On the way to Gaza, Sad Sorrow

Sunday September 21.

When I closed my eyes to contemplate the meaning of life... ok fine. When I fell asleep on Friday night, we were near a lot of other boats that are part of the flotilla. When I woke up on Saturday, it was from a panicked message from the home team. It was a status message of all the boats and of ours it said:

“Z&R.CAUTION: tracker shows boat is going in the wrong TV direction. This is info we getting. Please give thumbs up if you guys okay.”

R of course being my compatriot on this trip. My first thought was, “did Captain give us back our passports?” When one has read Habila’s Travelers¹ and Unigwe’s On Black Sisters’ Street² and they’ve just been near Italian shores... I quickly decided it couldn’t be though because we are only three women on this boat, one of them Comrade Eurozone, another a year to 50 (me) so apart from the other two women, the Photographer and the Actor, the only ones worth selling are the crew. The captain wouldn’t shortchange himself like that. In fact, it’s possible that they would ask the Captain to pay to take us.

So I asked the Lawyer. It turned out another of the boats in the flotilla had a problem and we were the closest to it. We were now traveling four hours away from everyone else to ensure that we went to give assistance. It should have been worrisome for us who have been impatient to break the siege but as the past two days have shown us, the last shall be the first. And as I said to Comrade Eurozone (mistakenly identified in last entry as German “I am fully French. I just live in Berlin. Correct that”. duly corrected), “I appreciate this sort of camaraderie. If need be, the other boats can continue but at least we know these comrades are safe.”

We sadly bid au revoir

In the end, it turned out we needed the broken down boat as much as it needed us. The Philosopher and our green tea-making sister had gone from being well to being again very seasick. It was heartaching to watch them try to hold it together. The Italian Coast Guard arrived, the Captain handed over their passports (so he has our passports!) and we sadly bid au revoir to the two family members of Mendi Reincarnated³ Speaking of Mendi, my partner and son, in an attempt to pretend they were not missing me, informed me that they had spent the night before at Joburg Theatre watching a performance of Dancing the Death Drill⁴ and had photos with the author and videos to show for it. I let this bit of information drop to a young protege of mine, a university student who’s keen on writing. I had told her as a not-so-obvious (I hope) novel recommendation. Imagine my surprise when... no. She hadn’t read the book but what she said was even better :

«My great great grandfather was on the first Mendi.He came back safely I hope whatever protected him protects you also.»

You could have knocked me over with a feather or a leaf. Except we are in the middle of the sea and I have seen neither bird nor tree. “What’s your great great grandfather’s name?” She gave it. I immediately and excitedly relayed this information to Fred who was equally excited and decided he would follow up as they had all the names of those who boarded and those who perished from the naval museum in Simonstown – a fitting place to have naval history given that it’s named after the first Cape Dutch Governor, Simon van der Stel, who was not only as biracial as one of the key characters of Khumalo’s novel are but was allegedly born at sea.

Potatoes and Mami Wata

But back to the sea I find myself in today, which could even be the one where Simon was born, it seemed to know as i did that we had had a challenging day. So soon after we left our comrades, we saw dolphins. It was the most cheerful sight and my inner child grinned and I thought of uShaka Marine World in eThekwini. As often happens at the best of times, I did not have my phone to capture it. And sometimes the best things, like the best people in life need to be that. Uncaptured.

Like the sea had given, I decided that I too was going to give and make some comfort food for dinner for our main meal for the evening. Potatoes often feature in my idea of comfort food. It’s likely that I was Kikuyu⁵ in another life. Or may be Mami Wata. Or may be a Kikuyu Mami Wata. Thats the only way I can explain both the liking of potatoes and the fact that I have been at ease in the sea without suffering as much as my travel companions. An hour or so into it (no. it wasn’t some tough recipe. The waves mean that one has to stand in the kitchen and hold the pot in position anytime there are waves so the pot doesn’t fall), Captain stood by the kitchen and asked, “how’s the food coming?” I answered cryptically. “It’s coming.” In my mind, I knew I would be done within 20 minutes. But then the artist that I am, I decided I wanted to add a certain je ne sais quoi so I called The Researcher to “please hold the pot still for a minute, I need to rush to my bag.” I had recalled that I had a certain spice that would take this meal from “okay” to “hell yeah!!!”. Forty six seconds later, or may be it was 53, I returned to the 1.5m x 1m kitchen and reader, the pot and all its contents were on the floor. The Researcher wasn’t there and there were at least three other men there who were just looking unconcernedly. It took Eurozone to get one of them into gear, requesting (?!?) him to get a mop before any cleaning was done.

No.
We didn’t go to bed hungry.
No.
I didn’t make more food.

An utter and absolute annoyance

I picked up whatever looked clean on that floor before the mopping, zhoozhed it up with the spice I had gone to get and dinner was served.

If you can’t sense my utter and absolute annoyance at this state of affairs, neither could my travel companions. I Stepford-Wifed and, “guys, please dish out. Everyone.” Anger or its milder form, annoyance, is not a rational emotion. I knew that The Researcher had not spilt the food on purpose since this is a meal he too would consume. This was made even clearer when he came and apologized profusely for it. But knowing that I was too emotional to be rational, I excused myself and went to nap while everyone was eating as I was on night watch. My hour to nightwatch came and as I tiredly walked out, the First Mate, now in charge, asked me where I was going. “I’m on nightwatch.” He shook his head. “No sister. Go back to bed. You cooked. You are tired. If I need you, I will come and call you.”

I appreciated this because i was tired. And that’s the thing about the Mendi Reincarnated. We know each other’s names but often everyone here calls everyone Brother/Sister, a habit adapted from the Captain and that makes us feel really like we are all family because we know we believe in the same thing despite our different nationalities, personalities, upbringing, religions. We know that we are not going to be silent when an injury happens to anyone if we have voices to speak out.

Speaking of injury, when I finally woke up, feeling fresh enough to go for nightwatch, a conversation with Eurozone had me feeling petty and childish for my annoyance over the spilt pot. Turns out The Researcher got burnt when the pot fell. When I finally saw him this morning after I had watched the sunrise and reminded myself to be a better human being today than I was yesterday, my first question to him was to ask how his foot was. I was relieved to know that he had had some burn ointment and he wasn’t too bad. And as the sun now sets while I type this, I reflect on how anger can be damaging and how kindness is such a necessary human quality. I think of the people in Gaza , in Sudan, in Kashmir, in DRC, in Haiti. I think of my own loved ones and the final words i said to them and I think, we never know when we will go or when someone will be taken from us. Being kinder and having empathy are the cornerstone of humanity and should be what we aspire to do. It certainly is what millions across the world do when they use their time and their platforms to speak up against injustice wherever they see it even if it comes at great personal cost to themselves. May we live in a kinder world governed by leaders who are as horrified as we are at needless killings And may we too never stop aspiring to be kinder people to each person we encounter.
It can change a life.