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south africa

Day 100: My Top Five Lockdown Posts

It’s Day 100 of the South African lockdown. I’m still here, at home, on my couch. Many people in South Africa have been writing about Day 100 on social media, posting montages of photos, reflecting on what’s happened over the past three-plus months, etc. I don’t want to be redundant or overdo it. But this day does feel quite momentous for me, as it does for so many others. I truly don’t feel like the same person I was 100 days ago, in the same way the world doesn’t feel like the same place it was 100 days ago. This blog, which has defined my existence for the past ten years, is also not the same as it was 100 days ago. I used to blog once or twice a week — maybe three times if I was feeling really inspired. But I blogged for 53 days in a row when the lockdown started, and then continued to blog five out of every seven days until today. I’ve now published 89 total posts since I spontaneously decided to start this lockdown journal. Today I’m officially ending the journal, simply because I’m burned out and Day 100 seems like a good […]

July 4, 2020 by 2summers

Traffic passing the Hillbrow Boxing Club

A Visit to Hillbrow (Lockdown Day 99)

I’ve been working out with George Khosi at the Hillbrow Boxing Club for many years. Up until the lockdown started I’d been going to Hillbrow about three times a week, every week, since 2012. George is not just a coach. He’s like an uncle to me. And although we’ve been checking in via text every week or two, I hadn’t seen him in person since March and that was starting to feel really weird. Also the gym — which is on the site of an abandoned petrol station — has been undergoing a major renovation since February. I was eager to see how things were going. Obviously I still can’t exercise at the gym, but I figured I could go for a masked, socially distanced visit. Yet I felt apprehensive, like the coronavirus somehow makes Hillbrow more dangerous than it was before. It’s weird how the pandemic makes me afraid of things I wasn’t previously afraid of. I promised George I would visit this week. Today was the last day of the week. So I finally went and I’m so glad I did. Visting Hillbrow Hillbrow, which has always had a serious problem with sanitation (in fact that’s a huge […]

July 3, 2020 by 2summers

Lockdown Day 97

I’ve been thinking all day about what to name this post, or what kind of theme or subject to give it, or whatever. But today is Day 97 of the lockdown, which means it’s been 100 days since I started this Lockdown Journal. (I started the journal three days before the lockdown started.) I just counted up all my posts and I’ve blogged on 88 out of the past 100 days. (I took weekends off after Day 50.) It’s officially too much now so today’s post just has a number, not a name. South Africa had nearly 7000 new COVID cases yesterday, nearly 3000 of which were in Gauteng province. Joburg is becoming the country’s new coronavirus epicentre. South Africa’s health system is crawling toward a breaking point — there aren’t enough oxygen tanks or ambulances. I don’t personally know anyone who has been sick enough to be hospitalized, but my Facebook feed has progressively more posts about friends of friends who have died. There is talk of a possible return to Level 5 lockdown. I’m hesitant to admit this, but I actually don’t think that sounds like a totally unreasonable idea. I’m struggling to think any positive thoughts today. […]

July 1, 2020 by 2summers

I Have a Blanket Problem (Lockdown Day 96)

Today, after a week or so of procrastination, I returned to the Aranda blanket factory in Randfontein. After my previous Basotho blanket post, a reader in America sent me a donation to buy blankets for the blanket drive my friend Kennedy is organizing. So I had to pick up a few more. When I arrived at Aranda, the first thing I saw was a sign reading: “Please take note of our price increase on 1 July 2020.” July 1st is tomorrow. I silently congratulated myself for ending my bout of procrastination on exactly the right day. I would have been so pissed off if I’d gone tomorrow and found the blankets more expensive than they were the day before. I quickly chose five blankets for the donation and started to walk toward the checkout. But my feet kept stopping in front of the spiral aloe blanket. “The prices are going up tomorrow,” I told myself. (I tried to find out how much the increase will be but the salesperson was secretive.) “You’ve driven all the way out here. If you don’t buy this blanket now, you will regret it.” “I don’t need three Basotho blankets!” I retorted to myself. “I […]

June 30, 2020 by 2summers

Ten Years of 2Summers (Lockdown Day 92)

Ten years ago today, I opened wordpress.com for the first time and started this blog. I published a short, not terribly interesting post about why I named the blog 2Summers and my recent experience obtaining an international driver’s license for my impending move from Washington D.C. to Johannesburg. (I started the blog six weeks before moving.) There were no photos in that first post and I didn’t share it on social media. About five people read it at the time. It’s strange that this ten-year anniversary is happening so soon after I celebrated the publication of my 1000th blog post. Ten years, 2010 to 2020, 1000 posts, 100 posts per year…Everything is so neatly divisible by ten. Nine has always been my lucky number but maybe it should be ten. It’s also strange to be experiencing all these huge personal milestones during a global pandemic, which — much like the past ten years of my life — feels at once both unfathomable and inevitable. New people are always asking: How did you wind up in South Africa? If the time is right, and the person asking the question is right, I’ll occasionally give a detailed answer. But most of the […]

June 26, 2020 by 2summers

Knitting (Lockdown Day 90)

About six months ago, I decided to take up knitting. It was January, a time for new beginnings and all that. I had just gone through a breakup — number six of seven (or thereabouts) in an endlessly on-again-off-again relationship. South Africa was experiencing regular bouts of loadshedding (planned rolling power outages). I was desperate for a hobby that: 1) doesn’t require electricity or internet; 2) keeps me off my phone; and 3) allows me to shut off my noisy brain. I asked my friend Fiver, who is basically a professional knitter, if she would teach me. “Yes!” Fiver cried, clapping her hands with joy. Fiver loves teaching people things. A few days later the two of us went to Arther Bales, the famous haberdasher in Linden, on a rainy Saturday morning. Despite the terrible weather, the shop was packed — Arthur Bales was having a huge sale and everything was 30% off. Fiver helped me choose a pair of needles and two balls of elegant, multi-colored yarn in shades of green and blue. I remember standing shoulder-to-shoulder in line at the checkout, clutching my purchases excitedly, when the cashier coughed. The guy in front of me chuckled and said […]

June 24, 2020 by 2summers

I Just Want to Stay Home (Lockdown Day 89)

It’s Day 89 of the South African lockdown. Initially I had plans to go out and do a couple of errands today, which I was hoping would give me something to blog about. But then I didn’t. Despite spending much of the morning trying to mentally psych myself up, I never did leave the house. Upon further reflection, I don’t think that’s necessarily such a bad thing. At the risk of sounding alarmist, COVID-19 is really starting to make its presence felt around here. Yesterday South Africa surpassed 100,000 total confirmed cases. 10,000 of those cases were confirmed in the past two days alone. Hospitals in some parts of the country are experiencing strain. I’m hearing more reports of people in my sphere coming into contact with the virus and even losing loved ones to it. For the last several weeks, COVID-19 — like, the actual disease, as opposed to the lockdown or some other pandemic by-product — has felt like a fairly distant threat to me. Today that threat feels more immediate. Also it’s cold. The days are short. I don’t have anything terribly important to do. And if I’m honest, I don’t really want to go anywhere. I’m […]

June 23, 2020 by 2summers

Trixie the Melville Kitten (Day 88)

It’s Day 88 of the South African lockdown. Today, at long last, Trixie the Melville Kitten (who is actually not a kitten anymore) makes her blogging debut. From Trixie: Hello! Hi it’s Trixie! I’m blogging I’m blogging I’m blogging. I wanted to blog for a long time. Heather said I’m too little. I said I’m two! Big Brother said I’m not smart enough but that’s wrong. I asked asked asked, I said please! They said no no no. But today Heather said she doesn’t have ideas to blog. Big Brother says he’s cold. He’s at the fire. Heather said today I can blog. I’m blogging I’m blogging I’m blogging! Heather says it is lock-down. It has been lock-down for a lot of days. I love lock-down, Heather is here all the time. She feeds me and plays with my string and stays in bed with the hot bottle and I sleep where it’s warm. Lock-down is nice! Outside I love to climb. I climb in the tree high high high! Heather stands under, she says don’t fall. I don’t fall. I climb and I roll roll roll on the ground. I sneak in the grass and the leaves. I run […]

June 22, 2020 by 2summers

Lockdown Level 3, Version 2.0 (Day 85)

It’s Day 85 of the South African lockdown. Two nights ago, President Ramaphosa made a speech announcing upcoming changes to the Lockdown Level 3 regulations. During the first few weeks of lockdown, these presidential speeches felt like big sporting events. The whole country tuned in live, we all had our snacks and beverages ready, and endless Whatsapp messages were exchanged during and after the speech, analyzing every word he said. But this was the first time since the lockdown started that I didn’t watch the president’s speech in real time. I did watch the next morning. I still think President Ramaphosa gives great speeches; in fact he brought me to tears during his powerful monologue on the explosion of gender-based and domestic violence currently plaguing South Africa. Nonetheless, the presidential speech magic of the early lockdown days is gone for me now. The rule changes, which will presumably go into effect in the coming days, are quite extensive. Restaurants will open for sit-down dining (although not for sit-down alcohol consumption). Hair dressers, salons, and spas will open. Casinos (!), movie theaters, conference venues, and hotels (but not Airbnbs) will be allowed to open. Some sports will be allowed. Cigarettes are […]

June 19, 2020 by 2summers

Backpacks Full of Food (Lockdown Day 84)

It’s Day 84 of the South African lockdown. Although after the president’s speech last night, I’m not sure how long we can continue to describe the state we’re living in as a “lockdown”. I have a lot of thoughts on our current lockdown regulation situation, but I’m going to save those for tomorrow’s post. Today I want to show you pictures of the backpacks full of food people received during the Melville food distribution this morning. The food parcels distributed in this program (which I started documenting more than a month ago) are usually packed in plastic grocery bags. It breaks my heart seeing hundreds of single-use bags going out into the world every week, but what other alternative is there when distributing emergency food on such a mass scale? This week was different though. A donor provided hundreds of backpacks so each recipient received their parcel in a sturdy, reusable bag. This was very exciting. I took photos at both the backpack-packing yesterday and the backpack distribution today. If you’d like to donate to the food parcel program from within South Africa, please send a payment to the Viva Foundation using the following bank details: Name: Viva FoundationBranch: FNB Olympus Plaza […]

June 18, 2020 by 2summers

A Basotho Blanket (Lockdown Day 83)

It’s Day 83 of the South African lockdown. In celebration of this entirely unremarkable and insanely high number, I bought myself a Basotho blanket. I am not a therapy shopper; I generally don’t self-soothe through buying stuff. I also don’t have much spare cash at the moment. But for the past several weeks, as the lockdown drags on and the temperatures dip ever lower, my instincts have been driving me to buy a Basotho blanket. Those inner voices reached a crescendo yesterday — the coldest day in Joburg since August 2012 — when I woke up feeling like I simply must get into my car and drive the 45 minutes to Aranda Textiles in Randfontein. But alas, yesterday was a public holiday and the blanket factory was closed. So today was the day. I have blogged about Basotho blankets more than once (see here and here), and my post about a previous visit to Aranda Textiles — where all Basotho blankets are manufactured — is one of my most popular of all time. (Thanks to Black Panther, Basotho blankets became world-famous in 2017. People who google the blankets, which are nearly impossible to find outside Southern Africa, often find 2Summers.) […]

June 17, 2020 by 2summers

MK marching in Soweto on the weekend of Nelson Mandela's death

Soweto (Lockdown Day 82)

Welcome to Day 82 of the South African lockdown. It’s both freezing-cold and raining in Joburg — a very rare occurrence. It’s also Youth Day, a South African public holiday commemorating the 1976 student uprising in Soweto. For the last couple of weeks I have been thinking constantly about racism. Soon after I woke up this morning, I found myself having a bit of a mental meltdown over it. I’m not sure why (probably because there’s not much else to do on a dark, freezing-cold, rainy public holiday during a pandemic), but after I woke up I scrolled deeper than usual into my Facebook feed. I was appalled by the number of racist posts — some subtle, some flat-out hateful — that I came across, today of all days. In a recent blog post, I said I want to use my platforms to speak out against racism and racial injustice. I am still committed to doing this, but I also can’t help thinking: What’s the point? Speaking out on racism in South Africa — or America, for that matter — feels like screaming into a gale-force wind. Institutionalized racism is woven so deeply into the fabric of our societies. It’s […]

June 16, 2020 by 2summers

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