Magic in the Music

Right next to the Cape Town International Airport is a township known for its high crime rate, poverty, unemployment and controversial housing project. Curiously, it is named after one of the leading cities in Holland, well-known for its porcelain and famous painters. It is also known as one of the prettiest cities in Holland. The Delft that I visited this morning was anything but pretty. The wind swirled plastic bags around, people and dogs milled about on the streets, and informal traders tried to earn a living from their meagre stalls.

We found the grim-looking Voorbrug High School behind barbed-wired walls and tall gates. It looked safe enough, but I was wary – this was not on my usual route. We parked, wondering if we were in the right place as there was no other car about, but as we opened the doors the sounds of jazz beckoned. One of the classrooms is being used as a rehearsal room for seven teenagers who are about to embark on the journey of their lives. They have been chosen to perform at the Award ceremony for the WCPRC in Sweden at the Gripsholm Castle in front of Queen Silvia. None of them have ever been on a plane.

When I was asked if I knew of  a group who played anything jazzy to recommend for the WCPRC ceremony, the Delft Big Band immediately sprang to mind. I have been privileged to be in the audience on a few occasions when the band performed. The band is directed by Ian Smith who has been working with them for two years. Using hand-me-down instruments and a lot of passion and energy, Smith is giving these children something to aim for, to take them out of the cycle of gangs, drugs and poverty. I have written about the project in my blog on the Tenth Sekunjalo EduJazz concert. 

The seven teenagers have been chosen from this project. They are hard at work practising their repertoire of South African jazz and are promising to do us proud. I feel so privileged to have experienced the magic that is coming out of a township as bleak as Delft. As we left the school we watched an airplane come into land as another took off. Living next door to the third busiest airport in Africa, these children must see planes arrive and leave every few minutes. Next time they will be on one of them. 

A Photographic Morning

I have had a good week, photographically speaking. This week our 10-week photography course came to an end with the last lesson a session in Kalk Bay harbour. I was looking forward to having a guided photo shoot - a little bit of help with setting up and experimenting with shots in the real situation would be very helpful. Of course, after all these glorious sunny days we have been having, Tuesday morning dawned heavy with mist. The 30-minute drive was punctuated with us peering nervously at the sky, willing the mist to lift.

A grey Tuesday morning in Kalk Bay harbour

On our arrival, our lecturer and two classmates were stomping around to get to warm, but raring to go. We  were disappointed with the weather, but Max felt that the show must go on! (or something like that). He said that these were the moments that the best photos were taken, when others were put off by the weather. We listened to the voice of experience... 

local school outing

There was a wealth of subject matter - boats, sea, people, fish and, of course the resident seals.

lobster boat

I was surprised at the number of people out on a weekday morning. There were three elderly women out for a stroll who we later spotted at Kalky's - a popular institution which serves generous helpings of perfectly-battered hake and chips. There were fishermen out to catch "the big one" and a group of children on a school outing. As well as some people having quiet moments and I picked up a few foreign accents, too.

lobster coming in - ready for inspection

All in all, quite a productive morning - a fitting end to a very informative course. Now it is time to start practising! And the sun made an appearance as we were leaving!

Cape Town School of Photography

Chalk and Cheese

I find it fascinating how children who are birthed from the same parents, who grow up in the same house with the same circumstances turn out so differently. I guess when you throw two different adults together and make a baby; you take potluck with how they are likely to turn out.

Sailing and horse riding are sports with a certain genteelness that I certainly did not grow up with. My son is a fan of both and it matters little to him that no one in the family shares that passion. Similarly, he plays the clarinet. Although we all love music, none of us play an instrument. My daughter briefly played the recorder in grade one, as a requirement of the syllabus but dropped it with little further interest. She did not even try out for the school choir, dismissing it as being for children who needed to learn how to sing.

She sleeps like a log, since an early age has invited all she meets to come round and visit and leaves everything till the last minute because she “works best under pressure”. She's travelled like a dream since she was nine months old. My son on the other hand does not mind his own company (choosing solitary interests to occupy himself) sleeps like a flea and is more focused and conscientious about his work. If it wasn’t for the fact that he looks like me and shares other characteristics too, I would be inclined to believe my daughter’s assertion that he was swopped at birth.

I spent the first two and a half years of his life comparing him to his sister before I accepted that this little boy had his own agenda and was blazing his own trail. Now that adolescence has dawned I find myself comparing them again. My daughter breezed her way through but it seems like it may be pay-back time with my son. 

Both of them have enriched my life in so many ways, teaching me so much and often pushing me out of my comfort zone (like when I decided to take horse riding lessons). If sailing proves to be a lasting passion, I might have to take to the water soon.

A Visit with an old Friend

I have just re-read a classic – My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell. When I finished it this morning I felt a deep pleasure that started in my very middle and rose all the way up to manifest in a huge grin. I felt the satisfaction settle like a cloak over me.  Every bit of it was as good as I remembered. With a few words, Durrell was able to transport me right into his madly, chaotic, eccentric family on the equally mad, chaotic and eccentric island of Corfu. It was like meeting up with an old friend and finding that we could pick up exactly where we left off. Although I think that this time I read it with far more appreciation of the descriptive passages that he is so good at. 

I had an urge to share it with my children although I am not sure how well he will stand up to vampires, dragons and other unearthly creatures. Nevertheless, I cornered them with a few passages I could not resist reading out aloud.

... we…fled from the gloom of the English summer like a flock of migrating swallows ... 
... France rain-washed and sorrowful, Switzerland like a Christmas cake, Italy exuberant, noisy and smelly, were passed…
... the cypress-trees undulated gently in the breeze, as if they were busily painting the sky a still brighter blue for our arrival...

And that’s only in the first 20 pages or so.

I found myself laughing out loud at hilarious descriptions of his family and other characters who passed through his life while they were in Greece. I have stuck little coloured post-its all over the book to go back to ruminate over.  Ah, the simple pleasures in life! 

The 50th Anniversary Edition of My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell is published by Puffin 

The Gift of Friendship

I value the women in my life. The gift of having someone who listens when you open up, supports and cheers you on when life's disappointments get you down, and who celebrates the joy of being alive with you, is one that should not be taken for granted.

I am fortunate to have a few women in my life who I can call friends.  There is the friend who I know will cajole me into laughing my way out of difficulty. There's the friend who will take charge, like a mother hen and organise when necessary. There are friends I can share the responsibilities of motherhood with, and the friends I can show my wild, outrageous Aquarian side to. There are those who inspire me and those who keep me young.

Different friends suit different times in my life. They come in different sizes, shapes and with different temperaments. Sometimes I find myself thinking about the space I am in and the friend I need, like one would choose a track of music to listen to or a book to read. My friends are like the family I have chosen. We share a bond that is born out of shared joy, sorrow and whatever it takes to deal with the blows that life sometimes throw at us. Long ago I learned that it was necessary to gather around me the people who build me up, support and nurture me, not people who tear me down. 

Whenever I have had the privilege of sitting down in a circle with some of the women I know, it amazes me how each one brings their own flavour to the gathering. It is exactly because we are so different that we can support each other - the mothers, grandmothers, career women, nurturers, cooks, givers and doers - sharing wisdom and experience. We emerge with our batteries recharged, ready to create the the small corners of peace in our home and our community.

It's not black and white

South Africa isn't Black and White. It's Grey. Foreigners have asked me numerous times for clarity about some or other issue (which never arises where they come from) and I find myself juggling wildly different responses in an attempt to explain the "local" viewpoint. There is no clear answer to many questions.

For one, how do you describe a typical South African to anyone? We are such a hodge-podge of cultures, religions, traditions and value systems and it is going to be a while before we breakdown into that "melting pot" that everyone calls our country. You may eat pap and vleis or curry, live in the country or at the sea, click or bray through a language, speak loudly on buses or genteelly drink tea at the Nellie. We once met a group of wealthy young Americans on our travels through Italy. They immediately assumed that we were of those South Africans who didn’t know how to use a washing machine because we have legions of servants. Wonder who they had been hanging out with.

And then there are more serious issues. Someone pointed out to me that nowhere in the world does the government provide free housing for people. I agree hat you value something more when you have worked for it, contributed to it and earned it. But on the other hand, we have such a huge backlog and people in such dire need of a basic roof over their heads (never mind an enclosed toilet) that we really need to just pitch in and get them housed. How else will we level the playing fields?

Similarly, I listened while a foreign friend had a little rant about why South Africans have to qualify people according to race as in "a Black guy came walking into the room". I'm afraid, this has been ingrained into our brains and vocabularies - a person's "race" put him into a box that described everything from the language he spoke, the place he lived, maybe even his job and the car he drove. 

So having come this far without a “Hotel Rwanda” or a “Holocaust”, I think that we should get on with making this a great country and find our own identity. We cannot be neatly boxed (in spite of the previous regime doing their utmost) – indeed we probably won’t fit into that melting pot without boiling over. But we will be proudly South African. Already the next generation is moving away from the labels. I have never heard my children refer to their friends as a white kid or a black kid; they seem to have little difficulty finding other adjectives.

On Turning 18

My daughter turned 18 two days ago. She is in her final year of school and the world is her oyster. Over the years she has put together quite an impressive CV. She has met queens and presidents, dug trenches in rural villages, been interviewed on television and the radio, and travelled to some of the most exotic places in the world. She is excited about registering to vote and getting her driver's licence. She has decisions to make about what and where she wants to study.  Someone asked me if I remember what it was like when I turned 18. It was nothing like that.

At 18 I had completed school (in those days we started school a year earlier) and was embarking on a very different voyage. In the apartheid days it was no easy feat being accepted to the mainly "white" University of Cape Town and I needed to acquire a permit. 

Entering university was such a cultural onslaught - I might as well have been in a different country. The campus was huge - I think my school could have fitted into the Jagger Hall. There were lecture halls and sports centres,  different campuses, buses shuttling back and forth, and more "white" people than I had ever seen in my life. And I was able to sit next to them in class, on the bus and in the library.  There were students from all over the country and beyond its borders. Read more about that experience by clicking on this link -  http://saaray-livinginsa.blogspot.com/2010/09/of-black-alumni-and-other-apartheid.html.

I caught buses and trains to campus, wrote out assignments (which I researched in the library in BOOKS!) by hand (or typed them on my dad's typewriter; and no, it was not electric). I could not register to vote. My identity book classified me by race. Overseas travel was some far off fantasy (in fact, I was almost thirty before I went overseas for the first time).

But how exciting to have lived in an era where there have been so many changes. How fortunate to be able to see our children have opportunities and privileges we only dreamt of. And how blessed to have children who use those opportunities and privileges to make a difference.