Wizard of Bos

Now, after almost 12 months back in my home town, Stellenbosch, it may be time to set up a new blog for my time spent in South Africa. So I am faced with picking a name for the blog. After much contemplation, I have been left with two candidates: The Wizard of Bos, and Nr 10.

The Wizard of Bos is borrowed from the name of a play at the most recent annual rag festival held on the Stellenbosch University campus earlier this year. Each student residence can enter the Vensters event (pronounced "fensters", from venster versierings, meaning window dressing), held on the Thursday evening before the float parade that takes place on the Saturday of the rag. Each year has a different theme for Vensters and each residence presents a short open-air theatrical play on the Thursday along the theme of the year. This year, 2009, had the theme: "50% Original". The Wizard of Bos was the title of the play presented by Iza Carstens College and Rugby Academy.

Nr 10 is the flat number where I live. It also is the famous house number where the British prime minister lives. There is no association here and I don't drive a Jag but like the ring of it.

In the end, I picked Wizard of Bos as the name of my new blog. It has the right word play on my home town (Stellenbosch) and a playful connection with both the University and the famous film and stage production, the Wizard of Oz.

From now on until my return to Boston, my common experiences in life will be recorded in that blog, Wizard of Bos.

Let Freedom Ring

Today, I watched as America returned to her vows. The hope and joy of the occasion played on shining faces in the bitter cold of the Washington winter. A nation cheered as the world watched. I felt somehow proud of my Green Card. Suddenly, it represented something truly special, not just a back door to somewhere where one could still make a living. I felt inspired and contacted my American friends to congratulate them.

In many ways America has received her Nelson Mandela in the person of Barack Obama. I remember the expectation and uncertainty that surrounded the inauguration of Nelson Mandela as president of the Republic of South Africa on 26 April 1994. The long walk to freedom for America, which started with the declaration of independence finally has led to this day, today. In the depths of their current despair they will find new resolve to revive their founding principles, to remake themselves, to restore their dream. And in many ways that dream will become the dream of the world: Everyone can achieve his full measure of happiness.

"From every mountain side,
Let freedom ring!"

First Day

It was cool, cool, it was all just cool - well almost. Now it's over for me and it's over for you. That is the December vacation, stupid.

Matchbox 20 was one of my last CD's in the player during the last two days of this vacation. That was before the Audi Symphony ate my John Lennon CD. Imagine. Such a cool CD, now it just hides in there and doesn't play and doesn't come out again. And so the vacation ended. Oh yes, and there was the parking fine this past Sunday on Beach Road in the Strand. Hideous! Municipal parking is by convention free in South Africa on Sundays and after business hours. It's pure gouging of holiday makers. I shall protest.

Christmas in Langebaan with my older sister and her in-law family was quiet but pleasant. There was no family brawl. Splendid. That was my aim with picking that side of the family for Christmas - avoiding a brawl, I mean. But Langebaan was way too quiet for New Year's Eve. I went to Mossel Bay for that party.

Finding a spot to stay in Mossel Bay over the festive season can prove a daunting challenge, mostly won by throwing lots of dosh after the problem. I won by catching cancellations and last minute deals. And a lucky admin flop at the travel agency worked in my favour.

This year law and order seemed to be the new deal in South Africa. We had more police on the streets than ever before outside of those notorious political riots of the 70's and 80's. The traffic police descended upon the public with a right vengeance. Drink drive was definitely out over the festive season. One could expect to be stopped and take a turn at the breathalyser. A mate of a nephew of mine spent the night of 2 January in jail for drink driving. I decided prudence was the better part of valour and walked the distance between the pubs and my lodge.

New Year's Eve was a bit of a disappointment. In fact, it was a rip-off too. Given the said frantic police action in the least crime-invested part of South Africa, I picked a club in town, within walking distance, rather than risk the more promising hot spot some 5 km up the coast. The club charged a ridiculous R50 for cover and things only livened up at 02h00 on 1 Jan. And then it was mostly red-necks that pitched up. Bummer.

But the discovery of Cafe Havana made up for the lost New Year's Eve. What a delightfully eclectic joint that turned out to be. One could expect Edith Piaf to pitch up at the piano at any moment amongst pictures of Chez Guevara. A bit anachronistic, I admit, but strictly no red-necks here - such ambience was as holy water to the likes of such undead wretches.

But time ran out and I took another turn in Langebaan. The vacation was running out. A quick night out to Zizzi's exposed another side to that quiet town: The West Coast Fight Club. Some chap at the bar called me to declare that his dubious chick had made the most astounding claim of the evening: That I would level her dubious boy-friend with one blow. Flabbergasted, I was. And then Mr Pick-a-fight insisted that I prove her right, at which point I sided with prudence and wafted off, to have my beer in some quiet corner. Am I part of this culture? was the question I pondered with some bewilderment for some remainder of the evening.

This vacation saw the replacement of my mobile phone for the fourth time in as many years. Each year for the past four years my phone had been stolen with tedious regularity in South Africa. This latest affirmative shopping spree happened in Cape Town at a busy dance club for people of alternative persuasion and other interesting fellows. In fact, I noticed the two culprits, confronted them and failing the preferred outcome, set the bouncers upon them. But to no avail - one briefly disappeared just before the bouncers rounded up both and must have passed the phone out of the club. Two days of replacement shopping and admin followed. Bollocks! Bloody bollocks!

The vacation was concluded with a last night at a camp site in a rather pretty coastal town, called Hermanus. Nice weather, nice surroundings, nice club. Terrible neighbours with screaming babies the next morning at 0600 and most terrible sun that turned my tent into a sauna at 0830. The drive home across two lovely mountain passes, Houw Hoek and Sir Lowry's, restored my decorum. That was before the parking ticket at the beach sank my sense of humour. Bloody hell!

So today was the first day. The working year should not start on a Monday. That way there are fives days of slow slaughter to endure. "Tell me why I don't like Mondays. I want to shoot the whole day down."

Roundabout

Almost it seemed as if life had moved on. Almost bygones were bygones. But yet again life proved what goes around comes around. Life became stuck in a roundabout. Back on home ground, once more old familiar scenes threw open the shutters for a glimpse of what was out of reach. Still, the mind reaches out in hope of a dream only to touch the thorns of reality.

You gave me your music
You showed me your mind
We played music together
I showed you mine
The only way I could
In a song

"Whatever makes your happy
Whatever you want
You're so very special
I wish I was special

But I'm a creep
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here"

Thom Yorke had gone ahead along that road. But it seems I shall travel it alone. Will he run out again? Will he run, run, run ...?

Unpacking

This afternoon the phone rang. It was the crew from the moving company that brought my household goods from Boston to Stellenbosch. They were waiting at my front door at the promised hour - remarkable for the South African side of the operations. So I rushed home from work, an easy feat in this small town during off-peak hours.

The boxes came out and my anticipation grew over what was whole and what damaged after I had received a picture two days ago from the agent of the company, of damage to the bottom one side of the container. Things held up surprisingly well until my treasured hi-fi rack came off the lorry. One metal beam was badly bent, rendering the entire rack useless unless I could manage to replace that member. Furtunately, the identical companion beam was intact, meaning there was a template for manufacturing a replacement.

Who said there were no benefits to working at a University Engineering Faculty. I shall have the replacement beam manufactured at the Centre for Mechanical Services. It is good to be back home. Here people still have time and room for little favours because they do not need constantly to check the fine print in their contracts or consult their lawyers. Who cares if the GDP is not Number ONE Super Class AAA in the world? We have a life around here!

And then the trip down the path to Nostaligia commenced as I unpacked the first few boxes. As I folded my scarves and carefully laid them on a shelf in my wardrope, a sudden pang of longing for Boston rushed through me. My thick coats went into a wardrobe in the upstairs lobby while images of snowy, frozen nights out in Cambridge and Boston played through my mind. Tonight I really wished just to drive over to Davis Sq for a few pints at The Burren and perhaps a quick visit to the meat market across the street.

But I realised it was summer over there now. And I would not be going out in my thick coat; scarve and leather gloves. Yep, but here in Stellenbosch it was winter and those thick clothes would come in very handy indeed. I had been freezing my bottom off these past days as winter really sets in.

Tomorrow, the unpacking will continue, slowly through the day. The winding path through my memories will step on, wavering here and there as it makes its way to distant places and silent faces. Each item that emerges will take me back to where it used to be when I used to be a Stellenbosser in Boston.

Cyberspace the South African way

Life is tough without Internet. Rather, life is tough without fast Internet. Since my arrival back in South Africa for a prolonged stay in my beloved hometown of Stellenbosch, things were moving along at a quiet pace. They call not for nothing the Cape Town area Sleep City. We do not like to make haste down here. Or so they claim in Johannesburg, in the north of the country. I must admit at times there has been some measure of truth in that josteling.

For example, joining cyberspace the proper way - with fast Internet - took 9 days. But I guess that would be true across the country and could be worse in denser regions such as around Johannesburg. I suppose setting up an Internet service with Comcast in Waltham from a clean start would also take about 10 days, since the technician would have to come out on site. Here in Stellenbosch, it was a case of self service - the modem came via a courier and everything just worked after plug-in. Being the neighbourly country we are, my neighbour was so kind as to take impromptu delivery on my behalf when the courier had forgotten to phone first. And the courier had the common sense to knock at the neighbour's when my door was not answered.

So tonight, life is good again. Here I am, blasting through cyberspace at a blistering 384kbps over ADSL. Yes, after three weeks of clonking along at 115kbps via my mobile phone, 384kbps is going at F1 speeds indeed. And mind you, most Internet content is throttled upstream so as to download no faster than about 384 kbps. I can attest to that claim from many hours on the Internet drumming my fingers while superfast Comcast was trundling along at a choking 300-400 kbps.

But what joy to click on Yahoo Mail and have that familiar mail interface pop up - at the same effective rate as with my old Comcast service in Waltham. What bliss to be rid of the past three weeks of frustration and dispair at the modem speeds served by Vodacom and my Nokia 3110, which could only muster EGPRS. The little workhorse did not support 3G, even though Vodacom provided it.

And speed is everything. Speed is as important as timing these days. But cyberspace the South African way is not 5Mbps peak download speed as in the USA. It is 384 kbps for most of us - the affordable rate. And the service is capped in terms of total transferred content. Forget about downloading HD movies in droves. One barely does the usual MS and virus definition updates. One thinks twice before massaging too many pictures online. This is a generous country, but not one of abundance.

But I am back in cyberspace the South African way.

A3

Back home in Stellenbosch, I have made a discovery: There is a secret weapon in the German automotive arsenal. It is called the 2.0 TDI engine. One can find a variety of Audi and VW cars armed with this weapon. In this case, the secret hides beneath the shapely bonnet of my newest automotive acquisition, a second-hand 2007 Audi A3 2.0 TDI Sportback – with six gears, manually shifted of course. And what a jewel of engineering...

Oh pity all of you who's automotive lives are deprived by bad Diesel and silly regulations of the 2.0 TDI. Never before has only 1500 rpm of power band generated so much for so little. With a box of mechanical and electronic trickery this machine torques the living daylights out of its crankshaft: 320 Nm (236lb-ft) from a 2.0 liter engine, which holds level between 2000 rpm and 3500 rpm. Being a Diesel engine, the contraption runs out of puff and range at 4500 rpm. Practically, one shifts gear at 3500 maximum. Driving the A3 TDI takes some adjustment after running petrol engine cars with engines that wake up at 3000 rpm and spin to 6000 and above.

Such pulling power over such a narrow speed range means one goes quickly through the gears. But what a lovely gearbox to stir – maybe the A4 has a better shift, but the A3 looses no face here. “Quickly” is not quite the word. At 2000 it wakes up and does so with a vengeance. At that engine speed in any gear below fourth the A3 surges forward with such a ferocity that it can surprise the driver and spin the front wheels. One does not expect such pickup at such low revs from such a small engine. And then it is all over at 3500. So one shifts quickly. It is a bit like a racer with a narrow power band. It really needs those six speeds to be quick and useful. But the package comes together just brilliantly.

However, the best part of it all is the fuel consumption. So far the A3 sits around 6.5 l/100 km average (36 mpg US). Yet, today it revealed another surprise. When I left for lunch with my mother at the fancy Victoria & Albert Waterfront in Cape Town, the cruise computer told me I could do 680 km on the remaining fuel. By the time I arrived back in Stellenbosch, that computer reported 700 km left on the remaining fuel – after a brisk 90km round trip. This car makes Diesel as it goes. It is brilliant.

The open-road consumption is as low as 5 l/100km. At legal freeway speed – 120 km/h (75mph) the car uses about 6.0 l/100km (39 mpg US). And it stuffs 60 g less CO2 per kilometer into the atmosphere than the Audi 2.0 FSI petrol engine and even better than that against non-FSI petrol engines in the 2.0liter category. Toyota, eat your Prius with complements from Audi.

I chose amongst a 2007 A4 2.0 TDI Avant (a station wagon in all other languages), a 2005 BMW 320d and the 2007 A3 2.0 TDI Sportback. New cars have silly price tags in South Africa. So buying a young second-hand car makes a lot of financial sense. The A4 was not Quattro and I did not like it that much in front-wheel drive. Shockingly, the BMW had creaks and groans in the bodywork, sat on an overtly stiff sport suspension with bling sporty wheels and begged to be hijacked at every second traffic light in Cape Town. The A3 was not perfect, but just right.

My A3 has a buzz in the dashboard though- on the left side. There's a bit of deja vu with my A4 in Waltham. That one had a buzz in the dashboard on the left side too. What is it with Audi and the left side of their dashboards? The A4 beats the A3 for composure over rough stuff of which we have a bit along the back roads. But that is about it in terms of complaints.

I wag my wiener at OPEC with this A3. As long as there is Diesel I'll be amongst the last for fill the tank and amongst the first to arrive. Now that is a secret weapon. But the cat is out of the bag. It is not a secret anymore. Just tell old MA state house to get off their pillows and let you in on it.