Anyone for seconds?

You’re probably going to think I watch way too much television these days. And you’d be right. But when the movie is Chocolat, do I really have a choice?

That movie should be banned as a health risk. It’s chocolate pornography is what it is. All that hmmming and ahhing...and that is not just me when Johnny Depp shows up. It’s all you can do not to lick the screen - for the chocolate, not Johnny – although.....no, it is the chocolate.

You’ll have to forgive me. I am a little deprived. Rwandan’s idea of desert runs to fruit. They’re not big on sweets, not anything like what I am used to. They’re not really a food culture. Probably explains why the gyms here are full of chubby expats like me, and not Rwandans.

I am big on sweet. I’m the one that sneaks the desert before the main meal at a buffet. It is not unusual to find me with an éclair on the same plate as piece of chicken. Or to find me with a rapturous expression on my face, spoon in the mouth, half-eaten chocolate cake on my plate, while everyone else is still having hors d’ouvres.

I am also one of those individuals who get aggressive when disappointed. They have a ball here...a midsized.....doughnut-shaped ball. It looks like a doughnut....it smells like a doughnut...but it is really nothing but bread dough that is deep fried. Now that is just plain rude. Rude and misleading...and mean.

And for me to call well-mannered, mild, conservative Rwandans rude....you must know the depth of my disappointment. The offense runs deep. Haven’t they heard..”man (or me in this case) cannot live off bread alone”?

I grew up a community where food matters. Visits, meetings, gatherings, always ended in food. You’ve scarcely been seated five minutes in any one of our homes before tea is offered. If you visit around lunch...it’s assumed you’re staying. And there’s ALWAYS enough food. We may not have been well off, but a plan was always made. And if you refused....God help you. GUILT – did you think something was wrong with the food? Didn’t you like the food? And of course, you no longer loved your aunt, neighbour, mother, cousin....

You were always too skinny, even if you needed to enter the door sideways.

And there was always, but always, pudding.

The common Rwandan diet is made up mostly of starch. Rice and chips, cassava foufou (pap) with fried green bananas, spinach, cassava leaves and a tomato mix. Meat is chicken (very stringy – necessitates toothpicks on every table) beef and chevre, which is goat meat. There is also poisson (fish), but for some reason not a lot of Rwandans eat fish.

It is tasty, but spice-addicted folk like me would probably find the taste a bit bland. Heck I know some of my friends have spent evenings at a Mexican restaurant crying into a bowls of chilli, gasping out every five minutes: “This is soooo good’’.

Apparently, or so I’m told, when Rwanda was still more French than English, food played a more important role. It is sad that, that particular part of the culture has disappeared. It leaves Rwanda a little empy, I think. I think a food culture is the forerunner of so many things...where people sit and eat they discuss, create, they contemplate, they draw. Did Picasso not draw on napkins and restaurant walls? Did the bohemian Paris culture of the late 1800s and early 1900s not start in cafes? Did Ernest Hemingway not frequent Cuban cafe's?

It is at this point that I miss Mellville. The second hand bookstores open till 22:00...and Soi, one of my favourite restaurants. Sigh.

But, such is the nature of adventure and travel. There are some things you leave behind, to gain others – like a big screen tv that has been licked clean.

Bisous 
Sam

Souf Effricen and prowd of it!

I find that many expats I run into and befriend left their country of origin because they found that the habits of their fellow countrymen and women were growing so annoying, that before they ended up on the crime channel, they had to leave and establish themselves elsewhere.

But I also find, that sooner or later, those very same idiosyncrasies and habits, that were to you so unbearable, are now the things you miss about your country the most.  I didn't expect it to happen so soon, but there you are. I miss South Africa and even more...I miss South Africans in all their glorious ability to drive me insane. I miss every last thing about them, whether they be pink, orange or blue.

And these days, it doesn't take much to reduce me to a sniveling mass of emotion when confronted with anything South African. I find myself suddenly wailing things like, ''...oh lord I miss the traffic - the bumper to bumper, the  smog on a gloriously clear highveld winter morning, the sea, braais...oh god I miss burning meat in a garden!'' at a friend's dinner table, and suffer the curious and somewhat alarmed looks of my fellow guests...since what they were actually talking about, was a new baby seat Betty (another South African) had bought to fit in her jeep.

I blame that movie Invictus. I didn't want to watch it, but it was the only movie I hadn't seen on dtsv Africa. I was reduced to a tv-watching invalid by the most hideous head-cold I have ever encountered. It must be an central African invention - I am convinced. Leaves you sounding like a hippopotamus on heat...impossible to chew and breathe at the same time. And in case you're wondering...yes I do happen to know what a hippopotamus in heat sounds like - when the movies ran out, I had to watch the discovery channel, dammit.

There I was, couched, tissued, sniveling and lonely (everyone else had the sense to steer clear of me except for Puppy, who investigated every discarded tissue and thoughfully chewed on whatever bits of my hair he could get hold of) watching Matt Damon fletten his a's. grind out his r's...(he's so cute at it, I hear scooters here do a less admirable job...rrrrrrrrrrrrrr), turn his th's into f's and enthusiastically grab at other men's crotches in a ruck. 

And suddenly....I missed home. I forgot that Matt isn't even South African - I think at one point I actually started seeing Francois Pienaar in his face..(but that could have been the cold medication)....and that Morgan Freeman isn't Madiba...because suddenly I missed that feeling of the World Cup, both of them - football and rugby. Not the sport...the people. For heaven's sake I am now watching etv news in an attempt to cure myself - I keep looking for Julius...

See, Rwandans are dignified in their suffering, conservative in their pain, they're moderate in their objections and obedient in their laws. 

But South Africans - they laugh in their adversity, they squabble, oh god they annoy you with their constant debating, their to- and fro-ing, they bicker over shit, they complain, they're ungrateful and destructive. 

They're passionate - about everything...about nothing. The same amount of passion that is expended   at a strike, is spent on a Saturday watching Pirates and Chiefs play.  But at the same time they're completely apathetic about curing themselves of the crime problem, or the sexual abuse of children.

Those of you who have been exposed to me in a newsroom know of my somewhat temperamental nature, I also tend to be a rather spirited debater. I am noisy. 

And I am an anomaly here. 

I squeal when delighted, rage when crossed and use my hands to punctuate. I question, say things no one else dares to, but wants to...but mostly...I laugh at myself. Loudly.

How much of that is personality and how much cultural...I don't know. But if we're to believe all the experts, then we are the product of our upbring and our surroundings.

No matter which way I look at it....no matter how I twist and turn...I am a South African - and I guess I'll always be one. And despite the fact that on certain days I could happily wring the neck of every South African - every call centre agent, home affairs clerk, supermarket cashier, petrol attendant, every policeman, nurse, unionist, striker, criminal, ag everyone...but mostly just snotklap every politician...there is no denying, that South Africans do the most unpredictably kind and generous, heartfelt, unselfish, patriotic, amazingly talented things sometimes. 

I believe there is nothing wrong in leaving the country of your birth though. I think it is good for you. Good to see and learn and experience new cultures and new people and take advantage of greener pastures (if you're lucky enough to find them with no poopoo on them). And it is also okay to grumble about your old country, and bitch and moan about the circumstances that brought you to where you are. You do the same with your family. I believe that being in a foreign country eventually makes you appreciate what is good about where you come from and makes you lessen their sins. 

But if you think that you going to escape WHO you are....you have another thing coming. I met a gentleman in a Kigali supermarket. He said he regarded himself as an Australian now, completely rejected all things SA.....but Matt Damon could've taken lessons in that Souf Efricen ekkent from him hey...I mean rrreeeally boet - not that the shorts, khaki-short-sleeved agri-shirt, socks and sandals wouldn't have given you away or the fact that you asked the assistant for a 'jean-pant'. 

Folks, I am not poking fun at him, I was happy to see him. If I wouldn't have come off as a complete nut I would have pulled him in for a cuddle and just well...blessed his dear...ahem....Australian heart. For a minute he made me feel irritated....and less homesick.

Keep those braai fires burning....

Bisous

Sam

Here's to many more years of dstv....

So I promised a couple of people I would write a blog again. Now this surprised me since I had no idea people were actually reading the thing. It is more a record of my insane thoughts, an electronic diary...something for the psychiatrist to refer to someday when they’re trying to prove me of unsound mind. 

Because you do know that poor folks like me will always be crazy, never eccentric...we’re not rich enough.

I don’t socialise as much as I used to - I watch a lot of dstv. A lot of it has to do with the fact that what I like to do hasn’t quite taken off in Rwanda yet...theatre, bookstores (Exclusives, exclusives wherefore art thou exclusives?), movie theatres (they’re building one at the moment but I think it is going to be a while before there will be a cinema nouveau) shopping (I can’t even find a shoe that fits..)  art galleries..

Now before you blanche and think I have exiled myself to some backwater...try to remember that Rwanda literally started from a zero base 17 years ago. What they have done has been more intellectual and economic. For art to grow you need leisure time, and they haven’t had a lot of that. They still don’t. Everything they have done and continue to do centres around stabilizing their economy, their politics, their safety..health...all of it basic human needs. A lot of foreigners who work here find it boring and scamper off to Uganda for a weekend for some fun. (I confess, even I have done it, on occasion.)

A friend and I travelled to Gisenyi recently for a timeout. It is right on Lake Kivu – beautiful, peaceful and smack on the DRC border. A place to kick back and chill.

But to get there from Kigali you have to travel through countless winding hills. I joked  that I was feeling horribly claustrophobic walled in by green hillsides for three hours and was likely to throw myself out of the car and roll down one, just for a change. I begged him to find a straight road longer than 100 meters before we hit another winding road around the next bend.

For its size, Rwanda is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. You wouldn’t necessarily notice it, until you needed a pee while on the road and were desperately looking for a secluded bush to relieve yourself. Then you realise just how busy a rural road can be. People pop up behind every rock and crevasse. And they're all so bloody friendly. Makes getting on with your business a little difficult. I've never been comfortable having a conversation while peeing...even in a bathroom, let alone in the open air with my pants around my ankles. Yeesh...

Villages run into one another and every piece of available land, whether in a valley or perched against the steep side of hill, is cultivated – by hand. You see folks working a plantation where a mountain goat would think twice about going. No piece of machinery is going to make it up there, so they work the land themselves. Literally from dawn till dusk.

They haul their produce to the market by hand up the steepest inclines I have ever seen in makeshift wheelbarrows, or on the back of a bicycle – or more amazingly...on their heads. They work, work, work. They haul water, firewood, produce...At one point I broke down and wept at the sight of a little girl with strap around her forehead helping to hold up a full jerrycan of water on her back.

In Kigali, it is no different. They labour. I see women doing construction on roads, sweeping the roads (for gods sake) by hand with reed brooms. So where in this daily toil will there ever be time for art, theatre, and books for at least the next 5 to 10 years? Until they have foreign investment solid enough to mechanise functions, to improve their water and irrigation systems, transport systems so that they won’t have to get up at 4 in the morning to haul water and can stop work at 5 and get home before it is dark?

Many people thought I had lost my mind coming to Rwanda from a profitable career in JHB. Abandoning glossy Sandton for central Africa. And I will be honest...I wonder about that myself sometimes. But one thing is sure. I am learning something else here right now. Something for myself – that poverty doesn’t mean a loss of dignity. That because you don’t have modern conveniences that you have to lapse into filth and decay. That because your toilet doesn’t flush you don’t have to break it and demand a new one. You find a way to fix it ...yourself until someone else can.

But I am afraid for Rwanda. That this will change. Will that be a good thing? I don’t know. My heart says yes, that is a good thing for people NOT to labour like this. But my head also says NO.

Rwanda does not fulfil the west’s idea of democracy. So there are signs that it changing. Due to pressure from the west there has a relaxing of what was deemed more of a military state. Too much visible policing they say. Too much police for such a small country.

But the downside.....there are now muggings, house breakings, and you hear of what was unheard of in 17 years...random murder...street urchins harass you on street corners...money changers drive you crazy in the town centre until you would think yourself in Nairobi.

And the beggars on the street corners brazenly stepping up to you and saying...’’heh umzungu...gimme money...’’ and try to snatch your bag.

Is it as bad as JHB? No and not likely to be so for a long time. But it will be..in 10, 15 or 20 years from now.

So I assume soon there’ll be art. And the city will grow. There will be better education and construction and jobs and prosperity, more political parties and government bodies and manifestos and unions, and cinemas and theatres and more people and crime and poverty and misery and strikes.

And I will weep for another reason – for the little girl selling herself on a street corner, high on drugs and stumbling from alcohol.

And the safest city in the world won’t be that anymore.

Do I have an answer, no. A solution no.  I pray that the Government does. I pray that they intend to fulfil every promise they've made - that they'll reach every goal for safety and prosperity. Am i naive...probably.

But Rwanda’ll have joined the 21st century...and I will have a social life again.

I hope to be too old and senile by then to appreciate it.

xoxo

Sam

Booting the bully

It is kind of easy to be philosophical when you're lying on your back, rain pounding against the window on a Sunday afternoon. It is even easier when you're watching a movie like The curious life of Benjamin Button.
I never wanted to watch that movie, and no not because Brad Pitt is all shriveled up for most of the movie (really how shallow do you think I am? Don't answer that). I didn't want to watch it because I thought it would be one of those awful tearjerkers that mess up your face, give you raccoon eyes so you scare the little kids coming out of the chipmunk show in the other theater and give your friends fodder to  joke about for weeks after.
But it wasn't - rather I found it thought-provoking. And if I was going to cry that was the one place to do it. One my sofa. Alone. With Puppy lovingly chewing my toes to comfort....Damn that dog has sharp teeth...
Anyway...the one scene that started me off in this direction was the one where they realise that with her working forward and him working backward......they were meeting in the middle...agewise. For one brief decade in their lives after being either too old or too young, then too young and too old...they were finally within the range of what was viewed as an acceptable age difference in society. So they went at it like rabbits for a few years before parting and end up being miserable for the rest of their lives.
Acceptable in society. Isn't it amazing how many lives we ruin with these three words? Who the hell is society anyway? But we do it all the time. We let people who we don't know, who don't care about us, who don't even know us, tell us what to think, to wear, to eat, what music is hip and cool to listen to, how thin we need to be, who to date, who to marry, where to live, which institution to study at, which car to drive, and who to associate with?
Are we crazy?! I'll tell you what the problem is, we're not strong enough to tell them to go hell. We need to fit in. We're not strong enough to believe that people will like us anyway even if we wear what suits us rather than what is in fashion and makes us look like a sausage with a too tight skin. And the ones who don't? F**k 'em. And we're not strong enough to support others who think like us. It is easier to go with the crowd.
That brings me to the ones who run around telling everyone how different they are. How they don't follow the mainstream? How everyone else is so mundane and institutional. F**k you too.
Listen buddy if you have to Tell everyone..THEY CAN"T SEE IT AND..YOU AIN'T IT....
You don't even know you're a bully do you? When you argue and push your point onto everyone who couldn't really give a damn about what you think.....you're a bully. When you ridicule someone else's taste in clothes, music, food, entertainment....YOU'RE A BULLY.
Kids kills themselves because younger versions of people like you make their lives a living hell in schools and colleges.
So if I want to wear red boots and an evening dress....I will. (Why don't I own red boots by the way?). I really tip my hat to my gay friends who dress and act the way they feel......that is honesty.
That takes courage.
My soapbox is dented...Benjamen Button has lived his life so in reverse that he is nothing but a dirty thought in his dad's mind......and I am going to look for red boots.
And by the way....I LIKE MICHAEL BUBLE.

Bisous
Sam

Did someone say TICK??!

What a weekend. Never let it be said that I am not an out and out attraction for well....how do I say this nicely without offending myself....DISASTER. There, I am a disaster magnet.
I blame my thirteenth birthday and the wish I made while hunkered over the fruitcake my father always baked around this time. And no, the fruitcake was NOT an indication of what he thought of my state of mind. My birthday is four days before Christmas..fruitcake is appropriate.
Concentrating while blowing out the candles, I wished for a life less ordinary. How was I to know anyone was listening?
I often wonder whether these self-help guru's are right and we make things happen, pull them towards us by focusing on them consciously or sub-consciously. But since making that wish, my life has been ANYTHING but ordinary.
The next year after THAT birthday,  the last bout of the struggle against apartheid began. My high school life because of my belief in that struggle, was thrown into a turmoil that never subsided.
After high school, I chose journalism as a career and heaven knows two days have never been the same since then. I have traveled, been shot at, arrested, spat at, stabbed,hit on, mugged, loved, married, pregnant,lost babies, lost a father, lost other family, lost friends, been operated on - 4 times, nearly died, been dead- brought back, moved countless times.(the most recent being this move to Rwanda, central Africa)..and hard as some of these things have been....I wouldn't change a thing.
Not that life is done with me. Far from it.
Take this morning. This morning is the culmination of a particularly eventful weekend -- quite the bite festival.
 I woke up with a giant blob on my forehead. Somehow that blasted mosquito had dug her way (only a woman is THAT determined)  through the netting and bitten me on my forehead. Thank God Rwandan mosquitoes don't carry malaria. If they did, I would be MALARIA by now...LADY MALARIA.
Turns out our altitude discourages the nasty ones from visiting.
I must have particularly tasty blood, the mosquito equivalent of catnip the way they fight over me. I swear I can hear them brawling at night "my turn...no...my turn...!!"
My Puppy has tickfever...brought about by a tick biting him. A tick from a COW. Yes people, my darling Puppy escapes the confines of my fenced-in home and races to play with ......cows. In case you're wondering...the cows graze on the maize stubble in the maize smallholding across the road. Kigali is an urban farming site.
The vet came out on his little scooter to give him shots.....now he HATES the vet and for a while was extremely annoyed with me. To prove it...he pooped on the lounge floor - looking at me...the minute he felt better. That dog has cat genes...I KNOW it. Tried to trip me on the stairs this morning as well.
Also this weekend...my jeep had a flat tyre. You could run a tractor on those tyres. They're HUGE.
The jack was missing a pin. So a drama that lasted most of Sunday ensued....involving my husband in Korea, his family, my house staff, the neighbours, other interested onlookers...and successfully the garage down the hill.
Life, fate or whatever...not was not satisfied with that - oh no. Yesterday....I get to work to find .....NOBODY. Not speaking Kinyarwandan..I missed the announcement that yesterday was yet another voting day. I pitched up at work and it looked as though I had survived a nuclear holocaust. The streets were empty...the office deserted.
It was all bad though...I got a free day to recover.

Now tell me, why would I live anywhere else...at least for now? If I could JUST stop scratching my forehead...eeeeeek!

Bisous...
Sam

May I be of service?

I am not exactly a woman who needs to be waited on. I consider myself independent and self sufficient and able to handle one or two of life's harder knocks and still come back swinging...
So it has been quite a cultural challenge to accept the way things happen here in Rwanda. Employment is not easy to come by...so your household basically becomes a small business.
You create employment if you have employment that pays a reasonable salary. Take for example my household. I have Alfons...who is my security, my everyday gardener, floor washer, dish washer and sometimes clothes and linen washer, electricity buyer and dstv bill payer.  I pay him...since he prefers it that way...he gets a better salary than if I had employed someone to do each of these things.
Then there is Clare. She comes in once a week to do my personal laundry, bedding and everything else a woman would prefer another woman to do.
I basically do my job, my coffee is brought to me by Jacqueline, my lunch by someone else...I go home, feed my puppy eat my dinner, watch the TV, do some work, read and go to bed. I am not allowed to make up my own bed. I apparently don't do it right.
At work I have to sneak to the kiosk across the road for some vitamin D sunshine...because why would I want to do that? that is what they are there for? Am I not satisfied?
Rwandans take great pride in doing a job properly. At least the ones I have come across. They are pleasant, hard working polite, proud people
.
Who are making me fat and lazy.

Oye.

Bisous
Sam

Of oddballs and stalkers

So, started work this week at Media Systems Group and one of my first tasks is to assist in restructuring the organisation. Gosh...why do I always get the FUN jobs...the one that is bound to make everyone LOVE me? The one where I get to tell everyone.."hey, you're taking too long to do your job because there is a better way to do it, or if you didn't waste so much time talking crap on the phone you would have more time for actual WORK you chop..or my favourite one...when are you actually going to WORK?"
Yes...this guaranteed to make me highly popular...but..it seems investigation is what I am good at....and putting things logically is as well. Ah well...just must not forget to put myself into a little block...
So I also have a stalker...this odd young lady..(can you believe) phones me all the time...wants to be my friend...came to do a census and now wants to move in.
Pitches up at wierd times and I have to entertain her...I mean what the heck have I got in common with her...she is half my age, can't contribute much to a conversation...wants to be given stuff..is she crazy? Does she KNOW who she is dealing with here?
Calls me to say goodnight...well...hell...that is just creepy.
Antoine is full of advice...mostly giggles though.
Alfons is outraged. That's good - I like that...maybe I won't feed Puppy and point her out as a snack. Puppy loves me...will eat anything to defend me..especially the food sitting on my lap..it must look DANGEROUS.

Bisous
Sam