Outing to the Nursery

We went to visit NuLeaf nursery today. This is the nursery Brett has been working with for the past 6 months or so. The highlights:

The place has a homey aesthetic. Like Mukwonago. 

The fertilizer hut - buy a tray of seedlings, get a free bag of fertilizer.

Brett showing his mom and dad how the plants are grown. 

The squatter community right up against the back fence. 

The coal-fired boiler that keeps the plants alive on cold winter nights by pumping hot water underneath the seedling hot houses.

One of the seedling hot houses. 

Long view of one of the seedling hot houses. This represents "winter" plant production - "summer" production, which starts in September, is much more intensive. 

Plants are sold in these styrofoam trays. 

Ladies "pricking" - transferring germinated sprouts into seedling trays. This work is always done by women as they have a bit more patience with the minute detail work. The trays are moved from here into a hot house for growth. 

The sales floor - the public usually picks out trays of plants from an enclosure like this. A lot of the sales are bulk sales and there is a thriving delivery business. 

Pretty "winter" plants - pansies and violas. 

Finishing the tour.

Broad view of the nursery office. 

A few factoids: All the water is from onsite wells. Water pipes run underground all over the place; they're able to go for 2 days without power due to backup systems (like onsite water). The nursery is about 5 acres. The squatter camp (i.e. "informal settlement") is much bigger. About 35 employees ... some of whom live onsite. 

Brief Reflections on Johannesburg Visit

This is the street behind the hotel, which was fairly typical of the neighborhoods we visited while in Johannesburg.

I don't know what I was expecting, maybe an embattled middle and upper class living behind their walls and guard towers with gangs of thugs roaming the streets by night and day. Certainly not this. All in all I felt more like we were in Palo Alto or Menlo Park than the South Africa of the media and reputation the country has internationally. 

By the comparison with those cities I guess I mean to imply that this is full-on first world in a lot of ways. Then it has its third world aspects as well, but just more skewed on the developed side than most developing countries I've been to. In that way it feels a lot like Brazil did, with solid infrastructure, world class industry, education, culture, etc. It's an exciting place to be.

Me with statue of Nelson Mandela.

At lunch. That's Brett's nephew Colin next to me. Didn't realize until I saw this picture how much he looks like Sheldon from Big Bang Theory.

Ready to Roll

Testing my email-to-blog capability.

I can feel coffee again

Found this draft of a blog post sitting in my blogger account. I must have written it just over a year ago. I remember the feeling of those days so vividly when I read this...

For a long time I haven't been able to feel coffee. Today I got a buzz from drinking a cup. Up to now, while dad has been sick and dying, I could drink all day and never feel anything. Numb.

We buried my dad on a brilliant, warm March day unlike any I have ever seen in the Midwest. He came home from the hospital 2 1/2 weeks earlier on the last days of winter here, snow swirling down all day. Peace and beauty of winter. Not unlike what must have been the weather when he was born in February of '27. Snow globe world. By the day of his death we had brilliant, blazing Spring. Rebirth metaphors abound.

A strange odd creature am I

Are we all as full of contradictions as I find myself to be? On the road, I march confidently into the heart of Africa or tackle confusing new world cities, learning as I go through. At home, I become worried when it appears I am about to run out of milk. Go figure.

That's Me

One of the things I like to do in an airport is people watch. Ponder other people's stories ... and, as I recently realized, wonder how it would be like to be like them. The character I always felt most attracted to was a traveller, most often a business traveler, with their act totally together. Tidy, compact luggage, usually black; tidy, effective mode of dress, usually in black. Buttoned down. I think I have been trying to be this person for two years as I've traveled heavily for business.

But somehow, no matter how I try, I could never quite get this image down. I've got loose ends. A red suitcase. Endess, quirky twitches, and always too much stuff. Sleek efficiency if it happens is an accident. More often I'm the business travel equivalent of the bag lady who is always sorting through her stuff to find precisely the piece she needs in every moment.

Alright, so perhaps it's time to embrace my inner loose ends. Be myself instead of those people I'm looking at whose images I admire. Not that there isn't a point in striving for more efficiency, but I've got to face it that my life story would be acted by a comedian like Sandra Bullock rather than a sleek Meryl Streep or Michelle Pfiefer.

If I'd ever learn to take myself a little less seriously I'd probably also see that my life would make a pretty fun, quirky comedy -- certainly more fun than a maudlin drama. All depends on what glasses one wears.

So rather than looking for people who look like I think I *ought* to be like when in an airport, maybe I could start looking for - and being - the kind of person I am, and enjoy being that!


Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

A Chicken of My Own

I have a whole chicken in my refrigerator. Cooked. Waiting for me to eat or not if I want to. This is a new thing for me. Not the chicken per se, but what I think about it. I look at the chicken in its plastic carrier tray from the deli, and my mind goes to thoughts that in Uganda this is a princely dish. It recalls the discussion with Miriam, Cure's spiritual director, about the precious gift of a chicken as a meal, and how it's reserved for very special occasions, maybe once a year, if that. And now here I am with a chicken of my very own in my own refrigerator. It feels awesome, funny, humbling, and inspiring at the same time.

Awesome because this is an amazing thing to be able to buy my own food, and take care of me, myself as a single woman.

Funny, because well, it is a deli-bought roasted chicken, a common enough thing ... in the US. It's funny to look at it in a whole new way and think "I've got a chicken of my own!"

Humbling because I am reminded of how rare a treasure this is for many.

Inspiring because I feel as if I've got these resources for a purpose, some purpose -- I know not what exactly, just say it means do not squander these resources or take them for granted. The resources go beyond a chicken ... to the home, friends and family, work, the country I live in, the education ...

Weighty thoughts for a Thursday afternoon. For now I'll go back to work, sell some more software, help a nonprofit or two get a vision of their next step. And hope that one day we will all have chickens in our refrigerators.