One red balloon drifted singularly across my line of vision as I hung out the washing, interrupting the flow of thought that I was having to write this first blog entry from my new location. Where did it come from? Where is it going? Was it from a children's party? Is some wee kid sad?
The list - I'm not there, I'm here, The weather, Don't change the blog format or you won't get anything written, Dream diary
Afrikaners
Living in a cage
Average day
What I'm up to/plans?
People I've met?
Who am I writing for?
Writing the projects, The future
Victor and I's relationship
Advertising, Who's interested
Promotion
Spelling
Insects
Blog topics - Cafés, Rhinos, Religion, NHS, Benefits, Union Buildings, Holiday, Diets. The door just swung violently closed as the breeze from the both the bedroom and the living room sucked it shut with a sudden bang.
Should I go swimming instead?
So I'm in Pretoria a blue collar city that is widely accepted as the capital of South Africa. South Africa has different capital cities for different things. Pretoria is the Administrative Capital because the President and the Cabinet hold their seat here. Cape Town is the Legislative Capital because that's where the government sit. Bloemfontein is the Judicial Capital because it is where the Supreme Court of Appeal is. If I could be bothered to find out more as to why these three things were in the locations that they are I'm sure that I could probably piece together some kind of idea why South Africa has three capitals. It seems a little odd that nobody thought it might be a good idea to try and put all these things in the one place, if only to cut down on petrol costs. I'm going to take a mildly educated guess that it is something to do with the provinces. The provinces were once independent countries and it is possible that retaining these capitals maintained regional identity as well as historical continuity. Which is somewhat of an original and tolerant idea. Wouldn't it be great if we could realign the capitals of the UK according to a countries strong point. No need for Scotland to vote for independence after all (not). Oh and lets put a little word in for Joburg, not to be forgotten as the Crime capital and the largest metropolitan area in South Africa, you'd think that it would be boldly labelled Financial Capital given the volume of actual gold mines it's stacked upon but no Crime Capital will have to do. Weird uh all the gold and all the poverty and crime all rolled up together, or maybe not.
Pretoria being and administrative capital as you can imagine is home to a straight up and down kinda bunch. Well accept for the fact that bribing the police seems to be somewhat of a pastime as well as avoiding any kind of traffic fine whatsoever. Which is some what admirable and yet on the other hand disheartening as this is after all meant to be home to what are essentially bureaucrats. Graphic Designers, Information Technologists, Financial Advisors, Pcsyhcologists and Lawyers seem to be high among the garden variety Pretorian. Then I forget I've been living in Penryn for ten years where hippies, trustafarians, the sqautocracy and general drop outs are in high supply, not to forget about the highly aspiring artists and artisans, no wonder I feel out of place. Maybe it's like being in London but without the public transport system.
The weather here as you might imagine is hot. The last few days its been up in the 36C area and since arrival in November it has barely dropped below 25C a thing I thought almost impossible living in the UK all this time. It rains most days in the late afternoon, the rain is usually introduced by unpredictable gust of winds then accompanied by a large sometimes almost biblical thunderstorm which you can hear gathering pace for up to 20kms away. The gathering thunder sounds like giants footsteps growing ever closer and the lighting when very close can only be compared to the sound of a shattering glass being smashed over your head it's pretty hair raising stuff but mainly harmless or so I'm told. You are more likely to be hit by lightening that attacked by a shark!
Afrikaners I am finding to be somewhat insular. It doesn't come as much of surprise but still there is it. It may well be a long list of little things that would be to minute to translate into the written word but still over time the successive blog posts might back up what I am saying. My own current experience of living in a cage might possibly provide support as to why. I don't live in an actual cage, though some people through out my life might have consider that set up somewhat helpful to me and others. However we do have a lot of security in fact there is a lot of security over all. Here, in Olympus is far better than the last place in Garsfontein which was like operating in a version of the Wolfenstein, lots of metal gates and bars on the windows that were I suspect intended to be slightly less intimidating once painted magnolia. In Olympus we don't have bars on the windows we just have a metal gate across the door but still a gate and a door, it's a little to much for the girl who used to go to the shops with the door wide open. The only reason that we do not have bars on the windows I am lead to believe is because we have external security who guard the whole complex (I haven't figured out if they have guns yet). They let us in and out of the complex via a security barrier and they also patrol the whole complex on foot possibly every fifteen minutes. Quickly it doesn't seem as invasive as you might think. They're not like British bouncers (overly aggressive due to either steroid addiction or small penis size both probably a result of extreme insecurity) No, they smile are pleasant, courteous and helpful. We have a security tab that opens the gate and after 11pm they have to come and open a large secondary gate for us. Loosing the keys is not an option. It's funny the last time that I had a security tab was back when I lived in a high rise is Glasgow, oh how things have changed.
So my average day consists of getting up, weighing myself, taking Victor to work and hanging out at his Mum's who is for the moment my only friend. Or lets say available friend, she very nice along with her sister too Gwen. Maybe going to the pool. Getting the groceries and sleeping. When I first arrived I slept a lot a combination of getting used to the heat and the altitude. Pretoria is at 4500ft so sometimes the oxygen can be a little thin. I am still doing my own washing, we do not have a maid or 'domestic worker' as we have a one bedroom flat much like something you might expect to find in the UK and seems a little to small to have staff. Around about 6.30pm I pick Victor up for work, then I hang out at his work until he actually finishes. Then we drive home, cook dinner and what DVD's. So pretty normal and unexciting stuff.
Since I've been here due to the high percentage of the time I'm in a bikini I've become marginally obsessed by my weight. I've cut out carbs. I was sticking to protein only for a while but that was impossible over Christmas and now I've just cut out carbs well except for the chocolate ones of course. Any tips welcome!
This week I started out on beginning some of the projects that I have been thinking about, exhibitions, empowerment projects. I'm starting with trying to find an exhibition space and some artists who might want to fill it I have no money, so I'm curious to see how things might work out and excited to find out who I might meet along the way. Inadvertently while speaking to my only real contact I met up with a guy called Jauffré again who runs an organisation called 'Our Voice'
http://ourvoiceorganisation.org/ that looks to raise awareness of and support refugees in Africa, he himself is refugee from the Congo. I've agreed to help Jaufré focus the 'Our Voice' message and have agreed to mentor him once a week.
I haven't really met any new people yet and am mainly hanging out with Victor's friends and associates.
I'm still working on a few of my projects including the Ryn CD and the short stories, maybe one day they will be finished sorted and shelved. I didn't even managed to transcribe all my spiral-bound notebooks. Maybe that was a little to ambitious to begin with, so the name sticks, besides Times New Roman, letters, words, paragraphs and punctuation stored on hard drive doesn't sound that poetic.
The future well who knows maybe we'll make it there someday it is 2013 after all I'm sure a few are shocked it worked out well. Unless the Mayan calender is to be reinterpreted yet again or maybe just irretrievably shelved?
The relationship well that's good. If you want a more romantic update why not go see Lisa in Number 20.
Today I was presented for the first time with the interesting and perpetual dilemma of advertising? Now that I don't make any money; correction, have, should I be using my blog to generate income is this selling out? Will I make any money, nobody follows me anyway. Though occasionally I seem to get one random hit. I'm not really that bothered. However I love Jenna Marbles
and she doesn't seem to have to do much though (I'm sure she'd scowl and swear at me if she was ever to read this) and she seems to be making money, she's a vlogger. I'm sure she'd also go blah, blah, fucking blah at about paragraph two. Even though there are no paragraphs when I eventually get round to posting this at about midnight tonight.
Well I'm pretty impressed by my blogging today. At first I got caught up in the idea of changing the whole format of the blog and then I realised that although productive it wasn't the kind of productive I was looking for. Though hopefully changes will be made soon. Then decision about advertising and the such. Who knows and who cares is all I can imagine is the response to that besides I'd need people to look at my blog for that to be anywhere near worth while. Which leads us to the Promotion can you tell I'm just ticking things off the list?
Yes I'm going to have to spell check and edit this whole thing I've already noticed a consistent pattern of using far more words than I need to. Frankly Victor is going to be home from work soon. I haven't done the washing up, not that he's that bothered but I haven't finished this blog either. What happened to all that additional writing I was going to do? Damn the list but I'll keep going for the overwhelming sense of satisfaction it will bring me (I'm hopeful, what can I say). I also believe that after stopping this madness of writing I will edit this blog after a short break and get this posted!!!!! Or will it me relegated to draft, it's to long. The inner argument begins and the spelling decline into a horrible mess. arrrggggghhhhh
Insects, they are fucking everywhere dead, alive, noisy. Our door light is like the beacon for all insects trying to make it to another dimension and they are not cuddly. There are praying mantas, big ugly stick insects, huge grasshoppers and by huge I mean five inches. The wasps look freakish with almost two separate parts for their bodies. There are giant ants probably capable of carrying of a whole human fully conscious. Did I mention that they die everywhere, every morning there is a whole new pile of carcasses piled up behind the door. The bigger beetles sound the incoming choppers and well the mosies. The little bastards, it's like guerrilla warfare, you hear them coming in the middle of the night, the sound scares the sweet bejusus out of you. Nevermind that I'm allergic to insect bites. Over the last few weeks we've seen parts of my anatomy swell up to the size of a dinner plate, is that a good description? Apparently there is no cure accept to get used to. We now have this plug in thing for the wall that is suppose to deter the little cretins, though it took about several product trial and errors to find one that works, so we can't open the windows, 36C and no open window can you imagine. Luckily the Lemmers (Victor's Mum & Dad) generously donated a fan to our cause. Which is a good thing because Victor no longer has to awake in the middle of the night to attack the fuckers can you imagine and 6ft4inch guy jumping around a bedroom at two in the morning trying to crush them with his bare hands, that is not an awakening that anybody welcomes. Saying that he likes to try and swat as many flies as he can in the day time too. Quite often he locks himself in a room with nothing but a fly swatter for company and he's in there a long time.
At first I thought I'd start a blog about all the cafés that are here, some are very nice particularly Carlton Café
http://www.carltoncafe.co.za/ in Menlo Park.
The menu is incredible and the sweet masala coffee is mindblowingly tasty, the most original coffee adaptation I've ever come across and I don't even drink coffee, is that a good or a bad thing? Then I realised the café theme was limiting so I'll just keep you posted.
I'm skipping the rhinos it's to big issue and probably deserves a dedicated blog post.
Religion it's a big thing here they say prayers all the time even the more liberal arty people.
We have no medical aid should I loose a limb, catch malaria or simply need a tooth removed I'll be adding a donate button to this account so you can all help out. On the other hand you can tell me fuck off lets face it I've done pretty well out of the UK system so far. I just ask you to think on all the good work I've done for the community in the process.
Almost there the Union Buildings are in Pretoria check out Invictus, that's Pretoria in the background. One of my friends lives in a flat in shot, see if you can guess which one?
We went on holiday to the cape at a backpacker called Wild Spirit
http://www.wildspiritlodge.co.za/, it wasn't sure if it was a backpackers or in fact a shamanic retreat centre. I'm a bit of a purist I like to know. Anyways it was on the coast there were big waves, lots of sun and some invisible sharks lurking behind the wave line. Didn't see any and everyone told me they didn't come into the shallows I'm not convinced having seen a basking shark about 30ft of shore in falmouth. yes I know basking sharks are herbivores or algaevores or whatever you want to call it but still if a fish that big can get into the shallows there so can a great white. Victor swam with Dolphins though. oh and we braied a lot. that's our social life braiing. Oh and the highlight was meeting Jon Simpson on the beach, what a treat that was (we didn't speak).
Weird dreams lots of them so I woke up with he specific mission to record my dream after having a particularly weird nightmare which included the stealing of and destruction of my new bicycle. Lucy form the little yellow house breaking down in tears after having a conversation with a woman who was not so sympathetic about the loss of her baby who was sixth month old. the upsetting part being that the woman didn't recognise her baby as a child as it wasn't able to walk or talk. Some kinda weird primary school reunion where someone threatened to beat me up via letter but instead I suspected stole a ruined my bicycle. the strange unexplained death of two girls and and adult form the village. Identities undisclosed by a strange unidentified creature, which I then went in search of and might have been bear, in fact there were several bears. There was a beach and much much more but now that it is later on I can't remember. All this to be recorded in the beautiful journal Belle
gave me many many moons ago......
