My Jozi

Back in my home town ....

I'm planning to use this blog as a space for sharing and reflection of my life in Jozi, for those of you who are interested!

It's a breezy summer day... from my workspace here by the window I can hear the river flowing over the rocks, and birds calling. There's a couple of wood hoopoes (long beaked birds with a rattling cackle and a love of insects that they find on the tree bark), a noisy crested barbet (plump bird with bright red collar and a call that brings summer into the room) and of course, the ever-present hadidas (big prehistoric-looking things).

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Some reflections

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

(from a poem called ‘The Summer Day’ by Mary Oliver)

I've been going for a brisk 25 minute walk three times a week for the past 2 and a half months and, for someone who does not have a passionately committed relationship to exercise, it's felt fairly effortless! I wake up, throw on a tracksuit and set off. This means I get it done before I'm even fully awake.

The benefits for me are that I feel quite pleased with myself; I get a smug look on my face when people discuss the importance of exercise; I feel fitter; my legs feel stronger and my bowel movements are more regular! (This latter point is one of the reasons I've reserved this blog for friends and family only!)

This shows me one lesson for creating a life day by day that is closer to what I desire and who I am.

If something is important to you, do it first thing in the morning, on a regular basis.

What do you think?

some pics

La fin des vacances

I am back in my flat, getting rooted back into my life here, sipping on Mauritian vanilla tea - which takes me right back to the turquoise sea!

Sad to leave, but also lovely to be home, back to the special people here, to the river - everything is so green and alive!

Travelling fills you up with so much, it takes time to digest it all. And then it also awakens a craving for more, more of the special places, more new places to discover, more new foods to taste...

There's so much I want to do and be in my life, so much I want to see and experience and play with and give and receive...

to be continued...

lots of mysterious ellipses here...

Sunday pique-nique

After church, we went to buy fresh baguettes, then packed them and roast chicken into baskets and I piled into the camper van with my great-aunt, her son and his wife, 4 grandkids, a fluffy Maltese poodle called Roxy and 3 bikes! Writing about it now, it feels a bit like a Floro butter advert!

We set off up the west coast to find a nice picnic spot. Drove through sugar cane fields where Sandrine (wife) and I got out of the car to do some mountain biking along the narrow dirt roads that run through the fields, with the car following behind us.

Yes, it sounds very adventurous and I was quite surprised that I managed! The path took us out of the fields into a forested area, with a little lane lined with old trees and a low stone wall running alongide.

We eventually stopped at a shady spot under filaos (a spindly kind of Mauritian fir tree that grows on the edge of the beach). After lunch, we snacked on sugar cane (where sugar really comes from!). You cut off the husk with a knife then chew on the flesh inside and feel your mouth fill with sugary, sticky juice. Delicious!

Lovely afternoon spent laughing, eating and walking, playing with the kids and the dog.

On Sunday we went to church with my great-aunt. She is 77, runs a guest house, has a constant flow of grandchildren running in and out of her place, laughs suddenly and gustily at odd moments, and wears a jaunty little cap at a rakish angle when she rides her bicycle. The last time I visited, she gave me a book she'd bought for herself on 'Flirting'! What a beautiful way to grow old!

The church service was light and lively, with a youthful choir and an old priest with a wide, friendly face and a sweet air about him. Afterwards, people milled about outside in the sun and chatted.

Sega dance

On Saturday night, we did the ultimate tourist thing of going to the Blue Lagoon Hotel, having their Mauritian buffet and watching the sega show afterwards.

Sega is the traditional dance of the Mauritian creoles, with a fast drum beat played on a flat drum accompanied by a rattly kind of instrument (forgotten the name). It's a very sexy dance, with a lot of hip movement and suggestive grinding motions. With the colourful costumes they wore, it reminded me of a beautiful mating dance of birds...

Then the dancers invited the audience to try their hand at the sega, so mum and I took to the dance floor and had lots of fun!

Mauritian drivers

On Friday we drove to visit my cousin Shirley in Trou d'Eau Douce (hole of sweet water). Shared a lovely lunch with her in her beautiful home overlooking a bay, went for an afternoon walk through forest and then drove back home along the coastal road, passing through Grand Sable (Big Sand) then Petit Sable (Little Sand).

A bit of a hair-raising drive back, on Friday afternoon when everyone seemed to be coming home. Had to keep a sharp eye out for buses that roar round corners, pedestrians strolling, dogs crossing the road obliviously, men on bicycles with sugarcane strapped across their bicycles... and the occasional chicken. The custom seems to be to overtake anytime, anywhere (curves, blind rises, hills included) as long as you give a little warning 'toot' that you're about to do it!

Thank goodness driving in Jozi has given me good practice!

Success with uploading photos!

Thanks to tip from Antibes aunt, I have figured it out!

Here are some shots of us setting off on this trip...

Turquoise Day

I set off this morning all excited to have the car to myself. I was planning to visit a family friend / potential client's ONG / NGO called 'Friends in Hope'.

First stop was the supermarket and on the way back to drop my mum home before setting off, I parked on a grass verge and didn't see a low-lying root (my mother warned me about those!). As I reversed, I heard a grating sound. We got out to look and somehow the tree root had hooked onto the front bumper of the car and pulled it off a bit so that it was hanging loose!

Anyway, the car's in the panelbeaters now (thank goodness not hugely expensive) and I've had to postpone the visit to the NGO till next week.

So I had to make do with a turquoise sea and dreamy blue sky and sun on my skin... quite a compromise!

Yesterday mum and I drove along the south-west coast (Tony didn't feel like coming so he stayed home) to visit my aunt and uncle (Solange and Jimmy).

It was a lovely drive along a small coastal road that passed through villages with evocative names like Souillac, Riviere des Anguilles (river of eels), Bel Ombre (beautiful shade), Petite Riviere Noire (small black river) ...

We saw yellow mongrels (all stray dogs in Mauritius seem to be this colour, probably due to interbreeding) strolling jauntily across the road in front of our car; a pair of old men sitting on their porch watching life pass by; a scrawny little boy rubbing his head and crying because his older brother had just hit him; and sugar cane labourers in knee-high boots and grimy clothes stopping for a lunch break, eating rice out of steel tins.

We drove over a bridge and stopped to watch a group of Indian women in sari-splashes of reds, oranges and pink doing their washing on the rocks along the river, with a chorus of frogs providing the soundtrack. We took a photo (a bit shame-facedly 'cos it always feels really touristy...). As we got in the car to set off again, a tall slim woman who was walking up the river slope, balancing a basket of wet washing on her head, gave us a smile and a wave.

Then we stopped in another little village and I jumped out to buy 2 faratas (Indian pancake filled with dhal lentils and a bit of chilli) from a vendor who was selling them from a small cart on wheels on the side of the road. We stopped outside the village, on another bridge overlooking a gorge, and sank our teeth into the warm, fresh dough with a bite on the inside. I can still taste them in my mouth!

Got to our family, feeling quite smug at having found our way and had a lovely afternoon of chatting, laughing, lazy silences and good food. We had vindaille (fish in a curry sauce, served cold), rice and beans, followed by a dessert of puits d'amour (wells of love - delicious custard tartlets. How could they be anything but delicious with a name like that.)

Also learnt a lovely phrase from my aunt - she was saying how she gets on particularly well with one member of the family. She described it as 'On a les atomes crochues' (our atoms are hooked). I thought it's such a lovely way of describing having that feeling of connection and affinity with someone.

So I'm gonna sign off now...

Wishing you lots of atomes crochues with those in your life.

World Cup

Can't believe I forgot to mention the fact that SA won the World Cup Final!! After 12 years! I would've so loved to be in Jhb that night, to take a drive out in the streets and share the celebrations. If they were anything like they were the last time we won, it must've been really special.

We watched it in a restau up the road, overlooking Blue Bay, called Le Bougainville. It only showed here around 11pm, so we took a l-o-n-g supper interspersed with quite a few beers (Phoenix beer, the Mauritian brew - quite nice).

By the time the match came on, Tony had faded and gone home and there was only mum, me and a table next to us of 2 English couples and another table of a burly, lobster-pink Englishman on his own. So of course there was quite a lot of repartee between us and the English couples ... who were convinced the ref was making bad decisions left, right and centre. As I only watch rugby once every 12 years, I was unable to comment.

Then we had a bit of a dramatic moment when the burly Englishman took a puff of his umpteenth cigarette, started coughing and seemingly couldn't stop. As we became aware of his wheezing over the match commentary, he slowly keeled over sideways off his chair, knocked over his wine bottle, then hit the ground with a heavy smack and lay still.

The Indian owner, who'd been sitting in a chair nearby, and I, both got up and, strangely enough, headed straight for the wine bottle to set it back upright. (At the time, I remember thinking it was an interesting choice of action, rather than head straight for the man on the floor! Afterwards, I realised I did it because at least I could feel I was doing something helpful, whereas I felt helpless about the man on the floor.)

A few seconds later, he moved about on the floor, then got up, saying, 'Sorry about that.' He righted his chair, sat back down and resumed watching the match! I've heard about a stiff upper lip, but wow! I leaned forward and asked him if he was ok, and he said, 'Thanks, I'm fine. Thank you.'

So we all carried on watching the match. All very exciting!

On and Off

It's been a quiet Monday evening of playing cards, sharing a nice supper of (yup, fish), rice and lentils then a few wondrous moments of standing outside under a cloudy sky and watching the high tide licking at the stone wall of 'our' property. The sea is preparing for the coming of the full moon and it seems restless and mysterious.

Faced with the expanse of the ocean washing in front of and beyond my eyes, I had to slip my arm into my mum's arm, just to feel the warm comfort of human contact. The sea tends to have that effect on me - its watery vastness makes me want to curl up somewhere warm, skin to skin. So even though my dad was born and raised on an island and was on chatty terms with the sea, I am most definitely a landlover!

The internet connection here in the bungalow is very erratic, on and off, so now in one of the brief periods that it's on, I am quickly jotting down some impressions of the day.

We rented a car today, (I drove, much to my delight!) a funky little Toyota with electric windows and a/c. We all spent most of the trip to Curepipe (main inland town in Mauritius) playing with the window buttons!

Did some shopping, had a great cappuccino overlooking the busy rain-drenched street then went to Le Dodo Club and had lunch with my uncle there. Old colonial-style club, with polished wooden floor boards, muted voices and the clink of ice in whisky glasses. Great gratin au crabe followed by fillet then creme brulee.

Visited my old aunt, tante France, in her elegant old flat in Curepipe, and reminisced with her about the past and those who have passed on. Lovely time with her.

I like being with older people, there's something soothing about their presence and slow way of moving through life.

ok, let me post this while the connection is still on...

The sun finally came out!

It's just after sunset and I am outside on the porch, overlooking the sea, which has been a jewel-like turquoise all day and is now a cloudy silvery-green, as the light fades from the sky. On the horizon, I can see the breakers crashing onto the coral reef that surrounds Mauritius. They create a distant hum of power yet closer to the shore, the sea gently laps onto the sand.

Yes, I know you're dying for photos (to punctuate all the flowery descriptions and give them a bit of substance) but I still haven't figured out how to transfer them from my Kodak pc software onto the blog. Patientez svp!

It was a beautiful day today, spent time doing real beach holiday things like lying in the sun and reading, then swam, then my cousin Shirley came to visit with her beautiful blue-eyed one year old.

We went for a sunset walk to Blue Bay (down the road from us) and walked on the promenade overlooking the beach, watched little groups of families shaking out towels and packing up their things; taxi drivers sitting in the shade having a cold beer and a lazy chat; a mother playing with her doll-like curly-haired Gypsy look-alike toddler girl who gave us a smile straight from heaven; and of course, the ubiquitous coral necklace sellers, who cruise past and give a laid back greeting and then, at the slightest polite response back, cruise on over and invite us to take a look at their 'boutique' (a collection of necklaces in a plastic bag). (Phew, that was a long sentence!)

Now it's time for a cold beer and some cashew nuts...
Tonight we're having oven-roasted fresh fish, caught yesterday (though not by us!)
La vie est belle...

Rainy windy day in Mauritius!

At my desk in my room, with a blustery wind outside and rain on the roof... a real sea squall.

We all slept really well, woke up quite late and had breakfast of baguette, creamy French cheese (called Caprice des Dieux - loosely translated as The whim of the gods) and apricot jam and tea.

That's the danger of blogs, I suppose - you end up writing all kinds of trivial details that no one except your sweet aunt would be interested in!

Will try to have an interesting day so that my next post can be a bit more colourful!

Windy rainy night in Mauritius

17th October 2007

Our second night here in Mauritius, the gentle land of my father and his father. A day of erratic winds, sudden downpours that leave my skin sticky and the air humid ... and an octopus curry.

The marchand de poissons (seller of fish - just to show off a bit) came round today with one small and one large octopus in his straw basket. He lifted the small one out by its beak (I think that's what the octopus' mouth is called). It was a gelatinous, grey bundle of tentacles and suckers, which the cook later turned into a spicy, tasty (but slightly rubbery) curry. Most creatures definitely look better alive in their world than on a plate! Can really understand vegetarians!

This evening, post-curry, me, mum and Tony sat together a bit and chatted in a desultory fashion. Nice to have time together with them to just sit and be.

Now my bed awaits, cool clean sheets in my cosy room with the wind dancing outside.

A plus tard!
C