Procrastination

Today is officially August and it’s time I write a new page on my blog.  We have all been very busy and I almost can’t believe that we have been back from Turkey for a whole month. 

We seem to have learnt so much in Turkey, about the food and the people.  I wish it was mandatory for everyone in the world to travel to another country at least once in their lives. It has made a perceptible difference to our lives and made us all grow in ways we least expected.      

The children are still on holiday and will be for another whole month.  We are all boiling hot here; the temperature seems to be mostly in the late forties.  Even going to the shop is a chore because one has to actually step outside. Thank goodness for electricity and aircons.  

I am teaching the boys how to cook. Matthew makes lunch for us. He can fix a salad, fry and scramble eggs, make 2 minute noodles, sandwiches, pancakes to name but a few.  Nicholas often ends up making pudding even though he does not eat sweet things most of the time. They both love to get hold of my hand mixer, sometimes with some disastrous and very messy results.  Martin always seems to be downloading the latest movies for us.  We also go swimming at the hotel, although the water is lukewarm.   

After our great time in Turkey, Martin is working again.  He has just completed the summer school session for some high school students.  It is the holy month of Ramadan now, and things are slowing down a whole lot. Because the local population is fasting from sun-up to sun-down, and because of the intense heat I think, the shop-keeping hours have been reduced.  People drive slow, walk slow, react slow.  It’s quite frustrating when you want to get somewhere quickly. Luckily this hot weather won’t carry on for too much longer.  We experienced a day of 59 degrees a week or so back and it is still pretty warm.

I am trudging forward with my studies.  This semester I took 5 modules.  I study most weekdays from about eight till one o’clock.  It’s tiring and it’s hard work.  I have a long way to go still but, I am determined to get my degree. I love it.  I love learning and I love reading so it is perfect for me.  Martin managed to find my setwork book in movie form - Disgrace by JM Coetzee. WOW, what a South African statement. It really blew me away. I had read the book before, so it gave me insight into what the characters were thinking.  JM Coetzee won a Nobel Literature prize for it.  Now I have to formulate an answer for quite a difficult question. I’m trying not to procrastinate…

Turkey

It’s our annual holiday.  Nizwa is smouldering in 46 degrees and we were all glad to get out of it. The children passed the year with extremely good marks considering they missed a whole month in the beginning.   This year we have decided to visit Fethiye in Turkey.  The holiday was initiated by extremely kind and generous friends who have a peaceful spacious haven amidst the bustling tourist hive.

We flew Turkish airlines from Muscat via Bahrain, Istanbul and finally Dalaman.   We then caught a taxi to Fethiye which is roughly 30 minutes away.   By the time we arrived in Fethiye it was dark and we were all tired.

The apartment is my kind of place.  The living room is lined with well-read books; the conservatory has an extra kid’s corner with a PS2. The apartment has everything we could wish for.  A huge bath, a shower, even aircons for the hot days and heaters for the cold ones.

Fethiye is mainly a tourist resort and an unforgettable experience. The people are friendly and very welcoming.  In the evenings, they sit outside enjoying the last of the sun, playing board games with their neighbours and chatting away in Turkish. To my astonishment, every so often I hear an Afrikaans-sounding word between sentences. 

There is a waterpark here that has slides of every description: There are tunnels, open ones, steep ones, curvy ones and gradual slides all running down to a deep splash-pool - a kid’s paradise.  We were there until poor Nicholas couldn’t walk up the stairs anymore.  He had told us that he had never encountered a slide before (he was too small to remember the slide in Salalah) and Matthew was running up and sliding down at the speed of light.  It was a lot of fun.

The drive to the cool waters of Saklikent Gorge took us through some Turkish countryside where there were acres of olive trees and tiny little restaurants that seemed to pop up everywhere.  It seems Turkey is a nation of gardeners.  The water runs freely here and the soil is fertile.  Everywhere one looks there are flowers, plants and fruit trees.  What is remarkable for me is that the roses smell of rose, the fruit smells of fruit and even the bougainvilla smells like flowers.  These fruit and vegetables are sold twice weekly at the local market where you can buy almost anything else as well.

The Mediterranean Sea is clear, cool and the boats bob up and down in the quiet water.  There are numerous stony beaches dotted along the shore.  There are boats which seem to be on every beach. One can hire one in order to go to most of the islands dotted around the coast.  One can even take a trip down to Rhodes Island which is Greek territory to see how the other half live. It is very beautiful here. I am looking forward to visiting the famous Oludeniz beach very soon.  It is said to be the 5^th most beautiful beach in the world.   

The sign says ‘You can’t leave Fethiye without watching a sunset on Calas Beach’ and so last night, as we dined on the water’s edge, eating everything Turkish -  lamb, ice cream and coffee, the sun went down behind the mountains displaying a crimson glow over the water. Even the Turkish music playing in the background seemed to lull us into a Mediterranean haze.

Well, we have eighteen more days to go.  I will write more, but for now I need to pack that picnic basket to head off on another adventure. Wish you were all here.

 

               

Those terrifying exams

I have all the symptoms.  Sweaty palms, bad mood and a far away terrified countenance of total anxiety.  My face seems permanently distorted into a frown. My ever shaky fingers scattering over my keyboard, eyes anxiously searching for clues about the exam as if the lecturers would post them online for us too read.

And its not just me.  My young Matthew is seemly getting more and more lethargic as the exam days approach.  His insolence unjustified in the light of my nervousness.  Only Nicholas seems uncaring and unperturbed as he sits on my lap eating whatever is in sight.  Chomping away as if he has never eaten.   Of course the irony of it all is that Nicholas, my little sausage, achieved the highest marks which will very definitely be repeated.

In just over two weeks this too will pass.  I look forward to leaving this desert of summer rainfall.  Every day the rain comes, as if mocking the dry infertile sand.  The rain forms huge swollen rivers that form the breeding grounds of those irritating buzzers that bite one in the night.  Masses of water everywhere.  Whoever said that wadis were dry river beds?  Abundance is not in the sunshine this summer, but in the thick heavy dark grey clouds that expel their energy in short quick busts of light and  low afternoon rumbles.

Yes, I even find the weather irritating.  However, the cradle of humankind beckons us. Excitement creeping up on us, fully testing our ability to concentrate on the matter at hand. This brings to mind this mindless paragraph, procrastination to its fullest extent, by virtue of a wonky, slightly skewed suggestion that perhaps it is time to call today final. After all, my brains feel like fried bananas.  Frazzled from the most boring book on Gods good earth. Too much thinking makes it go soft. I bid you all a good night sleep.  I will kiss my boys with all your love.

I stand before my God

I stand before my God

I stand before my God

In my silent abandonment  

I have crucified myself

Filled only with Gods grace

He forgives me

He says all is new

That I am a blank slate

Since His resurrection

But here I stand

Unforgiving

Imperfectly scarred

Alone

But my God sees only my perfection

He sees only my strong spirit

And then He anoints me

To be me

Will this ever go away?

Recently someone totally unexpected from my past popped up in my life.  A previous friendship from a previous lifetime. With her came all the gory details of a very unhappy time in my life.  Not only was this person judgmental, but also very hurtful to me, my husband and my poor bewildered children. This friendship was being totally oblivious and insensitive to my life here and now, never thinking how it would affect what I have worked so hard to achieve. It happened in an instant, a slip of a tongue, a sight, a smell, but this time it was the smell of the rain.

 People often judge one by ones past actions. Unfortunately she was in my shoes at the time, however subtly choosing the side of my abuser. This person has no appreciation or comprehension of my ability to cope under the circumstances. She has judged me the hardest, leaving me no compromise, because somehow I had failed. I was told back then that it was my fault, that simply by being me I had transgressed.  I questioned myself, believing I had to be different somehow.  In hindsight I was different, I was stronger than them. I was able to cope when they weren't. Only cowards abuse other people after all.   


Wounds like these have an ugly way of showing up, of leaving one open exposed and bleeding, of dividing one.  Of silencing you just when your confidence returns, because you can once again hear your voice. Am I destined never to speak? Never to have a voice?  It is ironic that I work for an organization called Voice now, when most of my life I felt unable to speak or express any form of emotion, to have no Voice.

I am determined to work through these wrongs to make them right again.  To change the cycle and the ugly pattern of these atrocities. I often wonder how to get rid of these ugly raw scars, just as I was often left to wonder the age old question of 'why me' when I was young.  Perhaps it is time to accept that perhaps that is who I am and will be.  To find a way of reconciling the pain.  Of using the experience positively.   To once and for all, deal with it for my own sake. 

 

Being Grateful

I spell the G in grateful with a capital letter because I feel just sometimes people forget to feel grateful about the positives in their lives. I feel that being grateful is just so much part of humility and having a very positive outlook on life.

While this is starting to sound very corny, let me tell you what brought this on.  I know someone who is very ill.  She is normally a very strong, super-intelligent and extremely capable person who has only ever encouraged me to fulfill my dreams.  Recently over Christmas time, her health deteriorated rapidly and quite suddenly to the point whereby she needs help to move around and just get out of bed in the morning. I can honestly tell you that through the strength of love for her son and family and sheer determination she has got up out of bed, had that refreshing cup of tea and tried very hard to be as much as she can be.

I stand in awe.  The doctors had not given her much longer and told us that she has had her innings, but I feel as if I have witnessed a miracle and a huge blessing.  Can love be so powerful? Is this what it was all about in the first place? 

So while all this happened so far away from me  it has touched my life and all of our lives in every way.  I feel like shouting how special each day is because I have come to realise just how powerful love can be.

Everyone of us has the responsibility to bring what is inside us, our love and our passion, to the outside and show the world what it is we have to give. Perhaps that is what we are all here for. Whether it is people who have novels stuck in their bottom draw, a restaurant to get in order or just simply to remember to appreciate each day as it comes, life is short...go out there love, be beautiful and fearless.  And remember to be Grateful.

Sweet Nicholas

We live in a roomy apartment on the ground floor.  Living in the apartment above us is a fellow South African also from Cape Town called Tony.  Tony also teaches at the University and is very familiar with our kids and our family. Tony came down the other day to tell us about our little Nicholas and what he has been up to. 

Precocious Nicholas told Tony that he will take the rubbish for him to the bin every week. The outside bin is a short 1 minute walk away and he is perfectly safe and quite capable of doing the job. Nicholas had it all worked out in his mind too, after having given it some thought.

He told Tony that only he can take it because there are spiders at the bin and only he knew how to deal with these really huge spiders.

He said that Matthew cannot deal with the spiders so it’s best not to tell him.

Nicholas said he would do all this for a really special price of 200 bizas per time.

He told Tony he will do it every week twice a week and that Tony mustn’t forget Nicholas and do it himself.

In Tonys words…"as if I will ever forget him or his brilliant offer! "