Our last day at the national archives

Considering that Maura came her uncertain that she would find anything, this has been a very successful trip. If no-one else has written it yet (and I can't imagine that anyone has.. but we are talking about the academic world of the British empire so I could certainly be wrong), she has found enough information for a paper to write and present on this Englishman who spent a fortune as a failed farmer here on the Cape, which she can of course include in her dissertation information as well. The archives proved much richer in material that she even hoped for and she was able to document the sometimes very fragile material for further work later. I am also pleased to note that i was able to make that work go more efficiently because it really is true most of the time that two is better than one for most jobs in life. Learning how to work as a team may be one of the most important skills my students learn. Too bad that isn't easily scored on a quantitative test to be presented to the public.

As has been true most of the days, Maura orders the documents she wants, tells me the numbers and I find them when it's easy.. today it was not.. there were sometimes three numbers on the documents... she checks and makes sure it is indeed what it is what is supposed to be.. I take the pictures with her holding down the pages when the book makes the margins hard to see .. she writes it in her excel document (after I tell her the picture number on the camera)... just in case ya'll were interested in our system. So ya'll can easily see that this would have been much more tedious, and hard on Maura's back, if she had been doing this alone, getting up and down out of her chair to find the pages, take the pictures, document on excel, etc. I say this for those siblings.. not to mention any names.. who really didn't want me to come.. that I really wasn't just coming for the adventure...
And as long as we are venturing into the personal, I think I'll go back to the morning bus ride. Unlike most people, I don't think there is anyone on my Facebook, that I don't know in real life.. that I don't have a relationship with.. so if you are reading this blog.. you probably know me... if somehow you are reading this and don't .. well.. move on....

There was this precious little girl sitting beside her mama, holding on to her arm like she was not going to let her go; and for the first time in a long time, I missed my own mama fiercely. My mama and I had a complicated relationship. She was a wonderful mama, especially to young children. Strange children would come sit in her lap. Storytelling runs strong in my family and she may have been one of the best story tellers ever. I can still hear her voice as she read to my children in her soft, vibrant, ever-expressive voice. But she was a fearful woman, and she feared for me. And Lord knows I gave her reasons to be afraid. But I'm not sure that she was able to love me easily from the time I hit puberty until her Alzheimer's took her fear away at the end of her life. And being off my zoloft, seeing this child clinging so to her mother sent me straight back to mine and even now had me grieving in a way I haven't been able to for years. I remember how I used to snuggle in her arms and think that I would take on the world and everyone in it if they tried to come between me and my mommy or tried to hurt her in any way. She was my mommy and I loved her with all the fierceness that I now reserve for my own children. I had not remembered being on the other side until this beautiful little girl opened that door for me, a beautiful black angel. Charles Bedenbaugh, a close friend of my father's and a friend of all my family once told me, there are no accidents in life...

So.. now I will try to recreate our actual work week. Monday we went to the national library. I walked up the street to find the postal box I had seen the day before so that I could mail the handful of postcards I had. (We have been very good at both writing and mailing! However, due to my wreck and not knowing until the last minute if I was coming, I have a random selection of addresses so if you did not get one, that is the reason) I found the box where I thought it was but I walked all around it and there was no slit. I looked around to see if anyone was watching me trying to vandalize this box as I did try to open various parts that did not open then casually walked back the way I came. On the way back, I also took a picture of the whites and non-whites only benches in front of the government building. In tiny print, it said something about it being historical, but you couldn't tell from just looking. It was quite disconcerting.

I went back to the library, but no Maura. I went back out thinking someone had kidnapped her for her kidneys and met her at the gate. She had been distracted by the bric a brac store at the St. George's Cathedral (The Church of England church I couldn't remember the name of). I sent her off to the library and went back to check it out myself. I didn't find much to buy but I did find a delightful gentlemen to converse with. He told me many stories of working with Desmond Tutu as he was sure any American tourist would want to hear. On his first day as bishop, he came into this man's office spending an hour getting to know him asking him about him, his birthday, his wife's birthday.. I had already learned that this man did not have a wife and probably never wanted one.. but Tutu had said there was always hope.. until he asked his age and then he said that maybe for this man there was no hope.. His name was John.... I have it written down... Actually I have it on a program for the dedication of a picture window along with a CD of the dedication which he signed for me after much begging. He commiserated with me about my wreck but was not going to stop riding his motor bike after 50 years. We both discussed how much we enjoyed riding, and the there are just risks associated with living. His birthday is May 23, and if I remember I hope to send him a card for his 78th birthday next year. Maura and I took a short break for an overpriced pasta for me and a spinach pie and fries for her and then returned to the library and worked until they closed.

Tuesday was Maura's last day at the archives. She takes home more days of work that the hours she spent there but the information was preserved. The people there were so nice. There was one man who just kept looking at us and smiling. It was a little disconcerting at first but I think he was just so pleased to watch us work. We left there and checked out a few Indian clothing places but didn't really buy anything. Then we hit upon the Middle Eastern Fast food place (The Eastern Bazaar) where I had a falafel and Maura had Chicken Tikka. It wasn't the best I'd ever had, but the fixin's were great and it was definitely authentic. Neither of us got dysentery!

Wednesday Maura finished at the National Library with the exception of one document that they couldn't find. They are still looking for it, but unless they do, we will not be back. I did not take my notebook but just wrote postcards and read from my kindle. Carrying around two computers is just really hard on Maura's back when it isn't necessary.

From there we went to the District Six Museum. District Six was a truly international place in Cape Town full of Black, Indian, "colored" Jewish, and others who were ordered out in 1966 when apartheid made it a whites only area. It is so strange to me that at a time in my country when we were breaking down the walls of segregation, this place was building them up. Here again, I struck up a conversation with an older man and got a signature on a book he had written of his life in this district.  The most powerful piece of art for me was in this room upstairs that was in itself a conceptual art piece. It was a cloth book of Bible pages with one word on each page. I made Maura take a video of it as I turned the pages.

The museum had been converted from the old Buitenkamp Methodist Church.

One of many curiosities in the museum:  this was a circumcision kit that midwives carried around.  The knife was rusty.  Maura informed us that she would not be having any of that for her babies, rusty knife or no.

This was a really cool art/history installation in a small room to the right of the balcony. Little everyday items from District 6 wreckage had been cemented into the walls.  

Maura was very nervous and vertigo-y on the creaky balcony.

Another piece made from District 6 debris.

We took a bus to the Waterfront and checked out the crafts. The upper floor in this one place was really incredible with some awesome figures and some terrifying skins. I turned my head at one point and looked directly into the fangs of a lion that I was definitely not expecting. We picked up a few trinkets but are saving any big shopping for last minute, not wanting to carry anything around and wanting to just pack everything the day before we leave. I'm not usually a procrastinator like that and hope I don't regret it, but we really didn't come here to shop anyway.