Teepee For My Bunghole

Okay, I’m not going to wait till the end of this post to wys yous the beweging because I want to surprise yous but I might just end up writing a longish post and forget about it. I mean, I get that way after all this travel when not doing any of this constructive stuff and what what….wait a minute, I’m almost forgetting to tell you! The thing is: [drums please] I’m at home in good ol’ Cape Town.

Yep, it’s the end of the road. What has occurred to me is that I am grateful for life’s capacity to surpise. Right till when I got on the Greyhound bus three days ago, I was being entertained, amazed and astounded. Titillating my tits off, so to speak. Durban has been jacking itself up since I was last there 4 years ago and Coffee Bay in the Eastern Cape was just gorgeous. (I just had to stop there because consistently the Wild Coast was being mentioned, by travellers who done the whole coast, as the most beautiful area in South Africa). Right up to the end I wanted to stay and travel and experience more.

Even on the fucken bus down – what does South Africa go and do? It snows! For three hours along the road there is snow covered hills and mountains. Of course, its only enough snow to wet the bottom of your shoes, but us South Africans whip out our cameras and want to stop the bus and traffic is chaos and the front page and email inboxes is filled with pictures. Yep, right till the end, this trip was special. Ag, let’s face it, life is special.

But I can’t deny reality too long and here I am in Cape Town wondering what the hell I’m going to do with this special life. Anyway, those of you who are here, please give me a call or email or something. 0824698568. I would be glad to meet up and catch up and talk kak. Those of you who are overseas, send me an email and you’ll go on the list for recipients of some individually selected words and photos.

My next post will probably be a longwinded summation on my travels and will probably be my last post. Kinda brings a tear to your eye, doesn’t it? I suppose all dreamers have to wake up at some point, that’s the tragedy of life.

Very few people know that Nina Simone stayed in Bokaap, Cape Town for a part of her life. When my friend Richard Ismail still stayed in Bokaap, I’d sometimes pop around to his house and talk about all things literary and listen to her music. Richard had known her well and sometimes his eyes would add a twinkle to his everpresent smile and he would pause to soak in the melody.

I never quite got the story between him and Nina Simone but he did promise to write a book. Sadly it’s a book I will never get to read. On Saturday, Richard was heavily assaulted in his Woodstock home. Yesterday he passed away.

Richard was the ultimate patriot. After being heavily involved in the Struggle, Richard was stoked by the New South Africa. He loved where we were going, the new government the new energy. His cafe in Adderley Street was for many years the lifeblood of poetry in Cape Town. When his cafe closed, the Monday poetry sessions moved to the Armchair Theatre in Obs and Richard went on to become the managing director of The Big Issue magazine. Here he spearheaded the recent Homeless Football World Cup that took place in Cape Town.

On a personal note, Richard was responsible for me considering my writing on a more serious level and I used him as a sounding board for my scriptwriting. We had big plans but that was Richard. He had big plans for everyone, the whole South Africa, and he had the faith in us and the willingness to help us make it happen. Always with a smile on his face.

Goodbye my friend. Cape Town’s creative community has taken a blow, but I hope we still live up to your hopes and dreams.

I’m just writing at random here because I feel I need to post something but haven’t thought of anything much to write. Be prepared for bit of a ramble of thoughts and feel free to skip to the end where you think: “It would have nicer if he just posted some pics.”

Mosquitos. They’ve been on mind recently because the chances of getting malaria in West Africa is 3% which is pretty high – and that’s with anti-malarial medication. It 6% without. Here in Morocco I remember telling someone that the mosquitos here are pretty small and they don’t really bite with a vengeance. That was in summer, now in autumn they’re suddenly the size of small birds and, although I don’t think I’ve been bitten by one yet, I’m sure they’d probably suck me bone dry.

Anyway plans for going south are going slowly (I was going to make a dirty pun with this sentence and the sentence at the end of the last paragraph but my Mom reads this you know). I think I need shots because I can’t seem to find out which and the only travel clinic I could find is Intitut Pasteur in Casablanca. So tomorrow I’m going to Casa for that and to get my Mauritanian visa. I’m actually in Rabat right now trying to find a bookshop with English guidebooks. No luck so far. Besides that, the only things I need to do before leaving is some minor shopping and shipping.

Ramadaan is going by quickly. So quick that I sometimes lose trace of the days. Seriously I even missed jumuah (Friday mosque) once because I didn’t know it was Friday. I only realised that night.

I haven’t learnt much language except a word here and there. Sometimes I can understand what’s going on in a conversation – if I’m not taking part. There should be even less English in Mauritania and Senegal.

Anyway, by the next post I’ll be closer to travel time and closer to newer places – for me at least. And then I’ll be rambling on physically as well.

Most Common Question: When are you planning to head home?
Answer: I dunno (and the indefiniteness is not by choice)  

Anyway yesterday I had a brilliant thought I wanted to post after Friday mosque about how toes are probably the most individual part of a persons body and how, after thinking this and lining up to pray, I noticed that the guy on the right’s feet hadn’t been alerted that the rest of the body was still alive (talk about one foot in the grave!) and the guy on the left had two toes considering starting a foot of their own, when I get to the internet cafe and see that all of my posts for August have been lost. (That was a long sentence, wasn’t it?)

Apparently the server that hosts my blog crashed and their backups are wonky (that’s technical term in the IT business – non-IT people please feel free to use it to sound clever and “in the know”). There seems to be hope of getting them back but we’ll have to wait and see.

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Check those hands, it’s like they’re clutching a rugby ball already!

HOLD THE PHONE MY GUZZIES!!! GUESS WHO IS AN UNCLE AGAIN? I EVEN USED 3 EXCLAMATION MARKS BACK THERE; DID YOU SEE? THAT MEANS I’M KAK STOKED! I’LL POST A PICK OF MY NEW NEPHEW AS SOON AS I GET ONE AND TO ANY WOMAN READING THIS, HE WEIGHED A WHOPPPING 3.5 KILOS!

So nice of Cape Town weather to brighten up for me. I mean I’m kinda glad I’m going because I could get used to this lazy life of missioning half the day and chilling the other half. Because there’s actually plenty to do without having to spend money.

I’ve been doing some cool shit, not too mention, I got to help someone do pasta from scratch! No, I don’t mean opening the 2-minute noodle packets myself, I mean actually from eggs and flour and all that cooking stuff thingies making lasagne.

Jeez, it’s cool to use a pasta machine. At one one point I was seriously considering buying one and taking it with me. I get all excited by gadgets and stuff. Specially this manual goede with no batteries and motherboards. I mean, this is classic old school right here.

I’ve been teaching some classes and I’ve realised that I don’t need that much practice. I’d rather spend the time on the beach or some other rivetting item. So I’m going to cutback on my classes and that’ll give me more time to get all my stuff done for next week. There’s nothing big left but all these small things seem to go on forever.
From today it’s less less than a week. Can’t wait…

So this is the two weeks between when I left work and when my flight is. I’ve been trying to keep busy and constructive. Why, I don’t know but I check I need to keep my brain from rotting. Anyway, I find insanity tempting when I’m doing nothing all the time.

So I’ve been trying to meet as much people for lunches and suppers just to touch base and give some personal goodbyes. I’ve also knocked a coupla stuff off my todo list like buying a backpack and selling my longboard. I’ve also added a some more stuff to the list (like a rucksack). Of course, I’ve been trying to get in some surfing but my timing has just been out and mostly it’s been too small to justify going into the water. Tomorrow looks promising though.

The hardest part has been trying not to spend money. I kinda like spending money so I nearly had a new surfboard and wetsuit and a lot of other stuff I don’t really need. As it is I’m using the money from my longboard to finance a new wetsuit.

Next week should be even busier with the final rush to the departure date and during the mornings I’m practice teaching at the Cape Town School of English in Claremont.

Some people have been saying my new email address bounces so I’ve got gmail account: g”d”o”t”f”i”l”m”s@gmail.com (without all the inverted commas I put in to stop spammers i.e. only ‘gdotfilms’). But only use this if you can’t get to my other email because I won’t check that as much.

By the way, I’m connecting to the internet tonight sitting in my car in town outside a friend’s flat using wireless access. So much better than an internet cafe! Fuckin technology amazes me.

Ok, this my Last Day of Work. Actually I have a lot to get through today. Anyway after this, I will have less updates coming through.

After the 16th when I land in Morocco, I hope to get post interesting pics and stuff that I have before, so keep checking in.

Later I’ll be buying my backpack. I decided to not get a huge backpack that’ll be a mission to carry and get a 40+10. Not as small as a hiking backpack but I figure I can always pack less if it gets too heavy.

I might do an update just before I leave work but I’lll see how it goes.

Back from the weekend. With all these public holidays, weekends seem to be popping up at a freaky rate. Or maybe its just because my departure is coming closer. Anyway, this is my last week of work! So I have lots to do because after this week my internet access is limited (less updates on this site too).

As has become my habit, here’s pics from my weekend. I did get to go to the Picasso exhibit, but most of the pics from yesterday driving through town.

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Jeez these pics are random. Nonetheless they add some colour to this site. Anyway, when I start travelling (3 weeks from tomorrow), the pics will start getting interesting.