Musings from the Electrified City

On the Eve of 28

2006-06-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

I used the elliptical trainer today at the gym and they ask you to type in your age- today was 27 but tomorrow will be 28. I was tempted to type in 28 today but I am pretty adamant about accuracy so I stopped myself. The compulsion towards "taking care of life effectively" is a bit overwhelming at times- today I picked up dry cleaning and I was short ten rand (about $1.30). I was short in the sense that I had 283 rand in cash and the bill came to 293 rand. I don't like using credit cards all that much in South Africa (particularly for smallish amounts) so the cashier wrote "owing 10 rand" on my next slip- for the clothes that I dropped off this afternoon. I have to physically restrain myself from going back there tomorrow to give her 10 rand even though the clothes won't yet be ready. It just feels like a loose end that's not tied up. When I start a new jar of cosmetics- like La Mer eyecream- it feels fabulous until the jar is half used. Then I just want the jar to be finished so I can open a new one. This isn't a metaphorical statement but an aesthetic one- the jars are so pretty and new in the beginning but icky and congealed by the end. It feels like a lot of the ritzy housing complexes in Jo'burg- shiny and pink and lacquered from a distance but shoddy and chipped up close.

Everytime I clear my inboxes and take a deep breath there's more to answer if I turn away from the computer for a moment. My clothes are perfectly folded from the washing service but if I even try on a shirt for a minute or so, it feels wrinkled. When I take notes at meetings, my handwriting starts out neat and perfectly formed until it emerges into rough scribbles- frantically trying to keep up with the pace on the page.

All is well on the eve of 28. I feel vibrant, full of work, full of interests, full of life, full. I have 10 lipglosses stocked in the cupboard in case the one in my make-up bag runs dry. I feel so grateful to have an amazing nuclear family (notice if I specify "nuclear" as opposed to "extended" there must be a reason) and I am blessed with extraordinarily close relationships.

But 28 is still sad, in a way. All the people who keep saying "oh 28 is soooooooo young" are quite old themselves. My 11 year-old neighbor does think I'm old. I'm one of the adults now and I can't really pass with the teens. When I was 18, I used to "study" at the Second Cup on St. Laurent every weeknight with all of my friends and drink terrible lattes and laugh until I cried and ignore all the boys I dated but now hated. Now, I make better lattes at home, really do work instead of staring out the window for two hours, and use anti-aging eye cream. I'm not sure if I want to go back to falling asleep at 5:00 am with my make-up still on and waking up to a streaky mascara-scarred pillowcase and going out for brunch at 4:00 pm but it was really, really fun.

But is it statistically significant?

2006-06-07T06:45:00.001-07:00

I am really surprised. I just tutored a first year B.Com undergrad student at Wits (University of Witswatersrand) in inferential statistics (please do not laugh anyone who attended MI451 at the LSE with me as you may recall my reading Heat throughout most classes and begging MH to teach me what standard deviation was three days before the exam). I actually really like stats now and am using quantitative analysis all the time in my dissertation and consulting work. Go figure...

Anyway, her course (again a first year undergrad) goes far more into depth in regression/inferential statistics than our London School of Economics postgrad course did. Can you believe it? Sometimes I feel like "brand name" education is as meaningful a label as "designer" jeans (speaking of which---- my really expensive designer jeans are holding up much worse than the Chicos jeans my mom bought for me). And, yes, Chicos is really middle-aged (even more so than Eileen Fisher) but they fit well.

How Lame

2006-06-06T08:20:00.000-07:00

Why does my all-pink gated complex (inside a gated suburb) insist on installing colonial taps into all the bathrooms? Colonial taps are beyond lame- basically there are two taps for each sink, either freezing cold or scalding hot. Those are your two choices when washing your hands. Alternatively, you can plug the basin and create "warm" water. Oh thanks--- I don't like basins of nasty water exposed to the elements when you are attempting to get clean. Also, every night when I wash my face (I stupidly bought 3 bottles of Evian Oxygenated Facial Wash from www.drugstore.com in 2005 after reading about it in American Vogue and am counting the days until they are finished because I can't stand the texture and medicinal smell) I splash water everywhere dealing with the warm water basin issue (and inevitably when my hair is straight it starts to curl from the warm water basin moisture). I may start showering twice a day because it is easier to wash my face that way but then I have to deal with the hair issue--- i.e. the longer it gets, the more my arm starts to hurt combing it out. Oh well, at least I have running water unlike millions of South Africans.

Reading List

2006-06-05T04:40:00.000-07:00

I like to read about ten books simultaneously- both academic and non-academic. It satisfies all the different brain lobes and also helps to enforce a state of constant stress- feeling like you are never reading enough, doing enough, living enough, sleeping enough. Ickily, I like that feeling.

1. A Woman in Jerusalem- A.B. Yehoshua- I used to read voraciouly Middle Eastern fiction and non-fiction. Until I just stopped. For no apparent reason other than battle fatigue. I like this book though since I am fascinated by migrant workers, particularly in Israel and in Dubai (see a great Vanity Fair article in May 2006 on this subject). There is really limited literary representation of these lost people- straddled between worlds, earning far more than in their native countries but suffering along the way, particularly in countries with insular identities.

2. The Lost Life of Eva Braun- Angela Lambert- A really irritating biography of Eva Braun's relationship with Hitler. There is a whole chapter on the comic books that both liked, no joke. I have to throw it down in disgust often, but I always pick it up again.

3. The White Man's Burden- William Easterly- Awesome, awesome, awesome. A groundbreaking economic account/history of the failures of "big government and NGO" development efforts in the global South. It is a perfect contrast to the utopian vision of Jeffrey Sachs in The End to Poverty which I am forcing myself to finish but it is really my bag book- I stick it in my purses to make sure I have something to read if I have five minutes of down-time at the mall or the petrol station (or watching two hours of a Miss Italia beauty pageant rehearsal under false premises. Don't ask, but let's just say don't fall for the old "this meeting will only be 20 minutes and we can get Italian Club pizza afterwards." Three espressos later, one conversation with a Sicilian mobster, half a regina pizza later, I'm still here).

4. AIDS and South Africa: The Social Expression of a Pandemic- ed. by Kyle Kauffman and David Lindauer- very, very good particularly the chapter on the South African national goverment's crisis of leadership on this issue. It suits my dissertation since one chapter offers an institutional account of the virus' spread throughout South Africa.

5. AIDS in the 21st Century: Disesase and Globalization- Tony Barnett and Alan Whiteside- the bible. Paged through and dog-eared many times over. This is the bible of social science accounts of HIV/AIDS. It is incredibly far-reaching and sweeping and covers economic, social, and clinical origins and outcomes of this disease.

6. French Women Don't Get Fat- oh shame, still haven't managed to go on that three-day leek fast. Next week, I promise. For reference only.

7. British Vogue- April 2006- This reminds me of the chick who came over to my apartment (shared with my then college boyfriend) and proclaimed to my then boyfriend (upon seeing my Vogues) "but I thought she was a feminist!" She then went into the bathroom and smelled all of my shampoos and conditioners and told me "now I know why your hair smells so good." I still love Vogue and if make-up is incompatible with feminist beliefs, I don't think there is a single feminist in Jo'burg cause the most common make-up brush used here is trough and scraper.

8. South African Style- Taschen sexy art book- love the pictures of vineyards and Cape beaches. It is fluff and but it was a nice present and I may regift the idea.

9. Economic behavior and institutions- Thrainn Eggertson- the definitive origins of new institutional economics. This is a book you have to work at, but I really need to master it.

Car Talk

2006-06-01T23:49:00.000-07:00

I step out of the shower to a ringing mobile phone. He tells me that the guys from BMW will be over in ten minutes and I'm going for a test drive with them- it's a midnight blue BMW 330 Diesel with chestnut wood panels and retro finishes on the dashboard. The power is immense and the machine is a vision- the new BMWs have rounded corners and softer lines but are extraordinary looking. I'm sitting in the front seat- no time to put on any make-up or dry the wet curls, but the car is the adornment and attraction.

Hips Don't Lie booms from the radio (incidentally, finally available on I-Tunes!) and I notice 6000 kilometers already recorded on the odometer. The BMW rep mentions that his last customer gave up the 300d because he is "very particular about motor vehicles. He didn't like the diesel purr."

South African yuppie men always refer to cars as "automobiles" or "motor vehicles." As in, "I love the power this motor vehicle gives me. Feeling the road beneath, the sun against my face." It's more elegant than the American "car."

The BMW rep mentions the enormous responsibility conveyed in choosing a motor vehicle- the absolute centrality of the selected automobile to your life. "After all nothing says more about you than the motor vehicle you choose to drive."

People here have fuzzy notions of the differences between choice, reality, and necessity. Has the gardener across the street making do with hellishly unsafe kombi taxis chosen not to purchase a BMW? Has the father sacrificing the quality of his children's education in favor of a BMW made the right choice to preserve the family image?

Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula has some interesting words about choice and reality vis-a-vis the escalating crime situation in this country. From this morning's news:

Cape Town - Stop bitching or get out!

That was Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula's message on Thursday to those that he called "constant moaners".

And to those threatening to leave the country because of the high crime rate, the message was: "Get a life!

"There are two options. You can complain until you are blue in the face or leave the country so that the rest of us can get on with our work."

Among those, he said, were the Democratic Alliance's Roy Jankielsohn and Ray King, as well as Pieter Groenewald of the Freedom Front Plus.

Nqakula said during the discussion of his budget vote it was significant that complaints always came from people with surnames such as Jankielsohn, King and Groenewald.

Townships used to fighting crime

"Why don't you hear complaints from township folk?"

Nqakula said the reason probably was because township residents had been fighting crime for years.

"The government you were part of left these people to their own devices when it came to crime.

"Now that you're also on the receiving end of crime, you start complaining.

"That's disgusting!"

Unfortunately his recommendation that ordinary citizens not protest crime but rather choose to get a life is a bit optimistic- they are protesting since so many have been gunned down, murdered with total abandon and bloodlust. Notice too his singling out of white Members of Parliament criticizing the ANC on their complete lack of effectiveness in getting crime under control (for township, rural, urban or suburban residents- really the whole country). The racial dimension is not a coincidence.

An Outspoken Ilana

2006-05-31T05:48:00.000-07:00

I really liked this letter published today in a South African newspaper in the Western Cape from a fellow Ilana... I also really like her snazzy "van Rensburg" surname.

Dear Editor,

Today I visited our local municipality and I was shocked to find that the staff were sitting with heaters on in their air-conditioned offices.

When I enquired as to why they were using heaters when the Western Cape is in a power supply crisis, the lady behind the counter responded, "Because it's cold". I proceeded to ask her if she knew we must conserve electricity as there are Eskom campaigns running on the radios and in the newspapers, and she told me that she didn't have a radio

I went on to tell her how expensive it is to run heaters, and she wasn't in the least bit concerned and stated that "the electricity gets paid for, so it's okay".

Should the municipality not be setting the example? I called the municipal manager's office and the manager was not available, but when I explained what was happening to the lady who took the call, she too was not concerned.

Please help me understand this. Eskom has allocated a specific number of kilowatts for consumption and by tonight when I get home and I need to bath my kids, cook the supper and do the homework, there won't be enough electricity, and Eskom will switch it off.

Ilana van Rensburg
Worcester

I think there is little to no evidence to suggest that anyone is actually attempting to conserve energy in this tide before the storm. Blindingly lit advertisements stay on all night in Sandton and the Northern suburbs don't scrimp on underneath-the-floor heating tiles. South Africans in informal settlements- backyard shacks, illegal inner-city flats, and the like- are the true conseravtionists. Without electricity to begin with, they make do with crumpled-up newspaper, kerosene, dirty blankets, and sheer fortitude.

Mixed Messages

2006-05-31T02:56:00.000-07:00

We have dinner last night with a Jo'burg entrepreneur--- an importer of the world's "best" cosmetic line, manufactured by hand in Italy. I like to pride myself, normally, on more than adequate applications of logic and thorough analysis, but I totally lose all sense of reason vis-a-vis the beauty industry. The Jo'burg beauty business seems to have taken it though to new levels of hyperbole and guilt complexing and I am putty. Until now. I'm taking a stand.

Bedford Centre

Hair Chick (I mean stylist) #1: Your hair is soooooooooooo fine. You should really try TIGI's new line for fine hair. They have a shampoo, conditioner, and protein coater.
Ilana: Last week I was told my hair is soooooooooooooooooooo thick.
Hair Chick #1: Well, it is fine. Fine-thick. It's just that you have millions of strands so he must have been confused. But it's fine in a thick way.

Hyde Park Carlton Hair

Celebrity Hair Guru: Your hair is soooooooooooooooooooo damaged. What have you been doing?
Ilana: Just sitting at the computer.
Celebrity Hair Guru: It must be the ionic waves from the screen. Your hair is sooooooooooooooooooooo damaged. We have the newest technology from Italy to de-ionize. You have to try it.
One Hour Later under a Ceramic Head-Plate while Hair is Wrapped in Plastic Bags
Celebrity Hair Guru: You really need to come every week to de-ionize. All of my ladies do.

Eastgate, One Week Later

Master Stylist: How can I help you?
Ilana: I got a gift certificate for a blow-dry as a present.
Master Stylist: Your hair is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo damaged. You really a need a moisture intensive treatment.
Ilana: Really... cause I just had it de-ionized?
Master Stylist: Well, I have never seen hair that is sooooooooooooooooooooooo damaged. The capsule of treatment is only R250 and you reallllllllllllllllllllllllly need it.
Ilana: Um, I don't have time.
Master Stylist: Well, I guess, if you're willing to risk it and all. I wouldn't take that risk and all.
Ilana: Well, given that it is Jo'burg and all, I think it was more of a risk to drive here and put up with the hijackers and crazy kombi taxi drivers waiting in the wings.
Master Stylist: Not really. Damaged hair poses a maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaajor risk to health as you age.

How Familiar

2006-05-30T02:20:00.000-07:00

I had a coffee break at Europa in Norwood yesterday- one of the few Jo'burg suburbs with any street life that doesn't exclusively include various souls aggressively selling wooden birds whose beaks bend or now that it is winter in the Southern Hemisphere, polyester ponchos. I'm chatting with my cool-cat Jo'burg chick friend and our mutual guy friend- in his 40s, Jewish, not yet married, chatty, fun, eclectic. I'm having a bowl of vanilla ice cream for lunch since I can no longer ingest any more halloumi cheese or smoked salmon for at least another month. South African food is so delicious and fresh, but can be limited in scope.

Male friend has a new girlfriend that we both know. She's lovely- kind, caring, appreciative and intelligent. Surprise, surprise, he has commitment issues. And issues with his mother. The Jewish people really are unified across the world since I cannot tell you how many identical conversations I have had on this topic in New York, Montreal, London, Philadelphia, and Jerusalem with other guy friends (i.e. me in a third person role- not directed at me!). Yes, I know your mother employed tactics including excessive guilt regarding your role in the future of the Jewish people, extreme levels of nagging, and passive aggressive phone-calling, but you can get over it.

More interestingly, I am now writing a compendium piece at a Sandton cafe with ostensibly free wireless access. In this case, free is defined as not requiring monetary payment but listening to a door slam in my ear at clockwork intervals of three minutes, watching a large man tap his foot loudly and to some techno rhythm, listening to the Musak version of Billie Holiday, drinking my fourth cup of coffee of the day (yum... Rwandan and Kenyan and Ethiopian beans roast like beauties), enduring the before-mentioned large man tell me the same joke six times--- what a burden it is for him to finish his fries, har, har, har--- and realizing that I could jog around the perimeter of this mall five times and the first page of this web-based database would still not be loaded.

Also, a metered taxi driver a few days ago tried to recruit me as a soldier for the upcoming South African race war and asked me to tell "all my American friends" about it. So I am telling you.

This Time for Real

2006-05-29T02:19:00.000-07:00

I'm back... no more arbitrary two month lapses. I was feeling guilty under the weight of a seemingly unmoving mountain of "official" writing to complete but I had an inspiring chat with a reader and reconsidered Western notions of guilt. So I'm devoted to chronicling this goofy city and its intrigues, rather than increase my own goofiness and intrigues. A series of briefs to get us started:

Economics 101

I'm tutoring Anele in his introductory economics course (He is my domestic helper and a Zimbabwean refugee. He came to Jo'burg to care for his brother dying of AIDS, but once the brother began taking HAART- highly active anti-retroviral treatment- and gained strength, he kicked Anele out to make room for yet another girlfriend. Anele is very smart and is beginning courses in economics and accounting.) and we are working on one of the most basic concepts in macro-economics- the differences between needs and wants and its impact on economic behavior. However, his crap South African econ text doesn't believe in needs but labels all purchasing behavior as wants- i.e. for South Africans, food, water, and shelter are seen as wants not needs. Oh wait, for millions of South Africans, food and adequate shelter are wants at this point. But, still, the moral amongst us regard them as needs and the BMW 7-series at the side of every mid-level ANC-appointee as wants.

Fire in the Mountain

I'm driving home from the gym, past Bruma Flea Market and the rooftop entrance to the prison-like shopping centre Eastgate (as differentiated from similar complexes dotting the city called Northgate, Southgate, Westgate). Bedfordview (my 'burb) rests on the side of Jo'burg's largest mountain (Linksfield is two kilometers on the other side of the mountain) and as I drive into the boom marking the entrance to my guarded "security estate" I can see waves of flames along the markings of the mountain. It appears like the entire mountain is engulfed in flames, but no one seems to be responding and I don't hear a siren or see any fire trucks. The next morning there isn't a scant mention of the flames in the newspapers and there doesn't seem to be any damage. Am I hallucinating?

My Fair Lady

I see the Pretoria State Theatre production of My Fair Lady with a bunch of kugel and Italian friends yesterday. The production is reasonably good (like seeing Mamma Mia at the Walnut Street Theatre rather than on Broadway) and the theatre most likely holds 500 to 1000 people. It's packed and there isn't a black face in sight- not in the audience nor on stage (only the ushers and bartenders). The announcements and auditorium markings are in Afrikaans. This is eerie.

We were going to have dinner in Brooklyn (suburb of Pretoria) after the show since there is a WangThai and I am in a constant, unsatiated, unfulfilled craving state for Thai food. The show goes on for about four hours and most of us only had breakfast that day and it's now 6:00. I am woozy from the hunger so we decide on the State Theatre basement buffet. It is Afrikaans hausfrau heaven- green-beans, limp and soggy fried potato bits, milky cole-slaw, roast with mint sauce. Oh and lots of cans of Tab which I believe was banned in the States many years ago for known carcinogenic properties. Let's just say the heat-plate-warmed Afrikaaner attempt at chicken curry and yellow mushy rice didn't placate the Thai cravings.

Mr. Cooper Speaks

2006-03-27T06:30:00.000-08:00

This is Andrew speaking. I did my first "African" (i.e., left the gated communities and indoor shopping malls that might otherwise be in Jericho, Long Island) thing yesterday in Jo'burg. We went to a lion cub farm and game park outside Jo'burg. The lion cubs (pictures to come) were amazing and Ilana and I got to play with them. Ilana also got finger-nipped by an ostrich but don't worry, Mom of Ilana, she doesn't have avian flu. The cubs not too different than Lionel my cat except they'll probably be 400 pounds or something when they grow up...On the game drive, the adult lions came just about to 3 feet up to the car although were pretty well placated since Sunday is feeding day and the antelope rib cages made them rather lethargic.

Today we arrived in Capetown and within an hour I had another African experience, as three boys (maybe 15 yrs old) accosted me on the street and basically harassed me on and off for an hour, alternating between threats, friendly chat, and taunting. They were more irritating than scary (not unlike lion cubs). After a walk through the beautiful Company Gardens park by Parliament and the Presidential palace, I retreated back to the Internet cafe to write this post. Tomorrow I'll go out to Robben Island (where Mandela was imprisoned) and then Ilana and my Selwyn adventure begins on Wednesday.

Ilana now speaks: We are having a fabulous time although I am doing some work today. We have a really nice dinner planned at Cape Town's coolest restaurant (and we won't spend much at all per person with the exchange rate which is lovely). Andrew has been reading me Creme De La Mer promotional material in a soothing monotone at most moments of the day. Cape Town is rather windy today although it is such a beautiful city---lots of bright colors and bouncy, happy people except for the teenage wannabe thugs.

We're Disgusting

2006-03-25T15:27:00.000-08:00

Andrew and I really, really want to post something profound but we are revoltingly full. I dragged Andrew to a Creme de la Mer breakfast this morning where he ate a full piece of steak at 10:00 am and drank four glasses of bubbly. Then we ate two pieces of Bev's cheesecake each and capped off the night with insanely huge burgers (Andrew had a double), fries, onion rings, vodka martinis, vodka tonics, and a double scotch (Andrew).
Other highlights of the last 24 hours:
-6 hours spent in a shopping mall with no access to natural light or fresh air. Andrew snapped many pictures of kugels luxuriating in their most comfortable habitat.
-A 16 hour flight spent next to a pre-operative tranny and a frightening looking robed and bearded man.
-Today, many events were devoid of any greater meaning: a scientific presentation on miracle broth devoid of any science; diamond shopping devoid of any purchasing; sightseeing devoid of anything but consumerism; a film devoid of anything but violent heterosexual and homosexual sex (mainly rape); a city devoid of anything but wealth and poverty.
-Incidentally, Andrew charmed my friend Bev by playing (misplaying) Israeli folk songs on her little-used piano. Bev then sang us the South African national anthem but had to read the lyrics off of a piece of paper.
-Andrew's Jo'burg observations: I'm not such a bad driver as he remembers from my senior year of high school and Americans do stick out when they go abroad, particularly loud, gluttonous, New York Jews.
-Lois, you will be happy- Andrew found stunning earrings for Amy.

Zim Dispatches

2006-03-22T23:03:00.000-08:00

From the ZimPundit:
There is growing anger in the country; I hear it on the street, at dinner parties and in business. Anger that the economic collapse is now threatening everyone. Anger that the authorities, despite the fact that they have been in power for 25 years seem not to even understand what is happening - let alone find solutions. Anger that food aid is still being managed so as to make the population subservient to the regime. Anger that the UN is such a hopeless organisation - unable even to find the courage to call a halt to the genocide we see every day.

I think the ZimPundit's account speaks for itself. I for one feel quite ill at ease in the world when the United Nations refuses to acknowledge Zimbabwean atrocities as the genocidal overtures that they so blatantly are. Is not the deliberate starving of a population, the forced displacement of millions of impoverished residents in "Operation Clean-Up," the torture and maiming of political opposition, the deliberate destruction of a country through greed, wanton violence, and rule of the machete worthy of United Nations intervention or at the very least, appropriate acknowledgement? Notice that the ZimPundit doesn't even seem to expect the United Nations to physically intervene in the Zimbabwean situation (as it should)- he merely asks for the courage to speak out against Zimbabwean atrocities, to criticize a former revolutionary leader who did fight against a racial supremacy system in Rhodesia but now has abandoned all sense of egalitarianism in favor of the iron fist and terror.

I continually am sickened by United Nations activities in Africa- the precedent set by the deliberate ignoring of the Rwandan genocide even as officers witnessed the nights of long knives and the rivers of blood and body parts in their field of sight. How can we have any confidence about this organization's ability or will to deliver the people of Zimbabwe to safety? I fear that American liberals refuse to criticize the United Nations in an attempt to counter themselves to so-called American conservative unilateralism. So what if conservatives don't like the United Nations either? You both have the right and responsibility to stand up to this bloated structure. I'll save my views on the relationship between the United Nations and HIV prevention/treatment attempts for another day...

On a lighter note, please make sure you visit Cape Town at least once in your lifetime. The beauty will make you believe in God even if you are an atheist; how did one city win the genetic lottery so heavily? How can mountains and two oceans co-exist like this? How can beauty be so rich, so striking? How can watching the sunset over both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans while drinking a sundowner and eating a plate of fresh kingclip feel so vivid? Why did God decide to create Cape Town and Detroit with the same paint brush? Why do some win and some lose?

From MSN's list of the top ten places to visit in 2006:
Often touted as "the most beautiful city in the world," Cape Town is at its best during our spring months—when fall is underway in South Africa. Flanked by spectacular natural scenery, this cosmopolitan city is still warm come autumn (around 70 degrees) so the beaches are still welcoming—while the frosty Atlantic Ocean along their shores is not (but then, it rarely ever is). Aside from delighting in near-perfect temperatures, refreshing sea breezes, and vistas of the famous Table Mountain blanketed in a layer of auburn leaves, this time of year is also harvest season in the Cape region which means plenty of opportunities to sample award-winning wines. One of the best times to do just that is early May, at the annual Waterfront Wine Festival, the largest wine event in town. Outside the city, several wine routes lead you through thriving vineyards and charming Dutch villages. Imagine sitting with a glass of wine in hand, gazing onto the sprawling vineyards that stretch towards the distant ocean…for some of us, nothing is more divine.

Jo'burg Musings

2006-03-20T16:31:00.000-08:00

1. You probably shouldn't wear a baby-doll tee at the gym that says hottie! unless you are really, really pretty.

2. Today there was a tremendous rainstorm (often there are beautiful, savage thunderstorms in the middle of the afternoon which end quickly but cool down the city) which was vivid and amazing. I stepped into a whole bunch of puddles on the way to Ninnos and my butt was soaked from the impact. I pity the many living in shacks, all the time, but particularly during these bouts of extreme weather.

3. I love Woolworths (www.woolworths.co.za) with all my heart. It is the South African version of Marks and Spencer but oh so much better. It is a fabulous department store with the best food displays in the world. Yesterday I bought goat cheese disks, freshly squeezed pear juice, spinach and ricotta tortellini imported from Italy, persimmons, and olive oil hand soap.

4. One of my closest friends is coming to Jo'burg on Friday. I am so excited. I am forcing him to go to a Creme de la Mer product breakfast on Saturday morning at the Michaelangelo Hotel in Sandton both so I can get two bags of free samples of Creme de la Mer and so he can observe kugels in their most natural habitat.

5. The rest of the week and the weekend will be very hectic-- tons of work-- so the blog will be lacking but Andrew (above mentioned very close friend) and I will co-blog next week. We have some extreme adventures planned including a Cape tour with a man we found on the Internet named Selwyn D. (very Jewish-sounding last name but I want this to be un-googable). It appears that his only clients are obese American Jews visiting Cape Town. He also posts digital pictures of his tourees doing unflattering-looking things like being blown by a gust of wind practically off of the Cape of Good Hope. There is NO way I am allowing that.

6. I have been suckered into volunteering for a Jewish communal organization. The only benefit, as compared to Jewish communal organizations in the States, is the quality of meeting refreshments. I recall lots of Utz potato chips and soggy deli sandwiches and Caffeine Free Diet Coke in Philly/New York--- here at least there are full on pieces of kosher steak from On the Square and yummy Samba chips. Some things don't change though- i.e. sleeping through every meeting/doing other work while the talking heads drone on. And, a good point, from one Jo'burg friend--- every time there is some sort of raffle or contest from a Jewish communal organization, it appears that the most wealthy contestant (i.e. the one who needs the all-expenses paid vacation to Mauritius least) wins. Does this happen everywhere?

7. I went to Beyachad for the first time in two years (Jewish communal organization headquarters/crazy armed fortress with crazy intense security). There is something about Jewish communal buildings or synagogues that makes me miss being 12. I was the queen of cutting class at Hebrew school/sitting in the bridal dressing room on the couch with my friends during services/leaving services to walk and get ice cream/being thrown out of Hebrew school classes for being overly insubordinate. I'm different now, but seeing polished linoleum floors and walls of plaques commemorating the big givers makes me a bit cooked in the head (South Africanism for "screwed in the head"). Used in a sentence, "Sharon, how can you wear that mumu over capris? Are you totally cooked?"

Shamelessly Stolen from Another Blog...

2006-03-16T22:36:00.000-08:00

But who really cares? It's for an instructive purpose.
This minibus taxi was snapped yesterday in rush hour traffic by another blogger. They're not usually this bad... but close. Normally the doors close. CANNOT believe that thing was driving around on the highway.

Soweto resident Themba Qayiso claims in Soweto, BMW stands for:
-Be My Wife (for a woman driver)
-Black Man's Worry
-Don't Break My Window (personal favorite)

Dealing and Scheming

2006-03-15T23:04:00.000-08:00

I think a lot of people I know think I may be a "good person" to spend this time in South Africa. To supposedly give up winebars and sophistication in favor of barren Africa in pursuit of the great HIV insight. As if all of Africa is one big peace corps for Americans instead of a daily traffic battle against BMW SUVs for a parking spot for a cappucino break in Sandton. Definitely, Jo'burg is enraging and suburban-urban but intrigue is lurking, vast sums of money are being made, and dealers and schemers reign supreme.

Case in point-- I'm working with my laptop at the library bar of the Melrose Arch Hotel- all wood panneling and brass lights and scotch and old books. It's one of the few wireless zones in Jo'burg that I can stand, and I believe the staff thinks I live there due to the frequency of my time there in February for the UA project. I can nurse a Coke Light for five hours, eat bar snacks, and do some serious banging on the IBook.

I sit very close to two distinguished-looking middle-aged guys so I can use the electrical outlet under their table. They speak in hushed tones, sipping whiskey at 2:00 pm. "You know, we made about 250 million in the mines in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) but you have to get out alive." I pieced together that one gentleman was some sort of private gem-financier, while the other was a Director from Barclays (UK) which has now merged with a South African bank Absa. They were definitely pissed I was sitting so close, and I can't repeat all I heard here. The walls have ears, and as an old, very odd family friend once said, "those who speak, pay."

I walk by the most beautiful jewellery shop I have ever seen (not the shop but the gems) and notice the fresh bullet holes in the windows (Andrew, I will show you this!). Supposedly, a Nigerian gang shot out the store after-hours to steal gems for a German ganglord directing from Berlin.

I could go on but let's talk more about the enraging. I receive a South African fellowship award that contains a small stipend. In total, it has taken about a million hours to sort out this small stipend--- and the hours of paid work I have given up far outweigh the total amount of money the stipend entails. Mr. X assures me the documents will be ready to sign on Monday. I wait until Tuesday since I know how this works-- it will never be ready the day the rubber stamps say it will. I drive an hour and Mr. X gives me a blank stare. "You can't be serious. We spoke last week and you said this would be ready on Monday." Mr. X shifts and combs his hair with spit-laden fingers. "Madam, I have been so busy I haven't even had time for my personal chores." "Listen, sir, I AM SO BUSY I DON'T EVEN HAVE TIME TO SHOWER BUT I STILL DO. I'm not leaving without signing those papers." "Madam, there's no need to yell." "Yes, there is. There really is." Three hours later... the papers are not signed until the next day and that office thinks I am a hysterical American freak.

Back to dealing and scheming. I try to withdraw about R1500 from a Bureau de Change since my ATM card situation won't be sorted until I'm in the States. There are tons of men near me- American, British, Nigerian. Most are holding absolutely enormous sums of cash- like 20,000 Euros each. What sorts of people carry around so much cash? Who are these Americans? Why is this man, in bermuda shorts and a Mickey Mouse polo shirt and loafers with no socks, carrying close to 50,000 pounds sterling? What does he want to do with the converted 500,000 Rand? Isn't he scared to walk to his car with all that cash?

Back to enraging. A woman in front of me is catching a flight to China that evening. She needs to exchange Rand for the Chinese currency whose name escapes me (I mean I never knew it). They've already sent her home for a copy of an utility bill for proof of residency. The electricity bill she brings only has a PO Box number on it (since it is unlikely you will actually receive any mail at a physical address rather than at a PO Box) and the clerks insist she needs proof of a physical address. This defies the recommendations set by the South African postal service and is in general really ridiculous (nor did they specify this when they sent her away the first time). She totally goes ballistic- "YOU FUCKING CUNT. YOU FUCKING BITCH. HOW AM I GOING TO EAT IN CHINA? THEY DON'T TAKE CREDIT CARDS. YOU ARE SUCH AN INCOMPETENT WHORE." She slams the bullet-proof double doors. The Nigerian carrying 20,000 in Euros looks really scared. Just another day.

Dental Dams and a Note on Tsotsi

2006-03-14T13:42:00.000-08:00

I went to the dentist yesterday in Bedfordview, my ritzy suburb (I am fully expecting a call from the powers-that-be at any moment informing me that my crap car is grounds for expulsion). In the waiting room, next to thumbed through and slightly gummy issues of Style Magazine from 2004, were ammo magazines and some nifty gun catalogues. My dentist concluded that I had "healthy, strong, American teeth" but told me that Italians, Chinese and some other ethnic group are more susceptible to plaque build-up due to higher than "normal" consumption of carbohydrates. That was an odd racial theory, even for South Africa. I asked him if my addiction to Crest Premium Whitestrips was of any concern, and when he replied with a blank stare, I knew ignorance was bliss.

Some interesting dental practices:
1. He didn't ask if I was pregnant prior to taking X-rays (I mean I'm not but still... that should be standard fare).
2. It's illegal for clinicians (including dentists) to ask the HIV status of patients prior to treatment, so clinicians regard all patients as likely HIV carriers. That means intensely high levels of sanitation and extreme precaution (this is of course in private medical facilities as opposed to government-funded public institutions) which I hope to see employed in medical facilities in the States.
3. This dentist has worked on really indigent and suffering people in Swaziland who have never received any preventative dental care in their lifetime. It is a bit mind-boggling to be obsessed with cosmetic dentistry (me) but know that dentistry, at its core throughout most of the world, is a last-ditch attempt to save teeth from rotting out and stop excruciating pain with minimum resources.
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Okay, after some reconsideration, I concede that Tsotsi is a bit cheesy and overwrought as a film. Maybe you have to be really into South Africa to find any quasi-introspective look at township life (as opposed to the usual panning images of masses of black faces or some superficial commentary on all the millionaires in Soweto)at all interesting or meaningful. I just want to caution you that the film depicts the very worst of South Africa existence, not by any means a depiction of what my daily life looks like (so don't worry Mom). Anyway, sometimes you give up walkable streets in favor of mangos the size of footballs and a chance to chase a dream- to really learn about an epidemic that will alter the very demography of our world (not just Africa) for decades to come and hopefully develop the tools to help the many other countries who will contend with dying masses and falling mortality in the next ten years.

Note to Very Large Man to My Left

2006-03-13T03:13:00.000-08:00

Why must you look over my shoulder onto my screen at every available moment? Do these datasets really interest you or do you want to continue to pretend you love quantitative research? Secondly, why must you wave your memory key in my face at half hour intervals? Do you think I will be impressed? If you wave Ferrari keys in my face and let me drive, I will be impressed. Thirdly, please stop commenting on the "wireless button" that you too have on your computer at home. I'm not quite sure what you mean by that. Fourthly, I pray for the day the South African government fully opens up competition against Telkom so I can work from home on a stable, non-expropriationist fixed line Internet connection and not have to deal with people like this in public spaces. Fifthly, please crunch your cookie less loudly. It is harming my concentration.

Party Central

2006-03-12T23:25:00.000-08:00

I was invited to three parties on Saturday night. The multiplicity of occassions provided a much-needed opportunity to remove myself from the computer and attempt to look divine. These days, my normal schedule revolves around running from meeting to lecture to laptop to e-mail to cellphone and I seem to exclusively wear jeans with heels. It's boring, my nails are always in Essie light pink, and the only make-up spark is sticky pink lipgloss. When it's windy and the windows are down, my hair sticks to the lipgloss, and one hand is on the wheel, the other moving between the cellphone and tieing my hair back to remove lipgloss collision. I needed a night to dress up and wear more eyeliner than usual.

What a Jo'burg night of extremes. Where did this crazy city come from- with breathtaking homes and the hottest Mercedes SLKs next to informal settlements and squatter camps and poverty and despair? Where I can easily pay more for a pair of boots than the monthly wages of a domestic worker?

First stop- an African braai. The host pours me a whiskey, and Mandoza is booming. I love his sons- Poppy and Brian Junior (Brian Junior is turning two)- and Poppy had a brilliant friend over named Layunda. Lindie made a huge bowl of pap, and chicken/ beef/pork are marinating on the braai. I am salivating at the smell, although the meat won't be ready until I have to leave. Poppy and Layunda want to braid my hair and I oblige. It takes them about an hour to complete 1/4th of my head and I'm immobile on a bar stool. Layunda (age 7) tells me to wear more lipstick and wants to know which products I use on my hair. I love both of them and promise to invite them over for pizza and a movie and they can finish braiding. We play around with the digital camera and if it didn't cost me R2 per MB, I would post the images here.

In the car. Unbraiding. My formerly straight hair looks kinda frizzy now. Apply more lipstick per Layunda's advice. Onto the most stunning home I have ever seen in my life in Linksfield- overlooking the entire expanse of Johannesburg, an amazing cocktail party on the terrace, armed guards outside every home on the street. He has 40 rooms including a cinema, a ballroom, and his own synagogue. His strange, controlling mother keeps an eye on the crowd and there are many framed pictures of him, alone, posed in front of one of his sprawling staircases. There are so many servants working tonight, and they're all in uniform. Ten minutes away, there are thousands starving, ready to kill for some cash, but pass the champagne. My feet hurt already from the stilettos. The air is perfect, as always for Jo'burg, and I recognize half the crowd from Slow Food Johannesburg.

We leave. Time for another party in Saxonhurst. This is billionaire territory. Everyone has full-time gardeners on staff, and the house is worth at least 15 million. I pass at least ten beggars and five boomed streets on the way from Linksfield. Liquid Chefs are catering and the mojitos are stunning. On line for the bathroom and the girl ahead of me is already snorting coke off a copy of Marie Claire South Africa. We park far and it feels good to walk barefoot, on the street and in the grass, to the entrance. Such an alien feeling to walk far at night on the street here.

Sunday is sad. With new friends whose mother has just been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer which is invading her bones. She most likely will have to receive radical amputation of an entire leg, but she'd rather die sooner (it's not a question of if, but when) than contend with amputation. Her daughter surprised her from Mexico, but worries that without medical aid (South African private health insurance), her mother will have to contend with chemo at the Jo'burg Gen. It's a terrifying notion, but they seem calm, drinking Mexican rum and lighting candles and incense.

Depressing Data

2006-03-10T00:56:00.000-08:00

Sorry I didn't write more about the Jacob Zuma trial, as promised. In due course. My blood is boiling too much from the pro-Zuma protesters outside the Johannesburg High Court with their "burn the bitch" placards. This is a tragic time in South African history- an alleged rape victim having to recount every past sexual experience for a hungry and vengeful public. What a state of affairs when the victim cannot enter the courtroom unless she is masked and covered, and the defendant smirks in designer suits and swaggers to his adoring fans.

I was struck with some fascinating new data on HIV/AIDS released by Wits on Wednesday. Dr. Francois Venter, my hero, and the Wits clinician in charge of the Esselen Street Project and provider of anti-retroviral treatment to the Johannesburg General Hospital, spoke candidly about the immense failure of the HIV prevention program in South Africa, even with enormous sums of money spent by government, international funding programs, and the private sector. He predicts that within his lifetime, 50% of all South Africans will be HIV-positive.

Even more terrifying is recent Wits RHRU (Reproductive Health and Research Unit) data showing that 50% of all HIV-positive individuals in South African self-report having no risk factors. This shocker means that there is major incongruence between perception of risk and actual engagement in risky behavior.

Dr. Venter uses a blunt voice when assessing the current state of anti-retroviral treatment: "We sweated blood to get 130,000 South Africans on HAART this year. Those we didn't get to (another 370,000) will grow sicker and die shortly. This state of affairs will grow exponentially in the next years."

Dr. Helen Rees, Executive Director of the RHRU at Wits and one of the world's most celebrated and leading HIV researchers, confirmed new data showing that in South Africa, 25% of young women under 25 are HIV-positive. It is likely that amongst our female students, 25% are HIV-positive and have little sense of their own risk or impending illness.

I just wrote like 800 words of analysis on the above data and thanks to the decaying electrical grid in South Africa (thanks Eskom!), lost it all. But the data speaks for itself, so perhaps you're better off without my take on it. So pissed. You'll just have to wait until later then.

I Didn't Think I Would Write More Today but...

2006-03-08T02:12:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I'll comment in depth on my own feelings about the Jacob Zuma debacle/trial unfolding currently at the Johannesburg High Court. If you are interested, do a bit of googling for background--- a legendary ANC figure who was the Deputy President of this country was removed by President Mbeki for alleged corruption. Almost simultaneouly, he was accused of raping a HIV-positive activist who was like a "niece to him."

Read below excerpts from columnist Chris Roper. Not South Africa's finest moment...

Still, who am I to make fun of North Americans. I live in a country where our ex-deputy president is accused of raping an HIV positive woman. Makes Bill Clinton's blowjob look a little less of a big deal, something Monica often points out, albeit in a different context.

And supporters of our alleged rapist ex-deputy president are picketing outside the court and shouting "Burn the bitch".

They're also burning pictures of the woman who made the rape charge. This is all in accordance with the culturally sanctioned right of South African men to be absolute bastards, and to stick their cultural weapons into anyone they want.

I know what you're thinking at this point. What does a bunch of evil wankers hanging around outside a court have to do with peanut butter? Except, obviously, for the fact that it takes a lot of nuts to produce both?

The answer is - nothing. I was trying to write about peanut butter because I'm sick of the whole Zuma thing. There's really nothing to say about the Zuma trial that isn't obvious. It's even the vote on the CNN news channel, for heaven's sake! When the Americans notice you, you know you've REALLY screwed up.

Alas, I think I'm developing an allergy to nuts. They can be deadly, you know. The nuts picketing outside the Zuma trial are deadly to South Africa's image, that's for sure. The rest of the world now thinks (now knows, some would say), that we're a bunch of intolerant, patriarchal morons.

Oh, not all of us, I'm sure, in the same way that not all Americans are mad empire-building right-wing Christians. But from the perspective of the hundreds of thousands of women raped a year, it's pretty much all South African men.

Ode to Kugel Couples

2006-03-08T00:46:00.000-08:00

I could write at length about the myriad differences between Jo'burg kugels and the more familiar JAPs (Jewish American Princesses). I assume, over time, I will. Today, though, I want to discuss my long-stifled love for kugel couples, particularly middle-aged kugels. Although the description is interesting in it of itself, I think the kugel couple way of relating is instructive in understanding some of the unfortunate ways American society treats aging in women and marriage.

One of the most (only) fun parts of flying South African Airways from New York to Johannesburg is watching middle-aged kugel couples cuddling on the flight. The woman is normally wearing Juicy Couture sweats with a low-waisted velour trackpant, tight on the hips, and flared at the bottom. She has cute matching Pumas and a tight white tank-top with a zip-up hoodie on top. Her butt looks good in the trackpants and her hair is always long, and always down. Ponytails only happen at the gym or in the bath. Lips are glossed and her modest wedding gold-band (we were just starting out!) has been supplemented on the other hand with a huge rock for their silver anniversary.

He is not exactly good-looking, but you can see the appeal. He's beefy and is wearing a Polo shirt and some sort of loafer. He carries all of her bags (and there are a lot!) and rolls his eyes like he's used to it. After take-off, he starts reading an autobiography of Lance Armstrong and she starts paging through American Vogue. She loves the adverts for Gucci handbags, but doesn't really like the "weird" designers like Yohji. The armrests go up, seatbelts unfastened, and they share two blankets. She falls asleep on his lap and he plays with her hair. They hold hands in their sleep, and share a toothbrush before landing in Jo'burg. He smiles when she touches up her lip gloss. They've probably been married for 25 years and have three kids.

Sometimes, at the numerous malls blighting the Johannesburg landscape, you see middle-aged kugel couples having coffee in the morning before Sunday lunch or Saturday shul. She rests her legs on his lap and when she stands up he tells her "you're a tough chick." A pretty girl in her 20s walks by in tight jeans and wedge heels and although he looks and remarks that she's a "hot babe," he tells his wife "I like your ass better...And you're the best mother ever."

They pay the bill, hold hands, and perhaps go shopping for a bikini for her to wear for their upcoming holiday in Mauritius. He's late, but wants to pick out which bikini will look the best. There's a little (lot) bit more fat than 20 years ago, but who cares, she's still "my hot wife."

I love how in good kugel marriages (and not like they are all good!), women still sit on their hubbies' lap in public and will totally make out at the movies. It's cool to be young and in love- even if you're 53 and have been married for 20 years. It's cool to keep your hair long and still wear tight jeans with heels and low-cut tank tops out to dinner. It's cool to keep pinching your husband's butt in public even if you're Lubavitch (witnessed by yours truly!). It's cool to feel beautiful even if you're not. It's cool to love making your wife coffee in the morning since it's the only thing you know how to make. It's cool to complain that your wife is blocking your view of the cricket or the rugby, but miss her when she leaves the room.

Some women look really good with short hair (like my mom!), but I wish American women felt that they don't need to just cut it off when they turn 35. That it's not inappropriate to have long waves and pink, glossed lips at age 50. That marriage can be really fun, not just that thing you do after a really good year of dating since you're getting older and it's easier to pay a mortgage with two incomes. Kugels often make marriage look really fun ("Ooh... I should buy this tea for Milton. We're going to stay home tonight and watch 'Prison Break' and I made these divine biscuits which will go well with the tea."), not like a chore all about sacrifice and compromise and lost youth. Kugels can be crazy in love and young at heart and married.

Naughty, You are Such a Tsotsi

2006-03-07T01:07:00.000-08:00

My frantic state from yesterday (see Worst Day Ever) has slowly dissipated, and I was momentarily relieved when Naughty returned my 1986 Ford Laser with a fixed "broken wire." Tomorrow, I have to cruise for about 200 kilometers, so I am slowly holding my breath that the era of irate taxi drivers beating my window is over.

I had dinner with my favorite Jo'burg family last night at Ciao Baby Cucina. The food was quite divine (kugel talk) with a nice dish of small raviolis with veal stuffing in a very spicy arrabiata sauce. They were off to see Tsotsi and I joined them for dinner beforehand. Nicki asked me if Jewish families in America also only think of life occurrences in terms of "best ever" or "worst ever"... hmmm. A resounding yes for the female side of my family. Like "I met this guy yesterday at the carpet store. He would be the BEST EVER for Tee." Or "I can't believe you lost your wallet. That is the WORST THING EVER." I told Nicki that the tendency for extreme superlatives is compounded by a propensity for major anxiety about minor life events, and minor anxiety about major life events (i.e. my car and when will grandchildren be delivered). "Did you go to the dentist? What did he say? Well, how did he say it? What did he mean by it? Are you going back? Did you make the appointment? Are you going to remember the appointment?"

Anyway, see Tsotsi. It begins at the Ritz this Friday and has already been playing selectively in New York. I saw the premiere in December at the Goethe Institute and we were all gripped- black, white, old, young. It is a stunning story of redemption, the nature of crime, and the realities of life on the margins of the new South Africa. It is absolutely terrifying, but astoundingly beautiful. The acting is immense- and it just won the Foreign Languague Film of the Year award at the Oscars. Oh, Tsotsi means "thug" and the kwaito soundtrack is booming and thrilling- it is "hard" in a way that so much hip-hop wants to be but fails miserably. I want to buy a soundtrack for the car but it's not like 1986 Ford Lasers come equipped with CD players.

It touches on so many issues of importance to Johannesburg in such a subtle way- the nature of crime as mostly directed towards black residents (as contrary to popular perception), the stigma against AIDS deaths, the gated/electrified/enclosed affluent home (and, an interesting question- do those "security" precautions actually exacerbate violent crime and drive criminals to more daring acts of violence? My favorite Judge says yes.), and the archetype of the savior woman.

Incidentally, there are many wonderful attributes about life in Johannesburg which are not at all captured in the film, and that's fine. I'm happily encouraged that the debate in South Africa is overall really proud of the film and doesn't feel that this success story needs to only portray a rosy picture of life here. It's great to observe a discourse that doesn't chastise brave storytellers or artists as "self-haters."

A few mundane observations:
-I have way too many e-mail addresses. I like the idea of maybe creating fake e-mail addresses, but my legitimate ones are already out of control.
-Thank you American Express for refusing to send a new card "to Africa" post my wallet theft (in Europe, not South Africa!). I'm sure that all the retailers here who pay your crazy-ass merchant fees will be thrilled. Also, all the Americans/Aussies/Europeans who come here to buy gems and use AMEX are surely loyal customers?
-Someone thought I was Australian yeterday based on my voice. That is strangely exciting/shocking/weird.
-Read the book "Capitalist Nigger." I'm not even sure if it's sold in the States but it is heating up the charts here... a really fascinating examination of the prognosis of Africans becoming "economic warriors" by Nigerian-American Chika Onyeani. It's not just a controversial title, but a fully controversial premise that is being really reflected upon by many here.
-There is a fabulous, fabulous, fabulous lecture tomorrow at Wits (relevant if I have any South African readers which is highly unlikely): "AIDS in Africa: The Role of Leadership in Community and Business Responses to HIV/AIDS." The discussion features the Managing Director of Goldman Sachs and Dr. Francois Venter, another Wits doctor changing the world through cutting-edge HIV research. Dr. Venter manages the provision of public sector-funded anti-retroviral treatment at the Johannesburg General Hospital and is a likely candidate for world expert on the provision of AIDS treatment in an urban, resource-poor setting. He is also an amazing speaker and scholar.

Worst Day Ever

2006-03-06T06:36:00.000-08:00

It started off well enough- had enough time to make a nice cafe latte in the morning, and found the office building in Braamfontein easily enough after a few circles on a round-about. My business meeting went well and the day ahead was promising- 8 hours of work in Hyde Park at the wireless Seattle Coffee, then tea with Nicki, and attending a lecture on HIV and psychology at the Goethe Institute.

I leave Braamfontein, driving down Jan Smuts in the middle lane towards the affluent northern suburb of Hyde Park. I'm driving about 90--- it's a fast-moving road, but not a highway. Then, the car suddenly doesn't move and lurches forward. I'm officially stuck in the middle lane of a main Johannesburg traffic artery. Hazards go on, and I immediately phone Naughty (yes, that is his name) at Asshole Car (name changed to protect the innocent or not so innocent). "Hi Naughty, it's Ilana. You need to send someone like now. I'm stuck on Jan Smuts and people are hooting (beeping) like crazy."

Ten minutes later, no sign of rescue. Lots of kugels pass by in BMWs and Audis and no one even thinks of stopping or offering any assistance. The only people wanting to "help" are extremely scary looking. I am sitting in a locked car with the windows up. I think that most of the kugels who passed thought I was some sort of teen pregnancy/heroin addict/living in a cardboard box sort of person due to the unfortunate choice of vehicle I was driving. A 1986 Ford Laser. Not a typo--- 1986.

You see, I am in a bind. With the payment I make each month to Asshole Car, I could lease a new BMW 1-Series, but since I don't have South African permanent residency, no one will give me car insurance. Even if I bought a car for cash, I still couldn't insure it. Only Asshole Car! Asshole Car pretty much only rents to desperate foreigners with no other options...

So, I am still waiting for the Asshole guys to arrive. A minibus taxi driver starts hooting frantically at me to move. Hello, I am stuck. I can't move, hence the hazards. Move your pathetic red minibus around this 1986 Ford Laser. Mr. Driver emerges from the minibus and begins banging on the window really roughly and loudly. He does this for about five minutes. I then phone Naughty crying and tell him he better hurry up cause this taxi driver is insane. Naughty replies, "Wow, that is really ridiculous. I can't believe he's doing that." YES, I KNOW THAT IS RIDICULOUS. I wasn't phoning you for your condolences.

Mr. Driver finally gets bored of striking my window and gets back in the red minibus and drives away. Lots of kugels and kugel-lites seem intrigued by this situation, but won't even slow down since there must be something wrong if someone "like me" is driving a 1986 Ford Laser. It is inconceivable that I would choose to drive such an un-road worthy vehicle. I second that assessment!

Johannes finally arrives and gives me another vehicle. It appears to resemble a 1976 school bus. "Johannes, you've got to be kidding. I just paid you guys a fortune four days ago!" I enter the car-like object. "Johannes, does this actually drive? And there's no left-hand side mirror." It literally took about ten minutes to figure out if this vehicle-esque thing actually drove.

I take myself out for lunch and ignore my phone until Naughty calls. "Hey, are you feeling better now?" Yes, thanks so much for your concern. "So we solved the problem. A wire broke. We'll bring the car back tomorrow morning." How lovely.

Celebrating AIDS Research Accomplishments at Wits

2006-03-05T15:20:00.000-08:00

From time to time, I want to call some attention to the amazing and life-changing research accomplishments in HIV/AIDS stemming from the work of scholars and doctors at the University of the Witswatersrand (Wits). I think we can expect to see some (more) Nobel Prize winners in the near future, but more importantly this is cutting-edge scholarship at its most humble and necessary: scholarship with the potential and demonstrated ability to save thousands of lives. First up... Dr. James McIntyre and Dr. Glenda Gray.
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The trendy offices of the Perinatal HIV Research Unit at Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto are a far cry from the poky broom closet its directors James McIntyre and Glenda Gray started out in when they embarked on their mission 10 years ago to find ways of preventing mother-to-child infection of HIV.

Now the unit, which occupies several floors of the hospital's New Nurses Home, a large square building west of the hospital, employs 200 staff members, conducts myriad research programmes and is an international player in the field of HIV/Aids research.

Just getting an interview with McIntyre and Gray is something of a feat - and chatting to both of them together, a major feat.

Given the cutting-edge nature of their work, they are much in demand, and the awards that line their offices are testimony to their incredible success in the field of HIV/Aids: the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights (2002) and the Heroes in Medicine Award from the International Association of Physicians in Aids Care (2003) are just two.

The Perinatal HIV Research Unit, under the auspices of Wits University, is one of the largest Aids research centres on the continent, and has grown into an impressive multi-disciplinary research centre, partnering with many other organisations and engaging in research across the spectrum: preventing mother-to-child transmission, conducting vaccine trials, researching diaphragm use as a barrier to HIV, exploring sexual practices of men and women in Soweto, examining the economic impact of HIV/Aids on families, and researching the best treatment, care and support of people living with Aids.

Both Gray, a paediatrician, and McIntyre, an obstetrician, are candid about the success of their work. "What we've spearheaded here has changed the lives of millions of women worldwide - essentially finding affordable interventions to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV", says Gray. "And we've been quick to translate research into action."

"We've been a central player in international research in the field that started 10 years ago", chips in McIntyre. "We've helped develop that research agenda." The two directors, who have worked so closely for all these years, constantly finish off each other's sentences.

The unit was pivotal in changing the mindset of the World Health Organisation, which prescribed that HIV-positive women in developed countries should formula feed while those in developing countries should breastfeed, in the belief that the health risks for formula feeding in Third World countries outweighed the risk of HIV transmission.

"We said that women had a right to make that decision themselves and needed to be properly informed first", says Gray.

McIntyre is the principal investigator for a wide-ranging five-year project on HIV/Aids which has been given a massive US$21-million grant from the United States National Institutes for Health - one of their largest awards and part of their Comprehensive International Programme on Aids (Cipra).

The programme brings together several partners in the field, including the Reproductive Health Research Unit, also based at Bara, and Wits University's Clinical HIV Research Unit.
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How amazing to almost single-handedly change WHO orthodoxy on the "necessity" of breast-feeding for developing world women! I am particularly struck by the inter-disciplinary nature of their work and in fact, the entire Wits approach to HIV/AIDS research- that doctors have to work in collaboration with economists, for instance, and remembering that socio-economic conditions influence disease transmission risk, but equally important, medical advances yield other key challenges for economists and policy makers. On this point, see Nicoli Nattrass' (from the University of Cape Town) most recent article about the despair of those receiving HAART (Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Treatment) and improving their HIV condition but subsequently losing disability grants. Must the unlucky choose between rapid death or poverty?
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Another South African hero is Kami, the HIV-positive Muppet appointed by UNICEF as its special advocate for children living with HIV/AIDS or orphaned by parental AIDS deaths. Kami is humble and sweet, and made out of yellow shaggy fur. She talks gently about coping with illness and loss; her parents died of AIDS and she is a 5 year-old orphan. I love Kami so much!

And, more heart-breaking than Kami's story, is the number of children who NEED to relate to her, who can only understand a life at age 5 without any parents. Here's an excerpt from a 2002 interview with Kami:

Kami: At my school, at first children did not want to play with me because they thought they would catch HIV by just playing with me. But my friends Zuzu and Zikwe and Moshe told them. They talked to them and told them, "you cannot get HIV by just playing with me".

Interviewer: And they believe you? And, now they act nice to you?

Kami: Oh, yes. They are very nice to me. We play together.

Interviewer: And do you hug and do you kiss? And is that nice?

Kami: Yes. I hug my friends and they hug me back.

Kami can be seen on Takalani Sesame, the South African version of Sesame Street, but she works with children all over the world. She always wears a cute light green vest (looks good with the yellow fur!) with an AIDS red ribbon and a happy white daisy. Kami also keeps a "memory necklace" around her neck in honor of her biological mother who died of AIDS-related causes.

Through the Spectre of AIDS, Love

2006-03-04T20:58:00.000-08:00

From this morning's Sunday Times:

AIDS brought former President Nelson Mandela’s grandson and his wife to the altar.

Mandla Mandela and his wife Thando hosted high-profile guests, including President Thabo Mbeki, and hundreds of villagers when they tied the knot at one of a series of colourful wedding ceremonies during a two-day celebration at the Mandela homestead at Qunu in the Eastern Cape last weekend.

Speaking at his reception, Mandla, clutching his weeping 27-year-old bride’s hand, told the 800 guests that Aids had killed both his and his wife’s parents.

“My parents, Makgatho and Joyce Zondi Mandela, died of Aids,” said Mandla. “But I also want to tell you that my wife Thando’s parents died of the disease as well.”

Mandla told the guests that he met Thando at a difficult time in her life.

The couple met five years ago in Johannesburg. In 2002, her 55-year old mother, Yolisa Mabunu, died of Aids-related complications. Two years later her 56-year-old father, Mpumelelo Mabunu, also died of the disease.

“In both cases I was there to support and comfort her,” he said.
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Although this story is bittersweet at best and not so likely to make the New York Times style section's wedding story of the week, I'm always happy to see any public pronouncements of the devastation of an individual AIDS death. Former President Mandela has been a leader in this regard upon his departure from office-- expressing public grief at the death of his son from AIDS-related causes. In South Africa, we're bombarded with mass AIDS figures- over 5 million infected with HIV, but there is little public dialogue on the toll of AIDS on one family, on one life, on one couple losing both sets of parents before their wedding day.

President Mandela reminded us that an AIDS death is not a cause for personal or family shame, just a cause for sorrow.

If You Are Obsessed with Food...

2006-03-04T11:16:00.000-08:00

The South African Slow Food convivia are kicking some serious ass. Slow Food in the States is often a bunch of pretentious foodies waxing poetic about the Messiah arriving and obliterating all McDonalds (amen). In Jo'burg, Slow Food is serious business. Last year, there was a tasting of 35 sausages with a two-hour lecture on sausage making. Followed by a taste test of eggs from 12 hens, and a workshop on which bees produce the best honey...

But Cape Town is amazing! Here is the menu for the next Cape Town Slow Food event:

Carpaccio and Avocado

Boerewors rolls and onion marmalade

Home made farm bread and foccaccio

Constantia Uitsig Grape Marmalade

Watermelon preserve

Fresh Constantia Uitsig Grapes

Cape Cheeses

Smoked Snoek

Chicken liver parfait

Watermelon Smoothies

Tea & Coffee

YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. I NEED to find watermelon preserve (jam) with the greatest of urgency. Some translation:
Boerewors= Afrikaans hotdogs. Kosher and halaal versions are available, and they far surpass Hebrew National. If you drive through a game reserve (i.e. safari), you'll smell boerewors braaing (barbequing) far and wide.
Constantia Utisig= One of the most beautiful towns in the Cape winelands. There is nothing more beautiful than the expanse of vineyards and mountains in the Cape and most wineries are now culinary Meccas.
Snoek= A small fish South Africans love.

Two little oddities:
-The Saturday Star (not a tabloid) carried the following headline this morning: "What to do with Maids with AIDS"
-A man tried to ask me out at a petrol station convenience store earlier today by saying "What are you doing out so late?" It was 7:30 pm on a Saturday night.

Zim Woes

2006-03-04T00:45:00.000-08:00

One of the best parts of living in South Africa is the comprehensive and constant coverage of the continually depleting situation in Zimbabwe. I love when the tabloids refer to Robert Mugabe as "Uncle Bob" although it's hard to tell if it's a joke or some sentimental reminder of Mugabe's pivotal role in ending white supremacy in Rhodesia. Although of little strategic importance to the powers-that-be in Washington, the Zimbabwean case is earth-shattering and mind-numbing in its wanton cruelty, scale of self-defeating behavior, and its manipulation of race and colonialism for greed and ego.

I feel blessed to know many Zimbabweans in Jo'burg- both black and white- and anecdotally, I know that all of the black Zimbabweans I encounter prefer to live a life on the margins in South Africa- illegally, without permanent work or income, in a cornern of a room in a storehouse in Soweto- than return to Mugabe's clutches. Mugabe was spotted at a fancy medi-clinic in the Northern suburbs of Johannesburg last month, and there were many off the cuff remarks that someone should have been brave enough to assassinate him.

I hear quite a bit about the remaining and struggling small Jewish community in Zimbabwe, particularly in Harare. They need milk, bread, and petrol, as do all Zimbabweans. Rampant inflation, spreading disease, and diminishing agricultural production would be enough to engender mass despair, but Mugabe and Zanu-PF's reign of terror and corruption is heart-breaking. I think we can all pray for the rise of an effective opposition to Mugabe and international support to break his grip on power.

Most American media coverage of Zimbabwe centers on the violent and dramatic expulsion of white farmers from the country since 2000 (many now producing awesome agricultural outputs in Namibia and Kenya); unfortunately, there are many more stories to tell and many feel that the plight of white evictees carries more resonance with the American public than the thousands upon thousands of black victims of Mugabe. Still, the story is central to the demise of Zimbabwe and its resulting, harrowing food shortages. Here's the latest on Zimbabwean white farmers from the Mail and Guardian:

Zimbabwe says it can't remove every white farmer

Harare, Zimbabwe

02 March 2006 11:18

Zimbabwe's vice-president has said the country's remaining white farmers would be spared eviction if they toed the line and respected the law, local media reported on Thursday.

"We cannot remove every white man in this country," Vice-President Joseph Msika was quoted as telling a farmers' rally.

"If you think it's possible, that will not happen. We will respect those white people who respect our laws and want to live with us," the private Daily Mirror newspaper quoted him as saying.

The state-owned Herald further quoted Msika as saying: "We cannot remove every white farmer because it's stupidity. That is shooting yourself in the foot."

No more than 600 white farmers remain in Zimbabwe following controversial land reforms which saw the eviction of at least 4 000 of their peers to pave the way for land redistribution to poor blacks.

Msika also lashed out at lazy black farmers who invaded white farms and seized properties and then failed to produce anything.

"Some of you when you take these farms, you don't make use of them," The Herald quoted Msika as saying.

"Don't just evict someone who is farming productively because they are of a different race."

Msika's statements came weeks after Land Minister Didymus Mutasa said no white farmers were "farming legally" and urged them to seek permission from the government to continue work after constitutional reforms barred dispossesed farmers from seeking legal recourse.

Msika attacked new farmers for their heavy dependence on government handouts.

"We don't want to build a nation of beggars," Msika said, urging the farmers to "cultivate the land".

Zimbabwe's land reforms, which began often violently in 2000 after the rejection in a referendum on a government-sponsored draft Constitution, have seen about 4 000 white farmers lose their properties.

Critics say the majority of the beneficiaries of the land reforms lack farming skills and rely on government handouts.

They also blame the land reforms for the chronic food shortages in what was once Southern Africa's bread basket.

At least four million of Zimbabwe's 13-million people require food aid until the next harvest in May. - AFP

Shabbat Dinner Musings

2006-03-03T14:21:00.000-08:00

The food was perfect. Small potato pancakes with avocado spread and smoked trout for starters. Carrot ginger soup with a touch of orange. Brisket, rice, cabbage salad with a vinegar marinade, and a butternut squash savory pie. Cut mango with gramoedilla seeds.

Nicki and I laughed so hard I could barely breathe. My mascara was running down my face and she kept breaking into an American accent so uncanny I almost forgot that she was a former Jo'burger with a fake British accent. "Lans, that is so awesome!"

Snippets of the night:

A. Jo'burger: "Girls, go to the SPAR and buy some parve ice cream for the mangos."
Ilana: "But that means I have to drive. When I turn on the air conditioner, it smells like urine. And leaves are coming out of the vents."
Jo'burger: "Don't care. We need ice cream with the fruit. And make sure it's kosher."

B. Ilana: "Nicki, I think this Ferrero Rocher is stale."
Nicki: "Just bite off the nuts and suck the ball inside."
Nicki's Mom: "Girls! It's Shabbas!"

C. Jo'burger: "Ilana, do you always wear heels? Is it like, hey it's Tuesday morning, let me put on some heels?"
Ilana: "Pretty much."

D. Jo'burger: "I think the Chief Rabbi needs to grow a longer beard."

E. Jo'burger: "What's the word that sounds like the sound of the word?"
Ilana: "You mean an onomatopeia."
Jo'burger: "Oh, yes, like a barking dog."
Nicki: "But that's only when you say barking like you are actually barking. Not just the word barking."

F. Ilana: "I think you guys should bring a real American neoconservative to speak to the Jewish kugels. They'll love it!"
Jo'burger: "You mean like Billy Crystal."
Ilana: "On second thought, maybe Barak Obama as an emerging major American politician. He's a really good speaker and tolerant."
Jo'burger: "That won't work."

G. Jo'burger: "The Chief Rabbi inscribed his new book to me.... Judaism is a set of values."
Jo'burger Male: "Where's the chapter on sex?"
Ilana: "Actually it's about how Judaism values female sexual pleasure and the connection between the sexual bond and emotional intimacy."
Jo'burger: "Pass the brisket."

Girl Crush

2006-03-02T12:53:00.000-08:00

In my heterosexual world, a girl crush is a non-sexual/non-romantic obsession with another female. My last girl crush occurred in about sixth grade, with a teacher I misguidedly thought very "glamorous." If only glamour was as simple as using half a bottle of stale Elizabeth Taylor Passion eau de toilette per day and wearing Sam & Libby ballet slippers with faux leather skirts to teach middle school English. That entire foray into obsession was quite pathetic and culminated in me forcing my parents to eat dinner at the Yorktown Inn (completely and utterly geriatric) to hear the above crush "sing" at the piano bar. Oh, and the Bat Mitzvah invitation. I wish I could forget the entire incident, and use this entry as my last public mea culpa, but quite a few of my friends like to remind me. "Remember when you followed Mrs. X into the teachers' lunchroom?" "Remember how Mrs. X let you wear her fur coat when you babysat?" "Remember when Mrs. X said you were her best friend?" "Remember when Mrs. X asked you to shoot her if she ever got as fat as that lady at the Willow Grove Mall?" Yep... I remember. Thanks for reminding me though!

Anyway, my new girl crush is Jo'burg glitterati. She is taller than me and has a blond bob, icy blue eyes, and perfect skin. Her accent is completely unplaceable but definitely not South African. Every consonant is crisp. Every meal has wine. She's Swiss and German but lived in London for ten years. Her mom moved to South Africa, and after a year in Cape Town, she followed her to Jo'burg. Her clothes are amazing--- she wears capris with open-toed rounded heels with a Dior blazer. We tried on each other's rings.

She only passed her driver's license test this year, and we are both scared to merge on the N highways. We can only handle the M driving 120. She likes to order calamari salads and cuts the calamari in symmetrical ovals with perfect knifestrokes. Late at night, she'll order steak frites and eat each french fry with precise grace.

We're having dinner at LongMeadow in Fourways next week. She says it's like being in France- "we'll sit in the veranda, drink wine, and it doesn't even feel like Johannesburg." I can guarantee her manicure will be perfect and we'll chat about books and London and food and taking a roadtrip together although we are both too chicken for the National highways (the Ns).

She always tells me that some of her German relatives are Jewish.

She's of Jo'burg, but not really Jo'burg at all. No flash and pink sequins and rhinestones and frosted hair. Just elegance and a Chloe Paddington bag.

Home Is You

2006-03-01T13:22:00.000-08:00

I arrived mid-morning in chaotic Johannesburg International. Immediately the air changed from false oxygenated to dry and sweet. I was gulping for air in Customs and just needed some South African sun to feel whole.

Nothing worked--- all the ATMs rejected my card, the same card I've used for years internationally. "Transaction Cancelled by Network." "Incompatible Banking System." Oh God... I didn't want anyone to pick me up because I was too tired to talk, too tired to grab a quick freezachino, too tired to talk about Candace suing Hillel, too tired to talk about Italy. I love when my father picks me up from the airport- we can just take a Starbucks to go, listen to music, and talk when we are in the mood. There aren't awkward silences or feelings of guilt for not being more chatty or forthcoming. He understands that I'm tired and hate interacting in public when I'm unshowered and uncoiffed. He only makes a brief, passing comment about how much I can pack for three weeks (last count- 40 cosmetic items for 10 days).

But I need cash to pay the taxi driver. The person I can count on most is away until Sunday. I can call other friends, but that requires niceties, explanations, invitations, coffee sharing. I'm already dripping with sweat, but removing my sweater and scarf adds one more mis-shaped layer to carry. Finally, an ATM works. I have cash.

Men are coming at me left and right asking if I need help or need a minibus. They are all so irritating, but it's still heartbreaking that they will carry everything for me for less than a dollar. I'm annoyed at myself that I find them enraging since they too are covered in sweat and are tired-- tired in a way I'll never be, God willing. Tired of houses that leak, toilets that don't work, electricity that cuts out, taxi rides that are brakeless and excruciating.

The air is so beautiful, the sun is so beautiful, the mountains are so beautiful. I want to bathe in all the beauty.

I speak to my Mom later in the day, when she wakes up. She tells me "Welcome Home. Or to South Africa." Good question.

So many people I love and respect have abandoned the notion of home as tied up in place and land and childhood house. It's only parents and best friends and first loves and long-distance crushes. I'm not sure where I stand... my primary home, my fundamental home, is lying on the couch, any couch, with my Mom, watching Law and Order and fighting over the good seat. Abba sits on the floor, and tells us he likes sitting on the floor, but maybe he just likes being nice to us. Home is watching Tee IM, talk on a landline, and talk on a cellphone all at the same time.

Sometimes home is feeling South African warm grass beneath bare feet and reading on the lounge on the roof terrace, or listening to my heels click as I walk down subway or Metro or tube stairs, or sitting in Saba and Savta's apartment looking through their books, or falling asleep in my clothes on Mir's couch.

You've Got to be Kidding

2006-02-28T13:24:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in the Marhaba Lounge in Dubai, slightly delirious. There was a screaming child across the aisle from me for about five hours, and the Italian middle-aged "gentleman" next to me believed it was his birthright to place his large arm over the armrest and into my rib. He then promptly fake slept all the while elbowing me more sharply. I love the Emirates flight attendants- most are porcelain-skinned with really dramatic red lipstick. They all wear tight chignons, although in an odd fashion choice, seem forced to wear red scrunchies. Upon departure and landing, they don red velvet pillbox hats with a white chiffon scarf draping one side of their face.

Enter Dubai International Airport. Gold palm trees. Flashing lights. Strange men sleeping on the floor. I feel feverish and delusional and have just finished "Under the Banner of Heaven." At this point in my exhaustion, I'm ready to receive a revelation from the Prophet Moroni (this book is fabulous and about Mormon Fundamentalism and the juxtaposition between religious fervor and rationale).

Two more hours until an even longer flight to Jo'burg. The Sunday Times (www.sundaytimes.co.za) claims that a prolonged electricity crash, maybe complete infrastructural breakdown, is imminent in South Africa.

I want to work but it is sometime in the middle of the night and the call to prayer is really loud. I tried to surf my favorite blog about interchangeable jappy chicks (http://ijc.typepad.com) but received this intimidating message on my browser:
"We apologize the site you are attempting to visit has been blocked due to its content being inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates." So sorry for my cultural imperialism...

My Life in Perspective

2006-02-27T09:28:00.000-08:00

I am doing some dissertation reading and cannot stop my thoughts from spiralling out of context and out of bounds of the given tasks. Some days AIDS is my dissertation topic, the source of stress and a data logic complexity. Other days it feels like a calling. Some days I can write endlessly on viral treatments, other days the words refuse to come out. So today, I need to borrow from someone else--- someone more afflicted, more kind, more apt to literally scoop up dying children who everyone scorns, not just read about them.

April 2004, Sister Priscilla Dlamini, a 55-year old nurse of Gingindlovu, South Africa:
Sister Priscilla opened the Holy Cross AIDS Hospice because so many people dying from AIDS were being left in the sugar cane fields by their families for clinic workers to find. She reminds, "People come home from Durban and other cities to die. But relatives do not accept them. They chase them away or dump them on the edge of the sugar cane plantations and we go around picking them up and bring them here. Some of the dying children arrive at the hospice with nothing, not even identification documents. We give them a stone to hold before they die, and tell the children, 'your mother held this stone.'"

I want to tell a small white lie and give a dying child some comfort.

Intellectually, I understand how people fear disease and still believe, much against the face of scientific evidence, that HIV can be transmitted through the air or through sharing food or through hugging your child. But even if I was scared and ashamed, I'd like to think that I wouldn't abandon my child to die alone, starving, in a sugar cane field.

That Is So Revolting

2006-02-21T08:41:00.000-08:00

Much to my surprise, it's been confirmed that I acutally have some loyal readers on this blogosphere, including some long-time close friends and their mothers. So I will try to write within the bounds of decency and only shed light on interesting South African social phenomena. BUT... I am currently holidaying/working in Northern Italy (yes, I know, tough life) and thus the departure from regular African blogging. I'm sitting in an Internet Cafe near Torino watching in fascination as all these adolescent boys download porn in an open, public space. There is like no shame whatsoever involved with these transactions--- in fact, one appears to be sharing a computer with his sister. I am glaring at them and hence am the prude of the bunch.

OK, one funny story from Italy. A lovely friend of mine (lovely in looks and personality) is followed for a snow-filled day on the top of a mountain in Oulx by an Okie (Oklahoma resident currently residing in "Napoli"). He is totally lame but buys us hot chocolate. The night is crazy--- freestyle skiing cancelled in a lame move by the Olympics committee followed by a 4 km walk down a steep mountain in blistering snow. As usual, I am wearing totally inappropriate footwear and fall numerous times and am now bruised like crazy. So we all take the train post-refugee march down the mountain and we get to our stop sans the Okie. He wants to visit the lovely lady in New York but insists on a "sample" before logging onto Expedia. Well... you can guess the rest. We can't stop laughing for 24 hours. And now I can't stop saying sample. We guess he was asking for a "kiss," but it sounded like a saliva lab specimen. Back in Joburg on March 1st. Blogging will be resurrected, I promise.

Sweet Sixteen

2006-02-10T15:05:00.000-08:00

We're at The Zone, eating pizza with mushrooms at Primi Piatti and sipping Rock Shandies (a South African delicacy- soda water with a touch of lemonade and a splash of bitters). The noise is deafening and the waiters are frenetic; like clockwork, they ask how I'm enjoying my dinner and ask for a smile.

I was a bit early and the hostess notices me staring intently at the skirts in the window of Stoned Cherrie- they are African chic but amazingly cut. The waistlines are low and hug your hips like a first embrace. The skirt bodies are full and voluptuous with swatches of metallics and amber.

I'm watching all the teens strut around and the girls are gorgeous while the boys are a bit awkward and gangly. The boys are using way too much hair gel while the girls are precociously hot in low riders and boob tubes. Still, they seem so well-mannered and orderly for a night of loitering. They are cautiously flirting, some holding hands, some touching thighs, but none seem like brazen American teens- loud, free, narcissistic, drunk.

We used to cruise around all night on weekends when I was 16. We'd roll all the windows down, feel the air whipping our hair against our face, play the radio at crushing decibels, and just drive. There wasn't really anywhere to go. Maybe IHOP, maybe Wawa, maybe Mir's house. Whatever. The fun was in the running away, the flicking of ashes out the window, the arriving home at 7:00 am with groggy eyes and flaked mascara. Mom wanted to know where we went. "Out."

I loved driving home from the beach with friends-- my legs coated with sand and sweat, my hair like strands of salty kisses, and bottles of Zima knocking against my flip flops. Summer was so endless, and school so far away, and tomorrow night was another night of driving, of feeling the sun, of dreaming. I remember the teenage me riding Amtrak to New York one Saturday night and seeing the woman I imagined as the perfect older me- long dark hair, reading Vogue, sipping sparkling water. Her manicure was perfect and she looked so smart yet so pensive. She met pulling into Penn Station with total indifference. Another cab to catch, another night of sushi, another bottle of wine. Would New York ever stop exciting me?

I feel badly for these Jo'burg teens. Everything is indoors, in malls, controlled. It's too dangerous to sit in your best friend's car in your best friend's driveway with your legs hanging out the open door talking about how cool you'll both be at 25. It's too dangerous to sit on the curb of 7-Eleven dripping Slurpies and eating hot soft pretzels with spicy mustard and waving to random boys. It's too dangerous to sleep outside in the backyard on blankets and wake up cranky and covered with mosquito bites. It's too dangerous to pull over on the side of the road and fix your eye make-up in the rearview mirror and chat nervously on the phone to your crush.
Only the patrolled and the secure are safe and comfortable, and even that comfort is tinged with the danger lurking outside the gates.

Squalking in Fear

2006-02-09T06:09:00.000-08:00

It looks like the first reported cases of bird flu in Africa have hit the newstands- a Nigerian case has been confirmed, while reports of multiple Kenyan birds falling mysteriously ill have surfaced. Epidemics in their earliest stages make for interesting tests of human reaction capabilities- do we allocate the necessary resources, grow sufficiently worried, and begin difficult lifestyle changes to optimize our potential for later safety? Or do we read reports of bird flu on the Internet, sigh a bit, make a note to self to reduce chicken-sharing rituals with citizens of afflicted countries, and then get on with things? It's not an issue of stopping chicken eating, it's an issue of mustering the will to reduce the likely millions of deaths as this epidemic reaches pandemic status in record time. Epidemics center around the ability of viruses to transfer and multiply easily both amongst humans and between humans and other animals. Impoverished conditions- full with inadequate sanitation and refuse removal system; brimming with largely preventable diseases like TB, malnutrition, and parasitic infections; and relying on systems of small-holding agriculture, particularly poultry-based agriculture- drive the spread of disease. The rise and thriving of viral epidemics demonstrates the unacceptable level of poverty and unsafe living conditions across the world.

Anyway, off to a kugel birthday party tonight at Melrose Arch. I think I'll skip the chicken.

Picking and Paying

2006-02-08T23:30:00.000-08:00

I'm cruising down Grant Avenue towards the Norwood Pick and Pay Hypermarket. The precisely descriptive "Pick and Pay" title aside, Hypermarkets are large Walmart-esque strucutres, about the size of Elkins Park and much loved in Jo'burg. I park and pay the self-appointed guard 3 Rand to "watch" my car. He is self-employed and payment for services rendered is required--- pay him 3 Rand and there will only be about a 25% chance your car will be stolen during grocery shopping. Refuse payment and you can be sure that the car will be off to an Alexandra chop shop or at the very least, tires slashed.

I'm having an American barbeque (what South Africans would call a braai) and I need kosher hamburger meat, parve chocolate chips, and about 25 bottles of Coke Light (Diet Coke). Since it's all kugels anyway, I could skip all the food and just serve Coke Light, but I need to refute the stereotype of Americans as non-cooking hogs. Today my Domestic Goddessness will radiate.

Into the Hypermarket. Dodge the Chabad lady to the right. Make sure the shirt is not too low-cut-- the travelling rabbi's (he caters to distant African Jewish communities with a Torah and ark belted onto the carriage of his truck) large stomach and long beard is visible in Aisle 6. Shereen is manicuring at the back of the Hypermarket. The kosher french fry stand is booming--- I want some chips with vinegar and garlic salt but the cool frum girls are lined up three-deep.

How hard can it be to find the kosher meat anyway?

Aisle 1: Golf Equipment
Aisle 2: Bacon Products
Aisle 3: Kosher Chicken Feet
Aisle 4: Ribbon and Streamers
Aisle 5: Yogurt and Chocolate
Aisle 6: Tin Muffin Pans
Aisle 7: Garden Furniture

I think this Hypermarket was designed by the Minister of Planning and Transportation.

Oh No. I'm going to be here all day. I have a report due in 24 hours and Pick and Pay is totally out of kosher hamburger meat-- only chicken feet remain. A sheitel to the left grabbed the last hamburger pack in a low blow to the right, and I'm left totally unruffled. Phone Bev. She'll know what to do.
"Sweetie... try Feigels, or Shirleys, or Shulas. They'll have it. But you're late! It's already Thursday afternoon-- why didn't you go on Wednesday? That's when all the kosher meat is cut."
"Bev, how do I get to Feigels? I'm feeling kind of overwhelmed."
"Sweetie, darling, make a right out of the Hypermarket and go for about three or five robots (traffic lights). I'm not sure which. Then make a right where Mr. Cohen's pharmacy used to be. I'm sure you'll see it."
"Uh... Bev, you know I didn't grow up in Jo'burg. Remember?"
"I know darling, but we don't do street names in Johannesburg."

South Africana

2006-02-07T22:26:00.000-08:00

Ricky tells me, with a smile, that I am "so American" for ordering a skinny latte. Actually, it's so South African. Americans say "non-fat latte" or "skim milk latte"-- opting for a more purely descriptive order. South Africans like to load up a whole bunch of superlatives and expressives on the verbal train and unleash a saccharine-sweet torrent. The salesgirl calls me "angel," while the petrol pump attendant thinks I am "his darling." The middle-aged kugel calls the slightly dowdy girl "utterly revolting" while the slighly attractive chick is "divinely stunning." Two years ago, Mervyn kept pinching my cheeks during meetings and calling me "honey girl" and now he is running for mayor.

Of course these superlatives are intoxicating and I'm now prone to calling every American acquaintance "my angel." So, all my sweeties and darlings, I miss you. This distance between us is utterly revolting.

I was working at Sandton City (www.sandtoncity.co.za) yesterday and always leave Sandton slightly sickened but pulsating with the feeling of history in the making. Sandton is a bloated office park with mismatched architecture jabbing the polluted air for attention. Look, to the right, a Berliner chrome structure... oh, to the left, are we in Tuscany? Are those turrets and that moat imported from the Renaissance? This is kugel country and Mercedes SUVs hog the fast lanes and almost render the begging children on the side of the road invisible.

About six weeks ago, the Sunday Times (www.sundaytimes.co.za) ran a feature on celebrities' wishes for Christmas presents. Aside from the usual wailing for a new Ipod Nano and a BMW 330d, the Gauteng Minister of Housing revealingly mentioned her keen desire for another Gucci or Louis Vuitton (these are the only two true designer boutiques in Jo'burg to date) bag to add to her already overflowing collection. Hello, stop the presses, I would think. Gauteng is a province with MILLIONS of individuals living in tin shacks with sewage coating their entranceways, with six children sleeping on one bathroom-sized floor, with shack fires igniting an entire settlement like a sixteen year-old pyro, and with tuberculosis running through sewage streams. Thank you Ms. Minister for your insightful and empathetic public comments. I am sure Gauteng will fondly remember your Gucci collection as shacks multiply throughout Alexandra like amoebas.

I do think that public servants are entitled to consume and enjoy luxury goods like anyone else but I find a public persona shaped around conspicuous consumption, particularly when you are failing miserably in your charge to house millions in structures fit for human inhabitation, utterly revolting. And, please, if you are going to waste millions of Rand on inflated and non-performance based public servant salaries, at least don't choose the 1997 Gucci with tarnished hardware.

Today is freezing. In Jo'burg terms, it's about 65 degrees. I may have to wear socks for the first time in weeks.

By the way, this mini-tragedy was just reported on news radio (www.702.co.za)- 2/8/2006 3:15:37 PM Around 40 shacks have been destroyed, after two trees keeled over in an informal settlement in Rodepoort on the West Rand. The massive blue gums fell onto homes in the Princess Informal Settlement this afternoon, leaving almost 100 residents homeless. Emergency Services says at least two people have been injured, but their condition is unclear at this stage. Emergency Services' Malcolm Midgely says heavy rescue teams are on scene. "Informal settlement" is code for a whole bunch of shacks (likely with about 5 people in each) sprouting from a fixed spatial configuration- normally an "established" township or juxtaposed against a frontier town. Besides a whole host of other indignities, shacks are notoriously flimsy and homelessness is a real and constant threat.

Running Out of Wood

2006-02-01T13:17:00.000-08:00

In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, deforestation is achieving status as a major ecological challenge. The uprooting of trees occurs less for firewood but more for coffin production. Simply put, capacity- both for trees and for funeral homes- can't keep up with demand. The numbers of dead are rising too quickly and funeral rituals are adapting to keep up with the constant turn-over in life. Quickly, cardboard coffins are replacing hard wood and cemeteries are expanding much like the outer satellite towns growing from the Johannesburg core.

The lingering glance of AIDS is everywhere, even in sprawling Johannesburg, with its shady jacaranda trees and suburban matrons posing in late-model BMWs. The waxing lady grows noticeably more skeletal in between bi-weekly appointments and my manicurist from two years ago has already died. The receptionist relays the news without much emotion.

The Johannesburg General Hospital is decaying and at moments, feels truly terrifying. In the course of an afternoon, I'm pressed to find one functioning toilet- one with toilet paper or a bowl not streaked with excrement. Inside the wards, you can almost smell the AIDS. AIDS mixed with lesions from gang rape, AIDS mixed with gunshot wounds, AIDS mixed with a decaying city center, and AIDS mixed with men migrating to the City of Gold who insist on feeling "flesh to flesh" and shun condom use. HIV normally first hits the margins of society- the extreme poor, the abused, the migrants, the addicts. Here, though, the margins cut through South African society- into the purely heterosexual, into the drug-free, into the mother with child- and render over 5 million afflicted.

Fifteen minutes away, in Melrose Arch, I ponder a ten-page winelist and shift my IBook around in semicircles for the strongest wireless connection. BEE titans cruise the urban-esque fortress in Range Rovers looking for the hottest chicks and the best cuts of fillet. Men throw their cell phones on the tables, and finger their key rings, ensuring that the BMW and Audi logos are visible to all surrounding. My car sucks, but at least my clothes are desired. No one seems too impressed by budding AIDS experts- the PR girls have better jargon. My accent goes a long way though and so do my colleagues from London. When my hair is straight, the kugels love me but they can't understand the curls. I had breakfast with Kugel #1 last weekend and she told me that I need to leave the house every morning and put on more make-up- that I can't be one of those people who walk around "plain." I tell her it's not the biggest priority on deadline days, but she disagrees- it's about "self-respect."

The weather is perfect- no humidity, the brightest sun imaginable, but still not too hot. You can wear a tank top everyday or a sweater. Either is fine.

The waiter smiles and we order ostrich carpaccio and fillet. The total bill, shockingly low for New York restaurants, is likely more than his food expenditure for two weeks. I bump the tip up to 12% instead of the normal 10% but it still feels measly. I turn on my laptop and feel like a museum exhibit.

I'm on the highway right before the Alexandra township turn-off. You pass rows of shacks and ribbons of corrugated iron walls before reaching Sandton. My friend tells me about a store in Sandton that sells Chloe and Balenciaga handbags for less than 50% of New York prices. Kugels here, though, only want Louis Vuitton or Gucci with screaming logos and thus drive down the price of more understated luxury leather goods. I turn into the Sandton City parking lot while avoiding a minibus taxi crowded with at least 13 people and nursing faulty brakes. For most of South Africa, transport is a daily battle--- contending with unregulated and uninsured taxis, avoiding attacks on Metrorail trains, and having no direct route from Rosebank to Sandton (a trip that is normally 15 minutes by car). I've never seen a white face in a minibus taxi or a Metrorail train.

94.7 is the best radio station ever, and it's behind the wheel, trying to own the road, that South Africa feels so beautiful. So does sitting in my friends' gardens, eating Woolies rotisserie chicken and salad made with avos as big as mangos. The pool is glistening and the air smells like pine with a tinge of incense. Mosquitoes are resting on my ankles but I don't mind so much. We drive to the garage and buy some black liqorice. The man working at the counter tells me Celine Dion's song "I Drove All Night" is his favorite, but he can't figure out what she is saying. I order a latte to go and so does the guy behind me. His is out on the server first, so I pick it up and drink from it. His is with whole milk, and mine with skim. The ladies don't want to remake the lattes so we smile at each other and give the guy his latte with my lip-glossed lip imprint on the rim. He doesn't seem to notice.