A SIMPLE LIFE IS A HAPPY LIFE

enjoying the simple pleasures in life,
awesome hipster friends,
cheap wine and  indie music

I never believed in my father’s advice when it came to a simple lifestyle. For me simplicity was synonymous with, or rather a euphemism for being poor.

Morning madness and suprising lessons

My goodness! I never thought it would be this difficult to find a place with free WIFI in a big capitol city like Pretoria... or rather politically correct tshwane. But I am never “P.C” so screw it.

I am kind of pissed right now. So I am at my favourite coffee shop in town, Tribecca, drinking ice cold cappuccino with no WIFI and a list of friends who cancelled on me tonight; quite sad huh? Well on the bright side: my laptop is with me, and I have been itching to write a long time now; Oh my waiter just got me fresh hot cappuccino and not to forget that an hour ago I discovered a timeless classic travel literature ”tales of travel” written by the national geographic golden award winner Lord Curzon Of Kedleston . Keep in mind that this particular edition was printed in 1923! As you can see I am quite excited about this new little treasure of mine.

Damn! Just writing about my frustrations made me happy. I should do it more often... Now let me get to my bloody topic before I derail my train of thoughts.

Like mentioned a few posts earlier, my latest blogs are inspired from my spontaneous trip to Gaborone; Botswana.

Back to Gabs!

Needles to say I was extremely tired and relived when I disembarked the Intercape bus that night in Gaborone. My mind was buzzing with Hare-Krishna philosophy and my stomach was busy digesting itself. Luckily I didn’t have to wait for my lift to Mokolodi backpackers. Janie, the South African driver, was waiting for me at his car like promised; with very pretty German girls next to him, one of them I recognised from the bus... I turns out that Sophie was a volunteer at the hospital in Botswana and Sarah, her sister, came to visit her after spending some time in Mozambique. They were staying at Janie’s place but first they will drop me of the camping site.  We had quite a lot to chat about on our way there, and after a while Janie invited me for a “braai” the next day. Naturally being South African I just couldn’t say no to a BBQ. Or maybe I was just being spite full after being bombarded with the theories of a vegan diet.

Well to cut the long story a little shorter, I managed to set up camp in the dark of night, devoured some “2 minute noodles” and crawled to bed around 12 that night. Just to be woken up by a shit load... sorry Bus load of Namibians at 5:30 the next morning! A crowd of 30 people stormed in to the camping grounds with no worries about their fellow travellers and shouted at each other on the top of their voices!

Now for those who know me will know: if you wake me up with loud noise you will have a bad time... trust me I was not happy. But being patient me I inserted my earphones, turned on the jazz and tried to sleep further. However at 6:30 am the young boys at the backpackers decided to take their 50cc pit-bikes out for an early morning spin in the bushes. That was the final assault and I declared defeat.

Eventually I crawled out my plastic cave looking like a mad man, t-shirtless, unshaven, bloodshot eyes and messy long hair. My only destination was the kitchen where I could find some cheap-ass instant coffee and good old “ouma” Rusk. As I sat there eating it, I started chatting with the other campers who were busy packing up their tents. It turns out that these two dudes where travelling around Southern Africa with their 650cc BMW’s for a month now. The one guy is celebrating his birthday today, the final day of their journey. I was really impressed. Travelling with the same guy for a month was something un-imaginable for me. The part was that they seemed doing quite OK. Well I scored a free bottle of wine when they left. Their generosity must have clouded my judgment...

Two hours later I was all cleaned up, ready to go! But bear in mind it’s still only 8 am in the morning so I had nowhere to go at that moment. So I made myself comfortable at the pool next to one of the imbeciles who woke me up, Ricardo. He told me his life story  while he was busy carving a beautiful key ring made out of a nut from a specific pine tree in Namibia. Ricardo was imprisoned in Namibia for stabbing too many people in his community. While he was in prison he became more peaceful, he learned the art of carving and developed his soccer skills. When he got of jail he joined this team, played soccer all around Namibia and southern Africa in some low-level league and that’s the reason why he is in Gaborone right now. He also sells his craft-work for an extra income.

As he finished his story he handed me the rock hard seed decorated with the most beautiful hand carved elephant and giraffe on it, and just around the bend, discreetly was my name written on it. How could I say no to this little piece for work? The least I could do was to give the man P50 to spend on beer while visiting Gaborone.

That morning to my shock I realised that the man who pissed me of earlier managed to make my day! Kind of like the cappuccino earlier... I started sipping on it with a bad mood and it tasted like shit, I’ve sent it back so that they can warm it up for me and at the end, that same cappuccino elevated my mood and gave the caffeine injection I desperately needed. The lesson learned; never burn your bridges, that same asshole might one day become your inspiration, your muse and your sun shine. Or maybe just remain an asshole that you end up stabbing...

HIDDEN GEMS AND HARE-KRISHNA MONKS

with my Hare-Krishna devote friend Madumangala

I’ve been hearing about this botanical garden in Potchefstroom for quite a while now... For some reason, in the 9 months I have been living here, I just never visited it.

The thing is I am a big garden lover! And spending hours in a beautiful landscape is one the most therapeutic things for me. Well after drinking beer in my favourite pub or listening to jazz. But the point is; I love hanging around plants and lying on grass I don’t have to take care of. Seeing people at work while I can relax is definitely part of the therapy. I guess its part of my sadist nature. 

the little hidden gem in potchefstroom

As I walked in the little labyrinth for a little meditation, I couldn’t help but to think of the Hare-Krishna monk who sat next to me on the long bus ride to Gaborone. 

We had such a great time chatting with each other about different life philosophies and ways of living... He gave me a book about his faith and I had the opportunity to ask him questions that has been burning inside of me; e.g why do you have the funny pony tail? Why do you wear these certain clothes? What do you believe in exactly? What is all this chanting about?

The short version of the 7 hour conversation is a little bit difficult to describe. But a there were some main pointers in the topic. For example I learned that Hari-Krishna devotes believe that through chanting a certain chant they generate a vibration that release a supernatural energy from a higher force. This energy brings them happiness and peace. They don’t eat meat. They don’t listen to any other music. They love their ear plugs; they insert them in public places to cancel out all the noise around them. They get up at 4 am every morning for yoga, meditation and scripture studies which will keep them busy till 9 am.  

Now I have respect for anyone who manages to devote his life for certain cause and believe. However I realised, or at least got the impression,that these devotes don’t receive joy out anything else than their chanting and meditations. That is not exactly a life I want to live... There so many things out there to enjoy! I love Hollywood movies, I love modern popular music especially dubsteb even if it does sound like robot sex! The last thing I want to do is to plug my ears with ear plugs to create the illusion that I am not part of this world.  I guess the most frustrating part was the fact that the monk never gave me a full chance to explain my points of view... I would ask a question, he would talk for an hour and whenever I wanted to challenge him on certain topics he would just start to chant and play with his prayer beads. When he finished his ritual he would turn to me and explain to me how I got brainwashed by the “system”, I will never be happy with materialism and that Inflation in the economy is created by the illuminati to keep us in the darkness of endless debt.  Thanks for the economics lecture dude... I couldn’t help but to role my eyes. I am certainly not a materialist, I am very happy with my life and I see no reason why on earth I should become a Potch-Hobo to experience real happiness. In fact if there is one on this planet that can steal my happiness immediately it is a bloody Potch-Hobbo asking me for taxi money!

Well that’s enough rambling about a monk I have met. I am starving under this tree right now... I guess I will head down town to buy myself a good chicken burger because I am pre-programmed by the system to make my choices based on clever marketing tactics which the Colonel is certainly part of. And I’m not even mentioning the scary clown, Ronald McDonald

Ps: I feel didn't give justice to my friend,Madhumangala's , wanderlust. if there was one element that truly connected us then it was our shared love for Africa and our passion to explore. Here is the link to his blog if you want to learn more about the "The Travelling Monk In Africa" http://www.nectarofsankirtan.blogspot.com/