A Brief Trip Back to the Motherland

Place: Ethiopia and Arusha, Tanzania

Reading: Mahmoud Mandami, Citizen and State

Listening to: Magnetic Fields, All My Little Words

Wearing: Colourful harem pants bought at a Bedouin village in Israel

It is perhaps news to no one that I love Africa. Yet for the sake of clarity I will now highlight 5 reasons why I love Africa:

1.        Everything is slower in Africa. While this is undoubtedly the greatest cause of irritation for most Western visitors to Africa, I love it. I get off the plane and my heart rate slows. I have no expectation and endless patience. The pace of life makes me a happier person.

2.        It smells. Walk 10 metres down an Addis Ababa street and you will come across a hundred different smells- injera cooked on a metal hot plate, decomposing rubbish, dirty clothes mixed with human sweat, wild flowers, human faeces... clearly not all delightful smells, but actual smells not masked by an obsession with the outward impression of perfection.

3.        Affection. People touch in Africa. Men walk down the street hand in without social implication or judgment. Women sit in market stalls arms locked, chattering. Children hug and kiss random strangers, not afraid to be held by strangers. Everywhere there are outward displays of warmth and love.

4.        Humanity. So many Western portrayals of Africa depict a continent lacking in humanity- civil war, corruption, epidemics, poverty, desperation. Perhaps it is because of the presence of these aspects of society that in actuality it is in Africa that one can see the greatest human abilities to love and care for fellow human kind. In Addis, I was crossing the road with my cousin’s fiancé when a bug flew into his eye. A random stranger stopped and literally put his finger in his eye to remove the bug. There is an indefinite capacity for kindness in Africa.

5.        The Ujamaa Children’s Home. So undoubtedly a plug for my project but I could not think of a better way to start 2011 than with my five little friends, Sabina, Kelvin, Irene, Ally and Halima. We spend a lot of time in class criticising western aid in Africa, and while I agree with the majority of criticisms, I look at my little friends and I think about their life had Australians not donated money to give them a home, clothes, health care and an education. Sabina, with her immense generosity and kindness of spirit. Kelvin, undoubtedly the smartest nine year old I have ever met. Little Ally, who was recently declared by the doctor to be the healthiest HIV positive boy he has ever seen. How can this be a bad thing? 

For more information on The Ujamaa Children's Home and my fundraising project, The One By One Foundation, visit www.theonebyonefoundation.org 

Beauty and friendship

City: Oxford, United Kingdom


Listening to: Sufjan Stevens, Impossible Soul


Reading: Kathryn Stockitt, The Help


Watching: Athol Fugard, The Train Driver


Quote: Ryan Lobo, Focus on what is dignified, courageous and beautiful


In December it was very cold in Oxford. One morning I woke up and the street was covered in pure white snow. A thick layer of snow covered the lofty spires. Across the Port Meadow, little was visible for the serene glare of white. Later the fog slowly descended on the white speckled trees against a backdrop of a vibrant pink and blue sky. The sun desperately attempted to illuminate the century old buildings that make up this spectacular university. It was beyond beautiful. It was magical. 


On Friendship


One of the most wonderful things about Oxford is the vast array of guest speakers it draws in. A number of weeks ago I had the pleasure of listening to the South African play right, Athol Fugard talk about defining moments in his life. On his masterpiece, Master Harold...and the Boys, Fugard commented that his Mother's African 'boy', Sam, was the best friend he has ever had. I have heard this proclamation by many a South African. Previously I believed it to be a pretentious attempt to separate oneself from the horrors inflicted by apartheid. But Athol made his pronouncement amid a story of his own betrayal, of his complicity in apartheid monstrosity. It made me re-evaluate not only my preconceptions about South Africans' stories of friendship, but also in the notion of friendship itself.


What qualities did Athol's Sam have that provided the greatest bond of friendship? Perhaps it was the devotion, whether real or a bi-product of the fear of the wrath of the master. Perhaps, as Athol seemed to allude to, it was the surety that Sam would listen and not judge. Is that all we need from friendship- unquestionable loyalty?

This past year I have learnt a lot about friendship. The sheer physical distance of my older friendships has made me recognise the important place those friends have in my heart. When one of my oldest and most dear friends was struck by tragedy last year, I felt a pain so deep for her it shocked me. In many ways I had been become complacent of our friendship. The experience made me recognise that the last fifteen years of confidence, laughter and support were more important than I could have imagined.

New friendships too became of immeasurable importance. Many people wanted to know if I had met a man at Oxford, 'no I would reply, but I met a best friend.' Many people tickled my year at Oxford but this one friend made the experience what it was. It wasn't just that we shared a love of Africa, or of cooking and good food, or bike rides in the summer, or the Purple Turtle until the wee hours of the night. It was the laughter. When others were collapsing in fits of stress or exhaustion, we were in my basement kitchen eating hollandaise and impersonating high school teachers.  


I used to firmly believe that friendship needed to provide intellectual stimulation, needed to be based on shared beliefs and values, needed to based in a common history and identity. It has come as a late realisation in life that the very best friendships are those which simply make you feel safe and happy. A shoulder to cry on, a shared laugh, a nod of understanding, a feeling that someone else thinks your a wonderful human being- that is what makes true friendship. 


It is a simple combination really and maybe many people never find it. I guess I am very lucky...

Peter Pan Syndrome

City: Orlando, Florida

Reading: The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton

Listening to: Beirut, Elephant Gun

Wearing: Vintage Nelson Mandela face tee

Ode to Youth

Recently I was reading a wikipedia article on Generation Y. Apparently Kathleen Shaputis has noted in The Crowded Nest Syndrome: Surviving the Return of Adult Children that Generation Y "is also sometimes referred to as the Boomerang Generation or Peter Pan Generation because of their perceived penchant for delaying some of the rites of passage into adulthood longer than most generations before them." It comforted me that what I, and many of those around me had termed my inability to 'grow up' was, according to wiki, a generational syndrome.

Coincidentally, the day after I began drafting this post (awhile ago- I have to write things down when I think of them!) the New York Times published an article called "What Is It About 20-Somethings?" The article noted that in the late ’60s a Yale psychologist, Kenneth Keniston, proposed that there was another phase of life called Youth. Keniston wrote that there was “a growing minority of post-adolescents [who] have not settled the questions whose answers once defined adulthood: questions of relationship to the existing society, questions of vocation, questions of social role and lifestyle.” He wrote in the 60s that previously (in what was presumably the 50s and earlier), such aimlesslessness was sociologically confined to the “unusually creative or unusually disturbed" but he had come to understand the phase as well within the confines of normality.

These views provide support to my own long held theory on the progression of life. The theory goes that life is divided into 4 stages- childhood, youth, adulthood, retirement. Analysis of these stages proves the following: in childhood you have no responsibility but no freedom, in youth you have no responsibility and plenty of freedom, in adulthood you pretty much only have responsibility and in retirement you have freedom but you don't have the mental or physical capacity to enjoy it. Generations prior to Y felt that the four stages should be divided as follows: 18 years of childhood, 5 years of youth, 42 years of adulthood and approximately 15 years of retirement (depending on death). Looking at my above analysis I long ago came to the conclusion that these stages should be divided equally (20 years each). It is illogical to think that humans can significantly shorten what is undoubtedly the most pleasurable phase of their life. Illogical and tedious really.

And yet despite the fact that a psychologist in the 60s could recognise this pattern of behaviour, now in the not so naughties, I feel acutely aware of a societal judgment that distinctly places me in the categories of “unusually creative or unusually disturbed" (most likely the latter). My recent foray back to student land has met a deal of disapproval. Even I, if we are being honest, slightly disapprove of my inability to grow up. I am constantly questioning why the older I get, the more I seek out younger friends; why as soon as I got a steady job I made plans to be a student again; why I have not lived (nor have I wanted to live) in the same place for more than 18 months since I left school; and why I habitually revel in the joys of the young. Case in point- in my room at Oxford I have a pale pink onesie and a remote control helicopter.

I think in many ways my love of childhood toys and activities is a subconscious manifestation of my desire to show people that I am delaying adulthood, that this desire to delay adulthood is a well recognised psychological pattern and that I am ok with it. I also think that by pressuring adulthood and maturity we as a society forget the elements of youth that were fun. I can only but encourage blowing bubbles and jumping on a trampoline to remember what happiness simple pleasures can bring. One of my favourite things about my Dad is that he still cries with laughter (literally) at jokes about poo and wee. As my favourite magazine Frankie notes: "When people say 'you're acting childish' it's usually a put down...But there is something special about acting like a kid. The innocence. The exuberance. The wide-wyed ability to fall on your face and come back laughing. In the right place and time, acting immature is ace." I can assure you, The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal is magical, no matter your age, if you let it be.

I Ate a Whole Crab for Breakfast

Location: New Orleans, Louisiana


Listening to: Ellis Marsalis

Eating: Gumbo, Jumbalaya, Red Beans and Rice, Beignets, Soft Shell Crab...too much really

Watching: Treme

There is a strange sadness that permeates the air in New Orleans. It is almost a romantic sadness that lingers from the rich history of its people and the city as a whole. New Orleans is the city of grand Napoleonic architecture, of the sadness of Tennessee Williams, of Jazz music that penetrates your soul and of drinking so you can't remember yesterday, nor think about tomorrow. My Mum and I sat across from the former abode of Truman Capote and breathed in the stifling hot air, the sounds and smells that inspired genius and the heart break. There is undoubtedly beauty in the tragedy.

An Environmental Disaster


There is a silent sense that the New Orleans tragedy will not be defined by Hurricane Katrina. New Orleaneans are quick to quip that Katrina was an environmental, and not natural, disaster. It was the Federal Government's failure to rebuild the levies that caused the flooding that engulfed the city and wreaked devastation. Katrina was not an act of god but an act of human disregard.

The emotive accusations of blame got me thinking about was the incontrovertible relationship between natural disasters and vulnerable people. Certainly an element of this relationship is that poorer people are less equipped to deal with natural disasters- their homes are not as well built, they are less likely to have transport that allows them to evacuate and they are less likely to have insurance to repair the damage caused. An earthquake in Pakistan can and will cause a much greater deal of damage than an earthquake in New Zealand, where the buildings are structurally sound. The poor will be hit by the hand of disaster much harder than the rich.

But there is also undoubtedly a 'don't care' factor. Many argued that New Orleans was poor and corrupt before the hurricane which placed them in the 'don't care' pile for the Federal Government. When Haiti was hit by the devastating earthquake in January of this year, many a phone caller to ABC radio proclaimed there was no point in providing aid when the money would likely go into some fat man's pocket. These sentiments were only increased after the Pakistan flood. It is as though society has decided that there are places beyond repair in this world and we have convicted them to life without bail.

Where to from here

Our bus driver showed us the school Sandra Bullock had built and the Artists village Harry Connick Jnr had initiated and Brad Pitt's Make It Right homes in the 9th ward. He had us all shouting (clearly NOT Mum and I) 'who dat' and 'two dat' and he forged some tears on the brims of his eyes when describing the Giants super bowl win. But I kept wondering if much had changed. Five years later BP had allowed a leak to cause immeasurable damage to the Gulf with relative impunity. Is New Orleans still relegated to the 'don't care' basket? Is the suffering part of its appeal? Is the tragedy that shapes the romance indeed a tragedy in itself? I can not proclaim to know the answers to these questions.

What I do know is that New Orleans is a beautiful city. Its vibrancy reaches into the travellers' very core. I hope that as a society we can breathe new life in every city, or country, that bares the scars of disaster. I know that no place is beyond reconstruction, new life, and new hope.

Texan Flashback

Location: Dallas, Texas

Weather: Hot

Reading: Damon Galgut, In a Strange Room

Watching: Arrested Development (retro television pleasure)

I used to live in Dallas, Texas. I was one so I don't remember anything but I believe that my first word was McDonalds. Enough said.

Twenty-five years after we lived in Dallas, my Mum and I returned. Sitting on the stoop of 1714 Treehouse Lane, Plano, a slew of thoughts ran through my head. A smattering of my stream of consciousness...

...Community pools are nice. Unless the kids in the community pee in them a lot and there is not enough chlorine...

...Everything in Dallas is a chain. The gourmet sandwich shop is a chain. It feels like an oxymoron to have a gourmet chain. Even the houses are a chain. I saw a housing development of hundreds of identical Tudor mansions. I would hate to try and walk home drunk. There is also a Home Depot on every corner. Why do they need so many Home Depots when their houses look exactly the same- surely they could just borrow from their neighbours?

...I enjoy people who like to air their beliefs. Texans enjoy this. One house had an Uncle Sam on a bike with moving wheels on its lawn. Its owner sat on a chair, drinking a beer (at 10am) proudly guarding his wares. Another had a path of star spangled banners leading up to a sign at the top saying "He is risen"...

...Refer to final sentence above. Interesting use of the English language. Americans don't speak English, they speak American. A man on the plane did not enjoy this observation.

Supersize me

Everything in Dallas is huge. Houses are beyond mansion proportions. Cars are trucks. A humble salad could feed a small third world country. It would be difficult to absorb such a super-sized city without concern for the immense energy that must be required to sustain such an obese society.

Our delightful South African come Texan host commented that Dallas only exists because of oil and air-conditioning. The city was built because of the discovery of oil but could only flourish because air-conditioning meant that people could work in the stultifying heat. With these beginnings global warming is an inevitable outcome of Dallas.

It is not however the oil and air-conditioning that perpetuate global warming, it is the attitude that huge is acceptable, that there is nothing wrong with driving a car that eats a tank of petrol a day, or that the shopping centre needs a fully maintained ice-rink in the summer.

An attitudinal change could easily alter Dallas’s environmental influences. The Dallas summer penetrates an intense heat that could be effectively harnessed as solar energy. Furthermore, Dallas has a noticeable emphasis on community- groups of homes share recreation facilities and churches and temples litter the landscape. Utilising the community lifestyle would be an easy way of lowering carbon emissions.

Mum said that Dallas was a ‘nice’ place to live. Values are entrenched, convenience is religious and life is comfortable. It struck me that one could live in Dallas without any awareness of the world around them. The very concept of global warming would only disrupt this ignorant utopia.

Goodbye

Name: still Lucy

Age: still 26

Watching: In Treatment

Listening to: O.N.E, Yeasayer

Disposition: reflective 

Quote: "When we observe how some people know how to manage their experiences- their insignificant, everyday experiences- so that they become an arable soil that bears fruit three times a year, while others- and how many there are!- are driven through surging waves of destiny, the most multifarious currents of the times and the nations, and yet always remain at the top, bobbing like a cork,t hen we are in the end tempted to divide mankind into a minority (a minimality) of those who know how to make the much of little, and a majority of those who know how to make little of much." Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Human, All too Human

Leaving Home

Until recently, I have consciously avoided the study of philosophy. Said abstinence was likely prompted by a fear that philosophical discussion would involve deliberation on the notions that we are all merely descendants of matter which would compel a nihilistic depression that I am often afflicted with (such bouts usually begin with the news of a new moon on Saturn or something equally as trivial).

On Monday I leave home for the fifth time in almost the same number of years. Curiously, my recent foray into philosophical writing has somewhat lessened my habitual raiser angst. While propelling me into this coming adventure, the philosophies have encouraged me to reflect on the past, and my interpretations of it.

Making much of little

I was extremely apprehensive to begin my legal 'traineeship' 18 months ago. The nerves, combined with a fairly virulent bout of Africa induced giardia, caused me to need to take a sick day in my very first week of work. It would not be overstating the matter to say that I never wanted to be a lawyer in the first place.

In the spirit of Nietzsche I will say however that I did not hate being a lawyer. At times my cases were like puzzles in which I had to find the pieces in the law and then neatly arrange them to fit the facts. There was poetic satisfaction when the completed puzzle looked pretty. I also found somewhat perverse delight when the completed puzzle looked perfect but the case fell apart because of human relationships. I learnt the invaluable lesson that if we can put aside our human differences and learn qualities like tolerance and forgiveness, then we would never need to be subject to the laws of society.

What saddened me about my time as a lawyer was the inequality in our legal system. My cases were almost exclusively the egotistical battles of people and companies with so much money that it can be squandered on proving a point. Money attracts the best lawyers and the most attention. Once a month on a Monday night I volunteered at a community legal centre. Despite the unfathomable dedication and altruism of the staff, the clients travelled far and wide to get to the centre where due to the instability of volunteer turnout they waited sometimes hours for an appointment they had booked in months before with a volunteer who may or may not be able to help them. It seems a dreadful travesty that we lay a red carpet for the rich and greedy while we close the door to the vulnerable and needy.

Bonne journée, Auf Wiedersehen, Shalom, Arrivederci, Sayonara, Vale, Adios, Até a vista, Kwaheri, Usale kakuhle

If words signal their intended meaning then languages show that leaving should not be a sad thing. It is often goodbye, good journey, safe travels. Many languages use the same word for hello as good bye. The association of sadness with goodbye is imagined.

It is a goodbye Melbourne, although you have treated me well, I am not sad to be leaving you. This is the beginning for me.

The Oxford Comma

Name: Lucinda (Lucy) Caroline Bradlow

Age: 26

Reading: The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton

Listening to: Slow Show, The National

Wearing: Urban Outfitters denim dungarees

The Journey

When I was about 6 a friend of my parents asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. With precocity, the 6 year old me recognised the pretension of this question and replied with an equally pretentious answer- "I will be a lawyer and go to Oxford."

So from the age of 6 I have been building a resume to rival the Taj Mahal in splendour to allow me to be an Oxford attending lawyer. The journey began with excessive amounts of school work. I distinctly remember crying in year 4 when my teacher ranked me 12 in the class in English. In fact I remember crying quite a lot in my school days. Around the time of the ranking of 12 I graduated my grade anxiety into a separation anxiety and quite literally refused to be separated from my Mother. I enforced this regime of remaining as close to the womb as possible through vomit. The thought of having to suffer through my tears and vomit meant that both teachers and parents succumbed to my wish to never leave my Mother.

In the end it was my intense desire to travel that forced me to end the era of tears and vomit (though those who know me well will attest to the fact that both tactics have returned intermittently throughout my life). Travel was my distraction from the anxiety of rankings and swimming carnivals and a judgmental school experience. From the first time I travelled to America in year 8 to my latest trip to Israel this year, travel let me be whoever the hell I wanted to be right then and there and to forget who I wanted to be in 5, 10, 15 years time.

And so it was through travel that I slaved through 13 of years of school, 6 years of university and 18 months of work. If I knew I was travelling in 2 months I could rise in the morning to do an hour of specialist maths before I went to school, I could sit attached to my laptop for hours on end drafting theses and I could feign interest in a strange process called the law. Travel introduced me to ideas I could not discover in my insular Melbourne world. In Berkeley I learnt about refugees which lead me to a new interest in human rights law. It was in Arusha, Tanzania that my eyes were opened to the magnificent continent that is Africa and lead me to start my Foundation. And, eventually, it was travel that got me to my end goal- the elusive acceptance letter to Oxford University to study African Studies.

The Irony

The irony of this parable has not escaped me.

Remarkably, it has escaped, as yet, all of the commentators on my coming adventures...and there have been commentators. The most common question upon learning of my admission to Oxford has been "is it difficult to get in?" Generally I smile and recite a contrived answer necessarily including modesty and humility. Mostly, I would like to say "It's Oxford, what the fuck do you think?"

Backhanded jabs at my intellect (or lack thereof apparently) aside, no one has commented on the irony. I am going to spend a deposit on a house to study a continent the vast majority of whose inhabitants cannot afford high school. Ironic, no?


The Blog

Having accepted that I am already a 'spoilt upper middle class twenty-something that hates actually having to work (albeit as a professional) and so goes off to Oxford to study a 3rd world issue to perhaps be able to help', I feel no shame in further conforming to my stereotype and blogging on my adventures.
Even still, I am somewhat perturbed by the narcissism of blogging, so I hope to include some tit-bits of worth. A story or two about Africa- its people, its struggles, its triumphs, some words of general wisdom about travel, or in the words of Vampire Weekend, maybe just a line or two about why I give a fuck about an Oxford comma...