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.
So many ‘happy’ quotes – some about real joy and some about fake ‘happiness’? Think before you quote. Test before you believe.
It is absolutely okay to be happy. I know a lot of happy people. I am happy. Not all-the-time- screaming-from-the-rooftop-happy, but happy within myself and especially happy within our little family unit. When things didn’t go so well in life, I found myself still feeling happy most of the time, because I have Someone to believe in and people around who loved me, and therefore I always had/have hope. And when it is going really well, I still have ‘down’ days. But overall – in my heart – I know I am ‘happy’. I think that is pretty average for most people.
Dictionary.com describes happiness as the quality or state of being happy, good fortune, pleasure, contentment, joy. And the opposite it states, is misery. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/happiness?s=t)
Preaching the ‘Gospel’ of Happiness
Social media pages are filled with quotes on everything under the sun, but the one theme that probably frequents more than others, is ‘happiness’. Happiness – it seems – is more sought after than most other wants or needs.
There is nothing wrong with being happy or wanting to be happy. I think that happiness is a very basic want and something all (I hope) people want to be – for the right reasons. But sometimes I read quotes coming along and I wonder about the driving force behind it. The quotes about success and ambition and happiness are by far the ones making me think more than the ones on love, caring etc. do.
I sometimes read a quote and I can’t help to think that modern man had become its own little god. Some of these quotes are all about ‘me’. “Think positive thoughts and get what you want from life”, “Do what makes you happy”, “Avoid people who makes you unhappy”, “Nice won’t get you anywhere”.
And then there are the advertisements. Being rich, being thin, buying the newest phone, tablet or TV, clothes, toys for your children, going on this or that new diet, taking this or that newly developed supplement etc. etc. etc. will make you… you guessed it – happy!
This way of searching for selfish happiness is all about me, me, me and feeds the little god modern-us created within ourselves.
With all the ‘happiness’ that is preached to us via the happiness ‘evangelists’s’ quotes and ads and movies, I am really surprised that the world is in such a state of unruliness, chaos, poverty, violence and… UNhappiness.
‘Case Study’#1
I know a person who is unhappy all the time. I know her for a very long time and this had always been the case. No one she is with or had been with or anything one can do for her could cause her to be in a constant state of happiness or contentment. (Or maybe she is happy, but has an unhappy way of showing it. One must always be optimistic!) Of course she had tragedy in her life, but she also had love and privileges and favour. I think about her well-being – or absence there-of – a lot and wonder if she would ever find something to make her happy. I wonder if she will ever find joy within herself. Sadly, only if some miracle happens very soon, I don’t think she will ever become so happy that she would influence other people’s lives only positively. A few years back I had a conversation with some people close to her and for the first time I really realised how many people get influenced on person’s actions and behaviour – positively or negatively. Although I always suspected that she had quite a damaging influence on their lives, I never thought it to be that destructive. That night, I made a decision again to try to only be a positive influence on the lives of people I have relationships with. This is a daily challenge.
It is impossible for me to ignore this person or cut her out of my life, so those quotes to “Ignore negative people” or to “Surround yourself with people who make you happy”, is not always a practical option. Of course it is better to be around only nice, ‘happy’ and positive people. Of course we sometimes have to make the difficult decision to cut a relationship with a person who really derail our lives or behave improperly towards us, but sometimes we just can’t. Because sometimes, those ‘unhappy’ or negative person is a spouse or a child or a parent or a sibling or a friend who needs a joyful, ‘happy’, positive person (like you and me, of course) in their lives. Or is a spouse or a child or a parent or a sibling or a friend who have a serious psychological illness and needs us to be there for them. To cut my ‘unhappy’ persons out of my life, would be selfish and in the end self-destructive. Because who will be there for me in my unhappy moments if my all-the-time positive, ‘happy’ spouse, child, parent, sibling or friend had also decided to cut me out..?
Just cutting people out, would mean that we care only about ourselves and conforming to the world around us where everything is about me and me alone and what I can get from every relationship and situation I am in. There will be no caring, no reaching out to people who needs us.
“Case Study’ #2
We currently live in Egypt. There is a well-known place close to our suburb in Cairo, called Mokattam. There is a place is called ‘Garbage City’. In there, live people who, for generations, gathers this large city’s garbage, sorts it and recycles it. When driving through there as a Westerner, you see sites that you would never have believed if you didn’t see it with your own eyes. When you dare to open your window, flies swarm into your vehicle and you’re greeted by the very distinct smell of rotten everything. I have seen the thinnest cow there that I’ve ever seen in my life! Yet, I observed something that both surprised and shocked me. I saw men, women and children working in the streets and inside open doored houses, hands halfway into garbage, sorting, working, talking, laughing. I saw children walking home from school, clean and neatly dressed. And I saw something in their eyes that I didn’t expect to see there. ‘Happiness’. What a very uncharacteristic place to find such a thing! But that was exactly what I saw – big, joyful eyes sparkling with light.
At first I thought that I was mistaken, so I didn’t say anything about this observation to anyone. Then as time went on and I have been in conversations about the place, people made the same remarks.
So, how is it possible that you can have two sorts of persons – one who has a relatively easy life and is never happy and the other who has a to-the-eye miserable life and seems ‘happy’? That is one of life’s great mysteries. Maybe it is because happiness isn’t a goal or a destination on its own, but a state of mind that one must find in oneself. Maybe happiness isn’t something to chase after and try to hunt down, to dream about, to ‘find’. Maybe happiness is in all of us, just waiting to be found. Or not.
‘Case Study’ #3
I don’t know Sir Richard Branson in person, but I read some of his books. I admire him for a few reasons. One, is that he is dyslexic and that I have learned to regard persons with dyslexia very highly, because most of the time, they are very clever people. I had quite a few of them in my Writing Clubs in the past and they are sharp and creative and think outside the box. Sir Richard can’t spell and didn’t finish school and yet he had written and published books. My spelling, on the other hand, is above average, I finished school and have a degree and yet I haven’t fulfilled my dream of publishing a book!
Back to the point of being happy. Branson claims in his books that you must just follow your passions in life and “success will follow”. He left school and started a magazine with very little resources. That was the first of his eight billion-dollar businesses (in different sectors). Success indeed followed his passionate efforts.
I haven’t published books yet (okay I have a self-published one on Kindle) and I haven’t made my billions yet. I don’t know if I will ever make billions, and I’m okay with that. But I really, really hope to get my books published. So, somehow, I believe what he says. The Bible teaches us “to do what our hands find to do” and to be “content with what we have”. That doesn’t mean that we can’t work harder and strive for better. But I believe that even though Sir Richard isn’t a Bible believer, he is following this advice.
Take More Pics and Less Selfies
I really believe what “if we do what our hand find to do”, means to use our God-given talents, passions and character traits to fulfil our purpose in this life, and when we do that will find ‘happiness’. And if we use those given passions, talents and character traits to help others, we won’t have to look for happiness, because it will come looking for us.
So, maybe ‘happiness’ isn’t something that we should even worry about or aspire to, but just live our lives to the best of our abilities, do what we can with what we have, reach out to others, give what we can give and don’t be so goal driven to feed our little inner-god.
Perhaps, if we take more pictures of the beautiful creation around us and of other people and less duckface selfies – to use contemporary social media generation language – we may see that we are surrounded by ‘happiness’.
(I always wanted to write something with a long title like this. My favourite movie title is The Englishmen who went up a Hill and came down a Mountain.)
Countries under Discussion
France (a bit of the South and Paris, ten days)
England (only London, four days)
Netherlands (only Amsterdam, three days)
One can hardly be an expert after visiting a country or even only a city for three or four or ten days – and for the first time! But we can make deductions, relate experiences and emotions and share observations after visiting places – even if it is after only such a short time. After all – that is why we do the lovely, beautiful, excruciating thing called travelling. So add if you want to, differ if it entertains you, but please don’t digitally crucify me for my inadequate, subjective views and comments on three great places my feet had the pleasure to touch.
We as a little family visited a few destinations in Europe at the end of last year through the beginning of this one. My husband is a seasoned traveller and had visited many countries beyond our continent’s borders, but for our son and I, it was the first trip beyond Africa and the Middle East. we looked forward to it for a long time and we weren’t disappointed. It must actually be ‘normal’ for South Africans like us to visit Europe at least once in a lifetime, because that is where our origins are. But travelling is a privilege and most of the time we can’t just jump on a plane and go wherever we dream to go. For us, the opportunity came up and we grabbed it with all fours.
France
After hoping and dreaming, we finally made the trip to visit to a friend of mine, residing in the south of France for the last five years. My friend, Mirella, her husband, Christian, and two sons, Daniël and Xavier lives in Sainte Colome, near Arudi, near Pau, near Toulouse in the south western part of Aquitaine province of the country, very close to the border with Spain. This border is lined with the beautiful Pyrenees Mountains and counts as some of the finest of God’s creation.
Our initial introduction with the French people wasn’t that heartening. Speak English at the train station in Toulouse and you are rudely ignored. Fortunately, angels roam the earth and an English speaking one was waiting for us at the ticket machine to help us obtain three tickets to Pau. Once in the countryside, people showed us the nicer side of being French. We breathed the good, clean Pyrenees air for seven wonderful days, we watched the world around us in awe, threw a snowball for the first time ever (!) and admired people’s skills in the soft, white, cold wonderland.
Paris was everything I hoped it would be and more. We visited all the famous tourist sites, enjoyed the food and watched the Parisians stroll up and down the Champs Elysees dressed as if it is a catwalk. We were there for only three days, but somehow we ended up going to the Eiffel Tower every single day! We left for London on the evening before the Charlie Hebdo incident. I don’t know if we will ever have the opportunity to visit Paris or the French countryside ever again, but I know that there is a smile reserved in my heart for my memories of France. I can’t help to wonder what Paris will be like in the summer though?
Things we Observed and Experienced while Visiting France for Ten Days
It is true. The French don’t like hearing English. We tested it. Every time my husband started an enquiry in his friendliest English, he was impolitely disregarded. I then stepped in, beginning in Afrikaans, our native language, and then flowed over into my version of ‘French’ – English camouflaged in a terrible French accent. It is quite easy to ‘bend’ English words so that they sound We were successful in all our missions this way – from asking directions, to exchanging pleasantries to buying cough medicine!
The French seems educated. (They definitely sound educated speaking such a beautiful language!) Everyone They sit on benches and read. They read on the bus, the boat, the train. Men read, women read, children read and grandmothers read to children who can’t read yet. It is just lovely to watch this passionate affair the French people has with books!
It also seems that all people living in France can speak French. (It might sound obvious, but it is not necessarily a given that people naturally speak the language of the country they live in – see my observations about London later on.)
Being South African and coming from a country where the crime rate is unacceptably high, one of my first observations of the French countryside was the absence of fear. In the village where my friend lives, they don’t even lock their doors (as some of those hundred-plus-year-old houses don’t have keys anymore!) There is a sense of safety and also an absence of aggression – something I had recognised and acknowledged within myself for the first time. I am still shocked to appreciate how living in a society with no respect for life changes you and make you angry all the time. And I am deeply saddened by it, because it had become the psyche of ‘my people’ back home. It is something I have to ponder on and to do something about.
I’ve touched the point above already that the French knows how to dress. They really dress elegantly and if you are clothed in the most common South African brand winter clothing, you stand out a little bit. Luckily it didn’t rain much, so we wore our ‘classier’ stuff the two remaining days. But with my weathered hiking boots I still looked very Boer-like in the presence of all those designer heels. Anyway, my feet were happy. And so was I.
In spite of them not liking English, the French are friendlier than one thinks and they are pretty likable people in the end.
London
All I wanted was a beer in a real pub and sitting on the Underground, being in shops and walking in the streets of London and listening to proper English accents, like our friend Simon’s. Boy, was I disappointed! Only twice in the four days did I hear that. The rest of the time our ears were entertained by almost every language under the sun – Arabic, Italian, Russian, other Eastern European sounding languages, Greek, French etc. In shops, we were served by foreigners. The Underground was packed with people from elsewhere. London is a little world in its own.
In spite of not hearing much proper English, we really enjoyed our time in London. We walked, saw touristy places, we went to see Phantom of the Opera at West End, we went to the movies and checked out James Bond stuff in the British Film Museum. It rained and it didn’t and it rained and it didn’t. And we had that pint in a real pub – the Sherlock Holmes Pub, nogal!
I liked visiting London and won’t cry if I have to visit it again. I do still have a dream to go watch a tennis match at Wimbledon. And I want to still see the English and the Scottish and the Welch and the Irish countryside…
Things we Observed and Experienced while Visiting London for Four Days
There is no good coffee.
There is no good coffee.
There is no good coffee.
Did I mention that the coffee there isn’t any good?
London appears very orderly. Properly English. Things work. That’s nice. I liked that. Once upon a time, things worked well in South Africa too. We learned from the Germans and the Dutch and the French and the British. But somehow we’ve lost our orderliness. And a lot of other necessities too.
People flock to England to get an education. Some for real. Some under false pretences and get stopped at the airport – something we witnessed.
On that point, London had become a place of refuge for many people from many different countries. It brings along its own challenges for the authorities, because of socio-economic issues and increasing extremism, but for most people it had become a place where they can go to be safe and to make a new life. It might be a hard life and difficult to get ahead, but nevertheless, it is a place to where they can go to get saved from where they come from.
And also on that point. One gets a feeling of disconnectedness amongst the masses. Most people appear alone and distant and lonesome. Maybe it is because they had to disconnect from their roots and they just didn’t reconnect again. I suppose it is not out of the ordinary. Living in a foreign land does that to a person.
The Netherlands
Amsterdam was a breath of fresh air. Okay, with a hint of marijuana near the train station. We spend a whole day walking along the canals with our friend, Rudi, who lives there. We ate biltong at an Aussie restaurant/bar that is nice enough to sell South African delicacies for the homesick Springbok supporters who watch rugby matches there. It was bloody cold.
It must be impossible to know for real, but statistics shows that there are more than 600 000 bicycles in Amsterdam. They have their own parking lots – like those for cars. Everyone is riding a bike – young and old. And sometimes the young with a mom or a dad. It is an overwhelming phenomenon, the bikes of Amsterdam. We visited the places everyone visited, rode on a boat in the canals and we walked and walked and walked. And it was bloody cold.
I loved Amsterdam. It was fun, relaxed and relaxing and we just had a great time. And we would love to see the rest of the Netherlands. Maybe in springtime…
Things we Observed and Experienced while Visiting Amsterdam for Three Days
The Hollanders are super friendly. Maybe they are always a little bit high with all the fumes hanging around (wink-wink) or maybe that’s just the way they are.
They are helpful people. Apart from their friendliness, they have this wonderful way in which they serve you. Really caringly serve you.
There also is an absence of fear.
Order and education is a visible priority. It’s Europe.
In Amsterdam everyone speaks Dutch. The population looks a bit like that of London with white, black, Asian, Middle Eastern etc., working everywhere, but the difference here is that every white, black, Middle Eastern or Asian mouth speaks Dutch! It is so weird, but also so wonderful! And we can understand them a little bit. If they speak slowly.
As in the case of London, Amsterdam is also a sanctuary for people from all over the world. Their tolerance throughout history made people flock to the city and it harboured many people in need of shelter in the past and still in the present.
These were just a few comments. I’m still working on my observations about living in Egypt. Maybe I will only write about that at the end of our time here. That is after all a whole different ballgame.
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.
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?
There are so many quotes and writings about the almost ‘magical’ thing called travelling. Much is said about the wonderful things you see and hear and how it opens your eyes and your mind and broadens your horizons and gives you insights into how the world works that you would otherwise not have had. So much so that when you dream of visiting France for example, you unquestionably expect to hear beautiful French theme music starting to play in the background the moment you set foot on French soil.
Most of the things one hears and reads about travelling are certainly true. It makes a difference about how you look at and think about the world. It does broaden you horizon. And it gives you insights you would probably otherwise not have required. The reality about travelling though is that there is reality. Surely, sometimes you hear French music play in the background (when you sit in a restaurant) and you may have a holiday romance with an Italian heartbreaker or you might travel without any trouble, lost luggage or stomach bugs and you will meet people who will stay friends with you until the end of time. But most of the time, travelling can be very, very hard. So, if you haven’t travelled much yet, here is a shortish version of how a typical day of a travelling transpires.
Even if you knew the day would come for months in advance and planned accordingly, you will still have a hundred and three things to do on the day before you leave. Somehow visas can be the main devil in the traveller’s Garden of Eden and you sometimes have to wait until the very end for the British Embassy to open again after an unexpected closure in Cairo to get your UK visa. Or it can be the Colombians or Algerians or Mauritian authorities causing you problems. The fact is – visas are the traveller’s number one enemy – and friend, because without them, you’re going nowhere.
On a normal day of travelling you will eventually leave for the airport by car, taxi, bus, train or whatever, armed with you passport, your ticket – or the electronic confirmation of a ticket, money, your luggage and those precious visas safely stamped or pasted into your passport pages. You will arrive and queue to book in electronically at a machine or otherwise at a counter, depending on the airport you fly from. While you stand in the queue, you will pray that your bag is within the weight limit. You will ban the question out of you mind of how you are going to manage not to go overweight after ten days or three weeks of buying cute, but in a year’s time totally forgotten memorabilia. You will be thankful when the bag goes through with no problem and you are awarded with your boarding pass.
Then you get out of the line, say the goodbyes to those who brought you, if you didn’t come on your own, and you enter the door leading to the world! But first, you will have to queue for passport control. After the customs officer stamped you out of the country, you are as free as a bird in that wonderful no man’s land called ‘Duty Free’… We normally like to be there long before we have to board, just to get the emotions of the goodbyes behind us and have a coffee or a beer while breathing the busy day out of our bodies and starting to focus on our tip ahead. This is where you realise for the first time that you are on your way.
Your next queue is when you wait to go through the security check to your boarding gate. You remove your camera, jacket/s, shoes and belt, take your wallet and cell phone out of you pockets, remove your laptop, tablet/iPad and your other cameras from your hand luggage, put it in a tray with your passports and walk through the scanner on your still-clean socks, hoping there is nothing left on you that will make it bleep. If you’re lucky enough to go through without a bleep, a person of your own gender awaits you with a hand scanner and two gloved hands. In Europe, this search stops just short of a gynaecology examination. Literally. Then all your scanned stuff and those of the people behind you causes a traffic jam on the x-ray machine, while you try to grab your camera, belt, shoes and jacket’s all at once and try to get dressed while going through the checklist in your head trying not to forget anything:
Passport
Camera
Jacket/s
Shoes
Belt
Other camera
Cell phone
Tablet/iPad
Wallet
You make sure to look back to see if you left anything and check the person behind you to see if he may have taken something of yours. When you are certain of this, you are perspiring a little bit and ready to board your flight.
Note: Sometimes this step occurs after leaving passport control and before you enter Duty Free. It depends on the airport. After this you are happy that it is over, yet you know that this is going to repeat itself over and over during the course of your trip in every airport you visit – when going in and when going out.
Another note: If travelling in or out of Egypt add double the amount of passport checks mentioned above, add two more and multiply the sum by three.
Your next wait is in the room at the gate before boarding. When you finally hear the boarding call, you get up excitedly, because you know, that the journey is finally to begin. You queue in the boarding line, get you passport checked again and your boarding pass scanned. Then you follow the line to the airplane. Finally.
Depending on how far you have to travel, you will be caged into a small space (except if you fly business class of course) where you will try to watch a movie, try to sleep, don’t like all the food the airline serve you (except if it is KLM, then you would want to try the tray too) and probably be stuck behind or next to an unmannered co-passenger or one who’s breath really pongs. This is the less enjoyable part of travelling, especially if you travel five hours and longer.
On the other side, you will have this whole process at the airport again, just in in reverse. Then you have to find transport to your place of accommodation, travel there, queue to book in, move in, unpack or not, get cleaned, connect to Wi-Fi, contact home to let them know that you are safe and try to get a good night’s sleep.
If you travel for ten days to three weeks, the pace can get to you, because you will wake up every day, get cleaned, go for breakfast and travel by car, bus, train, tram, boat, taxi, motorcycle, bicycle, plane, underground (also train) to your next destination. You will queue, you will buy tickets on busses, in museums and on boats. You will always be looking for coffee or beer and wonder where the next toilet will be. You will run not to miss your next bus ride, train or plane, and you will hope you and your luggage arrive at the same place. Which sometimes don’t happen and then you have to spend a night in your day-old undies and a t-shirt from Heathrow’s ‘overnight’ pack. You will queue to see the small, insignificant, but well-marketed painting called the ‘Mona Lisa’ (in English) and take selfies with known landmarks in the background.
You will ask strangers to take a pic of your family, so that you are in some of the pictures too. You will search the map and the Internet for directions and you will learn how a country’s public transport system works within hours after arrival. You will walk or ride from site to site, drinking coffee or beer or wine in between with ‘n light lunch and take more pictures, because you never know if you will ever see it again.
It’s not that these places are so important to you personally or that they speak to your heart, but that you have seen it with your own eyes. There is something in seeing well-known places and things with your own eyes. Even if you feel too uneducated to appreciate every old painting in the Louvre or the Rijksmuseum – or know who the painters were. It is a weird kind of privilege to visit places and share the soil where so many good and bad things happened in the past and to know that somehow your life had cross the paths of those who lived there so long ago.
In the evening you put your photos on Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp and chat with your family and friends and go to bed too late, because you don’t want to waste a moment and you want to try and put what you have seen and experienced in perspective. The next morning you wake up and the routine repeat itself – but in spite of the repetition, one day is never the same as the previous. So, you get up, brush your teeth, go to breakfast, start travelling, drink coffee, go to the toilet while you are in a restaurant, travel to a site, take too many pictures, walk, ride bus, ride boat, walk more, eat lunch you can’t really afford, drink beer, go to the restaurant toilet, walk to the next site, take more pics, ride bus to the next, take even more pictures, look for a place to get food, have more beer or wine and go to the toilet, ride bus or underground or walk to your place or accommodation, bath, download photos, upload photos, chat to family and friends, go to sleep too late.
And you repeat this until the tour is over. There is no rest, because what South African can afford to go to London for three days and lay on a hotel bed for a day’s rest at times 18 of your currency for everything you do. No, there will be no rest. You will pack in, no matter how tired or sick you are. You will go on. You will get every cheap South African cent’s worth out of your too-expensive trip!
Sometimes while travelling it feels as if you are not taking it all in. You think that you just travel and look and see and don’t think. But when you get home, you realise how much you have thought about. You learned that you never stopped thinking. Your thoughts were transformed somehow by experiences you didn’t realise your brain had recorded. You are a changed/changing person. You realise how much you have learned and how little you really know. Even now. No, especially now that you know how much there still is to learn. And you realise all over again that all of life is a journey. That this little piece of your life, called a holiday, is part of that journey to make your life expand. And you appreciate that you may never, ever see those places you have just visited again. And you are also confronted with the very real possibility that you may never travel to all the places you still dream about seeing. That’s a reality of life.
You also find that being home, is the biggest part of the journey. And you realise that it is a privilege to have a place to come home to. Even if we have never travelled, or is just a couch traveller or if we don’t want to travel, we are on the trip of our life, because being alive and living life is the journey.
So, are the endless, tiresome movements from one place to another just to see it with your own eyes really worth it? It is. Because you learn a lot about the world, but you learn even more about yourself.
What a curious phenomenon this thing called ‘travelling’ is.
I have slowly started to spend time writing again. Now that Michael had finished school I am supposed to have more time, although the functions accompanying Deon’s job here in Egypt distracts me from writing as ‘full time’ as I want to. But, I appreciate and cherish every moment I can use to write. I am working to finish my novel, Change of Heart. It’s at 81000+ words now which makes about 356 typed pages. Not bad, but there’s quite a bit of writing to do still.
I am also reading a book Why Authors Fail by Derek Doepker. (Available from Kindle ebooks at Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Why-Authors-Fail-Mistakes-Self-Published-ebook/dp/B00L9GM1RO) I can tick off almost all 17 of the mistakes he discusses. It is tough to realise that I have so many flaws as a writer and worst is that I knew all these things before I read the book. It is as if he just summarised all my shortcomings in book form. So, aside from writing, I would have to work hard to fix those mistakes and inadequacies. But in the meantime, I have more important things to do. Like writing.
One of the questions asked by Mr. Doepker is why is becoming a successful author important to me?I thought that I should do the exercise and write down my reasons. It will also serve as motivation. So, here’s my reasons:
1. I don’t have a choice. I write because I have to – because I love writing. I have stories and ‘people’ living in my head which have to get out. Some I hope are good. Some are horribly sentimental and will never be written. They would always have to linger oh, so sweetly in the matter between my ears. My poor brain! Writing energises me. When I write, I exercise and I cook and get compliments from my family for the nice food they get. It makes us all feel good.
2. I want not only to write and publish a book – I want to write and publish books. I have written a few books and quite a few longish short stories already – it is the publishing part which lack seriously in the picture of my dream job. I want to be good enough a writer to have at least more than ten books published. For that I need to write more regularly. More and regularly. And I need to muster the courage from somewhere to get the first one published.
3. I want to be a successful author because I think I write good enough stories to receive at least some income from it. This will make me feel useful. Not that I’m not. I am a mom, but the boy is all grown up now and I want to ‘redefine’ myself as a wordpreneur who actually sells my words.
4. By being a successful author I will thank God for giving me the talent to write.
5. I want my husband and son to be proud of me. I know they are already, but I want their pride being expanded to the gifts given to me.
6. I want to get my writing published, because it depresses me when I read or watch programs about other people doing what they are good at and succeed and I have still ‘done nothing’ about my dream. I want to live my dream of being a paid writer.
7. I want my children’s story, Yeovangya, made into an animated movie, because every time I see a new animation movie it frustrates me that my movie is not yet out there – and it take. So. Very. Long. To. Make. Yeovangya is available as a Kindle ebook at Amazon at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yeovangya-Riette-De-Kock-ebook/dp/B008CP2RQ0. (See, Mr. Doepker, I’m marketing. I’m working on at least one of my weaknesses.)
8. If I don’t at least get one book published, I will feel very disappointed – maybe even a bit like a failure.
9. I must at least try. If I don’t make it, then I know I wasn’t good enough. There will be closure in that. But if I don’t try, I will always feel regret and dissatisfaction. And there’s nothing worse than living a “What if..?” life.
10. If I don’t make it as a successful author of formally published books, I can always keep on publishing ebooks and hope my family and friends love me enough to buy my electronic scribblings for forty Rand or so…
What I have to do now is to do something about the shortcomings listed in Mr. Doepker’s book. And then do my best at succeeding. WOW, this is a very close-to-home confession. Now my big dream is out there for the world (or the few loyal family and friends at least who actually read my blog) to see and hold me accountable.
Eish!
I, Fielies (Riëtte) De Kock tries hard to be a Proverbs 31-woman – excellentest wife, finest mom, greatest lover and successful ‘wordpreneur’ all at the same time. I temporarily share my living space in Cairo, Egypt with my husband, almost-university-student son, the building’s ginger cat – and the space in my head with way too many ideas and multitudes of story characters to live as a normal functioning human being.
Since my first blog entry about our new life in Egypt a lot had happened. Our small family was transformed from overwhelmed hotel dwellers, into residents living in a house and becoming streetwise very quickly.
Our house is a ground floor ‘apartment’ as it is called here and not a ‘flat’ as we South Africans would call it. That earlier blog entry was written by a person new and still very confused by her surroundings. Since then I learned to find my way around our neighbourhood and can even navigate the way home when entering the beginning of our suburb. And I am starting to recognise roads previously taken. That is what is called forward motion in such a large city as this one.
It was a crazy, busy time these last almost seven months. We had stayed in hotels, did house hunting, moved into a house, furnishing the house, living in it and learned to breathe in it. (Which is not as easy as you think in a climate that requires 24/7 air conditioning.)
Work-wise things had gotten direction too. My husband is settling in nicely and I am playing my supportive wifey role pretty well, I think, attending dinners and receptions and other events and making a lot of small talk – because in the ‘business’ we’re in, that’s called ‘work’. And sometimes it is real hard work. Most of the functions we attend are in other parts of the city, a mere ten kilometres or so away, but going there three, four or five times a week, means travelling in peak traffic, which takes an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half. Fortunately, driving back only takes half an hour or so – normally. Sometimes we do this twice a day.
We have travelled a bit for official purposes, as well as for leisure and have seen quite a bit already of this vast and intriguing country. We’ve made our way to Alexandria and were happy that the sea there was more like ‘ours’ – with actual waves and sounds. We’ve made a stop at El Alamein and found the grave of my great uncle who died there on 23 November 1941 in WWII in one of the battles. We went to the Red Sea at Ein Sochna twice and we have flown over the breathtakingly, beautiful Sinai desert to Sharm Al Sheikh, from where we drove the 50km to Dahab – a diving and snorkelling paradise, where we lazied away five wonderful days in the very, very, very hot sun.
A few weeks ago we visited El Alamein again for the commemoration ceremonies. It was a touching experience, sitting there in the blistering autumn desert sun, thinking of the many people who lost their lives in those wars and wondering what life would have been like if they didn’t sacrifice their lives for us. I also couldn’t help to wonder what the future holds for us with the threat of fanatic terrorists taking lives as if life was theirs to take, not so far from us in the Sinai, Iraq and Syria. The previous night twenty plus Egyptian soldiers were brutally murdered in the Sinai, making the day of remembrance much more of a reality than just remembering history. With the young soldiers standing guard around us in a church service, I couldn’t help wondering what still awaits us in the near future.
Since being here, we have met with friends from South Africa visiting Egypt for various reasons. Some were old friends of ours, some were friends of friends and others were new friends, like Foeta Krige and Barend La Grange, who were finishing a trip from the Southern-most tip of Africa in L’Agulhas to the northern-most tip in Ras ben Sakka, Tunisia.
My brother-in-law, John, was our first stay-over guest. Our spare room was ready just in time for his visit. He stayed three weeks, but it rather felt like three days. Our son was in the last three weeks of his school career and we couldn’t entertain him as a guest should be entertained, but fortunately he is a seasoned traveller and no stanger to Egypt , so he entertained himself. He went about his own business and even went to the desert for a few nights. At least we took him for his first-ever quad bike experience to Sakkarah – something he took to enthusiastically and enjoyed immensely.
Michael’s friend, Wilhelm, is currently visiting and the two of them are enjoying their first few months of adulthood together. Both just finished school and turned 18 recently.
Life is treating us well and we feel very privileged and thankful to be able to have this experience. Things aren’t always easy and we miss ‘home’ and our family and friends and our pets. (We are warming up to the building cat however – or is he warming up to us?) And we miss the tastes and sounds and sights and everything that is familiar. But it is a fantastic experience to live abroad for a while and to experience so many different people from so many different nationalities that we socialise with on a regular basis. One learns so much from other people and from visiting other places. And you learn also to appreciate what is dear and sacred to you. One has to learn to live your faith, rather than just practice to believe. It is good for the soul. Very good.
Travelling, in my opinion, must be something that every person aspires to – even if you can do it only once in your life, you should. One should save as much as you can and travel as far as you can on what you have. Go experience the world and its peoples. Learn about new places and taste new tastes. And broaden your horizons. And if your savings aren’t enough yet, get onto your feet, onto your bike, or into your car, or on a bus or train and just go to a place in or out of your town or your city and experience something new. Go see how people who are different from you live life. It will change your opinions, views and just maybe, your life also.
I have a young friend who was a member of my writing club, who is exploring the world right now. She is only 19. She is beautiful, a talented writer and this is what she said about travelling on her Facebook page the other day:
With travelling there are many things that go along with it. Once you have been somewhere so different you undergo a form of transformation, a loss of innocence. You realise how messed up and beautiful the world is at the same time. The more you see, the more you realise how little everyone knows. It makes you want to live for others and not for yourself. You realise how little it means to have a lot of money or a nice face. To realise this at an early age of your life will change the way you think forever.
I, Fielies (Riëtte) De Kock tries hard to be a Proverbs 31-woman – excellentest wife, finest mom, greatest lover and successful ‘wordpreneur’ all at the same time. I temporarily share my living space in Cairo, Egypt with my husband, almost-university-student son, the building’s ginger cat – and the space in my head with way too many ideas and multitudes of story characters to live as a normal functioning human being.
We always tend to read ‘success’ stories when we want to be inspired or learn about being successful. Success stories inspire us, they sound good and we can definitely learn from them. But these stories can also leave us overwhelmed and hopeless when we try our hand at a new business just to fail after a few weeks or months or even years. Many people only try once and when something doesn’t work, they think of themselves as unsuccessful or as failures. When we fail at something we very easily tend tell ourselves that we would never be another Richard Branson or a Bill Gates. We are right. We never will be.
There is another way of looking at our failures. We are all different from another and therefore we do things differently, we have different interests and passions and talents. Being different from anyone else also means something wonderful – every one of us is a unique person. Being a unique person means that each person has a different purpose than the next and that we sometimes fail at things because we aren’t in a business that fits our interests, talents, personalities, passions, characteristics and purposes. Or we may be in the right business, but we don’t have the right ‘tools’ to manage a successful business. In these instances we must forget the failure, dream from anew, plan from afresh, learn from mistakes, learn new skills and try again.
It is encouraging to know that the Bransons & Co. of this world didn’t all succeed at their first try. Some of the most successful business people today and in the past had to try quite a few times before they had any success. Here are few failures to inspire you to be more determined to succeed in whatever your passion is.
Henry Ford went broke five times before the Ford Motor Company became a success.
After being turned down for a job at Toyota, Soichiro Honda, started making scooters and eventually started his own company.
He invented a rice cooker that burnt the rice and he lost everything, but that didn’t put Akio Morita off and today he is the founder of the multi-billion strong company, Sony.
Traf-O-Data was the first flop of Harvard university drop-outs, Bill Gates and Paul Allen. We all know what happened when they started Microsoft. Maybe the name was to blame…
Colonel Harland David Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) fame’s chicken recipe was rejected by 1009 restaurants before someone had the vision to buy it.
Walt Disney was fired from his newspaper job because, “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” He ended up bankrupt but believed in his ‘no good ideas’. Today Disney’s company is billions worth and still going (and growing) strong.
Not only people in business failed before succeeding in life. Not all scientists, inventors, politicians, great leaders, actors, artist, musicians and writers and sportsmen had it easy either.
It was thought that Albert Einstein was mentally handicapped, seeing that he only started speaking at four and learning to read at seven. (What is so bad about that? In our country children learn to read at age six/seven. Maybe there is still a chance for us to become geniuses!) He got expelled from one school and was refused entry by another. Not bad for a genius Nobel Prize winner in physics, is it? Remember that one of his greatest quotes was “Imagination is more important than knowledge…”
Another scientist-dude first ‘failed’ at school and then ran the family farm into the ground before becoming a math-genius. His name was Isaac Newton. Maybe this was one of those cases of doing something while having other talents.
Thomas Edison was told by teachers that he was “too stupid to learn anything.” He was also fired from several jobs. We all know by now that we can be thankful to Thomas for not believing his teachers and bosses and that he just pushed forward and tried and tried and tried more than a thousand times to invent the light bulb. In the end he just said that he had found more than a thousand ways not to do it before he found out how to do it! Now, that’s what I call ATTITUDE! Thanks, Mr. Edison for adding a little light to our lives. J
And then there were bicycle makers Orville and Wilbur Wright who didn’t give up in spite of depression, family illnesses and lots of broken prototypes, before they fulfil every man’s dream to fly.
Although he failed Grade 6 and was defeated in many, many political elections, Winston Churchill just kept going and became the British prime minister at the age of 62 and lead Britain through WWII. He just had to wait for the Creator of History’s perfect timing for him to make his difference in the world.
A young man called Abraham Lincoln went to the war as a captain, was demoted and returned home as a private! He went on to start quite a few failed businesses, but Abe hung in and eventually became one of the U.S.A.’s greatest presidents (and an enormous statue). It just shows you again that you must find your niche to succeed in life.
Oprah Winfrey was allegedly abused as a child and fired from her job at a television station because she was “unfit for TV”. I’m sure you know who she is now and what she did for the past 20 odd years. Yes, she became a successful television (!) host and one of the most powerful people in the world – even influencing law making in die U.S.A. today.
Jerry Seinfeld, actor and stand-up comedian (and the voice of Adam in Bee Movie) was booed off the stage on his first job because he froze, but he went back on stage, tried again and audiences haven’t stopped laughing since.
He was told that he didn’t have what it takes to become a star, but Harrison Ford went on and did just that. Who else could have played Han Solo of Indiana Jones but him?
Vincent Van Goch died in poverty, selling only one painting in his life. Today his more than 800 paintings bring in hundreds of millions of dollars. I personally don’t understand the fuss over some of the paintings, but nevertheless…
Theodor Seuss Gieselor Dr. Seuss, as we know him wasn’t an overnight success either. His first book, To Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, was rejected by 27 publishers.
The University of Southern California School of Theater, Film and Television rejected Steven Spielberg three times before he joined another film school from where he dropped out before finishing his studies to become a director. He eventually went back after 35 years and completed his BA-degree in 2002! How’s that for perseverance? And he didn’t even have to do that because he was already successful in what he did!
Although Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was one of the best music composers ever, he died with very little to his name due to depression, restlessness and ‘unfavour’ from
Ludwig Von Beethoven was told that he couldn’t compose music, but he went on to compose some of the most beautiful music ever written. If you don’t know Ode to Joy, get a copy and listen to it. On top of all, he did all it being deaf! How cool is that?
Elvis Presley was told by an agent “You ain’t goin’ nowhere, son. You ought to go back to drivin’ a truck.” We know now that he didn’t listen to that no-good agent.
“I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot, and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” A quote from Michael Jordan, probably the most famous basketball player ever, who was cut from his high school team…
Just think about it for a moment; If these people just gave up after the first try we could have been without KFC today! Or some of the greatest animation movies, planes, trains, some of the best music, electricity, the telephone, some very good cars and we would never have been able to enjoy some great books or the talents of some very good athletes. OK, that’s only partially true, because someone else would probably have invented the light bulb, the aeroplane and animated movies, but it could have taken a lot more time. And we wouldn’t have known who Thomas Edison, Mozart or Spielberg was.
So what do we learn from these people’s failures?
If you don’t keep trying, someone else will and ‘steal’ your idea. It really isn’t nice to see someone else do something that you wanted to do, but didn’t do just because you didn’t have the guts to try or because you gave up.
Don’t listen to people telling you that “it can’t be done” or that “you’re not good enough” or “you will never make it” or “you are too stupid” or anything like that, just because they can’t imagine what you can. Winston Churchill and Steven Spielberg didn’t believe people like that. Why should you?
Learn to know yourself. Think about life. Know what you like and what you are good at. If you fail at something you’re not good at, try something that you are good at and which matches your personality and passions in life.
Don’t try to be someone else or do something that others are doing or follow other people blindly. You were made a unique person, with something unique to give to this world. Don’t aspire to other people’s dreams.
And last but not least – in spite of what the great and mighty Oprah says: Not every person “can do what they put their minds to”. Of course a person with serious intellectual and learning disabilities won’t be able to become a rocket scientist or a 250 kg girl won’t be able to become an underwear model. So, parents stop telling your children that! Stop setting impossible goals for yourself and/or your children, or trying to fulfil your own unfulfilled dreams through them, because that is the surest way to failure.
Maybe you are ‘just’ someone who started a small business to support you and your family for the rest of your life. That is a very good and noble thing. But just maybe you have something else to give.
By persevering, Bill Gates gave the world something that almost everyone has to use every day. He change the way of how much work could be done by one person in a day! He also changed the way how work is done.
Oh, and back to Mr. Branson. He dropped out of school to start a magazine. Through the years he built up eight billion-dollar businesses in eight different sectors (read an interview with him at http://www.touchahead.com/blog/entrepreneur-leader-richard-branson/). He introduced fun into business. Today he inspires, explores and writes books about business. Did I mention that he is dyslexic? (As some of the smartest people in the world were/are.)
Just maybe you have something like that in you too. If you think you have, never stop dreaming and never stop trying. And never listen to people trying to stop you from trying.
And that’s pretty much what I have to say about learning from another people’s failures. I’ll end from a quote from Winston Churchill himself:
Never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in – except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. (This is the original version of the popular ‘Never, never, never give up’ quote, by the way.)
Fielies De Kock is also a wife and mom and hope to become a more successful writer of novels in the very near future. She currently resides in Cairo, Egypt, with her family, where they are trying to survive a new language and culture, while missing their family, friends and four dogs and where they are slowly and unwillingly warming up towards the building’s official ginger cat, known as The Cat.
Memory Lane Chronicles: Finding a Grave at El Alamein – Part 1
I grew up collecting postcards. It started when I went on a school tour in Standard 7 (now Grade 9) when I bought a few postcards of birds at the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria and more when visiting the Kruger National Park. I already had one postcard in my collection – dated in 1970 when I was almost two years old and he was in the Air Force already. It had a painted picture on the front of a pretty boy and girl and my much older, beloved big brother’s handwriting on the back, telling me that he missed me and that he was looking forward to come visit, so that I could bake him some cookies.
From that school tour on, I bought postcards whenever we went somewhere and even had people giving me their old ones they wanted to get rid of. I had an interesting collection of postcards written in my native language, Afrikaans, English and even German. The German postcards were from a dear older friend at work who frequently received post from her family back in her homeland. I so loved those pictures of the many different places I longingly looked at. My father once visited Germany, Venice and Italy and my eyes were treated to more beautiful places. It must have been where the dream to travel the world started. Later on friends were asked to send postcards when they visited far off places and my assemblage got bigger. But, as I grew older and busier, looking at my postcard collection was limited to moving them to different storage places in the house every five years or so. Recently, when we moved to Egypt, I decided to donate them to a more suitable collector – our friend, Adri, who had a wonderful collection herself and actually spending a lot more time appreciating it.
I did keep a few postcards though. I kept that one my ouboet sent me so many years back and also a 3D one he bought on a school tour to the planetarium in the late 1960s. I also kept two precious ones that I got from my mother. Both were of uncles who fought in WWII in Egypt. The one had a picture of the Nile on it with a photo of the one uncle inserted in the upper right corner. The other one was of my mother’s uncle Koos Coetzer, posing next to an empty chair as was the fashion back them for some reason. I always looked at them, wondering what their stories were and what happened to them being so far away from home. The man in the inserted picture I was told, came back home safely, but committed suicide. The other one didn’t come back. He died in a foreign country, fighting for foreign people against foreign people in a foreign war.
When we heard that we were moving to Egypt, I took a picture of the two postcards and decided that I will try to find out more, once we are here. We are supposed to attend the commemoration of the Battles of El Alamein in October, but we were fortunate enough to visit the place on a work related trip much earlier than I thought.
I did some initial research on the website to try and find my uncle’s information, but with no success. My mother got his detail from her cousin, but being a bit discouraged by my first unsuccessful attempt, I didn’t bother doing any research until two days before we went on the trip. I think I was delaying the search because I was afraid that I wouldn’t find anything. But in the end I got the information and searched. The reason I couldn’t find it initially it seemed, was because my mother had his names wrong, but she also got his service number and that did the trick. I found the inscription on page 71 of the records on the web page and with it his grave number. Something in me stirred. I didn’t know my uncle and I think I saw my aunt (his daughter) once before in my life, but somehow I felt connected to this young man who died fighting a fight that wasn’t his to fight and lost his life for it so long ago. I wondered if any of the family had ever been to his grave and I wondered how his death had influence his immediate family.
Although I was glad that I found the information, I was still a bit fearful that it might be difficult to find the actual grave when we get to El Alamein. Fortunately, my husband’s assistant and Mustafa, the man working at the cemetry knew the place very well and was very helpful. First, we looked up his name in the book and then Mustafa offered to show us where it was.
At this point of the story I must mention that I have a fascination with burial places from a historical point of view. Whenever we visit small towns I always like going to see who is buried there. Graves tells history like very few other things in life. Pilgrim’s Rest, Haenertsburg, Sabie and those places have ‘treasures’ with regard to the past buried in their grave yards. On the other hand, I hate visiting family graves. I hated it when my mother wanted to visit her mother’s grave in our old family grave yard on the farm on Sundays. My father and I would walk behind her with the flowers and the water and my father used to whisper to me: “Please don’t ever do this when I die.” (I don’t.)
The place was really well kept and easy enough to navigate. We walked through the rows of precisely planted grave stones, in awe about the precision of stones. Being the Commonwealth burial site, there were graves of fallen soldiers from the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia and other Commonwealth nations. Christians and Jews were buried alongside each other. The first tears found its way through my lashes when I recognised the little Springbok head on a group of grave stones, planted ‘shoulder to shoulder’. South Africans. My own people. In the hard, dry Egyptian desert sand. I wondered briefly if they died shoulder to shoulder also or what the reason was for them being placed so close to each other.
At the fourth last row, I saw Mustafa, Muhamed and my husband, Deon, coming to a standstill. My heart raced. It was really there! I reached the grave and saw a name I have seen before on funeral letters back home of family members with the same surname. Blood of my blood. It was a strange feeling, standing there, looking at the grave of Jacobus Herculas Coetzer – knowing that he was buried there 73 years ago by strange hands. I wonder how his wife felt when she visited his grave in 1954. We were the only other family members as far as we know to have visited his grave. I wondered about his children, growing up without him, and his daughter, Isabel’s words from her WhatsApp message echoed in my head. “…put a nice flower on his grave and tell him that’s from his little girl, now an old lady of 75. I was six months old when he left and two and a half when he died…”
I didn’t have a way to get flowers before we came, so I was posing behind the grave when suddenly Mustafa appeared, in a typical wanting-to-help-and-not-even-being-asked-to Egyptian way with a hand full of flowers…
For someone who doesn’t like visiting graves of family, this will go down in my memory bank as a pretty wonderful experience. Who knows, maybe Isabel will still have the opportunity to visit her daddy’s grave before she meet him in person one day.
Watch my picture journal of our visit to the El Alamein War cemetery on You Tube at http://youtu.be/yOotbqRM6gM
For more information visit the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website at http://www.cwgc.org/.
I am trying hard to be a Proverbs 31-woman – excellent wife, finest mom, greatest lover and successful entrepreneur and freelance writer all at the same time!
l (and my husband) never had the desire to emigrate from South Africa, but we always had the dream of living and working abroad for a while. Hopefully our only son will one day earn his living mainly in our country too. Through the years so many things in our lives and our country changed and we started to think that the possibility of working and living in another country was lost. But ‘out of the blue’ the opportunity came our way and we took it.
We love travelling and thought that if we lived somewhere ‘in the middle of the world’, travelling would be much easier. (Read less expensive.) We South Africans are mos eager travellers, but it costs an arm and a leg for us to travel.
To live in South Africa have more advantages that most South Africans realise. Ask any South African living abroad or who had lived abroad or who travel abroad regularly. At this point, please let me just state that I do not criticise people who emigrate. l can really, really, really understand it when people leave the country after they had been hijacked for the third time…
l am also of the opinion that migration is a very natural thing and that circumstances ‘moved’ people to emigrate throughout the centuries – in this instance the crime rate in our beloved country became most people’s moving factor. It was this ‘natural’ migrating phenomenon after all which brought our forefathers to South Africa in the first place. l believe the point is now made. So, let’s get on with us living in Cairo now.
It goes without saying that it is much different to holiday in a country than to live in it. We came to Egypt with the intent of staying and not holidaying. I think we got that one right so far. But, in spite of travelling via Cairo elsewhere six times before, and knowing what it looks like, I was still overwhelmed on our first night here. In my head I did the Maths: 4 x 365 days to go. l didn’t feel up to it. But, the next morning I woke and the fatigue from the flight was gone and so were the woes.
Let me put it in perspective for you. l grew up in a small town with a population of only in the thousands – the then black township people included – of whom you rarely saw a few dozen at a time and where, according to statistics only 33.5 people live per square km.
For the past 26 years we had been living in Pretoria, a city with 1.7 million people. The whole metropolis houses plus minus 2.4 million (675.1 people per square km). South Africa has between 48 to 52 million people (according to different websites, none of which claims to be correct). Our new city, Cairo, ‘they say’ has 20 million people! In one city! That’s almost half the population of South Africa! In one city! Will you forgive me if I felt just a tad overwhelmed?
But like in most situations where one feels overwhelmed, it always helps to get your facts straight. According to the CAPMAS, the country’s official statistics body, Egypt has 86 000 000 people – excluding the 8 000 000 living abroad. (Yes, Hany, you were counted too.) It states that Cairo has only 9,12 million souls. ONLY. I feel much better now. 🙂 Although,thinking of sharing a square kilometer with 47 257 other people in the Cairo governate IS daunting. On the other hand – stats here are only manipulated numbers. There may well be living 20 million people in Cairo. The indications are there. Enough of the stats. I’m more of a words than a numbers person.
As it normally goes in life, one can adapt quite quickly. While Cairo seemed like a dull, chaotic, dusty, dirty place on that first day, l wake up every morning since then to be surprised by something new. lt is as if someone comes every night with a box of crayons – not paint yet, but crayons work for me so far – to colour a new piece of the city just for me. And when I come out on the hotel balcony every morning to see what the day looks like, I find that the water in the Nile in front of me suddenly has changed colour. And so does the agricultural patches across the river and the trees on the the other side of the river bank. And even the desert and the pyramids on the horizon. And the cars and shops in the busy streets. And some of the scarfs on the woman’s heads.
When you keep calm and draw a breath and get enough sleep, the world around you seems to become a better place. Because then you have the awareness to be wooed by the views and the sounds and the sights and the people around you. OK, I admit that the sounds are still something to get used to, but the friendliness of the people overrides the bombardment of the forever-present hooting sounds and the forever-present howling sounds from the mosques or the forever-present sounds from the traffic in the streets.
Every South African living here, tells us that they enjoy it here and those that are leaving or had left already, told us that they are/were sad about leaving. l don’t want to think about leaving. We just left South Africa. I don’t have the capacity for more goodbye’s in the near future.
We’ve been ‘living’ in Egypt for two and a half weeks now. So far, so good. Hopefully we will move into a house soon and then the real ‘living’ can start.
I don’t want to bore you, so I will stop here for now. Thanks for being on this journey with us – wherever you are when you read this.
Fielies (Riëtte) De Kock 