Pinky

This is Pinky.  She is 22. Her dream is to open a hairsalon. Meanwhile she does hair in her little shack. Sitting on her bed, the customer on a crate. It takes up to 8 hours to work all the extensions into the hair like here with Tamtam. The baby is Tamtams girl. Pinky also has two children, but they live in the Transkei with her granny. Her mother died a year ago. Pinky believes a witch has killed her because the people were jaelous of her litlle sewing business. People who are killed by witches are believed to live on, locked in hidden places like forests. Sometimes they are seen walking around.

Pinky’s little sister Phelokasi is living with her. She used to live with her sixteen year old sister since the mother died, but the sister was always mean to her and hit her and she also has a baby now of which she has to take care of.

Das ist Pinky. Ihr Traum ist es einen Haarsalon in einem Kontainer zu eröffnen. Aber das kostet viel Geld und bis dahin bedient sie ihre Kunden in ihrer kleinen Hütte. Sie sitzt auf dem Bett, die Kundin auf einer Bierkiste. Sie hat keinen Tisch und keine Stühle, die würden ohnehin nicht hineinpassen.

Das Baby auf dem Foto ist Tamtams Tochter, das Mädchen, dessen Haare Pinky verlängert. Das dauert manchmal 8 Stunden. Pinky hat auch zwei Kinder, die leben bei der Großmutter in der Transkei. Pinky’s Mutter starb vor einem Jahr. Sie glaubt sie wurde verhext, weil die Leute eifersüchtig auf ihre kleine Näherei waren.

Silberhaare/ Silver-Hair

Anfang dieses Jahres hatte ich noch lange dunkle Haare. Im März habe ich sie abgeschnitten und im April zum letzten Mal gefärbt. Lange lief ich mit einem grauen Haaransatz herum, der sich immer weiter ausbreitete. Vor drei Wochen habe alle dunklen Haare abgeschnitten. Deshalb sind sie so kurz.

Da ich hier keinem Friseur traue (nicht nur hier) schneide ich mir selbst die Haare. Auch aus dem Unvermögen heraus dem Friseur meine Wünsche klar formulieren zu können. Mit einem Zeitungsausschnitt zum Frisuer zu gehen hat noch nie geklappt.
Außerdem muß ich nie auf einem Termin warten, wenn ich einen Schnitt brauche.
Ich habe nur lange Haare getragen, weil ich damit nicht zum Friseur muss und sie einfach zusammenbinden und hochstecken kann, die einzige Frisur, neben kurzen Haaren, die mir wirklich steht.

Ich schneide auch meinen Freundinnen die Haare, nach einer Methode, die ich “hairsculpting” nenne. An trockenen Haaren schneide ich solange herum, bis sie gut aussehen, denn allein darauf kommt es an und nicht einen besonders raffinierten oder perfekten Haarschnitt hinzulegen.
Das ist es, was ich an Friseuren nicht leiden kann. Dass sie einem eine Frisur aufs Gesicht verpassen, egal, ob es passt oder nicht. Selbst wenn ich einen guten Friseur gefunden hatte, wurde der mit der Zeit nachlässig und bekam es nie mehr so gut hin wie am Anfang. Vielleicht stell ich mich an, aber schließlich muß ich jeden Tag mit diesemHaarschnitt herumlaufen

Neulich las ich, dass Helen Mirren sich auch selbst die Haare schneidet.
Sogar meine Mutter fragte mich neulich, ob ich ihr nicht  die Haare schneiden könnte.

At the beginning of the year, my hair was still long and dark. In March I cut it short and April was the last month where I dyed it. For a long time I was running around with a growing silvercrone around my head. Three weeks ago I cut off all the brown hair. That’s why it is so short.

Since I don’t trust any hairdresser here, I cut my own hair. Another reason is because I always fail to find the right words to tell the hairdresser exactly what I want.
Now I don’t have to wait for an appointement when I need a haircut.

I only had long hair so I don’t have to go to a hairdresser and I can tie it up. The only hairstyle besides short hair I like on myself.

I also cut my friends hair. I call it “hairsculpting”. I cut the dry hair until they look good. That is the only thing that counts. Not to produce an elaborate haircut.
This is what I don’t like with most hairdresser. They give you a cut no matter if it suits your face or not.
Even when I had found a good hairdresser, it only worked for a while and then they became slack and never mamaged to get it right. Maybe I am too critical, but this is my hair and I have to run around with it all the time. It needs to be right!

The other day I read that even Helen Mirren cuts her own hair.
Yesterday my mother asked me if I could bring my scissors next time and cut her hair.

Rauchen – Nichtrauchen

Heute nahmen wir einen Mann mit. Er sprach uns in Spar an und kannte Sven aus Stanford und fragte, ob wir ihm einen lift geben können.
Als er ausgestiegen war, sagte ich zu Sven, “der roch so gut nach Lagerfeuer. An einem kalten, nassen Tag wie diesem hat dieser rauchige Geruch direkt etwas wärmendes”.
Sven sagte, “ist das dein Ernst? Er roch nach dem billigsten Tabak, den du kaufen kannst, der sieht aus wie Heu und alle Penner stinken danach.”
Es ist ungwöhnlich, daß ich etwas für wohlriechend halte, was für Sven stinkt. Meistens stinkts mir und er riecht gar nicht.

Lange hat mich gestört, dass er nach Rauch gerochen hat, wenn ich nicht rauchte. Ich rieche Rauch 20 Meter gegen den Wind. Als Sven einmal aufgehört hatte zu rauchen, ging ich eines Tages dem Rauchgeruch nach, der in mein Zimmer wehte und fand ihn in der hintersten Ecke des Gartens heimlich rauchen. Ich bereute, das getan zu haben, weil er von da an wieder offiziell rauchte und sich nicht mehr verstecken musste.

Seit mehr als einem Jahr rauchen wir beide nicht mehr. Endgültig. Ich hörte auf aus Solidarität zu ihm. Ich habe über 20 Jahre lang geraucht, ohne eine richtige Raucherin zu sein. Ich konnte an einem Abend eine Schachtel wegqualmen und dann für Tage nicht rauchen, bis ich einen Schluck Alkohol zu mir nahm. Es war mir unmöglich zu widerstehen sobald ich trank. Rauchen und Trinken gehörten zusammen. Nicht selten musste ich deshalb ein Bier aufmachen, damit ich eine Zigarette rauchen konnte. da ich tagsüber nicht trinke, rauchte ich nur abends.

Seit ich aufgehört habe, habe ich heimlich die eine oder andere Zigarette geraucht, wenn ich getrunken habe. Meine letzten beiden Zigaretten waren die besten. Ich habe sie am Neujahrsmorgen geraucht. Jede einzelne habe ich genossen, wie nichts anderes zuvor. Jeden einzelnen Zug habe ich eingezogen, als gäbe es kein Morgen, und Mann, war das gut! Noch nie haben Zigaretten so geschmeckt.

Das erstaunlich ist, das war nicht der Anfang, sondern das Ende. Von diesem Tag an, habe ich nie wieder Lust verspürt zu rauchen. Wenn ich jetzt ein Glas Wein trinke, habe ich vergessen, daß für mich eine Zigarette dazugehörte. Das fiel mir neulich auf. Ich denke nicht einmal mehr daran. Unvorstellbar war das noch vor einem Jahr.
Ich habe an diesem Neujahrmorgen für immer Abschied vom Rauchen genommen. Und was für würdiger ein Abschied.

Kuhfladen

Es erstaunt mich immer wieder, daß Kinder wie Erwachsene auch im Winter hartnäckig barfußlaufen.
Jan, der auf einer Farm aufgewachsen ist, und neulich nachts mit nackten Füssen auf dem eiskalten Steinboden unserer Küche stand, erzählte, wie er und seine Brüder als Kinder frühmorgens barfuß auf den vom Rauhreif steifgefrorenen Wiesen Kühe jagten bis ihre Füsse taub vor Kälte waren, und sich anschließend in die dampfenden Kuhfladen stellten um sie wieder aufzuwärmen.
Ein hoch sinnliches Erlebnis, I guess.

Good Bye

Happy new year to everyone!

Now slowly getting back into routine. I am almost a bit depressed today about that. So many things happened. So many plans had been made. And now as if nothing had happened we are going back to normal.
I like to get into this state of desiring something with all my heart and at the same time being completely happy with what we have and content to settle with it.
It is a good exercise.

We had a great holiday. Worked a bit, discovered the most beautiful wild beach behind our house. You only need a 4×4 to get there and we got stuck in the sand twice but only the last 50 meter. It is like in the first part of the surfer movie Endless Summer, when they walk over the dunes in Jeffrey’s Bay and there ist this empty, endless beach with this amazing blue sea.

We had a lot of happy time with friends and family. Food and fun.
We love this place. Even though we neglected our garden and never managed to plant a vegetables or flowers. Now poplars are growing everywhere. We both thought that for this year we want to settle down. Have a place as a home base from which we move. For years now every place has always been temporary and I am longing for a place that is home. A place that won’t change and where we always come back to.

Now, after nothing has changed I am thinking about cutting my hair short. I only let it grow to tie it up. Who needs that lot of hair.

And I am going to leave this place. It felt so lonely. I less and less wanted to go there, rather stay in real life. I realized I stopped emailing my friends and lost contact with them, and that was the opposite of what I intended. Good bye and thank you for your love and attention and beautiful and suporting comments.

Bye bye

Desert

We are back from the desert. We went to the Karoo. Up a dirtroad, 100 kms north of Ceres. We took the dogs and two boys to visit Luzie and her friends on a farm.

It was different from anything else I have been. You travel this dusty yellow road and there are no cars, no trees, no houses, just bushes and dry land. There is nothing. The wind that blows into the windows is hot like a hairdryer. Nothing changes just dry flat land. And suddenly at the horizon you see something blue and it is glimmering because of the heat. It looks like water. Blue blue water and you think this must be a mirage and as you come closer you see, it is actually water. Masses of blue blue water in the middle of this dry yellow land. You have no idea where it comes from. And it is cold. It is a miracle.

We turned left at the green watertank and the sign grote dam, drove through a gate and the road became worse and worse untill we finally arrived in the middle of nowhere. Three empty cottages, no shade. The fridge didn’t work. The butter melted away. We ate all the meat the first night and drank warm beer. The water which came out of the shower was too hot to use. We went to swim at the dam. There was a huge dam In the middle of this dry land with cold water. A bird sanctuary because there is nobody. Just us and the birds. The children played in the pool, a natural hot pool where the water flows from the mountain into the pool and it just overflows because you can’t stop the water.

Every morning we got up at six o’clock after the sunrise and walked into the dessert. It was beautiful. You can walk forever in any direction. We saw a rooi cat, we collected stones and rocks. We walked along an almost dry river bed with puddles of water.

At night we listened to the birds and sat in the coole breeze. The stars were amazing. It was just us and the sky. I could lwatch the stars from my bed. I saw the moon rise bright orange and fell back asleep until a layer oft bright orange light on the dark blue sky announced the sunrise.

It had 46 or more degrees. We swam and ate and slept. It was snake season. We saw a dead Cape Cobra next to the road and told the kids to watch every step because it was an hour drive to the next doctor. Luzies friends family spent their days shooting mice and feeding them to the cats. The mice eat the vegetable they grow in a little garden and attract the snakes. The girls run around in bikinis and rubber boots.

On the way back in an insane heat, we stop for a car on the side of the dusty road. They had a puncture and their jack was broken. They said, you can not believe how glad we are to see you. We were the second car they met on the road since they had left two hours ago and had waited for 30 minutes in the burning sun until we arrived. Sven changed their tyre and than we travelled together to the next gas station more than 60 kms away. We both needed diesel and drove on empty. We knew we wouldn’t make it that far. Sven stopped at a game resort and asked if they could sell us some diesel and they did.

As soon as we left the dirt road it cooled down. We were back in the world. For the first time in my life I loved the heat. I have never experienced the dry desert heat. It is completely different from the tropical humid heat. It is so dry, I didn’t even sweat. It is like the exact opposite of a very cold clear winterday.

Live Exams

Sitting in the garden, eating breakfast, I thought whether I had passed this year. I thought which were my strong subjects and which were my weak.
I reflected the year and I came to the conclusion that I did quite well. It has been a good year. A very demanding year at the same time. A lot of things had happened.

We moved to the country side, the children went to the village school (thank God) after homeschooling them for a few months. We bought a new car and travelled for the first time since we live here. We took a stranger into our house, I made a new friend for life, I started a blog, our book came out, we went to Germany (first time after 3 years), we signed a new book contract, we went to Madagascar. And I am sure I forgot some important things.

I asked Sven if he thinks he had passed this year. He said, he thinks he made it. I asked him what was his best subject. He said love.
Mine was happiness and contentment. That was my prayer at the beginning of this year.
We just had moved here, I was swimming in the river and thought, this is heaven, this is what I had always dreamt of and at the same moment I started to worry: Why did we only sign the lease for one year? What if we have to leave this place?
And I realized that I lived most of my life worrying. Either I was anxious that things would come to pass and when they finally did I worried that they will pass.
Floating on my back I decided this had to stop. I prayed that I would learn how to be happy and content in every situation. And I think this is what I learned this year.

Even now, feeling change coming without knowing where to go and how to do it, I feel peace. I enjoy where I am, and I am grateful for it and at the same time I am excited for new things to come, knowing God will give me the heart for wherever he wants me to be.

My weakest subject is still patience. That was my last years lesson and I hardly passed. I never understood why you have to learn patience. Wouldn’t it be much easier if things simply would happen faster?
But even here I learned not to wait, but to enjoy live in the meantime. That makes it much easier. And there is always something to enjoy.

My Boy

Anton age 8

Anton age 10

Anton age 12

Anton two months ago

It was Antons 14th birthday on Friday. Like every birthday I couldn’t believe that is has been 14 years ago when i pushed him into the world. I still remember his birth as it was yesterday. The night in our apartment in Berlin Charlottenburg. My friend U. was with me because Sven was working as a projectionist at a movie theater that night. U. and I watched a movie on my small black and white tv. I was already a week past my due date and again nothing seemed to happen. U. had just decided to sleep over when Sven came home at midnight and the moment he opened the door I had my first contraction. I got up and fired the oven in the bathroom to take a bath. We had only cold water and Kachelöfen in that apartment. I am too scared of hospitals thats why I had my children at home.
My midwife was on holiday and her replacement didn’t hear the beeper. So nobody came until 3 o clock in the morning. I was in the bath for hours. I had never met the midwife before and when she came she said that was her first birth since 10 years. But she was great. Somehow she got me out of the tub and onto the bed. I left marks on Svens and my friends hands and arms when I finally pushed him out. It was 7 o clock in the morning and Sven went out to buy champaign and breakfast to celebrate. Anton was the most beautiful baby. He looked so familiar to me. He had the most perfect nose and ears. He still has.

He went on a big hike with two friends and two girls and Sven the next day. They walked three and a half hours to the rock pools and waterfall. Sven showed me on his camera Anton’s 5 meter jump from the rocks into the water. He never did that before. He seemed changed. He is becoming a man now. This morning I found a paper envelope in my laptop. “From a secret helper” was written in front of it in small skew letters. Inside were 250 Rand. Anton had given me his birthday money because “we need it more than him”. When I gave it back to him with tears in my eyes, he grinned and said, I knew you would give it it back to me anyway.

Heartbraking

After I woke up, Sven brought me tea and told me a story from the local paper. There was this 20 years old woman, a young mother, living in the township, who had an incurable heart disease. One morning she received a call from the Banard Memorial Hospital that they had a matching heart for her and the operation was scheduled at 11 the next morning.

This woman was very weak. She was lying in bed for more than one year. She got up the next morning and went on a taxi. The hospital is more than a hundred kms away. The taxi ( a minibus, main transport for poor people) dropped her of a taxi rank in Bellville, a suburb outside Cape Town, where she had to get another taxi to get into the city.
She arrived at 10 in Cape Town. At that time one of her legs was paralyzed and “she started to feel strange”. It took her more than a half our walk from there to the hospital. She was on the brink of collapse but she dragged herself there.

Concerned nurses phoned her because she hasn’t arrived yet and encouraged her all the way. Finally she arrived shortly before the operation was scheduled, got a new heart and recovered remarkably well after.
When the Overstrand executive mayor saw her story in the paper he visited her in the hospital and said, “this woman is such an inspiration for everyone. She helped herself against all odds”.

How could he dare to say that? He should fall on his knees an apologize to that woman that she had to drag herself to the hospital on the risk of her life. He should buy her a car and pay for her license. At least.

I can’t believe they didn’t send her an ambulance to get there. Even when they knew, she was on her way and could hardly make it, they didn’t rush out to get her, but cheered her on the phone: Yeahh, come on, you will make, just another 100 meters). They have a heart for her but no transport to get it. How ironic is this?

The Sleeping Man

“You know, what always astounds me in this city”, Olga said, pointing up a steep road, “is people sleeping on the streets”. It is midday in Cape Town, we just had lunch at Simply Asia. I look up the road and I see what she is talking about. There is a man lying on his stomach in the middle of the narrow pavement, his head resting on his arm. My heart almost stops for a moment. “If he is sleeping”, she says and laughs and I am relieved that we don’t have to stop and check if he is still alive.
She is right, while we are driving, I see people sleeping everywhere. Preferably on grass or under trees, but also in bright sunlight. Taking a nap wherever they are. Men, women, workers, mothers, children. What a city.