee and settle in...

What do penguins, ostridges and baboons have in common? Besides all being supremely amusing animals, they all live in the Cape, of course. And that is your geography lesson (or is it biology?) for the day.

My dad arrived last week, and since then we’ve borrowed a car from my cousin and I have been driving us all around the Cape. For those of you who are not suitably impressed, I should add that they do not drive on the right side of the road here. There’s been some learning to do – I have to remember not to wash the windows every time I turn left, but I think I’m doing fairly well, having only once swung out into oncoming traffic (kidding, mum, there was no traffic, just a big empty lane that should not have had me in it either…ooops). We went to see the penguins yesterday


(I call this one “Penguin Bouncer”)

and today visited an ostridge farm (ick to the farm bit, hi-larious as far as the birds go…)



and saw baboons



(they hang out at the side of the road scratching their red bums and banging cars for food – charming, really).

On Monday, we went to Robbin Island, which was as odd as these things often are. You file on to a boat with about a hundred other tourists (literally) and ride over to one of the most infamous prisons in the world. There you are greeted by ex-prisoners who have made the choice (both heroic and baffling, I think) to return and tell the world about their experiences. They take you on a bus to show you where the leper colony was in the 19th century and where Robert Sobukwe (one of the more famous apartheid-era detainees) was held in solitary confinement for 6 years (see links on your right for bio). Then you get to “go to prison”, and see Nelson Mandela’s cell. It is a surreal thing. Obviously an amazing thing to be able to go somewhere like that and hear from people who experienced – and survived – such horror in the name of freedom. But so so strange to go there as a tourist, our cameras snapping and our questions awkward. In the prison, our guide was a large black man whose eyes were crooked behind his thick glasses. He brought us in to one of the communal cells, where eight to twelve men would be held together and the walls bugged, and where he had at one time been incarcerated for his political beliefs. As we sat there, he told us about the political prisoner who had his eye pulled from its socket by one of the other inmates and about the beatings another man received for refusing to call the white warden “bass” (boss in Afrikaans). Part way through his narrative, one of the people on the tour raised his hand and said politely, “excuse me, sir, but we have to be back at our boat in five minutes”. Then we all filed out, down the hill and back to the mainland. You can see, I think, what I mean by surreal.


Nelson Mandela's cell

I continue to try to make sense of this place. I am listening to family stories, each one with its narrator’s particular point-of-view. One thing for sure about this family is that they can tell a story. I’m not certain, but I think I can hear my own in there somewhere.

I have probably said this before, but I continue to be amazed by how insulated people’s lives are here. They are so confined. Safety and security are mentioned literally in every conversation – someone has been the target of theft, someone else is having a new fence put in, a neighbour chased someone off her property last week. There are bars and locks on every single door, window and possible opening – even sometimes between rooms inside the house. When you are crossing the road, people remind you to wait on the sidewalk, because “they slow down and grab whatever they can”. If you want to go for a walk or run, you must stay within the eight square blocks of the neighbourhood (Rylands was a designated Indian Area under the Group Areas Act and is still populated primarily by Indian families who know each other at least in passing). Cars are equipped with an automatic feature, so as soon as you close the door, you are locked in. You do not go out after dark alone at all. It is not that I don’t believe the threat – I’m just not sure that the cure’s not worse. I do know I could not live like this for long. Everyone says it has become much more of a concern over the last ten years (everything is measured by these ten years since the new government was sworn in). I suppose it is because there is more freedom of movement, more expectation, more possibility and perhaps a new kind of frustration at continued inequalities. And of course, everything I am told is filtered through family and through, to some extent, the Indian community, which has, of course, its own politics to protect.

To end, I have found some great new music from the Cape. I am bringing back a few cds, but if you’re interested in the meantime, check out these links (also to your right):

http://cd.co.za/legends/2000plus/moment_cape_town.html

http://www.sheer.co.za/paul.html

http://www.sheer.co.za/index.html

Love to you all (especially for making it this far, if you’re still reading this crazy long message),

s.

It's Winter in Cape Town

(Cape Town, but not today)

Well, they warned me about it. And it's true. Cape Town is cold when it wants to be. It's been pouring rain here since yesterday. It will no doubt clear again and be beautiful, but just at the moment I feel particularly at one with those of you in Vancouver. Granted there's more theft and pie shops here, but still... Last night was thundershowers and lightening. Today has been an unbelievable wind along with the rain. But actually it's been kinda nice to wear long pants and not have to fight the crowds when you walk the street.

People here are on very different schedules than my usual one. It is very difficult to just sit when there’s so much I want to see and do (yeah, I know, I need to slow down, but there's slow and then there's slow!). It’s so strange, but people here don’t spend very much time outside. They go from their locked houses to their locked cars and drive long distances to locked offices or fenced parks and manicured tourist sites. They don’t sit outside in the sun. They don’t go for walks. I think they’re so used to protecting themselves and their property, they don’t notice that they’re the ones locked out.

I just realized I sound like I'm complaining, which I don't mean to do. I have had much more freedom to explore than I feared I would have and am definitely getting a sense of the country - or at least the Cape region. Oh, and I have booked my safari!!! I will be going to Kruger National Park (in the Northeast of the South Africa) for a four day tour - and visiting Johannesburg and Durban on the way. The tour promises "The Big Five": lions, elephants, rhino, cheeta and giraffe - plus lots of littler critters too (snakes, birds, hyenas, that sort of thing).

I spend a lot of my time with family taking mental notes - so many gaps in what I know about 'where I come from' are being filled in, and lots of other questions making themselves known too, of course. There's a novel, or at least a fringe play, in there somewhere...

Anyway, those are my soggy thoughts for the day. Hope you’re enjoying this little journal…

Love ya all,

S.

Notes on the first week

A little behind myself, but here are some notes from my first few days (hope it's not too long, but I have to catch you up!):

Having a lunch of curried eggplant, rice and dalh at Athe’s kitchen table. Athe (a title of respect for my eldest aunt), a tiny woman, about 75, who always wears a pale coloured sari and her black hair in a tight bun at the nape of her neck, is preparing yet another curry. She is interrupted twice on this hot day by tall skinny black men in woollen caps who have come to ask for food. She prepares leftovers and sandwiches and men like these, or sometimes children, know to knock on this door. When they do, she peeks out at them from behind the lace curtain of the window, then unbolts the door and passes the food through the locked metal grate without conversation.

When I ask her if she thinks things are changing, she say yes. But then, unprompted, tells me there is corruption and a sense of entitlement amongst the newly powerful. She explains, in her gently voiced but unassailable way, that Indians still do well here because "they have always worked very hard for what they get and are not lazy". Some people, she says, think they shouldn’t have to work for what they get. I hear this often. The word: complacent. “They think they deserve things they don’t work for.” It is difficult to unpack this heavy thing. Although I I am far from convinced by this reasoning - given the historical absence of any opportunity to achieve the things their daily labour should have made easily accessible, it is hard for me to be either surprised or condemning of any sense of entitlement that may (or may not) exist amongst black South Africans.

From “Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books” by Azar Nafisi (a highly recommended read): “The worst crime committed by totalitarian mind-sets is that they force their citizens, including their victims, to become complicit in their crimes. Dancing with your jailer, participating in your own execution, that is an act of utmost brutality...”

It's an interesting moment when I realize that here, amongst my family and walking the streets of Rylands (an Indian area as designated by the Apartheid era Group Areas Act and still all 'brown', where Athe lives), I am white. My family laughs when I tell them this is not entirely true in Canada. "Here", they say, and point at their own arms, "it is the colour of your skin. It doesn't matter what you look like."

So apparently simple, and yet race is more complicated here, I think, than anywhere else in the world.

In the mornings, for breakfast, I have tea and bread that is toasted on one side only. The other side is soft and damp with condensation, with one faint pink depression in each slice where Athe’s prayer-inked fingers have marked them. As I eat, I become accustomed to the sound of rice and bangles in water as the grains for the day’s curries are washed and put to boil.

A left-over thought on heaven from The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, which I just finished reading (and would also recommend to anyone who has not yet read it).

“Listen: being dead is not worse than being alive. It is different, though. You could say the view is larger.”

I have been here now about ten days. There is much to see, do, talk about and think about. People are very proud of their shopping malls and increasing economic opportunities. But there is a smog that hangs over the city and traffic on every street and I think would be happier to see different choices being made.

But still there are wonderful things. Most especially the water, the mountains, the wine, the beaches, and the people.

And here are some pictures to prove it:

Table Mountain from the beach


A view of Robbin Island, from Table Mountain (Robbin Island is where Mandela and so many other political prisioners were held)


And finally, me, in front of Athe's house, with Table Mountain in the background

Love to you all,
s.

And now from sunny South Africa

Where do I start? First, the end of England. To keep it very brief, had a fun week up North with Mike and his girlfriend Selina. Spent Easter weekend in a place called Masham (pronounced Masam) with friends of Mike's and their huge black dog.





(that's us walking in the Dales - on the way to the pub, of course)

Also, got to see Mike at work...feeding the sheep...



and through the various demonstration project (for all you garden people out there, take note of the living willow fence...nice, huh?)...



Then flew to Cape Town.



I have now met most of the family again - all the uncles and aunts, but not yet all the cousins. Spent the first day walking around the neighbourhood - with an uncle as escort, of course, since there are not many places in this country where you can safely walk alone. Then taken on a driving tour of Table Mountain and the coastline, to help me get my bearings. Also went to a play called "Under the Syringa Tree" about two families' experience of the apartheid era. Such a surreal experience watching the story unfold surrounded by an audience who experienced this history so intimately. And went to temple yesterday with Athe (my eldest aunt) and in traditional dress too - but have no pictures of this momentous occasion, I'm afraid. I know it sounds like I'm running around, but the pace of my days is actually quite mellow. Already, I've sat on a few beaches and watched a few turquoise waves lapping at the lovely sand. I can feel the relaxation taking over my body like virus.

And today I have been driven to the centre of town and allowed to wander on my own accord. Such a treat. I'm finding it hard to find a balance between safety and paranoia, but am told that the town centre is relatively safe and there's lots to do, so we'll see.

So, that's it for the moment. The rest of what I wanted to say has fallen victim to a technical difficulty, so it will have to wait.

Love to you all,

s.

So

So at long last, I have photographs. I can't post indefinitely, so things will drop off the end as my account gets full. But I hope you enjoy the visuals while they last. I don't have any pictures of my excellent hosts here in Reading, but they have been welcoming as always - so just imagine a bunch of open arms with English (and Scottish) accents. And I am off to Leeds tomorrow to visit Mike.

s.

Buy me

I guess I'm not the only one to be disturbed by this!

If a tree...?

The thing about these trees is that they are carved out of a processessed block of wood.  Hard to get the effect from a photograph, but they are quite striking.  Vaguely disturbing too, when you think about it.

Ghost dress at the Tate

Yay photographs! Thanks to Jeff and Michael for helping me sort it out! This one is from the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum). No tricks were employed by the photographer...

No avocados with my art, please.

So it appears that some of you are wondering where else heaven would be but up in the sky. Since I am not predisposed to think of it as a place, I was thinking more about what heaven means as an idea. It's such a universal notion and yet such a strange one - but then, evolutionary wise, we always have been motivated by the idea of perfection, haven't we? Maybe that's the place to start.

Anyway, just back from a few 'perfect' days in London. Went to several galleries. The Tate is wild
- a huge power plant converted to a gallery (somewhat bigger than the Power Plant in Toronto, but an equally good idea). Still working on photos, but will post some once I've sorted that out. Also saw a showing of portraits of Frida Kahlo which were gorgeous - hadn't seen many of them. And a new installation by Jenny Holzer (Museum of Modern Art, Dia: Chelsea, Hamburger Kuntshalle, etc.) , best known for her truisms but in this latest work, using another poet's work. Also the V&A for a wander through their costume collection and the Serpentine Gallery to see the newest from Turner Prize (2000) nominee, Tomoko Takahashi. The sort of show that makes you think: okay...so what is art anyway? But by the end of it - after wandering through a mess of familiar and generally utilitarian objects, you realize there is a guiding hand there - someone who has seen these things in a particular way and wants to share that. Ah, so we arrive at today's question, I think: What is art? But, since that's such a boring question really, how about this challenge:

Define art in one sentence without using the words aesthetic, beauty, creativity, crap, or avocado (or variations thereof).

The best part about London was meeting up with a couple of old friends. Met up with Lisa, who I knew from McGill and went to this great little bar in Soho called Akbar (a good one to remember if you're ever in town). Also got in touch with Amina, another friend from McGill who I haven't seen in10 years! She's gotten herself married and is the mother of an absolutely gorgeous 10 month old girl. We spent the afternoon lazing about in Hyde park with some scrumptious Lebanese food and a bottle of wine. Really, this is not the London I remember, but I'll take it!

And since I'm getting into far too much detail, I will stop now. Again, photos will emerge from the virtual ether sometime soon.

s.

First day

An uneventful flight. Arrived in Reading at about 2:30pm. Had a bit of a nap, made some phone calls, ate dinner.

Had some more thoughts about heaven. I'm curious about the idea, having just spent an inordinate amount of time on the wrong side of the clouds. Why this ideal place in the sky? What does it mean? Is it simply the name for that last moment before you kick it? A chance to recognize your little piece in everything?

Random thoughts on the subject are welcome.

s.

p.s. hands up those of you who still believe you can walk on clouds.