Sprouting Prospects

So we now finally have internet access at home. It’s a bit anticlimactic after so much waiting. My life has adjusted to not being connected constantly, and I’m finding myself only logging on once or twice a day to “quickly check emails” once I’m online i can never think of what to do, as no one seems to ever be around to chat!
My head is also stuck in a series of historical fiction books about the civil war to that’s also halted my own writing for the moment and i’ve been swept up by someone else’s.
Today was our half day off. We did the food shopping and i did some cleaning and baking this afternoon as well playing with our adorable little girl. This evening one of the pastor’s daughter’s dropped in for supper and then tomorrow it’s back to HDC.
I have been reading a book on health foods that a friend lent to me and i’m getting excited about the prospect of sprouting….Sprouted foods are apparently the most amazing foods ever and can actually rejuvenate your cells! they are also really easy and inexpensive to grow so I’m going to look into it.

So nothing really dramatic to report today but I thought I had better check in!!

Yummy Fussy Day Food

Today was fun. It was our second Mother’s Group Cooking Demo. When we arrived the tables were decorated with fresh flowers and purple and green tablecloths. Charmaine demonstrated how to make a simply divine tasting vegetable fried rice, as well as what she calls her “fussy day chicken” an old favourite from her Le Leche Leage days. Apparently they called it “boob chicken” because it was for those days when the baby (or “babies” shock horror) were attached for so much of the time there was no time to make dinner. So it’s one of these slow cooking chicken recipes that is absolutely amazing tasting. She then taught us how to make a pie with this crust that’s like….almost an old Afrikaans recipe. The crust only goes on top of whatever filling you decide on and it’s not shortcrust or puff pastry, it’s like….almost like a dumpling. Anyway, it’s just so much fun to watch Charmaine as she has such a passion for food and for encouraging us to really enjoy the many hours we will spend cooking for our families. It’s not about degrading us to the mundane task, it’s about celebrating with us our unique role that no restaurant or frozen food company will ever replace.
The one thing I took from the day is that Ina Parmin’s Olive and Rosemary seasoning (natural msg free) is the secret to great cooking. Part of me truly enjoyed today. Part of me felt sad. I have started to form attachments here as I’ve learned how to shop at all the different stores and keep up with the running specials from day to say with my neighbours “Spar is doing an incredible deal on washing powder!! Must I get for you????” After initially thinking I was facing a throwback to 1970’s everything made with msg and margarine and in the microwave norm…I have made friends with like minded people and we’ve talked about where to find whole wheat pasta, inexpensive health foods, and how to make amazing healthy meals.
I had to fight back depressive self pitying tears telling me that there was no use even trying any of these recipes as they would require too many South African ingredients anyway and I couldn’t keep them forever.
So I guess instead of falling out over how much Aveda shampoo I wanted to take with me to South Africa, I’d be smuggling a stash of Ina Parmin’s Rosemary and Olive seasoning in my bag instead.
Perhaps I am learning how to not hold on to anything too tightly……and hoping God fills the emptiness that I feel when I think about the future. I know I can trust Him, I know He has a plan, but, he’s made me human, and therefore, some days I have to battle the full on pain I feel of not being with those I love, and with those who love me and my family.
But would I trade what I’m doing right now? I think you all know the answer to that.

Iona and Biltong (and phumeza news)

Iona is chewing on a piece of Biltong as I write this afternoon. It’s the sort of thing that goes against my very nature to eat myself, but Colleen, (the oracle of advice and wisdom and what you “must” and “must not” do) assured me early on in our stay here that it’s perfectly fine for babies. It’s South Africa’s version of Beef Jerky, dried out raw meat. They love it here.
I’ve started running. I’ve been paranoid ever since the Noluthandu said “yes, april you’re getting fat, it must mean you are happy and like it here”. So in addition to walking with Nicole twice a week, I’ve started putting my face to the wind and running up and down the hills of Mt. Pleasant most days. Iona has a total meltdown every time I walk out the door but after a few games of “angel bear” with daddy she calms down.
So people keep asking me how “the baby” is doing and I admit my first thought as a proud parent is that they are asking after Iona, but then I quickly realize they mean Phumeza’s little boy. I’m pleased people are asking after him. As far as I can see he’s doing fine. Phumeza on the other hand, I’m worried about. I don’t think she is coping well. From what I can gather, she struggles being at her parent’s house due to a number of family issues, so she prefers to be in area Q living with Noluthandu, closer to her boyfriend, and mainly, closer to HDC and all of us here. However, the reality of it means she’s having to cope with total poverty. She is worried about where her next tin of formula is coming from, and she’s been given all sorts of advice like to start the baby on solids already! I also saw her making up a bottle of sugar water! I had a hard time not freaking out and coming across as totally bossy but I tried my best to tell her not to give it to him. I also know she’s not sterilizing the bottles. I had someone say they may have an electrical steam sterilizer somewhere and they’d have a look for me after witnessing her at Jon’s party last week giving the baby spoonfuls of tap water. I want to find a basic baby book for her. The NHS gave us this “birth to 5” manual which would have been perfect. I scanned a bookstore today and came up with nothing and ended up just getting her a baby magazine and a new bottle that helps with colic. I just feel a bit out of my depth. However, there is good news.
At house church on Thursday our house church leader who was at Jon’s party shared how she was just…totally shaken up after meeting Phumeza and Noluthandu. She said it was the first time she had actually chatted casually to a black person other than her domestic servant, and she used the words “intelligent black person” not that she thinks black people are stupid, but she just hasn’t been exposed very much to the younger generation of more educated blacks. Anyway….she said she couldn’t “shake the feeling” or get it out of her head for a few days afterwards. I think what hit her most was that here this girl was smart and intelligent but because of her circumstances was living in total poverty, and she’s starting to wonder if God is trying to say something to her. When I shared of Phumeza’s need for formula she jumped at the chance to contribute in that way which will help. I’m amazed at things like this. When I spend a morning at HDC slightly bored trying to keep Iona from hurting herself, or destroying the place, and I wonder what I’m doing here, after reminding myself I’m doing this for God….even if it doesn’t seem to make sense in the moment, I am blessed after encounters like this when I can see that God is using us to be a bridge here.
Keep praying for Phumeza. Pray my friend finds that sterilizer, and pray I find a simple basic baby book that I can pass on to her. I feel that if she could actually see in writing good sound advice, she will feel more confident as she has so many different people telling her what to do.

little mirror

I put Iona to bed tonight. Much easier than last night….to the sounds of a wild party in the background….ha ha. We had a great at Jon’s birthdy Braai. Lots of people came and much meat was consumed….(except by me) He had a good day and I’m so glad. Everyone loved the “jon’s not 40″ cake.
Back to putting Iona to bed…I noticed today that she’s developed a little negative scowling expression, and I just thought “where has she learned that from?” and i realized…probably me! How many times to I pull faces at Jon?? How many times to I not take an opportuntiy just to smile? So tonight I prayed, “God let me pass on to her a positive attitude” Life is going to be negative at times…i can’t control that. Of course she’s going to get upset and be unhappy (like when i was cruel and unusual and fed her sweet potato, rice pasta, and beetroot for dinner amidst copious amounts of junk food at the party) But….may she have a positive attitude that underlines her days…May I have one that I can pass on to her!

Frosting

I remember once when I was a kid…maybe eight or nine years old. I made myself absolutely sick on homemade chocolate frosting. It was Christmastime and I think I had a friend over and we were decorating Christmas cookies and my mom had made this super rich chocolate frosting. I found myself addictively licking my fingers, knives, plates, bowls, anything that had the stuff on it. I don’t know what it was but I ended up with the worst headache ever.
Just before I sat down tonight, I finished putting the final touches on Jon’s “Birthday Cookie”. I made an oatmeal raisin cookie cake and decorated it with this cream cheese frosting and M&M’s spelling out “Jon’s not 40!” It took me two times to get it right. The first time around, I’d been so excited about spelling out the words with M&M’s I didn’t give thought to how readable it would be. In the end it looked like one of those optical illusions, so I actually started over and made every word a different colour so now it looks like Iona hasn’t done it all by herself.
I found the recipe for the frosting off allrecies.com and once again, someone who usually prides themselves on self control when it comes to such things, I found myself completely seduced by this rich concoction of simply butter, cream cheese, vanilla, and icing sugar. It is simply divine! I think managed to consume about a cup of frosting in the process. I don’t want to think about it tonight. Tomorrow morning I’m going to go for a run and that will make it all better….that is if I can come down from this sugar high enough to get some sleep!
So Jon is not 40, yet! Tomorrow he’s turning 39 and we’re having a casual braai late afternoon/early evening. Phumeza and Noluthandu, and baby Asakay, (will get the spelling on that right) will be coming so that should be nice. I’ve been borrowing Annie’s oven again this afternoon and ferrying various baking across with Iona in tow who keeps saying “Annie! Annie!” It’s so cute. This afternoon she saw a thin black woman who looked similar to Noluthandu leaning up against a wall and she called out “hello!! Cee Cee!!!” So for the moment, outside of mommy and daddy it’s “Annie!” and “Cee Cee!” I tried teaching her how to say Happy Birthday today. She already accidentally says “Happy” as it’s what she says when her Nappie needs changing.
OK I am not going to overdose on sugar like that again for a LONG time!!!! I can’t seem to stop typing nonsense!
I’m going back to reading Torey Hayden’s books on teaching emotionally disturbed children and reminiscing in my head about Allendale days.

Good Books, Good Neighbours, and Generosity

I am truly enjoying getting into books these days. Annie, the neighbour of the year….or of a lifetime more like it….the ultimate model of the kind of neighbour I hope to be someday….has been lending me all her favourite books and I’ve been devouring them one by one. I love reading. I always have but I have had little direction recently on what fiction to read so this has just been perfect for me.
So far, in the last three weeks I have read six books! All of which have brought me to tears, inspired me, and taught me something. It’s also been great to simply be handed a book and told to read it instead of having to decide for myself. In my reading I’ve travelled to the Boston, New York, New England, Afghanistan, India, and the deep south, and I’m loving it.
So yay for books and yay for amazing wonderful generous neighbours. I even had to use her oven this week as ours is not working at the moment. We chatted and drank tea while my lasagne baked. At the moment Jon is juicing oranges with her juicer that she’s lent us and insists on us keeping until she needs it herself. I remember once suggesting that I maybe borrow someone’s vacuum cleaner once in England and they looked at me like I’d suggested borrowing their car and driving it across Europe.
So whether it lending books or lending whole entire kitchens to people…I hope to be a good neighbour someday.

Blanket Drive….getting used to things

I’m munching on some “Lo GI seeded brown loaf” toast here on this lazy Sunday night. The wind is howling away outside and I’m told to expect it to get much windier as we approach the month of August. Already it feels this year is rushing past and I don’t know how I’m going to adjust to not having a large pocket of butternut squash in my kitchen all the time from which I can make roast butternut, steamed butternut over rice, butternut soup, and butternut and red lentil curry. I catch myself telling people they “must” do things, and even hear myself agreeing with a long drawn out “ja (ya)” when in conversation with my neighbours and friends, sipping roibos tea.
This morning when we picked Noluthandu up for church, Iona’s whole face lit up as she slid into the back seat next to her. “Ceecee” she said, almost shyly, but with a very bright and excited smile on her face. She adores her and the affection is mutual. To me, this is one of the best parts of raising your kids in missions.
Today was a big day for the ministry into Area Q. Several people from the church joined the usual food distribution team and handed out fresh soup and rolls as well as blankets. It was quite exciting to see the road in Area Q packed with cars from Vineyard and so many church members mingling about and integrating with the usual crowd that assembles there for the food. Noluthandu and I stood in the midst of the action and we giggled together over the chaos and mainly just kept track of Iona who seemed bent on wandering off on her own into the depths of shacks. One friend of mine from Vineyard came to me in tears saying “how do these people cope?” I guess that’s a good question, but the simple answer is, they do. I suppose what strikes me most in these situations is again, the distance that there is between these two communities of people. If a team of Americans or Europeans had been doing a similar thing on a summer mission trip, on the outside things would have looked very similar. People exchanging shy smiles, making small talk by asking the names and ages of the children, snapping photos and looking around awkwardly unsure of what to do. Some would argue that if you were to send a team of suburban teenagers into the depths of New York City or London, there would be a similar gap, and I am desperately trying not to be on a high horse and criticize this peculiar situation, I am just observing and taking it all in with little hope of making sense out of it.
As an outsider I can see that the two groups of people there today have more in common with each other than they realize. I can’t really articulate what exactly but I see this invisible bond between them and hopefully, over time, they will see it too. After all, South Africa is their home, it’s where they both belong.

Bridges

“we’re a bridge” Jon said to me tonight as we sat in our front room mulling over the day’s events. I guess sometimes I get a bit worried when I look around and it just seems like the distance between Phumeza and myself is miniscule in comparison to the distance between her and your typical white south African. We do have the foreigner’s advantage here, in that we don’t have all the baggage of apartheid hanging on us.

I took Iona for an walk this afternoon (am trying to do some form of exercise each day) and I have to admit I still find it strange to see the streets dotted with several black women, finishing up their day’s work. Some are still minding the white children, carrying little ones in their arms, or walking older ones home from school. Others are resting wearily, plastic carrier bags at their sides, waiting for the bus to take them away from this lovely neighbourhood and back to their realities. I still can’t get my head around this and admit that this is normal.

On Friday Iona and I were invited to a children’s fete held at the home of one of our neighbours who lives further inland, on a gorgeous small holding. We spent the afternoon in what reminded me of a tree house! There were gorgeous views and lots of things to jump on and swing from. Much of the afternoon was centred around a beautiful kitchen smelling of fresh coffee and homemade pancakes. It was nearing the end of the day as I drove out the security gate and headed towards home, looking forward to the day’s end. Soon after turning out of the drive I noticed the roads dotted with several labourers and maids on their way home from work. I felt this twinge of sadness and guilt as Iona and I drove along past in our car. I would hardly be considered wealthy back home, but simply being behind the wheel of a car sets me a world apart from these faces I see regularly.
The worst part is….they don’t see it. They glace up at the car unphased. White woman driving a car on the way home from a party, black man walking home from a day’s hard labour = normal. Often when I’m pushing Iona around the streets in the pram I almost get this sense that they are saying “why aren’t you paying one of us to do that for you?? We need the money!” It’s assumed that I have the spare cash to afford a nanny, when in reality I’m trying to work out if we’re going to stay within our food budget this month. They would never guess that about me though simply because….I’m white.

reversign stereotypes

I found this morning at HDC a bit annoying. If I’m honest, I didn’t want to be there. I’m not sure what I wanted to do instead but I just felt restless. Iona was all over the place and it seemed if I took my eyes off her for a second she was gone. Once I found her all the way out the front doors where there is some razor wire she could easily grab hold of. At that point I just wanted to get in the car and go….but I had no car. Besides that the kids themselves were being naughty and I get annoyed when I have to discipline large groups of children who speak my own language let alone 23 children who are all shouting at me in Xhosa. The teacher I was helping kept leaving me alone with them while she whisked different kids off to get first aid. It also didn’t help that we had no Xhosa helper to translate. I am just sharing this piece of reality, not to make you worry that all has gone wrong, but just to perhaps get that glorified white missionary woman surrounded by beautiful black children all happy image that may have crept into your mind when you think of us here! Yes, there are those moments….even today I spent a good bit of time singing songs and doing hand clapping games with one little girl who loves to steal cuddles off me when Iona isn’t looking. I’m also getting much more warm friendly vibes off the rest of the Xhosa women who help out including the great “Mama” teacher, Tzama. It helped that offered them homemade cookies today….(I didn’t tell them they had chickpeas in them, but they were none the wiser…anything to get these Xhosa people eating vegetables!)
I saw Phumeza at HDC today looking for Celia and I heard via someone else she was needing washing powder. Being concerned that she may be running out of baby clothes I sent her a text saying “bring your laundry when you come tonight for the newcomers meal” Jon was going to pick them up after the aftercare program and bring them to ours before taking them to the meal later on. I was surprised when she actually brought a bag of her own laundry to be washed. She must have managed to wash the baby clothes herself. Although I had looked forward to hanging up little baby clothes I realized, it was only right she should have someone helping her with her stuff! The last thing on your mind as a new mother is laundry. As I sorted her clothes out and hung them to dry I had to laugh at way stereotype was being reversed! Yay for moments like this!

enjoying the moment

I finally got a good look at him today. The last few days were draining and stressful and when I first laid eyes on him I wanted to savour the moment and enjoy the miracle, but I was stressed on a number of levels and unfortunately, the moment was lost on me.
But today I crept into their home, setting down the food parcels from Vineyard, and after quickly introducing the two helpers who had come with to bring them in, I peeked into the bedroom where Phumeza was sat holding her little tightly wrapped treasure. “I’m the granny!” said Noluthandu (she’s 26 years old) and for the last few days she’s been fulfilling that role of looking after the new mother and baby. I was able to kiss his beautiful face, lay on my side on the bed next to him as he slept and just stare at his perfect face. Phumeza continued to tell me more harrowing details of her birth story. I’d shared earlier at church with some of the other moms about my encounter with the labour ward of Dora Nginsa, and they sat and listened to me with interest. They had heard rumours of what goes on in public hospitals, people starving, being left to die, babies being left to die, mothers being slapped for screaming while in labour, emotional and physical abuse. It all sounds a bit far fetched but after being there, I can believe it. When I shared how the nurses refused to give Phumeza’s baby any more milk that day, she was horrified and she said she’d be happy to contribute a tin of formula to her once a month, and another mother said she would as well. I think sometimes so many people want to help, but they get overwhelmed at the scale of the problem, but when you start to put faces and names to people and share their story, it makes it so much easier to connect the desire to help with the need.
Phumeza seems to be coping well. She is very relaxed overall. The baby is sleeping between her and Noluthandu at night and keeping plenty warm all wrapped up. She said he is “sleeping great” but then she casually mentioned he was up most of the night previously but that it was fine because she wasn’t really that tired and her and Noluthandu were both up and chatting to each other. It’s amazing what difference your perspective makes. We western mothers become immediately obsessed with getting our babies to sleep at night. When they wake up, not only are we exhausted, but we worry about what we’ll say when we’re asked for the 100th time, “are they sleeping through yet?” then knowing that if you say no they’re going to assume that you’ve been lazy about trying to put them in a “proper routine” and that it’s your fault. “all babies can if they’re properly trained” booms the voice of the popular western baby book making us all feel like failures when we slip the baby next to us in our own bed and catch a few hours of restless sleep, stressing half the time that if you move the baby is going to wake up. But there Phumeza sits, with a tired smile on her face, merely shrugging her shoulders at the fact that he was up last night.
Both of them have been invited to the newcomers meal at church this Thursday night. They both want to come and I hope it works out. Phumeza is going to go home next weekend which I think is wise. I think she should take advantage of her family’s offer and just let herself be looked after the way she needs to be for the next while. Meanwhile, the baby his here, and he’s beautiful. I’m just going enjoy this for the moment and thank God.