Illusion

I see animals.

OK, you say, so does everyone.

Yes, well....I see animals  that frequently are not there. I see birds where others see only a clump of leaves. I see a lion where there's a big tan rock. I see hoofed animals that turn out to broken tree branches. I see rhinos where....well, I actually do see rhinos.

I don't think of myself as blind, just lucky. Many people have mocked my "sightings" but I know they're only jealous. Not everyone has the keen imagination necessary to see a stone wall as an elephant and her child. Knowing and loving the power of  illusion, I live for game drives, keeping my eyes open to what I may discover. I'm always the first to spot a troop of baboons (rocks strewn across a field), a giraffe (a yellow fever tree) or a huge crocodile (a fallen log, floating). I enjoy muttering, "Oh, false alarm," to my companions' signs and groans. 

Call me the little girl who cried wolf, er.....leopard. But don't make me get new glasses.

Gifts

Jenny sent us a care package for our birthdays--a box of  So African goodies. You'd think from the looks of us that Americans are the chief snackers of the world. I can confirm that with the size of my seat. But certain SA treats put our reputation to shame and threaten the popularity of the junk that made it happen.

Enough to say Art and I were like two children on Christmas Eve, a week after being adopted by a wealthy and loving family. We pawed happily through the smooth Cadbury chocolate bars in flavors we don't get here: Top Deck, Turkish Delight, Milk, Dark Chocolate. Yum. There were short-bread biscuits--that's cookies to us--and yummy sodas called -tizers: grapetizer, appletizer. We doled the goodies out one-by-one. We inevitably ran out, long before we wanted to, or even realized we were getting low on supplies. 

That was a great gift--the second of its kind Jenny sent us, so to me it feels like a tradition in the making. Wonderful as the new box was, it lacked my two favorites: rusks, those hard-as-biscotti dried up things that look like big croutons but are most delicious when dipped in coffee or tea. AND biltong! 

That's OK though--Jenny ordered this stuff from a California shop called the African Hut. For some reason, biltong thru a US shop is OK. Biltong thru the airport in your hand luggage is not. That "legality" kills it for me and lets me quickly "forgive" Jenny's omission. It's simply not the same recipe. 

I like my biltong spiced with intrigue and subterfuge and encounters with meat-sniffing dogs. 

Painting

We're getting the house ready to sell. Don't laugh. Damn the economy, all the house needs is some paint, right? And with Popped Corn and Parmesan, we're reforming the place. You can laugh now cause those are the colors we're painting...the corny color is a pale, pale yellow, just off white. The cheesy one is shiny white. Corn on walls, cheese on woodwork. Does that mean we need do nothing in the kitchen?

Painting is painful. I can't say that I enjoy it much, but it's the least we can do for this poor old house. We've concentrated everything on the garden, leaving the inside to fend for itself. So now we're trying to whip it presentable, tho I'm not sure violence is the answer.

Unless something drastic happens politically to prevent us, we're going to Africa. Hell with politics, our So African friend Jenny says. In order to go, and to stay for the extended period we want to stay, we gotta sell this place. 

Spring threatens to pop soon, and if only the snow would stop, I could feel even more optimistic. Our lovely garden will sell the place, I'm sure, with a little help from the corn and the cheese.

Politics

I decided today that I've got to read up on the history of southern Africa. I can't understand why the people in power in that region, and So Africa particularly, seem hell bent on destroying it. I guess thousand-year-old tribal pride, ritual and tradition make enemies for eternity. It's rather like Mormons sealing themselves to their families til the end of time. Gruesome no matter which way you look at it. 

Robert Mugabe ruined Zimbabwe so completely that the once and future "breadbasket to Africa" is a ransacked, treacherous place where farmers are pushed off their land--or murdered off it--just because they are white. Don't make the mistake I did and call that a racist thing to say. Black or white, you shouldn't suffer for your skin color. Whites were not indigenous to Africa, but they've been there a long, long time, the obvious minority. They ruled harshly against the blacks, who now retaliate. For what good purpose? Worse than retaliation is the black-on-black violence that runs amok through that country. "Appalling" does nothing to describe it.

Zimbabwe's inflation rate is 165,000 percent. Life expectancy is 37. We think we've got it bad with our unemployment rates, but Zimbabwe boasts 80 percent. Minimum wage is 200,000,000,000 and one egg costs 20,000,000. The most damning thing is the way Mugabe tortures and kills his opponents. Look around on YouTube if you're curious, but don't do it while you're eating. 

Looks like Jacob Zuma wants to do the same damn thing to So Africa. Zuma's supporters are young and wild and uneducated. And 100 percent black. His foes are numerous, blacks and whites, including the likes of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, once so widely and wildly cherished by So Africans. These two bastions of So African reform are now ridiculed as old men, out of touch with their country.

And Zuma? He was charged with hundreds of cases of fraud, murder and rape, extortion and bribery. Just as he was about to go to trial, the whole lot got dismissed. Can't have the next president of So Africa serving from jail, now can we?

Like Zimbabwe, So Africa bristles with corruption. Will it go the way Zimbabwe did? I don't know, but I'm fretting about it. So I guess I'll find something to read about the politics that brought So Africa to this point. 

I have a feeling it won't make me happy.

Imagination

I've been held captive by the winter--the longest in my life--and during the snow storm yesterday, all I could think about was the heat on the veldt.

When I picture us in Africa, I bypass thinking about the long  flight, the expense of getting there, the visa complications where there were none before, the worry over Art's mom's reaction when we tell her we are going. I forget the long list of complications I constantly jot into my little notebook. And mostly I forget the freezing weather and look beyond the white flakes to that silver lining, hard as it is to see.

I see us there, the tall grass yellowed in the sun. I see us spotting the lion lying disguised there, tips of his black mane visible only accidentally. 

"There! You see him now,  don't you?"

Yes I do, in my daydreams, in my night dreams, I see him. I see the rhinos mating. I see the jewel-like birds flitting in and out of the undergrowth. I see a troop of baboons led by a long-toothed bruiser. I see giraffes bending their long necks through splayed legs to drink. I see the sun, which is more than I can do here.

Yes, I have an active imagination. It does wonders for me as I scrape ice off the windshield.