word from a sparrow in afrika

Out of Afrika

tfsparow — Mon, 04 May 2009 03:15:33 +0000

I am now out of Afrika.
In just a few hours I will land in Europe, to begin the next phase of my life, with my base in Budapest. My move out of Cape Town is semi-permanent. I’ve emptied and cleaned my apartment on Hope St. and I will never live there again. In fact, as of now, I don’t feel any strong desire to live anywhere in Africa any time soon.
I am glad that I made the step of moving to Cape Town. It has been an intense year; frequently happy and feeling myself confronted by tremendous beauty, and just as frequently confronted by deeply ingrained injustice, privilege and cynicism. In many ways I feel that I have grown in negative ways as a result of my time in Africa, less hopeful and more scared, less engaged in collective struggle and more alienated from black and poor people. It is important that I leave now, that I reconnect with collectives of daring, irreverent and loving revolutionaries.
All the same, my time in South Africa is not finished.
I have begun the research required to do a major piece of writing on the white anti-apartheid activist and radical thinker, Richard Turner. I am greatly inspired both by Turner’s ideas and by the choices he made about how to live an open lifestyle, towards liberation, in times of severe repression. I finally succeeded in handing in a proposal to write a masters’ thesis, on this topic, just a few days before leaving. If they accept my proposal, my writing will proceed towards getting an MA degree, and hopefully continue into something longer and more beautiful after my degree is completed. So, in short, the work of interviewing people and producing writing will bring me back to South Africa within some months.
Further, I am not yet done with this website. There are still many more stories I would like to tell, and photographs that I would like to share. My apologies for the silence of the last months. I hope to bring this site up to date within the next month.

fly free, love…

driving, driving, an unbelievable amount of driving

tfsparow — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 02:17:57 +0000

to get to Durban and back, Libby and I did an unbelievable amount of driving. cape town to durban is a long drive, but with all the wandering that lib and i did along the way, stopping at various places, we had done more than 50% more driving than we ‘needed’ to (it’s 1600km to durban, and when we pulled into our friend carey’s driveway there, we had done about 2500km). somehow every day we told ourselves that we would drive for say, 3 or 4 hours more, and get maybe 300km or more, and arrive before sunset. in fact, we often drove for like 5 or 6 hours, did only about 200km and arrived after dark. but then, even though we had a tight schedule due to school obligations and so forth, meandering along and seeing more of the country, together, was a big part of the goal, so no regrets about the extra kilometers.

also, on a number of occasions we chose to take the smaller, more windy road, and had some hilarious experiences picking up hitchhikers (out of fear, we only took women and children) and sometimes being flatly rejected by those hitchhiking. the best was a five year old boy who rode with us a few kilometers and shared some bananas and peanut butter, all the while without saying a single word.

it was, in all, good fun. we listened to cds out of a tiny little pink speaker, we read to each other about patrice lumumba and strippers and rick turner, curled up under our sleeping bags on the cold night drives, and when we were really exhausted and had to keep going through the rain we bought super sparkly water and used the momentum (and giggling) produced from our burps to stay awake and driving.

lots of breaks at random spots to pee…

we also made a few stops just to play, flipping upside down, having a coffee or a sandwhich, and so on…

we tried out a park for kids to learn about nature and so forth, but the level of the games there was a bit below our normally extremely childish desires…

we were driving doerte’s car, after she’d gone back up to berlin. she called the car “roxy,” and with us roxy crossed the amazing 100,000km mark. we had big celebrations, in the middle of the ‘big sky country’ outside of bloemfontein…

tasteless microwave popcorn…

…and that’s sparkling apple juice, if you’re wondering…

and all along the way we were reminded that south africa is a very beautiful country (speaking of the nature, of course, not of the human society)…

even the section of the country that i liked to mockingly call the afrikaner’s homeland (and therefore wanted to believe is ugly) was actually beautiful…

maya’s mama’s house

tfsparow — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 02:14:33 +0000

on the drive back home we decided against the mountainous coastal route and instead drove through the flat ‘heart’ of the country. that led us to bloemfontein and our friend maya’s childhood home. maya’s mother was extremely generous and hospitable to us, graciously allowing us to arrive at her house at 3 in the morning after a crazy long drive, sleep late, and then eat a nice breakfast with her learning about her work and maya’s family. she was sharp and thoughtful and enjoyed reading very much, while dedicating much of her life to thinking about how to bring about positive development in south africa and elsewhere.

also, she took us on a walk to see a nearby hill to get a view of the amazingly simple and boring bloemfontein…

this photo is for maya, taken in her room, as proof that we were there and thinking fondly of her…

all rick turner, all the time

tfsparow — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 02:10:24 +0000

amidst all the crazy driving and fun adventures along the way, always the default topic and task was rick turner. reading about rick turner at every opportunity. calling people who knew rick turner and setting up appointments to meet them, meeting with about a dozen different people, at different cafes, offices and even parking lots, photocopying 1,000 pages of material from the rick turner archive, and then at night before bed reading more about turner. it felt almost like being a detective, and each day a new tiny piece of the whole puzzle i was trying to make sense of became more clear to me. who was he friends with? who did he work closely with? what did he believe deeply in? who killed him? and so on and so on. it all began with leaving simonskloof and driving a full 300km backwards towards cape town to meet with jann turner, rick’s daughter. but it was well worth it, as she told excellent stories about her childhood and about the radical left in south africa, and was extremely supportive of my work.

all around, the contsant focus on turner was, in fact, a very enjoyable obsession, and i felt proud of myself, libby expressed pride in my work, and people we met were grateful that i am undertaking this project. so, it was very fulfilling…

at the university of natal durban (now ukzn), they’ve named the student union after turner, a building where he once organized many debates and discussion forums, nonetheless the people i met randomly on campus seemed to have no knowledge of who he was…

this is the view of durban from the university library, where i was for many hours…

here our car is parked outside the house of fatima meer, a truly amazing old radical organizer who graciously gave me three hours of her time to talk to me about rick turner, because “i loved rick turner, and so i’ll help you in any way that i can.” it was one of the highlights of the trip, for sure.in this same home, twice assassins tried to murder fatima, once one week before they did kill rick. and also in this same home, rick turner was married to his wife foszia.

cricket, zebras and friends

tfsparow — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 02:01:14 +0000

we don’t tend to talk much in-between visits, but every time i see carey, brendan, jem and liam again, i am always so happy. this last visit may have been my favorite of them all. having a car allowed us more autonomy, and more of a sense of understanding where we are and how to move around, and also allowed us to be a bit better guests and bring in groceries and cook a bit (although brendan’s meals are always fabulous).

the boys have started going to school, and brendan has become a teacher at a school for kids who have been somehow kicked out of other places, and carey now works at home with the other women who make rootz creationz work. so, their lives have changed a lot since my previous visit. all the same, they have the same intense desire to engage fully with south africa, to love it, and to try to make it a more dignified and just place to live.

brendan’s stories of teaching were awesome, not in the teenage usage of that word, but in its original meaning – they left libby and i full of awe at the realization that a man can be so real and so strong and yet still and always so loving and so patient. the kids are really lucky to have him as their teacher, as he is a man truly to be admired.

carey and libby got lots of time to talk together about south africa and health issues, as one of carey’s workers at rootz was very ill and in the hospital for days. also, carey took us to a nearby free clinic and nursery that a friend of hers runs, serving some many hundreds of people in the valley.

meanwhile, jem and liam took on a very serious project of teaching us what cricket is and how to play it. we spent two hours watching on tv and asking tons of questions while they patiently explained, then we had a hilarious but plenty competetive family game in the yard. i think i’m getting the hang of it, but jem and liam are still way better…

the next day carey took us to this beautiful dam and nature reserve, in among the valley of a thousand hills.

we had plenty of silly time in the tunnel underneath the dam…

then we had a picnic and debated what the best response to the upcoming elections might be, while the zebras leisurely strolled about and snacked in the background. carey was speaking about her deep moral quandary as a long time ANC supporter who now feels that she cannot vote for them anymore. jem had a unique strategy of encouraging her to think that she could make up to eight votes for each party running, and then if she added it up, she might have a better chance of which to choose..

really it’s almost like a second home to stay with this crazy bunch…

the circle houses within the square house

tfsparow — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 01:45:10 +0000

port st. john’s is strange. it’s the biggest of the little towns along the wild coast, and a bizarre mix of feeling really strongly african, with a totally black downtown, and hyper-toruistic at the same time. anyhow, libby and i found ourselves spending the night at this really funky place to sleep, ran by a hippy-Mediterranean restaurant. it was up a hill, overlooking the ocean, and had this crazy and fun structure of being two little circle houses inside of a larger square house…

we slept up here:

libby loves candles:

oh, and port st. john’s also has cows that hang out on the beach… what could they find to eat there? and can they swim?

campfires, trampolines and amazing cliffs

tfsparow — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 01:28:01 +0000

libby and i wanted to go somewhere on the wild coast, but when frithjof and i had gone earlier in the year we were overwhelmed and even a bit depressed by the intensely fake-paradise of the backpackers that we stayed at. so, libby found us a much simpler and quieter campground in a place called morgan’s bay, which was just what we needed. it was a little grass hut, with a comfortable bed, but still we cooked by lamplight outside. we tried also to make a fire, but the wood we bought from them just simply wouldn’t burn. we tried lighting it multiple times, even pouring gas all over and wasting quite a bit of pages from our cool puzzle book to try to get a fire to stay lit, but no luck.

when we woke up, we played around in their fun playground…

and we invented a new style of videos, which is absolutely wonderfully hilarious…

libby was her usual playful, beautiful self, bouncing around in the little toy house…

and climbing on the rope (again with the great new video technique)…

then we went and explored these stunning cliffs that are right near the campsite. looking at these photos days and months later, i am still struck by how totally breathtaking the views are, the black of the rocks, the green of the grass, the roaring blue ocean, it gives only a small hint of how exciting it was to walk and run through there. next time in the wild coast, i learned, the point is not to drive from place to place (which takes hours on small roads, up and away from the coast and then back down again on another road) but instead to walk along these kinds of beautiful footpaths, which go for miles and miles and give unparalleled views.

libby captured the sounds and sight of these roaring waves through a secret little crack in the rocks, on video:

and up here it was best of all, and you could walk for miles like this. we would have, if we had time enough…

as it was, we had just enough time to take some of our clothes off and soak in the amazing sun and ocean and cliffs…

puzzle park

tfsparow — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:18:50 +0000

another fun side of the road find was the plattenberg puzzle park, a whole amusement park devoted solely to thinking games. perfect for libby and i. anyway, they had two choices, some kind of labyrinth, or a series of nine puzzles in a row. well, with the nine in a row option, they give you a free cool drink if you get 7 or more right, so obviously we chose that option. as you can see above, i was a little skeptical at first, but i put my game face on, and we did our best.

each puzzle was at this wooden stand, that looked like this. there were a bunch of different kinds of questions, and even some boxes had multiple questions you had to answer. but they were all worth the same, and you had to answer in like 3 minutes, or the box would collapse and you wouldn’t get this little wooden chip you needed to prove you got the question right.

some were really hard, and we got the first two wrong, so we were worried all the way till the last minute. but, as you can see, due to a bit of a luck, and a brilliant, last-second response to a riddle about moses and noah’s ark, we got the free cool drink…

and here’s the victory ? dance…

sleeping in trees and swimming in coffee water

tfsparow — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 01:02:21 +0000

probably one of the most fun days and nights of our whole trip was staying at the teniqua treetops, near to knysna. we were driving through a section of the country where we had no really clear goal or plan, and we stumbled onto the treetops totally by chance; we were very lucky! earlier in the journey libby and i had been driving past two in the morning, trying to get to mossel bay, but actually just cold and exhausted and bored with driving. and then we saw blinking neon lights flashing up on the hillside which said B… &… B. It was as if it was a sign from God. we were tired, sick of driving, and needed a place to sleep, and there, totally in the middle of nowhere, was a flashing light telling us that we could sleep at a bed and breakfast. amazing. but… we hesitated, kept driving about 5km further before finally deciding to turn around. so, when we got back to the magic spot, the lights had been switched off. it was an important moment for us. after that vanishing sign from god, we realized that we couldn’t let any amazing opportunities along the way pass us by. all that just to say that we found the teniqua treetops when we saw a road sign advertising it, and we felt we simply must check it out.

the place was more than 9km away from the main road, but we kept on. when we got there, a woman greeted us and showed us this amazing place to sleep, more than 10m up in the trees, and with this amazing tent/bedroom, semi-outdoor shower, and so on. and immediately we were in love with it, especially libby. she couldn’t believe her eyes. but the place also cost like 3 to 5 times more than we could really afford to sleep somewhere. so, it was a crazy idea. libby began bargaining with the women, even offered to do work for her, and she brought the price down a good bit, but still double or triple what we should pay. then she told us to think it over. we walked around the place, checked out their pool, etc. and just talked it over. within 15 minutes we had convinced ourselves that we would pay for it, all the same. and just at the moment, the woman sent her son to offer us an even lower price, like 25% more off the total. so, we accepted, ecstatically, of course!

we had a super relaxing night, reading, playing games, cooking simple food, talking, and sleeping in an amazing huge bed with electric blankets…

see, we’re up in the sky…

this was the kind of magic walkway to our sleeping place…

the next day we took a walk down to this incredible river-lake swimming hole, where the water was black like coffee or at least orange soda colored. the water gets that way from all the fynbos growing in the area (it’s not dirty, in other words). anyway, it was spectacular. and the owners of the place told us that they lived on the land for three years before they even knew that the swimming hole exists because there is so much thick forest all around. they only found it because of a big flood in the area.

i played around on the shore, taking lots of photos…

and libby was her crazy swimming, loving the outdoors and water and nakedness, fully alive beautiful self…

no electricity, hauling rocks, cold nights, outdoor showers, spectacular views and an excellent time…

tfsparow — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:40:35 +0000

at the planning stage, our road trip was conceived of as having lots of stop at WWOOF places, sleeping for free and doing work learning about farming and meeting interesting people in a beautiful natural environment, etc. turns out we stayed at only one WWOOF spot, for the first three days. but it was great, and well worth it.

simon’s kloof is not so much a farm as a retreat space and place for hikers to wandering through amazing mountain peaks and cliffs, just about 2.5 hours outside cape town. the place is run by a super motivated and smart swiss-south african couple, who really seem to thrive on and appreciate simple living in a beautiful setting. it was good to share meals and conversations with them, and also to similarly enjoy the beautiful area they find themselves in.

we stayed in this cottage…

IMG_5308, originally uploaded by tfsparow.

the libster, enjoying our porch:

IMG_5325, originally uploaded by tfsparow.

IMG_5324, originally uploaded by tfsparow.

the hardest work was hauling rocks with a wheelbarrel, along a windy narrow path, up and down hill, so so heavy, in order to make an outdoor shower. really unpleasant work, and libby even did more of it, as i was feeling sick and had to sleep to regain some strength. but she kept on smiling sweetly, and she was really proud when she finished…

IMG_5314, originally uploaded by tfsparow.

IMG_5340, originally uploaded by tfsparow.

of course, i scooped the shit out of the chicken coop, which wasn’t so fun either…

IMG_5329, originally uploaded by tfsparow.

we enjoyed taking walks through the hills, and the dogs there were the perfect kind, friendly and playful, but not needy or barking all the time, just always walking along by your side, and saying hello when you arrive and goodbye when you leave…

IMG_5307, originally uploaded by tfsparow.

IMG_5315, originally uploaded by tfsparow.

IMG_5347, originally uploaded by tfsparow.

the whole gang, even wingman and bear…

IMG_5363, originally uploaded by tfsparow.

IMG_5351, originally uploaded by tfsparow.