(d)urban(a)

Breaking Down in Umlazi

C picked me up around 7:45am so we could get M at the Palmer Street office and then pick up the last of the fabric sample books at the home decorator firm off Florida Road before heading out to sew in Umlazi.  Today was the day where I had asked the women in our nascent sewing collective to entrust all finished samples to me for a week so I could photograph them and begin making further contacts with local craft retailers here and emailing craft organizations in the United States.  I hadn't seen C since my first week in town, so it was nice to catch up with her and she was anxious to talk about the recent results in the US Democratic primaries in Ohio and Texas. 

We were on the freeway to Umlazi by about 8:20am and it was a beautiful day but had already warmed to about 80 degrees Fahrenheit.  C noticed her '82 Honda's engine temperature indicator was nearly on the "H" so we pulled over on the side of the freeway as C quipped, "better let it cool off here than when we're in Umlazi."  When we exited the freeway and began driving on the Mangosothu main highway we passed by the technical university's campus easily - in fact, there was hardly any sign of the protests or fires that had raged there less than 24 hours ago.  Just as we were turning right off the highway onto the road towards the Zamu Community Centre, we heard a loud pop and smoke started pouring out of the driver's side of the hood (mind you, that means the right side over here).  The car started shaking and C pulled it off onto the shoulder of the small road and turned the car off.  We sat there in silence for a quick moment and then C announced that she was shaking.  She pulled her phone out, rolled up her window completely, looked around, and began trying to call J and others to figure out a way out of there.  I could tell she was scared and M looked nervous too.  I guess I couldn't understand at first - it was only a little after 9am in the broad daylight - how could we be in trouble stopping where we were?  Any time a minibus taxi filled with people or a man would walk by us, C would hide her phone and I guess we would all just sort of hold our breath.  M muttered C should be more careful about anyone seeing her phone and by then, I had started discreetly sending out text messages to J and others as well telling them about our situation.  M called Mrs. Gambushe's centre to tell her where we were stuck. 

After a little while J called us and arranged for a trusted tow truck driver she knew to head out towards us.  Just then a police car drove by and C waved wildly to flag them down.  At first they just waved back at her, as though it was a polite greeting they were merely exchanging, so she jumped out and ran up to their car.  Eventually, the three officers, all wearing bulletproof vests and with their guns prominently visible in their holsters, waited by the car with us until the tow truck driver finally arrived.  That whole time C had never opened her hood or tried to let on to passerbys besides the police that we needed assistance because she was sure that around there, especially if you're not from there, revealing that you're stranded is an invitation to get robbed instead of getting help.  The three of us squeezed into the front cab of the tow truck with the driver and eventually made it back to Palmer Street.

I'll be honest - I think because I knew the least firsthand about how dangerous Umlazi can be, I guess I didn't ever "freak out" or realize the full extent to how vulnerable a situation we were in.  We made it back fine - I was more worried about when and how we would be able to get the sewing samples and make it out to Umlazi again.  A was laughing at me because once we got back, when I pulled a chicken and mayo pie from a wrapper in my purse and started eating it.  He asked me if I ate when I was anxious and I just confessed I ate because I was usually always hungry when I was around pies or ice cream.  M and I finished a few emails and then I got a ride to Musgrave Shopping Centre from J and A, who were taking a break from welding, so that I could visit ABSA Bank to pay for admission for myself and M next Thursday for a Sewing and Knitting Craft Exposition.  We're going with Mrs. Gambushe to the event to "network" and get a sense of what the big craft businesses are up to in the area.  There will be demonstrations, products for sale, etc., all held on the giant meeting grounds of the Greyville Race Track in the city.  I ate a chocolate and nut dip cone at the Milky Lane ice cream shop in the mall after depositing our admission price and took a taxi home from Musgrave.  By the time I got home, I was ready for a nap - I had stayed up until 1:30 am last night working on some creative non-fiction writing and had let the time get the best of me.  I just woke up from my nap a little bit ago - I had been thinking about going dancing tonight on Florida Road - it's X's birthday tonight and I haven't seen her for three weeks, but I'm also tempted to stay in and watch Tsotsi on the television and just embroider or something quiet. 

Food Notes: Milo, the Delicious Taste of Multinational Corporate Corruption

Available at most restaurants, grocery stores, and ice cream shops here, Milo is a chocolate malt powder you mix with milk or water (cold or warm) for a beverage or sprinkle on cereal or ice cream.  It originated in Australia, but is now hugely popular in Malaysia and available here in South Africa as well as a lot of other Asian, South American, and African markets.  When mixed with cold milk, the crispy powder doesn't dissolve completely, lending the drink a characteristic gritty taste.  Named after Greek athlete Milo of Crotona, it is marketed as a vitamin energy drink and an athlete is nearly always pictured on its packaging.  In most markets, however, its primary ingredient is sugar. 

Multinational corporate giant Nestle produces Milo and, since the end of World War II, this company's expansion into "developing" or postcolonial areas for production and expansion of markets and its acquisition of other food companies (from Maggi in 1947 to Gerber in 2007) typifies the rise of multinational companies flourishing through neoliberal economic policies, particularly during the beginning of the 1990s.  Connected to its expansion of markets, Nestle has engaged in corrupt and unethical business practices for at least the past thirty years since the 1977 Nestle boycott brought attention to their artificial baby milk marketing policies in "developing" countries.  The company insinuated the use of infant formula milk products was preferable to and provided greater health benefits than breastfeeding, but in areas where the water infrastructure was unreliable, infant deaths connected to the consumption of formula mixed with contaminated water increased.  Eventually, the International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, which advocated against advertising claims for the health benefits of formula use was created in response and Nestle ultimately agreed to them (although as recently as May 2007 organizations including Save the Children Fund have alleged Nestle has breached the Code).  I can't help but wonder if any code has been developed that would challenge its ability to market Milo as a vitamin energy drink when it is basically a sugar drink.

Other recent incidents of Nestle's unethical business practices include -

2002:  Nestle challenged Ethiopia's nationalization of its agricultural production by demanding millions of dollars in compensation because Nestle acquired a parent company connected to an agricultural firm years after it had been nationalized.

2004:  Forbes magazine reported Nestle used slave and child labor on its cocoa farms in West Africa.

2005:  Nestle sold hundreds of thousands of tons of contaminated animal feed in Venezuela.

2006:  Nestle co-opted the Fair Trade movement by creating a Partners Blend coffee product in the United Kingdom.  Of its almost ten thousand products, only one has been certified fair trade.   Also, it's a product that competes directly with Nestle's massively popular and widespread Nescafe brand, which can make no such claims of employing Fair Trade practices.

The big frustration, however, is that it is easy enough to highlight Nestle's bad business practices but advocating the consumption of Fair Trade or local, organic products simply isn't feasible with the structure of our markets.  Insisting that we can all "choose" to consume Fair Trade or local, organic products presupposes an economic status and market access that the majority of the world's population does not possess. 

Also, what happens to a problematic food product after it has existed and been appropriated into a variety of cultures?  For example, in Malaysia, Milo is used by many in the Indian Muslim population as an ingredient  in Roti Canai, a traditional flat bread.  A less branded version of this kind of appropriation can be found in the example of United States Native American frybread.  In the 1800s, forced reservation relocation was accompanied by government-supplied rations of flour and lard.  Making do with what they were given, some groups created frybread (flat dough fried in lard).  This bread has become so popular, that South Dakota named it the "official state bread" in 2005, the same year when activist groups finally gained attention pointing out its connection to obesity, diabetes, and other health problems endemic to reservation conditions and some Native American populations.  But from my experience - go to any Navajo food stand in Northern Arizona and you can get a Navajo taco - a hugely popular, inexpensive (and really delicious) dish that uses the fry bread with seasoned beans, beef, and shredded cheese. 

Rather than vilifying individual products or companies, how effective would highlighting the limited economic and physical access certain groups, whether they are in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia or Flagstaff, Arizona, have to choose food products, healthful or otherwise, and work towards expanding access and choices?

   

Countdown Until My First Craft Workshop

This morning I just received *official* confirmation that Create Africa South and the South African Parliamentary Millennium Project will be conducting a five-day workshop in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga from 15-20 March.  My flight has been booked for next Saturday morning and I will be working during the workshop as a coordinator for Create Africa South (along with M and Mrs. Gambushe), primarily assisting in embroidery instruction.  I am so happy to know the workshop has been confirmed because the last couple weeks it has become increasingly clear to me that bureaucracy and the particular situation here (especially working with Parliament and communities of informal working women) prevents making long term plans easily. 

It has been humorous to me that these seemingly last-minute arrangements made here come at the same time as the higher education "funding season" in the United States for the following academic year.  During this time of year my department and other campus programs require a fellowship application where I must project my work and dissertation progress for the next year.  On the one hand, the research I want to do with these craft "democracy" workshops seems to fall through one day and then be confirmed the next.  On the other hand, I have to perform (through writing) my expectations of findings for these workshops and what I will be thinking about in a year's time.  I feel generally that I operate somewhere in between these two time parameters, so both tend to frustrate me - especially since my research forces the two together.

The second workshop (25-30 March) remains unsettled:  CAS will either remain in Nelspruit to conduct our own workshop without the support of the Parliament to collect cloths for our archive since we will be in an area that CAS could not afford otherwise to travel to.  However, the Parliament Project is pushing to conduct a workshop in the Limpopo province that following week, as they would like to complete all provinces soon and they have only completed three.  They have even suggested conducting workshops in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng provinces next month, possibly while I am still here.

Being in the Mpumulanga province has an added benefit for me as a tourist - Kruger National Park - as Nelspruit is close to the Southern area of the park.  The park is the largest game reserve in Southern Africa and its biodiversity is amazing.  Over the Easter weekend, I am going to stay in a backpacker's dorm in Hazyview, a small banana plantation town located outside of the park.  Since the bed only costs R80 a night (about $10 US), I can afford to take one or more guided wildlife tours into the park in hopes of seeing duikers (my favorite!), giraffe, rhinoceros, the elusive honey badger, and tons of other animals.

Fabric and Rhetorics of Nationalism

Today was pretty warm (reaching up to 85 degrees Fahrenheit), although I can tell that summer is slowly ending because the mornings and evenings have started to grow slightly cooler.  After a long day of work with M, I returned to my apartment and felt really lucky to have access to my landlady's swimming pool.  By 5pm I was splashing around in the water, staring at the plumeria tree above me and grateful for one of those moments where I wasn't aware of thinking about anything specifically.

M and I spent much of our morning in the Victoria Street Market area of the city buying fabric, beads, and thread for the workshop that we depart for on Saturday.  We hopped a minibus taxi from near the office to get there - within the city it's 3 Rand to get around town and they usually cram as many riders in as they can.  Most of them have brightly colored lettering and sometimes images on the outside with the name or motif of the cab (some names for cabs I have seen include "Jesus Saves," "Durban Poison," "The Arabs," "Tupac Live or Die," and "Tsotsi").  They also blare techno or hip-hop music so that you have to shout loudly when you want to get off - today we were subjected to an extended remix of a Nelly Furtado song. 

We had to finish our purchases before 1pm, as most stores in that area are owned or managed by Muslims and at that time each Monday through Thursday (it's at noon on Fridays), nearly all shops close for half an hour for worship at the nearby Juma Masjid Mosque (it's the largest mosque in the Southern hemisphere!).  A few weeks ago M and I passed by the mosque during the midday worship time and I was amazed how Grey Street transformed into a parking lot.  One of the street's major cities shuts down for a half an hour to accommodate the thousands of people and their cars who come to worship.  We walked back to the office even though it was quite a distance so we could stop at a store to add internet time onto the portable modem we use at the office and pick up some takeaway for lunch (my favorite bunny shop hadn't received their bread delivery today because of the electricity shortage so I had to settle for mutton curry on rice).  M and I ate back at the office while we worked on emails and plans for this week.

The first picture I have posted below shows the materials that go into making a finished cloth during our craft workshops.  I'm interested that these materials that may be considered "pre-political" or part of the personal/private/everyday sphere enter a democratic sphere as political participation largely because of the recognition these cloths will receive by the Parliament and during their exhibition in a museum space.  The cloths produced in the workshop materially depict the crafter's conception of what democracy means at this particular moment and their location in South Africa's republic.  The second picture depicts more shweshwe I purchased today for myself - including a meter of De Gama Textile's "Madiba" Print:  an indigo shweshwe with a border print of Nelson Mandela.  This is a really salient (and hugely popular) example of a material expression of national identity produced by a company with the permission of Nelson Mandela but explicitly outside of direct governmental intervention.  It reminded me of the textiles featured in the recent exhibition, Wearing Propaganda, that positioned mass-produced American and Japanese World War II fabrics as examples of "unofficial propaganda" that "reflect commitment to their country's rhetoric of war" (Jacqueline M. Atkins, curator).  The exhibition suggests that a nexus of constrained yet creative relationships exists between the textile, the "Home Front" consumer, the government, and the private textile and clothing manufacturers.  Through the consumption and display of the "war" textiles, the consumer can actively support his or her government and its rhetoric of war - they can display their "good citizenshipness."  I am interested in how the "Madiba" shweshwe print functions here and if I can draw similar connections of its purchase/use to performances of citizenship. 

Grand-Pa Hoofpynpoeiers After a Long Day

I was awakened by a text message this morning around 7:30 am, which reminded me of one of the most distinctive cultural differences between my life here and the one I lead in Urbana:  the people I work with, and most people in general in Durban, get up early for work.  The people I work with would never think it was too early to call or message me at 7am.  This has been a definite adjustment to my usual work/sleep patterns.  Today I was at the Killie Campbell Africana Library doing more research and found am amazing report from ten years ago that I can use to connect to the programs advocated for "Bantu" Education that I posted about a week ago.  As recently as a decade ago, the SA government expressed an interest in "exploiting" culture (the actual word used in the report) in national and global markets in order to improve the economy. 

In the afternoon I stopped by Musgrave Centre to buy supplies for my research trip on Saturday:  I bought another memory card for my digital camera, batteries for my digital audio recorder, and a big box of Grand-Pa Hoofpynpoeiers (in English:  Grand-Pa Headache Powder).  The air pressure today has been wreaking havoc with my head - it finally started raining an hour ago - so I needed to buy some headache medicine.  Headache powder is popular here - my friend K in Urbana first introduced it to me - and it works faster than ingesting a pill.  The powder comes in a little folded wax-paper packet and you either mix it with water or just chuck it all in your mouth and swallow it down quickly.

Two variables regarding Saturday's trip were happily cleared up today:  first, we confirmed that our group will stay a second week in Nelspruit (Mpumalanga province).  The first week, then, will be the "Democracy" workshop with the Parliamentary Millennium Project and the second, less funded/more "grassroots" week will be the "History" workshop with only Create Africa South sponsoring the workshop.  Also, my contact in South Africa's Parliament confirmed to me that when we finally meet on Saturday she can bring me past reports/paperwork related to their end of the project's collaboration and also DVDS of footage recorded during the first three workshops from this year.  This is wonderful news for me - having the project coordinator from Parliament furnishing materials helps remove part of the "guesswork" from my research and will ensure I can analyze the motivations for the Parliamentary Millennium Quilt Project beyond the small blurb on their website. 

Below I've included my most recent formulation of what my research will lead to in terms of my dissertation.  For now its focus excludes the research I have been doing on economic craft programs for "marginalized" groups - something that I will continue to examine, but that may have to form another project besides my dissertation.

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I am currently in Durban, South Africa conducting fieldwork in the area (participant observation and interviews) and archival research at the Killie Campbell Africana Library (University of KwaZulu-Natal).  My dissertation is in its prewriting/research stage and I will submit a complete prospectus draft to my advisor in late March.  It was imperative for me to begin field research before completing my prospectus so I can ethically attend to the interview subjects and local environment in which I have situated myself over the next few months.  My dissertation, “Crafting Democratic Participation:  Amazwi Abesifazane, South Africa’s Parliamentary Millennium Project, and Craft Literacy,” examines cloth production workshops Create Africa South (CAS) sponsors for South African women to compose embroidered cloths that recount past history and present conceptions of democracy.  CAS began these weeklong craft workshops, entitled “Amazwi Abesifazane” (“Voices of Women”), in 2000 to collect personal histories from women, a majority of whom are considered marginalized because they are “Black” or “Coloured,” informal laborers, or possess little alphabetic literacy.  During the workshop each participant composes an oral narrative and embroidered panel that depicts the themes explored in her narrative.  CAS then takes the woman’s photograph and frames these three components together for exhibition within South Africa, internationally, and online.  Over the past year, CAS has collaborated with the Parliament of South Africa’s Millennium Project (PMP), which has prompted a shift in the cloths’ subjects from recounting history to representing conceptions of democracy.  When the PMP has collected cloths from women in all nine provinces of South Africa, they will be exhibited and discussed in Parliament.
During my time here, I will participate in three workshops that will form the central case studies for my dissertation.  The first, funded and led by PMP organizers, will be held in the Mpumalanga province (scheduled from March 17-21 in Nelspruit) with a democracy focus and the second will be funded and led by CAS organizers and occur in the same province the following week with a broader history focus.  The third workshop will be held here in the metropolitan Durban area in April – it is one that I have been in the process of coordinating since arriving here through contacts I have established in the Indian community and it will be a workshop with a group of ethnic Indian women in the area.  If successful, this last workshop would foster the production of the first South African Indian history cloths for the Amazwi archive.  I will revisit Durban, Cape Town, and Nelspruit during the Spring 2009 term to trace the impact of these workshops and the cloths upon the participants involved (including workshop participants, CAS organizers, and PMP coordinators), as well as their larger dissemination to local, governmental, national, and international audiences.  Returning in person will be vital for me to reestablish and interview the personal contacts I have made while I have been here, as issues of language, context, and technological access prohibit me from completing follow up from a distance.  I may still face difficulty in relocating some workshop participants, as informal settlement residents often lack stable housing and employment options.

While I cannot make direct claims about the workshops that will serve as my case studies before their occurrence, I can situate them within the core concepts of democratic participation and craft literacy that I draw from the field of Rhetoric and Composition.  My dissertation contributes to the field’s scholarship on the constitution of democratic citizens, democratic participation, and the link of citizenship and participation to literate practices.  I productively challenge and further this tradition of scholarship to consider how neoliberal globalization, in its privatization of services through NGOs and expansion of inequalities, influence the construction of particular forms of citizenship and participation in the “Global South.”  Specifically, I consider how the execution of these local workshops, the sewing activities they foster (which may conventionally be considered pre- or non-political), and the circulation of cloths function as forms of democratic participation within a global network of rhetorical exchange.  By observing and participating in the workshops, I can consider how participants identify themselves and how workshop coordinators communicate constitutive discourses that, as Barbara Cruikshank argues, “contribute to solidifying what is possible to think, say, do, and be democratically.”   I anticipate my experience with three different versions of the cloth production workshop – particularly in their differences in governmental and NGO coordination, racial and ethnic identifications, and subject focus – will contribute to a nuanced analysis of the core concepts of democratic participation and craft literacy that I explore.

When I analyze the composition of the cloths as a literate modality – I consider them as a form of “craft literacy” and reference key, past critical definitions of the concept, including Eric Havelock’s identification of “craft literacy” as a moment “in which the public inscription is composed as a source of referral for officials”  and Jonathan Moyo’s use of the term to refer to the design of bureaucratic structures.   At the same time, I expand the term to consider the material/visual/haptic literate practices of a craft literacy that draws upon handicraft traditions as a modality of literate expression.  Havelock’s understanding of craft literacy may account for the CAS/PMP collaboration – where the cloths are seemingly produced as direct referrals to Parliament officials - but the second and third workshops evade this strict conception, with their lack of a direct conduit to official or bureaucratic networks.  Ultimately, I identify craft literacy as a form of democratic participation, but one that may problematically be opened up primarily for citizens of the “global South.”  In the sections on craft literacy and the conclusion of my dissertation, I will work through this claim when I relate the CAS cloths to forms of democratic craft production that have originated in the United States, including the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and the Clothesline Project, which have functioned within public networks of rhetoric to influence popular and governmental response to human rights issues.

Sewing Project Update

Dejection After the Storm: Feeling the Effects of Tropical Cyclone Jokwe

The tropical cyclone Jokwe that suddenly mushroomed into a Category 3 hurricane on Monday has devastated coastal areas of Mozambique, killed at least  eight people, and destroyed nearly 20,000 homes.  The storm we got here in Durban last night was intense, but merely the climatological fringes of Jokwe.  Heavy rain in an area that has a shoddy and unequal housing, electricity, and water infrastructure can be absolutely destructive.  It rained heavily last night - so much so that many homes, buildings, and slums in the area were flooded.  My apartment and my landlady's house rests on the entabeni, or "top of the mountain" in the city's area so we didn't suffer from any flooding, just a few leaks here and there.  However, when I went to the office this morning, the front walkway was submerged under five inches of water.  Even worse, rain poured through the roof and water damaged our only computer, monitor, and the power strips on the ground.  We're hoping that a few days of drying out may restore the computer, but I'm not really expecting much at this point.  Parts of CAS' extensive database of each cloth's image, transcribed narrative (in original language and English translation), and crafter's photograph could very well be lost.  I don't really know.  The archive room that holds the primary Amazwi cloths, hard copies of the narratives, and our supplies for the workshop that begins Saturday remained dry - thankfully.

Since there wasn't much we could do there (M had already swept out the water by the time I got there at 8:30), we went out to Umlazi (C had her car "fixed" so she drove us) to sew with Mrs. Gambushe and the women at the center.  They didn't have electricity for the last three days so they had been unable to work on a lot of sewing, although "Mo" is nearly done with a large quilt - she is just finishing the binding.  Much of the roads in Umlazi were covered in mud and waste that washed down from the storm and most of the shacks had flooded and people were still trying to sweep and bucket water out when we drove through the area around 9am.  While we were at the center I tried to take my best "catalog" photographs of some of our finished samples so that I can create a "marketing" package around them and start shopping them around to local and international craft sellers/stores.  I took a break from sewing to watch two roosters and a hen that were outside of the center.  After we got back into the city, C dropped M back at the office and she was going to drop me at home so I could work on some writing I need to finish before I leave Saturday.  Except C's car broke down.  Again.  It was the same problem - a burst water tube because her engine overheated.  Luckily we were near Davenport Center, a relatively safe shopping area where I could catch a quick bus back to my house.

I'll be honest - the rain flooding the office, no electricity at the center, the car breaking down again today - it can all just start to feel too demanding.  Beyond figuring out how to function with the limited resources of what you have to work with, you have to start focusing too much on what all of a sudden you don't have to work with, and start questioning whether anything will work at all.  I understand the economic constraints of the organization - it's a local NGO that performs a very specific function so it doesn't receive a lot of funding, but they stretch and apply that funding to the basic areas where it's needed - but when these unknown constraints and problems seemingly come out of nowhere and feel like they keep coming, it absolutely frustrates me.
 

 

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Update about local storm damage from SABCnews.com:

Durban roads, train services affected by floods

March 12, 2008, 17:30
The south of Durban was badly flooded after last night's heavy rains. Train services and roads were severely affected.

Police and emergency workers rescued a number of people after water levels rose during a heavy downpour. The weather bureau says 200mm of rain fell in some parts of the province.

Several areas around Durban were hit hard by the flash floods. Merebank, in the Durban South basin, and Umlazi, were the worst affected. The roads were badly flooded, and several cars were submerged. Other roads were closed after mudslides.

Residents warn that if nothing is done about the drainage system in the area, the flooding will occur again. Train services around Durban were also severely affected by last night's rains. Officials say cables were destroyed, and other train routes were flooded.

Crafting Distinctions

I took this photo this morning at the Sewing, Knitting & Crafts Workshop I attended with Mrs. Gambushe and M on the grounds of the Greyville Race Track.  So, I have to admit - this egg has been making me giggle since I saw it earlier today.  It is so... fanciful.  I guess it's just not my style and not what I think of when I imagine craft projects I want to complete.  I received a few kind emails and a comment yesterday after I wrote about the storm and I just wanted to put things in context.  This morning at the office, we attempted to start up the computer and although the fan appears to be working, the computer isn't communicating any signal to either of the monitors we tried it with.  We think it very well may be done for.  But it was still possible to have a really great day, in part because of who I got to spend it with.  Even after the big storm - which nearly destroyed two oil refineries in the area and caused several raw sewage pipes to burst and pollute the Isipingo River - the busy pace of the city continues and most everything seems like business as usual again.  As much as one moment can feel overwhelming, a little sleep and a strategically placed egg can remind me how much possibility there is for humor during most moments.

The craft fair today was definitely aimed for consumers - primarily women - rather than those who hope to earn an income producing handicrafts.  Most of the items on sale were all mass-produced:  crafting magazines and booklets, patterns and kits (ranging from mosaic to embroidery), and specific crafting supplies (beads, scrapbooking paper, etc).  I bought a large skein of natural cotton embroidery floss to start a whitework embroidery project I have been imagining for a while, but besides that find, I did not get a sense that I would meet anyone there who was working towards craft sustainability projects such as the one Mrs. Gambushe and I have been trying to develop.  When I walked by the exhibition for "Foilart" and was accosted by Tracey, the exhibitor, who informed me that "everyone was doing it," I actually asked her, "really, everyone is doing it?"  She seemed a little taken aback.  I guess I had a hard time believing that vague assurances of peer pressure would actually persuade me to "do Foilart." 

Jokes aside, it seems to me there are several core distinctions between the sustainable crafts market and the consumer crafts market.  The two of which were most salient to me today are the rhetorics of "uplift" and the concept of time/labor.  There was hardly any mention of uplift or moral improvement by engaging in craftwork today - and this is something that is virtually inextricable from discussions about (both internal and external to the crafting collectives) and the marketing of sustainable craft products.  The assumption today was that attendees engaged in various recreational craft activities for their own sake, so any impetus to justify or identify motivations was absent.  Also, there was hardly any mention of time or labor involvement today -for example, the demonstration I observed on Jacobean embroidery and its history didn't even acknowledge the hundreds of hours of handwork most of the pieces they were displaying actually require.  When I have been working at the Z-Centre in Umlazi, at several points I have reverted to using hand sewing (for applique or to finish a hem) or recommending it for certain points in quilt construction because handwork can be more precise and less visible, but I have hardly fully considered the issue of what the time taken to do this means in terms of its relationship to the value the object assumes.

After the craft fair, the three of us walked back into the city centre, stopped for some mutton curry pies along the way, and then purchased some beads and embroidery floss that had come in for our upcoming workshops (the wholesalers didn't receive their shipment of white floss until yesterday).  Something must have been in the air today because it seemed like several men on the street were teasing us or catcalling (fortunately, not in a way that was uncomfortable or intimidating) - in the many times M and I have been running errands this hadn't happened before, so I told Mrs. G that all the guys must be crazy for her.  M and I stayed at the office late today trying to finish arrangements for the second workshop and I finally got home a little before 6pm.  Today was the first fall day I have felt since being here - for the first time the sky was overcast and the temperature was cool and in the 70s all day.  It was a nice change not to have to worry about getting suntoasted. 

Off to Mpumulanga (15 March - 30 March)

M, Mrs. G, and I will be in the Mpumalanga Province for the next two weeks to conduct two workshops for Create Africa South's Amazwi Abesifazane project.  The first, held in Nelspruit from 15 - 20 March will be in conjunction with the South Africa Parliamentary Millennium Project and cloth production will focus on contemporary concepts of democracy for women participants.  The second, likely to be held in a rural area outside of Nelspruit from 25-29 March, will only be conducted by the three of us and cloth production will focus on history and experience. 

Over the Easter weekend I will be staying at the Gecko bushpacker's hostel - yay vacation! - just outside of Hazyview near Kruger National Park.  If you need to contact me for any emergency, the location information there is:  SABIE ROAD PLOT S 13; P.O. BOX 753  HAZYVIEW  1242; TEL.: 013 – 737 8140; FAX: 086 – 631 7143; EMAIL: [email protected]

I have decided to leave my laptop here in Durban - I imagine I will be able to find some internet cafes for access in Nelspruit, for at least the first week to check email and maybe quickly update current events.  Otherwise, I'll write about the trip after my return, during my last few weeks here in Durban.

I hope everyone enjoys the seasonal change... whether it is into Spring or Fall, the two seasons I love the most for the way they whisper both of promise and reflection.  I'll be thinking of my family on Easter and missing our egg-cracking championship.

Dispatch from Hazyview

I'm writing from the Bushpacker's Lodge in Hazyview where I have been since Friday, taking some time off to visit the lowveld and Kruger National Park over the holiday weekend.  The area is absolutely beautiful - the mountains, waterfalls, and canyons are astonishing - and I saw the "Big 5" today as well as so many other amazing animals (including impalas, tortoises, antelope) inside Kruger until it began to storm this afternoon. 

The first workshop with CAS and PMP was held in Hazyview and gathered women from rural areas throughout the Mpumalanga province.  It concluded Thursday at noon and all 51 participants completed cloths.  CAS' solo workshop begins on Tuesday in the nearby township of Muhushu - we'll be staying with one of the participants, D, in her home close to the building (I believe it is a schoolhouse) that will house the workshop.  D mentioned that even more than the 60 participants we can accomodate would like to participate if possible.  We conclude on the 29th, but couldn't get a flight from Nelspruit to Durban until the 31st so by that evening I will have complete internet access once again.  I will also be able to upload my photographs then and begin posting some selected images (by the end of the trip, I should have about 2.5 gigabytes worth of photos, not to mention the hours of video I have already shot).  I will also begin transcribing my "fieldnotes" and can start commenting on my initial impressions regarding the two workshops.  I can say already that the first workshop was at once exciting, thoughtful, and frustrating.