The Smoke that Thunders

I have lived in Africa all my life but somehow our travels have always taken us right off the continent (except for our trip to Egypt a while ago). A visit to Victoria Falls has always been on my personal bucket list. In fact I think that it is on Richard Horne's "101 Things to do Before you Die" list. Last year I was fortunate to see Niagara, half-iced over, so have been even more determined to make the trip north to see our own natural wonder.

We made a rather dramatic entrance - the pilot attempted to land at Livingstone Airport three times because of the very stormy weather, before we were able to land safely. I was very glad to not have to go back to Johannesburg. After that, we felt that we should go straight to the Falls and pay homage. Below is our first view.

I was completely blown away by the natural beauty of Africa. I could not help but think of David Livingstone arriving here and imagining what it must have been like for him. Everyone kept telling us that the Falls was "dry" as this was just the start of the rainy season, but I think we were able to grasp the wonder of it. It formed the background to our stay as it smoked and thundered (the locals call it "The smoke that thunders") while we discovered the richness of the area. We walked with lions, rode on elephants and took helicopter flips over the Falls.

This picture of my son doing the jump into the Devil's Pool signifies for me the sheer exuberance and joy of being part of nature. My husband and I did the jump too (it was 20 years, after all) but did not quite manage to do it quite as agilely as this!

This trip will go down as one of my most memorable and clearly we need to return at the end of the rainy season!

To see my full review on TripAdvisor please click HERE

Life is lived at Lavatory Level

People are crammed into the Business Class Lounge at Livingstone airport. “Air-conditioned Lounge” the sign says – the fans are working furiously. I hesitate, briefly considering staying outside in the general lounge – it seems more peaceful. But I hesitate too long and the seats I spotted have been taken. So it is into the Business Class lounge which resembles an obstacle course. Every time someone opens the door, the receptionist is in danger of being squashed behind it.

I am not surprised at the basicness of it – our boarding passes were manually ticked off by someone sitting at a little desk as we came through security. My husband has cut a path for us and has found a corner to squeeze into. We are so tightly packed that he feels compelled to start a conversation with the people who he is sitting almost knee-to-knee with.

The décor in the lounge is from another era – all chintzy, chunky and dark furniture with amateur paintings adorning the walls. Against the opposite wall is a table with an electric kettle and jars of tea, coffee and creamer. Next to that is a table with boxes of wine and plastic-wrapped bowls of curly yellow chips and popcorn.

There are two doors opposite us – one marked with a rose, the other a thorny branch. “No seats on the toilet” my husband announces as he comes out of the thorny door. I wonder if the rose signifies any better. I am suspicious of public toilets after 20 years of travelling around the world.  A suspicion that was nurtured by the squatting toilets of India! 

Super-clean toilets in Thailand. We had to remove our shoes
and wear the plastic ones on the shelf outside.

One of my travel maxims has been “Life is lived at lavatory level”. When I was a first year Occupational Therapy student, learning about independence training for people in wheelchairs, our lecturer chanted this mantra to us all the time. She believed that being able to use the toilet in a dignified manner, in spite of disability, was of paramount importance to assisting our patients to become functional. Years later it took on a slightly different significance for me!

We have more than an hour’s wait before boarding if all goes according to plan, so I am forced to heed the call of nature.So I gingerly enter the door with the rose.  I have to hold the door shut with my foot because it does not stay closed, never mind lock. The toilet seat is there but the lid of the cistern has gone missing. But I have seen worse. This is reasonably clean and I have learnt to use the reasonably clean toilet because you never know what you will find next. 

As I return to the lounge, my husband is looking at some of our pictures on his laptop. The picture of my son soaring into the air almost over the edge of Victoria Falls, reminds me that you have to traverse the rough parts to get to the high points.

The Spirit of Christmas

Last night, with carols playing to an African beat in the background, we sat down to Christmas Eve dinner. Our multi-cultural and multi-national group represented Sweden, Canada, Mauritius, South Africa, Belgium and the US, and a few religions too. It was hard to tell that half the people in the group had never met before. Around a table decorated with pine cones, candles and glitter, children and adults found common ground in spite of being separated by language and culture.

Every year our Canadian friend gathers together a motley group of people for Christmas Eve dinner. She takes care with the tree, the table and food and drink, recreating the traditions of her childhood on the other side of the world. For the last few years we have enjoyed being a part of her new traditions.

This year the gathering had a different spirit to it. It was the first time she was celebrating with her own daughter who is 20 months old and it opened up the gathering to children from 4 to 14. As children do, they brought an innocence and simplicity to the evening. They gave us permission to jump up and down and be enchanted by the lights and the presents, and the fun of being together. We stepped over little ones crawling after the cats, watched as the tweens connected and marvelled at out how small the world is, as we got to know each other.

The spirit of Christmas was there as we passed around a candle to light the ones which had been placed at our setting and paused to silently give thanks for the year that has been and to express hope for the year to come. At the end of the evening we parted with hugs, exchanging gifts and phone numbers, aglow with the connections that had been made with respect, tolerance and love. 

Lavender, Travel Stamps and a Potjie: Part 1

Lavender Biscuits

The smell of biscuits and freshly-cut lavender is floating all around. These are smells I associate with holidays. I have just been baking batches of lavender biscuits and have also preparing little bags of lavender to give to friends as "happy holiday" presents.  It's a little tradition I started the first year we moved into our house.

Lavender bushes have always lined the pathway leading up to our front door. They have survived drought and at one time were almost the only plants left in our garden because of water restrictions. I love that it looks so delicate and pretty yet can be so hardy and withstand such adverse conditions. I love how the scent fills the air when we trim the bushes or after the rains. I love walking in through the gate with my arms outstretched so that I brush up against it and release the aroma as I walk in. Ever since I did the aromatherapy course it has become my signature - the colour, the oil and the smell. You'll usually find bunches of it in jugs and vases all over the house.

Lavender is pretty much the aspirin of aromatherapy - used for pain and comfort. It is calming, soothing and balancing.  It has been used for thousands of years for healing and cleaning (in fact, "lavare" means to wash in Latin). Charles VI of France apparently used to sit on pillows stuffed with lavender, bunches of lavender were used to scrub floors and the oil was used to clean furniture (remember lavender floor polish?).

St Hildegarde of Bingen recommended lavender for "maintaining a pure character" and in North Africa, women planted lavender to guard against ill-treatment by their husbands. My favourite anecdote, though is about Rene Gattefosse, a famous French scholar and pharmacist. After a suffering a burn in his lab, he plunged his hand into a bottle of neat lavender, the nearest liquid he could find. He was amazed at how quickly his hand healed and this led him to greater research about essential oils  and their properties. He experimented with different oils on soldiers during WWI and became known as the father of modern aromatherapy.

On my bucket list is a visit to the lavender fields of Provence in late summer - I have a mental image of row upon row of lavender and can imagine the scent that must fill the air on  a hot summer's day! See here for more pics. So now you have some idea of what the lavender on my blog-header is all about. I'll explain the potjiekos and travel in subsequent blogs. 

Here is the recipe for my lavender biscuits:

100g castor sugar
200g butter
300g flour
a pinch of salt
1 teaspoon of lavender flowers

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the flowers. Sift the flour and salt and mix to make a dough.
Refrigerate the dough for one and a half hours then roll out and cut with cookie cutters.
Place on a baking sheet and sprinkle with castor sugar.
Bake at 150-160 deg C for 15-20 minutes.

Happy Holidays!

Older and Better

You know you are getting old when you are sitting at your desk and something just pulls in your back. Or like last year, I was just walking along the road, when I twisted my ankle. I don’t know about these people who keep telling you that aging is in your mind, that age is only a number. Tell that to my body! There is the added weight gain around the middle, the slower recovery from sudden bursts of exercise, and of course “the change” which happened last year.   

I have no idea what my children are talking about in Math, and have to suffer the rolling eyes when I need help with an apparently trivial technology-related problem. I nearly fried my brain at the 4-hour workshop I attended on how to use my camera. Other giveaways must be talking about the "old days", and preferring snail mail and chats on the phone to "texting".

I don’t have a problem with getting older; I just have a problem with everyone telling me that it is happening in my head. It’s a process, this getting older. I remember a visit to the doctor a while back, when she told me that now that I was over 40 we needed to do an annual battery of tests like mammograms, cholesterol, thyroid, etc. I left there feeling like I was about to spontaneously combust now that I had passed a certain milestone. 

But here I am years later, still going strong! I have been growing my hair for the last few months. I have had short hair since forever but was feeling like I needed a change. "The only way to have something different is if you grow it," said my hairdresser (while you can still carry it off, he added, half under his breath). But there is life in the old dog yet! Last year was also the year that I went shark cage diving, learnt to ride an elephant and took horse-riding lessons. I have my open water diving certificate and made my television debut on Morning Live, no less.  I have just finished a course on magazine journalism and set up my blog (by myself when they were all in Durban watching Portugal and Brazil during the World Cup!). 

So now I find myself with the odd pain, embracing my curves and the natural highlights in my hair. I am doing things I never dreamt I would be doing. I plan on going back for the longer version of the photography course in the new year and watch out for the new and improved version of my blog. Things are definitely getting better. 

Kahlil Gibran On Children

Kahlil Gibran On Children

I saw my daughter off on another big "expoitition and adventure" this morning. It is so wonderful that she is making use of the opportunities that have been presented to her. I was married and in my late 20s when I first went overseas. In those days (during the apartheid era) it came as a huge cultural shock to be out of the country and the experience of freedom was quite dizzying. Travel is the most wonderful educator - it breaks down barriers and opens your mind to so much. Anyway, the words of Khalil Gibran found their way into my head after saying goodbye and I just wanted to share them.