DECOLONISATION

I have just been reading a newspaper article about a newly appointed academic who is very eager to transform and decolonise her university department. As an ex-colonial, I know I am prejudiced, but I found the article painful to read. Not only was it full of  worn-out socialist cliches, but the writing was very poor too. I thought that the standard of English in the local papers had improved slightly lately, but it seems I was mistaken. However, that is beside the point. What was interesting to me was the rise of anti-colonist sentiment (which in this country means being against colonisation by Whites)  at the same time as immigrants from Africa are flooding into Europe.  Just as, two centuries ago, Europeans escaping poverty and wars in their own countries, settled in Africa, now North Africans and Middle Eastern people try to escape poverty and wars, by settling in Europe. In many countries there has been resistance to this new form of colonisation. Not all Western Governments have been as welcoming to refugees as Angela Morkel's has.  Ironically for a country that was once a great colonial power and whose citizens spread all over the world, there has been a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment in Britain.  Yesterday I read a moving poem explaining how wrong this is and how the influx of migrants enriches the country in which they have chosen to settle. not only financially and culturally, but also by bringing in new ideas. I am sure this is true. but it is also true that they cause changes that are not welcome.

All through the ages, populations have spread from one part of the world to another and a mixing of races and cultures has taken place. Sometimes this has been through conquest sometimes simply by entering and taking over. In some parts of the UK and some parts of France, I believe, natives are  now in the minority. Soon this may be the case all over Europe. Perhaps, instead of trying to eradicate European culture from our universities, we should be preserving it. It may not be around for much longer. It could soon be colonised out of existence.

Vegan Poem

I have just been reading, on Twitter, a poem written by a vegan mother for her daughter. The gist of it was how glad the child should be that what she eats does not harm any animal. I am sure people who refuse to eat any animal products feel good about themselves. (Is it mean of me to think that feeling good and believing that you are better, more moral and more compassionate than other people are their reasons for doing so?) It is true that I sometimes feel bad about enjoying meat when it means an animal has had to die to give me that enjoyment. I do understand and sympathise with those who have opted to become vegetarians. It's a humane and civilised choice, but, on the other hand, were we not created omnivorous and so meant to be predators? Is it not rather presumptuous of us to know better than our Maker?  Vegans who do not use any animal products so as not to exploit animals, are another matter. I do not believe that they have thought through all the consequences of their choices. The mother seems to encourage her child to play with ducks, chickens, cows etc. but not to use the produce from these forms of livestock. That mother was obviously not brought up in the country as I was or she would know that poultry like chickens and ducks if they are regularly well fed and cared for don't seem to mind us collecting their eggs, but they simply hate being played with. They are not pets like cats and dogs. The same goes for cows and sheep who put up with being milked and shorn but are not happy with kids running around in their fields and paddocks. Interestingly, some of the  happiest animals are working animals, like shepherd dogs, and riding horses. In other words animals that are"exploited." Then there is the question of soy milk. Soy milk is a good substitute for those who are allergic to milk protein or are lactose intolerant but not the only possible substitute. If it is locally produced it is probably safe to drink it, although soy does contain phytic acid which reduces the absorption of minerals, and phytoestrogens which should not be taken in large quantities by children, but most soy products are imported so using soy milk instead of cow's milk or eating soy as a meat substitute can put local farmers out of business. Also imported soy is GM and contains glycophosphate which is possibly carcinogenic. So the milk you choose to drink because of your concern for animals may not be as good for you or your child as you think.

Blogspot

Why is it that today I was unable to access my blog? The password that is in my list was rejected. I know that the last time I did any blogging I didn't log in with gmail but this time I had to log in and change my password before I could do any writing. I see that Yolande's name.came up. Perhaps she used the computer for gmail or perhaps for her own blog. Yolande is often here but previously it was only once that I found any interference. Last time she house-sat her sister Bronwyn came with her. I wouldn't be surprised if it was something Bronwyn did that excluded me from my own Blog. I have now reset the password and am able to use this blog again.

The weekend before last, Danielle and I did our long awaited road-trip. It turned out to be a more extensive one than we had planned and we were together in my little car much longer than we had meant to be.
Several kilometres of  road-works made our eastward journey much longer than expected and then trying to avoid said road-works we took the wrong turning and landed up going very far out of our way.'Lots of time to bond" as Danielle pointed out.

It was a very pleasant weekend.  I am not surprised Luke is happy at having relocated to George. From being a rural backwater that all young people fled from as soon as they had left school, it has become a vibrant, rapidly developing hub of commerce and industry with gated complexes and huge shopping malls springing up everywhere. I hardly recognised the place.  It was great being with my old neighbours Kathy and Lesley and also nice seeing the pub "the Blind Pig" that Luke has an interest in and where his beers are sold.

Our journey home included four mountain passes. See the pictures below.

Losing it

Last week was not the best week for me. First, on Monday, I lost a dog lead when taking the dogs for a walk at the vlei. It was one of those special ones with a clasp at each end and not easy to replace. I have lost things there before and was sure I would not see the lead again, but I did tell a few fellow walkers about it, just in case. Then on Tuesday, I completely forgot to go to the Exercise class probably because Gairo, my domestic worker, had swopped her Tuesday workday for Wednesday and this put me out. The next thing to go wrong was a booking for a course at Summer School. My friend Julie had asked me if I would go to a poetry course with her. She was going to do the booking. On Wednesday morning she turned up at my house having been unable to book on her computer. We had no success on mine either so decided to drive up to the University Centre for Extramural Studies and sort out the booking in person. We found the building which houses this Centre without  taking more than three or four wrong turnings, but the drive had taken longer than expected and we had arrived just when most of the staff were on their lunch break. After a battle to find the information we needed and after filling out a very long and involved form, we registered for the course.  Then came the problem of payment. The office that dealt with fees was closed for lunch. I didn't want to stay until after two because Gairo, (the one who had changed her work day ) was waiting to be taken home as she had to  fetch her child from school. Eventually the lady behind the counter was persuaded to accept credit cards.  Then all we had to do was check on venue and time.
"Short Form Poetry? But that's this week not next week. The course started two days ago."
Horrors!
Julie and I were devastated, We could have sworn that the dates were 22nd to 26th not 15th to 19th, How could we have made such a mistake.  We must have been looking at the dates for another course.  We had to cancel at once. What a disaster! But just then the course co-ordinator, who happened to be an old friend,  appeared.
'Why don't you  attend the remaining two, sessions. We'll sort out the fees later."
So that's  what we did.

Wednesday is always a busy day. I had been to a U3A meeting in the morning. The trip up to UCT had taken several hours and I had just enough time to pick up my notes for our Evergreen poetry club meeting which started at three that afternoon. I also had a church meeting at 6 and I just had enough time to feed the dogs before rushing off to that. That is why I only got to the vlei the next day. I was a bit later than usual after the "short form poetry" too. One of my dog walking friends gave me some good news
"Paul has your dog's lead. He's gone home already, but you can get it from him tomorrow."
I knew just who she meant. Everybody living near the vlei knows Paul. He is the one who owns no fewer than six rescue dogs and takes them to the vlei every morning and evening without fail.   I would be sure to see him the next time I walked my dogs. But, somehow,what with one thing and another, I kept on missing Paul. I finally caught up with him.
"Oh no!"he exclaimed.  "I brought the lead with me every day, but finally  I gave up and today I left it at home.  Be sure to come tomorrow and I  will bring it tomorrow"
The next day, I discovered that I had lost my watch. It was one of Gairo's workdays so I asked her to look for it when she was cleaning the house. Unfortunately she failed to find it. It was one of the hottest days this month and I when I got the dogs ready to go for their walk, I realised that the heat of the afternoon had made me think it earlier than it actually was. When I got to the vlei I could see no sign of Paul.
"He must have gone home already," I thought
If only I could have sent him a message, but all that week( I did say it was a bad week, didn't I ) my phone would only send messages in Spanish.
I gave the dogs a quick run and then drove to Paul's house. He has no bell at the gate, so I shouted for him, but there was no reply and no dog barking either.
So it was back to the vlei and sure enough, there was Paul, just about to walk his dogs home. I called out to him and he reluctantly turned back.
"When I didn't see you ,I'm afraid I gave the lead to Hazel" he said. "She lives in the house two houses from the corner."
So I proceeded to a house which I thought was the one he meant.
"No, There is no Hazel here, but I think the chairlady of the Neighbourhood Watch is called Hazel. I'll give you her number."
"Is she a a tall person who has a limp?"
"I don't think so, but I'll try her anyway."
But the chairlady was not there.
I took the number and rang later.
"Have you a dog lead that belongs to me?"
To my amazement , the answer was "Yes" and soon I had my lead back. "Thank you Hazel" Although Hazel was not the Hazel I thought she was. but a quite different Hazel.
However, in spite of everything, there were some good things about last week. The two poetry sessions were really worthwhile, and somehow the fees seem to have been forgotten. The lead did come back and since then I have managed to get someone to fix my phone so it speaks English again.

Modern Poetry

I have not been writing much lately. This is partly because .I have started a course on Modern American Poetry. Not the famous Modpo, but a course run by Illinois university. I don't think it as good as Modpo, but I like the way it does include a number of poems(and poets) that are not part of Modpo. Poms covered so far are of the kind that I can relate to. These all fall in the period that is known as "Modern" and not "Post Modern" and date back to the early 20th century. But I have recently read some poems which were highly praised by prestigious American critics and these I am afraid I cannot relate to at all. It is not just that they are difficult to understand.  Of course I am old-fashioned enough to prefer poems that make sense to me, but I can often enjoy teasing out the meaning from a poem that seems obscure at first reading. I don't really like poems that are made up of numbers of seemingly unrelated images like those of Ashbery's later work., but I can get enjoyment from the vivid description in the word-pictures Ashbery paints. I can also enjoy the music of  many modern poems  though I may not understand what they are about.

I think it was in the New Yorker, (sometimes pages of this journal get sent to me) that I  read about some young American poets who had all received prizes for their poetry. I instituted a Google search and that is when I decided that Twenty-first Century Poetry/Contemporary Poetry/ or perhaps Post-Modern Poetry had past me by. I have experienced various set-backs recently. I was rejected at the MacGregor festival.The new on-line literary journal, the name of which I can never remember, informed me that the poems I had submitted were not of a high enough standard and the poem I thought had been accepted by the journal, Stanzas was not included in its latest issue..  I read these prizewinning poems carefully several times, but I could make neither head nor tail of any of them.  It was not just a case of a series of unrelated statements or unrelated images, they seemed to me to be just a number of unrelated words set haphazard on a page. I read them aloud because I have found many poems come to life only when read aloud. Some of Gertrude Stein's work which looks at first glance like the "word-salad" of a schizophrenic, trips delightfully off the tongue and makes its own kind of sense when you hear it. But this was not the case with this poetry. It is true that American speech has its own  cadences and rhythm so perhaps I am missing something by reading the poems in my clipped South African English, but I don't think it is that. It must be I who is not in tune with the literature of the New Century. Perhaps I should consider retirement. At Eighty-three it is not surprising to find oneself a has-been.

Vegetarians and Vegans

On Saturday I was at a party. It was the end of year party of our poetry group and one of the most enjoyable I have been to. The food was great, the company was excellent and the poems were of a very high standard too. While surveying the most wonderfully varied choice of snacks, the subject of Vegetarianism came up and with it the idea of the exploitation of animals. Somebody saying how poor cows were forced to produce more milk than was natural and chicken kept to lay eggs etc. Now, I am against animals suffering, but I am not sure that the exploitation of animals is the evil that some  animal lovers believe. Think of all the animals we share our world with. There are those we  use for our own purposes, and those we compete with for living space and food. The first multipy and thrive, the others are pushed towards extinction, unless preserved in game parks and reserves and there, of course exploited too, to make money as tourist attractions.

Animals do have feelings, but are we right when we equate their emotions with ours. I am reminded of friends from our dog club who asked me to sign a petition against using  animals in circuses.  "These creatures, " they said. " are put in cages, taken all round the country and made to perform tricks." I said that I thought it a bit hypocritical of us to condemn the practice, because it was exactly what we were doing with our dogs. We train them to run Agility courses, take them to events in different places and keep them in cages at shows when not competing. I am not just trying to justify it when I insist that the dogs simply love it. You just have to see my terrier's excited reaction when he is taken to a show.  Just because animals are made to work, doesn't mean that they are unhappy or badly treated. We may prize freedom, but do animals feel the same way? An animal in a well-run Zoo, kept safe and fed regularly is probably happier than the same creature in the wild, often hungry and in constant danger of predators or if a predator itself, in competition with other dangerous animals. We may get sentimental about the natural life in the great wide open spaces, but given the choice, we nearly all opt for a safe suburbia ourselves.

All Souls Day

All Saint's, All Soul's and Halloween  all come at the same tine of year and I get them muddled. I am also confused about "the Day of the Dead. "  Is this the same as All Soul's Day?  At the churches where I worshiped previously neither All Saint's nor All Soul's was  celebrated. I always knew that the name Halloween meant Saint's Eve, so presumably it is the day before All Saint's day, but because of all the skulls and skeletons you see at Halloween, I thought it had something to do with the dead and so I thought the day on which one remembered the dead was the day before the day you remembered the saints.  I believed that All Soul's day came before All Saint's Day. I was very surprised to read the instructions in our latest pew leaflet. We were told, last week, to go to church on Wednesday evening as it was All Saint's Day and  again on Thursday evening for All Soul's day. So I must remember Nov 1 all Saints, Nov 2 All Souls. First remember the goodies and then all the other dead people.

Now that I am a member of  All Saint's parish , Muizenberg I am very aware of the date of our patronal festival. So I know that the actual day was Wednesday. But because not everyone can attend church in the week, there was just a short service on Wednesday and we waited until today for the proper celebration. We had a simply glorious service for this special day. The church was shining clean and full of flowers, the Youth band produced most joyful music and we had a scrumptious tea afterwards.


I had intended to go to the evening service on Wednesday. I even told Luke, who was to spend the night here, that I would leave his supper for him in the oven, if I was not there when he came.  I had been very busy all day making marmalade for the Evergreen Craft market which was to take place on Friday and just did not make it to church. I got everything ready. I put the meat and veg in the oven, sat down for a few minutes and fell fast asleep, only waking when Luke arrived. The pork rashers were a little overcooked, but thankfully not burnt. he was ravenous and didn't mind.

So having missed out on All Saint's, I attended the All Soul's service the next day. . It was quite a moving service. After the prayers when we remembered those that had died, we went up to the altar and lit candles for them. There were not very many of us in the congregation. The Parish council  had catered for a larger group and there were enough candles for each of us to light more than one. I thought of all those dear to me who had died. So many of my family, so many of my friends.
I made a mental list as I went up and lit candles. First, my Grandmother, who died when I was still at school. My aunt Bobby who lived with us died when I was at university, my father I lost when I was in my twenties, married and living in Zambia, my father-in-law died the same year. My mother-in-law died many years later when we were living in George, my other aunt Dorothy died at much the same time, but I don't remember exactly when. My husband died seventeen years ago. My eldest Daughter died eight years ago. After my husband's

  death I moved to Cape Town to be near my grandson and my youngest daughter(who have both since moved away, of course) . When I moved  I  had family living here as well as a number of old friends. almost none of them are left. I have out-lived them all. I was one of the youngest of my generation and had numerous older cousins. Of these I was very close to Jerry and Brian .Both died a few years ago. Closest of my friends were Poelie, Liz, Catherine and Helen  Of them only Liz is still alive and she is senile and bedridden. Why am I still around? I ask myself.

Yesterday I went to a wedding. It was a delightful occasion. I found myself becoming tearful. Why after all these deaths, do I cry at a wedding.Perhaps because it was such a welcome change from all the funerals and  wakes or  ("celebrations of a life") that I have been to lately.

ALL SOULS DAY

Today I remember:

my Granny, who showed me how to sew,

and knit and darn my father’s woollen socks,

my Dad who didn’t say too much, but taught me

some Maths and some 

basic carpentry.

my Aunt, who gave me lessons in the pruning

of bougainvillea creepers, fruit trees and rose bushes,

my Mother who  introduced me to books,

my daughter Dot, who taught me patience among other things

my friends, Catherine, Poelie, Helen

with whom, I spent so many pleasant hours.

And last, I light a candle for my husband .Mike.

My hand shakes and the hot wax burns my palm.

”Butterfingers” he would have said. “Let me do that for you.

It's still hard to live without him.