Tag Archives: Jozi

Up-date on the Month of March

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Apologies, dear readers, for my prolonged absence from the Blogosphere. Things have been rather busy for the past month.

After returning from Cape Town at the end of February, I had a teeny tiny taste of what life as a full-time, working mom, might be like. The Best Friend invited me to a very impressive two-day conference that she had conceptualised and was hosting in Jozi. I have to say, it was fun to wake up in the morning and peruse my usually untouched wardrobe of beautiful shirts and suits from a bygone era. To meticulously insert lady-links and to pick out a pair of shiny heels and to feel super chic and ready for the day. Of course, my day had officially begun three hours earlier at 5am and so as I was getting ready to leave at 8am, it felt close to lunch-time. Happily, staying awake to listen to conference speeches and staying awake to entertain a small child require similar amounts of caffeine and so I remain well practised in this respect. Of course, when one is a stay at home mom, leaving one’s child for two whole days from 8am to 5pm brings with it all manner of feelings of guilt, to the extent that, on the second day, I nipped back home for an hour for a session of play with The Princess.

My brief return to the world of “work” (sort of) was followed by an two week return to the world of French. My Belgian host sister arrived in mid-March as part of the pen-ultimate leg of her one year around-the-world tour which began in Mexico in May 2011 and which will end in the Ivory Coast in May this year.

Her sojourn in Jozi led us to many historical sites – many of which I have been meaning to visit for years but have just never got to: Liliesleaf Museum in Rivonia, the Apartheid Museum, Constitution Hill & the Constitutional Court and a guided tour of Soweto. This was interspersed by visits to Parkhurst, 44 Stanley, Melrose Arch, 70 Juta and the Neighbourgoods Market. Ages ago, my Parkhurst friend recommended a great “guide” to Jozi sites and life, when we were breakfasting at Nice: “Spaces & Places: Johannesburg” by Gerald Garner. The author covers all the cute little neighbourhood/ homely spots worth visiting in the “Village Life” section (from Parkhurst to Craighall Park to Greenside to Linden),  he covers a fortune to be discovered in the Urban Life section, especially when it comes to the CBD and “Braamies” and then also does a great synopsis on what’s should be visited in terms of struggle heritage. I think my host sister and I – often with The Princess in tow – did a fairly good job of experiencing Jozi in 10 days, if his book is anything to go by, although of course, there is way more we could have seen and done.

On Human Rights Day, we headed off to Clarens in the Free State, to explore a bit of the rest of the country and so that The Husband could cycle himself silly. We stayed 1.2km away from the edge of the common in the middle of the main street of Clarens. Here’s where our newly acquired Phil & Ted’s jogger came in handy. It has only been jogging once since its acquisition six weeks ago, but with Clarens’ dirt roads, we found an additional reason to justify its existence.

The Princess went on her first hike in the Golden Gate National Park not far from Clarens, safely esconsed inside her Baby Bjorn carrier on The Husband’s chest. The next day we visited a “replica” of a Basotho village – a tourist destination inside the park. We arrived at lunch time so we decided to brave the traditional menu at the restaurant. I convinced my host sister to try vetkoek for the first time, by offering to split a safer option of a toasted cheese and ham. The Husband’s idea of eating exotic food is ordering Italian so he also went for a toasted sarmie. Honestly, I haven’t eaten a toasted sandwich this tasty in about 20 years. I have distant childhood memories of yummy, greasy toasted sarmies where I guess the bread is basically fried and the cheese is oozing out of the corners, but whatever I’ve had in the last decade has tended to be rather dry and bland. Well, the Basotho Cultural Village Restaurant makes ‘em like they used to – worth a visit just for that. And if you’re more adventurous you can drink home brewed beer from a calabash with the advisor to the Chief of the village.

On our final day in Clarens, I suggested that we meet The Husband at the end of his cycle in Fouriesburg. I had never heard of the place but my host sister’s Lonely Planet mentioned it, citing numerous old stone buildings. In hindsight, I think that’s all the Lonely Planet said about Fouriesburg because, well, there really is nothing else to mention. However, I would like to object against any mention of the place whatsoever because it really is a one-horse town with no redeeming features. We were forced to wait there for The Husband – I had bargained on at least an hour of “visiting time”, ten minutes of which we’d managed to deplete by filling up with petrol. For the remaining 50 minutes, we installed ourselves in the garden of a local pub. As there was no-one in sight to order coffee from, I ventured inside. “Inside” consisted of an enormous bar counter populated by white men in long, khaki socks, against the back drop of an old South African flag. The flag was autographed in numerous places but I didn’t get a chance to figure out by whom because I was the only female in the joint and to say that the old farts were looking on leacherously, would be polite. When I enquired about coffees from the owner surveying his territory whilst smoking a cigarette behind the bar, he looked thoroughly peeved that I deigned to interrupt his rugby game to actually try and patronise his establishment. In short, not my favourite town and we quickly changed our plans and headed back to Clarens for lunch.

At the end of my host sister’s two week stay in Jozi, we were joined by her wonderful parents who had hosted me in their home in Belgium for six months in 1997 and who, along with their three daughters, painstakingly taught me to speak French, took me to fascinating and beautiful places and made my stay in their country and home absolutely unforgettable. Now, fifeen years later I could finally “host” them and their charming relatives, if only for one night, on the day of The Princess’ first birthday.

The story of The Princess starting to walk and turning one, will be a story for another blog. In the meantime, happy holidays as the Americans would say and I will check in again after the long weekend.

xxx Natalie

Size Matters. Duh.

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I have a theory about us Joburgers, our states of minds and what makes us the moodiest of all. I’d like to suggest that it’s not Ju Ju, it’s not load shedding and it’s not even the traffic. Sure, the traffic gets our blood boiling but how else would we break the ice in meetings? In my (past) experience, the subject of traffic instantly bonds business people like nothing on earth:

 

Meeting Participant 1:     Sorry I’m late. The traffic was horrendous…

Meeting Participant 2:     Where do you stay?

Meeting Participant 1:     Pretoria East

Meeting Participant 2:     (Nodding sympathetically) Ja, I live in Centurion. I left home 

                                     at 4 this morning and I only just made my 8 o'clock.

Meeting Participant 3:     It must have been that broken down truck at Allendale?

Meeting Participant 2:     Ja! Right next to Allendale.


It’s a beautiful scene: a roomful of total strangers, bonding like old friends over their shared experience of “the traffic”.


But back to my theory: which is NOT that “the traffic” makes us moody. No. I believe that nothing makes a born-and-bred Joburger quite as grumpy as bad weather. It’s as though we subconsciously know that despite all our issues: the smog, the smash 'n grabs, the roadworks, the lack of beaches, the dry air …we’ll be okay, because at least we have the weather. And when the weather is shite, then Joburgers are cold, wet and above all, grumpy.

 

As a Jozi immigrant who spent years dragging myself through rain- and wind-storms on UCT’s campus, Joburg weather doesn't often get me down. But I confess that last month was so bad, I found myself catching the meteorological malaise. I was in this mildly depressed state when I happened to wander into a shop called Helen Melon at the BluBird centre. A couple of warm, fluffy winter gowns had caught my eye, so I went to investigate. I was approached by Helon/Helen herself. Because it was 11am on a Tuesday morning she correctly assumed I hadn’t had to brave any traffic to get to her store and so she went with a more universal ice-breaker: the weather. She couldn’t believe how cold Joburg was and she was from Cape Town and it was actually warm there and she'd never been this cold in her life, etc… etc…etc…

 

I admit I tend to get irrationally competitive on the whole Cape Town/ Joburg thing: if I’m voicing my own opinion, then Cape Town may sometimes be better than Joburg. However, since I live in Jozi, if someone else ventures the opinion that CT is better than Joburg – so help them God. And so it was that I found myself standing in front of Helon Melon and recounting tales of being practically blown off Eastern Boulevard by the Cape Town South Easter. Jozi would be re-instated as “Weather Capital of SA” if it was the last thing I did.


Fortunately, Mrs Melon decided to change the subject. I told her I was interested in her winter gowns

and would like to try one on. And then she committed Sandton retail suicide. Here’s what she said: "Would you like to try an extra-large? I think the medium might fit you but I wear an extra-large because they are so much longer than the smaller sizes, so they keep you so warm around the legs.


I was speechless. Did she just say "extra large" out loud? I admit that I was somewhat comforted by the fact that Helen herself is absolutely tiny and here she was telling me that she wore this gown in a size extra-large by choice. Only somewhat comforted, though. I was still mostly mortified at the thought of owning an extra-large garment. I think it must have been a mixture of shock and horror that caused me to temporarily lose my mind and stammer, “Er, okay, I’ll try it.”

 

She looked relieved because she thought I had seen her point of view about the long, warm, extra-large gown.

Her relief gave her renewed confidence in our retail interaction and she went on to say: “It’s just that most of the women who come in here won’t buy anything that’s a size bigger than their normal size. Just because of what the tag says – can you believe that?”

 

What I was thinking was: “Lady, you should see the size of my aspirational wardrobe. It takes up the entire spare room and has been gathering moth balls since 2005.”

 

But what I said out loud was: “Gosh! Really?”

I guess I sounded convincing because Mrs Melon was like, “I know! Isn’t it mad? Hahahahaha."

And so it was that, in an attempt to come across as an equally psychologically stable woman with a healthy body image, unperturbed by frivolous things such as size tags (just like Helon Melon), I found myself purchasing an extra-large dressing gown.

I was totally going to take it back and swap it for a smaller size on a day that Helen was safely back in Cape Town. Totally. But the next day I remembered that I’d violently ripped out the size tag somewhere between the shop and the parking lot, leaving the gown with a giant hole where the tag used to be.

And if you’re wondering whether the extra leg warmth has made up for the psychological trauma of owning a Donna Claire-type garment, the answer is a resounding “no”. I think the gown’s about to get booted to the spare room – I’m just not mentally strong enough for this sh**

Runaway Make-Up with David-John

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I’ve been in hiding here in Jozi for the past few days. On my second last day in Austria, I managed to break out in some sort of scaly, vulgar face rash. It started on top of one eyelid and spread to my forehead, my chin, my upper lip…You get the picture. I figured it was either the sub-zero temperatures, the dry air, or the lack of sunshine and assumed that it would disappear after a day at the pool back at home. No such luck.

I decided to call my dermatologist’s rooms just for a laugh. The receptionist usually offers me a slot around mid-2012. This time was a little better. I was offered 1 July 2010. Fortunately, she was suitably grossed out by my description of my flaking face that 1 July, turned into “I have a cancellation in an hours time”.

An hour later, I learned that I am experiencing an allergic reaction to nail varnish. One little forehead scratch with a painted talon is apparently all it takes. Who knew? Naturally, I’m delighted to have gotten to the bottom of the Sci-fi story on my face, but it has meant that I’ve had to cancel my manicure at the Nail & Body Lab. And I was SO looking forward to catching the latest kugel goss (by eavesdropping, obviously). I was also banking on my Blubird visit to provide me with a little material for this posting. I was beginning to despair, when I happened upon the gem in the picture above.

While I was paying for my parking at Hyde Park centre, I saw a Rod Stewart poster. Since I was convinced that the old fart had to be dead by now, I looked again. Not Rod Stewart. Alex Jay, the Wedding Singer? Wrong again. Meet David-John, people. “International make-up artist”. I was busy taking down his number to call him and tell him that Duran Duran is dead and that he can’t keep his hairdo as a shrine to them, I noticed the poster’s copy. My personal fave is the second last bullet point: “Runaway make-up for fashion shows”. Not the effect you want to have on your clients, Dave.

Then there’s his name. I’m not sure if it’s a stage name that he thought gave him a sort of je ne sais quoi or if his parents just couldn’t reach consensus and decided to take matrimonial compromise very literally and just call him by two very common boys names stuck together. I mean, can you imagine: “David-John! Dinner’s ready!” or “David-John! Leave your mother’s eye-liner alone!”

I guess Dave got used to long names and couldn’t quite stop at “David-John Make-Up” as a business name. Nope, it had to be “David-John Make-Up INTERNATIONAL”. Maybe he tagged that on after a wedding in Mauritius when he realised that “David-John: Make-up for SADIC” didn’t sound quite as cool. Oh, but wait. Please note the info. at the bottom of the poster: “David-John travels world wide”. ‘Course he does.

And thank GAWD for that! I may just need him for my next trip to Austria when my face breaks out from supposed schnitzel-induced scurvy. “Please, cover me in base, David-John!”

It’s not the BFG: it’s the GHD

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I was in Dischem the other day, when I overhead a little interaction that took me back in time. I was instantly reminded of a rather memorable project meeting a few years ago. It was during my former life at one of the Big Four Audit firms. I was in a division with a far lower concentration of auditors and tax advisors than the rest of the firm, but, in general, the auditing culture prevailed: risk averse, polite, professional, etc. However, the meeting in question was the kick-off meeting for a ten-person project at one of the firm’s clients. Okay, fine. I’ll give you a hint: the client has been referred to as Incestec Bonk (but I’m sure only by less refined members of Jozi society and certainly not by my ex audit firm). Anyway, this meeting should have been like any other: timelines, roles & responsibilities, blah, blah, blah. Instead, it felt more like a meeting amongst a Cosmo team preparing for a Hugh Grant interview. 33 year old women in pin stripe suits were giggling like teens, before collectively panicking about what they’d wear on Monday when we be in the midst of these Incestec homo sapiens (the male variety). The atmosphere was filled with palpable excitement; sexual innuendos were rife and the poor male Partner in charge was powerless to stop it. It was almost surreal.

That weekend, I had lunch with a friend employed by Incestec. I’ll call her Nigella (since Nigella is almost as gorgeous and almost as good in the kitchen). I described the reaction of my female colleagues to the news that we’d soon be working amongst her male colleagues. I wanted to know if they were just off the charts good-looking, or what?

“Yes, they are,” she said straight away.

“But…”

Ha! There had to be a ‘but’ – the stats just didn’t make sense.

“You see, the thing is…” Nigella continued but then tapered off again. “The thing is…”

She looked almost pained by what she was trying to say and once again she stopped mid-sentence.

“Well, the thing is, they…”

Oh for Pete’s sake, what is it? By now I was thinking she was going to tell me that they were transvestites by night or that they all lived with their aging mothers.

“The thing is, (deep breath) they do their hair”.

Monday rolled around and proved Nigella right. Virtually every member of the male species had about enough gel in his “do” to stop a bullet. (Thankfully, that didn’t deter my female colleagues).

The other day in Dischem, I witnessed first hand how it all begins. It was mid-morning and the store was quiet enough for me to bump into a yummy mummy and her teenage son several times over. The third time I encountered the duo, I was picking out shampoo.

“Oh, look. They’ve got the GHD,” the mom was saying.

Then she turned to her son. “Do you have a GHD, Kev?”

I was like, “he’s a guy (and he’s 15) but mainly, he’s a guy – of course he doesn’t have a frigging GHD, you silly woman.”

And then came Kev’s reply, “Jaw. I usso got a GHD. For shaw.”

I guess who needs the Big Friendly Giant when you have the GHD?

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