Coming of age

After nearly 40 days here, I feel like we've experienced a number of the more stereotypical aspects of Capetonian life. We've watched the surfers at Muizenberg, sampled wines at Klein Constantia and Steenberg, nursed cappuccini on Lower Main in Obs, eaten a vivid curry, and visited the penguins at Boulders Beach. And Ouma's buttermilk rusks, you ask? We're well into our second box.

That said, we had somehow not encountered the drone of the vuvuzela, the horn so familiar from last summer's World Cup - until this past weekend, which we spent in Worcester, a provincial city about 90 minutes east of Cape Town. We went there with L.'s students, who stayed in the homes of several residents of the black township; on Friday, the whole group took a large walk through the township, and on Saturday L. and her students went to a discussion of HIV/AIDS in the township, and then visited a sangoma, or traditional healer. We thus got a hint of a largely overlooked part of Worcester (one local history's entry on rugby in Worcester was five times as long as its entry on Zwelathemba, with its several thousand residents). But that hint was never clearer, perhaps, than in a raucous parade of young men that we saw on a sidewalk as we left the township on Friday evening. Vuvuzelas blared, the men seemed to sing or to shout, and L. immediately identified the group as part of a critical Xhosa rite: the rite of circumcision, that is, that represents young males' entry into manhood. It's a controversial topic, apparently, in public health, largely because it involves conditions that are far from sanitary - all candidates are sometimes cut using one blade - and because its history has led many Xhosa to see circumcision at birth as an assault on their traditional culture. Regardless, though, the combination of horns and tightly knit men was quite potent; it evoked images such as this for me, and thus spoke of sanctity, and powers that lie beyond our ken. We were mere outsiders, of course. But isn't that part of the point of a ritual? Those who are on the inside know, and those who are not, know only that they do not.


In thinking about the image of the men afterwards, I realized that Cleo has experienced very few formal rituals. Sure, that's partly because she's only two, and it's also due to the fact that she is being raised in a largely secular environment. And perhaps you could argue, too, that in fact a great deal of her life is comprised of modest rituals: walks to Whole Foods, when she was still so small, to get her daily muffin; Sunday trips to the farmers market; birthday cakes frosted to look like animals. Certainly, though, none of these were loaded with the sheer import or significance of a circumcision ceremony.

And yet, despite the lack of dramatic rites of passage, Cleo learns, and grows, and changes. Safe and quiet in her car seat, she saw the parade, too - just as she, as well, has seen penguins, eaten rusks, and wandered the vineyards. And is no doubt changed, irreversibly, by all of it.

Ask not for whom the vuvuzela blares. It blares for the bleeding young men, it blares for Cleo - and it blares for you.

Freedom to be

In 1932, a number of musicians, composers, and critics gathered in Cairo for an International Conference on Arab Music. You can probably imagine the general scene - cups of tea; men in ties - but it may surprise you to learn that one of the major themes of the conference involved the proper relationship between Arab and Western musical traditions. Some attendees listened to a formal discussion of the complexities inherent in Arab ensembles adopting the violincello and string bass. “Can the maqamat be harmonized?” asked a separate session. And another: "Should Arab music abolish quartertones?"

At the heart of such questions, of course, was an even larger issue: the relationship between two cultures. At a time when Egypt was controlled by the British, the embrace of Western musical tradition was more than a mere aesthetic choice; it was a political gesture. But not necessarily in the way you might think - for many Egyptians, in fact, saw their right to draw on a wide variety of traditions as a basically desireable freedom, while some British wanted Egypt to remain true to what they saw as a timeless authenticity. Thus, as Virginia Danielson has observed, “the willingness of some Egyptian delegates to adopt European musical practices alarmed a number of Europeans who advocated ‘preservation’ of the indigenous heritage, which attitude, in turn, outraged those Egyptians who saw Westernization as the path to cultural accomplishment….” In short, Egyptians sought the right to be members of the global community, while some British wanted Egyptians to - well, to remain Egyptian, as they thought of the word.

At the risk of stretching an analogy (a risk I've taken many times before on this blog!), might I suggest that a similar tension underlies much of parenting? One of our goals, as parents, is to socialize our children: to teach them basic manners and graces; to show them how to share; to let them know that, no, they can't wear pajamas wherever they'd like. In that sense, we are like a modernizing colonialist force: we impose a certain sort of civilization upon our wards. But at the same time, don't we wish, too, on some level, that they'll always remain the same? That Cleo will always respond, with shrieking giggles, to tickling, and that she will always announce, with a cool authority, that her monkey has 'no poopies' this morning? And when we do, we're the British, wishing romantically that the Egyptians will continue to play their familiar, timeless melodies. But it's a losing battle: Umm Kulthum and her songwriters will learn from Western precedents, and Cleo keeps listening to us, and keeps speaking in more and more adult patterns. She wants the right - as most do, I suppose - to be herself and to emulate others. She wants, like Egyptians in 1932, to be free.

So we try to enjoy Cleo in the present. The British were forced out of Egypt in 1952. Similarly, in 20 years Cleo will probably greet any attempt at tickling with a crisp "like, quit it, Dad," and an immediate complaint on whatever the 2031 equivalent of Twitter is. She'll still be Cleo, and she'll still be my girl, but she'll have learned from many, many others, as well.

Getting the right word

This morning – a bright, clean, cool morning in Cape Town – offered a chance, after dropping Cleo off at daycare, to sit down with a book I’d been anticipating with some pleasure: Virginia Danielson’s ethno-musicological study of Umm Kulthum, the famous mid-century Egyptian singer. It didn’t disappoint, offering a useful series of comments on the remarkably diverse oeuvre of Kulthum, who sang popular songs, courtly poems set to music and, especially in the turbulent 1950s, a tapestry of nationalistic anthems. Kulthum was widely celebrated, too, as an icon of Egyptian authenticity – she hailed from a small village in the Delta – and she inevitably packed the house for concerts that often began at around 10 in the evening and lasted until 3 or even 4 in the morning.

Particularly interesting, though, were Danielson’s comments on the aspects of Kulthum’s voice that were most often praised. Specifically, her voice was said to feature a laudable ghunna: a sweet nasality, that is, which is distinguished by Arab experts from khunna, a nasal intonation that is by contrast unpleasant and musically uncultivated. Too, Kulthum was also said to sing with bahha – with a reedy hoarseness, that is, is said to be a natural color in a strong, healthy voice. Sure, she was known for her phrasing, too, and for what Danielson calls her stern artistry, but precise terms such as ghunna and khunna point to a deep interest in the exact contours of Kulthum’s majestic voice. Connoisseurs brought an efficient vocabulary, in short, to their attempts to explain exactly what brought so many Egyptians to a halt when they heard her sing.

In a somewhat similar vein, I challenged L. a few days ago to come up with some words that describe, in exact terms, Cleo. There’s not doubt that she’s her own person now – but in what ways, exactly? And what sets her apart from the average two-year-old? In other words, I wanted something more individual than stubborn, or pint-sized. After a few days of staccato thought, we came up with several candidates. Deliberate, suggested L., and that’s right: Cleo tends to approach tasks – such as diapering, and re-diapering, her dear stuffed monkey George – with a patient focus and a willingness to repeat. And repeat, and repeat. Along the same lines, I’ll throw in fastidious: for a toddler, she’s remarkably neat. We often set her up with a bowl of yogurt and a spoon, and don’t even bother with a bib: at the most, she may drop a blotch or two, but most of the yogurt ends up right where it’s supposed to. And, finally, I might add something like intimate, for Cleo thrives in small groups, but seems to freeze up when in a party of more than five, or six. In fact, a Cleo connoisseur might turn to the Dutch term gezeelig here: as Marieke de Mooij notes, the word suggests “sharing your feelings… in a very personal and intimate way while being together in a small group.” Ask Cleo to say hi to L’s students, and she’ll bury her face in your shoulder; sit down alone with her, and ask her what she wants for dinner, and she’ll soon ask for a spoonful of peanut butter – which she’ll then eat deliberately.

Bahha, gezeelig: neither term, I’ll freely admit, is very common blog material. But if you’re committed to your subject, you have to be willing to reach for the right word from time to time.

Unforeseen lists

Among the many various things that you acquire, incidentally, as a new parent - car seats; changing stations; advice on how to wear a Baby Bjorn; experience in washing poop from rugs - is a set of familiar anthems. It almost happens without your realizing it: for a few months, you take your baby to reading groups, and then you buy a few DVDs for your toddler, and all of a sudden you've heard The Grand Old Duke of York fifty times, and the theme song to Max and Ruby at least twice that often. In the process, some of those tunes can acquire a sort of warm associative glow. Sure, they can get a little repetitive, but along the way you come to associate - rather like your child, I assume - them with regularity, with comfort, and with reliability. Good old Max and Ruby, you say to yourself when you hear the melody, and you smile at Max's blithe good luck and at Ruby's gentle exasperation with her little brother.

One of the tunes that's acquired, in my mind, such a patina over the past two years is a real chestnut: it's Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World, which is the final track on an album of jazz standards that two close friends gave us about a year ago. Cleo was a big fan of that C.D. during her Old MacDonald phase, but I always looked forward, instead, to Armstrong's soulful, sincere, and somehow melancholy invocation of the beauties of the world. It's a lovely song, and it had the added power, I convinced myself, of putting Cleo to sleep: more than once, she nodded off in the backseat as I sang silently along with the tune.

If you look at it closely, though, it's also a rather odd song - odd, that is, in its collection of images. Sure, the rhyme scheme dictates some of the choices, and so did the decision to emphasize color; as a result, we get - no real surprise here - green trees, red roses, and blue skies. But keep going: "I see skies of blue / clouds of white / Bright blessed days / dark sacred nights." It's a somewhat sudden leap into seriousness, isn't it? And then we move on to a rainbow, to faces, and finally to the cries of babies... The song is clearly meant to evoke what you might call the pageant of life, and to create an affirmative tone, but its means of achieving that tone feels almost random. The wonderful world is a collection of colors and people and trees and bright blessed days. And even larger car seats, as your baby grows up.

That's not to say, though, that the list of seemingly disparate elements necessarily weakens the song. In fact, I feel like arguing the opposite, after a brief conversation Cleo and I had yesterday. In the soft winter sun, on a park bench, I felt especially warmly towards my daughter, and told her that I loved her. And then, perhaps a little self-servingly, I asked her whom she loved. Might she name me?

Amy, she replied, with no hesitation - referring to a good friend of ours who was, interestingly, our first friend to see little Cleo in the hospital recovery room, and who more recently taught Cleo to blow soap bubbles through a washcloth. Good stuff, sure, but Amy hadn't spent, as I had, the vast majority of the past month with Cleo. So I pressed my luck. What else do you love? I asked. And she responded, in turn: school. School? I thought. But you resist it every single day of the week. You offer sudden alternatives - a walk; a puzzle - to driving to school. You cry when we leave you at school. But, well, okay. And what else do you love? And here she thought for a while, and then issued a third love: cheese.

Amy, school, and cheese. Skies, and days, and trees. The lists are not quite what I might have predicted. But for that they have a beauty all their own.

Homefield disadvantage

A weird combination of events and anecdotes came together yesterday to remind us that in South Africa home doesn't always signify love, or safety, or even quiet privacy. The Cape Town Stormers hosted a New Zealand squad in the three-nation Super Rugby semifinals - but much of the talk in the week leading up to the game focused on the fact that the visitors actually enjoyed considerable support in the Cape Town stands, because of lingering resentment regarding the Stormers' slowness in integrating. Red Crusader uniforms were common in the Stormer stands. Meanwhile, one of L.'s colleagues went out for an hour, only to find that while she was gone a burglar had somehow removed the protective iron bars from one of her windows, shattered the glass, and made his way into her home. And just as L. was receiving that news, I happened to be reading about an infamous series of murders committed in eastern South Africa, in 1983-4, by the Hammer Man, who broke into a number of white homes and... well, I think I'll spare you the details. But I have to add this: an hour later, I got a call, as well, and learned that my credit card had been used fraudulently in a number of attempted transactions. Home field, home, wallet: all easily infiltrated.

So if the private isn't really very private, what do you do? Many South Africans respond -like many Los Angelenos, after the Rodney King riots - by heightening their walls, by redoubling their hired security, by ordering a new layer of razor wire. That's one approach. But we prefer, in our naivete, a simpler one. If home isn't any safer, in the end, than the world at large, than why not simply embrace that larger world? On a day that began with a dense fog that entirely hid the mountain and that then gave way to brief showers, spates of sun, and several rainbows, L. and I played a sort of city parents' tag-team. She took Cleo to an old biscuit mill, now a lively, yuppified morning market, and I then took Cleo to lovely Kirstenbosch, where we played in the small piles of dirt at the base of an imported oak. And then it was time to head south; as L. joined her students for a day tour of the Cape Peninsula, Cleo and I drove through several fishing towns and then peered at the nesting penguins at Boulders Beach. At about 3:30 we met up with L's group at Kalky's, a locally famous fish-and-chips joint where the owner took our order and threw in an apple juice for the thirsty toddler.

I can't say that we weren't a little nervous, later in the day, when we were locking our doors and putting out our lights. But the night passed uneventfully, and the sun rose clear and strong, and now we're making plans for another day in the world.

The world as playground

Sometimes you think you have a general sense of your surroundings - average city block, say, or beachside boardwalk - and then, in a moment, you find them momentarily transformed. Today, for instance, I was walking on Bloem Street, downtown, on my way to get a sandwich. I passed a curbside deli, a warehouse, a few taxis, and then suddenly saw a small plaque that noted that I was standing in front of what used to be a recording studio. But not just any recording studio - rather, it was the studio in which Dollar Brand, the legendary Capetonian jazz artist who later changed his named to Abdullah Ibrahim, and whose early albums I've been trying to find - had recorded Mannenberg, a widely known 1974 work that became an anti-apartheid anthem. And then, underneath the plaque, I saw six hollow steel pipes, of slightly different lengths. Strike them with a stick, a small label read, and you'll hear the melody of Mannenberg. And suddenly, just like that, an ordinary city block was a playground, and I was using a coin to bang out a raw version of a locally famous jazz melody.

But of course transformations like that are somewhat common when you're in the presence of a child. On Sunday, as you can see in the picture above, a tiny patch of sand became a temporary sandbox, and then, as we built up two small walls of sand, a pretend crib. Or take the time, a few weeks ago, when I gave Cleo a small bucket and shovel, and we spent several happy minutes in a pebbled parking lot, which was suddenly an ample quarry. Similarly, a steel railing at Heathrow, on our way here, was magically transformed into a prop for a gymnastics routine, and a taut wire fence on the Cape Town harbor recently found itself converted into a pullup bar.

The world is the world. And then, too, it is overlaid with past worlds, and all that we can imagine.

Ja-nee

To a certain extent, you could surmise the recent state of things here by examining the latest additions to Cleo's vocabulary. She now asks, regularly, for creamy yogurt: creamy, because much of the (quite tasty) yogurt here contains museli, which does not delight a toddler to whom change is anathema. She also claims, on occasional mornings, that it happens to be a holiday: a word that we taught her when National Youth Day offered her a one-day reprieve from daycare, and that she has subsequently embraced as a plank in her case that we not take her to school. And, finally, there's the impressive thermometer, which she said quite clearly this morning, as we checked her for a fever (none: it's abated, despite Cleo's heroic and downright physical efforts to prevent a single drop of medicine from crossing her lips).

But her word of choice, without question, is no. When we left Baltimore, a month ago, we left with a relatively agreeable one-year-old in our company. Now we're in South Africa with a full-blown two-year-old, and she is embracing her toddler's right to deny all requests, suggestions, and pleadings. Cleo, would you like to go to the garden? No. How about a breadstick? No. Okay, then - some creamy yogurt? And the no simply becomes more and more emphatic.

So we deal with it, in a variety of ways. L.'s taken to referring to Cleo, like the Republicans back home,as the party of no, and occasionally poses sham questions just for the sake of comic relief. Cleo, would you like a million dollars? No-o-o. I try, on the other hand, to formulate questions that are relatively no-proof. Cleo, we can go to the beach or to the aquarium. Which would you like? But even that's a losing hand, as it turns out that no is a surprisingly effective response. Hey, Cleo, it stopped raining. What should we do? No.

Occasionally, though, you'll get a silence in response, or a modest grunt, signifying assent - or, at least, the absence of violent opposition. Take advatange of those moments, my friend: they are the widest opening you'll get. No clear vocal opposition to pizza? We'll take two, please - quick, and with olives.

The other day, though, I learned of a local variant of no that I'm thinking of embracing myself. In the terrific opening section of Rian Malan's blistering book A Traitor's Heart, in which he details the seemingly intractable tension between coarse, violent Boers and displaced, resentful South African blacks, he tells a story about a conversation he had with a Boer officer. The Boer spoke at some length about the virtues of apartheid, and offered a lengthy defense of the nearly constant anti-black violence in the 1970s. He then looked to Malan, for confirmation of his views. Malan, in turn, reached for a Boer phrase: ja-nee, or yeah-no. Something like the American no, no, or yeah, well - either phrased in a high pitch, to imply a sort of agreement - the wording suggests assent, without totality. It's more of a conversational lubricant, I gather, than anything, but it allowed Malan to avoid offending the officer - and, too, to avoid betraying his own symapthies for blacks.

So: are we thrilled about Cleo's suddenly perpetual opposition? No. Can we deal with it? Well, ja-nee.