Wednesday, March 21, 2007

I hugged a legend!


Last night John and I went to London to see Sizwe Bansi is Dead with the two original cast members, John Kani and Winston Ntshona (who are also two of the three co-authors, the third being Athol Fugard). If you don't know the story, you really need to research it. Sadly, this is the last time these two giants of South African theatre history will be doing it.

Thanks to an arrangement by the UCT alumni association, we attended a reception afterwards that was attended by John Kani.

The play is set in PE in the 70s, and it got right into me. One of the characters was from King William's Town, making it very close to home. You knew that they were telling the stories of people they knew and it hurt, even when it was funny. Maybe especially when it was funny. So much so that, when Kani arrived at the reception, I went to this total stranger and hugged him and burst into tears. He was lovely. So gracious. He hugged me right back and kissed me on the head, as if he were comforting me. I can't explain how I felt in that moment, but I think he must have encountered that reaction many times before. I'm not one for being starstruck and I'm not much impressed by fame, but this was something different. I think I would only have felt more moved if I had met Mandela himself!

Someone took our picture. Of course, my eyes were puffy and my makeup was gone, but I'm very proud of it, just the same.

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Saturday, March 10, 2007

Some recent pictures of the boys

Here is a picture of Torvy taken today in Camden, resplendent in his new jacket. All the pictures of Björn include his new girlfriend, and without her parents' permission, I can't publish them here, so I'm including one of him taken in December in a very typical pose!

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Torvy: the good feedback continues

Following my recent post about the boys' good reports, I recently had a chat with Torvy's tutor. She is delighted with him. She speaks highly of his attitude, his commitment, the way he taken ownership of his workload, his diligence. She says that, while he has a tendency to chat in class (my son? Well I never!), he is not truculent, and takes correction in good part.

We are very proud of the way he has settled in at high school. It's funny, though, how people jump to conclusions about him based on his appearance (quick description: he has long hair and wears kinda funky clothes - denim jeans, T-shirt with a slogan or picture of Jimi Hendrix, suit jacket, studded belt, Converse trainers, spiked wristband, topped off with a rainbow striped chullo hat- see picture). People in our church have now given up asking us when we're going to make him get a haircut, and have (in some cases reluctantly) decided to get over it and accept him for himself, but outside of the church it's a different matter. Older folks give him filthy looks, younger folks offer to sell him cannabis or hurl abuse at him for being an "effing greebo". It's bee a real eye-opener. Those of us who know him, know that he is neither a thug nor a drug-user, but that doesn't change what people think when they see him!

He has a girlfriend called Laura these days. This is not the young lass he was attempting to romance via msn-by-candlelight. Her name is Laura and she's the year ahead of him at school. They have been going out together for 3 weeks, so it's practically forever! He spent last Saturday afternoon at her house, so I guess we need to think about having her over to spend some time at our house, soon.

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Björn gains work experience

This week and next week, Björn is doing what is called "work experience". He is working as a lab assistant at a company called Beardow Adams, which manufactures hot melt adhesives. This week, he is working in the testing lab. Next week, he will spend one day in the office and the rest of the week in a different lab.

The idea is to give kids in their first year of GCSEs (14 to 15 year olds) a taste of what working life is like. Perhaps the idea is to scare them into staying on for 6th form rather than entering the world of employment at 16! I've seen kids at the bank before, wearing badges that proclaim them to be on work experience, and they have sat there watching other people work, looking bored out of their skulls. Fortunately, they get a list of options to choose from and Björn got his first choice. He chose things that would give him a chance to actually do something, and he is thoroughly enjoying himself!

On Tuesday, one of the guys in the lab gave him a written test. He did pretty well considering it was only his second day on the job! He got 32/40. But more impressive than his score to me was the humour he managed to inject. One question asked him to "describe the difference between "centipoise" and "poise"", to which he replied: "One has "centi" in front". Needless to say, he got no marks for that one - although strictly speaking, his answer can't be said to be wrong ;-). Another question asked: "Describe in detail one use for the finished product." Björn gave a correct answer (that it gets shipped off all around the globe to be melted down and used to seal cereal boxes), then added "In some cases it meets Glew (the female) and they have little Pritt sticks together." I defy you to top that!

Tomorrow, as he finishes in the test lab, he has to do another test, and he has been advised that any score below 49/50 will be considered poor. I am confident that he will not disappoint!

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