Pleading Guilty of Addiction to Exhibitionism

Next Friday I will have been living in Africa for three months. It is only today that I realise something quite dramatic. Yes. Let’s get things straight, I started my blog for two – and only two – reasons:

1. to keep family and friends informed of my everyday life here; and
2. to keep a record of my journey in order to have something to look back at, when all of this is gone

I don’t see what the big deel is. No, that is a lie.

The first step towards helping oneself out of this compulsion is to admit one is powerless over it: I confess, I am sick and I need help.

As painful as it can be, I have to come clean. This blog has grown on me like a Timbaland album. Enjoyable and superficially appealing at the beginning, it surreptitiously turned into a needy beast. A hungry creature I think about, dream about and work for, too many times a day. It is sitting there in the back of my mind, and from time to time, it pops up. It growls annoyingly and scratches the walls of my conscience with its mean claws.
 Week after week, I have been witnessing it growing and strengthening, waking me up more and more often. The feelings I have for it have grown stronger and tougher these past months. I fell for it, appreciating it too much. It kept me high on verbal adrenaline for hours when I was restless. Hooked. Yes, and then at lunch I started to think about catchy titles and which picture to put on my next post. Obsessed. I was checking my stats much too frequently, like a beefed-up bodybuilder gazing at its biceps in the mirror between each lift. I even wrote my bio in the pathetic hope that some head-hunter might be impressed.
Craving. Now I write sentences like a dealer sells cheap dope; my customers are faceless buffs flicking tastelessly from on post to the next. If you want your dose, you can find me in WordPress’hood, corner of South Africa Lane and Spoil Rotten Expatriates Avenue. First rule in the book: “Don’t taste what you deal”. I have smelled too many times the fumes of my texts and now it is too late to go back. Addicted. I know now that things will worsen, I will spill it all, each and every un-confessable secret. It won’t stop. Until finally after shamelessly exhibiting my worst, people will despise my words and delete me – my blog – from their RSS feed. Only then will I be free again.

PS: When researching on the 12 steps of the Alcoholic Anonymous, I found that the second step is to come “to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity”. I say that this seems like taking one drug instead of another.

Surf Trip, Chilli Burn and Other Random Pleasures

Rewind. When I came back from the Christmas holidays, I received a call from my sister, Hi there how are you doing, I’m good I’m coming to see you in January. I check the dates, the tides and the map, and I decide to bring her to a surf trip to Durban. This had been planned previously in agreement with four other guys from the office.

Back to the future. Plans have changed along with the date. Some have left on Thursday night, others on Friday, I go to fetch my sister at the airport on Saturday morning. The sun is bright, the air is light and warm and the plain is not on time. I wait for an hour and there she is, Hi there how are you, You’re late. Load the suitcase in the trunk, put the flip-flops around the toes, hip hop, off we go for a six hour drive from Jo’burg to Durban.

We arrive on the coast at around five in the afternoon just in time to meet the others on the parking lot of uShaka Marine World. In the mean time the group has grown form five to fifteen people. Swap the shorts for swimsuits, spread the sun screen, hip hop, off we go for a dive in the pool and a ride on the waterslides. We have a drink at the water front and then diner in an old boat with a huge fish tank (three stories high), with sharks swimming around. The best sea food restaurant in South Africa said the guidebook, I cannot contradict.

The following day we dive in the pool seconds after waking up, head for some breakfast on the beach. We dive in the Ocean waiting for our food to be served. Then we head for the Indian market, I buy some curry to spice up our brunch’s omelettes. The others leave my sister and I, and head back to the grey Jo’burg. We wonder around, napping here and there, at the backpackers and at the beach, then we end up in a lounge bar. Sip cocktails, watching the ocean under a thick blanket. African music in the background, people dancing, chilling and chatting. We head for a trendy restaurant down town. We mess it up and end up in the backroom of an Indian restaurant half closed due to a private function. I lose seventy five percent of sensibility in my mouth because of a slight misunderstanding with the waiter. In bed at ten I wake up at eight: it is by far the longest night I have had in weeks, if not since I arrived.

In the morning we head for the beach and meet your surf teacher, Jerry, Hi How are you doing, Surfin’ and Chillin’. I catch a lot of waves, and I am proud of myself. The wakeboard failure is finally avenged. My sister did not perform as well: that’s the way of the Ocean. Hip Hop, buy a few thing, quick quick, got to go. I leave her at the backpacker and head back on my own for the six hours drive. Thunder storm and heavy rain accompany me along the way. Two hundred kilometres from Jo’burg, I hear a loud noise coming form my back tire – cold sweat – I don’t have any spare wheel. Minutes later a truck flash at me – cold sweat worsens. False alarm.

Fast Forward. I’m in bed, tired, sun burnt but satisfied.

Other’s Words – Les mots des autres

French poem from Louis Aragon; Post dedicated to my favorite lady who sent me this text.

(Sorry for non-French speakers, a translation would only restrain the quality of the text.)

Les rendez-vous

Tu m’as quitté par toutes les portes
Tu m’as laissé dans tous les déserts

Je t’ai cherchée à l’aube et je t’ai perdue à midi
Tu n’étais nulle part où j’arrive
Qui saurait dire le Sahara d’une chambre sans toi
La foule d’un dimanche où rien ne te ressemble
Un jour plus vide que vers la mer la jetée
Le silence où j’appelle et tu ne réponds pas

Tu m’as quitté présente immobile
Tu m’as quitté partout tu m’as quitté des yeux
Du cœur des songes
Tu m’as quitté comme une phrase inachevée
Un objet par hasard une chose une chaise
Une villégiature à la fin de l’été
Une carte postale dans un tiroir
Je suis tombé de toi toute la vie au moindre geste

Tu ne m’as jamais vu pleurer pour ta tête détournée
Ton regard au diable de moi
Un soupir dont j’étais absent
As-tu eu jamais pitié de ton ombre à tes pieds

Louis Aragon, Les Adieux

Push the button – Panic in the Polo

Yesterday, we had a new tracking device / panic button fitted into the car. This one, more powerful, will enable our vehicle to be tracked down by GPS.

“When you get carjacked, you press the red button”, said the mechanics.

Hm, shouldn’t he have said “If” instead of “When”?

House Warming Party – Mix and Miss-Match

Invitation to our housewarming party this weekend:

Fellow Party People,

The French gents with smooth moves are pleased to invite you to their top notch fete[1], which will warm up this chilly February and set the 2008th year into orbit. Our house warming party, hosted in our extravagantly dashing property, will take place on the 2nd day of February 2008, from eight till late. Be there or be square.

Family, friends and foes welcomed; booze expected; BIZzle BizZle guaranteed.

Please let us know if you will indulge us with your presence, and in which case, the size of your entourage attending.

The Crib:
xxxxx Lane – xxxxxxxxxx residence – Flat xx (Corner of xxxx Dr. and Rivonia). (Due to limited – only 3 – visitor parking spaces inside the residence, you will have to park on the street outside and are advised to maximise the number of party-people per car.)

The Attire:
The dress code is “Mix and Miss-Match“. Yes, make it clash, from head to toe, clothes shall not go together: Stripes on squares. Florescent on hand knitted. Tacky on classy. Snap! Blend the colours and shapes, and let us all look like a lively fruit salad.

The Motto:
“Rhythm is a Dancer”. Snap!

We are looking forward to seeing you there,

DLP & Jerome (JT)

Another One Bites The Dust

I understand when people tell me they hate their job, and really wish they had a better position, but when you receive company emails like these, it really makes you realise privileged we are.

I was shocked when I read that, and people have been staring at the printed sheet in the walkway for long minutes. You do have to like your job as it is your life you are spending at it.

 

Turn Your Lights Down Low – Again

In a previous post I was talking about what I naively called power failures. It was actually Load Shedding: As there is not enough electricity to supply the province, ESCOM – the main electricity company here – shuts down the power in several neighbourhoods two hours at a time.

Here is an extract of the last ESCOM National Power Alert memo:

“Over the last decade, South Africa has experienced a steady growth in the demand for electricity on the back of robust economic growth. The continued growth in the economy has exhausted Eskom’s surplus electricity generation capacity and reduced our reserve margin progressively. We expect the reserve margin to continue on a downward trend for the next 7 years until new base-load power plant is built (2014).”

That is good communication: drowning awfully appalling news in overwhelming old ones.

Since Monday morning we have had eleven load sheds of two hours.

Wake me up before you go go… Wakeboarding

So you wake up on a bright Sunday of January. Warm air leaking from outside, large blue sky, neighbours’ dog barking, and you decide to have fun and do sports. Somehow it seems obvious to me that I should go wakeboarding.

Two cars, seven Frenchies, and off we go. Yes. Slick dudes slack jacking: shades out and elbows hanging. Swimsuits from hip to knee, flip flops and French fries for me. We park in a hay field, walk along the lake, check the water and check the surf. Check that snake: check that chick scream. Check the sun: check my sunscreen.
Walk along the deck, across the pros, feel the excitement, feel the anxiety. Feel the salt on my lips from the chips with chilly dip. In the surf shop Cool-sellers tell us all the boards are gone. It’s fine by us, we’ll play volley ball like in TOP GUN. I feel it right down my bones again. Play it, smash it, pass it. Feel the sun on my back, check my sunscreen melting. Feel the sand on my lips from the silly quick dives.

Four O’clock in the Garden of Eden: Check the surf shop, rent some boards, finally. Take a jacket: check my style. Long queue. First try, tight rope, legs tight, large wave, quick dive. Check my shame. Long queue. Second try, tight rope, knees bent, swift spin, short dive. Check my shame. Long queue. Third, fourth and fifth try, again and again, I can’t do it and I don’t know why. Six, seven, eight, nice tries, long agony, always end up the same.

Feel my pain: I have more bruises than smart moves in a chess game. Feel the water on my lips, tastes like mud from the lake. No gain though. Check my pride.

Can’t wait to go there again. Check my smile.

Accident due to Spatial Disorientation

Top Gun, I’m feeling it right down to my bones.

Spatial disorientation is a phenomenon usually associated to jet pilots, when one’s perception of one’s spatial position is wrong. Up feels down. Ahead is backwards. It occurs usually when you have very little visibility and when the acceleration created by the plane is sufficient for you to ‘neglect’ the feeling of gravity.

“You don’t have time to think up there. If you think, you’re dead.”
[Maverick, TOP GUN]

Slick and clean. I was taking my shower at day break. Water and steam. Vapours and dreams, dancing together in the misty morning. Shampoo and soap, all over my head, all over my eyes. Lift a bottle up, put one down, turn around, and again. Then rinse.
I put my forehead underneath the sprinkler for a minute or two, then I step forward to get out of it and BAM! I smash my head against the wall. Spatial Disorientation. Ahead is backwards.

I hold my red painful nose while I am still figuring out how come suddenly the whole bathroom is the wrong way round.

TOP GUN, I’m feeling it right down to my bones.

PS: The movie TOP GUN was release on the 16th of May 1986! Nearly twenty two (22) years ago! I feel old.

One for the Violence, two for the Deads

Year-end season, yes, summer time and birthday parties. Full of good resolutions and ready to improve. You think positive, see the bottle half full and assume everybody does the same.

7.11 a.m., I switch the radio on in the car. Listening to traffic info on the motorway while the sun warms my shirt, I reminisce of congested London. Street closed here, says the lady, Accident there, and then she says as if it was normal, “traffic jam in Hilary Street due to taxi violence”.