As we are ready to leave Egypt after almost four and a half years, I knew I had to eventually write the conclusion to our cat chronicles. I put it off for quite a while, because like with all goodbyes, this too is a bit of a sad one – a-circle-of-life kind of finale.
Cat#1 and Cat#2, Camo’s latest (and last so far) black and ginger offspring are still doing well. It was touch and go for a while for Cat#2, the slightly weaker of the two. The little ginger became ill and stopped eating. He was so weak and unwell that we thought he was at his end. But, alas, we fed him (and prayed a little also) and after two weeks we knew that he would make it for now. In the meantime he grew strong and still lives in our garden with his brother. Their mother, Camo, mainly lives downstairs in the parking garage, with her favourite place to relax on our car! I find the dust paw prints on the bonnet quite cute. 🙂
We are leaving soon and we hope that the new tenants will also find it in their hearts to feed them when they are here. They are not dependant on our food for survival as they are fed by people upstairs, the policemen on duty outside the building and the bowabs (doormen). So, they are sorted. And privileged! But. We are going to miss them. These two last ones were cute ones, especially the little ginger. I will miss his little face and his chutzpah when he hammers his head against the glass door in the mornings to get my attention – or to go around the corner to the other window to stare us down when we’re sitting on the couch. And I will miss laughing at him when my husband scares him with our soft toy Ikea dog, Ike!
I wrote in my previous cat chronicles blog about ‘our’ beloved ginger building cat, GemmerGat who came back after an absence of nine months. We were very happy to have her back and quickly realised that she was tired and nearing her sell-by date. So, it came as no surprise when we noted one day that she had become quite weak. We fed her and chatted softly to her and told her to hang in there, but I think we knew that her time had come. So, three days after she became so weak, she wasn’t in our garden anymore. It was the beginning of a really hot period in the summer and we fathomed that she went downstairs to the parking garage to have her last lie down. Maybe she came home to find her rest. This time we are okay with it though. She came to greet and we’ve said our goodbyes.
And that, my friends, is the grand finale of our cat chronicles in Egypt. We will return home now and become dog people again. We can’t wait to have doggy companions again! It had been a long few years without pets. It had been only the second period in my life without pets and I missed having them around a lot. We hoped to see our beloved Maltese, Simmie, again when we went back, but he died on 6 December 2017.
So, this is it for our Egypt cat chronicles. Thank you, Egyptian building cats for entertaining us the way you did. And rest in peace, dear Gemmergat.
As if any of you cats were going to read my blog… 🙂
So, I should probably give you an update on our cat family here in Cairo. The last time I wrote about them l was really sad about the ginger, Gemmergat, vanishing from our lives. Although we became used to him not being here, I kept wondering what had happened to him – especially after little Swartgat was hit by a car. Yep, we came back after travelling and was relieved and happy to see that the rest of the building fed the cats and that the cute little black cat survived. I was even starting to wonder what the procedure would be to take a cat back to South Africa. The very day after we arrived back, our son and I walked to the shops and was away for about an hour. When we came back, we saw the lifeless little body of ‘our’ black kitten lying in front of the church across the street from our home. He was hit by a car. So, that was the end of little SwartGat.
There was still no sign of ‘our’ ginger, so I was wondering if that was what had happened to GemmerGat too, but then I thought that Gemmergat was too smart a cat to be run over by a car. Did she die from injuries after a fight? Hm-hm, I thought, couldn’t be either, because although from the few fights l witnessed, I learned that that she didn’t like to fight, but she knew how to defend herself. So, I kept wondering.
In October or November last year, the serial mother of our neighbourhood, Camo, surprised us with yet another few bundles of joy. She always have three, it seems, but somehow only one or two make it upstairs to our garden. The other one stays downstairs in the underground parking garage or die or something. We still see one of her previous kittens – a beautiful light grey male – from time to time. He even visits our garden. This time the two kittens she brought upstairs for us to help feed, was a beautiful, strong black one – just like little SwartGat was – and another, much smaller ginger one. We didn’t even bothered with names anymore and they just became Cat#1 and Cat#2 . We feed them and watch them grow and of course I take a lot of photos of them.
In December we went home to South Africa on holiday and when we came back, the most wonderful surprise awaited us, because in front of our door, as if she had never been away, GemmerGat was bathing in what Egypt has to offer as a winter sun! Never in my life would I had believed that I would be so ecstatic to see a stray cat!
Yep, it was just as in a well-known Afrikaans song’s words: Die kat kom weer (the Cat comes again)!
It was quite something to experience our ginger building cat’s transformation from that shy, scared, in-survival-mode creature to an animal that would lovingly come and rub her back against your leg and even allow my husband to pick her up and hold her. It took a long time, but she learned to trust us and to feel save around us. The more we learned about her, we realised that she was a reluctant, but fierce fighter with a soft heart. We named her. Sort of. That’s even more dangerous than to start feeding them! We called her GemmerGat (in English literally Ginger Butt). She became happy and quite relaxed when she realised that she could rule our yard.
So, on a not-so-cold winter January day in Cairo, GemmerGat brought a camouflage coloured kitten (which we saw since that December in the flower pots in front of the building) into our yard to be fed. We weren’t very impressed, but we couldn’t refuse GemmerGat’s generosity to reach out to the little street cat and thought that maybe it was her way of ‘paying it forward’.
The kitten wasn’t very pretty and yet it was. We called her Camo. We soon realised that she doesn’t have the same likable personality as GemmerGat. In fact, i think that she’s a bit off mentally. She was only eight months old when our son, Michael, heard some faint crying sounds outside his window one afternoon and found Camo with three little ones! We were terrified! We didn’t want more cats in our yard!
Camo was a terrible mother! She slapped her babies through their little faces if they wanted to eat and bit them. We came to like her even less. We were away on a trip and when we came back the two kittens that were left (the third vanished earlier) were gone too. I am ashamed to say that we were relieved. So we kept feeding GemmerGat and Camo and kept chasing away the male cats. A few times we thought Camo looked pregnant again, but fortunately no more kittens appeared. Then one day, two months ago, Michael heard a noise outside again and there, from behind the big bag of charcoal, the two pairs of little blue eyes of Camo’s latest offspring peeked at us.
We weren’t happy with another addition to our yard, but as it goes with baby animals – they steal your heart. This time around though, Camo is a model mommy! Instead of slapping and biting her baby (she brought up only one to be fed), I was the one who got clapped when feeding her! Talk about haughtiness! (I don’t like that cat!) But she looks well after her baby, feeds him well and even shows affection. So, I have to commend her for that. She got so protective that she started scaring away GemmerGat – to our dismay! What a rotten attitude! GemmerGat brought her to our yard to be fed and she chased her away! I am so angry at her! And I’m even more disappointed in GemmerGat to let her do that without even fighting for her territory! We saw GemmerGat in the vicinity for a while, but then she disappeared. I’m still trying to come to terms with my feelings about that.
I can’t believe I miss an animal that doesn’t even belong to us! It’s just a building cat after all! I’ve even cried a bit over her. OK, I was actually crying over a situation friends of ours are having, and then I thought about GemmerGat and then I found that I had one more reason to cry and I let go! Now, I’m just really worried about her and quite sad too, that she just abandoned us like that.
Maybe she is still around and just eating elsewhere, because we are not the only ones feeding them. The bowabs (doormen), policemen and other tenants also put out food. But what worries me is that while we still saw her in front of the building before, we haven’t seen her for weeks now. And that worries me more than I am willing to admit.
In the meanwhile, we have grown quite fond of Camo’s black baby, SwartGat (literally Black Butt). He is lovable and playful and thinks our garden is his home.
One phenomenon everyone living in or visiting Egypt are guaranteed to encounter is the presence of street animals, be it dogs, cats or other animals – like horses, donkeys and camels, which are used for work and/or entertainment.
Although the work animals are looked after by their owners, most of the time they look a bit different than the well-nourished farm animals one would be used to seeing in your native country. For various reasons I won’t elaborate much further on the subject of Egypt’s work animals.
One has to learn soon that you can’t rescue every street creature you come across. In fact, you have to learn to become a bit thick-skinned in your approach to these animals – something that is very difficult for an animal lover. And there are phases to this process.
In the beginning you feel terrible for the dogs running in packs, looking for food. You feel worse when you see that almost every female bears the ‘Baywatch’ look as our son calls it – with their milk giving ‘tools’ swinging around their undernourished bodies when they run through the streets looking for something to eat and drink. What makes it even worse, is when you stumble upon a thin, dirty litter of puppies or kittens stowed away somewhere where the mom though it to be safe.
The terribleness develop into a depression of sorts when it seems that all you see are stray animals looking for food and you realise that you can’t do enough to help.
Eventually you hear about angel people – some expats, some veterinarians – who try to at least sterilise some of the dogs and cats at own cost.
The next phase is when you walk in the street in the summer heat and you get that familiar smell in your nostrils and then see the decomposing evidence and you think: Ah, thankfully you don’t have to suffer anymore.
The next phase is the most dangerous one. On a hot day when all the different smells of human sweat hangs in the air, mixed with the smell of blood freshly washed off the pavement after a Ramadan slaughter, you find yourself standing in a little shop in Road 9, checking out the cheapest available cat food. Because by now, a very nice looking black-and-white had started following your neighbours’ son back from the gym, your friend down the street had picked up an almost dead kitten and nursed it back to life and when you get home from a function one night, a ginger living in your building had shyly followed you to your front door and after you have checked each other out a few times, you have fetched a bowl of milk one night and rapport had been established.
And after a few more weeks, the once scared, shy, in-survival-mode cat, greets you at the building door and show you to your front door as if it is the bowab (doorman) and cheekily sits and waits for her treat. And when you open the door a few nights later, she only slightly rubs against your leg before pushing past you, and runs perkily ahead, through the house to the other door. And before you know it, you fill an empty butter container with the cheap cat food from that little shop in Road 9. And when you go to the ‘plastic’shop’ the next time, the butter containers get replaced by plastic bowls. And almost without you realising it, you have become a street cat carer.
You shush the male cats away from your garden because they spray and it stinks and they fight with ‘your’ ginger. You know this because you hear the unearthly cries in the middle of the night and you see the ginger fluff rolling past your bedroom window in the slight breeze in the mornings. And you feel surprisingly relieved when you open the blinds and ‘your’ ginger sits there – battle scarred, but alive.
I never thought that I would become one of those crazy persons filling the Internet with writings about cats.
So, gister was die groot ‘It’s Time’ gebedsbyeenkoms in Bloemfontein en daar was ‘n mag der menigte Suid-Afrikaners wat gaan bid het vir verandering in Suid-Afrika. Hier is net drie Skrifte (van die baie) waaruit Vader ons uit die Bybel leer oor gebed.
…en (as) my volk, oor wie my Naam uitgeroep is, hulle verootmoedig en bid en my aangesig soek en hulle bekeer van hul verkeerde weë, dan sal Ék uit die hemel hoor en hulle sonde vergewe en hulle land genees. (2 Kronieke 7:14)
Waak dan en bid altyddeur, sodat julle waardig geag mag word om al hierdie dinge wat kom, te ontvlug en voor die Seun van die mens te staan. (Lukas 21:36)
…terwyl julle met alle gebed en smeking by elke geleentheid bid in die Gees, en juis daartoe waak met alle volharding en smeking vir al die heiliges… (Efesiërs 6:18)
***
So is ons land al vir baie lank al op die afdraende pad en toe hoor ‘n gewone, onvolmaakte man (soos wat die Mosesse en Dawidde en Elias van die Bybel ook maar was) dat hy ‘n gebedsbyeenkoms moet hou waar mense van Suid-Afrika hulleself kan verootmoedig, Vader se wil vra en bid vir die omstandighede in die land. As ‘n mens die boonste Skrifte lees, sou jy dink dis heel eenvoudig. Bid vir almal en oor alles en te alle tye is die basiese boodskap. Maar o, wee! Ons is mos (Suid-)Afrikaners en oornag was die land in rep en roer!
***
En so analiseer en kritiseer en oordeel dit te lekker vir ‘n klompie weke lank. En dit gebeur toe gister:
Een groep gryp die geleentheid aan, ondersteun dit en gaan bid. Die wat nie Bloem toe kon of wou gaan nie, het op hulle eie gebid of byeenkomste gereël waar hulle saam met ander kon bid – selfs in die buiteland.
Sommiges het gewonder of hulle kerke darem vandag ook vol sou wees en ander het die inisiatief uitgekryt as “nie van Christus nie”, as ‘n “die mekka van satan” vanweë “die oorvloed vals profesieë” wat daar uitgespreek is en so meer. En die onvolmaakte man wat dit gereël het, was volgens baie onder andere “geldgierig”, “net agter getalle aan” en “die anti-chris”.
Dan was daar die natuurlike reaksie van die ateïs dat mense net gaan om goed te voel oor hulleself en dat niks gaan verander nie.
***
Ek reken in ons quick-fix wêreld sal baie die hele gebed-ding as ‘n flop sien as daar teen môre niks verander het nie. Ek wens ons kon almal saam met dieselfde energie saamstaan wat deur sommiges gebruik is om te kritiseer en verdeling te veroorsaak. Dink net! Maar ons is nog hierdie kant van perfektheid. En dis hoe dit is. As ons dit tog net kan onthou.
***
Gister se gebeure het my beide hoop gegee en hartseer gemaak, maar dis maar net nog ‘n teken dat ons in onvolmaaktheid leef. Deur Vader se genade is ek nie deur al dié dinge verwar nie, maar ek dink die optrede van baie Christene die afgelope tyd kon tot redelike verwarring by jong/nuwe gelowiges lei, wat ‘n jammerte is.
***
Die Skrif uit Openbaring het weer gister telkens by my opgekom. Leef ons reeds in dié tyd?
Wie onreg doen, laat hom nog meer onreg doen; en wie vuil is, laat hom nog vuiler word; en laat die regverdige nog regverdiger word, en laat die heilige nog heiliger word. (Openbaring 22:11)
***
As jy ‘n gelowige is, besluit maar self volgens die Skrif oor gister se gebeure. Te veel ‘geloof’ word in ons dae op opinie gebou.
As a lot of authors and would-be writers, I am fascinated by the writers from the past. I read up on them and read some of their works to try to learn from them. I have great respect for the way they wrote and how prolific they had been in a time before the technology we have today to make writing and publishing easier, was available. (Although I haven’t personally experienced this ‘easiness’ of getting published in the mainstream yet.)
I am a huge, huge, huge fan of Agatha Christie. She wrote wonderful stories that are still enticing today. I have read many of her books and watched more of her stories onscreen and just when I think that I’ve read or seen everything, something ‘new’ pops up. Here, where we are currently living in Egypt, bookstores stock her books and I indulge. She wrote so many stories, that one day if I manage to get through them all, I can just start over and read them again if I want, because they will be as good as new to me.
Another fascination of mine is Ernest Hemingway. (I’m currently contemplating naming our next dog Hemingway. Or Blue. Or something totally different.) I love his writing – some more that others, because let’s face it – in the times that he wrote, not too much happened in most works of fiction and it took a long time to happen.
Although a fan, I’m not blind to these old writers’ weaknesses. There was a lot of drinking and substance abuse involved in the lives of some of these authors and though I don’t condone it, I also don’t judge them. (Today it’s well known that writers and other artists are prone to mental illness and substance abuse.) And in Ernie and his friends’ case I suppose they were pretty much products of the war they survived.
So, even though Ernest and the Fitzgeralds and Gertrude Stein and the likes lived their lives as if there was no tomorrow, I can’t help to romanticise the period and circumstances they lived in just a little bit. Although conditions were still volatile during and after the war, things got simpler after that. There was class and style and ambience and boredom about the way they did their day by day routines.
A few weeks back while on a Nile Cruise, we visited the old Cataract Hotel in Aswan, Egypt, for the third time since we live here. Being there, walking through the big corridors, riding the old, slow wooden lift and sitting in the stylish library, makes one daydream about a time and innocence gone forever. In my mind I can see Aggie sitting in her suite, with her desk moved to in front of the open double doors, feeling the desert heat breezing into the room, stroking her cheeks and causing tiny drops of perspiration on her forehead underneath her neatly waved hair, while she is tapping along passionately on her typewriter – creating the circumstances for Hercule Poirot to solve the four murders in Death on the Nile.
In my mind’s eye, I can see Mister Hemingway standing alongside the chest of drawers, hammering the keys, thinking of rather having a cold beer down in the garden, whilst the current woman in his life is still in bed, nursing a hangover and moaning about him not attending to her immediate needs – to his utter dismay.
I can imagine the buzz in the dining room when the famous well-dressed Who’s Who whom chose to cavort in Egypt at the same time appears one by one or couple by couple in their evening best. They would look way different than our group of whom only some had bothered to follow the smart/casual dress code.
I hear Aggie and her hubby converse about the newest archaeological finding at a site nearby, contemplating from which dynasty it might originate. Over dessert, she wonders if she shouldn’t have stuck to only one murder in Death on the Nile, instead of the four, because “you know, Darling, I don’t want to contribute to the world becoming a more violent place”.
With war clouds still hanging over Europe, Winston Churchill decides that he has to come up with a strategy for the coming Armageddon.
And in another few years, Mrs. Fitz frowned upon her husband’s alcohol intake, wondering aloud if it was Ernie’s bad influence on him or the other way around, while she remarks how she can’t grasp why she came to feel so lightheaded so swiftly.
Fast forward to a time the world became enchanted by the people’s princes, who, while smiling her shy smile to the world, is crying within her heart over her broken dreams and recent divorce and wonders what the future will bring as she listens to her Arab lover’s plans for their next holiday together…
Sitting on the lawn, having coffee at sunset with a group of people from all over the world – some of whom we know and more that we don’t know – it is so easy to being translated into another era filled with well-clad creatives looking at the same sun setting where cataracts form down under in the river. Watching the falloukas with their majestic sails on Egypt’s Nile of the Bible passing by, I sat back and dreamed that one day my name will be mentioned as a famous writer who loved visiting the old Cataract Hotel and that a book of mine will sit there on the library shelf next to my fellow South African, Andre P. Brink’s book. Wink-wink.
PS: Google the Cataract Hotel to read about its history and about the famous ones who frequented there. It is an interesting place and if your travels ever bring you to Egypt, make sure to put Aswan on your itinerary as a must-visit place. There is a lot to see, including the Aswan Dam/Lake Nasr, the Nubian Village, the botanical garden Lord Kitchener planted from trees soldiers brought from all over the world and the Philae Temple – the youngest building from old Egypt’s history. It is also a four-hour drive/50 minute flight to the temple at Abu Simbel.
I had a Writing Club for Children for years before we moved to Egypt. A few of you reading here had children attending, or may even have attended yourself. (I hope at least some of my old students read my blog.) I enjoyed it immensely and plan to revive the clubs when we are back home. Not only did I enjoy teaching writing to the children who were in my groups, but I enjoyed learning from them.
One of a series of workshops we did in in The Writing Club, was journal writing. These workshops were preceded by a lesson on daydreaming. My first two writing clubbers were home schoolers* who grew up on a smallholding and whose mom raised them to question things and gave them playtime. They made the lesson fun and easy and it became my favourite workshop of all.
With the next generation of clubbers it was a different ball game. They were only a bit younger than my first club members, but these days behaviour can change very quickly. The main difference between the two groups was that technology became more advanced and more easily available – and was quickly becoming popular toys for children rather than only work tools for adults.
I found this workshop to become more of a challenge every year. My first group simply listened to what I taught them and followed my guidelines to go home and spend some time deliberately doing nothing, while daydreaming a bit. But with the next groups, l suddenly found myself looking into pairs of eyes looking at me in confusion and perplexity. I got reactions like “How do you daydream?” and “l don’t have time to do nothing, because I have too many schoolwork and activities.” It saddened me that these words came out of the mouths of ten and eleven year olds.
Initially, when these children from the second ‘wave’ started writing stories, l could identify their story lines from the movies they watched. They couldn’t dream up their own stories. Thankfully that changed with time, practice and skill development.
I was shocked at these little person’s reaction, because as a child, daydreaming came as second nature (or in my case – first nature) to me (and all of my friends), but of course times and circumstances have changed and I can’t help to feel a bit sorry for our privileged children today. It is not all their fault. Technology is fantastic. I love it. I love gadgets and apps. And I have to admit that I too am addicted to my phone. Even if I try to spend less time using it and more time doing ‘real life’ stuff, I struggle to get out of my virtual reality. Because these days, one’s whole life is in your phone. My books are on there and so is a lot of my entertainment. And there’s a camera and some memories and – because we live abroad – my family and friends are in there too. It is difficult not to lose oneself in the virtual world. And with that, l realised that I struggle to be creative if it is not on an electronic device. My hands had become impractical. My imagination had become useless as a pencil with a broken point. Maybe that is why I reverted to writing weekly blogs instead of finishing my novel.
I sometimes wonder if people still daydream? Through daydreaming we learn a lot about ourselves. When I look around and see young people (and older ones) hovering over phones, worsening their bad posture, I can’t help wondering if this wonderful technology we have, will not do more bad than good. If one reads statuses and comments on social media, you have to wonder where common sense had gone. The more knowledge we have available, the less knowledgably we seem to get.
I sat behind a family at a wedding in The Netherlands last year. The seven or so year old boy was glued to a phone, playing a game during the service, his neck eerily bent in a very unnatural way. I could imagine him at 19, walking like an old man. While waiting at an optometrist’s room in New Zealand a few weeks ago, a boy younger than two years was playing games on an iPad, so engrossed in the little device that he almost fell off the chair he was sitting on. Whenever one sits in a restaurant, you see people having coffee with one another, while in conversation with other people elsewhere through their phones. What is the point of going out with someone if you are conversing with someone else the whole time?
We are certainly living in a strange world that is getting stranger every day. It is a world where the real makes room for the virtual increasingly. It is becoming a place where I can testify first-hand how I am becoming less and less social, while spending more and more time ‘engaging with’ a little device that doesn’t love me, can’t talk to me or listen to my feeling and cannot hug me. And it quite scares me, because even if I try, I fall back into the bad habit of spending hours per day on it every time. I keep telling myself it will be better when we are back home again and closer to everyone and everything we miss. I really hope so. In the meantime, I will try my best to spend less time in the virtual and more in the real. I miss my daydreaming and my creativity. I want my hands to become usable again.
Do you still daydream? Do you take time to just sit and do nothing? Or are you also a victim of your busy schedule and the little thing in your hand that keeps you awake at night and can’t hug you back? Tell me if you feel you want to. And in the meantime, read a book printed on real paper, plant a herb (and don’t forget to water it regularly), talk to your spouse while having a glass of something special over a home-cooked candlelight dinner, look in your child’s eyes when he or she talks to you and go lie on the grass somewhere and stare at the clouds and dream…
* In case you thought that those first home schoolers were idlers: They moved to England with their parents for a while. The boy joined the British Air Force teen cadets. They moved back to South Africa, went to public schools and the girl went to work and travel abroad and is now back and studying in Stellenbosch. The boy had become an engineer, got married and builds and flies those little drones (or quad copters I presume they are called.) The little sister who later joined the club with our son, was a good daydreamer too and is finishing her public school education this year.
Recently, we have been visiting our friends who now live in New Zealand. They might or might not stay there forever. They live in an area to where a lot of Asians emigrate to. And a lot of South Africans also. (I think for the South Africans, the choice has to do with the weather, because the north island’s weather is much warmer than the south island’s.) They live in the Auckland area which looks quite a bit like a mix between the Western Cape and Mpumalanga. That might have something to do with it too. In recent decades a lot of South Africans have immigrated to especially countries such as Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Canada. Very few had returned to their ancestral countries of origin, which were mostly The Netherlands, France and Germany.
The reasons for South Africans emigrating is mostly the unacceptable crime wave which are causing people to look for safer places to calm their nerves and also because of work opportunities, due to many people being laid off after becoming BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) victims. It is not only white people who emigrate though. The world is full of young black South Africans making their mark elsewhere in the world too.
We South Africans had become used to ‘losing’ friends to emigration. It is a touch phenomenon to get used to, because parents have to let their children go, adult siblings get separated and, with young children and new-borns growing up in a foreign country, young South Africans become estranged with their families back home. It is indeed a challenging situation. But, thinking about it, I also realise that migrating is sort of a ‘natural’ thing throughout history. It was after all how we got to South Africa. Our ancestors from The Netherlands sought new trade opportunities and the Christian French Huguenots fled from religious persecution, just as some South Africans now leave the country’s shores in fear of their lives and/or looking for jobs.
And of course the uprooting of families is not unique to South Africa. South Africans are at least still doing it by choice (although I blame no one who emigrates due to the fact that they had been high jacked in their own drive-way three times, or whose parents were brutally murdered on a farm or in a city house or whose daughter were raped and murdered when she went for a jog.) Our TV screens are filled daily with displaced people who flee for their lives from places where the blood hungry murderous make it impossible for them to live. One of the drivers we use when we go to Jordan told us that he is Libyan. He spent a few years working in South Africa (nogal!) and then ended up in Jordan. His brother lived in a few other places and currently stays in Israel. Across from our house in Cairo is a small Catholic church. The congregation is made up of expats working here, Egyptians – I presume and Sudanese and various other refugees. The international working force of Egypt is from all over the world. We lived in a displaced world full of displaced people.
So back to my pondering this week after a very long start. While we were in New Zealand, we saw lots of Afrikaans speaking South Africans in the streets, malls and on the beaches. Within ten minutes’ drive there are three shops selling South African products. We had wonderful boerewors (sausages) and biltong (dried meat – like jerky, but better)! The South African numbers are so many there that Browns Bay is referred to as ‘De Bruynsbaai’. And all the time we were there, I tried imagining how it feels to uproot yourself – knowing that it is going to be forever – and go and live in a strange place, building a new life so totally different than the one you had, away from your family and your friends.
We are only temporary living abroad. We are now here in Egypt for three out of a four year period. It had been wonderful and crazy and difficult and frustrating and emotional and a lot of other things too. I really miss our pets, our country, our food, our language, our culture, our ways and especially our people. Whenever we go through passport control at OR Tambo, I want just want to hug and kiss the person behind the counter, but I know I would probably be arrested for it, so I refrain from doing it.
I tried to put myself in the shoes of someone deciding to emigrate to New Zealand – just because it was the country many South Africans choose and we were visiting it. It is a wonderful, first-world, effective, beautiful place with nice, warm, down-to-earth people. It is also a very, very, very expensive country where some of the products are just plainly over-priced. I think it must be difficult in the beginning especially. I wondered if you ever stop missing the rugby fights, the fact that there is a joke minutes after any bad thing happening, the Nando ads, the excellent and the poor Afrikaans songs, the biltong, the South coast beaches, the clean, unique smell of Cape sea air in your nostrils, the shenanigans of politicians (okay, not really that, because now the rest of the world had caught up with us too) or the smell of fresh beskuit and bread of your aunt’s house. I wondered.
We met a young South African girl our son’s age who worked at the supermarket we went to. She heard us speaking Afrikaans with each other and immediately started a conversation. While ringing up our things, she told us that she was living there with her parents for twelve years now. I commented that she must be full blown Kiwi by now, seeing that she was so young when the moved and probably didn’t remember ‘home’. Her smile vanished and in a soft voice she said:
“I dream of Cape Town all the time.”
We met with quite a few emigrants from different countries. They told us that the divorce rate under uprooters is quite high. Listening to them a few things came out for people to consider before they make the decision to emigrate. These are:
Don’t emigrate to run away from your personal problems. If your husband has a wandering eye, it will be going with him. If he is an alcoholic, he will still be one on the other side. If your wife has a money spending problem in South Africa, you’ll have bigger problems living in a country where the currency is ten times (yep!) stronger.
Sort all medical stuff out before you leave. A lot of medical issues can get your visa delayed or even cancelled.
Don’t lie about anything on applications.
Plan. Plan. For everything.
You need a lot of initial capital to move to and settle in another country. (Hundreds-of-thousands-a lot.)
Moving countries causes immense stress – for every member or the family. Don’t underestimate that factor. Prepare for it. Change is never easy. Uprooting is up-there on the stress list. This counts even for ‘short’ stays abroad like ours.
My hope is that we will always have the choice to live in South Africa. I love my country. I miss my beautiful country with all its ups and downs. I hate the violence and the corruption. I hate it to be scared at night. (I sleep like a baby in Egypt – and everywhere else we go.) So, I know I will have to face my fears again. I will worry about Michael driving alone at night. I also realise that he might be forced to seek greener international pastures and leave us behind. I’m not blind for all the challenges. But I miss the good of South Africa. The good things as well as the good people. And for that I hope to stay.
We will just cling to our Protector and remember that ‘Elohim has not given us a spirit of cowardice, but of power and of love and of self-control’. I hope our faith and love and self-control will be enough in the end.
There is something as precious and beautiful as gold and very often as rare. It is free and yet it costs much. It starts with the utterance of a single word and yet is not to be found in every easily spoken one. And like gold, the real thing only becomes better when tested. Other than family, it might just be the most important thing us humans are being blessed with while we live our earthly lives.
Friendship doesn’t always come easy. Not all friendships last. Not everyone calling themselves ‘friend’ is one. Sometimes friendship comes from strangers or people we don’t consider friends. Some friends betray, let down, lie, don’t keep their word, walk away, fade, can’t stand the heat or just don’t care enough. They hurt you, but when the hurt subsides, one realises that it happened for the better.
There are friendships though, that last. They are formed between people who never stop caring and never will – no matter what happens or how difficult circumstances become. Because real friends never quit on each other. They always make time. They walk the extra mile. Sometimes friendship takes hard work, perseverance, forgiveness and being forgiven. It takes unconditional love, keeping secrets and speaking harsh words if it means helping and not contributing to a path that leads to destruction.
This week we are visiting friends who we haven’t seen in a few years and who (literally) live on the other side of the world. We have made many wonderful memories together in the past and we have shared quite a bit of heartbreak too. And it is when the conversation just continue as if we saw each other the previous day, and you still laugh at each others’ silly jokes and have made a new worth-to-remember memory within the first few days together, that one realises how blessed and fortunate and lucky you are to have real friends. And to be called someone’s friend. And that’s how they say you get real friends – by becoming one.
Thank You, for giving us friends.
Ointment and perfume gladden the heart. So one’s counsel is sweet to his friend.
(Proverbs 27:9)
This is not a post about the new American president or on how good or how bad he is, so you can keep on reading. In order to get to my point though, he has to be mentioned indirectly. As I was writing something else this morning, the TV news was on in the background. I must have had finger trouble, because it was another channel (it wasn’t FOX though) as the usual (BBC). There was a panel on video call discussing the subject that I won’t mention in this post only due to the fact that you might already suffer from fatigue on the topic.
I wasn’t focussing, so I wasn’t sure if the three men were supporting the above non-mentioned person, or if they were making tongue-in-the-cheek comments. All I knew was that my head bobbed up by the one man’s words.
“He is doing everything he promised.”
Now, I know about the jokes going around about that same sentence, but it wasn’t until this man said it on TV this morning that the penny dropped.
I suddenly realised that I was ‘participating’ in something that I really thought I wasn’t involved in. I was accepting lying as ‘normal’ behaviour. Oh, I realised it somehow, but I don’t think it had ever really sunk in, because I thought that I was above that.
We are so used to people making promises when they are running for office and when getting elected, they do the opposite. And we accept it without much resistance, because – well, we knew it would happen! I heard the above non-mentioned person also making promises, but thought by myself, “Meh, he won’t do it.” and “He can’t do that!” and “He won’t be allowed to do that!” Now he is starting to do everything he promised and the world (me very, very included) is shocked!
We got so used to people promising us the sun, the moon and the stars, but instead delivering garbage to our front doors that we have accepted it almost with thanksgiving! We have learned to pardon it. Even those under us who see ourselves as not ‘foolable’, have gotten so used to being fooled that we accept it as the norm. And in the world we live in these days, we are being fooled by almost everyone we are suppose to trust – politicians, business people, religious leaders and of course every person working on the other side of an enquiry who promises to call you back.
So, when suddenly someone comes along and keeps his promises – how far reaching the consequences might be – we are suddenly reminded that we are not used to living in a world where people keep their word anymore. And we are fooled when they do. (Like the media and the pole analysers were after the particular election that the non-mentioned person above won.)
Thankfully, we learn from the Word of God that ‘whoever guards His Word, truly the love of Elohim (God) has been perfected in him’ (1 John 2:5). And we also learn that there is One who will always keep His Word.
“I shall not profane My covenant, neither would I change what has gone out from My lips.”
This was a difficult week to be away from home. Our friend died. She was only 46. She had health problems since long before the 14 years that we knew each other. She had more than 30 operations and had been in and out of hospital all the time. We knew that her body took strain that no human body can sustain on the long haul. But we never wanted to acknowledge it. We got used to her being in and out of hospital and life going on in between.
So last week she was in hospital again. On top of her ‘normal’ problems she was fighting a resistant bacterial infection for over a year. She was sent home after treatment with strong, long-term antibiotics. But on Monday morning when her husband woke up, she had left this world quietly next to him during the early hours of the morning.
We were of course, in shock. Still are.
We were still trying to come to terms with Adri’s death, when I got a message from home that my loving godfather went into a coma and not long after that, that he too went to heaven – on what would have been my father’s 90th birthday.
Although any death is always difficult, I’ve learned in life that loss feels different when people die at different ages. My dad died at age 73. That is an acceptable age to die in my books, although it doesn’t make it any easier that one’s father dies at an appropriate age when you stand next to his bed watching how the artificial life orchestrated by machines, leaves his body. Two years later I learned that 49 isn’t an acceptable age for someone to die, when my beloved ouboet (eldest brother) was taken from us in an instant.
We were expecting Oupa Koos’ death. Both he and Ouma Mienie, his wife, was/is very sick. And they were nearing 90. Still, when he died he didn’t only leave a person that would be missed dearly in my and his closer family’s lives. He left and took a whole part of my life with him. A whole part of my history was intertwined with his. Fortunately, as long as I stay mentally healthy, I will have those memories to cherish. He was one of the few left of their generation in our family. And now we are becoming that generation. That is life. What a sobering thought!
We didn’t expect Adri to die young. 46 is an inappropriate age to die. But then – life and death isn’t in our hands. It isn’t ours to give or to take. God gave Adri a wonderful life, in spite of her struggles and she leaves a testimony of His great glory behind through the many lives she touched. She sang like an angel on earth and I believe she is having a ball worshipping the Living God with the real angels now.
Until we see each other again, my friend. Sing your heart out.
And say hello so long to Baas Wynie and Ouboet Piet, Oupa Koos. Tell them they are in my thoughts. Every. Single. Day.
And he said, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I return there. יהוה (the LORD) has given, and יהוה has taken away. Blessed be the Name of יהוה.”
This will be recorded as one of my most beautiful memories ever. We are on an Egypt Air flight from Amsterdam to Cairo.
Deon and I always listen to Paul Wilbur’s ‘Shema’ together on shared earphones when they play the Islamic prayers on the small screen – something that is done before every flight. Normally I switch my phone off after this, because I want to keep it charged should I need to make a call after we have landed. But today I keep listening. The time between sitting on the tarmac and take off can be a bit boring sometimes.
It is a majestic feeling when a plane jets into the air with the forceful sounds of Verdi’s ‘Nabucco’ in your ears. Outside the lush green landscape of Amsterdam is left on the ground as the plane swoops through the thick clouds to glide above them. This is one of the most beautiful pictures my eyes ever had the privilege of seeing! The cotton wool-like clouds are bundled onto each other with no earth to see down below. The music is still playing while I hear my spirit whisper in my heart: “Thanks for beautiful things, Father!” and “Thanks for all the undeserved treats. Thanks for all the places we see that I’ve never thought I would see and thanks for seeing some more than once!”
And then I heard the Halleluja choir with ‘Ode to Joy’ and Susan Boyle sings ‘Then sings my soul’, while mine sings with. I ‘halleluYAH’ on with Leonard Cohen and Delaney en Bonnie’s ‘Never Ending Song of Live’ follows passionately. Then André Rieu’s orchestra played “Auld Lang Syne’ and I long to be with my family and I wonder what they are all doing on this spring Sunday afternoon in South Africa. While I’m still wondering Neil Diamond makes a ‘Beautiful Noise’ and on the note of ‘Hava Nagila’ I have to close the plane window a bit, because the son reflects quite sharply from the Alps down below.
My finger chooses Josh Grobin’s ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desire’ almost automatically, because one always tends to feel closer to heaven so high up in the air.
In the aisle seat Michael sat cramped-in and reads his new book and in the middle, next to me Deon rests on his forehead against the front seat, trying to sleep. I trust on his cell phone today should we need to make calls on the other side. For now my phone’s battery will help Josh fly high above the clouds over Europe.
Afrikaans
Hierdie sal in my onthou opgeteken word as een van die mooiste memoeries ooit! Ons is op ‘n Egypt Air-vlug oppad terug van Amsterdam na Kaïro.
Ek en Deon luister altyd na die ‘Shema’ van Paul Wilbur oor gedeelde oorfone as hulle die Islamitese gebede op die klein skerm wys – iets wat voor elke vlug gedoen word. Normaalweg skakel ek my foon hierna af, omdat ek nie die battery wil pap maak nie vir ingeval ek dit nodig sou kry nadat ons geland het. Maar vandag hou ek aan luister. Die tyd tussen in die vliegtuig sit op die aanloopbaan en opstyg kan nogal vervelig wees.
Dis ‘n majestieuse gevoel as ‘n straler opstyg met Verdi se ‘Nabucco’ se klanke in jou ore. Buite het ons die lowergroen landskap van Amsterdam op die grond gelos en die vliegtuig het die dik wolke ingeswiep – na waar ons bokant hulle sweef. Dit is een van die mooiste, mooiste prentjies wat my oë ooit die voorreg gehad het om te sien! Die wolke is soos watte-berge op mekaar gestapel, met niks aarde onder ons te sien nie. Die musiek hou aan speel, terwyl ek my gees in my hart hoor fluister: “Dankie vir mooi dinge, Vader!” en “Dankie vir al die onverdiende voorregte. Dankie dat ons plekke kan sien wat ek nooit gedink het moontlik is nie en party wéér kan sien.”
En toe hoor ek die Halleluja-koor en ‘Ode to Joy’ en Susan Boyle sing ‘Then sings my soul’, terwyl myne saam sing. En ek ‘halleluYAH’ verder saam met Leonard Cohen. En Delaney en Bonnie se ‘Never Ending Song of Live kom tussen-in en toe ek weer hoor, speel André Rieu se orkes “Auld Lang Syne’ en ek verlang na my familie en wonder wat doen hulle op dié lente Sondagmiddag in Suid-Afrika. Terwyl ek nog wonder, maak Neil Diamond ‘n ‘Beautiful Noise’ en op die nota van ‘Hava Nagila’ moet ek eers die vliegtuigvenstertjie ‘n bietjie toetrek, want die sonnetjie skyn nogal skerp so hoop bo in die lug waar dit van die Alpe af reflekteer. My vinger kies so half outomaties Josh Grobin se ‘Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desire’, want ‘n mens voel mos maar altyd ‘n bietjie nader aan die hemel so hoog bo in die lug.
In die gangsitplek sit Michael ingeprop en lees sy nuwe boek en langs my in die middel, sit-lê Deon op sy voorkop teen die sitplek voor hom en probeer slaap. Ek vertrou maar vandag op sy selfoon, sou daar ‘n ‘vir ingeval’ anderkant die landing wees. Vir nou help my foon se battery eers vir Josh om hoog te vlieg bo die wolke bokant Europa.
Just keep reading. The advice part comes at the middle of the article…
Struggling to Focus
I really struggle to focus when it comes to my writing. To focus – not to concentrate. I can sit and do the same thing for hours. Unless I’m on my phone. Then I have the intention span of a two year-old and I can forget what picture I want to open only half a second after I’ve made the decision. I don’t have a search for the reason for my problem, because I know what the cause is. Ideas. I have too many of them. While I am busy researching links for my Writing Club Facebook page, I think of a new short story that I want to write and then I think of a great idea for my next blog entry and while still busy with that I’m struggling with the plot problem of my decade-old novel.
Multitasking towards Scatter Brain Syndrome
Every weekend I think of what to do the next week and plan it in my head, but come Sunday (when the work week starts where we currently live) I sleep too late, spend too much time on my phone checking Facebook, play Words with Friends or find something interesting that I have to do Bible study on. So by 10:30 I realise that our bedroom needs tiding, the building cats want food, our son wants to sound his view points on his latest university essay with me and while I’m listening to him, my mind wanders to have yet another few writing ideas on another few projects.
Am I too scatter-brained or do I have too many ideas? I can’t always determine, but I know that whichever it is – or maybe it’s both – it makes me unproductive. Having ideas as a (would-be) writer can only be good, can it not? I rarely have had problems with writer’s block in my life. That must be a good thing, mustn’t it? Having lots of ideas is good. But it doesn’t help if any of those ideas ever get finished. Oh, I have finished manuscripts in my cyber Dropbox drawer. It’s not if I can’t finish anything. I can sit down and work on a long project to finish it. It’s just that I can’t finish everything that I want to, because I don’t know what to work on and what to leave.
I do something and then I leave it and then I do something else and then I leave it when a new idea pops into my head. I know I have this problem. And I have tried to overcome it many times. I am currently in one of those phases. I have decided to finish my Writing Club business idea. I have started well. Then I got sick. And now, a week later, I am writing a blog while still editing a short story whilst I should be busy with that instead.
The problem I find with my writing – as also in other areas of life – is that I try to multitask, in spite of being a hater of multitasking. Because I multitask in life too. I start tiding the bedroom, and when putting away some stuff in the bathroom, I see that the toilet need urgent cleaning and when I go to the kitchenette to fetch the cleaning products, I wash the morning coffee mugs and then remembered that my son didn’t have breakfast yet and when I take his breakfast to the TV room where we normally have it together, we watch the breaking news and I quickly do some research on some of the facts the reporter gave and then I see some interesting article that I have to share to my Writing Club Facebook page and while on the computer I see that there are some messages from my family group on WhatsApp Web and then I get involved in a who-looked-more-like-whom baby pictures debate and when it cools down I see more interesting articles on writing and read a few, and get new ideas for blogging and then my husband called to hear if I have started doing research for our trip and then I get into the mood to finish my short story and I write for an hour. And when I finally come to my senses again, the bedroom is still untidy, the toilet is still not cleaned, the coffee mugs are dirty again after having breakfast though, the breakfast plates had to be cleaned, there is new breaking news on TV, the family had decided that the baby looks like herself, my Facebook page have more notifications, my short story is still not finished, I haven’t done the research for our upcoming trip and I realise that I haven’t thought about what we’ll have for dinner. Then I leave everything I’ve been busy with and rush to the kitchen…
That’s my life. It’s not perfect. I frustrate myself. Days and weeks and months and even years fly by and I’m not getting done what I want to get done. In a few years’ time I will probably look back and ask my husband and son: “What have I done with my time?!” And they will probably remind me to read this blog entry to answer myself.
Having many ideas is a good thing. For creative people it is a wonderful thing. But if you can’t channel those ideas into some productiveness, they will always be just… ideas. Ideas means nothing if they sit in your head. They have to be acted upon – just like dreams. Ideas also have a tendency to get ‘stolen’. If you don’t do something with an idea, someone else, who is more focussed will and before you know it, another opportunity will be lost.
A Few Tips
Multitasking must be killed. We must live in the moment and concentrate on the task at hand – one at a time. Here are a few ways to try to do it. Let’s try it!
Focus
With the Olympics on, I couldn’t help to recognise again the athletes’ commitment to their respective codes. The archer’s focus on the target is a good example of how we as writers or other artists or people of any other career should learn to focus on one thing at a time. The archer can only hit one target with one shot. If his focus is on anything other than only his target, he surely will miss. Focussing on one writing piece at a time will eventually means that one project will be finished. And if that one is finished a next one will get finished and a next and a next.
Do Something Productive with those too Many Ideas – Make a List
Write down all the writing projects ideas you have in your head. By getting them out of your head and onto paper, you can start focussing on getting them done. Keep this list close and update it as you get new ideas.
Then Make a ‘To Do’ list
Now make a ‘To Do’ list. Decide what it is you want to achieve with your writing. Be very, very honest with yourself and focus on your strong points. Identify the projects that will be the most probably to get published and/or bring in some money. Prioritise you list. Then start and finish the first priority project on your list.
Don’t Move on Before a Task isn’t Finished
Don’t move to number two on your list unless number one is finished. In the case of number one being writing your novel, you can do blogging or other smaller projects in between, but always finish the allotted daily writing time for your priority project first, before going on to doing the smaller ones.
Plan your day– Have a Routine
You know the saying, ‘Fail to plan, plan to fail.’
If that archer didn’t practice for hours every day, he wouldn’t have made his country’s Olympic team and he wouldn’t have been able to win the gold medal. If he failed to aim at his target, he would have failed to hit it. If you want to go on holiday in Greece, you need to plan to take leave, buy plane tickets and book accommodation. Otherwise you will remain where you are. If you don’t plan anything, you won’t get anything done. It is as simple as that.
‘Go to work’
My husband gets up at the same time every morning, showers, clothes himself, takes his bag and goes to work. And he remains there for eight hours of every five week days – working. For that he is rewarded with a salary at the end of every month. Input equals output.
Some writers have a day job and write for an hour or so every evening and some more over weekends. Well-known writers had got published for the first time this way – by writing only for a short time every day. Every day.
Some writers have the privilege of staying home and have more time than others to write. If you are one of those and still struggle to fill at least a few hours every day writing, you have to become more creative with managing your time and the way you work.
Identify your favourite writing place in your house/garden.
Decide on what part of the day your writing hours will be.
When the time arrives, literally pack your writing tools (laptop, notebooks etc.) in a bag and walk out of the house, through the garden (if you have one), back into the house and to your working place.
If possible, leave your phone ‘at home’ or switch to silent.
Stay at your working space for the time you have allocated.
If you have a whole study or office as working space, close the door after you have finished and open it again at the beginning of your writing period. This way you know that you can shut down and have time to do things with your family without feeling guilty, because you have already done your writing for the day.
Be jealous about your writing hours. Allow no disturbances, other than real Don’t make unnecessary appointments for those hours and say no to appointments that can be made for another time.
These tips may seem like common sense and they actually are, but we certainly tend to lose our common sense when we get distracted. Keeping to a regular routine and staying disciplined helps to divide between your living and working spaces and may help you to get into the right mind for doing more productive work.
Keep a writing log
I’ve started doing this years ago, stopped and started again. I make a simple monthly spreadsheet and write down what writing related work I do every day, including reading. (I also keep a separate yearly reading list.) My columns include, Writing, Editing, Reading, Blogs and Other (like time spent updating my Facebook Writing Club page or journal writing). I blot out days that we travel and on which it isn’t possible to write, although some travels can offer wonderful writing time.
Keeping a writing log shows you how many hours per day you effectively spend on your writing projects and it serves as a motivational tool to better your productivity from month to month. It also helps with planning your writing schedule, because you can see how much time you need to spend on certain projects.
Take Stock Every Week, Month and Year
At the end of every week, month and year, evaluate your writing effort. Check your ‘To Do’ list and see what you have achieved. Go through your monthly writing logs and see where you can improve your productivity. Make changes and stay focussed – one task at a time.
Keep a Personal Journal
If you don’t keep a journal I have a question for you: Why on earth not?! Apart from being a therapeutic tool to write down your emotions, problems goals, dreams and feelings, your journal can be a treasure chest of ideas. Many of my journal entries have become blog entries. It also serves as a reminder of the dreams and goals you have and is a place to blow off some steam – as you are the only one who reads it.
You don’t have to write in your journal every day or even every week. Write when you want to, but keep writing, even if there are two-month gaps.
On days that you really can’t get other writing done (for whatever reason) – just journal. At least it will help you to stay in routine and not get rusty. I write in both languages I speak, depending on the reason, subject or mood I am in.
Lou had just lost her job in a little restaurant, which she loved, and apply to become caretaker to a Will, an adventurer, who became a quadriplegic and had lost all interest in life after an accident which led to him living in an apartment at his unhappily married parents’ house. The movie of the book started showing in July 2016.
What I thought about it
It is a fairly good read, especially because it is a yet unexplored theme in fiction. Jojo Moyes writing is not recipe-like and filled with British wit, in spite of handling a difficult subject. (This reminds me a little bit of Cecelia Ahern’s style if you are, like me, a fan of her writing.)
After finishing the book I felt cheated though, because while Lou’s struggle with the enormity of Will’s decision was addressed, his moral/spiritual deeper struggle was not explored at all, therefore I found the book spiritually poor (as in the opposite of rich). Even people with no religious believes at all must have at least a few conflicting emotions and/or doubts with regard to such an important life decision as the one that Will had made.
Although the whole story was told from Lou’s point of view, the writer took the risk and trouble to switch from hers’ to giving the other characters at least a chapter each – a writing style that can cause chaos and would have worked better, had Will gotten his’ turn too. Yet the writer chose to ‘ignore’ his real thoughts and feelings in an almost robot-like manner. I found it more than a bit odd. If she tried to make a point through not doing it, I didn’t get it.
I still recommend the book because not much had been written about the subject in chick lit or any other fiction so far, but I think the writer really missed a great opportunity to give the reader insight into the immense struggle between life and death that must have been going on in Will’s mind. I will still watch the movie if I get the opportunity and I look forward to read ‘After You’ to see what happened to all the characters after this phase in their fictional lives. Lou is a likable character and it will be interesting to see what Moyes decided to do with her.
My rating of this book is a 4/5 because I like the humour and writing style.
Me Before You is available in most book shops as well as on the Internet as an ebook.
Life is speeding so fast that it can overtake us very easily, leaving us clinging onto whatever we can to survive. And when we are in survival mode, we tend to focus on just that – survival. Sometimes we need to get off the runaway train, stay on the ground and just enjoy the moments of experiences added together that is called ‘life’. So many of us live for our “one day” – that day or days near or farther in the future when all our dreams will be realised into the utopian existences we spend all our free time imagining.
But sometimes we need real life to give us a slap through the face or shower us with the proverbial bucket of ice water to slow us down from our busyness or even to bring us to a halt in order for us to stop and be alive within the actual moment we find ourselves in.
It can happen through the shock of sudden death, the scare of illness, being faced with dangerous situations or just recuperating from something less serious – but as disruptive.
Shock or trauma or failure can sometimes be good for us. It can help us clean our systems, re-organise our priorities and re-evaluate the impossible goals we set for ourselves into obtainable ones and making us pause for a while. Very few things in life can be so good to us than coming to a complete standstill. And I really mean to stop doing what you’re doing and to live in the moment, with no looking forward to the tomorrow that may never be born.e always dreamt of living abroad for a period of time. Due to circumstances that dream got lost for a while, but after some time it found its way back into becoming a possibility and our lives were frozen in their tracks. Everything we did or didn’t do, planned or didn’t plan and decided had to be weighed first against the probability of going away for a few years. It changes one’s whole focus, lookout and pretty much everything you do.
We only heard six months later that we were going to live abroad. In Egypt. I cried for a day and then my previous positive-self reappeared and I made a pro’s and con’s list and, surprise-surprise, the pro’s list convinced me – not that it was the longest! (How is it that when your prayers are being answered and you get what you ask for that you get confused?) But the crying subsided and the excitement and frightfulness kicked in. We had a lot to do – easier stuff and more difficult stuff. All the easier stuff had to do with the ‘whats’ in our lives. The more difficult ones had to do with the ‘whos’. My mother lived with us for 17 years and she had to be relocated. And we had to find houses for our four dogs. It wasn’t easy.
Fast forward…
…to living in Cairo, Egypt, for two years.
It takes time to settle into a new environment. And it took me one year an nine months to get so used to the new place to fall into a little bit of a rut – in spite of (or maybe because of) busyness.
Precisely one year and nine months after arriving here, I fell into a not-so-slightly ‘down’. (Don’t worry – it was caused by stupid pains, and although they remained, the depression flew out of the window after a few doctor’s visits. ((And I realised that my ‘depressions’ are always health related.)) And it is a fact that everything seems worse if you are far away from ‘home.’)
Now that the background history is told, I will get to the point. Since that day, three years and three months ago when we first heard that we may be moving, I have learnt to live in the moment. Because of the uncertainty of our situation, we stopped buying unnecessary things, didn’t make decisions with long-term consequences and just started taking every day as it came.
Due to the fact that we came to live in a country where the security situation can be volatile, our circumstances can change at any time and our stay can end unplanned and abruptly. So, I decided to keep living here the way we lived back home for those uncertain fifteen months before we left – in the moment. And I already decided to keep doing that when we get back home one day. But, as I am writing this – even that isn’t a certainty, because that is a tomorrow that is still to come. I pray though that it will happen for us all.
But back again (!) to the reason for this writing. During all these experiences the last few years, I have learnt to enjoy the ‘little’ things in life. Don’t get me wrong. With our current, temporary lifestyle come lots of privileges, which we enjoy and appreciate enormously! I mean, without this experience, my dream to see at least something of Europe would probably always have stayed only in the dream phase. We have cruised the Nile and we are scheduled to go again soon. We have snorkelled in the Red Sea (and fell in love with it)! On a French mountain I have played in the snow for the first time in my life! I attended my first (second, third and shortly my fourth) ball! I have stood in a chamber of Tutankamun in The Valley of the Kings outside Luxor containing the petite mummy of king Tut. Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera. These are memories I will cherish for as long as my mind allow me.
But as it is in life – privileges don’t come free or cheap. And in between these very wonderful experiences are those that don’t reach Facebook status. And they take up way more time than those very wonderful ones. They are the ones that can make or break us. The in-between times when the heat, dust, cultural differences, strange religion, terrible traffic, the thin, sick, hungry street dogs, the stray cats, the tummy bugs, the illiteracy (mine!), the overwhelming crowdedness, the ‘ununderstandable’ customs, the poverty, the dirtiness, the interestingness, the bland food, the overripe tomatoes and all the things you miss from home, make you wonder how on earth did you make it so far and how on earth will you make the rest of the time?
I remember back home when we had some challenges, we would go for a walk in the afternoons and with my hand in my husband’s and with our son and our dogs tagging along, I felt like the richest person alive! And this, I personally believe, is where the secret of happiness lies: to find blessings and joy and thankfulness in even the littlest things in mundane life.
I have listed just a few of these things that make me happy. Some of them are not so little at all.
Reading Bible and praying whenever I want to, because the Living God of the Bible is always everywhere.
Mild weather.
Walking to the shops.
Walking to the shops on my own legs.
Walking to the shops on my own legs in mild weather.
Having good Egyptian people in our lives.
Eating the last piece of biltong someone thoughtfully brought when visiting.
Sitting (in the still mild weather) in our garden, listening to the birds chirping without the competition of the air conditioner sounds (because the weather is still mild and the aircons are still off).
Aircons in summer!!!
Drinking rooibos tea with my husband and son on a Saturday morning outside in the garden (when the weather is mild) or in the TV room or swimming pool (in summer, when the weather is not so mild).
Sleeping through the night without fear of violent house-breaks.
Waking up in the morning. (What a privilege!)
Having an Afrikaans (my native language) speaking buurvrou (neighbour) in the building across ours!
Having even more friends from home nearby and being able to lunch with some of them every week!
Feeding at least two of the many hungry cats in this huge city.
Watching ‘our’ two cats doing all their cat-things in our garden on top of the parking garage.
Taking pictures. Lots and lots and lots of them.
Being thankful for every ‘big’ or ‘little’ thing that works out.
Being safe after there had been uncertainties.
Aircons droning out the muezzin calls.
Power coming back on after cuts. (These days they aren’t as frequent and as long as in during the first year. Something to be thankful for – especially in summer!)
Experiencing everything with my husband and son!
Kissing my husband good night.
Kissing my son good night. (That’s probably not something he would like people to read on the Internet ((but he likes it – I can tell)).)
Seeing my husband happy because he can watch South African rugby and cricket matches on the satellite TV channels.
Paging through the teabags at my Japanese friend’s dinner to find a rooibos tea bag!
Having lots of friends from around the world to hang out with, visit new places with and to learn from.
Being able to buy the medicine I need and don’t get from home.
Being healthy (I hope).
Coming home to a haven of safety and tranquility.
Having a good landlady.
…the list can go on…
These are just a few things and when writing them down, I realise that they are not so little. They are pretty big and important. They are the glue that holds life together. To be in awe when seeing the Eiffel Tower for the first time or feeling small against the largest of the Giza pyramids is splendid, but one can survive life without it. Of course travelling enriches our lives and I am a big supporter thereof (even if it is just exploring outside of you immediate comfort zone) and I wouldn’t have wanted to miss out on these experiences! But it really is the ‘small’ things that we can’t live without, which makes the mundane extraordinary – which is the difference between letting life get away from you and living in the moment. It is the ‘small’ things in life which brings sustainable happiness.
I am sometimes, actually all the time, a bit flabbergasted by the fact that people, well-known or not, live an extraordinary life – for the good or the bad – and then one day, as if they were mere mortals from the onset, are no more.
I’m busy reading John Baxter’s book, The Most Beautiful Walk in the World. It’s a collection of stories, anecdotes, quotes and by-the-way facts about the streets, corners, buildings, passages, cafes, gardens, restaurants, fashions and people of Paris – from the past to the now. By the way he frequently quote and referred to Ernest Hemingway, one can’t help to think that he must be at least a little bit obsessed with the larger than life (in more than one way) American writer.
I read a book the way I take a walk on the beach or go about my daily chores. I start out with a goal to go somewhere but stop to take a picture of a see-through crab or a washed up piece of wood or I want to clean the toilet, but instead open the cupboard and see paint waiting to change something’s colour.
Although I am not diagnosed with some attention deficit disorder that comes with a long abbreviation, I get distracted easily. It’s not that the books I read are boring (I take care not to waste time reading what I really, really dislike), but because the writer triggers my curious bone, which leads me to visit my good know-it-all friend, Google, to make sure that what I read is true or to learn more than the author was willing or allowed to mention. Maybe it’s because I love knowing as much as I can or maybe it is because I question e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g or maybe it’s just because I’m a naturally curious female person. Whatever the reason, my Google friend is always more than willing to help and a visit there is never a short, focussed or a goal driven one. I turn off at every interesting link, follow even the faintest paths from there and end up at a totally different place than I intended to. But that’s a point for another day’s ramblings.
Today I visited Google to read up again on Hemingway’s life. And what a life it was! It was busy, full of intrigue, drama, trauma, tragedy, excitement, love, strife, journeying, disappointments, successes and conflict. Relationships were formed and broken often. Some mended after time – others never.
Ernest not only survived World War II, but also a few other wars as a journalist as well as car crashes, two airplane accidents, and life threatening illnesses. It is so sadly ironic that in spite of cheating all these potential killers, in the end he took his own life.
John Baxter lives and walks where Hemingway and Sylvia Beach of the original Shakespeare and Company bookshops, Gertrude Stein, Salvador Dali and Scot and Zelda Fitzgerald lived and ate and created and partied.
When we visited Paris and London and Jerusalem and Amsterdam and walking the streets of Cairo and braving a sand storm at El Alamein in the Egyptian desert, I can’t help to be in awe to think that in a strange way my life somehow ‘connects’ with those people’s lives who lived decades and centuries and millenniums ago. I remembered looking at the Eiffel tower in total amazement knowing that Ernest did too. And so did a lot of other famous and less famous persons from the past and present.
I looked at the centuries old buildings in London and I realised I walk where Shakespeare dreamt up his plays, where Dickens wrote his prose and Churchill maybe had sleepless nights over the nightmare that was the Second World War.
In Anne Frank’s hiding place in Amsterdam, I read a young girl’s letters and I could identify with her passion and her dream to become a writer. Anne’s dreams died young, but her spirit lives on, still touching the hearts of people like me when I walk where she walked and try to imagine what it was really like to live indoors and quiet for months to be safe from people who want to kill you just because of the race you were born into.
In the Valley of the Kings the mummified remains of young king Tut is displayed for whoever is brave enough to take on the desert heat. How is it possible that he and I can be in the same room with thousands of years stretching between our births?
My eyes gazed over the hills surrounding Jerusalem and I know that just over two thousand years ago, Yeshua (Jesus’ name in Hebrew) entered the city triumphantly on a donkey as it had been prophesied hundreds of years before and cried over the sins of His people.
When my brother died too young I felt so many conflicting emotions. The feelings of sadness and heartbreak were normal, but for a while I questioned the reason for his existence. Why was he born if he was going to die ‘before his time?’, I argued with God. But of course it wasn’t true. He lived a full life, even though it was shortened. And through him God created more life. Life that still goes on and will go on. Just two months ago our family welcomed his second granddaughter into this world. Somehow he will remain here with us, because his DNA lives in those who came from him and his memory lives in us who loved him.
The memory of all those who lived before us are still alive. Their deeds and the legacy they left are still with us – good or bad. People today still have scars caused by Hitler, Stalin, Hussein and the likes. But others were healed because of a Mother Theresa and the Florence Nightingale who chose life instead of hate and death. Einstein, Bell, Edison and Pasteur and many more from the past slaved away so that the future would be easier, safer and healthier for us. And we still listen to the genius collections of notes composed by the Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi and Beethoven.
Thanks to the many, many graves at El Alamein and other graveyards all over the world, our world didn’t tumble down because of the doings of power hungry dictators. Their bodies are decomposed under the hard, dry, desert soil or in the unharbouring (yes, I like making up words) waters of the world’s oceans, but their sacrifices and legacies outlived them. Some had famous names like Roosevelt, Montgomery, Smuts and Mountbatten, but some were just simple men – sons, brothers and fathers, like my great uncle, Kosie Coetzer.
People live different lives, but we all leave something behind when we ‘leave’. Big or small. Good or bad. Pure or evil. Our lives are entwined with one another. The past is still with us and will always be. We are the future’s past. I wonder what we will leave behind for those coming after us. What will I leave? I hope it will be something worthwhile.
Maybe you sit there at work today, wishing that you were rather writing that big dream novel of yours. Or maybe you are privileged enough to be busy writing that great novel, but are stuck a little bit and need a challenge to kick-start you back into literary action. Or maybe you have a bad attack of writer’s block and don’t know what to do to untangle your imagination. If you fall into one of these categories, then consider doing something else to get you mind off things or to rekindle your creativity. One thing you can do is to enter a writing competition.
There are pros and cons to writing competitions, but the pros outweigh the cons by quite a margin. A writer – either one just starting out or a seasoned one – can learn a lot by regularly entering competitions.
Here are a few of the pros:
Participating in competitions helps you keep to deadlines. If you don’t keep to the deadline, you have no chance of reaping any awards.
It gives you desperately needed writing practice.
You have to keep repeating the writing process – write, edit, rewrite, edit, rewrite, edit, rewrite, edit, rewrite, edit, rewrite… And then be able to let go.
It hones your writing skills.
It teaches concise writing, because words are normally limited.
If you are bilingual or write in even more languages, it is a great way to keep your writing skills up by entering competitions in all the different languages you are able to write in.
You build your writing portfolio.
If you win a prize, you gain credibility and prestige. Mmm, bragging rights…
If it is a paid entry, you earn money if you win!
You practice to keep writing, even if you don’t win.
And, hey, the best pro of all is that you don’t get rejection letters from competition organisers!
The cons:
Well-known writing competitions have entry fees. (Someone must get paid to read it all.) If you want to enter an international competition and your currency is as weak against the U.S. Dollar, the Euro and the British Pound, like mine is, you will be limited in your choices, because frankly, it will be just too expensive to enter every competition you want to.
You can get discouraged if you never win. Just get over it and try again.
You can get so absorbed that you spend all your time entering competitions and never have time to write your novel anymore. I know, because I can spend a month editing 2500 words. Keep your original writing goal/s in mind, do the math and decide when a pro is turning into a con.
I haven’t won a competition before, but I had a few pieces published as runners up. Currently my entry is in for a story in my native language, and we happen to be going home when the winners are announced. We plan to pass through Bloemfontein on route to the Cape the weekend when the winner will be attending a writer’s workshop presented by Deon Meyer. Coincidence? We’ll have to see. J
Take that first step today and do something to pursue your writing dream or to get you out of a writer’s slump. Enter a writing competition. For your convenience, I have listed a few links to pages where competitions are advertised. I included competitions for the Afrikaans writing scribblers out there too. There are more and more Afrikaans competitions available. Watch out for them.
Gewoonlik kom families bymekaar om troue of begrafnis te hou en net soms in hierdie gelooflose samelewing nog as iemand (klein of groot) gedoop word. By begrafnisse huil almal saam oor die verbygaande aard van ons almal se bestaan en ook oor die familielid in die kis wat eers weer in die lewe hierna te siene sal wees. Dan, daarna kuier hulle ‘n hond uit ‘n bos uit, sodat hulle nie eens die tannies van die sustersvereniging raaksien as hulle die stukkies verlepte blaarslaai wat uit die broodborde op die grond geval het, optel nie.
Troues is darem gewoonlik meer heuglik, want almal ‘oe’ en ‘aa’ oor die pragtige jong bruid en netjies gemanikuurde bruidegom in hulle ontwerpersklere – hoewel trou deesdae so duur geword het, dat net die mees bevoorregte familielede dit tot by die bruilof maak. Kinders is nie meer by onthale welkom nie en soos wat die jong geslag trou, word pa en ma se ooms en tannies ook nie meer genooi nie, waarvoor dié geslag nie juis kwalik geneem kan word nie, want families ken mekaar nie meer verder as pa en ma se broers en susters en kinders nie. Om verskeie redes natuurlik. Ons geslag het mos weer ‘n groot trek begin. Families raak oor die aardbol vesprei – van Kanada tot Australië, Irak tot die Verenigde Emirate en hier plaaslik enige plek van Pietersburg/Polokwane, tot in die Kaap. Dis nou uitgesluit die spul wat te kwaad of te skaam is vir mekaar (soos dit maar in die meeste normale families gaan).
Maar daar is ander tye vir families en vriende om andersins ook bymekaar te kom, hoewel ek nog nie by baie van hulle was nie. Ons familie het een jaar ‘n paar siekbeddens beleef. My tannie en niggie is deur kanker skrikgemaak, maar is albei na chemoterapie en bestraling ‘skoon’ verklaar. Ekself het my tweede hartoperasie gehad. En al het die operasie baie vinnig gekom en gegaan, het ek en my klein gesinnetjie van drie maar weer deur al die doodgaan-emosies en fases waardeur hartpasiënte maar gaan, gewroeg. Voor ek in is, het een aand vir my man en naby vriende gesê dat ek ‘n fees wil hou as ek oorleef om saam met hom en ons seun en die lewe te celebrate.
En ons het. Een aand, vier maande na die operasie, het ons gesin en vyf van ons vriende en hulle kinders, tydens ‘n toer in Israel, almal wit klere aangetrek en langs die Rooi See in Eilat, die lewe gevier – met een klein botteltjie J.C. le Roux, wat ons vir ons huweliksherdenking die vorige maand by ‘n restaurant persent gekry het. Dit was ‘n beskeie geleentheid, maar het ‘n groot indruk op my gemoed gemaak en daar gelos.
‘n Paar maande later was ons by wat my tannie se 75ste verjaardagpartytjie moes gewees het, maar my oom het die geleentheid eerder gebruik om my tannie se gesondheid te vier. En dit het my ook bygebly, want oupa Koos het ouma Mienie se lewe gevier asof hulle twintig is en asof die lewe voor hulle lê. Dié twee is intussen al mooi oor die tagtig.
Miskien moet ons minder ernstig wees en net so ‘n bietjie minder oor werk en geld en veiligheid worry en die familievetes vergeet en die mense wat ons liefhet die tyd en erkenning gee wat hulle verdien. En nie wag totdat die dood een van ons in die gesig staar voordat ons mekaar se lewens vier nie. Miskien moet ons net soms vir sommer geen rede nie, ‘n fees reël om saam die lewe te celebrate.
Sê sy wat in die middel van die wêreld weg van familie en vriende sit…
VRYWARING: The Writing Club/Die Skryfklub het geen amptelike verbintenis met die ATKV, óf tree as spreekbuis vir hulle op, óf doen reklame namens die organisasie nie. Die rede hoekom soveel van hulle hulpbronne in hierdie les genoem word, is omdat hulle aktief die Afrikaanse taal bevorder (wat Die Skryfklub ook ondersteun en nastreef) en hulle nou met skole saamwerk in hierdie verband.
Dit grief my dat Graad 1-leerders ‘n toespraak gereed moet hê twee weke nadat hulle vir die eerste keer skool toe is. Hulle kan nog nie eens self lees of skryf nie! So, wie doen hulle werk? Jy, natuurlik!
Ek sal nie dieper in my opinie van die skoolsisteem ingaan nie, maar tot die punt kom en jou ‘n paar idees gee om jou te help om jou kinders se toesprake te skryf. Sodoende, wil ek jou help om so min as moontlik onnodige tyd daaraan te spandeer, maar belangrikste van alles is dat ek jou wil help om jou kinders te leer om hulle eie toesprake te kan navors en skryf (sodra hulle kan lees en skryf… #sarkasties)
Dit blyk asof staats- en redenaarskole in Suid-Afrika meestal die ATKV-riglyne vir redenaars volg. Vir die jaar se temas, hoe lank die toesprake moet wees en ander hulpbronne, besoek hulle webwerf by https://www.atkv.org.za/af/taal/redenaars/atkv-redenaars-temas-2016.
Soos uit bestaande voorbeelde van toesprake blyk, is daar ‘n duidelike en eenvoudige struktuur wat gevolg kan word om ‘n praatjie te skryf. Die inhoud, tema en lengte hang van die ouderdomsgroepe af.
Hierdie skrywe is geensins daarop gemik om ‘n in-diepte studie of les oor toespraakskryf te wees nie, maar bloot ‘n hulpmiddel om besige ma’s te help.
Jy is dus baie welkom om hierdie wenke gratis, vry en verniet met jou vriendinne te deel. Moet asseblief net nie jou eie besigheid daarmee begin en dit verkoop nie. 🙂
Stuktuur van ‘n toespraak
Die basiese struktuur van ‘n redenaarstoespraak bestaan uit:
Die ‘kop’ van die toespraak
‘n Aanhef
Hierdie is basies net die ‘groet’ van die voorsitter (wat deesdae net in die manlike aanspreekvorm) is.
Inleidende paragraaf
In hierdie paragraaf word die tema aangespreek, sodat die voorsitter, gehoor, beoordelaars weet wat beredeneer gaan word.
‘Groet van die gehoor’
Voordat die beredenering begin, erken die spreker eers die gehoor se teenwoordigheid (“Dames en here” of “Seuns en dogters” of (“Dames en here, seuns en dogters” )
Die ‘lyf’ van die toespraak
Inhoud
Hierna volg drie of meer paragrawe na gelang van tema, tyd en ouderdomsgroep, waarin die tema beredeneer word. Elke paragraaf moet die volgende bevat:
‘n Standpunt of opinie oor die onderwerp, met ander woorde, jou (die kind s’n) mening oor die onderwerp. Jy sal eers hiermee moet help. (Lees meer onder Wenke.)
Elke punt wat gemaak word, moet met ‘n rede daarvoor of daarteen ondersteun word.
Ter stawing hiervan moet ‘n aanhaling (persoon, boek, gesegde ens.) en/of ‘n feit (met detail van herkoms – bron, datum, omstandighede ens) ter ondersteuning aangebied word.
Die ‘bene’ van die toespraak
Afsluitingsparagaaf
Die een been bestaan uit die afsluitingsparagraaf. Hierin kom al die beredenering tot ‘n punt. Los drade word saamgevat. Die finale argument word versterk, maar geen nuwe feite word hier genoem nie. Die afsluiting moet weereens ondersteun word deur ‘n aanghaling of gesegde deur ‘n bekende/beroemde persoon.
Die ander been is die ‘dankie’-groet. Hier bedank die spreker die voorsitter en gehoor vir hulle aandag. ‘n Eenvoudige, ”Ek dank u, voorsitter”, of iets minder formeels, soos “Baie dankie vir u aandag, voorsitter, dames en here/seuns en dogters” sal doen. Party skole/klasse/groepe kan voorgesê word hoe om te eindig. Nota: Maak seker jou kind vra haar/sy onderwyser.
Hier is ‘n opsomming van die struktuur om naby te hou of dalk op jou kennisgewingbord te sit.
Hier is ook ‘n prentjie om die struktuur vir die kleiner kind te verduidelik, sodat sy beter kan verstaan en haar later te help om haar toesprake self te skryf.
Wenke
Wanneer jy die toespraak skryf, laat jou kind bysit. Laat hy jou help om die onderwerp te kies.
Wanneer daar op ‘n onderwerp besluit is, vra die kind om te probeer om sy menings oor die onderwerp te gee. Bv. Tema: Moet ons skoolklere dra?
Laat jou kind eerstens sê of hy daarvoor of daarteen
Laat hom om dan drie redes te gee vir sy standpunt.
Help hom dan soek na aanhalings, gesegdes en/of feite om sy standpunt te ondersteun.
(Hierdie is ‘n goeie oefening om deurentyd met jou kinders te doen. Betrek hulle by besluitnemings in die huishouding. Beredeneer dit om die etenstafel. Onthou die reël: vir elke mening MOET daar ‘n rede gegee word. Draai die situasie soms om en laat hulle die teenoorgestelde van hulle mening verdedig. Dit oefen hulle ‘dinkspiere’ en leer hulle ook om empatie met ander se standpunte/omstandighede te hê.)
Daar word van die kinders verwag om hulle toesprake uit hulle koppe te ken (asof die graadeentjies ‘n keuse het…).
Ek het gevind dat die maklikste manier om jou kind daarmee te help, is om die toespraak in jou (mamma) se stem op jou foon op te neem.
Oefen die toespraak ‘n paar keer vir jouself en voeg die verandering in stemtoon, nuanses, beklemtoning in, sodat dit kind dit kan hoor en so memoriseer. Onthou, die kind memoriseer presies soos hy/sy hoor.
(Die ‘voordra’ van hierdie toespraak is presies dit – voordrag, so dis baie vol drama en handgebare en nuanses. Laat jou kind die toespraak stukkie vir stukkie memoriseer en soveel as moontlik vir jou voordra. Jy kan hiermee help tot die beste van jou vermoë. As jou kind deurgaan na ‘n volgende rondte in die skool, sal die onderwysers verder help afrig.)
Skryf in eenvoudige, onopgesmukte taal, sodat dit gepas is vir die kind se ouderdomsgroep. Lees die toespraak ‘n paar keer oor en verbeter wat jy kan. Sny onnodige woorde uit en maak seker dat jy genoeg beredenering in het, asook aanhalings en/of feite by elke rede.
‘Breek’ die toespraak in baie kort lyne op (sien my voorbeelde), druk en knip dit uit en plak dit op kaartjies. Plak net drie lyne per kaartjie op, sodat die kind nie hoef te sukkel om te sien waar sy is nie. Nommer die kaartjies, sodat jou kind dit maklik self in volgorde kan plaas. Jy kan selfs die lyne per kaartjie nommer as jy dink dit sal help. Help haar dan om die toespraak te hou met behulp van die kaartjies. (Elke keer as ‘n kaartjie se inhoud klaar voorgedra is, plaas sy dit onderaan al die ander.)
Doen jou kinders die guns wanneer jy hulle beperk/verbied om sekere dinge te doen of wanneer jy sekere reëls instel deur aan hulle te verduidelik hoekom jy dit doen. Gee hulle een of twee of meer goeie redes en moenie jouself skuldig maak aan ons Afrikaners se “omdat ék so sê”-sindroom nie. Dit suig.
Kinders so klein as twee/drie kan verstaan dat hy een dag winkel toe kan gaan om ‘n swietie of ‘n speelding te koop en ‘n ander dag net mag rondkyk. Ek het dit getoets. As kinders gevolge kan verstaan, kan hulle jou reëls insien. Dit help hulle om nie so maklik rebels te wees nie en om vir hulleself te dink. Ons het denkende jongmense in ons land nodig. Voed asseblief vir ons ‘n paar op!
O, jinne, laat ek ophou voor ek preek.
Nog oefeninge om jou kind te help
Speel speletjies wanneer julle in die kar oppad is of in ‘n wagkamer moet wag.
Vra jou kind om die omgewing of ‘n voorwerp vir jou te beskryf. (Hoe dit lyk, wat jy daarmee doen, ens.)
‘Dwing’ jou kind om buite te speel, waar hy sy verbeelding moet gebruik.
Verbied digitale speletjies (rekenaar, foon, PS, Xbox ens) as die volgende dag ‘n skooldag is en beloon hulle met langer tye van ‘n uur en ‘n half op ‘n slag of so, tydens naweke en vakansies.
Maak ‘dinktyd’. Geen mens kan opinies hê sonder dat hy voorkeure of afkeure het nie. Ek ontmoet baie kinders wat nie weet waarvan hulle hou en waarvan nie. Ja, regtig. Ons kan nie opinies vorm as ons nie onsself ken of weet wat in die wêreld om ons aangaan nie. Die enigste manier om jouself te leer ken, is om gereeld tyd te neem om net te dink.
Maak dagdroomtyd. Met my skryfklubs doen ek ‘n les oor dagdroom. Daar het nog na elke werkwinkel ten minste een kind die volgende week teruggekom en gesê: “Ek weet nie hoe om te dagdroom nie.” Dis hartseer, want dis ‘n kind se enigste rêrige werk. In plaas daarvan om vir jou klein kindertjies ‘n fliek aan te sit om hulle besig te hou, laat hulle eerder hulle eie ‘opmaak’-stories speel. Hulle is baie goed daarmee, maar kinders word deesdae so geentertain, dat hulle nie meer hulle eie verbeelding het en hulleself kan entertain ‘n Goeie manier om kreatiwiteit aan te moedig is om een sinnetjie uit julle gesin se woordeskat te verban. Dit is: “Ek is verveeld..!” Daardie sinnetjie moet net op een manier beantwoord word: “’n Kind mag nie verveeld wees nie. Dink iets uit om te doen.” Hou vol daarmee. Dis ‘n gewoonte wat vinnig afgeleer word as ouers die moeite doen. En dan is dit natuurlik altyd goed om deur voorbeeld te lei…
Kinders en grootmense het ‘aftye’ nodig sodat ons breine kan rus en energie hernu. Maak tyd ten minste eenkeer per week vir die hele familie om niks te doen nie. Al is dit net vir twee ure. Verban selfone, TV en ander elektroniese goed en lê net leeg!
So, mamma, oor ‘n maand is dit tyd vir jou kinders se Engelse toesprake. Jy is nou toegerus om dit self te skryf. Pas net dieselfde beginsels toe. Byt vas, een van die dae leer jy hulle om dit self te doen!
Daar is ook baie Engelse webwerwe wat uitstekende hulp bied, maar dit verskil van hoe Afrikaanse skole dit doen. Persoonlik verkies ek eersgenoemde meer, want kinders word meer aangemoedig om hulle eie werk te doen, interessante onderwerpe te kies en meer vir hulleself te dink.
As jou kind een van daai oulike, bekkige, dramatiese outjies is en as ‘n kampioenredenaar ontluik, gaan jy baaaaaie toesprake in 12 jaar nodig hê. Leer hulle so gou as moontlik om hulle eie ding doen, maar help altyd met die taal, redenasies ens. en as jy vasbrand, is daar hulp op die volgende plekke.
Voorbeelde van toesprake (Hierdie toesprake is spesiaal vir twee kinders geskryf, so moet dit asseblief nie gebruik nie.)
Voorbeeld 1 Met grysheid kom die wysheid
Voorsitter,
Daar is ‘n spreekwoord wat sê dat grysheid wysheid bring. Is dit so? Dit is soms so. Maar ook soms nié.
Dames en here / Seuns en meisies,
Eerstens is daar ‘n verskil tussen slim en wys. Slim is as ‘n mens baie leer. Jy kan nog baie jonk en baie slim wees. Soos Bill Gates van Microsoft wat dit regkry om die hele wêreld op rekenaars te laat werk. Hy is baie slim, maar ook wys, want hy sê kinders moet baie lees. Ek weet nie of hy dit gesê het toe hy al grys was nie.
Die wetenskaplike, Albert Einstein, was baie slim én baie wys. Hy het moeilike probleme opgelos en ontdek hoe dinge werk. Hy het ook gesê dat verbeelding belangriker as kennis is. Al was hy grys, dink ek nie hy was dan ooit ‘n grootmens nie, want grootmense sê soms anders.
(En), voorsitter, Dan is daar my ouma, Antjie. Sy is grys én slim én wys. Sy is so wys, sy is sommer een van ‘n tweeling. Ouma Antjie kan koek bak en stories vertel en grappies maak en einas regdokter en baie mooi prente verf.
Dames en here / Seuns en meisies,
Daar is altyd uitsonderings. Jesus was die wysste van almal en Hy het hemel toe gegaan vóórdat Hy grys was. En soms as kinders iets ouliks sê, dan sê die oumas:
“Is sy nie te grys nie?!”
So, ek is nie heeltemal seker dat alle wysheid met grysheid kom nie. Maar één ding weet ek! Dit rym!
Baie dankie, voorsitter
Voorbeeld 2 Een vrot appel steek al die ander aan
Voorsitter,
Kan één ou klein appeltjie nou regtig ‘n hele boks vol appels vrot maak? Volgens die Bybel en baie slim mense, kan dit!
Dames en here, Appels en Pere / Seuns en meisies,
Op die webblad – todayifoundout.com – skryf Daven Hiskey dat ‘n slegte appel gewoonlik ‘n siekte het of dat dit oorryp is. Daardie één appel kan regtig al die ander appels om hom aansteek en vrot maak! Hy weet, want hy is ‘n baie slim man wat met met appels werk.
(Maar), voorsitter, Dié idioom praat nie rêrig van appels nie. Dit gaan eintlik oor slegte mense wat goeie mense leer om slegte dinge te doen. In 1 Korinthiërs 15 vers 33 in die Bybel staan: Slegte geselskap bederf goeie sedes. Die Bybel sal weet. Dis die slimste boek op aarde.
‘n Anonieme aanhaling sê dat ‘n mens se gesin jou eerste vriende is. Ons familie is die mense wat ons die liefste het. Hulle sal ons nie leer om slegte dinge te doen nie. So, as ons eerste vriende ons familielede is, sal ons nie vrot appels word nie!
Dames en here / Seuns en meisies,
Meneer George Washington was ‘n Amerikaanse president en nóg ‘n slim man. Hy het gesê dat dit beter is om alleen te wees as om slegte vriende te hê. Maar ek sê, kies van jongs af goeie vriende en jy hoef nooit alleen pret te hê nie! Is ek nie ook slim nie?
Fielies (Riëtte) De Kock 