Sounds from the deckchair
The wind rustling the leaves of the sycamore tree... I hate it because it is a big weed and spreads its evil seed absolutely everywhere, but it is still a tree and belongs to next door anyway.
The shed door banging gently... I haven't locked it and it doesn't stay shut. A radio which is on a few doors down... beep beep beep beep beep BEEP for five o'clock but nothing else is distinct.
Kitchen noises through an open window, tonk tonk tonk as someone bangs a spoon on a metal pan after stirring it. The crunch of shoes as one of next door's students comes out into the garden... he has a mobile conversation which his housemates can't hear but I can though he can't see me, there is a big hedge between us.
Birds singing, lots of different kinds, I should know which is which, like trees, but I don't. A sudden loud flapping straight overhead as two of them leave the tree and fly over the house and away.
Milk bottles clattering and a back door closing. A kind of muffled banging, someone using a tool maybe, but not one they are that adept with. Tenderising meat?
The thwack of rope against the tall pole in the garden of our weird and not very pleasant three doors down Landrover-driving neighbour. I used to think it was a flagpole but I asked him once why he had a flagpole in his garden and he told me it was a radio aerial.
Diddle ooo doo diddle oo doo diddle ooo doo dar Hello? Another mobile conversation but this one's on the other side and it's not in English. I think it's the father of the Asian family next door but one. Diddle ooo doo hello there he goes again. No, it's not him, it's one of his friends.
More cooking noises, a grater, a fridge opens and closes.
Cars driving too fast up or down the hill then stopping... there's only room for one on that road. Crackly gravel as they come slowly down our street. Women laughing, car doors slamming.
A football being kicked, but only by one person.
Really faintly in the distance, a lawnmower.
Fly buzzing past my ear.
Fence creaking.
Window being shut.
Church bells. Weird, it's not a Sunday.
Three tiny biplanes roar over like something out of history, what's the occasion?
SQUEEEEak, it's our back door, C is coming out for a smoke. Next door have just put on Wonderwall. Time to get the washing in and retreat.
joella
Monday, May 31, 2004
Fine weather for books
I think I'm better. I'm certainly better in the relative sense of the word, and I'm hoping I'm better in the absolute sense. I've been very sensible since Friday: eating well (well, aside from a cheese and onion pasty on Sunday morning), not drinking too much, sleeping vast amounts, reading reading reading.
I've just finished The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester, which, to be honest, was a struggle. I loved both Mr Phillips and Fragrant Harbour, so I was expecting to love this, but I didn't. I dragged myself through it, because on the whole I like to finish books, but I couldn't bring myself to care what happened.
Part of this might have been because lying next to the bed, gleaming plumply at me, was Barbara Trapido's Frankie and Stankie , sent to me by the gorgeous V. I wanted to read it as soon as it arrived but I had some notion of saving it for my holidays. But I couldn't... the challenge now is not to read it too fast. She also sent me Maps for Lost Lovers, which I didn't allow upstairs in the hope that it would make it to the shady side of a swimming pool in a few weeks' time.
But I had reckoned without our new deck chairs. They belonged to M's late mother, but since winter they have been in my shed. Yesterday we got them out and set them up. All I have ever done in our garden is garden: I feel like I've discovered a whole new way to read. If you have a blanket over your knees, it doesn't even have to be sunny. Why didn't I think of this before?
joella
I think I'm better. I'm certainly better in the relative sense of the word, and I'm hoping I'm better in the absolute sense. I've been very sensible since Friday: eating well (well, aside from a cheese and onion pasty on Sunday morning), not drinking too much, sleeping vast amounts, reading reading reading.
I've just finished The Debt to Pleasure by John Lanchester, which, to be honest, was a struggle. I loved both Mr Phillips and Fragrant Harbour, so I was expecting to love this, but I didn't. I dragged myself through it, because on the whole I like to finish books, but I couldn't bring myself to care what happened.
Part of this might have been because lying next to the bed, gleaming plumply at me, was Barbara Trapido's Frankie and Stankie , sent to me by the gorgeous V. I wanted to read it as soon as it arrived but I had some notion of saving it for my holidays. But I couldn't... the challenge now is not to read it too fast. She also sent me Maps for Lost Lovers, which I didn't allow upstairs in the hope that it would make it to the shady side of a swimming pool in a few weeks' time.
But I had reckoned without our new deck chairs. They belonged to M's late mother, but since winter they have been in my shed. Yesterday we got them out and set them up. All I have ever done in our garden is garden: I feel like I've discovered a whole new way to read. If you have a blanket over your knees, it doesn't even have to be sunny. Why didn't I think of this before?
joella
Thursday, May 27, 2004
The prime of Polly Jean Harvey
I am, as I said, officially off sick, so all day I stuck to both the letter and the spirit: stayed in bed till 12 dozing and reading, went to the shop in my slippers for eggs so M could augment the protein content of lunch, did a smidgeon of work for one of my favourite colleagues, read the Guardian on the sofa and dozed a bit more.
But tonight was the night PJ graced us with her presence, so come 7 I dressed up to show off my blood test bruises (left) and bravely walked down the hill with the boys to see one of England's finest rock stars play one of England's finest venues.
I don't have words for her fabulousness. Physically, she is tiny but anything but unassuming: she was wearing a little yellow dress, high red heels, big black hair and a huge Z-shaped guitar. She does primary colours and minor chords. She's a year older than me and easily the coolest female member of my cohort.
By that statement I am not necessarily saying that the coolest member of my cohort is male -- that's up for debate -- but she is an almost uniquely cool woman performer in the sense that if every man on earth were wiped out tomorrow by an act of god, I don't believe her stage persona would change one iota. (Though she'd have to get a new band.) She's a girl, for sure, and that shapes her music, maybe even defines it, but she doesn't let it limit it.
She makes me feel like a natural woman.
Less gender-obsessed but equally gushing review from the BBC here.
joella
I am, as I said, officially off sick, so all day I stuck to both the letter and the spirit: stayed in bed till 12 dozing and reading, went to the shop in my slippers for eggs so M could augment the protein content of lunch, did a smidgeon of work for one of my favourite colleagues, read the Guardian on the sofa and dozed a bit more.
But tonight was the night PJ graced us with her presence, so come 7 I dressed up to show off my blood test bruises (left) and bravely walked down the hill with the boys to see one of England's finest rock stars play one of England's finest venues.
I don't have words for her fabulousness. Physically, she is tiny but anything but unassuming: she was wearing a little yellow dress, high red heels, big black hair and a huge Z-shaped guitar. She does primary colours and minor chords. She's a year older than me and easily the coolest female member of my cohort.
By that statement I am not necessarily saying that the coolest member of my cohort is male -- that's up for debate -- but she is an almost uniquely cool woman performer in the sense that if every man on earth were wiped out tomorrow by an act of god, I don't believe her stage persona would change one iota. (Though she'd have to get a new band.) She's a girl, for sure, and that shapes her music, maybe even defines it, but she doesn't let it limit it.
She makes me feel like a natural woman.
Less gender-obsessed but equally gushing review from the BBC here.
joella
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Near death experience
I'm feeling better than I was. I'm not off my food anymore, but I still break out in cold sweats a few times a day and have almost zero patience. I feel a bit like Jack Dee when he admitted to Vanessa Feltz on Celebrity Big Brother that he could be an "oppressive presence". I wouldn't want to live with me. Or work with me -- as evidenced by the fact that my director last week told me in no uncertain terms to go to the doctor.
She's not someone you ignore, so, despite coming from the two aspirin and an early night school, this morning saw me sitting in a waiting room along with several dozen old women making hideous noises of one kind or another.
Everything was running very late -- I think they had a tricky customer who needed a cup of tea and a lie down -- and after half an hour I nearly walked out. This was partly because I thought, all these people are iller than me, I never wanted to come here in the first place, but mostly because there was an old bag in the corner whose particular brand of hideous noise was talking about immigrants coming 'over here' when there's 'no room'.
'I mean, why don't we build hospitals and schools in their countries, then they could go home'. I buried my nose deeper into Hello! thinking SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP YOU AWFUL WOMAN, then thinking, no, I am still totally intolerant, so I am still a bit ill, I better hang on for the doctor.
Which was a good thing, as for the first time in my life I got a sick note. She signed me off for a week, with (probably) post-viral exhaustion, but took some blood to test for potential nasties I may have picked up in South Africa. Personally, I think I had it before I went, as I remember being in a fairly bad mood then as well.
Anyway, then I went to work to sort things out so I could come home and be signed off. For a Catholic I have a very Protestant work ethic. Four hours later I set off on my bicycle. Two minutes later, I stopped to ring B, as I was passing her house and thought I might drop in to say hello as she is on her own with a baby most afternoons.
There was no answer, so a couple of minutes later I set off again. By the time I reached Cowley Road, about 3.45, I was feeling a little green and shaky, and this was not helped by the fact the road was closed.
I detoured up Iffley Road and cut down Temple Street. On Cowley Road there was an ambulance and police cars, a bus and, ominously, a bicycle. And no way past. A big green sheet held up round someone lying on the road, and I could see paramedics doing cardiac massage. I went back down Temple Street, my own heart beating faster, wanting to ring M and say 'it's not me, don't worry, it's not me', but not doing because why would he know it was anyone?
But it was someone. She was on a bike, she got hit by a bus and she died. I don't know who she was yet, or what happened, but I missed being where she was by minutes. Would I have been there if I hadn't stopped to ring B?
I always wear a helmet, but today I left it at home by accident. If I had been there, I would have been unusually vulnerable, with my naked head and my throbbing blood test arm and my greenish tinge.
There are so many ways to feel vulnerable in this world, even when you live in a safe part of it. I am reminded of that bit in 1984, about how the realisation of your utter insignificance in the scheme of things is psychologically unbearable. Women getting killed by buses while cycling down Cowley Road is a little glimpse of that in a society where, on the whole, we experience little random violence.
*subdued*
(But then I am officially poorly)
joella
I'm feeling better than I was. I'm not off my food anymore, but I still break out in cold sweats a few times a day and have almost zero patience. I feel a bit like Jack Dee when he admitted to Vanessa Feltz on Celebrity Big Brother that he could be an "oppressive presence". I wouldn't want to live with me. Or work with me -- as evidenced by the fact that my director last week told me in no uncertain terms to go to the doctor.
She's not someone you ignore, so, despite coming from the two aspirin and an early night school, this morning saw me sitting in a waiting room along with several dozen old women making hideous noises of one kind or another.
Everything was running very late -- I think they had a tricky customer who needed a cup of tea and a lie down -- and after half an hour I nearly walked out. This was partly because I thought, all these people are iller than me, I never wanted to come here in the first place, but mostly because there was an old bag in the corner whose particular brand of hideous noise was talking about immigrants coming 'over here' when there's 'no room'.
'I mean, why don't we build hospitals and schools in their countries, then they could go home'. I buried my nose deeper into Hello! thinking SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP YOU AWFUL WOMAN, then thinking, no, I am still totally intolerant, so I am still a bit ill, I better hang on for the doctor.
Which was a good thing, as for the first time in my life I got a sick note. She signed me off for a week, with (probably) post-viral exhaustion, but took some blood to test for potential nasties I may have picked up in South Africa. Personally, I think I had it before I went, as I remember being in a fairly bad mood then as well.
Anyway, then I went to work to sort things out so I could come home and be signed off. For a Catholic I have a very Protestant work ethic. Four hours later I set off on my bicycle. Two minutes later, I stopped to ring B, as I was passing her house and thought I might drop in to say hello as she is on her own with a baby most afternoons.
There was no answer, so a couple of minutes later I set off again. By the time I reached Cowley Road, about 3.45, I was feeling a little green and shaky, and this was not helped by the fact the road was closed.
I detoured up Iffley Road and cut down Temple Street. On Cowley Road there was an ambulance and police cars, a bus and, ominously, a bicycle. And no way past. A big green sheet held up round someone lying on the road, and I could see paramedics doing cardiac massage. I went back down Temple Street, my own heart beating faster, wanting to ring M and say 'it's not me, don't worry, it's not me', but not doing because why would he know it was anyone?
But it was someone. She was on a bike, she got hit by a bus and she died. I don't know who she was yet, or what happened, but I missed being where she was by minutes. Would I have been there if I hadn't stopped to ring B?
I always wear a helmet, but today I left it at home by accident. If I had been there, I would have been unusually vulnerable, with my naked head and my throbbing blood test arm and my greenish tinge.
There are so many ways to feel vulnerable in this world, even when you live in a safe part of it. I am reminded of that bit in 1984, about how the realisation of your utter insignificance in the scheme of things is psychologically unbearable. Women getting killed by buses while cycling down Cowley Road is a little glimpse of that in a society where, on the whole, we experience little random violence.
*subdued*
(But then I am officially poorly)
joella
Friday, May 21, 2004
Hot topics chez joella
I'm worried that I appear only to talk about shoes and music. I don't only talk about shoes and music, but I only have clear views on shoes and music, so they are easier to cover in the shortish mildly alcoholic rants that make up most of joella's conversation.
But exercising the household and associates at the moment are:
1. Iraq. Obviously. How can this be happening and Donald Rumsfeld still be smirking his smirk on taxpayers' money? And how much do those photos owe to white trash pornography?
2. Gaza. Obviously. How can a debate have shifted so far to one side that Colin Powell saying, hang on actually this isn't a great thing to be doing guys if you don't mind me saying so makes headlines? Moving the middle ground to an extreme, (like Thatcher did in the 80s), so the locus of debate moves to encompass what would previously have been unthinkable, now *that's* what nightmares - and human rights abuses - are made of.
3. The relationship between self acceptance and empowerment, and what happens if it's not the one you thought it would be. This is a slow burning debate, following a disturbing article I read about the growth in eating disorders in black South African women after democracy. "If your position in society changes, what happens to your identity?".
4. And a related issue... getting older and (arguably) increasingly freakish. My position in society changes even if society does not. Yet my cohort is changing society all the time just by existing. Is there a double hermeneutic in here somewhere?
That's quite enough, and Morrissey is on Later, so back to music. I have to go watch.
joella
I'm worried that I appear only to talk about shoes and music. I don't only talk about shoes and music, but I only have clear views on shoes and music, so they are easier to cover in the shortish mildly alcoholic rants that make up most of joella's conversation.
But exercising the household and associates at the moment are:
1. Iraq. Obviously. How can this be happening and Donald Rumsfeld still be smirking his smirk on taxpayers' money? And how much do those photos owe to white trash pornography?
2. Gaza. Obviously. How can a debate have shifted so far to one side that Colin Powell saying, hang on actually this isn't a great thing to be doing guys if you don't mind me saying so makes headlines? Moving the middle ground to an extreme, (like Thatcher did in the 80s), so the locus of debate moves to encompass what would previously have been unthinkable, now *that's* what nightmares - and human rights abuses - are made of.
3. The relationship between self acceptance and empowerment, and what happens if it's not the one you thought it would be. This is a slow burning debate, following a disturbing article I read about the growth in eating disorders in black South African women after democracy. "If your position in society changes, what happens to your identity?".
4. And a related issue... getting older and (arguably) increasingly freakish. My position in society changes even if society does not. Yet my cohort is changing society all the time just by existing. Is there a double hermeneutic in here somewhere?
That's quite enough, and Morrissey is on Later, so back to music. I have to go watch.
joella
Thursday, May 20, 2004
Legal peer to peer = LCD
... where LCD stands for lowest common denominator.
I *want* to download music legally. I've stopped downloading from audiogalaxy et al because I can't bear the spyware, adware and general invasiveness, and I do see the point of copyright. I am prepared to pay for my music. I even have a track wishlist -- tracks I know I want but can't justify buying the albums, or they're not on albums.
But when will such a legal service exist? ITunes, by all accounts I have heard, is great for fans of million-selling artists but stops there. And frankly, such fans are already pretty well served. I don't have a problem getting a reasonably priced copy of the latest chart album I happen to want, and can't see that I ever will.
But what about the tracks that you could only *find* on Napster, back in the day? Who will sell us those?
Napster.co.uk has just launched itself, all puffy and hyped and making millionaires of its protagonists. And I say, arse to you and your capitalist sensibilities. You're about as alternative as Avril Lavigne listening to my mum's Elkie Brooks CD. See left for evidence.
joella
... where LCD stands for lowest common denominator.
I *want* to download music legally. I've stopped downloading from audiogalaxy et al because I can't bear the spyware, adware and general invasiveness, and I do see the point of copyright. I am prepared to pay for my music. I even have a track wishlist -- tracks I know I want but can't justify buying the albums, or they're not on albums.
But when will such a legal service exist? ITunes, by all accounts I have heard, is great for fans of million-selling artists but stops there. And frankly, such fans are already pretty well served. I don't have a problem getting a reasonably priced copy of the latest chart album I happen to want, and can't see that I ever will.
But what about the tracks that you could only *find* on Napster, back in the day? Who will sell us those?
Napster.co.uk has just launched itself, all puffy and hyped and making millionaires of its protagonists. And I say, arse to you and your capitalist sensibilities. You're about as alternative as Avril Lavigne listening to my mum's Elkie Brooks CD. See left for evidence.
joella
Kamikaze you don't touch me
PJ Harvey is coming to town! I can't wait. She is the coolest woman in rock since, ooh, Chrissie Hynde. Or Patti Smith. Or maybe forever. As a rock star, she does that thing that Uma Thurman's character does in Kill Bill, of not pandering to anyone. She's not waiting for validation. She is alone and iconic and supremely, awesomely cool, in a way that, frankly, women don't get to be very often.
*And* she got to shag Nick Cave. She's the only rock star I have a poster of.
joella
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Unease = progress
I got home this evening full of lingering post viral malaise to find our student neighbours playing David Gray on repeat through bad hi-fi equipment out of an upstairs window.
I wanted to scream YOU ARE STUDENTS FOR FUCK'S SAKE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING PLAYING DAVID FUCKING MIDDLE OF THE ROAD FUCKING BANALITY PERSONIFIED FUCKING GRAY? WHAT'S NEXT FUCKING TRAVIS?
Instead I went out and got drunk with some splendidly cynical friends, then came home and put on Exit Planet Dust (on our vastly superior hifi), which is an album with two extremely strong resonances.
Firstly it is nearly the soundtrack to my first cocaine experience, specifically the moment the room went crazy and we were all bouncing all over the place. It was like a door to another plane was suddenly opened and we all burst through it together. (I think what was actually playing was Dig Your Own Hole, but it could easily have been EPD).
Secondly it was on one particular night as my last relationship fell apart and I smoked too much dope and drank too much whisky with my Significant Ex. The Brother who was going to work it out began to loom as a monk who had been suggested to me as someone who might help a lapsed Catholic work through her issues. While proposed with the best possible intentions, this offer filled me with horror, and in a strange way the song still does.
So all in all it's an album of uneasy listening, and on top of that the beats will keep you up and at it, or at least awake.
How much more better than David Gray could it *be*?!
joella
I got home this evening full of lingering post viral malaise to find our student neighbours playing David Gray on repeat through bad hi-fi equipment out of an upstairs window.
I wanted to scream YOU ARE STUDENTS FOR FUCK'S SAKE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING PLAYING DAVID FUCKING MIDDLE OF THE ROAD FUCKING BANALITY PERSONIFIED FUCKING GRAY? WHAT'S NEXT FUCKING TRAVIS?
Instead I went out and got drunk with some splendidly cynical friends, then came home and put on Exit Planet Dust (on our vastly superior hifi), which is an album with two extremely strong resonances.
Firstly it is nearly the soundtrack to my first cocaine experience, specifically the moment the room went crazy and we were all bouncing all over the place. It was like a door to another plane was suddenly opened and we all burst through it together. (I think what was actually playing was Dig Your Own Hole, but it could easily have been EPD).
Secondly it was on one particular night as my last relationship fell apart and I smoked too much dope and drank too much whisky with my Significant Ex. The Brother who was going to work it out began to loom as a monk who had been suggested to me as someone who might help a lapsed Catholic work through her issues. While proposed with the best possible intentions, this offer filled me with horror, and in a strange way the song still does.
So all in all it's an album of uneasy listening, and on top of that the beats will keep you up and at it, or at least awake.
How much more better than David Gray could it *be*?!
joella
Monday, May 17, 2004
Early onset summertime blues?
The weather's turned all gorgeous, the evenings are stretching out, and I keep bursting into tears.
This could be the Freudian side effect of ultra honesty in coming out as not a summer lover. It could be latent something or other at not fulfilling my biological destiny and going forth to increase and multiply. It could be delayed reaction to getting a wee glimpse of the devastation that HIV is wreaking on South Africa.
But I think I've worked out that it's because I'm still not well. I came back with a fever, and that's gone, but I'm not hungry. And I'm *never* not hungry. As soon as I've had my lunch, I'm dreaming about my tea. I spend hours in supermarkets. I read cook books in bed. I shop well, I cook well and I eat *very* well, and hey, I have the belly to prove it.
But today I forgot to have lunch. Something's not right. So I shall cry in abundance and wait for it to pass.
joella
The weather's turned all gorgeous, the evenings are stretching out, and I keep bursting into tears.
This could be the Freudian side effect of ultra honesty in coming out as not a summer lover. It could be latent something or other at not fulfilling my biological destiny and going forth to increase and multiply. It could be delayed reaction to getting a wee glimpse of the devastation that HIV is wreaking on South Africa.
But I think I've worked out that it's because I'm still not well. I came back with a fever, and that's gone, but I'm not hungry. And I'm *never* not hungry. As soon as I've had my lunch, I'm dreaming about my tea. I spend hours in supermarkets. I read cook books in bed. I shop well, I cook well and I eat *very* well, and hey, I have the belly to prove it.
But today I forgot to have lunch. Something's not right. So I shall cry in abundance and wait for it to pass.
joella
Sunday, May 16, 2004
Medieval is the new black
How refreshing to read that the pope has *canonised* a woman who refused cancer treatment that would have saved her life because it would have involved terminating her pregnancy.
What century are we living in?
She had the baby, then died. I'm sure her other children were just delighted.
I lapsed as a Catholic at the age of about 13, about the same time I became a vegetarian and a feminist. I lift my hat to my younger self. I like to think that in 20 years time I might feel the same about the decisions I am taking now, but maybe I am getting less cool as I get older.
joella
How refreshing to read that the pope has *canonised* a woman who refused cancer treatment that would have saved her life because it would have involved terminating her pregnancy.
What century are we living in?
She had the baby, then died. I'm sure her other children were just delighted.
I lapsed as a Catholic at the age of about 13, about the same time I became a vegetarian and a feminist. I lift my hat to my younger self. I like to think that in 20 years time I might feel the same about the decisions I am taking now, but maybe I am getting less cool as I get older.
joella
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Warning: deep (yet simplistic) post
I really enjoyed reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. The main protagonist has Asberger's Syndrome. He doesn't understand statements that aren't literal, he can't read feelings, he can't eat anything that is yellow or brown (I do identify with that part). He functions, in fact he is extremely bright, but in a very specific and inflexible way. He doesn't adapt well.
He needs structure and routine in order to cope with life, yet he finds his surroundings infinitely fascinating. Why would anyone go abroad on holiday, he asks, when there is a lifetime of things to discover just in this house?
He does have a point. I know people who have never left these shores, and many more who have never been further than the Brit-heavy resorts of Greece and Spain or the family- and pocket-friendly campsites of Brittany. I don't believe their lives, their feelings, are any less complex than mine. You can live your whole life in an English market town -- or indeed a village in the middle of Asian or African nowhere -- and still experience the full gamut of human emotion. I don't buy the simple life = simple people equation, never have.
But if you do that, you won't have a global perspective. You won't be able to place yourself - as an individual, as a woman or a man, as a white or a black person, a rich or a poor person - on as broad a canvas, as wide a scale, as you can if you do travel, or at least if you travel in order to better understand the world or improve your or your family's chances in it, rather than to get a tan, buy a T-shirt or have sex with a teenage girl.
If you don't want a global perspective, that's fine. Not everybody does. But I want to know where my clothes are made, where my coffee comes from, how the system that keeps so many people poor while others make millions actually works. I want to know where the hope is, where the world is getting better rather than worse. And I want to know exactly how lucky I am, how many blessings I need to count, and what I can do to make a difference.
With all this as a prelude, I am struggling to process my feelings about my trip to South Africa. I've been in poorer countries but never one so menaced by HIV and never one so menacing to women. There are some issues we have to tackle as a species, not as a nation, and I feel South Africa has them in sharp relief. Maybe Africa as a whole, I don't know, one week in one country doesn't tell you much. But it does tell you something.
Or does it? I shared my taxi to the airport with an American couple who had been in Africa for five weeks, travelling south from Victoria Falls to Cape Town. One of them said to our driver, as we drove past Langa, one of Cape Town's black townships, where (alongside some relatively affluent and lots of perfectly adequate housing) there are shacks lining the freeway: "So, these houses looks kinda interesting, what's going on here?". Later, the other said "We've seen a lot of condom ads -- do you guys have a HIV problem?"
Which goes to show, if you are a doofus, you can travel as far as you like and you won't learn shit. I have met some great citizens of the US of A, but on balance, I think I'd prefer it if they stayed home. Troops included, natch.
I also came back feeling that in the big scheme of things, what does it matter if I start smoking again, but I'm fighting that one.
joella
I really enjoyed reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. The main protagonist has Asberger's Syndrome. He doesn't understand statements that aren't literal, he can't read feelings, he can't eat anything that is yellow or brown (I do identify with that part). He functions, in fact he is extremely bright, but in a very specific and inflexible way. He doesn't adapt well.
He needs structure and routine in order to cope with life, yet he finds his surroundings infinitely fascinating. Why would anyone go abroad on holiday, he asks, when there is a lifetime of things to discover just in this house?
He does have a point. I know people who have never left these shores, and many more who have never been further than the Brit-heavy resorts of Greece and Spain or the family- and pocket-friendly campsites of Brittany. I don't believe their lives, their feelings, are any less complex than mine. You can live your whole life in an English market town -- or indeed a village in the middle of Asian or African nowhere -- and still experience the full gamut of human emotion. I don't buy the simple life = simple people equation, never have.
But if you do that, you won't have a global perspective. You won't be able to place yourself - as an individual, as a woman or a man, as a white or a black person, a rich or a poor person - on as broad a canvas, as wide a scale, as you can if you do travel, or at least if you travel in order to better understand the world or improve your or your family's chances in it, rather than to get a tan, buy a T-shirt or have sex with a teenage girl.
If you don't want a global perspective, that's fine. Not everybody does. But I want to know where my clothes are made, where my coffee comes from, how the system that keeps so many people poor while others make millions actually works. I want to know where the hope is, where the world is getting better rather than worse. And I want to know exactly how lucky I am, how many blessings I need to count, and what I can do to make a difference.
With all this as a prelude, I am struggling to process my feelings about my trip to South Africa. I've been in poorer countries but never one so menaced by HIV and never one so menacing to women. There are some issues we have to tackle as a species, not as a nation, and I feel South Africa has them in sharp relief. Maybe Africa as a whole, I don't know, one week in one country doesn't tell you much. But it does tell you something.
Or does it? I shared my taxi to the airport with an American couple who had been in Africa for five weeks, travelling south from Victoria Falls to Cape Town. One of them said to our driver, as we drove past Langa, one of Cape Town's black townships, where (alongside some relatively affluent and lots of perfectly adequate housing) there are shacks lining the freeway: "So, these houses looks kinda interesting, what's going on here?". Later, the other said "We've seen a lot of condom ads -- do you guys have a HIV problem?"
Which goes to show, if you are a doofus, you can travel as far as you like and you won't learn shit. I have met some great citizens of the US of A, but on balance, I think I'd prefer it if they stayed home. Troops included, natch.
I also came back feeling that in the big scheme of things, what does it matter if I start smoking again, but I'm fighting that one.
joella
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Back but a bit wobbly
... I'm not well. Flew back from SA overnight on Sunday. Slept quite well thanks to borrowed Valium, spent Monday slightly dazed but essentially ok, then woke up Tuesday and BANG, stomach cramps, temperature, the works.
Getting over it I think (well I must be, as I've just had a 'medicinal' duty free Jamesons), but still not at all right.
But while I am thinking about it, and before I forget:
Highlights
- All our meetings with NGOs, members of Parliament, municipal government officials, academics, activists
- Realising the level of gender awareness in policy and practice in SA
- The hospitality of our South African colleagues
- Visiting Langa township and Robben Island
- Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens
- The food, the wine, the weather
Lowlights
- Realising just how utterly overwhelming the HIV/Aids pandemic is in South Africa. I thought I had an idea, but I didn't have a clue. It's unbelievable
- Realising how much of this is down to gender inequality and violence against women and girls, including rape and refusal to use condoms
- Seeing the poverty and the inequality that comes with the legacy of apartheid and 40% unemployment
- Two of our group getting mugged, the rest of us not being able to stop it (though the alarm was raised and they ran off without anything)
On balance, I was glad to get home, though it really was a fascinating experience.
joella
... I'm not well. Flew back from SA overnight on Sunday. Slept quite well thanks to borrowed Valium, spent Monday slightly dazed but essentially ok, then woke up Tuesday and BANG, stomach cramps, temperature, the works.
Getting over it I think (well I must be, as I've just had a 'medicinal' duty free Jamesons), but still not at all right.
But while I am thinking about it, and before I forget:
Highlights
- All our meetings with NGOs, members of Parliament, municipal government officials, academics, activists
- Realising the level of gender awareness in policy and practice in SA
- The hospitality of our South African colleagues
- Visiting Langa township and Robben Island
- Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens
- The food, the wine, the weather
Lowlights
- Realising just how utterly overwhelming the HIV/Aids pandemic is in South Africa. I thought I had an idea, but I didn't have a clue. It's unbelievable
- Realising how much of this is down to gender inequality and violence against women and girls, including rape and refusal to use condoms
- Seeing the poverty and the inequality that comes with the legacy of apartheid and 40% unemployment
- Two of our group getting mugged, the rest of us not being able to stop it (though the alarm was raised and they ran off without anything)
On balance, I was glad to get home, though it really was a fascinating experience.
joella
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Sister woman have you heard?
... so here I am in Johannesburg. Just the name of the place is so loaded, it´s weird to actually be here. My colleagues and I are meeting South Africans who are working on gender budgeting. I won´t go into what that is, not least because Í´m only just getting my head round it, but the South African government has a far more explicit commitment to gender equality than does our own, and one of the reasons for that is, they say, because they could start afresh ten years ago when democracy was won.
It´s unbelievable that it was only ten years ago. I can´t imagine what it must have been like here before that.
But even so, we are learning that you have to keep on keeping on. A long term activist said to us yesterday, "when the President talks about gender equality, it´s not as if he has absorbed it from the air".
joella
... so here I am in Johannesburg. Just the name of the place is so loaded, it´s weird to actually be here. My colleagues and I are meeting South Africans who are working on gender budgeting. I won´t go into what that is, not least because Í´m only just getting my head round it, but the South African government has a far more explicit commitment to gender equality than does our own, and one of the reasons for that is, they say, because they could start afresh ten years ago when democracy was won.
It´s unbelievable that it was only ten years ago. I can´t imagine what it must have been like here before that.
But even so, we are learning that you have to keep on keeping on. A long term activist said to us yesterday, "when the President talks about gender equality, it´s not as if he has absorbed it from the air".
joella
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