The Okavango

The Okavango Delta is a place of beauty. Tucked away in the heart of Botswana, it is a sanctuary for birds and wildlife. We traveled to the island, where we would set up camp, in mokoros; hollowed out tree trunks which are punted through the shallow waters of the delta, keeping a leery eye out for hippopotamus. If we were thirsty we would dip a cup over the side of the canoe, and drank deeply, having been told that the water was pure.

Cape buffalo looked up as we passed by, water dripping from their mouths and elephants cautiously watched us, sniffing the air with their trunks.  It was exciting as well as very idyllic.

After we had set up camp under a Sausage tree that would occasionally drop an enormous torpedo-like pod to the ground, the men in the group went down to the water to fill the jerrycans, while we, women, watched.

A fisherman stood thigh-deep in the shallows, while he fanned out his hand-made net and threw it into the darkening waters. All was well with the world. But wait, what is that I see? What do the weights of his net resemble? Batteries, large flashlight batteries! I waded out to take a closer look and saw that the batteries had holes drilled right through to attach them to the net. In my mind's eye I could see the cadmium oozing out into the pure waters of the Okavango, that I had drunk so deeply and without a care.

That night, as I made my last stop behind a bush, I watched closely to see if my pee didn't glow in the dark, but was distracted by another enormous sausage whizzing past my ear to drop to the ground with a thud and hastily made my way back to my tent by the light beaming from my eyes.

I am cleaning out memorabilia, and found some wonderful old postcards that my family had sent each other while they lived in Africa. I used a card by C. Barry to draw this wonderful wise woman. I drew with pen and nib and Indian Ink without setting up a sketch first. Wanted to see if I could sketch without an eraser.

Holy Rosary Convent, Edenvale, Gauteng.

This week I found myself looking for my primary school on the Internet. I was clearly drinking from a full cup of nostalgia and I was not alone, because the next day there was a nice fat letter amongst my mail from my primary school friend, Paddy. She too, was looking back. Birthday's tend to bring this on.
There isn't much to be found about our years at Holy Rosary Convent but I did discover things I did not know. 
The order was established at Killeshandra in Ireland and the sisters were sent to Africa as missionaries. First to Nigeria, but later in the 1940's, as the order grew, also to Transvaal (now Gauteng), where they started a school in Edenvale, to support their missionary work in Vereeniging, where the Sharpeville Massacre took place in 1960.
As I remember it, our classrooms were, at the time in temporary buildings under some tall pine trees. While I was there a new building was built behind the brick schoolhouse in the photo.
So much for the history, because what captures my interest are the women who were our teachers. They were such a mystery to me, in their crisp white tropical habits, of linen and cotton, and when it got colder, unbleached woolen cardigans. I can still imitate their soft, Irish lilt and belt out the Irish songs we were taught in music class. They formed a little Irish island in the middle of the African veld.
After having seen Walt Disney's 'Sleeping Beauty" I could never escape seeing Sister Mary Gemma as Flora, the strong, benevolent leader, Sister Mary Genevieve as Fauna, sweet and timid, and Sister Mary Teresita as Merriweather. Although my relationship with Sister Gemma was the strongest as we corresponded for many years, well into my adulthood, it was however Sister Teresita who fascinated me most once I was well out of her reach. She was all too slap-happy with her ruler or pointer, and when angered, her face would redden from her collar up to her coif, and there were times when I feared that she would erupt like a volcano and I would see molten lava spouting out of the top of her head.
Regardless of Merriweather, I had a wonderful time and still think I was fortunate enough to get an excellent start in life because of the good, though somewhat old fashioned schooling at HRC. (We called ourselves Hot Roasted Chickens). When I left for high school I had already had a year of Latin, a nice little foundation for math, had read Shakespeare, Dickens and many other great authors. I had been taken to musicals, eisteddfods, and learned song (can't say I learned to sing, but that had to do with my own limited abilities) and dance. I could write bread-and-butter notes (check this link if you like entertaining, etiquette and the finer side of life), knew which knife and fork to use at an elaborate dinner and walk up straight and elegantly. 
None of these skills are particularly helpful in the life I live now. Manners are not really required much these days and tableware has been reduced to a single fork. Long, newsy letters on fine stationary have been replaced by emails and Latin, I believe is no longer required in any academic direction. 

We cannot prevent change and progress, but we can regret the loss of some of the finer things in life. Therefore, Paddy and I are going back to writing letters (even though the first one Paddy wrote got lost in the mail from South Africa to Arizona). No more quick exchanges zipping along the web, but letters that take longer to write, longer to arrive, but are sure to be savored longer by the recipient.
Listening to: Appalachia Waltz, Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer and Mark O'Conner.

Feather paper cut and drawing.

A guinea fowl feather in pencil; a guinea fowl feather cut-out, backed with cheese cloth, dyed in tea, and a poem by Isak Dinesen.

If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a colour that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?

Isak Dinesen is the pen-name of Karen Blixen, best known from the film "Out of Africa". She was a formidable writer and had a farm in Africa. She was also twice nominated for the Nobel prize in Literature, and a Danish baroness.

Often I reread her work, my favorite being "Out of Africa", knowing that I am attracted by the romance of the period. I grew up in post-colonial Africa and there were then still remnants of those bygone days. For a child, it was a happy place to be, full of adventure and discovery. I recently read "Dark Star Safari" by Paul Theroux and he describes his travels from Cairo to the Cape in the new Africa, with its hunger, disease and inability to help itself. Fortunately, not too long ago I had read "Africa Trek" by Alexandre and Sonia Poussin,  who travel by foot from Cape Town to Cairo, which off-set the starkness of Theroux's novel and focused more on the generosity, kindness and laughter one also meets in Africa. Africa, Africa, Africa, when will I stop dreaming of Africa? My dreams are just dusty memories.

I too have traveled from Cairo to the Cape, though certainly not on foot, but there were buses, trucks, ships and trains involved. I did it in increments, visiting one or two countries at a time. However, I carelessly appear to have skipped a bit like the whole of the Sudan and Ethiopia. Just don't know how that happened, but I do know enough to have an opinion on Africa. I also know much has changed. In cases for the better, but in much I think things are worse than before.

Still when I decide to draw a feather, it's no wonder that I choose a Guinea Fowl feather because my drawing is an escape of the times we live in. I see too much hardship around me these days, and indeed I find it difficult at the moment to see much pleasure in daily life, so I draw and paint and relive memories. All I need is a pencil, some paints, some paper, and since recently an X-acto knife, to travel to Africa.

Kudu paper cut.

A kudu is quite easy to draw and I did this from a photo I had. I used 2 pages. Not that it matters, I have another 50 or so in my journal, but I was trying to make something using more than 2. Paper cut of grass, paper cut of the kudu head and then backed the cut with some bronze paper. Both the ears were supposed to hold the pages together but I snipped off a little too much of the one ear. Uh oh.
I was asked, "What if you make a mistake in your little journal", and my response was, "Then I make a mistake". I make mistakes all the time in life, let alone in my distraction.
I still have no name for what I do. It's not a hobby, it isn't my work. It all started out as 'practice' for the book I am making for my niece, Fleur. It was to be an album of the pictures I had of her. Then it seemed like a fun idea to enhance the album and I spent time looking at the possibilities of scrap-booking but that didn't much appeal to me. Mainly because it seemed like I was taking the easy way out, buying stickers and stamps. That's me, I never take a bloody short cut. Wish I would really. But not in this. I am enjoying trying out the different techniques and converting them into something usable for Fleur's Book. I am getting better at it too, except for ears, they get snipped off heartlessly.