Jonathan Field - Maker of Random Stuff

I sleep in again — no major plans today. School vacation is on now, and though Alan and Donna do have several things planned at the schools, the next two weeks are largely open. For me, it’s like a vacation inside a vacation.

But of course this trip isn’t so much a vacation as it is an adventure. I get up most days to an alarm clock, something I rarely did at Zappos. I spend a fair portion of time doing work… learning, fixing, teaching, commuting. At times I feel busy. But it is all so different from the work I was doing before that it has felt like a vacation anyways. I’ve never been a big one for pure leisure; I usually have a desire to be working on something. So to me, a vacation can just be a change of work. Honestly, working on the warehouse in Kentucky felt like a vacation much of the time, despite being some of the hardest work I’ve done in my life.

Right now, the work here seems like a vacation. I doubt it would stay that way if I did it for years on end. I figure that’s why Donna and Alan choose to do it for only a couple months a year. They say they love it here, that they often miss it when they’re at home. They have thought about, but as far as I can tell never seriously considered moving here permanently. I find myself thinking, as an exercise more than anything else, what it would be like to live here. Would I do it?

First, let me say that by “live here” I mean live here with the means that I have now. That is a very luxurious position to be in. Even if I get close with the locals and make my home here, my access to money and ability to leave makes me a permanent tourist.

Though nothing so dramatic is likely to happen here in the foreseeable future, I am reminded of the scene in Hotel Rwanda where anyone who had citizenship elsewhere was able to leave before the genocide, even though they were residents. It showed a stark contrast between being Rwandan and being Rwandan.

For a lighter take on the topic, I’ll mention a favorite song of mine: the William Shatner / Joe Jackson version of “Common People” (thanks Russ). Give it a listen, though I may have to take that link down before too long. Yes, I am acutely aware what this song says about people like me at the moment. Hey, I’m just doing my best, like nearly everyone else. A long time ago I was on the other side of the coin in America anyways.

But taking even my inescapable privilege into account, would I ever consider living here? In the first week or so I would have said “no”. I couldn’t relax completely; I worried about my belongings and to a lesser degree my safety. So many of the familiar comforts were different or missing. The whole place seemed a bit dirty and unsafe. I sort of wondered why people would stay here if they had an option. Indeed, emigration of the wealthy and educated is a problem for South Africa, and they have organizations dedicated to countering that.

However, I’m writing this not just to document my observations, but also to have a record of my transformation if indeed there is any. If I experience an arc from a spoiled judgmental American to something else, then so much the better if my writing reflects that. If I’ve gained perspective, I hope it is apparent. If I sound as ignorant or when I leave as when I arrived, let the record show that as well.

Asking today, I can see myself living here. Despite my best efforts I still came with a closed mind about different ways of living. It has opened a bit, and I have come to be at peace with a different world. There are things here and things at home that are ridiculous things to live with. But people adapt and live with them.

I will be going back to the US to continue and to make a new life with my family and friends. But I can imagine at least, another path, where I make a life here. There are sweet things about this place. It is easy to love what is good here, and hold hope and dreams for the improvement of that which is bad. I find myself reading about the leaders and alternately criticizing and praising them in my mind. It is an exciting time; I felt some of this passion for the future of a nation when I visited Chile. It is even more intense here. If I may make a analogy: it’s a bit like the feelings about a startup company vs. an established one, but on a more dramatic level. And I personally have a preference for startups.

A related thought: I don’t think that it’s necessarily a good thing for a rush of outsiders like myself to come running in and try to help, even with the best of intentions. Help is good, but I think projects like the one I’ve become part of can only go so far. I think the majority of the momentum needs to come from within. In a country like South Africa, where I believe they have the beginnings of a framework for success, they will eventually solve their own problems best.

Note that I do not think letting people find their own way works in places where the framework is not there. For example, I am saddened by what is happening in Zimbabwe.

I am very impressed though, by the amazing leadership and restraint shown by people like Mandela and Desmond Tutu in the transition phase here. It’s almost impossible to believe it has gone as well as it has. They are great men indeed. At the moment it is not clear who the next great leader will be. The current president and his apparent successors do not inspire me.

– Out and About

I’ve used up all my airtime and most of my food, so I head over to the cell shop and then to Pick & Pay to get some groceries. I text Alan that I’ll be over after that, but he comes and meets me instead.

He tells me some terribly sad news about the mission where we went last week, where we visited Zenele: the building she was staying in caught fire and burned down. She and most of the others were safely evacuated, but three HIV patients and one of the mission sisters died in the blaze. The sister had gone back in to rescue the last three trapped patients, but the roof collapsed on them before she returned. It is not clear what the survivors will do now, though they are safe for the moment at other shelters.

Such a random senseless tragedy — and we had left with such a feeling of peace that Zenele and the people there were safe and well cared for. We weren’t worried for them, especially compared to the other people we see, who seem to be in much more precarious situations. It reminds me how the things that we fear and worry about are rarely the things that really hurt us. I take that as an indication that most fear and worry is useless.

We head over to the warehouse to pick up some cardboard for recycling, and to talk to the owner of the warehouse about rent. The owner is planning to turn the warehouse into flats, pending some zoning approvals, and Alan may need to find a new place to keep stuff.

We stop in the loan shop to see if the owner of the warehouse is there (he owns both). On the way in Alan points out the advertised rate on the front window, ostensibly a good rate: 12%… per month. My lord. What is a good advertisable rate here is actually illegal in the US, working out to over 200% annually, if I’m understanding the compounding math correctly. That is unfortunate. I figure there are better rates for housing and car loans. I certainly hope there are. I wonder to what degree interest rates on these loans simply reflect the likelihood of default. Who knows.

The owner isn’t there and so we find out when he’s coming back and head out to do our other things. We stop by the warehouse. It’s just like the Zappos warehouse: highly automated and… no, actually, it’s not. It’s just a room. But it is like the Zappos warehouse in that it generates plenty of cardboard waste. However there’s no conveyors or balers here, so we just lug it out by hand and fill up the back of Alan’s car.

Then we drive over to the recycling center. There’s a lot of strange smells that float around town from burning trash and from latrines, but the smell at the recycling center is a new one. And I’d be lying if I said it was entirely pleasant. We find a lady there who is moving around cardboard and she helps us unload it into the mountain that they already have.

On the way back to the loan center Alan stops at the neighboring Adult Center, where mentally handicapped people (that’s the term they still seem to use here) stay. It used to be a fairly upscale hotel in it’s heyday. Donna and Alan stayed here after the heyday, and were coincidentally the last guests before it was turned into the Adult Center around three years ago. A pleasant lady meets us and lets us look around. The grounds are quite nice, and it features an enclosed grass courtyard that is surprisingly serene in the middle of town. There are some handicapped people working on projects here. They sell some of the things they make in a little shop that faces the street.

We head back to the loan center and meet with the warehouse landlord. He’s a pleasant guy, a traditional white South African businessman, it seems to me. Alan tells him that there were some thefts from the warehouse; a VCR and a PC, ironically, neither of which would work. The landlord tells him that he’s tightened up security on that area, and even fewer people have access to the storage room now.

He says he should know in two weeks whether the zoning is going through. If it does, we’ll have to move the goods before we leave in May. If not, then Alan can continue using the warehouse.

Before Alan drops me off back at the Pick & Pay, we stop by “North City”, which is sort of like a Costco. It’s much smaller, but the same basic idea: limited membership shopping for cheap items in bulk. Donna tells me they used to have submachine-gun toting guards here, but it seems downright welcoming today.

I’m not clear how it works: apparently there’s no fee for being a member. But you do have to sign up and you do have to live in the area. They don’t check as we go through the turnstile by the entrance. And when we leave later, buying only a couple food items, the security seems a bit lax as well:

“Are you from here?” asks the lady behind the grates that separate the customers from the registers and the employees. “No,” Alan replies. She looks concerned for a moment. “Yes,” he offers instead. She seems relieved and checks him out.

The cashier takes your stuff, and you walk through a guarded exit. Some people are frisked there, but we are not. Then, outside, someone brings you your goods.

Alan drops me back at the pick & pay. I get my groceries. While I’m there I bump into someone who recognizes me, but whom I don’t recognize.

“Hey! What time did you leave the location last night?” he says. I figure he must have been one of the guys waxing his car when we went to hang with the Dundee Voices of Joy. I’m surprised that I stood out enough to be remembered.

I do the math in my head to talk like a local: “I think around 22 o’clock”. He does the math in his head, “so about 10PM?”. I guess most people don’t use the official 24 hour method here after all. He says “I saw you bringing your guitar into the house.” I ask him if he remembers the Dundee Voices of Joy, and he says yes. I tell him it was a little reunion, though just with five of the original eighteen members. He asks when the next party is, and I tell him I don’t know, but that we’ll invite him if there is one. I’m figuring he’s a neighbor.

I go home and put my stuff away, then Alan and Donna come by and invite me to visit the environmentalist center with them. I’m not sure exactly how it fits into things, but it seems to be a government funded project; they do educational outreach and provide other public services. When we get there I am introduced to the head of the project, a energetic and talkative white Kenyan man who is sharp, funny, and good natured.

He shows us an outdoor performing center they are building; a circular structure with a stage and a few levels of brick and concrete seating. The ground is just being broken as we see it. It will be for public events; he mentions a group of street kids who do singing and dancing.

They’ve also just completed renovating a building to turn it into a public computer lab. Much of the money was donated by the Dutch government, he says. Apparently the Dutch contribute a lot in global humanitarian aid in these parts.

Sadly, America has the about the lowest humanitarian aid budget of any developed nation, less than 1%. We spend almost 20X as much on defense. Strangely, polls show that Americans think that we spend too much on humanitarian aid. At the same time people think we should spend about one third as much on aid as defense. Since those perceptions don’t match, I think my fellow countrymen and I need to get our facts straight.

I also think we could be a little more generous with the aid and a little less trigger happy.

We talk with him about whether he knows of any extra PC’s that could be used to fill out one of the schools — the first school I visited with the tech teacher we keep bumping into. That school is just a handful of machines short from having one per student. The director of the environmentalist center says he’ll keep his eye out, but that his source of PC’s for the public computer center just fell through itself. He’s in the process of trying to secure something else.

We chat with him some more about the challenges we each face. He’s got a seemingly tireless energy to keep at it. He tells us a story of an organization that made flyers asking for donations for humanitarian efforts and then just pocketed any money they raised. When he challenged them on this they said they were providing a valuable service: helping people rid themselves of guilt.

We go back to the trailer and plan to go to Spur’s for dinner. Just before we do, Donna looks over her papers and gives us some interesting stats: they currently have 752 active computers distributed across 35 schools and other locations. The schools that they are working with serve 18K students at the moment. Of course not every student gets to use computers, but it shows what a substantial impact two retired but motivated people can have.

We go to Spur’s Restaurant, not to be confused with Spar’s Market… I have a hard time with those two. At the recommendation of the tech teacher we met at the non-concert a couple nights ago, I get the ribs. They’re actually very good — my favorite food at Spur’s so far. The salad bar rounds out the meal, and for some reason I decide to try their cappuccino for dessert. It is a solid cappuccino.

Our waiter is a young man. He seems happy with the job. He says they trained him by having him work in the already-running Newcastle Spur’s for a while. He tells us that he used to work at chicken shows before he came to work here. He said the Rhode Island Red was a great breed; we tell him that my sister lives in Rhode Island, but she doesn’t have any chickens.

The place is a little quieter than last time, and Alan and Donna decide they’ll try to do some singing with the staff tonight. They choose a simple song, whose lyrics are “Moon is shining, moon is walking, come and see moon is dancing”. It is simple enough that I can join in after a round when they sing it to our waiter. He smiles but doesn’t join in, he seems a bit shy about the whole thing.

But one of the waitresses from our first night’s visit notices, and she comes by after. Alan invites her to sit down, and we start singing again. Within moments, what appears to be the entire kitchen crew and most of the wait-staff are gathered around our table and singing along. They pick up the melody and lyrics instantly, and start improvising harmonies a moment later. We sing a few rounds, it sounds excellent, and then they laugh and cheer and disperse back to their work. A minute after that, we hear the song echoing out from the back of the restaurant as they sing it and prepare the food.

Right before we leave, one of the kitchen fellows asks for us to note the words, which Alan jots down on a bit of paper. We then talk some more to the waitress, who we’ve seen a few times now. She tells us she used to perform in a group that did singing, drama, and comedy, but she hasn’t been able to get enough people together recently to start another group up. Alan remembers Lucky’s excitement at the prospect of renewed performing last night, but before he can mention him to her she says she’s in touch with Lucky. He really is a local celebrity, I think.

I go home to sleep… but I have my first sleepless night since I’ve been here. Though I’ve rarely noted a strong reaction to caffeine in the past, I am unable to fall asleep. Also my mind is racing. Strangely enough over the blog: I got myself all worried that maybe it’s a bad thing. This all from a couple gentle questions, an obnoxious anonymous comment, and my own curse of self doubt. I’m just too damn sensitive.

I find myself up until 5:30 AM tossing and turning, reading a bit, writing a bit, and generally worrying about having to get up at 7AM tomorrow.