Month: February 2016

Monkey’s on Fire

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Today marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year, so you get another chance to tackle a new year’s resolutions, another chance to start over again, another chance to hope for better luck, richer prosperity, and a more lustrous future.

We are now in the dawn of the year of the monkey, assigned to the earth element fire.  If the monkey was not spunky enough, this witty, intelligent, resourceful, curious, and self-preserving animal is deemed with an extra boost of hyperactivity.  This creature, rambunctious like a wild child, more clever than the proverbial fox, has been given the gift of flames this year- a combination of manipulation and energy that is inherently unstable, careless, extremely flammable.

If you are not careful with how you play, you will get charred.  I am sensing that this year will either be extremely fun and fortunate, socially and personally enriching, or it is going to quickly get out of hand, like carefully stacked dominos that fall over in a slight breeze.  I am not sure this is the year to gamble; this is the year to outsmart, investigate, and plan.  Don’t get too carried away with the joke, be mindful of the spark waiting to be ignited like a match at the gas station.  Don’t get out charmed, be careful of the power behind a seemingly innocent game.  Things are deeper than they appear, the dualistic nature will be carefully hidden in the simplest of games.

You don’t need luck this year, you need wisdom, foresight, and a cool demeanor to put up a fair fight with this feisty energy.

The Willing Prisoner

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Locked behind the tall cement walls that are topped with a barbed wire crown, you keep yourself in just as effectively as you keep the desperate out.  Mingling with the neighbors is not an effortless coincidence, it is a planned activity in a fortified neighborhood.

Maintaining this separation is keeping the everyone back, it is drying out the culture.  We limit ourselves by denying access to people who come from different backgrounds, with different stories, with different interests, perspectives, and forms of art.  We don’t get the full range of what this world of culture has to offer locked behind our fear, our insecurities, our greed.  Remember when drums were banned as music in the United States?  Can you even imagine what we would be missing if this law stated into effect for as long as apartheid existed in south Africa?

Being afraid of people, and being afraid of competition, being afraid to not socialize with people who share a different world view is not keeping them out, it is keeping us in the cage.

A Point of Hope

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The city in the clouds, the city in the shadow of the stars.

Kissing the clouds not with the sky scrapers ambition, but with the bust of the mountains pride.  This city does not need a white façade to provide the enchantment of magic, it does not need a magician to orchestrate the cohesion of nature in this urban environment.

Cape Town is the yearning to kiss the cloud line, trying to match the ambition of the sky scrapers modernity.  Yet, still, this 400 years of industrial motivation cannot compete with the dominion of the natural stature.

The collective magic gathers around the peaks like a forming storm.  I just hope the storm clouds do not continue to darken, I hope that it doesn’t form a tremendous downpour that washes away all potential of this blooming new culture.

Over and Abound

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The overabundance of beautiful scenery,

The euphoria of delicious sustenance,

The synergy of shared adventure.

A cold ocean dip goes a long way to chill

The hot mind and red sun body.

With magic behind every bend in the road,

With imagination as far as the eye keeps looking,

I cannot keep digesting this wonder of the landscape,

I cannot stop my mind from blinking.

I cannot stop hiccupping with curiosity,

I cannot calm my dauntless spirit.

How I can still find the energy to dream after so much speculation

Remains one ostrich of a mystery

To this stuffed soul.

 

 

 

The Outlandish Ostrich

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This member of the poultry family is giant, memorizing, all around impressive.  This animal is huge.  Fluffy.  Fast.  Beautiful.  With plumage that makes every bird, aside from the peacock, envious, with adaptation that we humans can admire, and with meat delicate and decadent, it is truly amazing that this bird is not a more popular source of protein in every part of the world.

Chicken, pork, and beef, universally loved by meat eaters, are so common that they are ubiquitous in all grocery stores, all restaurants, raised by the herds and consumed by the masses.  How did this giant and delicious bird get missed by our never ending appetite?  It makes no sense.  They can tolerate a large range of temperatures, evident in the fact that they can survive in a desert where heat fluctuates greatly between day and night.

This flightless bird is very distinctive with its tall stature, elongated legs, fat fluffy midsection with a tiny head on top.  Those slim legs can carry this creature at an astonishing 43 mph (70 m/h), granting this the fastest 2 legged creature on this diverse planet.   This is the largest living bird, and lays the largest eggs.  The eggs, with a shell that is as thick as your grandma’s prized porcelain soup terrine, weighing up to 3 pounds, could fed the entire household at breakfast.  The size of the ostrich egg is over 20 times the size of a chicken’s eggs, but surprisingly, this ratio of bird to egg size is rather small.  After seeing the size of an ostrich egg, I have a hard time believing that.  A female ostrich lays about 50 eggs per year.

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I don’t think that you realize how giant this bird it.  It is common for it to weight up to 320 pounds, the size of 2 adults!  Male ostriches can be as tall as 9 feet.  This is bird is monstrous in size and normally lives 45 years, but given the right environment can live to 75 years.

Sticking to the bird kingdom protocol, the male ostriches are the more physically attractive gender, with their silky black and white plumage, dressed up everyday in their fanciest tuxedo, while the women don the drab medley of brown plumage.

A Lesson in Geography

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Africa is gigantic, and South Africa, just a small slice of that continental pie, is also mind-boggling massive.  It is the 25th largest country in the world, with 53 million people.  It is an extremely multiethnic country, apparent in the 11 official languages recognized by the government- the most official languages of any country in the world.

I got to say, I knew it was diverse here- I knew there were a good amount of European descendants, and a good amount of Indians, but I am shocked at the diversity here.  Nearly everything is stemmed from the Dutch language, and it is abound everywhere.  I cannot even pretend to say the simplest of words.  No, I cannot say good morning, I can hardly say thanks.  Thankfully English is spoken by just about everyone, although the countrymen of South Africa are more accustomed to the British style accent.

Afrikaans is the widely used, second after English, a language derived from the Dutch language, and from what I gather, it is easier to speak then that heavily throaty and consonant ridden father language.  This language is spoken by the upper people, and the servant class the interacts with the people in power.  Although Zulu is spoken by the highest percentage of the population, all street signs, highway signs, and advertisements are in both Afrikaans and English.

The remaining 9 official languages are Congo derived languages, stemmed from the aboriginal tribes that are spoken within the local cultural contexts: Zulu, Xhosa, Venda, Tsonga, Tswana, Swazi, Sotho, Northern Sotho, and Ndebele.

Given that the majority of the population is black, and that 9 out of 11 official languages are of the indigenous people, I am surprised at the lack of black faces I have seen around- in the streets, in the stores, when I look around the community.  The culture has been overrun by the Dutch, German, and British, heavily influenced by Indian and Asian cultures.  I am not finding Africa inspired art or food, I am not hearing African centric music, I am not seeing different textiles and languages, I am not seeing the culture.  I am seeing a charming English countryside with Dutch street names and white faces everywhere I look.  I see shopping malls with Western fashion, I see grocery stores with imported fruit, I see restaurants that are inspired by the French cuisine.

It’s not like the situation back in the States, when the European settlers came and systematically destroyed all of the native people once they settled on the sandy shores.  80% of the population are descendants of the Sub- Sahara ancestry, but this is the invisible class.  These are the people who are pumping your gas, waiting your tables, picking up your trash, cooking your food, checking you out at the grocery store.  These are the people that are living in shack communities with tiny house that are so close to one another that the outside walls seem to be seamless, that are hidden behind tall walls as to not disrupt your Kodak view of the surrounding beautiful countryside with the ocean view.

Apartheid, a government regulated legislation that enforced segregation, that kept the white skin in power and the black skin in poverty, existed until 1990.  That is a mere 25 years of trying to balance out a system that has been unfair since 1662.  Up until 1990 the indigenous languages were not even considered official languages- only English and Afrikaans were recognized.

South Africa is considered to be a modern industrial economy, earning the 7th highest percentage of income in all of Africa.  The money is found almost completely in the hands that burn easily in the sun, while the people who inherit this land are left in poverty, under educated, without a fighting chance in hell to catch up.  This system of unbalance is not doing justice to anyone- it is robbing the country of the diverse cultures and flavors that make this beautiful country interesting, unique, colorful, inspiring, and world class. The identity of this place is in the hands of people who have imposed their own set of culture, it is time to focus on what the majority of the population have to contribute.

 

Colorful Adventures on the Black Road

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The rain waited until we got home after a day of adventure to start it’s slow cry.  It happily waited until the sun left the horizon begin it’s nighttime wail.

With the evening in place, with the daytime travels in the past, luck was on my side to not have a sad sky to experience the beauty in this environment.

Driving along the coast of the Indian Ocean, traversing the highway etching along Western Cape, each turn is full of beautiful surprises.  After each curve in the road, you don’t know what sight will be up next, weather it is a long stretch of sandy coast line with bejeweled water peacefully rolling to the shore, or a mountain valley lined with lush tropical plants hugging the road, or a stint of African bush hibernating the road, waiting for the next rain to bring out their color.  There might be baboons hunched in the middle of the black paved highway, not worried about the passing traffic, too lazy to move out of the way unless you stop and try to capture their smile on camera.  You might even be surprised to see lines of straight American Pines standing like soldiers along the pass, strangely fitting in amongst the tropical plants.

The coastline is a rollercoaster following the curves of the mountain, taking you high enough to kiss the clouds, low enough to seen the glimmer of the sun reflect off the mighty ocean.

Nestled into the hillside, between the changing green scenery, mostly along the sandy shore line, are small seaside towns, white houses with colorful roofs dot the rolling terrain.  Each one has a main street fitted with the same name, shops and restaurants welcoming the curious traveler with the charm of a small town.

Sometimes the bay holds you in, reassuring you of where you belong, sometimes the expanse of the ocean gives you pause about your place in this wide world.

 

Just Down the Road

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Soaking in the hot African Sun,

Chasing the cloud shadow like a refreshment.

The vibrant lush green of the valley trees,

Is juxtaposed to the vibrant red dirt along the roadside.

The cool air of the bay,

The fog clinging to the ocean like an infant to its mother.

But just up a steep road, cut like a diamond through the rolling hillside

Balancing the swaying mountains like a surfer atop a wave,

A desert is waiting.

Those steady peaks mimic the waves found in the ocean,

Once you cross them you find heat

Like the breathe of a tiger.

They are just as rough, just as defined as the anger in the ocean.

Despite their intrinsic differences, the ocean and the desert

Seem to have a lot in common.