Y’all make no mistake, Dallas makes for a good winter break!

My first term at the University of Oregon flew by faster than a long anticipated rollercoaster ride at a very expensive theme park. The Disney World kind, where strangers have unfamiliar accents and are attracted to bright, shiny things in the same way crows are. A strange world where people get excited about taking Saturday trips to IKEA or watching presidential candidates compete for being the most convincing (or most charming) hypocrite on national television.

I found myself in a world where the lines between privilege and injustice become more blurry every day. Where, like my South Africa’s yesterdays, the words ‘terrorist’ and ‘freedom fighter’ are used interchangeably, loaded, like ‘communism’. Where young people with good intentions struggle to come to terms with the prices their country has been willing to pay in the name of who-knows-what-anymore. I have learned that there’s something strikingly beautiful about the biggest critics of colonialism coming from within one of the biggest colonizers itself.

A wet, green Eugene.

I handed in my final exam with a smile, proud of the fact that I’d finally remembered to use the US Letter page on MS Word and change all my s’s to z’s and ou’s to o’s. Three months of being thrown into the deep end of media theory and a radically new school system was finally paying off. I thought back on the countless hours spent using online dictionaries and whispering to friends in class “What’s Honey Boo Boo?” or “Who’s Hubert Humphrey?” Information overload is an understatement. Imagine watching Oliver Stone’s The Untold History of the United States every single day for ten weeks. It is a pretty sight. To me, at least. I realized the best part of living in the USA is my inability to conform to the social norms because I’m still not sure what they are. For this reason, I had completed all my assignments with thought. And heart. Even though everything around me had changed and is still changing, I still have heart. That piece of me remains, no matter where I go.

I felt sad saying hurried goodbyes to the good friends I’d made in Eugene for winter break. The anticipation of a holiday in Texas with my South African childhood friends kept me going through many late nights of studying. After a week of fine-combing the streets of Portland, I finally boarded the eagle freeing me into the Dallas sunshine. Which is exactly what greeted me – a 75 degree high miracle. Mo, our Iranian taxi driver and friend, awaited me in Dallas with a minibus that looked surprisingly small among the gigantic Texan pick-up trucks.

Stumptown Coffee, Portland with Jane Lin

As I admired the dry, open fields that remind me of South Africa’s Limpopo Province, I listened to Mo tell me about why Texas is the best state in the US. “The people here are friendly. The houses are big. You can live a good life here in Dallas.” I agreed. I wasn’t going to go into the details of what I consider to be a ‘good life’. “This is where Kennedy got shot, you know,” Mo said, his chest out in respect of the former president. “But Reagan, he’s the real hero in Texas.” He cleared his throat, and mumbled. “Me, I don’t really agree.” I just nodded and smiled. One does not simply talk about politics in the USA.
As far as I could tell, Mo hadn’t seen his children in 15 years. He can’t return to Iran because he’s considered a ‘traitor’. He told me his story twice and I still couldn’t quite understand why he’d been in the US Air Force. I sighed. There is no country without some kind of bloody history. I know, because when I got home I actually Googled it.

The best thing about spending the festive season with the kids that saw you grow from a cornrow-toothed booger eater to an out of hand teen to a very dynamic young lady, is that you can relive all those memories in your home language. You can crack a joke in Afrikaans. You can tell them how much you miss your family in Afrikaans. For a few weeks I could simply talk without thinking. We could laugh together about how weird it is that Americans destroy their bacon by making it crispy, how there’s almost always bottomless coffee or sodas in restaurants, how Walmart is both the most exciting and the most traumatic thing we’ve ever experienced. We can giggle about people laughing at us for constantly clutching our wallets in crime paranoia. We can mock each other for our poor attempts to drive on the right side of the street. And, for actually using the word ‘mock’ when no-one around us does anymore.

On Christmas Eve we tried our hand at Secret Santa. Of course, even before our tree went up, we’d already figured out who our Santas were. South Africans aren’t bribe shy. We awoke on Christmas Day to a White Christmas. No jokes, real snow in Dallas. The white layers of flurries hurt our eyes, but we couldn’t resist baring our teeth to something so magically unfamiliar. We built a snowman and gave him a Dallas Cowboys cap that we picked up in the street when the purple and white team had lost the day before. By the time we’d found it a reasonable length of tree branch arms, our hands and feet were numb and we warmed up with a glass of Malbec in front of the fireplace. “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas…” I sang softly.

Dallas Cowboys snowman with Marjonell van Deventer

During the final two weeks of winter break, we decided to switch to tourist mode again. Our first stop: the Stockyards in Fort Worth where I think I had my first encounter with cowboys and a traditional Native American. In front of the countless curios stores selling leather boots and hats, the Native American charged $5 to take a picture of him. Passers-by whispered that “he didn’t even look real.” Of course I could not tell them that he was or was not, because culture in the modern day US confuses me as much as the next person. We walked past saloons and museums and the cowboys’ Hall of Fame. We watched a cattle run (which my friend referred to more likely being a ‘cattle crawl’) and stared in amazement at the enormous longhorn bulls roaming the streets. Fort Worth was buzzing with energy, locals and tourists experiencing a snippet of historical Texas together.

Longhorn bulls in Fort Worth, Texas

We visited a few museums and attended the Chinese Lantern Festival a few days later. The delightful lanterns were carefully crafted with anything from cotton materials to glass urns to porcelain plates. Lotuses bloomed in front of my very eyes, dragons slithered past me, and panda bears chewed on bamboo while carrying their babies on their backs. I imagined myself in a fairytale several times that night.

Chinese Lantern Festival

A highlight of the break was the three mile art walk in Downtown Dallas. Three miles of appreciating tall modern buildings, old European-like hotels, churches and historically significant structures gave us a real sense of the city of Dallas. A beautiful city, which I had surely underestimated. Our walk ended off with an hour long meditation inside the Crow Museum, which contains aisles and aisles of ancient Asian artifacts and ornaments.

As I mentally prepare myself for my trip back to Eugene and the start of a new term, I look back on the holiday with a smile. Benihanas and Chilis came close to being as good as the dark chocolate cake we baked for Christmas Eve. Our basketball outings were almost as good as watching the Ducks win the Fiesta bowl. And our line-dancing was almost as good as our wine-induced confessions on New Year’s Eve. Winter break – even though at times I wished I could’ve been with my family and friends in sunny South Africa –you were a team player. Thank you for showing me that I can do this, and that I’m ready to go back to Eugene to learn how to change the world.

Lights, Camera, Action: It’s Election Time

My first taste of partisan media in the United States was in the endless customs queue which I had just committed myself to when I arrived at JFK International Airport in New York. I don’t remember the names of the stations or of the perfect beauty-contestant anchors, but I do recall the bright blue, red and white lights flashing across the screen several times. Each time I assumed they were covering a breaking news story – the hype was so huge – but I kept being disappointed. It was simply a political statement by some politician that was either being attacked or endorsed. On the attack front, I was startled. I had never before seen a media outlet blatantly choose sides in an election and I kept turning my head, trying to catch people’s attention: “Are they allowed to say that?”

Within a few weeks I realised that this had only been an introduction to a game that somewhat resembles a circus. On lawns across Eugene people hammer their signposts of support, right below a metre by two metre USA flag. Television, radio, internet – every form of communication in the US has become a political warzone, on the stage of Chicago or some sultry musical production. People even politically affiliate food – “a cup of Obama or Romney for you today mam?” In Eugene it’s likely you’ll get a discount for choosing the blue.

I’ve struggled to comprehend it. It reminds me of some of the protests during COP17, in which some of the people (obviously not all) would blindly mass rally for a cause they had very little understanding of. Because I realized that I actually had very little understanding of US politics, I decided to watch the second debate between Obama and Romney (the one in which Green Party leader Jill Stein, whom I of course had never heard of, wasn’t allowed to participate). Live tweeting my fingers numb, the answers as to why Americans on the West Coast were almost obsessively engaged in politics, dawned on me: US politics is so important, because the issues at hand are so important. In fact, somehow, the States have managed to politicise almost all the important social issues a country could face.

As a South African, I was completely baffled that a first world country was still debating over issues such as contraception, abortion, social health care, equal pay for equal work, gay marriage and student loans. Most of these issues were resolved in my country many years ago. Culturally there are some conflicting views, but at least constitutionally South Africa protects the right of women, children and homosexuals and so many other groups who need the support of their country.

In the US, it is viewed (or potentially it is so) that casting a vote for a single party can either allow a woman to practice her rights over her own body, or not – and it blows my mind. I might not know a lot about the historical or current state of politics here, but I do know that the system is not going to be easy to change. In fact, I sometimes wonder if one man, essentially Obama in the eyes of hopeful Democrats, can affect the system at all? Does congress have too much power?

I always refer to Africa as the Continent of Hope, because despite the ongoing poverty, civil wars and social injustice it faces, there is always hope.African countries provide a system which can be changed, or in which revolutions can take place. Is there the same hope for the US? And is it that hope that keeps people debating, keeps them glued to their favourite TV channels and keeps them voting? I definitely have a lot more to learn about this country and my view on the current election might be completely wrong, but I do know a thing or two about inequality. And Obama and Romney, neither of you want to widen that gap.

Eugene: A safe place is a nice place.

My alarm clock (remember those?) goes bonkers. Spiralling back to earth from a deep sleep, I am fooled and think it’s the screaming of a hadeda waking me. I jump up when I realise it’s the alarm, signalling 07:00 in big bright red electronic numbers. “You’re lucky!” I whisper to the imaginary hadedas whose absence I’m slowly but surely starting to miss. The closest thing to a fairly annoying creature that ruins your sleeping patterns in Eugene is a squirrel. In fact squirrels are the closest things to anything annoying, because they seem to be severely overpopulated here.

I remember being elated out of my mind seeing them in Stellenbosch the first time. Now I’m reaching that point where when they startle me, I respond by saying “go watch Ice Age or something!” That’s how many squirrels there are in Eugene. And why wouldn’t there be?  I’ve never seen so many big beautiful trees come together in one place. Eugene is green. Oregon is bright green. So green that Apple accidentally portrayed a whole urban area in Portland as being a park on one of its map functions. That’s how green it is in Oregon.

I get dressed, finish a cup of Pear and Kiwi flavoured green tea – while listening to Blink 182 (what can I say? Just trying to feel at home!) – and head out to the garage. I’m going for a bike ride. Eugene is a bike town. People adore their bikes and there are safe bike routes all across town. The University of Oregon’s Outdoor Program even has an ‘Appreciate Your Bike Day’. That’s how much people adore their bikes in Eugene.

I ride to 24^th avenue and then turn down to Hilyard, towards Sundance Market, where I currently do my food shopping. I feel weird for not wearing a seatbelt, and at the same time I’m thrilled by the wind playing with my hair, pulling at my shirt and pushing fresh air down my lungs. I could get used to this. Inside, I have no idea what half the products mean. Hemp bread? Almond butter? Tofu burger patties? People in Eugene are very health conscious. The University of Oregon’s recreation centre is free for students. People walk, bike and run everywhere and eat mostly organic food. They even have quinoa pasta at Sundance. That’s how health conscious people are in Eugene.

I ride further down into Amazon Park, where I sit down on the grass in the sunshine to enjoy the gourmet pasta salad Sundance has just made for me. Children on bikes ride by, students with backpacks walk by, dogs play fetch with their owners, while I enjoy the peace and quiet. People walk up to me and tell me they like my Don’t Kill Africa shirt and ask me where I’m from. I tell them South Africa, they want more, I give them more and I give them what they want to hear. Oregonians are friendly. Citizens walk several blocks with you when you get lost. Strangers talk to you on campus, at street corners and markets. Strangers ask and talk and ask and talk, and mostly conversations end up in nothing meaningful. That’s how friendly people are in Eugene.

I attend class right in the middle of campus, in Fenton Hall. On my way back home I get sidetracked by the live band performing in the amphitheatre in front of the Erb Memorial Union building. On my way back again, I get sidetracked by the Climate Justice League meeting and then again by the African Student’s Association members inviting me to its latest event. Campus is alive, and it’s getting late. My friends say not to worry, Eugene is a safe place. I worry, it’s already dark. I consider taking a taxi, but I’m told not to worry. I start walking, up University Street. I walk all the way home, fearless, unharmed. That’s how safe it is in Eugene.

I never really thought about how an unsafe environment limited some of your opportunities until now. Perhaps we’ve adapted to crime in South Africa to such an extent that we forgot there are places with much less of it – there is a possibility of a more peaceful world for us, I don’t know how, but we could make that happen!

Oregon: Right on Track

“Train 14 for Seattle is now boarding” I hear over the loudspeaker. I slowly arise from the bench in Oakland station, swing my backpack on my back and pick up my laptop. I haven’t let them out of my grip for the past hour – everything I know is in here, and everything I own is in my checked-in luggage. I walk onto the Oakland platform, a cool breeze chills my teeth that show because I just can’t seem to stop smiling. Nervously, but broadly. I’ve been waiting for this day. I touch my cheeks at the spots where they now hurt. Maybe I’ll grow dimples? The conductor scans my ticket and allocates me an upstairs coach seat. “Are you going to Seattle?” he asks. “Eugene. I’m going to Eugene,” I mumble, struggling to believe myself. “Oh to the university? Well welcome aboard!”

We leave around 22:30 and I catch some shut-eye while it’s dark. In the early morning I want to be fresh to enjoy the sights. And my oh my, what sights awaited me! After a few hours of drifting in and out of sleep, I’m woken by shadows stroking my face. I jolt upright, frightened. I look out of the window to my right to see giant dark tall shapes towering above the train. “Trees!” I shout, my nose and palms flat on the window. “So many of them,” I say, turning to the girl seated next to me. She smiles and giggles as she tries to hush me, not everyone was awoken by the alighting of the passing forest. “They’re just… they are… Wow,” I whisper. As the sun rises the gigantic trees begin to look gentler until finally they almost smile at me, sincerely kind.

A photo of the North California/ Oregon trees taken from the Amtrak

The forest denses as we clickety-clack along. I take my seat in the viewing cart – which seats you sideways to admire the view – with a cup of strong coffee in hand. Kilometres and kilometres of long far-reaching tree branches with small pointy leaves jump up in front of me, some more distant, others almost right in my face. My mind wanders. What kind of creatures could be living in there? Deer, squirrels, fairies? Such a thick gathering of bark isn’t conventional enough to host conventional organisms. This is the kind of forest great authors such as JRR Tolkien uses as a setting for magical beings to embark on adventures in. I squint, hoping to spot something supernatural next to the graceful flow of the pitch black river, but the only interruption of the lush dark green is yellow wild flowers. There’s something about moving, life-giving cold water. Bubbling energy, heading for an ancient destination, giving life to ancient organisms, trees and grass, even though they’re all brand new. Ahead, a mountain slowly appears behind the forest. The mountain top is white, ice-capped. “We’re near the Oregon border now,” a fellow passenger says aloud.

About five hours later we start to close in on Eugene. I hardly believe my eyes, but the trees are taller and greener, and yes, even happier. Big lakes peer at us from around every corner. The area reeks of both fertility and adventure. I feel pins and needles all over my body – I fall in love with my surroundings. Seeing the big river flowing below an open sky, separated only by a line of evergreens, suddenly overwhelms me. Why does one get so emotional when immersed in a stunning natural scene? Such a beauty makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time – over every heartache and heartbreak you’ve ever experienced, and over the strength that got you through it. The outskirts of Eugene and most of Oregon is beautiful enough to caress my soul, heal all my inner wounds right into my very DNA, and right into my previous generations.

My new landlady, Brenda, awaits me at the train station and shows me around town on our way home. Eugene is bright green and sunny on this day, filled with interesting places – mostly organic restaurants and markets and bike shops. The streets are broad and the wooden houses all either have wind chimes or homemade art proudly decorating their entrances. We pull up to a double-storey house, painted a soft grey, rounded off with perfect clean white window sills. In the lush garden tall pine trees shoot up high, higher than I can see without closing my eyes for the shimmering sun. “This is it?” I ask in disbelief. Brenda smiles and nods. “Oh Brenda it’s gorgeous,” I say as I rush up the stairs. It’s an open plan house, with wooden floors and walls and vast big windows. Everywhere I look is either bright sunlight or a view of the bright green garden. I open the door to the garden and our cat jumps in. “That’s Miko. She’s a sweetheart,” Brenda laughs as she picks up the giant ball of grey fur. “By the way, there are vegetables and herbs planted outside – take whatever you need.” She points me in the direction of my white-walled room. Inside, a world map and a poster of South Africa with giraffes on it beam at me. Perfect. I look up at the roof. A window! I jump for joy, but only slightly. I am from Thabazimbi after all.

My house in Eugene

I put on my running shoes, ready to go for my first jog through the clump of trees (or as I like to call it, the mini-forest) behind my house. As I reach the top of the hill and manage to drag myself away from the juicy blackberries, I notice that I’m running through a Masonic Graveyard. I walk around, feeling like I’m either in a vampire movie, or somewhere truly significant, respectful. The dates on the gravestones go back to the 1800s. I jump over tree trunks and spiderwebs and land right in front of the most significant grave I could find in this town: that of Eugene Franklin Skinner. I’m surprised, the founder of Eugene, the man who erected the first cabin in this area – where now the renowned University of Oregon is located, the university giving me a chance of a lifetime – is buried right behind my dreamy house. I stand up and smile peacefully as I look downhill. A slight haze rests softly on top of millions of pine trees and the sun has started to set somewhere between them. I run home, feeling great. Tomorrow I’ll explore Eugene – the people, the stadiums, the markets, the vintage shops, the Duck Store and of course the University of Oregon. Tomorrow I’ll explore my new home.

California: Acting like a tourist, living like a local.

The BART – Bay Area Rapid Transit – is a magical thing. It can take you anywhere in the San Francisco Bay Area. During my second week it took me to the Oakland City Centre to do none other than explore Jack London Square. To some of you the name of the world famous journalist, social activist and author of the book The Call of the Wild might sound familiar. At Heinold’s First and Last Chance, a quaint bar in Jack London Square, I met a Greek San Franciscan who tapped his feet excitedly below his table as he revealed to me the history of the writer. “This table just so happens to be the one London was sitting at in that picture at the age of 12,” the man said, his one hand pointing to the wall, while his other caressed the wooden circle in front of him. The barmen of Heinold’s are proud to be associated with a real legend, who they say still keeps them company within the walls. “You know right here is where London said: “I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet,” a customer added.

Even without London, Heinold’s has a special history of its own. “This is where men had their last beer before they went out to sea. They would hang their caps up on that ledge and pick them up as they return again for their first beer on land.” Rows of embroidered caps hung hooked on the ledge. Many never made it back. After the inspiring historical infusion we made it to the city to visit another significant bar called The Little Shamrock. The bar, referring to the four-leaved clover so dear to the Irish, was founded in the 1800s, and managed to survive the prohibition years.

On the weekend I finally had the opportunity to meet up with a close friend, Carolynn, who I had sailed with from Namibia to Uruguay in 2011, looking for plastic in the ocean. We talked as we walked down Divisadero for hours and awoke the following morning to a Labour Day weekend road trip north to her hometown of Sebastopol, in Sonoma County. Having grown up in Thabazimbi in Limpopo Province, I am one for small towns. Farm towns. Towns where half of the inhabitants still know you, your siblings or your parents. Where you can point left and right and recall a childhood memory. Sebastopol is that kind of town, and the memories are that of blackberry picking, playing volleyball on a sunny afternoon, wine tasting and an all ages baseball league after sunset. Carolynn’s parents are wonderfully warm hosts and considerate enough to have a German barbecue for me and give me Chardonnay peanut brittle to snack on. Their home, and all the other white picket fence homes in Sebastopol are the kind you lose yourself in – suddenly finding yourself considering marriage and children, a spell only broken once you’re well outside of the town again.

A local artist perfecting upcycling in Sebastopol

Or perhaps my sense of independence returned on the open road because I knew we were heading to Muir woods. We stopped in Tiburon first, admiring the view of San Francisco – a white palace planted on top of the open grey seas. I stared enviously at the sailors boarding their yachts and sailboats. Would they even notice if I sneaked on? We drove to the most top point of Tiburon and gazed over miles and miles of sea, fortunately visible on the sunny day due to no fog or rain. We then made our way down, down, down towards the mystical Muir woods. The first large redwood tree I saw called up emotions in me that felt familiar, as if I felt at home between these thickly barked evergreen organisms. Leave me here and allow me to get lost. Muir woods automatically led to Muir beach – a soft, dark brown beach on which young people sit huddled together against the cold wind around big bonfires. Its water is stormy and strong and its cliffs are picturesque.

Muir Beach

Cold weather and wind doesn’t seem to keep San Franciscans away from the beach. This I learned when my friends had the lightbulb idea of doing a photoshoot in the waters of an eerily foggy Ocean Beach. I don’t know how we arrived at the sea because the fog was so thick I couldn’t see where I was walking. Through the layers of moving mist I could see darker shadows on the beach. As my eyes adjusted, I noticed that these were groups of people celebrating Labour Day with smores (marshmallows wrapped in a cookie) and thick puffy jackets. It was like we had joined an entire camping ground of people brought together under a tent of thick fog. My Californian friends ran into the seemingly icy waters, took their incredible photos and rushed out, not even looking like they’re freezing to death. “Once you’re in, you become numb, and then it’s not so bad,” they said. I just nodded, wrapping a lime green blanket tighter around me.

At home everyone warmed up around the fireplace. Whilst sharing pizza, we decided to serenade our national anthems to each other (of course I had to do Nkosi Sikelele all by myself). “Oh say can you see?” sounded beautiful until the range got too high and all the men were croaking silly notes, but with so much passion I didn’t have the courage to laugh at them. They enjoyed South Africa’s upbeat anthem and its different languages, and I had suddenly wished I knew the meaning of all the words.

My week came to a close with one of the most exceptional dinners I’ve had to date with my South African friends Barbara and Donovan. Benihanas is a restaurant in Japan Town where the chefs don’t only provide you with fresh and healthy food, but they also give you a show. A real entertaining one with onion volcanoes and heart-shaped fried rice. Angelina Jolie and Steve Carrell had apparently been there a few weeks before, the billboard at the entrance said. I can see why – good Japanese food, friendly faces and warm sake.

Fresh Japanese food at Benihanas

I am reminded everyday that San Francisco has so much to offer, here is anything you could ever want, but it doesn’t make me forget what my own country actually needs. I heart SA, always.

California Dreamin’

The week before I flew out to California I was more than a ball of nerves. I was a floating bolus of entangled plastic ropes of nerves in the ocean, incongruously excited about leaving when everyone around me felt sad to see me go. I had known I was coming out here for such a long time, that I couldn’t possibly be anything but overly excited.
That said, the first thing you miss when you leave your family behind in South Africa is a four year old jumping on your bed at 6am, telling you that he’s slaying you because you’re a monster. During those times, knowing you’ll leave him for at least a year, you feel a little bit like a monster.

After months and exhausting administrative processes such as applying for student visas, doing immunisations, packing, terminating the various insurances you need to survive in South Africa and booking flight tickets, I was finally on my way. “We’re coming to America!” I sang at OR Tambo International Airport, simulating the moves we were taught in showchoir when we did a Neil Diamond and Westside Story mash-up. “We’re coming to America, today!”

The Mission: Obtain a masters degree in Communication and Society at the University of Oregon.

The Vision: Change the world.

Timespan: Whatever it takes.

All above goals should be achieved in collaboration with having fun and meeting great people.

Barbara, a friend from Thabazimbi who I have known for as long as I can remember, her one year old son Naude and I boarded the plane, nervously ready for a 16 hour flight to New York. We slept very little and felt so relieved when we suddenly realised we only had four hours left before landing. When we did, we found ourselves in one of those queues that just don’t seem to move anywhere. The East Coast was receiving visitors alright. We finally made it through customs, but were extremely disappointed to find that JFK New York was small, hot, humid, dirty and mostly under construction. “San Francisco is not like this,” Barbara promised as she saw my facial expression. It wasn’t. Our pink Virgin Atlantic airplane circled above San Francisco and I felt drops of drool dangling from my jaw. Big tall buildings, engrossed in evergreen trees that are almost as tall were lined up against a coast with very lively water. There were salt pans and different coloured meanders visible from up in the air. Lady SF looked beautiful, winking at me to come and explore.

At the baggage claim of a much nicer SFO airport a special Californian welcome awaited me. A friend from 5 Gyres, Stephen, handed me a bunch of brightly coloured flowers and said: “Welcome to California.” I felt that welcome immediately in a tune – “be sure to wear some flowers in your hair” – resonating in my head, down my spine and finally to my toes. These are the moments I live for, and so were the next few days.

I saw no point in surrendering to jetlag on my first night, so I went with a friend to a micro-brewery to try some pale ale. We walked home at midnight, not neurotically concerned about getting robbed or raped around every corner.
I took the BART – Bay Area Rapid Transit – the following morning to walk around the Embarcadero in the middle of the city, and finally to head towards Ocean Beach. Heading out on the Judah line I saw the sky changing from sunny and cloudless to foggy. Not foggy as we know it. Real fog. Big cotton wool balls glued on top of green hills fog. It was eerie, but intriguing. One could not imagine what was hiding behind those dense clouds looming over trees, homes and even our own heads. I saw the city completely disappear in fog one night. One could only see from block to block and hope for the best for those dark foggy gloom parts that gobbled up every street in its way. I felt like I had woken up in another lifetime, before humans had discovered and designed cities and all there had ever been were animals and our environment. This is the place where your imagination is revived – right here in the fog.

Like Cape Town, the weather is unpredictable in San Francisco and we awoke to a beautifully sunshine morning during my first week. We hopped on our bikes and rode along the beach to the Cliffhouse and to Golden Gate Park. The evergreen trees in the park are so tall that I have to tilt my head to see their interwoven branches. Their branches are so dense that it seems like spiderwebs hold the leaves together. “This whole park is man-made. Every tree in here was planted,” Stephen said. I gaped at the green and lush plants and growth surrounding the ponds and couldn’t grasp how this all could be put together and designed by people, who are most of the time the culprits in the destruction of our planet. We could have that in South Africa. We should have that in South Africa, I thought.

Back at Ocean Beach I couldn’t resist dipping my toes in the Pacific Ocean, a cold, soft and clean ocean. I really like the vibe of Ocean Beach – people generally having a good time and seem so content with that one spot. But the warm waters of the Indian Ocean in KwaZulu Natal and the pristine white beaches in the Western Cape will probably never be beaten (I could be biased).

Before heading out to Dolores Park in The Mission, it was time to taste my first real Californian/ Mexican burrito with rice, black beans, guacamole, cheese and vegetables. It’s definitely not going to be my last! In The Mission we were soaked in the originality of different graffiti murals and old, tall buildings, alive with such a diversity of people. A Mariachi band playing on a street which has at least three thrift stores kept me asking for more.

On the Saturday of week one, we passed through Chinatown to – as proud tourists – make a stop at Lombard Street, the most crooked street and the Golden Gate Bridge, which needs no introduction. We ended the week off with one of the highlights of my existence: great seats to a San Francisco Giants game. Baseball is a fun game and it turns out I’m not too bad a pitcher. Fans were singing along to songs such as Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing and God Bless America. The organs playing in the background (exactly as you see on TV) lifted the spirits enough to make the crowd forget how embarrassingly the Giants were losing. Those who remembered ate Gilroy’s famous garlic fries and hot dogs as comfort food.

Now, as a social being, I can tell you that Californians are friendly. Sometimes overwhelmingly so. They smile at you in lifts, talk to you on the train and pretend that they know something about South Africa to show genuine interest in your heritage. The Californians I have come to know are even more laid back than Capetonians (!!). My time here has been filled with jump-out-of-bed mornings, whether it’s because I can’t wait to see the sights, or because there are so many people from many different cultures to meet. All of them here to grab hold of the American Dream, or just to hang out in the garage with a beer and friends.
There is something about California that tells you you can do anything, but at the same time it tells you that you don’t have to.

Our oceans are taken for granted

It’s official. Our oceans are polluted with plastic. Each one of the samples collected since we have entered the gyre, have contained increasing amounts of plastic. We are starting to find somewhat bigger pieces which you can make out to be leftovers of bottle caps or plastic containers. Some of the samples consist of more than 50% plastic. One of the samples also contained tar balls.

-    A sample bag is about 30 cm long and tied to a trawl of about a metre wide.
-    The porous bag is dragged through the water, catching anything in its way.
-    The trawl and the sample bag is left in the water for an hour, then it’s dragged out and processed.
-    We use a spoon and a sieve to put the contents of the sample into a small (about 250 ml) plastic bottle with formalin.

What our results mean to me is that there is more plastic in the ocean than I ever realised. We are but one boat doing an expedition in one straight line across the Atlantic Ocean. If we were situated about a metre to the left or right, what would our findings be there? Our sample bag is small and our trawl only a metre wide. What if it was two metres wide? What would our samples look like then? Or what if we trawled 24 hours a day?

It is impossible to find out exactly how much plastic there is in the ocean, but it’s there all right.

Today we have started trawling with the high-speed trawl. We launch the manta trawl (it’s shaped like a manta) every 60 miles and the high-speed trawl in-between. In the meanwhile we look out for larger plastic debris. We have seen quite a few but couldn’t make out exactly what they were. Except for one big clump of plastic ropes tangled in each other (a bolus).

To give you guys an idea of how incongruous the plastic debris is to the rest of the ocean I’m surrounded by daily, I will sketch a picture of how amazing this morning’s sunrise was. Imagine you are painting a picture with water colours. Choose the darkest, clearest navy blue you can find and round it off with simple and relaxed icy-white waves. Now pick up turquoise and created a deep vivid layer of sky on top of the ocean. Above that take a bright pink and orange and let them blend slowly into each other (pink at the bottom right on top of the turquoise and then orange). Cut out a small foil circle for the glowing full moon, which was slowly setting. Take your brightest orange and on the opposite side of the moon, start painting the sun rising above a few soft white clouds. Top it off by lining the clouds with a distinct silver gel pen. This should not be destroyed by plastics and chemicals – don’t you agree?

*This post forms part of the Reliving the Sea Dragon Voyage series.