or "Winter has arrived"
or "Let's stay warm, but not too warm"
SNOW! I saw my first snow on the 9th of December 2011. I took a
picture, I touched it and I even tasted it! I have lived, and now I can go
peacefully into the void. I joke; it was great but not that great. I must say,
I think I hyped it up a little. Mostly it was cold. The most exciting part of
seeing snow was not the pictures, it was walking out of my apartment rushing to
catch the bus and having my breath stop in my chest and my body stop all
together so that I could watch little white flakes fall from the sky onto my
clothes. It’s nice because it’s new. It was like I got to discover something
after I had not discovered things for a while. I think this is part of the
value of travelling. Seeing new things, pushing your brain out in new
directions, making space for things you previously had not had space for. As
someone who spends a large part of her life in her head, I was used to only
stretching my brain with new ideas and new challenges. The
soft caress of stretching your brain with new natural scenery is
gentle and powerful and wonderful. It's a light refreshing yoga session for
your brain as opposed to the weight lifting you do at university or
the cardio you do keeping up with the news and peoples personal dramas. I just
kept my eyes open and absorbed as much as I could all the way to work. When I
got to work the cheer of kids mucking about in snow kept my heart light and
made me smile through the cold. So even though I don't have eyelashes to speak
of, I will still try to catch some snowflakes on my face and send you pictures
that will hopefully show how my soul feels.
FIRE! On the 12th of December there was a fire in my apartment
building. It took place in an apartment below mine, either on the third floor
or the second floor, I'm not sure which. It took place in the late evening,
here's how it went down. I take a nap and wake up to the smell of smoke, I think,
'not my smoke problem, I didn't cook, I didn't use a heater, I don't smoke so
I'm fine'. However none of my windows are open so where could the smell be
coming from... I investigate. Once I step out of my bed room the smell of smoke
is even stronger and it becomes clear that the 'not my problem' approach is not
going to be helpful. I search my apartment for a fire that I know is not there
(just in case) and minutes after I complete my search my upstairs neighbour
rings my bell and starts asking me things in Korean. The only words I
understand are 'restroom' and 'where' so I direct him to my bathroom and try to
tell him that the fire is not in my apartment. I think he gets it, turns out he
is also getting smoked upstairs, assumed the fire was one floor down and
politely came to ask me to put it out. Once he finds out it’s not my fire he
calls the fire department. This whole time I am in my apartment, doing a quick
clean so that I am not completely embarrassed when the fire department shows
up. Ten minutes later, voilà...firemen, in those universal firemen uniforms
but with writing I don't understand. Curse my poor Korean. The fire men walk up
the stairs past my apartment to the source of the call and my neighbour sends
them down to me, apparently he was unconvinced by my insistence that
it was not my fire. The firemen gather at the door to my apartment and then
politely ask me if they can walk on my floor with their boots. I do not take
kindly to this (it's cute but something's burning, someone might be dying, this
is not the time for niceties), but I am polite and after a quick inspection and
some frantic hand gesturing on my part they realise I am not the cause of the
smoke. At this point my eyes are stinging from the smoke in my apartment. The
fire men move downstairs and I try to do something helpful, I can’t think of
anything and the smoke is making me cough so I open the windows and doors and
flee. I go down the stairs and out of the building where I meet an assortment of neighbours in pyjamas standing and chatting in Korean
while the fire fire-fighters walk up and down the stairs carrying
fire extinguishers. I still don't know if the fire was on the second floor or
the third. I start to panic, what if I can't sleep here tonight, where do I go?
What if the fire is blamed on me and my school expels me. I think of people in
Korea I could call, everyone seems too far away or too unfamiliar to call up in
the middle of the night with nothing more than panic and speculation. I call my
mother. She says "Oh my word girlie" and "Shame man" and
"sjoe, are you ok?". She says it in a familiar and comforting way
while I try not to sound panicked and let off steam about how these things will
happen to no one but me. She asks questions I can’t answer but it's nice to
have someone to talk to and I appreciate that she doesn't panic with me, that
would have been a disaster.
Anyhoo, eventually the fire department leaves and my building
is still standing, no one told me anything so I assume it's safe to go back
inside. My apartment is still smoke ridden and I can barely breath. My clothes
smell like smoke, my hair smells like smoke, my bed smells like smoke and I am
frozen to the core and feeling utterly miserable. I left the doors and windows open and climbed
into bed, put my electric blanket on high and proclaimed my misery to the
facebook universe. Immediately I get comments of support and suggestions for
what I can do and I start to relax. I take a midnight shower which gets the
smoke out of my hair but wakes me up like never before, I close my room door to
the smoke in the main area of my apartment and climb into bed to chat with
Sinclair and Ashika till I can't keep my eyes open anymore. I fall asleep at
about 5:30am and text my co-teacher when my alarm goes off half an hour
later... I will not be making it to school today :-(
My apartment is back to normal, I got the smoke out of everything.
It has snowed twice since the first time and I don't hate snow (I need snow
boots though). I'm okay, the year is winding down and I would be lying if I
said I don't miss my varsity style vacations. A pox on all of you who make your
facebook posts about beaching, braaiing and good weather! Not a very serious
pox.
Good night and good love!
Vasti
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