Young and Beautiful

Earth Day slipped past me, unnoticed as we enjoyed the glorious rays of sunshine by the harbour. This is happiness, if only temporarily: the feeling of easy conversation, of trusting those you are with to be yourself.

Once at home the National Geographic's Instagram feed gave me this:

I should live in salt

So. Art exhibit #2 was Absa's L'Atelier, held at the Absa building in Joburg's CBD. Getting there was quite testing because there was traffic everywhere and as soon as we hit the inner city we stopped moving because of the build-up of cars, commuters and taxis. My spidey senses tell me that this was a very larney do, because of the following clues: 

- there was a guest list. 

- the ladies were all wearing heels. 

- lots of waiters in black. 

- there was an MC and speeches. 

- it reeked of pretension

- I was a +1. Haha. 

It was a mixed bag. Some of the artworks were plain silly (see the rainbow-coloured rugby balls and the basin below). Some were mediocre. Some were really cool. My favourites were the two works by Skullboy because they were fun, awkward and at times slightly sad as well. They felt human, whereas most of the other works felt more like they were created to get into the exhibit, not to express a particular emotion. I guess, like everywhere else, there is a lot of bullshitting that goes on in art.

Sasha Hatherly, Circadian I, 113111

Blantina Khutso Mmethi, Rhythmic Railway

Daandrey Steyn, Kalosesthesia & Eidosesthesia

Heidi Janice Mielke, This little piggy...wore high-heeled shoes

Cassandra Wilmot, Prosthetic II

Pierre Henri Le Riche, Hierargie (Hierarchy)

Louis De Villiers (AKA Skullboy), The Lost Supper

Andrew Sprawson, Drawn Curtains II

Andrew Sprawson, Detail from Drawn Curtains II

Megan Patricia Mcnamara, Flood

Skullboy, You & Me

From here onwards, it is just individual parts of Skullboy's You & Me piece.

Young Blood

Via postsecret

Today I am crossing the boundaries of decency a bit by over-sharing what goes on in my vagina (and that of basically every woman aged 13-60 (rough guess there)). Once a month women bleed. And although this has been a monthly experience for nearly 10 years, I feel like the girl in the Postsecret image : despite being 24 years old, it is still a surprise every time my blood seeps out of me. Maybe it is because I know it is coming but cannot pinpoint exactly when. It is always (haha, always. get it. like the pads.) as though my body is telling me that in reality, we are not one connected mind/body, but rather that it will do as it pleases and I have no real control over it.

I associate blood with being hurt, with the possibility of death, and with that disturbing tinny smell. In Germany they sell a blood sausage (Blutwurst) and it is disgusting. Blood is life, blood makes everything work and function and spreading thickly it on a slice of brown bread is not really appealing to me.

I wonder if there is any woman who likes having her period. Well, perhaps those that thought they were pregnant and did not want to be. I hate having my period. I hate seeing my own blood. But it is a natural process and I can understand the biological spiel involved. Hell, Grade 12 biology taught us everything in deeeeeeetail.

Look, I don't see the period as some week of suffering where the lady lies in bed and contemplates her fate. Sure, some women suffer more than others and get cramps and whatever, but it is not an illness. In No strings attached, Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher have a friends-with-benefits situation going, and naturally they fall in love and bla bla bla. The point is that her character, A DOCTOR, at some point gets her period. The horror. So she spends her day curled up in bed, with her little flatmates prancing around her as though she has caught the bubonic plague. And then Ashton pitches with a period-mix, as in a CD with bloody songs on it. Because that is what happens, realistically. All bleeding women go into a state of distress and need a knight in shining armour to show up with some rocking playlist to make them forget about the suffffffering happening in their vaginas.

For shame, I say. Both to Natalie Portman acting in such a stupid movie and in their depiction of the period. And because I really wanted to say 'for shame' at some point.

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.

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.

Moredom

photo taken by me, in Berlin, 2008

People ask: "So, what do you want to do with your life?"
As though I should have a plan. As though there is a map I could follow, where destination:life is clearly marked and every step along the way is a guaranteed success.

I answer: "I have no idea."
And it is more than great.

Listen to me now, people. There is no fear of the future. There is nothing you cannot be ( well, yes, naturally there are limits, but not if you really want something).

We can be pastry-chef-editors.
Or English-Lit-Lawyers.
Or Mechanical-Engineer-Photographers.
Or Bedroom Philosophers dabbling in daily shifts at McDonalds.
Or Ballerinas with poetic ill-skills.
Or a Humanitarian with a degree in caring and IT.

Others get on bikes and drive across Africa. Others find fulfilment in the amount of zeroes in their bank-accounts. Others like spending their days in virtual worlds. To each his own.

I just think that my fellow 20-somethings are caught in this desert of insecurity about their life: on the one hand there are so many possibilities to embrace, there is a whole world to discover. But on the other hand the constant threat of recessions and global crises and financial ruin and abandonment and hopelessness looms behind us. It feels as though so much is going wrong and one wants to act and march on the Union Buildings and hold banners and shout in megaphones, but what for? What are we supposed to be fighting for? Previously it was simple: peace and love. Now? Also peace and love. But the planet is suffering and we need to think green and save the prisoners of conscience and fight against oppression and secure a future and help each other and all of this whilst still living and having fun doing so.

The other day some of my friends where discussing how after obtaining this degree, they wish to do something more than what it will say on the piece of paper. To be more than Commerce or Arts or Engineering or Science or Whatever. Basically, to be more than one thing. Some people prefer knowing almost everything there is to know about their field, and being experts at what they do. I would also like to be an expert, but in the end, I prefer to know a lot about many different things than just settling for one speciality.

So what lies in the future? Here is another answer: I am/will be/want to be/could be/should be/ would be/ want to be a living thinker, a graphic designer, a photographer with film, a manipulator of words and images,  a historian-artist-writer-discoverer-music-listener-editor-translator-picture-taker-non-conformer-lover-hater-human-being. 

Giving and Taking

We are redoing our kitchen, which is an enormous amount of work. In the process, we are throwing out all the old cupboards and linoleum flooring from the 70s. We are also getting rid of some of that Tupperware that's been in action since before I was born. So basically, much of the old is being relegated to the trash.

When we went to the gym the other day, a German acquaintance said that here if you do not want something, it is easy: you just put it outside your house and some pedestrian will surely take it. Now it is true that because of the poverty in our country, there are many people who are less-fortunate and to whom your trash might be quite valuable. On Tuesdays, when the municipality comes to pick up the refuse, there are many people going from house to house, sifting trough the waste.

I know how it is to change the trash-bags in a public place, how disgusting it is to find it open and leaking strange fluids, and the odour of old nappies.. horrible. So I have a great respect for people who try to seek out a living from others' waste.

What bothered me was this man's dismissal of their struggle for existence. He seemed condescending, as though he were saying, "Well, back in the First World, we also put our trash outside, but nobody wants it. And that is how it is supposed to be. Nobody should want your old stuff. That is beneath a cultured society."

I kind of like the idea that what I cannot use, somebody else can.
If you read the current National Geographic (July 2011, with Cleopatra on the front), with reference to the soon-to-be 7 billion that the planet will have to sustain, there is an article on how to feed all of us and how much food is wasted annually by the consumers. For instance, in the US, almost half of the poultry produced (perhaps I should rather say raised? Or grown?) is wasted. So just under half of all birds killed for food lost their life needlessly. You can read more about the 7 Billion.

Also interesting in the same magazine is the eradication of regional species, in favour of higher yielding plants and animals. Just look at the what we see as potatoes and what genius potatoes grow in Peru ( with names like "Guinea Pig Fetus" or "Makes the daughter-in-law cry").

So I think the silly first world should stop flying in their apples from New Zealand and their steaks from Japan and actually consider what can be grown locally. Perhaps the problem is that they no longer have the space or the climate to support the growth of food that can sustain their population. Perhaps the third world producers should reconsider their placement in the power-scale, and realize that the power lies here, with us, with having the land and the weather to farm sustainably for the future.

We should take more responsibility for what we buy, instead of accepting that everything is available on a shelf at the Woolworths or Pick 'n Pay. Where does that chicken breast come from? What if everyone ate less meat, and saw the death of an animal for our consumption as a sacrifice, as something to be appreciated and as something that is only for special occasions.

But I digress. So the kitchen is almost finished, everyone has taken what they could find a use for. It bothers me when wealthy people give their old clothes to their cleaning ladies to sell, and then expect half of the money. Give it to her, to use. Give it to a charity. Give it away to someone who is more in need than you are. You can do without those R50. Maybe to someone else that could get their family through another day. Keep what you need, but do not become too selfish to see the needs of other. Not everyone has been as fortunate as us.

Haha, I know lately I have been rambling on about how one should give and see the suffering of others, but I really feel as though we are all sinking into this hole of self-obsession and that if the attitude of humanity in general to one another does not change, we leave an even worse legacy. We already have to deal with how previous generations ruined the planet, and I do not want my sister's children (at the moment I plan to have none) to one day look at us and say : how could you not have changed? How could you have fucked up so badly? And I don't just want to say: well, because we are a selfish kind.


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