Saturday, March 29, 2008

Kind People

I have known many, many people in my life -- but I am sure that I could probably name the genuinely kind people I have known.
I think kindness is a horribly underrated quality in society.
Cleverness is admired, wealth-building skills coveted or envied, charm blushingly enjoyed by most women, and confidence respected.

But kindness is the realm of the truly great.

To be kind, you literally have to put yourself in someone else's shoes, put their interests before yours, and then think and act with compassion. That is a whole lot of hard quality steps all strung in a row. Most people can usually manage one or two of those steps at a time. As people we always truly appreciate a kindness, but it is never heralded as heroic or never ends up as a headline.
Yet it is the vital backbone of the essence of human magnificence, but is usually quiet and yet honestly makes a difference.

I doubt anyone ever really forgets a genuine kindness. The actions are generally small, may not be life changing in practical terms, but to the recipient's spirit it shouts out love, life, hope, and a belief in greatness.

Respect the kind people in your world -- life may not send you that many of them. Say thank you, tell them you love them in your own way, and try to be great every now and then and rise up above yourself, and what the heck, be an unheralded hero.

(Musing dedicated to the kindest person I have ever known, Henk.)
xxx

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

My Friend John.

A few years ago, My Friend John was murdered in his hotel room in Johannesburg.

He was on a business trip, had recently started working for his dad, and after celebrating the birth of his brand new niece, had gone to Joburg to pay some staff and contractors. He had gone to the bank, drawn money for pay packets, and John and the briefcase had been followed back to his hotel room. He was smothered with a Holiday Inn pillow, and the briefcase vanished. Everyone was shocked, but no-one knew anything. He was 33. And that was that.

But My Friend John had been extraordinary to me.
I met him one bleary-eyed morning, after a grueling Saturday night shift at a trendy nightclub in Cape Town where I worked weekend nights, in a chi-chi bar to pay the rent for my tiny one bedroom apartment in the City. John was a "night worker" too -- he tended bar around the corner, and rented a room in a large commune in the city, along with a collection of transient night service staff that kept Cape Town buzzing after dark.

We were chatting in the ramshackle living room, hyped on coffee, fatigue, and the remnants of pumping music and the revelry of others. The first time I saw John, he was in his underwear, but greeted a room full of strangers with a grin, completely at ease.
I knew I would like him.

We became friends. We went places, on our nights off.
He would show up at my apartment in a borrowed tux, make me put on a showy dress, and we would drive to the fanciest, most exclusive hotels in the City. At the gates, John would emphatically speak an earnest gibberish, vaguely Italian, to confuse the liveried guards into letting us into the exclusive grounds.
Somehow, it always worked and we would sweep into majestic clubs and hideaways for the rich and famous. There we would drink, dance and befriend some of the legitimate guests. The party would begin, and the evening would be boisterous and giddily fun. John could twirl a girl like no-one else I have ever met.

Some days he would show up with a six pack of beer and a bag of trashy novels. We would lie in the heat on my apartment balcony, drink beer and read until our heads hurt.
We would swap bar stories. He always liked my new boyfriends before they had proven they were worthwhile. He frequently dated interesting, hysterical women. He called me "Sista" and meant it. He lubricated my broken heart with tequila when my boyfriend du jour left the country, and carried me home, holding my discarded shoes when the tequila smacked me between the eyes. He made me chili scrambled eggs for breakfast.
He didn't care what I looked like. He only cared that I was happy.

We took care of each other. I, alone in a city and self supporting at 22. John, alone and self supporting at 22. We grabbed life firmly and lived with passion. Once he took my wide-eyed adolescent baby brother to a wild New Year's Eve bash, winking at me as he carefully slipped a few condoms in Francois' party shirt pocket. They returned in the early hours, grinning, condom wrappers still in place.

We got older, established serious relationships and careers. There was no longer place for our pure non-judgmental friendship in our new worlds. Try explaining it to a really significant other. The euphoria and bravado of youth had passed.

And then the article in the paper. Really brief. I made some calls and only heard confusion and pain. No answers. But I dream of My Friend John. He is alive and vibrant and laughing, and when I wake up I can honestly say that I feel that I have seen him again and can feel his bear hug comfort.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Shock and Awe

Shock and Awe -- the first things I saw when I opened my eyes in the maternity ward five years ago. Remember the dramatic banner at the bottom of the CNN broadcast on that day... I was certainly in shock and awe. A tiny little blonde girl had emerged from my resisting body, radiating peace and life.

And from then on, I have measured out the days of the war in spoons of mother love.
The first year of exciting drama -- sleeplessness and strangeness and everything new. The twenty four hour news coverage of the war the backdrop to the chaos and demands of a brand new life. Both all consuming and riveting.

The first birthday - my sense of accomplishment welled up in my chest, surrounded by a ballooning marshmallow of love that followed the chubby, beaming baby as she swatted the candles on her first cake. Mothers gathered nearby with candles lit, their anger covering the panic and rising fear that was squeezing their marshmallow of love for their children so far away.

I watched my two-year-old -- exhausted, optimistic and delighted in her serenity and purity.
Other mothers watched news broadcasts obsessively, terrified of seeing their babies, but compelled to watch and falling into a year of exhaustion, optimism and crushing fear.

It is our third year and we are all tired. Media fatigue, mommy fatigue. Mothers feel as though all we ever say is No No No and no-one listens. We are the voices of reason in the background. Play fair, don't hit people, don't take what is not yours, share...

Sarah is four and drawing, swinging, and I am on the ground looking at the sunlight through the giant trees overhead as she sings to me and points out the wander of leaves in the breeze. Another mother, and another, drops to her knees at her front door as the uniformed officers stand awkwardly in the bright breezy sunlight and her fierce love for her child cracks her in half.
Different mothers, same love.

Yesterday Sarah was five. We mothers scoop out our spoonfuls of love into our children every day. Yesterday that love showed itself as strong, independent, beautiful, smart and serene. I thought of the moms who wondered where their spoonfuls were going.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

Raspberry Sparletta

The large crowd crammed into the bare room and sitting on the cement floor, was quiet.
The horse flies were buzzing, and the air was thick with heat and anticipation.

We were sitting on cheap wooden chairs at metal trestle tables, and a Senator was listening intently to an elderly gentleman slowly explaining how difficult it was for him to walk the nine kilometers to the rural clinic.

We were on a fact finding mission, six Senators and I, in the depths of the Transkei, where there were few paved roads, little running water, and many tiny rural villages and mud huts, connected by cattle paths and dusty bicycle tracks. The tiny clinic where everyone had gathered on this day serviced thousands of people, and had no decent plumbing, electricity or even rudimentary medical facilities. We were here to listen, observe, ask questions, make recommendations and to ultimately welcome these people to the New South Africa where all were equal, and health care was no longer a privilege for the wealthy or white.

The oppressive heat was not acknowledged by the soft women wrapped in colorful blankets, rocking silently as they patiently waited for their turn to speak -- many of them with tiny babies tucked into the folds of their makeshift nests. I scanned the room as I paused between pencil scrawls in my notebook.
I looked at the faces for any signs that anyone had noticed that I was the only white person in the room. No-one seemed to care. No-one was paying any attention to me. The adults were focussed on the discussion, hope of a better future enlivening their eyes. The silent, skinny children had all fixed their saucer-eyes on a white plastic tray which had been placed on the corner of a trestle table.
It bore a cluster of thick plastic glasses and an ice-cold, frosted, one liter glass bottle of Raspberry Sparletta.

The children were transfixed. Their wanting was palpable, as they subconsciously licked their dusty lips and swallowed dryly. I visualized their pleasure in having a swallow of the raspberry red bubbly soda, recalling simultaneously that we had some warm bottled water in the government van we had traveled in for this community meeting. We would no doubt settle for this on our way back to our lovely hotel in an hour.

Our schedule was pressing, and our time was up. Respects were paid, and thanks extended. One of our hosts graciously gestured to the icy refreshments when chairs began scraping backwards, and tight Senatorial ties were being surreptitiously loosened.
The adult villagers began gathering themselves. The children did not move.

A Senator smiling in anticipation, unscrewed the cap with a hiss, and carefully poured out the soda equally. Glasses were quickly passed down the table, and sugary soda gulped with pleasure and relief. The barefoot children vanished with fleeting resignation, as I watched in surprise.

Puzzled, I looked at my Senators and noticed that of course, they had been - and still were in some way - those dusty children.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

The Floating Prison

I was half-watching one of those typical submarine movies, with the snappily dressed sailor actors clipping out their nautical lines to each other -- the incessant blip-blip sound in the background lest you forget they are meant to be in a submarine.
I was actually looking at the grey painted metallic equipment and fixtures, and remembering the day I truly felt I had experienced what it would be like to be in the bottom of an empty oil can.

I was on a study trip with a mottled bunch of Parliamentarians, who had arranged a tour of a floating prison a few miles off the coast of New York City. Well, I had arranged it in my capacity as coordinator, secretary and anything - else - they - needed person for this widely representative delegation from the National Committee of Correctional Services.
Someone, in his wisdom, had decided that this may indeed be an option or solution to South Africa's growing prison population, despite the fact that this floating prison was vacant, and was vaguely dismissed by our American hosts as a failed experiment.

Nevertheless, my team was adamant and enthusiastic.
We were duly collected by a squat correctional services vehicle, zigzagged across the city, and deposited on a ferry to the ship. Apparently, this enormous ship had been used as a maximum security prison, and had moved from place to place. More than this was difficult to ascertain. Our hosts were certainly perplexed by our visit, vague in their replies, but polite and overtly enthusiastic about lunch that would be served on the ship.

First, the tour.
It was all gray metal, firmly welded in place. It smelt oily, dead, and very empty.
Oddly enough, everything was spotless. The stainless steel surfaces gleamed and the air was clear and dust-free. We rattled through the bowels of the ship, carefully noting the gates, bars, tiny portholes, and gray, gray, gray.
Our awkward hosts could not seem to tell us why the project had failed, what had happened, who had been outraged by this notion, who had escaped or died. Nothing. Only carefully chosen empty, political words, bandied between two teams of professionals.

And then the much hyped meal. The smiling American team shuffled along gray metal benches, facing the black, white and brown faces of the newly minted members of Parliament. Colorful plates of Southern food appeared and it was good. I had not seen a kitchen pan heating up for frying, heard or smelt any cooking. So, I put on a polite face and ate with grace.

The trip back to Manhattan was brisk and efficient. I wrote a brief report, and it seems that the concept fizzled.
I never heard it mentioned in those corridors again, yet I distinctly remember walking around in the bottom of an empty oil can --particularly when there's nothing on but complicated war movies, late on a Tuesday evening.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

My two moms prepare dinner on a typical summer's evening.

Somblugu ambles up the driveway with a plastic bag tucked into her apron pocket. The sun is setting orange on a tropical afternoon, and I am six, seven, eight, nine, ten and waiting for her to call me to come along.
She sing-songs my name, and I run and clutch her dark brown, warm hand as we slowly walk up the hill to the field behind the new preschool and cookie-cutter housing development homes, glistening pink with new paint in the growing suburb. She hums rhythmically as we run our fingers through the long leaves in the waving grasses and weeds, searching for wild spinach and snapping the stems off. We slowly fill the plastic bag. I wander off and lie down in the grass, staring at the sky, inhaling the grassy heat, buzzing traffic and the gentle zulu song.
Then we head home, greeting all the neighborhood servants walking, sitting under trees, and heading to the bus stop.
Somblugu smiles and tells me we have picked a feast of greens. A little chili, potatoes, and the smell of a kerosene stove as the supper pot sizzles.

I head inside and look for my mother in her bedroom at dusk.
She is sitting at her dressing table, combing her glossy hair, frowning, and carefully paints on a coat of bright red lipstick. She squints at her reflection, sighs, and signals with a look of resignation that my bouncy arrival in her bedroom means it is almost dinner time. She gets up, picks up her wine glass and wafts upstairs to the kitchen. She peaks into the fridge to check that the salad is cling-wrapped and ready, dumps another ice cube into her wine glass, tops up the white wine, and heads into the living room to flip through a magazine and listen to the birds beyond the french doors congregating in the tropical trees.
She waits for her husband to arrive, and for her children to become impatient.