Altogether elsewhere

For ten days we’ve been hanging out in Johannesburg taking care of business as usual or, in Carla’s case, unusual. After several weeks of observation and intermittent participation, I’ve decided that Carla’s life fulfills the old definition of self-employment – working 100 hours a week to avoid working a 40-hour week. Some of us will do anything to remain independent and explore the deliberately thin lines between work and play!

Yesterday the play included cutting and bending the wire handles for the metal candle sculptures that Carla sells at the market. It took only one hour to get a nice blister inside the finger I used to squeeze the wire bender tool, but Carla let me know that if I want to hear about some really interesting jobs I can ask her brother about the things he has helped Carla create over the years.

Living and working with Carla also involves a lot of moving things around. From the house to the garage. From the garage to the yard. From the yard to the market with a few more times in and out of the car and garage depending on what we are making and what the weather is doing. Moving baskets from KwaZulu-Natal province to Johannesburg is just one little part.

And we’ve added a little terrier named Spotty to our day’s work and play. Spotty belongs to Carla’s friends Sue and Trevor who have gone to the states on holiday. We are housesitting so that Spotty has someone to entertain. The only real work is unlocking all the doors and gates whenever we take Spotty out for a walk. The house and garden are lovely but the security measures troublesome to one who comes from a place where I come and go without locking anything and carry only one key – to start my car. I know from what I’ve seen and heard that the security here is warranted. But it still defies common sense for me – that crime should reach such a level and that people can live with such onerous “protection.”

Political and cultural and lifestyle scenarios aside, the most basic differences that disorient me are the physical matters of time and space. I’ve gotten used to subtracting ten hours from the day before I call my sweetie, but I have to continually remind myself that the folks back at home are moving quickly into winter as I walk around under a warm spring sun. Summer will be in full blast here by Christmas time. But I don’t need to worry about being seasonally troubled then because I’ll be back in the dark and cold latitude of 60 degrees north.

Way back last June, it was strange to leave Alaska’s 18-hour days and plop down into Uganda’s equatorial twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of dark. Now I’m getting used to other strange things, like facing north into the sun. Carla’s flat is always cool and dark because it faces south – very strange for a sun-loving, south-leaning Alaskan. I’ve also apparently been fooled by birdsong. For weeks I kept hearing a cuckoo clock and finally asked Carla, “Does Natascha have a clock that keeps cuckoo-ing?” (Natascha is the German woman who lives above us). Turns out I’m hearing the real thing – birds making their two-tone call. As if to highlight my disorder, the words to the Old English cuckoo song arrived in an email – Sumer is icumen in, lhude sing cuccu!

Traveling from the far north to the equator and then to the southern hemisphere makes one become a new learner of simple things, not just the sun’s habits but how to handle my own habits, like what food to buy from street vendors, where to exchange currency, how to load air time onto a cell phone and make a call. Each time I cross a border I learn greetings and thank yous in a new language – so many languages in Africa! Now in South Africa I am re-learning English. When I thank someone here, they do not say “You’re welcome” or “No problem” but instead just smile and say “Pleasure.”

My friend Paula in Alaska said something recently that reminded me how it’s not only hemispheres that can flip. She observed that at 25 she was working with Cambodian refugees along the Thai border, while I was starting to raise children. Now my daughters are grown and I am out doing my own volunteer work, while Paula is a new mom. Many ways to navigate through a lifetime!

It’s not just the small things of everyday existence that compel – how to phone a friend, what to eat, where to lay my head tonight. It’s the big things as well – what am I doing here, in this particular place, in this body and this life? Questions of survival and purpose come with equal urgency.

Auden’s phrase “altogether elsewhere” keeps echoing in my head. I have a sensation of being somewhere where things are all turned around or at least out of kilter, and it doesn’t feel very poetic. But it’s not always a bad thing to misread cues, mistake a bird for a clock, and feel like a foolish foreigner. It keeps my brain and heart alert and my sense of humor intact. It also keeps me present. For instance when Spotty – who has one auspicious spot – wants to play, we stop everything else and just play. And last night, at the Moonlight Market (with Spotty safely at home), I walked around in the warm night air and noticed one beautiful sight – Carla’s candles lighting up the tea garden.