If we are only friends

Utrecht lies at the foothills of the Balele Mountains in northern Natal. Named after the Dutch namesake, it was the capital of one one of the Boer republics that sprang up in the mid 1800's. But that's not what this is about. My uncle was the district doctor, and we often spent our Christmas holidays there. Our cousins were of a similar age, and we got on, so they are remembered as happy times.

We'd spend the summer in the circular water dam in the back of the garden, us inside shouting and splashing, the dogs outside running circles around the cement walls of the reservoir, barking like mad. Far enough away that we didn't irritate the big people, close enough that they could hear a vague noise in the background  And then, when the playing was done, we sat around a fabulous battery operated record player in a hidden corner of the garden, each with a can of condensed milk. You could stick a stack of 45's one on top of the other, and when one was finished, the next one would drop on top of the last one, and the needle starting its circular route all over again. The records were scratched to shit from rubbing against each other, but that didn't matter.

What did matter to me, more than the puffy summer clouds, more than the condensed milk, more than the constant chatter of good friends, was my introduction to Francoise Hardy. She sang in English that year (1966?), and I fell in love with her that that summer. And maybe it's just a memory of a lost youth her songs bring back -  or maybe I still have a bit of that boyhood crush left.

This is the song I remember;

The digital age

These two gentlemen spent an hour on their phones, drinking coffee. The man on the left had four phones. And he was texting on all four.....

Stripey dude

Trying out a remote control button I bought some time ago for the camera. I remember reading the instructions, but then when I finally wanted to use it, I'd forgotten everything and had to go to the camera manual again.  Taken with the late afternoon light streaming into the bedroom.

The old town

 

National Day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Emiratis take their national day very seriously. Flags everyhwere, people wearing clothes in the colours of the flag, cars being decorated - spending a $1,000 on getting your car painted is not uncommon. The UAE is 41 this weekend.

Back to front

Taken on Oman Road while I was waiting at a tyre shop. This is the main road through town to Saqr Port and the Musandam peninsula. The trucks are carrying aggregates which will be shipped to Doha and Bahrain. The UAE is not all bling..

Melancholy

Reminds me of a very good friend....

Barber shop

The barber is just behind my home here in Ras al Khaimah. Four dollars gets you a haircut, a shave, a face and head massage, and a bollowood movie on the tv in the corner...

Remembrance Day - 11 November

HERE DEAD WE LIE

Here dead we lie 

Because we did not choose 

To live and shame the land 

From which we sprung.

Life, to be sure,  

Is nothing much to lose, 

But young men think it is, 

And we were young.

A E Housman

The graves at El Alamein..

Die Antwoord

My problem in life is that I'm interested in everything. I enjoy golf as much as I do combat pistol shooting. I get as much enjoyment out of reading the instructions on the side of a bag of cement as I do reading a novel. The same for music. I've recently come across a South African band called "Die Antwoord" (The Answer).

They're skanky and deviant and rude and brilliant. Above all, they're honest. I like them. A lot.

Here are links to two of their videos:
Die Antwoord - Zef Side
Die Antwword - I Fink You Freaky

Cuba!

My favourite photo from my holiday in South Africa. Taken at Cape to Cuba in Kalk Bay just before lunch.

Ideology

My favourite communist once told me "If you're not a liberal when you're in your 20s you haven't got a heart; if you're not a capitalist by the time you're 40 you haven't got a brain"

I have it arse about face. I went from being to the right of Attila the Hun to capitalism to socialism. Blame it on my Calvinistic upbringing.

Now? I'm older and wiser now.

Anarchism! Everything else sucks.

Christmas rant

Spousoid and I registered for this anonymous Christmas prezzie thing. You register online, and you get sent the name and brief profile of someone you need to send a prezzie to. In return someone else sends you one.

Now it gets interesting. Take two packages to post office. "Sorry Sir, American new rules say no packages more than 400g. More 400 grammes, you have send by Courier"

Back in the car, and off to the courier company.

At the courier company, a very pleasant Egyptian gentleman helps out..
"America? We have to phone Customs. Very sorry Sir, I think America not like us anymore.Too many rules"

What is in packet?
- A tshirt
Where was it made?
- I don't know! I bought it in the souk in Kuwaiti street
Sorry Sir, American customs rules..
- Well it was probably made by child slave labour in North Korea
Sir?
- Tell them China
Ok sir. Sir, they want to know what is it made of?
- Tell them 100% cotton.
Sir, the stitching?
- Do I look like a textile engineer? Tell them nylon.
Sir the beads on the shirt, what are they made of?
- plastic
Sir, if it was not made in UAE, do you have certificate of origin?
- No
Ok Sir, maybe problem, but we will try.
What else is in packet?
- cushion cover
Sir, for cushion cover I have to phone customs...
Sir, what is stuffing made of?
- It is a cushion cover, not a cushion - no stuffing
Sir, what is the material?
- do you really need to know?
Sir, if I dont write, they will not accept package for America.

This process gets repeated - until I get to the spices.
Sir, no spices allowed. Sir sorry Sir, but I think America very angry. They want not even Americans to send parcels home.

So I've taken my parcels back home. Rudolph the fucking reindeer isn't visiting fucking America this year.

Djibouti

 

I was in Djibouti last week. Before I left, all I knew about Djibouti involved desert, sand, and the French Foreign Legion. Their infamous 13th Demi-Brigade was here. And of course the desperates - those who have so little they try to escape to Yemen. Imagine just how bad it must be if Yemen is the promised land.

Now I know a bit more. The rulers of Dubai have built a Kempinski on the beach to protect you from the harshness of reality. But it doesn't work cos the hotel is full of troops. The Kempinski troops were from Spain and Japan and Germany. And America. Not the Foreign Legion of course. They actually like living out in the desert.

There's a new container harbour - also built by the men from Dubai. And a brand new road to Ethiopia.

The architecture in the old town square is Arabian Nights meets French Colonial. They're worn and old and faded - but shit you could fix one up and turn it into a stunning boutique hotel. Or a bordello.

But it won't work. No one goes there unless they have to. Except the Foreign Legion of course. They actually like living out in the desert.

An Arab Spring

The Arab Spring is more of an Arab Winter my Lebanese friend Alexis is fond of saying. I think she's right. I've heard three reasons for the civil war in Libya - freedom is a very low third on the list.

I'm convinced Nato and the US had more oil security in mind than freedom of the people when they helped the revolution from the air..their enthusiam of commodity poor Syria is distinctly lacking. America seems to have a history of propping up strongmen, only to get egg on their faces later - Seso Seko, Saddam, Mubarak, Muammar. The same politicians who made the deal with Muammar now sprout forth their everlasting support for the battle for democrasy. Denmark and rotten comes to mind.

Whether the new regimes will follow suit remains to be seen. The guys who rode the battlewagons to Sirte, the protestors in Tahrir Square - that's not what they fought for. I'm not sure they want democracy either - or at least not the American version of it.

We live in interesting times.

Mud City

 

Took this pic in a dry river bed in one valleys just north of Wadi Biyh.

11 November

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Faded Glory

About 15 years ago when I first arrived in Tanzania I was based at Mwadui. Once the richest diamond mine in Africa it had faded over the years. We were told there was an old club building at Songwa dam.

So on one of our rare off days, we drove down to the dam on a crappy dirt road and came across this. A palace of a place. Empty and discarded. But stunning. Under the deck we found some sailing boats from the 60's, and in the tower - a full size snooker table, lovingly covered with some old sheets. Legend has it the snooker table was imported all the way from the UK, and a technician accompanied it to make sure it was assembled correctly.

A few Sundays of hard work, a fiddled time sheet or two for some of the labourers in camp and we had the place cleaned up, sails put up on the boats, and the pool table gleaming. It became quite the place for a while. Memebership fees were set at $20 a year. We discovered that we had reciprocal rights at the Dar es Salaam Yacht Club, which swelled our club numbers remarkably. $20 was so much cheaper than the $1000+ they charged. Of course they put a stop to it when the found out what our place really looked like...

Times changed.The expat commnity at Mwadui is once again small. The new tar road has cut travelling time down from 5 hours to just over an hour. The old photos are still on the wall. As is an old painting by one of the club members. But once again the light is fading on the Songwa clubhouse. I'm glad I had a chance to take some pics. Now I have to figure out how to get that wind vane off the roof...

Sunset sounds

I was sitting on the roof of the house just before sundown. The roof area in our case is used to house the satellite tv dishes (yes, four of them), the central aircon units, and the water tanks. The real reason for me sitting on the roof was to try to make sense of what the pucking flumber had done to the water tanks. One of them had sprung a leak, and he had confidently (and wrongly) assured me that he could fix it by melting some plastic cover to the outside of the leak.

The imam's started their call to prayer, and I looked up. A dozen mosques surround the house, and the sounds intermingled with that of the last remnants of traffic - everyone was headed home for supper. Dusk was settling on the town, and I suddenly realized that the worst of the summer heat had dissipated. Haydn's Sonata came floating up the stairwell from where my teenage daughter was practising her music.

At moments like this you discover again that in spite of all the hardships and stress that go with living in a foreign country - life isn't too bad either.

Cape of Storms

It has many names. Cape of Good Hope is the politically correct version decided upon by the Dutch East India Company when the sailors started mumbling about the Cape of Storms too regularly. This was taken early in the morning from the top of Bantry Bay at the tail end of a viscious south-easterly that sprung up at 3 in the morning. I like storms.