Gringos

My brain was cluttered and weighing down on me at the end of a long day's writing. Beer, I thought, I need a beer. More importantly, I need human contact. At this time, I've lived as a quasi-recluse for only about a week, and don't get me wrong, I love my own company, I actually rather quite fancy it, but I am reminded that I remain a social animal. So I lock up the picture window that blesses me with the flat screen-like view of the Indian Ocean all day long. I hide my 12" iBook from opportunistic "tsotsis" in this burglar-bar free town. I half-heartedly apply a layer of lipstick (don't know why) and select the bright orange soft shell jacket with the reflectors over my all-black version for the assault on humanity by bike.

I ride a bicycle, not the truck, partly out of principle – why drive when you can ride, and secondly because my host drives an extended cab pickup that practically requires a quart of butter to squeeze into the garage in broad daylight; I choose not to attempt this feat in the dark, especially if I am successful at finding that beer I've set out to conquer.

I find myself in a conspicuous town of Kleinmond ("Small mouth" in English), living in a lovely restored beach house of a South African friend I met in a military gym in Baghdad about five months ago. Many braais and accompanying bottles of bad Baghdad wine later, Marius remains in Baghdad, my husband Chris now texts me from Kabul, and I, I am here.

"Quaint" would not be my primary descriptor for Kleinmond, rather it is a small coastal town pleasantly oblivious to, or forgotten by, the 'New South Africa', I haven't decided which it is yet. Apart from the smattering of colored construction workers busily erecting beach homes for the wealthy Gautengers, and it turns out a whole horde of Germans, I don't see much diversity.

I turn right onto Hoofweg from the beach side, toward the only thing I can remember to remotely resemble a bar. I am armed (apart from my lipstick) with my journal and a book I bought at an outrageous price at Exclusive Books. The author's nom de plume is Kleinboer and his acclaimed Afrikaner novel has been translated into English. I don't know why I buy the English version, perhaps because I haven't read an Afrikaans book since matric and have this perverse fear that perhaps I won't understand all the words. Either way, the book is disturbing, very much so. I am uncomfortable reading it, but his writing, and clever narrative captures me. The book is a first-person account of an Afrikaner in a predominantly black neighborhood in Johannesburg, with an obsession of some sort with black prostitutes. The book disturbs me, in a Hunter S. Thomson kind of way, yet, I can't put it down. Partly because I need to know where the obsession comes from, and whether he eventually uses the machete in his trunk on one of the women.

Book and journal in lumber bag on borrowed bike with no lock I arrive at a bar called "Gringo's". I wonder if anyone in this all-whites town knows the meaning of the word Gringo, yet drag my bike up the stairs and ask whether I could bring it inside for lack of a lock. "No" the response rings, "don't worry, we here in Kleinmond are mak" (tame). I place it against the door frame, right over my left shoulder.

For a while, I am the only paying customer in the bar. I have a Hansa in a bottle. They only have Castle on tap. It tastes like honey. I reach inside my bag for the disturbing novel, before the overwhelming urge to write has me digging for the pen I took from the Four Seasons Hotel in Amman. I look over my left shoulder in the direction of the bike, right as two males enter. Small talk, something about looking good on the bike, I realize I am probably in the wrong bar. Mullets abound. Just as I am plotting my escape, which involves swigging the last sip of my beer, the only ethnically diverse person I have seen in close to a week, pulls up a chair. "What choo liting"?

He introduces himself as a Chinese with the English name Derek and asks to write me a 'letter' in my journal. I reluctantly oblige, handing him the pen and book. I page a few pages on, thinking I have left enough pages to complete my own thoughts. I didn't. I look over my left shoulder in the direction of the bike again. Derek tries to strike up a conversation. I eye the beer he bought me resentfully and smile. Another sip, another look at the bike. I want to leave. They tell me there is a bar down in the harbor, maybe I'll go there instead.

ACT II...meet Gerie the 40-year old artist who lives with his parents here in Kleinmond (I promise to share one of his poems too....)