Gotham, Gauteng

Lightning strikes Hillbrow Tower in Gauteng. Photo credit: GoodThingsGuy.com

Orange streetlights spill into the darkness. The robot turns red. Shift down, accelerate, fly through. A driver never stops in this city.

Lightning strikes sideways across the sky, and a single bolt strikes at the needle-like tower at the city center. No one blinks.

On a quiet side street, a constant buzz. On top of the walls of each house hums a trio of electric wires. In the next neighborhood over, bottle shards top the walls. Unannounced visitors should knock first.

Along the roadside, open fires burn, melding eerily with the dim streetlights. Two shadowy figures huddle amidst the swirling smoke. It will be a cold night.

As the sun rises, the streets teem with activity. Fruit trees shine in their green glory. Buses hurtle past, screeching to a stop as passengers flash hand signals to the driver. Students trot to school in uniform. Fruit vendors fill the sidewalk. Tradesmen hawk their wares at the traffic light. Walking past a seemingly empty lot one peers over the fence to see a swarm of people, working below ground to erect a massive skyscraper. This city is surging forward, unified in the belief of the freedom to make a rand on the Witswatersrand. This is the City of Gold, dug from the bowels of the earth, laid brick by brick, a bustling place at the heart of the province with nearly the same name: 

Welcome to Gotham, Gauteng.

Jo-burg CBD

It is a city with Two Faces. The Gau-train rumbles past handsome estates, shack cities and belching coal plants.

It is a city of Jokers with international acclaim, Riddled with opportunity and ridden with crime.

Its wild Penguins cannot be trusted, their tuxedos and suits merely a guise for greed and corruption.

It is the ultimate Scarecrow, whisking away potential visitors with violent lullabies.

If you live nearby, you avoid a visit.

If you visit Gotham, you leave in a hurry.

If you live in another city, you know every reason why Gotham is the world's most miserable place to be. After all, you could die there.

But those who ride its streets know that the city's richness doesn't just come through the gold pumping through its subterranean veins.

Here, segregation is broken by the hilly landscape, with no mountains to separate people.

The entire continent flocks to Gotham's doorstep.

This is where music is made.

Where cultures collide.

Where languages are born. After all, Sifanakaloku - we are all the same.

Yho! Here was the very origin of humankind!

And in the spring - every tree is set ablaze with the purple petals of a million Jacaranda trees.

In the day Gotham comes to life.

But every night, this city needs a superhero.

Mother City, Sister City

I’m a big gardener. I love to watch the hummingbird and monarchs flit from flower to flower, and when I can, I like to add a new vine or shrub for them to enjoy. When I can account for rain, that is.

This week’s projections of rain were a welcome sight, but as yesterday came and went we were left with a whopping 0.04 inches. A pittance! And a pittance is the norm. In the last decade our frequency of wet years has halved to once every four years. It’s feeling awfully dry.

Wild Watsonias at Blue Gums, Cape Town

Fortunately, we are in a shared situation. At the opposite end of the globe, the Mother City of Cape Town, South Africa is wrestling with drought. They deal with the same Mediterranean climate as we do in San Diego, California – dry summers, wet winters. Well, usually wet winters – up to 31 inches, triple that of San Diego.  Just like us, Cape Town has had to learn to store enough water to get through the summer – and the occasional drought. Sitting at the tip of Africa, the City is highly isolated and surrounded by desert, without the opportunity to import supplies from distant watersheds.

Cape Town is also in the running for the world’s most beautiful city. It sits at the foot of a majestic mountain on the edge of the ocean, surrounded by abundant flora like their hundreds of native orchid species. I had the good fortune of living there and enjoying their sweet water. I worked with a team of lumberjacks to remove invasive plants which were drying up a mountainside creek that we called Blue Gums. We didn’t have pipes, just the clouds as they crashed into the peak of Cape Point and replenished the flow. With the trees cleared, the stream turned to a creek, rushing down the mountainside into the crashing waves.

Boulder Creek in San Diego, Feb 2018

The creek at Blue Gums is now just a trickle, in Cape Town’s current drought conditions. And the pipes that feed the city are similarly running dry. Here in San Diego, while the coastal areas have only received rain twice since last May, the mountain areas hold out with a small trickle, like this creek flowing from Cuyamaca Peak.

The future is uncertain, and yet we optimistically act as though we can forecast the next rain. In Cape Town, they are down to the wire, with less than 100 days left before the City turns of the taps. And with that kind of pressure, people are getting creative. This weekend, the Science Center is holding an event to “Hack the Water Crisis” to involve everyone in finding creative solutions to last the City until the wet season.

Capetonians made the mistake of fully relying on their City Supply, without taking responsibility for individual consumption. They waited until the last minute, and are running out of time. In San Diego, we have the benefit of last year’s bountiful rain. We should take advantage of the time that rain brought to us to adapt our own thirsty system to this new dry norm.

--

I’ll keep you up to date with any brilliant ideas from the Hack-a-Thon this weekend, the story of how we restored the stream at Blue Gums, and applications for our everyday lives here in California.

Flash Flood

Irrigation canal for desert agriculture. Mexicali, Baja California

It has been a very dry season - in our city of San Diego, and on this blog. This rainy season has hosted but one lonely storm. The cry of drought has yet to sound, perhaps because this is our new norm. In the last two decades, only three years have boasted above average rainfall.

This blog has lain dormant as well, but not for lack of activity. Since my last post on the shores of the Atlantic, the trail of the Aridland Ambassador has taken me to deserts, watersheds and visionary cities around the world. I have devoted myself to a career in water, working to restore abandoned streams and neglected inner-city creeks. And I have grown intellectually while studying hydrology and watershed science at San Diego State University.

The world seems to be descending into extremes, but there are so many ways for us to right the ship. Over the next few months I will begin blogging again, recollecting those memories from my time abroad [2013-2015] as an Aridland Ambassdor and my last three years learning about the Colorado River Watershed and the City of San Diego as a graduate student. Let it rain!

Music that inspired an adventure

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Music binds us with a power that lyrics alone lack.

Bombino tearing it up Tauregy...desertrancy dripping dancing at Tel Aviv's Barby

My parents raised us on a steady diet of green salad, fish tacos, and matzo balls. By the time of my sister and my Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, we had both graduated to a level of definite cultural tongue-tiedness. JewISHAMERicaNSOUTHafriCANMEXicANCALiforNian what?!?! At this rate, the only antidote was the World music we'd also been raised on. Brazilian beats, hippie strumming, Yiddishe wails, Cuban heat, South African thumps. Most of this stuff was in languages we didn't know a bloody syllable in. But we got damn good at gibberish, Tam and I. Skerbibelplex Amarat?!

Our parents were similarly confused, continent hoppers that they were. Yes, with each passing generation a few of our relatives had switched to another hemisphere (East Europe, Middle East, Southern Africa, North America). So it was okay that we were all listening to weird music that we didn't understand. It freed us to be what we were - mixed up and fused. And it inspired this trip.

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This music is all about fusion, and each of these artists had something to say about another culture of the world they encountered, from the Yoruban influence on Brazilian percussion, to the amaXhosa adaptation of Khoi Khoi and San (Bushman) clicks, the Middle Eastern bands drawing from the near east and North Africa, and our homegrown USA Neville Bros. calling to the oppressed peoples of the Caribbean and Africa. Rock on, World, Rock on!

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Here's the playlist:

1. Khoisan meets amaXhosa - CliQX like a bushman
2. New Orleans unites the Nations - Zydeco rally
3. Jewish Londoner turns to Le Zulu Blanc - Shake like Shaka
4. Yoruba bounces trans-Atlantic - Woo'ed by the latin suave
5. Arab Jew Who? - Le route de parfums sweetens the desert warmongers
6. Portugal's fun side - Everyone in Bahia sambas dia e noite!
7. Abassid-Yiddishe-Ladinos - the Israeli melting poitjie
8. Seattle's most popular percussion - Zimbabwe guitar stars

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The best things in life are ... $3

I'm a frugal fellow. More than that, I believe in the value of things money can't buy. The experience of Mother Nature's beauty, the taste of a wild blackberry, the honesty of a true friend. But even I have to admit, there are some great things you can buy for just 3 bucks! 

- Froyo for an awkward first date

- Coffee for a productive day

- A concert ticket in the 1950's

OR

- A trip around the world

Think of how far 3 bucks a day would go after say, a year...geez that's a grand. After three years, well that's enough to keep you going for a long while abroad. And with that treasure, you'll be happily welcomed by locals around the world who want to share in the good ol' American value of making dough.

4 months and 8 currencies into my trip, later I learned a few lessons to make that travel money stretch:

1. Ditch the capital fast.

There's plenty of culture and much better prices out of town.

2. Plane tickets are for layovers. Make the most of your trip's biggest cost. It's easy to arrange a multicity flight for the same price. You're probably going to be stick with a stopover anyways. Might as well extend it to a week or so to really see the place.

3. No taxis. At all. Make arrangements to avoid them, like finding when the transportation the locals use is available, or giving yourself more time to get somewhere.

4. For cheap options consider meeting new cityslickers (Couchsurfing.com), volunteer farming (WWOOF) or bringing a small tent. Hostels are a good backup and usually have good kitchens to help you save on food.

In the end, every penny you spend is a donation to a growing wannabeAmerican economy. Good on ya.

Sifting thru 8 currencies in just 4 months taught me the art of nomadic penny-pinching

P.S. If at the end of the day you find yourself in some weird scenario of having saved enough, but not having the guts to git going, make a deal with a friend to kick you in the arse if you stick around. Thanks for the help Timbo! Glad you didn't have to keep your side of the deal :)

Potomac Jazz

After than heart-stopping soul food brunch, the perfect welcome to Washington DC was some freshly washed greens. I rolled up to my cousin Jeni's place and was greeted by my aunt. It was so good to kick back and catch up with my little cousins after 10 hours driving on the road. They had meanwhile spent years drifting around the world after leaving South Africa, with no true home to go to. After a decade of efforts, DC had finally welcomed them, green cards and all.

We took advantage of the multicultural metropolis by taking a nature walk on Roosevelt Island, just a horn's honk away from the capital. Dreamy boardwalks twisted between yellow irises and drifting butterflies. e walked down a dreamy boardwalk as we approached the tribute to the conservationist president. Next we visited a tropical greenhouse, free of charge, and later the holocaust museum. On the banks of the Potomac, with kayakers rowing from under the bridge to Georgetown, I felt the collision and gathering of people and nature, both struggling and cooperating at once.

In Baltimore, a dear friend Helen was attending a Jewish farming conference and I was stoked to see both her and the fields in bloom. The road kept winding North, and it was just my luck that a fellow nature lover Adam had shacked up in rural Pennsylvania and was in need of a Toyota Camry to really keep his bluesy toes swinging at Philly get togethers. I swung into Avondale to check out his gorgeous water research station and enjoyed a late evening of fresh blueberies, homemade pickles, freshly baked pizza and latenight banjoed jams. The last time I was in New York I was a wee bleary-eyed 7, so I couldn't pass up a crisp bite of the Big Apple. Adam bought the Camry and I boarded a megabus, which fired me North again and soon I was in the subway, riding next to my dear ginger amiga Ionie. Since I'd last seen her, this fiery MexiJew had managed to tear into the New York music scene and was filming a music video...Hot October. Damn girl! I loved the vibes, and we met lots of chill New Yorkers as we shopped for props like records and lingerie. 

After my dose of Manhattan I buzzed off, snare drum in hand, for some city nature time. I ended up at a park in Chinatown where, beating on ny drum, I made friends with some chinese kids and played tag with them. All that running and I was sweating, so I went for a swim at Brighton Beach, where a Russian couple was having a proper fight, spitting and hitting and everything. Almost got some flem on me but, some salty seawater to float in and I was right as rain. As I got out, I passed by the apartment where my grandma had grown up, the daughter of Polish immigrants, before moving to little cowtown Davis, CA. With the glum buildings right before my eyes, I still couldn't make out the connection between the two places besides the constant motion west over land and sea.

Back in DC my Aunt and I went on a jazz hunt. We hit a luck at the Bohemian Caverns, a speakeasy built underground at a time when alcohol was prohibited, which apparently just inspired the musicians' creative juices more. This place was built like a cave, with dim lighting and plastered, rounded walls, and they packed a 17 piece band, a bar, and an audience of forty into this tiny space. The improv sax solos were unbelievable. It was a wonderful time to share with my Auntie.

From one coastal populace to another, these American cities seemed like empires in their own right, drawing up needy immigrants into somethhing mighty. Even Chicago on the great lakes seems to benefit from being at the water's edge, whether that is because that is where the land ends, or where the trade begins. We Americans also need to keep pulling in the needy who already are one of us.

I couldn't leave the country without one more musical note and in my favor, a live Brazilian Jazz band was filling the halls at Dulles Airport. On the evening of the last day of July, I boarded a plane and crossed the Atlantic.

Cheese to please! Nepalese shopkeepers were quite slim - lactose intolerance has its perks.

Rising South

Mighty Mississippi, even more glorious at sunset. It's so wide in parts, it seems like a sea.

Some may call me an African-American, because of where my Dad is from (though they might also be jealously referring to his gorilla-esque bounty of hair). Now this is a bit confusing for a relatively pink and freckly mongrel like me. But three years ago I looked myself in the mirror and admitted it, "Damn boy, you white!" And with a map in hand, I knew that the remedy was called Mississippi. Still today, nearly two centuries after the end of slavery, this state still has highest percentage of people of African descent and sadly is the poorest. Although the region was graced by the likes of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., its people are still struggling. I knew all I had was stats, and I wanted desperately to see what the place was really like.

The road took me through East Texas, across upper Louisiana and into the bayou. I hit Natchez, Mississippi at sunset, the river's girth splayed out like a placid bay. As the moon rose, I rushed to domed Temple B'nai Israel where I learn that Jews had been in Natchez since the late 1700's. My feelings were mixed though, when I read that some members of the community easily joined the ranks of superfluous and hierarchical white Southern society. In the Jewish community, in every place, there always seem to be leaders struggling for political goals at both ends of society. Before I pitched my tent, I insisted on a cleansing dip in the mighty river, but it turned out to be slimier than I could take and I bustled off to the campsite in the dark of night.

When I woke the next morning, I might have been in a jungle. Green light filtered through the leaves onto my tent screen, where a hand-sized spider was perched. Lord have mercy! Where water flows, life grows and boy had this creeper grown! Before I became its breakfast, I hustled onto the road in search of a local lunch. My car rolled between a cascade of white magnolia blooms, flourescent teal butterflies, and the radio's endless supply of heavenly gospel music. Jackson, MS, the state capital, impressed me with its handsome moulded architecture. And since it was Sunday, I was just in time for an endless soul food buffet brunch at Two Sisters. Okra, creamed corn, buns, sweet tea, fricasseed chicken, chicken fried steak, fried fried fried, sugar sugar sugar. Damn, it was good! I got to talking with a local bruncher, Brenda Mathis, whose best friend was an elderly Jacksonite and a Belgian Jew. She was enthralled with her life and her wisdom and filled my ears as much as I had filled my stomach. I promised that if in Belgium, I would greet her friend's loved ones.

Satisfied in belly and soul, I sped over to the next state capital, Montgomery. I have to say I have a thing for dark women, what with their sunblock-free superpowers, and I found myself hitting on a receptionist at the motel. It just hurt me to know that I might be the only one swimming at the pool, because I was the only one who could! I desperately tried to persuade her that I would give her a lesson, but she was scarred like so many are from a near-drowning experience of a loved one. No degree of humor could convince her that what she knew as such a dangerous place could actually be relaxing. In the morning I strolled around the city. For a place I had heard to be racist, it was easy to get along with people regardless of color. I was even impressed to find a self-guided sidewalk tour of Dr. King's marches. This educational homage to the great man convinced me further that in a segregated city, the segregated parts are the racist parts, but people always find a place to mix.

I had to run some errands, like going to prison. It was the only place where I could get my fingerprints stamped to become a true African-American, a South African Passport holder. I passed through some bars, sat on a metal stool and had an awkwardly tender moment with a gruff giant holding my hand, wrestling the ink onto the page. Across more bars another man sat, jailed. I'd never seen it before, and I grimaced at the deflated look on his face. It was back to the street for me, and I turned on the radio to be soothed and caressed by the cool voice of radio host. After he was done honeying up us listeners, he switched on THE TUNES WERE B^@$H F&$%ING S*@% loud. Praises! That hip hop was real. Good beats too.

Ahead lay a night in the Great Smoky Mountains with its chuckling crystal streams and belligerent touristy billboards. The road North.