AfricanKelli

I wish I’d taken the time to see this exhibit the last time I was in Monterey. What an incredible sight! (And I’m glad I didn’t see it before I swam in the La Jolla Open Water last year. Yikes.)

Monterey is a beautiful place, if you get the chance.

~AK

I wouldn’t be a good steward of African news in the
United States if I didn’t mention the elections taking place today in Zimbabwe – however inconsequential they may be. I’ll be the first to say that my understanding of Zimbabwe’s political history is weak. I know the country was once a British colony (Rhodesia) founded by John Rhodes. I know that the current president, Robert Mugabe, despises the United Kingdom as though it is his number one priority in office. I know that there are reportedly more than 1 million people in Zimbabwe – a bountiful country with hectares of fertile land – who are starving because of Mugabe’s politics.

The United States has labeled the country a “State of Tyranny,” which I suppose is only one notch below being a member of the “Axis of Evil.”  Mr. Mugabe’s evil is debatable, but it is not in question that he has led a country for 25 years without democracy. The people vote and he miraculously always wins. The people say they voted for the other candidate – the candidate that was pushed out of the country, the candidate who was killed. There have been many during Mr. Mugabe’s dictatorial rule.

It became illegal for white’s to own land in Zimbabwe a few years ago. Most major farms were owned by whites who had immigrated from Europe generations before. They were as Zimbabwean as much as the next. When the land was taken from them and they were left with just the shirts on their backs. Their employees lost work and their communities suffered. There was no one trained to run the farms. The fields remain in fallow. People went hungry. The economy stuttered.

Zimbabwe, from everything I read, is a beautiful country, with the Zambezi and Victoria Falls on the northern border and vast stretches of open savannah toward the South African border. It was once a refuge for Europeans looking for a “civilized” African vacation. Today, the people have the highest HIV/AIDS rate in the world. An article this week in The New York Times said 85% of those Zimbabweans age 15 today will die of HIV/AIDS during their life time. Mugabe, at 81, won’t life to see the destruction he’s promoted with his anti-European, anti-democratic ways.

Today, I’m thinking of the women in Zimbabwe, wrapped in brightly colored cloth, clutching babies to their chest and fretting about their temporarily unattended crops. I’m saluting their courage for voting and for continuing to march on. May Zimbabwe find the democratic peace it needs to once again flourish with a healthy population.

~Africankelli

I had dinner last night with some literary friends. You know the type – those who love to read, the ones who always have a paperback under their arm, the type who need reading glasses by age 20 because of many childhood nights spent under the covers reading by flashlight after their imposed “lights out.”

We met at a new restaurant in
Phoenix called Chelsea’s Kitchen. I got there early, with my tattered copy of “The Power of One” and a smile. I had half an hour to read on a beautiful patio before they arrived.

Phoenix is experiencing an Indian Spring of sorts. It was hot (mid-80s) for a week and has since become breezy and cool again. Phoenicians with any common sense are outside lapping up this weather with all of their energy because we know any second now the demon sun will return with its 115 degree heat. So, there I sat in my favorite black Burberry dress, jean jacket, black heels and turtle shell glasses, hunkered into the pages of my book, in deep conversation of sorts with Peekay. When they arrived, we all took time to take in our surroundings.

The renovated building looks like it could have been designed by Howard Roark. The patio is stunning, and I’m not one to heap architectural praise upon anything. The design is simple, classic and breathtaking. The yellow brick columns on the patio were made by custom design. Light wood panels gather in peaked ceilings. The polished concrete floors shine. The giant windows were all open. The bar rests half outside, half inside the restaurant. On the other side of the outdoor bar is another large patio with a fireplace and dozens of benches. The furniture looks like something from a Ralph Lauren Safari advertisement. Dark leather chairs with dark wood tables. Large sage green pots full of bountiful spring flowers. It does feel like a ranch house that was plopped down in the middle of Kruger Park. It’s got more of a South African feel than a western one. A cool breeze blew in and out of the restaurant while we gulped down fancy hamburgers and over priced glasses of wine and Diet Coke.

It was lovely.

So lovely, in fact, I think it may be perfect for a party.

Perhaps a book party.

We shall see.

~AfricanKelli

“Everything fits, Peekay. Nothing is unexplained. Nature is a chain reaction. One thing follows the other, everything is dependent on something else. The smallest is as important as the largest. See,” he would say, pointing to a tiny vine curled around a sapling, “that is a stinkwood sapling which can grow thirty meters, but the vine will win and the tree will be choked to death long before it will ever see the sky.”

He would often use an analogy from nature. “Ja, Peekay, always in life an idea starts small, it is only a sapling idea, but the vines will come and they will try to choke your idea so it cannot grow and it will die and you will never know you had a big idea, an idea so big it could have grown thirty meters through the dark canopy of leaves and touched the face of the sky,” He looked at me and continued. “The vines are people who are afraid of originality, of new thinking. Most people you encounter will be vines; when you are a young plant they are very dangerous.” His piercing blue eyes looked into mine. “Always listen to yourself, Peekay. It is better to be wrong than simply to follow convention. If you are wrong, no matter, you have learned something and you will grow stronger. If you are right, you have taken another step toward a fulfilling life.”

“The Power of One,” p. 156

and before I offered my sushi dinner to the porcelain gods…

I’ve really got to clarify that blurry line between “drinking” and “drunk.”

Oy vey.

(Rebs, way to work the camera! Who knew Polariod brought out the super model in you?)

A couple of weeks ago, a girlfriend called and invited me to join her book club. She didn’t know any of the members and wanted someone to drag along. Could I finish the book in just a few days? Why yes, yes I could.

We met in old town
Scottsdale and of course I was early. I wanted to go to a knitting store in the area beforehand, but their hours are 10 am – 4 pm. (Silly me thinking that stores must have normal hours. Apparently most people who knit, you know – like my grandma, don’t have to work 8-5 jobs too.) Anyway, I got the restaurant an hour early with another book and thought a glass of wine and some time on the patio would be great. The nearby bars were crammed packed with people my age who’d just gone to the Giants spring training game. It would be great people watching if nothing else.

Soon enough a man approached and we began to talk. He wanted to know what I was reading and after a few minutes he blurted out that he is a local author with four books. His first will be published in a couple of months. I was startled. I picked his brain for publishing advice and we chatted happily until my friend arrived and the meeting started. It was serendipitous that I’d had the extra time to spend chatting because he gave me a positive push toward getting a literary agent.

The reading was much more enjoyable than I anticipated. I hadn’t been overly impressed with Picoult’s books, but I am impressed with her as a person. She is delightful. We crammed into the tiny Poisoned Pen Bookstore and sat on folding chairs, listening carefully as she read the first chapter of “Vanishing Acts.” I couldn’t help but think about what I would wear, what I would read, where my parents would sit when it is my turn to tour with a book. Her parents happened to be seated right in front of me and they were sweet. We chatted briefly after the reading, but my attention was swayed by sparkly jewelry that blurred my temporary focus. Her mother had a Jessica Simpson-esk pear cut diamond ring on her right hand that was va-va-voom delicious.

When I escaped the bling bling tractor beam and got a second to talk to Jodi, she said she was missing her children. The three stay at home with their father while she tours. She won’t be done with the tour until June, after she’s visited five continents. She’s already completed writing the next novel, which will be published next March and is working on the one after that.

I was bowled over by her work ethic and inspired. I asked her if she would consider taking an apprentice, because, you know, I have it in me to manage one more thing. She laughed and said without pause, “No. There is no way I’d let you in my home. You are too pretty. It is that whole ‘husband/nanny’ thing. You don’t want a nanny prettier than you.”

Gulp.

I turned beet red and thanked her, quickly exiting the store with an embarrassed smile. She’d suddenly become my favorite author.

~AfricanKelli

Spring is floating in the air in giant yellow clouds of pollen. The mesquite trees are sneezing greasy orange balls. The tall pine trees are shedding small cylindrical mustard yellow bullets. Even the aloe vera is pushing its coral colored proboscis excitedly straight up in hopes of tempting a nearby female. There is a Jimmy Hendrix inspired golden haze hanging over the bright green rose buds and the fuchsia bougainvillea. My garden is having an orgy.

Inside, things are a touch more dour. Small patches of dangerously dark mold grow on water damaged walls and peeling paint. Above the brightly colored turquoise kitchen sit three tiny windows with cracked seals and silvery gray cobwebs. The hallway door is hanging slightly off kilter. The plug in my bathroom has gone kaput. The screens need to be re-cut, re-hung and replaced.

It is time to call in the expert.

It is time to call The Handyman.

If you’ve never experienced the power of a man who knows how to fix just about anything with minimal tools he keeps in the back of a rusty old pickup, it is hard to believe. The Handyman has been meeting my mother’s beck and call for a few years. He fixes broken tile, installs light fixtures, seals cracks in the walls and is friendly. More importantly, he is cheap. (And he is in shape, so you don’t have to worry about the “pants hanging so low because of the bulging belly, so the ass crack is in full view” issue.)

When a pool fence needed to be put back into its place and a pool company wanted $800 to do the trick, The Handyman had it done in half an hour for $40. His powers cease to amaze.

The next month is going to be a whirl of renovation at Casa de Africankelli. I’ll be sure to take “before” photos to share.

Here are a few of the items I hope to include in the “after” gallery.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a kitchen sink that doesn’t leak around the base when you turn it on? And look, this one doesn’t have any of that green calcium build up around the edge.

Alas, the curtains I sewed in college need replacing.

Before you think I’m one of those people whose entire home is white, I am not. The colors of my walls would shock Helen Keller. The white accesories, such as the lovely rug above, help keep everything in balance. This would look great under my round kitchen table.

This would be a fabu bookcase for the living room. I’ve had my eye on it for a while.

This too is so, so pretty. It makes me wish the Easter Bunny brought Pottery Barn gift certificates instead of stale peeps.

One can hope.

Happy Spring to All,

Africankelli

On the highway between the north
shore of Oahu and Honolulu sits the Dole Pineapple Plantation fields. Similar fields, with precise rows of sage green prickly pineapple plants, dot the highway between Doula and the Atlantic in western Cameroon. Something about seeing things in patterns makes me want to take dozens of photos. It reminds me of the old school photos of Miami in the 70s where bunches of brightly colored umbrellas on a white beach were photographed from above. The random pattern of the spurts of color remains vivid in my memory, even though I recall seeing the photos only once.

From the passenger seat, I tried to capture the moment.

But sometimes the moment has passed before you realize that you should have slowed down to enjoy it.

And then again, sometimes everything regains focus.

~AfricanKelli

I just finished reading “Vanishing Acts” by Jodi Piccoult. It was one of those last minute decisions – an invitation to a book club later this week was tempting enough to have me put down “The Power of One” for a few days. I’d read Piccoult’s novel “My Sister’s Keeper” and wasn’t out of my mind impressed. But it wasn’t terrible either. I thought I’d give her another shot. Plus, there was an extra hook. The book takes place in
Phoenix and I can’t remember ever reading a novel set in my own backyard.

Some 400 pages later, I am still not overly impressed with Piccoult, but the book was worth reading. Her writing style flows well and her word choice is basic. It isn’t difficult to understand. I also appreciate how she aims to teach the reader about offhand topics that interest her varied characters. In “My Sister’s Keeper,” it was astronomy. We learned all about the different constellations. In “Vanishing Acts” there is a little thrown in about magic, a little about search-and-rescue, and a little about the Hopi culture in northern Arizona.

A better book that incorporates the Hopi culture is “Animal Dreams” by Barbara Kingsolver. It is one of my top five favorites. If I could follow in the steps of one great writer, it would be hers.

I am perhaps a touch more critical of this novel because it is set in my hometown and because Piccoult obviously doesn’t like Arizona. She makes regular comments in the book about the dusty trailer parks and describes the heat as though it is a ravenous monster we cannot control.

I’m looking forward to listening to her speak later this week and wiggle in her seat when I call her on these comments. I suppose in the karmic balance of it all, it will be me answering these tough questions from unsatisfied readers in the audience. I relish the thought.

“Vanishing Acts” get two out of five bananas.

~AK