Change In Plans

Greetings from Cape Town!

In the last couple of weeks, everyone else in the family has achieved things that seem beyond their previous capabilities.  Maybe it is coincidental, but it has been fun for me to watch.  At the risk of sounding like a self-aggrandizing holiday letter:

Tallulah has started reading.  For several months she has been close, reading a few words when we looked at books together, surprising us by having clearly understood something that no one read to her.  I actually think she was holding back, sneaker, because she likes having us read to her.  Last week, though, she just decided to reveal all and read aloud.  No hesitation, just words tumbling out of her. 

Tallulah is also pushing the edge of an envelope called turning 6.  Hard to believe that we celebrated her birthday in Rajasthan two years ago already.  Time flies, so we must be having fun.  She and India organized a great birthday party on the beach on Friday afternoon.  The weather was awful, cloudy and windy and cold, but the kids had a grand time splashing in the freezing water and running in the sand.  The parents grumbled, but we retreated to the house and opened a few bottles of wine, and had a very civilized adult party, watching while the kids all went into the pool.

Zola has finally turned the corner in speaking Afrikaans.  We have had a great tutor for the last couple of months, and something has clicked with grammar and vocabulary, and away he goes.  We are still worried about his grades in Afrikaans, and exams and cycle tests, etc., but he is actually getting it.  India and I have worried a lot about his academic self confidence, and it would be great if Afrikaans somehow turned from a weakness to a strength.  Maybe we should let him walk a little before we expect him to run.

Zola also had a swimming time trial for the Surf Lifesaving Club on Thursday. For the first time in his life, I saw his mother’s fierce competitiveness come through.  When Zola and I practiced for the time trial, he complained, and swam side stroke, and adjusted his goggles a dozen times.  On Thursday, though, he just swam as hard and fast as he could.  He didn’t quite make the cutoff, but he knocked two minutes off his previous best time.  He said, “It was like a man came into my brain and threw a big switch, and all I wanted to do was beat those other kids.  I was really tired, but I just had to beat them.”  This is so far removed from his normal behavior that it was quite stunning.  If he qualifies on the swimming (it is difficult), he can compete in the surf lifesaving events against other clubs, and I think that is driving him as well.

India pushed the envelope the furthest.  Last Friday, she was invited to run in a crazy, 120-person Cape Town endurance race called the Three Peaks.  The distance is listed as +/- 50 kilometers, climbing and descending about 2700 meters.  The distances are not precise, because there is no fixed course.  The rough course is: start at sea level in the center of Cape Town (Greenmarket Square) and run to the top of Devils Peak (900 meters), then run back down to Greenmarket Square and run up to MacLear’s Beacon at the top of Table Mountain (1100 meters), then back down to Greenmarket Square and up to the top of Lion’s Head (700 meters), then finally back to Greenmarket Square.  She started at 5am and finished at 2pm.

To put it in context (for New Englanders, anyway), this is like running East from the Vermont-New Hampshire border, to the top of Mount Washington, then up another 3,000 feet or so, then back down.  I am in awe.

The Three Peaks Challenge is deep in the realm of psychotic endurance events.  India hooked up with a great support team of veteran runners and their long-suffering spouses, so she had good guidance in finding the right trails (getting lost on Devils Peak in the dark  is a real risk), and having her supplies and dry clothes handy.  It was raining for the first part of the race, and very misty on the first two peaks.  India, however, was in her element.  When the kids and I found her, coming down the Platteklip Trail on Table Mountain, she was drenched, but deliriously happy in an endorphin-fueled runner’s high (pupils dilated, permagrin, high fives all around).  Two hours later I caught up with her as she climbed Lion’s Head slowly in the bright sunshine.  She said she was “empty,” in part because I had missed our connection where I was supposed to bring potatoes and peanut butter, but her mood was good.  The fact that she refused to take off her jacket in the heat made me concerned that she was not exactly compos mentis. 

We climbed Lion’s Head together: it is the 45th time she has climbed it in 2010. The checkpoint at the top gave her a Snickers bar, some water, and a banana.  Suddenly the old India was back, and we raced down the mountain and back to town.  She crossed the finish line with a huge smile. 

We sat in Greenmarket Square with her team mates for an hour after the race.  They, and all of the other finishers we met, were incredibly nice, interesting, people: young archaeologist, recent heart-surgery patient, ex-chainsmoker, mild Aspergers sufferer.  They had welcomed India into their lunatic-fringe fraternity of extreme trail running.  We were both sorry to say goodbye and go pick up the kids.  They told India that the new training schedule for the 2011 race will be e-mailed around on Monday.

So, envelope edges being pushed all around.  My only claim to same is that I have been officially named the Provisional Deputy Assistant Flags Coach for the lifesaving club.  “Flags” is one of the competitive events in lifesaving, and it involves a lot of shouting at kids as they lie face down in the sand.  I’m not sure whether I am good at it yet, but Tallulah (my Deputy Deputy Assistant) and I are having fun on Sunday mornings.

Greetings from Mala Mala, next to the Kruger Park!

We are taking a three-day family vacation to look at animals. It would be a long weekend, except that the days are Sunday to Tuesday.

The story of how we ended up taking this short vacation provides some insight into our current family dynamic. A few weeks ago, the kids had their break between Terms 3 and 4. India wanted very much to go to Madagascar, but I thought it was too much money and too far to go for only a few days. Then she planned a trip to Northern Botswana for the same period, and I thought it was too much money and too far to go for only a few days. Finally, she planned a trip to a restored farmhouse in Swellendam, a long two-hour drive from Cape Town. Everything was set, until we found out that we couldn’t pay with a credit card or transfer funds from a foreign bank, so they cancelled our reservation.

In the end, we stayed at home during the school break, and India expressed some (probably deserved) frustration with me.

Fast forward a couple of weeks. We had been invited to a dinner party in Johannesburg that I very much wanted to attend. India’s perspective was that it was too far to go and too much money for a few hours.  Touche.

We agreed to bring the kids, and to make Johannesburg a transit point for going to the Kruger Park to look at animals. And here we are, headed to a lodge called Mala Mala, which (apparently) has the highest-density leopard population in the world.

Getting to Johannesburg was half the fun. Summer arrived in Cape Town on Saturday morning, and the entire city downshifted its pace from “leisurely” to “v-e-r-y  s-l-o-w.” It will be like this for the next 8 months. Everyone drives slowly, because they are admiring the ocean or the mountains or the girls in bikinis. Traffic backs up as people innovate beach-side parking spaces that block the road. All personal interactions take a long time, because there is an obligatory exchange about how beautiful the weather is. Everything takes twice as long to do as it would when the weather is lousy.

This partially explains why we were doing an OJ-Simpson sprint through Cape Town’s airport yesterday afternoon, racing to check in before the flight closed. Tallulah was barefoot, and with her wild-child hair and gap-toothed grin (lost a front tooth last week) she looked like a completely feral five-year old as she ran. She also looked wildly happy and excited.  Seeing that image in my mind’s eye fills me with humor and love.  Zola, struggling to carry the power cords and adapters for his iTouch, his left shoe continually falling off, and dropping his books, sort of brought up the rear of the parade.

Part of the airport challenge was that we had to weave our way through thousands of robe-clad Muslims who were starting the long pilgrimage to Mecca. Sometimes we forget that Cape Town is a Muslim city, although we were out for dinner on the weekend that Ramadan ended, and every restaurant was packed out with happy Muslim families, enjoying a daylight meal. Anyway, our feral and disorganized family pushed our heavily laden luggage trolleys at speed through crowds of excited pilgrims and the families they were leaving behind. “Salaam-aleiku” I said, and “Shakran,” when people let us through.  My trips to Egypt are helping.

We made the flight by less than a minute, and were wedged into the far back of the plane. One of the other few non-pilgrims on the plane was an African guy sitting next to me. He had a yellow t-shirt on that read, “Blind Chicks Think I’m Hot.” I told him that I have had the same experience.

In Johannesburg, we parted ways with the pilgrims. They should arrive in Saudi Arabia on the 17th or 18th of October, with nearly a month to pray and purify before the actual Hajj activities in Mecca (14-17 November). It is exciting, by proxy, to see people embarked on what literally is the trip of a lifetime.

We stayed at the Westcliff Hotel in Johannesburg. India and I were last there in 1998, meeting a friend for drinks at the Polo Bar. Nothing appears to have changed: the hotel is still beautiful and elegant, and the purple blossoms of the jacaranda trees sprawl majestically across the valley below. As we drove around the city, Tallulah shouted, “There’s another jacaranda!” about 300 times.

The Westcliff seems populated entirely by khaki-clad Americans and Germans over the age of 60. They have a nice business.

The dinner party was fun. Definitely worth the trip. Early this morning (Sunday), we drove back to the airport, found the charter-flight terminal, and boarded a tiny plane for Mala Mala. More khaki-clad Americans and Germans. South Africa seems to have nailed the high-end eco-tourism and safari market. We are looking forward to our short vacation, and to a few days together. Our trip around the world, when we lived like this all of the time, seems far away now.

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.

Greetings from Cape Town.

Zola was invited to his first “boy-girl” birthday party last Friday.  More accurately, it was a “girl-boy” party, since the birthday girl and five of her girlfriends invited Zola and two other boys.  It was meant to be a sleepover, but India and I were not exactly comfortable with that idea.

India dropped Zola off at Lily’s seventh-floor apartment at 3pm.  He insisted that he wanted to be picked up in an hour.  When Zola walked into the apartment, the 11-year-old girls started snapping pictures of him with their cell phones, causing him to blush uncontrollably.  India wanted to say hello to Lily’s father, but was told he was “out,” and would be back “soon.”

Around 4:30, I came to get Zola on my way home.  I stood outside the apartment door and heard delighted shrieks and giggles coming from inside.  When I went in, all of the kids seemed very excited: flushed cheeks, dilated pupils, breathing a little heavily.  Zola said that they had been playing tag.  He begged to stay for another hour.

At 6pm, I came back, sharing an elevator ride with a pizza-delivery man.  When the door opened on the seventh floor, Zola ran past me, being chased by one of the girls from the party.  Laughter and shouting echoed up and down the hall.  When I told Zola it was time to go, he got very upset and ran away from me.  “Please can I stay Dad?  Please, please, please???”  I agreed that we would pick him up after dinner.

The doorman in the lobby laughed at me, when I came out of the elevator alone.  “Still the boy does not want to come?” he asked, rhetorically.

Finally, on my third trip back, I insisted that Zola come home.  The kids were all sort of cuddled together around the TV, watching a romantic comedy.  I also met the Dad, who was lying in his room playing video games.  He told me he had “let the kids kind of do their own thing.”  I was glad he was there, and he seemed comfortable that nothing too racy was going on.

In the car on the way home, Zola seemed very pleased with himself.  Under duress, he admitted that there had been games of “Spin the Bottle” and “Truth or Dare,” but there had only been hugging.  No kissing, no three minutes in a closet.  He later said that a couple of times the “dare” was to kiss someone on the hand.

I think the party was almost entirely innocent, but all of the kids may be having feelings that they don’t understand, and can’t explain.  It certainly was exciting to be chasing each other all around the show.

In the few days after the party, Zola started acting very moody and distant.  This is completely uncharacteristic for him: he has been the shaggy, happy dog of kids since he was a baby. 

Finally, on Tuesday afternoon, he and I had a chance to really talk.  There was nothing in particular bothering him, and there was nothing more to tell us about the party (as far as I know!).  We exhausted pretty much every possible topic that might be bothering him.  Finally he said, “Dad, I think it’s just puberty.”

Uh oh!  He’s 10.  I don’t think we are ready for this at all.

Greetings from Cape Town!

Excitement for the 2010 Soccer World Cup has been building in South Africa for the last six years.  Outside each of the big airports there is a huge display that has been counting down the days since 2007.  When we would arrive for holidays in past years, the displays would read some impossibly large and irrelevant number: 837 days to go! or 514 days to go! 

When we moved back in December, the day count was just over a hundred.  The marketers did a great job of building the excitement countrywide: special celebrations 100 days out and 50 days out, celebrations for the official openings of the new stadiums, etc.  Continuous radio advertisements that all ended with a booming voice saying, “Can you feel it?  It is here!”  Starting several mnths ago, every Friday became “Football Friday,” and millions of people wore yellow South African team jerseys to work.  In the last month, suddenly the blare of the long plastic vuvuzela horns became ubiquitous: bwaaaah bwaaaah bwaaaaah bwaaaah bwaaaaaah bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

The World Cup on its own is a huge spectacle: 64 games, 3 million tickets, billions of people watching on TV, etc.  For South Africa, it is an historic nation-building moment.  There are still naysayers who argue that the money spent on stadiums could have been spent on houses or just given to the poor.  Maybe easy for me to say (we have a house), but the galvanizing effect on the nation’s conscience has been worth the investment.  Collectively, South Africans seem to be looking at each other and saying, “Wow!  We are actually pulling this off!  We did it!”  Having a lot of new infrastructure - airports, roads, train lines - is good too.

More immediate than the theoretical socioeconomic benefits, the experience has been amazing.  I was in Johannesburg on Friday, the opening day, trying to get to the airport to fly to Cape Town.  Everyone else was trying to get to fan parks or to the game itself.  It seemed that every foot of roadway was crowded with cars flying South Africa flags, horns blaring, vuvuzelas blowing.  It was an excruciating two and a half hour drive drive. I missed my first flight in eighteen months, and came extremely close to wetting my pants, but the atmosphere in the streets was electric.  Even in the airport, dozens of people were blowing their vuvuzelas in noisy enthusiasm.

South Africa tied Mexico 1-1 in the opening match.  When South Africa scored the opening goal, the entire country erupted in cheers.  It’s like nothing I have experienced before.

On Friday night, we went to the opening game in Cape Town.  The weather was warm and beautiful, the new stadium was spectacular, and the whole experience was exciting and fun.  The kids’ school is about a five minute walk from the stadium, so parking at the school was awesomely convenient.  We put Tallulah on my shoulders, and just blended in with the huge, festive crowd.  The game itself was a little dull: France and Uruguay tied 0-0.  But the experience and the positive feeling (and the giddy, deserved self-congratulation of South Africans) was great.

Our second game, on Monday night, reminded everyone that it is winter in Cape Town.  We got soaked by a cold rain walking to the stadium.  When it started to hail, India found us shelter in the back of a bratwurst-seller’s kiosk on the fan walk.  A smiling German sausage man came back to his tiny grilling area and found four of us huddled together for warmth.  He was gracious, particularly when we ought some bratwursts and congratulated him in German for his country’s 4-0 win over Australia the day before.

When the rain let up, we raced to the stadium to get under cover before the next downpour.  It rained on and off during the game.  Our seats were just at the edge of being covered: if the wind blew offshore, we were dry.  If it blew toward the mountain: drenched.  India was good natured but unamused: she bundled herself up like an Arctic explorer and lurked in the fully covered part of the stands.  Zola and his friend, Dante, and I cheered our lungs out and pretended it wasn’t actually raining.  We were glad that Tallulah had declared, “If it isn’t South Africa or America playing, I don’t want to go.”

Despite the rain, everyone had fun.  South Africa is pulling off this great event.  It is wonderful to be here.

Greetings from Singabezi, Zambia, an island in the middle of the Zambezi River.

Through poor planning and miscommunication, we did not file our permanent-residency applications in South Africa before India’s and the kids’ temporary-residence permits ran out. To stay on the right side of the law, we were compelled to pay a small fine and take a brief ‘visa holiday’ outside of the Republic of South Africa.

The rules require that we go to a non-neighbouring country, so the easiest trip was to Livingstone, Zambia. This is just over the border from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

My vision was that we would fly in, get our passports stamped, and go back to Cape Town. If necessary, we could stay overnight at an airport hotel. Fortunately, India saw this as an opportunity to do something fun, so she booked us at this lodge in the middle of the river.

There are five tents and a little central area. The river, which is very high at the moment, rushes past us on all sides. We were told not to let the kids play at the water’s edge, because a crocodile could take them. On the boat ride out, we saw half a dozen big crocs, lazing in the sun.

So we are chilling out, in splendid isolation, for a few days. I use the term “splendid isolation” ironically, because I’m generally much happier being around people. India is happiest out here: she sees nothing ironic about the splendidness. If this is the most significant fault line in our marriage, I think we are doing okay.

Today we went down and walked around Victoria Falls from the Zambian side. As I noted, the river is high, and the falls were absolutely full. The power and noise of a mile of water tumbling 300 feet over the edge of a cliff is quite awesome. We walked down into the gorge, and got completely drenched by the spray. To save a dollar, I was the only one who did not rent a poncho, and my shorts are still damp 10 hours later. Zola laughed hysterically and skipped around in the downpour.

Later in the day, we visited a primary school located next to Tongabezi Lodge. The school feeds all 168 students twice a day, and has a beautiful small amphiteater and a music program. The school has been supported by Tongabezi and by foreign visitors for the last 20 years. What they do, and the success they have had, is impressive. The best part was seeing their computer lab, with 1d kids crowded around four computers, taking a quiz about seed dispersal through a British website. They have fast wireless internet access. This seems like a complete game changer in a school in rural Zambia. The computers were powered by car batteries.

So, here we are on the island. No internet (unlike the school on the banks), no electricity, and patchy cell-phone coverage. I need to learn how to relax, and enjoy a special place. Zola and I are studying hard for his exams, which start next week. Eight consecutive school days of 90-minute exams. It seems like a lot for a 10-year old. He is nervous, but surprisingly focused on studying, and I think we will be okay. More generally, I think we will be okay as well.

Incidentally, we have always like the fact that Zola’s name means “calm, peaceful, or tranquil in Xhosa. Down in South Africa, it is a nice point of contact for him and for us. We found out today that in Nyanja, one of the main Zambian languages, Zola means “to apply lotion.” Our guide thought this was very funny, and I suppose it is.

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.