Bored Stiff

‘The early morning sun reaches its fingers through the gum trees, trying to touch her as she makes her way up the driveway to our house. Her gait is steady and stubborn and she is surprisingly youthful for her years and for the stories she carries. Her tasks in our home are mundane and repetitive and she has been completing them for years. She is not one to complain and will readily share in our grief and our joys. She is on the periphery of all the major milestones in our lives. She is Spongile.’

Spongile has never not been there. Her presence in our home is as sure as the comfort of a roast chicken and the warmth of a homecoming. I often take for granted that she will always be there, but I shouldn’t, especially after the things this woman has had to endure. I don’t know anyone who has been through more hardships than Spongile. She has, amongst many things, lost two of her children. And the list continues and is fairly appalling. She has survived the worst.

It has always been a marvel to me that, despite the atrocities that have happened to this woman over the years, she still manages to make her way up the road every morning to hang up the same sheets she’s been hanging up for the last twenty years. She knows our home better than I do and has worked in it for longer than I have been alive.

I have seldom seen this woman break down and it has always been rather amazing to me that she sometimes manages to come to work and complete a day when I know what she is having to deal with at home. At this point it’s important to say that she in no way forced to come to work when things are difficult, it is her choice. If I had half the things that have happened to her happen to me I would probably have to be institutionalised for a long, long, long time. Very long.

One often wonders whether different cultures deal with pain in different ways. And we do to a point – well, we certainly express our pain in very different ways. It’s interesting how psychologists are commenting on how the Japanese are currently dealing with their tremendous grief. Apparently if one is tuned into the aesthetic of Japanese expression one will see that they carry their anguish in their eyes. After hearing this I have been remarkably moved by the stories of pain in their eyes – it’s so easy to see once you know where to look. In the same light I have often wondered where Spongile puts her grief and pain.  I’m someone who carries everything verbally (its part of my culture) – you’ll know when I’m sad cause I shout it from the rooftops. I’m all about speaking pain. But where does Spongile put hers?

My family have recently gone through a particularly sad time. Last year we lost my grandfather, my cousin and a very close family friend. It is going to take a very long time to recover. During this time my Mom asked Spongile how she managed to cope with the loss of her two children. Her reply was and will always be the wisest thing I think anyone will ever say – ‘You just keep busy.’

I have been reflecting over this advice for a few weeks now as I attempt to put my own life into perspective. I went through a seriously crappy time last year, probably the worst in my life and I realise now that my depression all boils down to one thing – I was bored. My thesis is further proven when I think back to the only other time when I felt like I felt last year. In my matric year I wasn’t allowed to be in any theatre, it was a school rule, because I had to ‘focus on my studies’. Ironically my matric results are, to this day, an embarrassment to me. I completely lost all interest in school. My joy was stolen and as a result my matric year will always be a dismal blot on a very successful school career. I stopped swimming, I stopped exercising, I stopped studying and I took to eating chocolates on the benches above the hockey field so that I could laugh sadistically at the sweaty girls playing hockey. Sadly it was actually these girls who were still taking joy in being at school.

Luckily my life exploded the next year when I became a first year at Rhodes University. I rocked my university career – I was always in a production and as a result I did relatively well in my studies and I was confident and happy enough to have a brilliant time.

Last year I made some impulsive choices that probably weren’t that wise. I didn’t really think them through and I lost my sense of purpose and joy as a result. I gave up my job in Joburg and moved to Durban with no real plan, no job in the pipeline, nothing. Luckily I managed to scrounge a part time locum drama teaching job at a private junior school at the last minute. I managed to scrape by but it was far from what I needed. I taught a couple of hours a day and took on directing the school play with only a term to rehearse. It was fine, I got by. If I think of the hours I whiled away last year (normally eating something) I just get sad. When I stopped living to my full potential I stopped believing in myself.

Luckily I was in such a bad place mentally that when the opportunity to teach in Oman came up I knew I had to take it – I didn’t really have a choice. My locum was up, I was jobless again and I knew that if I didn’t do something drastic I would end up ruining my life and my relationships with the people I loved the most. And so I packed up my life, again, I said goodbye to everything and I moved to a country in the Middle East where I didn’t know a soul – that’s how desperate I was not to feel depressed.

I was chatting to a friend of mine who I teach with the other night. She used to be a Life Line councillor in South Africa. She told me that most of the people who phoned her were middle aged women living in mansions in Bishopscourt. They all had enough money to warrant not having to get out of bed everyday and as a result they had become prisoners in their own mansions. They saw no one, their husbands were absent or had absconded and their children were living their own lives. I find this remarkably sad.  

When I think back on the happiest times in my life they have also been the busiest. I pity the people whose lives stretch ahead of them like one long afternoon nap. As much as I love a good nap it’s the work that earns that nap that makes it so sweet. I look at couples who have recently retired and their depression is almost palpable. What do you do when you’ve worked your whole life in order to live out your last years doing nothing except move the sprinkler on your ten feet of retirement home lawn from one flower bed to another?  The only time my grandfather ever got depressed was when he could no longer do a full day of farming (which happened in his late eighties, I might add). We were so desperate towards the end for him to be set free because boredom was killing his spirit. He would literally get bleak when he woke up from a nap to discover that he hadn’t died in his sleep. That’s what depression will do to you.

The Bible has a lot to say on the subject of being idle – none of it good. Human beings were designed to be active and fruitful. Even if all we’re going to do in a day is iron sheets or teach the past participle. We all need a reason to get up in the morning because it’s that reason that helps us to sleep at night.

I pray that I am busy for the rest of my life, that there will be legitimate struggles that I have to face daily, that I will never be sucked into boredom again. Obviously I have no guarantee on this one but at least I’m coming to see the pattern. Everything will seem wrong if you’ve had too much time to think about it. Life is not perfect, neither are relationships, but enjoy what you have and enjoy the challenges because they remind you that you’re alive.

So thank you Spongile and I promise I’ll try and keep busy.

Crossing Over

Has anyone ever taken the time to watch an entire episode of ‘Crossing over with John Edward’? I would be inclined to rename this cult tv show – ‘the show where a guy speaks to dead people who have absolutely nothing to say to the living because they are dead.’ In watching an episode most of the interactions follow the same formula - people acknowledge each other – ‘your great-grandmother (who used to have piles) ‘s second husband (with the squint)’s step daughter’s best friend’s dog acknowledges you. And then everyone cries. And that’s pretty much it. Do we really need some guy to tell us that the people who we love but who are no longer with us in the physical world acknowledge us? The least he could do is tell us that great uncle Samuel buried treasure under the oak tree next to the river and that the combination for the lock is 65492.

Now of course this leads to the next, far more compelling and complex question, how does he know all this stuff? Now this is where things get interesting...

So I have a theory. We are all born gifted. We all have the capacity to do the phenomenal, the super natural. And here I refer to ‘supernatural’ as things beyond what we think we are naturally capable of doing. I would love to say that my supernatural gifts include being able to do a flick flack, the ability to add in my head and the patience to fix an old car, but alas, no. Now, some people do have these abilities and isn’t that a glorious thing?  What if everyone was gifted like me – the world would be full of people who can nap at the drop of a hat, who can roast the life out of a chicken, who cry easily during Sta Soft adverts and who speak in weird voices on behalf of their pets. Even the thought of a society of Emilys just caused an uncomfortable mock charge in my stomach.

So luckily God made us ‘fearfully and wonderfully’ different. We are all wired differently and we all pretty much spend our whole lives trying to work out how we should be using our gifts, some people never really figure this out (here I refer to anyone who studied a BCom or became a lawyer, with tongue firmly in cheek). Unfortunately, in this delightful world of ours many people find it far easier to use their gifts for bad rather than good. If I was born with even the vaguest sense of business acumen (which tragically I wasn’t) I would probably rather own a huge multi-national corporation than start a free trade hemp farm for villagers in Azerbaijan.  If I had the skills of negotiating I would far rather negotiate myself into a sordid amount of money than use my skills to the betterment of the voiceless. I’m starting to realise that perhaps it’s a good thing that I was born with none of these skills because I may then have turned out to be the dictator of a small African country (which, incidentally, is my boyfriend, Stephen’s, long term goal). It’s tragic really that all the things I’m good at don’t really pack a financial punch, but oh come the day when salaries are based on exercise avoidance.

Some people are born really strong and have the physical IQ to be able to run and catch a ball at the same time, or run for a kilometre without having to vomit in a bush, again, giftings that were left off my list. So these people can either become incredible sportsmen, or fire-fighters, or policemen or assassins. All these jobs require physical finesse and acute spacial ability and a certain psychological discipline (which is completely beyond me) but not all of these jobs are good. Not everyone learns that it’s better to try and find a cure to cancer than it is to invent the products that create cancer.

At this point you’re probably yawning to yourself and thinking that I’m stating stuff that you’ve known since you were six when your mom told you that you’re probably never going to be able to fly but that you’re really good at running. So I will return to my initial premise – supernatural gifting.

I have been the very unfortunate receiver and witness to the pure destruction that results in people meddling in the occult. The very frightening thing about all this magical tomfoolery is that it will always leave someone hurt, anxious or frightened. Or all three. Now I don’t for a moment doubt that all that stuff is very real and very dangerous and anyone who thinks otherwise needs a serious reality check. It’s bad, bad, bad. So bad! Have you ever heard of someone going to a witch doctor in order to put a blessing on someone else? I didn’t think so. I speak purely from my experience in witnessing what mild flirtations in this field can do to people, how predictions of the future can rob them of their present as well as their sanity at times. No one should ever be granted the supernatural power to hold sway over another person’s life, you put yourself in the position of God if you feel that the promptings given to you are coming from some undefined voice from ’the other side’ and no one is God.

So yes, just as there are giftings in every other field under the sun, some people are born with a six sense, an ability to see beyond the physical. Just as one has the choice whether to become a lawyer for criminals or a lawyer for the poor so too can one choose to use ones intuitive promptings in service of God or in service of oneself.

This weekend I met a Christian prophet. It was a profound experience for me. I have always felt that God doesn’t stop people with an intuitive link to heaven from sharing their gifts with others but I have never actually seen this kind of work in action. An important thing to know about prophesy (and which differentiates a true prophet from the others) is that they only confirm what you already know in your heart is true, what God has already revealed to you. This prophet prophesised over me and I will not go into the details of what he said to me because they are sacred and are between me and God but he began his prophesy by looking at me and saying, ‘Emily you are surrounded by music.’ Anyone who knows me well knows that music is everything to me, if music and my voice were taken away from me I would cease to be me and God knows this so what Julian said to me was merely a confirmation of what I already know to be true – I experience God through music, have done so since I was a child.

When I left the meeting with Julian there was not a trace of hurt, anxiety or fear in me. I was filled with a sense of wonder and love and sheer exultation because he had told me and affirmed what I already know is true. He spoke on behalf of God and as a result I was completely overwhelmed by the intimacy with which his words were shaped. Only God could have left me feeling that free, loved and blessed.

So yes, lots of people have an ability to access that which is unseen, but who are they doing it for? And how does it affect those around them? We are all actually born with the gift to hear God, some of us use science and logic to drown out His voice or others silence Him for us with their abuse and destruction. We all have the right to visit the heavenly realm, ‘to cross over’, when ever we want to, that is Jesus’ constant gift which perpetually reveals itself to us. All a true prophet really ever does is confirm what God has already revealed to us. Do not ever corroborate that you are unworthy of being in control of your life and your spirit by asking others to ‘cross over’ for you because you do not know who they are crossing over to.          

Jesus is our greatest gift and here even I can claim this gift. He was sent from heaven, he crossed over, to be with us, to teach us and to confirm what we already know to be true about God (but which we sometimes need to be reminded of). His death was our gift and His resurrection was our greatest gift – in opening the divide between heaven and earth he promised us that we will never have to have someone cross over for us, the gift of heaven is for everyone, all we need to do is pray. And so I would encourage you that the next time you feel tempted to go to someone with ‘giftings in the supernatural’ turn to yourself instead, just as you wouldn’t allow someone to marry the person you love on behalf of you, do not allow the words of others to supposedly speak on behalf of those on the other side. God is always there and always listening, all you need to do is trust that you have the gift of hearing Him.  



 

'When people stop believing in God, they dont believe in nothing - they believe in anything.'
GK Chesterton



The Little Mermaid

I have for a long time had my suspicions that my mom is secretly a mermaid. The evidence is fairly startling really – she practically grew up in the ocean, she once body surfed a wave with a dolphin and she still looks flippen awesome in a costume. The piece de résistance, however, that pretty much brings my suspicion home, is that we have an album at home of pictures of when my mom was sixteen. In this album are pictures taken by documentary makers of my mom as a mermaid. Trues bob. This award winning couple (who were family friends) were doing a documentary on the relationship between man and the ocean and what better a symbol than a mermaid? So my gorgeous sixteen year old mom was given a practice tail which she learned to swim in at home and then they went up to St Lucia to film the documentary – this time with an epic dark blue tail with a silver shimmer. The pictures are amazing and I spent many an hour in my childhood staring in wonder at my mermaid mom.

It was this mythological link to the ocean which resulted in my list of top three movies of all time (at the age of ten) being ‘Splash’, ‘Splash 2’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’. I also think my first love was with Eric from ‘The Little Mermaid’. My obsession with the sea was huge and I have always been a pretty fearless sea creature. Apparently from the moment I could walk I would run down to the water which made family trips to the coast not entirely relaxing. I attribute most of my freckles to endless hours of wave riding when the thought of leaving the water to get kak sunblock in my eyes was just too hideous. I would also drag my mom’s (now moth eaten) practice mermaid tail down from the attic before a beach holiday and could be found half drowning myself in the paddling pool looking much like an epileptic earthworm trying desperately to perfect a mermaid swim so that I could graduate from the paddling pool to the real ocean. I never made it.  Later on when I got bigger and braver you would find me at backline with a pair of fins trying to show off for the surfers.

It has been with growing alarm that the older I get the less I feel like having sand in my crack and the after effects of debilitating sunstroke. The once fearless sea creature seems to have turned into someone who looks like a Vaalie on the beach. I now can only be in the sun for an hour at a time, I abhor sun tanning because I think it’s vain and a complete waste of time and worst of all I’m finding that sometimes the sea looks just a little bit too rough or a little bit too cold for my liking. I like to think that it’s my womanly self preservation instincts kicking in. Instead of exploring all the hidden rocky crevices of our beautiful South African coastline with snorkels and flippers now when I look under the water with a pair of goggles the ‘Jaws’ theme tune immediately starts playing somewhere in my head. This shift in attitude has perplexed both me and my family because it really is unusual.

When I was invited last week on a snorkelling trip out to an island off the coast I jumped at the opportunity. Maybe I would rekindle my long lost romance with the sea and prove to myself that I too am a mermaid like my mom. As Sarah and Justin (who invited me) were going to be scuba diving I recruited a new friend, Linda, to join me in the snorkelling. We were up bright and early and were all loaded onto the boat for our 40 minute boat ride out to the islands around which we would then snorkel. Let me state now for the record that I take back my initial aim of doing a diving course while I’m here. Between the unflattering wetsuits and equipment that looks like you have to have won a Nobel Prize in physics in order to operate it I don’t think I’ll be signing up for a scuba course too soon. Worst of all is the backward flip one was to do in order to exit the boat, now with my appalling vertigo I can’t even do a summersault in a swimming pool, can we imagine me trying to flip myself backwards off a boat while loaded with oxygen tanks, a parachute, a GPS, a sandwich and goodness knows what else? I didn’t think so.

So while the divers became one with the ocean Linda and I were dropped off at our first snorkelling spot. The spot was on a reef next to a beach so we felt fairly secure in the shallow waters. Let’s just say I wasn’t blown away. There is something very eerie about snorkelling off a wildlife sanctuary, 40 minutes from shore, and finding rubbish on the ocean floor. It felt like I was watching the cadavers of human neglect waving at me from the one place on earth that they should not be. More astounding to me is why the operators of these diving companies don’t clean reefs like these up? There was one amazing moment, however, and that was when a shoal of tiny silver fishes suddenly surrounded Linda and I and began darting and jumping all around us. They continued to swim with us for the rest of the snorkel. They were spectacular.

Now one can only snorkel the same spot of reef for so long – especially since jelly fish were making other parts of the bay unapproachable. So Linda and I decided to take a break and retire to the beach for a while. Now if you are unfamiliar with the terrain of beaches in this place please reread my entry on the other beach trip I took a few weeks ago. To recap in a sentence – no shade, lots of sun, melanoma central. Add to this equation the following scenario – lily white skin, no sunblock, no water, no clothes. So we were left on this beach for an hour with nothing except our flippers and a snorkel. By the time the boat arrived with the divers I felt like Tom Hanks in ‘Castaway’ (or whatever that movie was called). Add to this my own personal phobia of having to sit around in a wet costume and one will get the general idea.

We were then given rolls to eat (how amazing does a roll taste when you’ve been exercising in the sun?) and then we started making preparations for our next snorkel. It was at this point that we were put onto another boat with a different captain. Our captain...hmmm...ok... you know when you are teaching young children the difference between people they can trust and those who could possibly turn out to be serial kiddy fiddlers one can sometimes describe that uncomfortable ‘I wouldn’t trust you as far as I can throw you’ feeling to them as a ‘no no feeling’. Lets just say the captain of our new boat gave me the ‘hell no’ feeling. He had a shirt wrapped over his face and was wearing sunglasses and yet with his entire disguise he still made me feel like he was thinking very ugly thoughts. Added to that was his inability to speak any English which made things all the more pleasant.

The divers were dropped off first and then Linda and I were taken to our next spot. Now, as I’ve mentioned before our first spot was relatively safe, in a bay, next to a beach. Our next spot was pretty much in the middle of the ocean next to a big rock and it was deep. So we jumped into the deep blue, two novice snorkelers, and away drove captain shirt face. Now this snorkelling was amazing, the real deal. It was also terrifying. There is a certain vulnerability associated with becoming a part of a world that one is obviously so ill-equipped to be a part of. It’s like being born again (excuse my tacky Christian reference). Human beings like to think that without them the word would cease to work – clocks would stop ticking, grass would turn into jungle and animals would starve. I hate to break it to us – there is a large part of the world that would be rather happy if we stopped trying to learn and exploit its secrets.

It was my time during this stretch of our snorkel that I willed the spirit of the mermaid to re-emerge from my childhood. I tried to be one with the ocean – I even did that thing when you take a deep breath and swim down towards the fishes. This, however, resulted in a near fatal ear explosion and a mistimed intake of breath. Yes, I could appreciate the beauty of being alone in the vastness of the ocean but I also couldn’t quite drown out the chilling ‘Jaws’ tune.

So when our creepy captain returned we asked him to lower the rickety metal stairs down so that we could climb up them to get onto the boat – remember that at this point we’re in the middle of the sea and so leverage out of the water is non existent, we’re also wearing flippers. He then gestured to us that this would be impossible and that he would help us out of the water. Having explained this country’s policy on flesh exposure you will no doubt be able to take in the full spectacle of the next scene – let’s just say that our disgusting boatman got to see more, no doubt, than his wife has ever shown him. We were hoicked out of the water like fat tunas while trying to get our flippered legs over the side of the boat in a dignified fashion and were left, spread-eagled, like floundering fish on the boat’s bottom. It was humiliating. So while we were doing some surreptitious bikini line damage control after our revolting boarding of the boat we went on to the next spot to pick up two MALE snorkelers. And yes, you guessed it, blow me down if the stairs are suddenly functional. A pure miracle!      

 The boat ride back to the mainland was less comfortable, mainly because I was already starting to feel the third degree burns on my legs and the hint of a dehydration headache. It was also quite disconcerting when the dive instructor had to point out to old shirt face captain the direction we were supposed to be headed in. By the time I got home I was completely exhausted and in agony – parts of my body got burnt for the first time that day.

So sadly I didn’t find my mermaid genes, I suspect that maybe they skip a generation or that we all ultimately grow out of our belief in magical worlds. I still have a tremendous respect for the ocean but it is now laced with trepidation rather than fearlessness. I do, however, hope that one day I will instil in my children the same love and respect of the ocean as my mom did in me. Children do, after all, need to believe that their parents are magical and that there is wonder to be found all over the beautiful world into which they are born.              

Green Pastures

As one can well imagine there are certain words that don’t first come to mind when one thinks about living in the desert. Words like lush, verdant, green pastures, grass. Ones assessment of the aesthetic of desert living would be almost entirely correct, almost.

When driving through the city one will find small oases of green, perhaps they seem so green because they are set against the backdrop of jaggared mountains or dusty plains of nothingness, I am not sure but these bursts of green are a welcome softening to the landscape. Usually these lawns are accompanied by beautifully landscaped gardens that have been tended to with meticulous care by their keepers. On my drive back from Sifah in the afternoon when I’ve been teaching and driving for eight hours the sudden rush of pink, purple and red spurs me on to complete my journey. I shudder to think how much water it costs to keep these gardens maintained but their psychological worth is immeasurable.  

Before I share my latest observations with you its important to remember one thing about these gardens and grassy verges, they are not huge and I would like to reiterate that they are gardens. The ones I obviously have noticed are the ones next to the highway, they are just short green patches of vegetation stuck between the highway and other roads, they were created, I would imagine, for entirely aesthetic reasons.

We all know how men of any age love a patch of land and a ball of some sort – any ball really, a rugby ball, a soccer ball, a cricket ball, a kak plastic one that starts to droop after its first taste of battle. I have even driven past Indian men playing a game of cricket in the midday sun in an abandoned parking lot. Men will stop at nothing to run around aimlessly for an hour or two with a ball to satisfy their primal instinct to maim and win, they can’t help it, it’s genetic. Most of the soccer fields here are dusty bits of unused land with wooden poles erected opposite each other. I like to think the lack of grassy fields is why rugby isn’t a popular sport in this country. Obviously the first prize in any ball game is for it to be played on a verdant field but in this country that is a luxury many have never experienced. There are, however, the sneaky ones, the ones who make full use of the grassy patches beside the highway. Again it is important to remember here that these are gardens. It delights me to no end when I pass a group of boys playing soccer in said gardens. Not only must one avoid the other players but a great deal of time is spent dodging palm trees, flower beds and the odd hedge. It’s like obstacle course soccer. Now, there is a particular patch of garden that I am especially interested in. It’s a patch of garden on my way to work which flanks the highway and an off ramp. On this little grassy patch of heaven another kind of sporting battle is taking place and I watch it take place every morning and every evening. It’s the battle between the gardeners and the soccer vandals.

Every morning a group of dedicated gardeners are dropped off with their implements of the day to tend lovingly to our little battleground. Theirs should be the victory because this is, after all, a garden. They have a high standard of garden to maintain – the grass has to be a perfect sea of green and the flower beds need to buzz with the colour of electric flora. All morning they toil in the sun until their garden represents who they are – hard working gardeners who are making small stretches of land into veritable bits of heaven despite the sweltering odds stacked against them. And so when their time comes to leave they wipe their brows and proudly leave their artwork for the day.

As the sun begins to set on our beautifully manicured garden another team arrives. Starved of activity all day due to jobs and the searing heat now is a time for them to practice their art, the art of football. Thanks to the freshly irrigated lawns the scene is set for an epic evening game of soccer, the adrenalin equals that of gladiator proportions, for an hour in their day they will take no prisoners. They run, they slide, they dodge and they score; their shoes quickly ploughing up bits of turf and the odd bloom. By the end of the evening the garden has turned into a mangled pitch, one soaked in sweat, muscle power and victory.

Our gardeners are back the next morning; there is a stoop in their shoulders, a tale of loss in their postures. They set to righting the damage that has been done to their artwork, patiently and carefully they patch up the losses, things that took a minute to destroy now take hours to fix. Their dedication is relentless and after hours of hot sweat in the sun their garden has been mended and their pride re-established, until tomorrow morning.

I cannot help but see this little story about a small patch of garden as a metaphor for so much of what happens in humanity. Just looking at the sheer devastation that has destroyed part of Japan in a matter of minutes, and the resulting carnage that is ensuing, one comes to see how long it’s going to take to patch up the grass and make the flowers grow again.

But there is also something deeper than this, it is not just acts of nature that destroy that which is beautiful and has meaning in our lives. There are certain small parts of the world that are beloved to many religions, cultures and ethnic groups. People will die in the attempt to either defend or destroy these places, places whose mere names inspire in people a response so huge that it’s safer not to say them. Why is this so? Does the belief in a greater power have to be intrinsically linked to a remarkably small piece of land? I don’t know the answer, I do know that when a bogus land claim was put on our farm (when we have lived on the farm for well over 150 years) I was ready to fight, maim and kill for the landscape that holds so many precious memories for both myself and my forefathers. An innate sense of land ownership and the memories attached to land is both a frightening and powerful way in which man has evolved.

But our metaphor goes deeper than that still. How many times do we sow gardens in our souls that we hope will have some worth to others only to have someone, in a matter of seconds, spray the entire garden with deadly chemicals. In a few short moments our blooms begin to fade and the grass turns yellow and we wonder if we will have enough energy to get up tomorrow morning to face the destruction and carry on. All it takes is a sentence, a few ill chosen words, a small vial of verbal poison. Very often people don’t even realise the damage they are wrecking, their soccer boots dig into our most green and beloved places, tearing them apart and yet all they focus on is their own personal victory. I know I’ve done this, I probably do it everyday, we all do it on a daily basis because we want to win our game without thinking of the aftermath and that ultimately someone else will have to clean up the mess. So this week I’m going to try and tread lightly on other peoples gardens, I’m going to try and admire the hard work they have put into them rather than try and steal some of their flowers for myself. Even more importantly I am going to try and share that which I have to offer to others in spite of what they might do to me, despite the damage such vulnerability can often illicit. In revealing the tenderest parts of oneself to others we reflect the nature of Jesus to others.

 God writes the gospel not in the Bible alone, but on trees and flowers and clouds and stars.  ~Martin Luther

Where There Is Smoke

One of the most traumatic events in my life happened when I was in my early teens. Every farmer (and his daughter) in Winterton know what a dangerous month August can be. It is a time when the grass becomes an ocean of swirling tinder, it has long lost is beautiful green hue of spring and the sun of summer has milked its stalks dry of moisture. By the time winter comes the landscape has become a bitter mass of grass, khaki bos and dead morning glory – it is a matted tapestry of untamed flora.

This dead terrain coupled with the unruly winds of August means high fire alert. Water tankers are filled, firefighting beaters are dragged out of farm sheds and the forestry sentinels are sent to their far off fortresses in the mountains to keep watch. It is a time of vigilance where a late night phone call from a neighbor results in hurriedly dressed farmers and their laborers disappearing into the night, following the ominous red glow. 

I have been witness to many a fire and have helped where I can, often assisting my dad in burning fire breaks across our farm in the hope of preventing fires from spreading. One year my dad had not got round to burning a fire break around our house and as murphy’s law would have it a petrifying fire swept along the landscape of our farm and began its descent down the valley towards our house. My sister and I were quickly taken to my aunt and uncle’s house down the road as it was not threatened. My mother then returned home with my older cousin and his friends to quickly pack up the valuables in our house before the fire hit. I remember standing on the balcony with Sarah, my sister, as we watched as the smoke from the fire began to engulf our home. The frightening thing about fire is the smoke, it plays a deadly game of camouflage and one is never quite sure what the fire beneath it is doing. We were hysterical, we could not see what was going on and our hearts lurched every time Steve Bolt and his airplane would swoop down into the smoke and fire to bomb the flames with water.

I was beside myself. We did not know whether our house had caught fire or if our parents were safe and all we could do was stand hopelessly by and watch. It was in that moment of panic and uncertainty that I realized that I am not the kind of person who can sit silently beside an unfolding tragedy and hope that the people in the situation are doing everything they can, I have to be one of the doers too.

Luckily by the grace of God and the grace of Steve Bolt’s amazing pyrotechnical abilities with his plane our house was saved and my parents were fine. It was after this incident that I told my mom that in any future events where the line is drawn between the people who flee and the people who stay I absolutely had to be in the party who stayed. I believe that keeping oneself in a state of ignorance will only make ones fall into reality all the more painful when one does finally fall. And everyone falls.

And so history repeated itself several years later with a fire a hundred times more powerful, with gale force winds where one could barely stand up properly and with a trail of devastation that left the entire Winterton area being declared a national disaster zone. One of the worst hit areas was our farm. Given the severity of the fire it was a promise made to her daughter many years before that allowed my mom to give me permission to go off with my dad onto the farm to try and prepare for the two runaway fires that were both headed directly to our farm. We tried to get the pivots going to get some moisture pumping out over the lands but the electricity wires were already burnt. We then tried to get our cattle to safety but people living on our farm had already illegally padlocked their cattle into the only place of safety on our farm – the stone kraal, an act which was very difficult to forgive. Our attempts were futile, I can still see what, for me, was an image of hell – neighbors running with new born calves trying to find places of safety for them; my elderly grandfather, walking stick in hand trying to fight his way through the wind shouting inane orders to no one; our horses galloping alongside a fence silhouetted against a wall of fire rapidly moving its way up from the river to the farmyard; cattle running to and fro, panicked and frightened; an old black woman collapsed in the dirt, screaming, her house had burnt down and she couldn’t find her grandchildren; a blind dog unable to find its way, stumbling and anxious, desperately trying to sniff its way through smoke and dust. It was only at the last minute that my mom came careering into the farm yard with all our beloved possessions in the car, including our dogs, that I finally gave up the fight and got into the car to follow my grandparents out of the carnage as the fire began its gluttonous eating of our farm and its animals.

We lost almost everything - infrastructure, buildings, machinery, animals. But there were miracles too, big miracles. And I would like to keep these miracle stories until my next entry. The point of my current story, however, was the fact that I could say I had done all I could, I did not run away. When the chips were down I saw the nightmare through and it made me a stronger person. We were also not the only people with severe loses, people died, a baby burnt to death on its mother’s back as she was fleeing the fire. People lost their homes and their livelihoods, they lost everything. It was the most devastating thing to ever happen to our little community. It was also the most amazing.

A day after the fire lorry loads of fodder from farmers in the Midlands started to arrive when they heard that thousands of cattle no longer had food, truck loads of clothing, food, blankets and toys arrived. The Winterton Farmers Hall was inundated with aid. Bear in mind that none of this came from the government, this came from people, human beings. I was helping out at the Farmers Hall one morning and a dry cleaner and his wife from Ladysmith arrived with an entire truck load of some of the most beautiful coats I have ever seen, they were coats that had never been collected and they had prayed about it and had decided to donate them all to the families in the township who had lost everything in the fire. Some families were ultimately better off after the fire than they were before. There are so many stories that still get told about this fire, they are of courage, of selflessness and of hope; of the indestructibility of a community in the light of tragedy and adversity. I consider this fire and its aftermath to be one of the most incredible experiences I have ever had.

Sometimes helping in a tragedy takes on a different form, sometimes there is actually nothing one can physically do but help in going through the motions. Sometimes all one can do is offer prayer, or a shoulder to cry on, a sympathetic ear or a cup of tea. I have had times in my life when the threat isn’t a great wall of fire; it has been an illness, or a depression or the loss of someone special. The damage has been emotional rather than physical. It has only been through the prayers of others that I have survived these things, of this I am sure. God connects us all, our prayers to Him on behalf of others shoot across the universe with a power far greater then we can imagine. Being spiritually connected through God is what defines me as a human being. Ironically I think it’s what defines all human beings (even atheists) – in feeling empathy for other human beings and in taking on their pain as our own we are learning to be Christlike.

A tragedy has hit Japan. A huge one. One that is almost too terrible to comprehend. An earthquake, a tsunami and a nuclear crisis. All in one week. We watch the news in stunned silence. Beyond the destruction on a scale that is almost too big to imagine emerges small miracles, dignity, compassion and spirit. We see a country that is stoic, broken and brave and we are inspired. We cannot do anything, we cannot fight their fires for them, we cannot offer them a cup of tea but we can pray from them and learn from the dignity with which they are facing this crisis. We learn so much through adversity and it is our responsibility as human beings not to let the courage of our fellow human beings go unnoticed, even if it makes us feel uncomfortable and sometimes extremely sad. Remember – we must love our neighbors as we do ourselves and part of that love comes with an acknowledgement of, and empathy, for the pain that others are experiencing.

Rhythm and Repetition

Since teaching in Joburg I have developed a tremendous interest in what happened to the faith of the world pre-Jesus. As a result today I decided to do a slow meander through the Old Testament, so slow in fact, that I’m only on chapter two of Genesis.

Before I comment on my findings I would like to lay down a few principles of communication and history- making that I learnt about and subsequently lectured at UCT. This may be old hat for some but has given me a completely new perspective on things in relation to the Bible.

Prior to the invention of the alphabet and literacy human beings had no concrete form of storing information and history, everything we knew or remembered was documented through the system of orality. We told stories. There are still many cultures in the world today that practice a form of remembering through storytelling. If lessons were to be learnt we told them through fables with morals. Even Jesus taught important philosophies through parables. They were suited to his audience as they were culturally and socially appropriate to that particular society at that particular time. Today when we learn about Jesus’ teachings we have to translate the social milieu of the time into something that is socially applicable to us. Take ‘The Good Samaritan’ as an example. I suppose in contemporary society we could translate the fable into ‘The Good Tsotsi’. Basically it was about a guy who wouldn’t normally be seen as someone who would go the extra mile for someone but does so despite ones initial judgement of him. We would not know this, however, if the concept of a Samaritan was not translated into the way we perceive things. It’s all about context.

The next important thing about orality is the structure with which stories are learnt. The only reason why I remember ‘The Three Little Pigs’ is because there are hairs on a chinny chin chin and a lot of huffing and puffing. (Sounds like laser hair removal if you ask me). In the same way we remember Little Red Riding Hood and her wolf because there’s a lot of ‘my what big...you have’. (I think a man wrote this story). The stories we remember best are the ones with rhythm and repetition. Reading a bed time story is easy – one gets into the rhythm of it, even if it’s the first time we read it we come to know what’s coming next as a result of the rhythm of the story. So too does repetition spur the story on and it also makes the story that much more difficult to forget.

Traditional Zulu story telling takes rhythm and repetition to the next level. Listening to a Zulu story is like having the 3D version of the storytelling world. The story becomes an auditory treat where the words echo the noises they make and the soundscape for an entire world becomes accessible through the words that describe it.   

Obviously this form of historical documentation, as entertaining as it is, has some serious flaws. Much like an elongated form of broken down telephones one cannot fully rely on all the facts being correct. To illustrate my point - I recently read Max Du Preez’s ‘Of Warriors, Lovers and Prophets’. In it is a story about Shaka Zulu. What Du Preez does is he combines the popular hero folklore with historical evidence from Shaka’s time. The emerging figure of Shaka comes to be somewhat more complex than the statue of him that once stood (briefly) at King Shaka Airport. We see an abused child, teased about his small penis who then later would take baths in front of everyone to prove his manhood, a man who did not produce an heir, was obsessed with his mother and who surrounded himself with strong young men. Interesting how these facts are somewhat glossed over by overzealous Zulus. We all choose to do this, in remembering someone we choose not to remember the bad, I think it’s quite an endearing human quality – it doesn’t however, bode well for the history books.

At this point you may be asking what this has to do with my reading of Genesis chapter one. I have for a long time (with many other people) suspected that the creation story doesn’t really match up. I have absolutely no doubt that God could create the entire universe in a week. It’s almost a comforting thought – He took a week to create the universe and He took nine months to make me, flip I’m special. Fossils, however, don’t lie. Human beings lie but the bones of human beings don’t.

I do believe in evolution, its very hard not to and although some Christians think it is blasphemy to not believe every literal inch of the Bible I think we need to start seeing things from a different perspective. Imagine trying to explain how to use a cell phone to your great great grandmother. Impossible. Her concept of technology would be limited to fixing a butter churn. Heck it’s been hard enough to get my Dad to appreciate the use of the computer, and that is limited to internet banking (as long as my Mom logs on and gets it onto the right page). Our brains are constantly evolving; we are becoming increasingly more capable of assimilating and accepting new knowledge. So with this in mind can we try and think of a way to explain evolution to a nomadic tribe in Israel a couple of thousands of years ago? Tricky isn’t it? I think we would lose them at ‘amoeba’. So what does God do, just as His son would do a couple of thousand years later? He turns His tremendous creation story that happened over millennia into a seven day affair because that was all that the people at that time could understand.

My Mom told me when I was little that babies were made when two people hold each other very closely and a seed of love is planted. Years later when I discovered the nasty truth I was so grateful to my Mom, to this day my vision of sex is not skewed by some weird biological happening, I understand why sex was created and this is because I learnt about it at the appropriate time and in the appropriate frame of mind.. God, like my Mom, is a parent, The Ultimate Parent. He will not burden us with things that we are incapable of understanding or dealing with.

I think Jesus is an excellent example of this. His teachings were revolutionary in his time – he said we should love everybody. A fairly simple philosophy for us now but in the days when Jews, gentiles and various sundry groupings were fixated on a tribal philosophy that extended religion only to those with a genetic birthright to that religion one can see how radical Jesus’ teachings were. God used the example of Jesus to evolve our thinking about Him, perhaps some of us weren’t ready for this, we felt safer in the archaic traditions and practices of our past, but for those who saw the gift of Jesus’ life for what it was it meant we were finally free from the burden of having to conduct a relationship with God that had long lost its potency. Jesus revealed our God who is alive and hip, who is found in the beating heart and not in some old ancient law written by people thousands of years ago.               

So what, you may ask, does this have to do with rhythm and repetition? Have a look at Genesis chapter one, you will notice an interesting pattern – after each day of creation something to this effect will be said – ‘And there was evening, and there was morning – the first day...And there was evening, and there was morning – the second day.’ And so on. There is also a lot of ‘And God said’. Seven times to be exact. Quite a lot of rhythm and repetition here, smells dangerously like a story from the oral tradition. When one asks a child to recount their day to you one gets a lot of ‘and then....and then...and then.’ It helps us to remember things, it establishes a rhythm for us to follow. Why can’t this be the same for the creation story? Could it not be that the story was condensed into a bite size page of the Bible in order for a particular society, at a particular time in history to be able, with the limited scientific capacities they had, to understand our God, a God whose works are to this day beyond human comprehension.

Then of course we have the whole apple debate. Do human beings really think that the ultimate downward spiral of the human race was caused by a fruit, and that it was the woman’s fault? Yes, one may argue that the serpent tempted Adam away from the path of God by way of Eve but I’m not sure I’m entirely confident about this one. Ultimately human kind needed a simple story to explain why we have allowed ourselves to be tempted into committing acts of evil which have resulted in the creation of the world that we currently live in and what better way for man to control women than to blame everything on her? God created a heavenly world for us, a world where humans respected nature, where man and woman had a relationship of mutual dependence and respect and where sin did not exist. (Here in your mind I would like you to have a flash back to the bushman family pre-coke bottle arrival in the delightful flick, ‘The Gods Must Be Crazy’). We can still live as God intended us to live, our bad choices as a species, however, have made it increasingly difficult for us to do this. Lets be honest, almost every thing man has ever invented has come to be used as a weapon of man’s destruction. God gave us the choice – we could choose to eat the fruit, to evolve, to gain knowledge but He knew that it would ultimately lead to our own destruction. The more we evolve the further away from God we drift.

So there it is – my own theory of evolution and creation with a bit of storytelling thrown in. If you have managed to get this far in my long diatribe I thank you, its been one of those stewing for a while and today I feel I got affirmation that my hypothesis is correct – sometimes God uses stories to explain things that are greater than our minds have capacity to understand and sometimes human beings create stories to try and understand the greatness of God. As human beings become increasingly more scientific, rational and inventive it is a pity that we do not allow our imagination, wonder and awe of God’s greatness to develop too. If we could learn to celebrate God’s creation and the many human beings who form a part of it surely we would be able to then find our way back to the garden?

     

Anybody? No? Dust?

When I arrived in my flat my employer had very kindly put all the essentials in, including linen for the bed. I love my bed, it’s king size, has special coil things in the mattress (the word ‘coil’ generally reminds me of faeces though, not ideal) and it looks like a big ship. What I didn’t, however, relish was the fact that the sheet I had been given was queen size. For the last month or so I have been waking up like the victim of a bondage/strangulation experiment gone wrong. There is nothing worse than ill fitting linen. Anyone who knows me well knows that I am obsessed with beds, they must have been made properly; I am almost phobic of unmade beds. I have had to grit my teeth and ‘drape’ my sheet over the bed and try not to wriggle too much during the night; it’s been hell I tell you.

I got paid two days ago. Most people buy food and other necessary items on pay day, I went straight to the linen shop. The linen in this country is absolutely beautiful – everything is pure cotton, even the ‘cheap skate’ stuff. I bought a pristine white (400 thread count) cotton duvet with accompanying fitted sheet and pillow cases. I also got a beautiful red and orange throw. Now when I look into my room, stealthily when no one is looking, my bed looks like a sunrise. Beautiful, fresh and warm. It’s the small things in life.

As I gaze out of my window while I write ahead of me is the ‘hair dressing and beauty saloon’ which can be found on the ‘first flower’ and next to the saloon is an open lot with some garbage skips (which is where I have to shlep my rubbish everyday). Beyond the vacant lot is the highway and beyond that the sea (I can’t actually see the sea). I have enjoyed watching waddi dogs (the name for aboriginal Omani dogs) loitering around the garbage skip, finding a living. I like the vacant lot, it has a spacious feel about it.  A day ago a menacing little cordoned off area appeared in my vacant lot. It is worryingly about the same size as a building.  The thought of having a building site as my neighbour in the foreseeable future fills me with terror – have I mentioned the dust?

Precipitation and Speedos

Yesterday a small miracle happened as I was setting forth for my biweekly trip into the desert, it started raining. Yes, you may argue that ‘rain’ may be a strong word to use in this case, perhaps ‘a slight show of precipitation’ would be more accurate but when one is living in the desert rain is rain. Sometimes when I’m walking along the streets of Muscat I wish for a deluge of water.

  So having finally crawled my way out of the city I made my way out to Sifah beach to the Lupp construction site. Again, I feel a bit of background history is required for my next anecdote. Flesh is a rare commodity in these parts. Naked skin is akin to white gold. It’s got to the point where I almost feel naughty wearing a strappy top in my flat. Both men and women cover every inch of themselves and the longer one lives in this society the more accustomed one becomes to this particular aesthetic. Sifah is remote, other than a handful of German engineers etc there are no people living there other than the locals. One can then imagine my surprise when driving along the coastline to have a near naked person amble onto the dirt road. A near naked German person, wearing hot pants. A very unattractive near naked German person wearing hot pants and sandals. The sight was just too much for me, to see that much white wobbly flesh squeezed into the most disgusting speedo was terrifying. We are not talking Daniel Craig here,

Think more along these lines...

Apparently the German man is a relative of one of the engineers. He continued to walk around the site in his toit pant for the rest of the day. This story really shows how everything is relative. In South Africa this would be a completely common sight, bare breasted women are a common sight, but here flesh has been made into something else, something sordid and disrespectful. I am almost angry at myself that I had the kind of reaction I had, I like to think that if I saw a German in hot pants in South Africa my reaction would have been the same, I hope so, I would hate to be turning into a prude.

Obedience Not Sacrifice

Although I have had wonderful feedback from people reading my blog because it’s a bit funny and at times sarcastic today I had a sudden realisation that I am not actually writing why I am currently ‘Em of Arabia’. You may have noticed the odd Bible verse at the bottom of each blog entry but I feel I am doing an injustice to God by restricting an indication as to His presence in my life to a mere after thought at the bottom of some pretty meaningless rambling about the desert and goats.

I came to Oman because God told me to come here. I knew no-one, knew nothing (and still know more or less nothing) about this country and I came here to teach English – a subject which I’m not particularly fond of.

Never in my life have I had to surrender all my bunny holes (my places of safety). I had to leave my Stephen, my Mom and my Dad, Tom and Bell and all the things which provide me with a sense of comfort, safety and routine. I have had to become spiritually naked, stripped of all my excuses and day dreams and expectations. I have had to learn to live every day by the grace of God. He only promises grace enough for a day and boy oh boy has that been a difficult lesson to learn. I have literally had days where every single minute was prayed through with God because I did not know how I would survive them otherwise. His amazing grace has seen me through some very dark times and not once have I felt the stifling grip of panic around my throat.

I have always avoided labelling myself as a Christian. I feel that the religion has got too many bad connotations associated with it, too many people sitting in the comfort of their homes, calling themselves Christian and doing nothing about their supposed call to faith.  I now understand the challenge of faith, I understand the daily struggle it is to keep God at the centre of my world when everything is foreign and scary.

I never really understood the concept of spiritual battle, of overcoming fear, anxiety and doubt. When Christianity is an accepted way of life rather than a way of being people take for granted the principles that Jesus taught. I am now proud to say that I hunger for His word, believing in Christ extends beyond merely living a Christian lifestyle.

I came here to make peace with my future but I am actually making peace with my past as well. The only expectation we can ever have of God is the faith that He will see us through tomorrow if we listen to Him and follow His promptings. I have spent far too many days trying to work out who, what, where, when and how I will be in my future without simply allowing God to be with me in my present.

Oddly enough I’m doing a bit of an eat, pray, love. In my case I’ve had to stop eating, using food to fill the space where God should be is what causes obesity. Don’t worry, I’m not starving myself but I have learnt that food is not a way through which one should punctuate ones day. And so now I pray, and I am by no means a flawless believer, but I know that I cannot ultimately love anyone else sufficiently if I do not love God first. I suppose its a bit like being a parent to a child – one has to love ones spouse first before one can begin to hope that one’s child will turn out well. The example I set through my relationship with God is one which I hope will then come to reflect in my relationships with others.

All of us have our obedience tested by God, and remember He wants ‘obedience not sacrifice’. Because I’m a fairly literal girl God decided to go old school in His test of my obedience – He sent me to the desert, like He did to Moses and Elijah and Jesus and countless others. I now know how marvellous it must have been for Jesus when Mary Magdalene washed His feet after a dusty day. I now know that the desert will test everything one believes in but its emptiness is also the place where God’s voice resonates best.

I feel I am at the beginning of a long journey where I truly seek to discover God’s will in my life. If we do what God wants us to do then it will be impossible to sink into despair – yes, sometimes God asks us to do things that we are sure are beyond our capabilities, stamina and faith, but when we do things with God’s power our potential is limitless. I would like to end with an image that has helped me to keep believing when things seemed too much...

My cousin Sam’s memorial was one of the most painful things I have ever experienced. To lose someone who had such tremendous promise was a true tragedy. Her mom, Martine, was literally with Sam every minute of everyday and she no doubt aches for her daughter even in her deepest sleep. Martine was barely able to stand at the memorial and we all marvelled at her courage to see the entire service through, such is her grief. I remember looking up at Martine at one point of the service when we were singing one of Sam’s favourite songs – a mother who had lost everything, literally everything – was standing before God with her arms raised in praise of Him. If God can inspire praise in the darkest time in someone’s life imagine what He can do with light.    

Pale and Wasted

Yesterday I got onto a fishing boat and headed off into the ocean with twelve girls. The ethnic makeup of the group consisted mainly of Brits, and if one wasn’t an actual Brit one was a colonised other of the British Empire. When the bevy of mainly blond headed, sundress wearing lasses walked down onto the beach where our two fishing boats were waiting our two young fisherman escorts looked like they had just woken up from a very nice dream. Considering the fact that a bare shoulder and a flash of ankle is risqué I shudder to think what these two young men were thinking. Ironically enough one of the fisherman’s t-shirts had the slogan – ‘my reality check just bounced’.

So we clamoured onto the boat and headed down the coast to a spot whose name I can’t remember. Yes, I’m a great travel journalist. During out little paddle we witnessed some hair raising aquatic manoeuvres performed by our randy fishermen who showed that man can indeed be dextrous and stupid with a pathetic little engine and some testosterone. At this point I feel that I must indicate that I was the one who was muttering ‘please don’t do that’ under my breath and I even sank down onto the floor at one point when it was decided that it was a good idea for the two boats to come close enough together so that the girls could hold hands. One gets the feeling that some cultures have a far more protected experience of life than others. South Africans are adventurous by nature but we also know a kak idea when we see one. It is no wonder then to me that most of those tragic and dismal stories that begin with ‘tourist attacked by a lion in the Kruger’, ‘tourist drowns in freak boating accident’ etc etc happen to...yes, tourists. South Africa has its fair share of shit things happening anyway, why provoke more?

The spot we went to is like, hmmm, difficult to describe. Imagine a whole lot of mountains have split apart and the sea has weaved its way in between these mountains.  Some of the mountains have formed small beaches, we were dropped off onto one such beach. It was about ten in the morning and the fishermen were told to return at four thirty. When I took one look at our treeless, shadeless, umbrellaless beach I nearly ran out after the boats. When one’s back has begun to look like its been decorated in scarred tissue polka dots and the word skin cancer is bantered around by both ones grandmother and mother as if its a close friend one will understand my panic. Who in their right minds spends an entire day in the blazing sun on a literal desert island? My answer was soon given. 

As each girl gaily ripped off her clothing in an act that would have made High Hefner excited I soon discovered why this melanoma inducing locale was considered wonderful. Two words for you – lily white. I was practically a sun bleached goddess next to most of this lot. We are talking about bodies that have never seen the sun, translucent. With a half hearted attempt at sunblock the girls settled down into sun induced comas. It was then that I reapplied my second layer of sunblock, I had already done a layer in the car on the way.  

And so we spent a lovely day on the beach, eating junk, talking girly things.  Given the fact that every man and his jet ski was determined to show off for the beach full of girls I was glad I managed to see any fish at all what with the churning water. By three I was out of my wet costume and into dry underwear, thrush apparently not a big issue with these girls. I had also put my fourth layer of sunblock on and I was wearing the hugest sunhat, its shade literally covered my entire body and so for the last few hours of our beach soirée I sat in a foetal position under my hat.

When both boats finally arrived (there was a slight Survivor moment when we had to choose who would be left on the island because only one boat had arrived) the girls stood up, some for the first time in hours, and I could literally hear the skin tightening as it began to glow an ominous pink. The effects of the sunburn resulted in some of the girls choosing not to don most of their clothing because it was just too painful and difficult to attempt covering up. Our trip back involved much screaming and whooping and I was very glad I wasn’t on the other boat where one of the girls had decided to steer the boat herself. When we arrived back on the beach from which we had launched ourselves there was far more activity than when we had left in the morning. Lets just say the beach was full.

With our fishermen now looking like Bollywood heros the girls disembarked from the fishing boats.  A days worth of sun made for jumping off the side of the boat and into the water fairly difficult. Even I was quite shocked by the view of a girl, legs akimbo, getting off the boat, her groin directed straight towards an old man and his wife. After much struggling up the beach with cooler boxes with bits of female hanging out of all the wrong places we finally got to the parking lot. Here we were accosted by Indian men wanting to take pictures of us. We declined, not politely.

This morning I woke up refreshed and pasty white and for the first time in ages I thanked myself for being a sensible old grannygoose. Somewhere out there an Irish girl is radiating greenhouse gases and she is wondering whether it’s worth the pain of getting out of bed to make a dash to the loo and vomit. Somewhere out there too is an Omani fisherman who is having himself a good reality check. 

They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that has mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them. Isiah 49:10

Of Intercourse and Modals

The Germans walk in, on time. Punctuality is key. My weakest student attempts broken English with sharp nods of his head, ‘Cood avernoon’. I reply to his greeting. Students are already preparing for the lesson. Sharp clicks of their files and methodical dossier systems indicate precision, order and structure. Only Germans can build what these Germans are currently building – a massive lifestyle resort, complete with its own marina, literally in the middle of no where. I look up to watch my one female student, I stare in wonder – she has literally attached Velcro strips to all her writing instruments which then attach to one long Velcro strip on the inside of her file. I see a perturbed expression enter her face – her eraser is running low, it is getting dangerously close to her Velcro strip, very worrying. With curt greetings muttered we get straight into business. I pray that they all know what past participles are because I don’t.

Later on in the day I sit and wait for my next class. They are already five minutes late. The first Omani saunters in, ‘Hello teacher, any news?’ News is important in this place, I try to make some up. The next student enters. He spends a minute greeting the first student. They swop news. He then greets me, asks me what my news is. I repeat my news. A couple more students enter, they all say their hellos, discuss their news, they ask me mine. By now we are ten minutes late. Finally most of the students are seated at their desks. I take a breath readying myself for a confused preamble into modals. As I am about to speak the last student enters. As he does so the entire class stands up and he goes to each one of them greeting them in turn and sharing news. The energy of this class is wonderfully laid back , similar to that in South Africa. What I was about to say goes completely out of my head and so when I eventually get the attention of the whole class I have nothing to say so I tell them my news.

I’m learning a million things as I go along , about culture, society and what it means to be a foreigner. I am also meeting amazing people who have the ability to bring a sense of home into my life, even if they aren’t South Africans. Every day survived is a marvel and every dark moment turns to light because my God is with me.

‘Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.’ 1 Peter 5:6-7

In Search of God

I am a loyal South African who has kept her sleeping patterns precisely as they were when I left SA, so when its 10:00pm and time for bed in SA it’s midnight here which means it must be bedtime for me too. The same happens in the mornings, I wake up at 9:00am (7:00pm South African time) and thus I feel I’m doing something for my country, paralleling my sleeping patterns and whatnot.

I like my sleep, many of you can attest to this, and so it was with a half baked heart that I woke up at 8:00am to go to Church this morning. It’s quite amusing – in Muscat there are two Churches, the Protestant Church and the Roman Catholic Church (there may be others but I haven’t heard of them yet). I have no doubt that the fact that the all the people who choose not to pray to the Virgin Mary are now all worshipping under the same banner would make the Methodists and the Anglicans of the Bergville and Winterton parishes squirm. Anyway, so I get up, eat my honey melt whole wheat Pronutro (yes people, Pronutro, remarkable, I know); I put on my mooi mooi Church outfit and head of to find my God in a country that certainly worships someone else.

As with most of my driving in this place I had my trusty diary on my lap with some quickly scribbled directions written in a corner somewhere. To cut a long story short it turns out that there are two Ghala offramps. I took the first one and apparently it was the wrong choice. My delightful little trip to Church turned out to be a delightful little trip into the desert. I then had to renegotiate my way back into the city via heavy road works and strange detours. Miraculously enough I managed to find my way home. At this point I would like to throw a few names of places out there – Al Khuwayr Ash Shamaliyyah, Al Khuwayr Al Janubiyyah, Al Udhaybah Al Janubiyah, Hayy Al Urafn, Al Wadi Al Kabir. I know my mom is laughing right now because I know that her spacial dyslexia just kicked in. Lets just leave it at this – I probably did more praying in my car trying to find my way home than I would ever have done if I actually went to Church.  

And now for something completely different. I went to Kickboxing on Wednesday night. There is something very awkward about being in a room full of sweaty men, in a Muslim country, doing pelvic thrusts. Perhaps the most distressing part was the noise accompanied by these thrusts.

An even more disturbing event, however, happened when I got home from kick boxing. If one may, just for a moment, consider the state of my body after doing an hour of kick boxing one will imagine how desperate I was for a nice hot shower. So I lathered up, shampoo and all, and was happily washing away when horror of horrors my shower died. Literally, it didn’t just slow down to a trickle, it died. Dripping in shampoo I decided to keep my composure and head to my other bathroom. Dead. Not a drop. With panic slowly rising I tried all the basins and even the funny toilet hoses. Nothing. I even tried to lift the cistern off the toilet but it wouldn’t budge. Now, when I shampoo my hair I take no prisoners. The froth was beginning to form puddles of bubbles around my legs and my entire flat had a trail of panicked to and fro movements of shampoo lather. I then remembered my last bottle of drinking water. With great dexterity I managed to meter out the water so that it just rinsed my entire head and my body. Needless to say I didn’t have that warm fuzzy feeling when I went to bed that night.

And now two days later I can barely move. When you have a body like mine, that considers a slow amble down to the farm yard with the dogs serious exercise, you can only imagine the agony I am currently in. From the amount of groans that accompany my every movement one could well imagine that I am back on the kick boxing floor joining in with the cacophony of men performing pelvic thrusts.      

‘And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men.’ Matthew 6:5