If you’re new to this blog series and don’t know what’s happening with South Africa’s 21-day (now 35-day) lockdown, my first post has all the details. Or read all my lockdown posts.
It’s lockdown Day 28. I thought I’d share some garden photos from another continent for a change.
As I’ve mentioned previously, during the lockdown I’ve been sorting through photos from my old external hard drives. I’m moving very slowly on this project: My archives date back to August 2010 (when I moved to Joburg) and I’ve only backed up through August 2011 so far.
It’s a time-consuming process as I manually go through each folder – organized by day, month, and year – and delete out all the duplicates before uploading the files to Dropbox. There are lots of duplicates. I shot way too many frames of everything back then.
Today I came upon my photos from August 2011, when I flew home to America to attend my grandmother’s funeral. I stayed with my dad during that visit, at my childhood home in Maryland, and shot tons of pictures of Dad’s garden.
Dad’s garden always looks incredible. But wow, in August 2011 it was in rare form.
I also blogged about these pictures when I first shot them in 2011. I chose mostly different images this time and the edits are all new.
I don’t normally feel homesick in the conventional sense. I sometimes miss my friends and family in America, or specific things like football and crab cakes. But during my ten years of living in South Africa I’ve never really yearned for home.
But over the last few days I’ve found myself missing home in a new and different way. It’s not that I actually want to be there at this moment – the pandemic is worse in America than it is in South Africa right now, and I couldn’t handle the constant whine of Trump’s voice on cable news. But I’m upset I CAN’T be there. I’m upset I don’t know when I’ll be able to return.
This is my 31st straight day of blogging and I’m struggling to come up with more deep thoughts to share. I think I’ll leave it at that for now.
If you have time to listen to one more thing today/tonight, make it this radio story from the Strangers podcast. It’s about a Liberian man who escapes civil war, moves to the United States as a refugee, and eventually becomes mayor of the capital city in the whitest, most conservative state in America. I loved it because it took me into an entirely different (non-COVID-19-related) world for 30 glorious minutes.
The president is reportedly addressing us this evening, and presumably we will find out whether/how long our lockdown will be extended. There has been no official announcement about the speech though, and I don’t even know what to think or hope for anyway.
Today I’m featuring the Maker’s Valley Partnership, a collection of community groups on the east side of Joburg (Bertrams, Bez Valley, Troyeville, Lorentzville, etc.), which is pioneering an innovative plan to increase food security in the area. The plan involves spaza shops and electronic food vouchers and all kind of cool things, which are explained in this BackABuddy link: https://www.backabuddy.co.za/champion/project/food-security.
Maker’s Valley has already rolled out a few soup kitchens, which also need financial support.
Please help these guys out. I knew them even before the pandemic started and they’re doing amazing things for their community.
Until tomorrow!
How have I never blogged about 44 Stanley Avenue, the coolest shopping and dining complex in Joburg, which is only five minutes from my house?
I guess it’s wrong to say I’ve never blogged about 44 Stanley; I’ve mentioned it countless times over the years (see here and here) when writing about specific restaurants or shops that are there. But I’ve never written a dedicated post about 44 Stanley as a destination and it’s about time I did – especially now, with the holidays upon us.
I’ve been dreadfully uninspired lately, struggling to think of anything I want to blog about despite having a long list of great ideas (many of which you, my readers, provided in September). I’m finding it hard to feel positive about life at the moment. But on Saturday Thorsten and I got the chance to visit Indwe Park, an indigenous garden and sculpture park in Braamfontein, and I knew I had my topic for today.
Given this week’s political nuclear bomb blast, it feels like a weird time to publish a light-hearted post about my recent (pre-election) jaunt through the United States. But I’m hoping you’ve have had enough of the U.S. election horror show – I know I have – and are ready (at least temporarily) for some wholesome American travel adventures. If so, please read on about my four-day visit to Maine, the northeastern-most state in the lower 48, with my sister, Susanna.
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It makes me smile, when I see it.