One more

Only one more day left of 2011. It seems that at the end of every year, every one reflects on the past 365 days and says how quickly it has passed. We live year for year, with each 1st of January providing an excuse to reassess our lives and our choices, making resolutions to change and to better ourselves in newer years.

I am not one for resolutions because I don't know what I want. Silly things like losing weight or finding a husband or studying harder are not life changes. If a resolution is to be made, it should be one that you carry with you for the rest of your life. Something that not only benefits yourself, something that makes the world a better place.

Here are a few suggestions:

Be kind to everyone. Cashiers in SA seem to have signed a contract that prohibits them from being efficient workers and friendly to customers. But whatever. Kill them with kindness.

Don't be scared to meet new people. When I started at university, I had my friends from school and was not open to engaging with any of the other students because after all, I had just come back from EUROPE and was infinitely superior and I had my crew of BFFs, so I did not need anyone new in my life. Big mistake. One year later, all my old friends had migrated overseas or friendships had changed and I was a rather lonely and less arrogant person. It takes time to make friends, but after this year, I am so glad to have gotten to know many of my fellow students better. Also, friendship is a reciprocal thing and needs to be nurtured in order to grow. I like to think that my friends like me as much as I like them.

Don't judge. Joh ja, this is one of my character flaws. I judge people from the second I see them. But I remember one incident from working at Disneyland : a group of us was sweeping the area and cleaning out the dustbins when a Dutch lady with her daughter walked past, pointed at us (we were hard to miss thanks to an abominable costume of camel-toe inducing turquoise pants with a yellow strip down the side and chequered yellow-turquoise shirts) and told her daughter that she would become like us if she did not do her homework. Because of my Afrikaans I understood what she was saying, and it became clear to me that often we think wrongly of people who do menial jobs. All of the workers there were college students. I think we often judge people on appearances and on their jobs before even knowing their story. I sure am guilty of it.

Volunteer.  This is a bit hypocritical because I don't volunteer. I am always saying how I would like to and making up all of these excuses. Bottom line is, if you can and have the time, rather help out somewhere than to watch another episode of House M.D. You know, my people skills aren't so great, but reading to the elderly I could do. Or helping someone with learning a language. I don't know. This is kind of a resolution I would want to make and keep without labelling it.

To be honest, I am not sure about this post. I wanted to be all inspirational and start a movement to flippen SAVE THE WORLD and make everyone happy. But the truth is we are all caught up in our little lives and I don't think there is a collective will to have a world of peace and unity. I mean, most of the time I am thinking about what I could eat for pudding and what book to read next and what to do for New Year's Eve, and not about how we are all equal and should save our planet.

Life itself is gone

"It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily by. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment? For the moment passes, it is forgotten; the mood is gone; life itself is gone. That is where the writer scores over his fellows: he catches the changes of his mind on the hop. Growth is exciting; growth is dynamic and alarming. Growth of the soul, growth of the mind. "

- Vita Sackville-West

Long

This is a mash-up of two long exposures I did while in Wilderness. The little light stripe on the right is from two people walking on the beach with a torch. I think there are too many light sources from the houses and the hotel close by. On the farm there is no electricity and no houses nearby, so the long exposures of the stars come out a lot more impressively.

I will change the design of the blog in the new year, sorry that it is a bit lame-o at the moment.

Useful

via Photojojo

This is a nifty little tripod replacement that you can pop onto almost any bottle. It has a rubber at the bottom that stretches over the bottle cap and can rotate 340° and swivel at 15° in every direction. You won't be able to pop your DSLR onto it, but I think it is quite a handy gadget for people who don't have the money to spend on a "real" tripod just for their little digital cameras.

Also on Photojojo

A time for giving

Since returning to Pretoria on Friday after driving for three days ( we had to fetch our grandmother in Jeffrey's Bay and then stop over on the farm in the Free State where she grew up to see my cousin) the focus has been on preparing for the Christmas celebration. We celebrate on the 24th where the family will go to church, have dinner together and then spend the rest of the evening opening the presents. This year, just my family celebrated on Christmas Eve, and then we had guests for the 25th. 

Today was the first day of rest. But because my grandmother likes to keep busy, she was rearranging my mother's cupboards and therefore my sister and I did the same with our rooms. When cleaning up our closets we also clean them out and decide what can be given away and what we will still wear. I have a lot of clothes and shoes and bags and scarves. I have a lot of stuff. Even if I gave half of it away, I would still have more than enough. We take our old clothes to the farm or my mom will donate it to people she has met while on the road as a tour guide who can use it. 

It is very difficult for me to grasp what it means to be poor. We are not rich, but we have all that we need and are privileged to have received an excellent education. But seeing people on the streets begging or the farm workers who have not had the same opportunities, I wonder if South Africa will ever be able to establish its society as mostly middle-class with only a small margin of poverty and excessive wealth. Perhaps the greatest sin of Apartheid is depriving the majority of the population of a decent education. Thereby, there are entire generations who have not expanded their knowledge and their view on the world, and they can also not instil a desire for improvement in social standing. No one wants to be poor, but it seems that most people also don't have the means or the knowledge to escape it. 

I read a German article about a social experiment where the journalist and an actress went to the town where the richest people in Germany have settled and disguised themselves as beggars in order to see if the rich will give to the poor. In the article it is cited that testing by the american psychologist Dacher Keltner, professor at the University of California, showed that the expectation by the poor to be helped by the rich is in fact misconstrued. The richer a person is, the less likely they are of donating. 

Charity is fine if the press is present and the charity on a different continent, preferably in a third-world country like Pakistan or Uganda or Colombia. Also, it seems that poorer people are more inclined to giving because there is a better understanding of the situation and a greater sense of "helping one another". 

I wonder if we are desensitized by being confronted by poverty every time we stop at a traffic light or if it makes us more aware of our own privileged status. Whilst in a township, one of my mother'S tourists turned to her and asked how long they still had to endure being there. Do we at some point see the poor as less deserving, as not hard-working, as lazy, as not deserving of what we have? If rich people instil their children with the same values where money and power trump empathy and compassion, it is no wonder that the world is in a state of chaos. I believe we have lost a sense of being interconnected, of caring for one another. We live in a selfish world and it is no use denying that I am selfish, too. In some way, I could probably be helping all the beggars on the streets or the people that ring our doorbell. 

Perhaps that is a resolution for 2012. Helping more. 

Greetings from the seaside

This is how my dogs roll. 

I hope everyone is having a getting into the holiday spirit and feeling festive. It is a bit ridiculous celebrating Christmas with a turkey and a Christmas tree when it is 35`C outside and you are wearing a summery dress, but after all one needs to reflect on what one is celebrating and for which reasons. I am not very religious and see Christmas more as a celebration of family, unity and peace, as a time to come together and share a meal, as a time to show appreciation for those around us and as a time of charity towards those less fortunate.

Well, this is just a short hello from the seaside, it seems my scheduled posts have worked.

A last goodbye from Spitzi himself:

Letters

Whenever I send an sms or a BBM or a Whatsapp message or an email or a letter, I imagine my words to be a little envelope of me. I see myself being sent, travelling over miles and reaching you in an instant or in a few weeks only. And because some part of me has left, I expect an answer.

Perhaps that is what happens in relationships, in friendships and with far away family members: because we don't communicate effectively, because what I think my little envelope contains is not the same as what you take from it, because we can read something differently from how it was meant, because we do not all think the same way things can get confusing.

When I write a message, I am reading it out loud in my head, stressing certain parts and leaving intonations out at others. But since you cannot read my voice, I don't know how we can effectively communicate, ever.

I am/ was often accused of saying what I think without reflecting on it, of being rude because some things are not meant to be said and of being too sarcastic. It was/is probably true. I am trying to think more about what I say and how it affects others, but then I would expect the same courtesy. It is easy to judge others if one sees no fault in oneself.

Ultimately, I want you to know what I am saying and I want to understand correctly what you mean. Otherwise, what is the point of communicating at all if it is just a jumbling of meaning.

Two times

I understand the concept of double exposures, but I have not held a camera in my hands that can do it. All the analogue ones refuse to take a second picture and the digital ones, well, there is not even the option of not turning the film further.

Here are some images by Dan Mountford. He says they were created 'In camera" and that the colour was edited in photoshop. 

Check out more of his images on the flickr link above or on fubiz. 

Wedding Bells

I have been to three weddings consciously. When I was little, I was a flower girl at my aunt's wedding, in April I went to a friend's wedding and a few weeks back to my great-cousin's. The first one was somewhat of a flop because my mother made my sister's and my dress, but my aunt had failed to convey a specific theme to her and we were dressed in the wrong colours.

During high school, I waitressed on the weekends at a wedding venue, but all it taught me was that I was a poor waitress and that weddings are often strange affairs where people either drink too much and celebrate together, or sit in awkward silence and leave early.

Since the wedding at the beginning of the year was the first one I was invited to, I  was so exited that I bought the present weeks before and had my outfit all planned out. On the day, the mother of the bride turned up late, so everyone had to wait for her to arrive. The guests were seated on five rows of long wooden benches on either side of the aisle underneath beautiful old trees and large white umbrellas. In front of me sat some older ladies and the one smelled distinctly of some fiery chewing gum, you know the red one with cinnamon in it that burns away your taste buds. My black and gold fan from the bachelorette party helped in wafting the scent towards others.

The wedding was held at Kleinkaap, an imitation Cape Colonial venue. The old trees and leaves on the ground reminded me of our garden in Geneva when I was little. We had an enormous, ancient oak tree in the corner and come autumn, the garden was covered in its leaves. Strange how enchanting dead leaves can be. Bach then I was quite allergic to the tree's pollen, so luckily these trees were different and I did not swell up like a party balloon.

During the ceremony, the priest spoke about how a marriage should not be seen as a business transaction or a prison. Although this is true, I doubt anyone ever goes into a marriage thinking: oh well, my life will be hell but I'll have bags of money. Perhaps in arranged marriages in Afghanistan where the girls are 12 and their husbands 40 that is the case (see Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns), but if one considers the typically Western view of marriage as being for love and being a commitment to someone for the rest of one's life, I found the sermon quite misplaced.

For the rest of the wedding, it was very nice, but the different wedding parties did not mix very successfully and some of the older people left after the food was served.

I don't know about all the rules at weddings, but is the main thing not the celebration of a union of love? Often I think people should just keep it a very intimate affair and only invite those people whom they feel will share in their joy. Brides worry too much about whose feelings will be hurt if they are not invited or if someone cannot bring a partner.

My cousin's wedding was great. It was a very Afrikaans wedding, but the place they held it at was lovely, the food was delicious, and above all, everyone was just so happy to celebrate the day with them. My sister and I initially felt a bit out because we are not directly related, but we were placed at the table with our other cousin and his family and they were very embracing. Everyone danced langarm ( long-arm, a type of dance) or just bounced around on the dance floor (my langarm skills need much improvement). The bride and groom also made speeches thanking their parents and various guests and I think in the end, everyone just really enjoyed being there and celebrating the day with them.

I think every wedding should just be a big party in honour of the married ones, and I hope that all future weddings will feel like the photographs on welovepictures.

on welovepictures

Writing well

Here is some advice on writing poetry by Charles Simic, a Serbian-American poet, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1990 and Poet Laureate in 2007. I think his advice is applicable to any good writing? When blogging, I am unsure how much one considers one's readership. With smaller blogs it is probably more essential to focus on a specific area and so build up a readership - but with very popular blogs, I wonder if the writers think about what they are posting or if they are just glad 100 000 people are reading it daily. 

Charles Simic on Writing Poetry

A few things to keep in mind while sitting down to write a poem:

1. Don't tell the readers what they already know about life.
2. Don't assume you're the only one in the world who suffers.
3. Some of the greatest poems in the language are sonnets and poems not many lines longer than that, so don't overwrite.
4. The use of images, similes and metaphors make poems concise. Close your eyes, and let your imagination tell you what to do.
5. Say the words you are writing aloud and let your ear decide what word comes next.
6. What you are writing down is a draft that will need additional tinkering, perhaps many months, and even years of tinkering.
7. Remember, a poem is a time machine you are constructing, a vehicle that will allow someone to travel in their own mind, so don't be surprised if it takes a while to get all its engine parts properly working.

I read that everything that is worth doing takes time. I like writing, but I am sure it can be much ameliorated by following some of Simic's advice.

Re-tuned

To spice up the standard Christmas carols that you will probably be hearing in every mall and elevator, here is the link to a free (!!!) download of re-mixed Christmas carols. The originals were sung by Fulka and the remix done right here in Pretoria by Jacob Israel.

Mrs Ball's

At some point, my sister and I stopped splashing tomato sauce over our food and settled on adding Mrs. Ball's Chutney to everything. We go through about one large bottle at least every 3 weeks. It could be a month if she is eating the extra hot version, which I don't like. I prefer the peach or tomato one, but for the sake of peace in the house we both eat the original Mrs Ball's chutney. No other brand will do.

The year we both spent away we would treat ourselves to a bottle ( bought at Galeria Kaufhaus for € 4) and use the tiniest bit. For every day consumption curry-ketchup had to sauce up our meals.

I have never made chutney before because I knew I could never get it to be as good as the store-bought-bottles. But on our way back from visiting the cradle of humankind, we stopped at a padstal ( a road-shop) and bought peaches. They were not very pretty and not very ripe either, so my mom suggested we make chutney.

She has this old Afrikaans book that describes how to preserve any fruit or vegetable imaginable. It also has  different chutney recipes.

Ours combines peaches, onions, sour apples, vinegar, sugar, garlic and sultanas. Also, some cinnamon, ginger and red pepper. It states that one should add sultanas, but I am no fan, so we left them out.

Here are some images:

The ingredients.

Our scale was almost not enough to hold the mass of peaches.

Mincing the fruit. You can see I am not dressed for portraits. 

My mother likes using exaggeratedly large pots.

These are your Christmas presents. 

If you are interested, here is Mrs. Ball's history and here is the link to someone claiming to have the original recipe. I am not so sure. No one can beat the real deal.

See, hier kom ons*

Wilderness

Môre pak ons weer die lang pad aan: my suster, die twee honde, die blou Polo en ek. My koffer is half gepak, die padkos amper ook, die honde se goed staan reg om gelaai te word. So trippie maak my altyd baie opgewonde. Net om bietjie weg te kom, om vir 'n rukkie nie hier te wees nie, nie alles te sien wat mens ken nie, om bietjie mens se oe op ander vlaktes te rus is so lekker.

En Wilderness is altyd lekker.Elkeen doen sy eie ding, elkeen lees sy boek, kyk TV, ons eet in die middae saam buite en drink rustig 'n glasie wyn.. Mens kan net ontspan na 'n jaar van harde werk. In my een boek was daar 'n kort onderhoud met 'n vrou wat in Frankryk in die voedselbedryf werk. Sy het gesê dat dit vir haar belangrik is dat die lewe uitegbalanseer word: na tye van spanning en stress moet mens 'n tydjie hê waar mens net met 'n groot glas rooiwyn op die bank lê en kan ontspan.

So dit is die plan vir die volgende paar weke. Omdat ek daar nie Internet sal hê nie, het ek al 'n paar posts voorgeskryf, dalk werk die ding en hulle post hulself.

Lekker vakansie mense :)


* Sea, here we come

Tomorrow we are driving the long way down to the coast - my sister, our two dogs, the blue Polo and I. My bag is half packed, the snacks for the road as well, die dogs' luggage is ready to be loaded in the car. A trip like this always excites me. Just to get away for a bit, to not be here for a while, to not see everything one knows, to rest one's eyes on different landscapes is so wonderful.

And Wilderness is always great. Everyone does their own thing, reading books or watching TV. For lunchtime we sit outside and drink a glass of wine. One can relax after a busy year. In one of my French books, a lady that works for some pastry-specialist said that it is important for her that her life follows certain rhythms: if it is stressful and hectic at times, one needs a moment to relax on the couch with a big glass of red wine.

So that is the plan for the next few weeks. Because I won't have Internet there, I pre-wrote some posts, lets see if the whole scheduling of it works out.

Enjoy your holidays :)

Snickerdoodles

Just say it : Snickerdoodle. SSSSSSnickerdoooodle. It sounds like something the Moomin's would bake and have for lunch. It is just a basic cookie rolled in cinnamon: perfect for Christmas. Since I can remember, we have been baking cookies for Christmas. When we were little, my mother would make a dough, let us stencil out different shapes with cookie cutters and when they were done, we would decorate them. 

I think it is a German tradition to bake cookies for Christmas and then you distribute little cookie-plates to friends/family/neighbours and in the end you can compare whose cookies are the best. My mother bakes Vanille-Kipferl, Heidesand cookies and something with chocolate. My sister and I then contribute our own favourites or help with my mom's. I like baking different ones each year, so last year Snickerdoodles were it and since we are leaving for the coast on Monday, they were the quickest to make. 

The recipe is adapted from Martha Stewart and smittenkitchen: 

2 3/4 cups flour

2 ts cream of tartar

1 ts baking soda

salt

2 sticks ( = 230g) butter

1 3/4 cups sugar

2 ts cinnamon

2 eggs

Pre-heat your oven to 200°C

Mix the flours, cream of tartar, baking soda and a pinch of salt. 

Add the butter, 11/2 cups of sugar and the eggs. 

Leave the dough in the fridge for an hour to chill. 

Roll the dough into little balls and dip them in the cinnamon-sugar mixture ( combine the cinnamon and the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar). 

Bake the cookies for 12 min. 

My dough was a bit dry this year, so I added a swig of milk, and I forgot to turn the heat up to 200°C, so they took a bit longer. Also, mine remain quite compact and don't spread like those in the images on the different websites, but they still taste like Christmas :)

Carry Me

Still one of my favourite songs.

Mal(l)

"Mal" means to be crazy in Afrikaans. Today my mom, sister and I braved Menlyn shopping centre, because we are leaving for the coast on Monday and won't have time otherwise. It is always a somewhat insane environment to be in : the epitome of consumerism, sheltered from any thing that happens on the outside and filled to the brim with people intent on buying buying buying.

Normally, my mom takes us out individually, but today, due to lack of time, we had to go together. I hate it because my sister and I have different shopping styles. She wants someone to tell her what looks good and what doesn't and to constantly comment on her choices. She has often told me that I am not the sister she would have wanted, because she wants someone to share clothes and shoes with.

Well, we don't wear the same size, and I don't want any one to help me. I want to go in, try what has caught my eye on, and if it doesn't look right, I'll be moving along swiftly. Finding clothes that fit well is great, but if you don't, it is no tragedy either. So, we do not make great shopping companions, and my mother gets caught in the middle, patiently waiting outside changing rooms and trying to accommodate us both.

My sister also does this thing where she buys something and then has to buy other somethings that fit with it. For instance, if you were to buy a dress, and then say that you have no shoes that go with it in order to buy new shoes as well.

Again, I don't do that, which causes more friction. I buy things that will fit with what I have. I don't know how people can enjoy shopping? I enjoy finding something, not the journey through shop after shop and spending hours in centres that mirror a perfect, isolated little world. This year, one of our themes was malls and how they manage space to influence shoppers. Next time you go to a mall, look to see if there are any windows, any clocks, any reference to a real world just beyond the walls.

When we got home, I hung up my new clothes only to realize I have quite a lot of them already. It is always nice to have something new and every one wants to look good, but I am wondering how much the upper-middle class loses perspective in relation to what they have as opposed to people with a lower income. We ( me included) focus so much on what we want, what we feel we deserve, because after all, we work hard for it.

At the moment, the COP17 climate conference is happening in Durban. In the news they said that at the conference, the top 1% is representing the other 99%, but only focussing on their own best interests. My mother told me about how people are living in Langa, a township in Cape Town. To them, climate change and greenhouse gases and the Kyoto protocol has no importance, because they are worried where their next meal will come from and whether they will be able to support their families.

How can we go and justify spending so much money on so many insignificant things when the world is at need? On the one hand, I also want to buy my family something nice and have them be overjoyed when they open my present, but it does not feel right for us to indulge when other people have nothing.

Now, my question is, how do you balance this? How do you celebrate Christmas without feeling guilty for what you have? I mean, I am often quite ungrateful for what I am given. I think we all take things for granted  because to us they are an part of everyday life. I don't know how to change this either. Living more conscientiously? Volunteering? Donating? Giving something to eat to the newspaper-man that comes around on Tuesdays?

How can we change the world for all, not just for those who can afford to go to malls?