Aerobics!

(posted by Janine)
Sport opens new doors. Last week Mikkel wrote about the marriage we got invited to through some of his badminton mates. As for me, I get some fascinating experiences through my aerobics/taebo class –and I’m not only talking about the funny Indian moves I’m learning. First of all our teacher, or ‘master’, is distracted for about one-third of the time because he’s on the phone or sending sms-es. And half of the times, it becomes a private class since I am the only participant. But when I do have a fellow participant, our Indian taebo moves usually get disturbed by the long discussions between this girl and the ‘master’ about his marriage problems! The master is having a love-marriage (=not arranged) and therefore… a LOT of trouble. He complains about his wife’s demanding behaviour and the girl gives him advice as if it is relationship therapy. You can imagine me standing next to them hinting to continue the class…but it never helps. In the meantime, she secretly explained to me that in a ‘normal marriage’ like hers, people usually don’t have problems like that.

Now the reason that I am often having ‘private class’ is because this other girl (or woman actually) has to stay at home to host some visitors of the family. This family consists of her daughter, her husband, his parents and his grandparents. According to their ‘tradition’, she has to run the whole household. When her father-in-law stands up, it is necessary that she also stands up to show him respect. She explained this to me when I had (a huge) dinner at her place yesterday. All this doesn’t mean that she has no ambitions. In fact, she has graduated in both English literature and sociology and worked for one year as an education consultant. She told me that she very much enjoyed her work but then…she got married. Her new husband didn’t want her to continue working and according to the tradition, you have to obey your husband. So she quit and became a housewife, even long before she had her child.
They live in a tremendously big house with a dog, inside garden-pond, roof terrace and (of course!) two maids: 17-year old girls from a rural village, who almost dropped their plates when I arrived, out of excitement for seeing a foreigner. Her 10-year old daughter has the biggest collection of Barbie’s I have seen in my life –hundreds of them- still packed in their original plastic. Not that the daughter sleeps in her room, because according to the tradition, it would be selfish of parents to keep their children separate. So the child always sleeps in bed with them.

When the parents of my aerobics-partner found her a suitable husband 14 years ago, they were engaged for 5 months and by the time they married, she was actually in love with him. So she is happy with her life and with her marriage. And now she is giving all her best advice to the aerobics-master because she knows what a good marriage is all about…

In the meantime, I might not get the work-out that I wanted and will never get the hang of these Indian moves, but at least I get to hear some interesting relationship-gossips!






For the ones who are curious to know the Tamil version of Brad Pitt (his name is Vijay and he is all over on the billboards):








With Prasad and Didi (Janines classmate from holland) in one of the few Chennai bars:







Typical street sight after a heavy heavy rainfall:

”Marriage…it’s a gamble!”

(posted by Mikkel)

Yes, we are still alive and kicking here in Chennai. Since coming back from our holidays in October it’s been all work and no fun…or at least more work and less fun! Janine is busy writing an article for an Indian journal so for the moment we are playing the academic version of a happy family both bend over our laptops. But in between there is time enough for Diwali celebrations (the biggest Hindu festivity of the year), beach trips, social visits, badminton (me), private tae-bo / aerobic class (Janine … when the ‘master’ shows up), nightly rat chases, cooking classes, restaurant visits and this weekend a real Indian “Monsoon Wedding”.

As many of you might know marriage is a whole different affair in this country. The biggest difference: most marriages are still arranged. And I’m not talking about mamma and papa just organizing the venue, the menu and the invitations…no in most cases they also organize your soulmate for life and genetic material for your future offspring. The days where husband and wife had never met each other and had very little or no say in the matter seem to be long gone in middle class India. But the Western style “love-marriages” are still looked upon here with suspicion and doubts from both the parent generation as well as Indians our age. Almost all of the middle aged married people we meet here in Chennai had their marriage arranged by the parents not really knowing their husband/wife until the day of marriage.

The marriage we went to Sunday and Monday was a South Indian Brahmin wedding (Brahmin is the highest caste). We were told that wedding traditions differ tremendously according to religion, caste, subcast and region. The couple – Nalili and Prakash – that I know from badminton, actually met each other at the badminton court. Prakash figured out that she was from the same caste or subcast as himself and went to ask Nalili’s parents for her hand in marriage. Nalili told me that she had not known anything about his marriage ideas. Although not “at all in love with him” at that time, she thought he was a good person so said yes. “At least this way I knew my husband was a nice guy…otherwise it’s a gamble” she told me with a smile, “and now we love each other.” Some of the guys from badminton said that Prakash had been lucky because Nalili was from the same caste. Otherwise he would not have had the chance to choose himself. “But do you then want a love marriage?” I asked them. No, most seem to agree. Love marriages are dangerous. Too many expectations, complications, etc. and they also don’t want to upset their parents by going against their wishes.

“Love marriages” often fall apart people say. I’m not surprised: young (and old) Indians fall in love like everyone else in this world I guess. When passions run high, they can choose to either keep it secret (can be difficult when you live with your parents) or else marry quickly. Maybe not the best circumstances for taking such an important decision! When the marriage is arranged, rational choice is applied (as well as planetary positions, ancient caste systems and profit-hungry marriage brokers) and expectations are fulfilled if the partner for life is respectful and nice.

In the Indian middle class the arranged marriages seem to continue for at least one generation more. But the marrying men and women try to influence the choice by vetoing the parent’s suggestions or by suggesting someone that they know, who falls within the acceptable caste/religious group. Many families also use marriage brokers and internet (like www.1rupeematrimony.com). It is interesting to compare this with the popularity of internet dating sites at home where people also look for partners within the same professions, with the same interests, or even looks, etc. One big difference is of course that here in India there is no “testing ride” for a couple of years, but just a number of social visits (no touching of course). So in that way it is still a gamble…but a gamble where the odds can be influenced just a little bit improved in one’s favour.

The wedding happened over two days. First day (Sunday) was the reception. 500-600 guests in turn greeting the couple; having a photo taken; moving on to the rows of chairs facing the couple or listening to classical music in the hall next door; in groups moving into the dining hall to be vastly and fastly fed (a 12-15 minutes mouth watering experience) and after that leaving for home. The whole visit lasting between 1-2 hours. Of course a lot of chatting going on, but no party as we know it with dancing, speeches, everyone dining together, drinks, fun, etc. Oh yes, in case any of you ever invite an Indian for your wedding: if nothing else is said, the invitation also goes out to his sisters and brothers, parents, grandparents, children, visiting friends, etc!

Monday morning was the real marriage with several important rituals. Most important one: the groom tying a rope around the bride’s neck while she is sitting on her father’s lap. No need for long explanations of the symbolism I guess! Due to strong beliefs in astrology this must happen at a very certain minute. Two priests are leading the whole thing instructing the by now very tired looking couple and reading aloud from an old handwritten book with Sanskrit scriptures. There is a fire and they make offerings to the gods, get blessings from guests, etc. One of the last rituals involves a ball game where the bride and groom must play with a coconut. I guess this made more sense back “in the olden days” where the bride and groom where children of 14-15 years old who had never met each other before.

Today people marry much later: The woman often in her late 20ties and man in beginning 30ties (the middle classes). But “no sex before marriage” is still considered the norm (Janine will tell more amusing details about this next time). How many actually live up to this? Probably 1/2 - 1/3 of the men. The women are more innocent…or just better guarded and watched!

We have only a little more than two weeks left in Chennai now. But we promise to write soon again this time.

Take care all of you.

Picture to the right: Hindu Divali ('festival of lights')celebration at the house of Janine's translator Krishnaveni

A fantastic break

Posted by Mikkel & Janine
After many weeks of hard work (see for instance the pictures from previous posting of which the text unfortunately went missing due to dehydration of our bodies in a very hot and musty internet cafe as well as a nearby beach calling us :-)) we really felt we deserved a holiday. Besides, we had a highly distinguished delegation of 6 Danes to attend to! Two of them, Kenneth and Sarah, were even brave enough to come to Chennai. So we had the honour of showing them all the beautiful sights of our present home town. That is unfortunately done pretty fast so the second day we went to a quiet (and clean) beach just south of Chennai.

After the weekend here with Sarah and Kenneth, we took the night train to Kerala on the west coast where we would meet the rest of the Danish delegation. Kerala, “a stunning region of coconut groves, astonishing rivers, paddy-fields and idyllic palmfringed beaches” according to our companion “the Lonely” [Planet], proved to be a great choice. The 8 man strong delegation now existed of Sarah, Morten, Oskar (their 2-year old son, hereafter referred to as “the baby”), Brian and of course Sarah and Kenneth and the two of us. In our first week we floated along palmtrees while eating delicious masala style tiger prawns on our deluxe houseboat; we rubbed down elephants in a river; saw a traditional (but also rather boring) Indian dance performance, got a traditional rather intimate Indian massage (could have been more boring), got sunburned on ‘secret beaches’ (some more burned than others) and walked through cute villages where cute people always wanted to touch the cute cheeks of ‘our’ cute baby.

The second week started a bit more “off the beaten track” as the Lonely would probably call it. Mikkel had read about the small village where people were crazy about football; quite a rare case in this cricket-focused country. After almost endless questioning about this rare phenomenon of Indian football maniacs we finally found someone who knew the place. It turned out to be a very poor village. They were indeed crazy about the sport, although their only place to play was an old slaughterhouse or the beach. They didn’t really have enough footballs or clothes but they did have 12 clubs and knew (better than Janine) when the dutchies won the world cup! Our visit didn’t stay unnoticed: we were accompanied by a whole crew of reporters including a cameraman, two journalists and a photographer as well as somewhere between 50-100 local people. At the end the tv-crew wanted to finish off with a couple of questions for us in front of a running camera and a crowd of 50 people: “What are you going to do to help this village?” … You should have been there to hear Mikkel’s and Morten's mumbling replies!

We never got to see our 15 minutes of fame, because we were taking the night train to Goa that evening. This train ride in itself turned out to be quite adventurous, since the “5-minute stop” at the station 6 o’clock in the morning suddenly turned out to be a 1 minute stop instead. And you can’t get 5 people, 5 backpacks, a number of smaller rucksacks, a baby trolley and a baby out of a coupe through two narrow train doors in such a short time. Or…can you? (We leave this part up to anyone’s imagination, but we like to give some hints: only one person (and no luggage whatsoever) remained in the train although this was mostly due to the train personnel holding him back, one person learned the hard way how you are not supposed to jump out of a moving train, and the baby got out safe and sound due to the responsible and spectacular moves of a white superman who must have watched too many action movies set aboard running trains!)

After all this hard work of performing on tv and jumping out of trains at 6 in the morning, we opted for the “do-nothing-on-a-beach-for-five-days-plan”. Goan style: sun bathing (the only place in India where you can swim in bikini without Indian male audience), a bit of yoga on a rock, a book, some cocktails, playing in the sand with the baby, seafood, seafood, food… Did we mention it was a wonderful holiday?

We are now back in a rain drenched Chennai. The real rainy season started off this weekend with 24 hours of constant rain leaving 7 people killed from collapsing walls, large areas also in the center of Chennai flooded with up to half a meter of water in the streets and an unknown number of people homeless…and this is maybe just the beginning of a so far normal rainy season! So far our biggest problem has been to get our washing dry…

What a wonderful day!

Posted by Janine
Today, as I walked from the bus stop to our home, my foot suddenly (literally) kicked into something mushy. ‘What the heck?’ I thought. Then I saw the fresh brown drab between my toes, proudly produced by one of the many cows that wander on the roads. Great. At least I was on my way home so I could wash it off quickly, although this also turned out to be a bit of a challenge as the power was cut off once again, so I had to manage in the dark. This was my first day after the 2-week holiday we just returned from. What a day! It started with the realization that I had caught a cold, probably during a chilly tuktuk-ride in the rain, so I felt pretty miserable. This mood was soon worsened by the discovery that my wallet was gone. It must have mysteriously disappeared on the train or bus -or anywhere in between- on our way home yesterday. Perhaps it happened while I was holding someone’s baby in the bus (because I had a seating place and the mother didn’t) and my bag ended up under my seat? But it cannot be – the old cute lady next to me seemed to be carefully defending it by keeping her feet strongly tight around it. That’s the way people help each other here (at least I thought?) Anyway, the fact is that I lost 120 euros, which equals 2/3 months income for some people her. My only hope and consolation now is that it didn’t get stolen but that I lost it instead and that some person has a wonderful day (or week, or month)…

Janine @ work, in a school with 1000 pupils and 16 classrooms!

Our home (and a hardworking man)

Community involvement tandoori style

(Posted by Mikkel)

Our downstairs neighbour Ashok asked yesterday if I wanted to join him and a friend to see a planting project at the beach nearby our house. Apparently a certain type of palm tree works as a really good tsunami barrier. The Indian government wants to test if this plant actually can grow in the beach sand of the Bay of Bengal.

The majority of property along the beach here to the south of the city is owned by wealthy Indians who bought it as investments the last 5-10 years as the city started growing rapidly. In between these walled empty plots there are a number of poor villages and slum dwellings. After the tsunami the real estate prices close to the beach plummeted. They have apparently risen some again, but with the latest tsunami warning a couple of weeks ago they once again took a dive.

Now these palm trees that the Indian government wants to build as a tsunami barrier happen to have a flower with a very special smell. Among the Indian snake community (male and female alike) it is supposedly on a par with the most expensive ones from Dior, Hugo Boss and Calvin Klein! Cobras in particular are supposed to be crazy about the scents of these flowers, and the palm trees even offer a lot of nicely shaded area for the snakes to linger in, while they soak up there preferred perfumes.

So as you can imagine the villagers actually living here are not too thrilled about the palm trees. The day I went was a sort of inauguration of the whole thing. The project manager was there overseeing the planting (of course done by casual workers). To win over the hearts of the locals the plan was to get people from the local community to participate in the planting. The project manager’s driver was send to a nearby school to get some “locals”. Unfortunately the kids that came back with him tempted by free pepsis and seven ups where too young – there was a fear that the project could be seen as supporting child labour! The teacher that came with the children had a different agenda. She was trying to put pressure on the project manager to lobby for a new building for their school.

Luckily another batch of “locals” was summoned. This time young engineering students. Photos were taken with the students getting their hands dirty in the sand and the community involvement part of the project was considered over! My own hopes for a few minutes of fame were unfortunately killed immediately. A white face, I was told, in the middle of everything could cause confusion about who funded this tsunami project!

kameleon in our garden

Daily life in India

(posted by janine)

Here are some small interesting or remarkable things of daily life …

- In all the busses (or in the classrooms, or in the temples) the women/girls sit on one side and the men on the other side.

- A few weeks ago, we got introduced to the Indian movie-scene: we earned 12 euros by ‘playing background foreign tourists’ for a full day in a hotel which was the scene for a new Tamil movie, featuring the local version of Brad Pitt .

- About 70% of the time we buy something here, or have it fixed (trousers, a key, shoes etc), it doesn’t work!

- In the office of a Big Director (e.g. some of the Directors of School Education that I visited to get permission for visiting schools) there are piles and piles of paper on the desk, but no computer. While the IT sector is booming in India, the department of education works with typewriters and written paper…

- Although it is officially forbidden, the caste system is still prevalent over the whole of India in the year 2007. At some schools, the girls from the lowest caste/outcaste (still) have to clean the schools and wash the toilets, and are not supposed to sit with the others to eat… (not at the schools that I visited though – this is what we have seen in a documentary)

- A role of toilet paper costs more than a lunch meal for the both of us (=rice, vegetables, sauces and bread) and the same as a three-hour bus ride.

- As I’m writing this, it’s thundering and raining and…the power cuts once in a while, leaving us in total silence and darkness (we keep forgetting to buy those candles)

- There are many small habits that are hard to know as a non-Indian. When I am visiting an older/’important’ person for my research, I may not sit with one leg over the other, in order to show respect. This is quite difficult when you are used to that and when you have to sit waiting in front of the directors desk for more than an hour!

- Arranged marriage is still common practice here, also in ‘the city’. Young people look strangely upon the idea of a ‘love’ marriage – it is not seen as a good thing! Many parents nowadays find the suitable partner for their son/daughter through the internet. One of the most important characteristics to search for is… caste.

- At one of the schools I visited, there were 1700 students and 27 teachers. Some teachers had up to 110 children in their class! Can you imagine teaching about AIDS, puberty and other sensitive subjects in an overcrowded classroom?

- Getting into town by bus takes half an hour. But once you are ‘in’ there, it may take between one or two hours to get to another spot ‘in town’. When we’re lucky, there is a seat available…(each on our own side of the bus of course)

- Indians are very good at ‘hiding’ things. We thought that alcoholism would not be one of the major problems in society here, since we didn’t ever see anyone holding or drinking a bottle. But it turns out that there are small ‘wine shops’ with bars behind it. And yes, many men go there once the night has fallen! I don’t know about the women though.

- Apparently we have a guard in our little village, who blows on his whistle every three seconds for half an hour each night around 23 o’clock, just to let people know that…he is there!

- The amount of people speaking (good) English has become less and less since India’s Independence 60 years ago. I’m glad I have a translator, and I sometimes even need her to explain their English…

- We are creating employment in our village: one women does our washing and another one cooks for us whenever we ask for it! (yes yes it’s decadent, especially since we DO have a kitchen now; but hey: how could we ever beat those mouthwatering curries and veggies of the Indians?) In other words: there are no legitimate household-related reasons that can distract Mikkel from writing his thesis!

- …but as you may imagine, he still manages to find enough other distractions: his favourite occupation is planning trips and dreaming about ‘curry powder’ in the mountains of the Himalaya and specifically: how to arrange to go skiing there…

Shit happens!

Posted by Mikkel

We told you about the almost deserted beach 5 minutes walk from our house. When moving in I had a somewhat idyllic image in my mind about us going for morning and evening swims on a quiet tropical beach. I must admit that this image has been shattered. We now use the beach for running in the morning...only! The locals also use the beach (especially in the morning)…but neither for running nor swimming! (You might have guessed it already, no?)

In the poor communities the sanitary arrangements are not as we are used to from home. Most houses neither have running water nor toilet facilities, so it’s only perfectly logical that the people go to the one and only place nearby where their shit (I said the word!) is actually flushed away…just like we also prefer with ours.

Cannot help thinking about the poor guys who were caught with their pants down on christmas morning 2004 when the tsunami stroke.

Settling in

Posted by Mikkel

Hello again everyone. It’s been three weeks since we arrived in Chennai. 3 weeks in which we have tried to accustom ourselves to the amounts of people (not at all there), the noise (getting there), the air (will never get there), the heat (getting better), the food (still getting some great surprises YUMMIE), the Indians (one moment there and the next further away than ever), the bus system (still not quite there), the traffic (still trying to just stay alive) the Indian bureaucracy (will hopefully never get there) …

…but as you imagine: Still going strong! What really helps is that we have now found a perfect little home in a small Indian artist community south of the city (see address and phone numbers to your right). It’s like a very quiet village tugged away between one of the main roads and an almost deserted beach. We live on the first floor and our downstairs neighbour is not surprisingly…an artist. There is a small rat problem, but besides that it’s truly perfect. (Janine’s slogan of the week: Better a house with a rat, than a mouse in your bed… ...if you can’t make sense of it…just enjoy her rhyming skills!)

Janine is getting underway with her research after some tiring lessons in Indian bureaucracy. She will surely tell you more about this. When (just to give you an idea!) you are a guest in a hotel here you first have to show your passport so they can register you with full name, address, passport number, occupation, length of stay, etc. on a special registration form. After that there is the hotel’s own registration book which must be filled in…again with your name, home address, occupation, etc. etc. and lastly you get a receipt for the amount of money you pay…again with your name, address, the date, etc. Luckily the receipt can be shared between the two of us!

I’m also gradually getting started. Anandhi, an Indian researcher at the MIDS (Madras Institute for Development Studies), has given me permission to come and go at the institute as it suits me, use their computer facilities (there are only 4 of them, but most of the time I’m alone there) and the library. The library is mostly for reading your own books since they don’t really have that many titles that are not directly related to India. If you do find an interesting title in the database, you ask one of the assistant librarians to get it for you, which then takes a couple of hours! I’ve been trying to find a place to play football…but so far without luck. I asked two guys my age if they knew a place: they smiled at me saying “that here we only play cricket!”

Next time I promise not to bore you with too many of these practicalities. Instead we shall supply you with stories (and images) of movie stars, auto action, marriage customs, poverty and injustices...

Take care for now.

The Chennai Challenge!

posted by: Mikkel & Janine

Well! Here we are with a new spicy story. Hopefully we can make our messages from the Indian continent just as enjoyable and spicy as the tandoori, tikka masala and korma curries that we get served here. It’s been exactly one week now since we arrived in Chennai (Madras), in the south eastern state Tamil Nadu. Before we left, we had been ‘warned’ that this 7 plus million city is not particularly one of the nicest places to visit on the planet. We are afraid that we actually see the point: besides a few nice temples there is not much else either to see, smell or hear than lots of traffic and people everywhere (working, walking, selling, driving, begging, sleeping). All this produces a hell of a lot of noise and smoke which enters your body and your skin as if it were to stay there forever.

----[Picture which shows our general appreciation of the city after a couple of days]----



BUT there are also some positive sides to the city. First of all people seem very friendly. Wherever we go – the bus, the beach, the restaurants – people like to chat. And here we are not talking about the rickshaw drivers, the beggars and the other sellers who generally take no for an answer. Secondly Chennai has a very long and wide beach and although you can’t really swim or lie in the sun there, it’s still nice to cool off in the sea breeze. Luckily we are here in the “cool” period where the temperature is bearable (but still 30°+) and occasional rain-outbursts wash away the smells of the city. And last but not least: the food is spectacular: Dhosas, tikka masalas, tandooris, rotis, naans, parathas, dals, kormas, koftas, idlis, lassis, etc. … its almost all great!

Now here are some of the challenges that we have been dealing with so far:

1. Finding a place to stay
Never before have we started to discover a city with only one criteria: ‘Where would we want to live?’ This question could be translated into: Where are the oasis in this overwhelming hectic chaos of people and noise? Eventually we had to conclude that there is non! And to make matters worse, housing (rental) prices have been rocketing over the last year here in Chennai (due to the IT and software-boom) up to a level that equals Amsterdam and Copenhagen. Besides that, nobody wants to rent out a place for only three months and even less so when it concerns untrustworthy foreigners… After a week of searching and calling, we slightly adapted the criteria and have decided to stay in a cozy guesthouse in the centre which is both much cheaper than any apartment and also includes furniture!

2. Avoiding a ‘Delhi-belly’
Yes yes: We are very proud to announce that we have survived our first week without a Delhi-belly (also known as an illness that causes uncomfortable toilet-visits).

3. Understanding the Indians
Already on our second day here, Janine had two meetings for her research with people from the Teacher’s Union. The first meeting with one of them started off interestingly: After the most difficult phone conversation ever, we decided to go by at his office to speak to him face-to-face. When we arrived there, we found out that he was just on his way to our hotel… Indians talking English are not necessarily talking the same English as we do! (Luckily the second guy did speak very good English, but he was also ‘National General Secretary’ of the Teacher’s Union with 2,4 million members).
Another thing that we haven’t gotten used to yet, is that shaking ‘no’ with your head doesn’t mean ‘no’ here. In fact, it usually means yes! Imagine a conversation with a rickshaw (three-wheel-taxi) driver:

We: ‘Can u take us to…?’
Him: (shakes no)
We: ‘No?’
Him: yes yes
We: ‘So you can take us to …’
Him (shakes no)
etc.etc.

To round up we just want to say one thing: Despite the ‘disadvantages’ of the city, we definitely feel that Chennai ‘has something’ although we don’t really know what it is (yet). It could have something to do with the honest and friendly smiles of the people. So hopefully the coming months will bring a lot more positive news than chicken tandoori to this India story!

PS. REMEMBER TO SUBSCRIBE (to the right) IF YOU WANT TO RECEIVE A NOTIFICATION WHEN WE POST A NEW MESSAGE...

What are we doing here…

Janine:
I am in Chennai to do my final research for my studies in International Development. This means I have to do fieldwork for 2-3 months after which I will have to write my MA-thesis as well as a report for the organization that funds my stay here (Education International). The topic of my research is ‘AIDS education in the classroom’. Although AIDS is not at all such a big problem here in India as it is in for example South Africa, the epidemic could spread really fast among the 1 billion population if nobody gets informed about it. While the government has made a big plan for schools to teach on HIV/AIDS, it is very unclear what actually happens in the schools and what teachers themselves think about it. The topic is still a taboo! The next couple of months, I will therefore be visiting different schools and interviewing teachers, head-masters and other people that are important for decisions about AIDS education.

Mikkel:
I will isolate myself in this quiet place to finally start trying to begin working towards the end of the last part of finishing the final part of my studies!

We plan to come back to Europe the 29th of January 2008. See you then!

Back in Europe

Posted by Janine and Mikkel

Writing about attacking rhinos, beautiful Mozambican women, swimming with whale sharks and magic muti markets in Jo’burg seems rather weird when it is done in grey and rainy Netherlands…but we’ll give it a try anyway. And yes we arrived in Amsterdam yesterday. Janine will stay here beginning her studies already next week whereas I will be heading for Copenhagen Wednesday.

After having enjoyed some well deserved luxury in Durban we drove north towards Mozambique with a stop in Swaziland on the way. In this tiny country, it is still allowed to have several wives! Only one day in Swaziland, we managed to meet two Swazi women, Lovejoy and Gladness (no joke!). Both were very progressive: they rejected having to share their husband with other wives. Goodness seemed very sure of this and her husband was also supportive although many of his friends didn’t really understand how he could settle for only one wife. Lovejoy however seemed like she might settle for just being “first wife”. She explained that if the woman just makes sure that her husband always gets everything he needs, he doesn’t have to look around for another wife.

As you can hear, the ideas of the western nuclear family unit are not very well established in Swaziland. The sovereign king doesn’t do much to change this; at the moment he has 13 wives (he’s in his thirties) and an unknown number of concubines. What we did learn was that the system with men having several wives is breaking up due to poverty and unemployment (somewhere around 40-50 % it seems). A man can only have several wives if he can support them all (each having the right to her own household). Instead people have more informal relationships which have provided extraordinarily circumstances for the spreading of HIV. In 15 years, more than 40 % of the population has been infected with HIV.

In Swaziland we slept at a camp site inside a national park. The camp site was just next to a water hole so we spent the evening having a drink while watching elephants, rhinos and hippos bathing. These rhinos were luckily in a good mood, which couldn’t really be said about those we encountered on a little drive inside the park: while Janine was just about to take that perfect picture, the rhino started running towards our car. Mikkel gave full gas and speeded out of there, ruining Janine’s picture…

Mozambique was a totally different story. The Portuguese colonists definitely left some Latino roots behind in the capital Maputo. We asked several people where “it was happening” on a Saturday night and all of them told us to go to ‘Coconuts’. Obviously we had to check that out and it turned out to be a huuuge club which seemed to cater for the whole town’s under 30 population.

After a few days in this cool city, walking up and down Karl Marx Avenue, Vladimir Lenin road, Oluf Palme Avenue, Fidel Castro Street, Mao Tse-Tung Avenue as well as streets named after all the big African leaders of the independence movements, we went on a seven-hour drive to a little beach town – Baia de Tofu. While most people get two traffic fines on this road, we managed to get only one –for speeding. These police guys are quite smart: they place themselves right at the 80 sign and then blame you for driving 120! Well, Mozambique is one of the poorest countries of the world so as a tourist, you just have to regard these fines as some sort of tourist-tax.

In Baia de Tofu, we snorkeled with a 7meter-whale shark (his massive face was right in front of Janine the moment she jumped in…) and did a dive-review (where Janine shot herself up to the surface and Mikkel managed to get seasick). All this was obviously very tiring, so we spend the rest of our time swimming, reading, chatting and enjoying fresh barracuda’s, giant prawns and crabs.

After a long drive we got back to South Africa, which suddenly seemed so civilized! Good roads, trustful police, drinkable water, petrol stations with toilets, super markets etc. In a small place in the mountains, we went mountain biking past waterfalls and forests, and in the evening Goodness - the (black) girl who worked at the hostel - was brave enough to take us to the only bar in town: a real (white) Afrikaner bar with the worst taste of music in the world… The owner bribed us to stay by giving us drinks and shots. It worked and we hit the dance floor!

Last stop on this little holiday was Jo’burg (also called Johannesburg, Egoli, City of Gold and Jo’si). We stayed with Mikkels Danish friend Morten in Parkhurst – one of the nice Northern Suburbs with big houses surrounded by even bigger walls. It’s an area where everyone got a swimming pool and someone working there to keep it clean (except Morten who cleans himself).

Jo’burg is great: Lots of cool suburb areas with cafes, bars and restaurants and a high-rised city center where most business and affluent people have left. The lower circles of society have taken over this space, making it quite a unique experience for those who dare to venture in there. We did, together with Morten and one of his friends who took us around in the center. Among other places to a local magic muti market with animal fetus, dead birds, monkey skulls, all kinds of different roots, dry plants and much much more. These things can cure everything: bad stomachs, low performance in bed, winning back of a lost love, flues, winning the lottery, good luck with exams, protection from thieves and robbers, etc. etc. On the amount of vendors and products it was obvious that this was a big industry.

From Joburg we went straight to Cape Town just to have time for an afternoon on the beach and a great, but also a bit sad, evening with most of the people we have met there during the last 6 months. As you might have sensed, we have had an amazing six months in the diverse, interesting, contrasted but oh-so-beautiful South Africa.

We WILL miss it!

But at least we get to see a lot of you again soon, this will surely make up for some of the loss...

Janine & Mikkel

From Cape Town to Durban

Posted by Janine and Mikkel

We had a wild couple of weeks the first part of our journey through South Africa stopping in places appropriately named “Wilderness”, ”Nature’s Valley” and “The Wild Coast”. We swam rivers, soaked up sun on deserted beaches, tried to surf some waves, hiked up mountains through thorny bushes, visited a friend in “the rural areas” [read: bad bad roads, no running water, round huts...and bad stomachs], had Tsotsis (gangsters) in our car -we were not in it ourselves fortunately-, and camped on the beach near the most beautiful waterfall where we got woken up in our tent by…ahum, a wave.

This refreshing morning wave was not as pleasant as it may sound; it had been raining the whole night and, in addition, Mikkel’s back was in its worst state ever, causing a painful sleepless night (Janine’s massage had apparently only made it worse!). And then nature mocks you by sending a mini tsunami all the way inside your tent! You may now understand our decision to go back to civilization (for a while). So here we are in the city of Durban, where we had a friends’ apartment waiting for us. Hooray to bed, roof, fridge, bath tub, restaurants, etc.

It all started quite civilized –and un-African, with the over packed holiday resorts on the southern coast (Garden Route for those who know). Here we found out that Afrikaners are real descendants of the Dutch: they also love camping closely together on huge campsites near the ocean. Its not that they bring everything with them from home, but they seem to have a camping dublette of everything: camping chairs, camping tables, camping satellite dishes, camping fridges, camping stoves, camping clothes etc. We did find some lovely spots on the way though, and did an unsuccessful surfing attempt and a lovely hike.

But Mr. Rain was visiting the coastline. So we decided to celebrate New Years in a tiny mountain village, where we met some crazy backpackers and, after a tough hike all the way up the mountain, celebrated the New Year with bonfire, beers and boogey.

Then it was time to visit some of the real Africa again. We were in the Eastern Cape, a rural area, full of hills and villages with round clay huts, the X[click]hosa people’s homeland in the apartheid language. A lot of the Xhosas (millions in fact) have moved to Cape Town and other cities for work, but most still return to their ‘home’ each year in December and January. This also counts for Sizwe, a friend from Cape Town whom we visited in his village with a name we could never remember or pronounce. It was pretty much out of the way and we were apparently the first (white) visitors ever. Happy as they were to have us over, (not much was actually happening there, you see) we were received by big hugs from everyone. Within half an hour, the women dressed Janine up in a traditional woolen dress and started dancing and clapping around us. The beer started flowing and as the people got more and more drunk, we got more and more tired, and started wondering how the next day would be when the ‘real’ party would start...

Luckily this party never really happened, and we had a nice and quiet day walking through the village and talking with Sizwe and other people. It was lovely to experience the friendliness of the people, but also sad to see how some traditions were kept so strongly: Women doing all the work and slaving around for their family-in-law (Janine's comment obviously!) and how life was so dominated by poverty and alcohol abuse.

The women were getting the water in the mornings – in buckets on their heads. We got a personal first hand experience of what it means to have ‘no access to sanitary services and water’ (which the Millennium Goals are trying to eradicate by 2015) ; a day after we had left the village, our stomachs both started to protest in the way stomachs do :-(. Luckily we were in a most lovely place on the Wild Coast where the owner took care of us with a herbal mint-ginger tea. The Wild Coast is the most amazing coastline with beautiful beaches, mountains, small huts and absolutely no large scale development and where beaches are mostly shared with cows and playful local boys.

When our stomachs had recovered we moved a bit further up the coast to do a hike to a very well hidden waterfall. A three-hour walk along a deserted beach, a couple of river crossings, up a mountain, along a cliff edge and then down to a spot that could have been starring in both “Treasure Island” and “The Beach”. The night however didn't live up to the beauty and greatness of the day, but this we have already told you about.

We will stay here in Durban until thursday where we will drive towards Mozambique. Mikkel's back seems to be fine again after a chinese guy "restored his energies" back to normal. Hope you all got well in to the New Year. To those of you who have been using sms we are sad to inform you that Mikkels phone got stolen out of our car with both his South African and Danish simcard in. So please use Janine's number from now on.

Enough for now. Take care all of you.