It is early morning in a smallish European capital that is laden with history, both for me and my family and for humanity. I am trying to make this city my home for the second time. Although the person who walked here over 30 years ago could have been a stranger, someone I heard about or imagined. My half-formed self has changed profoundly since then. And even the city whose existence is counted in millennia changed a lot in three decades.
I am not yet sure whether I will befriend my new place of dwelling or loathe it. I have had both good and bad times here, and I fear what the northern cold would do to me. After six years of living in temperate climate, I find this European summer a bit cooler than the tropical winters of Nairobi. I am now wearing the same light jacket that I wore there when it got cold. The rain and thunderstorms arrive with the same frequency. But Africa’s weather, just like its people’s temperament, changes quickly from dark to light, and from cold to warm. Here, it takes longer for the air to warm from a cold spell, as it takes time for people to thaw from partially frosty and stand-offish attitudes.
I admit that I what I am saying is just my heart missing the warm embrace of Africa. With the exception of one glum taxi driver, who was not even local, I have seen nothing but warm welcome from colleagues and from the city itself. I look forward to exploring it on foot and enjoying, for once, the pleasure of being a flaneur in a well-organized walkable city. Because while African populations largely prefer walking, most of their cities and towns are anything but walkable. People still walk everywhere, among fields, on dirt roads and even on city highways. There are no rules nor paths for walking, the people just make them by the tread of their feet.
Europeans only walk for pleasure, not to commute or to get themselves from point A to point B. My current city is spoiled for choice when it comes to means of commute, as it has Subways, buses and street cars. And it is a fraction of the size of Nairobi, both in terms of space and population.
My current apartment is tiny in comparison to my place in Nairobi, but is well-designed and organised in a manner that makes its size irrelevant in comparison to its convenience. But there are still things to learn. How to sort waste, in the absence of informal recyclers who would make use of all discarded items of plastic and glass. And how to choose healthy foods from supermarkets bursting with choices and temptations.
It is relatively easy to replace mangos and avocados with apples and pears, even when your preference runs to the former rather than the latter. But it is much harder to go back from coffee capsules to regular ground coffee from a pour-on filter. My preference for plain water is already challenged by a myriad of fizzy drinks that offer low sugar content but god knows how many additives and sugar substitutes. And the African definition of fresh vegetables will surely be challenged by agricultural productions practices in Europe. My next learning tasks will be how to eat clean, when I am tempted by discount grocers and fast food outlets on a daily basis. How to maintain a frugal existence when I am surrounded by elegance and style. I am now an unwilling participant in the machine of capitalism, but I am powerless to resits it. The first thing I bought when I landed here was a fancy, and expensive, new smart phone. My African sensibilities cringed at this decadence, but I still produced my credit card and swiped it, confident in my financial and professional security. I made many excuses about this, but I know it is an unnecessary luxury. There are many cheaper phones that could do the job, but it is so easy to follow the temptations of luxury and convenience here.
I will watch carefully how this move will change me, to the better or worse, and I will learn more in the process about myself and my evolution as a human. The first lesson I am working on is how to let go of people, places and things that I loved deeply, and how to love new people, places and things. I will try to adapt and keep my humanity, and stay fair to those I interact with.
And while I am here, I will acknowledge that mother Africa and its people still have a big hold on my soul. Europe has the bling, the prosperity, and the convenience, but Africa has the shape of my heart.
Time and again I find myself craving things. I go out to buy myself food, then I go to the wool shop and buy yarn, and of course my biggest addiction buying books. Our largest bookstore chain in South Africa has two annual sales, the winter sale and the summer sale, and I have been very dedicated in attending them from my days in Johannesburg to this day. I know I missed a few when I was overwhelmed with work at the garage, but I usually make it a point to be there as soon as my closest branch opens on sale day. This year I was there one full day too early, I showed up with Robert on Tuesday, and found an almost deserted mall. The staff at the bookstore were still setting up the tables of the sale books, which weren’t open to public viewing yet, so I had to try again the very next day.
I picked up Robert just after eleven then I walked with him to where my friend’s place. I met W a few weeks ago at the park and we related to each other quickly because we are both single moms. Her story is slightly different, because she was not married to the father of her baby, but we still ended up in similar situations. In her case, the father sends money regularly but does not want to be involved in any other way. Sometimes I wish this was the case for us as well. Ron’s contribution to our finances is pathetic and in return for it I have to put up with his strange behaviour and venomous comments, and I do not consider it a fair bargain at all. Another thing that W and I have in common is that we both share accommodation with friends. W’s place is more chic and upmarket than this old home, but the problems are still the same. We both need to protect our babies from the dangers in the house – in her case there are open steps and banister- and at the same time we need to protect the house (or its contents) from the menace of little hands and feet. When the moms showed up we had a full complement of little boys, ranging in age from 4 months to just over a year. W’s son had just turned one on the 14th of July (Bastille Day – which incidentally is also my dad’s birth date). The older kids spent some time playing and generally making a mess while the little ones watched angelically from their cots or cushions, there was curry for lunch and then cake and muffins for tea, and we all enjoyed ourselves. Robert tried many new toys, and naturally they held his interest much longer than the toys at home. A rattle with a long handle was a hit with his as usual. I was very surprised though when he suddenly found interest in a ring stacker. He has a similar toy at home, and I have been trying to show him how to fit the rings correctly around the base, but he was had never shown real interest in the process until today. W’s son had loads of interesting toys, but Robert spent most of his time playing with the ring stacker. All good times come to an end though, and my queue to leave was Robert’s voice increasing in volume, announcing that he had enough and was really tired, so I had to leave in a hurry. The problem was fixed immediately once we started moving and Robert went to sleep in the stroller as soon as we cleared the block. I often wonder how I would deal with a similar situation on a long-haul flight, I get panicky just thinking about it.
The Loskop Diaries 