Avocados
I roll down the window and offer 20 rand for the avocados encased in plastic netting. The thin black salesman with a gap toothed smile shows a little too much enthusiasm. He knows he would have settled for less. I know it too, but in even in south africa, a little under 3 dollars is a good price for 6 avocados.
At every red light one is accosted by entrepreneurs walking amongst the cars with an amazing assortment of wares including sunglasses, toys, clothing, produce. One particularly persistent young man is sure I need a telephone recharger or at the very least a SA soccer cap. For 2 rand someone will take the trash from your car.
If these folks knew anything about me they would not be so confident strolling around my car. I’m driving a standard shift Renault diesel. Diesel is new to me. It’s been along time since I driven a standard shift and I sure haven’t shifted with my left hand before. The light changes and I pull out reminding myself. “The right turn is the big turn, the right turn is the big turn.” My son has given me only one important rule about driving here.” I don’t care what happens to the car, mom, just don’t hit any people”. They aren’t making that easy.
South Africa has never been high on my list of places to visit. Too foreign – its in africa for heaven’s sake, too much messy politics – heard of Apartheid?. And basically just too far away. I know this. I took a tape measure to a globe. To get farther away from California you would need to either drown or leave the planet.
But just as young children must adjust to their parents in terms of where they go, parents find themselves following where older children go. My son chose to live in this remote location and visit, I must. I could probability have let him go, but he had the audacity to take my grandson with him.
The specific reason for this trip is my granddaughter is about to be born and I’ve been asked to lend a hand. So, as any red blooded grandmother would do, I loaded myself on a 747 and endured roughly 24 hours of modern high tech travel to arrive in a land very different from home, and yet, very much the same.
So here I am, driving down the left side of the street as if it was a normal thing to do. Traffic rules here are, otherwise, pretty much the same as in the U.S. Officially. In fact people drive more aggressively but more courteously at the same time. No one gets outraged at getting “cut off” cause that is pretty much standard operating procedure. Lots of traffic, fewer, narrower lanes, lots of passing. It happens.
One thing to be careful of is the mini-taxis, sometimes called “black-taxis”, to be discussed later. These folks pretty much have their own rules. Go too fast, too slow, occasionally backwards, pull out without looking, change lanes on the fly, whatever. They make money based on getting as many rides from place to place as quickly as possible.
That’s all fine if you expect it and are used to it. It does make things a little more difficult for those of us trying to remember to shift – don’t ever try to start a diesel in anything but first, ever! - to shift on the wrong side, to make big right turns and little left turns and, what was it, or yeah, to not kill anyone.
Nonetheless, avocados in my lap, I’m finally proceeding down a long stretch of quiet road toward my son’s complex.
People live in “complexes”. The crime in South Africa is very high. There is probably safety in numbers. I pull out my remote as I pull up to the large iron gates. There is a guard house bearing a large blue oval sign with the oversize yellow letters “SAS”. Special Armed Services. One of the buttons on my remote will call this armed response, no questions asked. I might add there is no way of backing out once you have called it, this can make for awkward moments.
The iron gates hesitate, like the always do, long enough to make me wonder if my remote is working. Then with a creak I’m slowly invited in as Chris, the guard on duty, waves me through. I enter onto tiled road that winds around and connects 25 very large, modern stylish homes, all of tan stucco that matches the 8 foot stucco wall surrounding the complex. On top of the wall, like all the walls surrounding all the complexes and all the individual homes in this part of Johannesburg, is an electrified fence with dutiful “high voltage” warnings every few meters.
Reaching my son’s home, I push yet another button to raise the garage door and make a hard right down a hill and into the garage. I bring the Renault to a stop and turned it off. Having neither taken off the side of the Gleaming Blue BMW next to me, nor sailed through the front wall of the garage I feel I have, yet again, managed the vagaries of Johannesburg traffic. Maybe I’m even getting the hand of this.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Arrival in Jo'Burg
Travel from London to Johannesburg was at night. It was quiet and dark in the cabin as most people made a gallant effort to sleep. I tried too, but since I was on California time there was little hope.I followed the progress on that little map they provide over Europe, Libya, Congo, Zaire – place I had heard about but could scarcely believe were just below me. All I could see, alas, was darkness. I could have been over an ocean for all I could tell.
Sometime over Botswana things began to come alive. The aroma of breakfast filled the cabin, people began to move and walk around. While eating scambled eggs, british style with a tomato and pale looking sausage I watched a spectacular sunrise. Perhaps all sunrises were like this from airplanes. But I saw it as a welcome to Africa. There were no clouds. The sky was absolute brilliant colors, deep blues giving way to turquoise, oranges and reds. Perhaps this is where the brilliant colors seen in African art and clothes come from.
Johannesburg seemed like a city of trees – not unlike my native Sacramento. One could see signs of the city waking up as we thundered toward the runway.
Customs was painfully slow. My first introduction to SA buraeacracy was not a possitive one. Part of the problem was, no doubt, that I was achingly anxious to see my son, to see is home, to rest somewhere that wasn’t in motion and was out of the range of loud power-driven noises.
Then, suddenly, it was all worth it. Amongst a crowd of people holding signs I saw, peering through the railing, with bright eyes and an anticipatory small, not my son, but my two year old grandson. I felt that strange welling up in my chest that I had never experience prior to his birth. I wanted to cry, but needed to maintain some semblance of dignity. His father was, of course, right behind him.
The ride home was a little disorientating. Its not just that driving is on the left side of the street, but the streets are small and crowded. There is a lot of passing and changing lanes. It is very active driving. There were other clues that I was no longer in Kansas. A sign shouted “This is a high crime area, get off your cell phone and pay attention”. There were no sidewalks, one walked on the edge of the road and hopefully paid close attention. Homes were surrounded with 8 foot walls topped inevitably with electrified fences. The place was a contrast of really quite lovely trees, folliage, well carred for public spaces, and walls, fences, cautions.
Homes tended large and grouped in gated complexes. My son pointed out certain areas, however, where there were no gates, indeed there was often no electricity or plumbing. The homes, if they could be so called, were shacks at best crammed together in what are called “townships” and represented poverty unlike anything one sees in the U.S. This was the type of place where much of the black population lived.
“Here,” Jeff explained, “ you have the first world living right next to the third world”. Indeed, it was true. My naivite leaped out as I asked “Why doesn’t the government do something about this”. My son sighed. Over the next months we would elaborate on that question many times.
Sometime over Botswana things began to come alive. The aroma of breakfast filled the cabin, people began to move and walk around. While eating scambled eggs, british style with a tomato and pale looking sausage I watched a spectacular sunrise. Perhaps all sunrises were like this from airplanes. But I saw it as a welcome to Africa. There were no clouds. The sky was absolute brilliant colors, deep blues giving way to turquoise, oranges and reds. Perhaps this is where the brilliant colors seen in African art and clothes come from.
Johannesburg seemed like a city of trees – not unlike my native Sacramento. One could see signs of the city waking up as we thundered toward the runway.
Customs was painfully slow. My first introduction to SA buraeacracy was not a possitive one. Part of the problem was, no doubt, that I was achingly anxious to see my son, to see is home, to rest somewhere that wasn’t in motion and was out of the range of loud power-driven noises.
Then, suddenly, it was all worth it. Amongst a crowd of people holding signs I saw, peering through the railing, with bright eyes and an anticipatory small, not my son, but my two year old grandson. I felt that strange welling up in my chest that I had never experience prior to his birth. I wanted to cry, but needed to maintain some semblance of dignity. His father was, of course, right behind him.
The ride home was a little disorientating. Its not just that driving is on the left side of the street, but the streets are small and crowded. There is a lot of passing and changing lanes. It is very active driving. There were other clues that I was no longer in Kansas. A sign shouted “This is a high crime area, get off your cell phone and pay attention”. There were no sidewalks, one walked on the edge of the road and hopefully paid close attention. Homes were surrounded with 8 foot walls topped inevitably with electrified fences. The place was a contrast of really quite lovely trees, folliage, well carred for public spaces, and walls, fences, cautions.
Homes tended large and grouped in gated complexes. My son pointed out certain areas, however, where there were no gates, indeed there was often no electricity or plumbing. The homes, if they could be so called, were shacks at best crammed together in what are called “townships” and represented poverty unlike anything one sees in the U.S. This was the type of place where much of the black population lived.
“Here,” Jeff explained, “ you have the first world living right next to the third world”. Indeed, it was true. My naivite leaped out as I asked “Why doesn’t the government do something about this”. My son sighed. Over the next months we would elaborate on that question many times.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Airplane Food
Airplane Food
I hate to admit this, but I rather like airplane food. I'm not talking about the fancy dancy stuff in the upper classes, I’m strictly a steerage flyer. The truth is I am generally quite impressed with their ability to serve a, often hot, not bad tasting meal to several hundred people under such awkward conditions. I don't usually touch the roll. It is generally hard and cold. I may poke it a bit to verify my experience, but to me that is the low point of the whole thing. The rest is not at all bad
Relegated to a small seat for 11 hours - me and my tiny T.V, I look forward to the smells of food and anticipate the small personal treasure hunt of funny little containers and sealed liquids when it finally appears
Years ago this was all served on china with stainless utensils. I do miss that. I marvel at the shear quantity of disposables that a single ocean crossing flight generates. Cutting meat with a tiny plastic knife and fork and with elbows firmly tucked to my sides can be a tad clumsy. And where to put all those little containers, and the covers I have torn off them, and the little paper napkins and the salt and pepper and cream and sugar and “wipe” packets – on a .7 square foot surface – well, I admit it is a challenge.
Partly I’m struck by the surreal nature of the whole thing. Here I am sitting in a large aluminum tube with some 400 other people, being hurled through the upper atmosphere 6 miles above the surface of the earth – quite a bit higher than Mt. Everest - where the temperature is far below freezing and there is ridiculously little air. Here I sit – eating curry chicken with strawberry cheesecake for dessert.
If we actually took in what we were doing, none of us would get on that plane. Look at the size of it. There is no way this thing can get into the air and certainly no reason to believe that it could stay there. But like good little lemmings, we turn a blind eye to these obvious realities and buckle up, ignore the safety film and sip a plastic cup of chardonnay in celebration of yet one more impossible, yet mildly thrilling, entry into the stratosphere.
Its a good thing that I like airplane food because I was on a trip that would provide this cuisine for four successive meals. I was flying from California to South Africa, two 11 flights interrupted by 3 hours at Heathrow airport in London. Of all the places I had imagined my self visiting, Johannesburg, was definitely near the bottom of the list. Yet here I was.
The reason I was of for my trip had its beginnings 17 years before.
My husband and I had decided we would take our children, Jeff, 16 and Cheryl, 12, abroad. Something about broadening their perspectives as I remember. We traded houses with another family in England, and branched out from there. I did mention that my son was 16. Typical of this age group he was mortified to have parents, not to mention a little sister, and embarrassed to be seen with any of us. Travel to far away lands did not cause this proclivity to dissipate.
It came to a head in Paris. Weary of dragging this reluctant miserable individual around with us we gave him an all day pass to the Paris Metro, a few francs, and information as to where we eating dinner if he cared to join us. Some might see this as child abandonment, but anyone who has traveled with an adolescent will find it eminently reasonable.
It proved to be a life-changing day for that young man. He joined us for dinner (ok, we were relieved) and regaled us with tales of his travels. He had mastered the metro, climbed Notre Dame, found food to eat that he actually liked and was able to use his high school French to communicate, more or less, to the natives. In short, he owned the city and was higher than a kite in a tornado.
That day, I’m convinced; he saw his destiny as a globe trekker, forever experiencing the diversity and texture of worlds previously unimagined.
His Freshman year of college he went to Mexico to learn Spanish, his senior year he studied in Spain and then spent several years living and working in Berlin. After business school he became employed with a mining firm that sent him traveling to China, South America, Turkey, Australia, the U.K. He had several girl friends, almost none of whom spoke English as a first language, and finally married a young woman from Chernavaca, Mexico, who, fortunately for all concerned, was subject to the same wanderlust as he.
My husband, Burt, and I have long given up hope that he will join us in suburbia and now just watch and wonder to see where he, and his family, will be going next. This is not passive observation. We know that where he goes, we will be visiting because, like most grandparents, there is a limit to how much time one can remain away from the upcoming generation.
Which brings me to this current – very long - flight. I actually took a tape measure to a globe and found that South Africa is as far away as one can be from Sacramento, California without resorting to the dog paddle. But 6 months earlier, he and his wife had packed up and moved to Johannesberg, lock, stock and grandchild.
I was joining them in late March to assist with the arrival and care of their second child, my granddaughter. I would be staying for not quite three months.
And so I whiled my time watching a movie or two, trying to read, trying to sleep, and looking forward to the next meal.
I hate to admit this, but I rather like airplane food. I'm not talking about the fancy dancy stuff in the upper classes, I’m strictly a steerage flyer. The truth is I am generally quite impressed with their ability to serve a, often hot, not bad tasting meal to several hundred people under such awkward conditions. I don't usually touch the roll. It is generally hard and cold. I may poke it a bit to verify my experience, but to me that is the low point of the whole thing. The rest is not at all bad
Relegated to a small seat for 11 hours - me and my tiny T.V, I look forward to the smells of food and anticipate the small personal treasure hunt of funny little containers and sealed liquids when it finally appears
Years ago this was all served on china with stainless utensils. I do miss that. I marvel at the shear quantity of disposables that a single ocean crossing flight generates. Cutting meat with a tiny plastic knife and fork and with elbows firmly tucked to my sides can be a tad clumsy. And where to put all those little containers, and the covers I have torn off them, and the little paper napkins and the salt and pepper and cream and sugar and “wipe” packets – on a .7 square foot surface – well, I admit it is a challenge.
Partly I’m struck by the surreal nature of the whole thing. Here I am sitting in a large aluminum tube with some 400 other people, being hurled through the upper atmosphere 6 miles above the surface of the earth – quite a bit higher than Mt. Everest - where the temperature is far below freezing and there is ridiculously little air. Here I sit – eating curry chicken with strawberry cheesecake for dessert.
If we actually took in what we were doing, none of us would get on that plane. Look at the size of it. There is no way this thing can get into the air and certainly no reason to believe that it could stay there. But like good little lemmings, we turn a blind eye to these obvious realities and buckle up, ignore the safety film and sip a plastic cup of chardonnay in celebration of yet one more impossible, yet mildly thrilling, entry into the stratosphere.
Its a good thing that I like airplane food because I was on a trip that would provide this cuisine for four successive meals. I was flying from California to South Africa, two 11 flights interrupted by 3 hours at Heathrow airport in London. Of all the places I had imagined my self visiting, Johannesburg, was definitely near the bottom of the list. Yet here I was.
The reason I was of for my trip had its beginnings 17 years before.
My husband and I had decided we would take our children, Jeff, 16 and Cheryl, 12, abroad. Something about broadening their perspectives as I remember. We traded houses with another family in England, and branched out from there. I did mention that my son was 16. Typical of this age group he was mortified to have parents, not to mention a little sister, and embarrassed to be seen with any of us. Travel to far away lands did not cause this proclivity to dissipate.
It came to a head in Paris. Weary of dragging this reluctant miserable individual around with us we gave him an all day pass to the Paris Metro, a few francs, and information as to where we eating dinner if he cared to join us. Some might see this as child abandonment, but anyone who has traveled with an adolescent will find it eminently reasonable.
It proved to be a life-changing day for that young man. He joined us for dinner (ok, we were relieved) and regaled us with tales of his travels. He had mastered the metro, climbed Notre Dame, found food to eat that he actually liked and was able to use his high school French to communicate, more or less, to the natives. In short, he owned the city and was higher than a kite in a tornado.
That day, I’m convinced; he saw his destiny as a globe trekker, forever experiencing the diversity and texture of worlds previously unimagined.
His Freshman year of college he went to Mexico to learn Spanish, his senior year he studied in Spain and then spent several years living and working in Berlin. After business school he became employed with a mining firm that sent him traveling to China, South America, Turkey, Australia, the U.K. He had several girl friends, almost none of whom spoke English as a first language, and finally married a young woman from Chernavaca, Mexico, who, fortunately for all concerned, was subject to the same wanderlust as he.
My husband, Burt, and I have long given up hope that he will join us in suburbia and now just watch and wonder to see where he, and his family, will be going next. This is not passive observation. We know that where he goes, we will be visiting because, like most grandparents, there is a limit to how much time one can remain away from the upcoming generation.
Which brings me to this current – very long - flight. I actually took a tape measure to a globe and found that South Africa is as far away as one can be from Sacramento, California without resorting to the dog paddle. But 6 months earlier, he and his wife had packed up and moved to Johannesberg, lock, stock and grandchild.
I was joining them in late March to assist with the arrival and care of their second child, my granddaughter. I would be staying for not quite three months.
And so I whiled my time watching a movie or two, trying to read, trying to sleep, and looking forward to the next meal.
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