5 weird habits...

I got tagged by a blog buddy...I gotta list 5 of my weirdest habits :) Here goes...

1. I don't use deoderants or perfumes...ok I know that sounds gross but believe it or
not the body has a pretty good scent if it's just left alone and washed well ;)
and of course the pheramones have a chance to flourish once the artficial scents
are gone...

2. I can't drink more than one glass of wine without getting sloshed (heehee)

3. I meditate with my eyes open

4. I don't watch TV. Ever. (the advertising seriously bugs me)

5. I collect rocks and sticks and any other bits of nature that catch my eye. Then I
take them home and put them into bowls and in corners...kinda makes me feel more
comfortable.

I'm supposed to tag 5 other people, but I'm kinda isolated here, and I don't think there are five other people who read this blog!

Steve, if you're reading this, consider yourself tagged buddy :)

We've been busy :) The cute dolls are the presents the kids made for their gran and her partner. And the other ones are of a little statuette that I made of Antoine. The head broke off! And then the people at the clay studio tried to stick it back on but they left a huge crack. Oh well, it was a first try. I want to make bigger ones next, but that will have to wait for after Christmas and the move.

I'm trying to prepare myself for seeing my father next week. It's been seven years! He lives in New Zealand, and we email eachother every now and then, but it's hardly an intimate relationship. He will be staying with us for a week. I suppose it's a good way to get to know someone :) I feel like I'm getting a chance to put a piece of myself in place. Parents are a way of seeing yourself, a reflection of a kind. A way to understand yourself better. And I've missed out on seeing myself reflected in my father. So now I have the chance. I know I look like him, and i'm pretty sure my quest for knowledge comes from him. It will be great to have that kind of affirmation.

'nother pic of the bambinos. They're home with me now that school is over for the year.

Buzy with Christmans shopping. I've decided to try my hand at clay sculpture, so all the nearest and dearest are getting hand-made clay thingimajigs. I sent them off to the potter this morning for firing and a coat of glaze. Amazing what a good coat of glaze can do :)

We are also gearing up to move house...leaving our current home on the 30 Dec. Eek. Got an absolutely lovely little house by the sea. New years eve will see me unpacking boxes, but what a wonderful place to start 2006!

I will post pics of the new place closer to the time...

Happy Holidays

This is a photo that I took at a school presentantion, while I was working at Observatory Primary. The child was dressed in his cultural regalia, a little boy from the townships of South Africa dressed like a long distant ancestor. The kids are strange, half westernised and half deeply ingrained native beliefs. His people are the Xhosa of Southern Africa, once great enemies of the Zulu nation who roamed Africa before the Europeans arrived.

For generations now his people have lived in shanty towns on the borders of the cities. The school that he is attending is made up mainly of Xhosa speaking children, watched over by slightly panicked white school marms...We don't know how to command their attention in most classes. We don't understand what they remark to each other as we reprimand them.

Their culture regards a raised voice as a sign of respect. They clamour to out-shout each other as if they were still communicating in the open savannahs. We tell them to sit down, be quite. Look at me when I'm talking to you! How was I to know that looking someone in the eye in their culture is the same thing as challenging someone to combat?

All my life they existed only on the periphery, until I spent time being a teacher to them. Learning that our inability to communicate stemmed from something far deeper than the colour of out skin. It stemmed from different worlds. Theirs, a strange and uncomfortable blend of Western consumer culture and traditional African heritage. Mine a struggling and frustrated rejection of Western consumer culture, and a longing for a deeper heritage of my own.

I won't go back to teaching again. Not within the education system as it now stands. This country has a very long way to go in terms of serving the needs of the public. But the time that i spent there was invaluable.