My favourite bus experience

I was chatting to some friends the other day about bus experiences. If you've ever travelled long distance on a bus I'm sure you can imagine how the conversation went: fried chicken, dubious men, ablution horrors and so on.

My slightly shameful confession is that in spite of it all (and there is a lot to be in spite of!), I actually quite like traveling on the bus. Its the unsanitised version of life, you know? Where you are forced to interact with people you would never have interacted with otherwise, deal with situations you would never have had to deal with other wise.

So with that in mind, let me share with you my favorite bus story of all time. Remarkably, I have had a few really great bus experiences. But this was the best:

In East London you can board the bus in two places that I know of: The Windmill and the Station. Now let me just not beat about the bush so I can paint the picture for you: white people do not board the bus at the Station. White people board the bus at The Windmill. The station is in the middle of town, noisy bustlely, street vendors and so forth.

Ok. So keep that picture in your mind. Now if I remember correctly, the bus picks people up at The Windmill first, then at the station. So if you board at The Windmill, which white people do, you then bus to the Station where you wait about another hundred years for people to board at the Station before you finally leave town to go where you are going.

So after many bus trips I decided I was over the hundred hour wait at the Station. So I booked a ticket from the Station. All fine and dandy till I realise this means my mom and gran will have to drop me off at the Station. Oh well, its all fine, I get dropped off at the Station. Things are going fine except for me somehow being bustled to the end of the queue a few times and my mom exhorting me to push otherwise I'll never get on the bus.

There is one other scruffy looking white man waiting to board the bus. While my mom is waiting for me to elbow my way through the luggage queue (I hate elbowing, but I was getting further and further *away* from the bus as the throngs of people elbowed in front of me), this man sidles up to my mom and says,
"Don't worry about your daughter 'mam. I have a gun."

!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So as soon as I manage to extracate myself from the luggage throng to join the getting onto the bus throng, my mother pulls me aside and whispers "Don't sit anywhere near that man!"

Like I was going to!

Hehe.

Anyway, that was my all time favourite bus experience.

Supremacy makes you stupid

Supremacy makes you stupid.

(Just putting it out there!)

Fighting for the chance to listen

Lord, grant that I may seek rather
to understand, than to be understood;

(from the Prayer of St Francis)

I was in the States for a bit last year, in a smallish city called Urbana-Champaign. They have local TV stations there, and there was one particular TV stations that was just for that city, where they had city wide notices and ads and so forth. Similar to our local radio stations in some ways, I suppose.

One of the things they aired was what appeared to be town council meetings. Oh my actual goodness. Those things were boring. They would go on for hours and hours and the format would be something like this:

Public meeting about a problem with parking demarcation in the city centre.
Council/Committee thing of about 6-8 people preside over the meeting, which is open to the public. They are seated at a head table and there is a central mike open to the floor, which people take turns at.
Events as follows:

Mr Smith (at open mike): Hello, I am Mr Smith, owner of the stationary store. I believe that changing parking rates in my area will negtively affect my business which is primarily from blah blah blah...... (5 minutes pass)
Mr Council Member 1: Thank you Mr Smith.
Mr Hewlett (at open mike): Good morning, I am Mr Hewlett from the traffic department. Let me explain our plan to rezone the parking areas. There will now be two classes of parking, for the inner city and outer city areas. This was motivated by the desire to cut down on traffic congestion in the very inner city. The price of the new inner city parking will be... blah blah blah... the inner city zone will span from Tulip Street in the East to Henry Street in the West... blah blah blah blah.
Mr Council Member 1: Thank you Mr Hewlett for explaining that to us. Will the new zoning plans be available for public scrutiny?
Mr Hewlett (at open mike): Yes sir, they are available at the traffic offices in Brown Street.
Mr Council Member 1: Good. Who is next?
Mrs Ramsey (at open mike): Good morning Mr Council Member 1.
Mr Council Member 1: Good morning Mrs Ramsey, good to see you today.
Mrs Ramsey (at open mike): Thank you Mr Council Member 1. Mr Council Member, I am here to speak for the Greaves Old Age Home association. As you know, our home is situated on the corner of Fourth and Elm street, on the edge of the new inner city, higher price parking zone. We request that the council require the traffic department to move the inner parking zone to the other size of Honeysuckle street so that we are not effected by the higher parking traffic. We are all pensioners, as you know, and the higher price will effect us particularly harshly. The few of us who have cars really have no other place to park them than in the Elm Street parking bays, and our guests would also be effected by the new prices. The option of parking the few streets away in Henry Street is really not viable for many of our old people, the walk is not short and safety is also a consideration in the evening... blah blah blah....
Mr Council Member 1: Thank you Mrs Ramsey, we will take that into account.
Mr Council Member 2: Yes fellow council members and public, I want to add my support to that point. The issue of safety really is an important one.
Mr Gariep (at open mike): Good morning everyone. I would just like to put in my support for the rezoning. I run my IT business from offices in the inner zone and I welcome any plans to sort out the traffic problem in our area. Our customers often have to park several blocks away and I'm sure that this negatively effects my business... I feel that the increase in parking fees is quite nominal, and will hopefully only serve to encourage the many shop employees from our area to make use of the parking lots in the outer city zone rather than parking in our streets and making it difficult for customers to find parking... blah blah blah...
Mr Council Member 1: Thank you Mr Gariep. Which is your business?
Mr Gariep (at open mike): I run Gariep IT Consulting on Frere Street Mr Council Member 1.
Mr Council Member 1: Thank you. Mrs Hill, I see you will be adressing us next. Are you addressing us on behalf of the Brooke High School governing body?
Mrs Hill (at open mike): Yes I am Mr Council Member 1...
... meeting goes on and on and on and more people have their turn to speak...
(Completely made up, but representing the real meetings!)

Woah. Man this stuff was BORING. Boring. Unbelievably boring. It was so boring it made me curious and I watched an hour here and there. There was the one about parking rezoning (simulated above!). Another about plumbing problems on some pavements and who should be held responsible to pay. Another about some sortof rent-though-food stamps scheme and home owners objections to it.

And everyone in the world had the opportunity to speak. Little old ladies, men in suits, officials, residents, angry pro-poor people who accuse house rentors or being evil, lawyers, house owners who go into great boring detail about the intricacies of lease clauses. Articulate people, rambling people, concise people, irritated people, knowledgable people, angry people, poor people, middle class people, old people...

Sheesh.

And those councillors just sat and listened and listened and listened. Occasionally they might speak amongst themselves or address a member of the public who was speaking, either to add their opinion or to note something or ask something...

Now I'm not sure how their local government systems work there, but presumably at the end of it all the council weighs up what was said and them makes their decisions or rulings or whatever.


Wow. Imagine living in a society where our leaders listened to us. Where we felt there was a platform to make ourselves heard. On any issue, big or small. Imagine a society where we politely listen to people we completely disagree with, even if they are long winded and emotional, or inarticulate, or unimportant members of society. And then we consider what they have said.

And moreover, we welcome their chance to address us. We don't only want to hear from the people we agree with. Or the people who support us. We want everyone to be given a chance to have their say. And for that ideal we are willing to endure incredibly long, incredibly boring meetings.

We also don't only want the chance to speak. We also want to chance to listen. We welcome the chance to listen. Just like we fight for our right to be heard, we also fight for our opportunity to hear.

That is democracy working.

Vision, Voices and Hope

Listening

On Tuesday I went to an event called: "Voices, Visions and Hopes of our Youth. What's missing in our new democracy."

It's a UCT Humanities Faculty initiative, where public figures have conversations with South African youth. This was the first one, and the conversers were five high school pupils and three adult panelists.
The panelists were Dr Mamphela Ramphele, Dr Alex Boraine and Finance Minister Mr Trevor Manuel (from left to right in the photo above). Some illustrious panelists!
I won't put the names of the scholars, because they are not public figures so perhaps they would not like to have their names in the public domain on my blog, but they ranged from Grade 10 to Grade 12 and came from Alexander Sinton High School, Tafelsig High School, Rustenburg High School, Durban Girls College and Uxolo High School.

It really was a lot of fun and the content was so thought provoking. The five scholars began presenting what they each thought was the biggest problem for South Africa's youth. Then the panelists each responded, then there was a bit of back and forth where the scholars and audience could ask questions to the panelists and the panelists could also respond to each other.

There were a couple of things that made the format particularly great. The fact that the scholars began things, and the panelists had to listen to them and then respond to them, was fantastic. Dr Boraine actually commented on what a good statement that was making, that they had to listen first. And when Mr Manuel's turn came to speak he told the scholars that he was now getting his turn to speak to power :)

It was also good to have the scholars just present what they thought of as problems. They started off quite timid but as they were encouraged by the audience and the MC they became bolder - you should have heard the last girl criticise Julius Malema and the ANC! The first girl shope about racism, the second guy about lack of facilities at his school, the third about abuse of girls and rape, the forth girl about apathy and the final girl about lack of leadership to inspire young people.

Then the panelists responded and raised so many interesting issues. And the back and forth between panelists and scholars and audience was fantastic, because it really was a conversation. Not just listening to some important person making a speech.

I wrote a short article about the event for my student newspaper but it was *so* difficult because so many interesing issues were discussed...

Some of them were racism, corruption, BEE, education, the media, breaking the cycle of poverty, changing people's attitudes to grants (very interesting!), living in a democracy, responsibility, Julius Malema (wow that guy made himself newsworthy!) ...
So interesting!

Maybe I will write a couple of followup posts about what was said. Probably the main theme running through it all was started by the scholar who said that apathy is a problem because democracy requires citizen participation to work. Trevor Manuel picked this up in his response and spoke about the fact that ultimately all people have to take responsability for their own lives, and that democracy is a social compact between the government and people, and citizens have to take up the responsability of making it work, along with government. And how in many ways the problems we have in making our society work are problems of individual values. Our education system, for example, is extremely well funded. But things fall down in schools where many of teachers have no work ethic...

I could go on - the discussion about social grants was so interesting too!

But let me stop there.

Suffice it to say that is was really a remarkable event. Maybe one day Rhodes will consider doing them too.

Let me just end with my favourite moment from the event: A journalist had just adjusted the mike in front of Trevor Manuel, when Mr Manuel moaned about the media, describing them as (to quote!) "low quality sensationalist clap trap."
!!!

Ah but I sympathise with his sentiments!

For concerned citizens and patriots

I read about this AZAPO Symposium in the City Press yesterday. I hoped it would be in Cape Town because I am going to be there next week, but I emailed the organisers and alas it will be in Joburg.

So if anyone from Joburg is interested, please go and report back to me!

I would really love to hear Barney Pityana speak because I have read some good things by him and about him, and he is someone whose opinion I am very interested to hear. I also want to know more about AZAPO and what they stand for. And I'm a concerned citizens and and a patriot :)

The organisers also emailed me a map which I can forward to anyone who would like directions.

Just being sentimental

I know its just sentimentality, but I'm sad to see Nosimo Balindlela go. I thought it was pretty poor form of the government to order her resignation while she was out of the country. May she do well in whatever comes next for her.

I love the Eastern Cape. I love driving our pot holed verge-less roads, dodging the goats, through the hills, past the rod hot pokers, past the little communities dotted on the hills or next to the road. I love driving through King William's Town with it's miriad of banners advertising political events, musical events, community events. I love watching construction go on as I drive through Peddie. I love navigating the back roads around King, dropping people off at their houses.

I love Grahamstown. I love that you can sit at the Monument and see the whole city. I love that you could walk from one end to the other. The donkeys warm my heart. And East London, I love East London too. I love out local papers. When I go home I sit down and read back issues of the Daily Dispatch. And the new paper, EC Today I think it's called. I love it.

Okay okay I don't really love the pot holes. But I love the Eastern Cape :)

The Foundation of Kindness.

Did anyone else pick up Kgalema Motlanthe's (ANC deputy president) gentle rebuke to Julius Malema and the "Kill for Zuma" team in the last edition of ANC Today? It was in a piece on Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday, entitled "He who has laid the foundation of kindness" (If you want to read it for yourself).

In a section entitled "Our historical obligation":

In his poem, To Posterity, the world-renowned German poet Bertolt Brecht says, "To those who shall emerge from this flood into which we are sinking" remember that those who took up arms did so in order "to lay down the foundation of kindness". But they themselves could not be kind because they had to confront a brutal regime. Therefore, to the younger generations, to posterity, to those of us who have benefited from the efforts of the generation of Nelson Mandela, we have to choose very carefully our historical obligation, because we cannot take up arms when we have a democratic constitution and country.


Beautiful. Thanks Mr Motlanthe.

Perhaps if I had lots of money I would buy myself a new car. Then I would need proper insurance so my beautiful new car, if stolen, could be replaced. And I would need to worry about it being stolen when I parked in certain places.
Also if I had a beautiful car I would want a sound system for it. Then I would worry about someone stealing my sound system. So I would have to carry the CD player face around in my bag.
And of course, you can't have people eating in your new new car. Ice-cream splats on my new interior? Are you kidding! I'd also have to up my game in terms of cleaning my car. No, with a new new shiney car I have to worry about cleaning cloths scratching the paintwork. And waxing. And cleaning the interior properly. I'd probably have to take it in to get a proper valet service regularly.
And of course new cars don't stay sparkling for long. I would have to worry about scratching it while parking. The thought gives me chills. I hope the insurance will cover all of it. Probably not, if the scratch is bad. And if the surface is faux metallic its a real mission to cover scratches. And I don't want to lose my no-claim status with my insurance, so maybe I will just have to have the scratches fixed myself. I'll have to go to the authorised dealer for my fancy new car, not the family mechanic in the back alley. And the authorised dealer charges like... an authorised dealer. Oh dear.
And I would have to worry about who could and couldn't drive my car in terms of my insurance because if a friend has an accident in my car, insurance might be unwilling to pay out. And I would have to worry about my mileage because I would want to have a good resale value. Because of course a new new car only stays new new for a couple of years. So in a couple of years I will be looking for something shinier and sleeker, advertised in a moving TV advert telling my how this car will change my life. And how I will be the envy of all of my friends.

Oh dear it all sounds exhausting.


I'm being facetious really, I would actually love to get a new car. My present car is lovely, but old, and seems to continually have something wrong with it. So yes, I would love a new car.

But its amazing how more money and more stuff just makes you more worried about keeping your more money and more stuff and protecting your more money and more stuff, and increasing your more money and more stuff.

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven..." Matthew 6:19-20

Happy Birthday Madiba

It's Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday today.
Happy Birthday Madiba!
Thank you for the legacy you left us with.

UL changed my life

As my flatmates can probably tell you that there is little that puts me in a bad mood like a cold shower. I can be irritated about a cold shower for days.

Yet tonight, washing my hair, the hot water ran out. And I ended up finishing my shower in the cold.
But lo and behold, it didn't bother me that much.

There you go. Three days of University of Limpopo ablutions changed my life. Who would have thought.

Fest

The National Arts Festival finished about a week ago, leaving me with a pile of used tickets and some memories. To us local or semi-local Grahamstonians, the National Arts Festival is just "fest." It comes around every June and artists and hawkers and musicians and theatre folk and petty criminals and art patrons and all manner of cultural folk flock to our little town. And the streets are busy and it takes 10 minutes to get to work (instead of the usual 5). And every available inch of wall space is covered with a poster for some show or exhibition or event. And we eat Kudu burgers for supper instead of cooking.

The really lovely thing about fest is that a whole world of culture and art and ideas come to our little town. Often I just let fest pass me by but this year my friend Bronwyn came to visit so I did more fest stuff than I usually do.

For people who have never been to fest, it's made up of:

1) Productions. The main aspect of fest is lots of theatre and performances of all kinds. Comedy. Satire. Drama. Tons of dancing - modern, Indian, pantsula, ballet, all sorts.

There are the big name productions who tour the country and the world, famous ballets and plays. Last year I went to an excellent play called "In the Continuum" which was over here from the US. It was played by two women, one Zimbabwean and the other African American. The story of two ladies, one in Zim and the other in the ghetto in the US, dealing with finding out they are HIV positive. I know it sounds quite morbid, but it was excellent. Funny in parts, painful in parts, but mostly just remarkable acting. Each of the ladies played all of the parts in their stories - so the Zimbabwean lady played her main character, her friend, her work collegue, her mother in law, a sangoma she goes to and so forth.

The programme is broken up into the main festival programme and the fringe programme. The main programme productions are usually the bigger name things that have been invited. On the other hand, anyone can put something on the fringe. There must be over a hundred performances on the fringe, probably more like a couple of hundred. And you're taking a chance often when you try things - they could be excellent, they could be completely awful. But thats part of the fun of it.

This year I took a chance on a fringe play called "Puck's story," a production of Midsummer Night's Dream. It was completely lovely, set in a beautiful school hostel garden. And instead of set changes the play just moved to different parts of the garden. So the audience would follow the characters around. So that was a chance taken that turned out well!

2) That brings me to the risk mitigation factor: Cue. Cue is the festival newspaper which you can buy each morning and read reviews for pretty much everything. To decide, for example, which of the 5 advertised pantsula shows looks the most promising. Cue also has a blog and a TV aspect too. At festival time the streets of Grahamstown ring out with Cue vendors: "Cue for you!"

3) Exhibitions. I only went to one exhibition this year, which was a bit of an oversight. There are lots and lots of exhibitions of all sorts of art. So if thats your sort of thing you will find a lot to amuse you!


4) Music. There is all sorts of music but mostly jazz. This year I heard the Glenn Robertson jazz band, playing at my church actually, which was a treat. Last year I went to Judith Sephuma, which was also fantastic. The year before I went to my favourite favourite Mafikizolo. This year I also went to Oliver Mtukudzi, with my Zim digsmate and friends - they were beside themselves with excitement to see him here! And I went to Karen Zoid too. She is such a great live performer. But that's really just a small sample, there is a huge range of live music to choose from.

5) Winter school and wordfest. As part of the fest there is a winter school, which brings public figures to speak about all sorts of topical issues. This year the theme was "China" but there were also many speakers who spoke on entirely different topics. Another fest side event is wordfest, which focusses on writers. So there are book launches and open mike poetry sessions and talks by authors and so forth. I really love the opportunity to attend these talks. This year I went to Clem Sunter speaking on China and to Xolela Mancau speaking around the topics in his book, To the Brink, and particularly discussion the Julius Malema et. al. "kill for" statements which was a great talk. I also went to an interesting talk by Sandile Mamela, about John Tengu Jabavu and (his words) coconut intellectuals. Both Xolela Mancau and Sandile Memela were very interesting people to see live. There were many many other very interesting talks and discussions I would have loved to attend if I had had time - a panel discussion on the right to education, for example. Last year I went to a screening of the infamous Thabo Mbeki documentary.

6) Which brings me to film. There is always a film fest running within the festival programme. Usually the films are chosen around a theme or a couple of themes. Last year I went to "God is African," which I was glad to see. This year I went to the premier screening of "Triomf" which I thought was completely completely awful. Films are great if your budget is tight - usually its only about R16 or so to see a film at the film fest.

7) The most obvious face of fest is the markets. The main market is on what is called the villiage green and there is another one next to the cathedral on church square. You get the usual flea market stuff - you know what I mean - along with some really interesting stalls with crafts and jewellary and clothes and food and all manner of things. Its great to go wander around and I always find things to wish for and things to buy. This year was the year of ear rings!

Sadly the markets have become smaller over the years. I suppose because its an expensive endeavour to bring your business to fest, so its getting less lucrative for people. But the markets are still something I always look forward to. And the kudu burgers!!

8) The cathedral runs what they call Spirit fest which is another sub-programme like wordfest and the film fest. They often have films and lectures and bands and some productions and so forth. I went to a lecture on Christianity and culture this year, but there were many more talks that looked great and I just didn't manage to get to.


So yes, there is a lot going on at fest! Really to do fest properly you should get hold of the fest programmes a while before fest (there are two - one for main fest and one for the fringe). And go through them and roughly decide what you want to attend beforehand. Some things might be worth pre-booking too. The ballet, for example, is often sold out before fest even starts. And Andrew Feinstein's winter school lecture this year was sold out before I could get a ticket. More's the pity!

Of course, as I've said, many shows you just can't know about until you hear a friend recommending it or read about it in the Cue, and thats half the fun of it. But on the other hand, last year I missed a winter school talk by Barney Pityana because I didn't go through the programme till about halfway which I was deeply disappointed about!

I can't finish this blog without mentioning The Long Table - the festival resturant which runs from a church hall. It's really the place to see and be seen, and to shelter from the cold and have a meal with some friends. And see the actors you saw in shows that morning do the same.

As I said, my friend Bronwyn came to visit over fest time this year and left fully intending to become a regular fest goer. I was speaking to a family friend last week who has only missed one fest in about 15 years. There really is something for everyone - if you are into art or comedy or music or political discussion or dance, come along and make a week of it. And drop me a line and if I'm still in Grahamstown for fest next year I'll show you around!

Political Polokwane

Well, now I know what she meant :)

And those are just the North Residence names.

Things on my mind

1.) Yesterday I was chatting to a friend who is interning at an Eastern Cape hospital said they are having huge problems with medical staff leaving, mostly emigrating. Then today another friend who is working at Red Cross Children's Hospital in Cape Town said they are badly short staffed.
Oh dear oh dear.

2.) My car has millions of things wrong with it again. Ok ok just the wheel alignment and apparently there is something wrong with the timing (whatever that means) and my windscreen wipers are wiping off the side of my car which is unbelievably distracting while you're driving and I fear one day they are just going to fly off entirely.
All of which means $$$$$.
Oh dear oh dear.

3.) At some point in the forseeable future I am going to have to get a real job in the real world.
OH DEAR oh dear!

4.) I am sufferring from a severe reading backlog. I can't justify buying more books or even taking more books out of the library until I've finished some of my present reading.
At the moment I'm reading:
* How Can Man Die Better (The Life of Robert Sobukwe)
* To The Brink: The State of Democracy in South Africa
* Colour Bar: The Triumph of Seretse Khama and His Nation
* God on Monday
... I was reading A Short History of Nearly Everything but I gave that up a while Ago. And on my "I am going to read this imminently, I have it in my room waiting" list is Long Walk to Freedom (I know, I know, I still haven't read it) and Capitalist Nigger (which I have to return to someone so I must read in quickly). I need to diversify a bit in my reading I think!

5.) Most exciting: I'm going to a conference in Polokwane next week. Hurrah!! I've never been to that part of the country and I'm very excited!
My friend who is from there said I must be careful because it's "very political" around there. I'm not quite sure what that means but maybe it means I should carry Walter Sisulu's biography (its also on my "imminent reading" list) around in my backpack in case I'm accused of being part of a counter-revolutionary force and get myself into trouble. Like this poor guy, gosh. On that note - why was more not made of that story in the press? It was chilling.

What is common to man

I was in Joburg for a wedding last weekend and I stayed with the family of a friend. She lives on a small holding outside Pretoria (lots of driving!) and we had a great time over long breakfasts and dinners, with her parents regaling us with stories.

Her parents moved here from Germany, and her dad told us about how as a young boy it was his duty to take care of the families cow. It was just his mom and him, about six years old or so, and maybe a younger sibling (I don't quite remember). So money was pretty tight for them and the cow was precious.

His duty was to take the cow to the common lot every day, the common area of field next to the river where animals could graze. So he would walk the cow to the lot, run home and change for school, and fetch the cow back in the afternoon after school. And the cow would spend the night in their shed.

Last week I was picking up a girl from the township near me, to help her out with a school science project. And we got talking about cows, because there are cows wandering all over the place there. I think I had to stop for a cow in the road. So I recounted to her the story of my friend's dad and the cow.

And she told me that that was her brother's job. Yes, they also have four cows and a few goats. And her brother's job is to take them to graze in the veld every morning and fetch them in the evening, to sleep in their yard.

It reminded me of the Biblical phrase, "what is common to man."


(The verse is found in 1 Corinthians 10:13, but its the phrase, rather than the meaning of the verse, that I was reminded of).

The time of building.

"The struggle must go on - the struggle to make the opportunity for the building to begin. The struggle will go on. I speak humble and without levity when I say that, God giving me strength and courage enough, I shall die, if need be, for this cause. But I do not want to die until I have seen the building begun."

Albert Luthuli, closing the epilogue of his autobiography.

We live in a time that mean and women braver and more committed than us only dreamed of. And what responsibility comes with living in this time. To whom much has been given, much will be expected.

The Spring

As I've said before, I live in Grahamstown. It's quaint and chilled out, it's a great place to live.

But one of the real drawbacks to Grahamstown is our water. A couple of years ago we had a real water scare, where thousands of baby trout died at the Rhodes fish farm and there was a lot of concern about dangerous levels of heavy metals in our water supply. Everyone was warned not to drink the tap water and we lived on bottled water for a week or two. Rhodes bought what must have literally been tons of bottled water for students and set up water tanks around campus. It turned out, after all of the drama, that the water was safe for humans. So no Erin Brockovich for Grahamstown!

But, to quote the Rhodes followup email from after the water scare, the water is "safe (if unpleasant) to drink." Oh dear, you must know, our water is unpleasant. I only really realised it when I'd been at home in East London for a while and when I came back to Grahamstown I found my tea had the most unpleasant taste. I tried to figure out what the problem was for ages - I thought it was the type of milk, or maybe onion in the fridge had made the milk tase odd. But I finally realised the issue was the water.

Yuck.

Our water goes through phases where its browny, brown, white, has floaty white bits or floaty black bits.

Yuck.

And it often tastes like dirt.

Yuck.

I asked a friend who works in water research what the issue is, and she tells me that the problem is really that Grahamstown's water pipes are very old. So they have cracks where soil gets into them. Which isn't dangerous, I'm told. It just makes the water taste like dirt.

Of course, because we have all watched Erin Brockovich we still harbour concerns about our fertility and future health and so forth. But wonderfully, there is a spring just on the outskirts of Grahamstown. And Grahamstown is small, so "on the outskirts of Grahamstown" is a 10 minute drive away from pretty much anywhere.

So over these past years, with the water concerning all of us, the spring has become a pretty busy place. Sometimes you go there and wait half an hour in a line to get water.

This is a typical queue at the spring, Sunday afternoon I think...


The spring is in a dip just just off the side of the road. You can see my car Chloe (blue midge!) on the road, and some other cars. There's usually at least one or two cars parked next to the spring, sometimes five or six or more.



This is a close up of the actual spring, and my water container being filled up. The whole area has been built up with steps from the road down to the spring, and the pipe and area to stand your containers on as they fill up.

I have no idea who first set it up, or who maintains it. There is a placard fixed to the fence behind the spring which labels it "God's property" and asks people to keep the area clean.

I quite enjoy going to the spring because it takes a while for water containers to fill up so you get to chat to the people in the line around you. And they are all sorts of people, all ages and walks of life, so its rather nice to chat to some different people.

And of course the blue skies above and the sound and smell of running water. Lovely.

For shame

In the mail. A Truworths account card. That I never applied for. Just for just, a sparkling new opportunity to get into debt. I got a Woolworths account card in the same way. And I get periodic letters from Nedbank offering me personal loans. And SMS's offering me loans. Last year before the new credit act was passed I got several phone calls offering Kulula.com credit cards and other such fanciful things. Kulula credit cards!!!

SHAME ON YOU Truworths, Woolworths, Nedbank, Kulula and many others who try to lure South African's into unnecessary debt! We have enough financial concerns without this added temptation.

For shame.

Unfearing yourself

As a followup from my previous post!

Most white south African's are, I expect, pretty afraid of being in townships. Or maybe it was just me. But I think its a pretty common fear. Its not even a well defined fear - like a fear of being mugged or stabbed or a fear of death. Fears like that are not great, but they are understandable and justifiable. No one wants to be mugged! No, this fear is a sort of fear of general badness and the unknown. But that was particularly ineloquent, I know, perhaps someone else will be able to express it better.

Anyway, the first time a friend dropped me in the township near us to do extra math with some matric students I said I would be fine... "ja ja I'll be fine, see you later." But on the inside there was a terrified "AAAAARG!!!"
Especially when we realised the school I was dropped at (my lift having left) was closed, so we had to walk to a nearby library.

It was pretty ridiculous, in retrospect, but I was pretty scared.

Anyway, I've got over that fear now. This is roughly my technique for dealing with this kind of fear:

1) Evaluate, as best you can, if the danger is real.
If the danger is real, then leave!!
This is often a difficult thing to evaluate though, because when you are nervous and in a place you aren't used to, and feeling very conspicuous, and very aware of the newspaper article you read last week about someone being beaten to death with a spade... well, its sometimes hard to be objective.
Also sometimes you just don't have the information you need to make an informed decision - sometimes I really just don't know if an area is safe or not. And its easy to give in to prejudices (for example, that poorer areas are automatically unsafe. Which is not necessarily the case).
So it might be a good idea to ask people who are more in the know than you.

2) If you decide that the danger is not real, teach yourself not to be afraid.
So in my case, having decided that hanging around the front of a high school in the township waiting for kids to arrive for extra math is not dangerous, what then? Even if I objectively decide its not dangerous, what if I still get a fright every time someone walks past, heart beating fast, thinking people are looking at me and so on?
Well, then you train yourself to not be scared.
So for me, this means parking my car and resisting the urge to keep it locked and wait for the kids inside my locked car. It means unlocking the door, opening it and sitting on the pavement. It means greeting people.
And after a while your brain will realise that the impending danger is not so impending.

Ah!! But what about desensitising yourself to dangerous situations? Couldn't that happen if you act like this?
And that is a hazard. Which is why you do need to assess situations for danger. And be careful, be alert, don't be in lonely places on your own and so forth. You don't even need to be afraid to be alert and careful.

And as you realise you don't always have to be afraid, your world will get bigger.

My brother and I used to play a computer game called Civilization, where you explored an unknown land and settled and built up a nation. The game was played on a map (sometimes of the Earth, but you could play in a fantasy world too), which showed the landscape and your cities and people and your opponent's cities and people. But the places you had never travelled to with any of your men were dark, just blanked out on the map. You didn't know what was happening there, if any opponents had settled there, or even what the landscape there was like if it was a fantasy map.

So as well as building up cities and so forth, a big part of the game was sending out your men to explore. And as you explored, as you went new places, you would see what was happening there. Other cities you could trade with (or destroy, it was quite a millitant game!), natural resources you could tap in to, good land to settle on.

And your map of the world became more and more open. And the blanked out sections became smaller and smaller.

And thats what letting go of fear can do for you. The blanked out sections of your world (geographic and otherwise) will become smaller and smaller.

Youth Day thoughts on fear

I knew a man who lived in fear
it was huge it was angry
it was drawing near
Behind his house a secret place
was the shadow of the demon
he could never face.

This is the beginning of the song Weeping, by Bright Blue, 1987 (recently redone by Josh Groban).

Today is Youth Day in South Africa. It was one of the few things I blogged about last year. If you don't know what Youth Day is about you can go check out that post.

I'm trying to develop a habit of doing something to commemorate our public holidays. After all, most of these days are public holidays because they mark important events in our past. And remembering the past is important, and celebrating it or commemorating it, as is appropriate.

I hadn't planned anything for today because exams are ending here and I thought most people would be away today. So I thought I might write a blog entry on Youth Day, and leave it at that.

Then this morning a friend of mine messaged me to say he was going to an ANCYL (ANC Youth League) Youth Day rally today in the township near us, and would I like to come. And I thought that sounded like a great idea. I had some slight misgivings - I would probably be the only white face, and being a woman means safety is a bit of an issue. But I figured it would be fine if I went with someone I know. Anyway, to cut a long story short, after some discussion with various friends about potential safety issues, amongst other things, I decided not to go. Which was a bit sad but I didn't want to cause trouble, so I think it was best.

But the incident made me think about fear. I really really don't like my actions being dictated to by fear. I hate being afraid to walk at night, I hate being afraid to go certain places.

The lyrics at the top of this post are from a song about South Africa in the 80s.
"I knew a man who lived in fear," the lyrics go, "... He built a wall of steel and flame and men with guns to keep it tame" "... But the fear and the fire and the guns remain."

Fear is a massive issue in South Africa. For white South Africa especially. We build bigger walls, buy more expensive security systems. We don't drive certain places, certainly don't get out of the car in certain places.

And security is definately justified. And caution. Because crime is a real, pressing, issue in our country.

But there is a difference between caution and taking sensible measures to keep safe, and this irrational, pervasive fear. This feeling of being in danger all the time, the feeling of this pressing darkness, "here be dragons" on our mental maps of our towns and cities. Fear of people who are different to us. Fear of other people's anger.

Do you know why the police opened fire on school children on June 16, 1976? Do you know why police opened fire on unarmed protestors in Sharpville, 21 March 1960? As far as I know, there were no orders given for police to fire. On either occassion.

Its was a complex situation, no doubt, with many factors influencing the outcome. But fear must certainly have been one of them. Those police, surrounded by thousands of protestors. Their shooting justified to them by their fear.

This kind of fear, I say no to.

They had to conquer fear because submission to it would have meant that people of conscience would have had to betray their consciences...

Thabo Mbeki

"tryin to brain wash the black man"

Yesterday my digsmates and a friend and I were discussing Barack Obama and his chances in the US elections. We were having a laugh about some of the craziness surrounding Obama: roads in Kenya being named after him, and children. Apparently some children are even being re-named Barack Obama!

So in the silliness we were speaking about Obama needing to secure US oil interests, and someone commented that he needs to get chummy with Gadaffi. Which is surely possible us all being African's, you know what I'm sayin'.

To our amusement this morning we found this article on News24:
Obama disappoints Gadhafi
"Though Gadhafi referred to Obama as "our brother, the Kenyan with American nationality", he also said he expected more from the Illinois Democrat."

The article led to a most hysterical string of emails this morning:

Maybe Chavez and Mugabe can band money together and give it to Obama as a "gift". You know us Africans we give away gifts. Almost like the gift Zuma gave Shaik. Then Obama can make a statement that he inetnds to use the money to build a Dam on the Congo to supply his fellow Africans!!!

Thats way he placates Israel and is on the road to winning Gadhafi back!

"Gadhafi suggested that Obama should promise to give Africa the money Washington allocates to Israel to "build a dam on the Congo River to supply the whole African continent with power."

Pamela*

I cant believe two intelligent ladies like yourselves have been fooled by this report. This is what is known as propaganda. They're tryin to brain wash the black man, so brother can turn against brother. I mean honestly, they didn't even spell Gadaffi's name right, it's Gadaffi not Gadhafi. I see thru this propaganda and may your eyes be opened too. Until i hear these words coming out of Comrade Gadaffi's mouth myself, i still stand that Gadaffi and Obama are a force to be reckoned with. Sisters this a just a tactic to try convince us that Comrade Obama is not on our side.

Power to the people!!!!

Moanique*

Moanique

how many times do we have to say this...its not always about the black people..what does Gadaffi/Gadahfi have to do about electing the US president. So because Prince Phillip is Queen Elizabeths husband i can say that he is not representing the Greeks...

Alyssa*

You Greeks have never had the same sort of togetherness as us Black folk. This is because the Greeks have never been persecuted! You have always been among the echelons of society, working ur way thru the high calss and often topping the high Class. For as long as I can remember, my people have been fighting to get to the top. Now, one of us has made it. All black people now unite to ensure that he is successful. His success is our success.

One person, is the group. HALALA!

Pamela*

what are you talking about!!! we have neva been persecuted????

Let me tell you about us being persecuted by the bloody Turks and Germans! The turks have destroyed so much of our culture..taken our land and killed my people. And that is for over 100 years!!! Then the Germans came and just used our land for strategic purposes, made us slaves....

Zito Ellada!!!

Alyssa*

* Names changed to protect the identities of the emailing persons. Alyssa, for the record, is Greek.