By Steph!

This blog was written by Steph, my first-ever guest blogger!  More than a mommy and wife, Steph is an avid bike polo player, an expert of public displays of nonsense, and an exceptional friend.  Thanks for sharing, Steph!!

The last eight months I have been lucky enough to add “mommy” to the list of titles I hold.  No one really gives you any direction how to keep your own identity while you try to selflessly become someone else’s everything.  There are days that go by when you realize you didn’t do a single thing that wasn’t centered around your baby.  I am honored to be in this position, yet I know myself well enough to know that in order for me to be my best self, I need a few things: adventure, laughing, friendship.  Enter Katie!  

Kalk Bay, Cape Town Peninsula

I had been following my old buddy’s travel blog for 6 months when I started to have this underlying feeling that she could really use a familiar face.  But this was a crazy thought.  I’m a new mom with, like, responsibilities.  And I hadn’t been in close contact with Katie since high school.  That’s sixteen years!  So, what do you do when you are tight financially, have a 7-month old baby, and are in the middle of taking classes to get your real estate license?  With full support and encouragement from your amazing spouse, you buy a plane ticket to Cape Town South Africa to see about your friend.      

Almost instantly we were “peas and carrots” again.  Our cab driver from the airport actually raised his hand en route, telling us he didn’t want to interrupt two people who were clearly so happy talking.  That about sums it up.  Over the course of the next six days, Katie gave me the gift of an adventure that has helped remind me of who I am at my very core.  We’d walk out the door in the morning with a backpack and somewhat of a plan, and come back at night after a full day of exploring, laughing, learning: we were Iiving.  How special it was to visit the museums, climb Table Mountain, tour the prison where Nelson Mandela spent eighteen years of his 27-year sentence, all while catching up with such a dear old friend.  

I can’t even put into words what this trip meant to me.  Travel is so very powerful for my soul.  It gets me out of my bubble.  It expands my awareness.  It resets everything about me that is able to be reset, in the most magical way.  Whether it was aimlessly walking around the city of Cape Town, interacting with the locals trying to decipher which of the eighteen buses was the one we wanted, trying to not get killed crossing the street since they drive on the other side of the road, or declining the offer to pay an arm and a leg for a cider beer to be personally delivered to us on the beach, it was ALL done with such joy in our hearts and smiles on our faces.  Sure, we covered the hard stuff from our pasts too, but even those conversations were interrupted by shrieks of laughter and looks of, I wish I had been there for you during that time.

I have to admit, it had crossed my mind whether Katie would still be the same Katie I remembered.  Mind you, she has been traveling the world for 8+ months.  She’s seen some difficult things and has had to come to grips with the realities of some very small children in heart-breaking situations, among other things.  I knew by day 1 of my trip that Katie was still Katie.  I knew it watching her ask someone for directions with that big smile and irresistible positive energy.  I knew it hearing her nervous-yet-endearing giggle when she contemplated talking to “that guy”.  I am so happy to know that Katie’s travels haven’t hardened her: her heart is bigger and juicier than ever.  Thank you, mon amie, for being you, and allowing me to be me.  Thank you for allowing me to be a girl with a backpack and an adventurous spirit. 

With Some Badass Ink

Can you see it??

I’ve wanted this tattoo for years.  A gnarly, wild, tangled tree at first, for the million reasons that trees represent life and seasons and looking dead but being secretly alive, for drawing water from parched land, for bearing fruit and leaves and beauty, for being a home to some and a safe place to land and seek shade and solitude and peace for others.  I needed her to be feminine, gloriously, powerfully, wondrously feminine.  Because I love being gloriously, powerfully, wondrously feminine.  And I needed her posture to reflect the kind of life I want, the kind of woman I want to be.  Deeply rooted, and expectant, and grateful.  And I wanted my babies, my niece and nephews and godsons to be in there somewhere, the ones I’m committed to giving life to as long as I have life to offer.  Because one day they’ll be brave enough to take flight, and I will be a home to which they can return, no matter what.  

She was a little nut of an idea, and for years and years, she’s grown and stretched, and become fully herself.  But only in my imagination: I’m not immodest, but am decidedly not a drawer.  So for years I imagined her and nurtured her, this emerging vision, and fed her hopes and meaning and symbolism and the little birds.  After work, regular stops at my favorite tattoo shop, researching different types of trees, and different styles, and international tattoo standards.  And suddenly, somehow, South Africa became the right time and place to give her life, to birth her how other things are birthed, through pain and blood and the help of others.

I contacted friends far and wide, my favorite artists from home, and my first South African crush Duwayne, covered in ink and full of local contacts.  I talked it through with my favorite couple from Portland, and a princely vagabond from all over, a man named Michel.  I piteously tried to sketch my ideas and made appointments with different artists here in Cape Town.  And then I found her.  A woman with a style I love, a style laced with ferocity and detail and femininity.  And it was game on.

Bring it, 35

I’d like to say I was a baller, that I wasn’t phased by the length of time, or the proximity to my spine.  But the truth is, I remembered too late how much it hurts to be on the receiving end of a tattoo needle, and instead of visualizing the sea or puppies or my fatty fat face nephews, I found myself cursing my visual memory as I pictured my neurology textbooks and their diagrams of nerve receptors, and trying to inhale enough oxygen to prevent passing out.  Which I am a little proud and a lot relieved to report, I never did.

And then it was done; she was here, in the world, indelibly stitched onto my soft, strong, burning back, owning her space and commanding attention: I can’t stop looking at her, and only wish I could walk around topless, for the world to know.  And she didn’t cover my boring old tramp stamp that means even more to me now than when my best friend and I got it all those years ago, but she curls around it a bit, keeping it safe.  Which is appropriate I think, and as important as bringing life to others, that the me of 35 will respect and protect the Katies of the past as much as I will welcome and honor the Katies to come.  So bring it on, 35; our roots are planted, our hearts are wide open; we’re ready for you.

With a Hometown Favorite

Penguin in a Tree

There are fewer things I miss more than my girlfriends.  Sharing history that spans decades and distance and marriage.  Discussing our aging physiology and body functions, including how easily we now wet our pants.  Gracing one another with the space to be fully authentic, even if it means being angry, or sad, or straight up bitchy.  I have girlfriends related by genetics, and college, and hometown, and Chicago.  I don’t have material possessions waiting for me at home, but I am a rich, rich woman in relationships, and I miss them every day, all the time.

Mandela's Original Cell

When Steph started poking around to figure out my schedule, I became suspicious, but dared not get my hopes up; could it possibly be that someone was coming to visit??  I understand and respect that everyone is busy leading full lives at home, and traveling around the world costs time and money and energy; it’s no Sunday brunch.  So I could hardly believe it, could hardly contain my excitement when she confirmed my suspicions and told me she was on her way here to South Africa.  There was no better medicine for my travel-weary spirits as I anticipated her approaching arrival, and I was nearly bursting out of myself with excitement as I rode the bus to meet her; we hadn’t planned on it, but I wanted to surprise her at the airport, knowing how lonely it can be to arrive to a whole lot of nobody in a foreign country.  Our reunion was sweet as I pounced on her from the tree behind which I was hiding, stealthy girl that I am.  Thus began our whirlwind week of the century.

We tore up Cape Town.  We devoured historical museums, collected sightings of wild animals, and met ghosts on Robben Island.  We experienced Cape Town’s renown nightlife, wondering at the inexpensive cost of cider and the audacity of the local men.  We hiked Table Mountain with our favorite South African family, and bemoaned the state of our quads the morning after.  Wearing our dirty t-shirts and hiking shoes, we emulated the sexy photo shoots that surrounded us on the beach, simply because we are that mature and it made us laugh.  Because even now, 20 years into our friendship, laughing is what we do best.  Whether over coffee in the morning, or in completely inappropriate situations, whether when we were half asleep or in the company of people who had no idea what was funny, our marathon giggling epitomized not only the beauty of true friendship, but the beauty of Steph.  So here's to another 20 years of hilarious adventures, old buddy...  WHALE!!

Off A Bridge

I never had any desire to bungee jump.  Not once in my life.  Apart from the illogicality of jumping into midair suspended by what amounts to a bunch of hairbands, it looked painful, a hellish chiropractic adjustment of sorts.  Not for me, nope.  As I edged my way down the coast of South Africa though, I landed in Natures Valley, home of the world’s highest bungee bridge and mecca for daredevils from all over the world.  I heard their chatter, saw their photos, even watched their videos.  But still, huh-uh.  Didn’t even occur to me that it may be something I’d enjoy.  Until that is, I met a young Austrian named Selena.

Selena and I got to know one other when we did a day hike through Tsitsikamma National Park.  I came to know her a little and respect her a lot.  She is creative and intuitive, and was refreshing company.  She was also a big fan of bungee, and was the first to crack my armor against such risky shenanigans.  It was when I woke up wide-eyed in the middle of the night that I realized for the first time I was actually beginning to consider this ridiculous prospect.  We agreed not to make a plan or even talk about it, but to decide spontaneously when and if the time felt right.

Then suddenly the time felt right.  Terrifying, but right.  The weather was perfectly sunny and hot, and I could hardly eat.  It was as if my body knew before the rest of me that I was going to do this, despite my better judgment.  I think on some level I wanted a reset, to rattle my perspective, to see what I was capable of.  Over coffee with another friend Nienke, it was somehow understood that today was the day, and I suddenly found myself arranging transportation and booking our jumps.  This was happening.

The drive there was blessedly brief and super beautiful: I couldn’t have chosen a more picturesque place to leap to my destiny.  We brought snacks and some water, subtle assurance that we’d live to eat again.  After signing the waiver releasing the company of any responsibility for our lives, our weights were tattooed on our hands in big fat permanent marker.  In the company of my cellulite-less European friends, I felt emboldened: if I could flaunt that I could do anything.  We donned our safety harnesses and headed towards our fates. 

When we arrived to the platform, I was as astonished as my friends when my excitement suddenly trumped my nerves; prior to arriving, I was the least certain among us, the most wound up.  A DJ blasted bust-a-move music while the staff danced, a delightful choreography of ropes and pulleys and carabiners.  I found myself dancing along, cheering for those who went before me, encouraging my brave girls who first encouraged me to be there in the first place.  Before I knew it, I was up.

It’s a strange feeling to have your ankles tied together by strangers hundreds of meters above the earth as Rhianna blasts your eardrums and your self respect.  I kept my frontal lobe and her perfectly sound reasoning skills in a tight vice: this was not the time for logic.  I’d like to say I spent a few moments taking it all in, considering eternity, saying prayers, or anything even a little profound.  But the truth is, I spent a hot second dangling my American toes over the edge, chirped some expletives, and then put these big ol’ legs to use and took a flying leap.  

I soared.  For a few of those last seconds of free fall I felt abject terror: my poor brain didn’t know what hit her when she came back online, and I can see it in my video: my arms suddenly flail, desperate for something to hold onto.  I recovered as soon as I hit the bounce, basking in my unusually inverted view and the sheer joy of being fully alive.  It was elation, and relief, and an endorphin high unlike any I’ve ever felt.  I was hauled up by a cheeky fellow called Superman, equally endowed with moxy, rope skills, and shiny gold teeth.  Our reunion was sweet as the girls and I celebrated our courage and our survival.  Feeling quite full of myself, my ears perked up a few minutes later when someone mentioned a naked bungee in New Zealand.  I may just have to cross that bridge when I come to it.

To Dragon Mountain

Top of the world, Lesotho

It had been percolating for a long time, Kenya being the perfectly fertile soil for loneliness to plant her seeds in me.  Up she sprouted through my most vulnerable little heart as I made my way deeper into South Africa, and further away from those I love and miss so much.  Beyond missing my people from home, I was haunted by the little ghosts of the kids I’d grown so attached to in Kenya: were they safe, eating enough, healthy?  Could they feel how much I missed them?  I thought perhaps I could outrun it, even if it meant only temporarily filling my heart’s fissures with the beauty of this wild country.  But alas, it was not to be: I could neither run not hide from my sad self.

So while I didn’t anesthetize with booze or drugs like so many of my jolly European roommates, I did greedily lap up my personal drug of choice, the great outdoors.  South Africa is the perfect country to be such a junkie, and I took full advantage.  It seemed only appropriate to make my way downwards into Drakensberg, the Dragon Mountains, battling as I was with the monster loneliness.  With Cry, the Beloved Country tucked snugly in my pack, I was eager to see what the fuss was all about.  It didn’t disappoint.  

No Idea

We wound our way through the table mountains and deep velds, hillsides dotted with rotundas, grazing livestock, and segregated black Xhosa neighborhoods: this country, like mine, has a long way to go when it comes to segregation.  I learned how to braai from some gentlemanly South Africans, climbed the second highest waterfall in the world, and even more precariously, climbed down.  On a day trip into Lesotho, I shared homemade maize beer in a smokey rotunda with some local Basotho as they taught me about this their country, the highest in the world.  With every gritty sip I shared from the plastic cup circling the darkened room, I appreciated it more; at least, I tried.

My last day in the berg included a solo hike for which I felt (mostly) prepared.  I slathered myself in SPF 1000, packed liters of water, and carried a well-worn map.  I bought my hiking permit and headed towards the first of the summits before encountering the first of the day’s disasters.  There, staring back at me, was a teenager: a baboon teenager.  I’d been told they were harmless, but I knew better: they were muscles with teeth, rabies with tails, and I was scared out of my wits.  When the teen was joined by her big brother and an entire baboon army, I’d had enough: I fled.  In my hasty escape from their collective barking, I became a ballerina of sorts.  I leapt, and pirouetted, and virtually rolled down the steep incline, ass over teakettle.  I twisted my love handles right out of their cozy little sockets and skewered my unsuspecting forearm on some rusty barbed wire.  I arrived at the base a bloody mess, but invigorated: as far as I was concerned, I’d defeated certain death, Katie 1, Baboon Army 0.  The proprietor, surprised at my sudden return less than 2 hours into a 6 hour hike, gave me some encouragement and convinced me to try again.  I grudgingly made my way back up, determined to find the waterfalls everyone kept talking about and see this trek through.

Once again I arrived to the top, breathless and startled: there, staring back at me, were 3 enormous elands.  I appreciated their less-rabid company and continued across the plateau in quiet, alert for poisonous snakes and trying not to squash any lizards.  Several peaceful sweaty hours later, with my epidermis slowly melting away, I admitted defeat: I was lost, running out of water, and most assuredly, becoming crispy baboon bait, a Katie biltong of sorts.  Sadly, there would be no skinny dipping or scaling waterfalls today.  Instead, if I was lucky, I’d find someone willing to share a frosty consolation beer and some aloe vera.  Though I didn’t fully escape my sadness, I gave myself some credit: at least I escaped the baboons.

Into The Heart of Apartheid

I grew up fascinated with race.  When I look back, I think it was largely due to living on the property where our parents worked, a court- adjudicated school for the most troubled of boys.  Beyond their juvenile delinquent status or ethnicity, we knew the Paradise boys as playmates, protectors, even friends.  My siblings and I understood early that conduct disorders and even criminal behavior were often acts of desperation rather than malice.  For us, race, class, and socioeconomic stigma were trounced by relationship; it was an invaluable education, and one of the most primary influences of my life.

Bullet-marked trashcan shield used by students,
on original stove in Mandela's home

My perpetual interest in understanding the dynamics that draw us together and tear us apart drove me through all sorts of booklists and influenced my choice of church.  It motivated me to pursue friendships across boundaries of race and class and misinformation: not always comfortable, but always worth it.  It propelled my move to the most segregated of all American cities, and was the reason I chose my workplace over the nationally renown, upper-class competition on the north side.  It was even one of the most significant motivators of this trip, the ultimate study of relationship the world over. 

And so, to South Africa I flew.  I had heard that Johannesburg was the heart of ZA’s racial history, and that Soweto, or the southwest township, was the heart of Joburg.  Knowing very little before I arrived only enhanced my nerves, but I remained steadfast that to Soweto I would go, and in Soweto I would stay.  Happily for me, a young Sowetan entrepreneur opened the most bohemian of hostels right in the heart of the township several years ago, so I had a pad from which to launch.

When I wasn’t writing in the treehouse (!) or schmoozing with the locals around the campfire, I was intrepidly exploring the neighborhood.  And what a neighborhood it was.  I had been coached on how to greet in Zulu and how to politely decline marriage proposals, but I hadn’t been coached on how to manage my emotions.  Because boy did I have some feelings, walking towards Vilakazi street, a few modest blocks boasting the homes of both Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.  It was here, right here, where young Hector Pieterson was shot and killed by the riot police in 1976, as thousands of students were peacefully protesting the government mandate that their classes be taught in Afrikaans, a language not spoken among the native Africans, and thus, a language wholly ineffective at educating a single student in this segregated community.

The death of this innocent twelve-year-old was the match that lit the flame of the Soweto Uprising, a deadly conflict between unarmed black students and white police.  These students would become the least likely symbol of resistance against the apartheid regime, and would gain, finally, the outspoken international disapproval of world leaders against the system that benefitted few and oppressed many.  Almost 20 years later, their opening act on the world stage culminated in the release of Mandela and the official end of apartheid.  

As I made my way through the neighborhood surrounded by local children being released from the very same school where Hector and his friends boycotted nearly 40 years ago, I tried to swallow the giant lump in my throat.  These young people, many of whom are grandbabies of the uprising, shone with a quiet power, little agents of change from a system that even today doesn’t educate them equally to their white peers in the more affluent surrounding neighborhoods.  More than any other Sowetan encounter, it was these students that inspired me, reminding me to believe in the potential of even the least assuming.  Quite a legacy for young Hector: I’m so very sorry he didn’t live to see it. 

With A Heavy Heart

I thought the Maasai Mara Game Reserve was the most magnificent thing I’d ever seen… until I looked up.  Having (sort of) conquered my nighttime toileting fears, I almost enjoyed my 3:00 am venture through the dozing cows when I suddenly remembered my beloved universe.  There, in the African summer sky seemingly inches above my head, was the equatorial Milky Way.  It was glorious.  There were twinkling stars, and red stars, and shooting stars, and fuzzy stars.  Night shimmied in her starry gown as she danced between the horizons, illuminated by light billions of years old.  I was transfixed, and not a little abashed: the heavens were once again lighting my way.

My celestial romance has become the metaphor of my experience here in Kenya.  When I think I can’t be further intrigued, I meet lively sister wives of the same husband.  When I think I can’t handle more intense beauty, I lose my staring contest with a daddy giraffe, only because he’s dissolving into the tears suddenly hanging from my lashes.  When I think I have no more patience, I find myself surrounded by dozens of staring children, all of whom try to simultaneously touch me.  Breathe Katie, breathe.  When I think I can't be more broken, I watch toddlers wander trash-strewn streets alone in search of food.  When I begin to question the integrity of some with good intentions, I meet teachers who are doing the grueling work of integrating disabled students into their classrooms, trailblazing in a country where the powerful stigma of disability is often commuted to a life sentence of shame.  They are heroes and their commitment restores my hope.

I’d be lying if I said there aren’t reunions I’m looking forward to.  My people.  Coffee.  Plumbing.  A hot bath.  Chocolate.  Coffee.  Long walks.  Wine and beer!  Salad.  Dancing.  Coffee.  If I’m honest, even other mzungus.  The market comes to a screeching halt as vendors openly gape, children chase my car screaming “mzungu, mzungu”, babies burst into fearful tears certain I’m a ghost.  It’s uncomfortable and isolating, experiencing life as a minority.  As the only person devoid of the deeply rich color of my Kenyan friends, I now have the smallest insight into what my friends of color regularly experience at home.  And I’m humbled.

Like the other lessons I’ve learned here though, it enforces what I already believed: that under our race and culture and ethnicity, we’re more alike than we are different.  Parents everywhere want their children to be educated and fed and safe.  Children everywhere want to run and learn and explore.  Teachers everywhere want to help and teach and transform.  Humans all want to belong and befriend and believe.  And maybe all of us, every once in awhile, just want to pee under the galaxy. 

*I will post with minimal photos until I have enough wifi to upload more, thanks for your patience!!