Chopsicles

Got the video camera today. Its a canon HV-20 and its pretty flippin’ sweet. The resolution is fantastic. In my rush to get it, I haven’t actually got any tapes yet but was playing it straight through the TV and it looks really good. Hopefully get some time this weekend to look at it. At any rate, will have time after work finishes next Friday.

On a related note, mum found some photos from the very early 80’s of us kids. Proof that I once had hair.

I was on the way to church on Sunday morning and met a guy on the tram. He came over and asked what sort of guitar I had so I showed him. He asked if he could have a go and I let him until the driver told us that you couldn’t play loud music on the tram, which is fair enough. In fact, I had been trying to work out how to suggest that the other passengers might not appreciate his playing. Anyway, it turns out he was on the way to the city to round up some money to score. He was on state trustees and they held most of his money. He got shots once a week for a condition which, at a guess, might have been schizophrenia. He had a court case coming up because he threatened someone over the phone. After I got off the tram I sat in the park waiting for other people to arrive and saw a man cooking up his breakfast on the free barbeques outside the building where we’re meeting at present. It looked like a well practiced routine. I went up to him and said “I’m going up the street to get a coffee, can I bring you back something?”. He looked at me like I was from another planet. It was apparent that my way of helping didn’t match what he felt was needed in his life and I felt kind of foolish. It reminded me of a general tone in the book “This is the grass” by Alan Marshall which I’ve just finished. Alan suffered from polio as a child and had to use crutches throughout his adult life. However, in much of the book it seems his greatest desire is not for any sympathy or assistance but to be respected and treated normally. By going up to the man in the park the way I did, I felt I undermined his dignity, not through malice but perhaps through ignorance. I think listening to my friend on the tram was a much more effective demonstration of goodwill. Gotta keep learning.

Still trying to work out how to drive this blog thing and what sort of stuff to put in here. I’ve been reading a book by Alan Marshall called ‘This is the grass’ about his early adulthood. There is a passage where he writes about the experience of his first office job that resonated with me somewhat:

I found the work easy, but before the day finished I was longing to get out into the sunshine. Office work, I thought, cuts you off from the world. Cooped in by four walls I have lost association with the earth. Birds have been singing today, things have been growing and I have been unaware of it. A day in my life has been completely wasted.

I thought of all the confined days ahead of me and realised with horror that the seasons would go on changing the face of the sky and the earth and I would never witness it. Each weekend I would see the results of a week’s magic but never the process.

‘Completely wasted’ is perhaps slightly stronger language than I would use to describe my time thus occupied but I guess that most people would know the sort of feeling. If nothing else, I’m looking forward to the variety of the next couple of months. I’m pretty sure I won’t be bored in any great quantity. We had a meeting last night with some other people who are going over to Africa for the first part, after which I’ll be staying on in Cape Town. It looks like I’ll also be making a stop of around 2 weeks in Kenya, training some teachers in basic computer skills. As I understand it, they’ve probably not seen a computer before. One of the languages spoken in Kenya is Swahili so I’m interested to see what happens when I tell them to double-click!

Well, the tickets for Africa have been purchased now, so things are really in train. My vaccinations haven’t been in vain (just in vein - sorry, had to be said). As nice as the folks at the travel centre are, the thought of needless needles is particularly unappealing.

At this point, the itinerary looks something like this:

SERVICE FROM TO DEPART ARRIVE
————– ——————- ——————— ——– ——-
QANTAS AIRWAYS - QF 400
MON 15OCT MELBOURNE VI SYDNEY NS 0600 0720
MON 15OCT SYDNEY NS JOHANNESBURG ZA 1000 1610
DURATION 14:10

KENYA AIRWAYS - KQ 463
TUE 16OCT JOHANNESBURG ZA NAIROBI KE 0040 0550
DURATION 4:10

KENYA AIRWAYS - KQ 434
TUE 16OCT NAIROBI KE KINSHASA CD 0815 0945
DURATION 3:30

KENYA AIRWAYS - KQ 435
FRI 19OCT KINSHASA CD NAIROBI KE 1045 1625
DURATION 3:40

KENYA AIRWAYS - KQ 432
SAT 20OCT NAIROBI KE LAGOS NG 0730 1030
DURATION 5:00

KENYA AIRWAYS - KQ 433
SUN 28OCT LAGOS NG NAIROBI KE 1120 1835
DURATION 5:15

KENYA AIRWAYS - KQ 460
THU 01NOV NAIROBI KE JOHANNESBURG ZA 0740 1040
DURATION 4:00

BRITISH AIRWAYS - BA 6419
THU 01NOV JOHANNESBURG ZA CAPE TOWN ZA 1400 1610
DURATION 2:10

Pretty dang sweet.

Update: looks like I might be staying in Kenya for longer than originally anticipated, perhaps up to two weeks.