Am now at the airport, waiting to check in. I'm a bit early, I might even get first in the queue...
Yesterday was a very interesting day, with some weirdness attached:
1. At lunchtime the dessert on offer was 'vinegar pudding'. It was a kind of warm sponge pudding with a sauce which must have contained vinegar as it did smell quite a bit. But it also had a sort of gingery taste to it. Kim and I were brave enough to try it, and it wasn't that bad actually. None of the South Africans would lay claim to it being a speciality of any particular province so I assume it must be an 'alien' pudding... Maybe I'll look it up on google later...
2. The afternoon session I attended was entitled 'Using art as a healing process with children'.
It was always going to be practical session and we weren't disappointed.
We did an exercise on listening to others and I ended up having to talk with a Zulu guy about life for 5 minutes whilst maintaining eye contact. Other Zulus in the rooms who were all doing this exercise complained that eye contact is a sign of disrespect, but they still did it. It felt somewhat like speed-dating, a concept as yet unknown in this Southern country. But it was amusing nonetheless...
The second half of the workshop was practical art, took me right back to my school days and how much fun art was. The facilitator brought out lots of scrap materials: fabrics, buttons, wool, newspaper, glue, scissors etc and set us free in creating dolls to describe whatever we wanted to tell in a story.
Right from the word go I had no desire to make a doll, the only thing I wanted to create was a mouse. So I was relieved when she said we could also make animals.... And it's a great mouse too... (currently in my hand luggage, hoping it will make it through security here at JHB!). Very creative. In the feedback time afterwards, people presented the beginnings of elaborate stories as to what their creations represent, it was fascinating... why don't we do these things more often?
And my mouse? Well, maybe I'm feeling small. Maybe it's like the lion and the mouse aesop's fable about the small mouse freeing the lion from a snare. Maybe I'm just fed up of only seeing decapitated rodents on my doorstep as presents from my ever-thoughtful cats.... maybe it's the rats in Bidford that I'm returning to (real ones in the garden, not family members!??!)... A psychoanalyst could go on forever with these stories...
3. (This wasn't that weird but kind of cool) Had dinner with R, a friend here in JHB. We found a Christian restaurant in Lakeside, Benoni. There was extremely nice decor, except for the slightly weird paintings of Jesus with his heart out and the similar one of Mary... They projected Hillsongs live worship videos onto one of the walls, but with the music set at an appropriate level... And in the sofa corner there was Christian TV. But it was all very subtle and not in your face Christian... Everyone was very friendly and the food was good. It was very cool actually... Don't know which church set it up, there was nothing in the menu, except 'Entertainment Fellowship'...
So now my laptop battery is fading and I must get ready to check in... In a few hours I'll be back in the UK. Weird to think that I haven't left South Africa since last September, don't think I remember ever staying that long in one country (except England)!
