Respiration in the key of G, part 1

Welcome back friends and family! I’ve been away having a nice holiday…which you are sure to hear about if you read a bit further down the page! If you are too lazy right now, then I’m going to add some quick highlights and hilarities in bullet format. So check those out right now and when you get the chance…take the dive into the larger narrative. Just a quick refresher…I went to the National Arts Fest in Grahamstown, hit Coffee Bay (also in the Eastern Cape province of SA) for a drum fest, and then went to a private game farm in Sabie Sands Reserve (near the Kruger Park). This will be presented in 2 parts cos really this all happened in 2 sections. This post is about the Eastern Cape and the next one will be about going to Arathusa Game Farm in Sabie.

Some random points of interest from a much needed holiday:

• Zedakstan, the space man…”I’ll come down as quietly as the snow and take you for a ride in my UFO.”
• Seeing a gigantic whale cruising through the waves at Coffee Bay
• Having a guy ask me if I was “afraid of darkies.” He asked me this because I wouldn’t give him my phone number. Really…who expects a girl to give her phone # to a guy she has only 4 sentences to and met on the lawn waiting for a bus. Seriously! Darkie love or hate’s got nothing to do with it!!
• Playing the marimba (a huge wooden xylophone) at the International Library of African Music, Grahamstown
• Eating a pineapple with chili powder and salt on it
• Talking about Barack Obama w/earring sellers from Zimbabwe
• Taking minibus taxis for the first time (since I’ve been back in SA) in Port Elizabeth
• Speaking Portuguese, French, Spanish, and Afrikaans
• My giant crab, Albany Museum, Grahamstown
• Met people from Malawi, Brazil, Denmark, Sardinia (Italy), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Zimbabwe, United Kingdom (UK), Ireland, USA, Sweden, Switzerland…and probably other places.
• Ate water buffalo potjie
• Debated Freud, Jung, Bob Marley, Che Guevara, China, and India over wine with Rotarians
• Seeing a rhino midden (a spot where a rhino consistently poops)
• Elephant poop smells like horse poop…only WAY more gigantic
• Elephant mammary glands are located between the front legs of the elephant female instead of between the rear legs (like w/cows)
• Seeing the breath of a roaring lion at 9am
• Bunny Chow success
• Seeing “fireworks” on the 4th of July courtesy of a very cool fire dancer
• Saw the shows: Bongiwe and the Beanstalk (a version of Jack and the Beanstalk), DOF (Department of Forensics), Bafana Republic, Faces for Radio, The Andrew Tracey Steel Drum band, and A Moliere in Soweto
• Watching Nigerian movies on the bus to Grahamstown and seeing a Nigerian royal table adorned with Carlo Rossi table wine

And now the narrative…

I rediscovered the beauty of breathing. The natural inhale/exhale rhythm needed for life. Not existence, life. I’ve been breathing in Pretoria, but only in short gasps. Just the sort of motion to put air in my lungs so I stay alive, but no pleasure. No rhythm. Synthetic iron lung-assisted air.

I’m just coming off an amazing vacation high! I hope the withdrawals are kind to me. My time away from Pretoria was exactly what I needed to confirm that there is still beauty in this world and that I’m still connected to that beauty. That there is a rhythm to life that is attainable. That I haven’t been permanently excluded from that rhythm. Life has felt very forced for me in the last year or so. Maybe you can’t tell to look at me or to hear my stories, but things just feel out of wack. This feeling is especially magnified in Pretoria for many reasons, some having to do with Pretoria and some independent of Pretoria. My recent vacation performed just the function vacations should: shedding the day to day grind from one’s mortal coil, attainment of vigor, getting away from it all, restoration of rosy cheeks (literally…I got a tan in the middle of winter. I never thought that was possible!). Remembering what it means to breathe and live.

Life’s rhythm came back to me the moment I stepped off the bus in Grahamstown. I had just spent about 16 hours on a cramped bus killing the time with Lemony Snicket books and hilarious Nigerian movies. When I arrived in Grahamstown I realized that, although Grahamstown is a very small place and I had been there 5 years ago, I had no idea how to get to my hostel. Sometimes these small details escape me, but I usually still manage. One of my parents says “Don’t sweat the small stuff, and everything is small stuff.” I guess this would fall under that category.

I had chatted a bit to my neighbor on the bus, a TV producer from Joburg, so I asked her how to point me in the right direction. Tshego (said: TSAY-ho) was also going the same way, so we walked together. The place I was staying wasn’t open yet to take me in because it was about 7:30am. In the meantime, Tshego invited me to come chill with her friends that she was staying with. They just lived around the block, so I agreed. What else was I gonna do? Within an hour we were awake and having breakfast and a beer. It’s never too early for a beer during the Arts Fest in Grahamstown! And for the next few days this was my adopted posse. We had a nice jol (SA term that means to party and have a good time). It was fantastic to feel so at ease with strangers. We had a picnic one day, roamed around town causing mischief, and just generally partied. These folks had so much energy and I was happy to be taken along with it!!

The place I stayed was a former jail (probably colonial) that has since been transformed into cheap accommodation for (mostly) young travelers. I shared a cell (literally) with 5 other travelers. The beds were big (bigger than my cot in Pretoria!!) and warm (very important in the midst of winter in the Eastern Cape) and the general atmosphere was energetic, fun, and diverse. Pretty much the perfect place for a girl like me who’s out exploring the world. Every day and night I met new people that I could spend hours or days with. I met people that I spoke w/for a night of beers, people I spent the whole week with, and even people that I’m still hanging out with. My father used to explain my personality when I was younger as such:

“There’s no stranger to Lynsee, just people she hasn’t met yet.”

This quality found fertile soil in Grahamstown and, specifically, at the jail. Pretoria has been sort of arid ground, so it was nice to put my skills to work again!

Most notably I met my once and future husband, Raoni (said: HOW-nee) from Brazil. “Once” because more than 1 person on more than 1 occasion thought we were married. “Future” because, hey, a girl can dream, right? I first noticed his pants. Why? I have no clue. It’s who I am. Sometimes broad details escape me. Sometimes I have sat next to a person in class and chatted with them every day for an entire semester only to forget them the next week. Sometimes the fine details stick with me…like the pants you were wearing when I saw you for the first time. Hey, the mind works in mysterious ways. I had exchanged pleasantries w/Raoni one day and then went off and cavorted with my first Grahamstown posse (Tshego’s friends). The next night I saw Raoni in the bar at the jail and when he saw me he said “Hey where were you today?!? I thought we were supposed to hang out. Why didn’t you hang out with me?” Okay…this was news to me, but also very intriguing. It’s not often that you are chided by a cute boy you don’t know for not hanging out with him. This interaction resulted in us making plans to hang out the next day. We went to the International Library of African Music, Raoni’s choice. And it was on like Donkey Kong after that!!

I haven’t met anyone in Pretoria yet that I almost 100% vibed with from the get go. Don’t get me wrong…I’ve met some kindred spirits, but the gel that formed between Raoni and me is different somehow. Maybe it’s partially vacation magic that helped the bond form so quick. I’ve had this same instant camaraderie with others before: Graeme, Danny, Moe. Every time it’s special and, in a sometimes lonely world, I’m constantly grateful for having been in the right place at the right time such that these relationships were possible in the first place. How do I keep getting this lucky?

Ok…back to the narrative. I must also mention the other posse elements like Brigitte from Denmark. We shared the same room and hung out together, literally, from the moment she arrived. She was meant to meet some girls from the UK that were also sharing a room w/us. The UK girls had arrived a few days before Brigitte. They are all in the same volunteer program in the Eastern Cape, but live in different communities. Unbeknownst to Brigitte, these girls were about as inviting and warm as a witch’s (insert body part here) in the dead of an Eastern Cape winter. Basically when the British girls saw Brigitte for the first time after she arrived, they didn’t even stop walking to greet her. They said a very rude hello and just sort of kept on their way. They made a slight pause, but it was almost undetectable to the human eye. Bogus! I think it was tough at first for Brigitte to take this cos she had basically come to Grahamstown to be with these cold blooded girls. D’oh! I told Brigitte to stuff the ice queens and we’d hang out cos I was pretty much a free agent at this point. And that’s how the Danish-Brazil-USA posse was formed.

For the rest of the time in Grahamstown we were pretty much inseparable. It was sweet! We saw plays, had beers, looked at my giant crab at the museum, bummed around the International Library of African Music, etc etc. I wish I could convey every hilarious, wonderful, inspiring, art-filled moment of Grahamstown…but it’s too impossible. Things would end up omitted even if I wrote a volume. It’s just the way of life I guess. I saw some great plays, music, and art exhibits. A fantastic crab from Japan that if I ever came across in the wild would make me 100% sure I had teleported to Mars. Great conversations with strangers on the street. Bunny chow. Crafts. A couch made entirely out of wire. Clocks that kept African time (now, now now, just now, later). And more cool stuff that is now buried somewhere in a sluice or fissure of gray matter.

On the Rotary tip…met a GREAT bunch of Rotarians!! I know quite a few Rotary scholars that study in Grahamstown at Rhodes University. I made contact with them before I went down for the fest so I could make a Rotary connection while I was in town. Because of the nature of my scholarship, it’s important to me to make contact with Rotarians whenever I can. Vacations give me the chance to mix business and pleasure. The Rotarians in Grahamstown are in a different district than my own, so technically it’s not necessary for me to make contact, but I like to. It’s fascinating for me to meet Rotarians despite the fact that they are a bunch of old farts ;) Just kidding…sort of. No matter, old farts have something to share and I like their company. Fellowship’s a big part of Rotary and it does one good to cultivate this at any stop along the way!
I attended a social for Grahamstown Sunset Rotary Club on Monday July 2nd. Met some great Rotarians and rendezvoused w/one of my favorite ambassadorial scholars: Riona (said: REE-nuh) from Ireland. We met in Cape Town in February and it was nice to have some time with her. The Rotarians in Grahamstown were really concerned for my mental health and happiness in SA. I was so appreciative of their concern. At times in Pretoria I’ve felt pretty stranded, isolated, and lonely. It meant a lot to me to have complete strangers show so much concern. Thanks guys!

The best part of Rotary in Grahamstown was meeting Rotarian John. He also joined the posse and we had great fun together. Spent just about every day from Monday w/him. We got together, went to shows, had meals, saw a bit of Grahamstown, and just sat around and chatted. We also went to the International Library of African Music to check it out and play instruments. John was eager to hang out so that’s what we did. He’s a computer science professor at Rhodes and other universities in the area like Fort Hare (a very famous institution that cultivated important SA struggle figures like Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko). I think his professor status was one reason why we clicked so well. Brigitte, in explaining John to someone at our backpackers (I think some people thought it was weird that she and I were hanging out with this white haired dude all week…), said he was so laid back and open that he could even “handle some of the wild things coming out of Lynsee’s mouth.” Yeah! See, I like to think of myself as a pretty free person. Goodness…that is sooooo American! Guilty as charged I guess. I like to be and speak free to all those I meet. Some take this as a form of disrespect on my part. To me it’s a form of respect to everyone concerned when we can all share and be open equally on the same plain. A very Western/American thing. I’ve had to check this behavior a lot in South Africa because of differing viewpoints of elders vs. youth, conservative vs. liberal, Western vs. African, SA old guard vs. the new, etc. All in a day’s work for an ambassador. :) Learning something new everyday…most importantly the value of well placed silence. I never stop appreciating those adults, like John, that allow me to be myself. It’s a great thing to be free to speak what is really on one’s mind.

So, meeting John was great! Hooray for Rotary! Thanks John for showing Brigitte and I such a great time! And thanks for reading my blog! It’s always great to get feedback from folks that are reading my words! John confessed that he thinks I’m actually a journalist. Guilty as charged, but I can’t stop chasing this veterinary rainbow until it’s over. Lately there have been a lot of people telling me to get on the media/communicationst train. But they just don’t know what’s in my heart…

Unfortunately all good things must come to an end. And so it was that I had to say goodbye to Grahamstown and all its positive vibes. D’oh! I left on Friday July 6th for the next mission. My next plan was to go to Joburg to spend time with some old friends that I haven’t seen since February/April-ish. They are working stiffs now and since I was planning on arriving in Joburg on Sunday morning, I knew I’d only have that 1 day to spend w/them before I’d be left alone at their house to veg out on the couch in front of the TV. I didn’t mind this plan at first because I didn’t have any other ideas for what to do with myself. Also it’s good to see friends. And if you will recall, I do miss lounging and vegging out on a nice couch. It’s a luxury I just don’t have in the place I live in Pretoria. But, now I was presented another option…so I took it! My Joburg friends will be there next month…bless them.

Raoni was headed to a small Eastern Cape town to check out a drum fest called Bomvu, so I joined that mission instead of going to Joburg. Honestly I didn’t want to leave his company. I think the happiest I’ve been since arriving in SA has been the time I’ve spent with Raoni. It feels really good. I’m not about to give that up until I have to!

I had already traveled to another city, Port Elizabeth, to catch a bus back to Joburg when I thought “what am I doing? I want to be having fun with Raoni.” Raoni will go back to Brazil by the end of the year. Kumbi, Gary, Cliff, and Gaby will be in Joburg for a span. There’s no rush to go be with them. The choice was easy given those perspectives. So I bought bus tickets to Coffee Bay’s Bomvu Drum Fest and got in touch with Raoni. We hooked up and headed to Coffee Bay the next day.

Sitting solo on buses for long trips is one of the situations that really makes me feel sad and alone. I’m always fantasizing about sharing a seat w/a friend when I’m on a long bus trip. Maybe it’s lame, but it happens every time I get on a bus. It was so wonderful to spend time cooped up with a kindred spirit like Raoni, even during the times when we just silently stared out the window in awe of the Eastern Cape’s beauty. We arrived w/out much trouble in Coffee Bay via a long and windy road filled with roaming cows and quaint Xhosa communities. Welcome to rural Eastern Cape!

Coffee Bay, though short lived for me, was great! Rustic (if you want to call it that), gorgeous, and filled with music. Raoni and I set up camp and hit the “beach.” Really a bunch of rocks w/out a sandy spit in sight. Had some beers under magnificent stars, the likes of which I haven’t seen in quite some time, and just talked. We checked out some great acts: traditional Xhosa dancers, drumming, etc. Then we got a great surprise! 2 of our new friends from Grahamstown who had decided to hitchhike from Grahamstown arrived the same night we did. It’s about 6 hours by car to Coffee Bay from Grahamstown, but hitching to such a remote location does usually take a bit longer. Personally I didn’t expect to see them so soon. Raoni had planned to hitch with them, but wanted to get to the fest ASAP. He came w/me partially cos it was the fastest way to drumming nirvana. After Jean (DRC artist…makes clothing) and Filipe (Sardinia…lives on a farm near E London) arrived things were GREAT! Raoni and I were so happy to see them! The night was new again!

The new posse carried on thru the night meeting all sorts of folks. Speaking French, Spanish, Portuguese, English, and Afrikaans to all sorts. Peruvians, Brazilians, South Africans, Americans, Italians, Congolese….

I’m discovering that I’m a language junkie. I think it’s cos I like to talk a lot. I hate not being able to express myself to others and I’m not going to let a little thing like a foreign language get in my way. No way! I took French for about 6 years from the ages of 12 to 18 and was even writing papers, reading plays and novels, having dreams, and watching movies in French at one point. Don’t ask me to flex my skills like that anymore…my vocabulary is totally gone in French. If you put Le Monde in front of me today I probably wouldn’t be able to read more than a few words, but all the grammar I so painstakingly memorized is still stashed somewhere in my brain such that I know I could dig it up if I needed to. I’ve spoken a bit of French to some guys around Pretoria from the French-speaking African countries (Cameroon, DRC, etc), but not much more than simple sentences. I’ve learned a bit of Spanish from my travels in CentroAmerica and from living in Waukegan. I can’t say much more than simple things like how old I am and “Do you sell beer here?” If I listen to people speaking Spanish I can hear all their words, but my vocabulary and understanding of what those words means is pretty bad. Because of time I spent in Brazil, I can also understand a bit of Portuguese. I went to Brazil w/about 15 other non-Portuguese speaking Americans and only 1 translator among us. I was not about to wait for the attention of the translator as he explained for 15 other people, so when I was there I took it upon myself to learn some Portuguese. I know less Portuguese than Spanish, but I can fake it a bit. I’m working on Afrikaans right now and I think if I actually applied myself I would be speaking fluent Afrikaans in about a month. Because of all the other stuff I’m doing here I just haven’t had the time to really graft hard (as they say in SA) enough to be speaking fluent Afrikaans. But give me a bit more time…I can also say hello and “how are you?” in a couple different African languages like Zulu, Tswana, and Xhosa. But I’m not even going to pretend I know more than that. My landmark in feeling like I can command a language is whether or not I can make a joke in that language. You know that when you make someone else laugh in another language that you are in! It’s a great feeling! Graeme…I say “Que barbero!” to you!!!

One thing I really like about Raoni is just talking to him. Remember that Brazilians speak primarily Portuguese w/some indigenous languages peppered in there. But mostly Portuguese. Raoni’s English is really really bad ass, but not perfect. Heck if I could speak any language as good as he speaks English, I would be feeling pretty good about it. But, I can tell sometimes he doesn’t know what people are talking about and that he gets frustrated by that. He doesn’t laugh at my jokes sometimes. Not cos I’m not funny…duh! Okay I hope it’s cos he doesn’t understand…not cos I’m not funny. But a great thing about Raoni is that he isn’t afraid to ask the meaning of something. It’s fun to try to rephrase and explain what I mean or what someone else means. I went to Brazil for about 2 weeks in January 2004, so I’ve got a pretty rough sketch of Brazil and an even rougher command of Portuguese. Speaking with Raoni is a mosaic of Portuguese, English, eye contact, music banter, rephrasing, and a bit of Spanish and French for comparison. Even the most banal conversation is exciting because it’s like a journey to understanding. Like a game or puzzle to figure out. I think we both do pretty well at picking up what the other one is putting down. It’s refreshing to be able to bridge a gap like that despite obvious language barriers that sometimes pop up. I think that we formed a bond that mostly transcends spoken language, so a well placed look or wink goes a long way. And sometimes he forgets I don’t really understand Portuguese and will just start talking to me in Portuguese. It’s funny. It’s also nice to be able to absorb a bit more Portuguese. If he can’t get the meaning across in English I ask him to say it in Portuguese and we try to piece it together from there. What fun!

Now…add Filipe (Spanish-speaking) and Jean (French-speaking) to the mix. Good times! Romance languages all over the show! A language explosion!

Hearing Filipe speak Spanish w/this Peruvian dude, Carlos, actually made me a bit homesick. Well, more like missing Latino culture which of course made me miss tacos. Predictable, really. Is there anything that doesn’t make me think of tacos con carne asada y cebolla y cilantro??? Nope…not really.

As you could probably guess…there’s not really a hint of Latino culture in SA. Yeah they have enchiladas and burritos on some menus, but you would laugh to bite into one! Jalapeños is pronounced w/a hard ‘j’, not silent. Tortilla in SA rhymes with “Atilla” not “IKEA”…which also makes me laugh. I can’t even say ‘agua’ in casual conversation (“pass the agua,” for example) w/out someone giving me a puzzled look. It’s interesting to me how Latino culture has influenced me in the USA. In my home town of Waukegan, Illinois there are even streets where all the signs are in Spanish. Wake up America! Latinos aren’t going anywhere and won’t it be better to be positive about it instead of stubborn and narrow-minded about it (Mom…I’m looking at you!!) Acceptance is a beautiful thing!

Sorry…I’ll get off my soapbox now. The point of this tangential ramble is just to say how it was great to hear people speaking Spanish again. It made me miss home and realize what a big part of my cultural molding has been influenced by Latinos. Interesting revelation for me. And, yes, I still want a taco!

Back to the narrative! The night I spent at Bomvu Drum Fest included a drumming marathon. Basically the people that organized the fest brought a ton of drums and percussion instruments onto the stage and said “come play if you want to.” They had some folks keeping the basic rhythm and then audience members filled it in. Jean, Filipe, and Raoni drummed for hours. Raoni sang. Jean played a million drums and was even playing a glass bottle and a rock at some point. Filipe added to the drum extravaganza. I didn’t drum cos, although I’m not completely without rhythm (yes, some white people DO have rhythm), keeping up with a repetitive rhythm for a long time is something I really suck at. It’s why I’m terrible at things like aerobics and line dancing. I just can’t keep up w/the pattern of motion for long spans of time. Jean has the rastaman vibration on his side. Raoni has some beat pulsing thru his body. Sometimes it escapes in song, sometimes drumming. Filipe just goes with it. I enjoyed the music alllllll night long….cos it lasted alllll night long and was still going on when I woke up at 10am. I watched my boys getting funky and letting their inner rhythm out. Shared blankets, fire, and beers with strangers. Smiled, danced, and bobbed my head like a true hiphopper. Raoni and I camped by the stage, so we heard the drums all night and they woke us up in the morning. I enjoyed being rousted by the drums…but Raoni may have been of a different mindset ;) When we woke up he said “why the heck are they still drumming?” Before I could answer “ummm…it’s a drum marathon” he said “Oh yeah, it’s a drum marathon.” Great minds do think alike!

I had to leave the fest and my boys that next morning in order to high tail it back to Pretoria to prepare for my next adventure in Sabie Sands. D’oh! I did manage to get down to the beach one more time with Filipe and Raoni before I left. Soaked up some rays and spied dolphins and a huge whale navigating the tide. It was so cool! I’ve never seen a whale in the wild before. But then I had to say goodbye…sniffles! I got a lift from the backpackers to Mthatha and took the bus back to Pretoria.

I guess this ends part 1…stay tuned for part 2!