Change In Plans

I am on my way from Cape Town to Cairo, to spend a week doing some work.

The phrase “Cape to Cairo” was once widely used to describe the ease that the old South African army would have in fighting other African countries. As in, “Cape to Cairo in a month.” It is also a classic dream road trip. India is probably brave enough to try it, but I wouldn’t be.

At any rate, it should be interesting. I’ve never been to Egypt before. The economy is booming, Cairo is meant to be sensorily overwhelming, and it will be good to be doin substantive work.

No one is happy about me being away from home for a week. All of us feel, finally, as though we are getting into a rhythm in Cape Town. Zola is getting the hang of his 13 subjects and lots of homework and activities. Tallulah has been to the horse-riding center enough times that she has favorites among the horses. India is well known in her boxing gym.

I will be back soon enough, and we will continue settling in. We have a slew of activities and visitors in April, but fundamentally, it has started to feel as though we are living in South Africa. Life is good here.

Greetings from Cape Town!

 I have been listening to a lot of talk radio on SAfm as I drive around in the car, usually going to or from the kids’ school.  SAfm is part of SABC, the government-owned public broadcaster.  It takes the public-service part of radio seriously, so a huge percentage of the airtime is devoted to call-in shows discussing politics and issues of the day.  What amazes me is how frequently the on-air guest will be the government minister who is relevant to the issue at hand, fielding calls from cranky and frequently disrespectful listeners.  Democracy.

That introduction was a long-winded way of saying that I feel qualified to opine on what South Africa is talking about.  If not the whole country, at least the cranky and disrespectful part that calls in to radio shows and berates government officials

2010 Soccer World Cup - the tournament starts here in about four months, and it is a national obsession.  Mostly it is just referred to as “2010,” although apparently FIFA, the soccer governing body, hates that, and insists on “the FIFA 2010 World Cup.”  This topic is discussed from every possible angle on a continuous basis.  Sample topics: How will SA’s prostitution market be affected? Will the roads be ready? Will the South African team score even a single goal? Would all of the money spent on stadiums and aiports have been better spent on houses and schools instead? Why are there no women refs in the world cup?. 

Vuvuzelas - this is really a sub-topic of the 2010 conversation. A vuvuzela is a cheap plastic horn that a soccer fan bows.  One vuvuzela is loud.  If  25% of the fans in a 100,00-seat stadium are blowing vuvuzelas, the sound is continous and mind scrambling, like something that the army’s psychological ops unit would use to persuade hostage takers to surrender.  The question is whether to allow them in the stadiums during the world cup.  The topic immediately brings up issues of race and class and “traditional culture” (vuvuzelas are popular among poorer and blacker South Africans), of national pride and insecurity (”Won’t Europeans think we are uncivilized?), of individual vs. collective rights.  Not sure what the decision will be on vuvuzelas in the stadium.

President Zuma’s love life - in January, in a traditional Zulu ceremony, President Jacob Zuma got married for the fifth time.  One wife divorced him many years ago, and one died, so the marriage represented only his third simultaneous wife.  The marriage seemed to burnish President Zuma’s credentials with some constituencies, and led to a polite national discussion of “traditional African values”, and “tolerance of many lifestyles in the New South Africa.”

Three weeks ago, the story came out that the President had fathered a child, his 20th (!)  born last October.  The mother is not his new wife, but the unmarried daughter of a hugely powerful and (allegedly) ruthless soccer-team owner named Irvin Khoza.  Khoza’s nickname is “the Iron Duke,” and he is a giant of South African business and is the chairman of the … FIFA 2010 World Cup organizing committee.  The closest analogue I can think of in the U.S. would be if President Obama fathered a love child with Ivanka Trump.  Weird, for sure.  President Zuma has acknowledged paternity, and paid “damages” to his erstwhile friend, the Iron Duke. 

The love-child scandal has been big news, but not so big that the President resigned, or got impeached or anything.  He has sort of promised that he won’t do it again.  Keep in mind, that President Zuma was acquitted of raping (but acknowledged having sex with) the unmarried young daughter of another friend a few years ago, and that South Africa has a tremendous HIV/AIDS problem.

Lifestyle audits - like in many places, a lot of South African politicians seem to live a lot better than you would expect on their government salaries.

Greetings from Cape Town!

Tallulah has been going to an after-school art class for the last few Tuesdays. Today, the project was for each child to decorate the outside of a goldfish bowl with paint.  After the bowl was finished, the teacher poured in some gravel, some warm water, and a gnarly looking, big-headed black fish.

So, this explains how it came to pass that India was driving back from town this afternoon with Zola, Tallulah, and Tallulah’s new pet, Flounder.   Having seen “Finding Nemo” a bunch of times, Tallulah made a point of telling everyone in her class that she was “no fish killer,” not like Darla in the movie.

On the drive home, the open bowl sat in the middle of the back seat, braced by backpacks. Tallulah fell asleep. The road above Camps Bay is twisty and narrow, and with every turn, some water sloshed out of the open bowl. Zola kept telling India, “Water is spilling out. Danger, Mom. Not much water left.”

On one hairpin turn, the bowl tipped over entirely, and Flounder found himself lying on the backseat of the car, gasping for water. The splash woke up Tallulah, who burst into tears, screaming, “Flounder is dying!”

Fortunately, India happened to be passing the only convenience store for miles around. She screeched into the parking lot and stopped the car. She sent Zola into the shop to find warm, non-carbonated bottled water. Then she lifted Flounder off the seat (yuck), and dropped him onto the dry gravel in the bottom of the bowl. Tallulah continued to cry.

With the fish bowl tucked heroically under her arm, and the doors to the car standing wide open, India ran into the store. Zola had gotten distracted by the ice cream display, and had not found any water. India found a few bottles, opened them, and poured them onto a seemingly very relieved Flounder.  Zola asked, “Why does he keep opening and closing his mouth, Mom?”  And then Zola asked for an ice cream.

As India waited in line to pay, with the full fish bowl balanced in one hand, and three empty bottles in the other, her cell phone rang.  She set down the fish bowl and answered.  It was a colleague calling from Nairobi to review some line edits on a document.  “Can I call you back?”

She had Zola hold the fish bowl in his lap for the rest of the drive home.  He got soaked. It turns out that the paint on the fish bowls was not waterproof (seems like a pretty basic oversight) so he may have ruined yet another Reddam School cricket uniform shirt.  Flounder appears to have survived the experience, although the cat has been eyeing him with more than casual interest.  Flounder may end up finding a happy home in the stream that runs next to our house.

An afternoon of drama and heroics. Almost as exciting as when we discovered, at the end of Zola’s first-ever swim team practice, that he had been wearing his new Speedo backward. Whoops.

Greetings from Cape Town!

Just before school started, I promised Zola and Tallulah that we would have a family celebration at the end of their first full week of classes. 

Because they started on Tuesday, January 19th, the end of the first full week was January 29th.   I guess  I don’t make many promises like that, because the celebration became a rallying cry and a countdown for both kids. “Only five  days until the celebration, Dad!”  “When you get back from Johannesburg, we have the celebration the very next day!” “Hooray, today is the celebration!” 

In the end, the big celebration turned out to be a family lunch and a trip to the mall.   On Friday afternoon, India and Tallulah went to the extremely popular “Grand at the Beach” restaurant to hold our table, and I waited at school while Zola had tryouts for the cross-country team.  In their school uniforms, the kids ran seven laps, barefoot, around the inner perimeter of the school’s courtyard/synthetic turf field.  It reminded me of a scene in the movie “Chariots of Fire.”  Zola ran pretty well, but another little American girl crushed the rest of the kids, literally lapping the field.

Tallulah and Zola were practically the only kids in the ’see and be seen’ Friday lunch and drinks crowd at the packed resturant.   It looked as though most tables were groups of work colleagues who had gone to lunch together, and decided to start the weekend early. Wine was giving way to mojitos, and many people had taken their shoes off to walk on the sand outside the restaurant’s open doors.  Cape Town is a little relaxed in the summer (unlike the rest of the year??).

At the Waterfront Mall, Tallulah had her long-awaited visit to the Build-A-Bear workshop.  She chose a flattened she-wolf, named her Lily, and helped fill her body with stuffing.  Then Tallulah was given a red satin heart, and told to rub it on her arms, to give Lily strength, on her belly, to make sure Lily always had enough to eat, and on her own heart, so that Lily would know that Tallulah loves her.  After all of this rubbing, Tallulah thrust the heart into Lily, and the kind attendant started sewing Lily up.  Tallulah performed her part of the ritual with the seriousness and barely contained joy of someone joining a secret society, or taking an oath of office after a tough election.  Tallulah typed the information for Lily’s birth certificate, and she selected a golden satin dress and high heels for Lily to wear.  Tallulah and Lily have become inseparable.

Zola took us to the hobby shop in the mall, and selected a set of ‘Warhammer 40,000′ soldier figurines.  He has been mildly obsessed with these for months.  We also had to buy paint and glue and brushes and a Codex catalogue of the Tau Imperial Army.  The young, tattooed, hobby-store clerk, said,”This is only the beginning, man.  We’ll be seeing a lot of you from now on.”

Zola and I spent many happy hours together over the weekend, gluing tiny plastic body parts together, individualizing each soldier with curved swords, and skulls on chains, and huge multi-barrelled pistols, and then painting them with teeny, tiny brushes.  Most of the time while we were working on the models, Zola made a “thut-thut-thut-thut-thut-thut-thut-thut-thut” noise with his mouth, imitating the noise of a machine gun.  Ten-year-old-boy bliss.

So, we survived the first week of school, and felt we had much to celebrate.  Zola has been thrown in the deep end of a pool called “everything’s different” - new country, new school, new educational approach (uniforms and clunky shoes, switching classes), new sports (cricket, surf lifesaving), new friends, new, new, new.  I am very proud that he has handled the changes with grace and joy.  Tallulah has had an easier go of it, but has been equally adaptable.

Our re-entry is becoming a little less ragged.

India and I have moved to Cape Town twice before.  Also, we have been in South Africa for several weeks every year since we returned to the U.S. in late 2000. 

Given this familiarity and comfort, we thought that moving here the third time would be simple and fun, like all of our vacation trips have been.  We thought wrong, particularly around school.  The cultural gulf is huge, between the schools we have been used to (Willow School, home school, PS 3 - the Hippie School, and the Blue Man Creative Center) and the South African system.

Back in August, we were delighted when Tallulah and Zola were accepted to one of the good private schools in Cape Town.  Both kids had friends in their prospective classes, the school was well organized and welcoming, and it all seemed perfect. 

The school does seem to be fine (time will tell), but getting our kids outfitted and equipped has been more confusing and expensive than I could have imagined.  Getting ready to learn has been a huge learning experience in itself.  It has also reminded us how much South Africa is a “figure it out for yourself” culture, like Australia.  No touchy-feely orientations or buddy systems for the new kids, boyo, just get on with it.

We had to buy uniforms at a shop at our school’s sister school, about 45 minutes away.  Along with a dozen other families, we crowded into a tiny shed, which was crammed from floor to ceiling with polyester and polyester-blend school uniforms in khaki and navy.  Lu was easy: three sundresses and a couple of floppy hats.  For Zola, we had to throw ourselves on the mercy of the shop attendant.  She piled a basket high, with shorts and shirts and a tie and a blazer.  The uniform shoes look exactly like brown versions of the big, thick-soled clunkers worn by NYC police officers.  Zola has huge feet, and the clunkers look gargantuan on him (and make him five feet tall).

It took a couple of hours, and required an extra trip to the cash machine (no credit cards accepted), but we got the kids outfitted.  Late that afternoon, they did a fashion parade around the kitchen in their new uniforms, looking terribly smart, and we set photos to grandparents all around the world.

When we were accepted, the school informed us that Zola would need to have his hair cut before starting school.  This part of the preparation led to a traumatic shearing and an angry kid.

 Buying stationery and covering notebooks with plastic (an ancient South African tradition) has been more complicated and frustrating than getting the uniforms.  During the Northern Hemisphere summer, the school sent us an invoice for a crazy amount of stationery that had been ordered on Zola’s behalf.  A few days before school started, we pickd up a huge cardboard briefcase filled with literally dozens of notebooks, plastic folders, special markers, pencils, pens.  The supplies also included 12 tubes of Pritt Glue Stick and a sharp-pointed compass and a protractor.

We thought we were set, until we visited a South African friend on the day before school started.  Our friend, Natalie, has two boys at the same school, aged 12 and 10.  Natalie had received two of the huge stationery briefcases, and had covered every one of the notebooks, tablets, textbooks, in matching colored plastic, organized by subject.  She had bought color-coded zip-up folder bags, in which to store the matching notebooks.  She had labelled every covered book with printed labels, also color coded by subject.  She had even printed tiny labels to identify each boy’s pens and pencils.

I thought she was crazy, bringing anal retention to new highs.  I said, “You’re crazy, bringing anal retention to new highs.”  Natalie responded by handing us a sheet from our school that described exactly what parents were expected to do in terms of stationery and book covering.  Somehow, we literally had not gotten the memo.  The sheet described the requirements as eing exacty in line with what Natalie had done. 

We asked a few other parents, and they all said that it is a 6-8 hour job for each kid.  “It’s a tradition.”  “It’s how we have always prepared for school.”  Natalie is slightly over the top, but had not done much more than the expected minimum.

Since that day, India and I have been wrestling with colored paper and adhesive clear plastic every night.  Read on its own, that last sentence sounds kind of hot.  Actually, we have struggled mightily to get the covers on Zola’s books, and get flip files and zip-up folders all together and matching by color.   Fifth graders take thirteen (count ‘em!) separate subjects, so covering the notebooks and textbooks for all of the subjects is sort of like wrapping about fifty Christmas presents.  nstead of wrapping paper, though, we are using a layer of heavy construction paper, with a layer of extremely sticky clear plastic over it.

Several times our exasperation and frustration (I am truly horrible at handicrafts) has bubbled over into sharp words between India and me.  For example, I say: “Forget this, it’s completely ridiculous.  I suck at cutting and pasting, and I don’ t understand why it is required.”  India responds, “Zola will get demerits or debits for not having covered books.  Hush up and keep covering, Mister.”

This evening we finally broke the back of the great staionery challenge.  We hope that tomorrow, the third day of school, Zola will not get into any trouble for uncovered books.  Seems strange.

Tallulah does not need books yet.  Thank heavens for small blessings.

Happy Martin Luther King Day.

Tonight, no one in the Baird Family has a dream, because no one is staying asleep for long enough. Tomorrow is the first day at Reddam House school for Zola and Tallulah, and nerves are running a bit high.

India and I spent a significant part of the evening engaged in a long-standing South African parent ritual that we did not know about before this week: covering all textbooks and notebooks in colored paper and adhesive plastic. This involves a lot of measuring, cutting, and careful placing/pasting. The colored paper is coded to match each of Zola’s subjects. Apparently, this is how it has always been done here. I’m not sure I see the pedagogical benefit to the elaborate text-book covers, but, like wearing the clunky, brown lace-up shoes with Zola’s uniform, it wasn’t presented as an option.

Tallulah met her teacher, Kim, when we stopped by the school today. We were encouraged when young Kim greeted Tallulah with a hug, but surprised when she introduced herself as “Mrs. Manson-Kullin, that’s a long name” Blue School was so mind-bogglingly wonderful that it will be difficult for any Tallulah school experience to match it. Tallulah skipped and danced all around her classroom like an elf, so excited and happy to be starting her new school.

Zola is being stoic, but is clearly nervous. We are glad that he goes in knowing a few kids. After one day of classes, the entire fifth grade goes away for a three-day camping trip. The trip should give him the opportunity to get to know his classmates. Socially, he will be fine. India and I are having pangs of “our baby!” and “three whole days away from us!”. I’m also feeling daunted by the stacks of textbooks (particularly Afrikaans and French), and hoping we can help him catch up quickly.

Nervous excitement for all four of us.

Completely unrelated to school, but making us glad to be here, early this morning we stood on our deck and watched a group of ten dolphins playing in the surf. They nosed around near the few surfers who were in the water (probably gave the surfers an initial fright, given the publicity around the deadly shark attack last week in Fishoek), but mostly frolicked in the breaking waves. Pretty amazing to watch out out kitchen window.

Life is good. On to school.

We’ve been on the ground in South Africa for two weeks today. Everyone is long past their jet lag, and our initial sun burns have sloughed off in a scaly mess. We are slowly getting ourselves sorted out: mostly a function of new cell phones, electric-plug adapters, and internet access. India and I have been filling out loads of paperwork for insurance, and school, and extracurricular activities and jobs.

Mostly, though, we are in the process of becoming, or rebecoming, Capetonians.

Tallulah had a tea and cupcake party yesterday with all of the girls from the kindergarten class she is joining next week. Her friend, Sienna, and Sienna’s mommy organized it. The little girls bounced on the trampoline, jumped in the pool, ran around in the sun, decorated and ate cupcakes, and repeated the cycle.

After eating three strawberry cupcakes, Tallulah felt very ill, and went and hid in the bathroom. When India found her, Tallulah asked, earnestly, “Mommy, am I pink? Do they have some broccoli for me to eat?” I guess we read the book “Pinkalicious” to her a few too many times. Assured that she was not pink, Tallulah recovered quickly.

Zola had a paintball birthday party with a group of boys from the fifth-grade class that he joins next week. It was a perfect introduction, and fun for him. In two hours, the ten kids shot 4,500 paintballs at each other, scrambling around in the dune grass and scrub of an exposed field near Paarl. I counted about 40 total hits. Fun for all.

The ‘becoming Capetonian’ process is subtle. Tallulah’s face has exploded with hundreds of freckles, a sure sign of progress. After dinner out last night, Zola walked across the parking lot in his bare feet. I asked whether he had left his shoes in the restaurant, and he said, “No, I didn’t wear any shoes.” Another sign of progress.

We have been hiking and boogie boarding and swimming in the ocean. A Zimbabwean man got eaten by a shark near our favorite surfing spot, so we are taking a little break from surfing. Zola starts training with the surf lifesaving club on Sunday morning.

India and I are feeling slightly stressed, getting a lot of administrative stuff squared away while seeing friends, moving house, and entertaining kids. Also, I went to Turkey for a few days last week. We have had a few cross words, but more as a symptom of anxiety than anything serious. I wish I were a better person, and responded to stress with a light heart and a kind word.

Mostly, though, we are feeling very blessed to be here. The location of our rental house is so spectacular as to defy description: waves are crashing onto the beach 50 feet from our living room. Sea and mountains surround us on all sides. We have each other, and our friends, and a whole continent of opportunities and adventures.

Greetings from Cape Town!

Door to door, the trip took 34 hours. Our year of traveling sort of trained everyone, so it was fine. The individual TV screens in economy class make this feasible, even fun, for the kids.

We went to a wedding on our first evening in Cape Town. The bride was a South African woman who we have known since she was four (tempus fugit), and the groom was a South African who had grown up in the US. The wedding was held at Leeuwkop, the Western Cape premier’s official residence. It is the equivalent of the governor’s mansion, but built in the 1690s, and set into the side of Table Mountain, overlooking the city and the port.

The wedding, and the groom’s family, were Orthodox Jewish, which made for an interesting ceremony. There were official contracts in Hebrew, and the bride making circles around the groom, and lots of ancient formality. Tallulah was a flower girl, and spent the whole ceremony chasing flower petals that had been blown off the path by the teeth-rattling wind. Zola was a ring bearer (or ring barrier, as he called it), so he stood in the chupa with the wedding party, holding one of the four wooden poles to prevent the structure from blowing off the mountain. He looked a little shaggy and unkempt, but I don’t think anyone minded.

We saw many old friends at the wedding, which made us feel welcome and at home.

31 December was India’s birthday, so she set the agenda. She ran from our house in Llandudno to the base of Lion’s Head mountain. We met a group of friends there, and climbed up in the morning sunshine. Tallulah climbed the whole way by herself, spurred on by her friend, Sienna, who was climbing by herself for the second time. At the top, we sang Happy Birthday and ate carrot cake. For India, this was nearly perfect.

Although we have gotten a little color, and look healthier than we did in NY, we are all still feeling jet-lagged and out of sorts.

Tallulah has been collapsing at about 7pm each night (the wedding was tough), and getting up with the sun at 5am. She has been calling us “father” and “mother”, and asking us to call her “daughter.” Not sure what type of coping mechanism this is.

Zola got a huge sack of plastic army men, and has been setting up elaborate set-piece battles, with Byzantine rules about what each piece can do. Occasionally, he runs around yelling “Suppressing fire!” and diving for cover into a sofa or onto the floor. He makes a lot of machine-gun noises too.

India has been running long, long distances, soaking up sun and beautiful views. She is overjoyed to be here. I’m happy that everyone else is happy, but am feeling apprehensive about work, and separation from the rest of the world. I will get over it, and we will be fine.

In the meanwhile, we have a lot of logistical and practical stuff to do (cars, health insurance, school uniforms), and we want to go surfing. It is nice to not feel pressure to see people and do things on a rapid-fire schedule, since we are staying indefinitely. This feels like a very relaxing holiday at the moment.

Cape Town is pretty awesome.

We are midway through the long trip to Johannesburg. South African Airways flights stop in Dakar, Senegal, to refuel and switch out the crew in the middle of the night.

Our last night in New York was bittersweet. At Zola’s suggestion, he and Tallulah and I went to Bleecker Street Pizza for dinner. This was our regular stop on the walk home from school. India and I did not make it to Minetta Tavern for a last celebratory drink, but can go on our next trip together.

We were in the car (actually, and fortunately, a 12-passenger van) by 9:30 this morning. For complicated and uninteresting reasons, we had to fly from Dulles, rather than from JFK. Having the van was fortunate because we had about 800 pounds of luggage (literally), and needed a big vehicle to ferry it.

The drive was easy, security at Dulles was tedious and very slow, but we made it through in plenty of time.

Ignoring all conventional wisdom, I ate airport sushi while we waited for the flight, and it was terrible. Aside from that, no drama.

We should be in Johannesburg in another 10 hours, and finally on the ground in Cape Town a few hours after that. It really is kind of a long way.

This is our last night in the U.S. before we move to South Africa. We flew up to New York from Nashville very early this morning, and spent the day making final preparations. After years of discussion, months of half-hearted preparation, and weeks of denial, (plus a few days of real packing) the move is upon us.

In the weeks of denial, I said things like:
“It’s the third time we’ve moved to South Africa. It really isn’t a big deal.”
“We’ll be back and forth so frequently that it won’t really be like we left.”
“With Skype and e-mail and cell phones and FaceBook and the NY Times on-line, and satellite radio, living overseas is nothing like it was when we left the first time.”

All of this is factually correct, but doesn’t change the fact that Cape Town is a long, long way from here. Best case, it’s a 24-hour trip, door to door. Long way to go for a weekend.

This evening, Zola actually cried a little, asking why we had to move. This wasn’t entirely surprising. What is surprising is that until today, both he and Lu have been so unambiguously supportive of the move. I think the 4:30 am departure from Gramae & Pop’s house, combined with the dislocation of being back in the West Village townhouse that has been home for the last four months, brought out an emotional reaction. We are all feeling some of that.

Last night, I lay awake in Nashville. Fretting. I’m excited about being back in South Africa, and about getting back into real work (details TBD). I’m slightly nervous about something terrible happening, but more realistically apprehensive about floundering professionally, or taking risks that do not pan out. I’m also pre-stalgic for the happiness and stability we have had over the last few months.

Tomorrow will be a long day: driving to Washington in our rented van, flying overnight to Johannesburg, and finally arriving in Cape Town at 11pm local time on Tuesday. We have a colossal amount of luggage, and are dreading long security lines and limits on cabin baggage.

Under any circumstances, we will be in South Africa soon enough. And it will be wonderful.