remembering

to be back in africa has awakened that special piece of my heart – the piece that inexplicably loves having dirty, dirty feet and can handle eating baked beans on toast every day. i wouldn’t enjoy either of these things in the absence of the beautiful zambesi river - flowing quietly less than 10m from my verandah - which is where i now sit.

i knew i was excited to come back here, but i had somehow forgotten the depth of love i have for mwandi village, zambia. today, i remember the million things i love about this place, and my heart is happy. my feet are filthy, but my heart is happy.

getting to mwandi was an adventure. i flew into livingstone ready to pick up some groceries and jump on a bus, squeezing my hips next to what i assumed would be an african mama suffering from the same over-sized hip condition as me. but a phonecall from my friend fiona left me with slightly different travel plans. (side note – fiona is the incredible australian woman who set up and runs the feeding/education project i will be working with for the coming months – she is one of my heroes.) fiona told me i had to go to her mechanic in livingstone and pick up her 4WD/tank and drive it out to mwandi. as an afterthought, she added, “there’s a 30km stretch of road just outside mwandi where the potholes are really bad, so be careful.” a few rough calculations in my head confirmed the fact that i had about as much off-road driving experience as a toddler, so i replied, “no problems mate, i’ll see you in a few hours.”

i buckled up and hit the road. the first hour of driving was without incident. the second hour was not. the potholes snuck up on me like little zambian ninjas. i said a few rude words to the ninjas, swerved off and on and back off the road like any toddler driving a tank would, and found, surprisingly, that i was still alive. this scenario repeated itself  an alarming number of times during the proceeding 30km. “how did you go mate?” says fiona when i arrive. “really good. no problems at all,” i reply as i discreetly try to remove any remaining gravel and mud from between my teeth. big. fat. liar.

i went to say hello to all my friends at the feeding centre shortly after i arrived in the village. i was hoping they would remember who i was. upon walking through the gate, a bunch of kids began screaming and singing a song to me which i had written and taught them 3 years ago. they remembered. one of the volunteers from the project ran to me smiling and wrapped me up in a huge african hug. she remembered. today, i remember the million things i love about this place. i remember the many times i have visited here and been changed by the lives of the poor. i remember that we cannot live by bread alone, so we must buy baked beans and tinned soup. i remember that hot running water (after 2 months of showering in a bucket) is as beautiful to me as a gilmore girls marathon on a saturday afternoon.

sometimes, to simply remember and be remembered, is the sweetest thing of all.

ps. i totally got my nose pierced the day before i left india. i look like a pirate. a nice pirate. the kind who would sing cheerful ditties about the ocean. not the kind who would steal your jewellery or terrorise your womenfolk. 

roses

during the last months of my mum’s life we spent many hours together ‘getting stuff done’. there was no order in mum’s body, no rhyme or reason for why she, and not someone else, was living through what she was...so we coped by finding order and reason where we could; rearranging cupboards, dusting parts of the house which, to my knowledge, hadn’t been dusted in 30 years, sorting old photos which had previously lived happily in boxes in the garage, and we ‘got stuff done’ in the garden.

lisa (housemate and adopted daughter) and dad painted pots and there was a frenzy of weeding and watering. from what i could see there were about 3000 pots in the courtyard of our small townhouse...but lynnie wanted more. she loved her garden.

for days, mum and i were on a mission to find new pots for some of her plants. we put her wheelchair and oxygen tank into my car and drove off to explore the world of gardening shops. one day, we drove for about an hour to a big gardening shop in the middle of nowhere. i got mum’s wheelchair ready and loaded her up. what followed was a 2 hour lesson i’m going to call ‘places you should never, under any circumstances, try to wheel a wheelchair.’

the place was huge. it was on the side of a hill and every single walking path was made of quicksand or deep, chunky gravel. after about a minute mum said “don’t worry kato, let’s just go.” but i could see her looking longingly at the ocean of coloured pots stretched out before us and didn’t have the heart to pack her up just yet. i was covered in sweat within a matter of minutes. we must have looked ridiculous navigating the least user friendly walking paths i have ever seen. a combination of wheeling backwards and pushing her forwards while holding her in the position of a wheelie seemed to do the trick, but it was hard work. eventually we found the pot she wanted. beautiful blue. mission accomplished. we laughed and smiled at the stupidity of it all as we loaded up the car and headed for home.

a little way down the road we saw a sign for a rose farm. “would you mind if we stopped just for a minute so i can go and smell them?” stopping to literally smell the roses. it’s not actually possible to say no to that. so we unpacked again and i stood back and watched in amazement as my mum smelt roses with a look of pure joy on her face.

we eventually made it home and i went to have a shower...i was an absolute mess. as i removed my pants i was delighted to discover a hole in the back of them about the same size as a cannonball. i may as well have been wearing butt-less chaps. i have no idea when it happened. all i could picture was the hours i had spent bending over, pushing a wheelchair uphill...WITH MY BUM PROUDLY ON DISPLAY FOR THE WHOLE WORLD TO SEE. i laughed. lots.

here’s the moral of the story. whatever struggles you may face today, smile and thank God that you’re facing them without showing your bum to the whole world. unless, of course, you get home and find that you too have a hole in your pants. in which case, welcome to my world., it’s nice to have some company.

and also...don’t forget to smell the roses.

family

my plate of food was placed in front of me. it was approximately the size of a wombat...a big wombat (think fatso from 'a country practice' circa 1988). i began to do some rough equations in my head to ascertain how many hours it was going to take me to get through the wombat, then i discovered this was just the first course. now by virtue of the fact that my last name is wallis, i can confirm that i am one of the lucky few who was bred specifically for challenges such as this. i can put away a fair amount of food when i’m feeling emotional enough! alas, my stomach was still recovering from the gastro-inducing mashed potato incident of early february. i was certain the mountain of food would kill me, or at the very least render me unable to walk, if i soldiered on and ate it all.

i was sitting in a room about the size of a bathroom...a small bathroom. in the room there was one half-sized single bed which was doubling as my chair for the meal. my dinner table was doubling as the bedside table. the kitchen area was as big as a large lunchbox, and the rest of the free space could probably have held 5 or so people standing up. my new indian family gathered around to serve me and witness my attempt at taming the wombat. my indian sister translated my wishes to my indian mum and dad. i repeatedly apologised for the fact that i didn’t think i would be able to finish my meal, although i’m not sure the translation was happening with 100% accuracy, as every time i spoke up indian mum would pile another mound of chicken onto my already exploding plate.

i felt so at home. indian mum and dad mocked me openly as i attempted to eat with my hand and we laughed together as they mimicked my pathetic attempts. indian mum wanted to use her own hand to feed me...i think this is probably something my own mum would have offered to do if she ever found herself  in the same situation. mums will be mums no matter the country.

5 people live in the room i was eating in. 2 sleep on the half-sized bed and 3 sleep on the floor. my indian family is very poor in one sense, but living in close proximity has bred a deep love between them. they love well. in this way they are rich i guess. i’m not sure i would love my family so well had we grown up living in this amazing room.

the meal seemed to go on forever as my stomach stretched in new and different directions. it hurt, but i still loved it. finally i could eat no more...and finally, that message seemed to translate to indian mum and dad. indian dad only forced me to eat one more thing...a banana...convincing me that it would help to digest the wombat more speedily. thank God for bananas.

then indian dad did the most beautiful thing. my indian sister held a bowl beneath my filthy eating hand and poured water over it. indian dad picked up my disgusting hand with his clean hands and rubbed it, splashed water on it, and made sure it was completely clean.

again, i am astounded and inspired by a simple truth. we will never change the world because of what we have, but by how much we are willing to give. sometimes it’s about giving money (because you and i both know that’s something we have more than enough of), but more often it’s about being willing to grab someone’s filthy hand to let them know we are all in this mess together. 

singleness

i’m really, really, really single. i have had years to perfect the art of singleness - years of uselessly becoming attracted to people who mostly don’t know i exist, or who think, “gee that wallis kid is pretty fun to hang around...as a friend.” i don’t say this in the hopes that the collective pity sighs of all my readers will somehow cause a cosmic shift in the atmosphere so that i meet ‘the one’. i say this because it is true...but not true in a sad way. it’s true in the same way that ‘penicillin kills nasty things’ is true...an excellent truth that happened through hard work and dedication.

not many people are 32 and really, really, really single...it’s not normal. it’s kind of like australia winning a gold medal at the winter olympics: rare and mostly when it happens it is by accident. we don’t become 32 and single on purpose, well i didn’t anyway. but however it happened, i still think it is worth celebrating in the same way as an accidental gold medal in a race where everyone else fell over is worth celebrating.

i have unrequitedly liked boys over the years, and on a few rare occasions have been unrequitedly liked by others...men and women. one of my favourite stories happened when i was out at a leagues club one night with some friends watching another friend’s band play. my first mistake was going to a leagues club...it was never going to end well. we were dancing to some excellent mid-nineties rock when i noticed a lady watching me from across the room nursing a beer. she was middle-aged at best, i was around 18. she was tastefully dressed in what looked like a massive t-shirt (worn as a dress), some football socks and a pair of high-heels. her staring made me more than a little uncomfortable so i spent the night angling myself away from her trying to enjoy the music while mastering my underappreciated style of leagues club dancing. she approached me later in the night with a ciggie hanging from her lips and breathed a huge smoky, beer-y breath into my face and said, “you’re a bit special aren’t you.” i’m not sure exactly what she was hoping for from me, but i ran. i ran like the wind. the boy i liked at the time escorted me safely to my car and i think he tried to kiss me goodnight but it was all a bit much. in conclusion, don’t go to leagues clubs.

another time i met a guy at a big Christian youth convention. i was running a program for kids aged 13-15, while the rest of the delegates at the conference were 18-25. i was 20 at the time. in the evenings all of our little kids would mix in with the rest of the conference delegates, so i would go and meet my friends to say hello. this one particular night i met a friend of a friend and we started chatting. he was incredibly good-looking. (side note - i’m normally terrified of good looking men so i have no idea how this conversation ever happened). anyway, the conversation couldn’t have gone better. i was having a ‘funny’ night and he seemed to be an easy laugh which was a wonderful combination. we talked about music and sport and i eventually asked him what he was studying at uni. in an unbelievable turn of events it turned out he was studying the same degree as me. with a massive smile i told him i was studying exercise physiology too, convinced that he would propose on the spot. but for reasons unknown to me at the time he didn’t immediately propose. instead, he began laughing at me and saying, “no really, stop it, what grade are you in?” i didn’t understand at first and had to ask what he meant. he explained that i had to only be 13-15 years of age because of my t-shirt. i was wearing the shirt for my kids program. it was on this night that i learned there is a difference between someone flirting with you and someone talking to you as though you are a 13 year old. easy mistake to make it seems.

years later i found myself singing at a wedding where i knew the hot guy was going to be the best man...my chance to redeem myself. i honestly don’t think i’ve ever looked better than i did at that wedding. i casually mentioned to the photographer (a friend) that i was going to try and snag the best man before the night was over. sadly i didn’t even get close to him because at some point i remembered that i’m terrified of good looking men. the next day the photographer presented me with a ‘gift’. he had taken photos of me looking hot and morphed them with photos of the hot best man to make it look as though we were together all night. in conclusion, sometimes it doesn’t matter how good you look, the best you will end up with is a tragic photoshop montage of what will never be.

so, if it’s not about looking good or being able to pull killer moves on the dance floor of a seedy leagues club, what is it that means most people aren’t really, really, really single at 32? is it just that the male population isn’t ready for this jelly? i clearly have some kind of appealing spunk to me...even if it has only been good for attracting smoky, middle-aged beer ladies. maybe it’s just a matter of tweaking the spunk ever so slightly so i begin to attract non-smoking, 30ish men? i don’t know, and to be honest i really don’t care. i wish i could succinctly let you know how i have managed to be really, really happy while being really, really, really single, because i know that most women in my position aren’t so happy at all. the only ways to explain my happiness come in the form of terrible cliches. eg. nobody will be able to make you happy unless you’re happy with yourself first. or this...being married doesn’t make you a whole person, if you’re half a person before you’re married, you’ll still only be half a person when you are married. or this...if you count your blessings before you count your troubles, you’ll soon forget what your troubles are. or this...ooh baby do you know what that’s worth, ooh heaven is a place on earth. well that last one is a belinda carlisle song but you get the picture.

being 32 and single isn’t always easy, but i can’t imagine that being 32 and married is always a bed of roses. i surround myself often with excellent calibre human-beings and i don’t watch meg ryan movies. i think these are 2 of the keys to successful singleness...along with my abnormal love of solitude...something i can only attribute as a beautiful gift from God.

i have a lovely life and i think that if you look hard enough you'll find that you do too. so really, this isn’t about singleness at all. sorry.

ps. if you are a male aged 30+ (but not like 60) and you would like to woo me away from the singleness i adore so much, the key to unlocking my heart is buying me a winnebago. seriously. so you should do that. and also, you’d have to acknowledge that mashed potato is a legitimate breakfast food.

cocoons

7/2/13 - 2:30pm - mussoorie, india

i had a big day yesterday. 18 hours of travel. taxi, plane, bus, bus, bus, taxi. it was frustrating, mostly because of my white skin. every time one mode of transport came to an end i was flocked by people either trying to rip me off or just staring at me as though i were from another planet. the longer i am in india, the more i realise they may be correct. not from another planet but definitely from another world.

i’ve walked past too many beggars. too many mothers have thrown their children in my face begging me to help. some of the kids have been injured...a little baby with raw burns all down his neck creeping i don’t know how far under the neck of his t-shirt. the diseased and disabled line the streets hoping that someone will notice their world. it’s not the world i live in. the reality of poverty is, again, smashing my brain. it hurts to be here. what can i do? what can you do? these aren’t new questions to me. the questions are like the beggars themselves. persistent. chasing me down. speaking to me. “ma’am, ma’am.” trying to get me to look them in the eye...for it’s only when we look that we see...and it’s only when we see that we act. the questions are big and deserve a response. the poor deserve the same.

it was dark when i left my hotel to get to the airport yesterday. 4:30am. i was gazing out the window noticing again all the piles of rubbish lining the streets. as my eyes became accustomed to the light i realised that what i was seeing was not rubbish at all, but people in blanket cocoons. so many people. i counted about 100 on one stretch of road alone...blankets tucked under feet and pulled tightly over sleeping heads...a sea of human cocoons in shades of grey and brown...not rubbish at all. this is not the world i live in.

the colour of my skin caused me some problems yesterday. i got taken advantage of by more than one person. i got lied to by more than one person. slowly, the colour of my skin is making it nearly impossible to trust the words of people i meet on the street. sad...but the colour of my skin did not cause me to be a blanket cocoon. it afforded me some luxuries that the cocoons will never know. it allowed me to book a flight out of jaipur, forfeiting the train ticket i was supposed to use. sharing a berth with lisa on our last train journey together was about all i could take. i was introduced to some new friends. a half crazy man on the top bunk who took drugs all night. a great guy next door who spent the whole night hocking up something from deep in his chest and spitting it out. and a cross-dresser who elbowed me in the side of the head as he was flailing about fixing up his sari. i also met an amazing gastro bug who kindly stayed with me for 3 days so we could get to know eachother really well. (i suspect the culprit was some mashed potato i ate in varanasi...laced with water fresh from the ganges.)

i had a big day yesterday. i cried...more than once. i was scared...more than once. i was lost...more than once. but at the end of it all i made it to my hotel in the beautiful hill station of mussoorie...and i slept in a bed. i suspect that you did too.

cocoons aren’t meant to stay cocoons forever. they’re meant to turn into colourful, life-filled butterflies. that will be a good day.