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Babies
The Power of a Smile
by Sue Gerhardt
As the world comes
into focus, vision
plays an increasingly
important part in relationships.
Eye contact now becomes the
main source of information
about other people's feelings
and intentions: feelings are seen
on the face. This reliance on
faces may have evolved on the
African savannah where it was
necessary for our primate ancestors
to communicate silently so
as not to alert predators. This
was done through visual means,
developing a wide repertoire
of facial movements and body
language to convey information
(Turner 2000). Certainly
attentiveness to faces is hardwired
into human beings and is
evident even in newborns.
By toddlerhood, the human
child has started to use his mother's
and father's faces as his
immediate guides to behaviour
in his particular environment. Is
it safe to crawl out of this door?
Does Dad like this visitor? This
is known as 'social referencing',
with the infant using visual
communication at a distance to
check out what to do and what
not to do, what to feel and what
not to feel, using the parent's
facial expression as his source
of information (Feinman 1992).
But according to Allan tal region of the brain. 'Endogenous'
or home-made opioids like
Schore, looking at faces has
an even more powerful role to beta-endorphin are known to
play in human life. Especially in help neurons to grow, by regulating
glucose and insulin (Schore
infancy, these looks and smiles
actually help the brain to grow. 1994). As natural opioids, they
How does this work? Schore also make you feel good. At
suggests that it is positive looks the same time, another neurotransmitter
called dopamine is
which are the most vital stimulus
to the growth of the social, released from the brainstem, and
emotionally intelligent, brain again makes its way to the prefrontal
cortex. This too enhances
When the baby looks at his
mother (or father), he reads the uptake of glucose there,
her dilated pupils as information
that her sympathetic nerv-
the prefrontal brain. Dopamine
helping new tissue to grow in
ous system is aroused, and she probably also feels good, insofar
is experiencing pleasurable as it produces an energising and
arousal. In response, his own stimulating effect; it is involved
nervous system becomes pleasurably
aroused and his own by this technical and circuitous
in the anticipation of reward. So
heart rate goes up. These processes
trigger off a biochemical ily's doting looks are triggering
route, we discover that the fam-
response. First, a pleasure neuropeptide
called beta-endorphin is cals that actually help the social
off the pleasurable biochemi-
released into the circulation and brain to grow (Schore 1994).
specifically into the orbitofron-
The baby's brain is doing a
6 Kzn Lifestyle Magazine • Issue 31
Read full story here
lot of growing in the first year -
it more than doubles in weight.
The enormously increased glucose
metabolism of the first two
years of life, triggered by the
baby's biochemical responses
to his mother, facilitates the
expression of genes. Like so
much else about human development,
genetic expression frequently
depends on social input
to become manifest. The hippocampus,
temporal cortex, prefrontal
and anterior cingulate
are all immature at birth. But
the success of their growth and
genetic development depends on
the amount of good experiences
the individual has. Lots of positive
experiences early on produce
brains with more neuronal
connections -more richly networked
brains. We have all our
neurons at birth, and we don't
need to grow any more, but what
we do need is to connect them
up and make them work for us.
With more connections, there
is better performance and more
ability to use particular areas of
the brain.
In particular, between 6 and
12 months, there is a massive
burst of these synaptic connections
in the prefrontal cortex.
They achieve their highest density
just when the developing
pleasurable relationship between
parents and baby is most intense,
and attachment bonds are being
consolidated. This growth spurt
in the prefrontal cortex reaches
a final high pitch in early toddlerhood,
when the novelty of
being able to move independently
creates elation in the toddler
and pride and joy in his parents.
In effect, the baby has now
become a social being, with the
beginnings of a social brain. But
it takes most of the first year to
reach this point.

Babies
Baby smarts: 5 fascinating
things babies know
Your baby is so much more than just a pretty face. A growing body of research shows that babies understand far more about their environment than we
realized before. (DREAMSTIME PHOTO)
For a long time, we
didn’t give young
babies the credit they
deserved for being eager young
scientists. We treated them as if
they were in some developmental
stage of limbo, waiting to
awake from a Sleeping Beautylike
state of not-quite-being.
Now we know that we were
totally underestimating the abilities
of babies. A growing body
of research indicates that babies
are much more tuned into their
environment than we realized.
Here’s what we’ve learned from
five recent studies about babies.
Babies are tuned into Channel
Mom. Researchers from the
University of Montreal and the
Sainte-Justine University Hospital
Research Centre have discovered
that the part of a baby’s
brain that is responsible for language
is activated in unique and
powerful ways when a baby
hears the sound of his mother’s
voice. To make this discovery,
the researchers applied
electrodes to the heads of 16
newborn babies while they were
sleeping and tracked the babies’
reactions while their mothers
and female nurses took turns
making vowel sounds. The brain
scans indicated that the infants
— who were less than 24 hours
old at the time — could already
recognize their mothers’ voices.
Babies can speak dog. Or, to
be more precise, they can interpret
the meaning of dog barks
— even if they have never been
around dogs. Researchers from
Brigham Young University
found that babies as young as six
months of age are able to match
the sounds of an angry snarl and
a friendly yap with photos of
dogs that appear either threatening
or friendly. In other words,
they can interpret the emotions
associated with sounds.
Babies understand the law
of the jungle. Psychologists at
Harvard University designed
an experiment for babies in
which two blocks of different
size came into conflict. (These
blocks had human facial features
and wanted to pass by one
another.) Babies aged eight to
ten months expressed surprise
if the bigger block stepped aside
to let the smaller block pass by.
They expected the bigger block
to get its way because of its size.
Babies have a strong sense of
justice. A study led by Professor
Kiley Hamlin of The University
of British Columbia department
of psychology found that
babies don’t mind seeing people
punished if those people have
acted poorly; and that they don’t
like to see people who have
behaved badly being rewarded.
The researchers used a series of
puppets and monitored the reactions
of 100 babies to reach this
conclusion. They found that the
desire to see justice served kicks
in when babies are about eight
months of age.
Babies can tell jokes. Babies
know how to tell jokes even
before they can talk. A baby’s
idea of a joke? To pretend to
hand a toy to another child, only
to snatch that toy away from the
other child at the last minute.
(For maximum hilarity, do this
repeatedly.) Researchers at Australia’s
Charles Sturt University
were able to pick up on this
behaviour (which occurs by age
12 months) by studying footage
shot from tiny cameras (“babycams”)
mounted to hats or headbands
worn by babies in childcare.
So there you have it — the
latest evidence that your baby
is, if not a genius, at least very
smart. The grandparents will
definitely be impressed.
Ann Douglas is the author of
The Mother of All Pregnancy
Books (Wiley, 2011) and numerous
other books about pregnancy
and parenting. Her website is
www.having-a-baby.com and
she is @anndouglas on Twitter.
Kzn Lifestyle Magazine • Issue 31
7

The real truth
about girls
and boys
Any study I’ve come are still babes in arms.
across that attempts It’s not usual, for example,
for parents to have differ-
to make the sugarand-spice
case for girls and ent ideas about how much risk
the puppy-dog-tails case for baby girls can tolerate as compared
to baby boys. In one study
boys fails what I like to call
“the Julie test.” It doesn’t stand of 11-month-old babies, Barnett
notes, mothers were asked
up to what I’ve learned from
parenting my daughter Julie
to adjust the angle of a carpeted
ramp to show the angle
(the poster child for non-girlygirls)
and her three brothers
(who are anything but three
they thought their babies would
peas in a pod).
be capable of crawling down.
Any noteworthy differences The mothers underestimated
in behaviour between boys their daughters’ abilities even
and girls that become obvious
as children grow older are be more daring than the baby
though the baby girls proved to
the result of nurture rather than boys. “They provided the baby
nature, says Rosalind C. Barnett,
co-author (with Caryl Riv-
environment in an attempt to
girls with a less challenging
ers) of The Truth About Girls protect them from injury.”
and Boys: Challenging Toxic Boys can also miss out on
Stereotypes About Our Children
(Columbia University ents unconsciously buy into ste-
opportunities for growth if par-
Press: New York, 2011). reotypical ideas about what it
“People assume these gender
differences are innate, but 2006 study, mothers of prever-
means to grow up male. “In a
research shows they are learned bal infants who were 6, 9 and
differences – the result of girls 14 months old were observed
and boys being socialized in in a free-play situation with
different ways,” says Barnett in gender-neutral toys,” Barnett
an interview with the Star. and Rivers note in The Truth
In their book, she and Rivers About Girls and Boys. The
explain that “Because the brain behaviour of the boys and girls
is ever-changing in response to was identical, but the mother’s
way of interacting with her
all sorts of learning, the brain of
any one boy may differ considerably
from that of another boy. sex. “With little girls, moth-
baby depended on the child’s
And, of course, the same is true ers engaged in more conversation
and expected their daugh-
for girls.”
As parents, we have the ters to be more responsive than
opportunity to help our children their sons.”
to push past the limits that gender
stereotypes would other-
in the same type of language-
To ensure that boys grow up
wise set for them, says Barnett. rich environment as girls, Barnett
and Rivers advise parents
To do that, we need to become
aware of the stereotypes that to ensure that the language that
may already be influencing they use when communicating
our parenting (and limiting our with their sons is “rich and peppered
with emotion.”
kids), even while our children
Kzn Lifestyle Magazine • Issue 31 8 Kzn Lifestyle Magazine • Issue 31

Babies
Mama’s Milk Project a website
celebrates breastfeeding: The
Mother of All Parenting Columns
Read full story here
A
shared passion for
documentary storytelling
and activism
gave birth to a friendship that
sustained two women through
early motherhood. And that
friendship inspired Kathryn
Palmateer and Martha Solomon
to create the Mama’s Milk
Project www.mamasmilkproject.
com, a website that both documents
and celebrates breastfeeding.
The website, which launched
May 1, seeks “to foster a positive,
creative, and supportive
breastfeeding community for
moms and their families, to normalize
the practice of breastfeeding,
. . . to examine the
issues that women face when
breastfeeding, to pass along
women’s hard-earned breastfeeding
wisdom and experience.
. . . [and to] allow women
a space to reflect upon and write
about their breastfeeding experiences
as an important life experience.”
Creating an online space
that is positive and beautiful —
each story is complemented by
a beautiful portrait of a mother
breastfeeding — was a deliberate
decision. Palmateer and Solomon,
who both live in Toronto,
are seeking to shift the debate.
“Breastfeeding doesn’t have
to be that kind of hard debate we
see in the mainstream media —
that either you’re pro breastfeeding
or you’re anti-breastfeeding;
can we do it in public; can we
not do it in public?” says Palmateer.
“Let’s talk about what it
means for women and what it
means for children.”
“I think one of our big things
is trying to normalize the discussion
about breastfeeding.
Instead of making it an inflammatory,
controversial adversarial
thing, we just want to present
breastfeeding as ‘This is what
women are doing right now and
this is what children are doing
right now,’ and talking about it
in a way that recognizes that it’s
as a wonderful, special, often
kind-of-difficult thing, but it’s
also an everyday thing.”
Palmateer and Solomon also
want to focus on kids’ experiences
with breastfeeding: “how
children feel about breastfeeding
and how they communicate
about breastfeeding with their
families.”
A mother named Kim shares
her family’s experiences in an
article entitled “The real Breastfeeding
Experts.”
“My first daughter very
clearly said, ‘nurse’ starting
at about 10 months. She also
signed the sign for milk to say
she wanted to nurse.
I vividly remember her holding
my face in her hands when
she was about 22 months and
saying, ‘Mama, listen with ears:
I want to nurse.”
Palmateer and Solomon aren’t
shy about the fact that they are
reproductive justice activists and
that they want to ignite a discussion
about the broader social
issues that determine a mother’s
true breastfeeding options.
Kzn Lifestyle Magazine • Issue 31
9

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Travel
How Korean Karaoke Changed
My Life
Growing up, I was The
One Who Could Not
Sing. My older sister
and brother, on the other hand,
were routinely cast in musicals
and chosen for high school
Madrigals (the “Glee”-like
choir reserved for the cream of
the teen vocal crop). At Christmas,
my siblings harmonized
over “We Three Kings”—and
while they charitably let me
sing along, it was pretty clear
who was the weakest king.
Meanwhile, my father
enforced strict family rules blatantly
designed to silence my
ambitious lungs:
1. No singing in the morning
before breakfast.
2. No singing at the table
(breakfast, lunch, or dinner).
None of this deterred me. I
sang in the afternoon and evening,
in the shower and in my
bedroom and standing on livingroom
furniture. I sang in the car
and in the grocery store, my fist
serving as a microphone. And as
I entered my teens in the ‘80s, I
sang everything on offer: Bananarama
and Boy George, Rick
Springfield and Richard Marx,
Oingo Boingo and OMD, Tanya
Tucker and Tammy Wynette,
Guns N’ Roses and Quiet Riot.
I sang it all, I sang it loud, and I
sang it off-key.
“You can’t carry a tune in a
bucket,” my father told me.
“You couldn’t sing your way
out of a paper bag,” he also said.
I rolled my eyes at him and
sang even louder.
When I entered high school,
I couldn’t wait to audition for
choir. On the second day of
classes, I charged into the music
room filled with optimism, and
found Mrs. Best, the music
instructor, looking equally hopeful
(she had, after all, been
blessed with my siblings for
pupils). Mrs. Best instructed me
to stand beside the piano, then
she played a note I was to replicate
in song. I tried. Her eyebrows
furrowed. She played a
different key. I tried again. Her
brows furrowed further. After
about three minutes of this—
her brows now puckered somewhere
around her chin—I was
sent away and not invited back.
I was crushed. After that, I continued
to sing in private, but in
public, I kept my vocal stylings
to myself.
Things changed when I
moved to South Korea straight
out of college to teach English as
a Second Language. A few days
after I had arrived, my school
principal suggested that all the
American and Korean teachers
dine together then hit a noraebang,
or “song room.” In other
words, Korean-style karaoke.
The Americans were reluctant,
but attendance was not optional.
Cropped photo by Lisa Risager,
Flickr, (Creative Commons)
After dinner, which included
endless bottles of beer and soju,
our group of 10 crossed the street
to a noraebang and crowded into
a small, dark, private room lined
with vinyl strawberry-colored
padded benches, atrocious flowered
wallpaper, and one low
table. A disco ball hung from the
ceiling, and a television monitor
on the wall played a video
of David Lee Roth and Eddie
Van Halen jumping and gyrating.
(The same video repeated
all night, accompanying every
song, but at no point was a Van
Halen tune actually played.)
As soon as we squeezed
around the table, the Koreans
handed us thick binders that catalogued
thousands of Korean
songs, plus three thin pages
of English tunes. Most of the
names of singers and songs were
misspelled, while others were
merely incomplete, like the classic
Elvis number, “You Ain’t
Nothin’ But a Ho.”
Then one of the Korean teachers
cued up a disco remix of Stevie
Wonder’s “I Just Called to
Read full story here
Say I Love You,” and—following
her lead—we danced, shook
plastic tambourines, drank beer,
ate shrimp-flavored chips, and
sang along. It wasn’t so bad: A
private room was a considerable
improvement over the ignominy
of public karaoke bars
back home.
But there were two things
about noraebang we didn’t yet
know. First, not only was participation
obligatory—there was
no “sitting this one out”—but
everyone was also expected to
take a solo. So while the American
contingent was initially
allowed to sing group tunes (we
chose “Sweet Caroline” and
“California Dreaming”), before
long the microphone was being
passed from person to person.
Lionel Richie, Celine Dion, and
Julio Iglesias were being soloed,
with nary a hint of irony, along
with popular Korean boy bands
G.O.D. (Groove Overdose) and
H.O.T (High-five of Teenagers).
Kzn Lifestyle Magazine • Issue 31
25

Travel
War Story
I‘d always assumed my
father had killed people.
He’d never talked about
it. To be fair, I’d never asked
him. I’d never had the nerve.
But today was different. We
were away from home, and
through the paradigm-shifting
power of travel, I felt emboldened.
I was driving our rented
Opel station wagon through the
Belgian countryside, past fields
dotted with wildflowers and fat
cows. I was thirty. He was seventy-six,
a gentle man with
short, gray hair and big glasses.
I kept my eyes on the road
and took a deep breath.
“Dad, in all of the time
you’ve talked about the war,
you’ve never talked about having
to shoot people.”
It wasn’t exactly a question—
26
The author’s father, circa 1944.
Kzn Lifestyle Magazine • Issue 31
more of an observation. It was
the best I could do.
My dad grew quiet and
looked out the window.
“Who wants to talk about
something like that?” he said.
He had a point. The afternoon
sunlight reflected off the Opel’s
silver hood. I wondered whether
to press on or drop the subject
forever.
Father-son relationships
are rarely easy, but my dad is
one of the “Greatest Generation”—men
who grew up during
the Depression, fought in
World War II and, upon returning
home, were often frustratingly
quiet and inscrutable. My
dad was 46 when I was born.
The older I got, the more aware I
became of the gulf between us—
not just the decades or our differing
diction (my dad was old
enough to call companies “outfits”),
but in the way we talked
about our lives. He was a good
man—always supportive—but
he could be remote, and even, I
thought at times, unknowable.
I longed to bridge the divide,
and I was just young enough to
think I could. Like many sons of
veterans, I thought my father’s
years at war might hold a key to
understanding him—that somewhere
in the bloom of youth and
the trauma of combat, the kernel
of the man I knew was formed.
What’s more, I believed in the
power of travel to work magic:
Blend enough time and movement
in a foreign place and a kind
of alchemy can occur. Things
can happen—good things—that
might not occur back home. So I
asked my dad to travel with me
to Western Europe, to show me
some of the places where he’d
fought. If I were lucky, I’d return
home feeling closer to him, and
maybe, by extension, a little
more at peace with myself, too.
We landed in Paris on a cool
spring afternoon and wasted no
time in hitting the road, exploring
small towns where he’d
been. One afternoon, we headed
for Bastogne in Belgium. In
December of 1944, the German
army attacked Allied troops
here, igniting the Battle of the
Bulge. At the time, my father
was a paratrooper with the 82nd
Airborne Division. He was soon
embroiled in combat and would
be for days.
We wandered into a museum
and watched a short documentary
about the battle. Black-andwhite
footage showed American
soldiers marching through
snow. Explosions flashed on
the screen, along with photos
of corpses. My father was sitting
beside me, and I heard his
breathing change. He wiped his
eyes.
Afterward, we drove past
towering evergreens. He was
quiet.
“How did you feel watching
the movie, dad?”
“Emotional.”
“Sad?”
My father was capable of
wide-ranging political conversations.
I hated asking a question
that sounded better suited for a
child, but in this case, I thought
conversational baby steps might
be the best approach.
“Yeah.”
“How so?”
“Just seeing all that. It was
such an awful war.”
As we drove on, I thought
about my dad’s teen years. He’d
grown up in St. Louis. When
the U.S. entered the war, he and
three of his brothers enlisted. My
father was just 17 at the time—
still a kid, really. He took part in
some of the war’s worst fighting,
including the Battle of the
Hurtgen Forest, in which tens
of thousands of Americans were
killed. I wondered how much of
my dad’s reticence was innate,
and how much was shaped by
those battles. I thought about
how we still don’t have a good
way to measure the toll war takes
on survivors, and the way war’s
effects could be passed along in
one form or another from fathers
to sons, and mothers to daughters—a
kind of lingering posttraumatic
stress that trickles
down, however subtly, through
generations. I thought about the
grief my father seemed to carry
at times, and wondered if it was
the same grief I sometimes felt,
seemingly inexplicably.
I didn’t mention any of this.
In fact, I was so quiet my dad
grew concerned.
“How are you doing?” he
said.
Maybe this was an opening.
“Okay, I guess. You don’t
always have much to say. It can
be hard sometimes.”
“You think that’s unusual?”
“Just a generational difference
between us, I think.”
He grew quiet. We passed a
creek.
“Pretty river,” he said.

Travel
The Accidental Hitchhiker
“Are you going far?” the
Samoan man asked as he
leaned into my creaky
rental car. We were under the
shade of an avocado tree. His
bulk filled the entire space of
my open window.
When he’d flagged me down,
I’d thought he was an elder collecting
a “customs fee,” the
few dollars it costs to use village
roads that lead to many of
Samoa’s sights. He’d been sitting
idly in a greying roadside
shack built for such occasions,
but he wasn’t asking for money;
he was trying to hitch a ride.
I didn’t want to pick him up,
but I’d already stopped and I
needed directions.
“I’m trying to get to Pulemelei
Mound,” I said, trying not to
sound as lost as I was. “Do you
know how to get there?”
“Mmm,” he said, raising his
eyebrows in the classic Polynesian
gesture for yes. “I need to
pick up my car at the mechanic
but no hurry, I’ll take you there
first if you want.”
Normally I wouldn’t pick
up a hitchhiker, especially not
such a huge one, but this man
had such a gentle expression
that I sensed he was OK. Having
spent 15 years in and around
Tahiti, which has a similar culture,
I knew Polynesians pretty
well - many hulks had the temperament
of bunny rabbits.
Plus, if he knew where Pulemelei
Mound was, I’d just gotten
closer to living out a dream.
I’d wanted to go to Pulemelei
since I’d heard it mentioned in
an archaeology class years ago.
The “mound” is actually a pyramid
40 feet high and roughly 200
feet across at its base—a little
over one-third the height of the
Kukulkan pyramid in Chichen
Itza, Mexico, and slightly wider.
Like many of the world’s pyramids,
Pulemelei is oriented to
the cardinal directions. It was
built some time around 1300
AD and no one knows what it
was used for. But one thing is
certain: It’s the largest ancient
structure in Polynesia.
You’d think that a giant pyramid
would be a major sight, or
28
Kzn Lifestyle Magazine • Issue 31
at least something many people
had heard of, but it isn’t. My
accidental hitchhiker’s affirmative
raise of the eyebrows was
the most promising prospect I’d
had in a week.
“Hop in,” I told him.
We rattled along the road in
silence for a few minutes. A half
dozen chickens squawked and
ran into a hibiscus hedge next
to an orange and blue house.
The hot air mixed with a hint of
smoke from burning leaves. In
the distance, I could hear women’s
laughter.
Then my new friend broke
the silence and, simultaneously,
my hopes.
“I’ve never been to Pulemelei,”
he said as we bumped over
a particularly big pothole. “It’s
funny, I’ve lived here almost
a year but I never thought of
going.”
His arm hung limply out the
open passenger seat window
and he gazed with a half smile
toward the bleached grey road in
front of us. “Damn,” I thought,
maybe he had no idea how to get
there.
“Where are you from then?”
I asked, trying to sound upbeat.
“I lived in New Zealand for
over 30 years,” he said. “But I
grew up in Apia.”
Apia is the capital of Samoa,
so he was a city kid, not the
earth-under-his-feet farmer I had
assumed. The 30 years in New
Zealand explained his fantastic
English.
“Ah,” he said, “it’s here to the
right.”
He pointed with his thumb
towards an unmarked track. As
I maneuvered the car onto the
narrow, rocky trail, he sat leaning
forward like an eager kid.
We bumped over the rough
road till we reached a clear, calfdeep
stream. We parked and got
out, then waded across the water.
Shortly beyond the river, the terrain
became waist-high grass.
The air was thick and smelled of
wet plants. We picked our way
through the brush, and my friend
told me about himself. He was a
church youth-group leader and
was taking a bunch of local kids
on a hike up the island’s tallest
mountain the next day.
“Maybe I can bring them
here, too, one day if we find it,”
he said hopefully.
A fallen rotted tree blocked
our path, and we tucked under
broken branches and found our
way around through brambles.
We trekked on another a halfmile
and I was feeling pretty
skeptical. Then we hit an area
of tall, lush grass surrounded
by mature mango trees. A faded
sign was nailed to one of the
trees and I could just make out
the word “Parking.” Yes, at one
time, maybe 10 or more years
ago and before the land disputes
began (apparently between a
foreign company and a local
family), this road had been made
for vehicles. People could simply
drive here.
We came to another board on
a tree that was nearly engulfed
by skinny yellow vines. There,
barely visible, were the words:
“Pulemelei Mound 150m.”
We’d found it! In the hot
shade, this realization barely
seemed real.
Read full story here

How a Taxi Ride Changed a
Travel
Writer’s Life
One afternoon in May
2007, Layne Mosler
left a tango parlor in
Buenos Aires and asked a taxi
driver to take her to his favorite
steakhouse. She didn’t know
what to expect, but the resulting
meal was so magical, it transformed
Mosler’s life. She began
going on weekly “taxi adventures,”
chronicling her experiences
on her blog, Taxi Gourmet.
Two years later, she moved
to New York City and became
a taxi driver herself. Then she
embarked on the ultimate taxi
odyssey: marrying a taxi driver
in Berlin. Her memoir, Driving
Hungry, just hit bookstores.
I caught up with Mosler by
phone at her home in Berlin to
ask about her taxi adventures
and her quest to become a “life
artist.”
World Hum: You’re from
California but moved to Buenos
Aires. What was it about the
Argentine capital that called to
you?
Layne Mosler: One thing I
didn’t realize before going to
Buenos Aires was that it’s a city
of people who love literature, and
who love reading. It’s a wonderful
place for a writer. I’ll never
forget that I was reading a book
by [Milan] Kundera on the subway
and this woman said, “Oh,
if you like Kundera you should
read this Polish author, and have
you read Kundera’s early stuff?”
And then she suddenly hopped
off the subway and said, “Now
I have to go make lentil stew.”
People there really impressed
me. And city streets are named
for poets and philosophers and
tango composers.
Also, for a writer, being out of
your element is a healthy thing.
You’re forced to pay attention in
a way that you might not if you
were in a place that’s familiar to
you. I felt that I always needed
to be aware of what was going
on around me in Buenos Aires.
There was an edge to the city. I
thought, this is the perfect place
for a writer, or a person who
wants to develop into a writer.
You’d been living there for
two years before you launched
Taxi Gourmet. How did that
come about?
I was doing some freelance
writing, and I got this job at an
Argentine satellite company.
And I was developing my food
writing on the side. But I knew
I wanted to do something bigger.
At the time, I was dancing
tango and taking a lot of taxis
and having a lot of conversations
with taxi drivers, and I
was learning more about Buenos
Aires from the taxistas (drivers)
than from anyone else. They’d
tell you these beautiful stories
about their relationship to the
city. Most taxi drivers in Buenos
Aires were born there and
will tell you they’ll die there and
they’re happy about that.
I had this awful episode on
the dance floor where I basically
bit the dust and had to leave the
tango parlor in humiliation, but I
was starving. I hopped in a cab
and asked the driver to take me
to his favorite place to eat and
Read full story here
ended up at this wonderful steakhouse,
which, to this day, is still
one of the best steakhouses I’ve
ever visited. Everything flowed
so easily. The taxi driver was
really kind. The men next to me
were telling me all of the things I
should order. I’d been in Buenos
Aires for two years, but it was as
if I was tapping into another side
of the city. You can’t engineer
serendipity but it was the closest
I’ve come. I thought, there’s
something magical about this,
and I wanted to keep doing it.
So I started to get into a taxicab
every week.
And then you moved to New
York City and became a taxi
driver yourself?
Yes. After two years of writing
the blog, I was getting a little
restless. I knew from the beginning
that I didn’t want to stay in
Buenos Aires. I wanted to move
the project to New York. I never
planned on driving a taxi.
I met these two women who
drove cabs in New York. The
first was Nidia, who calls herself
a “Nuyorican”—a Puerto
Rican in New York. She’s a
night taxi driver and I was just
blown away. She’d grown up in
a house where her father abused
her and she ran away when she
was 13 and she lived on the subway
and just had a really hard
life. But she was resilient. I
never thought I could do what
she did. But a month later, I met
Mary Jo, a petite, tiny-waisted,
purple-wearing woman who was
going to nursing school at night
and driving a taxi during the day.
Her taxi driving was driven by
her faith, and I thought, if Mary
Jo can drive a taxi, then I can,
too.
Also, I’d studied anthropology
in college, and one of the
principles of anthropology is
that as an observer you can only
come so far. At some point, you
have to participate in whatever
you’re studying or you’re not
going to have a complete understanding.
So all of those things
came together.
Kzn Lifestyle Magazine • Issue 31
29

Health
Kzn Lifestyle Magazine • Issue 31
33

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Kzn Lifestyle Magazine • Issue 31

Sports
We're just over one month away
from the 2017 edition of one of SA's
most prestigious one day events,
the Illovo Eston MTB Challenge!
The 2017 event will see
the introduction of trail
running to the exciting
Illovo Eston MTB Challenge
programme.
Runners will have the opportunity
to pick between an 18km
or a 9km run that will take them
through the beautiful Tala Collection
Private Game Reserve
where they will get to run
amongst a variety of species
including Rhino, Giraffe, Zebra,
Impala and Wildebeest.
Be part of the first ever trail
run through Durban's finest
game reserve on August 6!
Date: Sunday, 6 August 2017
Venue: Eston Farmers' Club,
KZN
Start Times, Distances &
Entry Fees:
06h30 - 18km Trail Run (Preentry
- R130, Late entry - R150)
06h45 - 9km Trail Run (Preentry
- R90, Late entry - R110)
08h30 - 60km Illovo Eston
Marathon (Pre-entry - R210,
Late entry - R240)
09h00 - 40km aQuellé Eston
Half Marathon (Pre-entry -
R170, Late entry - R200)
09h30 - 18km STIHL Tala
Family Ride (Pre-entry - R140,
Late entry - R160)
10h00 - 10km Omnia Kids
Ride (Pre-entry - R65, Late
entry - R75)
15% FAMILY DISCOUNT
FOR 4 OR MORE ENTRIES
AT ILLOVO ESTON 2017!
Entries:
Enter via ROAG (www.roag.
co.za). Pre-entries are open
and will be accepted until 31
July 2017. Late entries will be
accepted online from 1 August
until 24h00, 3 August or at the
venue on the day.
Registration:
At Eston Farmers' Club on
Sunday, 6 August from 05h30-
09h30.
Giveaways:
Race garments will be available
to the first 1750 people that
enter. Please note that late entries
will not recieve a race garment.
More information can be
found at www.illovoestonmtb.
co.za
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Kzn Lifestyle Magazine • Issue 31

Health Sports
Cricketers thrive at 2017
Township Tournament
The tenth edition of the KwaZulu-Natal
Cricket Union, KZN Department of
Sport and Recreation and Sunfoil Township
Schools Tournament was another
successful edition as hundreds of cricketers
from all over the country gathered
for a week of exciting cricket action in
the KZN Midlands. Anesh Debiky/
Gameplan Media
Hilton - The KwaZulu-
Natal Cricket Union
department of Rural
and Township Development has
yet another success story to tell
following their 10th KwaZulu-
Natal Cricket Union, KZN
Department of Sport and Recreation
and Sunfoil Township
Schools Tournament saw close
to 300 cricketers from around
the country compete at Hilton
College from the 30th June to
5th July.
This year’s tournament was
a milestone and KZN Cricket
Union together with the KZN
Department of Sport and Recreation
and the Willowton Group
have all expressed how this programme
has done more than just
equipping these young bright
minds with cricketing skills, it
has also developed their characters.
Sanelisiwe Kuzwayo, manager
of Rural and Township
Development at KZN Cricket
Union said that she could not
be more proud of how far they
have come with this programme
and the difference it has made to
these children’s lives.
“I feel very excited and overwhelmed,
the 10th year anniversary
became all that we have
hoped for," she said.
"Seeing all the brilliant players
showing the exciting level of
skills that they have acquired,
surpassed all that I could ever
ask for as this tournament is all
about unearthing talent.”
The MEC of Health in KZN,
Dr. Sibongiseni Dlomo, who
gave a keynote address at the
closing ceremony of the tournament,
urged the players to
respect the sport and never lose
focus.
“I have been involved with
this programme since its inception
and I am amazed of how
much it has achieved.
"Today, I say to you, do not
take such opportunities for
granted,” he said.
KZN Cricket Union interim
CEO, Muhammad Seedat also
conveyed his message of support
towards the success of this
tournament.
“I am extremely proud of
what I have seen here.
"The players displayed an
unsurpassed level of cricketing
excellence which gives me hope
in the vision that we have.
"These are Proteas of the
future,” Seedat said.
According to the Rural and
Township Development statistics,
this tournament began
with only seven coaches, coming
from areas such as Kwa-
Mashu, Umlazi, Lamontville,
Kwadabeka, Inanda, Kwasanti
and Engonyameni. However,
the number has since grown to
54 with 23 permanent coaches
amongst those.
It also started with seven club
teams and now has 63.
This programme has also
granted bursaries for 30 children
in the last 10 years and 64 players,
consisting of 40 boys and 24
girls have made KZN Schools
and senior teams.
The Deputy Manager for
Club Development and Academies
at KZN Department of
Sport and Recreation, Jay Mannikam,
reiterated Kuzwayo’s
words with regards to this year’s
tournament.
“As government, we are
proud to be associated with such
a tournament as it gives youngsters
an opportunity to better
themselves through the game of
cricket.
"For us, it is about changing
lives and giving opportunities to
those that were previously disadvantaged.
"The Township Schools
Cricket Tournament unearths
talent in the deep rural areas and
all of them come to Hilton where
we see this talent in the field and
it excites us, because we have
heard some success stories in the
past of players who have gone
from this level to playing professional
cricket.
"It is money well invested,”
he said.
The 10th Township Schools
Cricket Tournament U15 champions
were the KZNCU, DSR,
Sunfoil Invitation XI who beat
the KZN Inland Invitation by 5
wickets. In the U19 division the
KZN Inland Academy emerged
victorious, beating KZNCU,
DSR, Sunfoil Invitation XI by
18 runs.
More information can be
found at www.dolphinscricket.
co.za
Kzn Lifestyle Magazine • Issue 31
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