Nuvole Bianche

“It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched for they are full of the truthless ideal which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life.” 

― W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage

Wasted youth

On the Champs Elysée, Paris October 2008.

Karin Schimke


Almost Teetotal


It starts off well enough.
Even,
I'd venture,
fun. A kind of warmth
softens my sinews,
I laugh more easily,
things muddy become clear,
conversation flows
doesn't cease
to flow, so that
things clear become muddy,
muscles become flaccid.
I discover then,
too late,
that a bit of control
is a good thing, but
continue to exercise
unedited stupidity:
Say pointless things
that confuse me;
dance on higher things
because the floor feels
suddenly limited;
turn up the volume
because turning it down
        - or just leaving it -


are not options;
skidding
slipping
tripping
falling
to the final resting place
on cool white tiles
with a view
to the underside of things,
from where I can propel the solid
pain that us my head upwards
only
by the sincere belief that
one
more
sour choking gagging effort
over the exhausted bowl might
       this time -


bring release from the
persistent
myth
that getting pissed
is fun.


So,
If it's all the same to you,
I'd rather not.


In Difficult to explain


The first remembrance of alcohol is when I was in Grade 8. My sister's class had to host the Matric ( that's 12th Grade, last year at school here) Ball and my mom was there as well to help. A big bunch of my friends ( all girls, please) had a sleepover at my house and some of them had stolen a bottle of altar wine from church. I can't remember how exactly, since I was not there. We proceeded to drink the wine but WHAMBAM my mom returned home to bust us with glasses of wine in our hands. I must admit, we did not think the whole drinking thing through properly. Should have thought about when she would get home.. Or at least we should have drunk ( drank?) in my room and not in the kitchen, since it is the first room one walks into when entering our house.

My mother proceeded to give us a lengthy speech and then as punishment I was not allowed my cellphone ( Nokia 3310 bitches) or access to the TV for a month. It is the only punishment I can remember ever having gotten. I can't even remember being hit one time.

So after this first flirtation we once got hold of a small bottle of Amarula and drank that between the four of us, but that's about it.

Grade 10 is when alcohol begins playing a role in my social excursions. I would borrow my sister's driver's licence or Id or student card and go out with her or with friends who were either of age or had their sibling's IDs or had fake student cards. It was all very illegal.

It is not like the group of us got wasted very weekend or like we were completely irresponsible, but I look back now ( as if it has been that long) and would never act as carelessly. We would go out and then walk back to a friends house, which in SA is not the best idea as girls, alone, in the dead of night. Sometimes her brother would walk with us with his baseball bat, or we would just ask strangers for lifts. Now I could never do the same thing.

Now I think: "Ah, driving tonight. Where did you park the car? Will someone be able to hijack you from there and stuff you in the trunk? Is someone driving with you? Oh, this is your second Hunter's Dry, better order some water next. "

It is not like I don't want to drink any more at all, it is just that my sense of responsibility outweighs my desire to drink too much. Perhaps we drink to forget, we drink to have more courage, we drink to be more sociable, we drink to be more likeable, we drink because we don't want to be in our right mind. And  by drink I don't mean the occasional glass of wine or a beer here and there. I mean getting wasted, losing your house-keys, waking up in strange places, having no money left in your wallet, and a general "feeling-like-shit" the next day.

Ultimately, I am glad to have wasted my weekends when we were still at school, to have gotten drunk in relatively safe environments and to never have done too stupid things. Many people who get to university and taste individual freedom for the first time get lost in the partying and drinking of the first year and fail academically. I am only 23 and already feel too old to be doing that.

A few weeks ago the debate here was if the legal drinking age should be pushed up to 21. I don't know. Will it change anything? By the time one is 21, you are in your last year at university. Hmm. How many people would just continue drinking illegally? How has it affected countries like the US? Apparently two-thirds of South Africans support a drinking age of 21.

If a higher age lessens the amount of alcohol-related accidents and deaths, I say do it. But if there is no significant difference, I think parents should rather focus on instilling in their children moral values where each is responsible for the self. As a society we cannot still have some sort of following for people like Jub-Jub who kill children by drunkenly drag-racing through the streets in the morning. It is all very strange: a man is found guilty of assault for almost spilling whiskey on President Zuma, but more serious accusations like rape or murder somehow fall though the cracks. I don't understand it.



.

Telling

I was parking the car the other day in the swanky neighbourhood next to the university ( there is no parking nearer to campus where I do not get a parking ticket, so into suburbia we go). When I got out to grab my bag from the boot, there was a black gentleman in his 50s, impeccably dressed and looking very much like someone one would like to share a whisky with. He handed me the note in the photograph and asked if I did not have any work for him. 

Situations like these make me feel completely out of place. He called me "missis" ( for non-South Africans, this is similar to "madam". I think it is a sign of respect, but in my mind is more associated with the apartheid "master/madam" oppressive form than something one would say out of a general sense of social order). Missis is bad to me. I am no one's master. Call me miss, if you have to. Or just "you". I am a lot younger, a lot less experienced in the world, I should be the one of lesser rank. 

I promised that I would pass his info onto someone if I would hear of someone who needed work done. And walked away. He continued up the road, which is lined with arches of old trees and enormous mansions, behind whose high gates expensive German cars gleam in the sunlight. I wonder how that must feel: being desperate for work, wandering a rich suburb where the inhabitants probably earn more in a year than you would in a lifetime. 

When I got home, I read the note, and again was saddened. Why? The spelling. It is my belief that a good education, where traditional knowledge is not forced down on students, but rather where the environment is one which acknowledges different forms of learning and knowing, could change the world. And here, I blame my ancestors. If they had not been so blind and full of hatred, if they had not separated people on account of skin colour, many of the older generation could have had their minds unlocked to a fascinating world where your own thoughts matter as much as those you read in books and newspapers. 

If previous generations would already have had access to a good education, perhaps the youth of today would be able to value it more. At university, I see many people who just expect their parents or the government to pay for their studies, even if they do not attend class and fail subjects. It is a privilege to learn. It is a blessing to be able to sit in classes and be taught to think for yourself. 

So when I see this man, struggling to find basic manual labour in an area where money seems to grow on trees, it bothers me. When I see his terrible spelling, while he is walking through an area where a university, a primary school and numerous high schools are situated, it bothers me. When I then see students not valuing the education they are receiving, it infuriates me.  

 It is easy to judge the previous generations for their errors, because one tells oneself one would not have stood for injustice. One tells oneself that one would have fought for equality. One tells oneself that one could never have just accepted a black and white world instead of seeing colour. But I don't know. Depending on the ideology I was raised with and whether I would accept or reject it, I don't know if I could've been a apartheid-supporter or protester. 

But I can judge the youth of now, the decisions of now, the government of now. I am not saying South Africa is going under or we are becoming like Zimbabwe or whatever, but I am saying that young people need to get their act together. They need to demand knowledge. They need to stop supporting idiots like Malema and burning down buses and classrooms. You cannot advance a society through violence and ignorance. Accept that there is much to learn, from everyone. Everyone is an expert in some region. I know language. I know music videos. But I need to call my grandmother to make jam, or ask the gardener where would the basil-plant grow best ( well, my gran with her green thumb knows that as well).

All I am saying is respect everyone you meet. Even Malema. Know that they are not stupid, they are not less than you. Know that you need to open your mind and take responsibility for your own future.

.

Be kind

I am not sure whether one should be kind by looking away quickly, or whether these are separate tags.. 

Both are sound advice..

Found outside Pure café near Duncan road..

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Bittereinder

This is Bittereinder - A tale of three cities 

Check them out ici

also come to the botanical gardens 27 March for Park Acoustics with Bittereinder, aKing and others.