Full Circle

By: Vera Alexander © 2013

Cover Design By: Manuela Cardiga © 2013

Published by umSinsi Press © 2013

I have drawn inspiration for this book from the wonderful work done by many who work with people with This Ability and from the people themselves who have fought for acceptance.

I was privileged to teach at the Open Air School in Durban for a short stint as a locum. I was feeling bruised and battered by an experience in a main stream school. The children welcomed me with open arms. Their ready acceptance and joy for education helped heal my battered teacher's psyche. I salute them for their abilities to achieve regardless of major physical problems. In four short weeks they crept into my soul.

"Full Circle" will be launched at Exclusive book stores on the morning of 27^th November.

I have a stand at the "ThisAbility DEEP Expo" on the 2^nd and 3^rd December where all my books will be on display.

All my books are available as e-books on Amazon. "Full Circle" will be published on Amazon towards the end of the first week of December.

Reviews:

Manuela Cardiga (author of “Guilty Pleasures”):

Bandile was a boy like any other boy. He loved soccer, TV, music and dancing. Most of all Bandile wanted to dance, and then one moment in one carefree day something happened and all his dreams were swept away.

He had to learn that with courage and a little help from friends and family he could dance the true dance of life.

Vera Alexander has gifted us with a story of perseverance and courage all wrapped up in a stubborn joyous optimism, uncluttered by cheap sentimentality.

This is the story of one boy’s life – Full Circle – from a devastating loss to his recovery taking back his life and his dreams; and Alexander writes it with the impassioned and unpretentious simplicity of a true story teller.

Alexander has captured the African culture, its very tone and cadence and attitude with great tenderness and admiration. I love this book!

Elaine Duncan:

I sat down and read your book in one sitting. The flow and staccato sections are an integral part of the story; the characters’ names are as colourful as they are; the tragedy touches one’s heart, without being over-dramatic.  The book is great.

The concept of this story is unusual and, in fact, quite unique. The story progresses effortlessly page by page, and one never knows what to expect next, or where it is going.  An initial reaction that baby Bandile’s life is destined to tragedy dissipates as soon as the colourful characters in the story are established, and it becomes apparent that he is part of a very loving family. This holds him in great stead when his life takes an unexpected turn. There are morals in the story, but they are not shoved down one’s throat. It’s a thoroughly engrossing story, and a very good read.

Heather Miller (Primary School Teacher):

I simply loved Bandile! Thank you so much for the privilege of reading it.

Peter Turner (Photographer):

I read "Full Circle" and enjoyed it very much. My first impression was that it was a children's story that had much bigger undertones but that is fine - look at the many 'children's' books that have been taken seriously at all ages - like 'I am David' - have you read it? Keep on going!

A write-up of the book can also be found on www.umsinsi.com

Launch of "Full Circle" by Vera Alexander

If you are in Durban , please pop in!

Horror for a Pacifist

I am a peace loving person.

Travelling back home along the M7 (the highway connecting Durban to Pinetown) I was horrified to see one man kicking, pushing and beating another man with what looked like a stick. (I was to discover later that it was a baseball bat.) My cell phone was in the back pocket of my jeans and I battled to get it out. I pulled off the road a few metres in front of these two and managed to get my cell phone out of my pcket. As I phoned the emergency number I watched as another man ran across both lanes of the highway to join in the fray with a very thin "stick". (Later I discovered this was a golf club.) Both were now attacking the victim. Beating him, pulling him across the tar by his feet as he tried to shield his head.

I was shaking as I viewed this barbarity. My one thought was what could a single (lets face it – elderly) white woman do in the face of this barbarity. By now two other cars had pulled off the road in front of me. But no-one got out to help. One police car screamed past us – sirens blaring. I was still on the phone with emergency when another cop car came rushing by. By this time I had my window down and started hooting and waving to attract their attention. They swerved off the road in front of me and casually got out – a white woman and a black man.

By this time the trio were making their way towards the cops. The two weapon wielding individuals dragging a blood soaked victim between them.

I called out the window, "Do you need me?"

The cops either ignored me, were too busy with the group or didn't hear me. So I got out of the car to repeat my question. It was then that I saw just what the weapons were.

The white woman cop answered "Yes you can go. We know about this man. These others caught him."

"But using those weapons?" I blurted out. "I don't care what he has done no-one deserves the barbaric attack that I saw!" (This was ignored by the cops, the attackers and the other on-lookers.)

As I made my way back to the car I glanced at the victim. His haunted eyes locked with mine for an instant, blood pouring down his face, head and neck, shirt blood soaked. I caught a glimpse of relief and thanks in his eyes as I climbed into my car.

The horror of what two human's could do to another in a fit of rage permeates my being tonight.

South African Rural Literature

I am one of the typists/editors of stories written by rural children of all ages.

A very sad fact is becoming evident to me. These young authors come from one district. This district encompasses many schools. The race spread of these young authors reflects the race percentages in our country. The children are free to write in English or the language of their instruction. In this region that language is Zulu. I type and edit the English stories. As I open up a bundle sent by the school, I read the first paragraph or two before starting to type and this is where some disturbing facts become evident.

• All the learners from some of the schools write very well necessitating minor editing.
• All the learners from some of the other schools cannot string together a coherent sentence.
• And then we have the schools where some of the learners write excellent stories, others write imaginatively with a few grammatical or spelling mistakes and some do not write that well. This is to me reflects the norm.

How can our English education differ so much in schools where all things should be considered equal? Why has this escaped the powers that be? Instead of griping about all sorts of issues we need to get down to grass roots level and give these children the best education in English that is humanly possible. They need to be understood in a language that is generally understood by many people world wide and that language, according to many sources, is English. It saddens me that we are allowing this lack of knowledge to perpetuate in the modern world.

But something very positive is evident in these stories – some of the children display incredible imaginations.  I am transported to other worlds, the text may be faulty but the gift of storytelling is there. Please give these children the gift of knowledge so that they can become amazing citizens in this crippled country of ours – these children are the ones who can lead us to greener pastures if they are given the power.

Salute to Felicity

Tonight I want to introduce a lady called Felicity Keats. Felicity has a vision. She believes that a lot of South Africa's problems would be solved if our children were led in a positive way by educating their minds to lead them to a brighter future.

She travels to rural areas where she trains teachers and children to write using their right brains. It is an established fact that creativity stems from the right brain. She teaches her delegates how to switch off the left brain so that the creative right brain can explore its ideas.

The resultant stories are typed, edited and printed. The school, area or writing club receives a copy. This copy brings delight not only to the authors but to the rest of the children in the area as they know that this book was written by people who can relate to their life. This project serves two purposes. The first one being encouraging the children to write creatively and secondly to encourage the children to read.

Felicity is currently assembling an anthology of work resulting from trainings held in Westville Prison.

It is not for nothing that she received one of the prestigious Living Legends awards last year.

Just one word: Please don't rush to submit scripts to Felicity – Felicity only publishes those she trains or has been instrumental in having them trained.

If you are interested in learning more about Felicity or her Dancing Pencils Writing Clubs or her web details are:

www.umsinsi.com

As the organisation is a non-profit organisation, it has recently signed up with Given Gain. If anyone is interested finding out about the present project please go to:

http://www.givengain.com/cause/3991/

Addictions

For some reason today my thoughts turned to addictions.

Addiction takes many forms. Some people are addicted to the predictable things like drugs and alcohol. Others are addicted to food, shopping, watching soapies, craving affection and love.

I know of many women who have more shoes than there are days in the year. They see a picture of a new style and they have to have it. And they have to have it in every conceivable colour. Why? You can only wear one pair of shoes at a time. I am a women and I hate it when the acquisition of shoes is viewed as a "woman thing". If a pair of shoes is comfortable I will wear it day in and day out. When I was a young sexy (hopefully the guys weren't lying!) thing I used to wear stiletto heels – I taught in stiletto heels but I still only had a sensible number of shoes – 4 maybe 5 (and that included the sloppy ones I wore around the house). I did not need more. Is the acquisition of shoes an addiction? I think it is.

My first personal thoughts on this topic were "Nah! I'm not addicted to anything." But suddenly, out of my subconscious, popped the thought, "I'm addicted to dance." And then fast on the heels of that thought, "I'm addicted to writing." I know I can survive a few days without one or the other but very soon I start to get itchy feet and/or itchy fingers.

So what is an addiction and what makes a person an addict? I went to my reliable internet source – the freedictionary. Do you know that the word addict has its roots in the phrase "to award as a slave"? Transcribing this to the modern world infers that an addict is a slave to their addiction. This now begins to make a bit more sense.

From here my thoughts travelled to the word "Fan". This is short for "Fanatic" – a person who is motivated by an extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm for a cause. This word comes from the Latin fanaticus (inspired by orgiastic rights) (Again my heartfelt thanks to the freedictionary)

My weird mind has now taken this leap – If you are a fan then you must be an addict.

Logical or not?

Nothing comes from nothing

Nothing comes from nothing
Nothing ever could
So somewhere in my youth or childhood
I must have done something good

Thanks to Maria from the Sound of Music!

The scales of justice should be firmly balanced but the scales that reflect my life are extremely out of kilter. The good things in my life far outweigh the bad. 

I have experienced the horror of losing a child just 6 weeks after losing my father – my guiding light. 

I have experienced monetary problems. (Who hasn't? even the wealthiest think they have problems.)

BUT

My family has always had a roof over our heads. We never went to bed hungry. I was always able to get to my place of work and the children were always able to get to school. I gave them every advantage that I could. So all in all I was lucky (or blessed).

Lately I have made contact with several of my ex pupils. Some of them via Facebook, where we share the daily funnies or events of our lives. I am always amazed at the little things that link us together. I have developed mature relationships with some of them. I want to talk about some of these.

• First there is Alan who lives in Australia now. A few months ago we went out to dinner and had a whale of a time! Alan re-introduced me to:
• Manuela – a gifted artist (she will bomb me for that! She thinks she is an illustrator!) who has done the illustrations for my books. We have become firm on-line friends and will each give the other a kick in the pants if needed. Her fascinating book Guilty Pleasures… is soon to be launched. As she stays in Lisbon we have a long distance relationship (Thank you FB and e-mails!)
• Sharleen – we are both ardent fans – she admires my writing and I admire her photos! A mutual admiration society if ever there was one! This is another long distance relationship.
•  Ian – full of nonsense – always good for a laugh or a quick come back! And his wife Claire – I have never met you but we get on well on line!
•  Kyle – I met him for tea just yesterday. He was one of my first dancing pupils and was extremely talented particularly as a Latin dancer. I also introduced him to computer programming and web development when he took the IT course at school. How proud am I? He is earning (in his words) a salary that he had only dreamt of and he is still dancing and competing!

A few weeks ago I was approached by one of the kids who gave me untold problems in the classroom. He approached with the words. "I really want to apologise for the hard times I gave you. I now realise that you could have taught me a lot!" – prized words for any teacher!

My family and friends you add so much dimension to my life – thank you!

When I look at the scale – the only bad thing that is out of whack is the struggle to keep body and soul intact as the cost of living increases – but we are all party to that! So all in all I have a great life and I say again…

So somewhere in my youth or childhood

I must have done something good.

Closing doors

As we travel through the corridors of life we are faced with many doors. We choose which doors to open and which to ignore.

Let us follow Barry and see what he does with the doors on his route through life. Probably the first door that Barry became aware of was the door to his parent's room. As he grew older they felt that the time had come to stop the free entry into their domain. Barry now had to knock. Sometimes he was allowed in, sometimes he was met by his father who opened the door a crack and would not allow him to even glance inside before being sent on his way. And sometimes he got a resounding "NO!"

So Barry soon began to realise that a door, although a physical thing, separated him from the mystery on the other side both physically and mentally.

As Barry grew up he became aware of many doors lining his passage through life. The doors all had different appearances. Some were dull and dreary and seemed to offer no promise of fun or possessions on the other side. Barry ignored these doors and sought for something better.

Once while out with friends he came across a door that appeared to be made of opaque blue glass. It intrigued him. He turned the handle but it wouldn't budge. So he knocked at the door. A pair of thin lady's arms encased in long sea green gloves appeared through narrow opening. They reached for his tie and dragged him in. He felt like a rodent slithering through the narrow opening. After what seemed hours the doors erupted open and he stumbled out into the passageway again. He was as white as a sheet, his clothes were in disarray and friends did not know what had caused it and he would never talk about it. The strange thing was a dark mark appeared below his hairline and above his right eye. He tried to wash it off but it remained. It became a permanent mark of his time behind that door.

So some doors are dangerous and others are innocuous. With experience Barry soon began to tell if the door was safe. But still there some mistakes along the way.

He learnt that he could open a door for a quick glimpse inside. He may decide to enter and stay, or he may choose to close the door and move on or he may be shooed out because that door is not for him.

He also learnt that if he chose to enter a door it was never a permanent decision.

When he decided to leave a room it could be for many reasons. Sometimes he would leave the room, close the door but not lock it. It is almost as if he was hoping to come back. I hope he didn't go back because time changes everything and everyone and what satisfied him before may no longer please him.

 
Once he occupied the space behind the door for a long time. Many things happened to him here but suddenly he left the space leading one child, a toddler, by the hand and carrying the other, a mere baby. He fumbled for the key to the door, locked it and threw the key as far from him as he could.

2013 Thisability Deep Expo

Last night I received an invitation to participate in the 2013 Thisability Deep Expo to be held on the 2nd and 3rd of December to be held in the Durban City Hall. 

This Expo is the brain child of Musa Zulu, an author, an artist and a motivational speaker who has turned his disability following an accident into an ability. I heard him speak at the annual speech night held at New Forest High School. I took my courage in my hands to approach this humble man. He is as quietly inspirational face to face as he is on the stage. He accepted my (cheeky) invitation to my book launch.

Those of you who read my posts know that the time I spent at Durban's Open Air School was a life changing experience which lead to me completing my novella, "Full Circle" (to be launched towards the end of this month at Exclusive Books Westville). This novella will be displayed (together with my other books and material from my publisher) at the expo.

The purpose of the expo is to open doors for those citizens who have had to overcome physical obstacles just as Musa had to do. There is a mine of talent out there, Musa is helping to pave the way.

I am very excited to be included in the expo and can't wait to report back in this blog!

To learn more about Musa and his initiatives please visit his web site:

www.valhallaarts.co.za
 

 

Extract from "Easter's Fairy Adventure"

They found a nice place to sit under a tree. They spread the blanket on the grass, had something cool to drink and then set off to explore. 

Della held Easter so that he could see all the exciting things around him.

This enchanted garden had all the famous fairies from all the storybooks.

The fairies were very still during the day because fairies are not really allowed to move when people are around.

It was very different after sunset though.

As the sun disappears he blows a goodnight kiss. This goodnight kiss helps us to go to sleep but it wakes the fairies up. 

Soon it was lunch time. Della, Mummy, Daddy and Easter went back to the blanket.

The picnic basket was unpacked. There were chicken nuggets, crisps and fruit and lots of other nice things.

Right at the end of lunch Mummy gave Della her favourite sweet, a marshmallow fish.

It was lovely and warm under the tree and Della began to feel a bit drowsy.

Mummy and Daddy were talking softly. It was so quiet and peaceful.

Della could hear the birds calling to each other as they flew from tree to tree.

Slowly her eyes began to close.

Easter was sitting next to the picnic basket looking out at the fields in the distance feeling a bit bored. He wanted to play but Della was fast asleep.

 

Suddenly two bunnies hopped out from behind the tree. They sat looking at Easter, wiggling their noses at him.

They wondered if they should ask him to come and play in the fields. 

The wonderful Illustrations are by Manuela Cardiga.

Available at:

Smashwords - https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/254380

Amazon  - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00ASDEMKS