Lest We Forget

Photo taken at District Six Museum 2015

I am reading William Pick’s The Slave has Overcome, and the humiliation of being a student in the medical faculty of the University of Cape Town during the 1980s, has coming sweeping back in waves over me. Professor Pick is the former head of the School of Public Health at Wits University and President of the Medical Research Council and holds a string of other awards and accolades including a fellowship from Harvard University. He tells his story as a descendant of the historically-repressed indigenous Khoisan people who overcame the barriers of apartheid to become an internationally recognised leader in the field of Public Health. 

Prof Pick studied medicine at UCT in the 1960s. It was painful to read of the discrimination he faced and to be reminded of the same issues which I experienced 20 years later – the difficulties of travelling from the Cape Flats to campus, the awkwardness of being able to sit next to whites in lecture theatres when we couldn’t sit next to them in restaurants, not being able to treat white patients, not being able to dissect a white cadaver…

In the hospital you were able to work out the race and sex of your patient without even seeing them – the folders were green for blacks and pink for whites, a number in the corner of the name labels classified patients according to race and sex with number 1 being equal to "white male", 2 for "white female", 3 for "coloured male" and so on until the classification at the bottom of the hierarchy was "black female". 

I remember having great difficulty as a third year student on my first psychiatry placement at Valkenberg Hospital in the coloured ward where a mix of neurotic and psychotic patients had been dumped together because of a lack of facilities. My supervisor sympathised with me but said her hands were tied because I couldn’t be placed in the white ward at Groote Schuur Hospital. 

In the last while I have been disturbed to hear opinions that this government is worse than the apartheid government. I, too, am angry at the slow rate of transformation, but sympathetic at the overwhelming burden of the apartheid legacy of gutter education, inferior health care and segregation at every level and I am insulted when I am told that apartheid wasn’t that bad, that it’s over now and we must move on. 

To say that apartheid was better than what we have today is to dismiss the suffering and humiliation of millions of people, the death and torture of thousands more and the brainwashing of generations of people who believed that they were inferior or superior and had a right to treat fellow human beings in a certain way because of the colour of their skins. To say that apartheid was better than what we have now is to minimise the suffering of all those forcibly removed from their homes, those denied entry to university. To say that apartheid was better than what we have today is to give the perpetrators permission to pat themselves on the back and smile smugly because they were justified in treating black people the way they did. 

I salute Prof Pick and the countless others who, like him, have overcome the legacy of apartheid to excel in spite of the barriers. 

Relate Bracelets - Making a Difference

There’s a rhythm to threading beads which I had to learn this morning – 4-1-1-1, 4-1-1-1, and so on. I sat down and started threading without making sure that my beads were in the right order and pretty soon I had made a mistake. Luckily, I was sitting in-between two experts, who quickly showed me the secret. 

The bracelets we were making are the basics of an inspired project for social upliftment, started by Lauren Gillis in 2010. The project offers township seniors dignity, companionship and an income to support themselves; offers disadvantaged youth an opportunity to earn a living, and, at the same time, helps new organisations grow their potential. What’s more, the bracelets which are produced help raise awareness of causes as varied as early childhood education, clean water, malaria and wildlife conservation. 

The finished product in aid of Masikhule

The concept is simple – the bracelet which can be completed in a matter of minutes, is the tool which provides purpose, income and awareness. To date, Relate has created earning opportunities for over 350 people, supported over 70 causes and sold almost 2 million bracelets. Young adults are employed to turn the strings of beads into a bracelet which bears a disc identifying the cause which will benefit. We had the opportunity to engage with them and hear their dreams of a future as a teacher, butler, musician and more.

Younger experts putting the bracelets together

But back to the threading room... to end off, the gogos and tatas (grannies and grandpas) showed us how they keep fit with a series of seated exercises to some lively music, before a feast of Nando’s chicken. The project is truly holistic!

Visit the website, www.relate.org.za, for more information or to purchase bracelets. 

Red Roses and Blue Wigs: A Tribute to Edward Mellerick

I keep replaying the last time I saw you. Were there any clues I missed? Were you in more pain than usual? Sad? Miserable? But, no, I think you were your usual flamboyant self as you drilled me for the details of my son’s dance date.

You made me angry sometimes. “Have I come here to be abused? Whose hair is this anyway?” I learnt to go with the flow, shed the objections with the hair dropping onto the floor. And then you’d pronounce, “You look beautiful. If only I was ten years younger…”

“Yes, Edward, and straight…”

“Oh, shut up and get your lipstick out the bag.” You’d raise your eyebrows in despair at me never having the magic wand you thought could fix any mood.

You lived vicariously through all of us, your loyal followers.

“How are the beautiful babies?” (never mind that they were adults now) and then, like a praise-singer, you’d recall their achievements and milestones from first haircut (which you insisted on giving even though you had no patience for cutting children’s hair), relating the story of my son, aged 9 or 10, being interviewed regarding playing chess, (“… and then the interviewer asked him so what was your shortest game? Five minutes. And against who? Pause for dramatic effect … with sheer delight at the answer – my dad!), my daughter’s matric dance (who is that bouncer she’s taking?), her graduation and her save-the-world sojourns to foreign places. My trips to Sweden were deliberately confused with Switzerland; my flippant answer to your question, what’s the Muslim version of a kugel? (a koeksister) got retold many times.

You’d embarrass me by running through a richly-embellished version of my life every time you introduced me to someone – “from virgin to mother of 6” – adding details about life on campus, meeting my husband and having kids, weaving in overseas trips and the accomplishments of various members of the family … you took as much pride in my return to studies after many years as if you really were the brother you told people you were.

“When those hands get too tired to work you should write,” I said. “We’ll get you onto that computer yet.” I’m writing this for you now. You would’ve loved a blog all to yourself, although you probably wouldn’t have been able to find it on the internet you viewed with such suspicion.

I’m going to remember you for the single rose that used to arrive on my birthday from “the other man”, slobbering me with kisses, your beautiful garden, the enormous displays of flowers that greeted us when we came to visit you, getting ready for functions and you booming at me – “colour? colour!” – and the collections for all your charities every Christmas in lieu of gifts and, most of all for the time you walked down the hallowed corridors of Vincent Pallotti hospital to cheer me up post-op, wearing your blue wig. Thank you for making me laugh.

Towards an Archive of Freedom

Siona O’Connell is on a mission to tell the stories of growing up in Cape Town and to that end has directed and produced a number of documentaries that have emerged out of her research as a faculty member at the University of Cape Town’s Michaelis School of Fine Art and the Centre for Curating the Archive. Siona and I grew up opposite each other on the edge of District Six and share a similar background. Her work is centred on issues of identity, memory and belonging in post-apartheid SA, which all resonate with me. In the past few years she has inspired and cajoled me into exploring similar issues.

I was fortunate to be at the premiere of her latest offerings which screened at the Baxter Theatre on Thursday evening. The first documentary, An Impossible Return, deals with the forced removals from the Cape Town suburb of Harfield during the apartheid-era.

Capetonians in general seem to be unaware of the extent of the forced removals, tending to focus on District Six, but removals occurred across most suburbs subsequently declared “for whites only”. These include Woodstock, Newlands, Kenilworth, Plumstead and Simonstown. Something that had never occurred to me before was that people had to chop up furniture to make it fit into the matchbox dwellings the government moved them into. 

What I remember most about my grandmother’s removal to Mitchell’s Plain in the 1970s, was her loss of independence. Suddenly, the fiercely-independent woman who had survived two husbands, was exiled to a suburb without any infrastructure and had to ask for help to fetch her pension from the Cape Town Post Office as she could no longer get there via public transport.

The second documentary, The Wynberg 7: An Intolerable Amnesia, is a deeply moving account of the lives of the group of teenagers who became known as the Wynberg 7, after being detained during a protest march on the same day as the Trojan horse massacre in Athlone. They were sentenced for public violence, a criminalisation of the public protest.

The documentary includes original footage from the march, court case and detention. It includes interviews with a lawyer, student activist and photographers plus the family of the 7. The trauma is fresh in the minds of the family, especially for the aged mother of one of the young men, who was subsequently diagnosed with schizophrenia. She is concerned about who will look after him when she dies.

I was shocked to hear that those who hadn’t testified at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission still have criminal records. Listening to their stories and the lack of acknowledgement 30 years later, I don’t blame them for wondering whether the sacrifices they made were worth it.

The admission to the screening of the documentaries was free and open to all. The theatre was packed with more than a few who were in the theatre for the first time in their lives. The emotion was palpable and the audience rose in a spontaneous standing ovation after Siona’s powerful speech.

                                

The title of the blog is borrowed from the title of the symposium hosted by the Centre for Curating the Archive I attended last week. 

For more, see
Centre for Curating the Archive 
Story of Wynberg 7

Bricks and Mortar or People?

When I was young and idealistic I had a poster on my wall that said:

IT WILL BE A GREAT DAY WHEN 

OUR SCHOOLS HAVE ALL THE MONEY THEY NEED

AND THE ARMY HAS TO HAVE 

A BAKE SALE TO BUY A BOMBER

That must have been at least 20 years ago but I was reminded of this recently while in a forum where we were posed the question, "Bricks and Mortar or People?" We were discussing the future of traditional education and  whether it was more bricks and mortar that was needed or better teaching methods, in order to address the imbalance of access to education in our societies. 

Four out of ten, children, globally, will never enter a classroom; 250 million children don't learn basic reading, writing and math. In South Africa, particularly, we have an entire generation of people who not only had limited access to education but the education we could access was generally of an inferior quality.  If we want to reverse this legacy and impact the future of our country positively, we need to focus our resources on education. With almost 40% of our population children under 18, this is no mean task. 

There are many people who are hungry for their children to now have the education which was denied them. So hungry that they are prepared to walk kilometres or sit under a tree as long as they have a teacher. while I am not advocating that it’s alright to run classes under a tree, I think that (if we have to choose) our resources might be better employed by investing in people.

By training more teachers to teach more children we’ll be approaching this problem from two directions – transferring skills and creating employment for adults AND providing education for our children. It's equally important to ensure that what goes on inside the buildings is what our children deserve. In some of the most deprived regions up to 75% of children still cannot read after several years of school.

Our children deserve a free, quality education so that they may realise their full potential.

Read more in this blog: 
Education to Change the World 

Happy Birthday, Pa

A Man of Character

I met Henning Mankell two years ago at an author's dinner. I had heard him speak the previous day in a talk entitled, A Man of Character.  I sat, enthralled, as he shared his experiences in Mozambique as the director of a community theatre and his involvement with various humanitarian causes. This is why I want to write, I thought. He spoke about greed which, he reflected, seemed to have become a virtue, about poverty - an unnatural state forced on people, and illiteracy - he thought we should be ashamed that we hadn't dealt with this problem yet.

Mankell spent half the year in Sweden and the other in Mozambique since the 1980s. He joked that he lived with one foot in the snow and the other in the sand. "Africa has taught me to be a better European," he said.

He was well-known for his crime fiction books which sold millions of copies and were translated into 40 languages. He explored the human condition through the protagonists in his novels; the mirror of crime tells of the contradictions in society. "Whatever I write, the reality is much worse," he said.

"We are a story-telling and a story-listening people," said Mankell at the dinner. "It is our capacity to talk and eventually to listen, that will save mankind." He told the story of two old African men sitting on a bench outside his theatre. They were talking about a mutual friend who died in the middle of telling a story. "That's not the way to die, without finishing your story," one of the men remarked.

Mankell died last week.  He has left many stories unfinished. 

Picture of author: Wikipedia Commons

For more on the author visit  http://henningmankell.com/

The Warmth of Other Suns

                                        

I have been immersed in Isabel Wilkerson's book, an account of the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for the northern and western cities, in search of a better life between 1910 and 1970. This epic story covers an exodus of six million people but Wilkerson follows the journey of three main characters, each representing a different decade of the Great Migration: Ida Mae Gladney (1930s), a share-cropper's wife who left Mississippi for Chicago, George Starling (1940s), the valedictorian of his "coloured" high school class in Florida who escaped lynching in Florida and landed up in New York and Robert Foster (1950s), a Morehouse-educated  surgeon from Louisiana who finds himself in California. 

Wilkerson writes easily about difficult subjects - I was shocked at the brutality of the conditions they were escaping and I had no idea of the extent of what she calls the Great Migration, before I went to the MoMA on our recent visit to the USA.  

Wilkerson's mother left rural Georgia and her father southern Virginia to settle in Washington, D.C., so she has a personal interest in this story. She has done a great job of bringing the stories to life and recording it for generations to come. In her Epilogue she mentions some of the many well-known children of people who left the South to give their children the opportunity to grow up free. These include Toni Morrison, Michelle Obama, Serena and Venus Williams, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross and Oprah Winfrey.

     

Michelle Obama 

Oprah Winfrey

                                                     
I was deeply moved by this work of narrative non-fiction which humanises a history of race, class and politics. It is the author's revelation of the personal details of the struggles of ordinary men and women which brings this story alive.

The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson is published by Vintage Books.

For more on the Migration in this blog, see Jacob Lawrence and the Migration Series

Image of book cover from: http://isabelwilkerson.com/

Images of Obama and Winfrey courtesy of www.shutterstock.com 

Our Blended Heritage

The entrance to the Castle of Good Hope

Since Eidul-Adha*, or the Feast of Sacrifice, falls on Heritage Day this year, I thought I would share a little of our Cape Malay history.

The Slave Lodge 

Soon after Jan van Riebeeck arrived in the Cape, slavery was introduced to satisfy the Dutch East India Company’s need for labour. After an initial shipment of slaves from West Africa, slaves were imported from the east coast of Africa, Madagascar, Mauritius, Ceylon, India, the Malay Peninsula and the islands that make up modern Indonesia. 

For the following 180 years, South Africa was a slave state. Although the slaves were not associated with Malaysia, they spoke Malay, a kind of universal language from the area. The Nationalist Party government in all their wisdom introduced the Population Registration Act in 1950, whereby they divided the “coloured” people into seven (yes, 7) subgroups, one of which was the Cape Malay group.

Some early 20th century  Muslims in the Cape
(courtesy of the Simonstown Heritage Museum)

Many of them were political exiles and skilled craftsmen – carpenters, tailors, and cooks, who were able to earn a living and eventually buy their freedom and settled in the area known as the Bo-Kaap. Many of the slaves managed to hold onto their Muslim faith and culture and even though there was intermarriage, their religion and culture kept them together. 

Young Bo-Kaap residents

Bo-Kaap street 

Perhaps most representative of the blended history of the Cape is Malay cuisine – predominantly Indonesian in origin, the dishes have been influenced by India (curries, rotis, samoosas), Netherlands (baked puddings tarts and biscuits, e.g. melktert to which they added their own nutmeg or cinnamon), and the French Huguenots (preserves); exotic spices have been added to create dishes like bobotie, pickled fish and sosaties and accompaniments of sambals and blatjangs.

*Eidul-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice is celebrated about 70 days after Ramadan at the completion of the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca - . A young goat or lamb is sacrificed to commemorate Allah’s command to the prophet Ebrahim (or Abraham), to sacrifice his son. The meat from this animal is distributed to the needy, family and friends. 

Read more: 

Echoes of Slavery: Voices from South Africa’s Past by Jackie Loos, published by David Philip 

The Cape Malay Cookbook by Faldela Williams, published by Struik

For more on Heritage in this blog, see also:
The Slave  Route Challenge 
Celebrating Africa
Lavender, Potjiekos and Travel 
Orpheus in Africa 
Walking through History 

Stories that will never be demolished

Rows of street names in front of wall-hangings recording
memoriesof the vibrant community which once was District Six

I'm not sure how museums will survive the digital age but I can't imagine that viewing images on a screen will evoke the same emotions that I experience whenever I step into the District Six Museum. For me, it's like settling into an old, comfortable chair and turning the pages of the family photo album and setting off a chain of memories. Perhaps it's the familiarity of the area - situated opposite the Sacks Futeran Building where I remember going with my parents to buy clothes and fabric, around the corner from the Grand Parade and the Castle. Of course, it's also across the road from the Caledon Police Station where many of us got arrested in the "old days". 

The Caledon Police Station

Maybe it's the energy which has seeped into the walls of the former Methodist Church which reminds me of the chapel on the hill in the old Zonnebloem complex, where my brothers and I went to school, me in my green dress with white collar and Panama hat, them in their grey shorts and white shirts. Whatever it is, I love going back and this morning an overseas visitor provided an excuse to for another visit. However painful the memories of living during apartheid may be, the exhibition at the museum humanises the experiences while celebrating the rich diversity of people who once lived in the area. 

When I see the barber's corner, the display case with the games we played in the road, the photographs of the Peninsula Maternity Home where my sister was born, the familiar recipes on the wall, or the wall-hanging with the name of the rugby team my father played for, I feel that our lives mattered. Most of all though, when I walk up the stairs to the wall that bears the names of families who lived there and I scroll down to find mine, I feel that our experiences have been validated and dignified.

                            

As the byline on the museum brochure says: 60 000 stories that will never be demolished.

You may also like: 

Healing Memories of District Six

The Fatal Attraction of The Abbey Bookshop

The Abbey Bookshop was a serendipitous discovery. We had been looking for a place to eat after wandering around Notre Dame Cathedral and headed to the Latin Quarter. It was the Canadian flag, flapping in the damp, chilly breeze (Paris in July!?), that we noticed first.

     

We approached the near-toppling towers of books hesitantly, but with more interest when I saw the English names on the book spines, and the narrow stone steps which seemed to lead underground. Signs indicating different genres hung from the ceiling or were pasted onto the front of bookshelves which formed a narrow maze of aisles. I’m not exaggerating when I say that we had to sidle sideways down the aisle if a new customer came in.

This was dangerous territory ... and I don’t mean the books threatening to fall down and bury us if we made a wrong move. I’m notorious for returning from trips, suitcase laden with books that I simply had to buy because I wouldn’t be able to get them at home. I spied a hardcover, which looked like a children’s picture book, but, on closer inspection, revealed the words of a Leonard Cohen song, illustrated with paintings by Henri Matisse. “This will be a good memento of our visit,” I said to my daughter, determined to stay strong.

She, however, had been lured down another aisle after crime fiction titles. So, what could I do, but ask the assistant where the travel books were? “Down the next aisle, behind the ladder,” she pointed.  And there they were…Colin Thubron, Pico Iyer, Jan Morris, Paul Theroux…Egypt, China, Japan, Turkey and Venice. Above that, names that had been thrown about in our writing class – Raymond Carver, Italo Calvinho…I felt like I had died and gone to literature heaven!

My daughter meanwhile was being instructed to move shelves to find what she wanted…shelves that slid along tracks to reveal more shelves behind them. We didn’t stand a chance.* We finally made it to the till, me trying to keep my eyes averted from the book on Cuba I couldn’t possibly have found at home.

“Time to find lunch and pore over our purchases,” I said to my daughter. The assistant, with a deft sideways manoeuvre, pulled out a leaflet from under her desk (probably the only place she could keep them) and asked, “Would you like some recommendations for something French?” So, we did find what we were looking for after all. 

*we really didn’t stand a chance; the bookshop was celebrating 25 years and 40 000 books!

Orpheus in Africa

South Africa’s rich legacy of music can be traced back to the 17th century when the indigenous Khoi people first played European folk songs on a ramkie, the guitar-like Malay instrument, and fashioned their dances on those of the Dutch. Country estates had orchestras made up of slaves. In fact, music was a highly valued skill which could ensure a higher price for a slave. The Malays, who were brought to the Cape from the East Indies by the Dutch, blended their music with Dutch colonial ballads. Coloured labourers brought to work on the diamond mines in Kimberley combined their own music styles with that of Africans who they came into contact with. 

The Lutheran missions and the Salvation Army contributed to the development of African choral traditions, the most famous example of this heritage being Enoch Sontonga’s Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika which came to symbolise the struggle for African unity and liberation in SA. The fact that the missionaries offered free musical education was a major attraction. 

Another influence on local music was minstrelsy, which took hold after McAdoo’s American Jubilee Singers toured SA at the end of the 19th century. Their influence can still be seen in Cape Town’s annual coon carnival. But it was jazz that would influence and shape most black music, from mbaqanga, marabi (shebeen music) to the penny whistle or kwela craze.  Rather than simply copying American jazz, Ian Smith (musician and director of the Delft Big Band) believes that the Cape Town sound evolved from the minstrels, the slaves, and the Malay choirs. [extract from paper on music as resistance]

In his book In Township Tonight! David B, Coplan, paid tribute to the musicians and composers who contributed to the cultural and spiritual quality of black life during apartheid, giving expression to the their lives under apartheid. His book explores the history of music in SA from indigenous traditions, slave orchestras, gumboot dancers and minstrels to the birth of jazz. 

I missed it earlier this year, but David Kramer's Orpheus in Africa returns to the Fugard Theatre on 22 September. It tells the little-known story of Orpheus McAdoo, who toured South Africa in the late 19th century with his Jubilee Singers. It runs until 31 October but the first season was sold out so book early.

Education to Change the World

A very recognisable quote as we rounded a corner in Boston

While in the USA, I visited a few of the 1 200+ schools* (see below). I was struck by two characteristics which I believe are common to the education system in America. One was the accessibility of the education and the other was the balance of the curriculum. 

For Americans who want to study, there are federal grants and bursaries and many of the universities, even those like Harvard, offer needs-based scholarships.  This means that if you have the academic ability, by and large, lack of funds need not be a stumbling block. This results in a diversity of students which I found exciting.

I was also very taken with the liberal arts core of the curriculum. Subjects like art, history, music and science, form the basis of an all-round foundation. In other words, graduates who are able to hold forth on a variety of topics, are being produced. Majors are only declared in third year. 

Education was the tool that the South African government used to oppress us…education was meant to keep us in our place. You were able to learn just enough for the jobs that you were expected to do; depending on the colour of your skin, you had enough education to become a factory worker, a maid or a gardener, or if you were lucky, a teacher or a nurse. 

My grandfather taught me that education was the one thing that the apartheid government couldn't take away from us; that they had taken away our rights, property and opportunities but they couldn’t take away what was in our brains, they couldn’t stop us from learning. I believe that it’s the same tool that was used to oppress us that must be used to uplift us. So many generations of people in our country haven’t had access to education. We’ve come a long way from where we were but we have to keep fighting so that our children, and our country, can have a better future. 

I know that the American school system is far from perfect, but I think that this kind of accessibility and well-rounded curriculum is something to strive for. 

*A four-year college or university offers a bachelor's degree. Programs that offer these degrees are called "undergraduate" schools. A "university" is a group of schools for studies after secondary school. At least one of these schools is a college where students receive a bachelor's degree

Jacob Lawrence and the Migration Series

The migrants arrived in great numbers - Panel 40

"Having no Negro history  makes the Negro people feel inferior to the rest of the world...I didn't do it just as a historical thing., but because I believe these things tie up with the Negro today." 

Jacob Lawrence 1940

This quote sprang out at me from the wall of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). It is the reason that I need to start writing the stories of growing up in Cape Town during the 1960's and '70's. I was inspired by the simplicity of Lawrence's series of 60 paintings which records a significant era in American history.

One-Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series and Other Visions of the Great Movement North is currently on at the MOMA as part of a programme exploring the legacy of the Great Migration and its impact on American culture. From 1915 to 1970, almost six million black people fled the rural South for northern and western cities in search of a better life, thereby indelibly altering the demographics of the USA.

Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) grew up in Harlem, New York but both his parents had been part of the mass relocation from the impoverished South to the urban, industrialised cities. He was greatly influenced by the colour and vibrancy of the community in which he lived and set about recording the songs, stories and experiences of his parents' generation through his art. 

By the time he was 23 he had completed the paintings which make up the Migration series. In 1941, at the height of racial segregation in the country, he was the first African American to have his work exhibited at the MOMA. 

A long table with a row of tablets giving access to a multi-media website, occupied the centre of the exhibition room. It soon attracted a group of school children tasked with a summer project of choosing their favourite painting to write a poem about...21st century technology providing the bridge to history. 

                                 

This painting illustrates how effectively Lawrence has captured the loss and suffering brought about by the human rights abuses during this period of American history. It's what he has left out of the picture which is most striking. 

The exhibition is on until 7 September. 

View the Migration Series here 
Image from Migration Series from MoMa website, click here 

A Walk in the Woods

"A path that vanished into a wood on the edge of town ...
A sign announced that this was no ordinary footpath but
the celebrated Appalachian Trail."

I had grand plans for reading Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods while in the USA and then actually walking a little of the trail in Maine. The plan to visit Maine didn't work out, so I was pleased to find that we could access the trail from where we staying on the New York-Connecticut border.

I'm a big Bryson fan, but for some reason, it proved easier to actually get out there and experience the trail than get into the book. I think that it was the moaning of his friend, Stephen Katz, which put me off, but then who am I to talk after only doing 1/300 of the 2 100 miles of the trail?

"The AT is the granddaddy of long hikes."

The Applachian Trail is the longest continuous footpath in the world, stretching along the east coast of the USA, from Georgia to Maine.

From Georgia ...

...to Maine

I did read enough to be warned about the merciless insects. The insect repellent was no match but, being from Africa and having observed many a zebra or antelope in the wild, we found that by swishing a small branch over alternating shoulders, we could stop the pests flying right into our mouths every time we tried to speak to each other. Perhaps it was a similar scenario which inspired those Australian hats with dangling corks. We could have done with one of those. 

It wasn't long before we reached the end of the woods and wandered along paths edged with metre-high grasses and rolling meadows. I repressed the urge to break out into song...we were already get odd looks from fellow-hikers when they saw our fly-swatters.

According to Bryson, every twenty minutes he and Katz did on the AT was further than the average American walks in a week. "For 93% of all trips outside the home, for whatever distance or whatever purpose, Americans get in a car." That may be true, but I did get in at least twice as much as walking as I would normally do at home and, like Katz, I can say " the only thing that matters ... is that I hiked the Appalachian Trail". 

Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods, is published by Transworld Publishers, UK

Walking to Connecticut

It's been a while since I travelled to the USA, as mentioned in my last blog, and I'd forgotten about the effects of a six-hour time difference. It didn't take too long to settle in once we arrived at my friends' house in a village on the border of New York and Connecticut states, though. It helped that I could put on my tackies and walk across state lines...here are some photos of rural America taken on our many walks...

We arrived on the Independence Day weekend, so had the opportunity to soak up the American way at a barbecue, where teenage girls frolicked in the pool, impromptu games of soccer were played on the lawn and the noises of fireworks and college kids home for the summer were punctuated by the thwack of a baseball in a catcher's mitt. Desserts of peach cobbler, blueberry pie and other cakes dazzled with sprays of stars and stripes in red white and blue.

flags everywhere...even in the middle of a field

The jet lag was more of a killer coming back home, hence the delay in posting, but look out for more from "the greatest country in the world" (as overheard at the barbecue).