Tania.co.za

The coming year

The past year represents one of the three or four big turning points in my life. I was in Dar es Salaam recently, and I'm returning there next year for a few days; I have also paid several more visits to Maputo since the last time I wrote about that. There have been many new friendships formed, and a lot of damage done to old ones, with slow healing and re-injury, as during a war. Very little of what I have experienced during this year has been documented here.

This blog will be replaced by four Web sites next year, each with a distinct domain.

One will be a blog devoted to Project Management, representing my professional interest.

Another will be devoted primarily to my passion for dancing, which more than any other single activity has kept me sane since 2006 -- and this in spite of the fact that at times other clubbers have mistaken me for someone on crack cocaine! I have often been asked, right there in a night club, by some stranger, "Teach me to dance like you dance!" because, unlike professional dancers who must push their bodies to painful extremes, forcing their last joy into a smile for a critical and demanding audience, my pleasure is real, others want it, and I want to give it. Last night a stranger came up to me and shouted above the music,"You rock!" I've had compliments before, but his particular choice of words warmed my soul because it represents a wordplay which he never intended, but which explains it all. 2009 was the year in which I at last understood the foundation on which I have been built, and to which I can now respond with exuberance: Of course I rock! I am autistic.

The third site will be ecclectic and personal, not distinctly themed, an agglomeration of shorter whim-based entries, and a mixture of seriousness and frivolity as befits any well-balanced human being. This site will not bear my real name.

The fourth, represented by the present domain, will be the place where I share family photographs and news for relatives and friends. There will be a link from this site to two of the others.

I am also hoping to finally get the Web zine at Magazine.co.za up and running, but that has been an "I'll do it in the new year!" goal for several years, so I am not sure whether I should trust this statement of intent until I have presented myself with a proper Project Initiation Document!

I also have the goals to take formal steps to support many of those marginalised or rejected in our society where my abilities could not easily have been substituted. I have found a niche where God can use me, and specifically me.

As 2009 draws to a close, see, I have begun formulating some New Year's Resolutions. I used to scoff the idea of having such a list, because I reasoned that if you want to do something -- lose weight or be a nicer person or whatever it is that people usually resolve to do -- why can't you just do it, and do it this year? The thing is, integrity -- following through on a promise to oneself or to others -- requires integration -- that is, providing oneself with a realistic plan and an environment wherein it is possible to implement the resolution, and then taking steps required for fulfilment. Developing a picture of the ideal future, the strategy for attaining it, and the project plan including a plan to deal with risk and change, requires considerable reflection and time. If you don't  have (or take) the time to think, you may not get much done, or you may get a lot done which does not contribute to your goals, and thus your labour diligent willl have been ineffective. Thus, I have New Year's Resolutions, and I hope that I shall be able to spend some time away from work at the end of December to reflect, plan and get going with these things which in theory could have started any time, but which in practice will have to kick off in 2010. (The pertinence of the football metaphor to the date was noted only upon completing the sentence!)

By the time that I return to this and other spaces, my position in society may have changed forever. I have committed a Great Taboo. Some people may forgive and accept me once they know; some may not forgive, because I shall not be able to apologise or to repent. I do not expect that I will ever be able to lead others from a sanctified moral high ground. If after December you choose to dislike me, if you choose to judge me for my choice, if you withhold your love, it is not with condescending magnanimity that I will accept and forgive you, but rather with cognisance of and respect for your paradigm, which forms the foundation of nearly every culture on earth. It is not that I am unafraid of your rejection: I do indeed fear it, and I fear particularly being rejected by those to whom I am close who see things in black and white and who must by force of neurological predisposition decide whether I am good or bad, a sinner or saint. I beg of you, though: Do not prevent me from serving, even if you believe that as a sinner I cannot be saved. I want to do good. I want to help. I want to save the world. Whoever is not against you, is for you. If the gifts are good in your eyes, permit the giver her giving, even if she is bad.

Tania buys a mini-skirt

In a rush on my way to have my laptop repaired by the congenial troglodyte in the basement of the physics building, I had to pass through the student shopping centre, and saw a skirt I liked.
"You can try it in the bathroom."
Two minutes later: "Thank-you, it fits. Now, can I have a pair of legs to go with this?"
"You mean leggings?"
"Never mind, I'll just take the skirt."

Gesprek in 'n nagklub

"Is dit melk wat jy daar drink?"
"Ja."
"Net melk?"
"Ja."
"Ek hoop dis ten minste 'n double."
"Dis neat, on the rocks."
Hy lag. "Hoekom drink jy melk?"
"Want ek is dors." (My ma sou dit 'n tipiese Aspergers-antwoord noem. Ek weet wat die doel van sy vraag is, maar ek aanvaar nie die onderliggende aanname nie, dus wil ek nie die vraag na sy verwagting beantwoord nie.)
"Nee, ek bedoel..." begin hy, maar hy laat dit vaar.
"Dis een van die dinge waarvan ek hou van hierdie plek," voeg ek by, sodat hy nie moet dink dat ek probeer lelik wees deur nie saam te speel nie. "Ek bedoel, hoeveel dansplekke is daar wat vir jou melk sal verkoop?"

'n Halfuur later sien ek 'n ou op die dansvloer wat 'n t-hemp aan het waarop daar staan, Celebrating Milk, en ek wys dit uit vir die outjie wat my uitgevra het oor my drinkgewoontes. Ek twyfel of die ou binne-in die t-hemp ook wel graag melk drink in 'n nagklub, maar ek behoort dit eintlik nie te betwyfel nie.

Irony

I had this conversation with the passenger next to me on the plane during my last trip to Mozambique. He was a French-speaking man of Arabic origin, and was on his way to Maputo from the DRC via Johannesburg. He had lived in Kinshasa for many years, and was going to Maputo to visit relatives.

My fellow traveler told me that he made a living by importing used clothes from Canada, and that there was a very good market for these goods in the DRC.

"Is it difficult to get new clothes in the DRC?" I asked, having learned three years ago from my landlord, a telecommunications contractor, that new clothes are hard to come by in the part of West Africa where he works. I thought it may be the same in the DRC.
"No," said my fellow passenger, "it's just that all the new clothes come from China."
"Ah," I said, "So is it difficult to import clothes into the DRC from China?"
"No, you can get them," he said, "but people prefer old clothes because they last longer."

Whisper to me

If we win the battle for understanding, we will change the world. So please stay strong while we learn to communicate within the language and customs of this planet. You have no idea how many people depend on us. We can fall down sometimes, but we must not give up now.

Dikaiosune

To whomever has ever had to choose between sin and insanity: Whatever you chose, I respect your choice. And I know, just as you perhaps still know, that no matter what choice you made, you sinned.

Jesus, I thank you that you have permitted me my sanity. I don't want to insult you by asking you to forgive it as well.

Mozambique

I'm back from teaching an in-house course in Project Management in Maputo. The client specifically wanted it in English because all of their project documentation is done in English (as a ligua franca with foreign contractors). I have nevertheless bought myself a book and some CDs to learn some Portuguese before I go back there later this month. I don't think I will be able to avoid looking like a South African, but perhaps I can at least appear a little less like a tourist this time, and more like someone who has the intention of going back to work there again and again. It's a nice city.


View from my hotel window in Maputo.

Wrong

I wasn't wrong to have believed you had the potential, but wrong to have hoped you'd have the will, and so very unwise to have forgotten that a low self-esteem often disguises the absence of a humble heart.

PRINCE2 Practitioner

Yeeeheee! I got 78.333333333333333% for my PRINCE2 Practitioner exam!

Kin

The lack of posting in the past two months belies the profundity of my experience in having found my tribe. It has been one of the turning points of my life, as deeply felt as a religious discovery.

For most of my life I have gravitated towards them unwittingly, even though to outsiders we may have seemed dissimilar. Scattered amongst the rest of the population, they, like I, also did not know who they really were. Yet I have felt empathy with them beyond that felt for them  by others. Now that I know we are genetically linked, everything is contextualised. I belong.

Ironically, the first friendship in my life which I consciously and deliberately ended -- about 15 years ago -- was probably with one of my own tribe. She is dead now, she was murdered last year, so I will never be able to involve my newfound kin in rescuing her from the bitterness which she felt towards those who had discriminated against her, and which subsequently drove even those who might have loved her away from her after that. But the fact that we parted also shows that I will not necessarily like everyone with whom I have this bond. Such is the nature of kinship.

Equally profound, perhaps, but far more frightening, has been the parallel discovery of how little understanding there has always been between me and the one person whom I felt most deeply understood me for so many years. Nor did I understand him. Nor did I understand so many like him, although I thought I did. We heard each other's words and saw each other's actions, and we thought we knew what they meant. But I am not sure what I know anymore, except for love.

And love changes everything.

Diagnosis

They named it, finally: Lewy body dementia and frontotemporal dementia. He has lost 25 kg. He weighs less than I do. Tomorrow they will tell him that he cannot drive anymore.

Empathy, sympathy... ugh, whatever.

You know what's ironic? Sometimes someone who is really kind, decent and sympathetic, and who says, "Tell me. Confide in me. I am a good listener. You need to talk about your problems! Try me, I have big shoulders. I will understand." can be the most stressful person to have around when I am at the end of my tether. The problem is, then I have to manage his feelings as well as my own -- if I don't want to talk, he will feel rejected, or he'll feel like a failure, or whatever. I actually slept at my mother's house last night instead of at my own flat simply because I did not want the stress of having to arrive at this building and then have a knock at my door and have to deal with someone else's invasive but well-intentioned and heart-felt concern for me.

What would have worked for me just fine would have been to play chess with some guy who doesn't know me well. In fact, I was going to play chess with one of my neighbours who has been keen to do so for a long time, but then my sympathetic friend would probably have arrived here and wondered why I chose such nonchalant company instead of having him who cares for me so deeply cooking supper for me, which he'd offered to do. So I just avoided the whole complicated thing by leaving town. I just didn't have the energy to explain it all.

I would like to thank my friends, the Wizard and the Princess, for the numerous occasions when I was feeling particularly frazzled and they invited me to join them for the day. Thank-you for not suggesting that I talk about my problems, but for allowing me to ramble on when I chose to do so anyway. Thank-you for laughing at my jokes. Thank-you for the hours upon hours of trying on clothes which we didn't really need, for gossiping, and for that exceedingly stupid video which you rented when I did not have the emotional capacity for watching the portrayal of anything resembling genuine human sentiment.

I would also like to say a special thank-you to my friend The Wallflower, for an SMS which he sent me one night long ago when I was feeling miserable and frustrated. "I just want to complain," I'd told him, "I don't want anyone to actually do anything."
"Kla soveel as wat jy wil," he replied, "Ek sal net mooi niks vir jou doen nie."

Thank-you, thank-you, thank-you to my friends for all the great, deep, and intense things which they have not done for me when I needed them not to!

The shrinking brain

You diagnose him with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and senile dementia, and then you want to prescribe an anti-psychotic indicated for schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder, and contra-indicated for dementia in the elderly. Who is the maddest, you or your patient?

IT Project Management: Deadline extended for course applications

The deadline for applications for the Certificate Programme in IT Project Management from 25–29 May 2009 in Johannesburg has been extended. (I had a chat to Briggita today -- thanks, Briggita!) Applications will be accepted until 19 May.