Dear Me Letter

Dear Me

Remember me? I am you; you are me.

Ha! Bet that got your attention!

Seriously, this letter is to motivate you to achieve your writing goals this year. Last year was mediocre. Although you managed to have quite a number of magazine articles published, you never penned one line of your dream novel. You read twelve books which included two biographies (your favorite genre) and also acquired a Kindle (e-reader) which has created in you an even greater love for reading – if that is indeed possible.

However, you know that even while you read all the great authors and make note of their best quotations and plots, you’ve yet to realize your dream: to write that great African novel that has been growing in your subconscious mind for the past decade.

Cast your mind back to the beginning of the new millennium. Although you are a South African, born and bred, there’s a vast difference living in that civilized country nestled at the point of Africa and a third-world country thousands of kilometers to the north and the west.
Remember the day you landed at Conakry airport in Guinea, West Africa? It’s a culture shock only other expats can relate to.  Stepping into the airport building, teeming with people gabbling in different languages, the company liaison officer met you and eased your passage through the red tape of travel abroad.  Sitting in the company minibus hurtling through a city swarming with humanity, taxis, motorbikes, donkeys, mobile vendors, you fought a wave of apprehension.  The heat and the noise; the chaos, heavy traffic and the overwhelming smell permeating everything, was so different to what you‘d left behind in South Africa.

Then again, life on a remote gold mining site had its perks. You had a full-time job and it was while you were employed as secretary to the maintenance manager, and had unlimited access to the Internet, that you stumbled upon a writing website. Here you met online writers and poet. You joined in the writing exercises, reviews, critiquing and took part in competitions. Here you realized that your lifelong passion for writing is not just a passing phase; that with practice and perseverance you could indeed one day become a published author.

You signed up for a creative writing course and passed it with commendable marks. Confidence boosted, you used the life you lived (shopping for clothes, shoes, beauty products, medication, and household commodities in the nearby villages) as experiences to write about. Liaising with a Catholic Church based in Australia, you helped to donate stationery, elementary reading books and clothes to the poverty-stricken schools in the area.

In 2006 you entered a Writer’s Digest competition and received a Highly Commended Certificate out of 19,000 entries. Remember the elation when you read the letter from the editor of that esteemed US writers magazine, where she complimented you on a great piece of work?

All too soon though, your contract with the goldmine company ended and the idyllic life in Guinea rolled to a close. You returned to South Africa for the next two years. 

In January 2009, you joined our husband, who was stationed in Khartoum, Sudan. If West Africa was a culture shock, nothing could prepare you for the horrors of arriving at the totally alien Khartoum International airport. You were greeted with disdain by the all-male Sudanese customs officials, and they only spoke Arabic. They all wore long shapeless creamy white robes (you found out later these are called thawb) with turbans around their heads (later established as kufiyah). The bored-looking official behind the grimy window of a tiny office which felt like a sauna was the only person sitting upright; as this was the first day of Ramadan, the annual Muslim month of fasting, all the others were sleeping across desks, on chairs and on the floor against the walls An hour later, sweat pouring off you, you were relieved of US$110 and had a visitor’s permit stamped into your passport.

Left alone to find your luggage, you spied a stationary carousel in the foreground. Your suitcase on was on the ground next to it. Collecting it you made for what looked like the exit although you didn’t think you’d get through; a heaving mass of humanity was pushing at the door; people meeting family or friends, taxis offering their services and company representatives holding up name boards of visitors expected. Do you remember the tears of relief when you spotted our husband, whose tall, spare frame towered above the heads, reached across to pull you through the crowds? You stepped out of the building and onto the tarmac surrounding the car park where a wave of heat hit you that surpassed anything you’d ever experienced; even in West Africa! 

With your easily-adaptable nature, you soon settled into your first floor apartment (for want of a better word for the cavernous, French-architecture flat) in the slums of Omdurman, the oldest city of the three cities which make Khartoum so unique. You enrolled in Arabic classes and got to know your neighbors.  Within a couple of month you were able have a passable conversation with your new friends and negotiate with vegetable vendors and informal stall owners in their own language which meant the difference in paying local versus tourist prices.

That year, you completed an online course in magazine journalism. As part of the module where you learnt how to query an article with an editor, you submitted it to a South African magazine. Immediately the editor replied that he’d take your piece! Do you remember the thrill of that first successful publication made all the more special as when it appeared in the magazine before you even received your college certificate?

Life in the Sudan was not only studying, braving the chaotic traffic, and slogging through work. Regularly on Fridays, the Islamic Holy day, you and our husband drove into the Nubian Desert, which surrounded the city. Week after week, you discovered for yourself the unique pyramids of the Sudan and spent hours photographing them, and roaming through almost-forgotten temple ruins in the area.  You stopped on the side of the highway to talk to a wizened Sudanese man, who with a camel-driven wheel was grinding sesame seeds to make oil. On another occasion you met up with and spoke to a group of camel-riders who, for a fee, allowed you and our husband a ride on their camels. In between you shopped at informal stalls set out on the sand, once even finding a small collection of Sudanese coins dating back to 1907.

Traveling between North and South Africa to go out on leave every twelve weeks, you connected with another flight in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Ethiopia is the only African country which was never colonized. Once your departure from South Africa was delayed by two hours which meant, when you finally landed in Addis, you’d missed the flight to Khartoum. Ethiopian Airways booked their passengers in transit into a three-star hotel. The next flight north was at 6pm the following day. While the other passengers stayed in their rooms watching dvd’s or worked on their laptops, you asked reception to organize you an excursion of the city. They ordered a taxi whose driver turned out to be a wonderful tour guide and spent the day enjoying the sights and sounds of this vibrant city. Remember the awe you felt when you walked through Emperor Haile Selassie’s palace. Selassie was a great leader, but as with many African rulers, was more despised and feared than loved. Haile Selassie, who considered himself the Elect of God, was guarded by lions, cheetahs while hordes of servants pandered to his every whim. He fell from power when he was overthrown by Marxist military officers in 1974. A frail old man at 83, relegated to a backstreet apartment in the city, he died in 1975. His body, which had been unceremoniously stuffed under the concrete slab which was his royal bathroom, was exhumed 25 years later. He was given a decent burial and finally laid to rest in a crypt in the Trinity Cathedral.

All too soon, the two year contract in Khartoum came to an end and you returned to South Africa. After three months of a leisurely existence, reuniting with friends and family and enjoying the summer in your beautiful garden, you wondered if this was what retirement was all about.

Then unexpectedly came a call from the past; our husband was offered a position on a mine in Kenya, East Africa. Within a week, you were both aboard Air Kenya en route to Nairobi.  You were met by a company liaison officer who, the next day took you on a six-hour journey to a remote mining camp nestled at the foothills of the Kenyan Highlands.

Dearest Me, of all the places you’ve lived in Africa, Keirio Valley, deep within the Great Rift Valley, will remain the closest to heaven you’ve ever been. However, when you arrived there at the beginning of 2011, you had no idea that you’d only stay for a year.

Meanwhile, as always, you soon adapted to the remoteness of the site and got to know the two other ladies in the camp. You also discovered an abundance of bird life and nature in your garden and the wild African bush beyond.  Within a few weeks, you and the general manager’s wife, who became one of your dearest friends, regularly drove along remote roads on the outskirts of the mine, cameras at the ready, looking for - and spotting- rare and beautiful birds. Weekends were wonderful; you and our husband visited the many water bodies formed by volcanoes. The swathes of pink caused by thousands of flamingo bobbing on the lake surface, kept you clicking away.  And remember the ride across the huge lake to spend the weekend on an island resort which was a birdwatcher’s delight?

There were also visits to the many game parks; especially the world-famous Masai Mara Game Reserve with its unique migration of more than a million wildebeest, zebra and antelope from Kenya to Tanzania in January and back again in August. Not only did you discover dozens of new birds, but you were able to get close to and photograph the African Big Five: the elephant, lion, rhino, leopard and the buffalo. Of every animal seen on that holiday, (including baboons, zebra, antelope and more) you managed to photograph their young. At the time you said you wanted to write about this. Well, now’s the time to start!

You don’t need to be reminded about the idyllic life in Kenya. You only have to close your eyes and you’re transported back to your beautiful house surrounded on three sides by lush African bush. Keep still and you will hear the dozens of calls which embodied birdsong at its best.

January 2012, our husband received a new challenge; to manage a diamond mine project in Northern Tanzania. Soon you were re-settled in a small mining town where one of the many challenges was a lack of Internet connection. Through a series of adverse situations that year, your health and well-being was severely compromised.  Also, your creativity was literally sucked dry and apart from the few magazine articles which were published, your serious writing took a back seat. 

This year you‘ve already started as you mean to go on. This is commendable! You’re attending pottery classes three times a week and have started to sketch seriously in your spare time. Your photography is at the forefront of your interests as you collect images of interest to write about.

Now all that remains is for you to place your bottom on your office chair, your fingers on your keyboard and write The Great African Novel!

Good luck

Me

Word count: 1977