A chronology of events

A chronology of events:
(I will finish it later! Incomplete at present)

June 2005 - Rumors of political conspiracy against Zuma.
14 June 2005 - Thabo Mbeki fires Jacob Zuma as deputy president of the country.
29 June 2005 - Zuma makes his first appearance in court, charged with two counts of corruption. There were more than a thousand supporters outside the courthouse. Zuma says that he his pleased that his day in court has finally arrived.
31 June 2005 - Zuma's trial was due to start, but postponed for four months.
2 November 2005 - The night on which Zuma was accused of raping a lady.
12 November 2005 - Zuma handed the NPA's provisional indictment against him, at the Durban magistrate's court. The court proceedings were much more low key, with less supporter chaos, than the June court proceeding.
10 September 2008 - At ANCYL anniversary function, Julius Malema tells us: "We will crush you and it doesn't matter who you are - even if you're in the national executive committee of the ANC. Zuma is going to Pretoria. Zuma will be the face of the ANC election campaign, so be careful when you deal with Zuma because you are dealing with a president-in-waiting. We expect Zuma to march with us to the Union Buildings and (President Thabo Mbeki) knows that there's a new person coming in."
11 Spetember 2008 - Approximately 500 people attend a night vigil for Zuma, opposite the courthouse where his case will be ruled on the following day.
12 September 2008 - Zuma wins court application, Judge Chris Nicholson rules that the NPA's decision to prosecute Zuma on fraud and corruption charges was invalid because the state did not consult Zuma before it prosecuted him. The judge also implicates the presidency in a conspiracy against Zuma.
12 September 2008 - An informal caucus of NEC members meets on the courthouse steps and decide to remove Mbeki.
13 September 2008 - Thabo Mbeki told to resign by ANC NEC.
14 September 2008 - Thabo Mbeki hands in his resignation.

Reeling from the news

I was writing the blog post below last night and I left it to finish today. But I just have no stomach for it now. Today President Mbeki was recalled as president by the ANC. He has agreed to resign, and will probably do so early next week. Tomorrow evening at 7:30pm he will be addressing the nation. No guesses where I will be at 7:30, in front of the TV!

I think Pitso's why questions sum up the situation pretty well at the moment.

The post I started last night:

Okay okay I admit it, I'm a not so secret Thabo Mbeki fan. I just like the man. What can I say? I suppose thats a bit ridiculous really, I've never even net him. But nonetheless, I quite dig our president.

I think it was my season of reading his "Letter from the President" on ANC Today. They really were one of the highlights on my week.

Anyway, however you feel about our president, he is having a bit of a hard time at the moment. I normally quite like people and I try to be sympathetic to their views, even if I don't particularly agree with them. But on this occasion, people are being downright stupid, disrespectful and vindictive.

Thought of the day: Simulcast

Remember watching Beverly Hills 90210 on Simulcast?

For the youngsters and the non-South Africans, let me explain. Beverly Hills 90210 was a show based in the USA, in English. But for broadcast in South Africa it was dubbed into Afrikaans. And for those who wanted to listen to it in English, there was a radio broadcast of the show, in English, at the same time as the show was aired on TV. So you could tune in your radio, turn off the TV sound, and listen to the show in English. Sometimes the speech and pictures would get a bit out of sinc, but that was just par for the course. Some TVs even came with "simulcast" radio featues, where the TV itself could be tuned in to the radio and you could get your sound from the radio station automatically.

Remember?

Now lets think about this for a moment. The programme came over to us from the US in English. We then dubbed it into Afrikaans and broadcast it in Afrikaans. And made secondary provision for those who wanted to listen to it in English.

Wow, what a mission.

But it just goes to show that people were serious about promoting their language. And it also goes to show that it is quite possible to find innovative ways of including many languages, if we care to do it.

Question of the day: MK

My question of the day:

What happened to former Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) soldiers?

Reading around a bit, it looks like some of them joined the SANDF. What proportion was this? Did most of them join the SANDF? Or relatively few? And those that didn't? Were they helped out in any way? By the ANC or by government? What about families of deceased MK soldiers? I read about the MKMVA - the MK Military Vetrans' Association. What do they do? Do they actually help former MK guys out? And MK widows and families?

I was looking at an old 1994-ish era newspaper and I noticed a big picture of about five MK soldiers, looking pretty happy, in their camo. Celebrating the beginning of democracy I guess. And the picture made me sad. Because I thought, a former MK soldier, maybe he was 24 in 1990, and apartheid was ending, hooray, and MK was disbanded. And I wondered what happened to him? He probably didn't have much of an education. Maybe he left school at 17 to go for MK training over the border. So what then, for him? Does he have a family to support?

And really I don't have much of an idea of what happened to guys like those in the picture. I hope someone helped them out. I hope there were measures in place for them.

Because I would hate to think that people who fought for the freedom of my country were marginalised when that freedom was won. Young people who sacrificed a lot. Took up arms. Probably left their families and even South Africa for a time. Constantly under threat. Goodness I hope they didn't wake up to a country that didn't have place for them.

We may or may not agree with the armed struggle, what was done and what motivated it, but either way I think we need to acknowledge people who sacrificed a lot for our country.

So does anyone know? What happened to former MK soldiers?

The one with the knife

This blog is another shameless Grahamstown plug, I'm afraid!

Yesterday I was waiting for someone on the street outside my block of flats. I got an sms to say that they were going to be late so I walked back into the flats, past some workmen who were working on the front of the building, preparing to paint or something.

I caught their eyes as I walked past, so I greeted them. One of the guys called me over and asked me if he could borrow a knife.

Borrow a knife?

So I thought that maybe they wanted a butter knife. For sandwiches. In which case I would be entirely happy lending it to them. Then I thought, maybe they need a knife to scrape paint off the wall. Because that is what they were doing. In which case I do not want to lend them a knife, because it will get messed up. Then I thought, perhaps they want a knife to stab me with. And then I definitely don't want to lend them a knife.

So I asked them what they wanted to use the knife for. And they kind of mumbled about. So I persisted because I didn't want to lend them a knife to be destroyed scraping a wall and I most certainly didn't want to give them a knife to, uh, knife me with. Also, I wanted to know what kind of knife they wanted. Eventually they came out with it - they wanted it to peel a pineapple with.

Okay.

So I walked upstairs and as I got a little bit past them they turned to each other, made some comments and laughed. Probably because of the ridiculous girl who was scared to lend them a knife in case they stabbed her. Embarassing.

After having a laugh at what I expect was my expense, one of the guys followed me to fetch the knife.

And as I was walking I thought, oh dear, I hope this guy doesn't actually have bad intentions. Because a strange man is following me into my home and I am going to give him a knife with pineapple cutting capabilities.

But I was pretty sure it would be fine.

So I lent the guy a knife.

And he took it and they cut their pineapple.

And returned it.

Yayi for living in a town where I don't have to feel scared lending knives to strangers.

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.