It’s Smethers ! on YouTube

Dearest dearest dearest FFF’s (Family, Friends and Followers).

I started this blog in 2009 when we moved to the North West Province. Thanks to all of your encouragement, comments, likes and shares, as well as your personal emails,  I kept writing for 10 years. I will hopefully always still write.  But I am also going to start a YouTube channel called It’s Smethers! If you want to subscribe and follow me there, or just like a couple of videos, I would obviously be happy and grateful.

Forgive me if you have already seen the videos that I have uploaded there on Facebook.  I promise I will start making some new ones too.

Look after yourselves during these scary times, and know that I love you all.

 

Cyril keep your hands off that cup.

That cup does not belong to you.  It belongs to Siya Kolisi and the South African rugby team and all their supporters.  And beyond that, the cup belongs to all the South Africans who work together tirelessly every day for South Africa and who since the economic downtrend, have been working even harder. 

I loved every moment of South Africa’s victory on Saturday.  But I was slightly irked by the international thrill at our being lead to unified victory by a black captain. Anyone who is amazed that Siya Kolisi could do that, hasn’t been living on the ground in South Africa for the past 20 years. Since I started working professionally in 1996, I have had mainly black bosses, and like their white counterparts, some of have been mediocre leaders, some have been downright bad, and mostly they have been highly competent and inspiring. There should be no amazement that we could work together and win together under black leadership.  That is what we do in South Africa. We have been having it.  You see it in corporate offices, in government departments and in the NGO sector. Rugby, as well know, is in fact coming to the party a bit late.  

And added to that, I was irked by the implication that we are a country that needs to be unified.  Other than the right and left extremist groups, which are comparatively small in numbers, as a country we have Unification 101, Masters Cum Laude and a PHD in that department all under our belt. We started working on that for glories sake in 1994 in the hope and belief that we could all go forward as a nation together. Now in 2019 the people on the ground are putting foot on unification even more as we try to put the brakes on an economy that feels like a runaway train going backwards down a hill. We are heading for a railway siding called Depression, where the threat is that our train will crash never to get back on the rails.

Unification has become a matter of survival. A business of a family member of ours is being driven 6am to 8pm every day by black and white people together.  In a normal economy, they would all be banking the bucks for a holiday in Mauritius. Our favourite restaurant owner in Joburg, stopped trying to chase away the street people who slept on his covered area outside his eatery. They needed this space to be slightly safer from street muggers.  Understanding their plight and realising the fruitlessness of opposing them, our restaurant owner started co-operating with them.  “Okay guys, you can sleep out here every night, but can you please clean up after yourselves and make sure you are gone by 7 in the morning?”  It became win-win. Until the economy stopped growing, and the restaurant which has been highly successful for the past 10 years, closed down. 

We don’t need to be unified as South Africans.  In 1994 we needed that, and in the years since the, most of us in one way or another, have been working on that and we have been having it.  Now, more than ever we are unified.  What we need now is to be led. Or if you cannot lead us, politicians, which you are proving you cannot do, then at least don’t stand in the way of how given the right economic circumstances, South Africans with all their creativity and ingenuity, will lead themselves. 

Brian Habana was not joking when he suggested that Siya Kolisi runs for president next. It was the closest anyone came to using the moment to making a much needed political statement. With Cyril Ramaphosa holding the cup just to the left of him, it was a daring sugar coated moment of treason.  It needed to be said, and well done for saying it, Brian.  

I am tired of people saying that that Zuma was a symptom not a cause of corruption, that Cyril’s hands are tied and that he would change things effectively if he could.  The truth of it all is that it takes one person in a position of power to move against what may feel like a gravitational pull of what is most likely to happen, for things to be changed for the good forever.  Mandela showed us all of that, and he deserved to be holding that cup with Francois Pienaar in 1995.  

Cyril, you keep your hands off that cup until you have earned it.

Where to Find Angels

I have just had one of those amazing days that ended with me standing in Kings Cross station staring up at the train timetable. It was one of those big electronic ones that you see in movies. If like me you are relatively new to public transport systems, you can be forgiven for thinking that Wall Street has a branch at Kings Cross and that all these lucky commuters are checking their share values on their way home. It has taken me a couple of trips to understand that the platform number of the arriving and departing trains is only announced 10 minutes before, and that I am not looking at an exclusive commuter investor club. 

But today as I stared at the time table, I was thinking more about Betty than I was about platforms or profits. Betty and I had just said goodbye to each other with a commitment to remain life long friends.

I had only known her for one day, and my feelings towards her hadn’t always been soft. In fact earlier on in the day I felt distinctly otherwise. She was sitting next to me in a fundraising training presentation session that morning.  My Director had said to me, “You probably know all this stuff, but if you want to go we will gladly pay the fees for you.” Keen to network and find out more about the sector in London, I signed up. I could tell from the first few minutes of chatting to people over coffee, and then later as the presentation started, that this was all very much old hat to me.   After my 26 years in fundraising in South Africa, even though I was now in an international capital, I could feel that I was in the heavyweight division even here. I will admit to having had arrogant thoughts of “I could be up there delivering this presentation” and “my slides are much better”. My reflections made me feel slightly uncomfortable about even being there in the first place – I was pretending that I needed to learn, whereas in actual fact I was a master.  

In the lead up to the introductions, I found myself worrying about how to give my elevator speech. How could I speak honestly about my experience while maintaining a level of humility? If I got it right I could do a pitch here that would be step-one in building my international reputation as a fundraising consultant. 

I had almost worked out my angle when our facilitator had the brilliant idea that we should rather introduce ourselves to the person sitting next to us, and then we would each be given a chance to introduce the other person to the group.  So I listened politely to Betty’s life story, to how she had lost her sight in 1984 and started an organisation that produced a Talking Newspaper for blind people. Being 91 years old Betty was ever so slightly scatty and not really up to speed with the purpose of this exercise.  So I interrupted her as politely as I could as much as I could to cram bits and pieces about myself into our conversation. When the trainer called us all back into the group, I hoped that she had enough to go on at this my debut into the international fundraising world.

I held my breathe while Betty introduced me. “This is… what was your name again dear?… this is Catherine.  She has just come to live here from South Africa because she wants to learn about how to fundraise, and she really wants to help people.”  The facilitator beamed at me.  “Welcome to the UK, Catherine, and welcome to the world of fundraising!”. I could see everyone else in the group thinking, “Strange ticket to come in on… left Africa to come to the UK to help people?… Will avoid her at tea time, clearly delusional… wonder how she got this far?”

Thanks Betty, thanks for nothing. I shifted over to the edge of my seat, moving as far away from her as I could,  and crossed my arms and legs in a passive aggressive 49 year old sulk.

So you may wonder how I came to leave Betty as a life long friend at the end of the day? 

Well half way through the morning I decided to get over myself when she mentioned that she needed to use the bathroom. I offered to guide her there.  Any irritation that I had felt towards her for ruining my pitch transformed into compassion when she came out of the cubicle poised and at home with her helplessness. She couldn’t get her petticoat straight as she had tucked it into her stockings by accident and she couldn’t find it. Could I help her right it? I unscrambled her confused clothes thinking poignantly about people who I know are helping my own mother with such tasks on the other side of the world. I suddenly I liked Betty. 

The helping went back and forth for the rest of the day.  I offered to help her get to Kings Cross. She accepted my offer and she then found the way for both of us when my google maps froze and I didn’t know where to go next. “We need to keep left and go across three crossings, I think,”  She explained, “That’s the way I got here this morning.” Tap tap tap went her cane.  When my GPS still didn’t work and I was wondering if we were indeed walking in the right direction, Betty enlisted the help of a German tourist to direct us.  And on the way she told me of how she had lost her sight in an accident when a car knocked into her and she was thrown onto the pavement and both her retinas were torn.  And how she lives by herself now but still goes out regularly.  “How do you do it?”, I asked her in amazement thinking about the fact that she was negotiating streets in London that she had never visited, with only the help of her white cane. “It’s what I have to do to survive.” She explained, beaming up at me with eyes that couldn’t see. 

When we eventually got to Kings Cross she wanted to help me get to my train. But I wanted to help her get to her train. She insisted she would be alright on her own. I insisted. She conceded. It was rush hour and the platforms were crowded.  “So you don’t think you should rather move to Kent to be closer to your daughter?,” I asked her. “Oh no!” She says, “I would be far too isolated there! I am happier and more independent here in in the city.”  And I watched as the human side of London made way for her as struggled round corners, and waited patiently while her hand cautiously found the escalator rail.  Once we were safely going up, Betty turned and explained, “Those of us who are blind always say to each other that there are more angels on earth than there are in heaven”. I see that she is right. “It’s when you are indoors that the isolation and loneliness starts,” she explains. 

I said goodbye to Betty just before making a total mess of trying to get her safely onto the Jubilee line. “How do you know where the doors will open?” I asked her as we waited for the train and exchanged numbers. “I don’t know.” She said, “I just take pot luck.” We weren’t close enough and when we eventually made our way to the doors they closed insensitively, and dangerously, on her little 91 year old frame. Before I could do anything about it 4 angels disguised as commuters wrenched the doors open for her so that she could redo minding the gap and was able to get onto the train in time.

Looking up at the share prices on Kings Cross station I thought about the profundity of what Betty had said.  And I thought that as a newcomer to a country, I would do well to live by her wisdom for a while yet.

You have to step out and break your isolation if you want the angels to find you.

Take Care!

I’ve worked out why everyone always says “Take care” in our town. It’s because of what could happen on the bridal path that you will find just beyond the allotments.

For the most part our town is a strict follower of Health and Safety and to their credit, they have taken it even further. They have extended the concept to dogs.  Almost every shop in our town has  sign that says, “Well behaved dogs are welcome to come in.”  The one that blew my mind, one that I thought could have qualified itself as a “dogs to stay outside”, was an Art Gallery.  They have a sign, “Dogs are welcome! In fact, please do bring them in!”. If I were the owner of the art gallery I would reserve the right to keep the 4 legged hairy leg-lifting creatures very faraway from my portraits and landscapes… but not in this East Anglian town. If they aren’t allowed in for one or other bizarre reason like it is a crystal antique shop or a butcher, then you will find a bowl of water placed outside for the dog to rehydrate while it’s owner shops.   

In most places in the world a newcomer will be told “Don’t worry, you will make friends as soon as your children start school.” In this town, I have been told by someone who doesn’t yet know she is my new best friend “Don’t worry, as soon as Black Jack arrives from Africa, you will meet people.” I thought we were nuts enough to be flying our dog over at high costs instead of giving him to another family member to love and to hold. But no! The locals are all waiting to welcome him with open arms ready to do “healings” on him in case he has suffered trauma from the flight. 

So to get back to the bridle path.  When you walk out of this town, just a little way away from the shops that keep the dogs off the streets, beyond the relics of the town walls that belonged to Will the C, you will come across a rural railway crossing as you take your Sunday afternoon amble with your vulnerable 11 and 13 year old.  And this rural railway crossing is completely unprotected, except for a little wooden gate and a sign.  Beyond the little wooden gates, silent bullet fast British trains go zooming past at such speed, that if you were to be in their way by mistake or misfortune, I do believe that the force of the impact would send you into the atmosphere and that there would be no mortal remains left around which any family in the developed or developing world, could grieve your passing. 

I can imagine that at some stage some people would have complained to the local authorities.

“Sir, the people are complaining.”

“Are they now, Jones, what about?”

“They are complaining Sir, about the unprotected railway crossing on the bridal path just outside of town, Sir. They are saying that having trains that travel at the speed of light that could potentially shoot a body to the stars, Sir, they are saying that these crossings aren’t in line with national Health and Safety Policies, Sir.  They are saying they want something done about it, Sir.”

“I see.  And what do the people want done about it, Jones?”

“Sir, they are saying that something like a siren warning the people of the trains or a pedestrian bridge, or some booms should be put up, Sir.  The people are saying that they have seen this done effectively in other parts of the world, Sir.”

“Really, Jones? What other parts of the world then?”

“They mentioned Africa, Sir, and Fish Hoek in particular, Sir.”

“Okay, I see, Jones. Well, the people do have a point. It does sound a little dangerous and chancy having very fast trains zooting through unprotected crossings just outside of town, Jones.  But before we do anything about it, can I ask if all the other national Health and Safety measures have been implemented?”

“Which ones Sir?”

“Well, are all the children in the country wearing shoes all the time, Jones?”

“They are, Sir.”

“And have we put up those electronic diagrams on the trains that show people which carriage they are in, and how heavily loaded each carriage happens to be at that moment?”

“We have indeed Sir, although I have forgotten why we did that.”

“Yes, I have too Jones, but are they up at least?”

“Yes sir, they are indeed.”

“Right.  What about poetry on the underground trains to stimulate the passengers mentally and to comfort them emotionally?  Do we have poems on the tubes?”

“We do Sir.”

“And are all the water bowls for dogs outside shops filled up everyday Jones?”

“They are, Sir.” 

“Alright then, if that is all done I suppose we can look to dangerous pedestrian crossings in the face of high speed trains… I tell you what Jones…”

“What, Sir?” 

“Until we have it covered, why not put up a sign for the people?”

‘Certainly Sir, what should the sign say Sir?”

“Oh, I don’t know… Tell the people to “listen for the trains”.

“The silent ones, Sir?”

“Yes, the silent ones.  Tell the people to listen for the trains, and because you are right they are silent trains, tell the people also to be careful when crossing.”

“Right Sir. Am on to it, Sir.”

And that is why when you reach the incredibly dangerous unprotected bridal path crossing outside town you will find a sign that says, “Listen for (silent and very fast) trains, and Take Care while crossing.” 

Will’s Castle

So I had to google William the Conqueror last night, for reasons that will become clear when I finish this blog.

William the conqueror sounds like a spoilt brat according to my reading.  At 8 years old while living in Normandy in France, he became titled and important, when the King of that country awarded him some properties. “Here you are, be a Duke, take this land …  off you go then!”  Along the way, a little bit later, Edward the Confessor, the then King of England, said to our Will, “Don’t worry sonny, I have plans for you! I confess that I have had no babies of my own, so when I die you can have this island”.  William liked this idea enormously, and set his sights on ruling England like a child sets his sights on his new bicycle or the X Box he has been promised for Christmas. 

But then someone called Harold Godwin came along and ruined his plans.  The name Harold Godwin doesn’t sound to me, like a name given to someone living in 1066, or someone who wants to become King.  Harold Godwin sounds like it could be a a clothing range in Woolworths alongside David Jones or a writer to rival Ken Follet. Harold Godwin could also be the name of a man who worked in the same bank all his life in Sussex,  and who is now retired and has his dog bring him his slippers every night.  He doesn’t sound like someone who lived in England at that time, and who wanted the same Christmas present as that what William wanted.  But it turns out, according to Wikipedia, that he did.  Harold also wanted to be the King of England.  “It’s not fair! If he has one I want one too! And if there aren’t two to go around, then I want the one that he wants!” 

“I know what I am going to do,” thought Harold to himself, “I am going to sit here and wait for William to invade from France, and then I am going to attack him back and send him packing into the sea. (This turn of phrase was adopted centuries later by South Africans wanting to send other South Africans back into the sea for similar reasons). 

So Harold waited and waited, looking out across the sea to Normandy, until someone tapped him on the shoulder and said, “Sorry to disturb you Sir, but I think you need to take a look up there … some chaps from Norway are approaching us with clubs and stuff, and I think they may also want England for Christmas.” So Harold took one quick look across the sea to Normandy, and when he couldn’t see William, he shot up north and defeated the Norwegians. Then Harold raced back down just in time to find William invading, but not in time to rest before the next battle.  William and his garcons were fresh, not having just done battle as Harold and his chaps had, so the Battle of Hastings was fought and William won.  

And the reason that I need to tell you all about William the Conqueror, is that the remains of his castle are about 70m away from our front door, here in Stamford.  Give or take 900 odd years, Will and us would ‘of been neighbours.  I would ‘of done ‘is washin’ from me cottage here, I would ‘of”. Or I would ‘of taken what I now know is called a “book-it”, and put water in it, and washed the castle floors, I would ‘of.  Wif me book-it. 

And I know it is called a book-it, because I wanted to wash my own floors this morning and I went to the hardware store and asked if I could buy a bucket.  “A wha’ love?” I was asked back.  I said it louder and clearer, “A bucket.” A wha? “A bucket”, I repeated in my best clipped flat South African English.  “A wha?” she persisted. I used my arms and hands and my charades skills to show the kind lady what a bucket looks like, until she realised what I was on about. “Oh! A book-it!” she said, “They are upstairs.” 

And they were. The book-its are upstairs in the shop, and Will’s castle walls are just around the corner.  And my mind is boggling at how domesticity and history are plaiting their way through our lives in this town. 

What to do with the “Hiya” and the recycling

Living in the UK for a total of 72 hours now, has left me with two major problems. What to do with the “Hiya” and how to understand the recycling.   I will get to the “Hiya” later as it is my major concern. If I recycle properly I may only save the planet, whereas if I can understand the “Hiya” properly, I could make a new best friend.  

So wanting to be good citizens, and not to be kicked off this island for interfering with national health and safety, Herman and I looked at the council website.  (We do have neighbours, but with the internet you don’t need to talk to them anymore. Which is a pity because it limits access to new best friends.  Now, instead of being able to knock on their door and ask “Could you give me an idea of how the recycling works here?” and then getting invited in for a cup of tea and the beginning of a lifelong friendship, one resorts to looking at your own computer screen, which is something you were doing in Joburg anyway).

I am sure that with time and with a lot of practise, I will know how to recycle.  But right now, I fear “it’s going to be the death of me”. This is what I understood from looking at the website:  there are three bins – a black one, a green one and another coloured one.  (I look out the window and verify that we have three bins in our garden, they are all silver – but I can work with this. It just means I must imagine they are coloured. I can do that).  Then somewhere along the line there is also a pink bag that does something in one of these coloured bins.  And then all you have to do is separate out plastic and glass (but not paper or tins?), and general household waste (but not garden waste, garden waste goes into another bin).  Then it seems that the general household waste is collected on a weekly basis (which is what I am used to, and I can do this) but not the other things.  The other things have their special collection date, which is not weekly.  It is rather every alternate Tuesday for one bin, then every other Thursday for the other bin.  I think it is also possible that the they said something about this all changing depending on which side of the equinox you find yourself.  

So what I gather is that I have to hold on to a lot of recycling for a long time.  And what worries me about this is that our new house is so small, that if I have to hold on to the recycling for just one week, our tiny house will be full …. And not just that, I can see what is going to happen on national news if this goes wrong, “I am standing here today in front of a cottage in Lincolnshire.  The nation has been rocked by the death of an entire family, due to recycling. The Holtzhausen’s obeyed all the laws, but whereas the washer woman who lived in their 1706 cottage in the 18th century died of tuberculosis, the Holtzhausens who occupied it in 2019 all died of Listeriosis. It is suspected that the Listeriosis grew in the yoghurt cartons that they stored under the stairs while waiting for the summer solstice to occur before they could put them in a pink bag which would then go into a black bin for recycling. It took weeks to find the dead family, as with the internet being so helpful the family had not yet made contact with the neighbours, so no body even knew that they were living there”. 

But as I say, that problem is nothing compared to what to do with the “Hiya”. If you walk down the street in our new town you get “Hiya-ed” at every corner. On Wednesday of this week, I thought this was good news. I had hoped that “Hiya” was the beginning of a conversation, (and maybe a lifelong friendship). So I answered my first “Hiya’s” as politely as I could. I stopped, looked the Hiya-er in the eye, and answered solemnly,  “I am fine, thank you very much for asking, and how are you doing today?” I stopped myself from adding, “Can you help me understand recycling?” as I didn’t want to dive in too deep and get personal. But I gathered from the look of alarm I got for my “fine thank you very much for asking and how are you doing today?”,  that even that was diving in too deep.  My response was met with a blank stare of confusion and terror. “What does she want? To engage?” 

I know that one day I may feel integrated enough to reply “Hiya” to a “Hiya”, but right now if I did a “Hiya” back, not only would my children probably attack me with “Mom! Don’t say that! They will think you are mocking them! They can hear you aren’t British!” but I would also have a part of me that would would look at the other part of me that was Hiya-ing and the one part would feel embarrassed on behalf of the other part. It would be like calling myself Cathy instead of Catherine. It is simply just not what we do in our family.  

Then yesterday my confusion cleared up. I was walking past the baker who was baking his bread around the corner from our poor widow’s cottage (but in his bakery, not in the street itself).  He threw me a “Hiya” to which I unconsciously replied in “South African”.  And I realised then that I have been expecting way too much of the “Hiya” and the “Hiya” giver.  The “Hiya” doesn’t mean “How are you?”, as in “I want an answer”. It is not the British version of Namaste requesting that our inner gods see each other and that the connection could be the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

The “Hiya” is simply a “Howzit.” And it needs only to be answered by a “Howzit.” 

I mean a “Hiya”. 

The only person I have left to talk to.

Dear Mr. President

I hope that you don’t mind if I write to you from time to time. I know that I am completely irrelevant in your life and that you won’t even read my letters. Where in the daily life of the President of South Africa, is there room to read the musings and confusions of a middle class white woman on the state of the nation? This is going to be a one way correspondence. 

But the truth of it, Mr.President, is that I have no one else to talk to. I cannot talk to my husband, as we are both all too aware of the future uncertainties that await our children as a result of us choosing to stay in our homeland. 

I cannot talk to my mother about my worries, as she is now 75 years old and I feel at her age I should be letting her lean on me, rather than the other way around.

I cannot talk to my friends, as when I do, I feel bad about myself.  I feel like the worrisome alarmist who is always looking at life through an anxious lens. I console myself, that they can afford not to look through that lens, as they aren’t like my husband and I – we are both entrepreneurs. We are linked month to month to what is happening economically in the country.  We are not linked to the the security of a 9-5 job at an institution. 

When I do find a friend willing and able to face the political and economic darkness alongside me,  we both end up feeling depressed.  Then the age-old Afrikaans expression, “Help nie om te kla nie”  rings true and we walk away from our coffee date trying to recover from having been so vulnerable.  We drag our shame around with us for the rest of the day, until we pull ourselves together and find some hope.  And fortunately, we always manage to, even if sometimes it is only by dissing life on a global level. 

I have thought of going to speak to a therapist, but I am only on hospital plan with my medical aid, and at R800 odd a shot, I simply cannot afford it.  I have a million things I need to spend money on before I could have the luxury of a self-centred therapy session. School fees and food, then perhaps the treat of a haircut or some decent work clothes and some sports shoes for my son – these things spring to mind immediately.  Presuming of course, that we have already paid our domestic worker and gardener that month.

Mr. President, I am not the only one who will tell you that when you came into office in February, my whole world changed.  I tasted optimism for the first time in months, if not years.  My friend, Thabo, refused to share my optimism.  He said you are all the same, and until the government does something that improves the lives of the poor significantly, he will not be moved to political optimism. 

Thabo may be right. You may all be the same.  But I cannot allow that depressing reality into my consciousness. I need to believe there is hope, Mr.Pres, my soul is geared that way.  So I have put a photo of you up on my fridge, and in my own post-Christian, post-church way, I pray for you every day as I cook for my family. 

I don’t want you to think, Mr.President, that I think saving our country is up to you alone. I absolutely don’t.  As an entrepreneur with a social conscience, I work in the NPO sector as a fundraising consultant.  This means that I am inundated with phone calls from people all over South Africa. They are people of all races, all ages and all economic groups.  They have one thing in common.  They are all running NPOs that respond to the needs of the people in their communities.  For Pastor Dan, it is a feeding scheme in Kwamhlanga that looks after 70 orphans and vulnerable children on a daily basis. For Jabu, an ex-police officer,  its a crime prevention intervention that he wants to roll out across the whole of Kwa-Zulu Natal. Barbie and Simon, a married couple, have hair salon in Ballito, but they have agreed that Simon will now leave the salon and work voluntarily, full time, at the Early Childhood Centre that they started in an old shipping container in the township with the help of a small group of friends. The list and the stories are endless.

Cut away from my work life, and look around at my social circle – I don’t know anyone who is not doing something. My husband developed a share scheme business with a worker on our farm so that Joba can become an emerging farmer, and not remain a labourer. My mother spent her entire retirement mentoring township children on a weekly basis, to help them get through matric. My uncle volunteers his skills as a maths teacher doing the same. My aunt works at a Home for children who are victims of fire, teaching them how to crochet as a form of occupational therapy. The lady I stood next to in the Woolworths queue tells me she volunteers each week at the local primary school where she runs a reading group for children who don’t have access to books. Tant Elsie, despite her deep racist generalisations, is paying for her domestic worker’s children to get through university. If they aren’t in the trenches delivering the service, they sit on Boards and give of their professional services – Zamo, Janet, Sibonelo, Mauritz … the list is endless.  

And I haven’t even started talking about Black Tax. 

There is a fundraising principle, Mr.President, that explains that if you tell the story of one individual child who is suffering, you are more likely to move your audience to give, than if you give statistics. The story of little Eliza, who goes to bed clutching her teddy bear, assuring the toy that she believes and hopes that tomorrow there will be food, even if they are hungry tonight – this story will move people to give money, more than our saying that “1 in 4 children in South Africa are stunted due to malnutrition”.

Maybe that is true for giving. But perhaps for seeing, Mr.President, perhaps for seeing, it is different. Perhaps, for seeing, we do need to zoom out. If we could add up the statistics and the numbers of all the ordinary South Africans, who are  actively trying to do something to improve our country, Mr.President, I believe we would be moved to tears at the sheer number.  The statistics would have you on your knees in thankful gratitude.  You would say, “Thank you for holding this country together for me through the dark Zuma years, so that at least there is something left, no matter how fragile, for me to govern.”

We can and will, keep working, Mr. President. Know that we are not expecting it all from you and you alone. You have got social capital here that skriks for niks. But we need more than a little help from the top.

So please, Mr. President, don’t leave us alone. 

You are the only person I have left who I can talk to.

Any number of things can make me cry

Any number of things can make me cry.  I am not a hard nut to crack.  I get full points for checking in at all the usual things that make most people cry, like funerals, joyful news about babies being born, and beautiful music.

But I also have my own particular portfolio of situations that can reduce me to tears that may leave most of you confused: the skollie patrolie at the primary school, for example, can leave me tjanking.   I just find it so beautiful when the little pupils, all vulnerable and innocent in their 12 years, pit their flimsy weight against 3 ton vehicles, and wearing their bright neon vests, lower their thingy-ma-bobs with the stop sign on it, guaranteeing a safe passage across the road to the two most prized possessions in my world. It is Moses and the Red sea stuff!

Another of my weaknesses is the national anthem.  Sung anywhere, anytime.  Even before rugby matches.  And Michael Vlismas’s article about the Two Oceans Marathon and our being bound together as a force for good as everyday South Africans, despite what the politicians do to drive us apart.  Michael can make me cry. In fact, any incident where integration triumphs over segregation, and we find each other despite our differences, leads me to tears.

And voting.  I don’t think I will ever not find it moving to vote in South Africa. We are so heavily invested in voting here.  Historically, and currently.  I have sobbed at the South African Embassy in London when we voted there when we lived in England. I have cried at the Klipdrif Kontantwinkel in the North West Province when we caste our vote from our farm amidst the boere, and three weeks ago when we went to register to vote again at the Primary school in Joburg, I found myself barely able to talk to the party man who was canvassing gently with words that drove my despair and my hope for a miracle in our country deeper into my heart. “I have also got two children, eight and eleven,” he said, looking at Pippa and Nicolaas. “I also lie awake at night worrying about their future.”

“No need to work on me, Mr party man!  You have my vote!” I said internally, not managing to choke back my tears.  I started miming to Herman, “I am going to be going off with this man for the next few months, to serve my country by building a strong opposition.  Please feed the children while I am gone and make sure they do their homework!… I will return to you!”

Being moved to tears is in my genes.  My father and my grandfather before me, were also not hard nuts to crack.  And my mother has been known to have to leave the church when the singing gets too beautiful.  Once, when all escape routes were barred, she had no choice but to slip quickly into the vestry to hide her tear stained face.  Unfortunately the entire procession of priests, lay ministers, choir and church deacons were seconds away from ending their parade in her hiding place.  Thinking fast through her tears, my mom just slipped into the vestment cupboard Narnia style and stayed tucked up amongst the coats while the priest ended his day’s duties with a closing prayer in the default world on the other side of the wardrobe.  She could hear it through her tears in the snow amongst the pine trees!

So where is this blog going? I can hear you asking.  Well.  Nicolaas was given a fantastic opportunity through his school, to do a voice over for a Deaf TV programme.  The programme is about a family who lives in Pretoria.  Both the mother and the father are visually impaired – let’s call a spade a spade:  they are blind. They cannot see.  And wait for it, both the children, aged 8 and 9, are deaf. Yes. Tanya and Johan cannot see, and Corban and Samantha cannot hear.

I can go into the genetics of why and how this all happened if you want to inbox me.  What I want to do here is answer the question I know you are all asking, “How do these parents communicate with their children, and how do their children communicate with them?  Well you may wonder.  Corban and Samantha use sign language, and Tanya and Johan FEEL what their children are saying. They communicate by placing their hands and fingers over their children’s hands and fingers.

It has been Tanya’s dream to get Cochlea implants for both her children. This will mean that they will be able to hear, and if it is not too late, possibly develop some capacity for speech. Tanya has been trying to make this dream happen for the past 9 years.  She has tried to keep her dream a secret from her children, as she is terrified that she will not be able to raise the money she needs for the implants.  But somehow, Corban, her bright little son, has worked out what her plans are.  He signs to her with his fingers, while she listens back with her hands, “I am going to have an operation, and one day I am going to be able to speak to you.”

This is obviously what reduces me to tears.  And I hope it is making you cry too. I am wondering at the synchronicity of the universe, that leads me, a professional fundraiser, to be the mother of the boy who does the voice over for the documentary about their family for television. I desperately want to help Tanya to raise the money she needs for her children to have Cochlea implants. (And just for the record, I am doing this one pro-bono).

So this is a SHAMELESS appeal letter, sent to all of you, the readers of my blog, who have supported and encouraged me for years.  This is a SHAMELESS ask.  Before your tears stop, please take a moment to convert them into a donation that will help Coban and Samantha to be able to hear their mother’s voice for the first time in their lives.  We have to act quickly – we need the operation to be done before the end of the year if it is not going to be too late.

The good news is that Tanya has already raised R139, 000.  She needs another R711, 000.  Please click here to make your donation.  And please use your cell number as a reference.  I know that Tanya would want to be able to thank you in person, and I want to be able to keep you informed of our progress in raising this money, so that we can all celebrate with Corban and Sammy when they have their Cochlea implants, at the latest, before Christmas.

Every Rand we get in, will count.  If you are overseas, we will obviously love you A LOT with our rotten exchange rate. So if you want to be part of something bigger than yourself, please donate and then send this on to your networks!

Thanking you,

Catherine

PS Remember to give your cell number as a reference to your donation  so we can thank you and let you know when Corban and Sammy will hear their parents voices for the first time in their lives!

Not screaming but vomiting

There is one domestic sound that can turn even the plumpest and most unfit mothers into a champion 100m sprinter. It is the night time cry of a child that he or she is about to be sick. The floor flies past underfoot as the mother covers ground down the passage, through the dining room and into the kitchen. Corners that she used to warn the children about taking carefully lest they crash into the glass display cabinet, get taken within an inch or two of her landing herself in ICU. The cupboard under the sink is cleared of all its contents in nanoseconds. The necessary bucket is extracted and then it is the straight home run back to the bedroom, right-foot, left-foot, j-u-u-m-p onto the bed, all achieved, bucket in hand, in 3 leaps.

With our motion sensitive daughter, our trips to the coast are peppered with, “Stop the car she is about to be sick!” and cries of “Hold on, Pipps! Hold on! We are just finding a place to pull over!”  She gets it from me. I cannot board a boat moored in a harbour on a windless day without my stomach churning, and I cannot bear heights. I cannot even walk around the top of the dam wall on our farm without eliciting choked-up fearful sobs.

So it was with a bit of trepidation that I approached the amusement park at the Rand Show where it is not just the rides that are scary, but also the people selling the rides. Not wanting to transfer my motion sensitive and class conscious fears onto my children, I put on a brave front of “I am not a snob” and “We are strong enough to touch the rails that people of all economic and social classes have touched before us, because we are open-minded and kind that way, and because we have good immune systems, and because we will all go straight to wash our hands of the minuscule spit and vomit bacteria that I am sure coat every surface around me, as soon as we have left this fun place!”

The lady selling the tickets was as scary as I thought she would be. Sixty years old, bottle blonde, cigarette hanging out of her wrinkled mouth. And to boot it all, she was a psychic. Her first words to me where, “Honey, here but for the Grace of God you could also be. Selling tickets for the Looping Star. Married to that man you see over there who fixes the machines, and who is clearly broken by life!” No. They weren’t that actually. It just felt like they could be.

Herman and Nicolaas were determined to do the Looping Star. Pippa was uncertain, but knowing that there simply was no place to pull over to be sick on the roller coaster, I persuaded her to go for the Ferris Wheel. And I persuaded myself that I could do it too, for her sake. What could be scary about the gentle Ferris Wheel? I mean, once you have handed your tickets to the guy at the bottom, who controls the speed and velocity of this machine, and got past the thought that he also looks like he spends a lot of his life on Tik? What can be scary about the gentle Ferris Wheel?

Keeping the thought that I was letting a drug addict propel the lives of daughter and myself 60 metres into the air, suppressed, I boarded the swinging shell and soon discovered just exactly what was so scary about the gentle Ferris Wheel. It’s something called “height” and something called “motion”, and something called “not strapped in”. I realised before we were 10m from the ground that I had better keep my eyes screwed tightly shut, if I were not to transfer my fears to my daughter in the form of pathetic and involuntary whimpers. I thought I was doing quite well until we got to the top where I heard someone screaming, “I want to get off!”, and then I realised it was me. Because at that moment the drug addict seemed to have run out of petrol for his machine and had turned it off, leaving me hanging there while he went to get a refill, just, I am sure to spite my snobbish and white-bitch-ass.

Once he had refilled the tank, we set off again for what I hoped was the end of the ride. But it wasn’t. It seemed, oh God, no, that two little tickets bought many round trips. On rotation number two, Pippa was now also yelling, “I want to get off!” No surprise there, she gets it from me. But the control man couldn’t hear her. He was lost in his own world, spinning us around in his hamster wheel.
In fact the only people who were actually enjoying our fun ride were Herman and Nicolaas, feet all planted firmly on the ground. I could see them grinning broadly every time we got to the bottom. I only opened my eyes as then as I was trying to mouth the words “Terminate” to our vindictive controller. I thought it would transfer less fear than “STOP!”

Fortunately after the second loop Herman realised that it wasn’t good for Nicolaas to see his mother in this pathetic state, so he asked the Tick Kop to please stop the machine. Which he thankfully did.

It was then Herman and Nicolaas’s turn to do the roller coaster. I had managed to transfer so much fear onto Pippa in our gentle Ferris wheel ride, that she spent the whole time sobbing into my neck, convinced her brother and father were going to die. While deep down I thought she was right, I had said goodbye to Nicolaas putting on a brave face. “Just don’t accept any sweets from the man who straps you in!” I warned him gently, and explained, “Drug addict, I am sure, all of them!” to Herman as an aside. As it was, neither of them get motion or height sick, so they handled it with the infuriating enjoyment of actors in an old Peter Stuyvesant advert.

Before we left the fun park, I suggested to Pippa that she did one last much gentler ride with Nicolaas, in the hope that she too could have a Peter Stuyvesant experience in this underworld. She thought it a good idea, and soon she and Nicolaas were strapped into speed boats that wafted around on an octopus arm.

Well. How wrong I was about the innocence of this ride. “It’s your job as her mother, to look calm and to control your anxiety.” Herman told me. “You must smile confidently as she passes us and not drop to your knees in prayerful supplication!” I promise you, I was trying. But on each rotation, I could not only see my daughter’s fear stricken face streaked with tears, which was enough to break my heart, but having done the night time 100m sprint for the bucket more frequently than Herman ever has, I could also lip read something far more subtle. I knew the exact moment when her repeated yell, of “Stop, I want to get oooffffffff!” changed to, “STOOOOOOOOP! I am going to be Siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick”

Words not of my own

Even as I said those words, there was a critical voice standing next to me. “That doesn’t sound like you talking!”  I did feel as if I was living a drama that wasn’t my own. I felt as if I was standing on an island off Scotland, in another century. The wind was howling around me in the dark, in a cold winter. I felt as if I was giving a blessing to a fisherman who, needs must, was about to launch a tiny little boat into a stormy sea.  The chances of him making it were slim and all I could do was call on the mightiest force, that myth has it, made the very seas, in the hope that he would be safe.  It didn’t sound like me talking.

“Pardon?” the Afrikaans surgeon asked me, confirming my doubt, and I muttered the words again in English.

He wasn’t getting into a fishing boat.  He was about to perform an emergency brain operation on my son, at 1 o’clock in the morning.  And I wasn’t waving goodbye on a shore.  I was standing alone in the air-conditioned passage of the hospital, having driven 80km to get there, with Nicolaas vomiting the whole way, after he had fallen on his head at home.  The surgeon had just told me that this was a big operation, and a risky one, and that he could give me no guarantee that my son would be alright at the end of it.  And even though Herman was already on his way to the hospital, he did not want to wait to talk to him before he started.  He wanted to operate now, with his bleary sleep deprived eyes, in the tracksuit pants he had clearly thrown on when he got the call at home 20 minutes previously.

When I was younger, before I had children, when death was less of a threat and more of a romance, my cousin and I had begged our ageing grandmother to, “Please come back and talk to us from the other side.”  In her bedridden state she looked at us at once amused and hurt.  How could we be planning life without her, with such glibness? Just because she was nearly 90, it didn’t mean she had made the peace we seemed to have made, with her dying. But she promised she would try anyway.

My grandmother did die eventually.  She was only 5ft tall, and she died the same week that the twin towers fell in America.

One of the things she was best at in life was being a grandmother.  She taught us not to litter, and that the common or garden mushrooms clinging to oak tree stumps in the Main Road were undoubtedly shelters for fairies and gnomes.  She would dress up as a witch, slide down sand dunes with us on cardboard boxes, and whenever she came to visit, one of the first things she would pull out of her handbag for us to crunch our way through, were the sachets of sugar that she had saved for us from the aeroplane.

The other thing that my grandmother was good at, was nursing.  She was the matron of a hospital and had all the steely strength it took to rip dressings off wounds with full faith in the principle, “cruel to be kind”.

 After she died, I remember being disappointed though, in her crossing over skills.  She never did come to talk to me from the other side, and I don’t think she chatted to my cousin either.

Until that night. Until I stood in the brightly lit passage in the hospital, having signed all the forms that needed to be signed and having felt the surgeon’s hands on my forehead as he outlined a circle and explained gently, “I am going to cut him here, like this, so that I can lift the blood clot.”

At that moment, when I needed her most, my grandmother did come to me.  She came and moved her empty, shocked and faithless granddaughter over, so that she could stand not beside me, but inside me, and she gave me her words at a time when I had none.  “That doesn’t sound like you talking,” The mocking voice was right.  It wasn’t me. I don’t command blessings.  My prayers and my faith stop at grovelled mutterings.

She gave me the words she used every time she said good bye to anyone who was going on a journey.  And as much as they were words that had crossed over, they were words that handed over. I had done all I could.  “God go with you,” she said to the surgeon.

Aware that his work was only starting, that he had a 2 hour operation ahead of him, he answered back with all that he could offer, “I will do my best.”

We came into ICU the next day to find a nurse sitting at Nicolaas’s side, with one hand on her Bible and the other on her record sheet. She had not left his side since she came on duty, and she had good news for us.  He had eaten already and answered all the questions she had asked him. His mother was a writer and his father worked with grandfather clocks.  His name was Nicolaas, and when could he go home?