A hike through Pondoland

On Monday, the second day, we woke at 6, with the sun. Even though we completely keished the night before at 9 pm and slept like the dead, the mattresses were thin, and they slowly worked to make our hips tender and so, at 6, we were all up. Breakfast was eggs and bread, and mielie-meel, again. 2 eggs on bread, then bread with peanut butter spread thick, and 2 bowls of mielie-meel. We ate a huge breakfast. And coffee. 3 little boys were playing with rheumatic marbles deftly aimed at each other, and ultimately at a small marble-shaped dent in the dirt. The chickens were up, and the duck, with her tiny yellow duckling, miraculously safe among the brilliant dogs. Vuyani helped me show our hostess how to take a photo with an iPhone.

And we set off just before 7, heading south – ever south – and slightly west, down the hill, to the sea.

Retired: Kung Fu Shoes

I have new shoes for Kung Fu. So this is a... meditation, on my old shoes. As you can see, the brand name of the shoe is WARRIOR, which is quite fitting because in Kung Fu, well we're not combing our hair for an hour and a half... And one of the first things that goes on these shoes is the R at the end - so any self-respecting Kung Fu student is going to be wearing WARRIOs, not WARRIORs. You wear WARRIORs it means you don't have your chops. So these various testaments that you see in the photos below are the result of 3 years of Kung Fu classes, twice a week.

Of Backpacks & National Geographics

The house has 15 rooms: A verandah, a study, a hallway, a store-cupboard under the stairs, a lounge, a sun-room, a bathroom with a toilet and a shower (for which I am sure there is a word), a kitchen and a pantry. Then upstairs… the house is pretty big. So I have arranged the lounge, which is also more than spacious. You could fit all 20 members of the Llama's First Oompah-Band & Union Billiards Squad into it. But for now there's just me.

I've hung my backpack on the handle of the door. It is a simple blue and white backpack. I have had it for more than a decade – Sam and I bought it on Edgware Road in London. There is a photograph of William Carnegie standing outside the shop where we bought it.

Trifle

We made trifle. It is called Caitlin’s Special Sunrise Trifle. Like the Chinese, the kids need to give things awesome names. Our kung fu teacher tells us that the reason the ultra-deadly move in Kung Fu is called the 8 fists of fury, is because it sounds hectic. And so the next guy names his move the 9 fists of fury. Similarly the kids need to name their creations <Name>’s  <Special/Super/Surprise/Ultra-awesome><Object>. This is also why cooking appeals to them. With food you can use outlandish adjectives like “refried” – surely one up on just plain fried – and inexplicably unpronouncable words like "coulis". Over Christmas my mother captured Will’s attention with Jamie Oliver’s Refried Chistmas Pudding Surprise (unfortunately it has coulis in it). And so Caitlin’s Special Sunrise Trifle:

4-week breath-hold

I am walking through the house barefoot and I step on something sticky, like a piece of tape. Nothing gross or squishy - just sticky. I lift my foot and peel the thing from my heel. It is a semi-see-through sticker about the size of a football field if a football field was the size of 6 tabs of acid... anyhow, it is a smallish sticker. It has a picture of a smiling little kid with a straight-cut fringe, and next to the kid the letters "Ha" and then on a line below that the letters "ppy". "Ha-ppy" - in bright chunky letters with stars or dots or something in them. I feel that somehow the universe is asking me if I am happy - or perhaps inviting me to be happy - and this is just kind of how it thought maybe it was best to get hold of me. A sticker on my foot.

2-jersey Sunday

I finally – finally – got both my jerseys back:

Jersey 1:

This jersey was discarded 10 days past, into the back of Ross’ car, once I'd had enough tequila to be impervious to cold. I failed to even consider its existence when we dropped the car off at somewhere or other – time, space and consideration were being… flexible – and hopped into a different car. Its value in my life didn’t surface into consciousness the next morning at breakfast. Nor later, when I took my leave of Ross and the general neighbourhood in which his car was parked. I think someone slipped some denial into my hangover.

A 3-day weekend

“Dax! Show me that urine charge!” says Audrey-Rose. This is what I hear Audrey say to her dog, because she has been talking to it about not weeing in the house. She’s giving it a pep talk about having the self-respect to not wee on the floor when someone pets it. And I am stoned so I hear her say “urine charge”, not “you’re in charge”. “Dax! Show me that you’re in charge!” The dog’s tail wags like a metronome try to keep up with a hamster in a hamsterwheel.

Saturday, 5am - Sunday, 2am

I ask Caitlin how her day went:
The new boy sits behind me in class.
Oh cool. Is he nice?
Ya - his name's Conrad.
Has he got 3 heads?
No - he's polish.
...
It's like in Europe, but also in Asia. Its up, and right next to Germany. I sit at the front of the class so I've got the globe on my desk.

The scooter is not as self-balancing as a car. This has to do with the car having 4 wheels, so being more like a motorised coffee table, and the scooter being more like a pogo stick with hyperactive kangaroo strapped to the back. Umbilo Discount Liquors is open at 6pm on Saturday - unlike some other bottle stores I might mention. Umbilo Discount Liquors has miles of Paarl Perle, whisky with bad black labels, and quarts of beer. It also had a bottle of Jose Quervo gold, but it doesn't anymore. The cubby for the scooter is under the seat - it is nifty, by which I mean it is pretty damn small and doesn't hold nearly enough. It doesn't hold a 6-pack of Amstels. It does, by some divine whim of the modern Chinese manufacturing miracle, hold a whole bottle of tequila. The house has an amazing view down over Glenwood and over the harbour - in the evening the lights twinkle in the heat haze. Later, much, much later, while we help the girl who is throwing up into her lovely black hair, it feels like we're looking at a nebula forming star-systems filled with promises of a new world.

This photo and the next one are how to make a cupcake according to William. At the top you can see the tools and workspace necessary, and at the bottom you can see the finished result.

Grey Thursday

I think they've added an extra teaspoon of sugar to a Nosh bar. But maybe it is just the weather, that has been most restful on the eyes, that makes the chocolate taste so sweet.

This week I have procured what is known as a bunch of cool shit:
1 x bunny suit lego mini fig, with lego carrot;
1 x tarzan boy lego mini fig, with monkey buddy;
1 x bride lego mini fig. She has a veil, a tiara and a bouquet;
1 x Omnitrix courtesy of my mom entering a magazine competition on behalf of the small boy in the orange shirt;
1 x small dead beautiful green snake, killed by a cat, and destined to enhance the zombie graveyard scenario the kids have set up in the back yard;
1 x pair Havaianas; grey, with a fine brazillian teal-yellow-teal stripe running along the sole
1 x haircut which has tamed the flocks of my sideburns;
1 x iPhone which has wakened all of my considerations about product design - my iPhone has a protective cover, and a screen-guard, so now it looks nothing like the thing on apple.com/iphone that carries its own reflection wherever it goes.

I have done a lot of walking this week - around the neighbourhood. These photos are all from the same day, within about 1km of each other, from 6:30, to about 5pm. From the top: Jacaranda trees on Ferguson  -  table at Juliette's house, early morning, leaving for work  -  alley on the walk that gets the kids to school, about half an hour later  -  William biking down Ferguson, at about 5pm, on the way back from Woolworths, with dinner.

What happened to me at Afrika Burn, attempted in real full sentences

(written the week after Afrika Burn 2012 - May)

I smell, and look, like I’m wearing a wolf. I also smell of diesel because it is splattered down my shirt and shorts. I check in my bags. They are soaking wet - the backpack is wet, and the tent bag is wet. How did I land up like this - an abomination to the squeak and shiny internationalism of the airport. What could have happened to me? What rolling waves of delirium could I have succumbed to?

On Sunday morning I rose. From my astoundingly good blow-up mattress, I rose up and peeked out of my tent. Above the mountains out back behind 6-ish the sun was shedding red up through the clouds - it was just before dawn. I pulled on my sorry-ass jeans, socks, crocs, a new shirt and jersey and scarf and walked out into the sprawling rubble of tents, caravans, roadways that make up Tankwa Town. I walked off through 9-ish out onto the playa. The guys by the Stasie Kafee were getting ready to shoot their anvil. I stood back and blocked my ears as hard as I could. The guy lit the trace of gunpowder with a cigarette and ran for it. It took about 2 seconds and then, with a massively loud explosion, the anvil shot up into the air about 4 metres, and landed perfectly, as the universal laws of gravity intended, on its foot. Perfectly heavy and not in any way suggestive of its recent loftiness. Morning had broken.