When Jiggered (this great publication of all things unusual put together by some very talented Rhodes English Department friends of mine) started asking around for articles and artistic pieces, I decided I was going to write a piece about the benefits of this great new invention that not enough women know about: the moon cup.
The reason I didn't (in the end) was because a moon cup is a half moon-shaped silicone cup that a woman can insert inside her vagina during her period instead of a tampon or sanitary pad (yes, I'm that girl. That's where I'm going in this blog). I thought it would appeal to the target market of Jiggered because many of the readers are women and almost all of them are concerned about environmental issues.
I'm going to remedy that by writing about it here. The moon cup can be kept and used for up to two years as long as it is sanitised in boiling water before and after each cycle. Unlike tampons, they don't clog up septic tanks or fill the oceans and rivers, nor do they fill rubbish dumps with non-biodegradable plastics like sanitary pads or disposable nappies (which - for the uninitiated - is what sanitary pads feel like). I always felt sad that - as an environmentally conscious woman - I had no other option but to contribute substantially to the pollution of the environment every month. The moon cup was like an answer to my prayers.
But that would mean writing about the menstrual cycle in an article that would go out to a whole lot of people, and then I would be that girl, the one who writes about a process as distasteful as descriptions of defecating. More than that, women who use a moon cup have to empty and wash it out during the cycle before re-inserting it. That means writing about actually touching and handling one's menstrual blood. Most period products are manufactured so that women hardly even have to touch the offending product that must touch the blood (applicator tampons with their additional cardboard and plastic pollutants were made for that purpose). Even as I write this blog, I realise I will alienate many of my male readers and a few female ones by mentioning periods at all.
Despite (or perhaps because of) these reservations, I did Jiggered readers and the general public a disservice by not submitting anything, the Jiggered readers because they are probably less squeamish than I give them credit for, and the rest of the general public because they need to think about it. Women shouldn't feel ashamed of their periods because it isn't shameful: it's just blood. Surely losing blood every month is no more exciting than losing hair or skin cells: something that everybody does every day.
I suppose because the blood flows from a vagina, people don't like to talk about it. I understand that some people like to talk about "private parts" in private because they are sacred and special, not to be exploited for shock factor or the objectification rather than the celebration of the body. Private parts are also symbolic of the exchange of the innermost parts of people - body and soul - in (ideally) beautiful, sharing (and often private) experiences.
If that was why people didn't talk about periods, then I'm sure I wouldn't be writing this blog. My own gut-wrench reaction at the thought of writing an article about moon cups had nothing to do with sacred private acts and everything to do with fear of being ridiculed is evidence enough for me that most people (including myself at times) have a dysfunctional attitude towards this perfectly natural and exclusively female process.
Whilst I am all for celebrating the body (and the much used and abused female body in particular) I would be lying if I said I celebrate my period every month. They are really annoying. Bleeding non-stop for five days straight is not exactly convenient when one wants to play sport, go out, travel or live an environmentally aware lifestyle. Many bathrooms don't have bins where parcels can be easily and discreetly deposited, which puts women in awkward situations and buses don't stop for loo breaks an ideally hygienic every four hours. Other women are hindered by crippling pain and uncontrollable mood swings or crushing weariness that accompany periods each month. Even moon cups are tricky to insert and remove, and are therefore not completely hassle-free.
So periods aren't the best thing women have been saddled with. I don't believe though, that men (and many women) should throw up their arms in horror at the very mention of a period. The fact that they do means that there is a nebulous (and with other people perfectly clear-cut) feeling of disgust when it comes to the issue (literally and figuratively) of a vagina.
This can be particularly harmful when it comes to women's relationships with their bodies. Feeling revolted about such a basic process is symptomatic of an over-arching revulsion at being female. It is only a short step from there to "douching": a process whereby a woman squirts a bag of liquid perfume inside her vagina to make it smell "nice": like "lavender" or "whispers of summer" rather than the clean, natural smell of the human body. I'm not the kind of person who doesn't believe in washing or deodorant because of the "natural smells" of the human body, but inserting chemicals inside such a delicate part of one's body can only be harmful.
I believe women - and men - should appreciate and respect their - in many ways - miraculous bodies, and hating periods because people have been taught and socialised into the idea that periods are dirty will only undermine that appreciation and respect. A period is not the shameful issue of a substance that soils the body and anyone who comes into contact with her. It's just blood.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Riddikulus.
I have a confession to make. I have - for a good part of the last five years - been an aerobics-class taker. I have done step classes and arm movements that make me feel like I am stuck in the eighties when aerobics first became popular, like I should be wearing a g-string unitard thing with tights and leg-warmers and way too much make-up. That feeling (along with the rush of endorphins) was a lot of fun: it's why I enjoyed aerobics. I spent those classes with a huge grin on my face and frequently giggled. Most people associate exercise with pain or discomfort, or perhaps even with becoming as toned as Gwen Stefani or Rihanna (or if not them, at least that girl who you see at the gym every day with the body you wished you had). I would argue that being a spectacle can be even more fun (encourage you to hit the gym more often) and make you feel more attractive than being "beautiful".
Some of my favourite moments over the years have been when I have thrown dignity out of the window and been just plain ridiculous. I am never so at home as when I let myself go beyond my skin. The EastCape Opera Company's show "Misbehavin'" was probably the start. I had to strut around the stage in a long flowery dress with a lumpy pregnancy belly jutting out in front. The belly was tan in colour, egg-shaped and had my name written on it in black marker. I had to lug it around to the different theatres we performed in and I can definitely say it was one of the oddest props I have ever had to remember. It was also - initially - embarrassing. I liked to look pretty on stage or at least unusual-bordering-on-odd (but still pretty), not ridiculous.
Eventually I found it liberating. I realised I could move freely and come up with creative (and fun) ideas when I wasn't worried about how I looked.
I moved these theatrics into real life when I used to dress up for Rhodes's many parties. I hammed it up as a transvestite (a woman playing a man who's playing a woman, Victor/Victoria style) in white hot pants, a red velvet cloak-like top and a crown with a feather at the OutRhodes party. It was one of my favourite parties because I felt absolutely no awkward self-consciousness. I also dressed up as "two-dollah" (if you've seen "Full Metal Jacket" you'll know what I mean) for a friend's Girls of the Playboy Mansion twenty-first. I was dressed really provocatively, but I was also wearing the most hideous, platinum blonde wig. Once I put that wig on, there was no chance anyone could think I was trying to be a sexy, pert bunny. It was so hideous that there is video footage of it coming to life and "attacking" my friend Kendra.
My final Rhodes prank was the pink wig I wore when I graduated last year. I thought that perhaps Rhodes staff wouldn't let me get away with it (it was so pink it practically glowed), but actually most people were thrilled to see something different at the usually long ceremony. The photograph of me being capped is pretty much the same as the previous year's apart from the pink wig: I'm even wearing the same dress. Except for the anonymous academic sitting behind me. He has a huge smile on his face.
That's why it is not just about dressing ridiculously (though as I've said many times before, anything that stops girls and women, including myself, from feeling self-consciously unworthy about their bodies is wonderful): it's about having a healthy sense of humour about all sorts of different parts of life because it can bring a real sense of joy to everyone.
It's about bravery and freedom. If I were to take myself too seriously, I would never achieve anything. I don't mean that I don't take life seriously. Life is a serious business because I am always interacting with other human beings as fragile -or more so - than myself. My actions will always impact others in ways I can never even dream of. It is more about not being serious about expecting myself or others to be perfect. If I am brave enough to be ridiculous, I am brave enough to admit I am not perfect: not always beautiful or intelligent or witty or kind. It is only then I am free to write what I want, love people without fear that I will lose them because I am not perfect enough and have a great time without worrying that I look funny. I probably do, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, I would say there is a lot right about it.
The same goes for my writing. Writing my first blog was like stepping off a precipice. It is terrifying to nurture some words and throw them out there, realising people are actually going to read them. There are times when I feel unsatisfied with what I have written (OK, most times) and if I didn't publish it, those mistakes and blind reasoning wouldn't be here. It also means none of my writing would be here, and I would have lost out on the beauty and exhilaration (and strong sense of fun) I feel when I write and when (sometimes) these blogs make a difference or people enjoy them.
In The Prisoner of Azkaban (non-Harry Potter fans bear with me), there is a certain creature - a boggart - that assumes the form of whatever we fear the most. The only way to defeat it is to imagine it looking silly and nonthreatening (like the school bully in your grandmother's gown and cap) and shout "Riddikulus". It is a clever concept because most things we're afraid of are of our own making. That's not to say (continuing the metaphor) that there aren't other really scary creatures out there that we do need to be afraid of, but many of the ones we spend our time worrying about (or at least, the ones I do) are just spectres of our minds that can be defeated with a little healthy riddikulus.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Clea's do re mi of race relations
This blog was supposed to be about being white. My wife Natasja (she's my wife because we understand and support each other like married people should. But we also have boyfriends to whom we are devoted. Everyone should have an arrangement like us) wrote a blog recently about being coloured that is too brilliant (see http://tasjasthaiadventure.blogspot.com/). It is funny (in a Trevor Noah Daywalker, not a Trevor Noah Cell C kind of way) and sad and true. It made me think I should write about what it means to be white in South Africa. I wrestled with it for days, writing and re-writing it. So I am starting at the very beginning (a very good place to start).
I was in Grade 1 in 1994. I imagined elections happening in the equivalent of my private school grade 1 classroom: people would vote and ticks would be placed on a white board in a neat table next to the names of Nelson Mandela or...the other people (I wasn't exactly politically clued up back in the day). I was excited when Nelson Mandela won in 1994 and then when we won the Rugby World Cup in 1995. They were rainbow nation moments when everyone around me celebrated (including my pre-primary principle who danced around our living room with different coloured streamers piled on top of her head). I knew South Africa had mountains and oceans and deserts; wildlife beyond belief; a flag with all the colours of the Olympic rings (a sure sign of our diverse and yet bonded nationhood); and now a country where all people could live together happily and equally. We were a miracle nation, the best place in the world where we were all learning to see beyond colour and see only other human beings.
I learned Zulu throughout my primary school years and I told off a friend's mother because she said all black people were criminals (perhaps in less polite language). We had our first black head girl (never mind that she was the only one, perhaps before or since) and my head of house (Palmer) was black. I remember crying to her when I was ten and I had my first detention. I have always been fiercely patriotic and the thought of letting down my house mortified me.
Now it is the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011. Eugene Terreblanche (rampant white racist Afrikaner) was brutally murdered on his farm at the beginning of last year by two of his black farm labourers. Julius Malema added fuel to the fire by reviving the old anti-apartheid song, "Kill the Boer". His millions of supporters continue to support him even more fervently even as Afrikaans hysteria reaches fever pitch. Singer Steve Hofmeyer ranted to the country about how black people are all violent and Afrikaans author Annelie Botes admits in an interview that the only thing she is afraid of is black people. White people everywhere (including book buyers in my sleepy little South Coast town) are thrilled that people are finally being "honest" about how "everyone" really feels about race.
It seems the current fashion is to throw all that 1994 reconciliation stuff out and to vent all one's racial prejudice and stir all the hatred that has been brewing for years. Afrikaans writer and journalist, Max du Preez was astute about the phenomenon. Declaring one's racism is a bit like being in a sex tape scandal or going through a messy celebrity divorce: it boosts sales enormously.
So this just has to be the extreme parts of the population, right? The rest of South Africa (the decent parts) have moved forward. Except that Glenwood Boys High School (prestigious rugby-playing government school in Durban) only just got their first black head boy. In 2011. There was a jubilant, celebratory article about it on the front page of the Mercury (a KZN newspaper) a few weeks ago. I felt more like crying. I am not an advocate of giving someone with no merit a position because of their colour, but surely in a country where the majority of people are black, there should have been more than one black kid who was head boy material in twenty years of mixed schooling.
It is not just the older people with the power that remain prejudiced, they have passed it down to their children. There are many young white people (younger than me) who still refer to the garden "boy" (that thirty-five year old man with a family of six to feed) or the "girl" who brings in the tea who is actually a grandmother.
Then there is a Scottish couple in my father's [...] club who were viciously attacked recently in their home. Their black attackers were not only robbers as they were filled with absolute hatred for the comparatively opulent white people they were attacking and robbing. The man was in hospital for almost a week and his wife is so traumatised she can barely function.
The already racist [...] club were furious. This couple were in the process of setting up a crisis centre at the local police station and were some of the most active members of charity and upliftment projects in the community. In the club's eyes, the "blacks" are just biting the hands that feed them. For them, it confirms Steve Hofmeyer's views that the "Blacks" (it's always the "blacks" the same way it is the "gays" or "them") are inherently violent.
What these white people conveniently forget is that South Africa has been a society of enforced violence almost since the Europeans arrived almost four hundred years ago, with black populations on the receiving end of enforced discrimination and savage oppression for almost all of that time. Just as racism is passed from parents to their children over the generations among white people, so it does among black people, with the added pressure of hundreds of years of repression and brutality.
It doesn't matter that this couple were doing their best for the community and weren't even in South Africa during apartheid. They are caught up in the wider currents of boiling violence and frustration of the millions of the poor, black oppressed. It is not right (it is awful), but it is - depressingly - unsurprising.
Poor black people in South Africa are still oppressed because their oppressors have just changed, they haven't gone away. A man I know has been in education in South Africa since the 1960s. He says education for the poor is worse now than it was under apartheid. Education for the poor was not good under apartheid. On the contrary, an old woman came up to me at the bank ATM one day with her bank card and pin number and asked me to withdraw the amount that was written down for her. She was illiterate, and unable to do it herself. Her powerlessness and vulnerability because of her lack of education epitomised much of what was wrong about apartheid and its legacy of dependent adults. That the education system is now worse makes my skin crawl.
Another man who has been in the meetings of the very top ANC people says that the ANC are happy to keep it that way. An uneducated people will keep believing propaganda. That was the original purpose of Bantu Education: keep the black people stupid and under control. Now it seems the new game plan is to keep the poor people stupid and under control.
And white people are taught by their parents - even many of the relatively liberal ones - that poor black people don't have to be noticed or seen, and that wealthy, educated black people in positions of power are to be feared or resented.
So race relations in South Africa are still extremely fraught. They are, however, intricately bound up with power struggles, class differences and the aftershocks of a brutal past: they are not exclusively about race. The ANC taking away the opportunities for education from the poor, black population is an evil scheme to keep power, not a race struggle. They play the race card to keep these people angry. When these poor black people serve white people in supermarkets or as domestic workers in white homes or send their children to formerly white schools, however, they cannot help but notice that not much has changed.
Some black families have managed to live better lives in the new South Africa. Their children have grown up to be good accountants, doctors, lawyers and businessmen or artists, able to live a good life. Money opens many doors between races, but for the most part, black and white people in South Africa still live separate lives. For poor black people - as I have said before - there has been little or no difference.
When I was in a certain part of Soweto two weeks ago, I was such a rare event that little children (they barely came up to my waist) gathered at the gate of the house I was visiting. I was there with two black men (my boyfriend and his friend). They therefore wanted to know if I had been bought. In other words, whether I was a prostitute.
The three of us had a good laugh: to be mistaken for a prostitute in Soweto was definitely something I can tell my grandchildren one day and laugh about. If I think of the real implications of the situation, however I am more inclined to feel sombre. It reminds me of when I went to Fort Hare University (Alice Campus) with fellow opera singers. I haven't often felt so scrutinised. It was clear that young white students (rather than the few old white lecturers at Fort Hare) were unheard of at this university. When Intervarsity expanded to include Fort Hare a little while ago, the Rhodes students set up an intervarsity party in Grahamstown rather than drive through to Fort Hare. I don't believe it was done with racist intentions, but perhaps those students wouldn't have found me such an oddity if the two universities had more to do with each other.
By the same token, Soweto is perhaps the most cosmopolitan township in the country. If - usually - a white woman only appears in parts of it when she is paid to do so, I can only imagine how little people from different races really do mingle outside of the few mixed race schools and the workplace. Few steps can be taken to erase inherited prejudices when people of different races spend little to no time in each other's company, as equals.
*A postscript: I have written about white people and black people simply because it is such a complex topic as it is that I have not space to include further complexities of Asian, Indian, Arab and Coloured/Mixed Race relations. There are more blogs to follow on this topic (this first one contains the bare musical notes so to speak), so perhaps one day I will remedy my omission.
I was in Grade 1 in 1994. I imagined elections happening in the equivalent of my private school grade 1 classroom: people would vote and ticks would be placed on a white board in a neat table next to the names of Nelson Mandela or...the other people (I wasn't exactly politically clued up back in the day). I was excited when Nelson Mandela won in 1994 and then when we won the Rugby World Cup in 1995. They were rainbow nation moments when everyone around me celebrated (including my pre-primary principle who danced around our living room with different coloured streamers piled on top of her head). I knew South Africa had mountains and oceans and deserts; wildlife beyond belief; a flag with all the colours of the Olympic rings (a sure sign of our diverse and yet bonded nationhood); and now a country where all people could live together happily and equally. We were a miracle nation, the best place in the world where we were all learning to see beyond colour and see only other human beings.
I learned Zulu throughout my primary school years and I told off a friend's mother because she said all black people were criminals (perhaps in less polite language). We had our first black head girl (never mind that she was the only one, perhaps before or since) and my head of house (Palmer) was black. I remember crying to her when I was ten and I had my first detention. I have always been fiercely patriotic and the thought of letting down my house mortified me.
Now it is the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011. Eugene Terreblanche (rampant white racist Afrikaner) was brutally murdered on his farm at the beginning of last year by two of his black farm labourers. Julius Malema added fuel to the fire by reviving the old anti-apartheid song, "Kill the Boer". His millions of supporters continue to support him even more fervently even as Afrikaans hysteria reaches fever pitch. Singer Steve Hofmeyer ranted to the country about how black people are all violent and Afrikaans author Annelie Botes admits in an interview that the only thing she is afraid of is black people. White people everywhere (including book buyers in my sleepy little South Coast town) are thrilled that people are finally being "honest" about how "everyone" really feels about race.
It seems the current fashion is to throw all that 1994 reconciliation stuff out and to vent all one's racial prejudice and stir all the hatred that has been brewing for years. Afrikaans writer and journalist, Max du Preez was astute about the phenomenon. Declaring one's racism is a bit like being in a sex tape scandal or going through a messy celebrity divorce: it boosts sales enormously.
So this just has to be the extreme parts of the population, right? The rest of South Africa (the decent parts) have moved forward. Except that Glenwood Boys High School (prestigious rugby-playing government school in Durban) only just got their first black head boy. In 2011. There was a jubilant, celebratory article about it on the front page of the Mercury (a KZN newspaper) a few weeks ago. I felt more like crying. I am not an advocate of giving someone with no merit a position because of their colour, but surely in a country where the majority of people are black, there should have been more than one black kid who was head boy material in twenty years of mixed schooling.
It is not just the older people with the power that remain prejudiced, they have passed it down to their children. There are many young white people (younger than me) who still refer to the garden "boy" (that thirty-five year old man with a family of six to feed) or the "girl" who brings in the tea who is actually a grandmother.
Then there is a Scottish couple in my father's [...] club who were viciously attacked recently in their home. Their black attackers were not only robbers as they were filled with absolute hatred for the comparatively opulent white people they were attacking and robbing. The man was in hospital for almost a week and his wife is so traumatised she can barely function.
The already racist [...] club were furious. This couple were in the process of setting up a crisis centre at the local police station and were some of the most active members of charity and upliftment projects in the community. In the club's eyes, the "blacks" are just biting the hands that feed them. For them, it confirms Steve Hofmeyer's views that the "Blacks" (it's always the "blacks" the same way it is the "gays" or "them") are inherently violent.
What these white people conveniently forget is that South Africa has been a society of enforced violence almost since the Europeans arrived almost four hundred years ago, with black populations on the receiving end of enforced discrimination and savage oppression for almost all of that time. Just as racism is passed from parents to their children over the generations among white people, so it does among black people, with the added pressure of hundreds of years of repression and brutality.
It doesn't matter that this couple were doing their best for the community and weren't even in South Africa during apartheid. They are caught up in the wider currents of boiling violence and frustration of the millions of the poor, black oppressed. It is not right (it is awful), but it is - depressingly - unsurprising.
Poor black people in South Africa are still oppressed because their oppressors have just changed, they haven't gone away. A man I know has been in education in South Africa since the 1960s. He says education for the poor is worse now than it was under apartheid. Education for the poor was not good under apartheid. On the contrary, an old woman came up to me at the bank ATM one day with her bank card and pin number and asked me to withdraw the amount that was written down for her. She was illiterate, and unable to do it herself. Her powerlessness and vulnerability because of her lack of education epitomised much of what was wrong about apartheid and its legacy of dependent adults. That the education system is now worse makes my skin crawl.
Another man who has been in the meetings of the very top ANC people says that the ANC are happy to keep it that way. An uneducated people will keep believing propaganda. That was the original purpose of Bantu Education: keep the black people stupid and under control. Now it seems the new game plan is to keep the poor people stupid and under control.
And white people are taught by their parents - even many of the relatively liberal ones - that poor black people don't have to be noticed or seen, and that wealthy, educated black people in positions of power are to be feared or resented.
So race relations in South Africa are still extremely fraught. They are, however, intricately bound up with power struggles, class differences and the aftershocks of a brutal past: they are not exclusively about race. The ANC taking away the opportunities for education from the poor, black population is an evil scheme to keep power, not a race struggle. They play the race card to keep these people angry. When these poor black people serve white people in supermarkets or as domestic workers in white homes or send their children to formerly white schools, however, they cannot help but notice that not much has changed.
Some black families have managed to live better lives in the new South Africa. Their children have grown up to be good accountants, doctors, lawyers and businessmen or artists, able to live a good life. Money opens many doors between races, but for the most part, black and white people in South Africa still live separate lives. For poor black people - as I have said before - there has been little or no difference.
When I was in a certain part of Soweto two weeks ago, I was such a rare event that little children (they barely came up to my waist) gathered at the gate of the house I was visiting. I was there with two black men (my boyfriend and his friend). They therefore wanted to know if I had been bought. In other words, whether I was a prostitute.
The three of us had a good laugh: to be mistaken for a prostitute in Soweto was definitely something I can tell my grandchildren one day and laugh about. If I think of the real implications of the situation, however I am more inclined to feel sombre. It reminds me of when I went to Fort Hare University (Alice Campus) with fellow opera singers. I haven't often felt so scrutinised. It was clear that young white students (rather than the few old white lecturers at Fort Hare) were unheard of at this university. When Intervarsity expanded to include Fort Hare a little while ago, the Rhodes students set up an intervarsity party in Grahamstown rather than drive through to Fort Hare. I don't believe it was done with racist intentions, but perhaps those students wouldn't have found me such an oddity if the two universities had more to do with each other.
By the same token, Soweto is perhaps the most cosmopolitan township in the country. If - usually - a white woman only appears in parts of it when she is paid to do so, I can only imagine how little people from different races really do mingle outside of the few mixed race schools and the workplace. Few steps can be taken to erase inherited prejudices when people of different races spend little to no time in each other's company, as equals.
*A postscript: I have written about white people and black people simply because it is such a complex topic as it is that I have not space to include further complexities of Asian, Indian, Arab and Coloured/Mixed Race relations. There are more blogs to follow on this topic (this first one contains the bare musical notes so to speak), so perhaps one day I will remedy my omission.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
for Judy
Judy Orpen was a giggly, intensely serious anthropologist and player of the Celtic harp who studied with me at Rhodes University. It might sound strange to call someone both very serious and full of inescapable giggles but in Judy's case it was true. We were both in Music I and II together in the tiny Rhodes Music Department, and we would often sit on the bench that circled 'round the Jacaranda Tree while she planned practical jokes or poked me. She was incredibly mischievous and loved playing practical jokes, but would immediately become contrite and truly concerned if she felt there was any chance of anyone being the slightest bit hurt.
I hadn't seen her since graduation this year where we had both been at the same restaurant on the outskirts of Grahamstown for a dinner with the proud parents and extended family members. There was a buffet at a restaurant called Yellow Piano, run by a wild-haired German man with tiny dogs and a huge Zebra as pets. It was a beautiful evening, and the kind that one can enjoy nowhere else except for Grahamstown in all its unexpected beauty and eccentricity.
I am friends with her on facebook, however, so I figured I would hear all her most important news. But then Gwynlyn called me, and told me she had heard Judy had died. She had gone into hospital to have some bunions removed from one of her feet, so it didn't make any sense that there were messages all over her wall from people saying how shocked they were, and that there was a facebook group in memory of her.
As I heard many days later, she had an embolism (a clot that can stop your heart) and had died completely unexpectedly. I wasn't one of her close friends in the end, but I truly am honoured to have come into contact with her.
The best way I can explain why is to tell about one of my last encounters with her. One Saturday morning between 7.30 and 8am, I was on my way to Opera Company rehearsal. I always made my way to the Music Department past the Jac Labs and past the little gap in the wall that leads from Drostdy Hall to the road past the Clock Tower and main admin building. People are not exaggerating when they tell stories of how much drinking goes on at Rhodes, so Saturday early mornings are deathly quiet and deserted. I was thus pleasantly surprised to run into Judy, standing next to the wall with a huge brown box on it. I stopped to have a good catch up chat as I thought she was waiting for someone to pick her and her huge box up.
It eventually transpired that she was just resting as she had carried the box (full to the brim with Maths textbooks) from her residence to the wall, and was only half-way there as she needed to get it to the dictionary building. She was giving extra maths lessons to local, under-privileged matric students a little later that morning (As well as studying Music and Anthropology, Judy had also done Maths at the beginning of her BA). She had requested a lift, but no one arrived, so she was calmly carrying them there.
The two of us then continued together, both holding the box. Even with the two of us carrying it, it was slow, heavy work. We had to keep stopping - amidst a few more giggles and many straining noises - to rest because the box was really heavy. I enjoyed being able to help, but I was inwardly astounded at the strength of will and thoughtfulness that evidently came to Judy thoughtlessly.
Eventually we made it to a few metres from the door and some boys took over and we said our good-byes. I have never forgotten it, though, because it was quite extraordinary.
Judy lived and breathed Christianity. Her faith sustained her and gave her an unwavering sense of the urgency of doing the right thing for people: whether it was guarding against saying harmful things to her friends or doing everything in her power to uplift her community. She considered everything and everyone with such care that I think it was often a heavy burden to bear: striving for goodness in a world of fallibility and incredible cruelty is the heaviest burden anyone can carry.
I send many prayers and thoughts to her family and close friends who feel her loss keenly. I know that everything she did will continue to resonate with the many people with whom she came into contact and - this is inevitable for Judy reached out to everyone - helped. I hope that now she is truly happy in the blissful sense we cannot comprehend.
I hadn't seen her since graduation this year where we had both been at the same restaurant on the outskirts of Grahamstown for a dinner with the proud parents and extended family members. There was a buffet at a restaurant called Yellow Piano, run by a wild-haired German man with tiny dogs and a huge Zebra as pets. It was a beautiful evening, and the kind that one can enjoy nowhere else except for Grahamstown in all its unexpected beauty and eccentricity.
I am friends with her on facebook, however, so I figured I would hear all her most important news. But then Gwynlyn called me, and told me she had heard Judy had died. She had gone into hospital to have some bunions removed from one of her feet, so it didn't make any sense that there were messages all over her wall from people saying how shocked they were, and that there was a facebook group in memory of her.
As I heard many days later, she had an embolism (a clot that can stop your heart) and had died completely unexpectedly. I wasn't one of her close friends in the end, but I truly am honoured to have come into contact with her.
The best way I can explain why is to tell about one of my last encounters with her. One Saturday morning between 7.30 and 8am, I was on my way to Opera Company rehearsal. I always made my way to the Music Department past the Jac Labs and past the little gap in the wall that leads from Drostdy Hall to the road past the Clock Tower and main admin building. People are not exaggerating when they tell stories of how much drinking goes on at Rhodes, so Saturday early mornings are deathly quiet and deserted. I was thus pleasantly surprised to run into Judy, standing next to the wall with a huge brown box on it. I stopped to have a good catch up chat as I thought she was waiting for someone to pick her and her huge box up.
It eventually transpired that she was just resting as she had carried the box (full to the brim with Maths textbooks) from her residence to the wall, and was only half-way there as she needed to get it to the dictionary building. She was giving extra maths lessons to local, under-privileged matric students a little later that morning (As well as studying Music and Anthropology, Judy had also done Maths at the beginning of her BA). She had requested a lift, but no one arrived, so she was calmly carrying them there.
The two of us then continued together, both holding the box. Even with the two of us carrying it, it was slow, heavy work. We had to keep stopping - amidst a few more giggles and many straining noises - to rest because the box was really heavy. I enjoyed being able to help, but I was inwardly astounded at the strength of will and thoughtfulness that evidently came to Judy thoughtlessly.
Eventually we made it to a few metres from the door and some boys took over and we said our good-byes. I have never forgotten it, though, because it was quite extraordinary.
Judy lived and breathed Christianity. Her faith sustained her and gave her an unwavering sense of the urgency of doing the right thing for people: whether it was guarding against saying harmful things to her friends or doing everything in her power to uplift her community. She considered everything and everyone with such care that I think it was often a heavy burden to bear: striving for goodness in a world of fallibility and incredible cruelty is the heaviest burden anyone can carry.
I send many prayers and thoughts to her family and close friends who feel her loss keenly. I know that everything she did will continue to resonate with the many people with whom she came into contact and - this is inevitable for Judy reached out to everyone - helped. I hope that now she is truly happy in the blissful sense we cannot comprehend.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
a christmas carol
As the Christmas decorations go up in Checkers (in September) and carols start to blare over the loudspeakers in malls countrywide (coming soon to an elevator near you), those things that people always say start to be said, and it doesn't have anything to do with being jolly. People feel harassed and put upon by them demm Christians and their holiday-that-isn't-even-their-holiday-it-was-a-pagan-one-the-Christians-stole-like-a-lot-of-other-things. Plus the glossy advertisements clog up the windows, newspapers and television, complete with cutesy children and holly-bedecked, ahem, "maidens". Public Christmas is a bit of a circus, particularly on the South Coast when thousands of binnelanders descend on our little town to be rude to shop assistants, get drunk and disfuguringly sunburnt on our beaches and - it must be said - give the South Coast a lovely big injection of much-needed cash.
That is what the Christmas season is at the end of it all: a huge money-making racket. I'm sure it was back in the pagan days too and the Church was only too happy to jump on that money spinner. (Incidentally, I am reading Bill Bryson's "At Home" (tagline, "The Perfect Christmas Gift") and he says that the Christmas card was invented by someone back in the day to encourage people to use the penny post. Yes, more money-spinners...) Loathing Christmas and all its consumerist trappings, many people on facebook - that omnipotent meter of public opinion - put "Happy Consumerism" or "Happy Consumption" as their statuses instead of Happy Christmas. They also drive themselves crazy complaining about Christmas Carols that come around every year.
Well I've said it and it's true and isn't Christmas a terrible thing enforced on everybody etc. But the realer truth (isn't there always a real-er truth?) is that I love Christmas. For a start, I really appreciate people close to me indulging in shameless consumerism on my behalf: to speak plainly, someone else buys me a book/books. That is never a bad thing. Secondly (and more importantly) I get to wander around and search for gifts that my friends and family will love or (if I'm feeling very creative) I will make something. I put together CDs of music that I have compiled after many hours of planning as to which people would enjoy which songs and in which order. I also cut up old magazines and make collages on bookmarks with a well-chosen quote or (my most recent project) I draw something. Then I get to search for ribbon and paper and wrap it. That part may not sound very exciting but there are such pretty ways of doing these things they are little ecstasies.
Thirdly, I love singing carols. Every year my old singing teacher Mrs. Spiller (a marvelous lady of eighty years old who has taught (and is still teaching) piano and singing to generations of South Coast musicians and music teachers including myself and up and coming theatre star Roland Perold) gets a group of us together (the same group every year) to sing. They are carols nobody recognises (except for a difficult three-part rendition of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" that we always mess up) and contain harmony parts that at worst consist of the words "Jingle-Jingle" and "giddy-up" and at best are quite haunting and beautiful. We sing at old age homes, churches and Christmas markets and sometimes there are eight of us and sometimes there are close to twenty. Nevertheless, all of us meet together after not having seen each other all year because we all love Mrs. Spiller and we love making music.
Perhaps that is still what some people hate about Christmas: being forced together with people you don't really know (and may not even like) every year just because it is Christmas. That's not something that has ever bothered me. I like seeing the people come back every year: hearing what business they are up to, what singing exams they have done and hearing how their voices have developed. I may not see or chat to them for the rest of the year, but seeing them always brings a smile to my face because of the shared memories and the shared music. I really am interested in how they are doing and what they are doing.
So I like that about Christmas. Personally, I love commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ (a man who preached absolute love and goodness) but I don't think that is what makes it special for the cosmopolitan community at large. It is the festive atmosphere and the bringing together of disparate groups, like the motley assemblage of singers or the various people who come back to staff Ramsgate Stationers every year.
A Hindu man came into Ramsgate Stationers the other day looking for big Christmas decorations to put outside his house. He said he didn't celebrate Christmas in the traditional sense of the word, but he wanted to brighten up his neighbourhood and enjoy the holiday with neighbours and friends. I think I know what he means. Whether you believe in the religious aspect or not, Christmas is the most concentrated block of public holidays and long leaves and that results - where I live - in people returning to work together once again with other people outside their usual paths and routines. It is for that reason I will (joyfully) sing my Christmas carols and feel far from an impending sense of dread at the approach of Christmas.
That is what the Christmas season is at the end of it all: a huge money-making racket. I'm sure it was back in the pagan days too and the Church was only too happy to jump on that money spinner. (Incidentally, I am reading Bill Bryson's "At Home" (tagline, "The Perfect Christmas Gift") and he says that the Christmas card was invented by someone back in the day to encourage people to use the penny post. Yes, more money-spinners...) Loathing Christmas and all its consumerist trappings, many people on facebook - that omnipotent meter of public opinion - put "Happy Consumerism" or "Happy Consumption" as their statuses instead of Happy Christmas. They also drive themselves crazy complaining about Christmas Carols that come around every year.
Well I've said it and it's true and isn't Christmas a terrible thing enforced on everybody etc. But the realer truth (isn't there always a real-er truth?) is that I love Christmas. For a start, I really appreciate people close to me indulging in shameless consumerism on my behalf: to speak plainly, someone else buys me a book/books. That is never a bad thing. Secondly (and more importantly) I get to wander around and search for gifts that my friends and family will love or (if I'm feeling very creative) I will make something. I put together CDs of music that I have compiled after many hours of planning as to which people would enjoy which songs and in which order. I also cut up old magazines and make collages on bookmarks with a well-chosen quote or (my most recent project) I draw something. Then I get to search for ribbon and paper and wrap it. That part may not sound very exciting but there are such pretty ways of doing these things they are little ecstasies.
Thirdly, I love singing carols. Every year my old singing teacher Mrs. Spiller (a marvelous lady of eighty years old who has taught (and is still teaching) piano and singing to generations of South Coast musicians and music teachers including myself and up and coming theatre star Roland Perold) gets a group of us together (the same group every year) to sing. They are carols nobody recognises (except for a difficult three-part rendition of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" that we always mess up) and contain harmony parts that at worst consist of the words "Jingle-Jingle" and "giddy-up" and at best are quite haunting and beautiful. We sing at old age homes, churches and Christmas markets and sometimes there are eight of us and sometimes there are close to twenty. Nevertheless, all of us meet together after not having seen each other all year because we all love Mrs. Spiller and we love making music.
Perhaps that is still what some people hate about Christmas: being forced together with people you don't really know (and may not even like) every year just because it is Christmas. That's not something that has ever bothered me. I like seeing the people come back every year: hearing what business they are up to, what singing exams they have done and hearing how their voices have developed. I may not see or chat to them for the rest of the year, but seeing them always brings a smile to my face because of the shared memories and the shared music. I really am interested in how they are doing and what they are doing.
So I like that about Christmas. Personally, I love commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ (a man who preached absolute love and goodness) but I don't think that is what makes it special for the cosmopolitan community at large. It is the festive atmosphere and the bringing together of disparate groups, like the motley assemblage of singers or the various people who come back to staff Ramsgate Stationers every year.
A Hindu man came into Ramsgate Stationers the other day looking for big Christmas decorations to put outside his house. He said he didn't celebrate Christmas in the traditional sense of the word, but he wanted to brighten up his neighbourhood and enjoy the holiday with neighbours and friends. I think I know what he means. Whether you believe in the religious aspect or not, Christmas is the most concentrated block of public holidays and long leaves and that results - where I live - in people returning to work together once again with other people outside their usual paths and routines. It is for that reason I will (joyfully) sing my Christmas carols and feel far from an impending sense of dread at the approach of Christmas.
Friday, December 3, 2010
the blog about nothing
Doing nothing is actually not as fun as it sounds. Although perhaps a lot of people would not agree to begin with that doing nothing is not fun. To them I would say it is actually, sometimes. But definitely not most of the time.
After that intentionally convoluted beginning (I hope it is amusingly and not annoyingly so) I should place my philosophising in context. I managed a bookstore in Pretoria for a few months earlier this year, but after deciding that selling my soul to the store (that is actually a book title btw) was not worth it (particularly not for teenage vampire romance novels that have been flogged to death) I resigned and half-heartedly began to search for another job. It was a peculiar time because I knew I only wanted a job until the end of November as I wanted to be home for Christmas and then resume my full-time student vibes. So I would be looking for a job where someone only wanted me for three months and not over the busiest retail time of the year. Ummm...
So I chilled and had the kind of holiday I haven't had since I was fifteen. I woke up late, read some of the things I've been wanting to read for years but never got the chance to, including non-literature books about why the English colonised Africa and not the other way around. I listened to Talk Radio 702 and impressed people at dinner parties because I knew all sorts of bits of information people would never expect me to know.
I watched Oprah religiously. Watching Oprah also enables one to have powerful information at one's fingertips. I watched her show on the North and South Korea divide (and now look what happened! That Oprah woman is a prophet, I swear), another one about how African Americans are 50% more likely to develop diabetes because of Soul Food and another charming one of her interviewing Dolly Parton. Now previously, my knowledge of Dolly probably would not even extend to remembering that she sang "Islands in the Stream" (a song we danced to in our high school musical production of "Footloose"). Now, I know that she has the most wonderful, self-deprecating humour, and that she is warm and funny and down-to earth. I never saw the Twilight episode of Opera and missed out on the ubiquitous Robert Pattison and Kristin Stewart. Oh. Damn.
I also played pool (badly, it must be said despite Tumi, Zwe and Zam's best efforts to teach me. My Port Shepstone friends will no doubt smile understandingly, remembering all their kind-hearted (practically saintly) efforts to teach me decent tennis or ping-pong) and read all the odd articles in the Mail and Guardian online. I even joined as a commentator because I was so incensed by someone's disgusting racist comment that no one else picked up on. Needless to say, I felt very insignificant because my angry comment was completely passed over.
I gymed too. Zumba, swimming, weight-training, treadmill and toning classes. I felt like a housewife arriving for the 9 am class and then going home to have a shower and then out again to do the shopping. And home again for some reading before Oprah.
I must here give all due credit to Zam who let me drive everywhere in her car to practise my driving skills, and gymed and chilled with me all the time. And let me indulge my passion for frozen yogurt from "Memory Lane" in Hatfield. Anyone who goes to Pretoria should get one. Never mind the Union buildings: go and enjoy the sweet and exquisite coldness.
Well now I'm working again (in a place I enjoy) and have next to no time for any of my nothing days. But although I am missing Zwe and Zam a lot, I am being productive in other ways and feeling more energised and purposeful than I have in months.
And I manage to stay up until all hours writing. So doing nothing is fun. But doing something as well as fitting in all those great nothing activities is funner. Here's to the working holiday!
(and as always, to better grammar).
After that intentionally convoluted beginning (I hope it is amusingly and not annoyingly so) I should place my philosophising in context. I managed a bookstore in Pretoria for a few months earlier this year, but after deciding that selling my soul to the store (that is actually a book title btw) was not worth it (particularly not for teenage vampire romance novels that have been flogged to death) I resigned and half-heartedly began to search for another job. It was a peculiar time because I knew I only wanted a job until the end of November as I wanted to be home for Christmas and then resume my full-time student vibes. So I would be looking for a job where someone only wanted me for three months and not over the busiest retail time of the year. Ummm...
So I chilled and had the kind of holiday I haven't had since I was fifteen. I woke up late, read some of the things I've been wanting to read for years but never got the chance to, including non-literature books about why the English colonised Africa and not the other way around. I listened to Talk Radio 702 and impressed people at dinner parties because I knew all sorts of bits of information people would never expect me to know.
I watched Oprah religiously. Watching Oprah also enables one to have powerful information at one's fingertips. I watched her show on the North and South Korea divide (and now look what happened! That Oprah woman is a prophet, I swear), another one about how African Americans are 50% more likely to develop diabetes because of Soul Food and another charming one of her interviewing Dolly Parton. Now previously, my knowledge of Dolly probably would not even extend to remembering that she sang "Islands in the Stream" (a song we danced to in our high school musical production of "Footloose"). Now, I know that she has the most wonderful, self-deprecating humour, and that she is warm and funny and down-to earth. I never saw the Twilight episode of Opera and missed out on the ubiquitous Robert Pattison and Kristin Stewart. Oh. Damn.
I also played pool (badly, it must be said despite Tumi, Zwe and Zam's best efforts to teach me. My Port Shepstone friends will no doubt smile understandingly, remembering all their kind-hearted (practically saintly) efforts to teach me decent tennis or ping-pong) and read all the odd articles in the Mail and Guardian online. I even joined as a commentator because I was so incensed by someone's disgusting racist comment that no one else picked up on. Needless to say, I felt very insignificant because my angry comment was completely passed over.
I gymed too. Zumba, swimming, weight-training, treadmill and toning classes. I felt like a housewife arriving for the 9 am class and then going home to have a shower and then out again to do the shopping. And home again for some reading before Oprah.
I must here give all due credit to Zam who let me drive everywhere in her car to practise my driving skills, and gymed and chilled with me all the time. And let me indulge my passion for frozen yogurt from "Memory Lane" in Hatfield. Anyone who goes to Pretoria should get one. Never mind the Union buildings: go and enjoy the sweet and exquisite coldness.
Well now I'm working again (in a place I enjoy) and have next to no time for any of my nothing days. But although I am missing Zwe and Zam a lot, I am being productive in other ways and feeling more energised and purposeful than I have in months.
And I manage to stay up until all hours writing. So doing nothing is fun. But doing something as well as fitting in all those great nothing activities is funner. Here's to the working holiday!
(and as always, to better grammar).
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
thinking.
The 16 days of activism really got me thinking this year. I mean really thinking. I remember marching for women and children at Rhodes (it was around the time of the Zuma rape trial) and thinking of all those terrible things that happened to women and children out there in the terrible world (and probably to several of my varsity acquaintances that I will never know about, considering the statistics). But this year I am in the working world, and not a working world made up of mainly middle-class university graduates; the working world of high school drop-outs, jacks of all trades, people of high and yet non-book-learning intelligence (is there a name for that? I would love to know because a lot of people have it and I would like to recognise it properly). In this working world, I see women that these days are in honour of.
Some of them are people I see in passing. There is an old, frail Indian lady to whom my heart goes out because she is balding. Women are proud of their hair, whether it is straightened religiously every morning into long, immaculate waves or shorn and artistically and carelessly unbrushed. This lady obviously can't afford a doctor or treatment to help, so she sits quietly by herself in the corner of the bus to and fro from work every day, uncomplaining.
Jody is also on the bus with me and we work in the same mall. She always has a complete supply of clothing for all weathers: a headscarf for when it is windy or rainy for her neat, short hair and a rain jacket and umbrella for when it rains. She is a manager at Checkers and is on her feet all day. There is a problem with her foot that flares up if she stands for too long and her foot swells almost out of her shoe. Last night she was at Checkers from 7.30 am until 8 pm because the national manager was coming to look today and they had to get the store looking perfect. In the end, he never arrived. He will (probably) come on Friday. She said she wanted to be a nurse, but growing up in Mooi River, the nearest coloured school was in Estcourt, so she had to catch a train to school every day at 4am. Her parents couldn't afford schooling past Standard eight, so that was it.
The lady behind me on the queue for the bus this morning (she's slim with fine cheekbones and a warm smile and has a coloured scarf wound gracefully around her head) says she wakes up at 2am every morning to make vetkoek to sell. The lady next to her had asked how she managed to stay so thin, and her answer had been that she has no time to be fat. Often stories about the industrious poor make people feel guilty or even de-motivated. This lady had so much joyful spirit and a shining inner strength that I felt inspired to do more just by looking at her.
After she got on the bus with her sealed, white bucket, the smell of sweet dough infused the air within minutes.
But this is the same bus I've been taking for years, and a constant person in all these trips has been Rachael. Rachael is an older Indian lady with shoulder-length curly hair surrounding a wide and thoughtful face. Her smile is genuine and a gold tooth glints from it. She always sits with her hands folded in her lap over her bag and looking out of the window, thinking. In the middle of our conversation yesterday, she broke off and answered her phone, pressing it to her ear and turning away from me. The engine is extremely loud, particularly when it is chugging up a hill, so I wasn't surprised. When she had finished, she turned to me and told me it was her daughter and I smiled, suddenly remembering what she had told me about her son years ago. He was good at science, and worked at the toll booths to make money whilst he was still at school.
Her voice suddenly became so soft that I could only see her lips moving and I wondered if she was telling me a secret. She told me her daughter had left home without telling her and her husband she was going. They came home and found her room empty and her work uniform laid neatly on the bed.
I glanced at her eyes to see if she was unable to control her voice because she is crying, but her eyes were dry but slightly wider than usual, like she was staring into her own oncoming headlights. She said she and her husband tried calling her daughter, but she didn't pick up her 'phone. They cried together, and then prayed that their daughter was safe.
When her daughter called, she called for the first time as I was sitting across from her. She said she was fine, she had a job and she was in another town, but that she was coming for Christmas. She didn't say where she was. I asked Rachael how old she was, and Rachael told me she is only twenty.
It is a moving and equally painful story, even more so because it raises more questions than it answers about why the girl was so desperate to move, why she felt she couldn't tell her parents and who helped her to move and why.
The last woman I want to write about is one I have never met or seen, but her story makes me realise why the 16 days of activism is so close to World Aids Day. My sister worked at a Boston College as a training advisor and it was a tricky working situation for several reasons that aren't important here. It became even more stressful because one of her colleagues - a young man - died of AIDS two weeks ago. Every now and again, people would still come and ask for him, and two days ago was no different. A young woman entered the office and asked for the man. As her English was almost non-existent, a young Zulu student - someone my sister and I knew at school - explained to her that he had died. The woman sat down in a chair and began to cry. She explained that her sister had had a baby by him and had been trying to call him.
Women are most at risk of contracting HIV and AIDS. As they are often seen as equally mystical and beautiful and interchangeable receptacles of pleasure for the man about town, there are more receptacles of the virus that will then be passed on to any offspring (unless they manage to get tested at a clinic soon enough to save their children). I hope more and more women can feel empowered to ensure their safety and health, and more and more men learn to respect them and their decisions (for the real story on how disrespecting women impacts our world see http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/sheryl_wudunn_our_century_s_greatest_injustice.html for absolute brilliance. Better yet, buy the book, "Half the Sky". Some of you may recognise her from an Oprah show on SABC3).
So tonight I do think of all those women and millions in the world like them to who - in my heart of hearts - I dedicate the sixteen days. And to all those affected by HIV and AIDS: may you find peace in your hearts, love from those close to you and understanding from your community.
Some of them are people I see in passing. There is an old, frail Indian lady to whom my heart goes out because she is balding. Women are proud of their hair, whether it is straightened religiously every morning into long, immaculate waves or shorn and artistically and carelessly unbrushed. This lady obviously can't afford a doctor or treatment to help, so she sits quietly by herself in the corner of the bus to and fro from work every day, uncomplaining.
Jody is also on the bus with me and we work in the same mall. She always has a complete supply of clothing for all weathers: a headscarf for when it is windy or rainy for her neat, short hair and a rain jacket and umbrella for when it rains. She is a manager at Checkers and is on her feet all day. There is a problem with her foot that flares up if she stands for too long and her foot swells almost out of her shoe. Last night she was at Checkers from 7.30 am until 8 pm because the national manager was coming to look today and they had to get the store looking perfect. In the end, he never arrived. He will (probably) come on Friday. She said she wanted to be a nurse, but growing up in Mooi River, the nearest coloured school was in Estcourt, so she had to catch a train to school every day at 4am. Her parents couldn't afford schooling past Standard eight, so that was it.
The lady behind me on the queue for the bus this morning (she's slim with fine cheekbones and a warm smile and has a coloured scarf wound gracefully around her head) says she wakes up at 2am every morning to make vetkoek to sell. The lady next to her had asked how she managed to stay so thin, and her answer had been that she has no time to be fat. Often stories about the industrious poor make people feel guilty or even de-motivated. This lady had so much joyful spirit and a shining inner strength that I felt inspired to do more just by looking at her.
After she got on the bus with her sealed, white bucket, the smell of sweet dough infused the air within minutes.
But this is the same bus I've been taking for years, and a constant person in all these trips has been Rachael. Rachael is an older Indian lady with shoulder-length curly hair surrounding a wide and thoughtful face. Her smile is genuine and a gold tooth glints from it. She always sits with her hands folded in her lap over her bag and looking out of the window, thinking. In the middle of our conversation yesterday, she broke off and answered her phone, pressing it to her ear and turning away from me. The engine is extremely loud, particularly when it is chugging up a hill, so I wasn't surprised. When she had finished, she turned to me and told me it was her daughter and I smiled, suddenly remembering what she had told me about her son years ago. He was good at science, and worked at the toll booths to make money whilst he was still at school.
Her voice suddenly became so soft that I could only see her lips moving and I wondered if she was telling me a secret. She told me her daughter had left home without telling her and her husband she was going. They came home and found her room empty and her work uniform laid neatly on the bed.
I glanced at her eyes to see if she was unable to control her voice because she is crying, but her eyes were dry but slightly wider than usual, like she was staring into her own oncoming headlights. She said she and her husband tried calling her daughter, but she didn't pick up her 'phone. They cried together, and then prayed that their daughter was safe.
When her daughter called, she called for the first time as I was sitting across from her. She said she was fine, she had a job and she was in another town, but that she was coming for Christmas. She didn't say where she was. I asked Rachael how old she was, and Rachael told me she is only twenty.
It is a moving and equally painful story, even more so because it raises more questions than it answers about why the girl was so desperate to move, why she felt she couldn't tell her parents and who helped her to move and why.
The last woman I want to write about is one I have never met or seen, but her story makes me realise why the 16 days of activism is so close to World Aids Day. My sister worked at a Boston College as a training advisor and it was a tricky working situation for several reasons that aren't important here. It became even more stressful because one of her colleagues - a young man - died of AIDS two weeks ago. Every now and again, people would still come and ask for him, and two days ago was no different. A young woman entered the office and asked for the man. As her English was almost non-existent, a young Zulu student - someone my sister and I knew at school - explained to her that he had died. The woman sat down in a chair and began to cry. She explained that her sister had had a baby by him and had been trying to call him.
Women are most at risk of contracting HIV and AIDS. As they are often seen as equally mystical and beautiful and interchangeable receptacles of pleasure for the man about town, there are more receptacles of the virus that will then be passed on to any offspring (unless they manage to get tested at a clinic soon enough to save their children). I hope more and more women can feel empowered to ensure their safety and health, and more and more men learn to respect them and their decisions (for the real story on how disrespecting women impacts our world see http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/sheryl_wudunn_our_century_s_greatest_injustice.html for absolute brilliance. Better yet, buy the book, "Half the Sky". Some of you may recognise her from an Oprah show on SABC3).
So tonight I do think of all those women and millions in the world like them to who - in my heart of hearts - I dedicate the sixteen days. And to all those affected by HIV and AIDS: may you find peace in your hearts, love from those close to you and understanding from your community.
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