Nine years in Australia

Jethro's take on his mummy: he took this 28th October 2013

Nine years ago, to the day, I arrived in Australia. It was a profound feeling. I was 41, and my life was starting over.

I remember Francis meeting me at the airport and feeling particularly awkward. I remember thinking that nothing could make him understand what was going on inside me, and that I wasn't going to try to explain. I was just going to get on with it.

I noticed that so many people leaving South Africa were running from something, and I wasn't. I was going TO something. I was going to a new life with a man I had met in Spain, learning Spanish. I was seriously starting again. Life was changing:
- from being single to being part of a couple
- from being well known to completely unknown.
 - from a life of dance and consulting to a life of little dance and no permission to work.
 - from years of experience to not being recognised for any experience.

I had left my home with four bedrooms plus a flat for a shared room in a shared unit. I had left being a landlady for being a partner of a renter. I had left a huge circle of family and friends and colleagues for a country where I knew one person well, two more people quite well, and about ten people vaguely. I had left the mountain and sea for the suburbs.
Instead of a house filled with belongings I had just one suitcase with my clothes and my cutlery (!). Instead of a car I was on foot.

Yes this was still 34 degrees South. Just not Cape Town. It was Sydney.

Some of this was apparent on the first day, and some only became apparent over time. Slowly but surely it sank in that I'd really taken this enormous step at 41. It was my sister-in-law's birthday and I wasn't there to celebrate it. Today, nine years later, it's her birthday again and I'm not there to celebrate it. But I am celebrating, instead, a nine-year journey to date.

I woke this morning thinking about the highlight of each year:
2004: Discovering the tango, flamenco, latino dance and music scene in Sydney and my first New Year's Eve fireworks over the Bridge and Opera House
2005:  A five day trip, alone and camping, to the heart-stopping beauty of New Zealand's South Island; buying our home in Heighway Avenue in Ashfield and joining Sing Australia
2006: Our wedding; visitors throughout that year from South Africa
2007: Being allowed to work. Restarting Making Things Work. Dancing Tango at Darling Harbour. 
2008: Magical trip to Europe with Francis
2009: Jethro was born. Becoming a mum at 46. Starting to work with social enterprises in earnest.
2010: Jethro's baby naming ceremony. Becoming an Ausralian Citizen. Taking Jethro to South Africa to meet the family.
2011: Marjorie's visit to Sydney; An African drumming course
2012: Moving to Oatley to the green and the blue of nature once again
2013: Marjorie in Sydney again. Embarking on the Key Person of Influence course and restarting my work as Beyond Win-Win.

And then, of course, there have been the annual highlights - Jewish high festivals on the North Short and the Eastern Suburbs, re-acquainting with cousins I knew as a child in South Africa, annual Christmas celebrations (the street party in Heighway Avenue, the Mother's Group party and the Chilean-Iranian-South African-Australian party each year), Chinese New Year and all the diversity type celebrations in Sydney. And lots, lots more.

Today I am celebrating a long journey that, in the scheme of things, is only just starting. It's amazing, though, that I've lived in Australian almost one fifth of my life. Just one more year and it will be a decade. Hah.

 

 

 

 

Viva, South Africa, Viva. Viva the World Cup 2010, Viva!

Photo in Hermanus, South Africa. Francis and Jethro in the run-up to the World Cup 2010

Tonight I am truly proud to be South African. Almost as proud as I was the day Nelson Mandela was released from prison, or the day he was sworn in as the first President of the new Democratic South Africa. Or the day I got to meet him.

Tonight I am truly proud to be South African because all the things I value in South Africa are on show to the world. The innovation, the resourcefulness, the Can-Do attitude, the music and dance and the exuberance. Tonight I, like millions of others around the world, will be watching the opening of the Fifa World Cup 2010 in Johannesburg. I expect huge excitement in the crowd. I expect huge nervousness about possible criminal moments. I expect a huge police presence. I expect absolute elation from the people who are actually there at this historic moment. But most of all I expect South Africa to pull it off. South Africans have a way of just doing that.

No thanks, I might add, to the current President who was a disastrous choice, in my opinion, and who continues to fluff it at every opportunity. But, true to reputation, South African has managed the enormous task of preparation for the World Cup "in spite of". In spite of huge challenges, and in spite of a dearth of strong leadership.

When we were in South Africa a few weeks ago we were astounded by the construction taking place - not only the incredible six stadiums that had been built, but the huge changes to roads and infrastructure. Some of the key roads in Cape Town were having a complete revamp, and yet the planners had managed to keep traffic flowing throughout the course of the changes.

I have said it before, and I'll say it again. I miss Cape Town in the same way as I would miss a very dear ex-lover. It has been said that "we never stop silently loving those we once loved out loud" (Oriah Mountain Dreamer). How true for me of Cape Town. That mountain, those seas, those people, that energy. But I am here, now, in Sydney and not far from obtaining my Aussie Citizenship. And so a new chapter is starting for me - being proud to be a Sydneysider - almost as proud as I was to be a South African. And to represent that I will hold dual citizenship. With pride, and with deep gratefulness.

And in all that, I will continue to love my three cities at 34 degress south: Buenos Aires (City of Tango and the Paris of the South), my adopted city of Sydney (the Serotonin city) and my city of origin, Cape Town (the Mother City). How better  to celebrate my love of all three cities than to be in Sydney this night and share an extraordinary Utube clip a woman I have been lucky to spend time with some years ago, dancing Tango, with a Soccer Ball.

Viva Buenos Aires! Viva Sydney! And specially tonight, Viva Cape Town and South Africa. Long Live!




[Mother City photo taken by Rosemary Shapiro-Liu in 2003. But it could have been taken on my 2010 visit to Cape Town. While much has changed, there is much that has stayed the same. Photos on this blog are copyright.]

A Road Trip in New South Wales

Starting off, heading north.

We were all packed and ready to go. Early. We'd got ourselves organised so the last day or two could be to complete work. On the Thursday before our planned Saturday departure I went to my obstetrician for a routine check-up. She'd given me the go-ahead to travel. However, things had changed since I last saw her, and the H1N1 threat had worsened. A locked cabin for a few hours on the way to Vanuatu was not her idea of a worthwhile risk for a 5 and a half month pregnant woman.

Some heavy decision-making followed. I had a deadline for the Friday and didn't have time to change tack.... Francis stepped in. We agreed to let the Vanuatu holiday go for now, and take a road trip north. He contacted the insurance people, and I got back to work.

Less than 48 hours later our suitcases had been re-packed with warm clothes, we'd thrown in some food and we set out on our Northern NSW road trip. It wasn't Vanuatu, but it was Australia, and we were to discover some of the lovelier places within a seven hour drive of our home.

For those not in the know, New South Wales is not a small place. It covers and area of 801,600 square kilometers (about two thirds of the size of South Africa or nearly four times the size of Great Britain) and has 780 national parks. The Great Dividing Range runs the length of the State from Victoria in the south to Queensland in the north, with the highest mountains reaching above 1000m. Most Australians live within 50km of the coast and in areas outside of cities, most Australians live even closer to the coast. The vast hinterland is not an area I am at all familiar with, but I hear that people manage the harsh lifestyle and the vast distances.

We set off North on Saturday morning the 1st of August. The short version is that we shuffled back and forth up and down the Great Dividing Range and the coast for just over a week. We saw some fantastic scenery. Lots of what I was seeking and what I like to call Bluery and Greenery. And animals - my first koala in the wild, whales (including getting involved in an exciting binocular search with national parks staff to find a whale that had become entangled in some fishing line and a bouy), porpoises, dolphins, black cockatoos, domestic dogs, a wallaby, some fenced-in kangaroos, a dead wombat or two, and a lot of non-city folk.

We stayed in some funky accommodations, most of which I can recommend and which I have a list of if anyone needs it:

• Saturday and Sunday: Bellingen (a great mountain town on the gorgeous Belliger river, and home of a great music festival, headlined this year by the famous South African musician Hugh Masekela who I am going to see in October)
• Monday and Tuesday: Woolgoolga (yes, all the t-shirts say 'where on earth is Woolgoolga', and most people just fondly call it Whoopi. It's just north of Coff's Harbour and has a good whale watching headland)
• Wednesday: Dorrigo (a mountain town, at almost 1000m altitude)
• Thursday: Armidale (a University town reminiscent of Pretoria)
• Friday and Saturday: Tea Gardens (the twin town of Hawks Nest on the Myall waterways just north of Nelsons Bay, and my idea of heaven - I'd be happy to go back holiday after holiday after holiday)
• Sunday: back home.

We traveled 1850km. The highlight was in Tea Gardens. We'd read a local book that said that if we went to the top of the bridge between Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest at 9.30pm we'd see dolphins playing in below. This seemed a bit too specific, and perhaps a touch implausible. But we dutifully drove to the bridge (embarrassing as we realised it was just 200 m away, but it was cold out!) and walked up to the top. It was freezing. We heard a large splash, and could not quite place it as the river is way too far upstream for waves. There, in the disturbed water, was a large dolphin surfing on it's back. It was fantastic - fully visible in the street light from the bridge. Then, after a cold wait, we saw two more dolphins, and another. We shivered and watched, and they came and went in through the light and the bridge shallows. We headed for our accommodation to to rug up some more, but it was too cold to get back out.

The next night we thought we might be a bit late. We put on loads on clothes and in our best imitation of Michelin Men walked to the bridge and took up our vantage points, Francis on one pavement and me on the other. And there they were - three dolphins. A very large mum and her juvenile (we later heard it was probably Nicky, a well known matriarch in the area). She was teaching her young one to fish. They dashed in and out of the well lit shallow waters, and disappeared for up to ten minutes at a time. It was magical, just magical. When the dolphins wer elsewhere we entertained ourselves watching silent pelicans paddling by on the nightly fishing expedition, and some rather haunting black swans whose red beaks gave them away against the shadows.

It was a great nine days, and an incredible realisation that there are places just three hours from Sydney that are at least as gorgeous as Knysna in South Africa, my usual holiday haunt (which is five hours from Cape Town). I can imagine us taking our little Spud there, to the Myall lakes area at Tea Gardens and Hawks Nest, many times in the future. And nine days with Francis was just the best start to August - good company, good conversation and spontaneous travel decisions.

For pics of the trip on Picasa, click here