BackLOG: Te Kaapstad en terug (september)

"So hey, remember when we used to have a blog?  I guess we still do.  So here's some pictures I saved for the last 2 months, from our trip to Cape Town.  I never really know how to describe it. "Shockingly pretty", maybe?  Here's a few thousand words to back that up:"

....except then I waited two more months before actually finishing the post.  Anyway we went to Cape Town and it is gorgeous and we did really fun things and had a great time.

The end.  Wall of pictures below the fold.

Looking back on 2013

Most of 2013 was here in South Africa, and I have been getting to know its people, languages, climate, and landscape.  I don't know why but it feels really comfortable and easy now as I feel transformed into a real member of the community.  I wouldn't have believed I would learn isiXhosa and be braaiing all the time.  Even though sometimes I was sad and bored (especially earlier this year) and sometimes insanely busy and super excited, I have resulted in a better person.  I am creating more art, cooking more, exercising, and being adventurous.  My Jersey attitude is coming out more cause I have now the room to express myself.  While, sometimes this can cause problems, mostly it is amusing and no fights have occurred. 
Now that I am reflecting on the end of the year, I remember what is most important to me love, creative energy, and sharing myself to the world.  Whether that means having a drink at the Rat meeting new friends or spending the day at the beach discovering new things about nature, I am happy to have been able to share my life with other people and enjoy nature. Will and I have been watching an enormous amount of nature shows lately, and I am now more aware of the details of my surroundings fascinated with the plants, insects, and animals. 

My vacation with my Mom was great earlier this year and I am looking forward to her and Ed coming to visit.  We are planning to spend more time in Kenton to watch the sunsets and enjoy life. Will's parents are coming in Jan too, so there will be a lot of touring going on.  It would be great to be able to share this experience with others and hopefully 2014 will allow for more people to visit. 

 

2013 has also been awesome to explore my responsibilities and expectations as a wife.  Will and I have been growing together in the most beautiful way. Finding deeper connections through communicating and supporting each other has been wonderful.  We are lucky to be so in love. 

Also, 2013 has been a year of a lot of successes.  I finally got a job with the company I worked for previously.  I still get to travel and contribute in a big way to the projects of my past job.  Wish me luck in 2014 for more success.  Will has been over the top successful teaching, researching, working on his book, journal articles, posters, attending conferences, teaching in Nigeria and whatever else he does.  He has been able to get up in the morning continuing to work even in the summer, which takes a lot of determination.  This year has had us playing alot of ultimate frisbee together.  It was definitely Will's thing in the past, but I always liked throwing a Frisbee, and now I consider it a goal to get better.  Will's help and our ultimate friends have made all the difference in our happiness for 2013.  Our Grahamstown ultimate friends are so much fun.  Even with some people moving away, I am looking forward to continuing next year. 

My only resolution for next year is to take more pictures and write more blogs! 

Will and I wish everyone a Happy New Year!  Hope your 2013 was just as enjoyable as ours.

The jacarandas are coming?

Apparently, according to local informants, there is a time sometime around this time of year when I can expect G'town to explode with bright purple flowers from the jacarandas.
Either it's passed and it was lamer than they implied, or it's about to get here.  But this is a photo I snapped today of Somerset st, in front of campus. The Jacarandas are the highly contrastive.

Nieu Bethesda

No that's not a typo.  That's where we went last weekend!  For my few Grahamstonian friends who read these posts, the best analogy is apparently this:
Grahamstown:Bathurst::Graaff-Reinet:Nieu Bthesda.


Which to most people who have never been to the Eastern Cape means very little.  But think of it this way: it's a place you never heard of. A tiny place.  There's about six different tourism websites because that's apparently the main source of income.  All of them dutifully note that there's no gas petrol or bank facilities there, so you must fill your wallet and tank before coming.

Descriptions are lame.  Let me rather show you a picture of downtown:

There is literally no place in the town where you cannot look in any direction and see not town.

Nigeria!

So right now my co-author is sitting across the table from me, and we are having a blace.  What the heck is a blace?  Answer #1: some random thing I just made up.  Answer #2: when one and one's co-author (henceforth "two") write posts for the same blog concurrently.  The first one to finish wins, but I haven't decided what yet.  I'll pick that when I win.

Anyway, MY post is about Nigeria.  Or, as I enjoy calling it, 9ja.  Because that's how the cool, hip kids spell it.  And while I'm not really cool, or a kid, I do have two hips, so....yeah.  And now, dear reader, tremble in fear, for you are about to receive an illustrated telling of assorted anecdotes from my increasingly-less-recent sojourn to Nigeria, land of languages, diversity, intrigue, and also credit fraud.
It's pretty – lush, and verdant, and a unique mix of first-world novelty, third-world apparent-ruin, and a sublime cultural charm found nowhere else on this Earth that I have been. 

Love of the braai

In the USA, NY-NJ-PA-MA in one week.  I celebrated being in here by seeing friends and family.  Mostly, I have been drinking and eating non stop thanks to great food and beer.  My cousins made my 4th of July a blast literally with the ridiculously grand display of fireworks.  Too bad I slept through most of it.

Now I in Boston to celebrate my mother-in-law's birthday, Will's birthday and Sylvia and Scott's wedding.   Another busy week.  My mom is also tagging along in MA, just to be in the same state as me.  She hasn't moved to Africa (yet), but she couldn't stay in NJ while I was here.

The weather here in MA is....

What I never finished this one?  The weather was hot.  I loved every single minute of the trip to USA.   I love our family and friends.  Miss you all.

This was us about a year ago.  We are still just the same people with more stories to tell.  We are growing each day closer and more in love.  Our anniversary brandy is being drunk right now!  

Will and I are enjoying our evening, post braai.  The braai this evening was on wood instead of charcoal, which means we are becoming TRUE South Africans.  An honorable mention goes to me for the awesome rescue of the potatoes. 

Why braai in Africa? Perhaps because it is just another day of the year, perhaps because it is suddenly warm or because it is just so much fun.  I don't know what calls one to braai so much but the feeling is contagious.

Speaking of contagious Will came back from Nigeria with a cold, and I caught it.  It was not that bad, but I was able to kick it with antibiotics and paracetamol (acetaminophen).   After which we rescheduled our trip to Nieu Bethesda.  It actually happened this past weekend.  A new blog story to follow.

Tonight is an ordinary night in our lives.  It is just now being captured in a blog, something I haven't done in a long time.  I need to catch up on the things that are important in life.  So, if I have been absent for a while, I apologize.  Today I found out my work permit will be finalized (finalised) in about 14 days!  This has been a LONG time coming.

Our backyard has been steadily improving since we moved in to our house.  The garden was not a huge success although we harvested a few carrots.  Our tomato plants survived but without any yield. I am not sure what is going to happen with the spring season, whether we will tempt the garden again or not.  Now now *right now* we have planted spekboom, rosemary, and pelargonium. I am hopeful that my pelargonium lives.  This particular one is lemon rose scented leaves and blossoms purple flowers.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portulacaria_afra - Spekboom - elephant bacon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelargonium

It is great to have the opportunity to learn the indigenous plants and indigenous languages (isiXhosa) and indigenous customes such as the braai.  We will have so many stories to tell in the future, so expect to hear "when I was in South Africa" a lot!

Here are the gratuitous food porn pictures you were waiting for:  

 Will has perfected the method of cooking steaks and boerewors on wood.  Our tiny braai cooking surface has served us well.  We even had a recent braai with Nigerian suay.  I love to entertain our culinary enthusiastic friends. Will and I plan to have many more parties in the future.