October 2016 - My Soul is Scottish

Weird things South Africans do

I’m often asked where I’m from because my accent has become a hybrid of all the places I’ve lived. I sound British but still say ja instead of yes and use words like braai (pronounced bry, like fry) instead of BBQ.

It’s made me think of all the weird nuances from each place I’ve lived. Let’s start at the beginning: South Africa. South Africans are called Saffas, for short.

TIME:

Africa-time is a thing and there are units of measurement specific to South Africa, which make NO sense outside of the borders. The 3 most common units of time are now now, just now and later.

Now now can be anywhere between a minute and a month. If you’re busy on a quick phone call and someone is trying to attract your attention, you’ll be with them now now.

On the other hand, if you’re busy cooking dinner and your friend wants to meet up afterwards, you’ll be with them just now. Just now is longer than now now but not as long as later. Later is later, just now is before then, but not as immediate as now now. All Saffas understand exactly what someone means depending on the context of the situation. In one situation now now means immediately. In another situation, it’s ‘give me 20 minutes.’ They just know and there’s very rarely confusion.

BBQ’s:

Saffas don’t barbecue. We braai. No, they’re not even close to the same thing. A braai takes hours. There’s wood to burn, coals to stoke, beers to drink and a whole bunch of conversation before any kind of cooking can happen.

A bring-&-braai is part of the social fabric of South African life. You take your meat and booze to someone else’s house and slap it on their braai. When some Saffa friends of mine in England suggested a bring & braai, their English friends reacted as if England had just run out of tea. Total shock and horror. ‘Bring our own food?!’ Yes, bring your own food. Booze too, thanks!

The host provides the rolls, salads and sodas; everything else is every man for himself. Everyone’s booze gets parked in the kitchen and becomes a communal stash. The unspoken rule is you don’t drink someone else’s booze unless you contributed some of your own to the collective pile because that’s just rude. You also drink down, meaning if you bought in cheap booze, you only drink on the same level of booze you contributed. Don’t bring in a cheap bottle of scotch, then sail into the 18yr old Glenfiddich. You won’t be invited back.

You cook and then sit around the fire with your food on paper plates and a drink in hand. It works completely differently in US & UK. Saffas eat their braai with their hands, cutlery is only for salads. It’s not a sit-at-the-dining-table affair.

HOMES:

Saffas generally have rather high walls around their homes. It’s mostly a security thing, with many houses looking like fortified military compounds surrounded by 6 ft walls topped with razor wire. A fence in the UK is usually a hedge about a foot high than you can step over and in the US there are frequently no fences between properties. It’s all just open, which continues to blow my mind 6 years later.

There are no barred windows in the US or UK that I’ve seen. SA has everything barred; windows and doors.

POPPING IN & TALKING TO EVERYONE:

People rarely make arrangements in advance to meet up. If you’re in someone’s neighbourhood, you pop in for coffee. Sometimes you ring them a few minutes ahead and it’s ‘Are you home? I’m popping in for coffee.’ Done. No worries.

The Brits don’t pop in. Ever. Arrangements are made way in advance and under great duress. An unscheduled knock at the door has everyone crouching out of sight, silently not breathing until the person has gone away. Then wait an extra 20 minutes just to be sure they’ve left. NEVER pop in unannounced.

Muricans can conduct entire conversations on their front doorstep. Unless you’re family, don’t assume because they know you, they will invite you in. It’s the weirdest thing. Popping in is also not encouraged. It’s very hard as a Saffa to grasp this concept because we’ve been popping in all over the place since birth.

If a friend is sick, you visit and take food. So what if they’re contagious, you go. Win, lose, shit or bust, you visit. UK, not so much. Germs, you say? Get well soon mate and see you much later! Stateside, people don’t offer to visit, you have to ask, and in my opinion, if I have to ask you to check up on me, you can keep it. That was something that really bothered me after surgery. I couldn’t get around and not a single friend stopped by to visit. ‘Why didn’t you ask?’ Uh… I’m not going to beg you to come and visit. While it’s very much a cultural thing, it changed my opinion on friendships here and I’m more guarded around people.

Saffas will also strike up a conversation with anyone, anywhere, especially with another Saffa outside of South Africa. Instant friends. There’s nothing more awkward than trying that in England. If you ever want half a train car to yourself, or even a full bench seat on the bus, start randomly talking to the person next to you. They’ll probably get off at the next stop even if it isn’t the one they wanted. Brits can be crammed like cattle into the Tube, with their noses crammed into someone else’s armpits for the duration of their commute, but unsolicited conversation? Dear God, no! Americans are generally game for a chat, especially if you have an accent. They LOVE accents so talk to everyone, they’ll mostly think it’s great. The conversation will likely center around where you’re from, but they’re super friendly so it’s cool.

Rice is a regular accompaniment at mealtimes in SA. Sunday roasts will include roast potatoes, rice and gravy. We never need an excuse to eat rice and gravy. In the UK, rice is eaten with curry. Stateside, it’s with Chinese food. Curry isn’t a huge thing here.

THE BEACH:

Saffas will drive all the way to a perfectly good sandy beach and park. Then sit in their car the entire time watching the sea. Brits will drive to a beach covered in pebbles, set up their tents and towels and feign comfort. I tried this once and even making gaps in the pebbles to put my boobs into, I couldn’t get comfy. The Brits have mastered discomfort and it’s pretty damn impressive. Stateside, there’s no coastline within 800 miles of where I live so I have no idea what beach etiquette is here.

If we’re spending the day at the beach, it looks like we’re moving house. We pack everything. Coolers, braai, enough food to feed a small village, a radio *for if you can’t park close enough to the beach to hear your car radio*, gazebo/tent/umbrella, lots of towels, spare clothes and water for the dog.

Saffas tend to swim in t-shirts a lot of the time. It keeps your shoulders from being incinerated by the sun when you forget to top up your sunscreen. In the US, swimming in clothing is often on the Prohibited List of swimming pool rules. No swimming in clothes allowed. I haven’t quite figured out why. Maybe it’s something to do with the colours running in the water? Who knows…… If the Brits are swimming, then it’s balls to the wall, no t-shirts! Summer is 5 minutes long so if it’s warm enough to swim, NO CLOTHES REQUIRED!

We also call swimwear either a cozzie or a costume. I was talking to some colleagues stateside and mentioned I’d packed a costume for my trip to South Carolina and it was met with ‘Are you going to a themed party?’ No, a swimming costume. ‘Like you’re dressing up as a swimmer?’ Huh? No, the thing you swim in. ‘Oh, you mean a swimsuit?’ Yes, one of those. Costume does not translate to anything other than a Halloween outfit here. They were rolled up laughing at me while I was laughing at them. Immigrant problems 🙂

Welcome to South Africa!

Thank-you

Recently I’ve had a number of comments mentioning that I do not monetize my blog and should consider doing so. Some of the comments are very obviously spam and are flagged as such, but others seem to be genuine people. While I appreciate the sentiment, it’s really not the point of this blog.

I blog because I enjoy writing. Yes, I love writing manually and would prefer not to use some online program to write my content. Each writer’s voice is unique and cannot be replicated by software. There have been many blogs that have grabbed my interest over the years and over time, they started adding ads, banners and pop ups. It becomes incredibly difficult and frustrating to navigate around that and eventually I stop following them because it’s irritating. It sucks to lose the meaningful content but the irritation that comes with trying to read it ends up outweighing the value of the content. It’s that exact reason why I refuse to do the same to mine.

When the time comes where I can make money writing, there are platforms for that and I’ll make use of them. This blog is solely to house my ramblings and pet projects. I intend to keep it that way.

To anyone reading this and to those who pop by regularly, thank you! Thank-you for taking the time out of your day to check in and I hope you find something useful or meaningful in here. Maybe even a little nudge to take a chance on finding happiness in the life you were made to live.

Have a brilliant day and don’t forget to look up once in a while. I did yesterday and there was a perfect red rose lying in the grass next to the tracks. Beauty really can be found in the oddest places…

Best day EVER!

I finally took my own advice and bust myself out of my cell and left fear behind. After my sister hounding my ass, and my friend giving me a deadline, I finally set up an account with a stock agency and sent in my pics.

13 went in, 1 declined so far, and 3 accepted! The rest are still undecided. I’m SOOOOOOOOOO happy I screamed WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOO in my car on the way home. Yes. Out loud. In traffic. After years of sitting on the fence, my sister kicked me off it and it’s done. Why did I wait so long? It wasn’t difficult. It wasn’t terrifying. It was just a bit time consuming and oh, so worth it!

Whether they are successful or mediocre doesn’t matter. What matters is that they exist outside of myself and my hard-drive and they’re out there. If you’re sitting on the fence about your dream, just take a chance. Yes, it’s easier said than done but honey, if my pansy-ass can do it, then so can you. We can be shit-scared terrified together and we’ll celebrate on the other side when it becomes a reality.

I’m officially a photographer. Not a famous one, but my photos are finally out there, existing in public and that makes me a photographer. That makes me part of who I’ve always wanted to be and it feels so damn fantastic right now, I can’t stop smiling!

The first step really is the longest stride, but always remember, the time will pass anyway.

A wee trip down Memory Lane

I started this blog at the end of last year, after I had my hysterectomy. A few weeks before that, I’d taken a trip to Scotland, but never recorded the details of that trip on this blog.

So I’ve gone back and done that. I’ve published it on the dates it happened, so back in November 2015. Looking through the photos and remembering the details of it all has made me both happy and sad.

Happy to remember the absolutely incredible experiences; sad to know that I’m not there right now. Tomorrow it’s off to the Consulate to take care of my legal name change so I can get my South African papers updated.

Once that is done, I can hopefully reapply for my UK visa and go home to Scotland. It might take 6 months, it might take a year. The Saffas work on Africa time – it will be done when it’s done.

If the prize is going home, I can be patient. Maybe.

Fear is an absentee jailer

Walking used to be a meditation for me yet I’ve somehow managed to avoid it completely for the entire summer. After a lazy day of cooking I dragged myself for a late afternoon walk. There’s something calming about walking the troubles right out of my head. There should be a prescription for this stuff.

After weeks of living in my head and percolating in stress, I’ve been somewhat overdue for a light bulb moment. It turns out it was waiting on the corner for me to pick it up. Maybe epiphanies are really little balls of energy, neatly packaged at random places and we need to walk through them to absorb them.

For years I’ve had this really annoying trait where I’ll sign up for stuff, I’ll pay for it, then I’ll sit back and do nothing. Martial arts classes, cooking classes, photography, travel writing, nutrition courses, exercise programmes, things; I’ll sign on the dotted line, swipe my card, pay for it, then let it gather dust in a corner and ignore every single reminder to attend. Let me assure you, 97% of anything I’ve ever signed up for has gone unused and ignored. Even Groupons to the spa. How stupid is that?

I like the easy way out. It’s as if swiping my credit card on another fad eating plan or online course will magically make me whatever it is that I just paid for. Instantly. No effort required. No risk. It’s probably best if I don’t tally up the cost of those things….

Fear has a huge voice in my life. Fear of failing; fear of not being enough; fear of not being perfect; fear of getting it wrong and making an arse of myself. I won’t attempt something unless I know there’s a 99% chance I’ll get it right on the first attempt so I’ve essentially shelved almost everything I desperately want to do.

I’m dumb, what can I say?

My brain jabbered on at me for 2.5 miles this afternoon. Last week I signed up for a class in photography; specifically how to sell photos and create an income stream from that. A few years ago, it was a course in travel writing. I’ve never written a single thing nor did I finish the course.

This time has to be different and I am the only one who can make that a reality. The nuts and bolts of it comes down to: what do I fear most about this? Do I even want to do stock or fine art photography?

For the first time it hit me that the reason I have avoided every single thing that could improve my life is because I hinge everything on it doing just that. Improving my life. I hinge my entire future happiness on this one thing saving me instead of doing a class for the pure fun of it. My career path has never brought me an ounce of happiness and I’ve spent close on 2 decades trying to figure out what I’d rather be doing. Anything but this! So I’ve viewed writing and photography as the sole escape routes out of my current misery. Talk about pressure….

You cannot remove air from a glass. You can only move the air out by filling the glass with something else. It’s the same with living. You cannot remove the negatives from your life. You can, however, fill your life with things that make you happy, which reduces the space available for the negatives.

I’ve taken the things I enjoy doing; writing and photography, and I’ve tasked them with supporting my entire life financially. Given that very few people write a best selling book or sell a million dollar photo on their first attempt, I’ve written my creativity off as something that will never work because I can’t succeed immediately. I’ve played it safe instead of enjoying the hell out of it. I’ve left the dream safely locked in its box, undamaged, while I stare longingly at it every day. The risk of loss has been deemed too high to risk trying. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, having a passion outside of the office will probably restore my sanity in a similar way to what I’ve been hoping for all along.

In reality, the biggest loss already happened. I’ve forked out a pile of cash and the second I swiped my card, those funds were lost to the ether. Gone. I didn’t mourn the loss for a second.

So if the biggest loss has already happened, there’s nothing left on the line. Absolutely nothing. Creativity just wants to manifest itself into something. Anything. Taking that photo and writing the article/story/whatever, is all that needs to happen. There’s nothing else it needs to do other than bring me pleasure from doing it. That’s it. There’s no other sacrifice on the altar.

So what if I submit them to stock agencies and they’re rejected? What did I actually lose? Nothing. I had nothing before I sent them in, nothing after they were rejected; net result: same. If anything, the rejection will come with a lesson on what I did wrong and how to improve, which will result in a better picture next time. Bonus!

Not everyone will like what I write. It’s been like that for every writer since the dawn of time and it will always be that way. I don’t need to please everyone. Hell, I don’t need to please anyone. Gone are the days when we had to convince a publisher to give us a chance; we can self-publish or just fling it into the void like I do on this blog. Maybe people read it, maybe they don’t. But I wrote it so it exists, which is what writing is at the end of it. Goal achieved. Writing orders my thoughts and helps me understand myself. If it helps someone else do the same, great.

Fear is essential for self-preservation and our brains are exceptionally great at it. However, fear doesn’t need to be set to DEFCON 1 24/7/365. We can relax the settings a bit. Fear is the jailer that keeps us in one place for as long as we let it. Yes, the gate is locked but the key is in the cell with us. We can unlock it at anytime; we just choose not to. We quietly sit in the corner, plotting our escape but are constantly on alert in case our jailer returns and catches us mid-escape. Can’t possibly risk that.

Well, listen up people. The jailers abandoned this place decades ago; there’s no-one left but you. You’re all alone in that cell with no-one around for miles to stop you from unlocking the door and just leaving the fear behind. So stop waiting for an engraved invitation to take a chance on your happiness.

Ya coming?

Chocolate Coffee Cupcakes with Whisky buttercream

To celebrate my brother’s promotion, I’ve decided to make chocolate coffee cupcakes with whisky buttercream. No fear, I’m making chocolate buttercream for the kiddos because this isn’t England where the legal drinking age in a private home is 5 yrs old. (Seriously, check Wikipedia, I’m not making this up.)

I’ve taken my favourite 1 bowl chocolate cake recipe and instead of making a 9-inch cake, I made 24 cupcakes.

Preheat oven to 180C/350F

Ingredients:

2 cups All-purpose flour

3/4 cup cocoa

1.5 tsp baking powder

2 tsp baking soda/bicarbonate of soda (depending on what you call it)

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 cups sugar (I prefer brown, but white is also fine)

1 cup milk

1/2 cup oil

1 cup hot coffee

2 eggs

pinch of salt.

(The above order of ingredients ensures dry ingredients are measured first so you can then use the same measuring cups to do the wet ingredients without having to clean them in between.)

Mix all of the above ingredients in 1 bowl with a whisk or wooden spoon. No beaters/mixers required!

Either grease and line a 9-inch cake pan or line a muffin pan with cupcake cups.

Cooking times:

9-inch cake: bake for 40 mins, then start checking with a skewer until it comes away clean. The original recipe for this said to bake for an hour but it was a brick at that length of time. Start checking from the 40 min mark and go 5 extra mins at a time after that if needed.

If you’re doing cupcakes, 15 mins is all you need for the skewer to come away clean. If your oven is slightly cooler, check every 2 mins after 15 mins mark.

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Buttercream:

2 cups unsalted butter, beat until fluffy

Gradually add in 4-5 cups of icing/confectioners sugar, beating after each addition until mixed in completely.

At this point I split the frosting into 2 bowls, to 1 bowl I added 2 tbsp of cocoa powder and mixed in completely with a hand mixer.

To the other bowl I added 4 teaspoons of whisky and mixed in. The mixture was a bit runny so I added a bit more icing/confectioners sugar to stiffen it up.

The kiddos are getting chocolate icing and the grown-ups are sailing into cupcakes decorated with a divine 12-yr old single malt. Because that’s how we roll!

Cupcakes sprinkled in cookies and cream with edible pearls

The Japanese Art of decluttering

Last week in my quest to find creative storage solutions, I came across Marie Kondo’s book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing. It was on special on Kindle, so of course, I had to have it.

Well, hot damn. Let me tell ya, halfway into Chapter 2 all I wanted to do was tidy up.

Now, a word of warning to Westerners: Marie Kondo was a Shinto shrine maiden for a few years and her book is written in a Japanese context. She refers to the energy and ‘feelings’ of inanimate objects, which may be a bit off-putting if you cannot view the book within the context of the culture it was written in. Easterners have an understanding of chi/energy that Westerners don’t always grasp.

Personally, I agree with the premise of it. Everything is energy, irrespective of what it is. She respects the energy of things, animate or not and often refers to things being tired or sad. Some readers take that literally and cannot get their heads around the content. That’s fair enough; different horses for different courses.

But I digress. She lists an order to tackling clutter. Clothes first, then accessories, then books, papers and then miscellaneous items. She also suggests doing your entire house in one hit; maybe possible in Japan but more challenging in the West where we sometimes fiercely hoard things in larger spaces like the world is going to end.

Her approach is to find every single scrap of clothing you own, and put it in the middle of the floor. All of it. If you have it in storage, wherever, go get it and add it to the pile. No item gets left behind. Once that’s accomplished, you need to physically handle each item and ask yourself if it sparks joy. This is where some Westerners lose their minds.

Yes, things have energy. Some people can feel it, others not so much. Anything that doesn’t bring you joy has lower energy. Whether that negative energy is from the guilt you feel because it was a gift from a loved one, so you keep it even though you hate it. Whether it’s something you loved once and now it’s threadbare, doesn’t fit, reminds you of a time when you were happier. Whatever the reason is, if it doesn’t spark joy and you don’t absolutely love it, it has to go. No, it doesn’t get to go and live at your parents’ house, or in storage until some other time; it has to straight up GO.

This is where some book reviewers go a bit postal. Obviously picking up a tube of Preparation H doesn’t ‘spark joy’ but you need it so it can’t go. You need to use some lateral thinking here. Obviously things like medication don’t rock your happy button, but you can’t toss them. She’s talking about optional possessions here; things that won’t physically kill you if you toss them.

So that’s what I did today. All the clothing went onto the floor in the living room and let me just say: HOLY CRAP!!

I had NO idea I had so many things. The same suitcase I took to my storage unit a week ago came right back to my apartment, along with 2 plastic storage boxes of clothes. The contents of my drawers and closet were added to the pile. For someone who lives in a handful of outfits it was shocking to see how much stuff I’ve surrounded myself with.

Me next to my pile of junk to give you an idea of the height of that pile.

Going through each item, holding it up, ‘feeling’ it, it became easier to let things go. Clothes I’ve held on to for decades are now gone. I loved them in their time but I’m not that person anymore. There’s more of me. I don’t fit in them and probably won’t ever again. Feeling guilty every season when I packed them away because I didn’t lose half my body weight to fit into them; well that’s done. They were beautiful in their time and it’s time for them to make someone else happy for a while.

The sheer sense of relief after donating them and knowing I won’t have to deal with them again was bloody amazing! Not to mention, every item I’ve kept is something I love and wear and it all fits into my closet. I don’t need to switch out summer and winter clothing this year because there’s space for all of it.

Not to mention, her basic suggestions of hanging items from longest to shortest, making a line up from left to right makes me kick myself for not thinking of that sooner.

All the long items together, with room to hang! FINALLY!

I had my longer stuff together but colour co-ordination was my first criteria. So it was long to short in the same colour. Putting it by length makes way more sense. I have 2 high rails in my closet but one has a lower rail under it so longer items can’t hang down completely straight. So I moved all the long items to the opposite side of the closet and they can hang uninterrupted. Why didn’t I do that sooner?!

I now have a rail of empty hangers and all that’s left are clothes I wear and love.

My clumpy sweaters that I’d had hanging up are all folded using her Kon-Mari method *there are You-Tube tutorials on that if you’re interested* and my drawers look a hundred times better. I never thought I’d fit all my sweaters and shirts into my limited drawer space and they fit perfectly. My underwear is sorted, socks are folded over instead of rolled to give their energy room to breathe after use and it looks like a new world in my closet.

I’m knackered but really pleased. To move so many stagnant things out of my space has left it feeling new. The dead energy has left.

Next project will be my books. Yep, the same books I lovingly repacked a few days ago. I love books so letting some go might be next to impossible but if I can quarter the volume of clothing in my life, I’m open to tackling my books.

It’s time for dinner and curried butternut soup feels like it needs to happen so night night y’all!