Driving in Durban

One of the things that shock you the most in Durban is the driving, especially if you come from generally polite Cape Town and having spent a year in ultra-polite England. (although their motorways are a lot like Durban)

Here its like everyone is on steroids the minute they enter the road system. Everone hoots all the time for every misdemeaner, like taking one second to take off at the robot, or DARING to switch lanes even if you have signalled and checked for cars..there is always another racing into your bum.

Cars pass both left and right no matter what you do. They are always going the fastest they can, and trying to get ahead of the person in front no matter who they are and even if ,or especially if, cars are piled in front. Cutting across three or four lanes vertically is quite normal, and simply stopping in ANY lane by putting on their hazard lights is considered sufficient excuse.

I tried driving in the left lane, but discovered that, since there is no yellow line, as in other south african cities, the left lane IS the yellow line. After some close shaves in cars stopping without warning right in front of me, and lanes suddenly leaving the motorway, I decided to try the second lane. This is infinitey safer, but beware as the left lane then becomes the passing lane as well as the right. It feels a bit like a kyalami race track.

Most people blame the taxis, and they certainly are guilty of all the misdemeaners expressed above..the worst one being HOOTING..mainly for custom. I think all taxis need a special sound for custom so that they dont use their general hooters, as after a while you begin to switch off to all hooters. This is a dangerous thing to do. In England it is a finable offence to hoot for any other reason than an emergency so you rarely hear hooters. (British people are also solaw abiding mainly because their fines are HUGE, and you get fined more if you protest in court..a bit of a police state,I would say).

Anyway, I forgive all taxis because every taxi takes ten cars off the road. Imagine how many cars there would be if everyone in a taxi had a car? So I always am grateful and allow taxis their idiosynchronicities. Also, I have used them occasionally and they are far and away the best form of transport in South Africa. they are fast and efficient, air conditioned (often), not overcrowded, as most people think and will go anywhere and stop anywhere..unlike buses. They are also cheap for what you get.

I put the blame on the roads in Durban. The fact that there is no yellow lane ensures that the inner lane is a disaster area. Also, the road markings are bad, and you willsuddenly find that you are supposed to be in a right lane even altough you are going left off a highway. Also there are many offramps and roads that come into an intersection at an angle to meet a robot that is both red and green! Yes. unless you know the road, you dont now if you are supposed to stop or go or which robot slightly angled you should obey. Notice the robots in the photo below.

I just about killed myself taking this photo.

Durban has a glut of one way streets. Despite this, I must say they work well. I have rarely sat in traffic for long. The robots seem quite co-ordinated as a result, so despite theis photo, the traffic is not bad compared to other cities,its just that you have to constantly be vigilant that someone is not going to stop or turn in front of you suddenly.

More usual is HUGE trucks. As Durban is an industrial city, huge trucks are everywhere, and they dont drive slowly either..so its quite common to meet them in The right lane speeding with 10 new cars on their platforms or a number of containers. Can be quite fightening when they are on either side.

Durban also has high and huge highways, mainly because they ave to cater for high and huge trucks. I have not yet managed to get a photo of the astounding wall paintings on the N3 by graffiti artist Faith 47. I will post them up when I do. There is an amazing vibe at the taxi and bus terminus, and I deliberately drive through just for a bit of it even though I risk my life getting around the thousands of taxis. the photo above is of the taxi rank area. There is loud music with a real African vibe and lots of market stalls selling everything from muti to plastic.

I have been trying to get photos of the many white beggars in Durban. The only other place I have seen so many white beggars is in England. I’ve been told its because the weather is good that the Joburg beggars migrate to Durban, and back to Joburg in summer where the pickings are richer. I have an aversion to giving money to a white beggar, especially if they are young and fit. This is because I know they have been given every opportunity to not be on the street and have not taken them. (My bit of racism..sorry)

The contrasts of colonial Durban

Having spent a year in England, I was primed for the colonial side of Durban. The colonial street names are on their way out as we encounter double barreled street names like Solomon Maglangu rather than singular names such as Moore road. I have no idea who Edwin Swales is so I am happy to see him go.  I am quite happy to see more african changes. But there is still places like Victoria embankment and Queensborough. In fact the colonial side of Durban is very difficult to erase.
So I went to visit the colonial centre of Durban, and little England it is, from the sweet little hanging baskets (the pay and display parking also very reminiscent of olde England),

to the surprisingly undamaged royal statues and arches.

This is the city hall

Identified as South African from the cycads in front. (could be India from the palms).

In this precinct there are, as in all of Durban, the most amazing trees tat have just burst fort in flower. The alien police have not got here yet. This comes from Madagascar..looks like a normal tree for most of the year and then suddenly bursts into these amazing inflorescences. South African plants are beautiful, but some of these foreigners are utterly stunning.

No this was very british. Its the playhouse theatre

Teir shows are, however very African in style although they may have european origins. Inside it is quite stunning..with some very African artifacts. How about an African style corset?

The other import from Britain was the buying up of tickets and reselling them with an additional 50% price tag, I discovered when I wanted to see Handels Messiah over Easter. Someone called Zee had bought “too many tickets”. Strangely she hadnt even paid for them yet…sounds like some inside job too.

Open a space, and Africa will fill it. And so I wandered into a vibrant flea market

with some stunning shweshwe clothing (not shown here) and beadwork.

There were amazing fever trees..my favourite African tree..I love the colour of their trunks and the generous spread of their canopies.

There were also relics of the colonial and apartheid masters juxtaposed between the lightness of the market.

Open spaces also mean busking and this was a play with the audience. Difference to Blighty..less white skin thats all.

An odd and largely unnoticed sculpture was this Eduardo Villa’s mother and child. His sculptures appear in odd places in Sout Africa, and is a comment on te soft roundness of Africa compared to the hard sharpness of Western intellect. An unsung ant-Western commentator.

Ten I walked through the alleys to the Docks and unexpectedly in a dark narrow alley, I found this:

Rather taken over by a huge concrete monstrosity.

Durban has enormously diverse architecture..none of it all together but interspersed with hideous uncared for blocks. below is a beautiful art Deco building next to this pink thing.

This is on prime estate overlooking the harbour. Durban has these orphans needing paint and love but some may be too awful to do anything about. This is the view from these buildings.

And so I drove home, passing these iconic (art deco?) warehouses that sets the imagination off when you consider that they could be filled to the brim with sugar.

A NEW ADVENTURE IN DURBAN

So here I am moving to Durban to study homoeopathy at this late stage of my life. they only accept one “mature” student per year, and I am she.

Durban is a strange city and almost feels like a foreign country. The climate is so different. Hot and tropical with warm rains and warm seas..lovely lovely. I have been sweating so much it literally comes out of my eyes and drips down my face. The effect is also that I drink a lot of water out of pure thirst. I am a person who never drinks extra water..other than in tea and coffee. Here, I am just loving being thirsty and being able to drink clean water.

THE JOURNEY

Well I packed everything into my car that I own..dropping a few things at my sweet sister, Claire on the way..mostly photo albums and memorabilia. Things I find difficult to throw away because they are irreplaceable. Things that my dear son, Byron thinks I should have thrown away long ago. I drove with a full car with some essential items like a bathroom mat and a couple of vases.

I knew it would be a HOT drive without an air conditioner and so I manufactured a makeshift thing I got off the internet that uses a coolbox a fan and ice. It kept me cool enough..I was surprised.

I decided to go slowly this time and took 4 days, stopping for lunch and sleepovers. I first stopped in Barrydale after tea with Claire. It really is a friendly town, and the backpackers found me some wonderful accommodation, which was surprisingly empty..as every other place was full. ..I think because the front of the place is so non-committal. The décor was artistic

and surprising there was a small plunge pool –cum-Jacuzzi downstairs.

The breakfast was good and it was reasonably priced.

 

Barrydale is full of surprising little businesses with lots of originality.

A faux banksy on a hotel wall.

After driving a HOT day, I found some chalets in Middelburg with shady trees, that were very reasonable and HAD A POOL! They had bought up almost an entire block of houses and converted them to chalets. The décor was typically small town SA, but with some real boere rusks in the morning, I just plunged in the pool in my clothes when I left in the morning..and that kept me cool for a good deal. Middelburg is a lost little town with a mix of colonial and Afrikaner influences..see the names of these streets that intersect.

But many shops are closed or sell loans and funeral services.

Aberdeen was lunch where I could actually get wifi..but had a real retro outside loo.

From here, there is really no place to stay until Kokstad 200 kms away. Here the prices skyrocketed suddenly for shitty little places..but I had no choice, and stayed in a funny place..not really clean with a hundred policemen and women. Noisy with lights blaring..only compensation was the bath that I cooled down in. No outside space to sit. Definitely a non-repeat.

And so I arrived in Durban a day earlier than I intended.Such a confusing place to drive around in. EVERYONE hoots all the time for nothing. Here I also witnessed the worst driving ever. My nerves were on edge by the time I got to the Bluff on new years eve. Luckily the cottage I had found online and was renting was being vacated and I could blow up the air mattress my sister had lent me, wash off all the sweat in the shower and sleep..with earplugs as my landlord was having a new years get together.  I was rudely woken at midnight by VERY LOUD bangs from next door.  Nobody here seems to follow the firecracker rules as crackers were going of everywhere as in England. But I had arrived in one piece..more or less.

THE NEXT DAY

I discovered that the flat was not very clean, as the previous tenant had just left and also and needed a paint job..things you could not see in the photographs sent to me. The ceiling had mould on, the outside walls had paint cracking off, the previous tenant had a dog that pooed all over.(I found the place on gumtree and so hadn’t seen it. ) Also I had no furniture other than the blow up bed. Its redeeming feature was a lovely tropical garden with cycads, and an enormous avocado tree, bananas, paw paws, and my bedroom window looked out onto it.

My landlord and lady have two small children and three dogs, a couple of cockatiels and a fish tank.  They, however, were very sweet and nice and so were their kids and dogs,  (despite pooing on my doorstep.)

The garden was obviously planted lovingly by someone else and was neglected..but still beautiful..luckily nature thrives on neglect …but the dogs had denuded areas.

So my next task was to make the place liveable.

My landlord said he would fix the ceiling and paint the walls. He brought in the ladder etc, but didn’t get very far. He works and so has to fit it into his day. I decided then that I would do the painting etc. I got rid of an enormous amount of junk left around the place and went around picking up doggie poo..just to make it safe to walk around without stepping into it.  So I painted my bedroom and one wall of the kitchen..it looks rather nice. My landlord said he would get more paint for the lounge but that hasn’t happened yet, so I thought I would in the meantime just clean the walls and ceiling with bleach. It already looks so much better. I also bleached stains out of the outside piping.

I now have a small desk, a table and 4 chairs and a three quarter bed..a lot more comfortable than the air mattress. I trawled Durban for second hand shops, finding my way around at the same time. There are very few..I think because of gumtree and olx. Luckily we had some rainy days, and it was not too hot to travel around. I made sure I visited a different beach every day too. Its so great to swim in warm sea..but it was really rough too..no calm Fishoek beaches here..but good exercise and knocks you thighs into place.

The beaches are quite different to cape beaches, having yellow sand, but just as beautiful even though it was high season. People tended to congregate at the swimming beaches..and congregate is the word. Here is wall to wall gazebos. people really go to town when spending time on the beach. For the rest, the beaches were empty and lovely to walk on.

Durban has a lot of rubbish lying around, but the landscape is so forgiving and covers everything with green bush so that you don’t notice. Someone needs to start taking care of the place.

You certainly feel the difference with the ANC running the municipality. I am not anti ANC, and in fact vote for them every time, but I can see the complaints of lack of service delivery. One wonders where all their energy goes and whether they even notice the problems. Rubbish collection is still in black bags, torn open by dogs. Library, thin on books and librarians. Roads needing repair..although with all the rain, I think it is a bigger job than CT. however there are enormous engineering projects north of Durban. Looks like they focus on the big and forget about the small things.

The city centre is very run down but in contrast there are HUGE elaborate shopping centres. Racially, Durban is very mixed. Relics of apartheid delineate areas into poor black, poor Indian and affluent, which could be Indian, Black or White. Its good to see the ratios change a bit on the beaches. Durban is a busy city with a lot of Industrial spaces. This makes travelling around difficult as you have to contend with railways, Industrial areas, the Harbour, rivers and peninsulas, with low cost housing thrown in here and there and occasional informal settlements. The heat adds to the constant hooting from taxis particularly , who announce their presence ALL THE TIME, enormous trucks and others who hoot at you every second you take to move from a robot. The roads are also not well marked, the streets have unfamiliar new names sometimes together with the old names, as Durban tries to Africanise the very colonial streets of Durban. I can understand that, as Durban was like mini England even with a Victoria Embankment, George V road etc..

People

I have found the people here to be very friendly and chatty. I suppose that I have got used to Cape Towns ways and now see now how reticent it is. Also my year in England was even worse on that score. Polite but cold. Durban is warm in lots of ways and has colour and vibrancy. Also people of all races and walks of life chat at the drop of a hat. The Zulu and Tswana people approach you quite readily.  You really stop noticing race..and I must say I am confused as to peoples races here. It is also good to see some Zulu newspapers readily on sale.

 

The Trip Home..To Cape Town in 2 days

So after my very filling breakfast, I walked around the Durban waterfront comparing it in my head to old photographs from when we were small.

It hadnt changed that much..still had the kiddies pools and cable car. the sea was heaving with swimmers,

but I felt that I needed to get out of the city before I would swim in the WARM sea. (Cape Towns waters are freezing). So I headed  via the coastal road.

We used to come to Amanzimtoti, which is now considered a suburb of Durban, in our holidays in our youth. It hadnt changed very much..just smartened up a bit. Then went on to Scottborough camp site,

where we spent some summers camping in a canvas tent until my mother complained that she was not getting a holiday. After that we stayed at holiday flats and cheap hotels.

The campsite at Scottborough was EXACTLY the same  as 40 years ago..next to the railway and right on the beach.

The sand is quite different to cape Town. Yellow and grainy.

So I set up my flimsy tent that I had bought in England and never used and shlepped back to SA. I was going to have a early night for the first time in 4 days. Well the weather decided differently. After a wonderful day, a storm came up and almost blew my tent away. So I had to get up in the middle of the night to lift some heavy rocks to anchor it. After that I had a decent-ish night.

I was up early to get on the road as I had to be back in CT at a certain time. I decided to go a slightly different way, but still short cutting through the Karoo. Luckily the weather was overcast, as it can get very hot. there were beautiful views over the cane fields and the rolling hills of the Transkei. A bit more populated but still rural.

I was pacing myself and tried to take photos from my car rather than stop..a dangerous thing to do.

As I was going through the Transkei, just outside the Capital city, there were roadworks again. This time they had speed bumps..bad ones that you couldnt see and you could not go faster than 40m an hour over. I can understand why they had speed bumps, as this is the road that the taxis take to go to and from Cape Town and there it is always a race..nothing else would have slowed them down. Well we went for miles this way…it was too late to turn back and find another route.   Transkei was very pretty..houses on every hill, just like the Cotswolds in England. (see if you can guess which is which). Transkei is like I imagine England to have been long ago when they lived in Rondawels always perched on top of a hill..thats why the roads are so twisty.

You could see that development was happening, as the roofs were made of iron rather than thatch and walls made  brick rather than clay and often was square rather than round and even double story. At least  couple of family members work in big cities and support their families in the Transkei. There are few work opportunities here. Mostly the inhabitants are grandparents and children.

A little while later we came to more stop and goes. It was quite funny because every time we stopped, the doors of the many taxis would open up on all sides and all the men would hasten to the bush to pee. I wondered about the women.

I went through the mountain Zebra national park and saw what looked like albino springbokke. I had to stop because it was so unusual. Not a good photo you can just see the white buck running away.  When I googled it, I found that there are 4 colour phases of Springbok. The white was not albino, and you could get black and copper colour,. (The website gave me the grillies, though because of how they wrote about them. (It was a hunting website)..as trophies to collect. “Besides the Common Springbok, there are three color phases that have become popular to collect. They are black, white and copper springbok. It is a fun and challenging quest that makes a colorful quartet in any trophy room when mounted together.” I live in a different world it seems.

I was not going to travel too late to find a place to stay, so as night fell I entered Graaff- Reinet and passed a small reserve. Although it had a sign saying it was open, it was closed but a kind guard took my details and gave me the key to a very fancy tented camp. He didnt know how much it would cost me, and at this stage I didnt care. He couldnt take money so I said I would pay in the morning. He gave me the gate code and I had a wonderful luxurious night..outdoor showers and toilets..but so tastefully done. I had no food with me, but the self catering facilities were top class.

I managed to do some walking around and although the camp was full, it didnt feel like it. I took this photo from the deck overlooking a dam..looks like a ghost also got in on it.

In the morning, it was so cold (after a hot day) that there was ice on my windscreen.

I had to be on the road early as I had to be in Cape Town by 4pm. Luckily I heard people arriving to open the gate..but the office was still closed and another gate stopped me from going further. I couldnt afford to waste an hour, so I wrote a note with my details, left the keys  and ..having the gate code of the entrance (not the exit), I opened the entrance gate from the other side and left. I expected to hear from them and still wondered what they were going to charge, but have never. So thank you for that free night. I will come back some day as I would have liked to spend longer there.

So, I considered visiting my friend Diana who has a farm in Ladismith, but was running out of time. I will go another time. I stopped in at my sister for some tea. She was very ill with presumably a dose of flu that had come on very suddenly, but she covered it well. Only later she told me that she almost died as its seems she had actually an extreme allergic reaction to something and had to call the ambulance for oxygen as she couldnt breathe. She thinks it is the sprays that drift across the wheat fields. I worry about her being alone in RSE. But she is quite sensible, I think, and has since recovered.

So, hot and sweaty I arrived in Cape Town. I still had to go home, gather my clothes, go to deliver my car in town (50km away) as my sons girlfriend, Pia,  was borrowing it, had supper out in Obs, spilt a milk bottle in my handbag, then went back with my son to the house I was sitting before I could have a radox bath and crash again at midnight. I think I was crazy to drive up and down so far in such a short time..but what the heck, I got to see a good cross section of the country in a short time.

A cross section of the SA country in 4 days

I seem to do a lot of things in four days (see previous posts). The last time was London..well there its kind of a whole country in a few square miles. Well, this time I went across South Africa to Durban by the sea from Cape Town by the other sea. Why was I so foolish? Well I was heading for an interview at Durban University of Technology to study Homoeopathy next year. Only 2 places offer Homoeopathy, the other one is in Johannesburg, so there was really no choice. Also, they only take 35 students per year and ONLY ONE “mature” student..and that had to be me.

Now, I didnt realise that Durban was further away from Cape Town than Johannesburg and even further than Windhoek in Namibia. 1700 km to be more or less exact . Thats more than the whole of England from top to bottom. (England is 1349km from John O’ Groats to Lands end). Okay, we dont have lots of villages where you have to go 30 miles an hour to slow you down.  We have long straight and hot roads that go straight there, right? Well not quite. So I estimated that it would take me 2 days to get there quite easily at 100km per hour on average..I didnt intend to drive at the average speed of 140 like other South Africans. Well, it didnt quite work out like that either. Also I have a millenium Toyota (ie over 15 years old)…but it has a reconditioned engine. I did consider flying, but not only would I have spewed huge amounts of pollution into the air (apparently 6 to 47 times as much as by car per person! Especially short flights, as the runway fuel is the most damaging. http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/09/evolving-climate-math-of-flying-vs-driving/). Besides, I am still in travelling mode, and wanted to get an idea of the country I had been neglecting for so many years. What is South Africa like now? The last time I had been to Durban was 10 years ago, when my son and I went for a round trip to see all the skate parks with his BMX on the back.

So off I set, visiting my dear sister along the way. She lives in Riviersonderend, a sweet little village 200km from Cape Town, with many skeletons in the cupboard. But thats another story better told by her.

A quick cup of tea, and I had to get a bit further..like another 400km to George. Looking for a place to camp was not so easy…it was out of season so everything was closed at about 5. I finally found a rondawel (a typical South African round building..last used in Europe at stonehenge 3000BC, for those who dont know) where I spent the night. .serenaded by frogs, as it was on a river. I finally nodded off at 12pm, woke at 5am to continue my drive. (5 hours sleep). I went for a little walk before I left in the morning, and found some wonderful medicinal plants everywhere. Although this place was a typical RESORT, in the most typical south african way.(.including the black and white TV),

it gave me a sense that it was a haunt of some sangoma or other.

There was a beautiful landscape across the river where an irritating sound came from..like a couple of flies, and I realised it was workers riding lawnmowers over a golf estate. Welcome to civilization.

Following wrong directions, and realising my Afrikaans was not as good as I thought, I headed off, got a speeding fine for going 78 in a STUPID 60 km zone (downhill on a pass outside a built up area. Consolation was that the fine was only 400 rands as opposed to 2000 in Britain for going 37 in a 30 zone.) Realising I was on the coastal road which was much longer than any other, I decided to cut inland back to the short cut road I intended to be on, on an old road I hadnt been on for years..thinking that it must have improved. (It used to be  a windey dirt road..very beautiful) Prince Alfred Pass..yes, colonial throwbacks everywhere..George..prince Alfred…Baden Powell drive (the coastal road outside capetown), Durban (sit Benjamin D’Urban).

Well, it was very beautiful still..if not more so, as it is now a reserve of tropical forests and ENORMOUS trees..but the road is worse.

Well it took me 3 hours to go 75 km. Not only because I couldnt go more than 30km per hour, but because it was so beautiful, I HAD to stop and photograph. I WILL be back to look properly…but not in the rainy season, as I can see that the roads wash away regularly. I did come across a strange sculpture at one point.

From here to karoo..dry straight hot roads..beautiful in an endless way. I had lost a lot of time and had to get to Port Shepstone (colonial) at least, as my interview at DUT was at 9.30 am the next day.

Well, it doesnt help to calculate when there are road works along the way..you know, STOP wait ten minutes (and go). This Karoo town had ENORMOUS cacti.

It was getting dark as Ii went through the edges of the Transkei. This was when the roads lost all their signs, started winding up and down hectically and no one dimmed their lights..it also started to have waves of thick mist and light rain. The views were likely spectacular, but I could not see them, where I was going, where the next town was and how far away..so I drove blindly. By now, my neck was killing me and my bum was totally numb, and my eyes were glassy. I stopped in a typical one street town for petrol..nothing else was open for trade..not even KFC. Luckily I had some dry biscuits and cold tea in my flask. .

At this point, I knew I would need to drive through the night to get anywhere.

50km from Port Shepstone (more colonial), driving through cloud banks, I decide I was going to crash..as in sleep, if I didnt want to crash..as in accident. So I turned off the road into an inlet…there were no lights, so I assumed I was in the middle of nowhere, folded back my seat and slept uncomfortably.

In the morning I discovered I was in a sugar cane field. At least I knew I was close to Durban. I got going at 5 (another night of 5 hours sleep), coffee at the garage and off to Durbs by the sea via a convenient motorway. I wisely decided to leave the sight seeing till later.

Durban was a revelation of hooting taxis and busyness. I dont think it was the safest place, judging by the security walls.

I hadnt had breakfast, but decided to find my place of Interview. Of course I hadnt banked on the fact that because of the #Feesmustfall protests, the place was closed. Luckily I found an open gate. and found that the interview was still on. I hastily bought a couple of apples from a vendor…they do not have breakfast places in downtown Durban.. only chicken outlets..it was a bit early for that.

I was last to be interviewed, as my case was special..being so “mature”, so I was only released at 12. No tea was offered only water. All the Interviewees were YOUNG..still at school and very nervous..so I had some use in allaying their fears. These were pictures of some of the homoeopathic remedies on the wall.

I was interviewed by a true cross selection of the Durban population: Afrikaans, English, Zulu and Indian..all women. It was a good interview, and I was instantly offered a place..the only “mature” student. After that, I realised that I could eat a horse, raced off to the waterfront and finally sat down to an ENORMOUS breakfast with coffee served in a POT, while looking over the sea front. BLISS.

I will report further on the trip home.

 

 

Being a tourist in my own country

And so I returned to South Africa after a long flight via Dubai. I was nervous about getting home, as there was so much trouble in Europe and the middle East. I never thought I would think that the safest place to be was actually South Africa in its lonely corner far away. I had a good seat in the plane and could watch as the landscape changed from green square patches over Europe and the UK, then the dryness of the middle east, the absolute blue of the immense sea, the dryness and occasional patches of cultivation through Africa. you could see a transition into SA, where cultivation was more extensive and defined, but still dry, as it was the end of winter, and then coming into the Cape where everything is green again, extensive wild mountains with lush green patches of cultivation.

I couldnt help feeling like crying when Table mountain appeared through the clouds and we landed in Cape Town, and I realized how much I missed this beautiful land. After that I found myself relishing everything I had previously taken for granted and felt like a tourist in my own country, as if seeing things for the first time:

SO, HOW DO YOU KNOW YOU ARE IN SOUTH AFRICA?

Well first was that you dont have to deal with a machine for everything. Second people smile and are helpful. Third, there are many black faces, which are rather rare in Britain. So arriving at the airport the smiley BLACK faces with AFRICAN accents and a smattering of Afrikaans and that wonderful, South African accent. People could actually understand what I said first time I said it. The airport was clean and open and efficient, and not cluttered with shops and harassed people.

Familiar people

In Britain everyone was a stranger. Of course, the best was seeing my son again, and realizing how much I missed him. Then bumping into familiar people everywhere.

Then there were so many other things I discovered over the first weeks back:

One ply toilet paper. In England I could only get 2 and even 3-ply toilet paper, thats so smooth its like using plastic.  One ply absorbs so much better. I never thought I would appreciate that. In the UK, you also go through a roll very quickly, and they all have methods of cutting corners, like making shorter rolls or wider inner cardboard or thicker rolls.

 

 

 

 

 

Large sachets of sugar in the coffee shops. In the uk, they give you such tiny sachets, you need at least four in a cup. Here I only need one and a half and its more than sweet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coffee shops allow you to help yourself to condiments..as much as you like. In Britain you get charged for each sachet (R15 each!). and the price of coffee in a cafe. What a relief to pay from 15 to 20 rands rather than 40 to 50.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blue skies are a normal occurrence rather than unusual, and I headed for the first beach, where there is soft white sand rather than hard round pebbles or purple mud. And so is bare feet. I had bare feet only once the entire year in England.

BEACHES IN ENGLAND

Wide vistas, where you can see for miles

rather than just a hedge, which is mostly what you see when driving around in the UK.  Where there are views, you are not allowed to stop..or you get charged a parking fee!

Pavements on BOTH sides of the road, and wide enough for 3 people not just one. I realized that South Africa is a generous country.

Parking that is FREE and available.

Wide, well engineered roads with furrows either side for rain run off and NO potholes. Yes, dont kid yourself, South African roads are much better than the UK, where rain constantly potholing the badly made roads that have very bad drainage, and then taking ages to fix them.

Money is not so heavy and we only have only 7 coin types that are light as opposed to 8 heavy coins in the UK,(including 1 and 2 pence that are worth F-all, and hardly ever used, but they insist on giving it.) My purse always weighed half a ton, and nobody wanted my change.

South African prices! Boy, was I glad to see those! when you are paying over R40 for a coffee or tea, R20 minimal for parking anywhere, even on the beach, R300 to enter any National Heritage site, R2000 for a small speeding fine going 3 mph over the very slow speed limit of 45kmph in a built up zone. The only cheap thing is cars at a third of the price in SA even taking into account the horrendous exchange rate

Despite there being many throwbacks from the colonial era, like the street names that hark to ye olde England,

most are quite reasonable rather than the weird names you find in England. Very occasionally you can rely on something odd.

It was really great to have someone put in petrol for me instead of doing it myself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here you DONT PAY FOR AIR AND WATER. (R10 for 5 minutes or air or water in the UK, which you have to put in yourself! to me this is criminal!). Okay you do give tips in SA, but to have a friendly face doing it all for you its worth the tip which is much less. R10 (50p) tip is seen as a HUGE tip.

In the UK, you dont have to worry about your car being broken into, but it is true here too, as we have car guards. they also expect a tip but its nothing like the parking fees you pay in the UK. (more like 25p is generous for a whole morning)

Rain shelters over shops. In the UK, the shops do not have rain shelters over the pavements despite the fact that it rains constantly. In SA we dont use umbrellas because we know that it is easy to skip from shelter to shelter and whole streets are sheltered. This is something that is so generous that we take for granted.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SA is also a very generous country when you go touring. Besides all the wonderful views, there are always special turn off places at the best views and road verges and MANY designated FREE picnic sites.

Real  Mountains. Everywhere.

Empty spaces for miles

Real wild animals, not just squirrels and bunnies.

Cows grazing alongside the roads. This was only true in one site in Britain,on Minchinhampton common.

Sunsets. In the UK, the sky is generally covered with cloud.

Night sounds. There are no sounds of frogs and crickets or night jars , or anything other than cars unless you live near the sea..and even then, you are never sure that it isnt the cars you are hearing.

Night skies:

To actually see stars in the UK is unusual. Although they often announce celestial events, on TV or radio, you never see them because the skies are always clouded or too many lights. Capetown has a lot of light scattering, but even then, you can see the stars because there are no clouds.

Good Libraries with actual books.

Libraries in the UK are terrible. They have very few books, the choice focuses around British writers..usually romance or thrillers. There are NO interesting non fiction books to expand your mind (only history books about Britain..nothing too controversial) and its all self service. Books taken out with a machine, books handed in with a machine, and only one librarian for the entire library (and a few volunteers) In SA its hard to choose a book because there is choice, friendly librarians to help you locate a book, which, if they dont have it, will find it for you. Also videos for free. (In the Uk you pay R20 to loan a video or music..and not much choice.)

National Art gallery and museums do charge you in SA, but the fee is reasonable. R30=1.50 pounds) In the UK, some of the art galleries and museums are free, but despite what they say, most are not, and they charge you at least R180 (9 pounds)to R300(15 pounds)! Even if you take the highly inflated exchange rate out of the picture, you are usually paying the equivalent of R100-150. They do say that it is valid for a year, but who is going to come back inside a year? South African Art is also very exciting.

Route markers tell you which direction you are going. This one tells you it is going SOUTH.I cant tell you how often I got lost in the UK.I had no sun to work it out as it was cloudy and no mountains or landmarks..just hedges hedges hedges. Route markers just told you which route you were on, and if you didnt know the town you were going to (there are so many funny names) you could easily be heading to Landsend when you should be going to Norfolk. I kept having to back track.

The speed limit in built up areas in England is 30mph (48kmph) and you darent go above it. so everyone creeps through the towns, thats why it takes so long to get anywhere. Distances are measured in time not miles. In SA it is 60kmph (37.5 mph) a little more reasonable. Top speed in England is 70mph (112mph).

 

 

Roads are STRAIGHT.

The only straight roads in England are the roman roads and the motorwys and there are only a few of those. Further confusion arises at circles that are everywhere and can lead you in a totally different direction to your map even if you follow the signs. Heaven forbid if you are not, you may end up on a highway. These have very few exits, so you could be going for man miles before you can turn around. In SA if you head one direction, it rarely changes..this could be boring, but it makes for easy driving where you can relax rather than be on tenterhooks looking for the next exit, or back tracking when you discover you are not in the town you thought you were. All towns in England are pretty, but also all look the same, so if it wasnt for the signs, you wouldnt know where you are.

Cars older than 15 years and not in peak condition are seen everywhere on the roads.

Dogs run free and are not muzzled.

Toilets have a mechanical flush that actually needs you to touch the handle and energy to use.

Spring has sprung with the first South African wild flowers.

People talk loudly and shout across streets. People laugh with a belly laugh. People talk straight so you know where you stand. They actually want to know how you are when they say “how are you?” They rarely use the word “nice”. They hoot at everything. They say sorry if you get hurt even if they have nothing to do with it. Ubuntu is not just a trade name on a can of cola..it is a living everyday reality.

Viva South Africa, Viva. I am so glad to be back.

 

 

London in 4 days again

I decided to reverse the way I came to the UK, but going by bus to London for 4 days and then on to the airport. So I booked into the Hostel I was in before. Luckily tings had improved there over the year. They got rid of the miserable front staff and now have polite and helpful people (this was a major complaint on their website) They also had improved their entrance and gave free wi-fi instead of charging an arm and a leg for it. I was put one floor lower, whew, those stairs are a killer, but it was in season so my 6 bed room was full of 6 sweaty people. It was hot and muggy and the window opened only very slightly. Also because of Health and safety fire rules, every lading was closed by a fire door. Now I am sure that no fire would spread there, but the health of the occupants wrt fresh air was definitely compromised. Its funny how some issues take precedence over others..too bad if you cant breathe, at least you wont get burnt down. One fat Italian had luckily bought a fan that he kept running and we opened the fire door with a fire hydrant.

Unfortunately the same fat Italian was also a LOUD snorer. My earplugs were not designed for those decibels, but somehow, amongst the other MALE snorers, I managed to sleep. (As I said before, the rooms were mixed male/female..but I was the only female.

London was full of tourists, as it was holidays for most. This gave it a good vibe too. So I planned to meet some of my OLD friends there.

I first planned to go to Camden market to get some souvenirs to take home, despite the fact that I literally had no place in my suitcase, which was already overweight, but I decided to throw away some clothes,  I had got too fat for. (yes, despite all that exercise and healthy food, I had put on weight! I put it down to the huge amount of carbs you end up eating on a low protein vegetarian diet, as you are constantly hungry. Also the fact that you cant buy a small bar of chocolate..they are ENORMOUS..so you end up eating it all in one sitting.) Camden market is some place you wont see anywhere. I had come previously with Amie (a German girl who had volunteered previously in SA and came to visit me in England).

They had this zulu restaurant with boerewors rolls for R180! (9 pounds).

I thought that I should first go to Portobello road market, as I had not yet been there. Well after that I didnt really need to go to Camden market, as I got all my souvenirs there. Its an incredibly long street lined with market stalls and shops, but difficult to find, as its not advertised.

There was this shop with literally hundreds of old singer sewing machines that echoed a similar one in camden market. In Malawi they would have been used, not just posing in the windows.

I wished I could buy more, but my bulging suitcase said no. I thought of sending some things home by post, but the cost was prohibitive. (R2000 for 5 kg). So more clothes got turfed out.

The next day I met my OLD friend, Andrew, and we walked to Kensington castle, which was where Lady Di used to live. Well, I am sure I would also have been depressed there..what an ugly square building..just lots of square rooms, and the garden was so formal and full of tourists. I am sure the paparazzi were lurking at every corner.

Then we found the memorial to prince Albert, the love of queen Victoria. Well you cant miss it..it is HUGE. She must have really loved him. At each corner of the memorial was a statue commemorating the conquered lands: Africa, Asia, Europe and America..it looked like she did it all for him.

Coming from an ex-colony, I was not impressed, and wondered what the “Rhodes must fall” group would have done. London is FULL of colonial relics. I found that the street leading to Trafalgar square had a statue of a (male) war hero very 100 yards or so, I began to wonder if that was all that was commemorated. then I found one for all The FEMALE war heroes…but war heroes nevertheless.

The worst was finding the funeral mask of Lord Kitchener in ST PAULS CATHEDRAL. He was responsible for the slash and burn tactics that led to the establishment of the first Concentration camps in South Africa during the Boer war that the Germans emulated so sadly in the second world war. Eventually 26,370 Afrikaner women and children (81% were children) died in the concentration camps. I am not surprised that he is guarded behind an iron gate, as I am sure his memorial would have been defaced..^[.

Frederick Joubert Duquesne, a Boer soldier and spy, claimed that he had assassinated Kitchener after an earlier attempt to kill him in Cape Town failed. I was shocked that such a cruel man was lying in state in one of the most important Cathedrals. I wonder if one day he would be brought to justice by the ICC. (The ICC seems biased towards Africans and Germans)

Another sculpture that had SA echoes, was this one in Hyde park called ” Physical energy”. Three of these sculptures were created and one is at the Rhodes memorial in Cape Town! The artist: George Frederic Watts. It was dedicated to Cecil John Rhodes, but the plaque does not mention him at all.

Watts said the statue was “a symbol of that restless physical impulse to seek the still unachieved in the domain of material things”. This was particularly appropriate for Cecil Rhodes, made his fortune before he was 30 and in 1880 established the De Beers mining company, which has dominated the diamond industry ever since.

Rhodes used his wealth to try to extend the British Empire in Africa from the Cape of Good Hope in the south to Cairo in the north. Rhodes’ dream came true shortly after he died when Britain took control of one million square miles of the Transvaal at the end of the Boer Wars. Rhodes left his fortune to Oxford University to fund the Rhodes Scholarships. the third sculpture is in Harare, Zimbabwe. “Rhodes must fall” would have  a field day in London.

Talking about de Beers and gold and diamonds, we went to Harrods, and at last I saw where all the money has gone..well the SA gold and diamonds. As Trevor Noah said Britain never thought of giving the gold back, but that we could win it back at the olympics, one gold medal at a time. (I found out that each gold medal contains 0.1 ounce of gold. Thats a lot of medals to win!)

Harrods has to be seen to be believed. It is really a hub for the ultra rich, I am surprised they dont charge you to go in. Frankly, its quite embarrassing in its opulence in a world of so much poverty. When you flaunt riches like that, you are asking for economic migrants to come to your country. (I also wonder how much can be truly said to be earned rather than stolen at some point in history and even still.) I am afraid I felt quite sick.

The fashion, however, was unusual and creative, but totally unaffordable.

We walked down Baker street, where people were queueing to go two by two into Sherlock Holmes’ tiny house at 221B, then we  went to Regents park, where we were serenaded by the open air theatre that was staging Jesus Christ Superstar, and sounded magnificent although we could only hear it. Other typical scenes were bobbies on the beat that still wear those Mr Plod hats, women doing a race for cancer awareness and many street performers..mostly levitators.

The next day I went to meet a colleague from Constantia Waldorf school..Eva Binamu, who is now Eva Godfrey, our wonderfully popular and under appreciated (by staff) eurhythmy teacher who is excelling at Kings Langley Waldorf school in London.

We had trouble meeting each other, as London roads were blocked off by a bicycle race similar to the Argus in cape town, (but not as big, even though they say theyre the biggest in the world..I have checked..its not as long and not as many people ride it). it raises funds for charity..see the flags and see my previous post about charity in the UK.

So finally we met at Kings cross station which is huge. The Eurostar to Paris leaves from here and so does the Hogwarts express, where I saw platform 9 and 3 quarters..with everyone in line trying to get a photograph next to a baggage trolley.

The new harry potter had just come out and a harry potter shop was doing a roaring trade in wands,owls and funny sweets.

The queue was too long to buy any momentoes. It was lovely seeing Eva, and we had a good skinder..although she’s too sweet to skinder. It was good to see how fully involved she was..a member of college and board, and planning to start a school in Tanzania.

Last and not least, I went to the Tate Modern again. A new wing had been opened that I wanted to see. By this time, my feet LITERALLY were blistered from walking, so I took the tube. First to Big ben and watched the hundreds of ways people were photographing it in all kinds of ways.

Then to the millenium bridge, which I walked over, admiring the contrasting views of St Pauls cathedral and the shard.

There were some of my favourite artists like Kandinsky, Matisse,

but not their best works, but the Picasso was my all time favourite,the weeping women, that I had seen many years ago in Paris. I ventured into the new wing that had HUGE spaces for HUGE art pieces. The installations were so odd: this was a mirrored installation, used as an excuse for a selfie…that I found I had mistaken an office for an installation. I found an interesting African artist making a comment on colonialism using a colonial desk, gold bullion and money. Active installations like the one of Marina Abramovic, who lets herself be abused by the pubic by displaying a host of items on a table that can be put on her, then videoing the results; and another woman artist from Bangladore, who uses human hair to knit these great spider webs. However, the installation that electrified the audiences who could not stop photographing was that of Jane Alexander, a South African artist who used a the red kalahari soil and created a  surreal 3 dimensional landscape that stopped you in your tracks, with Chandeliers dripping from the ceiling, a commentary in the appropriate place on colonialism.

And so, my exploration of my colonial roots ended as I passed some vandalized bicycles to remind me that Britain is not so different to SA.

and  in me pushing my overfull bags to the bus stop using a Tesco trolley bergie style, as I refused to pay the exorbitant taxi fare to get around the corner. I didnt take a photo of that! But this is me at the airport, using the disabled toilet so that I could get my baggage in with me, taking a selfie in the mirror.A

And so I headed home, having had some enlightening experiences and also VERY glad to be back in SA. My next blog will be looking at my own country from British eyes.

Crafts, crafts and more crafts

I was very fortunate that as part of my volunteering, I was taught many things. Besides learning a lot about biodynamic agriculture and plants and animals in general, we were given two craft sessions a week.

It started with Pottery and Lily, a lovely and kind tutor who gave some lessons in building by hand. I couldnt take anything home as they were too heavy so I photographed them, but then gave them away. This is my African Pot and leaf inspired soap dish and a breakfast bowl..not quite as I intended.

I also did baking with Frances, who was very fussy about my hair, and so I tried all ways to tie it up, even although she never tied hers up. She just had a thing about mine.

I learnt how to make sourdough breads,

focaccia (the British way) and a festival bread and lots more, baked in a wood fired oven.

I then did basketry using willow. This is quite different to using cane. I made a large basket which I gave to Alexandra and two short fruit baskets, which I gave to Jess and my Hosts Sally and Stephen.

I then went to the smokery and learnt how to smoke fish and make bacon and hams and sausages, and also seville orange marmalade and black currant jam and Sauerkraut. I did a lot of my own experimenting, including pickling jerusalem artichokes and green fig preserve from an unharvested fig tree. Ruskin mill farm produces tons of berries of all kinds that often go to waste, so I had a field day experimenting. All of which I gave away.

Then we did pottery again with Sam Makumba at the Stroud community pottery. He had o mercy and put us in the deep end and on the wheel.

Here I made a teapot for the farm..I didnt quite like the glaze, which was too thick.

Then we also made a sign for the pottery.

I still wanted to do some felting and tanning of a fleece, but we kind of ran out of time in the end.

The students at Ruskin Mill do a lot more crafts: Stain glass work and glass fusing, Greenwood turning and carving, forging all kinds of things, spinning and weaving. Some crafts like leatherwork and soapmaking have been discontinued because there are almost too many crafts. These are some of their crafts.

In the last week at Ruskin Mill, Frances’ husband, Bernie, runs a camp for families called the Pyrites camp, where they camp for a week at the woodlands on the farm and then choose a craft to do for the week. There are many of them. The whole week is festive, with music and singing in the evenings and food provided all organic.

There are activities for all ages and they have an exhibition of the exquisite work at the end. Usually whole families and a lot of teens join in, many from the local Steiner schools. Many tutors from Ruskin Mill do the crafts, but there are others from outside. here is just a smidgen of what goes on.

Making a Bodhran:

Copper beating:

Making a lyre, greenwood turning, bronze and tin casting

forging using sophisticated and primitive forges..this one is stoked by a bicycle pedal!

Pottery for the children, leatherwork and weaving

Stone carving, Stained glass work and charcoal making for the forge.

This was a goat skin tanning to make a drum.

Unfortunately I was running rapidly out of time, and so I could only watch in envy and feast with my eyes.

Looking for poor people in Britain

I spent a lot of time looking for poor people in Britain. I was told that they are there. Of course, what the British call poor is very middle class in South Africa. I was looking for really poor people. Poor people in South Africa live in a two room shack built of corrugated iron without insulation (very hot in the hot summers..freezing cold in the colder areas that reach below freezing..definitely NO central heating..a communal toilet, shared by 4 households if you are lucky and a tap with clean running cold water shared by 40. The shack is shared by two families..one in each room, if you’re lucky.)

There are those who are completely homeless too, and sleep in the streets carrying their homes in a supermarket trolley. In South Africa there are no payouts for the really poor unless you are disabled or old or have young children. Even these payouts amount to: R1,500 per month (75 pounds) PER MONTH not per week, as in England, and ONLY if  you do not earn more than R64,680 ( 3200 pounds) per YEAR.The same amount is given for a disabled person. The child support grant is R350 (17.50 pounds) per MONTH to the main caregiver of a child 18 or younger. The applicant must earn less than R39,600 (4000 pounds) per YEAR.

So you can see, that there are different levels of poverty in he world.

So I did find some poverty in a manner of speaking. Very occasional beggars usually with a dog, usually, are white, young and often drug addicts or alcoholics. I saw only about 5 in the year I was in Britain. (South African beggars usually are black, trying to sell or make something or looking for work, very rarely just sitting with a hat. here are many in one day. We have a few white beggars too, but they are always alcoholics or drug addicts) I also found one bag lady in the year I was there. But I wasnt certain, as she looked quite posh.

It was likely because I was living in the Cotswolds, which is a fairly wealthy place, apparently, so I went to Bristol to look for signs of relative poverty.

This area had piles of rubbish like this.

You would never find piles of rubbish like this in South Africa, mainly because the poor people would have piled it in a trolley and sold it to the re-cyclers. Truly, every bin day in SA you find bin pickers looking for things to recycle or sell. Never would you have found a duvet with pillows as here. These would have been taken home to be used. Even paper is scratched from the pile..this called white gold, as the highest prices are paid at the re-cyclers.

Graffiti is often a sign of disaffected youth, and this area in Bristol was graffiti area de-luxe. At last I found some colourful signs of protest.

There was this satirical piece with Trump and Boris Johnson kissing..a comment on the brexit voting that was taking place at the time. on a damaged building full of graffiti. Lots of other graffiti:

Banksy is probably the worlds most renown graffiti artist, and one could call him the Banksy of the poor. You can be glad if he trashes your wall, because it will be very valuable. His recent installation at Western super mare, a town outside Bristol and comparatively poor, where he took over a derelict holiday resort, and despite (maybe because) charging a low entrance fare by British standards,  brought 20 million into the Western super mare economy. So, these are two Banksy’s that I found by chance..I didnt even go and look for them.

These look like Banksy’s, but I cant say for sure. One was in Camden, London, the second in a subway in Bristol and the third, just something quirky in Portobello road, London.

My son, Byron, is a Banksy fan, and later on I found a shop selling Banksy T-shirts, I had to get one to take home. Unfortunately it was too small..British sizes are slightly different, and I cant change it! sob!

SPIRITUALITY IN BRITAIN

I sit here on Sunday, listening to the bells calling people to church. It is 11am. Nothing happens on a weekend before 11am! (During the week, nothing happens until 9.30. I love these lazy mornings, as does the rest of Britain). I once went to a Christmas market on a Saturday, and in my South African style, I was on the go quite late..like at 10am, where I was shocked to realize that people were still setting up and half the stalls were not there yet. I thought they were packing up and I was too late. But I was too early! Many weekend things only start at 1pm. But I digress.

Britain has many many churches, cathedrals and places of worship. You cant miss them if you tried. From the presence of stone circles and other pagan sites, it has a long History of spirituality. You cant go anywhere without encountering the remnants of a spiritual Britain. Most are very old..from 3000BC (Stonehenge) to mostly the middle ages, with a few more Victorian and Georgian churches.( Notably I have only seen a few usually quite ugly looking modern churches.) But Remnants is the key word. Yes, the bells peal out on Sundays (and all day on the queens birthday) and many people still go to church. Much is made of the olde religion by preserving the old sites. But how spiritual is Britain, really.

ANCIENT SITES OF WORSHIP

I have already written about some of the ancient sites in Britain, and my search for the ancient spirituality. Stonehenge is now a lucrative tourist site surrounded by fences, charging a lot to get in, with a modern museum put together by National heritage to give an impression of how things had been, and not allowing you the freedom to decide for yourself and be amazed, because its all so logical and practical..a piece of history, not a piece of mystery.

Ordinary people are allowed to worship here only ONE day a year, on the summer solstice without charge. I decided that I would like to go, but discovered that they had levied a charge for parking that was THE SAME AS THE ENTRANCE FEE! Why bother. A site of Human history has been annexed. The reason given is to protect the site. Avebury, which is a stunning place, open to all, all the time. Despite this does not get damaged, so I don’t really understand this reasoning. Many long barrows are open to the public without charge. However, there are lesser known circles that are not as dramatic, although some stones are just as large. At the solstice, they are used by modern day “pagans” for rituals, and I observed a quiet one of these at the Rollright stones. There is a fairly big pagan following, but they are not overt at all. You have to be in the in crowd to know what is happening.

Wales, I am told,  have modern day clairvoyants, many of whom lead quiet and unknown lives.

THE GREEN MAN, MORRIS DANCING AND MUMMERS PLAYS

In many places in England you see images of the green man. Seen as a symbol of spiritual regeneration, also pan the god of plant growth. Certainly England is that land. I have not yet visited Findhorn in Scotland, but I am told that there is still a thriving community that believes in elemental beings,although it now has a touristy edge to it. Nowadays, the only elves and fairies are these that live in peoples gardens or immortalized in a plaque to the fairies of Cottingley.

See also my previous posts on Morris dancing and Mummers plays, usually done around Christmas and new year. Often in pubs or on the street. These often include the theme of rebirth and karma, but in a humorous way. Characters include st George and the dragon and the green man. On the whole people enjoy these but the significance eludes most people, and they are just fun (and slightly weird to most) occasions. A British quirk.

ROMAN TEMPLES

The Romans were Pantheists and very religious in their own right, with even homes having sacred places dedicated to the gods. The water spring was especially important. The Roman Baths in Bath, was connected to a temple, where people came to have prayers made to their gods and goddesses. Now you pay a lot to get into them (but not into the water, which, for health and safety reasons is bad for you now, but was good for you then..however, over the road is a rooftop health spa where you can get in at an even higher price..an hour at a time). Also run by National Trust, it is made to re-enact what is thought of to have happened there..complete with commentary that hangs around your neck. You cannot worship there, but people do throw coins into the sacred spring and make wishes. As mentioned before in my previous posts, many Roman remains are covered up by soil and grass, used by cows, golfers and dog walkers in order to “protect them”

CHURCHES CHURCHES EVERYWHERE

Bill Bryson makes the fact that it would take 11000 years to visit all the sites in Britain, and most of them are churches. This is true. Christianity has been around since even before the Romans left in 500AD. That is just short of 1500 years. That’s a long time. In that time, 37 501 churches have been built. You see what I mean. Some cathedrals are enormous and very elaborate. Gloucester cathedral and York cathedral were used as stage sets in Harry potter.

Some are used in the pomp and ceremony of royalty and commemorating the war. Most of these churches are empty for most of the week, and church numbers have been declining from traditional churches. However, many new and more evangelical churches are taking over or are using the unused times of old ones, as I encountered in London, where there was a moving and enthusiastic service in an old church of England. I went there to send prayers to Amani and his family after he had been killed. Mostly churches are seen as tourist attractions and are maintained on tourist donations. It is good that most churches are open every day and anyone can walk in and say a prayer and light a candle. This is where they are most used. Modern art works in old churches.

Built after the Anglo Saxons invaded Britain, ie from 500AD to 1066 when the Normans invaded. These are the most unadorned and often least visited churches. In the medieval era, many churches were built, as well as monasteries and Abbeys. Some are still used this way, others are ruins. Many catholic churches and cathedrals were elaborate and wealthy. With the protestant movement, many of the inner artifacts were destroyed, but the spectacular buildings remain.

The Knights Templar and the holy grail and the legends of king Arthur has Christian leanings with an esoteric edge. I have not yet visited Rosslyn chapel, said to be the site of the holy grail in Scotland. I have visited Tintagel (see a previous post), and despite the fact that it also is run by National Trust, it remains a haunting area in its own right. But if you read what is said about it, the mystery is destroyed, as it is described as “just a legend”.

The prevailing feeling is that what you see of spirituality in Britain,are simply skeletal remains of a previously vibrant spirituality.

SCIENTIFIC SECULARITY AND THE NEW PAGANS

Scientific secularity is the prevailing trend in Britain today following the French who try desperately to make every thing equal, and end up making humanity bland and uniform.In Britain few people admit to anything else if they are to be taken seriously. One of the loudest Brit who promotes this is atheist and sought after scientific speaker, Richard Dawkins. Fortunately he is countered by the equally gifted scientific speaker, Rupert Sheldrake who argues for a spirituality in science equally, if not more so than Dawkins. But people are uneasy about Sheldrake.

Stroud is a hippy town, and many Waldorf families live there. However, equally there is a very strong anti-Waldorf group with an active website looking for anything that Waldorf schools do that can be seen as spiritual, and dissing it. (Strangely I have found them the most informative of Waldorf websites, as they go to trouble to dig out some interesting and fairly hidden Steiner texts that actually increase my interest in Steiner education, although their intention is the opposite)

The “new age movement” in Britain is not nationally accepted, and is often put down as hokus pokus in the media and elsewhere sometimes with a lot of directed and malicious intent. Anything vaguely non-material is dissed and dismissed in the media, together with laughter. I was quite surprised at this, as South Africa is generally tolerant of “new age “ practices and has a strong following, particularly in the light of African spiritual practices that are luckily still widespread.  Although Waldorf schools do not see themselves as “new agey”, many other people do because some of the practices apparently seem airy fairy. So I was also surprised to see how undeveloped the Steiner movement is in Britain despite being there far longer than in South Africa. Truly there is a regression, especially in the Camphill movement which has been curtailed through laws around “protecting the freedom” of people with mental health problems. Thus they are not allowed to work unless they want to, and so often spend time glued to the TV.

Although there are now a couple of state funded Steiner academies, they have had great difficulty being accepted as such, and some have given up their applications because of bad press coverage, all related to the fact that they follow a spiritual ideology. Recently both Muslim and Jewish schools have come under the same criticisms.

New spirituality?

In recent surveys on spirituality some surprising results have emerged. New spiritual interest has been driven by immigration – not just the settlement of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs from the 1950s onwards – but also more recently the growth of black-led, especially West African Pentecostalist churches, and the crowded Catholic churches as Poles joined their congregations (the Polish inflow of about 600,000 during 2004 – 2008 being the most concentrated single migration from one source into Britain ever).

This has altered the religious geography of Britain, taking London from one of the least religious areas to one of the most, and making the large towns and cities more religious than the small towns and the countryside – reversing the traditional picture. If we add to this fact that religious people have larger families (the more conservative, the larger), the growth of religion in Britain, after its long decline through most of the twentieth century, looks set to be a fact about twenty-first century Britain, although it may be mostly non-white and inner-city.

Ruskin Mill

Ruskin Mills philosophy is based on Rudolf Steiner, John Ruskin and William Morris, all of whom had spiritual leanings. Biodynamic farming is deeply spiritual. So Ruskin Mill celebrates festivals and has artifacts that show some spirituality, including a green man in the forest. However, I feel that the spiritual side is hidden and minimized, which I feel is a pity. It is also unfortunately subject to public criticism, as it is dependent on public money, which is anti-spiritual in Britain. In some ways, the public financial dependence of organizations offering spiritual alternatives limits their development in Britain that is slowly becoming more secularized. Perhaps the removal of government support, despite limiting easy funds, will make these institutions find other ways to survive, and also reaffirm spiritual essence again.

 

 

 

 

 

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