Get it out

I found this ad in Woodstock, Cape Town. Out of all the absurd abortion posters I have seen, "womb cleaning" is new terminology to me. Also, having an abortion is not really "proper family planning". 

Home

View from the plane. 

I've returned home after almost a week in Cape Town, visiting the very special Ilse. I was there last about 10 years ago, so it was as though I was visiting a different country for the first time. The first thing one notices naturalls is that imposing mountain, recently named one of the new seven wonders of the world, and without whose outline all graphic design in Cape Town would suffer an identity crisis. Then there is the working public transport system. In Gauteng, I have lost all oversight, because I have no idea how the buses,  minitaxis and trains ( except for the Gautrain) operate. In Cape Town, there is an entire system with clearly marked routes and stations and it was just wonderful. No driving!!!!!!! Well, if you want to go further out of the city, you do need a car, or you could use a taxi service or find a friend with a car. But overall it was just so liberating not to have to be stuck in traffic and to observe all the people around us instead of being isolated in one's own vehicle.

Man, Cape Town was just superb. It was like eating a gourmet sandwich after a lifetime of McDonalds.

Wasting away

via Gareth Cliff on facebook

eat learn move

EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

Moria

The old farmhouse was built by my great-grandfather in the 1930s. No one lives there now, but it is always an experience to return and be confronted with a silence that cannot be felt in the city. Moria has no electricity since when in the 1990s the houses in the area received electricity somehow the family decided against it. On the one hand it is irritating because it makes it a lot harder to keep the house standing without being able to use electrical tools, but on the other hand it is quite a refuge in a world controlled by speed and technology.

Distance

I don't know how people have relationships, never mind long-distance ones. 

So this one is for you. 

For you I have slept
Like an arrow in the hall
Pointing towards your wakefulness
In other time zones

- Ondaatje

(I don't know where this quote is from because I just found it in a word document on my computer).

The Laughing Heart

Here is a link where you can watch Tom Waits reading it -  at the end he says "That's a beauty", and I agree.


The Laughing Heart

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

- Charles Bukowski 

via The Best American Poetry

Happy New Year

Yesterday a few of us headed to the Nahua Temple in Bronkhorstspruit to celebrate the Chinese New Year.
On the website it stated that no shorts, skirts or tank tops were allowed, so we had to readjust our outfits slightly, but upon arriving there many people were dressed in shorts and skirts and tank tops, and even less. There were quite a number of bikers and biker-chicks who had more ink than clothes. We also saw a bodybuilder whose ski-pants barely covered his butt. I wonder if the monks and believers where offended by so much skin being shown, or if they ignored it and rather welcomed the large amount of South Africans who came to the celebrations and who came to get a glimpse into the culture.

The amount of DSLRs on site was shocking. I have noticed more and more young people carrying around big cameras, which is great, but maybe the digital age has also made us focus more on capturing a good photograph than on actually looking at the reality and simply experiencing the moment. I also like taking photos and with large cameras the images always look a lot better. But photographers can be so intrusive and disrespectful that I feel that hobby photographers need to also look around them and not simply through their viewfinders. For instance, yesterday people kept moving in front of others and blocking non-photographers' view simply to capture the 1000 photo of the dragon in the opening ceremony. Also, there were often little signs to indicate that no cameras were allowed in the temple, but people just kept snapping away. It is as though the religiousness of the site is not respected simply because it is not one's own system of belief. But the same thing kept happening in the Sacre Coeur in Paris, where tourists take photographs of the interior and ignore the priests and Christians sitting there in prayer.

People should take photos of whatever they feel like, as long as it is not illegal and as long as they respect it if photography is forbidden in certain sites.

Here are some images of the day to end on a less criticising note :)

6 minutes

I am in my room, watching an episode of Pretty Little Liars when I hear a terrible bang coming from the kitchen. I go to check, wondering what our cleaning lady has broken now, a bit irritated that I have to get up now. I hear male voices but figure the garden service has arrived and is outside. Then I see them through the cut-out arch-shape in the wall : four black men, my age. We are separated by bricks and yet not. One of them was huge, towering above the others, with a red streak in his one eye. They were coming from the front door, I was standing on the steps, I see my dogs wandering around looking confused. I thought: “Why is the gardening team in the house?” But that red in his eye made me afraid, and something clicked, I knew something was not right. So I started shouting, telling them to “Get the fuck out of my house”, wasting time when instead I could have closed the slam-lock gate where I was standing. They start shouting at each other, the one comes running towards me. I realise this too late and I am too slow, one of them forces his arm between the gate.  I am not stronger than him, I give up trying to force it shut. I cannot remember his face, he is shorter than I am, wearing a white shirt and cargo pants. He does not look like a robber, but then again, what does a robber look like. Maybe the group are quite successful at it, judging from their wardrobe.

He tells me to go lie on the bed. Not to worry. They won’t rape me. I thought, “What a weird thing to say. Of course you won’t rape me. Why would you. No one does that. That’s not normal.” I keep asking where Rosina, our cleaning lady, is. If she is ok. And then I inform him I’ll lie on my own bed, in my room, further down the hallway, remembering that my cellphone is under my cushions. I just walk towards my room. He tells me to lie down and put the blanket over my head, but he keeps asking me where things are and I have to take it off to answer. They rummage around in the rooms but they aren’t very thorough. I try to keep them away from my mother’s room and from the safe. I am afraid that then they’d want the key and I am not willing to give it. But how well do I lie. While they are away I try to dial something on my phone. I cannot think of who to call. 911? This is not America. 10111? They won’t come. I hear the robbers coming back.

They keep asking for jewellery. I point mine out, but he only sees beads and no worth. He shouts at me, asking for the real jewellery. Tss. Little man.  I give him my box, but it does not contain anything of more worth. Someone already grabbed my laptop, ipod, external hard drive and handbag with my wallet in. He starts going towards my cupboards. The alpha is there. They cannot take the camera. No. So I get up and give him the laptop bag, shifting the camera bag behind my clothes.

He leaves. I hide the camera more, afraid he’ll come back. But I hear the front door slam shut, I see a whitish sedan drive away through a hole in the wall. They tell me later it was a BMW. Stealing in style.  I start looking for Rosina. She is at the back of the house, getting ready to leave. She did not notice a thing. Later I wonder how she could not have noticed four men breaking in?! I ignore her and radio the robbery in. Then I push the panic button. Then I phone my mother.

Louis and the garden team arrive. I lose composure, start crying. But I am inside, I am separated by the bars of the front gate. I am in prison at home. Everyone arrives at the same time. The garden team go about mowing the lawn, as if nothing had happened. It is weird. The police arrive. The security company arrives. I have to retell the story over and over and over and over and over, becoming numb to it. The police officer is a moron. I am apologetic in describing the robbers. Black. Young. My age. Well-dressed. Ag shame. Surely they did not expect anyone to be home. It was my fault: I should not have been home as it was a week of holidays, normally I would have been at the university at that time.

Everyone leaves, I take Rosina to the taxi rank. In the car I cannot stop crying. My face feels as though it is not part of me, as if I am watching myself feel.  It is the violation that affects me, not so much the things that were taken. Sure, I will miss my laptop. Sure my iPod was a week old. Sure, my grandmother’s jewellery is now gone. But it is the intrusion into your home that I cannot accept. We have laser beams and security gates and alarm systems, we live in our own little concentration camps, but here people want to get in, not out, and they manage it. Easily. In six minutes they destroyed all sense of safety. People are pitying. Shame. Poor you. But nothing happened really, hey?! They didn’t hurt you.

I have to replace my ID document, get a new driver’s licence, cancel by bank cards, get a new student card and all those little club cards that stores offer for free. The Monday at the university the security refuses to let me park in the student parking because I don’t have a student card, even though she knows me and I drive the only left-hand drive Mercedes around. I get so frustrated and inform her that she is a fucking dumb bitch, and waiting at the robot I again cry uncontrollably. The car guard nearby wanted to harass me, but I see him turning around quickly.

In my English class I am astounded that the entire row I am sitting in has been affected by crime. Literally everyone has been somehow shook by crime. But I am ok. And not. It is this duality of knowing everything is fine, that I have life, and that it could have been worse, opposed to thinking: how was it my fault? What could I have done? How could I not have fought more?

After a while I start moving on, thinking I will not live here forever. Strange how one’s country can become so despised. I am desperate for things to get better. I assume that they had to rob to feed their families. That they come from a place of poverty. As a result I want to impose education on every car guard and beggar. I want to hand out magazines and newspapers and say : “Read! Learn! Make your life better than this!”

I wrote that on October 1, 2010. Today, someone again tried to break into our house. Luckily they only got past the garage and my mom could press the panic button and radio it in. People in Europe and the States do not realise the extent of fear, the contradicting halves of living here. South Africa is a beautiful country, and every time we drive down to the coast I marvel again at the grandeur of creation, at what a privilege it is to be surrounded by this. But human nature defeats nature here. Power has corrupted our population and many still feel entitled to something, feel like the government now owes them for having suffered at the hands of apartheid. It is understandable to want to profit for having been denied freedom and dignity.

But to me it is also incomprehensible how my generation, a supposedly post-racist generation, does not have the drive to advance society and rather sits, palms cupped, demanding what they have not earned. By talking to older people it is clear that the youth of today do not know what it is to work and what our parents and grandparents had to fight for. We ignore education and human rights in favour of owning the newest gadgets and being able to spend the most.  I feel like there needs to be a fundamental change in the way we acknowledge the existence and the rights of humans, animals and nature. We must come to realise that a decent life, a life without fear, a protected life, is what everyone is entitled to, not gluttony avarice and wrath.

Resurrect

I found this book by James Bradley ( his blog is also noteworthy) on my grandmother's shelf and after a year of only reading "proper" literature ( as in the books that form part of top 100 lists, but are tedious to get through), this was a good read. I like books that transport me far away from my reality, into another time and another country, where the mindset and the circumstances are vastly different from my own.

The Resurrectionist follows the life of Gabriel Swift, who is orphaned at a young age and as a teenager starts working for an anatomist. Through various choices he is fired and "descends into a hell partly of his own making and the violence of the London underworld" ( read the full description and listen to three readings by the author on Faber & Faber) . The story is also loosely based on the Burke and Hare murders, where two Irishmen killed 17 people and sold the bodies to Dr Robert Knox.

What I liked most was Bradley's preoccupation with how our identities are shaped and how the fragility of life is often ignored. We take living for granted, without considering that it all has to end, sooner or later.

"They are such little things, these lives of ours; cheap got, cheap lost, mere flickers against the ever dark, brief shadows on a wall. This life no more substantial than breath, a light which fills the chambers of our bodies, and is gone."

create

I copied this from a post by Park Acoustics on facebook

3h

It is strange to think that mostly, each of us considers his or her reactions and doings as 'right' in the moment. Through our upbringing ( or lack thereof), we either agree with the morals we were taught, or rebel against them. But ultimately, don't you think that you are doing 'the right thing'?

I forget that others don't feel the same way I feel about things, that they are not moved by the same reactions, and that they also consider their reactions and choices to be correct, even if they are completely opposed to my ideas of what is right. Perhaps this is the simple reason that the world is quite a fucked up place with fighting between nations and families and corporations and friends and lawyers and spouses and children and and and. We fight because we think we are right, without thinking that the others might be right, too. 

By citing my own inner circle, I am surrounded by people who have inherited the legacy of not talking, of refusing to communicate because "these things should not be discussed", like money or sin or problems in general. There seems to be a shame attached to the discussion of things, an idea that talking about it will cause some rupture and that even uttering a word shows a lack of respect. These restrictions are just stupid to me : open channels of communication and a willingness to discuss the issue at hand calmly are what is needed. 

Remembrance

View flying out of Port Elizabeth.

Toe ek klein was
was ek opgewonde om in die vliegtuig te spring
en 'n wolk van die hemel te steel.
My Tupperware was gepak,
ek wou dit soos spookasem in my bakkie bere
en saamvat na die plek waar ek uiteindelik met skool sou begin
en vir 'n jaar geen vriende sou hê nie
omdat ek nie swart was en tog uit Afrika gekom het.


*The first time I can remember flying was in 1994, when I was six years old and we were moving to Geneva. I packed a Tupperware bowl with a lid so that I could open my window and put a piece of cloud into it, like stealing candy floss from the sky.

Plaasuitsigte

To the left the moon is retiring, to the right the sun is rising. This was the morning we left the farm.

Tomorrow we return home :) 

Tasting stars

Chris, wenn du back in town bist, oder ich nach NL komm, dann steigt die party :)

On our way from Wilderness to Jeffrey's Bay this was written on the wall of a wine farm along the road. I like travelling, but this constant driving and cleaning houses and sleeping in beds that aren't mine is getting to me. Three more days, one short plane ride and my own bed will beckon.

Le mal(e)

On the farm, I wanted to pour everyone a glass of wine for dinner when my gran looked at me sternly and said that I should let my cousin do it because he is, after all, the man in the room. I have no problem with gentlemanly behavior, hell, I find it rather encouraging if people have nice manners and if men treat women like ladies. But if I've got the bottle already in my hand, if I am a second away from pouring, it is silly to me not to do it because I was born with a vagina.

It angers me incredibly when people tell me I cannot do something for the simple reason that I am female. To this day, I have not met many men that were not in some form or another a disappointment. Everyone is flawed, everyone makes mistakes, and these stupid gender rules that my grandmother and many others live by irritate me endlessly - I have grown up thinking that I could do anything, that my rights and my role in society was equal to every other person's, irrespective of race and gender and age and whatever else you could list as a reason to separate human from human.

Times change, mindsets adapt, but the old cling to their doctrines as though they were drowning in the thinking of the new age. I will also be old and frustrated and feel a sense of loss because I am being replaced by younger generations who ignore that their achievements could not have been accomplished without the foundations that their lineage laid down.

But I think it is stupid to say that you cannot change the old, that "because they are old" you cannot have a discussion with an elderly person. I love my grandmother, but I cannot stand to hear her speak of the k*****s, of the "anderskleuriges" ( people of a different colour) as though we were not all the same. And she should know better : she speaks fluent Sotho ( one of the 11 national languages), she built a school for the black children on the farm, she always treated the workers on the farm with dignity. Also, she says that the best time in her life was when she worked as a teacher before she got married, and her biggest regret is not doing it for longer. In a life filled to the brim with more fantastic experiences and a great family, I cannot understand why she fixated on those two years of independence,but tells me that I should submit more to a patriarchal way of thinking.

I like hearing old stories and asking questions that only my grandmother can answer since she has lived the longest. She should be wise and I should learn from her, I should be able to take her life and mould mine accordingly, but all I want to do is shake her and say that for 60 years, she has believed wrongly,that she is ignorant and foolish and keeps making these errors without accepting any blame, without taking any responsibility. I want to say, "Ouma, skrik wakker, wees in beheer van jou lewe, en hou op om die heeltyd so flippen die moer in die wees. Alles was jou keuses" ( Gran, wake up, be in control of your own life and stop being so damn angry. Everything was your own choice). Instead, I ask her if she wants more coffee, listen to every story and complaint 20 times because she forgets she has told them before, and forgive her for not being what I imagined a grandmother should be.

Leaving

This is what the moon looked like in March,2010. And what it looks like tonight, strangely. 

Tonight I went to a friend's 21st, and it was lovely to spend the time with her, but I felt a) old, b) like my life would never move past Pretoria and c) in a difficult place because some of the friendships between the girls that were present appeared superficial.

In friendship, I want to be able to say whatever comes to mind without having to worry about being judged or not accepted or chastised. This was an interesting week for friendships because I spent two days with friends I have known for years and both days were great because it was so comfortable to be in each other's company.Another day spent with a different person was a bit awkward because the not-so-close friend seems to see us as closer than what I feel we are and we differ strongly in our views, but it is not one of those friendships where one can argue both sides of the coin and still be tight. The fourth lady I met this week is like a dementor that sucks out all the happiness and fills every surrounding space with negativity. Nothing is good in the world for her, and I would actually prefer not to spend any time with her, but feel that it is my duty to try and understand why she is so miserable and if it could be changed. The last friend stopped by today, and even though we abuse his knowledge of DIY-stuff, it is again one of those friendships where it is just comfortable to be around a person and there is no stressing about what to (not) say or what could be construed wrongly or so. It is strange to think about how much we interact with people on a daily basis and how much the positive in these interactions depend not only on the way we view others, but also on the way they view us. To one I might be a raging bitch, to another an embracing personality, and to another not of importance - we all perceive people differently.

I'm heading to the coast again and because it was a last minute decision I will try to post while I am there. Sorry that the blog revamp that I have imagined in my head will have to wait another two weeks.

1Q84

Shot in Berlin, April 2008.

To be honest, I have never been able to finish 1984 and have never started on Murakami's 1Q84 ( after this review in the NY Times I am not to keen on it either). 

Yes we can

I think that if the FIFA World Cup 2010 did nothing else, it did unify South Africans more and ignited a sense of all fighting for the same cause. I just remember the hosting of a rugby match (a traditionally more white, Afrikaner sport) on the 22nd of May 2010 between the Blue Bulls ( from Pretoria) and the Crusaders ( from New Zealand) at Orlando Stadium, in Soweto ( it stands for South Western Township). Instead of focussing on the influx of white people into a black township and turning it into some racial debate, the people of Soweto embraced  the visitors and it became a party of fans decked out in blue and drinking Black Label ( a local beer) in shebeens. Friends who went told me that the locals invited them into their homes and that it really felt like a moment of integration and friendship. Here is a slide-show of photographs taken on the day, and here a link to a video of a journalist (?) travelling with the Bulls' greatest fan.

Now, more than a year later, Coca Cola has launched a series of advertisements and a site, reasonstobelieve, that also speak to the unifying character of the World Cup and to a sense of optimism regarding South Africa's future. Many people feel it is unsafe and emigrate elsewhere, and although I often also feel the same way, there is still a sense of loyalty to this country because it is home and it has formed my opinions to be more accepting and more conscious of other people's struggles.

I know Coke is appealing to our emotions and it is all a bit clichéd what with the children singing about a "brand new day", but I still think it is a nice ad to see in between those for burglar bars, supermarket discounts and weight-loss pills.

Reasons To Believe South Africa 1 from CocaColaSA on Vimeo.

There are three different versions, if you like the ad check them out on Coca Cola SA's Vimeo page ( the link is under the video).

Congratulations

Today the matrics (Grade 12 in SA) received their exam results. It must be very exciting to find out your marks and if you got a distinction and, if you are going on to a tertiary education, whether or not your marks meet the requirements.

I matriculated in 2006, but because I was at a German school, there was the option to do Abitur, which is the German matric and would add a year to my time at school. My marks in matric were good enough to receive a bursary, so I spend another year at school. In any case, I would not have known what to study.

Somehow, it was always clear to me that after school I would continue my education, that I would go to a university and get a degree and a master's degree and do my doctorate and hopefully be happy with it all. Well, after getting my BA, I am looking quite forward to doing my honours degree ( here, you do a year of honours and then only a year of masters, whereas I know elsewhere in the world you do a two-year masters degree).

But to be honest, I still have no specific idea about where I want my life to head. The last years in school I was not a very happy person because I felt I needed to get away and see the world and experience something else. I just wanted to leave here. After a year away, and after three years at the university, I realised that I still want to leave and jump on planes and drift from place to place, but right now, being here in Pretoria is pretty good. I am fortunate to have a mother who helps me to continue my education, to be able to live in a nice house,  to have one remaining dog at home, to go to the coast during holidays that last for months, to have met people whom I would like to be friends with for a long time, and ultimately, to have  learnt so many new things. I think that although I did not study anything very specific, I have above all learnt to appreciate a more faceted and nuanced view on the world- perhaps I have learnt how to be more open, to be more considerate, to be more questioning and to see myself as rather lucky.

So, to the matrics of 2011, I hope that you choose carefully now, and that, even if sometimes you question your path, you will never have any regrets.

Here is a poem my Robert Frost that I have always liked (especially) for its last two lines:

The Road Not Taken ( 1915)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference. 

via Bartleby

It takes forever

My friend is only here for a short while and today we spoke about her internet connection in Germany and how even though it was slow for Europe, it was comparably fast to SA standards. And as if to prove her right, our internet connection is suuuuuper slow tonight. My sister sent me a Vimeo clip that won't load, my emails refuse to come in, even Facebook is not cooperating.

I read that in Scandinavia access to internet is seen as a basic human right. This is a very strange idea to me because on the one hand, we fail to provide all of humanity with access to clean drinking water, never mind a basic education, but in the First World the internet must be accessible to all.

Do not understand me wrong. I think the internet is a great source of useful and useless information and it is wonderful to be living in a time where we have so much knowledge and entertainment just a click away. But it is also astounding that one part of the 7 Billion can move ahead at the speed of light, whereas other populations are light-years away from this. It is strange to think that perhaps at this rate of development, we are not merely creating a better future, but also losing some of the more intrinsic values by expecting technology and advancement to be what propels us forward.

I am just letting my mind wander here, but in reflecting back, the rise of the Industrial Revolution and our belief in the purely positive aspects of technology are a double-edged sword : although it has brought with it  incredible developments like the camera, like hospital equipment and various non-animal driven forms of transportation, one could see all of these as negative as well. Without the camera and its advancement into moving pictures, there would be no child pornography. Without equipment that can keep people who are brain-dead alive, they could have maybe passed away in peace rather than being a living vegetable. Without transport, we would not be so reliant of petroleum to fuel our global economy.

In Paradise Lost,  God's argument is that he gave Adam and Eve the power of choice, of being able to weigh an argument and decide accordingly. I think we are living in an age where personal choices can make a large impact. Choosing to recycle, choosing to eat less or no meat at all, choosing to help others if possible, choosing to see oneself as part of a global population is more important than choosing to be an individual. We don't want to be like one another, we don't want to be wearing the same thing as others, but the truth of the matter is that we are all human and if we lose the ability to connect with each other, irrespective of race or age or gender or sexual orientation or political affiliation or whatever other category you can think of, there is not much hope for a brighter future.

The grey in this city is too much to bear

It often astounds me to find out what musicians look like if one has only heard their music.

If you like Mumford, Laura Marling is for you.

- "We are basic lies".

ek stamel ek sterwe*

Die jaar toe ek weg was het ek dit gemis om jou elke oggend te sien en te sê: " Goeie môre bokkie, het jy lekker geslaap?"

Ek het dit gemis om my hande in jou vel te druk en om jou agter jou ore te krap.
Ek het jou gemis en wou na elk een toe stap wat soos jy gelyk het om hulle koppies te vryf.
Ek en jy, ons het saam grootgeword. Jy was altyd net hier, net waar ek jou nodig gehad het.

Jy kom soek my in die oggende, jy lê buite die badkamer se deur en wag, jy kom stamp jou neus teen my been as jy wil kos hê, jy poep soos geen ander nie, jy krap die deur om buite toe te gaan, jy pipi in die huis, jy het my verjaardagpersent geeet toe ek 9 was, jy kom lê onder my bene as ek 7de laan kyk, jy lê in die kombuis altyd in die pad, jy raak omgewonde as ek vir jou 'n kombersie op die vloer in my kamer sit, jy het die meubels se onderdele gekou toe ons in die VSA vir vakansie was, jy hou daarvan om jou kop by die venster uittesteek as ons ry, jy wat vroer jou lyf tussen die diefwering kon deursqueeze, jy wat my neus lek as ek jou optel, jy wat verlore was vir 'n middag, jy wat by die kar wag as jy al die bagasie sien, jy wat die perfekte groote is om 'n drukkie vir te gee, jy as enigste vir wie ek sê dat ek lief is vir jou.


As jy buite lê en slaap kyk ek of jou ribbe beweeg, of jy asem haal, omdat ek altyd bang is dat ek nie daar sal kan wees nie as alles verby is.

En nou was ek daar. Jy kon nie meer loop nie en ek moes jou dra. Toe ons by die veearts instap het ek al geweet maar gehoop jy het net iets slegs geeet. Ek het gedink ons sal somer vinnig weer by die huis wees, ek wou jou nog bad vir die nuwe jaar. Ons was 9 uur daar. 10 uur was ek alleen by die huis, sonder jou, sonder die kans om jou ooit weer te sien en te hoor en aan jou te vat.

Ek sien die heeltyd die klein lyfie voor my, die tong wat uithang, die tannie wat sê ek kan nou vir my "'n nuwe baba gaan kry" en hoe ek jou daar gelos het, alleen, hoe jy nou in 'n vrieskas wag om verbrand te word.

Jou bakkie staan nog hier en jou halsband lê op my tafel en jou kos staan in die kombuis en die bure se honde se ore voel soos joune en ek weet dit is belaglik en almal dink jy was net 'n hond en oud en dit moes gebeur en ek weet dis waar maar jy was myne. Jy was myne. En nou is jy weg en die huis leeg en as Milou alleen oor die vloere stap kan ek jou naels se getippel nog hoor.

Ek mis jou en dis eers een dag dat jy weg is.

Spitzi 15 November 1996 - 31. December 2011.

*

While I was away I missed greeting you in the mornings and saying : “Hello darling, did you sleep well?”

I missed you and wanted to walk up to everyone that looked like you and wanted to touch their faces. 

I missed it to run my hands through your fur and to scratch you behind your ears.

The two of us, we grew up together. You were always here, just when I needed you.   

You look for me in the mornings, you lie in front of the bathroom door waiting for me, you press your nose against my leg when you want to be fed, you fart like no other dog, you scratch the door to go outside, you pee in the house, you ate my birthday present when I turned 9, you lie underneath my legs when I am watching 7de Laan, you are always in the way in the kitchen, you get excited when I fetch a blanket to put in my room for you, you chewed the feet of our couches while we were holidaying in the USA, you like to have the car window open and stretching your face out of the car when we’re driving, you who could squeeze your body through the burglar bars, you who licks my nose when I pick you up, you who were lost for an afternoon, you while you wait anxiously by the car, afraid we’ll leave without you, you who are the perfect size to hug, you who are the only person I ever say “I love you” to.

  

When you are sleeping outside I watch to see if your ribcage is moving because I am always afraid that I won’t be there when everything comes to an end.

And now I was there. You couldn’t walk anymore and I had to carry you. When we walked into the vet’s I knew but I was hoping you had indigestion. I thought we would be out of there in no time; I still wanted to wash you for the New Year. We were there at 9. By 10 I was at home, without you, without the chance to ever see you or hear you or touch you.

I still see your little body, laying there, with your tongue sticking out, the lady holding me and saying that now I could buy myself “a new baby”, how I left you there, alone, how you are stuck in a freezer waiting to be burnt.

Your bowls are still here and your collar is on my table and your food is still in the kitchen and the neighbours' dogs' ears feel like yours and I know this is a bit ridiculous and everyone probably thinks I am exaggerating and thinking that you were just a dog and old and it had to happen and I know it is true but you were mine. You were mine. Now you are gone and the house is empty and when Milou walks across the floor I can still hear your nails scratching on it.

I miss you and it has only been one day that you have gone away from me.