Rants from the Hollow

Well, after almost a decade, the European adventure has come to a close. Who would have thought that High School French was actually useful, or that college German was more than an intellectual affectation?

After boxing up 9 years of intense experience, packing too much Ikea that was no longer so flat to pack, and multiple treasures from the Chertsey auction house, Elizabeth and I flew back to the States. For a couple months, we split our time between my parents in Cleveland, and our house and hopefully future home. I spent most of that time in Ohio, while Elizabeth supervised nest reno in NoVa. It snowed. Everywhere. A lot. Welcome home.

By the first week of February, enough renovation had taken place in the house, which since 2001 has been rented out to children, dogs, and people who plant invasive berry canes in the vegetable garden, that we felt confident that if we moved back in we could sleep and shower. Well, at least shower in one of the baths. And who could have thought that it would take 6 months to install granite counter tops?

It actually took the moving company two separate trips. The first one saw countless boxes of things that we’d stored in 2000 when we left for Europe. Cassette players, VHS tapes, strangely out of style curtains, incandescent light bulbs (are those still legal?), and something that has increasingly become a preoccupation, boxes of negatives, slides and prints, all screaming out “Digitize me! Digitize me! Put me on the web! Make me a slide show! Print me!”

The second truckload, containing our European furniture and effects, arrived several days later. No, it does NOT all fit into one house. It included my PC. After 9 weeks apart, I was easily able to restore to service after buying a pair of new hard drives, fully reinstalling Windows from scratch, restoring all my files, and buying replacements for half the software. If it had been more than 5 years old, I would have started from scratch.

Neatly complementing the boxes of pictures from the first load, my Coolscan is sitting beside me at this moment, chewing its way through some incredible high school memories that actually will bring joy to the class of ‘78. At least the scanner is dual voltage, unlike the printer I brought back from England. New vacuum cleaner, a BestBuy TV that can pick up whatever junk Verizon is spewing at us, a new printer, a pair of used cars….well, you get the picture.

Repatriation is often more difficult than expatriation–especially for families that had such positive experiences overseas. It isn’t the same place you left, and while so much is familiar and comfortable, other things are just strangely wrong. You don’t get all the jokes on SNL, and you can’t remember which states are red and which are blue (simple trick: red=left everywhere else in the world, so the US must use the opposite system). The food is good, and there’s lots of it, but where are you supposed to walk to when you live in a ‘burb?

I think everybody understand that it takes a long time to step across a pond, but for the record, we didn’t send ANY Christmas cards last year, so don’t feel bad if you didn’t get one.

The crafty ladies from ICC brought along a bunch of different craft projects for the kids at the Enduduzweni Care Centre.

Most of these crafts were in the nature of tabula rasa–blank tablets to be filled in by the kids. Besides the picture frames and wooden stick photo frames (in the previous blog post), they also brought along hats that the kids could paint.

The younger kids were given bright white floppy hats (think Gilligan’s Island), and they did an OK job of decorating them to taste.

The older kids were given white baseball caps, and most of them were loath to allow a drop of paint to touch their pristine new headgear.

Fortunately, the younger kids had no such concept of purity of form when it came to the toy elephants. Handed a stark white fabric elephant, a pallet of bright colored paint, and a couple of brushes (most of which were longer than the kid’s arms), they dug right into the task.

This had to be one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen.  The inhibitions which maintained the integrity of the ballcaps were not a factor when it came to preschoolers, paint and plush pachyderms.  The intensity and enthusiasm of these little kids was just a joy to see. Paint flew, as the elephants sucked up color.

My favorite was the little boy (above) in the (unpainted) ball cap with the heart on his chest. No matter what those kids were doing–crafts, hand washing, eating a snack or lunch–he could reliably be expected to have a totally worried look on his face.

I got off to a rocky start on the 2nd day. In what turned into my start-of-the-workday pattern, it seemed to always take 45 minutes before I was able to make clean prints. After powering up my computer and Lee Anne’s printer, I started on the 60 small head shots that would be cut out and put into wooden frames that are cutout to look like a body. The kids decorated them yesterday. My first attempt came out with a couple of horrible-looking green prints that would be perfect for a Halloween party, but maybe not so good for a Christian children’s craft. I ran the diagnostic and it indicated that one cartridge was empty, and the other nearly so. Did it drain out overnight? I replaced both cartridges, and after a reboot and a paper jam, was back to printing out a stack of photos.

By the end of the first day, I’d managed to get a stack of 5×7″ pages printed with a total of 43 head shots that were later cut out in circles to insert in the stick people frames. On the second day, I started to print off what would eventually amount to almost 100 4×6″ prints. I wouldn’t have been able to mass produce so many prints in such a short time if I hadn’t brought along a laptop and a copy of Adobe’s Lightroom software.

The printer turned out to be a high-maintenance item. Besides my daily problems with feeding it cartridges (I eventually used up 6 of the 11 cartridges that I’d brought with me), the printer also needed a lot of feeding. Several times I walked away from the printer for 30 minutes to photograph and video some of the other projects, and came back to find that it had run out of paper or had jammed.

Pictures to fit the decorated frames were printed by the end of the day, so I started a second run of the pictures used for the head shots. This time, instead of printing off just their heads, I printed off the entire picture. Some of the kids had put a lot of heart into the posing process, and I figured they’d be disappointed without seeing the entire photo (also, I figured some of the older kids might not be as excited to see their head on top of a popsicle stick).

By the end of our stay, I’d made over 175 prints.

We decided that it’d be fun to stick all the pictures onto a couple of the dividers in the centre so that everybody could see everybody else’s portrait. The younger kids seemed to get a real kick out of seeing their older brothers and sisters hanging up on the wall.

The crews working on the physical plant made a lot of progress on the first day, but started running into roadblocks. None of the battery packs for the rechargeable power tools were keeping a charge, slowing work on the toilet doors. They finally managed to finish hanging new doors on the stalls by the end of the day after borrowing a power cord from one of the other crews.

They also put new sinks in both the boys and girls sides, and added some new drainage to relieve some trouble spots.

They also replaced several of the window panes along the back of the toilets.

The building used for the centre is actually a former bar–one of the many repurposed buildings in Bulembu. Like many of the buildings in town, it and the building next door have metal multipane windows that apparently date to the 1930s. Lots of glass needed replacement. Our glaziers got off to a bit of a slow start learning how to trim glass panes without breaking them, but they figured out the tricks and used up all the panes that were purchased before we arrived.

They painfully scraped and chiseled out the old putty, replaced the panes, and then used huge bags of old-fashioned window putty to hold and seal the panes into the metal windows. Trimming window glass to size was relatively easy–stretching undersized glass to fit into larger panes turned out to be the biggest challenge of the week.

Trash is stored outdoors behind the building next door. It was unsafe to leave bins of trash in an area full of children, so our crew built a sturdy lockable wooden enclosure around the garbage storage area.

The ICC volunteers completely repainted both the building used for the centre, and the building with the toilets.

Our 2nd day in Bulembu was noticeably warmer than the first, but it was still a beautiful spring day in Swaziland.

When I arrived in the center, the women were busy cutting up tissue paper, and the girls were splitting cotton balls in half, preparing for a rush of pre-schoolers for some morning crafts that resulted in sheeps’ ears, paper crowns and bunches of artificial flowers.

The kids really got into the crafts, and most of them wore their ears and crowns home.

One afternoon, a group of us on the ICC service project in Bulembu headed down a poorly-maintained dirt road to a Swazi village called Malanda to visit several of the families associated with the Enduduzweni Centre. Within walking distance of Bulembu, most of the homes, all of which were made from mud, lacked electricity, and none of them had running water.

We first visited the family of Zandy Dlamini, who is on staff at Enduduzweni.

Her mother, Thembi Mavimbela, entertained us in the main room while we explored the house. The kitchen was dominated by a wood stove, sitting on several rocks, with a large cooking pot on top.

Outside, they had a small vegetable garden, and have recently started growing some fruit trees. Zandy (2nd from left below), is hoping to start raising chickens, soon.

Then we stopped to visit the Mahlalela family. Mr. Mahlalela is from Mozambique, and his wife grew up locally. They speak Portguese, 2 African languages, and both Mr. and Mrs. Mahlala have been taking English lessons from LeeAnn. Their children are learning English at the Enduduzweni Centre.

Their primary source of income comes from beating scrap metal into cooking pots, but they are also increasing the productivity of their small holding. A small barn contains 30 caged rabbits that they raise for meat, along with a young pair of steers.

When we arrived, Mrs. Mahlalela was doing the laundry in a bucket full of soapy water in the yard between the house and the outbuilding. It looks like a hard way to make a living, but with two healthy parents, these 5 children are doing much better than many of the kids in rural Swaziland.

Malanda is not the most prosperous place that I’ve visited, but it also has some significant advantages. Its a very beautiful and fertile place, with lovely views of the mountains, and productive gardens. It is a community of people with family and friendship connections to their village and to an increasingly prosperous Bulembu. A GoogleEarth satellite picture showing our drive from Bulembu into Malanda, and walk around Malanda, appears below (Zoom into the part at the top to see Malanda. The Care Centre is the loop in the bottom right, and the Lodge where we stayed and ate is at the end of the track in the lower left. ). 

Our first day started with a morning devotional at 0730, followed by a large and hearty breakfast. Served at a buffet, the kids immediately sucked up all the pancakes. Elizabeth brought me a large bowl of granola, dried fruit, and yogurt–more than I wanted to eat–but I didn’t want to be rude and send back uneaten food. Then some more pancakes appeared, and so I had a couple of them on top of the bowl of straw. Most of our ICC folks had already left the room when the Lodge staff began bringing out large dishes with a pair of poached eggs, a large sausage, and a small slice of cooked tomato. It seemed rude not to at least attempt to eat the surprise main course, so Elizabeth and I were pretty well fed before starting work.

We walked down a steep road, past some of the larger houses in Bulembu (left over from the mining company), and past the terminus of a non-functioning cable car. Built by the Germans in 1939, it is the longest cable car system in existence, stretching all the way to Piggs Peak. It was used to haul bulk material to the mine. Bulembu is filled with the remnants of its mining heritage, some of which have been repurposed, but much of which is mouldering away.

The Enduduzweni Community Care Centre is located in a valley in the center of Bulembu. It provides a safe and nurturing environment for dozens of pre-schoolers whose parents (most only have one) work in Bulembu. The children vary widely in their circumstances. Without this service, many of the 2-4 year olds would end up staying at home by themselves, usually with very little to eat.  In the afternoon, a number of elementary school kids come to the centre, and some teenagers are learning to use computers and are gaining typing skills.

Remembering what a treat it was for the Gypsy children in Romania to get their pictures taken, I’d volunteered to take photos of the kids at Bulembu, and Michelle Loubser had worked out a couple of picture frame decorating projects that the children could do. I wanted to make sure that everything was working fine, so as soon as I arrived at the EnduduZweni Care Centre, I fired up Lee Anne’s multi-function printer (after some struggle with extension cords and electrical adaptors), plugged my laptop into a South African power adaptor, turned it on, and plugged the printer into a USB port. The drivers I’d loaded before I left home worked perfectly, and I was soon able to print onto an A4 sheet of paper. 35 minutes and a reboot later, I was finally able to print onto 13×18cm photo paper, and I announced that I was ready to print, and ready to take portraits of the kids.

I scouted around for a location, and found a bright but shady spot on the back wall of the center, which was a long veranda looking out onto a soccer pitch and a huge mountain of mine tailings. It took me about 5 minutes to figure out the right settings for my DSLR and the on-camera flash with a Demb Diffuser. then the staff brought the kids out one at a time to stand in front of my dark red wall.. Over the next half hour, I took 90 pictures in my improvised studio. I spent most of the rest of the afternoon trying to print them back out, eventually ending up with 77 9×13cm prints to fit into the frames that the kids had decorated.

I also created a second studio for a group of older kids who come to the centre in the afternoons to spend time working on the PCs and learning to type. Elizabeth suggested that green might make for a better color, so we carried out a green board to another long porch. The older kids had a little more attitude than the younger ones, and I spent a wild 25 minutes taking 65 more portraits.

The rest of the ICC crew was even busier than I was, replacing a sink and a set of doors in the toilets, replacing and puttying dozens of windows, and painting the outside of the children’s center. Our folks also worked on the crafts with the Bulembu kids, and played games with them. More on that to follow.

The GoogleEarth map below shows the Lodge at the west and the steep walk down the town’s main street to The Enduduzweni Community Care Centre.  Use the mouse to scroll down to the huge pile of mine tailings  (try using the buttons in upper left to zoom in).

23 hours after getting into the taxi in Sunninghill, Elizabeth was able to start her shower in our room at the lodge in Bulembu. It took us about 6 hours to get here from Johannesburg.

47 members of the International Community Church hopped onto a flight at Heathrow last night, arriving in South Africa this morning. After collecting our bags, and having some fantastic coffee at the Woolworth, we sorted ourselves out into 5 large Toyota vans (with small engines). 4 of the vans pulled small trailers (small, covered trailers are ubiquitous here), and by putting a few of the suitcases in the back of the vans, we were just able to squeeze all our luggage in. After some consultation with the staff, 5 white vans pulled out onto the motorway, following the bright red pickup truck belonging to LeeAnn McPharland, the woman our church supports here in Bulembu.

Heading directly east towards Maputo, Mozambique, the first half of the trip was a very modern and large motorway through relatively uninteresting scenery. We stopped once for lunch, and a second time to tank up and empty out. On the other side of Middelburg, the road narrowed from a highway into a 4-lane with no median. As the terrain became hillier, and the mountains were visible, the road narrowed to 2-3 lanes. We left the Maputo road at Nelspruit, turning directly south, and heading into the mountains on a twisty 2-lane. We were climbing into the clouds, and had to put the wipers on intermittent, and our little vans started to struggle with the grade. They not only couldn’t make it up any of the hill in 4th, but a couple times, I had to downshift into 3rd. I’ve driven stick all my life, but never with the shifter coming out of the dash. There must have been a long and tortuous linkage between the shift knob and the gear fingers, because it was not always easy to find 4th on my way back down.

We passed through miles and miles of tree plantation, apparently servicing the local paper mill. Reaching Barberton at about 3pm, and were concerned that we wouldn’t make the Swaziland border before it closed at 4. This last 46km was a steep and twisty road that switchbacked up and down a mountain range, most of which was pasture. At least the road was in excellent shape, being relatively wide and recently paved. We spent a lot of this part of the trip with the vans struggling to make it through the steeper parts of Saddleback Pass in 2nd gear. We finally reached a sort of quaint and African-looking border crossing at 3:50PM. It seemed to take forever for South Africa to process us back out of the country that we’d only arrived in earlier that day, but Elizabeth is convinced it was less than 15 mins. Having left the headlights on, it was enough time to run down the battery. I couldn’t start the van, so we pushed it backwards to the road, and I bump started it in 2nd.

I kept the engine running when we briefly stopped at the Swazi border crossing, which consists of a woman and a long red & white pole that she lifted to allow the vans to enter the country. The road was much narrower on this side, mostly only a single lane. Where the South African side had been cleared and grazed, this side is forest. After about 10 minutes, we pulled into the outskirts of Bulembu. Carefully threading our way through the steep, narrow and potholed streets, we reached The Lodge. I backed the van into a parking spot so that if necessary, it would be easy to push it to a steep hill.

Bulembu was a company town built for the Havelock Asbestos Mine. One of the 5 biggest asbestos mines in the world, it closed in 1991 after a 10 year decomissioning process, turning Bulembu into something of a ghost town. A group of Christians (mostly from the US and Canada) essentially bought the town in 2006, forming Bulembu Ministries Swaziland. The plan is to make the town self-sustaining by 2020, at which point it should be supporting 2,000 orphans. With the highest AIDS rate in Africa, such support is desperately needed. The Lodge contains tourist accomodations, the former golf course now supports dairy cattle, and former company warehouses are now used in the production of honey. The Christian school in town is considered one of the best in Swaziland.

A GoogleEarth map showing the final part of our drive into Bulembu appears below. You can zoom in, and also see the satellite view.

Just a few miles from my house, there are some lovely parts of Surrey for an evening or afternoon bike ride. Feeling the pressure of our upcoming departure from England, I’ve been trying to squeeze in some last few rides in the part of the local countryside most familiar to me.  This ride on the last Sunday of August turned out to be an especially memorable one.

I filled up my water bottle and put my Canon G9 into my handle bar bag, and took off for the wilds of north-western Surrey.  It takes about 3 miles of riding through traffic before you get to a more relaxed place.  Although surrounded by motorways, railways, and suburban sprawl, Windlesham is a nice little community.  Church Road is a quiet and wide street that includes the Half Moon pub and Saint John’s Church.   Crossing underneath the busy M3, the countryside starts in earnest with Hook Mill Lane, a very narrow uphill through the hedgerows. Taking a right on Burnt Pollard Lane quickly brings you to the tidy suburb of West End.

I stopped at the northern end of West End to wander around the allotment. Allotments are public areas that have been set aside for the use of gardeners, and they are a common scene in England. They are also very common in the German-speaking lands, where they tend to be much, much, much more regimented and formalized. English allotments, although they can have some very elaborate fixtures, tend to be ‘organic’ looking, tending towards the sloppy.

Gordons School is located on the other side of the road from the allotments.  Originally sponsored by Queen Victoria, the school is named after the extremely colourful British army officer, George Gordon. Known as Chinese Gordon, Gordon Pasha, and Gordon of Khartoum, the school features a statue of Gordon and his camel.  Portrayed by Charlton Heston in the somewhat romanticized flick, Khartoum, Gordon was killed at the fall of Khartoum in 1885. Although he was probably in over his head, Gladstone could arguably have saved him by sending relief forces earlier, and Victoria never forgave the PM for Gordon’s death.

Riding through West End and then taking Pennypot Lane back north, I crossed the A319 and went looking for Watery Lane. Featured in several guidebooks, it is apparently the status of a byway, connecting Clappers Lane with the very posh pseudo-rural neighbourhood along Ford Road.  The road is certainly accessible by horse, and possibly by a very fit and ambitious mountain biker, but I chose to walk my bike along the narrow path that parallels the perpetually flooded and well-named lane.

I turned East on Windlesham Road, crossing the B383 along the northern end of Chobham.  Past the Red Lion Pub, the road changes its name to Gracious Pond Road. Much beloved by local cyclists of all skill levels, this long and smooth road skirts along the southern edge of the Chobham Commons, passing through lovely birch tree stands.

On the other side of Gracious Pond, I headed back towards Chertsey. Riding about 1/8 of a mile East on the busy A319, I crossed over to Philpot Lane. A beautiful little arched masonry bridge, crossing a burbling brook, is one of my favourite sights on these nearby trips.

By this point, I was getting tired and ready for home.  I almost didn’t stop when I saw the huge handwritten sign, “Free Beer,” in Chertsey. Then I remembered that there had been a beer fest the day before, and realized that they must have some left over that they would be throwing away.  I immediately turned around and headed for a large tent with a large Pimm’s banner drooping along one side.

It was like beer heaven.  They gave me a pint and congratulated me on arriving just before they shut down. I bought a sausage and downed my pint, hoping for seconds. That’s when I noticed some well-pickled locals who were filling up soft drink bottles at the bar. I poured the water out of the bottle on my bike, kicked myself for not having brought two bottles, and filled it up with the lightest ale that they had (why overdue it, right?).  It looked like I was bringing home a urine sample, but I figured it was a worthy experiment.

About a mile and a half down the road, I heard a little pop sound, and noticed a stream of foam, volcanoing away from the nipple of my bottle. I stopped, took about an inch off the top, pushed the nipple back down, and headed for home without further incident. I put it in the fridge, and had it with my dinner a couple hours later, after church. It was flat and sour–just like it was when I got it out of the tap. Perfect!

Several other pictures from my rides around Surrey can be found on my Cycling Surrey photo gallery. The map/satellite image below shows my route in blue, and it can be zoomed in so you can see some of the places from my trip.

An authentic Art Deco throwback, Lima’s Kewpee Hamburger joint has been astonishing diners for over 70 years.

During a recent business trip to Ohio, I had a chance to detour to Lima (pronounced LYE mah) and  visit a historic bit of American pre-war kitsch to see if the food lived up to its reputation.  A sleepy town that is still coasting from its pre-war prosperity, it has some very attractive buildings, so after having an excellent slice of cherry pie and a decent cup of coffee, I took an hour to explore downtown.

There is something inherently creepy about dolls in general, and something extremely creepy about the androgynous Kewpie character in particular.  The large Kewpee standing watch over the building’s facade was removed several years ago for restoration, apparently creating a minor controversy in this quiet county seat.  Restored to its post of eternal vigilance over North Elizabeth street, it has a distinct crinkliness not shared by its smoother-complexioned interior sisters/brothers, two of which quixotically gaze out across  a roomful of hungry diners from their temple-like perches in two opposing corners of the white-tiled and stainless-steel trimmed Deco interior.

Authenticity is a very subjective thing, but in a post-modern era characterized by failed attempts to evoke nostalgia and emulate historical style, its important to note that this little Art Deco gem is essentially originally.  Their slogan, “Your grandpappy ate here” is true enough, and I wouldn’t be  surprised if my own grandfather did, given that his sales territory covered the once thriving industrial areas of western Ohio.   Stepping out of the step-backed orange and white building, my camera and I took a quick 45 minute swing through downtown.

Every county seat in the US has a courthouse. Usually built in the latter half of the 19th or early 20th century, they all have a certain judicial sort of look about them, even though architectural styles vary. The Allen County Courthouse is no exception. Designed by Architect George H. Maetzel, this Second Empire Empire style municipal structure was built between 1881-1884.

Every town seems to have a nut shop, and Lima’s is a dandy. Like Kewpee and several attractive office buildings, Dome’s Nut shop has been operating since the mid-1930s, although the family run business, now in its third generation, has only been in the current location since 1975.  Unusually blessed with two camera stores, some clothing stores, a couple boutiques, and multiple restaurants, but a lot of service offices–public and private round out downtown, which centers on Town Square.

A particularly tall (in Lima terms) and ornate (ditto) office building nails down the south west corner of the square.  A pair of brass double doors are flanked by elaborate iron lamps, and the lower windows are surrounded by elaborately decorated iron panels.  Apparently, the ground floor was once used as a bank. Dozens of crumbling teller windows are faintly visible through filthy windows from the side walk on Market Street.  I still had a long drive before my lunch appointment in Columbus, so I reluctantly left the rest of Lima for a future visit.

I wasn’t planning on stopping, but when I saw the 57 Buick, painted up like a police car in front of this brand new 1950’s style takeout, I had to stop for a quick photo or two.  Refused financing for his dream, Leroy Roby built this burger joint by hand, taking almost 4 years to do it, opening on Memorial Day, 2009.   It certainly wallows in nostalgia, but it’s a contemporary take on the classic American drive-in.   Maybe 70 years from now, one of my grandkids will happen upon this place and decide that its a fine example of early 21st century kitsch.

Additional photos appear in my Lima photo gallery.  The GoogleMap below can be zoomed to taste.