T.I.A, Baby.

This is Africa -- Jo'Burg 23/11 til 26/11

Sitting on a balcony at dusk, looking out over the houses snuggled into the surrounding the city, listening to the Muslim call to prayer and drinking beer, you could almost think this was a beautiful, relaxing city. And I guess, right then, it was.

But in the day, it is ugly and paranoind and dirty. Jo'Burgers have a thing for pavers and and razor wire -- all ground surfaces are paved or covered in concrete and all buildings are srrounded by seven foots fences and razor wire. To travellers such as we, it is a daunting introduction to the continent, inspiring a wariness and a fearfullness of the city around us which may or may not be warrented. To the white, wealthy South Africans, who arm and disarm the security in their houses as they move from room to room, who drive from their security access coded automatic garages with their armed response security systems in four wheel drives to offices and schools and shopping centres protected by security guards armed with pistols and batons, I wonder what this must be doing to their psyches, day in and day out?

We were picked up from the airport by a cranky Afrikaans man and taken to a hostel almost completely lacking in character, deposited in a room across a back lan from the main compound (protected of course, by the ever present razor wire and seven foot fences) and more or less left to our own defences by a staff dedicated to being as little help as possible. Having said that, they did drive us everywhere we wanted to go. For a modest fee, and with a disgruntled sigh, a grumpy black man would hurtle through traffic, one hand on the horn, head out the window hurling abuse in zulu at anyone who got in his way.

The car trips themselves were experiences -- speed limits and lane boundries were often ignored, horns and verbal abuse liberally applied. At the lights, vendors would wash windows for change and sell jewllery or snacks or electrical items or whatever else they thought commuters might buy. The first time I saw an Afrikan woman balancing a load on her head was when we were stopped at the lights at Jo'Burg. Not wishing to appear the wide-eyed tourist I clearly was, I stared, and very quietly tried to attract Dominic's attention so I could point her out to him.
Jo'Burg was my first real taste of poverty and racism and of big city danger. I have since read that, along with the capital of Nigeria, Jo'Burg is considered one of the most dangerous cities in Africa. Walking the streets, even during the day, even just a couple of blocks from the hostel to the supermarket, I felt very out of place and conspicuous and out of my depth. I have never felt so obviously white as I did there.

At the hostel, I felt significantly safer, but no less out-of-place. We were the only white people on the side of the hostel our room was in, and while the other inhabitants were friendly enough, they were quite reserved. They clearly lived here for long stretches of time, using it as a base for working in the city and I felt as though we were intruding on their space.

The other side of the hostel wasn't much better. We met a few interesting aid workers taking a break in Jo'burg, but most people were reserved, or just passing through. There was an obnoxious middle-aged American man there, showing a reather appalling lack of interest in local history or events, biding his time until he went to Botswana to meet what sounded suspiciously like an internet bride.

The owners were a couple: an Afrikaans man and a Northern Irish woman, and they had a few Afrikaans friends and workers with them. Spending a few hours drinking beer with them on the front lawn was an exercise in biting my tongue. The men were arrogent and rude and all of them were casually racist. Nothing overt, but there was a constant picking on what were percieved to be the black africans' faults -- that the black Africans living on the other side of the compound were 'dirty' (I saw no more evidence of this than I saw of the westerners 'dirtiness') and everything that went wrong at the hostel was the fault of the laziness of the black workers -- not the equally apparent laziness of the white wrokers. I can understand -- if not condone -- this attitude in the Afrikaaners; they grew up this way in a culture in which such racism is inherant. It is going to take a generation or two (or more) to move away from such deeply entrenched attitudes. Far more insidious was the Irish girl's adoption of the culturally inbuilot Afrikaan's racism. Jusgemental as it may be, it seems to me to be a more horrible an inexcusable thing: she should know better. I'm glad we got out of there when we did.

On our last full day there we went to visit Soweto, the large informal township on the outskirts of the city. During apartheid, this township -- or others similar to it -- is where many black Jo'Burgers were forced to relocate to. Now, depending on where you get your information it is home to somewhere between 1.5 and 6 million people of different nationalities and tribes, all living here and trying to better their lives.

Our guide, Mandy, was from Soweto and had participated in the '76 student protests against the forced use of Afrikaans as the language of schools. It turned into a massacre when police opened fire on the peaceful march and the event became a rallying point for further national action.

Mandy took us to a shanty town where another young man took us down his street of houses cobbled togethernout of sheets of tin and intoduced us to local kids palying barefoot in the dust behind makeshift fences qt community organised daycare centres. I bought a stone carved hippo, moreor less out of white western guilt from a vendor who openly admitted he wasn't the artist. (Dom, at another stall, while looking at a very similar stone hippo, was told by his vendor that he was indeed talking to the artist. A likely story!)

After that, we were taken to see a project run by another local man to offer free education to the local kids and youths, in part to provide them with further opportunities and also to encourage co-operation and awareness between youths of different tribes and non-violant solutions to problems. He was a very politically minded young man, convinced that shaping the minds of the young people was the way to shape the future of the country. He took us to his dwelling, much to the annoyance of his sister who also lived there and was busy trying to clean the place. The small shack was about the same size as my little shed at the Morrow, and made of more or less the same materials, with more or less the same amenities, but, embaressingly for me, kept much cleaner and tidier than mine! Very necisary I suppose in a situationwhere you have so many people living in such close quaters, just to keep things healthy. Our guide explained how most of the residents used electricity they got through illegal connections to the grid, and how the government provided them with communal access points for clean water and sanitary communal latrines.

We were then taken to the local market. Again, I felt very out-of-place. We were stared at openly, and I was very aware of the lookiloo touristy-ness of our behaviour, touring the hardships of their everyday life like a voyuer. Mandy reassured us on this point -- tourism is a valuable source of income for many people in the townships and they welcome tourists in to see the conditions they live under, to raise awareness. It only made me feel somewhat better.

Next we were taken to the museum of the '76 protests. I felt much more at ease here and it was a welcome respite from the day. At least this place was formally designed for tourists to look and stare.

The whole day was a confronting, eye-opening experience. I am very glad we took the opportunity to experience it, but I can't say I enjoyed the trip. I felt moved and powerless and out-of-place and confronted. I felt a somewhat misplaced sense of guilt that people have to live like this while I didn't, and abstract sense of responsibility, that I was somehow, in some way responsible for this and needed to do something about it. It's a feeling I've had again and again travelling through Africa, everytime I am faced with the ever present realities of the poverty so many people on his continent live with. In a way, I've just had to accept that right here and now, on the ground, there is nothing one person can do to change things. I can sympathise, but in no meaningful way can I help. I think its one of the most challanging things I've had to accept on the journey so far.

After our tour, at the end of the day, I was numb and a little shellchocked. Dom and I sat on the lawn at the hostel, quietly drinking a beer and occasionally commenting to each other , just trying to process it all. It's been wonderful travelling with a partner, having someone else to share and reflect on all the experiences with.

The next day, quite happily, we left Jo'Burg for Maputo, Mozambique.

Your Grass is Greener

The sky is wider in Australia than it is in Britain. I know it sounds strange, but it's true. Here, it stretches so far in all directions, and there is no way you could ever touch it. In Britain, it lurked reassuringly close, like a grandma-made woollen rug wrapped snugly around the shoulders. The Australian sky keeps a dispassionate distance: a perverse and callous bully-friend, granting and withholding favours on a whim. Or, to see it another way, the sky is limitless, and freedom objectified. A parent without rules. On a day like yesterday, it is a hazy washed out blue, like weatherboards baked in the sun. Today, she is smoothed over with clouds, grey and wet and benediction. Tomorrow, when the sun is out again, the paddocks will turn green.

Home now for what? Six weeks? Seven, I think. Hardly seems it could have been so long. The holidays spun past in a blur of purple Christmas tinsel, and green and red and yellow fireworks at midnight. Annie May and Owen and Rob kept the backpacker in me alive for another few weeks as we lost ourselves on the streets of Sydney, and found ourselves sipping James Bond's cocktail in a revolving bar. At night we feigned sleep, four people to two-and-a-half beds, trying not to wake each other. And then they went home, and I had been back for a month, and I had meetings with lecturers, and I chose an honours topic. I started working on the weekends, and reading articles about male impersonators in the music halls. I bought more clothes than could fit in a back pack. I have the best futon bed in the world (or at least in this house). I'm house-hunting, and thinking of three more years (at least) of study. Now I feel like I am "back".

So what is it I miss? Is it just the freedom that I had? The lack of responsibilities and the answering to no one? Going where and when I liked? Or do I miss the land? The way the little stone villages curled protectively around their churches and castles? The history that leaked out of everything and got on your trousers and made your hands dirty? The echoes of neglected centuries just left lying around? Is it the walks and the shows and music and the accents? The ridiculously quaint outdated ruling class? The clothes? The shoes, oh my god the shoes. The cold. I never thought I'd say it, but I miss the cold. And everything I just mentioned, and everything else. And I miss you. I even miss the Chavs.

I think I will be back one day. I can't imagine a future for me that doesn't involve it. But I'm here, now, and I'm "back". And you'll be hearing a lot more from me, I promise.

It rained today. Tomorrow, the grass will be greener.

Bratislava and the Rest

Matyi asked me, one evening as we were walking from a photography exhibition to Nagymama’s house, if anything had changed since last I was here. And the answer was everything, but subtly.

The trams still rattle along their tracks, and big soviet trucks hurtle around corners. But there are more Peugeots and Mercedes queuing at the lights now. The apartment buildings still mill around like gossiping old ladies in long grey coats with graffiti-lace hemmed dresses swishing around their feet, but flashy new shopping centres are slowly pushing them away, telling them to “move along” with a polite, but bored tone in their voices. The Christmas markets in the square seem bigger and brighter than I remember them, and Obchodna is polishing up its best cobblestones and shop fronts. The city is getting dressed up to meet the rest of the world.

And the rest of the world is happy to meet her. There are more English speakers, and German speakers and even Japanese speakers than I remember from last time. Matyi complained of the tourists from England who have started to go there for cheap bucks nights.

The family, too, is mostly the same, only subtly different. Matyi and Szibi are just as they always were, but grown up a little more. Seeing Szibi again was fantastic, and she introduced me to all her friends, some new and some I knew from long ago, and she took me back to all the places I used to know well: school, and Obchodna, apple cake at Nagymama’s, beer and pizza in Presporska. I met her boyfriend in Budapest, and we all climbed through the barbed wire fence to dangle our legs over the edge of a traffic tunnel, watching the cars drive home from work beneath us, and the lights float up the Danube.

Bratislava hasn’t changed that much at all really. Going there was just like going home, so familiar. I knew where I was and where I was going. I thought about going back and staying for a while. English teachers can pick up work like that. And my brain was so switched on! I think I learnt more Hungarian in that one week, than I did the entire year I was there before. It just seemed to make sense this time round.

But now I’m back in England. Last night here, in fact, and I can’t wait to come home.

The Hardest Thing

Hardest thing about travelling? The people you have to leave behind.

I’ve met so many people now. People who just happen to be going my way, so we might as well go together. People to laugh with, and to explore with. People to show me around, and people to get lost with. People I knew for a day, or maybe not even that long, people who keep showing up, again and again, and people I can’t get rid of if I tried (and believe me, I’ve tried...)

The hardest one’s are the times you meet somebody, somebody you just click with, and then you have to leave them behind, no way to draw it out any longer. I feel cheated, by those encounters, like I’ve been robbed of some great experience. But I also feel blessed, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Last week, I took a trip to the Lakes District in northern England. It wasn’t planned – rarely are my movements planned – and I stayed in a gorgeous little town called Ambleside. Here, the autumn leaves dressed the hills and mountains in yellow and gold, with the occasional glimpse of a shocking red petticoat, and Lake Windermere pooled at the town’s feet. During the day, I wandered through the woods and at night I went to hear a Jazz man play.

Andy sat down in the seat next to me, and told me of the time, years previously, that he had met tonight’s musician. He told me of the music, and then worried it wouldn’t live up to the hype. It was fantastic.

After the show, we shared a bottle of wine, and swapped travel stories. Words came easily, and afterwards, he slipped my hand into the crook of his arm and walked me back to my hostel. The next morning, he met me at my doorstep again and we drove off to explore.

Small villages, Wordsworth’s grave, a stunning view from the top of a hill and Andy tried to name the mountains that surrounded us, but couldn’t. He told me of adventures sliding down icy peaks and of market bazaars in Jordan. I was comfortable, easy, relaxed in his company, like we’d spent months getting to know each other and not just hours. When he drove away from the hostel later that evening, I felt strangely cheated, like somebody had stolen days from me, like I should have had much longer to get to know him. But it was only me, you see. Me and my nomadic lifestyle.

Last weekend, I spent the time in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. Another person I’d met along the way, Stephan, invited me along, hoping to improve my opinion of the city. Stephan and I are very different people, and rather than opposites attracting, it was a case of opposites arguing, or at least debating heatedly. It was good when we were wandering the city, taking in the river and the bridges, the New Castle and discovering the weird and wonderful world of the Contemporary Art Museum. But, alone together at the dinner table, or in the hostel having breakfast, or the pub having a pint, we either argued, or had nothing to say. Two and a half days felt a bit strained by the end, and I couldn’t help wondering why I got so much time to spend with the wrong companion.

I’m coming home in two and a half weeks. It has been a fantastic time, and I have met some amazing people, but I’m ready to come and meet all my old friends all over again. It’s going to be hard to say goodbye to this place though, no matter how ready I am to come home. I’ve really come to love Britain, and the nomadic lifestyle that I lead. I’ve seen such amazing things, and had more adventures than I can tell you about here. It’ll be hard to say goodbye. But coming home is just the next adventure

A Very English Complaint About the Weather

It's not that the weather here is bad, nor that it is particularly good. What is so damn irritating is that it's changeable. Dressing every morning involves a skilful act of layering, so that when the clouds disappear, you can shed one (or more) cardigans and jumpers and refrain from sweating too much, and then when the clouds cover up the sun again – as they inevitably do – you can pile all the woollies back on, plus a beanie for good measure. Oh, and never, ever go anywhere without an umbrella. Just because it's sunny now means nothing. After the third or fourth time, you learn.

Last Monday was beautiful. You can't imagine how beautiful it was, comparatively speaking. We're drawing towards the end of October, smack in the middle of Autumn, in cold and rainy Wales, and the sun was shining, the clouds didn't hover once, and it was so warm that I was walking around the city in a singlet top and jeans. Granted, I was also wearing a scarf, but that was almost entirely due to aesthetic purposes. I came to the somewhat premature conclusion that perhaps Autumns weren't all that cold this far south.

Of course, then we haven't had a dry day since. And there have been moments when I doubted that my warm woolly coat would keep me warm even til the end of November. But I think I underestimated it. I think with the right combination of jumpers and scarfs, I might get away with it until February in York. We shall see.

I've always been one to appreciate a rainy day. Of course, in Newcastle, they're slightly less frequent than in Swansea, and rarity tends to make something special. Now, I'm just getting a little tired of walking everywhere with the damp patch at the hem of my jeans climbing higher and higher with every puddle I walk through.

But then, I was walking home through the park the other day. The trees still wear most of their leaves, but there is a thickening layer of gold on the ground. It wasn't raining, but it had been, and the bark on the trunks had soaked up the water to become a rich, dark brown, almost black. Against the dark of the tree trunks and the white-grey of the clouds in the sky, the green leaves stood out, washed and bright. A gust of wind swirled the fallen leaves up in the air and for a moment I just stopped and watched. Somehow, everything looks richer, more alive after a little rain.

Third Nomad

It seems I can't sit still. Well, I never could, hey? But at least here and now that's how I'm supposed to be. Weeks are for Uni work, and weekends are for jaunting all over the countryside. The weekend before last (and, yes, I do realise that I am being a little slack in the update stakes, but life is for the living, yeah?)I went on a little overnighter to London to visit Brett for his birthday. Which was a mixed-emotion event. On the one hand, it was absolutely awesome to see Brett. You know, I'm doing really good here, there's nothing like the overwhelming homesickness that crippled me during parts of my Slovakia experience, not even close. But then, its just so comforting to see someone from home. And its easy in a way that new faces and new places just can't be. On the other hand, the place I stayed was full of Aussies and Kiwis, and at the moment, that's just too much of a good thing. That environment seemed to bring out the traits of our cultures that I am least proud of: our tendency to get loud and drunk and to fill a place with ourselves, forgetting that there are other people and this is their place more than ours. And I just kept wanting to ask them all: If you just wanted to be drunk, loud Australians, spending all your time with drunk, loud Australians, why did you come here to do it?

But I realise that this is probably the exception, not the rule, to their stays. That, having been on the road, living amongst foreign people and customs that this is probably their respite. Their chill out moment, where they too just long for the ease of familiarity, just for a little while, before heading out on their way again. And I realise that there may come a time when I want this respite as well.

And I can't deny feeling elated by hearing Machine Gun Felatio sing Pussytown on the Antipodean-friendly jukebox.

So, for the first time in six weeks, I heard an Aussie accent. I heard a whole bunch of them, and Brett and I proceeded to celebrate his thirtieth birthday in the pub below the youth hostel that we were camped at. When the pub got too full and happy hour finished, Brett and I strode out into the night and caught the tube to (somewhere I forget) where we met Janine and Sned. Brett went through uni with Janine and I worked on a production of Ubu Roi with her last year and they are on their way up North to Janine's native Scotland, only here in London for the night. And so we sat and had a few beers with them and spoke of plans for future travels and gossip from home. Then, after sleeping in the bunk with a roomful of snorers, I had breakfast of jam and toast and the biggest cup of the blackest tea I could find in the bar downstairs. Brett and I then wandered around the streets of Shepherd’s Bush before I had to catch my train back home again.

Standing around in Paddington Station, feeling slightly sorry for myself after a night of beer and interrupted sleep, I get a phone call from Jess and we speak for an hour of gossips and goings on. It was so very lovely to hear her voice and catch up on what everyone has been getting up to, but I would really hate to be in charge of her phone bill at the end of the month...

And then this weekend just gone, I went to visit Cardiff Castle. Like most castles I have visited so far, Cardiff Castle is made up of many parts, some dating way back to the times of William the Conqueror and some parts more recently renovated. Part is still in use today, for weddings and receptions and to receive Prince Charles and other dignitaries when they visit Wales. They have rooms in this part of the castle set up as they would have been in the Victorian era, which was when the last of the renovations were made by an architect named William Burgess. This guy specialised in highly ornate, Eastern inspired decorations. Painted ceilings, patterned floors and gold leaf abound. My favourite was the Arab room, which was a sitting room for the Marques’s wife and, funnily enough, was inspired by the architect's visits to the Middle East. It had beautiful patterned floors in coloured marble and what they called Harem windows, carved so that you can see out from inside the room, but it's very difficult to see in from outside.

Afterwards, I wandered the streets of Cardiff for a couple of hours. The shopping streets of Cardiff are all interconnected by little enclosed arcade streets with boutiques and cafes and quirky little gifts stores. I resisted many a temptation in the two or three recycled clothing stores I found. Aren't I good? Then I spent around a quarter of an hour standing and watching an electric string trio grin cheekily and whirl their way through show tunes and jazz numbers and finally four and a half minute’s worth of the history of music.

And tomorrow is Thursday, my day off. I have a day of cultural enlightenment planned for myself in which I will visit the Art gallery (the main one, and any others I can find on the way) and then a trip to the Marina, to visit the Dylan Thomas Museum and the other museum that I know is down that way, but the name of which currently eludes me. To end the day, I plan on sitting in cafe Mambo, or the Monkey cafe, sipping tea, munching on a cookie and updating my (much, much neglected) paper journal. Can't wait.

But.

So, Geraint got back from York on Monday and spent the rest of the day with me. Afternoon sex, and deciding against a movie because Swansea hasn't got Serenity yet. Pool and Guinness in the Bryn; music and Guinness at the Uplands Tavern; and cheap girly vodka drinks and dancing to rock & roll at Envy til two in the morning. There was hand holding and drunken frolicking and so much dancing, and I feel comfortable with him, and little tummy-tickling feelings when I look at him and I had an wonderful, awesome night.

But.

But I just don't think it's any more than that.

Which may be due to the fact that I'll only see him once or twice a month between now and Christmas, and the knowledge that ultimately I'm going to be moving on in February. Or it may be because he reminds me too much of the boys I used to go to school with, and I've just moved on from there. Or maybe we just don't have a strong enough connection.

But he's lovely. He's caring, and intelligent, and considerate and light-hearted and good-humoured, and so far I've had nothing but a good time with him. And really that's all that matters, right? And in consideration of the fact that we're hardly going to see each other, its a good thing that I haven't fallen head over heals for him, isn't it? I think I've finally made it the place where I want to keep it casual and I'm happy with that.

A friend, to help me explore Wales, and certain parts of its culture.