Sharks and eating ants

My mother taught me a very important lesson in my life and that was that you ALWAYS have something to give to someone, no matter how you feel emotionally, what your current situation is or where you are financially.

I have created guidelines I like to follow in my life and in summary: I give a certain amount of my time, talents, income and efforts to causes I care about. That is Heather Grace's giving framework.

Along came Ernst Van Der Poll, founder of Tawasul, and made me rethink my entire belief structure on giving when he said the following: "I want the majority of my time to be giving, while I work on the side."

I love meeting people who really are an example of the better person you can be, so let me tell you how this all came about.
In October 2009, I attended TEDx Dubai with Nick, my boss. We had been talking about getting involved in creating video content for charitable causes in 2010. While we watched a host of inspirational speakers, TWO really made an impact on me. They were Masarat Daud and her 8 day academy and Ernst from Tawasul.
Perhaps both touched me as they involve children, and I really miss my youth back in South Africa! So we approached them both to make videos of their work. (I will talk about Masarat in another blog).

We had a few kick off meetings with Ernst and he explained that Tawasul is all about creating a platform to re-connect kids with the environment, so we decided to film his "Week Without Walls Program" and Tom Savage kindly offered to film the workshops for teenagers while I led the interviews and we watched as these teens learnt about everything from sharks and turtles to creating environmental awareness via social media platforms in the classroom; Then we followed their confined water training and finally the very exciting scuba dive in Dibba.
This whole experience inspired me to write a blog about Ernst and to find out what motivates him and where he gets his constant stream of social entrepreneurship ideas from. It almost seems as if there someone chasing him to give back and I was interested to find out why his life is all about helping others.

He tells me "Time is a commodity and I tell these kids everyday that you are going to wake up and suddenly be in your 40's and I want you to ask yourself if you have done everything you can to maximise each day you have?"

Of course I was curious to know when giving became part of his life, and he shares an experience when he was 14 and he volunteered at Marfogo Farm in Mozambique, an orphanage for war orphans. Some of the volunteers were playing with the kids one afternoon and one of the ladies who managed the place was watching them and she started to weep. They ran to her and asked what they did wrong and she told them that one of the little girls that they were playing with saw both her parents shot in front of her. This little girl had apparently been emotionless since she arrived and while she was playing games with the outreach team, she smiled for the first time.
"You can change someone's life by doing something as simple as bringing a smile to someone who has experienced a lot of pain.” Sobbing movie stuff I tell you! Sniff.

His enthusiasm about the environment and making a difference in people's lives is clearly what he lives for. From Tawasul in Dubai to starting an art and education initiative for the impoverished fishing community of Sea Gypsies in Mabul to teaching Palestinian child amputees to dive, Ernst just seems to seek opportunities to make a difference wherever he goes.

When I asked him why he chooses to work mainly with kids? His answer "Kids have wild imaginations, they are full of adventure and they will even eat ants!" he laughs and tells an animated story about a kid who ate ants at a talent show.

I am not intimidated by intense people and some may be thrown by his fast paced way of thinking and the way he constantly generates ideas about changing the world. The difference between him and most people I meet, is that he is DOING something with his ideas. I think Ernst is one of the most grounded social entrepreneurs I have met and that is probably because he is literally in touch with nature in almost all that he does. The other common trait I find in people who give is the word PASSION. He describes passion as “the long distance fuel that is going to change the world” and he certainly has enough passion to keep hundreds of people inspired.

Ernst - you really are a powerhouse. VAVAVOOM.

Here is a short clip of Ernst with Khalil, a 16 year old double amputee from Palestine during the disabled divers instructor's training in Dubai on 27 June 2010.

I must have a fix or I get the bends

Just the other day I was interviewing someone for a blog for my company Alchemy Films and ended up having one of the most interesting conversations I have had in a long time.
Dennie Pasion is a hair & make up artist with Bareface in Dubai and we recently did a beauty shoot with her. I wanted to have a chat to her about what inspires her creativity and ended up having dinner and a long chat with her at a restaurant in JBH hotel. The football was obviously on, but we had tea and chatted about life, God and all things spiritual with not even a single glance to the match on the 4 screens that surrounded us. My kinda gal!

Dennie lives in a world of shapes, colours and sounds and if I had to describe her, it's as if a 14 year old girl inside is swinging gently on a swing in a beautiful white dress while the sun beams through the trees and dances off her face. She describes things using words such as "tumble, gurgle, scratch, shy, unaffected, capture, ooze, sensual and magic".

Coming from a person who loves sounds, shapes, smells and colours - it's refreshing to sit with another person for a few hours while they describe their experiences in a language that you can understand.

Dennie is involved in all sorts of creative projects including Petcha Kutcha - this is a creative platform which means "The sound of conversation" in Japanese. The image above comes from her Fame Virus series shown at the event.

When I asked her what keeps her inspired in the concrete jungle, she tells me about how she loves to surround herself with young people. "The truth is when people reach a certain age they start conforming and then I move away and find myself surrounded by a newer, younger group of friends, until THEY start to conform!". She continues to tell me that "a series of life experiences encapsulated in a single word, hairstyle, lip colour and she is a compelled addict that must have a creative fix or she gets the bends."

"It's up to YOU to make things interesting, create your OWN magic."

We end off talking about the griffin dragons surrounding London, her experience of being blessed in a church and why she gives beggars money in London just to hear them say "God Bless you darling" because she appreciates receiving the blessing from them so much!

Oh how I love interesting and refreshing people.

Narcissism equates to becoming a literary artist

I'm sure this happens to all narcissists at some point.

They run out of ideas to blog about. Ideas about themselves, of course.

Now I've been doing some online research about free writing courses. This is to improve my personal writing skills and also for the writing I do for work newsletters and social media updates. I found a site that offers free writing courses from various universities.

I poured through the course descriptions online and found this interesting write up:
"But an equally vital purpose of this particular creative writing course is to offer the student a space in which to explore the mysteries of his or her self. In fact, it is largely by means of self-exploration and self-reflection and self-expression that the best literary art is produced. And for at least the next several months, this is exactly how I would like you to view yourself: as a literary artist."

So they have a nice way of saying that narcissistic blogging is not just ok, but it's GOOD for the creation of a flourishing creative artist. But as I said I have run out of my own stories, so I am probably not destined to be a literary artist, I am probably just going to have to be happy with a blog with 7 followers.

So what to write about? My original aim when I started this blog was NOT to talk about work, I wanted to write a personal blog that was completely and absolutely random and unique to me and had nothing to do with work. Having said that I have met so many incredible people via my work that my next few blogs are going to be about either tremendously inspiring or downright creative and interesting individuals I have had the pleasure of meeting........

I live to meet people that move me and I really can't be bothered with randoms. I know it's very unchristian and all, as you should love your neighbors, but I don't know my neighbors. All I know is I can hear them through the walls in the villa next door, but I do however know some really interesting people that I like and that I want to blog about because they inspire me to want to be a better person and to be more creative.

For a start, why don't you subscribe to my Youth Care Centre Blog - the next few write ups will be about the inspirational volunteers who sacrifice so much of their time to help change the lives of the youth in Durban.

Toodaloo

MESSAGE IN A (robertson spice) BOTTLE

There is nothing more disturbing that when the foundation of what you believe is shattered.
It's as if your world comes tumbling into peices and you have to sort of resettle your reality, which takes some time. This has happened to me four times in my life.

First Occasion: When I found out the tooth mouse was not real.
Second Occasion: When I found out Santa Clause was not real.
Third Occation: I found out the paper fairies we made when we were kids and left food for in return for chocolates that used to magically appear overnight were not real.

Ok Ok .... I understand the importance of imagination and creativity. These are really important elements that need to be created in childhood and different parents use different methods. I can vouch that reading a good children's book does that! You don't need to make up real things that you then find out are not real! While reading a book you get transported to a magical land in your mind and you know it's your imagination, so you are safe from the bottom falling out of the world when you return to reality. BUT when adults DELIBERATELY fool you into believing in something that you will eventually find out does not exist - well I think that's a lie and it's NOT FAIR!

Anyway - this is not an attack at my parents - they were wonderful in encouraging us to live in a world of fantasy and magic and that is what helped me be so creative and I am writing this blog to make fun of myself - not anyone else.

Apart from the toothmouse (my parents got this wrong, because I actually found out it's meant to be a tooth fairy, but we had tooth mice and paper fairies - so all good).

And now I come to the fourth point. When I was 6 or so we used to go to the beach every summer for a holiday. On one of these holidays my late dad helped me write a note which had my name, age and telephone number on it and it said that I lived in South Africa.
We placed this carefully written note inside a bottle (a good old school roberson spice bottle) and chucked it into the ocean. This episode was accompanied with some magical story from him about how people who loved each other would send each other love letters in bottles if they lived in different countries or how sailors trapped by pirates would call for help and the currents would transport the bottle via millions of miles across the ocean to the recipient. My little roberston spice bottled bobbed off in the horizen and I lay awake that night wondering who would find it in some far away country.

Back home after the summer holidays, my bottle became a distant memory until one day I received a telephone call. Now as a child you don't receive many calls when you have a mom who is at home fulltime and you are not yet at school. Your gran phones you for your birthday and that's about it- so it's a big deal when someone calls for you!

Me - 6 years old: Hello.
Man with French Accent: Elo, izz zis heater?
Yes?
Eh, je suis, my name iz Pierre
Pierre?
Wi, I telephone to tell you I found ze note.
What? Mamma - there is a funny man on the phone
No wait lizzen - Ze note in ze bottle - I live in France on the Suisse Canal and I found ze little oranje bottle with ze note and your name on it. It sayz you are living in South Africa - I zink it must have floated all ze way wizz ze current and I was walking on ze sand and saw it amongs ze shells near ze waves.

I could not believe it - my little orange bottle had travelled all the way to France through whales and sharks and hurricanes and waves. It had survived tornadoes and pirates and landed in France!

For the next 20 years I held onto my very special memory - which was the one thing that was not snatched away from me.

Ok - until I was 26 and even though I have told quite a few people this story - no one had ever said anything about it. So I proudly recited my message in a bottle story to the team of creatives I worked with at an Ad Agency and one of them said. Doh Heather - it was your dad who called you.

My world fell apart for a moment. I had never thought of that and it was worse than finding out the damn toothmouse was lie.

So that's the story about my message in a robertson spice bottle which I believed until I was 26. That's a whole 20 years. A damn long time!!

Babylons

I feel like a school marm writing this blog, but it’s something I feel strongly about.

Now don’t get me wrong – I’m no saint...
I’ve had my days of being a wild child. Luckily at some point it all changed and I found my moral compass buried deep inside and my frivolous phase passed.
I still get the odd comment from old friends "hey where’s wild Heather gone- it’s just not the same you".
It’s such normal behavior for many people especially in Cape Town, my mother city. You just get rowdy and rude and have fun – but alas every girl has to settle down!

And we come to the present.

What inspired this blog was reading another blog. Written by a mad, wild voluptuous woman in the fashion industry. She is well endowed with a very nice pair of babylons.
These particular babylons are obviously not from mother nature - the DDs were manufactured. So wild, sexy voluptuous lady, who obviously calls herself a “feminist” wears her babylons proudly under skimpy shirts and displays them everyday in an industry that does not call for modest clothing.

And then I hear she complains that strangers on facebook say “nice t*ts” and slates them with foul language for what …..NOTICING them? How can you NOT?! Even I notice them!
What exactly is the reason for making these wonderful endowments in the first place, unless of course you are going to cover them up in more modest shirts and they were really for your own personal appeal. Sorry for the poor guy who just spoke his mind, but clearly you did not make these hooters to not be noticed. Ok he did cross the line and was a bit blunt, but you get my point.

Second Case Study:
Another wonderfully voluptuous advertising executive who has a tendency to always wear the shortest dresses and when sitting down exposes her knickers for anyone sitting opposite to notice. And a slight bend at the water cooler gives the unsuspecting person behind a rather full view.
When management comments that her skirt is completely see-through and may not be appropriate for the office – the response is mock embarrassment “Oh my word, I am so embarrassed, I can’t believe this - I never knew it was THAT see through!! Thanks for pointing it out” and proceeds to tie a jersey around her waist and arrives at the office the next day in what looks like a shirt passing off as a dress again.
And then comments from the skirt-less lady post meetings follow something along the lines of “I don’t like meeting with that client, because he always looks at my legs and makes me feels uncomfortable – it’s like sexual harassment”

I just feel like HEADBUTTING women like this.

Come on, every woman knows EXACTLY what she is revealing – you can’t be that stupid to NOT know you are flash republic when sitting down.
If you CHOOSE to flaunt it then be prepared to be looked at. If you don’t want to, cover your damn self up and you will have nothing to complain about!! Personally I prefer to cover up.

I mean how exactly can you call yourself a feminist - it just does not make logical sense to me.

RANT out

Mini Mouse

Ok I had one of the funniest days of my life today.

A while back I had planned to write a blog about the fascination I had with dead creatures when I was young and how I partially disected a dead rat at the age of 10, which including probing it's stiff body with two sticks and investigating it's dead body parts. I can't even look at a dead creature now without wretching so not sure when this phase of my life ended, but it did!

I was then going to add how disturbed my younger sister was by all of this and how she insisted on burying my science specimen in a grave with flowers and a cross and praying for it.

I ridiculed her for the next 10 or maybe 20 years about this and the funny part is I am now a Christian and praying for not so dead things is part of my life and I feel very sad about how I tormented her about it for so long.

So to cut a very long story short, I think my cats decided to get back at me for all of the trauma I created for my poor 7 year old sister's gentle heart...... they brought me a mouse at 3am 3 days ago which creeped me out completely.

They did this by chasing the poor sod into my printer that was on the floor and pawed at it for 2 hours. I woke up to a bloody mess and assumed the bugger had been eaten. 2 days later a horrible stench developed and I placed the printer in a black bag and decided to lug it to the Canon service department to have the remains of Mr mouse removed (the printer had been faulty and that was why it was on the floor in the first place - ready to go for a service prior to the mouse incident).
So I was hoping they would overlook the odd request to remove the mouse and do it as part of the service of the printer.

Today I could not get the printer booked into the service department, so while Mr Mouse cooked away in my car in a 40 degree Dubai summer's day , I devised a plan. On the way back form a meeting I asked my boss.

"Please would you do me a big favour? A man's job" - He said "Sure".

I then told him it was to remove a dead mouse from my printer in my car.

"I can't do that!"
"Why not? "
"Because I have kids and I could get an infection."

I told him he had no choice as he had promised.

So the stinky printer inside the black bag was placed in the corridor outside our office - armed with a plastic bag to put the mouse in, THE MOUSE REMOVER was ready.

With a little bit of drama and a tug to get it's flattened head out from between the rollers - Mr Mouse was laid to rest forever.

Watch the video!

Put your foot in it

I regularly get myself into trouble with what I say.
Now I am not as bad as I used to be - and I don't have tourette's syndrome - but I can admit that I can say the stupidest things at times.
I have a really blunt sense of humor and usually say things as they are. Having this quality has probably made me offend more people than I know . Thankfully some people tell me and we manage to laugh at it eventually.
I do try to curb my tongue these days, but here are some cases where I actually felt the impact of my words fall onto people like those arrows in Avatar that give you 60 seconds to live.

Most Recent Case:

I watched a tap dance rehearsal for my amateur comedy graduation show.
This is the FIRST time I have ever seen a tap show and I knew there was a beginner's and advanced part to the show. They did an amazing rehearsal scene and I exclaimed to their teacher in front of all of them - "Wow - that was amazing! Are these the beginner's?!"
Turns out they were the tap veterans and some had been tapping for 12 years. Eeeek.
In my defense I don't know what good or bad tap or beginner's or advance looks like, but I think I pissed everyone off.
I was well impressed with the tappers - I don't think they were with me.

Case Nr 2:

Dinner with a couple in Dubai. (I met the husband via my husband and only met his wife a few months later and we have all become good friends now).
His wife is feeling a bit down on this specific occasion and is not very happy. We talk about how we all met and I say the following to her husband to try and cheer her up indirectly.
"You know - when I met you I was so suprised that you had such an amazing wife!"
Eeek. He did not speak to me for a while.

Previous Cases:

I was 19 and working for an ad agency. I saw an old photo from the 80's lying on my boss's desk. It was a photo of him dancing with a girl in an outrageous outfit. Gold Lycra and leather with 6 inch gold high heels.

My Question:
Who is the common girl you are dancing with?

His Answer:
It is my wife on our wedding day.

The Bible is very clear about the power of speech to do great good or evil. Words are described as having the power of life and death--the power to build somebody up, or tear them down. The power of the tongue should not be underestimated.