A Day in the Life of a Couch

I’ve made really good friends with the couch of late. There’s something about being the only unemployed individual in a house that leads you to find this kind of companionship. But I tell you now that it’s not a healthy relationship.

While I’ve given the couch a thorough vacuum and a lot of quality time, I’ve also given it popcorn kernels, sand, red wine, cereal and a nice bum-shaped indentation.

And whilst it has comforted me through the pretence of novel writing, the plottings of my million dollar empire, far too many Tarintino movies, and the aspirations of job hunting, it has also lulled me into a deep slumber on far too many occasions. It’s an evil couch.

The couch and I have become so close that yesterday, when the gigantanormous plumber walked in to fix our shower, I actually felt it squirm. And, when the plumber sat down to catch his breath after climbing two flights of stairs, I shared it’s agony in seeing its cushions pancaked to the floor. It pained me mostly because I’d never felt such a close connection to a couch.

And so, when plumber man finally left, so did I – it was exactly the motivation needed to inspire a jog.

And with my life potentially ending tomorrow with me boarding a flight (that’s right, I said the ‘F’ word), I need to put some distance between us (it makes tomorrow’s farewell easier too) and get out and make some real friends. Besides, couches offer no guidance in the ways of airplane survival and that’s what I need most in life right now (apart from coffee).

Rotted Milk

There are two types of choices: good ones; and bad ones.  Life’s a whole lot better when you make the good ones…

I should have realized this last week already. But I didn't  No, instead I didn't smell the milk before I used it on my cereal and coffee… At first I thought it just tasted bad because I had brushed my teeth first… Half way through I thought it might just be a new brand…

I thought I’d be a nice sister and cook dinner. But apparently chilli sauces aren't all the same.  Side-of-the-road-Mozambiquan-chilli-sauce is a force to be reckoned with. Dinner was severely diluted with milk. I forgot the milk was off…

3 hours into the document search....

SUCCESS!

And then came moving to Cape Town.  In an attempt to find one very
very very horrendously very important document, I took a trip to Benoni (Think mullets and wife beaters and children who are older than their parents). While it was lovely seeing family and having my first braai since 2010, I knew my mission. It took the better part of five hours, and courage I never thought I could cough up (I also coughed out a lot of dust and cobweb) – but I fought through four households of stored ‘stuff’ (our family being the first to have invaded the cousin’s garage) and came out with not only the document, but a lot more of my earthly belongings than I ever thought I owned. I’m pretty sure they bred and had offspring in my years of absence.

All my worldly possessions...

and the bicycle...

This made relocating home a lot harder than it should have been. Flying was out of the question. I had a full car load of ‘stuff’ so driving was out – not only do I not possess a car – but there was no way I’d drive the 1400 km alone. There are too many luggage limitations on the bus and well, I’d never taken the train…

Sunday morning I rocked up at the train station hoping there would still be tickets. “Sorry” said the friendly Malawian behind the counter “sold out till mid-Feb”. But I pleaded – “there’s no tickets at all??” and that’s how I bought my R340 third class hard seat on board the Shoshaloza Meyl to Cape Town. Like I said, it was a week of bad decisions.

The Zimbabwean next to me was under the impression that it was a 5 hour trip. I probably shouldn't have said anything about the ETA – I’ve never seen a black person turn that white.

Look at all the happy faces!

For every grown up on board there were 37.5 infants and for every seat between Klerksdorp and Kimberly, there were 3 grownups…

The toddlers joined their vocal chords to create a sound track to stay awake to and the plastic non-reclining seats made sure we did. But it could always be worse…  By 3am our carriage was full of police to break up the fights bought on by excessive quantities of alcohol and seat/ floor space reclaimage.

I made friends with 6 year old Kabelo who taught me all about fairies and princesses and marveled at the giftings her 3 year old sister possessed in finding and eating second hand chewing gum. I discussed business plans with people from 4 different African countries and finished reading a book I’ve carried for the last 3 months. But ask any person on that train and none of them will ever take it again. Not economy at least….

A very hot and smelly toilet overflowingly 29.5 hours later – past some breathtaking scenery and some sheep and 3 ostriches and a plethora of other stuff - we pulled into Cape Town. I felt like I’d just single-handedly fought the Vietnam war or run the comrades marathon… and won… and to make it even better, all of my belongings survived too.  

I suppose bad decisions are all part of life and they help you learn and become a better person… but they also get you upset stomachs and sleepless nights and possible diseases… From now on I aim to make only good ones. Life’s too short for 29.5 hour train rides…. 

How to make a Million... Maybe.

It was a bright and sunshiny Sunday evening. The pizza was ordered, the black label drafts were flowing… across from us sat a man with far too much butt crack showing, but the alternative views were Cape Town traffic or the smoking mob of under-agers out the back. It was the perfect setting for an epiphany. They always come when you least expect them.

I’m no exactly sure how you take five and a half years of random gypsyism and turn it into an exciting income generating backdrop. I can’t really remember all that much from varsity days and I’ve been out of touch with the real world for so long that I’m not sure I can return to a former type of employment. My major skills are falling, licking things, not dying, and generating random meaningless conversation with strangers. My CV has gaps. But this year I will make a million bucks. Or at least that’s the New Year’s resolution.

I’m nearing 500 days of absolutely no income (and proud of it) – it’s the perfect foundation for my quest.

Minimum wage comes to about R26 000 a year – which is only R974 000 short. If I sell everything I own and my second kidney I can probably push that up to R27 400 so it looks like I’m going to have to be getting crazy creative on this endeavor!

I’ve looked at the figures and will probably rule out cake sales and begging at the robots (traffic lights) but to succeed, it’s going to take every other sort of everything. I’ve decided to make Cape Town my base and also decided that I’d prefer not to be arrested, lose my soul, or die – but everything else goes.

I have no idea who ever takes the time to read these blog posts (if anyone) – but if you (whoever you may be) have any suggestions, please send them my way – I will give them a shot!

I tried really hard to make New Year’s resolutions this year. But I’m a goal orientated person… I need them.  And that’s why this is the year I become a millionaire…

Could this be how I make my millions...??

Take any Old Year - Turn it Stupendously Epic

I’m not sure how I’ve survived 2012: I’ve fallen 869 times, crashed 3 motorbikes, blown 17 bicycle tyres, licked any and everything, hitched 2687 km, cycled 2953 km, motorbiked 3214 km, sailed some 13 060.8 km,  shipwrecked, probably contracted rabies, and today celebrates 396 days of unemployment... not to mention surviving the predicted world’s ending...

I’ve always pretended to be ballsy. I’m not particularly - I’m a woman, we don’t have balls. I think my could-be-any-race-group complextion (currently leaning towards Nigerian), calloused bare feet and mangled mop of gypsy hair gives me that caveman-style untouchable aura. But I bruise, I bleed, I have sleepless nights of worry and I’m generally just as scared as the chickens who live across the road from the KFC... 

A year ago today I was sat on a friends balcony in Singapore staring worryingly at the world map wondering where to go next... My goal was a flightless mission to Spain, maybe. But the terrified little girl inside had only a giant teddy bear and a gianter backpack to cling to. And the bank account probably wasn’t very happy already.  A pep talk with myself, and excessive amounts of prayer later I missioned off into the abyss and let life unfold. 

It’s easy to have a good year when you play it safe. You know what’s going to happen. You know who and where your friends are. You have a secure job where you can budget and plan bonuses. You have a cellphone contract and you know that when you walk into a local supermarket or a restaurant that you’ll find the brands and the flavours that you’re looking for and if you don’t you can at least speak the language and ask. But an excellent year involves a bit of roulette.

You never know what you're going to eat next....

“Never try, never know” is one of the many catch phrases of Asia (normally used to promote drug sales and prostitution). You don’t. Think back to the year that’s just past and how many times you turned down offers that made you nervous, conversations with people who smelt funny, travels to places you’d never heard of; how different would life have been if you’d said ‘yes’ more (or, in a few selective cases “no” more)?? 

After 2 and a half years of being away and 5 months of sailing, I arrived home. We moored in Richard’s Bay (South Africa) a little over two weeks ago after some incredibly hectic seas and a good many sleepless nights of holding on for dear life. I was looking forward to seeing friends and family and familiarity. I kissed the ground (which tasted very similar to dirt the world over, if you were wondering), and spent a couple of hours bouncing up and down in happiness (before I wore myself out and took a 4 hour power nap). It was so good to be back but I’d subconsciously already decided to run away again. 

The purple show's the radar's reflection of the storm surrounding us

The tattered remains of our gib

The crew and the friendliest immigration man I've ever met who gave the biggest welcome hug

I missioned to Cape Town (car-bus-car-car-car-car-bus) for the first sibling reunion in 3 years and found a whole lot more than I’d bargained for.  The best year of my life (so far) just got even better and ends with me dating my best friend of 10 years.... And that’s more than definitely worth sticking around for.

The fam

Aren't we an attractive lot???

I’m about to give the realer world another shot [GULP] - but this doesn’t for a second mean that the adventures are over. It simply means a new sort of gypsyism and I’m both excited and terrified - I have no idea where 2013 is going to take me.

And now it’s time to check my bank balance for the first time in 2 years - this is officially the scariest thing I’ve done all year... 

Happy 2013!! Go crazy. Be awesome. Say yes a lot. Come Visit. Don’t die.

Out of the Abyss : Still a Blip in a Vortex of Blue

[continued from http://barefootedgypsy.blogspot.com/2012/11/into-abyss-but-blip-in-ocean.html]

Week 3 and still we hadn't caught up to the drowning sun. The heavens still had balls of fire to fling about. The ocean still held suicidal fish to die upon our decks. I suppose that's what happens when you average the incredible speed of 6 knots (tenish kilometers an hour). And then finally, we saw the southern cross and it felt like we were getting somewhere, almost.

Sailing into the sunset day after day - not a bad thing to do really...

We busied ourselves with reading and darkening (My skin's gone black[er], My hair's going ginger) and tried our hands at baking and sewing and carpentry and art and poetry: (Sorry to inflict this on you)

With Reunion alooming
I feel my heart glooming.
How will I stand
On dry stable solid land

Three weeks of wobbling
On every waves throbbing
Holding on for dear life
Catching falling sugar and spice

With every windful gust
Forward Fiddler was  thrust
Sailing from rise to sunset
And still we're not there yet

For each item we break,
Something new Jim must Make
And whilst we sit alurk,
Kirk's always hard at work

A hole through my lip
A big bruise on my hip
Even my halo's gone tarnish
And the boat really needs a varnish

Deaths aboard have been plenty
At this rate, soon the seas will be empty
For while flying fishes astound,
On deck it's only their corpses to be found.

Computers keep dying
People's hands keep frying
We fall left right and centre
And soon may need dentures

But some day we'll arrive
And our challenge will be land to survive.

 

Halloween chinanigans - nothing in comparisson to the puppet show that came with "Memo day"

Just some of the incredibly drool inducing cookies baked at sea

I really tried to join the mohawk madness - but [despite littering the decks with masses of it] I have to much hair....

Deaths 17 - 21 [20 was a mangled wreck]

And then, in the early hours of day 24, I saw the lights... "Land ahoy". We were but a mere brick throw away... The winds died. The waves died. We sat bobbing motionlessly[ish] on the glassy waters. It took us a whole day to pass Mauritius.

The first land seen in nearly a month! - A mind blowingly beautiful sight

!

We spent another whole day staring at the distant Reunion before we finally furled the sails and fired up the engines. Dolphins escorted us the final few miles and, finally, on Wednesday November 21st : 26 days (619 hours and 37 minutes) after licking land farewell, we finally stepped ashore on La Reunion, France: a blip on the map littering the Indian Ocean somewhere between Madagascar and Mauritius - technically in both Africa and Europe...

Greeting land with a lick

It's a massive shock to the system finally being on solid land again - you can put things down and they don't involuntarily move; you don't have to trod cautiously, constantly holding on with one hand, expecting to be flung in some arbitrary direction at any given moment - you can eat without having to hold onto the salt and pepper and your plate and chilly sauce and water and vegetables and chair....

Weirder still, after a year in Asia, is being back in the Western world, back the first world. You don't see whole families and their livestock on a single scooter, you don't have to use squat toilets, people don't yell out "hello mr, where you go?" or "masssaaaaage-a?" or "you want boom boom?? dr bob? you want to fly to the moon?" You don't have an endless mob following you around trying to sell you wooden frogs and chicken giblets. 

The most amazingest yet is that in our little floating world there were no mutinies, there was no keel-hauling and no scurvy. Let's hope the next stretch, to Richard's Bay (South Africa - the homelands), is similarly epic!!!!

Into the Abyss : But a Blip in the Ocean

"When I grow up, I wanna be a pirate." - Former me, age 5ish...
And I really did. I wanted to swing by ropes from boat to boat waving plastic swords (all swords are plastic when you're 5ish) demanding cookies and cake... that's what I wanted to be.

 But out in the ocean, the last thing you'd like to meet are them pirate types - especially when you're delapan ratus delapan pulah delepan (Indonesian for 888) miles away from the closest splotch of land.. There's no calling the coast guard or radioing a ship for assistance. There's nothing. And in the real world, pirates aren't nice. Or so I've heard.

Stocked up with canned vegetables, a freezer full of chillis, and enough tofu and tempe to circumnavigate the globe [and the rest of the planets] at least 27 times, we licked land goodbye (18:42 pm, Friday 26 October) and prepared for the great vortex of blue that awaited us.

Approaching our last wake point before 3512 miles in a straight line...

The wind whisked out of Bali just in time to celebrate captain Kirk's birthday, which was conveniently located the day before Halloween which was conveniently located the day before Christmas [island] - which you have to celebrate - which created a plethora of convenient celebrations to mark the start of our Indian ocean crossing.

All through the first week, dolphins leaped at our bow and spun through the air and awed us with their magnificent beauty as we chased the sunset. One tanker overtook us, one tsunami warning buoy beguiled us, one soap wrapper floated by. Apart from that, there was nothing.

And then the winds picked up and the dolphins were lost in the 3-5 meter swell; lee cloths went up because life became a constant 30 degree lean to the right, and it's hard to not roll out of bed at that angle. We saw one bobbing coconut and a plastic bottle, but for all we knew there may well have been treasure chests lurking nearby - the seas flamed like a furnace.

Bathing (by hanging onto the stern ladder) became restricted to holding on with both hands, and only when there were at least 2 people to supervise; it's not as easy as you might think to furl the gib, lower the main, start the engine and about ship to rescue fallen sailors.

The captain trying to ski swim off the back of the boat.... the captain was the only one crazy enough to try this... the captain was also almost lost to the sea...

Electronic devices died left, right, over board and centre. The deck became littered with flocks of flying fish (54 found dead - one rescued).

Storms came and went. Movie nights were either done verbatim, or moved indoors.  

One hand was constantly clinging on for dear life whilst the other caught falling people and produce and toilet seats. Make that falling everythings - things learned to magically fly every time we heeled at the mercy of a giant wave. Our bodies glimmered blue with bruises.

17 50 379 S; 086 45 777 E, Day 12, I flew across the galley and somehow succeeded in piercing my tooth through my chin. It hurt a lot. It bled a lot.

The healing of my pieced lip... and no it did not make me turn yellow... I think that may just be the camera.

White waves mesmerised us by day, shooting stars awed us at night. Our trusty swivel, sea force stove kept our stomachs well sated.

Shortly before our furthest point from any land (902 miles away from Cotos Keeling and 902 miles away from Chagos), we spotted a small fishing boat -- the last thing you expect to see out in the ocean. Another two vessels purpled on our radar. Pirates??We sat nervously watching... they eventually disappeared.

At 14:04 pm, Day 13, we hit the half way to La Reunion mark - 1756 nautical miles in. Pop pops and tom thumbs and a message in the bottle went off. Hugs did their rounds. And then we all sat back down and carried on being mesmerised. We still had a very long way to go.

The excitement that is beer oclock (especially on time zone change days, where 5ish oclock came around twice)

Some Epic Title... [The End of My World]

TEN…. NINE…. EIGHT… Thoughts are racing around my head like a giant disorganized herd of pregnant water buffalo playing ice hockey with sharpened samurai swords: Are we actually ready? What have we forgotten? Will we have enough food and water and basic supplies? Will the back ally stitching on our three reefs of broken sail hold the 5800 miles home?

It's amazing the work that goes into taking down a main sail

It's even more amazing how you can finally fold it small enough to fit in a dingy...

SEVEN…. SIX… Asia is incredible…. I miss land… and there’s so many many epic people about, so much good food to eat and too many good surfs to be had… so many places I haven’t yet been…. So much more to see… SO much more to lick… and I’m back where I started 11 month ago (And it’s been a flipping exceptionally incredible 11 months)… Australia’s so close I could almost swim there… it’s not too late to abandon ship and turn in the wrong direction again…

My beautiful home.... S/V Fiddler

FIVE… FOUR…I haven’t been home for two years, what happens if people have changed too much? Or worse; what if they haven’t changed at all? Will people even recognize me? Apart from my Nigerian skin tan, am I even still an African? 

THREE… TWO… There are so many people I meant to talk to, so much I had to say [I talk a lot]. How many more birthdays will I miss? How many more people will get married? And engaged? And born? And intoxicated? And knighted? What major events will be happening around the world in the next month? Maybe the world ends and we get left behind....

This picture has absolutely no relevance to this blog

ONE: It’s the very end. Six months of direction change, hitching, boat work and island hopping has finally bought us to the ocean crossing. In the next 24 hours, we‘ll have done our final supply shopping, stamped out of Indonesia and we’ll be raising anchor and launching into the unknowns of the Indian Ocean. Our world is about to shrink to the confounds of the ship and the marine life that surfaces. And the stars. That’s all we’ll have until Reunion. There’ll be no popping in to grab some fresh bread and chilli. No skyping mum a quick “I love you”. No facebook (oh! The horrors!). No doctors (hopefully we won’t need them). No sneaking in a non-vegetarian meal on the sly. No human interaction apart from the crew (luckily they’re a really nice bunch).

And while I’m so terrified that I couldn’t bring myself to sleep last night, I’m pretty sure this is exactly what I’m meant to be doing with my life right now. I know we’ll be okay. Coming back to the boat last night after 3 whole days (“tiga hari” because my Indonesian’s almost practically fluentish) of land, I felt like I was coming home. And I know that for the rest of the world life will go on as normal as we blip up and down on the vortexy abyss of ocean. But know that you’ll be severely missed dear human, and if you get a chance, spare us a thought, a wish and a prayer. I’ll post out the infrequent message in a bottle…. And then see you on the other side. See you in Africa.   

ZERO…