Of reunions and coincidences.

Sometimes, life can really surprise you with its coincidences. When I first told my parents that I was going to South Africa on an unpaid internship, my mother told me (after some incoherent screaming on the dangers of Africa and the size of my loan, which then dissolved into pleading to the heavens to tell her why it was SHE that had to have such a difficult child) that we in fact had some family in the area. She had no contact with them but advised that my aunt had gotten in touch as she had been trying to piece together the family tree.

The story is this. My maternal grandmother (who was a tough, intimidating and passionate woman – and therefore easily my favourite grandparent) was Serbian, as was my maternal grandfather. She had several siblings, most of whom stayed in Serbia while my grandparents moved to Croatia probably around 50 years ago. My mother and my aunt were therefore raised in Croatia, though they went back to Serbia often as kids. When I was young I went to Belgrade with my grandparents a lot as well, and met a lot of the Serbian side of the family (my father and his side are Croatian). However, because there had been some big falling out amongst the Simic (my grandmother’s maiden name) siblings, my mother rarely got to see her cousins. In fact, the last time she saw Bosko (the name of her first cousin who is now in his 50s and lives in Johannesburg) she was my age!

When the war hit, the Serbian and Croatian sides lost pretty much all contact. Many of both sides of the family moved abroad to Canada, the US, Australia, and as I now came to find out, to South Africa. In any case, I spoke with my aunt and asked her about this part of our family. She said they seemed eager to get in touch and so I figured why not? After all, they were the relations of my favourite grandparent!
In emailing Bosko I found out that he and his wife Melita have two kids, Ivana (21) and Nikola (20) and that they were quite eager to meet me. We arranged to meet up on the long weekend so that I could spend some time with them at their place in Johannesburg, as well as go on a safari or two.

Last Thursday I waited in anticipation as Bosko made his way up to Groblersdal to pick me up. Quite nice of him actually, since it’s a 2 hour drive! I had had a crazy week, because we had a big deadline at the MFI that day and so the past two weeks had been spent working from 8am to 8pm each day. As I watched Bosko pull up to the office and step out of the car, I found my excitement overtaking my tiredness however. Bosko is a tall man with a calm and friendly air. I searched for some evidence of my grandmother in his features, but I knew I was pushing it. He for his part said that I look exactly like my mother, which I get a lot.

Climbing into the car, I was a bit on edge. Who knew what my family would be like? With our people it’s always a bit of a wildcard, and you don’t know if you will get amazing or a little nuts. I was reassured by the two hour drive however. Bosko is an airplane engineer, and his wife a interior designer. He told me they were into healthy living and grew their own aloe and other health foods. We talked about our histories and our families and how we had gotten to where we were now. It was not a boring car ride!

Arriving in Johannesburg, I met Bosko’s wife and their children and was immediately surrounded by hospitality, thereby dissipating the rest of my worry. I found out they like spicy food as well as enjoy their liquor, like any good Serbo-Croat should, and from there on it was truly like family. Even though I could not see the physical resemblances per se, I could definitely sense a similarity in attitudes and beliefs. It felt like home, and it was great!

The rest of the weekend was a flurry of activity. From an accidental visit to a Chippendale party with Melita (it really was an accident! We were trying to go watch a movie when two women just came up to us at the theatre and gave us free tickets to a movie premiere—we didn’t realize there was a pre-show, but hey, bonus!), to a hike in a nearby game resort (where we saw giraffes, zebras, kudu, iland, etc.). There was of course a lot of eating and a lot of catching up as well. It was nice to see the SA braai tradition merged with the Serbian grill traditions to delicious result. Did I mention SA is making me fat?

Melita and Bosko were also nice enough to introduce me to the sons of some friends of theirs (it’s kind of a funny thing that our people do, and akin to setting up play dates for adults) but the two guys turned out to be really fun. They showed me some of the more mainstream Jo’burg party spots. My only regret of the night was the fact that I didn’t bring nicer shoes and had to sneak around in flip-flops. A few Jager-bombs later though I was not as bothered. We partied till the wee hours and by the end of the night I had to try really hard not to keep losing my hat, as the men at the club we were at seemed to think that stealing a girl’s hat was a good way to get her attention. It felt a tad like grade school really. I was half-expecting one of these boys to shout “girls smell!” and then run away. Still, the guys I was with were great and it was a good night overall.

The next day we headed to the bird park in Monte Casino, which is this big entertainment complex in Fourways, the suburb of Johannesburg in which Bosko and family live. The birds were beautiful, but a little cheeky, and I have to admit their constant aggressive approaches towards us left me a little skittish. Especially since I was wearing my going out shirt and didn’t want it to get pooped on by a random bird, regardless of the beauty of said bird. We were also supposed to do the balloon ride but ran out of time. I will put it on my list of things to do next time I am there!

Of course it wouldn’t be a weekend in Jozi without a visit to Fleur. When I told her I was in town again, she told me that her and Phil were heading to a party and invited me along. She didn’t tell me it was a costume party and by the time I met up with her it was too late to put on an “army theme” so I just zipped up my black hoodie and tried to act tough. I was not in a really frat party mood though (and that was sort of the atmosphere of the place we went to) but luckily neither were Fleur or Phil so after a few quick drinks we snuck out and went to get a few more on a street called 7th avenue, in Melville. It was much more my style than most of the areas I had been out to so far in Jozi, because you could hop from one bar to the next without having to get into your car for a change. It reminded me a bit of Long Street in Cape Town (or for Torontonians, think Queen West but a little rougher around the edges).

Clearly, it wasn’t going to be a long night though, and at some point at the mention of new episodes of “Weeds” we made a hasty retreat back to Phil’s place to watch the new season, ice cream in hand. A little bit of heaven as far as I am concerned.
Getting back to Bosko’s place the next morning I found breakfast already in the works. As we spent our last few hours together before Nikola and Ivana drove me back to Groblersdal, I felt like I had known them for ages. We also found out through Facebook that one of my brother’s good friends was one of Melita’s closest relatives and was like a son to her when growing up! It was completely random but thus the weekend ended, as it had begun, with a coincidence. It kind of reminds me of a book I read a long time ago, which talked about how there were no coincidences, and that if they happened it meant just that you were on the right path. I know it sounds a little new-agey, but it somehow makes sense.

Despite the fact that I have no idea what will happen with my job or future, I hope I can see them all again soon, and maybe we can have a big reunion at some point as well. It just reminded me what an interesting, wonderful world it is and even if I cannot stay in SA right now, I have a strange feeling that I will be back at some point soon!

TIA: This Is Africa.

Just as I was getting comfortable here, and starting to let my guard down, I was suddenly reminded that I am in fact in a developing country with a high crime rate and if I want to stay safe, I am going to have to be a little more careful. This realization came to me last Friday as I stood in front of an abandoned rent-a-car office in a small town that I had travelled two hours by taxi (minibus) to get to and incidentally in the hottest, slowest taxi ever. As I made angry and desperate calls to try to remedy my situation, it was starting to get late and as far as I knew there was no other rental car in the small rural town in which I found myself. I was now quite far away from Jo’burg (where I was heading) and couldn’t go back to Groblersdal as the family I am staying with had also left for the weekend and I didn’t have the keys. Despite my ease with travelling alone and in places others consider dangerous I generally take reasonable precautions. I hadn’t really done that this time and South Africa is not the kind of place you want to wander around alone, on foot and in the dark with no place to go.

At first I was livid. I looked down at my printed voucher – the location was confirmed and I had even had a map. I had called the office earlier but the number had been busy. When I called head office they had confirmed the address and the phone number. It took several more angry calls from a street corner of Middleburg (the town that I was now in for the first time) to get someone at the travel place to finally admit that they had made a mistake. Luckily I found a garage nearby where the man was very nice and helpful as he listened to my situation. He said that there was a rental place in a town about 30 minutes away and he called them to see if they had cars. By some small miracle they did and I arranged with the booking place to cover the drop off fees for the car. Finally, about 4 hours after I was supposed to have been on my way, I got into the car with much relief (if I hadn’t been able to get the car, I honestly don’t know what I would have done. A bit of fool’s luck as it were). It was a good reminder to me, and next time I am going to be a lot more careful.

I now had a second challenge to face however. I had been in Johannesburg twice before, but each time in only very specific areas and I had never driven around the city at night (well I had been “driven” around in a semi-coherent state but I could hardly recall the streets I saw in my post-party blur). I had a few printed Google maps but it is a huge city and also one of the most dangerous in the world at night (Mom, if you’re reading: it’s not that bad. Really.). I had expected to come into the city early in the afternoon so that I could drive around at leisure and afford myself the luxury of getting lost. But now it was pitch dark and I was a woman, travelling alone. Thankfully for me, I don’t panic easily in such situations – I have seen enough in my life that for the most part it is incredibly hard to scare me (though large spiders seem to be one of the few things that still do the trick, but more on that later).

Also thankfully, I am good with maps and have a fairly decent sense of direction. With the exception of one major wrong turn which almost took me into the most dangerous part of town, I arrived reasonably close to where I needed to be and Fleur came to meet me at a gas station so we could go to her friend’s place nearby. I was pretty proud of myself, when all was said and done.

In any case, I was in town for Fleur’s birthday and so that night the festivities started with the usual pre-party followed by going to some random club that seemed to be playing all the hits from my high school days. Red bull became my best friend, as did some weird Turkish guy, his brother and his possibly mail-order bride girlfriend, when Fleur and company temporarily disappeared elsewhere. Or perhaps I had abandoned them at some point? Not really clear on the chronological sequence of events. The night is mostly a blur but it was a nice change from my little town life. The next morning I couldn’t sleep much, and it seemed that no one else could either so we decided to start the day off with some mimosas and rugby. A winning combination.

Most of the day was spent in the Jo’burg botanical gardens with Fleur’s friends making the rounds to wish her all the best. All together it was an interesting mix of people but I was starting to feel rather rough from the night before and spent most of the time chillin in the sun (aka, trying not to throw up). Luckily by late afternoon I was starting to bounce back. Right in time for a pool-side braaii, more red bull, and some absinthe (which will forever remind me of one Ms. Lori Stuckless: a good friend who, despite being famous for wearing country-club type debutant outfits as a matter of course, can and will get down and throw her posh body over a pile of suitcases at a dodgy British airport because she thinks shadows are after her underwear. That also is a story for another day.). There was however, no jumping into a pool this time. It’s now too warm to make it a crazy thing to do and so has temporarily lost its appeal to me as a party trick. In any case, I knew the next day would have lots of swimming in store.

On the Sunday I got to hang out with Fleur and family and eat the best meal I have had in a while. Of course, after stuffing yourself silly there is nothing like stripping into a bikini and jumping into the chilly pool to remind you why you wake up at 6 am to go jogging just to keep the lovehandles at bay. I have to stop eating the damn starch in this country! I miss my vegetarianism but damnit, the animals in South Africa just taste too good. Also to my fellow Croatians, you’ll be happy to know that there is yet another country that still revels in the goodness of MSG. It seems to be a key ingredient in half the sauces and seasonings here. Heading towards a slow painful death may just be worth the tasty ride though. Ah, MSG.
In any case, there is still no news in the job department though I am constantly pursuing opportunities and networking my ass off. IOMBA would be proud. I am also trying to accept the fact that there are some things I cannot control and I will have to deal with whatever happens in the end. At least I will have the comfort of knowing that I tried my damnedest to escape once again the icy clutches of Canadian winter. Seriously. I actually started to look for posts in Afghanistan to try to avoid the eventuality. In the end I know I will make the best of whatever happens though. Which is amazing. It means I’ve actually started to become an adult in there somewhere.

Incidentally, it is now full blown summer here in Groblersdal. For some reason it seems to be the hottest place around, and driving 20km in any direction means a drop in temperature of about 10 degrees. It’s not a bad thing but it makes me miss the sea. Walking through sand and palm trees in 30 degrees seems odd when there is no swimming at the end of it. It also means that the bugs have started to come out. Sadly I have already encountered two quite large spiders. Not as big as what I saw in Japan but still, enough to scare the crap out of me. I hate spiders. Luckily the family I live with doesn’t share my fear and the spiders were quickly dispatched via shoe bludgeoning as I stood by blubbering. They didn’t understand why I was scared, since as Ruth pointed out, “they are not poisonous ones”. Arachnophobia really is an inconvenience when one loves to travel to warm countries like I do.

As a non-sequitur I have now also seen most of north-eastern South Africa. For work I had to drive across Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces extensively and went as far up as the Zimbabwe border. It just confirmed what a beautiful country this is as I drove through endless African vistas, with various animals running alongside the car at times. Sometimes I feel I am in one of those nature shows living here. Nature gets me a little too excited at times. In trying to guess what all the animals are I at one point spotted something smallish, orange and cat-like to a friend who was with me, and asked her excitedly if it was possibly a baby tiger or something. She looked at me flatly as she responded “Lana. It’s a cat. A regular cat.”. I have to remind myself to keep my childish excitement at seeing animals in check lest I start looking like a complete tool.

I am a corrupting force, but you know you love me!

It was very early on in life that I discovered I have a particular talent. Some people are good at selling things. Some are great at math. Yet others have a strange and magical aptitude for embroidering bunnies and roses onto misshapen sweaters. Me? I am great at corrupting others. It’s true. It is also something that I must confess a particular pride in. After all, being naughty and impulsive and making others join in the fun is one of life’s greatest pleasures – so long as no one is being hurt of course. Well seriously hurt anyways.

Almost three weeks ago I stepped into a sleepy little town in the South African bush, only to discover that I would be living in an even tinier township which is not exactly a walking distance from town. While this is a lot of fun in a National-Geographic-cultural-experience way, it is not always conducive to the crazy side of fun. Especially when the people around me are quite religious and most of them don’t drink, or even explore their surroundings to see what’s over the next hill for that matter. Usually I find that if I get excited enough about something though it will start to spread so that at least one person in a group of 10 will take on what I’m suggesting. However, in this case my calls for fun and exploration kept meeting walls of amused resistance. My suggestion of a walk to the nearby ridge to watch the sunset was met with bemused chuckling and head shaking, but an old lady almost fainted when she heard me ask to visit a local shebeen (bar)! Well. It’s a good thing I don’t give up easy. I just realized that I’d have to approach this on a slightly different tack if I was going to get anywhere. Anything is possible if one tries hard enough though.

So what did I do? Well I decided to wait for an opportunity, like a lion in the bush. So when two middle aged ladies visited us the other day, and one was complaining of a sore throat and asking me if I knew of any good remedies, I saw a golden opportunity. I explained with my most innocent and helpful look that in Croatia whiskey is often drank for throat problems (this is actually true, and it’s worked for me before so it’s not like I was entirely making stuff up really). In any case, the little church ladies seemed suspicious but promised they would try it. A few days later they returned with a half drunk bottle of the stuff in a decidedly better mood and with no sore throats to boot. Well at least none that they could feel any more. They also now call me “Doctor”, which is just an invitation for more “medical advice” I feel. Success.

Corruption number two came with the girl with whom I’m staying. She’s my age and very sweet. She also goes to church on Sundays and never drinks. Which is great, except when it also means you are afraid to try anything new. I am always trying to convince her to do stuff – from hiking, to waterfall swimming, to visiting the neighbouring town, but no go. So I decided to buy some red wine instead and asked her how it could be bad to drink it when Jesus himself had made water in to wine, did he not? (I was kinda fishing here, since not having been raised religious I got most of my knowledge of world religions from American TV shows and from watching evangelical services on public broadcast when I first came to Canada. For a long time I used to think that when people went to church they all got slapped on the forehead and fell to the ground in convulsions while speaking in tongues). In any case, it somehow worked! Before I knew it, we were both half in the bag and she was suddenly a lot more keen to go walking around the town exploring. The only bad part was that in her drunken excitement she called every single guy she knew and kept making me talk to them. I didn’t really understand what was going on at the time, but I think I now have 10 blind dates lined up for this coming Friday.

After all this corrupting I woke up on Saturday feeling satisfied and ready for exploration. I decided to hike the nearby mountains in order to get a better view of the valley as well as get some exercise. The surrounding area features an interesting mix of plants that I’m only half familiar with, and it was quite pretty to see that some of the more exotic flowers have started to bloom. I even saw a wild deer of some sort! We had caught each other by surprise, and were frozen staring at one another from a distance of about three meters, but when I tried to take a picture of him he bolted as soon as I made the slightest move.

From the top of the mountains I could see the valley around Groblersdal spread out beneath me. The savannah transformed into lush farmland and man-made lakes. Large farm estates and game lodges and dusty dirt roads. Quite a view. It was also a gorgeous day and quite hot. Since it’s only the beginning of Spring I’m having a hard time imagining what summer is going to feel like here! I hope I get to see Summer in full swing though because I will be quite miffed to leave just as it is starting out. So yah, whatever monotheistic or polytheistic deity you believe in, start praying for me getting a decently paid job in microfinance somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. Actually though, at this point, although I would love to stay here, I am quite ready to go virtually anywhere in the world that is warm and I can make enough to pay off my student loan! Given the way that my life has been for the last couple of years I know that I can be happy almost anywhere, and so I am incredibly open minded as to where I end up. The only thing that I find annoying is the fact that I somehow keep getting dragged back to Canada in the middle of winter. I have to make sure that if I get dragged back this time that it will be the absolutely last time it happens. So what I’m saying is, Africans, Californians, Hawaiians, Asia-Pacific and European friends….holla at yo girl if you hear of a microfinance, small business development or entry-level management consulting job pop-up near you.

And in case I haven't mentioned it....South African spring is gorgeous! Sun and the smell of lavender everywhere.....