Change In Plans

Greetings from Cape Town!

The kids are on Spring Break this week.  India  planned a fabulaborate (ie, fabulous and elaborate) short trip to Madagascar, which is #1 on her tourism wish list, and has been for a long time.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t take the time, and I wasn’t comfortable spending the money, so we are planning to go some time next year.

Instead of being in Madagascar, which appears to be one of the world’s most abnormal places, we have had a few days together at home and up at the farm in Tulbagh.  This is the first time we have been in Tulbagh in the Spring, and the first time that we have just gone up on our own for a few days mid-week.  It was blissful.

India went for long runs on the dirt roads, (recovering from the Cape Town Marathon, which she ran on Sunday).  We drove up to the mountaintop behind our house, to face west and watch the sun set over the fynbos.  Later, we cuddled en famille  under a down comforter in the upstairs living room, and watched movies. 

Tallulah and I liked the puppy movie, “Santa Buddies”, a lot.  At the end, she told me, “I am crying, but in a happy way.” I got a little tearful too, but only in the part where Tiny, the littlest dog, gets adopted on Christmas morning by the sickly boy.  And also when the mean dogcatcher gets invited for a Christmas dinner, and stops being so mean.  And maybe when Puppy Paws realizes that he has enough magic in his collar to have the other puppies pull Santa’s sleigh.  And also, …

We explored the Tullbagh Valley a little, and met one of our neighbors.  He is a Belgian wine farmer, who offsets his farming losses by renting the estate out for multi-thousand-guest rave and trance parties.  Zola was interested in, but truly intimidated by, his blonde 12-year old daughter, who rode a Rip Stik all around the winery’s tasting room while we talked.

The rest of Spring Break week has been busy down in Cape Town, with work, and play dates, and surfing.  India and Zola climbed Lion’s Head mountain this morning together.  She feels as though he is already slipping away from her a little, into his mildly obsessive world of Eavy Warhammer figurines and European soccer trivia.  India figures that this is the 50th time she has climbed Lion’s Head this year. 

This afternoon, Tallulah and India were invited to a tea party by our neighbors, the adorable 4-year-old twin sisters.  Later, the twins told me that there was “no tea, only pretend.”  Zola and the twins’ older brother, Ben, sneaked over and had several of the (real) cupcakes that were on offer.

In short, it has been a week of happy normalcy.  We are healthy, feeling (reasonably) settled, enjoying the outdoors, and enjoying being together.  Soon the kids will go back to schoold for Term Four, and India and I will get crazy busy. 

I have to store away the essence of these happy times, to draw on it when times are tough, or I am feeling sorry for myself.  Julie Andrews would sing a song about it.

Greetings from Cape Town!

The days and weeks are hurtling by in a happy blur.  I am suddenly working a lot again, which has done wonders for my confidence and overall disposition.  That sounds a little pathetic, and probably is, but I am much happier when I’ve got a lot to do.  At some point in the last two years, I reached a point of negative marginal utility from additional leisure time.  That is a fancy way of saying I had gotten professionally bored and lonely.

The kids are deep into their third quarter at school.  Tallulah is not learning much in the classroom, but is a maniac for workbooks and projects at home.  Zola has gotten the hang of the 13 subjects and 9 teachers, and has gotten much better on administration.  He is still struggling with Afrikaans, and with some of the non-core classes, but he seems well adjusted and deeply happy.  Both kids sleep soundly with big smiles on their faces.  This move has been good for them.

India is working a lot as well, continuing to support the roll-out of sexual-assault treatment/prosecution centers across South Africa and the rest of Africa.  She also has a lot of other projects, mostly relating to strengthening 10-15 year-old girls.

That all sounds remarkably like a holiday card.  Lazy writing on my part.

This post is mostly about a weekend trip that we took in late August to a provincial wilderness area park called De Hoop, on the southern coast of South Africa. 

One of the core tensions that ran through our trip around the world was that I love cities - crowds of people, human energy, foreign culture as it manifests in striving - and India loves being away from cities.  She likes desolate beauty, chasing animals, and being in remote places.  Most of the time, it was a light-hearted difference of preference, although I got annoyingly grouchy and flaky a few times when we were very far off the grid (e.g., most of the time in New Zealand and Tasmania).  Still, as core tensions go, this is not a bad one.

India had been planinng the trip to De Hoop for months, and was excited to go.  I was confused as to why we were driving several hours to sit next to a beautiful beach when we already live on a beautiful beach.  After she told me several times that De Hoop was two and a half hours from Cape Town, I got anti-socially grouchy in the car when I read the directions that clearly said three and a half hours.  We also sat in Friday rush hour traffic for an additional 90 minutes getting out of the city.  Grrrr.

So we motored along, headed southeast out of Cape Town, toward Cape Agulhas, the southernmost tip of Africa. 

Near Swellendam we left the highway, and drove for 45 minutes on a dirt road into the countryside.  Finally, long after dark, we arrived at the park gate.  In my bad Afrikaans, I asked the ranger whether we could drop our bags at the house quickly before we went to the restaurant for dinner.  She  looked at our reservation, and told me, in Afrikaans, that we were staying at Koppie Alleen (which means, “the lonely hilltop”) and that we still had another half hour of driving to get to the house.

I asked her to repeat in English, because I was sure I had misunderstood.  I hadn’t.

We had a surprisingly great dinner in front of the fire in the old manor house, and then another ranger drove the 30 minutes (really) from the gate to Koppie Alleen.  The house was a restored compound of 100-year-old workers’ cottages, set on sand dunes just above the roaring Indian Ocean.  There were no other buildings for 15 kilometers.  There was also no electricity.

With the rangers, we lit the kerosene lanterns and propoane heaters all around the house.  Then we made a fire, battened down the windows and doors against the howling wind, and settled into another century for the night.  The koppie felt very much alleen.

Tallulah and India were up at dawn, and walked down the sand dunes toward the ocean.  Zola and I were woken by their shouting.  Half asleep, it was difficult for me to distinguish a “Help! We are in trouble!” shout from a “Wow! This is exciting!” shout.  Fortunately, it was the latter, but I only realized it after staggering out of the house and onto the sand dunes in my underwear.

They were excited because whales, huge whales, were breaching about 30 meters offshore.  (Clothed) we all walked down to the beach.  We watched the whales, and explored the tidal pools, and climbed the sandy cliffs.  We did not see a single other person.  It was a magical experience.  This is why people come to De Hoop.

We spent the rest of the weekend riding bikes, walking on the beach, reading, and exploring.  I actually spent a lot of the day on Saturday doing the work that I was afraid I would not get to, so that also made me feel better.

Almost every time India plans something like this, I grumble about going, and I grumble en route, but I am happy once we are there.  This was definitely one of those situations.  Bad behavior on my part, but I try to be gracious once we realize that she has (once again) created something special for us.  I hope she doesn’t give up on me and stop planning these trips.