Ma Wa Gray

In the last few days I have had a recurring theme pop up from unexpected places. I have had to spend a day or two putting it in a box and I find that the final bit of sticky tape is always writing about it, finding a metaphor and letting it go.  So the first thing that happened for me was that a few months ago I discovered that a beloved school friend of mine was no longer friends with me on Facebook. It came as a punch to the stomach. I have spent months agonising over her choice to exclude me - and most of our school cohort - from her life. I questioned what I could have done wrong - was it my belief system, a seemingly careless remark I had made, an episode of teenage bullying that I have absolutely no recollection of - when you’re going back some 20 something years it could literally be anything because, to be honest, I was an entirely different person then. I do know that this friend lives overseas and has a deeply painful connection to this country. In respect for her and the...

This morning after dropping Eva off at school I came to an intersection where traffic had stopped and a body lay sprawled over the tarmac, missing a shoe. It is always the shoeless feet that haunt one when confronted with such a scene.  Unfortunately the traffic light went red as I passed by the scene so I was forced to be stationary next to all the commotion. It is moments like these where one is helplessly forced to witness a horrific scene where one can do the most powerful, invisible thing one can do - we can pray.  The person was immobile and lying on their stomach. Someone had put a bag under their head to keep it from lying on the hard road. The usual throng of gawking bystanders were there but also present were the subject of this post - the medics.  It was only when a medic went to kneel next to the person and gently patted their back and leant down to speak to them that I realised that the person was still alive. While the rest of the world hung in suspended mot...

Yesterday we returned from an epic nine day holiday to two of our favourite spots in South Africa. We started off at our beach cottage at Bazley Brach and then continued down to Manteku in the Transkei. We have never been to Manteku before but having been to a couple of spots down the Wild Coast I would say that it is the closest we’ve come to Transkei heaven.  That said, as we laboriously unpacked vomit soaked clothing - poor Gray was car sick on the way down and caught a tummy bug on the way back, and safety swimming vests, and arm bands, and laundry detergent, and several changes of linen, and three different forms of insect repellent, and the extra large bottle of Allergex, and all the food I packed (just in case), and three almost empty sunblock tubes, and bags and bags of dirty clothes which I will have to wash today, and the unread book I was so looking forward to reading - I didn’t exactly feel recharged.  To be honest our first two days of our time down at the Transke...