January Scribbles

11 in the Morning

A few months before I went off to do the Camino, Lisa gave me one of those fancy sports watches that are indestructible.

Part of the wrist band is of titanium and super doopa extra strength rubber, the face is shatterproof glass and it is so waterproof that I can dive to depths of 100m if I like. It also has nice date functions, multiple alarm settings and I can time my laps (what!!!). If I was crushed in a rock fall at least the watch would survive. I was very grateful for the watch and very pleased to see that Lisa had set it for me…it reflected the correct date, day and time.

Then of course, I started to fiddle…..you need to be a brain surgeon to work these things but I very smartly set the alarm to buzz at 11.00am and do you think I could work out how to ‘unset’ it…no, no,no. I knew the look on Lisa’s face would be too much to bear (you know how kids give you that look?) so I decided to live with it..

When I was on the Camino my 11 o’clock alarm was great. It was either time to move it along a bit, slow down or take a break – depended on where I was on the route. People walking with me also tuned into it and would comment when the alarm went off that we had better move it. One guy even set his alarm at 11h00. 11h00 is a nice mid-morning marker.

The alarm is still set and I run my days by it now. I mostly try to work my days along the lines of ‘eating the frog’ first thing in the morning – this gets all the mundane, grotty, boring jobs out the way, usually, hopefully; and then I have the time to provide a bit of real value to the job, usually, hopefully!

BTW there is a great little comedy piece on TED Talks by Rives called 4am. Link is here:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/rives_on_4_a_m.html

The Rhino Story

I am as appalled as the next person with the wholesale slaughter of our rhinos. In the last couple of weeks there have been outpourings of condemnation of the killings; the statistics for last year topped at way over 400 rhinos killed and at the beginning of the year, another 8 (and since then quite a few more) were found dead and de-horned in the Kruger Park; and if I am not mistaken, all in the same spot.

Apart from my feelings being rattled for these poor creatures, my feelings for what is being done about it are being rattled even more. I, like many others, click on the like button when something appears on facebook about this; I have signed petitions and shaken my head in horror and shame that us humans can be so stupid as to think that taking a bit or rhino horn will make big fat willies or cure cancer and AIDS.

But, and here’s the thing, we all say something must be done and I agree wholeheartedly. I, like many, many others, have contributed to various organisations that are flying the ‘Save the Rhino’ banner. And this is where I suddenly have a problem. Every uncle and his brother (maybe a slight exaggeration) and corporate and smaller companies have set up funds and NPO’s, NGO’s, to fight the scourge that is rhino poaching. And they are collecting money left right and centre for night vision goggles, WMD for fighting poachers, vehicles for tracking poachers and training course for trackers to track poachers; and it is possibly quite a s*&t load of money to fight this battle. There are billboards showing blood-soaked rhinos, there are bumper stickers, there are adverts on radio and TV advertising the campaigns to fight rhino poaching. Companies proudly say they have a Save the Rhino fund and Rx of your purchase goes towards this. Better yet: the SA Parks Board trotted out a figure of R400 million the other week that they reckon will be needed to fight the battle in Kruger…where does this figure come from? What is the plan? How did they get to this amount of money or was it just a big fat thumb suck?

Well, with tears in my eyes let’s face it: With all this support the situation is getting worse, by the week. More rhinos killed last year than ever before and 8, yes 8, in one week in one of our National Parks…good grief. So what the heck is actually happening with all these organisations and money and contributions, petitions and ‘like clicks’. And here’s another thing: Another of our most profitable natural resources (ito tourism, Big 5 etc) is being plundered by foreigners – because the big market place for this resource is outside of SA– sort of similar to the rape and plunder of our mineral resources by foreign powers in days gone by….

Moving on: Does anyone know how many organisations are out there fighting for the rhinos? Does anyone know how much money (or goods – vehicles, night goggles etc) has been raised by all these organisations? Does anyone actually know what they have done with it – I mean apart from a big advertising spend to tell everyone that they support the Rhino cause, the printing of bumper stickers and paying marketing and advertising agencies to come up with fancy logo’s and tag lines?

Is what they are doing effective……well, go figure! I certainly don’t think so – and certainly not based on last year’s results and the appalling slaughter that took place this week. Nope….whatever is happening is not doing a hell of a lot of good. It is extremely noble that people set up these things – we all feel passionate about this and are grateful that some good souls out there actually do something – but what are they doing?

We need a consolidated plan…everyone together …. with the various parks boards, private game parks, interested parties, trainee tracker schools, NPO’s, NGO’s etc etc . We need a person to take charge…just one person to take charge if this for the entire country; to put a crew together, consolidate all the efforts and come up with a proper plan, like a military campaign would be done…and then they must go for it – then I don’t mind handing over my money.

Sharing your dreams

When I was on the Camino I walked for 3 days with a young American woman. She was on her way to one of the biggish towns and had heard that I was going to turn what should be a 2 day trek into a three day trek – which suited her down to the ground and she asked if she would walk with me.

It turned out that she would then bus it from this town to the next city where she was meeting her husband and they would then walk the last 100km or so to Santiago together. Her husband was flying in from the US.

She was nice to be with, very open and not afraid to talk about herself. She had a hugely interesting job and had lived in a number of foreign countries because of it – both her and her husband work for a large Aid organisation in the US. They don’t go in just when the earthquake or disaster has happened; they go in a bit later and begin the task of rebuilding – so at times, they may be in a location for months or even years. For example this organisation is still in Haiti – which has a barrel of problems that seem to be insoluble….

However: I asked her how this affected her marriage. Because sometimes they may be posted to the same place, but other times they are in separate locations, and because the work is pretty stressful, which also takes a toll on their marriage.

What Christina said has stuck with me….she said sure, they have problems, they have to have counselling anyway because of the job but when things had got a bit

hectic with their marriage they immediately went for counselling. She says they have a really good marriage (15 years long) and they love each other and this was something neither of them wanted to give up. They had to work it out. Which they appear to have done! Part of living successfully the way they do is to always be very open with each other – especially about what they want to do. She spoke about how they deal with their dreams, their expectations, and their resolutions. She said they consciously make time to talk about what they want to do. They stick their ideas on the fridge so they know that something is brewing and the dreams/ideas are there as a reminder; then over dinner they talk about them. They talk about what they can do and how they can help each other achieve that dream. The dream becomes a team effort – not losing sight that this is one persons dream and that person is in charge of making the dream happen - but there also is someone on the sidelines encouraging, supporting, making allowances if need be. I guess you could call it a ‘dream team’.

She said The Camino had been her dream for 3 years. She had to save up her leave and also money; and she wanted to do it by herself. She said they both made sacrifices (like no long weekends or short holidays together) but she said the very best thing was, a few weeks before she left for Spain, her husband asked if he could join her for the last week - she knew then that she would be able to complete The Camino….

Happy Recipes

Happy 2012....warm wishes for a year ahead that is kind to you.

I thought that these 2 recipes would be a good start to the New Year – brightly coloured, good for you and very yummy…..real happy food!

The first comes from Deon Braun – the publisher of the new TRAIL magazine. Deon had me waiting in anticipation ever since he put out this little temptation on Facebook… “you have to have a Pawpaw Bunny”….. so when I got my Trail Magazine just before Christmas the first thing I looked for was the Pawpaw Bunny…..

Deon comes from Durban, home of the famous Bunny Chow. Trail Magazine’s variation of the infamous Bunny is as follows…and let me also confess that I have eaten quite a few in the past week or so….. Thanks to Deon and Trail magazine for this recipe

Pawpaw Bunny

Take one pawpaw – size depends on how hungry you are….

Peel it with a potato peeler

Cut it in half an scoop out the pips

Mash or finely cut up one half and fill the remaining half some of this

Spoon over heaps of plain yoghurt

Sprinkle with heaps of ground cinnamon

Sprinkle with brown caramel sugar (or honey or nothing sweet if you so desire)

Eat and enjoy….

NB: The flavour mix of pawpaw, cinnamon and yoghurt is quite magical

The second is: Happy Carrot Soup

Why is it happy soup: well, there is wine in it, chicken stock to cure all ills, a really nice colour and ginger to spice things up and you can eat it hot or cold…..

You will need:

Enough butter to sauté the onions and garlic

1 large onion chopped

About a litre and half of chicken stock – I use those new Knorr stock jelly cubes… but you can make your own

2 teaspoons of finely chopped ginger (according to taste – more if you like ginger)

1 or 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped (also according to taste but not too much that it swamps the other flavors)

1 cup good dry white wine

Large bunch of carrots, cut into smallish pieces

2 tablespoons lemon juice, pinch curry powder, salt & ground pepper

Chopped fresh chives or parsley

Melt butter in a large pot over medium heat. Add onion, ginger and garlic; sweat it with the lid on for about 15 – 20 minutes, heat down to low.

Add the stock, wine and carrots. Bring to the boil. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered over medium heat until the carrots are very tender, about 45 minutes. Make sure it is not too liquid – the soup must be thickish…..

Puree the soup in a blender. Season with lemon juice, curry powder, salt & pepper to taste. Sprinkle with chives or parsley. Serve hot or cold.

A good dollop of cream or plain yoghurt on top of the soup is wonderful!

Christmas is here

I love Christmas and I love my birthday – both are great days to celebrate and spend time with family and friends.

But these events are coming around faster and faster and Christmas this year seems to have arrived 2 months after the start of the year – if that makes sense! This year has whooshed by and I don’t believe I am the only one to think so.

Chris Smith of The Naked Scientist fame had this to say when asked if time is actually going faster, if 24 hours isn’t 24 hours anymore (and I take a great deal of liberty paraphrasing what he said): Nope…it isn’t going faster but we think it is…and why? Maybe because we just do things faster these days; we have email – instant letters whereas before they took a week to get to us and a week to reply – now we reply within minutes or at least within 24 hours. We have cell phones – always in touch and communicating…voice, text and so on. We can fly all over the world and get to our destination quickly and relatively easily. Our cars are faster (and better roads), trains are faster…we have 24 hour TV and radio; we get news of what is happening around the world almost as soon as it happens. We don’t wait for anything anymore – we order books on line and now we can also just down load them off the internet, if we want to look up anything (research, find out) we just Google it. The shops are always open; we have easy credit (no saving for anything)……..everything is instant.

This means that we can actually do a lot more – and this give us the feeling that time is flying…everything goes really fast.

Is this good for us – well who knows. I for one, like/love all the benefits of the stuff listed above and am not quite sure how I (and all of us I guess) would manage without it…imagine no cell phones – yikes?

But it is tiring, and this year has left me shaking my head and wondering how I got to another Christmas so quickly – I can intellectualise all of Chris Smiths reasons but emotionally I cant….it has all happened too quickly.

I haven’t done an E card yet, I haven’t written a Christmas letter of my goings on this year, I haven’t even put up decorations yet – all I have is a little stylised ceramic statue of Mary & Josef holding baby Jesus (Baby Jesus looking remarkably like a pea-pod) and when I light the little candle inside, black smoke comes out of the star cut-out on Josef’s head – it is quite alarming! But tonight I am putting up all the lights and tinsel and glass balls…..Santa must be tempted to visit our household.

And so everyone, I take this time to wish you all a wonderful and love-filled Christmas-time….

Blessings to you all.

Liz

PS. If you want to see the very best Christmas wish ever go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzxkNRvujiw&feature=share

Beginning of the Month Snippets

Good reads:

I have been catching up on my reading since getting back from Spain….

Ape House by Sara Gruen (she wrote Water for Elephants) – interesting and based on real research done in the US on teaching apes to use sign language.

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein: Written in a dog’s voice….and a clever one at that who doesn’t try to be cute by referring to a car as a kennel on wheels or stupid stuff like that. There are lots of feel good messages in the book...but not rammed down your throat. Although I haven’t quite finished the book I kinda know that I am going to shed a few tears at the end…a really enjoyable read.

Recessional for Grace by Marguerite Poland: One of the little reviews on the back page says of this book…’an achingly beautiful exploration of biography, folklore and lost love.’ And I so whole heartedly agree…this is an exquisite book, a story that unfolds that you never want to end. The author is a local lass who co-authored The Abundant Herds: A celebration of Nguni Cattle. And you can almost smell and feel the beautiful Ngunis in Recessional for Grace…and you can see the landscapes. Her descriptions are so well written and economically written – she doesn’t waste a word…. Thanks to Stella in my book-club for this one.

Vanilla Velvet:

I found this on the shelf in Pick ‘n Pay where they have the Ultramel custard. Vanilla Velvet is made by First Choice (the long life milk people) and I have a feeling they might also make Chocolate Velvet. This stuff is sinful, decadent and you will never use plain old cream or custard again…..exceptionally yummy and fortunately doesn’t have too much fat..or at least not as much as cream. You would still have to do 3 laps round the block if you over indulge.

The Tax Season:

Now that this is over we can all rest easy and enjoy any refunds received…some luckier than others in this regard. I have to put SARS at the top of my list for good service…and especially as it has such good manners. Today I received an SMS thanking me for submitting my tax return in good time….isn’t that nice.

Getting More Awesome (from Lisa’s Blog) This is especially for those of you who live your lives a little differently to the norm:

As you know, FEAT Canada took place in Vancouver on 15 November. One of the speakers, Jen Olsen, is a mountain guide - one of only seven female internationally certified mountain guides in the World.
Her FEAT talk is online and in her talk she mentions facing her 40th birthday in a few weeks and she adds, "I've been feeling devastated about not having a husband, kids or a pension plan".
She then refers to a quote she saw on Facebook that goes: "Everyone I know if getting married or pregnant... I'm just getting more awesome."
Right on, Jen. I can relate (not about being devastated about not having a husband or children, but that there's a spate of marriages and pregnancies).

Here's to awesomeness!

Restaurants:

First: I have decided to boycott restaurants that don’t have tablecloths or little place mats (paper will do). I have watched in horror as the waiter wipes the tabletop with a grim looking cloth which leaves little greasy trails all over the surface – not just once but many times. In Europe, in the smallest, tiniest café or restaurant, they put a new, pristine paper cloth or mat on the table for each new patron…Why, oh why can’t they do this here…There has to be a business opportunity here for someone methinks.

Second: Why oh why do you get forgotten about in a restaurant…I went out to dins with my sister-in-law Marie-Jose, friend Judy and Lisa last night. We had taken the trouble to make a reservation because the webpage said it was an excellent restaurant and the various and recent reviews had given the place 5 stars. Liars! Anyway, after waiting for more than hour for our food – we were nearly eating the tablecloth and had even begged for a snack or something….…Judy leapt up and said she was throwing in the towel so we all followed her lead and charged off to the desk to pay for our drinks; the guys at the desk were really upset with us and they said they had been busy….been busy? Yes, but what about us? No, they were doing our food now but we said we didn’t want it anymore…..and left. Went to an Ocean Basket at the local mall and got a great fish and chip meal, great service and icy, icy cold wine, had a great deal of fun and the meal was very reasonable.

Senior Moment

Blog by Lisa

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Senior moment By: Lisa http://adventurelisa.blogspot.com/2011/11/senior-moment.html Posted: 28 Nov 2011 12:38 PM PST On Saturday night, my mom and I went to watch the most recent of the Twilight moves, Breaking Dawn (part 1). Our teenage cousin got us both into Twilight; we've read the books and have seen the previous movies. This one was sweet (they really could have put the whole book into one movie) but this isn't a movie review. With youth flooding the ticketing desk, we get directed to the popcorn counter - the lady can issue tickets from the one terminal. We tell her the movie we want to see. We select our seats. She says, "That's one adult and one senior". So I ask, "What's senior - 60?". "Yes," she says. My mom is not yet 60 - she's got eight months to go. But I just couldn't bring myself to correct the young lass; she would have been so embarrassed. Instead I give my mom a big hug. We watch the movie. Lots of smooching between Edward and Bella. Jacob is growing up and looking more dishy; I can see what my cousin sees in him (Team Jacob). Mom and I are Team Edward (although I'm way more into the most delightfully wicked vampire sheriff, Eric - Alexander Skardgard - from True Blood). I don't get what Edward sees in Bella - she reminds me of Frodo from Lord of the Rings. Snivelling. Anyhow... We walk out of the theatre and mom nudges me. "It's because of you". "Me what?" I ask. "She thought I was a senior because of you. It doesn't happen when Judy and I go to movies." Judy and mom are similar age. Indeed, having a daughter with a good dose of grey hair, despite my youthful complexion, would scoot mom right into the 60s classification. We both think it is helluva funny. As we walk she keeps poking me and saying again, "It's you". Two years ago I took the plunge to never colour my hair again. Turning grey at a young age runs in my dad's family. He was completely silver in his mid 30s. My aunt says she was the same. I found my first grey hairs at 21; more in my mid 20s and by 28 I was covering the grey with dyes close to my natural colour. Fed up with being a slave to colour (it's a pollutant, dries out your scalp and hair, my hair grows really fast and I think regrowth looks trashy), I decided to let the grey grow out. I chopped my hair short and it took a year to eliminate the colour residue. At the same time, mom took the plunge too. She reasoned that if her daughter is grey, she couldn't very well still be a brunette. It was the best decision that we both could have made. Grey is traditionally associated with aging. If someone has grey hair they couldn't possibly be young, could they? Of course they can. This is a nice article on MailOnline about "Why are today's women going grey at 25?". I remember a spread in Time Magazine about Hillary Clinton, when she was running in the elections. The article was Hillary and some other women and it discussed whether it was 'right' for them to let their hair go grey or does grey hair make them old and past their sell-by date and thus not credible to be in positions of responsibility - or so public perception goes. Grrr... But look at George Clooney or Richard Gere... grey is sexy then. Ja, just as the article I linked to above says, "While men get given the silver fox sobriquet when they start to show signs of salt and pepper, when it comes to women grey equals grandma. From society’s perspective, a woman with grey hair is over the hill and has reached the end of her reproductive life." In my book, grey is just a hair colour. It's my natural hair colour. Grey doesn't change my brain cells nor add another 20 years to the amount of time I've spent on the planet. But, it does get my mom into movies at R8.00 less for her ticket.

Violent Crime: The State of the Nation

My boss moved with his family, to Cape Town about 2 years ago. He says he knew a couple of people who had been killed in hijackings and robberies in Johannesburg and he felt very unsafe here. So he moved to the Cape and says he feels much, much safer there. Albeit people do get killed there as well, Cape Town obviously has the right PR machine going which gives the residents a feeling of well being – good for them.

But here’s the thing – you have more chance of being killed, beaten up, raped and abused by your nearest and dearest, someone you know….by someone who is really close to you. Scary isn’t it.

At the mo, we are having 16 days of activism against women and child abuse. How does this activism help – well I don’t know but I certainly hope it makes people aware of the appalling levels of women and child violence and abuse in our country. We can bemoan the fact that there is a lot of crime in SA but the real nitty gritty scourge of violence against women and children is seldom given the same emotive outpourings as a robbery or hijacking. I don’t see people picketing for the death penalty for baby/child rapists….. and nor do I hear of people leaving town because women and children are being abused and killed in their neighborhood by their nearest and dearest, those closest to them.

The stats say that one in four women in this country will be raped. I don’t know what the figures are for wife and child killings, violent beatings and maiming. These crimes are not reported separately by the police; they are lumped into the general category of murder and assault with intent etc. And bear in mind that the crimes are only recorded when someone reports a rape or assault or even a killing for that matter.

Rudi Giuliani launched the broken window campaign in New York city which seemed to have fixed not only the city, but the psyche of the people living there. We need a campaign to fix the psyche of our people….that it’s just not ok to beat the hell out of your wife and kids, not so lekker to rape babies, children and women, and it really is not right to kill your wife and kids, hack up the neighbour’s kid up for muti, kill the chick next door or the woman down the road because she said no. And nor is it ok to ‘accident’ little kids just because you don’t want to pay maintenance – chilling!

Have you ever wondered what the diagnosis would be if the country of South Africa was given a psychiatric evaluation? Would it be something like: psychopath with paranoid schizophrenic tendencies?

A society is extremely sick when some of the most vulnerable people in it are not safe. It is very sick when we still hear comments like: well she asked for it; I wonder what she did to cause him to do that; the dress she was wearing was too short. What do you say, or what reasons do you give for a small child who can’t speak yet?

With this kind of violence, the appalling levels of crime against women and children why aren’t making more of a fuss…..why aren’t we ratting to the cops on wife beaters and the filthy sods who are raping their small kids every night. We can’t keep quiet and say this isn’t our business. It is our business.