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Yesterday I panted across aqua painted arrows...
December 24, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
 Yesterday I panted across aqua painted arrows on a rock mountain upwards, following arrows through rainy season trees, imagining one orange painted antelope encased in plastic, ass all rock painting in the states might be. One imagines a million snotty-nosed parents and their neurotic children taking the same picture of the same little embossed hunter every august. But my scepticism is only true in America.
The trek up rolling yellow and orange lichen-covered granite was a allignment of all things perfect- the sweat, sky, wind, water from an unkown source streaming down hills I've painted all my life. The paintings were a human manifestation of this increadible place. I came to them alone, parents ten minutes behind, and there I was, facing the rain cerimony's remembered praise songs in ochre images. as alive as my own eyes on a smooth arching upward cave of 15 feet.
The hills were equally important. I've always had artists look over my working shoulder and say- ah, O'keefe- as though I'm repeating one woman's hands in her own self-portrait. Art is not a history of one generation's memory of the last. Art is an open mainline to something in our communal blood.
We returned home and as always the police stopped us, but we avoided showing the usual licsence and permit, and the trunk as well. We are all tired from being opened to this place's beauty and broken by its realities. What do you do in a place where milk is 110 zim dollars, fourty cets to you (on the illegal market) but so much to everyone still living in the houses their grandparents lived in outside the white suburbs into the townships.
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If anyone feels compelled to find Miles' wher...
December 18, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
If anyone feels compelled to find Miles' whereabouts, I can't check my e-mail to see if he did not combust before J.burg. His e-mail is milopimp@hotmail.com (yes, it's embarassing for me to even type it). Many thanks my well-connected loved ones.
Sadie-o
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We are all safe and sound in Gaborone
December 17, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
We are all safe and sound in Gaborone. We stayed in a 'bed and breakfast,' which in Botswana context means we had a seventies-style room with a big orange bathroom and a large air conditioner which did nothing for the mosquitoes. I'm glad to give them the real thing, as comparison to 'Ceasar's Casino and Hotel' in South Africa. Good to be out of there, that's for sure. Unfortunately, we missed Miles at the airport. Today is the see everyone day, so we're headed off to Kanye then back at three to visit my Gaborone family. It's their 35th anniversary today. Driving, too, is a bit less stressful on this side of the border, as there is only one road to choose from. We stay here one more night then to the Khama Rhino Sanctuary. I'm trying to teach mom and Dick some Setswana, but to no avail. Dick's already been called a Lakgoa- also so glad to introduce them to race relations in Botswana. I'm hoping their fluency in Setswana from our short breakfast lesson will help with that... we'll see, won't we. I'm straddling cultural shock of living with the 'rents again and being a traveller in a place I called home fro four months. I hope not the self-combust in the next two weeks. Mom and Dick are trying their damndest to make things comfortable emotionally for this fragile half-American daughter.
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I've been asked what I do every day, and this...
December 12, 2001 by Sadie in Sadie & Greg
I've been asked what I do every day, and this was last weeks reply: I walk out the door with a new painting under my arm for my DYO (design your own) part of my fieldbook, which is due. I catch a kombi to town and walk through wet waist high grass, through a red dirt soccer field and behind the concrete walls surrounding every city house. The wind rushes in now that the rainy season is apon us, and its crispness is much like a cool east coast fall, before it gets too cold. It rained last night in torrents, and the mosquitoes are out with a vengance. After dropping off my assignment I walk to work and facilitate a meeting for my outreach project- a youth drug abuse prevention programme. Thats what I do for my internship.
I just read the family news- congratulations on the new munchkin, Jamie! And Adam too, I suppose. I hope you ride through the first trimester with flying colours. Thrilled to see you so soon- so much love and thoughts from me to all ya'all.
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