The runway rumble intensifies, faster, faster, until the windows clatter in their plastic ovals. It feels like the cabin is about to implode, but right before the burst, there’s that beautiful moment when it falls. Silence. And there you are – in the air. The sky is pastel except for the horizon, where the lining of the evening clouds burns like the edges of a paper towel lit on fire. Below, the rice paddy pools shine in the sun, stretching across the land like the giant zebra rug from the airport Out of Africa shop.

The “EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK” button after the rush hour jam, the takeoff Hail Marys dissolving into pure peace, the sudden surprise of finding rice paddies in Johannesburg-  these are what make it too hard to stay out of airports for more than a couple of weeks. Despite the effort it takes, travel seems to relax me more than anything. Most of the time…

I fall awake from my dream, but it doesn’t stop when I wake up. We seem to tumble through the night sky like a plastic bag caught on the side of the highway. I can feel the arm of the woman beside me press into my left elbow. She had asked to borrow my pen to fill out her Namibian Entry Form, and she’s clutching it so tightly that the blood is draining from her knuckles. I’m afraid of flying, but I love turbulence. The first fall is jarring, but then the rhythm starts to soothe— the predictable pressure underneath and then the release, then the pressure again, release. What goes up must come down. Is that lightning outside? The captain had warned of thunderstorms. The lights cut out as White-White-Red, White-White-Red flashes outside. The “lighting” seems to come inside, a flash, and the white EXIT sign casts a sterile glow throughout the cabin. We’re still tumbling. The windows fill with a warm orange glow from underneath now, like we’re about to land in the belly of a giant flame.

Grounded. Wat lees jy daar? The old man in 12C stands up behind me, pointing to Bryce Courtenay’s Power of One on my lap. My blonde hair makes me false friends often. How do I say I don’t speak Afrikaans in Afrikaans? Trevor Noah moment.

We wind through the passport line, wishing we could cut through the Diplomatic Passports lane. A Chinese man laden with what looks like six backpacks is at the front. Somehow, I’m not convinced he’s a diplomat. Swoop up our luggage and head out to the big white Toyota truck waiting for us. After waving to our reflections in the sign that reads “You In Namibia,” we hop in. It’s manual.

I’m intimidated by this big hunk of metal that’s expected to teach me how to drive stick… left handed… in the desert.

“Can you drive trucks, too?” I ask Anjarae.

“Sports cars, trucks, tractors… Mazdas. I can drive it all.”

A Mazda, eh? We barrel through the dark past Warning: Warthog signs, dodging other cars and cows as we rock out to the Free Willy song, Of Monsters and Men, and a local tune with the chorus “I’m gunna get you preg-nannnt.” Windhoek’s very own Fresh FM has us covered.

“If anyone says that Africa is predictable, I’m going to have to smack them.”

 

Anjarae is refreshing her memory reading the four-inch-thick Owner’s Manual and googling “How to Teach Someone to Drive Stick” while I “read” Das Neue Testament. We both have to do our homework for tomorrow’s desert driving lesson.

I used to think that Thanksgiving was over-rated, that lounging on the couch fat and tired from too much carrot soufflé and too much tryptophan wasn’t that exciting after all. What it did offer, though, was really a great long weekend to travel (last year’s “honeymoon” throughout Ireland with Anna was one of my best yet). So I didn’t have much FOMO at missing Thanksgiving at home again this year. I got to create my own in South Africa.

And create it we did. Anjarae and I began preparations for our enormous feast days in advance, from chopping apples until dawn for not one Ultimate Caramel Apple Pie but two, to roasting and pureeing her own pumpkin (there’s a lack of Libby’s here), to creating a Pepperidge Farm stuffing-knockoff from two fresh loaves of bread, oregano, and a hell of a lot of black pepper. Despite turning temporarily vegetarian while prepping the turkey, it was enjoyable. And when we invited about 50 guests into our new home on Sunday, it was all worth it.

 

Sitting up on the sunny patio, our plates laden with the best mac n cheese and carrot soufflé on the whole continent, we made our new fifty-person-family go around and say what they were all thankful for. Good times with good friends. My roommate. Faith, hope, and love. This carrot soufflé. All the Americans sharing this holiday with us. The new James Bond movie. For allowing me to bum food off of strangers. Some elicited laughter while other brought out Awww’s, but each one showed that we were doing more than just stuffing ourselves silly together. We were celebrating gratitude— for things great and small.

 

 At Assembly on Monday afternoon, Chris gave the Dean’s Message on Thanksgiving. “This week there was an American holiday. It happens to be my favorite holiday,” he began. He spoke about the importance of Gratitude. As he spoke, my mother was in a deep anesthetic sleep at Virginia Beach General Hospital. We expected the surgery to leave her cancer-free, as the MRI a few weeks ago had seemed to promise it would. But when I returned from Assembly, at the top of my email was my father’s name in bold. Please call. Got bad news. Spread.

Gratitude means finding brightness in dark days. Gratitude means shifting your focus from what your life lacks to what you already have. Gratitude means living your life recognizing that this is all a gift. I feel so grateful to be living a full life surrounded by family and friends –old and new— who I love so much. This year, Thanksgiving became my favorite holiday, because gratitude may just be the best thing out there.

Thanksgiving is usually a big game day. But today I didn’t watch football. I got "syphilis," did the chicken dance to earn my way into the barbed wire Fun Zone, and beat the English Rainbow.

ALA’s Entrepreneurial Leadership Curriculum uses BUILD labs (“BUILD” stands for Believe, Understand, Invent, Listen, and Deliver) to teach an entrepreneurial mindset that can be applied to absolutely anything you do. It’s essentially design thinking, but for high schoolers. And it is fabulous.

Today was the BUILD Lab Prototype Fair where the first year students shared their results for the latest lab. The challenge: to design an educational game for a 15 year old girl in Africa to help tackle the education crisis, as explained by www.girleffect.org. The prize: Three million (ALA) dollars.

 

 

Neil and I walked around the quad, tackling one game after the next. While playing “Tinkie Winkie” I landed on “Got a Job!” so I got to move forward four places. To “Syphilis.” Well, I can guess what your job was.

 

“Fun Zone” threatened to send you to the Slums if you couldn’t pay enough fun dollars to get into the barbed wire Fun Zone. You earn money by accepting Dares, answering Financial questions, and exposing your most embarrassing moments. Of course, I ended up in the Slums, condemned to the land of “Dirty Odour.”

 

One had “Sine Cosine Tangent” written for reference in the center of the board. I ran away.

 

“English Rainbow” required you to roll a 6 before you could even start playing the game. It teaches them patience. Clever girl. Another required coming up with objects that began with a set letter in a given category to improve language skills. When asked to come up with any object that began with a S, Josh blurted out “SILICONE!”

 

 

Happy Game Day, everyone. I am extra thankful for my job today.

“If you are looking for hell,

Ask the artist where it is.”

                                                                                “If you cannot find an artist,

                                                                                Then you are already in hell.”

 

Laura Gamse’s brilliant film The Creators opens with this quote. “I grew up in a bad environment,” Mthetho Mapoyi explains. “I grew up in hell.” It was during that San Francisco screening over a year ago, in the back row of the Roxie Theater, that I knew I was going to find a way to come here.

Here, art is not an accessory. It is essential to living—a vital expression of the ragged yet resilient human experience—and a savior in itself for someone like Mthetho. When my move to Johannesburg became real, Laura sent me a short list of artists I needed to meet. At the top of the list, along with Mthetho (who I’m meeting on Saturday at the Pretoria Opera House), was Kudzanai Chiurai. “He’s a bit tough to get in touch with,” she warned, but I kept trying to track down his contact information from various galleries that were showing his work, including the MOMA. No luck.

This morning the “Daily Staffulty Announcements” came in from Tidi. At the top of the "Guests on Campus" list, right above the Ambassador of Congo Brazzaville read: Kudzanai Chiurai.     
 

I rushed to find Theo to figure out how in the world he’d gotten him to come in and to ask whether there was any possible way I could meet Kudzanai. “Of course, have lunch with him! Sunset room at noon.”

Trying to overcome being star-struck, I sat across from Kudzanai, flanked by two of the students passionate about bringing the arts to ALA— Faridah and Rosie.  So, how long have you been in Joburg? My friend Laura told me I should meet you. Do you get to decide what your exhibitions are about? We peppered him with questions. As his bio promised, he was on the quiet side, relying on his art to do most of the talking for him.

“How strong is the arts program here at ALA?” he asked calmly behind his glasses. When we told him that we didn’t have one and were trying to start it, he exploded, crumpling into his lap, and with one sweeping motion pressed his hands around his neck, into his face and wiped his glasses clear off his head. “What?! That is the most…the most devastating thing I’ve ever heard. Art is communication. It is the one subject you must have – it links everything together.”

After invigorating brainstorming and frantic jotting down of ideas and email addresses and cell phone numbers, he handed me two of his magazines and several posters. “To start your Art Library here.” We had the champion we needed. He promised to protest in front of the school until we got the Art Program we needed. Coming from someone whose protest art got him exiled from his home country of Zimbabwe, I think it was a serious offer.


Watching The Creators for the tenth time as I set up my painting studio in the corner of our living room, I have so much energy, so many ideas. I forget how good this feels. Canvas and turpentine beat Excel and Powerpoint any day.

 

“I think you’re rubbing off on me,” Anjarae said when I picked up the phone last Thursday night.

“What are you talking about?”

“I somehow locked my keys in my trunk. This is your life, not miiiine!” she cried, laughing.

It was a good start to the weekend. Friday morning, as I dropped my daily letter in the big red Post box on Blueberry Road, I realized I had forgotten my passport. Could I get to Durban with a California driver’s license? But I'm an organ donor, sir, please! Doubtful. I went to call Anjarae but not only had she forgotten hers, too, but she had gotten rear-ended on the way to work.

“Yea, and they don’t really say ‘rear-ended’ here apparently. Everyone keeps looking at me funny.”

I couldn’t stop laughing, until my Outlook refreshed. FWD: from Anjarae: Disruption to flight schedules at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo airport following contamination of fuel supply. I thought she was going to lose it. Is this real life? Why is this hap-pen-ing to me? I read further to see that our flight would be fine. Relief.

Rushing out of the office, I tried to leave with plenty of time to swing by and pick up Anjarae from Melrose Arch before arriving at the airport in time for our 5:40pm flight. Traffic. Someone’s had an accident. Or I took the wrong exit. Hard to say. As I reach for my trusty Samsung (that I’ve charged twice in two weeks, by the way), I realize that my credit has run out. Super convenient aspect of life in SA – you have to go into the store to top up your SIM card if you let it expire. So I’m late, in traffic, with no form of communication except for my Cell C Speed Stick. Emailing eoms from my laptop wedged in between my lap and the steering wheel, I can’t believe our luck.

I finally find her and we’re off…into more traffic. Quarter-cup raindrops start splashing the windshield and Nugget's roof sounds like an aluminum cooking pan being beaten with a wooden spoon. Yep, we’re driving into a storm that appears to be epicentered precisely at the JNB runway. The stress is mounting as Jane keeps updating our ETA. 4:54… 4:56… 5:04. PANIC as we whip into the parking garage. I go to press the blinking button for my ticket and there it is:

 

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OK.

Meet GPS Jane (UK English). Every day she becomes less of a life-saver and more of an annoying backseat driver. It’s either a good sign that I’m starting to know my way around, or an indicator that I am not exploring enough. By now she should probably be predicting where I’m headed, as it’s a 50-50 shot based on my current location. I have only three Recent Destinations: African Leadership Academy, 8 Pam Road, and Virgin Active-Sandton. When I tried to switch it up today and do my daily post office run on the way to work without telling her, I got berated with “Turn rig-, Turn lef-, Turn around when possible! Turn around when possible!” I found myself yelling back at her “I GOT this, Jane!”

As I wean myself from her, I’m starting to see more on my drives. Like Americans, South Africans multi-task and read their news while driving. The difference is that we don’t have iPhones to give it to us.

Instead, we rely on posters tacked to streetlamp poles. “News” is a loose term though, as MEN SIZE DOES MATTERs are peppered in between SON SAYS DAD FORCED HIM TO RAPE and RHINO MOVIE A BLOODY MUST-SEE.

 

I find myself frantically trying to keep up as the 48 point font doesn’t withstand the 80 km/hr whir. By the last McDonald’s of my drive, I’ve figured out the pattern and am ready for RHINO MOVIE when it comes. But at the stoplights, it’s time to put on the sunglasses again even though it’s a cloudy morning, because staring at my lap is easier than looking to my right. At my side, another barefoot man in a hole-y blanket is clasping his hand together, alternating between prayer and touching his cracking lips. He touches my elbow through the glass. Green light. He’s gone.

Braamfontein bars are full of hipsters. After lurching through the CBD in our duct-taped TAXI-with-no-meter Saturday night, we pulled up to the Great Dane.  We started off snickering at them – the “Hello I’m Awesome” tees, thick 80s glasses, tattered jorts over opaque tights with ankle booties noodling to the DJ mixing the Garden State soundtrack with Two Door Cinema Club. Glowing under the ironically mismatched lampshade lanterns in the courtyard, these people looked utterly…ridiculous.

Ridiculously awesome. “South African girls don’t drink beer,” but a few Black Labels later, I was perfectly comfortable asking said hipsters to try on their glasses, because you just look so damn good in them! I needed a pair. If not now, when, right? This hipster thing is so new to me, being from San Francisco and all. So when we walk into Arts on Main and I see the Retro Specs booth with its slogan “Epic in the 80’s,” I can’t resist.

 

 

Behind my new frames, I feel like one of them. So cool. Coupled with my Samsung 1992 punch-pad phone, it’s almost too cool. As Anjarae is driving us from Arts on Main to a new friend’s birthday braai, I go to try on my new purchase and realize that the “Handmade acetate” over the lens wasn’t a sticker. There it was, un-scratchable golden cursive set into the glass. Because most people actually put eyesight-enhancing lenses into their eyesight-enhancing glasses I suppose.

But some serious acetone-soaked Q-tipping finally overcame the “Handmade acetate” and I got up the courage to wear them to work today. I figured they would give me some street cred during our four hour strategic planning session. When I run out for a lunchtime airmail stamp errand, I’m feeling good because I’ve gotten some compliments and have tricked them all into thinking I’m cooler than I am.

I settle into the smartest smart car in the parking lot and look down (through my new frames) to find four inches of white shining through a gaping hole in the inner thigh of my black pants. How did I miss this?! I dig the mascara out of my Mary Poppins bag and paint my leg black with the bristles. It may not fool anyone, but it’ll at least confuse them. I flip my new glasses up – I need a break. Clearly I need to stick to the basics.

It's Monday, so it's brown bag lunch day on the quad with my advisee, Priscilla. Today we talked about how much she loves to write. Her passion began with sending letters and stories to her middle school pen pal -Madison from Missouri -from her home in Malawi. Madison, your name is so funny. If you make it a nickname it is like you are MAD!

An avid blogger, she offered the amateur over here some tips. "Write when it's raw. Don't wait so long to think about it and package it up. It's better when it first comes out before you lose what it really feels like." So that's what I'm going to work on. Capturing the little things of life in Joburg. Otherwise, it's far too overwhelming.

...

Joburg is complex. I spent Friday night surrounded by new pan-African friends learning Arabic and practicing my Xhosa clicks over monkeygland-sauced steaks. I am surrounding myself with people so different from me.

But just as I begin to pat myself on the back for embracing diversity, I get sidetracked while running Saturday morning errands and find myself at Edgar's juggling strips of Chanel No. 5 and Chance, trying to decide whether I prefer floral or fruity fragrances. On my way from Melrose Arch to the nearest Post Office I take a turn and my tightened shoulders tell me I shouldn't stop at this one. GPS doesn't show you which streets are carpeted with violet Jacaranda petals and which are pitted with potholes apparently. Do I still get credit for "diversity" if I'm afraid of it sometimes?

When I leave work after sunset I've started playing this game to see if I can drive the whole way home without stopping. I call it the "red-light-roll." A little Blink 182 peppered with some Neil Young mixed into Flo Rida and the Joburg radio has me entertained the whole 0:29 minutes home. A week here and I can't even remember San Francisco where I would skip home down Fillmore any time of night. I feel like I've always lived here in some ways. My brain just can't seem to even connect the dots.