You're where? Is that in Africa?

Here’s where I’m at right now. My tummy is round as we eat bread/wheat products at every meal, my hair is poofy as our neighbour came around to teach us to cook couscous and to do girly things in our room, like my hair, my goals are disjointed and my beliefs are in question and there is a big welt on my foot from a mosquito bite that never healed. My toes are tanned, my face is speckled and the rest of me is whiter than ever, my soul is at peace though my mind is on edge always and I cannot understand what my heart is saying but my abs are sore from the exercise yesterday and my ears are probably a little dirty.

Awkward Moments In Morocco

A.M.I.M
....

 

Looks like Lipstick:

 

Explaining what tampons are, in broken Arabic and gestures. AMIM

Paying for another mans’ sin:

When we have to pay for these guys’ bottle of wine, because they don’t want to commit the sin of buying the booze, as Muslims in an Islamic country.
It got awkaward, and then dangerous, when they started downing the wine, in the car, whilst driving 120km, on the way home.

It was also awkward when we had a muffled yet angry debate outside the liqour section when Aziz told us we had to take off our headscarfs whilst the buddy insisted on us just marching in. I felt like I did when I was 16 trying to by tiquilla or something. The vailled women stopped their shopping to give us death stares. AMIM

What comes in, must go out:

The first day when we were awake all night desperate for the loo and had to demand from Aziz in the morning the REAL explanation of toilet etiquette and where to shit, and where it goes and what to wipe with and how to flush. AMIM

Praise:

Kay is showing her parents the view from the roof over skype. She whirls around computer in arms, raised. Rashida the neighbour stares; these people are obviously religious computer worshiper creeps. AMIM

Exposed:

It’s a very hot day, anrie is wearing her wife beater. Lying down on the couch laughing at the coputer screen. Aziz walks in and discusses plans, and leaves. Turns out her whole bra is sticking out of her top. AMIM

Kay loves you bye:

Kay is talking to Rosa’s friend on skype. 1 hour later and the conversation needs to be over. K,lovya,bye says kay. Awkwardly my friend repeats: “Kay loves you Bye…?”
Creeper. AMIM

Shukran:

Rashida, the neighbour has been in the kitchen. The south Africans are in their disgustingly messy bedroom, chillin’. Rashida walks in carrying a bowl of icing: in an awkward flurry of responses to having a visitor in their messy room, Rosa runs for a shawl, Anrie is moving the shoes out of the way, and kay gladly accepts the bowl that Rashida has been working on with big smile and ‘Shukran’.(thankyou) Turns out she’s only coming to say bye and probably now thinks we’re so weird that she wont come back. AMIM

Third time lucky:

Well whattta you know; turns out she did come back. Today she comes by to visit many times and keeps popping in to see what we’re doing. We’re on skype. She watches for a while and as we’re about to call Lil to introduce her, she has to go. When she returns we’re talking to lil again, and again we summons her to see the screen. It is too dark but when lil goes to find light, the internet cuts out. She leaves one more time. We go and sit on the roof to continue our skype-sess, the video off for speech clarity. Eventually Rashida returns from her roof, and we call her to come see this time, now you can meet my twin. We ask her to turn on her video and the picture flickers on…  Lily is sensually lifting her shirt to show us the injection mark on her stomach… Laughing hysterically and awkwardly we try to tell lily to show her face and put her shirt down…which she probably does but the screen happened to freeze. For a good 3 minutes Rashida, adored in headscarf and modest skirt stares at me turning red shouting at the extreme close up of lily’s belly and positioned hand. AMIM

Salaam:

People are coming past the door, Anrie puts her head out just above the floor and says, in her strong accent “Salaam”. The kid had never been as freaked out. AMIM

When prophesies come knocking

Aziz spent a good 10mins teaching me to answer the door. I ask who it is alright but then I fidget with the door for 7minutes, laughing embarrassedly and banging the looks whilst the beautiful Mohammed stands awkwardly on the other end awaiting the end of my flustered reign.  AMIM

Café for the Soul?:

Our host tells me to put down baby Fati so I can eat. For the first time I cheekily decline, and say I’ll hold her instead. Soon there is coffee down my lap, and all over the newly washed carpet. AMIM

Wish that was all:

Miriam has left, we’re trying to charm Aziz’s mom. She has baked bread on the fire in the morning, and made us a delicious tea and lunch. However, the awkward communication attempts were stifled somewhat when Kay spills all her coffee on the fresh bread. AMIM

The Other Side:

Kid knocks on the door. When we ask who it is and figure out how to open it, the poor boy looking for our Host he sees 3 grinning white girls, and one’s bare chest from the low tank top that I forgot I was resting in. We rate it was probably more than he could cope with considering he ran to the other side of the road without a moment’s hesitation and refused to come any closer again. AMIM

Yes. Yes. Yeees. You understand? Yes.

When after 8 days of living with his family, we finally discover that every time our Host says “yeees” it actually means he doesn’t know what we’re saying because we’re talking too fast… AMIM

Leave your message after the Bleep:

When we give Anrie’s number to a waiter (who gives it to his friends) and proudly tell Aziz to see his reaction. Turns out “the worst thing you can do is give out your number, they track you down, like people from Israel or Iran, and they are out to get the tourists, the police track the number, they start with saying how you’re lovely or how beautiful you are you must never give out your number…” Also, it’s actually his brother’s number that we’re using. Things got pretty awkward after that. AMIM
 

 

 

 

 

Wa Aleikum Ssalam from the other side of the Equator

As I write.. (always a good place to start when you don’t know where to start)

I’m sitting on the roof of the house we’re living in. Its in a village of 200 houses and its called Smayer. This roof is connected with 5 neighbours roofs, and everyone hangs their washing up here to dry in the hot hot Moroccan sun.

Neighbours rock up all day, and all planned activities of any importance stop in the name of hospitality. Luckily we have by now perfected (well..kinda) the simple dialogue of salaam aleikum- waaleikum ssalam-kif deyer(howa you)-bichor hamdullah(good thanks be to G-d) so we can participate in neighbour visits too.

We also know how to say things like “I’m full” and “wonderful breakfast”. The food here is incredible. A vegetarian’s paradise. Regardless, the others are craving meat but I am so very satisfied.

We eat bread made from wheat grown here on the farm and dried here on this roof. You can also hear the muezin’s calling from alkl the neighbouring villages. It makes me feel quite at home.

The one thing we struggle a little with was the ablutions. Even me. Ok, especially me. Despite my travel experience I remain quite a prude. But I’m trying ok. I mean, its not like I have a choice..

Our Host has prepare d us this whole program: its involves: Organic farming (making compost and planting beans and picking olives
Sustainable Ecological Development( which is what he calls picking up the litter in the river. There’s lots of it)
Cultural Exchange (learning to say ‘im full’ in Arabic and meeting locals (tea with neighbours)
Sport and Excersise (something like that. It means maying playing soccer with the boys and doin hikes)
Tourism and Travel Time

 

That’s the 5 pillars of our time here and its going marvellously. We have talked about everything under the sun; religion, homosexuality, language, dating, marriage, olives, soil, food, animals, family, tradition, babies, atheism, terrorism, stars….

The taboo subjects are all anrie and kays conversations with aziz and the marriage and babies ones are all our Host’s. I talk about the olives …

I have made best friends with Fatima (the baby) and her mom, Miriam who is my age. I thought Miriam and the mother(her and my Hosts’ mom, also called Fatima)  talked about me all the time in the kitchen before learning that Rowse is actually rice.

 We all have Arabic names. Mine is Zhor. it sounds like a warrior. I like it.

Retrospect Perspective and many line-breaks

It sounds better now they say

But you’d stopped singing a while ago

And you’ve only been mouthing the words

 

Was that yesterday?

Or a video from your childhood?

But you’re too afraid to ask

Because they don’t know the answer either

So you’d rather keep pretending

That its still just an arm’s reach away

 

Click, bent over forward with your head

Between your legs

There’s more than one way of looking back

But look at where Lot’s wife ended up

The seasoning three-point- observation violation

 

When you’re balancing right on the

Edge

Its all relative

And perfection is a matter of perspective

They say that symmetry

Is what beauty is all about.

Mr Openminded views that from all-angles.

Thought there’s always Three truths,

But one right answer

When you measure opinion with a protractor

 

The trouble arises not when there’s no one else

To pat you on the back

But when you’re not flexible enough for such self-satisfaction.

 

Too soon the houselights are on

And you blink out the light

But you keep on blinking

Because

It turned out that no-one

But you

Ever really cared about your holiday snapshots

Anyway.

 

We are the activists wondering where to begin

We are here to get the government
out of your bedroom
the kids off the street
the men in the kitchen



we’re the couple in the café
with the paper
with the paper and the ideas about freedom
with shouts bout democracy/ suffrage and leaders
we tipped over latte’s to raise fists to the ceiling



we are the wanderers
with dreams and ambitions
the glo-in-the-dark stars on our ceilings
speak of communism, brotherhood
neopluralist living



Occupy, fight, stand for whats right
Free palastine, build zion, take back
Our farmland; sit-ins, rallys, hunger-strikes
Eradicate poverty, and drugs, and men,
And animal-killers; eat a rock, save a child



We’re here to put ‘organic’ back into your salad
To roll up the boarders, and send them to the laundry,
Our night shift is dreaming social justice for all
But you can’t eat ideology for breakfast

And we can’t find the haystack
Under all the worlds sin
We’re the activists wondering where to begin
 

I can hear the drip drip from the shower from under my bedcovers

I will not become one of those people, my people, who are miserable. Who have crisis’ far deeper than my jokey ’existential-crisis’ and who feel they have no purpose to their lives, who mill at home doing nothing, and have lists of things to complain about, starting from their past lives and working their way up. Yet… I have not showered in 3 days. During this time I haven’t been in for supper, nor have I  been out of bed before midday. What do I do all day, people ask me. Nothing I respond. I don’t do anything with my life. I joke about all the free time I have, ‘you tell me when you’reavailable because it’s not like I’m doing anything with my life, ha de haha’.

I push away the people who know me best, perhaps because I don’t want them to see me like this, or because I don’t want to see them like this.

In retrospect I can judge others for falling into this trap. How, why can they just sit at home doing nothing all day. There is so much to do in joburg you only have to go out and find it. No wonder they’re having breakdowns, what with staring at their bedposts all day, and living for nothing. Putting things off until you can’t even remember what was supposed to be preventing you from doing them in the first place. Waiting for things to happen without making them happen. Complaining. Wishing. I promise I’ll be pro-active when….

Things I’ve always wanted to do/explore/experience/experiment with… such as delving into the refugee issue in Joburg, volunteering from home, getting exercise, practising soccer, cooking, exploring joburg CBD, planting… I’ve always been too busy to do these, but now that I have time…

I don’t know what’s lacking, perhaps motivation. I don’t know whether it is because I’ve tired myself out doing and doing and doing this year, and that I need a break OR, and most likely, because I’ve stopped. After-all, sleeping is what makes you tired.

There is only so long that I can blame it on the Space. And say, its joburg, it’s the transport problems here, I need to leave, once I’m elsewhere, things will be ok. And I will learn again, and I will do again. Because at some point, I have to stop running, and let my roots get a little soil, and use that to nourish myself to grow and built and photosynthesise. Though it’s not self-growth I’m worried about, its productivity. You’re only young once ne, so make the most of your time.

But it’s all about a catalyst, something to ignite a process. Because I do have some ideas and theories waiting to be put into practise. I do have some clean clothes in my cupboard waiting to be tried on. I do have a full geyser of warm water, and I can step into the shower any time I want. It’s a scary world out there, past the warm soapy water, and once I get in, I’m committed to trying out that world again, and holding on, and not letting go again, not falling back into the realm of dirty pyjamas. That’s the hardest part, it’s easy to try half-heartedly to clean up my act, but to stay out there, to put on fresh jeans and a bra EVERY SINGLE DAY, is hard work. But I’ve got it in me, we all do, and I won’t fall into that existentialist trap, because there are things to be done, and places to go.

Not a Foot over The Line

Holy shit I just looked around me and noticed that there were 4 females in the room. Just to think that for a good few weeks I was the only one, the gangbitch with my 3 burly gentlemen. This is balanced.

Everyone’s scratching, mosquito bites all round, toes and ankles, noses. The occasional clap of someone aiming for the little bugger. The hum of the fans. The faint odour of the evenings pungent meal of Ochra Stew and Banku, no-ones favourite-lingers in the air.

My Canadian housemate; a bundle of fun whom, ironiocally along with my other favourite homo; inspired me to go out independently into the world of Ghana; to have my own adventures and fly; has just left Ghana. As he flies across the seas, towards Quibec, Canada; thousands of Liberians in Ghana are crying, packing their bags, defeated, again. Due to the Cessation Clause of the 30^thJuly 2012, when their refugee status in Ghana ceased to be, those who remain do so without rights, without protection, and without a home; as Buduburam, “Liberia Camp” the massive, thriving amorphous of Liberian haven that has been home to the refugees for many years is being closed down. Thousands have applied for exemption; for a chance to say ‘hear my story again, I AM a refugee, I AM in need of international protection, ‘my country’ CANNOT give me the protection that a nation owes to its citizens and I am here, in Ghana, without a home.

In Two weeks I will smoothly navigate my way through the airport bureaucracy and return home too. All these weeks I have been waiting for that shot of urgency to kick in, for the adrenalin to pump away the lethargy. I think I’m slowly becoming addicted to the feeling of leaving; the cravings, the need- to do everything under the sun, the fear, the anticipation.

On Wednesday, the 4^th July, 4 days after the passing of the cessation clause, I (along with a fantastic 16 year old who was doing research for her fancy IB High school curriculum!)  was given the opportunity to take the other interns of the Human Rights office I’ve been volunteering at to Buduburam ‘Liberia’ Refugee Camp. After struggling to put together a request for permission to visit the site, organising (with much help) a vehicle (a tro-tro) to take the 15 interns,  copies of the surveys and interviews.  Trying to make up a reason to tell the other interns about why we’re going there “due to the cessation clause, after which Refugee Status for all the Liberians living there will be terminated, we {at our human rights organisation} are expecting to get a great influx of refugee clients and we need to do research at the camp in order to find out what sort of problems are likely to come up in order to be adequately prepared” where-as infact, the reason we were going was out of our own interest, too see the place, to understand, and- most importantly I rate, to talk to the peeps in order to get things from their perspective, because most of what everyone hears about nationless peoples, is gossip from the nations.

Angel, my Liberian woman (with a accent typical of Rastafarians?) whom I interviewed came to Ghana when she was 4, brought by her aging grandmother to escape the civil war. She’s been living in the camp ever since. She has 2 kids (the youngest, on her back during the interview). She picks up littered water sachets for a living and has never received any sort of education. She, along with the other Liberians cannot go and work in Accra because they feel threatened as Liberians. ‘Its no good here (Ghana), its no good there (Liberia)’.  She wants ‘to fly’, to move to a mythical land {which starts with A and rhymes with ‘freethinker’ or ‘swastika’)

Which doesnt surprise me; given what people see on TV. Its almost like Cold War West Germany here off the side of Africa...