Amends

Emotion overcame me as I left Cape Town city limits on Monday morning. I pulled over and I sobbed. I don't know when I last sobbed. This country has affected me.

Mascara a wreck, I drove myself 500 km east to Knysna, a pretty town on the Indian Ocean that I'm smitten with. I booked myself into a Backpacker's and am chilling here for the final three days of my stay in South Africa. I'm calling it my Reflection Time. On Thursday morning it's 250 km further east to Port Elizabeth to catch the first of my series of return flights.

This weekend, I'll be in Canada. (I can write it down, but I cannot believe it.)

I look forward to seeing my family and friends, to sleeping in my own bed, to hearing Canadian accents and fine-tuning my own. I'm excited for my first Dr. Pepper, Reese Peanut Butter Cup, and trip to Tim Horton's.

But I'm losing something profoundly important to me - my adopted homeland. I have favourite things here, too. Savannah Drys. Lime milkshakes. Vida e Cafe.

I don't want to let go. I want to always know the sounds of eleven different languages being spoken on the streets. The feel of the fine white sand between my fingers at the Clifton beaches. The sight of Table Mountain, resolutely guarding the Mother City.

Ironically, what I love most about South Africa is also what is most worrisome - how young the country is. The history and the future are side by side. It means that new developments are exciting and significant. But new countries are also volatile. I'd like to return here within 5 years. But I look at Kenya and wonder whether I can promise that I'll do so. South Africa's aching beauty in landscape and people - what I love second-most - either reflects or mocks the future, I don't yet know.

I've been able to do and see much more in Africa than I'd ever expected. I've learned more about myself than I expected to. I'm ready to get a life-size tatoo of the continent to pay it tribute to the outstanding experiences it has given me. But I think my nose piercing will give my parents enough of a fright.

I'm going to write a final entry on my blog from Canada. And I'll revive it again, ideally, within 5 years, when I find my way back.

Wild at Heart

All I really, really wanted to do in Namibia was ride an ATV in the desert. I did that – wearing my Gretchen Wilson t-shirt, no less – rendering the trip wholly successful.

Namibia has been on my to-see list for the past year. It has a really interesting history, alive today in the architecture and pastries from its time as a German colony, and in the townships and radical inequalities from its time as a possession of apartheid South Africa. German and Afrikaans are still widely spoken, along with indigenous languages and English. Namibia won its independence recently, in 1990, and has been doing fairly well on its own.

Colonialism makes for a bit of an identity crisis and as this church in Windhoek shows, Namibia is not entirely sure whether it is German or African.

My proudly Namibian sandboarding instructor boasted to me that middle-class South Africans have been buying homes in Namibia because should the political situation get worse, Namibia offers a brighter future. As a patriotic temporary resident of South Africa, I pointed out that Namibia’s democracy is really more like a one-party state itself and that SWAPO, the ruling party, has just built an unnecessarily extravagant State House with taxpayers’ money. But then I had to get back to sandboarding.

Courtney and I opted for the "unskilled" sandboarding, which was more like tobogganing than snowboarding. Nevertheless, I managed to wipe out. Courtney wiped out on the ATVs though, so that made us even.

My patriotism further prevents me from calling Namibia more beautiful than South Africa, but it is indeed a very pretty country, where the sun nearly always shines. The 400 km drive from Windhoek to the coast took Courtney and me past the long grass and wildflowers of the Kalahari and into the vast Namib Desert without hardly a town or traffic along the way.

I was surprised at how green the Kalahari Desert was!

This, to me, is a proper desert - the Namib.

Most recently, Namibia has become (in)famous as the country that Brad and Angelina escaped to for three months prior to the birth of their biological daughter, Shiloh. As a little bit of a pop culture addict, this may have played into my motivation to visit the country. But it was sheer luck that a co-worker of mine at the Treatment Action Campaign offered Courtney and me the use of her family’s holiday home in Long Beach, the same place the Jolie-Pitts had called home, for our stay on the coast. The best part was that with our own house, we were able to do a huge Easter egg hunt on Sunday.

Long Beach is small, and it didn't take us long to track down the resort where the Jolie-Pitts had stayed, order drinks, and proceed to grill the server for details.

I think it’s really cool that with just a car, a guidebook, and a friend, I saw another African country. A year ago, I’m sure I wouldn’t have felt confident doing that.

A year ago, I’m sure I wouldn’t have tasted the zebra.

Pangs

Every day last week, I returned to my flat pretty convinced that I have the coolest job on the planet.

One day I was perched at the Cape High Court – one of an army of HIV-Positive t-shirts – observing the case that TAC is pursuing against Matthias Rath and the Government for violations of the Medicines Act. Our lawyer argued well and I think that the judgment will come in our favour, forcing Rath to stop selling his unregistered medicines as a cure for AIDS.

Another day, for the next issue of Equal Treatment, I was interviewing Zimbabwean refugees who are waiting to be processed by the Department of Home Affairs in line-ups that are months long downtown. These people had unbelievable stories to tell and I can’t wait to see my article in print.

I’m really, really happy here. I am gaining invaluable experience at work and savouring all that Cape Town's summer has to offer in the evenings and on weekends.

Bringing St Paddy's down South.

But pangs of doubt hit me.

Do Western volunteers bring valuable skills to Africa, or are we occupying positions that native citizens should be trained and remunerated for? I could get work in my home country. Should I stay there, and leave Africa for Africans?

Do journalists create awareness, or just publish compelling stories by exploiting other people’s pain? The Zimbabwean refugees whom I interviewed are still sleeping on sidewalks, five days after I met them. Don’t I owe them something more, after they gave me their stories?

And another thing – I remember that very early in my stay, I was appalled by how middle-class South Africans could live such fine lives in the midst of abject poverty. When did it become easy for me to accept, to adopt the same carefree lifestyle? How unjust is it that I’ve enjoyed more of what South Africa has to offer than most of its citizens?

Case in point: my friend Courtney and I are spending the Easter long weekend in Namibia, South Africa’s neighbour to the north-west, a place that has been described to me as “God’s own country.” I'm really looking forward to it. We fly out of Cape Town on Wednesday morning; spend two nights in Windhoek (Namibia’s capital); drive to the coast for three nights at Long Beach; and then make our way back to South Africa on Easter Monday.

Story of my life.

The varied landscapes, the diverse cultures, the relationships I've built compel me. For better or for worse,

I’ll always be making my way back to South Africa.

Hush

My plane ticket home is for one month from today, which means that I won’t be able to ignore the fact that the most exciting year of my life is rushing to an end for much longer.

South Africa will soon be far, far away. I’ll have to dig through online news sources to find out what happens with Zuma’s corruption trial in August. If he’s convicted, he won’t be eligible for the presidency, and then what? Who will lead the ANC? Who will lead the country? I’ll care, but I won’t be a part of it anymore.

Shhhh. I can still go about my life as per usual for a little while.

At work, the current issue of Equal Treatment is in the editor’s hands and now I’m working on new projects. The first one is with the legal side of the organization. I’m assisting with two cases that we are pursuing against individuals and companies who illegally (and deeply immorally) sell unregistered medicines as bogus cures for AIDS. Secondly, beginning later this week, I’ll be spending two days a week at TAC’s district office in Khayelitsha, which is the same township
where I taught an after-school program back when I was a UCT student.

There’s been lots of playing as well. My friends Jessie, Courtney, Sarah, and I went on a road trip for Jessie’s last weekend to Cape Aghulas, the southernmost point in Africa, and stayed overnight. I wanted to rip across the Southern hemisphere’s longest unbroken beach on an ATV, but horses were the only transportation permitted (for environmental reasons – oops), so we rode them, barefoot.

For Jessie’s last night out, karaoke was the obvious answer. We selected Spice Girls for our final performance together. It was deliciously awful. Life has been quieter since I took Jess to the airport on Thursday.

Quieter, but not quiet. Especially since I traded in Herbie for a new yet-to-be-named ride, and she has a radio and CD player. There’s no better way to get to the beach, I’m sure of it.

My housing arrangements have also been upgraded – in the material sense, at least. I was relocated to a two-bedroom on the 18^th floor, which happens to be the penthouse. My apartment grew three sizes and became outfitted with a balcony that looks out at Table Mountain. It really feels more ornate than anything and I’d rather have Jess.

Overall, February was one of my best months in South Africa. It was also somewhat exhausting.

Too bad there’s no time to rest. For March, I’m most excited about the plans that Courtney and I are making to spend Easter in Namibia, the reunion that I am trying to organize with my little Karoo sisters, and a stopover in Knysna, my favourite town along the Garden Route, before I fly out from nearby Port Elizabeth.

As my groceries were being scanned at the Pick & Pay the other evening, the cashier paused for a moment to shuffle through the postcards that I was purchasing. Once. Twice. I started to grow impatient. But my heart melted when she locked eyes with me and breathed, “Isn’t it a beautiful country?”

I jog along the boardwalk at Sea Point in late afternoon, watching the sea swallow the sun. I drive in the countryside on the weekends in the silence of unspeakable beauty.

Yes doesn’t seem like a strong enough word.

The view from the balcony

Earshot

I got news this week that was so good it necessitated going out to Dizzy’s on karaoke night and singing “Like a Prayer” on stage with my friends.

Really, I probably would have done it anyway.

But I sang under the guise of celebrating my offer of admission to Carleton University’s Master of Journalism program.

I applied to the MJ programs at Carleton, Ryerson, and Western, with Carleton as my first choice all along because of its distinguished reputation in the field and its location in Ottawa, the epicentre of Canadian politics. I was never sure that I would get in. The competition is stiff – only twenty students are taken into the program every year.

But I'm told that they want me to be one of them.

(They obviously didn’t hear me sing.)

I’ll be Ottawa-bound in September, armed with an entrance scholarship, a paid TA position (Teacher’s Assistant), and the certitude that this is what I want.

I see journalism as a mix of travelling, learning, analyzing, and writing...which I do by choice already.

This week, for example, had me out playing with penguins on a daytrip, sitting in on a meeting at parliament for my job, discussing South Africa’s electricity crisis, World Cup woes, and leadership uncertainties with my co-workers, and submitting edited articles for our magazine, which goes to the printer’s next week.

I feel ready for it.

After just a few more months of dancing to African drums.

New Moon Rising

It’s all happened much more quickly than I expected.

I have made friends with other international interns living in my downtown high-rise apartment. I have a diverse crowd of co-workers whom I greet every day at 9 am. I have a little blue car that I drive on the “wrong” side of the road all over the city.

I have never felt so grown up.

My car is called Herbie. His full name is Herbie the Half-Loaded Hyundai. Half-Loaded because he can't get past 40 km/hr on a hill, or 100 km/hr on the highways.

I did feel disoriented and dissatisfied my first weekend back. There were too many plans being made with too many new people. But I have a knack for landing great roommates, and when Jessie moved in on Sunday, everything started to come together. She’s interning as a photographer with the Cape Times for a month and her insistence that we do everything South Africa has to offer before she goes has rekindled my enthusiasm. I’ve come around. Completely. Cape Town is fantastic.

My new roommate and I at lunch in the Winelands outside Cape Town.

My days are devoured by the intense workload at the Treatment Action Campaign. TAC is South Africa’s premiere HIV/AIDS NGO. Their primary aim is greater access to HIV treatment for all South Africans. They work at this through both legal and educational means. Zackie Achmat, its HIV-positive founder, famously refused to take ARVs, the drugs that prevent HIV from escalating into AIDS, until the cost of the drugs was reduced and they were made available to all South Africans. His stance attracted the attention of Nelson Mandela, who visited him at his home and pleaded with him to begin treatment. He wasn’t swayed. The government announced that it would make ARVs available in the public sector in 2003. TAC is also behind the HIV-Positive t-shirts that have caught on around the world. The shirts were inspired by the story of the Danish king who voluntarily wore the yellow star that Jews were forced to wear during the Nazi regime, symbolizing his solidarity with them.

TAC throws real work at me every day, which is both exciting and intimidating. In my first few days alone, I had an article to write on HIV education in South African schools, a second one on sexually transmitted infections, a third on AIDS orphans, then a brochure to compile on how pregnant women who are HIV positive can prevent passing the virus on to their babies. I love the immediacy of the results – the brochure, for example, will be distributed to public clinics as soon as it has been printed. My co-workers are just as busy, but we do socialize during lunch or after work.

As soon as I step foot back in my apartment after 5 pm, there are already plans being made for evening activities. Living in the heart of downtown and having my own car has opened up a whole other world of entertainment possibilities. My friends and I hike up Lion’s Head or stroll along the Sea Point boardwalk for exercise, hit up bars and restaurants on more social nights. Jessie has plotted out daytrips for all the Saturdays and Sundays to come.

The "tablecloth" effect on Table Mountain, as seen from the top of Lion's Head.

I’m still finding Naartjie’s hair on my clothing and still missing dinners with my South African family, but –

I’m beginning again.

Goodbye Iowa

Once again, the end is here. These are my last few days of tranquil country life.



I’ve enjoyed every part of my days in Philippolis.

I like my morning ritual: Naartjie waking me up with boundless enthusiasm for the new day, taking her out for a jog, munching on tea and rusks, indulging in an episode of 7de Laan. I like my evening ritual: going to the tennis courts or an exercise class with Doreen, a family dinner with wine and the news, settling on a movie. I like everything in between: doing deskwork to the tunes of Tegan and Sara, reading a chapter of my book in the mid-morning sun, walking up to the corner store for a Coke in the heat of the afternoon.

But I need to start packing. I catch a bus at midnight on January 31 and will wake up in Cape Town on the morning of February 1. I’ll move my increasing heavy suitcases into a downtown apartment, pick up my rental car, and set off for an afternoon at my new place of work: the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) head office, where I’ll be interning with their monthly magazine, Equal Treatment.

I’m thrilled about working for TAC. And Cape Town has newspapers, video stores, coffee shops, fresh produce. I’ll be able to go to malls, beaches, dance clubs on weekends. But the transition will be overwhelming at first. The crowds, the traffic, the activity will all seem alien.

It has been especially quiet in Philippolis since Emily and Dodi returned to boarding school two weeks ago. I miss them all the time. But since our tearful farewell, I’ve spoken with them on the phone and exchanged text messages. Parting with my Jack Russell terrier will be more final. Naartjie and I have been inseparable these past two months – she even tries to climb into the shower with me – and I would love to keep her forever. But her owners are expecting her back. They have a big yard to accommodate her tireless sense of adventure, and I’ve been returning her for weekly visits so I know that she still feels at home with them. Nevertheless. The separation is going to break my heart. Maybe hers, too.

Why do they call it goodbye?