Teepee For My Bunghole

Okay, I’m in Casablanca fighting with these funny keyboards with letters all over the place.

Landed last night and got to Hotel Terminus with not too much hassle. 28 degrees, now that’s what I’m talking about! Seeing the city from the train it looks like a mix of poor and rich and much like other third world cities I’ve seen.

Woke up 5am this morning with a nosebleed and needing to take a dump. When I realised where I am, the dump started looking like a mission and a half. While I stopped the nosebleed I thought about it. First off, this hotel had those glorified holes in the ground toilets and I’m not finicky about most things but I do like to shit in comfort. Its just the way I am. Secondly, how the hell do you actually use those things?

Om kom vannie bom, it took me 2 minutes to kak and half an hour trying to figure out how to clean my ass. And this is with some diarrheaic American knocking on the door every 5 minutes. I would have shouted that there’s a toilet around the corner but some people take such advice as invitations to hold conversations. As much as I hate to hold conversations when I’m sitting comfortably taking a crap, imagine how I would have hated that crunched over as I was.

Spending this morning looking for another cheap hotel but with better toilets.

Impressions of Casablanca:

• Nice
• Not clean, not dirty
• Can’t figure out traffic or roadsigns
• Reminds me of downtown Rio
• Easy to get around
• Will spend some days here to check it out
• The medina (market) looks ancient and fucking cool 

My cell number +21210758626, figuring out how to load credit at present.

Okay, so here I am in another country. Although theoretically I’m not in the UK because I don’t smaak the hassle of going through passports control. Luckily Heathrow airport is kak big and there’s lots to look at. I’m here for 9 hours and feeling very much like Tom Hanks in The Terminal.

I’m off to get brunch – I hear there’s actually decent coffee around here. Still amazed by the amount of workers who aren’t English. But other than that ‘duty free’ sections are much the same the world over in airports

Okay, so this is it. Inevitably when leaving you check on all the stuff you’re not going to be able to do for a long time and you try to do them. Of course, there’re lots of things I still want to do in Cape Town, but also part of my deciding to leave was that I had done most of the major stuff I wanted to do here. So I can’t think of anything I really really want to do before I leave.

Lots of tiny outstanding items that itch at the back of my mind but in the long run, I figure it’s really not gonna matter all that much. I’ve had farewell lunches and suppers and a farewell gathering with friends. Now I’m starting to say goodbye to family. Never been much of a family bra though so I’m wondering if I’ll put in enough effort to get to all of them (plus my family is vark big).

Some of the items I need, I haven’t bought. Mainly because sometimes I rather go without if I don’t get the exactly the product I want. Jeans and takkies (sneakers) for instance. Levi’s changed their original 501 jeans cut slightly. I know this because I’ve been wearing the same style for 15 years about and was plenty pissed off when I tried to replace my current jeans and it fit differently. So I’m going to Morocco with jeans (a jean pant?) breaking apart because the new style doesn’t cut it and I just don’t smaak the whole effort of trying different brands and styles.

Since my takkies was nationalised last year I’ve been looking for other takkies. I don’t mind trying on takkies because it’s less effort and the size on display usually fits me. But yessus it’s kak difficult trying to find plain comfortable takkies that’s not white. I even looked online for my old style of Nike’s but I found nothing. I tried to compromise and bought a pair of white Adidas but only wore them a couple of times. Not to mention that white colour made me cringe every time I put them on.

So now I’m going to Morocco with broken jeans and no takkies. But hey, hopefully in Morocco there are styles that appeal more to me and also the Levi 501 cut is still original. I’ll never know till I go…

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…

Home stretch to take off. I’m missioning on my shengen visa this week as well because some stuff came up that might make me do a side trip to Sweden. Hopefully I can find a way to make it. Besides that I’m meeting mense for suppers and learning teaching English in the mornings. Also putting all the finishing preparations in place.

To-do List

• internet banking
• mail shauna
• shengen (sp?) visa
• exchange multitool
• sell old wetsuits
• buy backpack
• pack up room

Gotta go, laters, G.

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.

This is it, you know. This week isn’t the same as last week and next week won’t be the same as this. It’s not often that you go through these watershed moments in your life. Mostly it’s times like leaving school or finishing varsity or something like that.

Well that’s how I feel, like I just passed matric, like I have the world waiting for me. Lots of planning and preparations still to get through before I’m ready for Morocco but mentally I’m in the perfect frame of mind. For weeks I’ve been stressing about whether this is a good idea or not, but now this unfounded feeling of liberation has gotten hold of me.

You should try it.

Yesterday I went to the airport to see some siblings off on their holiday to South East Asia. Last night I went to the Snoop Dogg Concert. Today is not going to be like yesterday, nor is the day after that. Don’t even talk when the 16th comes. That’s going to be a whole other trip altogether.

Thought for the Day:

A man that has risked his life knows careers are worthless, and a man who will not risk his career has a worthless life.

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