THE SEXY MONK

Trail Magic # 5- The Sign In The Road.

2007-06-18T05:19:00.000-05:00

"He who lives amongst men will be irremediably vexed. If he wants to avoid it he will have to go and live in the mountains, but when he is there he will discover that to live alone is vexatious." Francisco Goya, caption to "Los Caprichos # 58"

Many of my family photos feature mysterious phantasms. A basket of puppies, a family reunion picnic, and a tentative man-hug, all partially masked by a pink cloud-not the workings of the spirit world, but those of a hasty photographer. My maternal grandmother was forever taking pictures of her fingers. In the snapshot above, I am not unhappy to discover that (at a crucial moment) I've made the same mistake myself. My grandmother died many years before her time, yet the smudge is there like a little wink from the past. A friendly ghost in the woods. This picture was taken towards the end of my 2006 solo Appalachian Trail thru-hike. The A.T. is a 2,175-mile hike that starts on top of Springer Mountain in Georgia (outside of Atlanta) and winds its way through 14 U.S. states before finishing at the peak of the mighty Mount Katahdin in Maine (outside of Bangor.) The trail goes over many roads, streams, and bridges along the way, but the crossing I remember best is the one shown above. Its just a little paved track though the Maine wilderness, but the thing that makes it so special is the magic number painted on it-2000 miles. Due to trail rerouting over the years this sign now sits roughly at trail mile 2010, but all of those round numbers still made my imagination spin. The year 2000. One million dollars. "Bill-yuns and uh...bill-yuns." Did I really walk all that way? The whole time I was hiking, I avoided looking at maps of the entire A.T. This was not easy, because in trail towns and hostels they are as common as flags at a Fourth of July picnic. Somehow I thought that it would be bad mojo to consider all that I'd done and all that I had yet to do, like "The Snows of Kilimanjaro"-taking stock and coming up short. I first saw the sign in the road when I was watching a documentary about thru-hiking the A.T. on public television three weeks before I started my hike. My tent had just come in the mail and I had it spread out over the living room floor in a tangle of poles, chords, and smelly new plastic. I missed the first part of the film where, presumably the hikers didn't have their shit completely together. Maybe they had been a little pudgy (like me,) or had had a pack the approximate size and weight of a professional wrestler (like me.) I hoped that this was true, but when I tuned in, the hikers looked rough and ready. "Two men enter. One man leaves," tough. Calves hard and brown like temple bells. They stepped out of the woods and on to the pavement with all the emotion of pilgrims slipping into the Ganges. Some giggled nervously. Some posed for photos. Most sniffled and stopped a few beats before before pushing on. When I started my own hike in an icy February rainstorm, I had no reason to expect any more then hypothermia or trench foot. I wasn't an athlete in high school (or a math-lete for that matter.) When I was picked to play a position in gym class, you could usually find me picking at the grass or examining the clouds as the ball whizzed by. While I was living in rural South Africa the idea of doing a thru-hike got into my head and would not go away. I asked my Mom to send me a copy of Bill Bryson's audio book version of "A Walk In The Woods" and I listened to it nearly every night as I went to sleep. During that time, I was going to funeral after funeral-friends, neighbors, students, and members of my adopted African family, all victims of the AIDS pandemic. I spent my weekends handing out condoms and helping to dig graves in the red sandy soil. I could feel myself growing very brittle and tiny inside, like rushing water wearing away a stone. In January of 2005 I started jogging every morning in a fallow field near my room. At first I would lumber around for fifteen minutes and then collapse on my bed with my head swirling and stomach heaving. But within two weeks, I noticed that it didn't hurt so much and that I could go longer and longer without getting winded. I was also learning more about the tradition in African spirituality in which a person separates themselves from society in order to gain greater access to ancestor spirits and the unseen worlds. As a person who sees the world from a largely scientific vantage point, I believe that the source of these visions is internal (mental) and not external (otherworldly.) However, the traditional healers that and I both agree that dreams have tremendous value. For me, a source of ideas and images for painting. For them, an insight into the psychology of themselves and their patients. When I returned to the U.S. a few months later and actually started walking the trail, I had hopes that isolation in the woods would help me both manage my grief and gain access to seldom visited mental nooks and crannies. Physically, I found that (for all my training) I was at the very lowest level of fitness that would allow me to continue hiking without blisters or serious pain. Thankfully, thru-hiking is one of the few endeavors where the training and activity are rolled into one. Its just not possible to walk for twelve hours a day and hold down a job, or a relationship with a non-hiker, or anything at all. Being sort of a thru-hiker is like being a little bit pregnant. Mentally, I was happy to discover that I was better suited for the journey. I was accustomed to spending days alone in the studio, so spending the equivalent time in the woods did not hurt as much as it could have. I had time to dream deeply and practice what I learned in Africa-chatting with a few friendly ghosts. And, as winter bloomed into a warm Virginia spring, the world started to look less like an open grave. I met other hikers, hitchhiked, laughed, ground one pair of boots to powder, found a free pair of trail sneakers, proudly took on a silly trail name, and ate entirely too many Snickers bars. Then, I found myself standing alone on a little paved track in the Maine wilderness and looking down at at a sign written there-2000 miles. I felt like singing out, and also like setting up my tent on the double yellow line and waiting for a logging truck to come along. I sniffled and stopped for a few beats before pushing on.

My Youth In Asia # 2-"Pardon The Way That I Stare."

2007-05-12T05:29:00.001-05:00

"Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it."-Confucius

“You have blue eye, big big nose, small small mouth,” observed one of my students this week. When you live in a place where the dominant racial make-up is different from your own, you have to be prepared for people to take notice, and Seoul, South Korea is no different. At least people here tend to limit themselves to stares or muted giggles. During the three years that I lived in rural South Africa, my every step out-of-doors was accompanied by pointed fingers and shouts of, “White Man! White Man!”-like I was a polar bear escaped from the zoo. These days, I get a little thrill every time a pretty girl looks at me on the subway before I notice that she’s not flirting, but giving me the kind of look people usually reserve for bearded ladies or a sweet potato resembling Richard Nixon. Being mostly solitary and not much of a bar hopper, I was in town for nearly a month before I spotted another white person-a slender woman in her mid-30’s reading a book on the subway. After seeing only Koreans for a while, my mind did a little double take to find her there, like a CD player hitting a scratch. I probably looked at her longer than should have and if I hadn’t been wearing my “Super-Bored Subway Face,” I might have let out a little snort of surprised laughter. It was a couple of minutes before I realized that that this is exactly the same reaction that Koreans have when they see me walking around loose. They don’t mean to be rude- I’m just not what they expected to see. Sometimes I go around a blind corner and people actually take a startled step back like they’ve seen a ghost. Little children cry and hide behind their mother’s skirts. In old British movies, great white hunters are always running into each other in dusty backstreets of B.F.E. They become fast friends, get pissed, and complain about the heat and “the natives.” I’m not sure what to do when I run into other foreigners here. Are we supposed to cling to each other like shipwreck survivors, or play it cool and pretend like we didn’t just see a reminder of home? In my case, shyness won out and left the woman to enjoy her book in peace. Next time though, I’ll be prepared. I’ll walk right up to her and say, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”

My Youth In Asia # 1-Resident Alien.

2007-04-24T01:56:00.000-05:00

"Men's natures are alike, it is their habits that carry them far apart."-Confucius

I'm a stranger in town. I can't read. I don't speak the language. And I'm not exactly sure which way to face when using the toilet at school. I even have a little plastic card with my picture on it that ominously says, "Resident Alien." If you travel far enough from home you become like an infant again-dependent on the good character and kindness of those around you to just make it through the day. Tourists and business people pay good money to be wrapped in the trappings of home while staying abroad, but long term visitors don't have that luxury. Thus, life overseas has the potential to become an ongoing comic opera with the visitor wearing the bells and multi-colored tights. Strangely, I have made a habit of this over the past several years. After a year in India and three years in South Africa, I now find myself teaching English at an elementary school in Seoul, South Korea. The job opportunity came to me quickly with a snowstorm of faxes, rushed packages, late night e-mails, and a dash to Washington DC to collect my work visa. I needed a job in the worst way, and it just so happened that South Korea was the first to seal the deal. If the paperwork had gone slightly different, I would be in a jungle in Thailand or teaching overstressed businessmen in Japan right now. My great college professor Joanne Scott once told me that, "an artist should know everything." Yet, I always seem to find myself in situations where I know nothing or next to nothing. A crafty Zen Buddhist will tell you that to know nothing is to know everything-beautiful poetry, but not very helpful when trying to find out the price of carrots. At school I teach English lesson for several 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th grade classes. The kids troop in and I do my dog and pony show with my Korean counterpart. Before I got here, I imagined South Korean students sitting quietly and taking instruction like little monks-not even close. They are as rowdy as any children in the U.S.-boys and girls smacking each other Three Stooges-style during the lesson and practicing their professional wrestling moves during breaks while the teachers sit calmly by sipping from small paper cups of "Maxim Coffee Mix." "They are playing," said Ms. Kim, commenting on three girls giving a small boy an atomic wedgie. The first lesson I taught with each class included a little Q. and A. session and their questions soon developed into a pretty clear pattern: "Are you married?" I showed them my ring-less hand. "Do you have a girlfriend?" I admitted that I don't. "If you were in the market for a girlfriend, what style would you choose?" Style? Am I shopping for sneakers? "Umm..." I said, "I guess, I like girls that like me." "Do you like Korean girls?" "I like them fine," I said carefully, remembering my audience. Actually, I think Korean girls are sexy as hell and I've spent half my time here wandering around with my eyeballs busting out of my head and my tongue unrolling like a red carpet like the horny wolf in the old Tex Avery cartoons. In The States these gorgeous young women would be prancing down the street in designer originals followed by a flurry of modeling contracts and sugar daddies. Here, they calmly stroll around unobserved buying onions in ratty sneakers. Amazing. The kids had many follow-up questions in the same vein, but thankfully the Korean teachers refused to translate them. I wonder if I can officially classify myself as a hermit, now that 11-year-olds show more interest in my love life than I do? Someone from each class invariably asked if I like kimchi (spicy pickled vegetables-the Korean national dish.) An alimentary blitzkrieg, this 5-alarm death cabbage scorches me both entering and leaving. I like kimchi about as much as I like mixing ground glass in with my contact lens solution, but their expectant faces told me there was only one answer to this question. They actually stood up and cheered, “He likes kimchi! He likes KIMCHI!” Maybe I should give the horrible stuff another try. Between classes, I am besieged in the halls by students wanting to shake my hand, try out their English, or teach me a new Korean word. Mostly this is very pleasant, but they have shown a bizarre fascination with my hairy arms. If I stop for just a second to talk to another teacher, I will feel the touch of a little hand petting me like the world’s most deformed sheep dog. The older girls give me the most trouble in the hall-taking little movies of me with their cell phones and shoving their notebooks under my nose and shouting, “Sign!” I try to explain that they will get my autograph every time they do their homework, but it does no good. Last week, one girl grabbed my arm and declared, “You are my new boyfriend.” Another girl bounded over (“No, he me boyfriend!”) and a short slap-fight ensued. I retreated to the safety on the teacher’s lounge and breathed a sigh of relief. Thankfully, teenybopper hearts are as fickle as the breeze and they will soon move on to younger prey and leave this 30-year-old Pooperoo alone. In their own sweet natured way, the other teachers have gotten around to asking the same sorts of probing questions that the kids did-my love life, kimchi , my love life, my favorite pop band, my love life...Yet they have very good to me and have been kind enough to include me in all the bewildering number of after-school outings, diners, and club meetings that comprise life here. They even try to catch me up on their impenetrable conversations by giving me little summaries-after a half an hour of drumming my fingers, somebody will take pity on me and whisper in my ear, "They talk about TV show." For all my foreignness, I am surprised how quickly I have settled into my new life here. After all, Seoul isn't exactly the outback.The school has taken pains to provide me with a furnished apartment with all the trimmings. I have been loaned a laptop for the duration and I am the proud owner of a slightly used cell phone that appears to be many times smarter than I am. I wonder what the next year will bring? FOOD UPDATE : Since writing this essay two months ago, I've learned that most Koreans would rather hear you insult their mothers than talk trash about their national dish. I still would rather polish off the contents of my sink trap than eat the standard red and white lunchroom kimchi, but I have to report that I now love most kinds of it. The name kimchi refers to a pickled vegetable mixture and the dishes that fall under that name are as varied as the Western dishes that are called "salad." The big misconception about Korean food is that you will wind up being slipped dog meat at some point during your meal. Was it in the dumplings? Was it hiding under the lettuce? Actually, it wasn't anywhere. Dog soup is a relatively rare traditional delicacy enjoyed mostly by older Koreans. Anyone serving you dog soup would would be proud of their cooking and make sure to let you know what you are getting. The role of the dog in Korean life is very similar to the role of the rabbit in Western life. 95% of the time its a lovable family pet and 5% of the time its the blue plate special. Here, bunnies are strictly for petting and not for snacking. On a recent group hike in the mountains, we spied two fat bucks sparring under a tree and I said something dumb like, "Oh, boy! Dinner for two." My Korean companions stared at me as if I had professed a longing for deep fried cow pies. I guess that I won't be eating at their houses anytime soon.

South Africa # 43-Trouble At home: Part 3.

2007-04-04T11:44:00.000-05:00

South Africa # 42-Trouble At Home: Part 2.

2007-04-04T11:41:00.000-05:00

South Africa # 41-Trouble At Home: Part 1.

2007-04-04T11:38:00.000-05:00

South Africa # 40-Intelligent Design.

2007-04-04T11:35:00.000-05:00

Trail Magic # 4-Animals.

2007-04-02T16:52:00.000-05:00

Hiking the Appalachian Trail gives you a chance to see the country as few people in modern America do. It was amazing to stand on mountaintops all along the supposedly crowded East Coast of the United States and see nothing made by human hands-not a house, not a road, not power lines. Our views driving along the interstate highways lead us to believe that we are packed in like sardines. This is far from the truth. Its amazing to think that very heart of the developed world is so, well...undeveloped. I experienced the same feeling when I spent a year in India ( 2000.) Based on movies and news reports, I expected the whole country to be overflowing like a festering pickle barrel, but (save for some Calcutta side streets) the overwhelming feeling I had was one of spaciousness. Vast deserts, mountains, plains, and forests with the next tiny town hours and hours away by train. One billion strong, and where the hell were they? I love India for the way it defied all of my expectations-the woods were like that too. Living in the forest was very dream-like:rolling along in the woods, day after day and month after month. Sometimes I felt like I was asleep on the trail and only woke up when I was in town to wash up and get groceries. As the stresses on the body become routine, the mind wakes up to strange possibilities. Because I started in Georgia on February 22 and finished in Maine on October 9, I had the chance to see the sweep of all four seasons. I was blasted by snowstorms in North Carolina, saw the dogwoods bloom in Virginia, walked through forests of poison ivy in Pennsylvania, and ogled the Fall colors on my final climb up Mount Katahdin. Living in the woods also put me in contact with all the animals of the Appalachian mountains. Everyone talks about the Black Bears (the smaller cousin to the Grizzly Bear found in the Western U.S.,) but I saw relatively few during my hike. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is supposed to be crawling with them, but it was so icy when I hiked through in March 2006, that they were still hibernating. Before I went into the park, a guy I met on the trail told me to howl like a hound if I saw a bear in the park, because people in that area hunt bears with dogs and the sound would send the bear straight up a tree. I never got to try out his advice, but this is also the guy that told me that feral pigs were going to eat my toes while I slept. Thankfully, I still have all ten of my own little piggies. Bears know a good thing when they see one and (like deer and moose) use the A.T. to get from place to place. Some parts of the A.T. were were originally animal trails used by the Indians, before they became part of our unusual modern migration. Horror stories aside, bears have no more desire to have a confrontation with you than you do with them. I heard from a few people on the trail that 9 times out of 10, a bear will smell a hiker coming down the trail (not a tough job to get wind of a thru-hiker) and hide behind a bush until he passes by. Encounters usually happen if the bear is surprised or if food is stored improperly around camp. The best areas to see bears on the A.T. are in protected areas where they are not hunted, like Shenandoah National Park in Northern Virginia and New Jersey. The bears I saw in Virgina were at a safe distance and looked cute, playing in a sunny meadow. The one-eared big mama with cub in tow that I saw coming Southbound towards me in Jersey made my mouth go dry and my brain shrivel like a raisin. I took an immediate left turn and dove down the embankment next to the trail, getting scratched up in the process. I guess that I looked too stupid to be a threat, and she passed by without a second look. Its a very primal feeling that comes over you when you have an encounter with a wild animal that is much larger than you are-a spark very low down in the lizard brain. A sparking mind and watery knees. Evidence of an inner darkness. Australopithecus felt this, and I felt it too as I watched an 850-pound bull moose approach me heading south on the on the A.T. At first, it looked like a south-bound hiker dressed all in brown, but I quickly realized what it was. I had seen several moose on the trail starting in southern Vermont- all cows or calves grazing on water plants. Forget cartoon silliness, seeing this majestic beast on that misty morning in Maine was as close as I will ever come to my childhood dreams of seeing a dinosaur. It strolled forewords snuffling and calling, "Buuuu...Buuuu," as I stepped off the path to let him pass. I was near enough to smell his musky odor, but not quite close enough to reach out and touch his fur. He never gave any sign that he noticed me. As it turns out, this was a very fortunate thing. A few days later in the trail town of Monson, Maine I learned that it was rut season and bull moose were apt to exhibit extremely unpredictable behaviour. I am forever thankful that that moose never took a liking to me. I don't think I could live life being know as Bullwinkle's girlfriend. Most thru-hikers run into a few snakes during their hike. Usually they are harmless, but there are are a few places where poisonous snakes are common-notably in Pennsylvania. The whole of the A.T. is rocky, but the trail in Pennsylvania specializes in rocks seen nowhere else an earth. The apple-sized ankle buster. The giant tilting slippery slab. And the razor-sharp boot slasher. A whole symphony of stony pain. All of these rocks provide an ideal home for rattlesnakes. A cool underside for hiding and a warm top for sunning. I was bopping along on a ridge-line in the central part of the state listening to my radio at full volume when there was a buzzing. I wasn't immediately sure if I felt it or heard it-maybe a little of both, like being close to an unusually large stereo speaker. I froze and looked down at an angry diamondback coiled three inches from my boot. I did an awkward one-legged pogo hop backward about 10 feet and stared. The snake glanced coolly back as if to say, "you almost stepped on me, you dumb shit?" Then we waited. The ridge line was extremely narrow with nowhere to dogleg around rattler. 5 minutes. 10 minutes. 15 minutes. The snake settled down again and went to sleep. I tried to sidle past, but the terrible sound immediately began again and I returned to my spot. Then, after waiting half an hour, I decided put some of those famous Pennsylvania rocks to work for me. At first I threw pebbles, but he seemed unimpressed. Then I threw a few slightly larger stones and he began shift slightly. Finally, I whipped a flat rock about the size of a dinner plate at him and it connected hard. My last sight of the diamondback was of its lithe body (now bent like a kinked garden hose) squirting between two boulders. As I continued down the trail and past its home, I imagined revenge and sharp fangs lunging from secret places. White-tailed Deer are a common sight on the A.T. Growing up, my Dad was an avid hunter, so I was more familiar with the sight of them in stew than in person (or...uh, mammal.) In the Spring, there seem to be more deer than squirrels on the trail-crashing through the woods and bounding around every corner. During my first night in Shenandoah National Park, I was stealth camping (pitching your tent next to the trail instead of at an A.T. shelter) in a beautiful little spot in the woods. I was fresh from a couple of days in Waynesboro, Virginia and I was sleeping off a big dinner perishable town food. In the middle of the night strange sounds all around my tent woke me up and I sat up straight to listen. By that time I had gotten used to all to the normal skittering and crunching of the forest at night, but these sounds were very unusual-a leaky tire sound:"Ftttt..."/a farting sound: "Ptttt.../and a little James Brown grunt: "Hunnn..." I switched on my weak little LED reading light and peered out through the little plastic windows at the top of my tent-nothing. I was just about to unzip the door when there were two crunching footsteps just inches away and the whole side of my tent bowed in. Without thinking (and also scared shitless,) I smacked the thing through the thin plastic. There was a tremendous crashing as it backed away. I whipped aside the tent flap to see that I was surrounded by a circle of 12 deer-their eyes silver discs. The amazing thing was that they barely moved at the sight of a confused human blundering around. I hollered like a lunatic and banged my hiking sticks on the ground. They bounced away, but as soon as I settled back in my bag, they were back poking around and holding their strange flatulent conversations. I fell asleep again with them bumping against the tent. When I woke up the deer were gone, and I briefly wondered if the previous night’s events had been a Mountain Dew Code Red-induced hallucination, but I wasn’t more than a couple of hundred yards down the trail when I heard a familiar noise right behind me. In the daylight the doe looked not spooky, but as an advertisement for wildlife management-rail thin with a goofy expression and partly tame from nearly constant contact with humans. She (and many other deer I encountered in S.N.P.) acted more like an abused family dog, than her sprightly cousins I had seen by the dozens outside of the protected area of the park. I’m not saying that hunting should be allowed in the park, but I did get a sense that something was sadly out of balance there. It’s the large animals that many day-hikers come for and hope to see, but it’s the smallest animals that a thru-hiker needs to pay attention to in order to remain healthy on the trail. I never met anybody on the trail that was attacked by a bear, but I met plenty of people who had been bitten by deer tics, mosquitoes, and brown recluse spiders. Deer tics are incredibly small and difficult to find on an unwashed body. They tend to cling to the arms or legs and crawl up to attach themselves in the armpit or crotch, though I saw infection sites on other hikers on the small of the back, calf, and upper chest. The tell-tale mark of lyme disease is a red bull’s-eye at the point of infection. During the late spring and summer months, my last act of the day before climbing into my sleeping bag was to check myself for tics. Lyme disease is a potentially disabling and long lasting illness, but fortunately treatment is very effective if diagnosed early. I knew a few hikers who slowed down or took a week off, after beginning treatment, but continued their hike and went on to climb Katahdin. However, these people are uncommonly tough. I would have been home in a flash (wrapped up in a blanket, eating chicken soup, and watching "Oprah") if I had gotten any lyme symptoms. Mosquitoes are everywhere on the A.T. and a great annoyance in states with swampy trail (that is to say-all of them.) I remember running flat out through one section of New Jersey perused by a cloud of the bastards while spraying myself with a whole can of Deep Woods Off. NJ mosquitoes gulp down bug spray like an energy drink-I might just as well have doused myself with "Aunt Jemima" for all the good it did me. In Massachusetts, before one particularly horrible walk through a swampy area on a raised walkway, I saw a little piece of notebook paper stuck to a post-written on it in a combination of blood and crushed mosquitoes was the warning, “KISS YOUR ASS GOODBYE, MUTHAFUCKA.” One of the best parts of any hiker’s day is getting into camp, pulling off your boots, and slipping on a pair of comfortable shoes (in my case- dollar store flip flops.) But, when you move out Brown Recluse Spiders sometimes move in, attracted by the warmth, darkness, and overall stank. And the next morning,when the spider finds its new home invaded by a 5-headed monster (your foot,) he strikes. The Brown Recluse is a relatively small and unassuming animal, but its bite is feared by hikers because of its tendency to become necrotic. The feet are a hikers most vulnerable area( aren't you glad I didn't say "Achilles heel",) and a tendency to blister or an infected cut or bite can easily end someones dream of a successful thru-hike. Necrotic bites are supposed to be a rare occurrence, but I met 6 hikers while I was walking who had serious foot lesions as a result of a spider taking up residence in their boots. To avoid this happening to you, just give your boots a tap and a shake before putting them on in the morning. I can't end on poisonous spiders, so I'll finish by telling you about ponies. Just about every thru-hiker's favorite section of the southern A.T. is the small piece that runs through Grayson Highlands State Park in Southern Virginia. A Beautiful stony landscape with lots of balds, great views and a nice network of trails-plus a whole bunch of shaggy ponies running around looking like Ice Age leftovers (see photo.) Though technically wild, the ponies are used to people and allow you to get close enough to pet them. I had a magical couple of hours, just leaving my pack by the trail and walking among the herd before pushing on. I was a little surprised to find out later that this park is seldom visited despite being close to 5 states (Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky.) Grayson Highlands State Park is a true gem and well worth your time. It would be a particularly good place to introduce kids to camping or hiking. One last word-Don't let tales of animal encounters gone wrong discourage you from visiting or enjoying your wilderness trip. There is an infinitely greater chance of getting in a dangerous situation on the car trip to the woods than in the woods itself. For every snake I encountered on the A.T. I saw 10,000 butterflies.

South Africa # 39-Revival Tent.

2007-04-02T16:43:00.000-05:00

South Africa # 38-Badimo Ba Bua: Part 2.

2007-04-02T09:20:00.000-05:00

South Africa # 37-Bad Magic.

2007-04-02T09:06:00.000-05:00

South Africa # 36-Born Under A Bad Sign.

2007-04-01T13:11:00.000-05:00

Soth Africa # 35-Kinky And Safe.

2007-04-01T13:08:00.000-05:00

South Africa # 34-New Hairstyle.

2007-04-01T13:05:00.000-05:00

South Africa # 33-Heatstroke: Part 2.

2007-04-01T13:02:00.000-05:00

South Africa # 32-Heatstroke: Part 1.

2007-04-01T12:59:00.000-05:00

South Africa # 31-Political Games.

2007-04-01T12:56:00.000-05:00

South Africa # 30-Pieta.

2007-04-01T12:55:00.000-05:00

South Africa # 29-Doubting Thomas.

2007-04-01T12:52:00.000-05:00

South Africa #28-First Contact.

2007-04-01T12:49:00.000-05:00

South Africa # 27-Jesus In The Wilderness: Part 2.

2007-04-01T11:02:00.000-05:00

Trail Magic # 3-Trail Magic.

2007-03-31T19:09:00.000-05:00

Trail magic is the blanket term used by Appalachian Trail (A.T.) thru-hikers when we talk about bit of good fortune that we've had while hiking. It can take many forms, from an easy hitch into town, to sodas left in a stream beside the trail for hikers to find, to cash. Of course, trail magic isn't magic at all, but a kindness paid to a stranger. Hikers call people who perform trail magic Trail Angels, because they often work wonders for us we are at our most desperate. During every successful thru-hike, there comes at least one point where the urge to give up the trail is overwhelming. No matter how transcendent some moments may be, hiking the whole A.T. can start to feel like the The Bataan Death March if things are not going well. My moment came at a park near the New York/New Jersey border. This area is very dry, so kind people who live near the trail often take it upon themselves to place gallon jugs of water next to the trail during hiking season. Along with the water they sometimes include a cooler stocked with sunscreen, insect repellent, or Little Debbie cakes. Usually there is a notebook and a pen included, so that we could leave a little note of thanks before pushing on. One of these stations is maintained by the Tuxedo Hiking Club (consisting of exactly 2 members-John and Susan Hayden.) In the front of their notebook was an offer to take in hikers in for the night. I was beat and feeling really terrible at the time, and if I had been carrying a cell phone, I would have called them right away and taken them up on their offer. This was in July and the heat was fantastic. I wrote down the Tuxedo's phone number, pulled my pack on and trudged on. The going was really rocky and slow-I heard later that this section of trail is infamous and is called "Ankle-Buster Valley" or "Hernia Gulch" or some such. Around 3 o'clock that afternoon, I was out of water again, so I decided to take a side trail down a lakeside park where my A.T. guide book told me water could water be found. Even though I was pretty dry, I nearly didn't go down there because the park was a half a mile downhill, which would mean another half-mile slog up hill in the heat to get back to the A.T. When I got down there, I found the lakeside park full of happy families and young couples from New York City all laughing and having a good time. Nobody said anything to me, but I felt like an intruder-this filthy hobo crashing in on their good times. Hiking the A.T. by myself was a lonely business, but having to see everyone there made me feel like a lunatic. I wondered, "Why the fuck do I have to walk to Maine, anyway? I'm sick. I'm dirty. And I stink like I've been dead for a week. Why am I doing this to myself?" I felt like crying, but I filled up my water bottle and started back up the hill to the trail. Then there was a car beside me on the road. A lady poked her head out the window and called, "Are you a thru-hiker? Are you a thru-hiker?" It was a friend of another hiker named Irish who I had walked with a few days earlier. She had been hiking with Irish for a couple of days and was headed back to New York. She gave me all the extra food that she had left over from hike. I remember her rummaging around in her back seat and trunk looking for any hidden bits of food. She talked to me like a long lost friend and not a bum. She also let me use her cell phone to call the Tuxedo Hiking Club. I talked to John Hayden and told him where I was, and a few minutes later he was pulling up to the traffic circle at the lakeside park. That night, John and Susan treated me to a great dinner and let me wash my clothes, before falling asleep between clean sheets for the first time in several weeks. I stashed my pack in their garage, so I wouldn't bring my hiker-stench inside their house. The next morning, I asked John to stop in at a mini-mart, so I could top off my food bag. John wouldn't let me pay, but bought all my groceries himself. A few minutes later, John dropped me off at the little lakeside park and I gave him my thanks. That morning, I returned to my hike with more energy and a much better attitude and I started to make some miles. When I stopped for lunch that day, I discovered that John and Susan had put 40$ in my pack-two crisp 20s. I was stunned by their kindness. And the amazing thing is that these types of events are all to common on the A.T. In central Virginia, a Canadian couple handed me 20 dollars and told me to "buy some pizza"-not the hardest marching orders I've ever gotten. I remember hiking with my friend The Chocolate Bandito in the pouring rain and coming across a bucket of candy sitting in a newly mown field. We just stood there eating candy as water dripped off our noses. In Massachusetts, a former A.T. hiker and his girlfriend flew all the way from Texas to set up a big barbecue for hikers at the shelter outside of Dalton. In New Hampshire, a Lutheran Minister slipped me a 50 dollar bill in a handshake after giving me a ride into town. In Vermont, a middle-aged lady incongruously dressed in a lace top, camouflage pants, and combat boots offered to give me one of her "special blowjobs" while giving me a ride back to the trail. I was getting the vibes that it might be little too "special" and that I might find myself in a "special unmarked grave," so I decided to pass on that bit of trail magic. North Carolina and Tennessee have a reputation on the trail for being the most generous states trail magic states. Based on my experience, this bit of trail wisdom is true. For a long time, it seemed like every other stream I passed had a case of Mountain Dew or Budweiser floating in it and I would find a bag of snickers or fruit at every road crossing. I can't tell the how amazing it felt to come across these little gifts in the middle of the forest. Beyond the sugar rush, it was the feeling that there were people out there who wished me well. I can't thank them enough.

Trail Magic # 2-Gear.

2007-03-31T13:31:00.000-05:00

The items that you decide to take on a long-distance hike are your business. If you want to bring your lucky cinder block along, that's up to you. But, when you have to lug an object endlessly up and down mountains, you quickly discover for yourself if its useful enough to haul around or not. If you don't use something at least once in an average day of hiking (except medicine or other emergency supplies) you need to seriously consider chucking it. Editing items out of your pack is a lot like editing a piece of writing, you often have to "kill your darlings" and leave cherished things behind. When I started my Appalachian Trail thru-hike in February 2006, I thought that I had a pretty good base of knowledge about what I needed to take. I had spent a lot of time as a kid growing up in upstate New York tramping around the woods and camping with my Dad, and I had just lived for 3 years in decidedly less-than-posh circumstances in a tribal village in rural South Africa. I also took the two months before my hike to get things together, yet I still made a lot of mistakes. I later found out that some people spend years putting together and testing the items needed for a successful A.T. thru-hike. Because of some of the older gear that I used and things I didn't take that other hikers count as essential items, I was damn lucky that I made it as far as I did. When I started, I was carrying way too much food (say enough for the Chinese Army,) but I soon figured out how much I needed to carry to hike a given distance. During early weeks of my hike, I received a lot of unsolicited advice concerning the type of things that I should be carrying. Hikers compare gear like dogs sniff assholes. I'm sure that most of this talk was good-natured and natural, because gear is something that all hikers have in common, but I soon grew very tired of it. People were always showing me fancy and expensive gear that was way beyond my price range and skill level. I remember running into a guy who claimed that the was hiking the 2,175-mile A.T. as an "appetizer" for his 2,600-mile Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike, who stopped in the middle of the trail and pulled everything out of his pack telling me each item's cost and weight in turn. This is the type of fetishistic Keeping-Up-With-The-Joneses aspect of hiking is exactly the thing that I went into the woods to avoid. I guess no matter where guys go (the locker room or the U.N.) they wind up comparing their junk. With this in mind, I'm going to tell you what I learned about gear during my hike. I don't recommend any particular brands of gear. I only mention brand names in this essay when I don't know the generic alternative. THINGS I DIDN'T TAKE:(1) A HATCHET OR SAW-Most thru-hikers are way too tired at the end of the day to build fires. If you do have the energy, there is usually plenty dead fall and dry leaves around-no need to chop down a living tree and burn smoky green wood. Plus, Do you know how heavy that shit is? (2) A PISTOL-Dear, Grizzly Adams-this is the 21st century and you can hitchhike into town from the A.T. and get your vittles. There isn't much in the forest to shoot, except for your own foot. Leave the widowmaker at home, Hoss. (3) A BEAR BELL OR PEPPER SPRAY-If you hang your food an appropriate distance and height from where you sleep at night and don't cook in or next to your tent it is very unlikely that bears will bother you, though female hikers may want want to keep the pepper spray to fend off the Pink-Blazers. The Sexy Monk's trail dictionary defines a "pink-blazer" as a male thru-hiker who constructs elaborate plans to remain in the vicinity of a female thru-hiker in the largely futile attempt to gain entry to her sweaty hiking panties. In normal life a guy exhibiting this behavior is called simply a "stalker." Though I feel sorry for the women in these situations, all of the female hikers I knew were more than capable of handling themselves. Plus, news of anything really inappropriate would have rocketed up and down the trail in no time. I can also sympathize with the guys just a little on this one. Weeks and weeks alone in the forest with only Mother Thumb and her four daughters for company, and then...KA-BOOM! There is a real girl right in front of you. On the trail, girls you would you would usually describe as being "like a sister" or as "a real pal" take on a fascination unmatched by the perfumed harems of the Orient. While in the green tunnel, its easy to be hypnotized by the pink tunnel. (4) SLEEPING PAD (Thermarest) -I spent a lot of uncomfortable nights, because I pinched pennies and didn't get one. There always seemed to be a pebble or stick that worked its way between your shoulder blades during the night, causing me to loose sleep. On my next long distance hike, a good light weight sleeping pad will be the first thing in my pack. (5) A CAMP STOVE -Most of my fellow hikers thought I was crazy for not at least carrying a little alcohol burning stove. Miss Janet (Miss Janet's Hostel in Erwin, Tennessee- fantastic place) even made me one out of two beer cans squashed together, but I never used it. I got used to cold food on the trail and it didn't bother me. Lots of times I would find dehydrated precooked food in hiker boxes, add in a little creek water, seal it back up, walk for a couple of hours, and then enjoy the re-hydrated goodness. The Sexy Monk's trail dictionary defines a "hiker box" as a receptacle in which hikers place unwanted items of food, clothing, or gear for other hikers to find and use as they see fit. Hiker boxes are commonly found in motels, hostels, and post offices in towns along the A.T. (6) A CELL PHONE -I didn't take one, but I wish I had. People with cell phones didn't have a signal in the valleys, but they usually got one in town or on some of the higher peaks. On the trail, cell phones are not the annoying accessories that they are in the city. They have the potential to be very helpful in an emergency, though not as useful as a saint bernard with a barrel of brandy around its neck. THINGS I DID TAKE, BUT TOSSED LATER-(1) A WATER FILTER PUMP-When I started my hike I used an old pump filter that I had bought few years earlier to use in India. This contraption worked well, but was bulky and hard to keep clean. When I stupidly sucked sand up into it an fouled up the works in southern Virginia, I replaced it with water treatment drops (Aqua Mira) that were much lighter and worked just as well. When the drops ran out (in southern New Hampshire) and I couldn't find a replacement, I switched to carrying a little bottle of bleach. If I took water from a source I didn't completely trust, I would add in a few drops of bleach, swish it around, and let it sit for a little while. I'm not sure if this did any good or not but I never got sick from bad water while I was hiking. During the year I lived in India, I had one serious intestinal malady after another, so maybe I've got good poop-karma built up. (2) ORANGE PLASTIC POOP SHOVEL - When you hear nature's call (or shout) its not always near a privy. I carried a little shovel to dig cat holes in the woods until I discovered that stout stick or the end of a hiking pole works just as well. (3) PACK COVER-A pack cover is like a big shower cap that fits around the outside of your rucksack. In my experience, pack covers always ALWAYS leak. Water seeps around from the exposed back of the pack and collects on the bottom soaking just about everything. Its so frustrating to hike all day in the rain and have to curl up and go to sleep in a wet sleeping bag. I did it several times and it is truly miserable. I found that wrapping your vulnerable gear (sleeping bag, extra socks, journal, guide book) in heavy duty garbage bags (trash compactor bags, if you can find them) keeps you things much drier. THINGS I DID TAKE-(1) AN EXTRA SET OF CLOTHES -Some hostels along the trail have pile of old clothes that you can wear while you wash your astoundingly smelly trail clothes, but not all do. In towns without hostels, this requires the hiker with one set of clothes to sneak to the back of the laundromat and change into his rain poncho while his clothes were being cleaned and then sneak back and change into his clothes again. As much as I respect the ingenuity shown by these hikers, I feel that this situation uncomfortably blurs the line between "outdoorsman" and "flasher." This goes double for the fashion of male hikers wearing so called "hiking kilts." (2) A RADIO -Most people on the trail did not have a radio, but I found it endlessly useful and entertaining. The A.T. induces a state if Buddha-like peace and tranquility, but even the Dalai Lama likes to get down and boogie from time to time. I carried a little 20$ Sony model with AM/FM/TV band/Weather band-weight: all of about 3 ounces. I remember rocking down a hill in North Carolina at full speed while singing along to "Roxanne"and nearly crashing into an astoundingly beautiful girl walking a tall white dog who said, "Jesus! You've been out here a long time, haven't you?" Plus the weather band kept me from pushing on into hail or thunderstorms-worth its weight in gold. (3) A TENT- A lot of the ultra-light hiking crowd get away with carrying two hiking poles and a rain poncho, but I consider this a poor excuse for a shelter. There are times when the lean-tos are full, or you feel like pushing on, or the weather forces you to give up for the day. I loved my tent, and I would sometimes spend whole zero days (days where I hiked zero miles/ days off) parked in a field just drawing, reading, and soaking up the sun. These were some of my sweetest days on the trail. I remember them much better than the times that I just ground it out. Whether you're an old skool external frame character or a hard core fascist who trims every other hair off his toothbrush before setting out, I think we can all agree that the most essential piece of gear can't be found at any hiking store. It weighs about three pounds, comes in only one color, and sits comfortably between your ears.

Trail Magic # 1-Introduction.

2007-03-31T07:21:00.000-05:00

"The path to Han Shan's place is laughable,

A path, but no sign of cart or horse.

Converging gorges-hard to trace their twists

Jumbled cliffs-unbelievably rugged.

A thousand grasses bend with dew,

A hill of pines hums in the wind.

And now I've lost the shortcut home,

Body asking shadow, how do you keep up?"

-Han Shan (between 630 and 830 C.E.)

translated by Gary Snyder

The Appalachian Trail is a beast. A "foot path" 2,175 miles long and usually just a few inches wide, the A.T. slithers across 14 U.S. states-up and down mountains, through small towns and near enough to New York City to glimpse it through it through the smog, across swamps, streams, pastures where cattle graze, and ridge lines where hawks soar. The Appalachian Trail as a contiguous unit was completed in August of 1937, but some parts of it are much older. In North Carolina and Tennessee, large trees twisted into unusual "L" or "S" shapes are a common sight. These are not natural phenomenon, but were trained by Indians who would twist saplings into unusual shapes in order to create trail markers. The 40-mile section of the A.T. in Maryland (some of the easiest hiking on the whole trip) was used to run supplies and troops by both the Northern and Southern armies during the American Civil War (1861-1865.) In 2006, I was one of the 500+ people lucky enough to successfully hike the entire trail from its origin on Springer Mountain in Georgia (outside of Atlanta) to its terminus on Mount Katahdin in Maine (outside of Bangor.) Hiking the entire A.T. in one year is known as a "thru-hike." Hiking the entire A.T. over the course of a number of years is known as a "section-hike." Like a lot of people, I got my first taste of life on the trail from reading Bill Bryson's book about his 1996 attempt at an A.T. thru-hike, "A Walk In The Woods." Though I have since discovered that portions of the book are distortions or outright fiction, I still recommend it to people who ask me about the trail because it is entertaining and the information in the essay sections of the book is accurate (if a little out of date now.) Everybody on the trail has an opinion about Bill Bryson, and the word "muthafucka" usually features in it somewhere, but I'm grateful to him for opening up the world of long distance hiking to me. The first thru-hike was completed by WW 2 vet and Pennsylvania native Earl Shaffer in 1948. Since the 1980's thru-hiking the A.T. has become an increasingly popular activity. Each year somewhere between 1500-2500 hikers begin a hike with the intention of walking all the way to the other end-with anywhere from a 15-25% success rate on any given year. Exact numbers concerning the A.T. and its hikers are estimates, because people are not required to officially register in most places and almost everyone uses pseudonyms or "trail names." We didn't all walk around with T-shirts that said "THRU-HIKER" or carry around any special papers. A thru-hiker is just somebody on a really really long walk in the mountains. About 90% begin on Springer Mountain and walk North, like I did. These folks are called Northbounders. And most of the rest start at Mount Katahdin and hike South. These folks are called Southbounders. In this short series I am not going to give you a day-by-day account (ZZZzzzzzz) of my thru-hike, but instead share some stories, information, snapshots, and advice for planning your own long-distance hike. I did a lot of things right, but also made quite a few mistakes along the way. There are as many ways to hike the A.T. as there are people who hike it. If you ask 10 hikers what constitutes a successful thru-hike, you will get at least 50 different opinions. Everything from, "burn up as many miles as super-humanly possible with a pack the size of a hummingbird's nest or you're a loser," to, "I walked until it wasn't fun anymore and then I stopped. Are those Sour Cream and Onion chips, dude?" I've seen people who were in fantastic shape with the best gear burn out or break their ankles in the first week. And I've shaken hands on Katahdin with middle-aged guys with pot bellies who drank beer and smoked the trees the whole way. To quote Chuck Berry, "you never can tell." You don't know what's in your heart until you put it to the test. Many of the people who have hiked the A.T. in recent years have posted their thoughts on the "Trail Journals" web site. If you are interested in this series, you can find many more related stories at: http://www.trailjournals.com/ If you are researching your own hike (1 day or 100) on the A.T. a good place to start is on the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (A.T.C.) web site: http://www.appalachiantrail.org/

South Africa # 26-Second Contact.

2007-03-26T16:23:00.000-05:00

Boogie Chillin' Triptych

2007-03-26T15:13:00.000-05:00

South Africa # 25-WHAG Ubuntu Project.

2007-03-24T17:10:00.000-05:00

Ideas for paintings come from many places. Intriguing images stick with me and won't stay quiet until I put my own version of them down on paper. Today's drawing (above) contains two figures from a fantastic piece of embroidery made by the artists of the WHAG Ubuntu Project (below). The Project (based in The William Humphreys Art Gallery in Kimberly, South Africa) provides a platform for gifted artists to make and sell their own artwork. The money from the sale of these items goes directly to the artist's families, who are struggling with poverty and AIDS. For more more information about the WHAG Ubuntu Project, see their web site: http://whag.co.za/

Below: Two more examples of the powerful and unusual embroidery produced by WHAG Ubuntu Project artists.

South Africa # 24-Badimo Ba Bua.

2007-03-24T15:13:00.000-05:00

South Africa # 23-Jesus In the Wilderness: Part 1.

2007-03-24T14:45:00.000-05:00

Apartheid Triptych # 2

2007-03-18T09:28:00.000-05:00

Apartheid Triptych # 1

2007-03-18T09:22:00.000-05:00

South Africa # 22-Be Wise Condomize.

2007-03-16T16:30:00.000-05:00

Vision In The Forest Triptych

2007-03-13T14:30:00.000-05:00

Altered States Triptych

2007-03-13T13:34:00.000-05:00

Tempting The Buddha Triptych

2007-03-13T12:49:00.000-05:00

About The South Africa Series

2007-03-03T17:40:00.000-05:00

What do you know about Africa? Chances are, If you grew up in North America or Europe your views are comprised mainly of images from the nightly news (war, poverty, AIDS-a basket case) with a few late night screenings of "Tarzan" and movies with James Earl Jones acting kingly and wearing leopard skins thrown in. Well, Bwana I've got a secret for you: Africans watch TV too, and get most of their ideas about you from old soap operas, corny movies, rap videos, professional wrestling, and trashy talk shows. During my first year in South Africa, I couldn't go anywhere without somebody trying to put me in a sleeper hold or asking if I was on a first name basis with George W. Bush or "Fitty-Cent." They had is wrong about me, but how could they not with nothing but pop culture to go on? The same is true on our side. We don't know Africa. I can't change that with one blog or one hundred blogs. And, unlike the news, I won't pretend to give you "THE TRUTH." But, I do have some good stories to tell you. I lived my life, talked to people, and drew pictures in a part of the world that hosts few foreigners. The drawings featured in this series were created during the three years that I lived near the village of Tlakgameng in the Northwest Province of South Africa. This is a desert area just south of the border with Botswana, home to the Tswana ethnic group. The South African Government estimates that 33% of the people living in the Northwest Province are HIV positive. Unfortunately, my personal experience bears out these numbers. In a small neighborhood, it is not unusual to have several funerals going on at the same time. I watched many of my friends wither and die from AIDS. However, people are not the disease that they may carry. Even in the hardest times, we would find excuses and even cause for celebration. I have never laughed as often or as hard as during my time in South Africa. This may seem inexplicable or even cruel if you only know Africa from the TV news. But, I think you will find that if TV has touched something you know well, it is thematically as well as physically flat. Real life is much more rich and complicated. From January 2003 to April 2005, I worked as a US Peace Corps volunteer. As an education volunteer I was assigned to teach at three different schools, but I soon branched out to help with many other projects. I presented my HIV workshops to many church groups, community organizations, and traditional healer meetings, and distributed condoms from my home at all time of the day and night. What they don't tell you in the ads is that Peace Corps service leaves a lot of people feeling confused. Our pop culture and religions tell us that a person can save the world as you would save a child from drowning. It is painful to discover that a person may sometimes be assisted if they ask for help, but the world cannot be held, shaped, and perfected like a ball of clay. Life can become very difficult when you try to be of use far from home. I would have had a much more negative view of my life in South Africa if not for my friendship with Mrs. T. M. Seitsang. As head of the school nearest my home, she was my boss, but I soon found out that she was no ordinary person. During our first meeting, she told me that my ancestors had come to her in a dream and told her that I would be coming to help and that she had recently done battle with a giant cave-dwelling snake. In addition to being a tribal princess, Mma seitsang is a sangoma (also called a traditional healer or shaman.) Though we were from entirely different backgrounds, we soon found that we had a great deal in common. Chief among these similarities is a willingness to give importance to dreams and visions that most people disregard. Mma Seitsang taught me not to edit my artwork before I put it down on the page. She showed me that if an idea comes from deep down, it has value. After the completion of my service, I was invited by Mma Seitsang to stay with her and her family in the village of Kudunkwane (about 20 kilometers from where I was living) and become her student. I had some some reservations about this undertaking, because I tend to see the world from a scientific point of view and there are are many things that sangomas believe in that I do not (witches, demons, and magical snakes.) Still, I felt that I had more to learn than I did to lose, after all corporate America isn't knocking my door down. Over the next nine months, I studied Tswana legends and herbal medicine, wore traditional cloths and beads, attended healer ceremonies, and made friends with many other sangomas. I drew nearly every day during this time, adding to the many pictures that I did during my life as a volunteer. I went to Africa to help, and found myself being helped. I am not the same person that I used to be. Over the next few months, I will share with you the artwork and stories from this amazing time, in the hope that you will get a view that you will never get by watching TV. The people of Africa have much more to teach us than how to die with dignity.

Night Hike Triptych

2007-03-02T20:58:00.000-05:00

South Africa # 1-Witchcraft.

2007-03-01T19:26:00.000-05:00

Today, I decided to show you Mma Seitsang's (See "About the South Africa Series") favorite drawing from this series. This picture deals with the witchcraft and the battle of good and evil. In the places where I lived in rural South Africa, I found the belief in witches, warlocks, and demons nearly universal. This may seem silly or quaint if you grew up in Europe or the US, but the belief is sincere and very strongly held. Plus, before you start getting all superior and secular-humanist on me, remember that the last witches were burned in the "developed world" around 200 years ago (a blink in historical time.) For more information on this topic, check out:the artwork of Goya, the histories of the Plymouth and Jamestown colonies, a happy little German missive called "The Hammer of Witches," and an excellent book by the late scientist Dr. Carl Sagan entitled "Demon Haunted World." I recommend reading these things only in the daytime, as the historical accounts of the witch hunts would make even a Stephen King fan check under his bed. Because witches, ghosts, and ancestor spirits were usually described to me as looking like "normal people." As you can imagine, this made my job as an artist trying to depict the world of African spirituality much more difficult. So, I was always thankful to talk with someone who claimed to have seen or dreamt about anything out of the ordinary. The witch shown in this picture (far right)was a character in a story told to me by a fellow teacher from the Rustenburg area of the Northwest Province. My friend was very specific about the appearance of the witches: both male and female witches (the word "warlock" or its equivalent was never used) are naked save for a garland of severed penises shielding the eyes and a string of severed fingers covering the nipples. Witches are accused of all manner of terrible crimes and outrages. In this case, I have depicted a female witch dragging a bloody naked man. This is bases on a rumor that circulated in the village where I did my Peace Corps work during the summer of 2004. The shaman in the center is dressed in red, white, and black, the same outfit worn by students at Mma Rabotapi's traditional healer school (a sort of African version of Hogwarts) where I had the opportunity to visit and study (more about Mma Rabotapi in future posts.) In one hand, the shaman is carrying a fly whisk-this traditional Pan-African symbol of royalty is used extensively in ceremonies where sea water or liquid medicine is flung to banish evil spirits. In the other hand he carries a club fashioned from the tough root ball of a tree. This object is known as a herding stick. It is found in many African homes and used often for "encouraging" cattle or home defense. This sign of manhood is presented to boys who have completed training in a circumcision school.

Kali Triptych

2007-03-01T13:04:00.000-05:00

Missing Children Triptych

2007-02-28T11:28:00.000-05:00

Misty Mountain Triptych

2007-02-26T16:55:00.000-05:00

Cock Fight Triptych

2007-02-25T21:17:00.000-05:00

It Takes a Nation of Millions Triptych

2007-02-24T18:29:00.000-05:00

Moonlight Triptych

2007-02-24T18:16:00.000-05:00

Miss Inquisitive Speaks Her Mind.

2007-02-24T13:41:00.000-05:00

Miss Inquisitive is a 78-year-old African-American woman who lives alone in her family home in Portsmouth, Virginia. Last week, I sat down with her to listen to her family stories and experiences with the spiritual sensitivity known as "second sight": "It all has to do with light. Some of us have a crown and some of us have a band and some us don't have anything. I have a band. I once met a Spanish lady who called it a caul. When I was growing up, I didn't feel like I had a top to my head. There was nothing up there-just pure blue like the sky. And ideas floated past like clouds. I was brought up Catholic, but I don't allow the church to limit my experience. Those teachings are for the general public, and not for crazy folk like me. Before I was born, my mother was hanging up sheets and she was frightened by a man. My mother never said who it was, but I think it was my uncle. He was a terrible angry drunk. This caused me to twist around in the womb-so restless. I was born premature and the placenta was all torn up. Leaving my mother was a terrible anguish for me. I was born with a hernia and they had to make me a navel. The doctor also gave my mother a ball-twin. You know, sometimes they find a ball of skin and inside is hair and blood and teeth. I think that I had a twin sister, but she didn't become a whole girl, only a ball. Second sight is an awareness of what is not. I have always had an awareness of my missing sister. When I was a baby, my grandmother would take me to all the mirrors in the house and say, 'See here. See yourself?' To this day, I don't like mirrors. They make me feel like I'm tingling, like I should go right through to the other side. When I was upset as a child, I would go to bed and dream that I was in a place that was very warm, and I was swimming. The water would become violently disturbed and I would experience anguish. Then, I would be tumbling down a tunnel and there would be this very bright light. And then I would feel like I was going to arc up, like you see Indians do in their ceremonies. During this time, I was aware, but I couldn't see. Infants and people who have been dead for a short while can see, but they can't speak. They are part of the light. I was a quiet child-very quiet, but when I went roaming my granny said, 'She has the call of the wild.' I made up a little song to sing to myself, 'Silence sings. Do you hear the music?' I would walk by myself every day and I was drawn to this glen in the woods. I was so happy there. I had the feeling that people were around, but I couldn't see them. I fell asleep in this pretty fairy place and an angel came to me. She was one of the opaque people who are beings of light. She had beautiful hands. We go for a walk in a sandy place and then cross a stream and meet with all the people on the other side. We would always come back by sunrise. That went on quite frequently, not every night, but often. When I was a girl, my father never let anyone disturb me. In extremely stressful situations, it feels like there is a rubber band around my head-too tight. When we went walking, my father put so many thoughts in my head that it hurt. Some people from my family vibrate like fine violins and seek quiet places. They said we were high strung. I don't think we were high strung, just sensitive. "

Red Dress Triptych

2007-02-22T13:30:00.000-05:00

Saturday Night Triptych

2007-02-18T17:00:00.000-05:00

HIV Triptych

2007-02-17T18:56:00.000-05:00

Flesh and Bone # 5-Civil War Amputation.

2007-02-16T18:40:00.000-05:00

This is another set of drawings that I did for the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago. For more information about my time there, please see Flesh and Bone # 5. These pictures show the steps of an amputation (in this case, the right leg) as it would have been performed during the period of the American Civil War (1861-1865.) During this period, surgical technique was not standardized and every experienced surgeon created his own variations on basic procedure. For this series, I tried to come up with an "average" amputation based on many different accounts published in the medical literature of the time. I have exaggerated the musculature and omitted blood and infectious material to make the illustrations clearer. Drawing 1-This person has received a bullet wound to the leg. Though the injury was not initially life-threatening it has become infected. At this time, the germ theory of disease (and antibiotic drugs) is still many years away. The leg must be removed to stay one step ahead of the disease. The leg could be removed at the crotch, but that would severely limit the patients mobility upon his possible recovery. In this case the surgeon has elected to perform the amputation slightly above the knee. If the patient recovers, he will have the chance to be fitted with a prosthesis (peg leg.) Like most surgeons at the time, the doctor performing this operation with instruments that have wooden handles. These wooden handles soak up blood and infected material like a sponge, increasing the spread of disease. A tourniquet has been applied a few inches above the chosen site. A knife cuts through the layers of skin and fat an it is rolled up the leg like a sock-this layer of skin will be sewn together at the end of the operation to create the stump.

Drawing 2-The surgeon brings the knife down sharply (in the manner of a meat cleaver) until it strikes the bone (femur.) He then runs the knife around the circumference of the bone, severing all of the muscles.

Drawing 3- The surgeon holds back the layers of muscle while he saws the bone. He has not washed his hands and transfers bacteria to the patients wound.

Drawing 4-The arteries and veins are tied off.

Drawing 5-The flap of excess skin is rolled down and sewn together to create a stump. The tourniquet is removed. Unfortunately, no provision to drain the wound has been made and there is likely to be a large amount of fluid build-up. Bacteria thrive in places that are warm, dark, and wet-exactly the conditions to be found at the end of this stump. As a result of surgical techniques like this, a soldier in the American Civil War was more likely to die than a soldier with a similar wound serving under Napoleon or Julius Caesar. In earlier times, the treatment for a wound like this would be to sever the leg completely above the knee and then coat the exposed flesh with a layer of hot tar. This served to cauterize the wound and kill the bacteria present. Next time-the last installment of Flesh and Bone.

Owl Triptych

2007-02-16T15:59:00.000-05:00

Flesh and Bone # 4-19th Century Bloodletting.

2007-02-13T16:05:00.000-05:00

In 1997, I had a job creating medical illustrations for The International Museum of Surgical Science. The I.M.S.S. is one of Chicago's hidden wonders (you can find their web site at: http://www.imss.org/ )-a rambling mansion on Lake Shore Drive packed to the rafters with strange stuff like antique x-ray machines, Napoleon's death mask, and a collection of stag-horn kidney stones. When I worked there, our visitors consisted mostly of venerable old surgeons and a few goth kids looking for gore. This is a shame, because the objects displayed there are just as exciting, surreal, and thought-provoking as anything at the modern art museum. If whats on display is too tame for you, get them to take you down into the basement where they keep the really gross stuff. I loved working there, hunched over my drawing board as the radio played and the snow beat against the windows. When I left, the museum allowed me to keep my original illustrations for my portfolio, so I can present a few of them for you here. All of these drawings were designed to be displayed next to antique surgical instruments in order to show their use, so many of them do not make sense on their own. However, there are three sets of pictures that I feel will hold together with a little explanation. This first set of illustrations concerns the process of bloodletting as it was performed in the 19th century: Drawing 1-For most of recorded history (from before the ancient Greek civilization to the late 19th century,) people believed that the health of the body depended on the balance of four humors (essential fluids)-blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile. A sharp increase or decrease in any of these humors, the idea went, would result in illness. Thus, a doctor's role as a healer was primarily to bring these humors back into balance. A prescription might include vigorous exercise to induce the patient to "sweat" out disease, the ingestion of a potion to induce vomiting or diarrhea, or a visit to a local barber-surgeon who would cut the patient in order to let out the "bad" blood. Barbers carried out basic surgeries, because they were the often the only people in a town who would reliably have access to sharp instruments. In the classic barber's pole, the red represents blood and the white represents the tourniquet used in the bloodletting process. The most popular sites for bloodletting were two areas where the skin is usually thin and the veins lie close to the surface: the side of the neck and the small of the back.

Drawing 2-Prior to the 19th century, the breaking of the skin for bloodletting was usually accomplished in one of two ways: with a lancet (small surgical knife) or the application of leeches. This drawing shows a device called a scarificator being used. A scarificator consisted of several cat's-claw-shaped blades in a spring loaded metal box. When a button on the top or side of the box were pressed the claws swept out in a small arc and scored the skin. Because if their construction, the scarificators were almost impossible to keep clean, and blood and bits of skin built up inside them. This served to hasten the spread of disease from one patient to another.

Drawing 3-The skin has been scored, now the wound will be sucked to draw out the blood.

Drawing 4-The veins that have been scored will not bleed very much (arteries have a much greater blood pressure,) so suction must be applied to draw out the amount of blood desired. In a treatment of this type, blood was usually drawn from a patient until they fainted. Following a horseback riding accident, 4 pounds (1.7 liters) of blood was drawn from George Washington by his physician, Dr. Benjamin Rush. This treatment is thought to have weakened him greatly, hastening his death from a throat infection. In this drawing, the suction is being provided by a plunger attached to a glass bell. In an earlier version of this treatment a small fire was lit inside of a glass bell-the open end of the bell attached to the patients skin. The fire consumed the oxygen in the bell, creating suction on the wound. This resulted in the fire being doused by the blood and many painful burns. A few years after the bell and plunger method of drawing blood was developed, the entire practice of bloodletting ceased as bacteria and not humor imbalance were proven to be the cause of disease. Next time: anatomy charts from my student days in Chicago.

Flesh and Bone # 3-Eastern Virginia Medical School Sketchbook.

2007-02-11T16:59:00.000-05:00

In Flesh and Bone # 1, I discussed how I first came to be a visiting artist at the Northwest University gross anatomy lab (thanks to the help of Elizabeth Ockwell and Dr. Perkins,) while I was a student at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I first went to the gross lab, because I was interested in learning basic anatomy and to be able to render the figure in a more confident way, but I soon became fascinated with the relationship between the medical students and the body that they were assigned. When turning the body, the students tended to be quite tender, treating the cadaver with the same respect you would give a living person. They were also extremely squeamish when cutting into sensitive areas like the face or genitals. Yet the process of dissection required us to dismantle the body with sharp instruments-a strange dichotomy. And hanging over the proceedings was a combination of fevered studiousness and gallows humor. Even I graduated and left Chicago, I couldn't get dissection off my mind. I wanted to return to the lab and explore these things further. In the summer of 1998, I was staying with my parents, working and applying to graduate school, when I sent a letter to Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, describing my prior experience and asking if anyone there would be interested in working with me. My letter was answered by Dr. George Goode, a professor at E.V.M.S. He agreed to let me visit the gross lab free of charge in exchange for answering student questions. During a typical day, I would have rubber gloves and a scalpel (for finding a hidden vein or spleen) in one pocket and ink and water colors in the other. The sketches I created during my visits to E.V.M.S. reflect my change in interest from the anatomy of the cadaver to the physical process of dissection. I remember that some of the students were more upset about having their portrait sketched than they were about being elbow-deep in a dead body. I am grateful for the opportunity to work with such an excellent group of medical students-thank you, Dr. Goode.

Flesh and Bone # 2-Northwestern Sketchbook: Part 2.

2007-02-03T23:52:00.000-05:00

A few more selections from my Fall 1997 anatomy sketchbook. For introductory information about this series, please read the essay featured in Flesh and Bone # 1.

Flesh And Bone # 1-Northwestern Sketchbook: Part 1.

2007-02-03T14:46:00.000-05:00

"And you, who say that it would be better to watch an anatomist at work than to see these drawings, you would be right...And if you should have a love for such things, you might be prevented by loathing, and if that did not prevent you, you might be deterred by the fear of living in the night hours in the company of those corpses, quartered and flayed and horrible to see."-Leonardo da Vinci

When I was a kid, I loved horror movies. Flesh eating zombies coming out of graves, bug-eyed monsters chasing bikini-clad girls, Vincent Price going ape-shit in a mossy old castle-I ate it up and asked for seconds. Last year, when I returned to the U.S. after three years away, I noticed that horror movies were hot again after a long period of being old hat. But they no longer hold any charms for me. In the intervening years since I curled up on the couch on Saturday afternoons to watch "Commander USA's Groovy Movies, " I have grieved the deaths of my father, two of my grandparents, and my high school art teacher, and helped to dig more graves in Africa than I care to think about. I also spent a year participating in human dissections as part of my training as an artist and illustrator. Once you have been very close to real death, its hard to get worked up by a guy in a rubber suit and some red corn syrup. I decided to present these drawings not to gross you out, but to honor the kind people who donated their bodies to science and the professors who helped me learn to draw and paint the human body with confidence. The modern practice of artists participating in human dissection, began in the early Renaissance with artists searching to rediscover the secrets of Greek and Roman art. At first performed in secret because it was banned by the Catholic Church, dissection became part of standard academic training for artists until the turn of the last century, when artistic fashion changed to favor more expressionistic styles. However, drawing the nude model remains a cornerstone of a traditional arts education. This was exactly the type of education I was looking for when I started attending The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the Fall of 1994. There, I got the chance to take classes from amazing professors like Elizabeth Ockwell, Joanne Scott, Marion Kryczka, and Olivia Petrides. It was on a field trip with Elizabeth Ockwell that I first visited the gross anatomy lab at Northwestern University in March of 1997. The gross lab was a shock to the system. I remember the pungent odor of the alcohol preservative and rancid fat, the loud hum of the exhaust fans, and the oily feel of the floor, instruments, and steel tables. And, above all, was the shocking site of rows of bodies being mutilated in service of education. The preservative had preformed strange tricks on some of the bodies-darkening some, lightening others, and dying white hair a shocking punk-rocker pink. I was immediately disgusted and fascinated in equal measure, and I had to see more. Elizabeth somehow worked her magic on Dr. Randy Perkins (a Northwestern professor and art lover,) who allowed me to attend his anatomy lessons and labs free of charge and draw all the pictures I liked. I am extremely grateful to both of them. The drawings presented here were all done in the Fall of 1997, during Dr. Perkin's labs. Because of the nature of the dissection process, I would spend about 2/3 of the time uncovering the anatomy that I was looking for and about 1/3 of the time drawing. I would sketch quickly in pencil and then come in with black ink. When I got home, I would sort out what I had sketched by adding color and finer detail. Rather than work on one body, I would skip from one table to another to find the body with the clearest structures for me to draw.

South Africa # 21-Remembering Sonneys.

2007-01-25T22:06:00.000-05:00

My friend Sonneys died of AIDS three years ago today. When my other neighbors in the rural Northwest Province were shy about talking to a crazy white man like me, she and her sister Sadi came right over to my place with a million stories, questions, and jokes. Sonneys was one of those people that turns a normal day into a dance party. She had rich smoky laugh and was an extravagant flirt. I sketched this portrait in July of 2003 with an eye towards having her sit for a more finished painting, but she never got the chance. Shortly thereafter, Sonneys announced that she was pregnant by her boyfriend, and went to stay with her sister in the nearby village of Ganyesa. When she gave birth to her daughter Lebogang, in late November, she had already lost a great deal of weight and had started to show signs of AIDS-related dementia. She returned to the Kohrae family compound (where I was staying.) In the end, Sonneys was like an infant herself-a heartbreaking shadow of the vibrant young woman I had come to know. She died in January and little Lebogang followed six weeks later. Even after all this time, thinking about Sonneys and Lebogang burns like a hot stone. No more today.

South Africa # 20-"Mr. Bones."

2007-01-24T19:43:00.000-05:00

Another picture from one of my visits from Mma Rabotapi's traditional healer school (see South Africa numbers 2 and 14.) On the right are the dancers whirling in spiritual ecstasy and on the left are the teenage drummers giving it all they've got. This was the last picture that I drew after being up all night sketching, drumming, singing, and clapping. I was filthy from sitting on the ground and so monumentally tired that I couldn't sleep. After washing up and changing my clothes, I went in to Mma Rabotapi's living room to hang out with her her son and his friends. Though Mma R is a powerful traditional healer with experience in Tswana mysticism, her son only has eyes for the slightly less arcane practice of computer programming. When I sat down to chat with the guys, they were playing games on their cell phones and watching a DVD. The movie was "Mr. Bones"-a South African made Hollywood-style comedy (in it a fat guy flies head first into a rhino's anus-that kind of movie.) The plot centers around a white baby who is taken in by a traditional society, and grows up to become a healer. I can't tell you how strange it was to watch this corny movie about "witch doctors" while the last sounds of a real healer ceremony boomed and crashed outside. Nobody seemed to find this situation even slightly absurd. So, covered with a thick blanket of irony, I laughed right along with everybody else, curled up on the couch, and went to sleep.

South Africa # 19-Spiritual Exile.

2007-01-21T10:12:00.000-05:00

Many religious stories concern people who have taken themselves out of society in order to focus their thoughts after hearing a call (whether internal or external) from gods or ancestors. Jesus, The Buddha, Mohamed, John the Baptist, Moses, and many others have spent time facing deprivation and temptation in the wilderness in order to find new awareness. This is also a tradition in the Tswana society, though rare outside communities of traditional healers. I have a story for you today from my friend and guide to African spirituality, Mma Seitsang concerning a woman facing her own spiritual breakdown and awakening (for some background on this subject see South Africa # 16): " I will tell you about my sister (probably a distant cousin) Banthle. She has got the ancestors for real, but she never went to (traditional healer) school. She had two children when I was just a girl, and lived in Tlakgameng (a village in the Northwest Province near Mma Seitsang's home) with her husband. This was in 60's and the white people were so full of apartheid. You would not believe it! They wanted to hold everything in their hands. Banthle needed money because her husband was drinking beer too much. She was cleaning for a rich white family in Jozi (Johannesburg) and coming home to see her babies at the break (quarterly school holidays.) Things were not too bad for her. Then, the ancestors were talking to her time and a time-when she was sleeping and when she was working. The ancestors were making a big fire inside of her head. She started drinking the white people's beer and brandy to make the ancestors be quiet, but they had the power. She left her work in Jozi and came home to her family. They were working for a white farmer near Tlakgameng. She said to them, 'I have received a vision. I am being called by Modimo (God) to live in the bush with the beasts.' Then, Banthle was living under a tree in the bush near her family. For three years, she was drinking only water and eating the dried shit of a cow. She did not wash her body, so her clothes were old and fell off. Her family was coming to her to her to bring her water, but she would not eat the food they brought, only this shit. She was telling them about the things that the ancestors were saying to her about people who are sick and how they can be fixed. Then, so many people with problems were coming to see her. She would touch these people and help them. Banthle knows the Bible like 1, 2, 3-like thunder and lighting. She was walking around Tlakgameng naked telling so much about the Bible and sweating like a donkey. Then, in 66, she went back to her family. Her family made a big party to celebrate. It was like a funeral, but Banthle was back from being dead. The white farmer was even giving them a cow to kill. She washed, put on clothes, and started to eat meat and pap. But, she was still full of the ancestors. She was making her church in Tlakgameng and people were bringing her food. Banthle is not a sangoma (traditional healer,) but she has had a true vision and has helped so many people." Today's picture is one that I drew before I heard Mma Seitsangs story about Banthle, but (if the central figure were female instead of male) it could almost be an illustration for it. This drawing is a companion to the artwork that I presented with South Africa # 8-a lot of detail here, I suggest you click in it to get the full-sized version. When working on this, I was thinking about the trials and temptations in the wilderness that The Buddha went through (food, sex, power) before he found enlightenment. At one point the Buddha is said to have starved himself until he could " touch his stomach and grasp his own backbone." This physical state was on my mind because so many of my friends were in the final stages of AIDS and becoming rail thin themselves. Elements from life in rural South Africa here include: the three-legged iron pot, herding stick, marching ants, and a barbed wire fence. In the middle of the right hand side of the picture is a sexual demon called a thokoloshe. I will discuss the thokoloshe and his evil mischief in South Africa # 22.

South Africa # 18-Jealousy.

2007-01-20T12:40:00.000-05:00

In South Africa # 1, I discussed the nearly universal belief in witches and witchcraft found in people living in rural areas. Like American and European witches of the 18th and early 19th centuries, African witches are so frightening to people that believe in them, because witches can never be positively or negatively identified. You can't identify a witch just by looking at them. A person may be a witch themselves and not even know it. The source of witches and witchcraft was always described to me as being jealousy. Tswana mythology does not include a hell or other place of punishment. Instead, a person's jealousy contains the possibility to release a hell on earth, by providing a conduit for evil forces to harm people. The witch is not satisfied with his or her own life, and wishes to destroy the lives of others out of spite. Hey, isn't this the same reason that the U.S. and U.K. governments give to explain the rise of Islamic terrorism? Do they really hate us because they are jealous of our freedom, (less and less to be jealous of every day) or is it possibly the hundreds of years of invasions, occupations, bombings, support for cruel despots, and Cold War fuckery? Just asking. Everyone experiences twinges of jealousy from time to time. In my scruffy-misanthrope art school days in Chicago, I used to look at the well scrubbed happy couples on the train and grind my teeth down to stumps. I never once thought that any of them would have loved to be, like me, on their way to draw naked women all day. This is the poison of jealousy-you only see your own self pity. My friends in South Africa are haunted not only by the idea that their friends, family, neighbors, or children may be witches, but that they may be witches themselves. This fear of the supernatural has mixed with the fear of HIV, with horrific results (See South Africa # 5.) Many traditional societies blame illnesses on witchcraft, and the Tswanas are no different. The untimely and seemingly unexplained deaths due to HIV feed the belief in witchcraft, by providing "evidence" of evil at work. As a consequence, superstitions long thought to be laughable have been given new life. Today's picture concerns the potential for evil (the coal-black head with the snake eyes) that many Africans believe exists in everyone. The portrait on the left is of my friend Itumeleng Khorae. And no, he is not a witch, just devilishly good looking.

South Africa # 17-Touching The Fire.

2007-01-18T16:14:00.000-05:00

First, a quote from Michelangelo: "Painting and sculpture, labor and good faith have been my ruin and I continually go from bad to worse. Better would it have been for me if I had set myself to making matches in my youth. I should not be in such distress of mind." Every creative person has had thoughts like this at one time or another (or several times a day.) Why would a person of reasonable intelligence cut off all chances at a normal life and participate in an activity that takes up a large amount of time and energy, but brings in almost no money? This seems to defy all the core desires that we learn about in biology and sociology classes-food, sex, status, children, security. Vincent van Gogh is often sited as an example that artists do what they do what they do because they are crazy. Though he undoubtedly went insane during the last year or two of his life, van Gogh's writings about art and the creative process (found in the letters to his brother Theo) are among the most lucid on the subject. In her excellent novel "Oryx and Crake," Margaret Atwood has her character Crake make the case that an artist uses art to attract a mate in the same way that a peacock uses his tail. Anybody who has spent time doing something creative will know that this is bologna. I don't think your grandma sewed that crazy quilt because she was looking to get laid. There are lots of easier ways to get attention. As a person who looks for a scientific explanation for things, I am disappointed that creativity can't be codified or reliably enhanced. But as an artist, I am happy that there is still some mystery in the world. Recreational drugs often give the illusion of being in a creative whirlwind, but leave you too stupefied to record the resulting ideas. Plus, ideas that seem fantastic when you're flying high almost never work when you return to earth (unless you count "Lets get some more Doritos!" as a real brainwave.) The traditional healers that I lived and worked with in South Africa used the drugs available to them (hash and a vision inducing root called mthebula) very sparingly-maybe once or twice a year. When they did use them, it was usually because they had a specific question that they needed to meditate on and never as a social lubricant. Sadly, so many of the prescription drugs passed out freely to young adults in trouble by well meaning therapists serve to stifle creativity. I imagine contemporary versions of Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein zonked out of their skulls watching "The Princess Bride" for the 257th time. What if researchers found that the same set of genes that allows someone to compose a symphony or paint a beautiful picture also increases the likelihood of a person becoming a rapist? Should that set of genes be suppressed or turned off? I don't know, but this may be a real option for potential parents in a generation or two. A few years ago, I spent 8 months taking part in several human dissections (Northwestern University in Chicago and Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virgina.) As part this process we had to remove the brain from the skull and examine it. Out of its protective environment, the brain resembles three pounds of spoiled cheese. Holding it in my hands, I remember thinking: "How could tofu cause so much trouble?" I had all of these thoughts and experiences rolling around in my head, when I went to South Africa in January of 2003. I was immediately attracted to the traditional healers that I met there, because of their openness and willingness to talk about their own lives and creative process. I had read in various art history classes about the close connection between the shaman and the artist-now, here they were! At the time, I was feeling very down about my own artwork, because I had spent a couple of years in graduate school getting my MFA. I am not cut out for the big egos and mind games that are part and parcel of an academic environment, and I was glad to grab my sheepskin and go. In contrast to most of the professors I worked with, the healers seemed confident about their status and clear about their beliefs and visions. My teacher and guide to African spirituality, Mma Seitsang described her physical reaction while having an ecstatic vision like this: " When I am full of the ancestors my ears feel as if they are full of water. I shout! YOOOOOO! I cry, even though I am not sad. I can jump right up to touch the sky. It is like someone is sticking me with so many pins. My mind is touched by the fire." I was shocked to hear her say this, because it is so much like the feelings that I have when I am really hot with an idea-like I have a burning stone in the middle of my forehead. It is a real high-a touch of true power and mystery. Amazing, not because it is rare, but because it is so common. And once you get a taste, its hard to go back. So, to return to the beginning, why didn't Michelangelo make matches for a living? He touched the real fire inside.

South Africa # 16-Dancing With The Ancestors.

2007-01-16T14:46:00.000-05:00

Do you think that your Great-Grandmother and your Uncle Fred are watching over you from above? Many people do. A 2005 CBS News poll reported that 48% of Americans believe in ghosts and that 22% have seen or felt a ghost. Many traditional cultures throughout the world believe in the power of ancestor spirits to affect the lives of the living, including societies in South Asia, Japan, South America, The South Pacific region, Africa, and Native America. The same is true for the Tswana ethnic group (from Botswana and the Northwest Province of South Africa) that is the subject of this series of drawings. In some older books and films this belief is sometimes mistakenly labeled "ancestor worship." But, in fact, it is a remote and inaccessible creator God that is the object of worship, while ancestor spirits serve as intermediaries between God and the living. In this system, spirits serve some of the same functions that biblical angels do. As with witches, spirit snakes, and "evil" animals (see South Africa # 1, # 10, and # 11,) I found the belief in the power of these spirits to be nearly universal and entirely sincere in the area of rural South Africa where I lived. My friends would often tell me about dreams where ancestors had come to them with instructions. A common dream involves an ancestor saying, "I'm cold." This dream was interpreted to mean that the family should pool funds to erect a headstone on that person's grave (many poorer families only have enough money for a person's burial at the time of their death and must pay for a tombstone at a later time-sometimes years later.) In another common dream an ancestor would say, "I'm hungry." This was interpreted to mean that an offering of meat, traditional beer, sweets or another favorite food should be placed on that ancestors grave as an offering. Ancestors also give advice in the manner of a cosmic Dr. Phil, functioning as a kind of community conscience-everything from "You're putting on a few pounds." to "Don't marry that man. His heart is full of black magic." When I asked what would happen if these dreams were ignored, my friends would just chuckle and give me a sickly grin. The ancestors are not to be trifled with. But any system that relies on the unseen is ripe for abuse. A teacher at one of the schools I worked for would regularly receive "messages from her ancestors" just in time to get out long and boring meetings (I wonder what my ancestors have to say about student loan payments.) Of course, everyone at school was on to her, but who wants to tempt fate? One of the primary responsibilities of traditional healers in Tswana culture is the interpretation of the dreams of their patients and the attainment of an ecstatic state that will allow them to communicate with their own ancestors. This state is usually reached through repetitive rhythmic activities like clapping, drumming, dancing. The trance is one aspect of this subject that I can relate to very well. I often get or develop ideas for artwork by pacing back and forth and listening to music with a heavy beat. Once in this state, the healer is said to be "with" or "talking to" the ancestors and is often insensible to what is going on around them. When dancing while taking part in traditional ceremonies, healers may crash in to walls, speak in private languages or shout, and flail their limbs (see South Africa # 2.) Once coming down from this natural (supernatural?) high, healer report or interpret relevant discoveries to their patients. Often, the advice that comes from these sessions is little more than common sense, but with the weight of tradition and belief behind it, people are comforted. Mma Seitsang, my friend and guide to African spirituality (see the essay "About The South Africa Series,") would often repeatedly shrug and jiggle her shoulders when in this trance-like state. After one of these incidents, she reported to me that she had not just communed with her ancestors, but visited the land of the ancestors (reckoned by the Tswanas to be deep under the earth.) She told me about meeting with her ancestors and various biblical characters (including Jesus) there in a village very similar to her own, but "much cleaner." Because ancestor spirits were usually described to me as looking like everyday people, I had to use my own artistic licence when working on this series of drawings. In today's picture, a man is receiving instruction from a giant spirit snake (see South Africa # 11) Circled around him are a ring of my own representation of ancestor spirits. They are white(the color of the spirit world) and red (the color of power.) Next time: Why make matches, when you can touch the real fire?

South Africa # 15: Cutting The Cheese.

2007-01-13T13:25:00.000-05:00

I have an unusual talent that got me into a lot of trouble when I was a kid: I can squeeze my palms together to create a realistic fart noise-everything from a little popcorn poof to the sound of a boot stuck in the mud. Once, as a punishment for performing this feat in church, I was made to sit outside and pass gas for two hours. Unfortunately, this version of Time-Out did not have the desired effect. It only allowed me time to refine my technique to produce deeper and richer tones. Now that I am a little older and have gone from disrupting class to teaching it, I try to use my powers for good and not for evil. Nothing gets the attention of a group of unruly students (from grade 1 to undergraduates) like a well-timed gust of wind. I cut another slice of the old cheese this week, when I drew the portrait of my infant nephew. He instantly responded with a big smile and I was able to quickly sketch his picture. His reaction made me wonder if there are some things that are universally funny. Big multinational entertainment companies seem to think so-they can't risk a flop with big bucks at stake, so they almost always go for the sure thing. This is why there are so few movies featuring urbane people spouting witty repartee and so many movies featuring these same people being pelted with wedding cake before flying head first into a horse's anus. As a teacher and HIV educator in rural South Africa, I had to find the funny side of difficult topics in order to get and keep people's attention. Over time, I figured out what people thought was funny and what was over the edge. What people find funny can tell you a lot about a culture. Here is a list I compiled of things that make people in the Northwest Province of South Africa laugh or turn up their noses: VERY FUNNY-donkeys and how dirty donkeys are, privies, condoms, farts, mistresses and girlfriends, chickens, white people and how white people talk, drunk people, monkeys/FUNNY-constipation, poor tribal leadership, naughty goats, naughty children, vomiting, traditional healers (shamanism, sangomas), preachers and hot preaching, taxi men and their sexual exploits/NOT FUNNY-masturbation, cows, witchcraft and animals associated with witchcraft (baboons, cats, bats, snakes), anal and oral sex, joblessness, the devil and demons, homosexuality, poverty, HIV/AIDS, funerals, sickness, people who are not clean, the Bible, spiritually powerful animals (lions, elephants, leopards), apartheid.

South Africa # 14-The Heart of Life

2007-01-10T13:54:00.000-05:00

Today's picture is one that I drew during the trance that I described at the end of South Africa # 2. It shows the rhythmic movements of dancers as they whirl under a red and white canopy during a ceremony at Mma Rabotapi's traditional healer school. Sometimes the joy of the creative act allows you to reach past both your training and fears of failure. This was such a time for me-not just above good and bad, but beyond it. We are often so close to the real heart of life and don't even know it.

South Africa # 13-"Lazers in the Jungle"

2007-01-09T11:25:00.000-05:00

Cell phones, DVDs, and computers are on the march, and continue to reach people further and further from industrial hubs and the centers of power. This often results in some strange cultural train wrecks as many poorer countries vault entirely over 20th century technology to embrace the latest gadgets. A few years ago, when I had the good fortune to spend a year painting in rural India, I spent a lot of time riding around on my bicycle (I had a manly pink, yellow, and silver "Hercules" brand bike-its only anti-theft device was that it was so heavy, nobody could lift it) and visiting small villages near my rented room. Because of the incredible hospitality of the people living in this part West Bengal, I would often be gone for many days-hopping from house to house, until I would find myself far out in the hinterlands. These are places where the fields are still plowed with oxen, and children would touch my white skin to see if I was a ghost. I was out in the middle of nowhere on one of these trips when I came across an Internet cafe in a rice patty. The cafe consisted of a brand new computer on a plastic table with 3 plastic chairs, a small thatched roof supported by four bamboo poles, and one man, shocked to see a foreigner on the world's ugliest bicycle. To my surprise, the Internet connection was faster than the computers I had used when I visited Calcutta a few weeks before, and I was done with my small job in no time. But, in grand Indian style, the proprietor of the Internet cafe and I struck up a conversation and spent several hours sipping hot milky tea and solving the world's problems. I found myself in another odd situation a few years later in South Africa. This took place during my first visit to Mma Seitsang's home in the Spring of 2003. She was my friend, supervisor, and guide to traditional medicine during the three years that I lived in the Northwest Province (for background info-please read the essay entitled "About The South Africa Series" on the right hand side of this site.) We were sitting in her dining room (very grandmotherly and formal with a curio cabinet and lace doilies) having an evening cup of tea. There was a knock on the door, and 30 nearly naked children trouped in. They were fresh from traditional dance practice. The boys wore short fur aprons and fur hats. The girls wore skirts made from shredded plastic bags with strings of beads across their chests. The children had never spoken to a white person before, and had fun practicing their English, crawling on me like a jungle gym, and petting my arm hair, like you would stroke a cat. After a few minutes of this, Mma Seitsang told them to sit down and be quiet. The kids had come to watch a made-for-T.V. version of Robinson Crusoe. It quickly became clear to me that this movie owes more to Indiana Jones and The Three Stooges than anything Daniel Defoe ever wrote. And I became a more than a little uncomfortable as I watched Robinson beat Friday and pick fights with dark skinned natives dressed not unlike my new friends, but the irony of the situation seemed completely lost on them. They laughed long and hard as Crusoe concocted elaborate Rube Goldberg-style weapons that catapulted his victims high in the air. They cheered and clapped as the white castaway conquered the island single-handed. When the movie was over, the kids patted my arms a few more times and left, and Mma Seitsang and I had another cup of tea (any common thread here?) before turning in. Was I the only one to notice the strange relationship between the movie and its audience, or were they just too polite to mention it? I still don't know. I would love to hear your stories of strange cultural collisions. Please, post a comment telling me all about it. Today's picture is another one that I started while I was visiting Mma Rabotapi's traditional healer school (See South Africa # 2.)

South Africa # 12-Feeling The Beat.

2007-01-07T19:04:00.000-05:00

Bob Marley always makes me feel better when I feel bad. That's the highest compliment I can pay the work of any artist. I was on the bus earlier this week listening to some early Wailers (you know- the stuff that sounds like it was recorded in a cement mixer parked next to a chicken farm) and the world started to move and bop like my own personal music video. The passengers, driver, and street outside all seemed to sway to the music. I am seeing my own country with fresh eyes, because I have been away for a long time-three years in Africa plus spending the better part of 2006 in the forest. This is also one of the best things about being in a new country. Every place has its own rhythm. In the part of rural South Africa where I stayed the wind blew most of the time and provided the background sound to whatever was going on-sometimes a light breeze and sometimes a full blown sand storm beating against the window and causing the metal roof to bang against the bricks. Animals came and went: cows mooing ("Booooo"), goats bleating ("Mmmaaa."), dogs baking (Ho! Ho! Ho!), chickens clucking ("ko.ko.ko.ko.")-the indescribable sound of donkey sex. The scream of children's games and their accompanying arguments (It was a Goal! No, you are CRAZY!) The singing of grannies high on pot, homemade beer, or a particularly powerful sermon at the local Dutch Reform Church (or all three.) The heavy dance beat from the local pub accompanied by the click of balls on the snooker table (Your ball touched my ball! No, you are CRAZY!) The singing of women washing and the whip-crack snap of wet clothes just hung out to dry. The harsh rattle of minibus taxis and farm trucks on the washboard road. The bouncy Italianate sound of Setswana being spoken at full speed. The flap of canvas of a funeral tent being put up and taken down. The singing, praying, and march of sad feet in between. The squeak of a bore hole pump being worked and the rhythmic rush of water. The bray of professional wrestling or soap operas on a T.V. turned up too loud. The grinding crunch of soil against metal when digging a garden or filling a grave. And,the sweetest sound in the desert, RAIN-the next day you can almost hear the sound of the grass growing and the cattle getting fatter. Every place makes its own music if you stop and listen for a little while. What kind of music do you hear where you live? Today's picture captures an element of this rhythm. I drew it during one of my visits to Mma Rabotapi's traditional healer school (see South Africa # 2.)

South Africa # 11-Snakes: Part 2

2007-01-07T12:11:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I mentioned that there are two types of snakes in traditional Tswana culture. Even though they are quite different, both types are referred to simply as "snakes." I have chosen to call the first type "evil snakes," and the second type "spirit snakes," for the sake of clarity. Evil snakes are the tools of witches, demons, and the devil. They look like normal snakes and will be familiar to anyone who knows the story of The Garden of Eden. Because the Tswana culture was exclusively oral until after the arrival of Christianity and other aspects of foreign culture, it was impossible for me to figure out if the stories and attitudes towards evil snakes predate the last quarter of the 19th century. Spirit snakes, on the other hand, are of a completely different type. If you have read about or seen the basilisk in "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone" or are familiar with stories about European dragons, then you have some idea about what a spirit snake is like. Like dragons, spirit snakes live in out-of-the-way places like caves, rivers, ponds, or the ocean. Also, like dragons, spirit snakes guard something, but they don't guard virgins or gold. Spirit snakes protect information. A person may be called to a cave or body of water through a vision or a dream. These are sacred places that often serve as doorways between the everyday world and the spirit world. In traditional Tswana culture this world of the ancestors lies under the ground and not in the sky (similar to the Greek Elysian fields.) Spirit snakes are usually described as being 50-75 meters long and having about the same girth as a healthy adult cow, but have the same general anatomy of normal snakes. They are light tan in color and their eyes glow with an orange light (the picture presented with South Africa #10 shows this type of spirit snake.) Unlike the evil snake, the spirit snake is not seen as good or bad, just powerful-they represent the power of the earth and ancestor spirits. If you are called to or stumble upon a spirit snake, one of two things will happen: (1) it will kill you, or (2) it will teach you how to be a traditional healer. As with witches (see South Africa # 1,) the belief in spirit snakes is sincere and nearly universal among rural people. Even on the hottest days in the desert, nobody went swimming or even dipped a toe in the water, for fear that they would be dragged down to face judgement. The following story was told to me by my good friend Ayanda. She is a 28-year-old traditional healer currently living in the town of Vryburg in the Northwest Province of South Africa: "When I was 10 years old, I was playing with my friends in the river near my grandmothers home. I was splashing in the shallow edges of the water, because I do not know how to swim. Then, I saw a gold cup floating in the middle of the river. I decided to go after the cup and catch it. My friends called out to me, but I kept going. Suddenly, I was being pulled down-down-down into the river. I could see the bottom. There was a small house there and I was pulled inside of it. In the house was an old woman. This old woman talked to me about traditional medicine and the uses of many plants. This seemed to take only a few minutes, but when I was returned to the surface of the river, I found that several hours had passed. It was dark, and I struggled to reach my grandmother's house. When I arrived, my grandmother gave me a spanking for being late. When I told her what had happened to me in the river, she told me that it was not an old woman that I had spoken to, but a snake. This was how I was called to be a sangoma (traditional healer/shaman.)" All of the sangomas that I was able to speak to in depth told a similar type of story. Sometimes the stories take place in a cave or are said to have been visions rather than actual experiences, but the basic details are the same. Part of the job of a sangoma is to interpret the spirit world for regular people who live in the world of normal reality. A journey to the spirit world or a conversation with a spirit snake is seen as part of sangoma training and a sign of authenticity. Today's picture features a spirit snake in a river. It watches over the scenes of grief and joy in the background. The white conqueror thinks that he is on solid ground, but he will soon find himself swimming in the river. Will he be taught the lessons of the earth or will he be lunch?

South Africa # 10-Snakes: Part 1.

2007-01-03T18:10:00.000-05:00

I didn't want to go too far into this exploration of Tswana culture and traditional medicine without mentioning snakes (for background information about my life in rural South Africa, please read the essay "About The South Africa Series" found along the right-hand side of this blog.) Snakes appear many times in this series of drawings, because they were often on people's minds and were the subject of endless conversation. In traditional Tswana culture, there are two types of snakes: "evil snakes" and "spirit snakes." Today's post deals with the first type. Evil snakes can be touched and are of normal size. They exist in our realm of reality. This type of snake will be familiar to anyone who has read The Bible (in the New International version of The Bible, snakes are mentioned 22 times and serpents are mentioned 20 times)or has seen the towering cinematic achievement that is "Snakes on a Plane." Snakes, cats, dogs, baboons, owls, and bats are considered the handmaidens of witches and demons in Tswana culture, in same way that black cats accompany witches in European and North American representations of witches. A Tswana witch may also turn her/himself into any of these creatures at will (for more info on witches-see Sooth Africa #1.) But snakes generate a special kind of fear. Nothing will dampen high spirits like mentioning that you saw a snake on the way to the privy or while out collecting dried cow chips to make a fire. While I was serving in the Peace Corps, I stayed in the compound(a fenced in piece of property containing several communal buildings)of the amazing Khorae Family. The block of rooms that I lived in was a relatively recent addition and had a concrete floor, but the main house had a traditional floor composed of compressed dung and sand. This foundation always seemed to be under attack by or playing host to one type of desert creature or another. I never saw them flinch when we removed the nest of giant sun spiders (Gross!) from the kitchen or poured boiling water to flush out the rats living under a bedroom. But, when we discovered a single small garter snake holed up in the corner of the common room one night, you would have thought we had discovered a hidden Bigfoot or tyrannosaurus. Screams. Running feet. Pots falling over to spill their contents on the floor. We all bent over the tiny body, beating the snake with anything hard that came to hand until its body had more bends than an aerobics class. I was caught up in the whole thing, whacking with my broomstick until it was a splintered mess. The clearly dead snake was then carried outside on the end of a long stick as if it would strike at any second. Once on the ground, it was doused in kerosene and set on fire. And, after the fire burned out, the snake's ashes were swept together into a little pile and burned again. This fear extends to creatures thought to be related to snakes. Chameleons (sometimes called "snakes with feet") discovered near the family compound were treated in a similar manner. Once, during my first month in the village, I mentioned to my new friends that I had tasted rattlesnake and alligator meat at a barbecue in Chicago. Their reaction of disgust was so strong and immediate, that I might just as well have talked about snacking on human flesh. I never brought it up again. In my time in South Africa I never met anyone who claimed to have been bitten or harmed by a snake (though large pythons do exist in some areas), but everyone seemed to have a story about a close encounter or a near miss. Every person or society has fears that seem strange to outsiders. The many seemingly unexplained deaths due to AIDS, have caused traditional beliefs that were seen as laughable 15 or 20 years ago to rise to the surface. If you think back to the panicked rumors that swirled in the days and weeks following the 9/11 attacks, then you will get a taste of the type of fear and confusion that is building today in parts of Southern Africa. Today's drawing features the second type of snake often talked about: the spirit snake. Next time: I will tell you about spirit snakes and their relationship to traditional healers.

South Africa # 9-Baby New Year

2007-01-02T16:27:00.000-05:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR from all of your friends here at The Sexy Monastery. Today's strange drawing deals with the circular nature of life-birth, growth, struggle, death, and rebirth. These are issues that everyone in Southern Africa is forced to deal with more often than most of us living relatively comfortable lives in Europe and North America, because of the realities of poverty, HIV/AIDS, and its related horrors. In my position as an HIV/safe sex educator, I spoke to a great many teenagers who did not expect to live past their 25th birthday. The result is a strange combination of fatalism, joy, and sadness that you seldom find outside of a Hindu funeral. Most of the teenagers that I spoke to wanted to pack 80 years worth of living into a (possibly) much smaller stretch of time-love, children, education, worship, and work, all in the space of a few years. And, many of them are pulling it off too. If you live in one of the "safer" parts of the world, you may have playfully asked yourself at one time or another: What would I do if I found out that I only had a year to live? After three years of seeing death after death in South Africa (and though I remain HIV negative and healthy), this question seemed far from playful. I felt the need to break away. When I returned to the U.S. in December of 2005, I decided that I wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail from one end to the other. I started at Springer Mountain in Georgia on February 22, 2006, and found myself 7 1/2 months and 2,175 miles later, on top of Mount Katahdin in Maine. It was a very irresponsible thing to do. It was also the most amazing thing I have ever experienced. So many young people in Southern Africa don't have to pretend what they would do if given a death sentence, because they already have one. They see their friends and lovers die or find telltale signs of the virus's work on their bodies. My friends in South Africa taught me many lessons, but none as valuable as their example of courage and strength in the face of life and death. I have used their example to go farther than I ever thought that I could go. In the year to come, I hope that you are half as fortunate as I have been. Next time: Snakes in Tswana Culture.

South Africa # 8-Tsalane and the Dimo: Part 3

2007-01-02T12:19:00.000-05:00

Welcome to part 3 of a three part story. If you have not read my last two posts (South Africa #6 and #7,) please go back and do so before continuing on. Today's picture is not an illustration of the story, but includes another portrait of my friend and guide to African spirituality, Mma Seitsang, who told me this version of "Tsalane and the Dimo." She is pictured dancing in her healer's outfit on the left hand side of this drawing. In this instance, I have changed her red and white clothes to pure white to suggest that what is happening is taking place in the spirit world. In most of the traditional artwork and ceremonies of Sub-Saharan Africa, the color white is symbolic of "the land of the ancestors." Around the time that I was working on this picture, I was thinking about the perils and joys of the spiritual life. The ravaged figure in the foreground represents a complete dedication to spiritual matters-the mind taking flight while the body erodes. This is based on a common image of the Buddha, who starved himself in the wilderness under various masters before finding his own way to enlightenment. I will explore these issues further in future drawing and posts,for now, on with the story: TSALANE AND THE DIMO: PART 3 As soon as the Dimo Family ran out into the night in search of free beef, Mother slipped inside the cave and swapped the bag of angry bees for the bag containing Tsalane. All of her stubbornness forgotten, Tsalane hugged her mother and they both shed tears of joy. "Quickly, now," whispered Mother,"we must run through the forest to our new home where Father and Brother will be so happy to see you." And off they went. Soon after, the Dimo Family returned to their cave upset that they had found no cows over the next hill, dead or otherwise. "Our friend must have changed his mind and decided that he wanted the whole cow for himself after all. I hope he gets indigestion, the greedy so-and-so," complained Big Papa Dimo. However, the mood quickly changed when they discovered that the stew was ready and it was time to add the meat. "Daughter, go and fetch the meat. Its there by the door," said Papa Dimo. "I can't pick it up! Its biting me!" screamed Daughter Dimo. "Nonsense," said Papa "Humans, as a rule, have very small teeth. Son, go and fetch the meat." "I can't pick it up!" hollered Son Dimo "IT HURTS!" "You must be kidding." said Papa Dimo, starting to get very angry, "Mother Dimo, please, get the meat, so we can eat!" but Mother Dimo said, "I can't pick up either. Are you sure you have not caught a lion instead of a little girl?" After hearing this , Papa Dimo was raging mad, "If you can't do a simple task after I have worked for weeks and weeks to catch a human for our supper, then you don't deserve any of it! I'm going to take the stew pot and the girl into my bedroom and enjoy the stew all by myself. The rest of you can co to bed with empty bellies tonight." So Big Papa Dimo did just that, and locked the door behind him for good measure. "You are very lively," said Papa Dimo when he looked at the roiling bag "but not for long. Heh! Heh! Heh!" He then picked up the heavy sack and dumped its contents into the still bubbling pot. But, instead of the satisfying plop of a tender young body, the room was filled with a horrible buzzing. And Big Papa Dimo's world became a world of pain. The bees stung him over and over as he flailed helplessly at the locked door of his bedroom. He soon wore a suit of bees, each one bent on revenge. When Papa Dimo finally got the lock undone, he burst past his family and into the night. He was pursued by the swarm as he ran and ran, finally stopping to plunge his head in a small pond in an effort to escape the bees. And it was there, with his bottom thrust into the air, that Big Papa Dimo drown. Now homeless, the hive took up residence in the dead dimo's backside, entering and exiting through the cannibal's fundament. The next morning, when Tsalane and her brother arrived at that very same pond to collect water, they were surprised to see Papa Dimo dead. The approached cautiously, but their fear was soon overcome when they found that Papa Dimo was no longer a threat to anyone. The deceased monster soon became a figure of fun, when the children discovered that by shouting "Asshole open!" the dimo's anus would indeed open producing a cloud of bees. And conversely, when they shouted "Asshole closed!" the bees would fly back inside and the dimo's butthole would indeed close. This activity proved so engaging, that after several hours, Mother and Father came looking for them at the pond. They lead the children home where, after finding a new water source, they resumed their happy life in their new home. THE END. Next time: Baby New Year.

South Africa # 7-Tsalane and the Dimo: Part 2

2006-12-28T20:00:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the second part of a three part story. If you haven't read my last entry(South Africa # 6,) please do so before continuing. As I mentioned last time, this version of "Tsalane and the Dimo" comes courtesy of my friend and guide to African spirituality, Mma Seitsang. Today's picture is a portrait of Mma Seitsang that I drew while she was in a trance-like state. Or, as she would put it, "talking to the ancestors." One thing I have learned, is that whether you believe that good ideas come from the inside or the outside matters infinitely less than what you do with those ideas. Inside or outside-its all the same side anyway (unless you're outside in the cold.) Confusing Mumbo-Jumbo over. Now, on with the story: TSALANE AND THE DIMO PART 2 Big Papa Dimo knew that Tsalane was living by herself and wanted more than anything to bring her home to his hungry family. The problem was that a dimo, just like the Devil, cannot force his way into your house. He must be welcomed in. After watching for a long time, Papa Dimo decided to trick Tsalane into inviting him inside. So, He lumbered up to the front door and sang out in his great rough voice: "Tsalane my child. Tsalane my child. Come and take your food." In response, Tsalane shrieked from inside the house: "I know that voice! You're not my Mother! GO AWAY, DIMO! You'll find no food here! I'll never fill your pot!" The dimo slunk away defeated. The next day, Big Papa Dimo visited rabbit (the smartest beast in the forest) and told him about his problem. Rabbit thought and thought and finally said: "In order to trick Tsalane into letting you inside, not only must you use her mother's song, you must sound like her mother too. In order to change your voice, you should heat a stone in the fire until it is red hot. Then, swallow that stone as slowly as you can without making a sound. If you do this correctly, Tsalane will be fooled and you will be able to feed your family." The first time that the dimo swallowed the stone, he grunted like a pig as it went down. This made his voice deeper than ever. The rabbit laughed and said: "Oh, you stupid thing! If you make even one sound, the stone will not work. Go home and do it correctly!" The dimo returned home and this time, he managed to keep quiet as the stone burned its way down his throat. And, when he opened his mouth, the sound of Mother's voice came out. Big Papa Dimo rushed to Tsalane's house and began to sweetly sing: "Tsalane my child. Tsalane my child. Come and take your food." And, thinking her mother was at the door, Tsalane undid the lock and the bolt and stepped outside. Big Papa Dimo pounced from around the corner. And, as quick as a politician's phony smile, he gathered the screaming Tsalane up in an old potato sack and ran back to the cave with his prize. While thumping his chest,the proud Papa Dimo pronounced grandly to his family: "For many weeks, we have lived on tough cow meat from the back of the herd, but today we will dine on tender human meat. Mother Dimo, I want this girl prepared in a proper way-stewed slowly in a pot with tender carrots, potatoes,and peas, with a snowy-white crust of steamed bread on top. A meal like this will be worth making right." After the speech, Father Dimo, Mother Dimo, and all the dimo children thundered around the cave shouting: "WE WILL HAVE THE FEAST OF ALL FEASTS!" From inside her sack, Tsalane trembled with fear as she listened to the stomping feet and thick gobs of dimo drool hitting the floor. Meanwhile, Tsalane's mother arrived at her old house to deliver her daughter's daily meal. But, she did not get to sing her song. The words stopped in her throat as she saw the door standing wide open and great dimo footprints all around the sandy yard. Thinking quickly, Mother hatched a plan and put it into action. She picked up a sack and went into the forest where she found a huge bee hive hanging from an old tree. By taking a mighty swing with a stick, she knocked the bee hive out of the tree and right into the sack. The stunned bees stayed quiet for just long enough for Mother to tie the top of the sack so tight that not single one could escape. Next, she dragged her big buzzing bag behind a bush near the entrance of the Dimo Family's cave, where she could hear them all bragging about the big feast to come. This confirmed Mother's fears, that Tsalane had been capture by a dimo and was now on the menu. Screwing up all of her courage, Mother shouted(in her roughest and most dimo-ish voice) from her hiding place into the mouth of the cave: "My Friends, I have a whole dead cow just over the next hill, but I am nearly full. Please, come and help me eat it." Hearing this news, Big Papa Dimo turned to his family and said: "I think that half of a cow would make a wonderful appetizer for our human stew. Lets go!" And with that, the Dimo Family ran out of the cave and over the next hill in a cloud of dust. Next time: the third and final part of "Tsalane and the Dimo."

South Africa # 6-Tsalane and the Dimo:Part 1

2006-12-27T21:45:00.000-05:00

There are few things on the web these days that ring no bells at all. Even the most obscure topics seem to have half a million web sites devoted to them. So, I was very surprised to find that the title of today's story ("Tsalane and the Dimo") and its permutations pulled up a big fat goose egg on all of the search engines. Since "Tsalane in the Dimo" is such a popular folk tale in South Africa, I figured that there would be several versions of the story sanitized and packaged for the children's book market, but I couldn't find one. Perhaps it has been neglected because it is as rough and old school as any of the original Grimm Brother's tales. A note to Parents: If you haven't figured it out already, this site talks frankly about sex, death, HIV, and other realities of life in contemporary South Africa, and is not fit for the kiddies. This goes double for this fairy tale. Today's picture is not an illustration for today's story, but it is the only picture of one of the main characters that I ever drew. A dimo (pronounced "Dee-mo") is the equivalent of a European ogre. He was described to me by several people as being big, nasty, hairy, coal-black, voracious, and extremely well-endowed. See if you can find him above. The belief in dimos as real flesh and blood creatures is waining in rural South Africa, even while the belief in witches is nearly universal(See South Africa # 1.) Still, a 26-year-old friend of mine would not travel into the bush to collect firewood unescorted in the sincere fear that a dimo would snatch her up and take her to his underground lair-no kidding. As for the rest of the picture, it is based on several dreams that I had in the winter of 2003-you Jr. headshrinkers can have at it, because I sure don't know what it all adds up to. If you like this story, let me put in a plug for Alexander McCall Smith's excellent book of folk tales from Botswana and Zimbabwe: "The Girl Who Married a Lion." I heard several versions of "Tsalane and the Dimo" while I was in South Africa. This one comes courtesy of Mma Seitsang via her grandmother which gives it the date of 1900 or earlier. I translated it from several tellings in Setswana and added my own touches here and there: TSALANE AND THE DIMO: In a happy village there lived a happy family. Mother, Father, a young son, and a teenage daughter named Tsalane (pronounced "Sa-la-nee".) One morning while out hunting rabbits near the family home, Father discovered a small cave that he had never seen before. He approached very cautiously, because he knew that caves often hide things that happy people would rather not think about-things best left to powerful people like chiefs and healers. As he drew nearer and near the cave, Father began to hear the horrible stompings, smackings, and fartings of a dimo family having breakfast in its new home. It took all of the self-control that Father could muster not to shout out loud when he discovered that this filthy pack of dimos was living so close to his own sweet little home. He felt this way because dimos are not satisfied with the food that you and I like to eat. A dimo can't stand eggs or fried chicken. And the thought of thick hamburger with a big cold glass of milk would make a dimo's stomach do flip-flops. No, a dimo would never touch such dainty finger-food as that. If given a chance, a dimo would swallow a whole cow leaving nary a stray flop behind-the whole thing, horn, hoof, and tail alike. But, to tell the truth, the thing that the dimo loves to eat most of all is people-fat ones, skinny ones, young ones, and old ones. He likes them all. As a boy, Father had watched as two of his cousins and one of his brothers was snatched up and taken away by a hungry dimo, so perhaps you can understand Father's horror upon finding this new family in the neighborhood. Father reached his house at a dead run and told everyone that they must pack their small donkey-cart and leave the village NOW! Both Mother and Son listened to Father, but (as teen aged girls sometimes do)Tsalane didn't listen and refused to go. She stamped her foot and cried and asked a million questions like: "Where will we go? What will we eat when we get there? And what about MY FRIENDS?!" To this outburst, Mother said, "If you are going to act like that, you may stay here by yourself and I will bring you your food every day. And just so you know that it is me visiting you and not the dimo, I will sing you a little song: Tsalane my child. Tsalane my child. Come and take your food." And, for weeks and weeks this system worked well for Tsalane. Mother travelled long hours from her new home to her old and back again and one very stubborn girl got her own way. But unknown to both Mother and Tsalane, their daily routine was being watched closely by Big Papa Dimo. Next time : Part 2 of "Tsalane and the Dimo."

South Africa # 5-HIV/AIDS: What You Don't See.

2006-12-26T15:32:00.000-05:00

HIV is tough for visual media like TV to wrap itself around. What do you take a picture of? Funerals? Funerals happen all the time. Sick people? People get sick everywhere. Skinny people? Some people are just skinny, even in South Africa where chubbiness is prized. AIDS does not destroy property the way that a hurricane does, but it does end millions of human lives just as they are about to begin. No big Hollywood-style explosions (not yet anyway,) just the glacial advance of death. Over the course of three years, I watched small family plots become fully fledged graveyards, as people in their 20's and 30's returned home from the mines and the cities to die. What if you were to get up from your chair and go for a stroll in a real South African village in the Northwest Province, where the HIV infection rate is suspected to be as high as 33%? Do you see cadaverous people walking around? Hardly ever. Next, imagine that while you are touring the village, someone invites you in for tea. You are welcomed inside the house and are treated to hot milky tea, sweet biscuits, and good conversation. Do any of your hosts look visibly ill? Unlikely. What you don't know is that tucked away in a back bedroom is someone slowly dying of AIDS. This is an all too common situation in villages all over Southern Africa. Brothers, mothers, fathers, and sisters are all wasting away and unseen by anyone save their selfless caretakers and the closest of family friends. I have visited too many of these stale hidden rooms not to know that it is shame that keeps these people under wraps. It is shame that makes grieving relatives write "T.B." and "The flu" on the death certificates of people that clearly died of AIDS. My point is that, HIV is a thousand times worse than people in Europe and the USA have seen on TV, because so much of the illness defies the photographic process. In many ways, HIV is an invisible illness, from its transmission to its terrible conclusion. It is a tribute to the incredible strength of the African extended family that there hasn't been more social upheaval than there has. But even the strongest system has its limits. Today's picture is about the elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about-HIV/AIDS. I know that, even in our sweetest moments, we are in the presence of death. But, it seems unnatural to see so many die before they have a chance to live. I have seen too much of it.

South Africa # 4-Throwing The Bones.

2006-12-26T09:58:00.000-05:00

Scattered along the bottom of this picture are sketches of several small items drawn in black and white- a couple of dominoes, a few seashells, chicken bones, and some other random stuff. It looks like a collection from the bottom of a particularly poorly tended kitchen junk drawer. But, in reality, this is a full set of ditaula (bones.) Each item in a set of bones represents either one of the members of an extended African family or an abstract quality(love, hate, fear, etc.) Bones are to a sangoma (traditional healer/shaman) what a deck of Tarot cards or a crystal ball is to a Gypsy fortune teller. During a reading of the bones, the entire set is dropped on to a mat. Supposedly, the relative position of one piece to another and whether a piece was showing "heads" or "tails," tells the entire history of a person's past and future. From my scientific viewpoint, a successful reading of a set of bones has a lot more to do with the observational powers and physiological sophistication of the reader than anything else. However, I saw many people comforted by a good reading. So, who am I to judge? Not all sangomas use bones as part of their work. My teacher and guide to African spirituality, Mma Seitsang (see the essay entitled "About the South Africa Series" found at the bottom of the site) did not use them, although she was looking to acquire the skill when I left Africa in December of 2005. This particular set belongs to my friend Mmagogo ("Granny" in Zulu.) Mmagogo is from Swaziland (the little landlocked mountain kingdom surrounded by South Africa) and works in the traditional medicine shop in the town Vryburg. She is the quintessential sangoma- as round, quiet, and laughing as a Japanese Buddha, but with a spine of spiritual steel. I first met Mmagogo in 2003 when I was exploring Vryburg's small shops and back alleys. Vryburg is the town nearest to both Mma Seitsang's home in Kudunkwane and village of Tlakgameng where I did my Peace Corps Service. I went there every three weeks or so to visit the library, buy food that I couldn't get at village shops, and eat a big greasy cheeseburger. I recognize how lucky I was to have these conveniences as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Most PCV's may only find grocery stores, burger joints, and other goodies in the diplomatic area of their host country, if at all. The first time I stepped in to her shop, Mmagogo was immediately welcoming, even though, as a snooping white foreigner, I was the opposite of her regular clientele. As an artist, she always treated me with the same respect that she accorded to her fellow sangomas and, in three years, never tried to sell me anything, "read my palm," or diagnose any mysterious ailment. Most of our conversations centered around our dreams and visions. This is a topic that makes most people's eyes glaze over, but dreams are both the artist's and the sangoma's bread and butter. In a very short time my visits to the muti (traditional medicine) shop became as essential a stop at the grocery store when I was in town. I was always amazed by Mmagogo's lack of fear while revealing amazing details about her inner life. I tried to follow her example when I was creating the drawings for this series- bringing unedited thoughts out into the open. In the back of the muti shop was a small room where Mmagogo conducted patient consultations and read bones. I knew her for quite a while, before I asked to take a peek in the back room, and for more than two years before I asked to draw her bones. Bones are private items. Asking to draw her bones was akin to me asking to draw her underwear. Mmagogo was gracious enough to allow me to lie on the floor of her consultation room and do the detailed renderings seen here, though I was interrupted many times by patients needing a reading. In the center of this picture is a brick by brick drawing of one of the buildings that comprised the family compound of my Peace Corps host family: the amazing Khorae's (much more about them another day.) On the left hand side of the picture are sketches of dancers that did at a sangoma celebration that took place outside of the city of Bloemfontein(ditto-more later.)

South Africa # 3-A Child is Born.

2006-12-25T16:51:00.000-05:00

For Christmas I thought that I would post a picture of unadulterated happiness. This is a portrait of Mma Seitsang's 6-month-old granddaughter Reanetse Nonofo Seitsang that I drew in July of 2005. The name Reanetse means "we have hoped," and Nonofo means "power." Reanetse is a real sweetheart, and she and I got along very well. She sat quietly in her stroller while I quickly sketched the black outlines of this drawing. Note the pieces of string tied to the wrists. In rural South Africa, pieces of string are often tied around the wrists, ankles, and waists of small babies in order to gauge their growth. In the upper left corner are Mma Seitsangs dancing feet and on the right is the Seitsang's dog. One topic that Mma Seitsang always joked about was which of her children would "hear the call of the ancestors" and become an artist or a sangoma (this can happen at any time of life, but usually happens around the onset of puberty.) Mma Seitsang insisted on her moody son Papas, but I leaned towards little Reanetse or one of her female cousins. I cast my vote in this picture by giving Reanetse a little orange halo. A child is born! Here's wishing you a very Merry Christmas. I am not very religious myself, but any holiday that includes lots of chocolate is OK by me.

South Africa # 2-Mma Rabotapi.

2006-12-24T11:29:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I promised to show you one of the pictures that I drew while I was attending Mma Rabitapi's Traditional Healer School in Mafikeng. I was introduced to Mma Rabotapi by my teacher and guide to African spirituality, Mma Seitsang (see the essay entitled "About The South Africa Series" at the bottom of the site for more info.) Mma Rabotapi is the most queenly woman that I have ever met. She comes from a long line of Tswana royalty and sangomas, runs a very successful muti (traditional medicine) shop in Mafikeng, and carries herself accordingly. Her students routinely kneel before her during prayers and ceremonies. Though we were teacher and pupil in matters concerning traditional medicine, Mma Seitsang and I always had a very informal and friendly relationship, because we had worked together for so long when I was in the Peace Corps. The atmosphere at the school was much more formal. There was the same feeling that serious spiritual business was being conducted that you find in a Buddhist monastery. When I asked Mma Seitsang about this, she confirmed that this was how all reputable sangoma schools were conducted. The atmosphere at the school was about as far from the average Westerner's idea of "wild African voodoo" as it is possible to get. In South Africa, in order for a traditional healer to practice legally, they must compete a period of intensive training with a licenced school and register with the government. The reason that Mma Seitsang and I were invited to spend time at the school was primarily to help the students prepare for a huge celebration. A few of the students (including Mma Seitsang's sister) were ascending from one level of training to another and members of the student's families were invited to attend an all-night celebration and feast. For more than a week, we brewed beer, cleaned the school, collected wood from the bush, and cooked mountains of food in big black cauldrons. There are many stories to tell about this week and my subsequent visits to the sangoma school, but today I will focus on the celebration itself. It took place on the evening of May 7-8, 2005 (coincidentally, my 29th birthday.) Large sangoma ceremonies usually happen only once or twice a year. They can be prompted by a vision or a dream and be smaller private affairs for healers only. Or can, like this one, be larger public gatherings that involve a great number of friends and extended family. Most of the ceremonies that I attended followed the same basic pattern: speeches and prayers lasting for about for about an hour or two starting around 9 pm, followed by around 12 hours of dancing and drumming, then everyone crashes for about 3 hours, and the whole thing winds up with a huge feast around noon. This is a schedule that would make even the most dedicated party monster hang up his dancing shoes. How did I get through it? Huge amounts of coffee and soda. Today's drawing may give you a sense of the incredible vitality to be found at one of these events. In other pictures that I will show later, you will be able to see more details of clothing and the surroundings, but this one is about pure energy. On the top are the red and white (sangoma colors) stripes of the tent the ceremony was held in. In the background are a swirl of colors and faces and in the foreground are two dark figures nearly taking flight. This represents the sangomas as they dance in a circle around the tent's support pole to the relentless beat of the cow skin drums. When I drew this picture, I was right on the edge of the circle where people were dancing. Several times, one of the dancers would bound out of the circle in a fit of spiritual ecstasy and crash into the crowd of onlookers, stepping on to my pictures in the process. The drawings that I worked on that night are still stained with the reddish-brown dust of the dance circle. I didn't care in the least. After two or three hours, the drums began to work on me and I entered my own trance-like state. All my self consciousness about creating artwork in public and being a foreigner out of my element left me, and I became the act of the work. 12 hours went by like 12 minutes. People joked with me the next day, that when they had tried to speak to me in this state, I was "like a beast from the forest." Mma Seitsang said: "You have received a true message from your ancestors." I was not sure what had happened to me, but I wanted it to happen again.