Elastic Heart

Last light in Hamburg

A few weeks ago my friend and I met up in Hamburg for a day because she had just returned from an epic 3 month trip partially around the world and I wanted to hear every little thing about it. Every time we see each other I find it very reassuring to fall back into using Afrikaans words in between the German and to be able to talk to someone who has grown up with me. We've known one another through braces, Matric balls and getting our driver's licences. We have talked about the smallest and biggest decisions in our lives (are we drinking wine or cocktails? is the move to Germany a good idea? where to after university? should we share that chocolate cake?) and I value her for her ability to remain calm even in the roughest of seas. She somehow knows how to add a bit of rationality when I overextend myself emotionally, but also knows when it is time for a bad joke or a shooter. And among numerous other wonderful facets that constitute her, her love of testing new recipes and experimenting with food is a delight.

I think sometimes we forget to be thankful for the people in our lives. But without these meet-ups with G., without encouraging WhatsApp messages from R., without long Skype sessions with K. and without calls at all hours from L. I would not have been able to find my place here so easily. Besides my mom and my sister, these were the people who made me smile through random messages, packages and support, and I hope to do the same for them.

Green Gates

This was taken at a restaurant in Plettenberg Bay at the beginning of the year.

I'm not a vegetarian. But I do try to eat less meat. I don't particularly like the taste, and since I haven't killed the animal myself, I don't always feel entirely right when eating meat. Debates about needing to eat meat and humans being omnivores, or debates about not needing to eat meat, or any animal products for that matter, don't really interest me that much. Eat what you like. But know what you are consuming, where it comes from, what it is made of. I mean, the occasional McD burger where you could be eating anything really is fine, but in general one should know where the food you eat is coming from. I read somewhere recently that 40 years ago, the temperature needed to burn a human body was much lower, simply because these days all the chemicals we consume need a much higher temperature to be destroyed.

I just think that decades ago meat was much more appreciated, that the life lost was more conscious to the one eating it. Now, you go into a supermarket and buy a steak/some ribs/chicken schnitzels/or whatever, and you don't see it as an animal, as something dead. Eating death.