GrannyXpress

Granny Appleseed

Filed under: GrannyX Suggests @ August 29, 2006 11:23 am by healthiacynthia

This is the legend: In the 1860’s an Australian woman, Marie Ana Smith, tossed some crabapple scraps out into her garden. An apple cultiver resulted that she nurtured and passed down to us with the name “Granny Smith.” I’m interested in the way this myth has developed.

(1) If a man had done it would the apple have become known as the “Grandpa Smith” apple? Not likely.

(2) Did this actually happen as recorded, or is it just a sample of slick marketing from the 1860s? (The crispy, tasty Granny Smith apple didn’t worm its way into my conscious buying and eating until about the 1970s).
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I believe that Grannies had a sort of reputation for goodness and nutrition and wisdom back in the old days and the marketing gurus copped on to that.

Granny Walks

Filed under: GrannyX Approves @ 10:20 am by healthiacynthia

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Here is a story that warms the hearts of us grannies and those who know them: In her 80s Doris Haddock began to take an active interest in political reform. In her 90s she walked over 20,000 miles to encourage women to vote (in 2004). Her book is called You’re Never Too Old to Raise A Little Hell

A Gogo’s Work is Never Done…

Filed under: GrannyX Approves @ August 21, 2006 8:34 pm by healthiacynthia

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OTTAWA –(August 16, 2006) Petronella Makhanya lives in the Johannesburg slum of Alexandra Township, where she struggles to raise four AIDS orphans ranging from 20 months to 14 years in age.

Rather miraculously, on Tuesday she found herself standing on Linda Gorka’s lawn in Wakefield, Que., munching on samosas and salads, enjoying the finest view in town.

Makhanya, 57, is one of three South African grandmothers - known in Africa as gogos - visiting the village as guests of the Wakefield Grannies, a group that’s supporting 10 grandmothers from the South African township who are raising their grandchildren and others orphaned by AIDS.

Along with nurse Rose Letwaba, the three arrived in Wakefield Sunday night after attending a meeting of African and Canadian grandmothers in Toronto organized by the Stephen Lewis Foundation. They leave Wakefield Wednesday to begin the long journey back to Africa.

The contrast between their home and the picturesque Quebec village could hardly be more stark. “We have never seen such a place,” marvels one of the African grandmothers, Lucia Mazibuko, taking in the verdant hills and sparkling waters of the Gatineau River.

“For my grannies to be in this part of Canada is something they never expected,” says Letwaba. “This experience will remain with them as long as they live.

“Our land is dry and thirsty,” she says. “You see Canada and you think, ‘this just can’t be.’” She recounts a conversation with Magdeline Ramakobo, one of the visiting gogos. “She said, ‘I think maybe this is a dream.’”

Then there’s food. In Alexandra, there’s never enough. In Canada, says Letwaba, “they could snack and drink all the time.” Declares the ebullient Ramakobo: “I’m eating everything that I see.”

Makhanya shares the general delight with Wakefield. “It’s just such a cool place,” she exclaims, a reference not to its hipness but to the pleasant temperatures that have prevailed this week.

She’s even more enthusiastic about the Wakefield Grannies, and the difference they have made in her life and the lives of her fellow gogos.

“Really, we have the best group,” she says. “We are always saying, ‘thanks God.’ We were crying before, but they have wiped our tears away.”

Letwaba, whose talk at the village’s United Church two years ago was the catalyst for the Wakefield Grannies, never expected the relationship to become so important.

She credits the leadership provided by Norma Geggie, the Wakefield Grannies’ 81-year-old founder who, like her, is a nurse. “She’s just an amazing woman.”

For the gogos, the Wakefield group “is like an extension of sisterhood,” she says. “They feel emotionally supported.”

That sense of support extends to the whole Wakefield community, she adds. Residents have approached the gogos on the street to express their solidarity. “The support and love the Wakefield community has shown us is just phenomenal.”

Despite dealing with culture shock, the African grandmothers have quickly adjusted to life in Wakefield.

Earlier this week, they went on a shopping spree at a nearby Giant Tiger, snapping up clothes for their young charges back in Alexandra Township. They checked out the Wakefield steam train Tuesday and took a short cruise on the Gatineau River. And Tuesday night, they were guests of honour at a public event at the village’s United Church.

Yet it’s impossible to forget about those left behind in South Africa for very long. “Now I’m thinking of them,” Makhanya says of her four young charges. “I’m missing them a lot now.”

When their short time in Canada is done, said Letwaba, reality will hit hard. “I know the minute I step inside my house, I’ll feel the emptiness,” she said.
© Global National 2006

Granny on a Camel

Filed under: GrannyXShowsOff @ August 2, 2006 5:26 pm by healthiacynthia

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Here is a picture of my cool friend Rosalie on a camel in Australia (second from the front) behind her grandchild. Wow! I wonder if I will be up to this sort of adventure with my grandchild twelve years from now?