Wayfarer

50 years ago - 60 nearly - my grandfather used to write a weekly column for a local newspaper. He called himself "Wayfarer", to preserve his anonymity since many of his friends and colleagues would presumably have read the paper. The column itself is called "The Quiet Moment" and would nowadays be classified as "inspirational writing", the kind of thing one might find in the "mind, body and spirit" section of your local book shop. He wouldn't have recognised the terms, I don't think - he was simply writing about his Christian faith and the faith of probably the majority of people reading the paper, and describing how it applied to his life and work. The clippings were faithfully collected by my Grandmother (I have been told) and pasted into exercise books with the date of publication written below each. The books themselves are something of a curiosity but not the subject of this blog.

I never really knew my grandfather - he died when I was four years old, and in any case lived over 2000 km from where we did when I was very young, so we only saw him and Granny when we visited on holiday or vice versa, and I remember little of these trips. But he had a personality, by all accounts, which was larger than life. He was intelligent, a scholar, with higher degrees from Oxford, Cambridge and London Universities. His sense of humour and capacity for spinning yarns and making puns were legendary. His disregard for anything as mundane as advice on his health (stop smoking and don't eat so much) likewise. His life spanned the Boer War, the First and Second World Wars and a number of other world changing events. He was both a man of the cloth and a man of letters. He died aged 72, some 41 years ago, as a result of a second stroke and is buried in a simple grave with my grandmother and father in Somerset West near Cape Town, where all three of them lived out their last years.

I learned of him through my elder siblings, who had had more chance to know him, through my parents, who referred to him often during mealtime conversations, through my aunts and uncle, and through people I have met and still meet who have said to me "I knew your grandfather ..." and have then gone on to recount some or other aspect of his character or accomplishments. Some have even told me I look a bit like he did. Perhaps this is becoming more apparent as I move into middle aged hair loss and further waist expansion. I also learned of him through his poetry - he wrote a small book of verse, most of it Christian poetry, of which I have a copy and into which I dip from time to time.

And now I am getting to know him through his newspaper columns of 60 years ago. Some of them speak to events of the time - the continued expansion of Communism, the horrors and hard aftermath of the second World War, the worrying rise of Afrikaner Nationalism in South Africa. Some of them speak to events within the church. But most of them speak to his faith and how he lived out his faith in the day to day life of Joe Christian in Cape Town in 1950. Some of his writing is dated and nowadays politically incorrect. He sometimes speaks of Black African South Africans as "the natives" and no doubt there would be those who today would consider some of what he wrote condescending and racist. He was in some senses a man of his time, in others not. But beneath it all I think there lay humility and concern, probably anxiety over the future of his family (DF Malan would have been in power for 2 years and my grandparents' youngest child would have been 10 years old when the columns were written). There is also wisdom in the writings, I think - the kind of wisdom which is borne of hard life lived and not of theories studied. Coming as he did from England he brought a different perspectives on South Africa's problems, quandaries and possible solutions. That is not always a good thing - foreign manufactured solutions to local problems are often far wide of the mark. But in his case I think he uses the breadth of his experience to good advantage.

Perhaps most striking is the fact that the issues he writes about are not terribly different from the issues which are written about in the Mail and Guardian blogs in 2009 (I seldom read newspapers so wouldn't know what is written about in the paper copies of our dailies anymore). The problem of pain, why bad things happen to good people, whether religion is a good or a bad thing, hanging on to time, the problem of contempt, being kind, being a good sport, prayer and servility, dealing with problems, waiting for an answer, aspirations, doing and not just dreaming ... these could have come from just about any period of human history and any context. I'll quote just one sentence from the column I have uploaded: "Life would be different in South Africa between Black and White, between Afrikaners and English, in our homes, churches, schools, offices, if everyone gave priority to the good things they know about people, and refused right of way to the less good." I see nothing dated about that observation and advice.

As I make my way through two boxes of musty old exercise books, I hope to discover more of this man who loomed so large in our childhoods - what made him tick, what he thought about X, Y and Z, how he handled the difficult situations he found himself in from day to day - and thereby discover a little more of myself, since I share one quarter of his genetic material and a deep love for the person he called "son" and I called "Dad".

What we spend our money on

Some things one buys one thinks afterwards: what a total waste of money. We once bought something called a V-slicer from Verimark. The ad made it look as though one could cut paper thin slices of a rotten tomato with the minimum of skill or effort. Turned out it wasn't even good for slicing a Granny Smith. So it sat in the cupboard for oh, so long, and eventually went the way of all useless and superfluous household gadgets - into the granny flat, where it resides still. Another was a plastic basket with large vacuum suckers which one was supposed to attach to the tiles above the bath to hold soap and other things. It wouldn't stay on, even empty. We eventually glued it in place and it still fell off after a week or so. I could go on - mini vacuum cleaners which didn't suck, plastic hubcaps which fell off on the first corner, popcorn makers which didn't pop, a "generic Weber" which didn't "Webe", microwaves which gave up the ghost or rusted out of existence after an indecently short time ... I guess we all have such lists. And yes, I know we should all be better consumers and take the offending item back and get a refund at the least, or report the retailer to Isabel Jones or whoever has taken over from her. Like I have the time and energy to do that. About 10 years ago we installed a 5 by 3m swimming pool. The problem is it gets the south easter full-on. As a result it has always been cold - seldom getting about 20 celsius. OK, that was warm when I was 10 years old. At our age, it is cold. So nobody swam. I threatened to fill it in and grow roses. More of the pool anon.

But on the positive side, once in a while one buys something that actually works. And works well. And makes an impact on one's quality of life. I can think of a few, apart from the obvious - house, car, cell phone, etc.

For years we did without a dishwasher. I even pretended I enjoyed washing the dishes and cutlery manually. Finally we got one. What a pleasure! And they tell me it actually uses less electricity, less water and produces less environmentally unfriendly detergent than the old way. I'm all for it.

For the first 5 years we were together, we had no TV. This was partly because we had no money, but also because we lived in an area where there was no reception, or very poor reception. Then we got one. We even got MNET. And for a while it was good. But the standard of programs on the SABC went from bad to worse, and the price of MNET went from expensive to unconscionable. So we ditched the MNET and gritted our teeth for another 10 years of the state broadcaster, supplemented with "e". Enough said. Essentially we stopped watching. Every once in a while we would have a look at satellite, but always decided it was too expensive until last December when we took the plunge and got the whole tootle. BBC, Geographic, the lot. It has made a huge difference. There is very seldom a time when I can't find at least one program worth watching and normally I have to choose between 2 or more.

So to get back to the pool. A few weeks back we were shopping at the mall and there was this guy promoting solar geysers (water heaters if you're American - no I am not referring to and misspelling geezers). We chatted and it sounded like a good idea given the proposed Eskom tariff hikes and the green issues. So I asked him to drop round a give us a quote. But I also asked him to quote on a solar heating system for the pool. He duly quoted, I accepted and this last week the systems were installed. There is now a contraption on the house roof, which looks like a black plastic lean to, and a gizzmo outside the bathroom which tells us how hot the water in the geyser is. It changes a lot - but it gets as high as 70 Celsius just from the sun some days. When the differential between what is in the tank and what is in the pipes exceeds 4 degrees Celsius, the motor cuts in and pumps water from the latter to the former. Great. Something similar has been installed for the pool. On the roof of the garage, there are 4 sets of small black PVC lattices, and the water passes through them when the pool pump is running. Simple. The temperature in the pool was 18 C on Tuesday. Today it was 26.5C. OK, we have had some hot weather, but that is incredible. And it hasn't cost a cent in electricity - just the installation. We are not only swimming regularly, but staying in. Definitely a good investment.

Today we drive to Belville, some 40km away, and bought a sleeper couch. We saw it a few months back when we bought a cane chair at the same shop. When opened out it is a double bed. Folded it is a four seater couch. It comes with a thick mattress which looks like a futon. We drove 40km with it in the back of our hatchback! Had to assemble it ourselves, but it wasn't difficult. Remains to be seen what the uptake is, but I have my spot booked for tonight! Hope to add it to the second list ("worth the spend") and not the first ("what were we thinking?").

Kenya

Nairobi

Friday, 06 November 2009

Two funny things happened this morning....

Last night I met with one of my staff. We needed somewhere quietish to chat so ended up being the only patrons in the residents’ lounge at the Hilton, which was fine. Nick had a cappuccino and I had a Tusker, It had been a long day. When it came time to pay I asked the waiter to put it on my tab. I signed the chit, including a 10% gratuity. But I got my room number wrong – I said 709 and it should have been 710. I only realised when I got back to my room, but thought that since my name was on the chit they would check it and assign it to the right room. When I checked out this morning, I told the check out clerk what had happened. He spent some time checking on his computer and finally told me that the bill had been paid already – the guest from 709 had checked out earlier and clearly hadn’t bothered to read his statement – just signed. They say there is no such thing as a free lunch – but I just got one.

The other was when I arrived at domestic check in for my flight to Kisumu. The security guy at the door checked my ticket and then motioned for me to put my bags and belongings through the X-ray scanner. Routine enough. I know by now that at Nairobi one doesn’t normally have to bother taking the laptop out of the bag, but otherwise it is the same as anywhere else. I put my case through, then my bag, then a tray with my jacket which contained my cell phone, wallet and a few other items. I then walked through the archway which went beep – I guess from my belt buckle. But nobody appeared to tell me to take it off and try again. I went forward cautiously, expecting to be apprehended at any point by some officious security person. When I got to the other side, to pick up my belongings, I saw why it was that no one had stopped me – the fellow whose job it is to watch the TV screen of the scanner was sitting (lying) stretched out before it, hooded jacket pulled over his head, apparently fast asleep. In fact he could have been dead. I was very tempted to take a picture but decided that my desire to document the occasion might not be viewed in a good light, especially if he woke up whilst I was doing it. Such is the standard of security checks at Nairobi domestic. I expect he was at the end of a long shift, or had been working a double job. Not that that is an excuse, just an explanation. One wonders though, why they bother – all these protocols and procedures are nothing more than window dressing, and sometimes they aren’t even that.

Saturday, 07 November 2009

The Imperial Hotel in Kisumu was full so I was booked at the Nyanza Club. Actually I prefer the Club, but most of my colleagues prefer the hotel, mainly because it has wireless internet, and so we normally end up staying there. There are 2 blocks of rooms in the Club, old (built 1979) and new (built within the last 5 years). I prefer the old, although there are bats in the roof, they aren’t mosquito proof and there is no aircon. But the view out of Lake Victoria from the veranda is stunning. I got back quite late after a long day at the site, but was in time to have a refreshing swim in the pool and then a nice dinner of grilled tilapia fillet and masala, with mashed potato.

I flew on Fly540 to and from Kisumu from Nairobi. In the past I have tried to keep to Kenya Airways when I could, but they have stopped flying to Kisumu because “the runway is too short” – go figure. There are a number of other airlines which do – Jetlink, Fly540 and another whose name I forget. Presumably their planes are smaller. I’m not sure what type of aircraft it was – I usually look at the safety leaflet but it was not informative this time. 2 huge propellers mounted below the overhead wings, if you know what I mean. Coming back it was right outside my window. I found myself wondering what would happen if it came off. I consoled myself with the thought that it could just as easily spin off in another direction (up, down, out) as come crashing through my window and cut my head off!

I discovered when I got onto the return flight in Kisumu that we would not be flying straight back to Nairobi, but would first be stopping at Eldoret. They told us it was 15 minutes’ flight to Eldoret. I know of the town but have never been there. I know that it is about 2 hours’ drive from Kisumu, over a not very good road, and that one climbs up an escarpment. So I was interested to see what it looked like from the air. We took off, banked and turned over the lake and then climbed steadily over the town. The houses and roads and cars got smaller and smaller. And then suddenly they got bigger again and the ground looked like it does when you are on your final approach – we had passed over the rim of the escarpment. It must be quite a drop – must go and have a look sometime.

Up on the plateau the scenery looked different in the twilight – different to that around Kisumu. Greener somehow, and neater. There were homesteads and hedgerows and roads but less than down by the lack and somehow it all looked more orderly. One could almost have been flying over England, or maybe what I imagine England looked like 100 years ago. And then before I could get too engrossed in it, we were descending and landing. The airport looked better than Kisumu’s – better tarmac, better buildings – just more modern. They told us it was international and there was one fairly sizeable jet taking off. We refuelled (during which we all had to unbuckle our seatbelts, for some reason – interestingly they didn’t make us switch off our cell phones, which they did on a Lufthansa flight once when we refuelled in Johannesburg). And then we were off again, this time to Nairobi.

The guy sitting next to me was reading something which looked like Arabic. It was leather covered book, with beautiful script in red and black. He seemed totally focussed on reading it. I have been reading Karen Armstrong’s book on Islam and couldn’t contain my curiosity. I leaned over and said “Can I ask you a question?” He didn’t say no (he didn’t say yes either – I suspect he thought I was going to try and covert him). “Is that Arabic script?” I asked. He nodded. “Is that the Quran?” Again he nodded and even grunted. “It is beautiful,” I said, “the script is really superb”. I think he thought I was mad. So I gave up and stared out the window and he went back to reading it. Maybe he was preparing for the Hajj.