Got wood?

WeWood are these awesome watches made out of, well, yes, you guessed right, wood. Their motto is One Watch - One Tree - One Planet, because when you buy one of their watches, they plant a tree. I know it sounds a bit tree-huggerish, but I think these timepieces look pretty sweet and aren't too expensive. (And they deliver, free of charge, in SA)



       

Clap your hands say yeah

The whole weekend I was thinking that I had so many interesting topics to blog about, but now everything escapes me. On Friday, the 27 April, South Africa had a public holiday ( Freedom Day) to commemorate the first democratic elections held on on that date in 1994. I went to the festivities held at the Union Buildings, which is where the president does his leading-the-country-thing. Well, when he is in Pretoria, at least.

I took these photographs last year.

The building is situated on top of a hill that overlooks Pretoria, so it has a very nice view of the city and vast gardens where one can have a pick-nick and just chill on the lawns. The gardens go down in various levels, like steps, and at the bottom they set up a stage for the celebrations. I was waiting for my friend at the top, enjoying the view, but it was a bit awkward because 100% of people who go are black ( the percentage of white people that go is so small that I am guessing it would't even figure into a count). I felt a bit like a zoo animal. Young girls asked if they could take a photograph with me. It was weird.

As I was waiting, this group of young men walked past, and I must have looked like a welcome challenge because one of them came and sat next to me, while the other five squeezed onto another bench to watch what would happen next. The "I-live-in-SA-and-I-am-a-lone-female" in me a bit like "Ja, you will get robbed in a few minutes", but the optimist in me decided that they were probably nice and I should just have a little chat. Shame, the boy did not expect that.

He told me they had come in a bus from Vereeniging, a city ( town rather) south of Johannesburg, for the day's festivities. They were all still at school and he enjoyed accounting the most. Our conversation was going well, although his English was not brilliant and my Sotho is non-existent. My grandmother can speak Sotho, but all I remember is something that sounds like hutla? It means you aren't listening? Or something. My grandmother says it a lot. The boy just laughed at my bad pronunciation and asked who I had voted for. BAM. There it was. Politics. Fuck.

I hate talking about politics. It is like religion: everyone refuses to change their view while still trying to convince the other person to do exactly that. It is pointless. I wanted to talk about Freedom and how it feels like to be a post-Apartheid youth, not about how I think the ruling party's majority is to big, and that all the parties engage is stupid little squabbles over nothing instead of effecting positive change where it matters. All these parties create division, not unity.

So I said I did not vote and avoided the subject. Luckily my friend phoned, he was already at the bottom, so I said my goodbyes, wished them good luck at school and walked away.

I was barely three meters away when the other boys, who had been watching the interaction intently, started cheering and clapping. What for, I don't know. Perhaps my conversation skills have dramatically improved. Or it was just another weird thing on Freedom Day.

  

Don't be sorry

via Patron of the Arts on FB

Monday, I graduated. It is quite a big deal, you wear your robes and look like a slightly less cool version of Harry Potter. I was going for a female Ron Weasley vibe, but without the wand ( ha ha, that's a nice pun) it did not work out so well.

Basically, one sits around and then gets herded on stage in little groups, where somebody with a nicer cap and more colourful bands around their shoulders shakes your hand and hands you your degree. It is very exciting, because it is the culmination of three years of studies and work. But the moment becomes quite insignificant when it happens 5 months after you passed all the necessary subjects, and when you have to sit there for two hours as hundreds are given the same degree as you.

How will I ever find a job?

Today, a girl came to my consultation hour ( I tutor, which is probably a job, but also not a real 9-5, pay-your-taxes situation) and asked me where this degree was taking her.

After three years, I have no idea. She asked what my plans were for the next year, and they are to do my Masters degree. And after that? My Doctoral degree. And after that? Whatever comes after that on the scale.
Why would anyone ever want to stop studying? I know this plan is a bit rough, and that studying costs money and all that, but somehow, I am not too worried.

The things we learn in Visual Studies make me passionate about my life, about the directions it can take, about the possibilities that present themselves.

The girl was a bit disappointed I think. But there is no formula to happiness. If you enjoy what you do, and somehow you can financially be not too badly off, I think it is worth it. Engineering, business, medicine, they all are suited better to others.

This thing I go to class for, this direction I cannot explain to people over koek en tee ( cake and tea), this degree where people continue asking "But WHAT will you do with it?!?!?", well, it has kind of found me, so I think that is pretty awesome in a world where everyone feels lost.

Please stop.

On Wednesday the #rapevideo went viral in South Africa. Why? A 17-year old girl ( it has not been confirmed if she is mentally ill or not) was raped in a field by seven men aged between 14 and 20. The girl had been missing since the 21 of March.

Several aspects here are disturbing and all the news reports don'r provide the same information:

 -  why did the mother not report her daughter missing?
       - the CNN report states that she did, but that the police did not open up a missing person's report. Why??

 - what does it matter if she is mentally ill or not? Does it make her more of a victim? Or less?


The girl was found only after students at school showed each other the video on their cellphones and a mother discovered her daughter watching it. Instead of going to the police, the mother took the story to the Daily Mail, a tabloid with the highest amount of readers, who then alerted the police. Why would she not go to the police herself?

This whole story is horrible and highlights not only a corrupt system, but a break with morality in society. Where are the father's of these boys? Have they not taught their children to have any respect for women? And the children at school watching the girl being raped, or the requests on Twitter for the link to the video? How come no one spoke up? What does it say about us as people when we can watch a girl getting raped for 10 minutes, when we can hear her pleading for them to stop? How could the young men even think of such a thing? And laugh at her, egging each other on, ignoring how they are hurting her?

I just do not understand it. People are weak and have lost all sense of what is right and wrong. Many South Africans pride themselves on their Christianity, but to me, a non-believer, it seems that they see it as going to church on a Sunday to socialise and not actually to stick to the 10 commandments.

This rape just shows that there is a blackness at the centre of our country that is sucking the youth in and they are not being taught by their parents, their families, their friends, or anyone in their lives, what is good, what is pure and true.

Look, I sound like some moralising bitch sitting on a high horse because I am "safe" behind my white skin and my black gates and walls and alarm systems. But the fact is, a woman gets raped every 26 seconds in South Africa, and only about 10% gets reported because the women feel ashamed of something they had no control over. And it's not even just women. Men get raped, too, but the shame is even bigger, even more engrossing, because "a man cannot be harmed".

What bullshit. When they broke in, they told me they would not rape me. At that moment, I thought "Duh. I am certain you won't. No one would. One does not harm others".

But now, after this report of 14-year-olds involved ( yes yes, peer pressure and all that, but you make your own choices), I don't know. As I said, there is a black hole of immorality that keeps expanding exponentially and I think that as a society, one must make a conscious choice to somehow teach what is good again.

There are basic things one accepts, a basic code to live by, but somehow, here, the respect for individual life has been lost, and if that is gone, what remains?


Read this M&G editorial.
  

Lost

The last time I went to Oppikoppi was in 2010. Right after the festival, they stole my camera and also the hard-drive that had the back-up on it. Until recently I did not know I had lost any photographs through the robbery, but thanks to my vanity in having to post any social interaction ( since it is so rare) to FB, some images could be recovered. Strange how we associate photos with memory, and the conservation/capturing of it, as tough it were an wild animal that could be caged forever in a  8x10 frame.

This one is my favourite. Would've probably looked better with a nice little DSLR on hand, but anyone that goes to a festival with an expensive camera should reconsider going, or reconsider the life of their camera.

On fire

I de-seeded some chillies. Then I touched my face (my nose and lips. Luckily not the eyes). Now it is on fire.

On unrelated news, I heard this song on my way home, and ffffound it.

Beet me

Tomorrow is a birthday in the house, so we had a brunch today for which cake was needed. A friend and I recently baked a red velvet cake, which is why a red-velvet-cheesecake sounded even better. Instead of using fake food colouring I thought the colour from the beets would make it equally red. Alas, no. Whatever. It still tastes quite nice. Not sure if red velvet will ever become my favourite, but it is worth trying different recipes and  finding out which ones are a success and which ones should rather not be tried again. 

You can find the recipe on Recipe Girl, the cheesecake itself is quite delicious. Instead of the red food colouring, I baked four beets in the oven with the cheesecake ( saving energy and preserving more colour than when boiled), then I peeled their skins of, cut them in small pieces and puree-d them. It helped to add a teaspoon or so of water. I guess that if you want the cake a proper red, go for the food colouring. But if you have some objection to fake colouring, go for the beet. You don't taste it too much, but the cake looks more brown than red due to the cocoa powder that is added. I wonder if one could leave out the cocoa and just add the beets? Or would the flavour then be too strong? Hmm. 

 

*As if we were endlessly condemned to become what we see

The quote really refers to an opinion on Elfriede Jelinek's The Piano Teacher (1983), but to me is valid for more than just a literary analysis.

I'm ready to update my relationship status now

as you can see, this one was on Lamebook a while ago. 

I saved this months ago after reading a short newspaper clip:

'Conversation coma': 66% of people who are in relationships prefer being on social networking sites to spending time with their partners. Couples nowadays spend 3h45min per week together on average. 

What the hell. If two thirds of all couples prefer not spending time with one another, then what is the point of being in the relationship in the first place? And what are they doing on the social networking sites instead? I mean, I am also slightly FB addicted and waste time spying on individuals that I should simply delete from my friends list, but spending time with your loved one should be more pleasurable than staring at a screen.

Perhaps many people are just really afraid of being alone, or lonely, and sort of stick to what they've got. But damn, if you'd rather spend your time tweeting or playing FarmVille, you know it's better to part ways. People spend more time online daily that they do with their partners in a week. Jeez Louise.

Reason to be in a band:

To make this video, because it's pretty bad-ass.

By rights you should be bludgeoned in your bed

He phones. We always know when it is him calling, mostly on weekends. Under the pretence of connection, of family and of catching up he talks without end. He has no interest in listening, only telling what is happening in his life, how wonderful it is to live in a city "wo immer etwas los ist"*.

I want to reach through the phone, travel thousands of kilometres with a raised fist and smash it into his face. We live here, where not much happens, where Radiohead will never perform, where having been robbed and getting your third driver's licence in five years is normal. Fortunate, even. So don't tell me you won't go see Nick Cave because he comes every year. Don't tell me about the film festivals you won't attend because you are tired. Don't tell me your work is 10 minutes away by bike, or 5 minutes by metro.

Do not tell me these things that I cannot do because here does not facilitate the same lifestyle. And do not tell me about your adventures when for a week we have been sitting in front of laptops and readings and books and have worn the same sweatpants-tshirt-hoodie combination. Don't tell me about the possibilities that you are not embracing.

Look. Here is great. Here the sun shines in winter. Here you need playlists for long drives. Here is home. It is just that sometimes home is a bit boring and usual and then being informed of all the things you could be seeing and enjoying, but won't because it's overcast, fuck, that just makes me kind of furious.



*where something is always happening.

I'll save it for tomorrow

via Warholian on FB

A few of the people I went to school with are married now. Some even have children. They have settled into serious lives with serious jobs and I don't even know what I'm doing next weekend. Or this one, come to think of it. 

It is a strange idea to me how how some people have achieved already what I have kind of pictured to only become part of my life in 10 years or so. If at all. I don't want to change my life right now, I just want the option. Once you've settled it is harder to just pack a suitcase and leave indefinitely.

Congratulations, people-with-plans. When I make some definite ones, I'll tell you all about them. For now, it changes constantly. 

If you are Christian, I wish you a very happy Easter weekend, and may you find tons of chocolate eggs in your garden.    

Death by audio

 

I like walking around with my headphones. Depending on which bag I'm carrying, it will either be the small Apple ones that come with the iPod, or larger, ear-covering ones to protect my hearing. At least that is what I tell myself. 

I like the invisible audio-wall that is built between me and the world that I can't hear. It is escaping whilst being physically present. But I do understand that it is also removing myself from the world, which is not always a great thing. The other day I didn't hear a friend calling me until he threw his bracelet at me. Or when crossing the road, one needs to be extra careful. 

This is a pretty senseless post, well, kind of like most of them. I saw the ads and thought they showed a cool idea. That's all. 

Both of these images are via creativebits

Thoughts on a Monday. But not this one.

Walking.
Getting away as far as possible, escaping from what I have grown up with, what I have been taught, what I can remember.
I think about my BFF in elementary school, Tina. I always thought I would leave first, because that is the life when one is used to moving. But she left first.
Now everyone has left, somehow. It's not easy making new friends, but also somehow, it is ok. The whole small talk aspect of it pissed me off, but I see myself as a Zwitter: alone and in crowds, part and yet not, entirely.

Today was a bad day. Normally your presence would have saved it. Holding you would have eased it.
Now mourning, c'est d'être vivant quand la vie même est morte, it's like being alive when life itself has died, c'est de respirer quand tout souffle s'est enfuit, it's like breathing when all breath is gone, c'est sentir trop, like feeling too much about everything.

Walking I saw
the lady in the car waving at me for not letting me walk past. Fuck you.

There is a teenage girl with black tights and shirt jumping in tandem on trampoline with a little girl in a yellow dress. I hear the see-saw of the springs. Un peu d'air sur terre. A moment of not being bound to the earth and its restrictions.

Then the varkhond barks.
A second later the bubbling of a child's laugh from behind a tall wall.
People are standing on the corner, careful to look away as I approach. No eye contact here.
The heavy breathing of an older man jogging only in tiny blue shorts. A short wave.

Congregating in the street. It is strange to see after years of hiding behind enormous gates, "Good fences make good neighbours".
A dad with a huge drooping-eyelid-dog, the two boys barefoot on bikes, circling him.
Walking and crying.
A little boy playing with two pavement specials waves at me.
A grey cat sleeping, blending into the pavement.

Now, the boy kicking the soccer ball home, uphill. I would just pick it up and carry it instead.
Three men around a cellphone, watching me, talking about me in a tongue I cannot understand. But I feel the words. Mens weet altyd.

Two older men, politely greeting. They must have known the restrictions the pass/past laws. I am wondering if we still choose to live in our own race, or if it's mostly dependent on means.

Then, I am home.






This is how I think. It is never just one language.

big money

I have lots of cards. There is my debit card, my credit card, my student card, my Clicks card, my driver's licence, my Woolworths' card, and numerous other little cards that I somehow couldn't resist when I was standing in the store. When they say "points" or "money-back" I ask where I can sign up.

It follows naturally that I have an enormous wallet to store all these cards in. I used to have pictures of my friends and family and dogs in there as well, but that wallet got stolen so now no more photographs. Also, most of the time my wallet does not contain any bills. Just coins. Because students are poor, if you had not noticed.

The big-ass wallet is great for being stuffed into my everyday handbag, which is equally huge and ideal for not finding what I need at that moment. My student card also gets lost in there on a daily basis.  But when I go out, I don't want to be dragging half of my possessions around with me, especially since it is highly likely they will get stolen.

We were sitting in Cool Runnings, a bar in the student quarter of the city, and even though there was a bouncer at the door, two young men managed to get in, grab my handbag ( which was huge and contained all of our stuff, including the car keys...) and made off in a car. Great.

So back to the point. I want a small wallet which I can take with me for going out. Something where just your cash and driver's licence will fit. Something stylish.

I therefore want a Fennek wallet. They are a local group of guys who manufacture leather goods.
Check out these beauties ( the wine-coloured one would be great for my birthday, thanks :) :