South Africa - 29 March 2008

Ok, well, my name is Stuart, I have been……well may things, I have seen, done, adventured and breathed in the air of many a country but one thing I have not done, is be very good at contact with you beautiful people!! HHAHAAAAhaa.. No honestly, I am not sure where the lack of contact in from, infact I try not too look into it too deeply, a busy life here building exactly that, a life. I think when I am out there travelling as I have done so many times I find myself with fresh exciting stories and thinking of home as it is fresh in my mind so I write back home, this time, living in a new place, Calling Cape Town home, when you settle somewhere you look at it from a different approach, there is less of an excitement in the place (which of course is still very much there) and more concentration on setting yourself up, getting the job, getting the flat, making money, buying rice and all that jazz! This is not a feeble attempt to excuse my crapness with communicating with my homeland and big ass family (that includes you), this is me bringing you to where I am…to my world as it is now, for me, aged 25, very soon 26 (aargh), I don’t know why I said that, I feel young, and no paranoia about age, isn’t it funny how society and learning’s make us say things at times and we find ourselves wondering why we said it but going with it because it is a language that everyone understands..interesting….. I have such a great life, there are struggles but the good times definitely out-weigh the bad, infact I wouldn’t go as far as to call any of my ‘times’ ‘bad’! I would just like to say for the record, I am not drunk, stoned or anything while writing this mail, I am infact just out of my bed from a 14 hour day yesterday, working one bar through the day and one all night and I feel great, I got woken by the voice of my beautiful lady, Miss Willow who phoned me from Johannesburg as she visiting her family. She has been gone 3 days and I miss her like crazy, she is my best friend!! I know its sad, whatever, I don’t care, heheee!! :op

Well where was I, urm…. Right, I’m not stoned or anything like that, infact I don’t smoke anymore, I have cut off my dreads, that was last Sunday night (23-March-2008). This was because in South Africa there is a ‘stigma’ with dreads that I knew would exist but not to the extent, I had been warned by the beautiful people in my life from this incredible country but I couldn’t understand it fully, something not known is something not understood! So here, there is an awesome camaraderie with black people, you are assumed to be a ‘brother’ they accept you immediately and it has allowed me to be in some places and do some things that no ‘whitey’ with straight hair would be able or dare to do! So that was cool an everything but everyone decides who you are before you open your mouth. You listen to reggae, you smoke weed, you don’t work, you praise Jah and hail Salasie. One of the black guys who works with me said to me when I had them cut off ‘I find it hard to talk with you without your ‘rastas’, you look so serious and ‘white’ now’. And there it is ladies and gentleman, so off they went, I have a strong connection with black people, I am still learning Xhosa out here (which is much easier than tryin to learn it in Scotland!!! Believe me!!) which is going well and it has also helped me in some situations, being able to understand someone when they standing by you calling you a stupid white man because you forgot to put a dash of lime in their drink you can tune them back and the fear of god comes across their face, that sounds terrible, it is a beautiful tool to be able to communicate with people here, the native people and they are so nice and friendly, most of them!

Wow this has to be the longest introduction for an e-mail ever, we could be here a while folks, brace yourselves… Ok well I haven’t planned what I am going to write here so I am kinda bearing my soul here cos I am letting it flow, whatever makes its way down to my fingers and gets hammered out onto here is coming through me from some higher plain man, like from the gods yeah. He he, jokes, no really I haven’t planned this so let’s see where we end up, hoe exciting, isn’t this fun, so glad you’re here to adventure with me……

Ok so…I don’t know where my last e-mail got to…..I don’t have a copy here so what we’ll do is I’ll just talk about what I am up to an we’ll deal with the memories as they come to me, ok, cool? Sweet, let’s go…

Ok so I am living in Woodstock which for those of you who know or have heard is right beside the renound Observatory (area) and my house is HUGE!! The rent I pay is high but rent here is rising generally and its NOT relative to wages. They have a system out here that whatever job you take you don’t get paid for training and they usually want you to do 4 or 5 shifts for training, so you work for a week for free and there is still a chance they will say ‘ádios’ or you might not enjoy it, one thing it does do it makes sure you work hard and find a job that is for you, which, for now, I have successfully done!! AAhh my CD is skipping, hold on….that’s so rude hey, damn cd’s! Such a cool CD, its by the Easy Dub All Stars, they do reggae re-mixes of various things the one I am listening to is a remix of the whole of ‘The Wall’ by Pink Floyd, it is beautiful and very well done, they have done Radiohead – OK Computer as well, check em out (http://www.easystar.com/). Ok, so, work, is cool, I am living in Woodstock which is a cool area, earthy, you see some shiat going down here but not much, nothing really scary. I have made friends with the neighbours, they are coloured families (for those of you that don’t know out here there are, whites, blacks and coloureds, lots of other cultures but these are the ‘natives’) the coloureds are the blacks that had babies with whites many a moon ago they are a mixture of black and white. The people that live across form me are coloured and they are cool, one of the girls that lives there works on the boats that I was taking people out sailing (I’ll tell you about that in a sec) so I have met her family of about 15 who all live in this one house but they all happy and love each other, the gran, granddad, mum, dad, kids cousins, madness but cool! Their house is old ‘Van Dutch’ style, so the style that was introduced at the times of when Jan van Riebeeck when he came to Cape Town and built a big ass fort as a strategic and economic ‘tool’ on April 6th 1652. It’s the style of a lot of buildings here, the Dutch/African style. Very pretty.

I was working on a beautiful catamaran down at the V&A Waterfront (a scary place where tourists go to pay 3 or 4 times the amount that we locals pay for anything, go on boats, go on helicopters yet another shopping mall but this one of super-dooper standing, scary as hell!!) So I the pleasure of going there everyday but I got to walk straight through it all past the craziness and board this beautiful vessel ‘Tigresse’. We would run 1 ½ hour trips out to see Cape Town from the sea and jus get away from it all, see dolphins, penguins, which generally I would be the only one getting really excited about, cant believe how people react to seeing these things, most want their champagne and to relax, which, hey, lets face it is fair enough!! Watching the dolphins swim between the hulls lyin on the trampoline between them water rushing past at 30 knots, awesome, awesome, AWESOME!!! It was a great job, I was taught how to sail her, hot to read the winds, the weather, everything, it was sweet. It was a ‘life style’ job, not to make money, no chance!! Unless you own the boat or skipper her you do it for the love of it and unfortunately right now as I explained earlier I am settling here for a bit so I can ill afford the time and money to do it, maybe later down the line when things are a bit more sorted…..awesome experience!! I have pics which I am sorting through bit by bit and gonna attempt to make a ‘blog’ with all my travels pics on it for you all to check out!

Cool so I got short hair, I worked on a catamaran taking people sailing, I like in Woodstock with cool neighbors, I’m learning Xhosa, urm….not bad so far, ok, lets see…


My room in the flat is comprises of 3 rooms, one big one in the middle, it is attached to the house but separate, the big one in the middle is bout 16 meters square and is my ‘lounge’ I have 2 sofas, 3 chairs a table and enough space to swing a cat, the room to the left is 2 meters square and that has become my studio, for those of you that don’t know, I am studying Photography, Illustration, printmaking and creative drawing out here part time! So I have a studio set up where I go to cover myself in ink or pastel or paint or wrap myself up in negatives, many an hour has been spent in that room, I have a big stereo in there so I go in, I close the door and create, pretty cool huh!

The other room opposite it is 3 meters square and yup, you guessed it that’s the zen room, where I take my victims and cleanse their souls, not really, well kind, only one soul tho and I think all might guess who she is!! This room is my bedroom, I have a double bed, a set of shelves for myself and one for the beautiful Syd who stays often (which I am VERY happy about!!) and it is cool, I can hear my stereo from there, it is light and airy and had great sunlight! That’s enough about my bedroom don’t wat you all getting excited an distracted now do we!

My Spanish flatmate Virginia jus walked in she wants to say ‘hi’ to everyone. She is so much fun, crazy girl, party animal, there have been a couple of nights where we have sat up and chatted chowed some food and topped a number of beers and tequilas, spontaneous nights are such good fun!!

Ok So flatmates, I live with Virginia, Greg who is of French descent but is South African, he is a sound engineer and produces Hip Hop with his group who are about to release their debut album, how exciting, he is a dude, bit of a hermit and a total ‘Wiggah!’ (a white black man, hip hop yo, they all talk like, hey yo, dat pahty was flippin yo, that cats rhymes were trippin my yolk yo!) amusing to listen to. My other flatmate, well housemate is Carolin, she is from Germany and is also very cool , she is a rally nice girl, who you know you can trust and will always be there. So I got a Spanish girl who works in tourism management, A Wiggah from France and a German who works with social development. Makes for some interesting discussions! Our house is beautiful and there is lots of space for us all!

Ok this story is getting boring, back to it, ok so I am going to finish soon and the next part will be when it is, I know this story is far from finished but so id mine, I aint goin nowhere so hang around kids and more shall be revealed!

I am working at Zulas check it out (www.zula.co.za) The main live music venue in Cape Town, anything from Reggae to Hip hop to guitars to African to Jungle, it’s a cool place. I starting DJing there next week, SWEET!!!!

Right, last thing check out my site, it is under construction but I developing my photography and getting pictures, bear with me I am editing photos a lot an putting them up but this takes time and I am lazy, ha-ha, no its getting there so have a look an please tell me what you think, honestly, this is potentially an big thing for me so it would mean a lot to me to have your comments!

Cool guys so check it out at www.wildlightphotography.blogspot.com thanx…

Love ya all millions, you rock my world, knowing you all are out there – the memories in my in my minds eye, you are all there in one scenario or another and I love you for that, thanx dudes and duetttes, rock on and keep smiling yo,

Hey feel free to reply to this mail, its not rhetorical……hehe

Peace

Stu xx