Shades of Racism

This morning I was watching CNN and Anderson Cooper was reporting on a recent study on racism among children in America. The children were shown pictures of five identical cartoon children, their only difference was the colour of their skin. Then the children were asked questions such as "Who is the dumbest child?" "Who is the smartest child?", "Who is the bad child?"and "Who do you think people would say is the most beautiful?"

For both black and white children there was a bias toward good attributes being assigned to the lighter skin tones and negative attributes beings given to the darker skin tones. For those who Spike Lee described as "drinking the rainbow Kool-aid", those who thought a black president would mean the magical disappearance of racism , I guess such a study will come as a bit of a shock, a shock that shows little has changed in America. For people on the ground, especially those with darker skin I doubt there were any surprises.

Here in Egypt, from what I've seen in Hotelworld , the lines between people are well defined and the amount of skin pigment seems to be the deciding factor. I doubt I've ever been to a place where those lines seem to be so absolute. At the hotel reception desk, you find the lightest skinned Egyptians. The next shade is found in the restaurant serving us food morning and night. A bit darker and you will be cleaning the rooms. The next shade are the security officers and the darkest skin of all and you will find them on the golf course mowing the grass or applying the ubiquitous chemicals the massive field of green requires to keep alive in the desert.

It seems unbelievably cruel to have a life defined before you get started. I found it even sadder when the little black girl in the study was asked "Which child is the ugliest?" and she pointed to the darkest skin picture. When Anderson Cooper asked her why, she said "because black skin in nasty". She said it while looking at her own arm. Where did she learn that? But, more importantly, how can it be fixed?

Minds Find a Way Together in the Desert

The Italian writer who is with us in El Gouna, Tizana Colusso, has a beautiful, quite poetic, children's book about a stone and footprints on the beach and their friendship. It was translated from Italian into English, but not well. Yesterday Seni, Tizana and I worked on sorting out the translation.

It was a wonderful process. It was an exploration of what a particular word means, its shades and nuances. It was so fascinating for me to discuss the meaning of each sentence and its place in the story with the other two women. To work together to get to the exact word or sentence that was needed to truly represent the Italian text.

It was also a window into another language and it reminded me of how important it is for a writer to write in their own language. I'm a pragmatic writer and I know writing in English is important from a marketing point of view, but so many wonderful images are lost when a translation is done or when a writer foregoes their local language for English, images that have no words to describe them since they only exist in that particular language. If English forces itself to be the language of the world, as it is trying to do, and languages slip away, we should know too that much, much more will be lost.

El Gouna Birds

On my first proper day here in El Gouna I was standing in the hallway of the hotel. The passages are open to the outside and a swallow landed on the railing inches away from me. I was waiting for Seni and stood for perhaps five minutes watching it. It was calm and even went to sleep for awhile. Seni came out and we continued watching it. After some time I thought it might be sick in some way as I'd never seen a bird so content with people so near. I reached out to touch it and it flew away, healthy as can be.

Since then wherever I go there are swallows around me, always at least one. Perhaps it's my guardian angel, who knows. According to Egyptian myth swallows are connected to the stars and the dead. They also mean new love. I'm fairly content with my old love, but I don't mind the thought that those I love who have passed on are keeping an eye on me so far from home.

The crows here are very talkative, much like our pied crows in Botswana. They look a bit like scruffy pied crows since their white parts are grey.

Pied crow (Botswana)

Egyptian crow.


Every morning while on my walk through the golf course I see beautiful bee eaters. In Botswana, bee eaters are usually found on wires and trees, waiting for a passing insect breakfast. Here I found it odd that the bee eaters seem to hunt in the grass. It only dawned on me yesterday that normally where I'm at would have no trees. It was bare desert before this town was put up. The bee eaters here likely had no option but to hunt on the ground.

Setswana Written in Arabic

Yesterday Elmaz and I went into the commercial part of El Gouna and did some shopping. There are so many beautiful things in Egypt I fear I may go home broke, all of my royalty money left behind for the pharoahs.

One thing I bought yesterday were papyrus bookmarks. The man selling can write your name on it in Arabic. I bought some for my small family but I'm thinking of going back and buying more.

Arabic written is beautiful, more like a picture than words. I was suprised that the selling man very easily wrote my husband's name, Lentibile, in Arabic. It seemed to me he was listening carefully to each syllable and the sound it makes so that he could find the correct character in Arabic.


The one to the left is Lentibile, written in Arabic.

Below from left to right is Sidney, Lauri and Amanda.

Egyptian Towel Art

Two of my colleagues here at the writers' residency live upstairs and have the same man who cleans their room. Two days ago our Italian colleague came home from our first day of orientation and found a magnificent peacock made of towels and flowers on her bed. It was astounding and such a lovely surprise.

Yesterday she had an entire swan family and her neighbour had a lotus flower. Her neighbour actually saw him making the lotus flower ( an amazing thing in itself apparently) and she asked him about it. He told her they learn to make the sculptures in their training.

I thought you'd like to see the scuptures, they really are works of art.

The Mosque, the Winery and the School- Orientation Day 2

Yesterday was the last day of our two day orientation. We started at the mosque.




I've never been in a mosque before and know very little about the Islamic religion. I did know they have to pray five times. In this mosque in El Gouna, they have a digital display showing the times. These times vary depending where you live and the season, as they are calculated by the position of the sun.

The men pray in lines and the women have a different area where they pray behind a wooden partition seen on the right in this photo.


The imam stands at the front in the direction of Mecca and prays with the people in attendance.


You don't need to got to the mosque for every prayer time, though our keeper and man responsible for our general well being , Emad, said if you go to the mosque for other prayers outside of Friday prayers you get "extra credit".

After the mosque, we went to the winery, which seems quite a jump considering that alcohol is not allowed in Islam.

Here the Lebanese wine maker explains how they make the wine.

I'm quite fascinated by factories and the machines found there. This machine lifted the bottle, filled it with wine and then set it down and put a cork in it. It's a bit like music watching such machines.

We learned from the winemaker and his very beautiful wife, Rania, that making wine in Egypt is difficult. The conditions are not good since the soil is sandy and the plants must be watered. The tax charged by the government is very high on alcohol. Their workers are 99% Copt (Egyptian Christians) with the 1% Muslim only working outside the factory as security. There were a few women working inside the factory, five to be exact. Rania told us because they work in the winery it will be difficult for them to find husbands, but they must make that sacrifice since they are poor.


Nevertheless they make quite lovely wine which we spent some time tasting. We bought a few bottle which have now taken up residence in our communal writing room, which we've (or perhaps it's only me) now christened The Dance Room.

After the winery we were off to the international school. Again an interesting transition. It is quite a posh private school. There is also a government school in El Gouna. We will do a reading at the posh school and we've requested to also read at the government school but we've yet to find out if that will go through.


Today it's all about work. I had good news this morning that my third book in my Detective Kate Gomolemo series (Anything for Money) is to be published by Vivlia Publishers (South Africa) along with my children's book Curse of the Gold Coins. Hurray!

Recycling in El Gouna, Egypt

El Gouna is a complete town owned by a single family. This likely has its bad side but it definitely has its good side- they can run things exactly as they want, quickly and efficiently. Today we did the first part of our two day orientation and we visited various projects in this growing town.

They have a recycling plant and organic farm. All rubbish in the town is recycled. The tins and glass are seperated and sold to dealers in Cairo.


The UHT packages are made into recycled paper right in El Gouna. This paper is used to form paper bags used in the town to carry groceries.


Some plastic is recycled to make plastic hangers and plastic rubbish bags. I was most impressed by the recycling of plastic to make paving bricks. They cut the plastic into small pieces.


The shredded plastic is mixed with sand and heated. The mould is set up with bits of broken tiles and glass at the bottom to make the final product attractive.


Then the mixture is poured into moulds to form paving bricks.


It seems a wonderful technology. I was quite impressed by the entire recycling plant, in fact.

They also need to desalinate the water they use. In the process, they have a lot of waste water that is too salty for consumption. They have made a fish farm which uses this water.

This was a big part of Day 1 of our two day orientation.

Egypt Orientation Day or How to Survive a 5 Hour Bus Ride in 40+ degree Heat with a Hangover

My daughter has arrived safely in America so I will have a lovely Mother's Day sans frantic worrying. You folks in America, if you see her please be gentle, Giant Teenagers look very resilient on the outside, spikey and thorny even, but on the inside they're mushy like marshmallows and fragile like eggs.
(Hmmm??? So many food references -am I hungry??)

Have a good Sunday, a wonderful Mothers' Day if you are of that persuasion. Today we are going on a five hour orientation tour. Unfortunately last night we went dancing with a whole gaggle of Russian stick insects and I apparently should not mix Egyptian wine and Egyptian beer if the football size, pulsating-with-pain object sitting on my neck is anything to go by. Or maybe it is mixing middle-aged, fluffy (not fat), female dancing with Russian stick insects on bar top dancing that's given me the headache from hell. One can never know how these things go. In any case, I've taken drugs and will try to be civil and polite, of course within my normal parameters. I wouldn't want to give people a fright.

Although it may appear that my first ( I thought it would be my only, but I've learned writers are INTENDED to go on writers' residencies) writers' residency is not going well in terms of work, that is not true. I AM working, but right now I'm at that pride-crushing stage when you realise the masterpiece you wrote in your head is not quite the pig slop you have on the page. So I thought it was better for all I keep silent. Such things have no place in polite company.

An added extra :
I love The Rejectionist's blog but this morning her blog post was something special. A day in the life- Click Here.

A Trip to Hurghada

This morning myself and two of the other writers here took a trip to Hurghada which is about a 20 minute bus ride away from El Gouna. Hurghada is a normal Egyptian town, unlike El Gouna in which the entire town is owned by one family.

Though I'd been warned about shopping in Egypt, that I must barter and get a better price, it was an experience. We got "capture" by a mini-moghul with three shops nearly on top of each other, tiny shops located along thin streets. Anything we needed he had and he "would give us a good price". In the end I bought many things I really did not need at prices which were likely not so good. But they are lovely things which I cannot mention as some are presents for family members who might read this blog.

Here are a few photos from today's adventure! (Please note:My internet has all gone Arabic so I can no longer use spell check, so be forgiving of my spelling infractions)

This is the wind farm outside of Hurghada.



This is Mickey Mouse who also has a holiday home in Egypt, apparently.


Spices outside of a shop.


A man carving on metal cats, quite amazing. I bought two of them. The saleman for the shop was a serious slick talker. With his quick talking, he nearly got an invitation to Rome from our Italian collegaue.
Off to work now....

El Gouna Egypt-I'm Here!

I arrived in El Gouna yesterday morning dead tired after an overnight flight from Johannesburg. I thought you'd all enjoy a small tour of my home for the next month.

Here is the view from my verandah, looking out at the lagoon and the beach which I've decided is mine.

I took this out on my walk this morning. My "house" is the last one in that row of burnt orange buildings.
This is my verandah.

My room is the downstairs one in the middle.


My beach.

I saw this on my walk and it made me laugh. I think this "protected by law" mangrove plant is quite lonely. I think all of these lagoons are human-made, likely man-made, there doesn't seem to be any Egyptian women here, not sure where they are. Not exactly sure how this mangrove plant got here but 1) it is alone and 2) it is protected by law.

The life guard chair at the beach. Looks a bit like a king's chair...pharoah I guess.

The beach for other people. They rake it.

The houses here are fascinating. I know nothing about architecture, though of course I'll soon be an expert since Giant Teenager No. 1 has been accepted into the architecture programme at the Univeristy of Botswana (!!yay!!). I think the house here are lovely. I intend to find out more about them. I'll let you know what I uncover.





So that's it for now. So far we are four writers: me, an Italian woman, a British/Sri Lankan via Cape Town woman and a man from Wales.

My Egyptian adventure has begun!!

Bontekanye Botumile Interviewed

For the past two weeks I've been covering self publishing in my column, It's All Write, in The Voice newspaper. Today's issue features our best selling children's author Bontekanye Botumile. She speaks about the process of self publishing her books in Botswana.

Here's the link to this week's column. Last week's column on who should consider self publishing can be found here.

Don't forget to join the It's All Write Facebook page here.

Next time we meet here I'll be writing from Egypt. I leave Sunday. Talk to you soon!

And the Winner is...

The winner of a signed copy of Kwaito Love is Miriam!!!
Congratulations!
Miriam please send me your postal details to lakubuitsile@gmail.com so I can get the book off to you.
Everyone- thanks for entering!!

When Life is Full of Busy-ness and Nothing Seems to Get Done

Busy, busy, busy but not much forward movement. April started yesterday and I've been informed today is the 27th (!?!). I have done very little writing and that always makes me feel nervous, but I'm trying to tell myself I'm off to Egypt on Sunday and I will have a solid month of no interruptions.

My brain this month is jumping all over- let's follow some of its most recent stops:

**I've been reading I Know this Much is True by Wally Lamb. It's a huge book and I usually veer away from such whoppers. I tend to think the writer is being over indulgent to creep up to those heavy page numbers. In this case, I was wrong. I had expected Mr. Lamb to accompany me to Egypt, but we'll soon be finished with each other. Loving this book, hoping the ending does not disappoint.

**Last night I watched a documentary about the Bloods and the Crips, the notorious gangs of Los Angeles . Two facts I found shocking: 1) Children in South Central LA suffer more post-traumatic stress syndrome than children in Baghdad, and 2) 15,000 people have died because of this war and yet the silence is deafening. It's as if the people of that state want to just wait until all of the black men kill each other. It's a sort of passive genocide. Where are the peace keepers? Why is the United Nations not called in to help these people?

**Just finished reading this by literary agent Rachelle Gardner. I thought it was slightly disingenuous to say publishing does not partake in market research. They research their market in a backward manner. They put out a book, for example a vampire book. It takes hold and then they look all over for lookalike vampire books (ignoring all else) to put out a pile of them until the readers stop buying, and then they stop and wait until another fad catches on. Of course writers and publishers like to pretend they are above the fray by saying things such as-

There are integrity issues with publishing that may not apply to other businesses. Market research implies the author/publisher would change the product to suit the whims of the consumer, something that goes against the grain of writers and publishers.

This is a bit humorous considering some recent publishing faux pas like the white woman on the cover of a book about a black character because people apparently won't buy books with black people on the cover. Is that not tailoring a product for the market? Perhaps I'm not understanding the issue.

** Today my main concern was Senor Ramon's sterilisation operation. It is over and everyone is fine. Here's a recent photo of Senor Ramon (top) and his mother, Sergeant Catman.

As you can see my mind is all over- which is fine for now.

Win a FREE, Signed Copy of Kwaito Love!!

I just got my copies of Kwaito Love, my new romance novella published by Sapphire Press a new imprint of Kwela Books. I think they are beautiful and in celebration I am giving away a free copy of Kwaito Love. Just leave a comment below stating that you'd like your name to go into the hat. I'll leave the draw open until Wednesday the 28th April then I'll pick a name and let everyone know. So - Good Luck!!

Kwaito Love is going to be sold through the True Love Romance Club in True Love Magazine in conjunction with Leisure Books in South Africa. Get next month's copy of True Love Magazine for all of the details. If you are a lover of romance this is the club for you!

My second book for this imprint,provisionally called He Can't Be the One, is set to come out in August.

Race and Writing

A warning- this column intends to step on people's toes, so please raise your feet.

I am a white woman with a black name. The rough draft of me was finished in America, while the final edits are being done in Botswana. I often find myself in situations I call "the lekgoa moment", it is that blank stare or awkward pause when the person I am meeting is trying to reconstruct their idea of me with the reality before them. I try to tell myself that it is their problem not mine, this usually works. I try to maintain that point of view in my writing too. Still it is hurtful when a person loves me to death as the black writer, and then meets me and suddenly has no more time for who I really am. It's happened numerous times and always with South Africans or people in the publishing industry who want to "uplift African writers". I tell myself it is their issue, but it's difficult. I suppose the same happens for black writers with white names- maybe. It's crap- racist, sucky crap, from any direction it comes.

I write. I write what comes to me, what my head creates. This last week my first romance novella came out, Kwaito Love. It is about an up and coming fashion designer in Johannesburg, Mpho, who falls in love with a famous record producer, Thabang. Kwaito Love is one of two books launching Sapphire Press, an imprint of Kwela Books, it's an imprint targeted at a black, urban, female audience. My second book for this publisher was recently accepted as well.

When it was announced that the book was out, I got a comment from a South African that my book was accepted only because of my surname; the publisher assumed I was black. Apparently in the world that is South African publishing only black people can write about black people. I knew this to be at least partly wrong since with my second acceptance everyone knew I was white, but it still gave me an ugly, sick feeling in my stomach. What would have been worse would have been if in fact I was black and someone told me the same thing. That kind of upliftment I would think is nothing more than a serious slap-down and an insult to the writer's ability. I took it in the same way.

Last week was the premiere for Morwalela, a television series with only black characters, in which I was one of the scriptwriters. People have been congratulating me on the series, and not one Motswana has mentioned anything about the fact that I am white and am writing about black characters. Not one.

My book ,The Fatal Payout, currently a prescribed book for junior secondary schools in Botswana, is about a black woman detective who solves a crime and goes on to start a relationship with a black male engineer. No one has said a word. Everyone knows I'm a white woman, but it seems they accept that I can write about men and people who are black.

Recently there was a long, arduous and infuriating discussion on UK writer Vanessa Gebbie's blog about writing about "the other". I did not get it at the time, but I think I'm starting to understand. I think perhaps the point is otherness. I'm not saying I'm better or worse than anyone else, but I don't see myself set apart from the people I share my country with. Maybe that is what makes such writing awkward and often patronising- the writer is an other. I'm not saying I'm black. I'm not saying I understand everything that goes on here, why would I? I was forever lost by the actions and motivations of the white Americans that surrounded me in the place of my birth, why would I suddenly be Ms Insightful here? That's not it.

In my second romance novella for this publisher, I have three white, Afrikaner characters. The readers cringed at my stereotypes, at my flat characterisation. For me, they were now "the other" and I was struggling, trying to pull them into three dimensions. Until I could connect with them, and remove the otherness barrier, I would never be able to write them as believable characters.

I know writing for a South African audience is a schlep. Everyone is political. Everyone has a heavy, historical chip on their shoulder. No one there is free from race issues. I thought I accepted this. This past week made me feel sad. I felt sad for my new book that I'd been so happy about. I'm not trying to pretend I'm someone I'm not. I'm a writer. I make up characters. I make up stories. That's it, nothing else. If I've succeeded, then readers will connect with my books, if I haven't- then they won't. That's all that really matters anyway.

Now, if I can only convince myself of that.

My Column

Blog readers outside of Botswana and not my friends on Facebook may be missing my new column in The Voice newspaper. Here are the links for last week's and this week's column. Let me know what you think!
Last week's column is HERE.
This week's column is HERE.

Morwalela Premiere!

Last night, 12 April, was the premiere of the first television series I had the opportunity to be a part of, Morwalela. I wrote it with another Motswana writer, Wame Molefhe. We put in a bid for the job and got it even though we were up against people with much more script writing experience than us- which was not that difficult since at the time our combined television writing experience equalled zero. The drama series was developed by an HIV/AIDS NGO in Botswana called PSI.

Although getting a book published is a process of compromise, television writing is a soup made with many cooks and in this case more so than in others. We wrote the scripts quite some time ago. We wrote 13 -thirty minute episodes, the final product is only eight episodes. The director is billed as the writer, I guess since he had to adapt our 13 episodes to fit into eight. I don't know, I'm only guessing as no one spoke to us about this.

Last night there was a live viewing at the BTV auditorium in Gaborone for people involved in the production. It was nice to watch the first episode with a roomful of people who worked to produce the series. I liked to see characters Wame and I created in our minds up on the screen in flesh and blood. Because we were not involved in the adaptation of our scripts, I think some of our initial motivation and thoughts were lost along the way and that was a bit sad, but I think this is the nature of the television game. It is a collaborative process and one can't be precious with their words. I thought the final product looked pretty great.

The programme is part of the national response to HIV/AIDS in Botswana. The hope is that the characters will help with behavior change in the country. It will be showed on BTV every Monday from 6:30-7:00 pm. If you get a chance to watch it, let me know what you think about it!

P.S. Curious about the title Morwalela? Morwalela means flood in Setswana. We were trying to think of a name for a fictional village and I remember being in our sitting room with my daughter and husband and us brainstorming ideas. We got a few, of which Morwalela was one of them. I took them to Wame- and the village and television series Morwalela was born.

A Person Who Chose to Write

There are people who must write. That's not me. Or at least it wasn't me. I came to writing in a very convoluted, accidental way, the way I come to most things I end up loving. I came thousands of kilometers to find my husband, on a very circuitous route both physically and mentally. I came the same way to writing. I found it when I was looking for something else. It was a bit of sparkle under the leaves, below the mud. I could have passed it if I'd been looking for it, I wouldn't have thought to look there. I had to find it by accident.

Even the way I'm moving along my writing journey is meandering and unguided, a bit mad and untamed. I started writing about headaches and then a trip across the desert, then how to keep caged birds. Real life couldn't hold my words and they broke away and drifted through my brain and came out as a different reality, the one where I was in control. And then I wrote about murders. I wrote about tsunami survivors finding new love with their broken apart hearts. Later I drifted around and came back home to Botswana and found little girls hiding from school in dry river beds and murderous teachers killing their lovers in the desert. Lately, I step out of my life for months at a time and live a new life created by my wayward mind with each word put down on the page. I've travelled in my writing, even more than in my real life.

In my writing, I can be a white woman today and a tortured murdering husband tomorrow. A psychopathic son-killing mother the day after that. This afternoon I was a black lawyer trying to find a way to get the wife he'd thrown away back. I get to try on lives, real life doesn't allow for that, I only get to do that when I write.

Unlike real life where stories started by a conversation with a stranger on a bus never get a proper ending, I can start and finish a story in a single day and feel quietly complete. A single beautiful thing in real life flicks by in an instant and you hardly get a chance to accept its existence before it has joined your memories of the past, but in my writing I can stay stuck on a beautiful thing for as long as I like, I can stop time if I want to. Who can stop time in real life?

I could write a list of the pros and cons of writing, but it will tell me nothing. It will not lead me to a decision about anything. The depth of one pro may be so deep that thousands of shallow cons could get lost inside it. I am not a person who must write, I am a person who chose to write. I've fallen deeply in love with my accidental choice, I doubt I can easily walk away from that.

....and it's back to work-sort of!

Hope everyone had a lovely rest. Today my plan was to get my exhaust on my car changed and since I knew it would take a lot of time decided the rest of my day would be full of tidying up details and little to no writing. Tomorrow I go to Gaborone for the job interview. Cross fingers for me, though I'm not yet sure what I want just yet. I guess cross fingers I figure it out.

It has been raining here in Mahalapye almost continuously for two days. Yesterday, Easter Monday, I woke up feeling pretty bad and spent most of the day in bed. Luckily I am just from a book buying splurge so started and finished The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and started Wally Lamb's I Know this Much is True, recommended by my writer friend Helen Brain. That hefty book will keep me busy for some time.

From early afternoon yesterday, I lay on my bed reading and just out the glass doors in the male morula tree was a big spotted eagle owl attempting to get some shelter from the relentless rain. He stayed with me the whole day until dark. Though the photo makes him seem miles away, he's actually quite near. I felt as if he was watching over me. Sort of hoped he had some mail for me from Hogwarts but it was not to be.

It's All Write- My new Column is Born!

Last Friday the first instalment of my column It's All Write appeared in Botswana's The Voice newspaper. You can read the column here. (Click read more to get to the column). I've made a Facebook Page called It's All Write-The Column here. If you have a chance please join. I'd like the page to have lively discussions about writing in Botswana and around the world.

Hope you all are enjoying your long weekend and your holiday if you're celebrating one. My holiday is called St. Couch-Potato the Book Reader Day- I am taking the opportunity to worship devoutly. ENJOY!!!