southern south africa, in a nutshell

it's lame, but here is a list of stuff i've been up to the past few weeks (if you are so inclined to be interested).  i need time to process the things i have done, the people i have seen, and the thoughts i have thought over the past three weeks, but in the meantime...

cape town

• i still love this city
• i saw the colours, mosques, and unique architecture of the bo-kaap for the first time this visit
• a trip up table mountain in the cable car is certainly worth it (and maybe one day i will hike all the way up the mountain)
• staying at the westin grand was grand.  so was the spa.  and the waterbeds where you get to wait for your toes to dry after a pedicure.
• weddings and dress fittings and chaos, oh my!
• i could watch the boulders beach penguins for hours
• entering the main central train station from the back makes you think you are in africa.  exiting it from the front makes you think you are in europe.
• a few roads to nowhere that were there when i visited 5 years ago and are still there.  just unfinished freeways in the centre of the city, no big deal.

stellenbosch

• a farm town anywhere is a farm town everywhere.
• protea farms are neato.  proteas are also neato.  buy one next time you see one in the shops (or shoppies as the south africans might call them) and rest assured that it will last 3-4 weeks (which might offset the guilt for purchasing a flower that had to be transported from so far away).
• might i suggest staying at the sugarbird manor if you visit stellenbosch?  their staff are wonderful and their cats are so cuddly.  and watching the guinea fowl run across the lawn will make you giggle every time, i swear.
• wine tasting at bilton was accompanied by chocolate, delicious.  i kept thinking that it was missing a G though and it should've been biltong as we are in south africa.
• lunch at asara was also yummy.  the fish and chips were, as my mom put it, the best she's EVER had.
• views every way you look, stunning.
• lunch at jordan.  springbok tartar.  amazing.
• zipping through the hills in our rented hyundai atos, otherwise known as the lunchbox.

franschhoek

• the friendliest americans and brits at the guesthouse.
• a place for foodies and for anyone who can appreciate a good meal and a glass of wine.
• evenings of wine (and sherry) drinking with our hosts who provided us with a history lesson of rural south africa, both good and bad.
• dinner at dutch east.  perhaps the best fish i have ever had.  ever.
• a continuation of south africa's wonderful service.
• even the pubs serve gourmet food, including the scrumptious burger at elephant and barrel, which we shared along with some much-needed pints of beer after all that wine!
• one of the best meals i have ever had at reuben's.  ever.  see a theme here?!  a little piece of trivia - reuben is taking over from gordon effing ramsay at the cape town one&only hotel's restaurant.  yes, he's that good.  and so were the staff at his restaurant.
• a wine tasting with hilarious scots at solms-delta was followed by an incredibly informative social history tour with johan throughout the winery.  this place is a must-see if you are in the area, it is the site of a san living site hundreds of years ago and then of a homestead of european farmers.  and i want to bottle johan's intelligence and enthusiasm for nature, people, and learning and sell it, it was that encouraging and inspiring.

bredasdorp

• this is where i lived 5 years ago.
• it hasn't changed much.  a few new shops and some roadworks, but otherwise the same.
• surprising aunty joey, the woman i lived with, was something i will never forget.  and i am certain, neither will she.
• as happens in small towns, the phone was soon ringing with people confirming that yes, i had shown up unexpectedly.
• and she baked me melktert.  whipped it up.  just for me.  i also want to bottle this 60+ year old's energy, love, and spirit.  but i am not sure i would want to share it with anyone.  it is that special.
• my own milk tart, just to reiterate.
• a trip to struisbaai and l'agulhas - the most southern point in africa!  as they do not hesitate to advertise everywhere.
• fynbos.  and the some more fynbos.

hermanus

• whales!  whales from the coast and whales from a boat.
• the wind returns.  eesh.
• final bits of shopping.  woolworths.  pick n pay.  other shoppies.
• a random siting of a woman i used to work with in kenya.
• lunch at burgundy.  another delectable steak, cooked to perfection.
• cape dutch and more cape dutch houses.
• calla lilies and more calla lilies growing like weeds.

number crunching

i posted a comment over at flotsam, where on her fifth year blogging anniversary she ran some numbers.  a good idea i thought, so i am posting my comment here with a few more items that i have thought of since.

children conceived: 0
live babies acquired: 0
men married: 0
apartments lived in: 5
books written: 1 (if you count a thesis)
degrees acquired: 1
unfamiliar countries visited: 17
unfamiliar states visited: 0
couches owned: 5
pets felled by disease/neglect: 0
days admitted to hospital: 0
literary rejections received: 0 (but i have received a number of professsional rejections!)
pounds gained: -10
kidney stones passed: 0

and a few of my own:

humanitarian emergencies survived: 1
doctors dated: 3
soldiers dated: 1
teachers dated: 1
statisticians dated: 1
pilots dated: 2

hunters dated: 1
houses purchased: 1
heartbreaks suffered: 1
countries lived in: 4

tropical diseases contracted: 1
blogs maintained: 1

social networking profiles created: 3

social networking profiles maintained: 1
bottles of wine consumed: even if i remembered to count, i wouldn't have had the capacity to at the time

laptops owned: 3

cars named dieter driven: 1

grandparents lost: 2

jobs held: 3, 2 concurrently

tattoos inked: 2

bites of chicken consumed: 3 +/-

itunes songs collected: 4715

languages learned: 1/8

photographs taken: 1000s, maybe even 10,000s

friends met, books read, and tears shed: statistics unavailable until technology improves!

 

i would love to hear what you have to say about your last 5 years!

do gooding as gospel

when i was 18, i dated a fellow who was five years my senior and who i thought knew a thing or two about life.  i recall vividly one conversation we had where he told me that of all the people he meets, he only really 'liked' 20% of them enough to want to be friends or see again.  in my youthful naivety, i recall feeling as though that was a very callous statement to make.

and now, at the ripe old age of 29, i feel that 20% was a truly conservative estimate and the proportion of the people i meet who i genuinely want to see again socially is somewhere near 10%. 

i brought this up at a brunch i was with four other ladies this weekend and in our discussions, we agreed that as we become more certain of what we believe and our own values, it makes it easier to make decisions about people and this is completely natural .  and sometimes, you meet people whose activities or comments tip you off to the fact that you likely will not get along.

my friend, an animal lover and vegetarian, said that she couldn't be friends with someone who hunted.  there was a general mmm-hmmm-ing about this.  i followed up with the statement, 'i don't think i could be friends with someone who told me they wanted to volunteer in an orphanage in africa.'

the response?

blink.  blink.  blink, blink.

and then i had to defend my comment and give a brief explanation of why volunteering in orphanages in africa is more often than not, a bad idea. 

the blog world that i am haphazardly a part of has done a great job recently, and perhaps due to the overwhelming response and criticism of aid to haiti, of describing why voluntourism and orphanages as industry is not a terribly great idea and i won't go into the details here.*  but what was really apparent through this exchange was how i felt i needed to justify my statement and opinion to people who had relatively low levels of knowledge on international development and aid because i felt as though i sounded so cold hearted and heartless.

i spent the better part of the rest of the brunch trying to convince them that a) i knew what i was talking about and b) that i am not a horrible, awful person who thinks that the poor, black babies of africa do not deserve our good intentions.  and to be honest, i am really not sure that i was that effective.

it was one of those situations where worlds collide and i was going through the rolodex of posts i have read over the past months in shaping my argument about why holding the value against volunteering at orphanages in africa is not so different that holding a value that includes believing that hunting is wrong.

i like what Tales From the Hood has to say about why we believe that we have the 'right' to help others and the intentions behind doing it.  and Good Intentions Are Not Enough often has posts that support the name of the blog.  and these are written by professionals in the aid and development community so i know i am not alone in my judgements and opinions.  and this also doesn't mean they are necessarily the gospel for all to live by, but it was a tough situation to be in and i wish i had a better arsenal of metaphorical weapons to use when confronted to defend why i believe what i do.

* if you are really interested in my thoughts on this, leave me a comment and i will try and string them together into something articulate in the future.

could i give up my shopping habit?

just when i thought my life was going to settle down and i was going to stay in one place for awhile, my former boss has asked if i want to be interviewed for a position in my old office (that same one that was mentioned in the book What is the What that i recently read that put thoughts in mind...) in kenya. the job would be better than the one i had when i was based in nairobi previously and one that i would enjoy, but am i ready to give up the luxuries of developed world living?

like having friends you've known for decades a phone call away, having a ladies' night once monthly with these women, eating dinner with my family regularly, having lattes with my sister, making oil and gas money, watching my brother's hockey games, catching matinees with my other brother, breakfasts with visitors from out of town, changing seasons, central heating, bad television at my fingertips, dependable public transit, my little dieter, my running routes free of rabid dogs and speeding trucks, and, i shamelessly admit, shopping?

yet, one of the biggest reasons i came home was a person who shall not be named and now that that is no longer an issue, i am just not sure what to do with myself. i had always planned on a career in international development and my favourite experiences and stories that i have come from the time i spent pursuing that.

the universe will just have to tell me what to do in this case. but until it is clear, i will keep my options open.

a whole lot of nothing

that is what this election was, a whole lot of nothing. pretty much the same result (including rob anders and jason kenney, way to go calgary!) and it cost multiple millions of canadians' dollars. yippee.

though, working the election was quite interesting; i met a nice lady that i like to call mimi who was my poll clerk and we chatted about politics (even though i am sure you are not really supposed to) and religion and although we disagreed or saw things differently, i hope i opened her eyes a little so she can stop feeling sorry for muslim women.

it hurt my heart a little each time i had to read aloud 'harper' while we were counting the votes, but at least it is not a majority. and hello, ndp riding in alberta! go edmonton.

i must admit that the riding of calgary southwest is a lot more diverse than i ever gave it credit for and that made me happier. i was also proud when new canadians whipped out their crisp canadian citizenship cards (which the government should really make look prettier, like the maple cards) or when i had to explain the riding and party system to new voters. although the lowest voter turn out in canada's history is pretty much the most embarassing thing ever.

and, the whole system of going through people's identification reminded me handling the ugliest, dirtiest identity documents and financial statements when i worked at the salvation army one year. but it also reminded me of how fascinating i find it when you get a glimpse into people's lives through those same documents. call me nosy, i suppose.

now, back to focusing on the us presidential election, which promises to be a hell of a lot more interesting than ours.

book worm

it is past midnight on a saturday night and i am up reading and writing about african sovereignty... and actually enjoying it!

i was feeling so stuck with my dissertation and just wanted to get it over with and move on to the next phase of life while i was at home. i was even dreading coming back to university to spend my days working, and i have really been embracing the process. i am actually wondering if i will miss it when all is said and done and i don't get to pack my lunch, load up my backpack with books, trek over to the library, have coffee breaks with friends, and set up my work station with books, pens, pencils, staplers, highlighters, sticky notes, notebooks, and white out.

(i have just accepted the fact that i take up a lot of space where ever i go, i am a spreader)

then i wonder if people are ever capable of appreciating what they have until it is nearly over or gone. although i'd like to think it is possible, i am just not sure. maybe some things are meant to live in our memories exactly as we'd like to remember them.

all this thinking is hard work and sometimes my brain hurts and sometimes steam feels like it is about to come out of my ears, but i am making progress and am at 4200 words. not even a quarter of the way there yet, but i figure it is not too bad considering the circumstances under which i started this whole process.

and remember when i said i'd never do a phd...? well, never say never, i suppose.

march 1st - best friends day

a good friend of mine has declared march 1st best friend's day, http://www.canadianinalaska.blogspot.com/ and i just wanted to send out a happy best friends day to all the people who have been a good friend to me who might just be reading this right now. i've needed you all at some point and i hope that i have been there for you in much the same way. the best part is knowing that you are here with me in all of the wonderful lessons you've helped me learn, all the memories we have made together, and all the inspiration that you given to me and others. you are all pretty fantastic and i hope you know how important you are to me. you rock! and thank you for that.