420s and Spinnaker Poles

I was just getting my head around words like Hobie, Laser, Dabchick, Oppie and Dragoon, when suddenly I was on the phone trying to find a spinnaker pole. After a few calls (because everything shuts down in Cape Town early December) I finally managed to get hold of one. The woman on the other side of the phone was asking me how I would be collecting it. I opened and shut my mouth a few times not knowing what exactly she was asking me and then risked showing my ignorance by asking, “What exactly do you mean by that?” imagining having to hire a trailer to transport this pole.

All she meant was that she was in Zeekoevlei and that the pole was needed in Hermanus which was a good hour and a half away. That was the least of my worries. Talk about things we do for our kids? I was being “ground crew” to Angelique’s managing role. Our sons, after barely a few months of sailing (a 420), had decided to enter the SA Youth Nationals which was taking place over the first week of the holidays. 

Much to my dismay, I had discovered (via Angelique) that we were expected to accompany them. I had just about caught my breath after matric exams and was facing a very busy silly season week. The last thing I needed was to spend a week away from home. Luckily, Angelique was prepared to stay there with me coming and going when I could. We had realised that this would be a make or break week for them and sailing ...either they were going to be put off or this would be the start of a lifelong love affair.

It was not an easy week. There were two days of howling winds and one day of sailing had to be cancelled, but our sons battled on.  It was on one of those bad-weather days (when most competitors had opted out) that they had capsized the boat and lost the pole. At the end of the week, sporting sunburn and minor injuries, they came in 12^th out of 14 boats in their section. Tired, but proud, they declared: “At least we didn’t come last!” So it looks like we’ll soon be pencilling in the dates for next year’s race...

Tea with Madiba

“Let the beautiful ladies step forward,” he says as we quietly enter the room behind my husband. It breaks the ice a little. I had been so looking forward to this but too scared to jinx it by getting excited or even telling too many people. Right up to the last minute I had thought it was not going to happen. What if he wasn’t feeling well? One hears so many different stories. But yes, we were being ushered in to see Madiba, and my daughter and I were the beautiful ladies he was talking about.

There he was, the most famous grandpa in the world. He was having a good day and was happy to receive visitors. He was sitting up with a blanket around his knees, catching up with the newspapers. (Was that the Afrikaans newspaper I spied on his lap?)

We had travelled through green countryside under rainy skies past villages with vegetable patches and goats and sheep outside their little thatched huts. It was like we were travelling back in time. We had passed through busy towns like Butterworth, where people snaked around the corner waiting to withdraw their hard-earned money from the cash machines for Christmas. And then for the best Christmas present ever...tea with Madiba.

What a journey from Mvezo/Qunu to Johannesburg, to Robben Island and the world, from herd boy to President.  And now back in Qunu. Last year after being very sick he decided that it was time to go home. Home is Qunu, the village in the Eastern Cape where he grew up, right next door to Mvezo the very rural village where he was born. It’s a peaceful place, and after almost 93 years, he deserves it.

I was a little sad to see him so “old”. In my mind he is eternal, like a shining beacon to all of us, and to the world. But right next door is a little baby who long after Madiba is gone will be chief of the Thembu. When Madiba plays with him as he does every day he must think of the future and delight in the possibilities.

Everyone wants to know what it was like, what he said – but it was more about just being there. It was like sitting down with our grandpa who was worried about why it was taking so long for us to be served our tea and whether the table was close enough to my husband, and smiling to himself when he saw how much my son had grown since the last time he had seen him. And he is still very charming...

Heavenly Massage

I am drifting off far away. Thoughts of a to-do list enter my mind and then float away as if they are getting the message: “do not disturb”. Something heavenly is happening on my forehead – it feels like someone is very gently stroking my hair, soothing my forehead and inviting me into a state of pure bliss.

Before that my body had been rhythmically stroked with warm oil by two pairs of hands, working in perfect synchronisation. Then I had been covered with a towel and a mask placed over my eyes.  A steady stream of warm oil was slowly trickled over my forehead and allowed to run through my hair.

I was being treated to an Abhydara massage, a combination of Abhyanga and Shirodhara. The treatments are part of Ayurvedic treatment. Ayurveda is the 5 000 year-old Indian holistic healing system which literally means “the science of life”. Body, mind and soul are treated to bring about a state of health and wellbeing.

Ayurveda encompasses diet, yoga, meditation and breathing. And then there is the massage...Abhyanga and Shirodhara are just two of the techniques. Abhyanga is designed to release toxins and improve circulation and is done by two people working in together on your body, covering it from toe to head. Shirodhara involves the pouring of a continuous stream of oil on the forehead. It is useful for insomnia, anxiety. It induces a feeling of deep relaxation.

The treatment had started with a short prayer, my feet were bathed and then my head and neck massaged before I was laid down onto the bed for the full body massage. At the end of the treatment, I was invited to “take steam”. This was followed by a shower using a mixture made with chickpea flour to absorb some of the oil. As I patted my skin dry, I felt like I had been massaged inside and out.  

Afterwards, I was left alone to sip my ginger tea and bask in the afterglow of the treatment. I could get used to this...

Keeping the Perspective

In many ways matric exams are the most important academic exams that students will write, determining their future study and job options. But I do agree with my friend, Mary, from Canada, who commented on the overwhelming importance matric exams seem to have in SA. She said that all around the world children write final school exams, they pass or they fail, and life goes on.

Here the whole country seems to be geared towards it – you can’t switch on the radio or open the newspaper without hearing or reading about the impending exams. The daily newspaper features interviews with learners about how they found each examination paper. There are advice columns in the newspaper about how to cope with stress, including suicide help lines. No one should have to want to kill themselves because of an exam.

A few weeks later the results get published in the newspapers and the whole country knows not only whether you passed or not, but how well you did. And then the post-mortems start - the comparisons and the laying of blame.  The next year it starts up all over again.

I found myself getting caught up in the hype. “Has she ever failed an exam?” asked Mary. The answer is no. And it is no for most of them. So why all the angst?

This year the matrics could go to their schools the day before the newspapers published the results, to see how they did before the whole country sees it. Hopefully this will be the start of changes to take some of the pressure off the matriculants. While school exams are hard, life exams can be harder. Let’s keep the perspective.  

Reaping the Benefits

Having been swept up in the flurry of the end of the year, I am a little shell-shocked to find myself landed in the third week of January with my daughter about to start university. It has been a long time of concentrated effort – mock exams first and then a month later, the finals. It seemed that they had no sooner done one set of exams when they started the next. I could almost see all the adrenalin draining out of her body after she wrote her last paper.

I am happy to report that the exams have gone well from all perspectives. Our military-style operation (yoga, shiatsu, diet, boot camp) has paid off and here we are, reaping the rewards of hard work. Not only has she been accepted at the University of Cape Town, she has been offered a scholarship based on her academic performance....very proud family!

She only applied to UCT (“because you and dad went there”). Dad and I needed special permits to attend the university as we were not white. It makes me even prouder that here she is, no baggage, in her own right and on her own merit, entering UCT. I’m looking forward to this new phase in all our lives. 

Like Coming Home

This morning when I got on the mat, it felt like coming home. For the last two weeks, I have been paddling furiously to keep up with all the end-of-year goings on.  It hasn’t helped that there was no routine with schools as well as the yoga studios I attend, all closed. My body has been protesting the absence of a good stretch and the grounding it gets from a regular practice. The little I have been doing by myself at home has not been focused enough for real satisfaction.

All the rushing around culminated in getting onto a plane to Mauritius, not a moment too soon.  The rush to the airport included a stop at my daughter’s school to get her exam results – more of that later...And so I woke up in paradise and took myself off to a yoga class. As I sat down, breathed in and settled down, I felt a sigh escape my body. It really was like coming home. I allowed the sing-song voice of the yogi to guide me through the familiar postures my body knows so well - though not without muscles protesting from disuse and abuse. Yes, even two weeks can make you lose it. It was a pure Hatha yoga class which took me right back to my roots in the Ananda Kutir ashram.

A gentle breeze was blowing in from the ocean and the sounds of birds singing and frogs croaking, was all the music we needed. As we chanted “Om Shanti” to end the class, I was at peace.