Category Archives: The South African Series

Dear Merciful Father in Heaven. I knew the flight home was going to be bad; I just had no idea HOW bad it was going to be. Like I said, we rushed out of the house early Monday morning with towels still in the dryer and no time to really clean. (And were scolded for it via email – with an accompanying  cleaning bill.) As we ‘sped’ along the N2 in our microbus, which heaved and groaned with every tire rotation, panic overtook the adults in the car. We had cut our departure time way too close.

Are we going to make it? What time was check in? Are we there yet?!?

Our fears were only compounded when a large Black woman in a reflective green vest with the word ‘POLICE’ emblazoned across the front stepped in front of our speeding vehicle. She hailed our car and 3 others in front of us.

“Any medical reason why you are not wearing your seat belt?” she asked harshly in Afrikaans before switching to English when we stared blankly at her without reply.

“Uh…no?”

She motioned for us to see another pack of officers on the left side of the road, who told us eagerly that they were going to bill us R200 for the seatbelt violation. What a rip off! That was thirty bucks! My seatbelt on cost me $15 in the States…

This pack of jackals had the audacity to turn indignant when Marshall remarked that they ‘had to get that money for the municipality, huh?’

“Sir! We are merely carrying out our duties!” the brown one said in a voice that was a cross between imploring and a sneer.

After the darker officer took his sweet time filling out our fine form, Marshall and I buckled up and cautiously sped off. We arrived at the George airport with 10 minutes to boarding time. Whew!

With little time to lament our leaving to Michael –who was returning our rental for us – the six Grants hopped onto the plane to Jo’burg and settled in for a one and a half hour flight. It should have been as simple as that.

“It’s going to be a good morning,” Marshall chanted, trying to draw positive vibes to his brood. I, of course, knew better. Nothing positive can come with this many kids on a plane.

The moment we were seated, Liya began to wail and screech. As soon as she would quiet down, Stone would take up the mantle and yell at the passengers closest to him, kicking their chairs or pulling their hair. It was pure hell. The other passengers refrained from looking at us, but their silent vitriol was so palatable I could translate their very thoughts. When the plane finally landed, they rushed away from us, as if we were a pack of lepers.

We landed in Jo’burg a little after noon. Our flight to Atlanta did not leave until 8 pm. I had been advocating for us to get a hotel room for a few hours so the kids could sleep, but poverty and fully booked facilities worked against us.

“It’s gonna be a great flight!” said Marshall, again trying to speak things ‘that were not as though they were/should be.’

Shut up, I wanted to blurt. I opted to glare at him with steely silence instead.

He walked ahead of me with one of the big girls when he sensed I was in no mood for hopeless positive affirmations and useless platitudes. Suddenly, he turned around, muttering about having seen something ‘long’.

“Huh? What’s long?” I asked.

“No, no! Eddie Long! Over there in the Springbok t-shirt!” he grinned.

Well I’ll be; so it was! ‘Bishop’ Long, sitting right across the KFC with a pack of people (mostly men) in South Africa! He was wearing (as usual) a t-shirt that was 4 sizes too small. It clung to his bulky chest, the seams straining with every breath he took. What the heck was Eddie Long doing in South Africa? Was he here to rape little boys? I hadn’t heard of a major conference going on. Daggum shame…coming to Africa to pack his nasty New Birth fudge. Ugh.

We milled around O.R. Tumbo airport for 6 hours, watching people and pausing to get lunch and change diapers. I reeked of gloom, sweat and despondency. There was a little bit of baby snot on my pink blouse as well, courtesy of Liya’s freshly caught cold. As I looked over the filth that covered my breast and belly, a stunning young woman in a white halter dress walked towards us as we were about to enter the security check point. Wait – I knew her. Surely that couldn’t be…

“Malaka!” Sefa gushed in surprise.

“Oh wow!” I returned in equal surprise. “What are you doing in South Africa?”

She proceeded to tell me that she was in transit back to Accra after visiting some other exotic nation which escapes me now.  I stared at her, drinking in her beauty. Why couldn’t I look like that?? She looked and smelled amazing, like a freshly cut long stem rose. I would have told her as much, but I was afraid that I would reveal my thoughts so earnestly that they would come out sounding totally gay. I settled on something noncommittal like ‘you haven’t changed a bit’ or something equally lame/cliché. Sefa and I went to school together at GIS and had always carried out her successes with quiet dignity. We weren’t friends ourselves, but we shared friends.

She greeted the kids and Marshall, bending elegantly to address each of them. They were impressed when they found out she owned the café where we used to eat in Accra.

“We like the café!” they squealed.

Eventually, she apologized, saying she had to leave and get onto her flight which was departing in less than an hour.

“No, no! Go. I totally understand.”

She blew us kisses  and floated off. I would have blown her kisses too, but my chapped lips were ashy and I was afraid I would cover her in dust. Now that, I did tell her. Her tinkling laugh was the last thing I heard. Was that was single and successful at 30 looked like? Forget the fortune, I just want to walk into public adorned in clean clothes and smelling like a spring rain – or anything other than this morning’s meal.

Finally, 7:30 pm rolled around and they called our flight. As we were about to board, Delta separated us, males from females, and began a pat down search. Eddie Long disappeared at that moment. I saw him retreat to the other end of the airport. Huh. It’s not so hot when another adult male in power is doing the touching, is it Eddie?

I should have spoken less condemning thoughts, for surely I was rewarded for my judgmental words by the Devil himself. After the flight attendants seated ‘people with children and cripples’ first and we were airborne, Stone and Liya went at it again. For almost 16 hours they kicked, writhed and howled in the coffin like coach. My only reprieve came when they were sleeping, and they did not sleep long at all. Ironically, as I was battling the storms of tears and potato salad that were being hurled at me by my two youngest, there was another tempest raging beneath us. Hurricane Irene was making its way to the East Coast at the same time that we were. The turbulence was nothing like I’d ever felt.

“Ladies and gentlemen, at this point we are experiencing turbulence and advise you to take your seats,” the stewardess said professionally over the intercom.  Suddenly, there was the sound of her headset dropping as the plane dipped and bucked. She picked up the piece and growled into it.

“Everybody get back into your seats NOW!”

All the passengers waiting to use the toilet at that moment either pissed themselves or mustered the bladder control to hold on their bowels for the next 10 minutes while our plane yo-yoed 14000 feet in the air.

“Oh Jesus,” I thought, “we’re going to die.”

I looked at my slumbering children, wondering what it would feel like when we all hit the ocean. At least we were all together. I wanted to tell my husband that I loved him. If we all died in a fiery inferno, that should be the last thing he should hear. I wanted to tell him – but he snored throughout the entire episode.

Thankfully, it all ended. There were only 4 more hours left in the flight, and in those mere 4 hours, Stone wandered up to business class (twice) and came back with spoils of his adventure: a Kitkat and a bag of Lays potato chips. The stewardess who brought him back to my seat said he fished them out of a bowl she had sitting out for the ‘elite fliers’. ‘Atta boy, Stone!  Liya did some more screaming and the two of them mashed bananas, muffins and napkins into the floor around us. Yes folks: we WERE that family on the flight. The one everybody hopes will not be flying with them. I felt nothing but shame and contempt for my condition.

Once we landed, I quickly changed shirts, hoping that that would erase the evidence and emotion of the 22 hour hell I had endured.  It didn’t. Liya was holding onto a bit of food in a tightly balled fist and smeared it into my shoulder, looking me in the eye as she did so.

Take that, you persnickety pretentious whore.

I was aghast.

And then it was over. We went through security, my friend Algi greeted us at the arrival hall, and we were back in Atlanta. I stared around the familiar skyline. It was as if the whole 3 months had just been a dream and had never happened. I threw my purse into the front left side of the car and went to help Algi pack the remaining bags into her trunk.

“What are you doing?” she asked expectantly.

“Waiting for you so we can go…” I countered.

“Yeah, but your purse is in the driver’s seat honey.”  She looked at me with amusement.

Oh dag. So it was!

I moved it over to the right side seat and said a last goodbye to any habits I had picked up in South Africa.

As a rule, I usually don’t have a problem with “goodbye” if I’m the one doing the leaving. My departure often places me in a position of power – one in which I have pity on the person(s) being left, because they are going to miss me after all, and not necessarily vice versa. This time was different. I spent the last few days in South Africa in a veritable funk. We were flying out the following Sunday, and I was mentally exhausted from gobbling up the last sunsets and sunrises, the smell of the ocean and gulping my last breaths of the smog-free air. And then there was my new extended family.

Ugh.

Mainee left on Thursday with glistening eyes and a wry smile. I said my goodbyes, squeezing the word through a tight throat. As she fussed over the final details of her cleaning, pausing to make sure Stone and Liya were fed and changed at all times, I wondered how I was going to survive my return to Atlanta where wahala was waiting for me.

Recession wahala. Church wahala. Traffic wahala. Douche Bag wahala. Wahala, wahala, wahala!

The ASP kids had put on a special show for us as the next day. I managed to sit through the performance without bursting into tears. Their songs seemed more in harmony and they had added some flair to their standard performances. My kids had learned the moves and were singing along with their new friends from the seats. Stone managed to sneak on “stage” so that he could acheche along with the first and second grade girls. I was doing well until Fezi asked us to come up and say some words to the kids. I was surprised that words had failed me so abysmally, and I only managed to tell them that I would miss them and to remember to add their numbers in the appropriate numbers and to carry their ones.

On Saturday we took our last trip to Sedgefield market and had a pleasant drama-free breakfast for once. Well, apart from the guy who dropped his scrambled eggs ALL OVER NADJAH. I have never seen a White man apologize so profusely.

“It’s okay!” I laughed. “I’m sure you didn’t intend to share your breakfast with her.”

He muttered something at his wife, who replied with “Uh, uh! Don’t you DARE try to blame me for that!”

We lazily browsed the market, picked up some fudge and cookies and left for George one last time. Brittany appeared like a jack-in-a-box and took us along on one of her White adventures. By happenstance, she stopped at a bridge so we could take in the view. Looking into the clear blue ocean, we saw something floating along the surface. A pod of whales – and only 200 yards from shore! With nowhere to be and nothing else to do, we watched them for a full hour, delighted by flipper after flipper that broke the surface as they exfoliated themselves on the sandy bottom.

South Africa did its best to soften the blow for me. The municipality turned our water off from Friday to Sunday, and I to take a bath with a wet wipe for 2 days. Any water we had was used to ‘bathe’ the kids. Despite the inconvenience, it was still hard to say goodbye to my summer love. The whole experience was like meeting a smoking hot dude who spent 3 months showing me things I’d never seen and doing things I have never done. It was truly a love affair.

And like all summer romances, my heart finally broke and I was degraded to a blubbering heap come Sunday morning.

This Sunday was the only one that feature rain when we showed up. We were asked to give a few parting words.

I’m an iceberg, I’m an iceberg… I chanted silently.

The iceberg cracked and shattered. Oh I snotted and snorted my way through how much I was going to miss the kids and my new friends, who had in truth, become more like family. In true African fashion, many of the women had asked me a few days before what I was going to leave for them, and had done me the honor of wearing some of the items I’d relinquished to church that day. It was cute seeing some women squeeze into my shirts and others swim in them.

Monday morning, the water finally came on and I was grateful to have a proper shower before my hellish flight. Give me a minute and I’ll tell you about THAT.

‘Mzansi’ means ‘south’, but refers specifically to South Africa. South Africa, for all its development and westernization is still Africa, and has some of the most amusing quirks I’ve ever encountered. Most have to do with policy, language barriers and culture.

No, you can’t have it your way

The first time we went out for lunch at a fast food chain, we were pretty excited. The kids were going to be able to eat something familiar, and neither of us was going to have to cook that evening. We walked up to the counter of KFC in Plett and got ready to order. Every drink on the menu came with a Coke, a brand I’m loyal to, so my meal was easy to order. Marshall, on the other hand, prefers non-carbonated drinks, and opted to get an orange beverage.

“You can’t have this with an orange drink,” the cashier told him. “It comes with Coke.”

“But I don’t want Coke,” he objected.

“If you want Coke, you have to pay extra,” she informed him, “and it will be a smaller size.”

(This particular meal came with a jumbo can of Coke – there are no drink/soda fountains here.)

“Okay then,” said Marshall. “I’ll pay the extra for the drink.”

Look, I just want to make a phone call!

It took us almost 2 weeks to get a cell phone after we first arrived here and unlike the US, none of the service providers sends you a monthly bill for your minutes. Each plan is pay as you go, and you pay for every minute you use. Largely unaccustomed to this communication method, Marshall set off in search of more air time.

“I need to charge my phone,” he told me, grabbing the keys to the car. “I’m just going up to Kwik Spar. I’ll be back soon.”

I looked at the plug in the wall. He had taken the cell phone with him without plugging it in. I thought he wanted to charge it? Ah well.

45 minutes, he came back home, rubbing his temples.

“What took you so long?” I asked. Kwik Spar is a 3 minute drive away, literally.

“I kept telling them that I wanted to charge my phone, and they kept thinking I needed to plug it in!” he said with frustration. “I just wanted some stinkin’ air time!”

“Ohhh,” I laughed. “You should have said you wanted to ‘top up your minutes’. Charging your phone means something different. You’re in Africa now.”

He said something about getting used to phrases and lingo and finally made his call.

Please dear God, all I want is some chai…

Poor Marshall.

Since he’s been here he’s been on a search for a good cup of chai. He’s come close several times, and failed astoundingly. One of the most memorable failures happened at Seattle’s Best in Cape Town. Brittany was ecstatic, because they carry the same brand of coffee as Starbucks, and Starbucks is impossible to come by in this part of South Africa.

I ordered something cold with whip, and Marshall, as part of his undying search for chai, implored for the liquid sustenance.

“Is this real chai?” he asked.

“Yes, it is chai,” the woman answered tersely.

“Is it soy?” he continued hopefully.

“What? What is soy?” she spat.

“Never mind. What is this chai made with?”

She was aggravated by his line of questioning.

“Some chai is powder and some is liquid,” she snarled. “Ours is powder!”

By this point, I was looking down at the counter trying to contain my laughter. Customer service is SO lacking in Cape Town. It’s like being in New York. I advised him just to take the cup and ask no further questions. The cashier rolled her huge eyes at him and prepared to make his drink.

Mzansi!

Ma’am… just make the car stop doing what it’s doing.

The VW microbus (aka ‘kombi’) we’ve rented has all kinds of issues. The driver’s seat is broken in half. You have to put a stick somewhere close to the door to make it start – and you have to make sure it stays in while the vehicle is in motion. The fuel gauge fuel gauge doesn’t work and you have to refill it every 600 KM…that’s when it’s estimated that the tank is empty.

Oh!  And the alarm is touchy.

While we were in Cape Town for the weekend, the 90’s style alarm on the bus went off in the middle of the night. The guy from the front desk called our room.

“Ma’am, it seems there is a problem with your car,” he said in his Colored accent.

“Oh? What’s the problem?”

“The alarm is on on your car.”

“The alarm? Oh! The alarm has gone off.”

“No,” I could hear him shaking his head. “The alarm is not off, it’s on.”

“Yeah,” I confirmed. “It’s gone off. I’ll send my husband down.”

The man paused on the other end before he spoke again. Clearly, I didn’t understand what he was saying.

“No ma’am! You’re alarm is not OFF, it is ringing NOW!”

“Okay…okay. I’m sending my husband down now – to turn it OFF.”

“Aha. Thank you.” Click.

Waka waka – All you can do is laugh.

Friday, August 12^th. The weather forecast called for rain, and a slight drivel brought mist and mud to Qolweni. It was late afternoon, and the cows had already come in from the pasture. Two boys sat in the dimly lit room of the man from Port Elizabeth’s house.

Are you tired of being bullied? Are you tired of being pushed around?

Yes! Yes! We are tired.

The man from Port Elizabeth grabbed the first boy by the left arm and sliced the circumference of his bicep with a blade. Then he put three more vertical cuts on top. He lifted a bag containing muti and prepared to rub into the open wound. Frightened by the sight of his own blood, the boy flinched and scrambled to his feet.

No, no. I can’t do this!

He ran off home into, disappearing with the setting sun.

One boy ran, but Muntonabi stayed.

The man from Port Elizabeth told him to take of his shirt. Muntonabi winced as the man sliced 30 vertical cuts into his bony back, muttering a curse and rubbing muti ashes into them.

Drink this blood. This is amakosi. Amakosi will make you strong. No one will defeat you.

Dutifully Muntonabi drank the crimson liquid.

Now go.

All day Saturday, Muntonabi felt nothing. He played in the street as boys do and roamed the area before going home and falling into a fitful sleep. When he woke Sunday morning, the amakosi had taken over him.

The spirit led him to the kitchen where his grandmother was standing preparing breakfast. The spirit took two knives from the drawer and growled at her. The spirit spoke through Muntonabi, grunting in an ancient demonic tongue. The spirit held the two knives in fighting stance and began to attack Muntonabi’s grandmother with them.

*******

On Monday morning, I baked three cakes to celebrate August birthdays for our ASP kids. When I got to the building, Micheal had a solemn look on his face and there was a heavy spirit over all the kids and volunteers. He briefed Marshall and I about what had happened to Muntonabi, a light-skinned boy with quiet brown eyes. I knew him because I had scolded him 3 weeks before about fighting at school.

Thandiswa, Mavis and Nobiswa were loudly admonishing the children in Xhosa. They sat there captivated, listening to what the women were saying. Suddenly, they commanded all the girls to go into the storage room and all the boys to remain in the main hall. Nobiswa beckoned me to join them the dark room. It smelled of dog food, earth and pre-pubescent sweat. The bare light bulb swung from the ceiling above, revealing crammed bodies of dark brown flesh and 20 pairs of little girl eyes, all staring back at me. She told all the girls to take off their shirts. She was going to check them for marks.

Charlotte (the gangster who threw fish grease on her husband), told me what had happened to Muntonabi (who was not allowed to come to ASP for the safety of the other children). She was furious.

“You know that man, neh? He is a witch doctor. He travels from P.E. to Knysna, to Qolweni. Every time he comes here, he doesn’t work, but he always has groceries. How?” she began in haste.

“It’s because he’s stealing from the people!” shouted Nobiswa.

“Then when he comes here, he will always call our children to his house, giving them muti. Sometimes, he cuts them. Sometimes, he gives them a belt or bracelet to wear. Always putting demons in our children!”

“Yes!” cried Nobiswa.

“He lives just opposite me,” Charlotte continued. “Today, when we found out what he did to this boy, we chased him from his house to N2 (the highway)! We told him if he comes back here, we will burn him AND his house!”

She struck her hand against an imaginary match box.

“Even me, I will burn him myself!” she vowed with glowering eyes.

“But what happened to the boy?” I asked. “Is the demon still in him?”

“His grandmother was able to escape and called the police to this witches house. When they went, they said the man must remove the amakosi from him. He gave the grandmother something for the boy to drink at ten to 11:00 pm.”

The Ghana in me kicked in.

“Ei. What if he gives him something to drink and the amakosi comes more?” I queried.

“Yes! That is what I am saying!” confirmed Charlotte. “So I said no. When it’s ten to 11:00, the boy must go to the witch’s house for him to drink it THERE, so that whatever comes out will come out on that man!”

The girls were released from the room one by one after being checked for cuts and amulets. Thankfully, there were all muti-free.

When all the children were seated, there was more talk in Xhosa. Michael interjected that they mustn’t let anyone cut them unless they are a medical doctor. We all pressed that no one has the right to hurt them under any circumstances.

“Your body is the temple of God,” I said. “You mustn’t put anything in there that doesn’t belong there.”

As Mavis rattled off a list of don’ts including drungs, alchohol and tic (meth), one of the boys told on another one.

“This one smokes petrol!”

What the heck?!?

As the boy denied it, Michele told them all it doesn’t matter. From that day forward, no one was to abuse their body.

The ‘come to Jesus’ meeting ended with a hymn and a song of praise. In the middle of it, a boy clad in grey sweat pants and a long sleeve shirt broke into tears and began weeping uncontrollably. He was so sorry, so very sorry. Nobiswa grabbed him from his seat, holding and rocking him like a big baby.

It was the boy who had run away from the witch doctor just 3 days before.

The road to Cape Town is littered with beauty. It is as though God reached into His sack or art and inspiration, gathered a fistful of its contents and cast it wantonly upon this singular corner of the Earth. It is adorned with shimmering lakes and onyx black rivers; as well as cattle, sheep and horses that lazily graze upon a hundred hill.

The mountains that surround the highway pass seemed to enclose the road and shield it from the rest of the country, and their peaks were so high and imposing that the clouds themselves appeared to seek passage through their territory – only to be refused. At dusk, the light of the setting sun danced off the slopes of the majestic megaliths, transforming them from emerald and forest green to dusty rose.

 The rolling natural landscape is intermittedly interrupted by the presence of human industry, which manifested itself as a mix of the ancient and modern. There were looming petrol refineries that loomed over 19^th century granaries and Dutch-style edifices.

Lulled by the sight and smell of serene buttery fields of ripening canola, I conceded to have my attention drawn away by their beauty in order to catch a glimpse of graceful egrets, inquisitive ostriches and heron in flight.

This is the Garden Route and wine country. On either side of the road, vineyards had been plucked bare for the winter season – which was good news, because it meant the cellars would be full of new wine.

It’s hard for me to describe it all. For a few days, I’ve felt myself at a loss for words…so I have finally surrendered and have opted to let the pictures speak of the splendor for themselves – but even they can do it justice.

Sometimes going into the townships is like going into a war zone, and watching the dead remains of the troops that live there miraculously get up day after day to trudge through life. I look at the carnage all around me and ask myself how it’s possible. How do people go on like this day after day?

Last week was a particularly hard week for me, which is I didn’t blog as much. There were so many dreadful reports coming at me in unabated waves of drama that I could hardly endure it.

Here’s my problem: Essentially, I have a bleeding heart, and I want to fix everything – particularly if that problem is in close proximity. So for instance, I feel really bad about the famine in Somalia; but I also feel like their government (or interim government) should have seen this one coming and prepared. Eventually, the UN will sort them out. I’m sending them my positive thoughts, but I’m not sending any money. Juxtapose that sentiment to clear and present suffering. I have never been proficient at ignoring misfortune when it’s staring me in the face, particularly if that face belongs to a child. I’ve handed out countless coins, t-shirts and trinkets over the years that have done little or nothing to lift the recipient out of poverty or affect real change, but done more than enough to soothe my conscience.

But last week, the calamities were too much for me to handle. I just had to get away. I stepped back momentarily from my duties to reflect on all that had happened and pondered my part in turning these things around.

Death

Remember my aspiring 6^th grade hunchback Top Model? She came to afterschool looking slightly more forlorn than usual, but with a lopsided Cheshire grin on her face. A few kids had crowded around her. I discovered shortly afterward that her father had just died the day before; yet there she stood, laughing and dancing like she’d just lost a pair of socks. Her mother is dead as well. She passed away a few years before, so she’s pretty much alone. When I asked where she was going to live, no one could say for sure. Thandiswa pointed to a shack where a local ‘mama’ who takes in children when they are orphaned and said she might go and stay there. I looked back at the girl, shyly dancing to praise and worship dances with the rest of the students wondering what was truly going to become of her.

Abuse

Bianca is a beautiful colored girl whose face is always masked with a hard frown and has been ‘going through it’ with her uncle. She had already been abandoned by her mother a little under a year ago, who left her daughter in the care of an elderly uncle so that she could pursue her passion (meaning men) in George, the next largest city to Plett. She had been promising to return to care for Bianca, who is all of 12 years old for months, only to fail. Her uncle in the meantime staggers home drunk almost every night, bringing all manner of women into his shack and having sex in the bed right next to Bianca! Sometimes he’d lock the door and make her wait outside in the cold and dark, where she could be attacked by anything from a rabid dog to a surly man.

Neglect

Last week, a new little boy showed up at ASP with a burn on his face and eyes that had no life. He couldn’t have been more than 5. Thandiswa had noticed him around the township for a few weeks. He never went to school, and he always had the same tattered clothes on, day after day. Finally, she beckoned him over and asked him what his name was. Eventually, she got him to lead her to his house so that he could meet with his mother. On arrival, she discovered that he had a 2 year old brother who was in the house, and only slightly better cared for. Moved with compassion, Thandiswa told the mother that she’d come and pick the boy up every day at 2 pm so that he could have a meal at the church.

“Yes, it’s good,” said the woman. “I don’t want him here anyway!”

Why wouldn’t she want her own son in the house? Because her BOYFRIEND didn’t want him there. She has allowed her current boyfriend’s disdain for a child that he didn’t father overshadow her motherly instincts and duties and had given her son over to neglect. The shoes he was wearing the day Thandiswa took him to church were so worn down they had no soles. And he was filthy… So filthy that he had to be bathed at the church that day.

Loss

I was having tea last Thursday with Fezi, the pastor’s secretary when Thandiswa called. She was in the hospital.

“Thandiswa had a miscarriage,” Fezi announced.

Wow.

“You know, she didn’t really want this baby anyway,” I mulled. “Just 2 days ago, she told me she didn’t want it.”

“Yes, I know,” confirmed Fezi. “I said to her ‘Maybe you are happy the baby is now dead.’ But she said she thought she would be happy, but a part of her is not.”

We quietly sipped our tea.

Dry bones come to life

But do you know what the crazy thing is? All these strangers lives are now inextricably interwoven. Bianca gathered the courage to go to the social worker’s office to tell them she had to move. Unbeknownst to her, Thandiswa had a conversation with her husband, convincing him that they must take her in that very day. In that same week, Thandiswa and her husband took in the 5 year old boy who had been neglected by his mother as well. And get this: part of the reason Thandiswa did not want to have this baby was because neither she nor her husband was working. This weekend, he’s on his final round of interviews and is one of two candidates being considered for a job, and she has been offered a job to be a translator for a small NGO.

And even though her baby died in the womb, she has brought new life into her home with her 2 foster children and given them a fresh injection of life and spirit too. Bianca smiles a lot more and the little boy is slowly coming out of his shell.

Maybe it’s possible. Maybe by faith, dry bones can actually come to life. And maybe that part of the miracle has little to do with me in that end.

July 27, 8:06 am: Hey, do you want to go bungy today?

10:16 am: Missed call from 08…..

It was Brittany; the White girl with an adrenaline addiction. It wasn’t that I was ignoring her calls and texts – it was just that my body was still recovering from the unaccustomed exertion that I had been placing it under over the last few days.

“Hey Brit…Sure. I’d love to go bungee,” I said warily. “Sorry I missed all your messages. My phone was dead.”

It was a very convenient truth, but now that the batteries had been charged and contact made, there was no going back. You see, I’ve been in pursuit of my “best life”;  i.e. trying things I’ve never previously tried – or seen the merit in trying – for a short while. And after veritable weeks of verbal bravado and swaggering, it was time to pay the piper. I’d gone on and on about how ‘cool’ it would be to bungee, and how ‘awesome’ it was to have a jump so close to our summer residence.

“Yeah!” exclaimed Brittany enthusiastically, handing me a brochure, “and FAZE has the highest bungee jump in the WORLD.”

I laughed.

“No, it really does,” she said earnestly. “It’s the highest according to the Guinness Book of Records.”

Gulp.

I spoke only when absolutely necessary on the ride to Bloukrans. Fueled only by a cup of yoghurt and a Snicker’s bar, I only had enough energy to answer when spoken to.

“Are you nervous?” asked Brittany.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “Where you nervous on the way there?”

“For sure! It’s totally nerve wracking.”

Way to boost my self-assurance.

Finally, we got to the site. I feigned excitement and walked bravely over to the souvenir shop where I had to pay for the jump: a whopping R650 (< $100)! The girl at the counter eyed me with amusement. After asking me to step on an industrial scale, she wrote my weight and jump number on my hand.

“You must go immediately to get harnessed. You’re the last one in the next group going.”

I only had time to react, so I sped over to the harness hut. I kindly man named Frederick asked me if this was my first jump.

“Yes,” I said.

“It’s a good start,” he nodded with approval.

After he instructed me to step into the harness and pulled the straps up around me. The Teflon ropes hugged my crotch tighter than a long lost brother. It was uncomfortable, to say the least.  Once I was fitted, he radioed his compatriot to let him know we were on the way.

“Goodbye Marshall!” I waved. I love you.

Certain that I was going to die that morning, I prepared myself for certain suicide. I had chosen my clothes carefully: Black stretchy pants to camouflage any urine in the event that I involuntarily pissed my pants, a Hampton University t-shirt so that the divers could identify my body and tell the world that I was a college educated Black woman and not just some gidgit who’d carelessly leapt to her doom, and sneakers…because they were ‘sensible’.

A Colored man was explaining how we were supposed to leap. I missed the instruction because I was making up the rear of the bunch. This was not a good start. I didn’t know why I was there and NOW I didn’t know what I was doing. He led us from the edge of the mountain to the overpass of the bridge. It suddenly dawned on me: I was going to be jumping from a BRIDGE. If the jump didn’t kill me, one of the speeding cars above me would when the structure collapsed.

Oh Sweet Jesus.

Attached to the bridge was another structure made of chicken wire, spit and tape. We were expected to walk 60 feet from terra firma on this gangplank to the bungee site; again without pissing our pants. I saw the ocean from the left corner of my eye and the mountains to the right. Directly beneath me was a brown river, colored crimson by tannin…and probably a bit of human blood. My heart froze within me.

Don’t look down Malaka. Don’t look down!

Finally we got to the bungee station, which was little more than a maze of ropes and chords and a DJ booth. The band of idiots who’d also let someone talk them into this folly chatted amongst themselves. The DJ began to blare house music and current hip hop tunes. I felt a little more at ease, distracted by the music. Being the heaviest person to jump, I was second to last to go.

“21! You’re up!”

Sigh.

“What’s your name lady?”

“Malaka.”

“Is this your first jump?”

“Yeah. I figured if I was gonna do it, I should go big.”

“It’s a good start,” said the man lacing me up. “Why taste when you can eat?”

That ought to be a t-shirt. If I made it back alive, I would consider having a screen made.

“Okay, Malaka,” said the man breaking my thoughts, “this rope is made of blah blah blah, and has a tensile strength of blah blah blah. It’s strong enough to support 3.8 tons, so you’re completely safe.”

“Oh. Ok.”

“And if the cord around your feet fails, you have a second one around your waist – got it?”

I nodded and smiled.

“I like your attitude!” he gushed. “Okay. You’re going to raise your hands like this and on ‘3-2-1’ you’re going to jump. If you don’t jump, we push you.”

I nodded again, keeping my eyes firmly shut.

“Okay! 3-2-1: Bungee ai!”

Arms outstretched, as though receiving my destruction, and eyes clothes, I pushed myself off, hurtling towards certain doom. For a moment there was nothing but silence as my soul abandoned my physical being. Then there was a rush of wind that filled my ears.

I was falling and falling and falling. 40 seconds in, I decided to open my eyes. If I were going to die, I wanted to see. It was horrifying, terrifying and exhilarating. All 250 lbs of my bulky frame were subject to gravity, and gravity was winning big time. The tannin river was ever closer and the bungee cord had still not become taut. When it finally did, I said my thanks to God…until the elasticity forced me up a second time.

Oh Jesus…Oh sh**!!!

Praying, screaming and cursing, I went into a tail spin before finally coming to a halt and dangling like a dead piece of flesh on an old wound. Then I heard a voice.

“Hi there!”

Holy Spirit? Is that you?

“Hi!” I yelled back. My brain was pulsating and my throat was tight. I wasn’t sure if the voice could pick up on my gratitude.

It was a man. He hooked some stuff together and commanded me to sit up. Then he began small talk. What he said is beyond me. I wanted to plant a big peck on his face for coming to get me, but he was too far up. Eventually, he and his buddies laid me on a plank – again made of chicken wire and tape. At least I wasn’t midway in the air anymore. I sprawled on the surface and let them have their way with me and the harness.

“Would you do it again?” asked one of the workers, grinning through his gold teeth.

“Nope. Never.”

“Even if I paid for you?”

I shook my head.

“Oh! Then I’m not going to let you up!” he said mockingly, pretending he was going to leave me straddling the Earth and sky. I was having no part of it.

“Uh uh! Okay, okay! I’ll do it if you pay for it!”

All the workers cackled. They seemed to get some sort of sadistic joy, knowing that we were all terrified and that the lives of so many mortals were in their hands.

“Some of them jump two to three times a week”, Frederick said pointing to his co-workers. “It gives you a new perspective of suicide.”

Yeah. I’ll bet it does. That’s why I’ll just wait for GOD to take me in His own due time, thank you very much!

Yes. That is exactly what you think it is. That is a picture of my BUTT, which Robberg mountain essentially handed me this weekend. It never would have happened if I hadn’t been following after White people, pretending I could should do the things they do. These “white people things” include mountain climbing, shark tank swimming and extreme roller derby. However, there I found myself at dawn, peering over sheer ledges and slick rocks, praying that God and his angels would in the end deliver me. Mere words cannot justly describe the highs and lows that I experienced going over the mountain pass and treacherous terrain it took FOUR HOURS to conquer, and so dear Reader, I bring you Robberg Mountain in pictures!

It started off promisingly enough. There I was with biceps flexed and mind ready to conquer the mass of ancient rock.

The flat entry soon gave way to downward slopes and craggy cliffs.

There was beauty everywhere, but I could barely take it all in. My vision was impaired by my vigorously beating heart in my cerebellum. Yes – my heart was beating so hard that my brain was pulsating.

At long last, we got to more level ground. We were close to the summit. I felt confidence swell within me once more. There, under a cliff of cobble stone and silica, I posed in victory.

Once at the summit, we took in the view of the risen sun. With steadied legs and breath, I felt a wave of triumph sweep over me.

“That was child’s play”, scoffed Marshall. “We can do that again!”

Do not mock the mountain, I heard a voice caution in my soul. I looked ahead of me. There was yet another peak to scale. If it was anything like this one, perhaps I COULD make it.

The two turned out to be incomparable.

The solid ground suddenly turned to sand, sucking in my sneakers and making each step much more difficult. As my breath got heavier, a sour smell filled the air.

“Seals,” said Brittany. 

“Yeah,” confirmed Lauren. “You can smell ‘em before you see ‘em.”

We paused to take a water break, appreciating the beauty that was all around us.

“I gotta lend you this book I read,” said Brittany suddenly. “It’s about this guy who quit his job and went biking around the coast of Australia. He journaled his whole experience. Thought he was going to die a few times. It was an amazing story.”

“See? That’s what I’m talking about,” I shot back with ragged breath. “Who quits their job to go BIKING through the dessert of Australia? Who else besides white people!?!?”

Everyone laughed, but no one answered the question. It was rhetorical, after all.

An hour later we reached The Gap, a sandy patch of earth that divides the second half of the mountain. It was breathtaking. Brittany had stored Marshall’s and my water in her backpack, amazed at the idea that we had come to Africa without such an “essential” item.

“Our essentials are diapers and sippy cups…not backpacks.”

There were more seals below us, swimmingly playfully in the ocean. I had the  sudden wish to be a seal, carefree and flapping in the ocean. But then there’s that whole thing about sharks gobbling you up when you least expect it. Oh well. I took another bite from my energy bar.

After we traversed that sandy expanse, we came upon Robberg island – a solitary piece of land that was completely inaccessible at high tide. It was low tide; so the only thing separating us was distance, a few freak waves – and 100 foot sand dune with a 84* incline.

“WHOA!” we all gasped.

As I peered over the edge, wondering in my heart how we were going to make it down this ungodly drop, I heard a woman’s voice utter the solution. It was Brittany.

“Dude. Let’s run it.”

Lauren smiled.

The two of them shot off like rockets, hurtling down the sand dune like rabid Orcs into Mordor. White people!! There was nothing for it. I cautiously jogged off after them. It was the only way down.

But what a thrill! I laughed hysterically, grateful that I’d made it down without breaking anything. After we scaled the stairs leading to the other side of the island, we were treated to a show that made it worth every hour of the trek. The whales were in the bay, breaking the surface of the ocean and raising flippers and tails to our delight. Pod after pod swam by, greeting us with explosions from their blow holes.

All things good and beautiful must come to an end, and so we set back off on the return hike to the car. There was danger on every corner, certain death awaiting me with every step. The nimble white people had very little trouble navigating the slick rocks and treacherous mountain pass. I suppose that’s the benefit of doing P-frikkin’-90X ever day though. I watched them disappear further and further from view with every meek step I took.

At last, four plus hours later, the trudge finally ended. I was winded and  bewildered, but I felt empowered and ready to do more white people things.

Shark diving anyone?

Yesterday I was trolling Yahoo News and discovered that Dakar has its own fashion week! The organizer of the annual event is privately organized by model-turned-designer, Adama Paris. The event is in its ninth year and if I’m so fortunate, I plan to attend the 10^th showing in 2012. Young Africans are returning to their countries of birth or national origins in trickles, but the impact that they are having on culture and commerce is immediate and widely felt. (I will as always, shamelessly plug my BFFFL Nana Darkoa who is a force in this new vanguard.)

After centuries of colonialism and decades of post-independence war and in-fighting, it seems that Africa may finally be coming back into its own through needlework, keystrokes and mic checks. Africa’s glorious and vibrant music and fashion heritage is being revived in a modern day renaissance that beats with the pulse of a Kenyan runner.

Just this past week in Jamestown, my countrymen made an effort to showcase this re-appreciation for this 21^st century enlightenment through a street festival dubbed Chale Wote. ‘Chaley wote’ is the local name for flimsy flip-flops that shod the feet of both commoners and aristocrats. It is an essential item in the wardrobe of every African, just as art is essential for the human soul. I believe it was in that spirit that these photos of the event were taken. Nana Kofi Acquah is a photographer with an eye for capturing the moment and skilled at unearthing pictorial gems among the mire. After reading his blog, I was saddened that I had missed such a showcase of local fledgling talent.

And then I saw THIS ‘analysis’, which also saddened angered me  The writer makes the insipid assertion and the unmitigated assumption that the poor are somehow less worthy of feting this renaissance…simply because they’re poor. What business do embassies have funding a street fair in sprawling slum such as Jamestown, when they need rice for their bellies, she pondered. To make matters worse, the ‘poor woman’ had to endure the dusty hands of little nigger children as they crowded around her in welcome. I was at a loss for words, until one blogger aptly summed up her inane utterances.

“We are more than the contents of our bellies, or in this case, the absence thereof,” said Kobby Graham in a tweet.

We are three part beings, you and I: spirit, soul and body. It is just as damaging to ignore the feeding of your soul as it is to neglect the nourishment of one’s body. One simply cannot live off rice and United Nations nutrient mush eternally as Holli rambles in her article. Africa and Africans are far more than the contents of our bellies.

There is a new scramble for Africa, and the nations are coming once again to spoil and divvy up our lands and resources; and China is at the forefront. But I have hope that through this new awakening and appreciation of self, we can quell that onslaught, if even for a little while. We must rebuff the attitudes that seek to lower us to a nation of charity cases and embrace the beauty in the muck.

No one said Africa is perfect. It may be a mess, but it’s a beautiful mess.

Okay, Folk. I hate to talk about you, but you know how we are. Every time a Black person tries to do something positive, there are at least 40 other Black people waiting to pull them down.

A few weeks ago, I brought you the story of Celia – the kind hearted woman who took it upon herself to care for Kwanokathula’s cast off children when no one else would. We were all touched, weren’t we? Well, as rumor has it, Celia is not quite the saint she paints herself to be. Rumor has it that she is the exact opposite, and is more of a proverbial Ms. Hannigan than a Mother Theresa. Now, keep in mind that the people spreading these rumors are the same folk who said that a witch absconded with Pee-pee’s hearing some 20 years ago when she cast a spell on him.

*****

A new little boy was sitting on Thandiswa’s lap a week ago, looking rather forlorn.  He couldn’t have been more than 2 years old. Thandiswa was holding court as usual, clapping her hands and wagging her head.

“Hey Thandiswa,” I said. “Who’s this kid?”

“Ach, he’s one of Celia’s kids,” she frowned.

“Oh. Well why does he look so sad? Is he sick or something?”

“No,” said Charlotte. “He got a burn on his leg.”

“Ohhh. Poor baby…”

“It was that devil who did it!” hissed Thandiswa. “That Celia!”

She started chattering excitedly in Xhosa. I was amazed by her outburst. Celia has a heart of gold!

“Wait. What do you mean? You mean Celia from Kwanokathula?”

“Yes! That woman, you see her that’s she so nice. But if you know her the way we  know her, you will see that she’s wicked! God will punish her!!”

Whoa. What kind of hate was this? *Sniff, sniff!* I smell fish.

After some prodding (and it only took a little) I discovered that the little boy had been burned with hot water in the tub. How hot was the water that Celia was bathing her kids in, and why?

The story she had allegedly sold the ethereal “White people” was that her hot water heater was broken and that she had been using an urn to heat the water.  She poured the scalding hot water into the tub and turned her back for only a second, and in that moment, the toddler hopped into the tub, assuming it was time to take a bath. He received second degree burns in the process.

“It’s a lie!” hissed Thandiswa.

“Yes,” echoed Charlotte. “It’s a lie.”

“If he hopped into the tub, neh? Then why is it only his leg that is burnt? Heh?”  She pointed to his left thigh and calf with much irritation.

“And if he hopped into the tub, why isn’t his foot also burnt?” questioned Charlotte?

Well, that made sense. But all the same, this was Celia we were talking about!

According to their “investigation”, they discovered that the toddler was already in the tub and Celia ordered him out. When he refused, she poured a kettle of boiling hot water over his left leg and hip while he sat in the tub and let him stay all night in pain until calling “the White people” to take him for treatment that next morning.

“That woman, she doesn’t care for those kids,” said her accusers. “She only want the money.”

“What MONEY?” I asked incredulously. She lives in a township, not the Ritz for goodness sake!

“The money that the White people give her (dumbass)!”

“Yeah, but which white people?”

I knew for certain that Lauren didn’t have loads of money, and from the sound of it, neither did Michelle (they run the after school program at the church/theater). Oddly, those were the same people that were named as doling out bales of cash to the greedy and wicked Celia. They went so far as to provide “proof”.

“You know there was one lady neh, that was helping her in the house. She used to come to our church. When white people would come to the house, Celia always tell her ‘Hei! Get to the back of the house. The white people don’t want to see you’.”

“Yes,” said Charlotte quietly. “Because she doesn’t want the woman to see the money the White people were giving to her.”

(I often find that in Africa, “proof” is often in the form of a third person narrative, and rarely in unquestionable, concrete evidence. A good story is always to believed over a set of fingerprints. Why, a witch may have come along and planted those prints on the stolen item in question!)

Thandiswa grew pensive at that point, as if contemplating something grave and unimaginable. She finally spoke. I, on the other hand, had been shaking my head in quiet disbelief.

“You know, when you tell Michelle these things about Celia, she don’t want to hear it. She always tell you ‘We must pray for Celia’.” Thandiswa paused. Her eyes flashed when she spoke again. “But you can’t pray for a devil!”

Well, there you have it. Celia is a devil, going to hell.

I haven’t felt this bad for White people in a long time. Celia can handle herself, I’m sure – but the kindly White people, and their money, are seemingly the catalysts for her evil misdeeds.  They made her burn a baby!!