Once more, I have broken a contract; yet again, I have found myself in a boss's office muttering something along the lines of, 'it's not you, it's me'. The sort of barely audible drivel that nobody really listens to – they tuned out after the 'I'm leaving' part of the sentence and started silently cursing you for causing them recruitment issues. Ultimately it makes little difference why you're leaving: even if you think there are problems within the establishment the bosses will obviously disagree, given that there isn't a sudden mass exodus.
I've had a frustrating year in Swaziland – or Swaziville, as I've taken to referring to the place. The country is the size of Wales, and the implications of the term 'ville' are accurate to a disturbing degree. There is more gossip here than in the tiny village in Yorkshire where I used to live. I've heard a member of staff ask another where she was the previous evening: 'I saw your car about five o'clock heading out of town...'. Nosy sods. It is even more impossible to find privacy on the hilltop I've been confined to for thirteen months now. Since absolutely nothing of note happens up here, your personal life becomes public property, something that can be discussed either in your presence or absence.
I am tired of the levels of bitchiness up here. I'm tired of the back-stabbing; people constantly looking for scapegoats, blaming everyone but themselves for a 'crisis'; the dramatic elevation of a minor incident into a major, staffroom-dividing event; the seemingly endless stream of utterly pointless meetings where everybody speaks but nobody listens (actually, a few have given up speaking and taken to napping in the corners). I'm tired of the passive-aggressive notes pinned almost daily onto the various notice boards dotted around campus; the frequently-voiced delight that we are 'making a real difference' up here as teachers (whatever makes you sleep); the eternal quest to discover just exactly what the hell ToK is. And what 'UWC' means, truly means, to Waterford. Blimey.
Wherever I have lived in the past, I've had different groups of friends: those I work with (on the odd occasion I'm actually working, that is) and those I drink with and those I row with and those I mull the mysteries of the world with. Up here, they all come as one frustrating package deal. Nothing can be expressed that won't be endlessly repeated – naturally with the 'now don't tell anyone else this but...' clause attached to it.
I miss rowing. Hell, I just miss boats and messing about on the water. I miss the possibility of meeting new people. I miss sitting in a bookshop with an impossibly large slice of cake and my laptop. I miss people-watching. The freedom to have a thought or an idea that isn't immediately pried out of me and hijacked by others.
I also miss having a freezer and decent ice-cream, come to that.
Since coming up here I've discovered there are some aspects of teaching I genuinely enjoy, but since I've recently started burying my nose in books again and have started a Masters in Education I realise that this is where my true interest lies. I'm the academic and the theorist rather than the 'do-er'... I have established that I have the most effective glare ever dispatched in a classroom, and that I have the ability to make those who were previously totally disinterested in my subject actually want to do well in it. More importantly, I've realised there are some kids who, for whatever reason, just don't want to be interested in literature and will always dig their heels in. I'm learning to be okay with that; they're the ones missing out.
Come December 3rd, at something like 10 o'clock in the morning, I'll be leaving the hilltop. I have 56 days left in this random little mountain kingdom (before you pedants note, yes I know this is an expression most commonly used in association with Lesotho), a place that leaves me with decidedly confused feelings regarding Africa. Okay, the south-eastern corner of Africa. I think using Swaziville as a template for the whole continent might be slightly ambitious.
Where to next? Johannesburg, is the surprising answer to that question. And more on that move in another post on another day.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Online Dating, Part 2
In response to my previous posting regarding a 24 hour online experiment with match.com, I received an email from a friend dubiously knowledgeable in all things dating and internet related. But before I get onto that, let me just tell you a few interesting figures I read recently. At any one time, something like 96% of match.com profiles are apparently inactive: in other words, they are people such as myself just putting up a profile and not paying. Also, the 'rate of response' is apparently incredibly low – explaining to some degree the 'winks' and messages I received from totally inappropriate individuals. Men, increasingly driven by desperation, send shorter and less personal messages to hordes of women, and obviously these messages are not received with any particular pleasure. And so, they get fewer and fewer responses... The cycle continues. They pay up for another six months. I was correct: only a fool would ever pay for online dating.
And then I received this email, telling me about another site called okcupid.com – a name which is, if you ask me, particularly ridiculous. Surely a 'most excellent cupid' would do better than one which is merely 'okay'...? Anyhow, I digress. The point of this site is that it is entirely free, and you can message and 'instant messenger' people to your heart's content. I decided that in order to extend my internet dating investigations, I'd put a profile up – again, for a brief period, merely out of curiosity.
My immediate observation was that the majority of people using this site are computer geeks. Compared to the typical 40+ supposed bachelor of match.com, these people were on average younger, more adventurous, better travelled and more widely read, and wrote with higher grammatical accuracy (a fairly important point by my standards). I sat and waited for the messages to appear, and yes, they did. I think the messages were better written, more personal, responding to specific points made in my profile; very few of them were along the lines of a particularly comedic favourite: 'you intrigue me'. Hm.
To cut a long story short, I was knocked sideways a few days later. Someone sent me a message, interesting and well-written and pertinent, and I decided to respond. I could, after all, ask these people why they were using the site at least and thus gather more information for my investigation. I'd noticed in one photograph he was wearing a BarCamp tshirt and so mentioned that I know a person involved with this in Hong Kong; he responded naming the individual, and it transpires that they are friends and have been for years.
This was already surreal enough, but it later turns out that this same guy was also a close friend – and has been for years – of one of my best friends in Oxford. This friend of mine in Oxford had also, bizarrely enough, met my Hong Kong friends when he visited me there.
The world has suddenly shrunk and is balanced delicately on the head of a pin.
My profile is removed and will never be resurrected, but I'm going to stay in touch with this individual I 'met', purely because he has been granted a seal of approval by being friends with two people whose judgement I trust implicitly.
I think the experience has proved me wrong to some frustrating degree: it seems there are decent, genuine people out there, searching online for their Someone To Come Home To. It is only this most peculiar set of circumstances that mean I'll stay in touch with anyone at all from this site; I could never trust anyone I found online, and wouldn't advise any female to either. As a general rule, the longer the conversations I had went on, the more inclined the men were towards sleaze and it was obvious why they were there at all. I don't see that meeting someone online can ever give you that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you see a person in reality who makes your heart skip a beat. People shouldn't give up the chance of that lightly, just because they are so desperate to find 'someone' to be with.
'When love is not madness, it is not love.' ~Pedro Calderon de la Barca
'People who are sensible about love are incapable of it.' ~Douglas Yates
And then I received this email, telling me about another site called okcupid.com – a name which is, if you ask me, particularly ridiculous. Surely a 'most excellent cupid' would do better than one which is merely 'okay'...? Anyhow, I digress. The point of this site is that it is entirely free, and you can message and 'instant messenger' people to your heart's content. I decided that in order to extend my internet dating investigations, I'd put a profile up – again, for a brief period, merely out of curiosity.
My immediate observation was that the majority of people using this site are computer geeks. Compared to the typical 40+ supposed bachelor of match.com, these people were on average younger, more adventurous, better travelled and more widely read, and wrote with higher grammatical accuracy (a fairly important point by my standards). I sat and waited for the messages to appear, and yes, they did. I think the messages were better written, more personal, responding to specific points made in my profile; very few of them were along the lines of a particularly comedic favourite: 'you intrigue me'. Hm.
To cut a long story short, I was knocked sideways a few days later. Someone sent me a message, interesting and well-written and pertinent, and I decided to respond. I could, after all, ask these people why they were using the site at least and thus gather more information for my investigation. I'd noticed in one photograph he was wearing a BarCamp tshirt and so mentioned that I know a person involved with this in Hong Kong; he responded naming the individual, and it transpires that they are friends and have been for years.
This was already surreal enough, but it later turns out that this same guy was also a close friend – and has been for years – of one of my best friends in Oxford. This friend of mine in Oxford had also, bizarrely enough, met my Hong Kong friends when he visited me there.
The world has suddenly shrunk and is balanced delicately on the head of a pin.
My profile is removed and will never be resurrected, but I'm going to stay in touch with this individual I 'met', purely because he has been granted a seal of approval by being friends with two people whose judgement I trust implicitly.
I think the experience has proved me wrong to some frustrating degree: it seems there are decent, genuine people out there, searching online for their Someone To Come Home To. It is only this most peculiar set of circumstances that mean I'll stay in touch with anyone at all from this site; I could never trust anyone I found online, and wouldn't advise any female to either. As a general rule, the longer the conversations I had went on, the more inclined the men were towards sleaze and it was obvious why they were there at all. I don't see that meeting someone online can ever give you that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you see a person in reality who makes your heart skip a beat. People shouldn't give up the chance of that lightly, just because they are so desperate to find 'someone' to be with.
'When love is not madness, it is not love.' ~Pedro Calderon de la Barca
'People who are sensible about love are incapable of it.' ~Douglas Yates
Sunday, August 01, 2010
Online Dating
I've recently acquired a new hobby. From 4pm onwards in my Swazi hilltop hideaway, it is cursedly freezing – which means I'm spending a lot of time regaining feeling in my toes by either parking myself in the bath with my laptop propped up on the toilet seat showing whichever movie matches my mood, or I'm curled up in bed hugging a hot water bottle to myself. Just to clarify, this is most certainly not the life I'd imagined when moving to Africa.
The point is I'm 'home alone' a good deal, excellent in that I have a chance to get through some of the marking mountains that appear on a weekly basis, and furthermore in that I have even more Thinking Time than usual. This Thinking led to me needing something new to mock and laugh at, and I finally decided that creating a profile on a dating website back in the UK would serve my purposes well. I have zero intention of being a paid up member, which means I can only 'wink' at other members and can't send them any messages or respond to their 'instant chat' requests.
I went online expecting to find one group of men: the unattractive, the clearly desperate, the uneducated and uninteresting all lumped together in one endless stream of unflattering photos. (Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I would like to firmly reiterate I have zero intention of signing up for this or any other site in any seriousness; I would hate to go the rest of my life having met someone 'online'. It seems a way of having finally Given Up and just accepting that you want Someone, Anyone, and you go to a place where you know people operating with that in mind also loiter. Of course match.com has countless success stories – logic dictates it must.)
Anyway, the point is, they aren't all hideous specimens. I'm operating on the basis not all members can have lied through their teeth or spent hours with Photoshop. I remember one arrogant guy who clearly thinks he is the cat's pyjamas: he is 5ft 10, and in his list of endless requirements for his date he wanted her to be between 5ft 5 and 5ft 8. Right, so he's a successful businessman, reasonably good looking, and yet he is still intimidated by tall women? It is incredible how precise some people are with their requirements, down to specifying eye and hair colour. I can't believe they will also put in a request for the woman to be earning within a certain income range (notably, Mr Arrogant also had her earning less than him...).
There are the guys whose profiles are written in appalling grammar with spelling mistakes abundant. There are those who, without any discrimination whatsoever, 'wink' at me – I glance at their profiles and honestly, if they think we have anything in common they really are desperate. Someone who lists their hobbies as 'eating out, going out, hanging with friends, cooking' is going to have about thirty seconds of conversation to share with me, I suspect. I also like the somewhat vague 'other' that can go into that endless list the site provides.
I was also 'winked' at by someone who declares his favourite holiday destinations to be Las Vegas and Dubai. Considering I've been fairly honest on my profile, for the sake of carrying out this experiment properly, he again is some desperate individual seeking the not-so-elusive Anyone.
The problem now is that I'm being acknowledged by guys who seem genuinely nice. I'm starting to feel guilty for almost 'leading them on'. They don't know I'm not signed up and have no intention of becoming so, and so they send me messages that I can't read and request conversations I can't have. A decent looking individual with kind eyes who has a PhD (sorry, a 'DPhil') from Oxford Uni wants to get in touch; a self-employed photographer and climber from York keeps 'winking' at me; a tall, dark, and decidedly handsome guy who has travelled everywhere for scuba diving is keen to speak with me.
The site is impressively created, I'll grant them that. For anyone with an even slightly addictive personality it spells trouble – and for anyone genuinely seeking their Life Partner, I can see why they keep using such sites. It is unbelievably easy. You are on there and messages pop up telling you who is looking at your profile; you can follow a link to their profile. Presumably paid up members then send a message or start having a chat. It is also fairly brutal in that people will visit your profile and then leave without any remark or attempt to catch your attention, leaving you thinking for a moment, 'What is wrong with me?!' The first evening I went online, I swear they must have withheld the profiles of the decent looking guys, because when I looked last night they'd suddenly grown a few inches, lost a few stone, and weren't all bald or sporting a few jars-worth of hair gel.
Something else that amazes me is the genuine anonymity most of the users cling to – despite the fact their photos are up there for all to see, not one user has made any attempt to make himself 'searchable' on google. This suggests to me that yes, they are all fully paid up members, assuming everyone else would be too. For a single month, it is £30; if you pay for six months up front, you can get them for about £13 a month or thereabouts. It's an expensive business, just to find a date. Surely that money would be better spent joining some club or other, and there you go: whole new batch of people waiting to be met.
If the UK were anything like Swaziland, I'd almost understand the use of such sites. Meeting people here is well nigh impossible, particularly with my job. There just isn't time. And everyone is either in a committed relationship, impressively unattractive, or yet another of the 'single female' masses. Single men, it seems, don't head off in their droves for Southern Africa. But the UK isn't like that: it is small enough that you can date from one end of the country to the other without too much hassle, and there are countless small pubs and big clubs through which to meet people.
Maybe in ten years time my somewhat cynical view will have changed, but for now I hope to meet my Prince Charming, my Mr Darcy, somewhere slightly more exciting and relevant than via a couple of computer screens on a cold and lonely evening. I just hope I'm not making a mistake by clinging onto my decidedly pre-21st century views...
The point is I'm 'home alone' a good deal, excellent in that I have a chance to get through some of the marking mountains that appear on a weekly basis, and furthermore in that I have even more Thinking Time than usual. This Thinking led to me needing something new to mock and laugh at, and I finally decided that creating a profile on a dating website back in the UK would serve my purposes well. I have zero intention of being a paid up member, which means I can only 'wink' at other members and can't send them any messages or respond to their 'instant chat' requests.
I went online expecting to find one group of men: the unattractive, the clearly desperate, the uneducated and uninteresting all lumped together in one endless stream of unflattering photos. (Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I would like to firmly reiterate I have zero intention of signing up for this or any other site in any seriousness; I would hate to go the rest of my life having met someone 'online'. It seems a way of having finally Given Up and just accepting that you want Someone, Anyone, and you go to a place where you know people operating with that in mind also loiter. Of course match.com has countless success stories – logic dictates it must.)
Anyway, the point is, they aren't all hideous specimens. I'm operating on the basis not all members can have lied through their teeth or spent hours with Photoshop. I remember one arrogant guy who clearly thinks he is the cat's pyjamas: he is 5ft 10, and in his list of endless requirements for his date he wanted her to be between 5ft 5 and 5ft 8. Right, so he's a successful businessman, reasonably good looking, and yet he is still intimidated by tall women? It is incredible how precise some people are with their requirements, down to specifying eye and hair colour. I can't believe they will also put in a request for the woman to be earning within a certain income range (notably, Mr Arrogant also had her earning less than him...).
There are the guys whose profiles are written in appalling grammar with spelling mistakes abundant. There are those who, without any discrimination whatsoever, 'wink' at me – I glance at their profiles and honestly, if they think we have anything in common they really are desperate. Someone who lists their hobbies as 'eating out, going out, hanging with friends, cooking' is going to have about thirty seconds of conversation to share with me, I suspect. I also like the somewhat vague 'other' that can go into that endless list the site provides.
I was also 'winked' at by someone who declares his favourite holiday destinations to be Las Vegas and Dubai. Considering I've been fairly honest on my profile, for the sake of carrying out this experiment properly, he again is some desperate individual seeking the not-so-elusive Anyone.
The problem now is that I'm being acknowledged by guys who seem genuinely nice. I'm starting to feel guilty for almost 'leading them on'. They don't know I'm not signed up and have no intention of becoming so, and so they send me messages that I can't read and request conversations I can't have. A decent looking individual with kind eyes who has a PhD (sorry, a 'DPhil') from Oxford Uni wants to get in touch; a self-employed photographer and climber from York keeps 'winking' at me; a tall, dark, and decidedly handsome guy who has travelled everywhere for scuba diving is keen to speak with me.
The site is impressively created, I'll grant them that. For anyone with an even slightly addictive personality it spells trouble – and for anyone genuinely seeking their Life Partner, I can see why they keep using such sites. It is unbelievably easy. You are on there and messages pop up telling you who is looking at your profile; you can follow a link to their profile. Presumably paid up members then send a message or start having a chat. It is also fairly brutal in that people will visit your profile and then leave without any remark or attempt to catch your attention, leaving you thinking for a moment, 'What is wrong with me?!' The first evening I went online, I swear they must have withheld the profiles of the decent looking guys, because when I looked last night they'd suddenly grown a few inches, lost a few stone, and weren't all bald or sporting a few jars-worth of hair gel.
Something else that amazes me is the genuine anonymity most of the users cling to – despite the fact their photos are up there for all to see, not one user has made any attempt to make himself 'searchable' on google. This suggests to me that yes, they are all fully paid up members, assuming everyone else would be too. For a single month, it is £30; if you pay for six months up front, you can get them for about £13 a month or thereabouts. It's an expensive business, just to find a date. Surely that money would be better spent joining some club or other, and there you go: whole new batch of people waiting to be met.
If the UK were anything like Swaziland, I'd almost understand the use of such sites. Meeting people here is well nigh impossible, particularly with my job. There just isn't time. And everyone is either in a committed relationship, impressively unattractive, or yet another of the 'single female' masses. Single men, it seems, don't head off in their droves for Southern Africa. But the UK isn't like that: it is small enough that you can date from one end of the country to the other without too much hassle, and there are countless small pubs and big clubs through which to meet people.
Maybe in ten years time my somewhat cynical view will have changed, but for now I hope to meet my Prince Charming, my Mr Darcy, somewhere slightly more exciting and relevant than via a couple of computer screens on a cold and lonely evening. I just hope I'm not making a mistake by clinging onto my decidedly pre-21st century views...
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Afterthought -
I think I've put this on here before, but I was mulling my world this evening and this poem came to mind. Pablo Neruda. Who else. How on earth can these students not appreciate the beauty of such poetry??
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
`
Write, for example, 'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'
`
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
`
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
`
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
`
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
`
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
`
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
`
What does it matter than my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.
`
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
`
My sight searches for me as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
`
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
`
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
`
Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
`
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
`
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
`
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
`
Write, for example, 'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'
`
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
`
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
`
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
`
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
`
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
`
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
`
What does it matter than my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.
`
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
`
My sight searches for me as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
`
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
`
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
`
Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
`
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
`
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
`
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
Why I'll never again date a guy who uses Facebook...
I use Facebook; I'll not even bother denying that. I put up photos, I update my status to inform people where I am or where I'm going, and occasionally I'll post a link to some article or another I thought a bored individual or two may appreciate. If someone puts something particularly witty on their wall, I'll give them a 'thumbs up', and every now and then I'll make a remark – usually noting (thanks to the Facebook reminder) that it is their birthday and I hope it is a happy one.
As for my Relationship Status, that is nobody's business. Favourite movies and books? Quite irrelevant. A long list of current and previous employers and the schools I attended over twenty years ago are decidedly absent. I am not a 'fan' of anything on Facebook; I shudder at the thought of being a 'fan' of something as vague as a subject ambiguously entitled 'Travel' or pretentiously named 'Literature'. Back when I first joined the site, I became a member of a bunch of groups for no reason whatsoever. I should probably delete all that too, if I can ever be bothered.
The majority of my supposed Friends on Facebook aren't quite that. I have a purging session every now and then: clean out the cobwebs, remove the people whose photos I no longer peruse and whose love-lives are suitably dull as to not spark even a moment of mild curiosity in the gossip recesses of my brain. (I'm female and, whether they admit it or not, pretty much every female has a default gossip filing cabinet in her mind; it needs stocking up every few days or everything seems remarkably tedious.)
Considering that if my close friends are on Facebook I've already added them, the only people I add these days are: people I want to be darn nosy about, people I feel obligated to add otherwise there will be ripples of friction spreading through the virtual stratosphere, and people I add for the briefest of moments to catch up on their lives and then promptly delete. Usually after establishing they've never left their home town and married their next door neighbour, have produced a brood of ghastly children and are living off benefits; their photos show them on drunken nights out either in England or Ibiza (the former with pale white skin, the latter with lobster red skin), and they've usually acquired a couple of decidedly ugly and aggressive looking dogs. You wouldn't believe the number of people I was at school with who now fall into this category.
The problem with Facebook, as almost any user of it knows, is that the majority of users are artful swines who deliberately use it to manipulate or injure others. Not always, and not necessarily even consciously at times, but nevertheless it is done. The deletion of key photos; the spiteful status updates aimed at an ex – even worse, such updates that aren't spiteful but rather along the lines of, 'Look at me! Life is wonderful! I can't believe how happy I am these days!' Passive-aggressive is an art-form on Facebook. You can write on someone's Wall ostensibly to just 'pop by and say hello', but secretly to annoy the bejesus out of a partner who thought you'd lost contact with that individual.
I have seen whole relationships conducted on Facebook walls: the I Love Yous and I Miss Yous written for all the world to see. Why your entire friendship group needs to know that you miss your snuggly-wuggly is a little beyond me.
I justify using this cursed internet phenomenon for a few reasons: one, it keeps me in touch with people when I'm overseas (which, let's face it, is pretty much always). Two, it allows me to put photos up so friends can see them if they want, and not have them inflicted on them by me in some painfully drawn out evening display of My Latest Holiday. (Plus, having had a hard-drive crash, and the back-up also crash, I'm mighty glad some of those photos are there as otherwise I'd have lost them forever.) Furthermore, it allows me to satisfy that gossip-loving female mind of mine. And I talk with people using the Chat feature.
Quite frankly, a guy who uses Facebook – with all that wonderful manipulative potential just waiting to be pounced upon with the click of a few icons and tap of a few keys – is not the guy for me. A guy who does anything as frivolous as blog is not the guy for me. (MySpace doesn't even warrant a serious mention; it goes without saying that anyone who uses MySpace is painfully cretinous in the first place and therefore not welcome in my world. Likewise Twitter. Who gives a damn what the hell you had for breakfast and all that menial information people clog up the internet with via that particular site.) Facebook is designed for women and their aforementioned gossip requirements. That's it.
And after I've hopped back online to post this, I'll wander over to Facebook and see if anyone has commented on my link. It's to a conversation someone created between Mr Darcy and Mr Thornton, a wonderfully dark and brooding duo who would surely send even the most level-headed ladies into swooning ecstasies. Did I put that link up to mock all those guys on my Friends list who are ex boyfriends, or those who never even temporarily made it to 'boyfriend' status? Or to amuse the odd decently-read female who happens to be passing by my profile page? You can figure that out for yourselves, dear reader, because whatever I write on here will only ever be my conscious interpretation of events, sifted and sorted to fit with what I want you to know about me. The wonders of a virtual version of yourself: you can edit away unflattering photos, convey emotions via a series of unambiguous icons, and keep your true feelings firmly locked inside. My real friends take the time to step beyond Facebook and know what those wretched status updates fail to show.
As for my Relationship Status, that is nobody's business. Favourite movies and books? Quite irrelevant. A long list of current and previous employers and the schools I attended over twenty years ago are decidedly absent. I am not a 'fan' of anything on Facebook; I shudder at the thought of being a 'fan' of something as vague as a subject ambiguously entitled 'Travel' or pretentiously named 'Literature'. Back when I first joined the site, I became a member of a bunch of groups for no reason whatsoever. I should probably delete all that too, if I can ever be bothered.
The majority of my supposed Friends on Facebook aren't quite that. I have a purging session every now and then: clean out the cobwebs, remove the people whose photos I no longer peruse and whose love-lives are suitably dull as to not spark even a moment of mild curiosity in the gossip recesses of my brain. (I'm female and, whether they admit it or not, pretty much every female has a default gossip filing cabinet in her mind; it needs stocking up every few days or everything seems remarkably tedious.)
Considering that if my close friends are on Facebook I've already added them, the only people I add these days are: people I want to be darn nosy about, people I feel obligated to add otherwise there will be ripples of friction spreading through the virtual stratosphere, and people I add for the briefest of moments to catch up on their lives and then promptly delete. Usually after establishing they've never left their home town and married their next door neighbour, have produced a brood of ghastly children and are living off benefits; their photos show them on drunken nights out either in England or Ibiza (the former with pale white skin, the latter with lobster red skin), and they've usually acquired a couple of decidedly ugly and aggressive looking dogs. You wouldn't believe the number of people I was at school with who now fall into this category.
The problem with Facebook, as almost any user of it knows, is that the majority of users are artful swines who deliberately use it to manipulate or injure others. Not always, and not necessarily even consciously at times, but nevertheless it is done. The deletion of key photos; the spiteful status updates aimed at an ex – even worse, such updates that aren't spiteful but rather along the lines of, 'Look at me! Life is wonderful! I can't believe how happy I am these days!' Passive-aggressive is an art-form on Facebook. You can write on someone's Wall ostensibly to just 'pop by and say hello', but secretly to annoy the bejesus out of a partner who thought you'd lost contact with that individual.
I have seen whole relationships conducted on Facebook walls: the I Love Yous and I Miss Yous written for all the world to see. Why your entire friendship group needs to know that you miss your snuggly-wuggly is a little beyond me.
I justify using this cursed internet phenomenon for a few reasons: one, it keeps me in touch with people when I'm overseas (which, let's face it, is pretty much always). Two, it allows me to put photos up so friends can see them if they want, and not have them inflicted on them by me in some painfully drawn out evening display of My Latest Holiday. (Plus, having had a hard-drive crash, and the back-up also crash, I'm mighty glad some of those photos are there as otherwise I'd have lost them forever.) Furthermore, it allows me to satisfy that gossip-loving female mind of mine. And I talk with people using the Chat feature.
Quite frankly, a guy who uses Facebook – with all that wonderful manipulative potential just waiting to be pounced upon with the click of a few icons and tap of a few keys – is not the guy for me. A guy who does anything as frivolous as blog is not the guy for me. (MySpace doesn't even warrant a serious mention; it goes without saying that anyone who uses MySpace is painfully cretinous in the first place and therefore not welcome in my world. Likewise Twitter. Who gives a damn what the hell you had for breakfast and all that menial information people clog up the internet with via that particular site.) Facebook is designed for women and their aforementioned gossip requirements. That's it.
And after I've hopped back online to post this, I'll wander over to Facebook and see if anyone has commented on my link. It's to a conversation someone created between Mr Darcy and Mr Thornton, a wonderfully dark and brooding duo who would surely send even the most level-headed ladies into swooning ecstasies. Did I put that link up to mock all those guys on my Friends list who are ex boyfriends, or those who never even temporarily made it to 'boyfriend' status? Or to amuse the odd decently-read female who happens to be passing by my profile page? You can figure that out for yourselves, dear reader, because whatever I write on here will only ever be my conscious interpretation of events, sifted and sorted to fit with what I want you to know about me. The wonders of a virtual version of yourself: you can edit away unflattering photos, convey emotions via a series of unambiguous icons, and keep your true feelings firmly locked inside. My real friends take the time to step beyond Facebook and know what those wretched status updates fail to show.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Mossy musings
Blogs are, by their very nature, pretty self-indulgent enterprises. I assume that in the majority of postings made by a few million people around the world every day, the purpose is primarily for the writer to figure something out – rather than to entertain or amuse the masses. I'm feeling in a particularly ruminative mood today and as such am going to allow myself to wander down memory lane. This lane specifically stretches over the last ten years, to a point back in the year 2000 when I left the UK to live abroad for the first time.
2000 – the day after my last A-level exam, I hopped on a bus up to Heathrow airport and caught a flight to Sydney, Australia. I had never had a job before, and never lived anywhere other than Home. Within weeks, I had acquired a well-paying secretarial job at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Coogee; a few months later, I moved into a house a few hundred yards from Bondi Beach. I went to cheer on Kathy Freeman and Michael Johnson at the Olympics, saw in the New Year at the Sydney Opera House, and discovered mangoes...
2001 – after a month messing around in Canada and a few months working as a cleaner in a ludicrously poncy hotel on St Martin's, the Isles of Scilly, I set off for university. I joined the rowing club and lost stupid amounts of weight by over-training and under-eating.
2002 – ah yes, the year of the weir, when the women's 1st VIII all nearly drowned one freezing morning in February. This was also the year I was, somewhat hilariously, accused of 'criminal assault and battery' – how I wish I'd kept that piece of paper as a memento. I spent some time in Washington DC and saw in the new year in Times Square, New York; there, I became part of the world's largest synchronised bell-ringing event... I think this must also be when I went to Romania for a month, just to see how depressed it is possible for a human being to get.
2003 – this was the year I discovered South America – I went to Peru, paddled around on Lake Titicaca, dragged myself along the Inca Trail, and flew up to Cuba for the carnival in Santiago de Cuba. I spent two weeks getting the best suntan of my life in Jamaica and went home via Miami. I bought a DKNY tshirt for USD5 and didn't know for the next two years that I actually owned a piece of 'designer clothing'. Horrifying realisation. After a few weeks in the Amazon rainforest, I went down to Buenos Aires for new year and for the first time fell in love with a city.
2004 – I wrote reviews for London hotels and apartments, and gained my 1st in English Lit, despite only doing about four hours of work over the previous three years. I think this must be the time when I returned to Buenos Aires, spent a month in Santiago de Chile establishing that the two places were not remotely comparable, and passed the new year in BA. (I spent a few months living in a hostel, the Portal del Sur, and just a few weeks ago bumped into someone who had worked there – he was visiting Swaziland. Blimey.)
2005 – at some point, I figured that perhaps I should do something 'sensible' with my life and subsequently applied for a Master's degree at Oxford University. I still don't know why, but I was accepted. To celebrate this, I obviously returned to Argentina and Peru, coming home via Mexico, Atlanta, DC and NY. A month over Christmas in Goa, India, was followed far too rapidly by a transition to Sweden for the new year – my body never did deal well with the cold...
2006 – a lot of rowing coaching, a lot of messing about in boats, a good deal of Pimm's and many drives in classic cars around the English countryside. A month in Swedish wilderness was followed up by a long drive down to Andalucia and installation in the most miniature of cottages; I saw in new year in Knysna, Spain. I think this must also have been the year I went to Morocco and returned with severe and somewhat terrifying food poisoning.
2007 – after a few months messing around doing some work or other in Oxford, I took a job in Hong Kong. Thank goodness for discovering Lamma Island there, or I may not have lasted the year. Hang on, this must also be the year I first went to the Philippines, did my PADI course, and fell in love with the underwater world. And I also found out the merits (and curses) of sea-rowing, outrigging, and dragon boating.
2008 – mostly spent in HK, with a trip to Thailand thrown in for good measure. I ended up on Palawan island seeing in the new year. A year is never complete without a couple of months of serious Philippines beach time, I've decided.
2009 – a few months working as a writer and editor, and flapping about teaching English in Oxford, before rather randomly taking up a post in Swaziland, Southern Africa. I barely knew this place existed before coming here. A long trip to South Africa, and I discovered Kruger, the Garden Route, and incredible Cape Town – a decent place to see in the new year.
'A rolling stone gathers no moss'... Well, after those ten years galloping around the globe I am most decidedly without moss. Maybe a bit of moss would do me good. I wonder.
“A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.” (George Moore)
2000 – the day after my last A-level exam, I hopped on a bus up to Heathrow airport and caught a flight to Sydney, Australia. I had never had a job before, and never lived anywhere other than Home. Within weeks, I had acquired a well-paying secretarial job at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Coogee; a few months later, I moved into a house a few hundred yards from Bondi Beach. I went to cheer on Kathy Freeman and Michael Johnson at the Olympics, saw in the New Year at the Sydney Opera House, and discovered mangoes...
2001 – after a month messing around in Canada and a few months working as a cleaner in a ludicrously poncy hotel on St Martin's, the Isles of Scilly, I set off for university. I joined the rowing club and lost stupid amounts of weight by over-training and under-eating.
2002 – ah yes, the year of the weir, when the women's 1st VIII all nearly drowned one freezing morning in February. This was also the year I was, somewhat hilariously, accused of 'criminal assault and battery' – how I wish I'd kept that piece of paper as a memento. I spent some time in Washington DC and saw in the new year in Times Square, New York; there, I became part of the world's largest synchronised bell-ringing event... I think this must also be when I went to Romania for a month, just to see how depressed it is possible for a human being to get.
2003 – this was the year I discovered South America – I went to Peru, paddled around on Lake Titicaca, dragged myself along the Inca Trail, and flew up to Cuba for the carnival in Santiago de Cuba. I spent two weeks getting the best suntan of my life in Jamaica and went home via Miami. I bought a DKNY tshirt for USD5 and didn't know for the next two years that I actually owned a piece of 'designer clothing'. Horrifying realisation. After a few weeks in the Amazon rainforest, I went down to Buenos Aires for new year and for the first time fell in love with a city.
2004 – I wrote reviews for London hotels and apartments, and gained my 1st in English Lit, despite only doing about four hours of work over the previous three years. I think this must be the time when I returned to Buenos Aires, spent a month in Santiago de Chile establishing that the two places were not remotely comparable, and passed the new year in BA. (I spent a few months living in a hostel, the Portal del Sur, and just a few weeks ago bumped into someone who had worked there – he was visiting Swaziland. Blimey.)
2005 – at some point, I figured that perhaps I should do something 'sensible' with my life and subsequently applied for a Master's degree at Oxford University. I still don't know why, but I was accepted. To celebrate this, I obviously returned to Argentina and Peru, coming home via Mexico, Atlanta, DC and NY. A month over Christmas in Goa, India, was followed far too rapidly by a transition to Sweden for the new year – my body never did deal well with the cold...
2006 – a lot of rowing coaching, a lot of messing about in boats, a good deal of Pimm's and many drives in classic cars around the English countryside. A month in Swedish wilderness was followed up by a long drive down to Andalucia and installation in the most miniature of cottages; I saw in new year in Knysna, Spain. I think this must also have been the year I went to Morocco and returned with severe and somewhat terrifying food poisoning.
2007 – after a few months messing around doing some work or other in Oxford, I took a job in Hong Kong. Thank goodness for discovering Lamma Island there, or I may not have lasted the year. Hang on, this must also be the year I first went to the Philippines, did my PADI course, and fell in love with the underwater world. And I also found out the merits (and curses) of sea-rowing, outrigging, and dragon boating.
2008 – mostly spent in HK, with a trip to Thailand thrown in for good measure. I ended up on Palawan island seeing in the new year. A year is never complete without a couple of months of serious Philippines beach time, I've decided.
2009 – a few months working as a writer and editor, and flapping about teaching English in Oxford, before rather randomly taking up a post in Swaziland, Southern Africa. I barely knew this place existed before coming here. A long trip to South Africa, and I discovered Kruger, the Garden Route, and incredible Cape Town – a decent place to see in the new year.
'A rolling stone gathers no moss'... Well, after those ten years galloping around the globe I am most decidedly without moss. Maybe a bit of moss would do me good. I wonder.
“A man travels the world in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.” (George Moore)
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Some Peculiarities of Swazi-Ville
There is a custom in Swaziland that requires you greet every person in a room when you enter, and those greetings must be appropriately acknowledged in response. Considering there are over fifty members of staff here and a good portion of those hang around in the staff room in the mornings before lessons begin, it can be something of a tedious and lengthy undertaking to enquire after the health of multiple people you have seen probably a mere twelve hours before. The only exchange I have with the majority of colleagues consists of, 'Good morning! And how are you?' 'Good morning! I'm fine, thank you. And you?' 'Oh, good, good. Cold at the moment, isn't it?' I then usually signal an end to such banalities by slotting in my headphones and staring firmly at my computer screen.
Now, there are two possible reactions to this. Or probably more, but I'm going to consider two. Some of you will immediately respond that it is nice and polite to greet everyone, and since I'm living in Swaziland I should logically adopt their customs. But those of you who are anti-social sods such as myself, and indeed advocates of people being remotely genuine in their behaviour, will appreciate the issue I have with this whole pointless scenario.
I'm also tired of standing in shopping queues and having someone pressed against me. Without putting too fine a point on it, I'm not entirely sure that deodorant has reached all corners of the globe and certainly not this one; I'm not overly keen on spending the rest of the day with the smell of somebody else's stale sweat embedded into my clothes.
And I'm not that wild about the fact any time I am required to have a conversation with someone whose job description falls under the broad umbrella of Customer Service Assistant, I am forced to wait while they finish personal calls, file their fingernails, wander off to do – well, God knows what. But they always wander off in the middle of conversations and, after a few minutes of absence, you are forced to ask one of their co-workers, 'Er, do you think they'll be coming back??'
A few months ago I was required to rent a car for a period of five days. I phoned around all the local car rental companies and came to the depressing realisation that the cost of renting a car in Swaziland for five days is the equivalent of buying and insuring an old banger in the UK. I went with my friend into the chosen company's offices, and spent maybe forty minutes filling in documents and looking over the car. Five days later we returned as arranged, to the exact same people in the office looking at us completely blankly. 'Erm... we're here to return the car' we eventually explained; the three Customer Service Assistants exchanged startled looks which clearly meant, 'Heck, we rented a car out? Really? Do you remember this?!' Paperwork finally confirmed that we had indeed hired a vehicle from them and, before the price went up even further for a Late Return, we'd very much appreciate if they would take the wretched thing back.
The odd encounter like this might be classified as entertaining, but such events on a daily basis can eventually take their toll on a person. Through my teaching and such mindless interactions, I'm learning to have the patience of a saint: you now won't see me angrily tapping my watch when a train is two minutes behind schedule, as would the majority of Brits lined up on a platform. Stay over here for a while and you'll soon learn to appreciate the arrival of any train at all, late or otherwise. And be glad of the fact that, as a female travelling alone, it is possible to board that train after dark and not be embarking on a suicide mission.
I have never been so aware of my safety as I am forced to be over here. It is unsettling; constantly looking over your shoulder is surely no way to live a life. And I have never been so aware of the fact I'm white – and the implications that seem naturally to come with that fact. I live in a country that is unquestionably one of the most beautiful I've seen, but which is also a complete social disaster with no apparent hope of the issues being resolved. When I stop seeing the beauty, I guess that will be time to leave.
Now, there are two possible reactions to this. Or probably more, but I'm going to consider two. Some of you will immediately respond that it is nice and polite to greet everyone, and since I'm living in Swaziland I should logically adopt their customs. But those of you who are anti-social sods such as myself, and indeed advocates of people being remotely genuine in their behaviour, will appreciate the issue I have with this whole pointless scenario.
I'm also tired of standing in shopping queues and having someone pressed against me. Without putting too fine a point on it, I'm not entirely sure that deodorant has reached all corners of the globe and certainly not this one; I'm not overly keen on spending the rest of the day with the smell of somebody else's stale sweat embedded into my clothes.
And I'm not that wild about the fact any time I am required to have a conversation with someone whose job description falls under the broad umbrella of Customer Service Assistant, I am forced to wait while they finish personal calls, file their fingernails, wander off to do – well, God knows what. But they always wander off in the middle of conversations and, after a few minutes of absence, you are forced to ask one of their co-workers, 'Er, do you think they'll be coming back??'
A few months ago I was required to rent a car for a period of five days. I phoned around all the local car rental companies and came to the depressing realisation that the cost of renting a car in Swaziland for five days is the equivalent of buying and insuring an old banger in the UK. I went with my friend into the chosen company's offices, and spent maybe forty minutes filling in documents and looking over the car. Five days later we returned as arranged, to the exact same people in the office looking at us completely blankly. 'Erm... we're here to return the car' we eventually explained; the three Customer Service Assistants exchanged startled looks which clearly meant, 'Heck, we rented a car out? Really? Do you remember this?!' Paperwork finally confirmed that we had indeed hired a vehicle from them and, before the price went up even further for a Late Return, we'd very much appreciate if they would take the wretched thing back.
The odd encounter like this might be classified as entertaining, but such events on a daily basis can eventually take their toll on a person. Through my teaching and such mindless interactions, I'm learning to have the patience of a saint: you now won't see me angrily tapping my watch when a train is two minutes behind schedule, as would the majority of Brits lined up on a platform. Stay over here for a while and you'll soon learn to appreciate the arrival of any train at all, late or otherwise. And be glad of the fact that, as a female travelling alone, it is possible to board that train after dark and not be embarking on a suicide mission.
I have never been so aware of my safety as I am forced to be over here. It is unsettling; constantly looking over your shoulder is surely no way to live a life. And I have never been so aware of the fact I'm white – and the implications that seem naturally to come with that fact. I live in a country that is unquestionably one of the most beautiful I've seen, but which is also a complete social disaster with no apparent hope of the issues being resolved. When I stop seeing the beauty, I guess that will be time to leave.
Monday, July 05, 2010
Erm... why am I teaching??
I'm working as a teacher in Swaziland – a job which came as a considerable surprise to me, too. I've generally been an advocate of the 'those who can, do; those who can't, teach' philosophy, and consider the concept of an 'intelligent teacher' to be the finest definition of oxymoron going. Thus, somewhat out of character, I try to muster enthusiasm for course guidelines, exam regulations, and the restrictions imposed by the endless reams of instructions examining bodies are capable of producing. I remind myself regularly that the likes of DH Lawrence and Robert Frost worked as teachers.
In addition to brandishing my own endless reams of Browning and Shakespeare and Blake handouts at students, I am also required to teach the most ridiculous of courses: the ToK element of the IB diploma. ToK stands for the somewhat pretentiously named Theory of Knowledge aspect of the programme the students here follow. At first glance, those of you who have managed to avoid become embroiled in this wretched course may enthusiastically consider that it could be a sort of beginner's guide to philosophy. Why yes, it could! But it isn't. It is something that involves extremely loosely defined 'knowledge issues' and for individuals to be able to consider the various 'areas of knowledge' via the 'four ways of knowing' (language, reason, emotion, and perception – for those of you remotely interested).
It is a course that currently clogs up four periods a week on my timetable, and sees me standing in front of a class flailing vaguely in the direction of the ill-defined syllabus. Today's session at least created an interesting debate, although not that which I'd intended upon when entering the classroom. Via a series of leaps and bounds the students ended up discussing why they get educated at all: half were convinced it was so they could get a job with more money in the future, most of the rest 'abstained' (they couldn't care less, they just knew they were told to go to school and did so), and a couple of others seemed to be edging towards what I believe is the real purpose.
More accurately, what I believed. I now don't know. If even the pupils don't think it is to stretch their minds and make them more inspired, more interesting individuals with greater potential for understanding the problems the universe still daily throws at us, then I'm not sure it is for teachers to define it in such a way...
This goes some way to explaining, however, why none of my supposedly intelligent students saw any comedy in Kafka's, 'Metamorphosis'. Why they still insist on calling Levi's, 'If This is a Man' a mere story. Why the existential angst of Camus' protagonist in, 'The Outsider' will inevitably be lost on them.
Ignorance is never blissful – I will always be the curious fool who opens Pandora's box and goes dramatically into battle with the consequences. I can't understand these students who see the process of education as the great curse of their youth and as a mere means to a financially beneficial end. Imagine being granted the opportunity to spend the rest of your life researching anything that came to mind that morning when you woke up, following whichever path your brain desired until it found a new avenue to explore. And to experience everything this world has to offer: never mind just reading about the tribes in Papua New Guinea, but getting to go live with them and see for yourself. Don't just know that the Great Wall of China can be seen from space (I'm not even sure that is true, come to that) but go and see the dratted thing for yourself, snakes and all. Not just hear of the unrivalled majesty of the clouds lifting over Macchu Picchu as the sun rises between the mountains, but go and watch for yourself as the lost city is unveiled.
So many people wrongly accuse me of being 'angry with the world', and it becomes ever more tedious with each rendition of the tired phrase. I am angry with people who don't know and who don't want to know; who are content in their small corner of the globe to limit their experiences to a distinct safe sphere; who look scornfully at my erratic and seemingly unstable version of existence.
I think the trick with life is to realise when something is no longer engaging your interest and to be able to step away from that situation and head off to find new pastures, while fending off feelings of being jaded or discouraged. Some people think there is merit in 'sticking it out' and plodding wearily on when they are no longer content, that you can learn and – to use a painful Americanism – 'grow' from such experiences. I'm not so sure there is any great quality in learning to handle your increasing misery when you know how to exchange that state for a happier one.
'May you live all the days of your life'. (Jonathan Swift)
In addition to brandishing my own endless reams of Browning and Shakespeare and Blake handouts at students, I am also required to teach the most ridiculous of courses: the ToK element of the IB diploma. ToK stands for the somewhat pretentiously named Theory of Knowledge aspect of the programme the students here follow. At first glance, those of you who have managed to avoid become embroiled in this wretched course may enthusiastically consider that it could be a sort of beginner's guide to philosophy. Why yes, it could! But it isn't. It is something that involves extremely loosely defined 'knowledge issues' and for individuals to be able to consider the various 'areas of knowledge' via the 'four ways of knowing' (language, reason, emotion, and perception – for those of you remotely interested).
It is a course that currently clogs up four periods a week on my timetable, and sees me standing in front of a class flailing vaguely in the direction of the ill-defined syllabus. Today's session at least created an interesting debate, although not that which I'd intended upon when entering the classroom. Via a series of leaps and bounds the students ended up discussing why they get educated at all: half were convinced it was so they could get a job with more money in the future, most of the rest 'abstained' (they couldn't care less, they just knew they were told to go to school and did so), and a couple of others seemed to be edging towards what I believe is the real purpose.
More accurately, what I believed. I now don't know. If even the pupils don't think it is to stretch their minds and make them more inspired, more interesting individuals with greater potential for understanding the problems the universe still daily throws at us, then I'm not sure it is for teachers to define it in such a way...
This goes some way to explaining, however, why none of my supposedly intelligent students saw any comedy in Kafka's, 'Metamorphosis'. Why they still insist on calling Levi's, 'If This is a Man' a mere story. Why the existential angst of Camus' protagonist in, 'The Outsider' will inevitably be lost on them.
Ignorance is never blissful – I will always be the curious fool who opens Pandora's box and goes dramatically into battle with the consequences. I can't understand these students who see the process of education as the great curse of their youth and as a mere means to a financially beneficial end. Imagine being granted the opportunity to spend the rest of your life researching anything that came to mind that morning when you woke up, following whichever path your brain desired until it found a new avenue to explore. And to experience everything this world has to offer: never mind just reading about the tribes in Papua New Guinea, but getting to go live with them and see for yourself. Don't just know that the Great Wall of China can be seen from space (I'm not even sure that is true, come to that) but go and see the dratted thing for yourself, snakes and all. Not just hear of the unrivalled majesty of the clouds lifting over Macchu Picchu as the sun rises between the mountains, but go and watch for yourself as the lost city is unveiled.
So many people wrongly accuse me of being 'angry with the world', and it becomes ever more tedious with each rendition of the tired phrase. I am angry with people who don't know and who don't want to know; who are content in their small corner of the globe to limit their experiences to a distinct safe sphere; who look scornfully at my erratic and seemingly unstable version of existence.
I think the trick with life is to realise when something is no longer engaging your interest and to be able to step away from that situation and head off to find new pastures, while fending off feelings of being jaded or discouraged. Some people think there is merit in 'sticking it out' and plodding wearily on when they are no longer content, that you can learn and – to use a painful Americanism – 'grow' from such experiences. I'm not so sure there is any great quality in learning to handle your increasing misery when you know how to exchange that state for a happier one.
'May you live all the days of your life'. (Jonathan Swift)
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Coming back to blogging...
It has been over a year since I posted on here. There are multiple reasons for this, but the primary cause for the last nine months has been an essential inability to get decent internet access. I'm now living in Swaziland and every day experience something beyond blog-worthy; I finally went into battle with blogspot this evening determined to succeed and, gosh darn it, I've emerged victorious. Welcome back to my rants! I think throwing some of my anger at the world on here will help to moderate the building up frustrations I have.
And heck, maybe somebody will learn something by reading this witterage... Stranger things have happened.
I actually wrote the following nearly two months ago for no reason other than I suddenly felt the need to document the experience. And I'm too tired this evening to come up with anything creative or entertaining, so this will have to do. An insight into the real South Africa that isn't being seen on your television screens as you peer into the country hosting the World Cup.
(As an aside, the picture is totally disconnected to the story below. They're the African Penguins at Boulders Beach in Cape Town. Awesome little creatures.)
I decided that the day shift had slightly more amenable hours – 7am to 7pm seemed somehow more feasible than a twelve hour shift in the cold and dark. I hadn't quite factored in the 5am start, allowing time to get across Johannesburg in the morning and check all necessary kit was in stock before the day started. (Notably, all necessary kit wasn't in stock, and indeed it never is. The paramedics are hopelessly underfunded and the supplies system is unnecessarily complex; it is often the case that the guys working will buy the required gear themselves. It saves time and frustration.)
At 0701, the first call of the day comes through: the radio crackles into life and gives the briefest of details. A female at such and such an address. We're in Hillbrow, one of the most notorious districts of any city in the world: once where upper class European immigrants vied to have an apartment, and now a place teeming with drug dealers, prostitutes, rapists and murderers. White visitors to the city are ill-advised to step foot into the area, and the only reason I would remain relatively safe was by merit of the fact I with the two paramedics; they're respected in the community. Most of the time.
The address is logged into a SatNav and we speed off from the station – the new Audi performs well as we screech around corners and leap through red lights. When arriving at the destination, I cautiously emerge from the car, keeping close to the two guys: the neighbourhood is full of watching eyes, crumbling houses, broken barbed wire fences, and flea-ridden, mangy dogs. We push through a fence and go round the back of the house to see a 20-something black woman, probably from Zimbabwe, lying on the ground. She's surrounded by worried looking relatives who we usher into the house so the paramedics can do their job: in this case, that is merely confirming that yes, she has died. Her three week old baby cries in the arms of his young aunt. They establish that death was not caused by a drug overdose, hear that she'd had a few breathing difficulties since giving birth, and recommend that the family call a funeral parlour.
There will be no post mortem, no autopsy. There aren't the resources, and nobody really cares. Life moves on rapidly in this part of the world. A guy comes in from next door and asks if we can bob by and see his wife – she's been feeling sick for the past few days and he figures that while there's a medical man around he should take advantage of the fact. We traipse into a small and dark room that stinks of stale sweat and food rotting on plates in the sink; the examination is brief and perfunctory, merely informing the woman that she is quite probably pregnant. She groans and rolls her eyes. I guess that another child to add to her extensive brood wasn't exactly planned.
Just as we're pulling away, a van with 'Flair Funerals' written on the side turns up. The dead woman barely fits in the back and is slotted in without care or delicacy; her sister climbs in alongside and they set off. Meanwhile, the rest of the family has arrived – all dressed in black, they've just come from another funeral.
I have some free time for the images to sink in as we head off to a local garage where the two guys get themselves strong coffee and settle onto the plastic stools. They tell me about some of the things they've seen and experienced, the Johannesburg paramedics known and respected throughout the medical world as being very much on the front lines. If you need someone who knows about stabbings and multiple gunshot wounds, about brutal slayings and horrific traffic accidents, ask these guys. They see it all. Daily. A shift without a few dead guys, violently killed, is a rarity.
We're called to an RTA – a Road Traffic Accident – shortly after the rain starts. One of the combis, the local taxis, has crashed into a wall and two women are complaining that their shins hurt. This is the kind of call the paramedics really hate: the women are clearly fine, they possibly have a few bruises, but protocol demands that they stay until the ambulance they are requesting has arrived. Waiting for the ambulance means other calls will go unanswered, and there isn't anybody else to respond to them. There is one car per district. The car for Hillbrow is parked up on a side-street, the paramedics sucking in cigarettes and exchanging jokes to pass the time. We're stuck there for nearly 90 minutes waiting for the ambulance, by which time we've missed countless calls. The guys aren't exactly subtle and don't bother to hide their frustration.
While waiting for the next call they take me down to the local market, the one where the witch doctors sell their wares. In some parts of Africa, up to 95% of people will use witch doctors in preference to western medicine; they're a huge part of life out here. They're identified by the white beads in their hair, and I see two looking into the back of a hearse that has pulled up. The potions they make often incorporate human body parts, and these two are buying direct from the funeral parlour – in broad daylight.
And then I'm rushed to the scene of another incident: a guy was trying to cut through cable with a simple saw, desperate to acquire the copper inside. Unfortunately, he chose a main power cable. Beyond a high fence topped with razor wire we can see him sitting there in a daze – barely alive. 50,000 volts have shot through him and his skin is hanging off in shreds. The worst part is, we can't get at him. The security guard is there but he gets locked into the site for the day to ensure he stays and does his job, and we are forced to wait for the company owners to arrive and let us in, the paramedics beside themselves with rage at the situation. Eventually they're allowed access and head towards the burn victim, and I figure it is wise to hang back at the car. Hang back with the gathering crowd who are jeering and pointing and taking photos with their mobile phones.
When the ambulance arrives, the man has essentially been mummified with wet bandages, a drip has been inserted and oxygen administered. One of the paramedics rides with him to the hospital because they don't trust the ambulance staff to actually take care of him on the thirty minute journey. He has 95% coverage of third degree burns to his body, and a pretty low chance of survival. A black guy has been turned white in a split second.
I'm getting a mere glimpse into the lives of these Hillbrow paramedics, and I'm not sure I can hack the rest of the day. They do it day in, day out, for months on end, and they're paid next to nothing for what they do despite working in one of the most dangerous cities in the world and in the most violent communities. Most of them are divorced or in disastrous sham marriages, with strings of broken relationships. Turning off emotions is essential in this job, and it is hard to turn those on again once you head back home; priorities are somewhat altered when you see dismembered bodies and the bloody results of brutal killings as par for the course.
At one point in the afternoon, a guy who is high as a kite on 'ganja' (the local term for a particularly strong type of marijuana) deliberately jumps into the side of our car. The way the two guys leap out to pursue him, I'm convinced they're going to beat the living daylights out of him: a broken wing mirror equates to a car that cannot be driven, and a car that cannot be driven means they're sitting around twiddling their thumbs while it is fixed – and while people die. Fixing a car out here can take months. I know. Mine was smashed into a wall by a mechanic who was driving it, and five weeks later I still don't have so much as a courtesy car and some stranger doesn't have a wall to his lounge.
The police eventually arrive but don't bother to leave their vehicle; they survey the scene, listening vaguely to both sides of the story. At some point the man we apparently 'drove into' makes note of the fact he's not actually being watched and slinks off around a corner, unobserved. No chase is given – not by the police, the two paramedics head after him but he's lost in the maze of buildings within moments. Nothing is done. And heaven only knows what is happening to the person we were on call to.
A man comes up to us and says he can cut us a new wing mirror, and since we have to hang around for an official Accident Investigator to appear we say go on, give it a shot. Fifty Rand if you can do it. He takes an old, blunt scalpel from a plastic bag, a bathroom mirror, and a sheet of newspaper. Slowly but surely, he cuts us a new mirror; he pops into a hardware shop to buy glue and sticks it on, his hands full of splinters of glass by this point. We give him a hundred because we're so impressed by his ingenuity, and are extremely grateful for making the car legal once more.
A brief visit to Hillbrow Police Station to report the incident is enough to illustrate to me why the crime levels are so high in this area: the police simply don't care. Half the time, it seems, they don't even enter the buildings where crimes have taken place because they're too scared. There is no law here. The underworld, the corrupt, they are in charge and rule by fear.
By the end of the day I am physically and emotionally drained. But I'm lucky: I get to wash my clothes, have a shower, leave behind the grime and the smells of Hillbrow, and wake up the next morning knowing I never need to go back there again if I don't want.
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