Legalising prostitution

South Africa is presently toying with the idea of legalising adult
prostitution. The discussion document is available on the South African Law Reform Commission website (SALRC), for those who are interested.

The discussion document presents four options for the law concerning prostitution:

1. Prostitution is completely illegal (as it is presently)
2. Prostitution is partially illegal (where it will be a criminal act for men to use prostitutes and running brothels will be criminal, pimping women will be criminal, but the prostitutes themselves will not be criminals)
3. Prostitution is completely legal
4. Prostitution will be regulated by government

I am not legally trained so I am probably not getting as much out of the document as I could be. And perhaps readers of this will have insight I don't have.

But for me, the thought of legalising prostitution is completely alarming. For moral reasons, including the fact that prostitution is primarily the brazen exploitation of poor women. People sometimes try to sell this as being about freedom of choice for women, being able to choose how to use their bodies. I might take that seriously if prostitutes were middle class women who decided to have a go at prostitution because it allows them to make some extra money to spoil themselves with, and still be at home with their children during the day. But thats a ludicrous thought, isn't it? Because women don't WANT to be prostitutes. No little girl grows up wanting to be a prostitute (unless she has watched Pretty Women, and then she actually wants to be a prostitute so that Richard Gere will come and save her from prostitution.)

Prostitutes end up being prostitutes primarily because they don't see any other options for providing for themselves or their families.

A friend of mine grew up in what I suppose is a semi-red-light district in my home town. She says that she was befriended by the son of a nearby brothel owner. Looking back at it now, she says she suspects it was a strategic move on the part of the brother owner, trying to draw her in. Thankfully she moved out of that neibourhood when she was still quite young. Now she is doing a postgraduate degree at university, loving what she is doing, and is one of my heros. Is very involved in education, she works with learner representative councils in township schools. It wouldn't suprise me at all if she ends up being the next minister of education :)

But she could have ended up as a prostitute, had things turned out differently. Isn't that a horrible thought? But if we make prostitution legal, we are saying that it is a legitimate choice. Imagine career counselors in poor schools recommending girls become prostitutes? Imagine them recommending *your* little girl becomes a prostitute? "Well, academics isn't your strong point and you aren't really gifted with people either. You don't have obvious leadership qualities... you aren't gifted with your hands. You aren't sporty. Have you considered prostitution?"
No no no!!!

One argument for legalising prostitution is that because prostitution is illegal, prostitutes are vulnerable to abuse and brutality by policeman. But that is a red herring, to my mind. Corruption in the police force should definitely be dealt with, but that is an issue on its own.

And this issue of legalising prostitution before 2010 - are we inviting foreign men to take advantage of poor South African women?

My first preference would be for the second option above (partially illegal), followed by the first option of prostitution remaining fully illegal.

But the more I read about it, the more angry I get. That we are seriously considering decriminalising prostitution entirely. Even setting up government bodies to regulate prostitution - it is like something out of Terry Pratchett.

I could write more, but let me just leave you with some choice quotes from the discussion document.

The SALRC is inviting comments on the discussion document, closing 30 June. So I encourage you to send in comments. There is an interesting article entitled "Myths and Facts about Decriminalization of Prostitution" on the Family Policy Institute website (here) if you want more information.

Quotes from the Discussion Document:

"Research shows that irrespective of the legal option [options 1,2,3 or 4 above] followed, women and girls in prostitution have a mortality rate 40 times higher than the national average."

"The latter study also found that it is not a job that the prostitutes like doing, or would choose to do should their range of options have been wider."

"Many are school drop-outs from abusive families, often bearing children from
adolescent relationships. Many have kids and grandparents to take care of. They face real financial pressures. But given their backgrounds, their options are limited. They can work as check-out girls at supermarkets; hang up clothing at retail stores; work as domestics; do waitressing; dress hair; sit at home; etc. or they can sell sex."

"The female prostitute has been the social outcast, the male patron has been accepted or ignored. She is visible and denounced, her existence tainted by her activity. He is faceless, a mere ingredient in her offence rather than a criminal in his own right, who returns to respectability after the encounter. In terms of the sexual double standards prevalent in our society, he has often been regarded either as having given in to temptation, or as having done the sort of thing that men do."

"According to this research, men [believe that they] have the absolute right to have their sexual needs met whenever and wherever they want."

"Some responded that all women would have to function as prostitutes in order to stop the institution of prostitution."

"Prostitutes do not view prostitution as a long-term career choice and at some point most prostitutes wish to leave prostitution."

And a quote that made me very sad:
"Nearly 40% of all black prostitutes interviewed had migrated to the major cities from the Eastern Cape."

Hope - a question

A question for anyone who reads this:

I'm pretty optimistic about the future of our country, I think we've done pretty well recently. So I'm hopeful about the future. And I like being a South African. Sure we have problems, but on this earth there will always be problems. And I rather like being alive in the problem-fixing stage :)

So bottom line: I am hopeful.

But from reading friend's facebook notes and listening to people speak about SA, it seems that there are also lots of people who have almost lost hope entirely. People who are angry and afraid and feel they have no stake in the future of the country.

Which I sortof battle to get. I know Joburg is a scary world to live in, so sometimes people from there are perpetually freaked out. Which obviously takes its toll.

But outside of that?

Are you hopeful? Or not?
Any thoughts on the matter?

Heathrow

I was in Heathrow airport in London for the first time last week. Severely sleep deprived and lugging about a back pack with a laptop, two external hard drives, all the electronic bits and pieces that go with a laptop and two external hard drives, various adaptor plugs, a change of clothes and some other bits of pieces.

I had about a nine hour wait in Heathrow, and I just couldn't keep my eyes open. I was nervous to sleep in a public place, especially with my laptop and other works stuff on me. It just felt too vulnerable.

Anyway, eventually I really just couldn't keep awake. And I saw so many people sprawled flat on airport chairs, suitcases next to them, fast asleep. So I just bundled all my stuff into my backpack and slept on it.

But the reason I am telling you about Heathrow is actually that I wanted to tell you a funny story that happened there...

Before I passed out on my backpack, I went to the bathroom.

And it was pretty gross.

Not unlike the kind of bathroom you'd find at a petrol station on a road trip. And actually, on the scaffy side of that even. Water all over the basins. Toilets without proper seats. Toilet paper gunk on the basins. Generally it all looked like it really needed to be cleaned.

And in my sleep deprived state I smiled to myself and thought "how shocking, this is supposed to be a first world country!! And I am scared of touching anything in the bathroom!!"

I was walking out of the bathroom thinking this, and as I walked I overheard a conversation between two ladies in front of me, with what sounded like Nigerian accents. They were also complaining about the state of the bathrooms.

One of the ladies obviously heard me mentally agreeing with her, because she turned to me and the three of us commiserated about the dirty British airport bathrooms!

:)



(The picture at the top is of the luggage trolleys at the Chicago airport - you have to pay $3 to use them! As if! Although I eventually crumbled and payed the money, after ages spent wandering looking for my bus)

Youth Day

It is exam time at my university at the moment. A couple of years ago the university started using new exam scheduling software, and exams were inadvertently scheduled for Youth Day. Which I didn't notice at all actually - I'm a postgrad, I don't write exams, so I don't bother looking at the timetable.

I first heard about it when SASCO started making noise about it. And the university were digging their heels in an refusing to do anything about it.

I don't get very angry often But on this occasion I did, and before I knew it I had sent an angry email to the Dean of Students. Which the Dean of Students then forwarded on to the Registrar. And I spent a few days being afraid I would be expelled. (Silly of me!)

Anyway, to to commemorate Youth Day 2009, here is the email:


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear ...

When I first heard that exams were being written on Youth Day, I was shocked. Tven then I assumed it must have been a mistake in the timetable planning, but nonetheless I was shocked that there was no announcement that it would be changed, no apparent remorse on the part of the university. Just an announcement from the SRC that if people writing exams on that day had a problem with it, they should contact them.

To me, this was shocking. I found it completely disrespectful, belittling our country's history. This is not just an issue of a few people who happen to be writing that day, its an issue for all of us. And a fundamental issue, to my mind, is that the university seems not to care at all.

Then the timetable changed, so we heard, because SASCO made their voice heard? And I was glad. And now I hear again that people are writing exams on Youth Day.

Now I understand that the reason exams were initially scheduled for that day was a mistake. I understand that now some of the students whose exams were scheduled for that day might prefer for them to be on that day, because if they are changed at this stage they will have awful timetables.

I understand this. I sympathize with the universities mistake - an easy oversight, new scheduling software, I heard? I sympathize with the students who now would prefer to write on Youth Day - better write then than suffer with a terrible timetable.

But I am horrified that it came to this. I am horrified at Rhodes silence, when the least we could expect is an apology. I am horrified that people had to make a fuss not to write exams on Youth Day. And I'm very disappointed
that Rhodes seems not to care.

To quote someone from the Rhodes forums:

"im dissappointed, infact ashamed, possibly angry

at the SRC and the student body as a whole We have really taken student
apathy to a whole new level....
Whether you write on that day or not that is not the point; the point is
atleast 1/4 of us our here because of the youth who died this day that we
are greatly disregarding"

I too am disappointed, in fact ashamed, possibly angry.

I know there is probably nothing that can be done to change things at this point, but I just wanted to express my disappointment in the university.

Regards,
...

After Tears

I love books, but they are expensive. So I only usually buy books when I am travelling long distance, bussing or flying. My hanging-around-in-the-airport treat to myself is a new book.

I've been going through an African and South African book phase for the past few of years. I bought How Can Man Die Better: The Life of Robert Sobukwe by Benjamin Pogrund in the Joburg airport CNA - that was a good read, I learned a lot (although I confess I never finished it! It just dragged a bit towards the end). The next time I was in JHB airport I decided to try some local fiction. But everything I found just looked so depressing. What did I end up getting? I don't remember... possibly nothing.

Since then I've remained on my quest for South African fiction. But what I really wanted is something light and fun. I'm up for biographies and tragedies and satire and what not. But I'm also curious about the stories we are writing...

So the last time I flew I scoured Exclusive Books in JHB International for some fun, current, South African fiction. They have a great South African and African books selection, by the way, if you are ever hanging about there.

What I eventually came away with was After Tears by Niq Mhlongo. The story about Bafana, a law student at UCT who failed his final year. He then returns home to his family in Soweto who have already nicknamed him "advo" (advocate) and are expecting him to make something great of himself. I thought it sounded like the makings of a great story. And the reviews on the back all praised the book and author, with accolades like "the writer of the kwaito generation"! So I thought I would take a dive into the "fast, hip and happening" (ref. dust jacket) and bought the book.

Well, I'd give it maybe a 2 out of 5. Or perhaps a 2/5 overall, with a 4/5 for characters.

I'd actually like to know what other people thought of the book, but I really wasn't very taken with it.

I think the book was going for the whole "this is the reality of township life" angle. Which could be a great thing, reading is a great way to get some insight into how people live. So seeing as that isn't my world, "this is the reality of township life" could have been great. And he did do a good job at painting that picture. With great characters especially. His characters were fantastic. Often with great dialogue.

But I thought there were two problems with the book:

The first problem is mine really: I am pretty prudish. So I found it quite shocking. I came away from the book resolving never to speak to any strange men ever again. I've noticed this in other current South African literature actually. It is actually the reason I won't read Fred Khumalo's books (and I really would rather like to). I suppose it is people trying to be gritty and real what not. But I'm sceptical about this. Good books aren't about impressing people with how crass you can be... they are about great stories and great characters and great insight and great humour. Or perhaps I just live in a bubble.

However, the second problem was actually the main one. If a book is good enough you can almost overlook it's crassness. But After Tears has almost no plot. I'm serious. Nothing ever seems to happen. Maybe there is some existential deepness going on there, but for me the reader, I just go bored. You can tell if I find a book really riveting: I read too fast because I want to see what happens next. But in this book, nothing happened. Well, a few things happened. But they all seemed a bit disjointed. Like a primary school essay: I did this. And then I did this other thing. And then she... and then he... and then and then and then.

He kept on introducing interesting characters, or interesting thing would happen that seemed like a plot starting. and then... nothing. His Zimbabwean friend wants to marry him to stay in the country... then nothing happened. Some old guy claims their family stole what was his house way back in the 70's... interesting? Very. But then nothing happened with it. Weird relationship with his mom's best friend... kinda gross? Yup. But interesting? For about two pages. Then nothing happened. Getting false degree papers then opening a business - that's interesting, right? Nothing happened. Uncle in jail for defending the family honour... interesting character! The beginning of a plot? Nope! No plot to be found!

Which was such a pity. Especially because some of his characters were so great - I wanted to see more of them. I wanted the ball to start rolling. For the story to start.

I read an interview with his were he said "I want my writing to provide my readers with everything they need to imagine the world around them... I want my characters in my novels to find many friends in many places around the planet, and give them the survival skills while facing challenges in this multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-creed and multi-lingual society of ours" (here).
That he certainly does!

His spotlight insights into different characters actually remined me a bit of the book Tsotsi (not the movie, the book, there is a lot more to the book!)

What photograph is to movie, this book is to books. And it is a really good photograph. Just not much good as a movie.

But I would be interested to hear what other people have to say. (Fred Khumalo seems to have loved it.)

Quote of the moment

New quote of the moment:

"So we want to know if there are any economic conditions under which Eskom will not request unreasonable increases in electricity prices?"
- Mr Thami Bolani, from the National Consumer Forum (article here).

Bravo Mr Bolani!!!


And on an entirely different note, I was reading the Ferial Haffajee and Helen Zille exchange over the whole 100% male Western Cape cabinet issue. And Zille made the most perfectly awful comment:

"As for “race”, the top 12 positions (including the Speaker and deputy Speaker) are equally divided -- six people of colour and six whites. This is not a result of quotas."
- Helen Zille.

Oh dear!! *cringes*


-

Blog post of the moment

Blog post of the moment:

In Defence of Helen Zille
(The South Afrika I want)
on KasieKulture


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This week's idea

I am a bit Pinky and the Brain-ish in that I am usually hatching some plan or another, thinking up some grand idea. It is not usually to take over the world though. Sometimes it is a business idea, or something I think should be changed, or some problem I am trying to think of a solution to (like how to make home affairs work).

It is just what occupies my mind when I am doing things that don't require thought.

A classic example is a question a digsmate and I posed to each other a few years ago: If you were given oodles of money, maybe a hundred billion rand, and told to use it to fix the AIDS problem in South Africa... how would you spend it? What would you do? I thought about it a lot and we discussed it. And she eventually gave the best answer I have ever heard to a question like that. Her answer actually still informs my thinking on those sorts of issues today.

There is always something to keep ones mind busy. A few weeks ago it was the problem of young people leading purposefully reckless liefstyles because of the possibility of an AIDS grant. And people with AIDS not taking care of themselves so their CD4 counts drop low enough to get the grant. That is a scary thing, isn't it?!

Anyway, my idea for this week is on running a science enrichment class. I was helping a young man who is repeating matric. We were going over some science and maths. He didn't have a science teacher for matric - can you beat it! His teacher moved to work at the Department of Education, and the school never replaced him! Sheesh, useless.

We were chatting about Faraday's law and electromagnetism and what not. He is a smart kid, he catches things quickly, and he is an interested student... asks questions, is keen. A pleasure to help really.

Anyway, it got me thinking of this week's grand idea. Something I would really like to do is to start a science enrichment class. Maybe on Saturday mornings. For kids in Grade 11 or 12, who are pretty good at science and hoping to study science at university. But go to schools that aren't great.

It wouldn't be primarily school syllabus based, though we could do some things in line with the syllabus. We would just do all sorts of fun science things...
we could make electromagnets, muck around with electric circuits, we could have an astronomy evening, we could read some Richard Feynmann, we could do fun intro's to univsity work, go on outings to interesting sciency places, use excel to make pretty graphs, learn sume rudimentary computer programming, make mobius strips, that sort of thing.

Maybe for a group of five or so kids. When I am finished with this whole university thing myself, I think I will try and do it! :)

Full fat

I have been scarce lately, I know. Mostly because work has been swamping me.

But as a quick just for fun blog post... something odd I noticed yesterday:

Full cream milk is called full cream, while low fat milk is called low fat. Wait, what? Well, they are just cleverly named, right? So the emphasis on full cream milk packaging in not that it is full of fat, but that it is creamy... the emphasis on low fat milk is not that it tastes horrible in tea, but that it is healthy.

I never never noticed that before. Until yesterday, when I was buying maas at Pick 'n Pay. Because the mass was labeled "full fat." And I thought "full fat!! gross!" and then I realised "full cream" is actually "full fat" anyway.

So why does Clover put "full cream" on their milk and "full fat" on their mass? Hmmm... ! Best not speculate I suppose!

The reason I was buying mass is for a wonderful recipe, which I will post here in case you want to try it.


Cheese Bread

500 g self raising flour
500 g maas (see pic* above!)
about 3/4 C grated cheddar cheese (and some extra for sprinkling on top)
1 pkt white onion soup (brown is okay too, but I usually use white)
1 t dried parsely

* Chuck it all into a bowl and mix it together. Add some milk if the mixture needs more liquid.
* Spray 'n cook two loaf pans and put the mixture into them.
* Put it into the oven (pre-heated to 180 degrees C) and cook for about 50 mins to an hour.
* About 40 minutes into the cooking, sprinkle some cheese on top of the rising loaves of bread, just to give it time to melt and go crispy.
* When you think it is time to take it out, just test it by sticking a knife in an making sure if comes out reasonably dry. Because the cooking time depends on your oven etc. and you don't want gooey bread!

Easy and really yummy! And it looks really impressive to guests, if they see you make your own bread :)
Enjoy!

* Pic from here.

Free State

And here is a plot of the latest Free State results:


(The plot axes are explained here.)

Election rigging!

Nah, I'm just kidding. But if the numbers on the News24 maps now are correct, the elections must have been rigged:



81% for the ANC! 12% for the UDM!!! Not so much - the votes add up to way more than 100% !

There must be a problem with their program :)
Maybe take their results with a pinch of salt... (You can download the official results from the IEC website. It is not very user friendly though, I am afraid.)

A completely different picture!

Here is the equivalent graph for the voting stations in the Western Cape:



I had better get to work so I am not going to comment on it. But isn't that just a completely different picture!

Election Results by Laura

My labmates and I have been eagerly watching the News24 election results map all day - it is quite wonderful! (It is here if you haven't seen it yet).

But we have also been lamenting that there are no graphs.

So here is my offering to the floor - a graph of the Eastern Cape votes counted so far. It shows the leading 5 parties, and the percentage of the vote they got in each voting district. (The voting districts are just each given a number on the x-axis).


See, isn't that fantastic! You can tell so much from this graph! That the ANC is doing well across the board, except for a few dips. The big dip towards the right must be a UDM stronghold - and if I go back and check what areas those polling stations were in, they were from the OR Tambo District. So that must be a large area of UDM support.

The DA and COPE are interesting. COPE has fair percentages across most polling stations, ranging between about 10 - 20%. The DA is different though - across most sites it has almost no support at all. But where it does have support, it has strong support, often beating the ANC.

I suppose (what do you think? perhaps I am wrong?) that it is because DA votes are concentrated in primarily white suburbs, where a vast majority of people vote DA. COPE votes, however, are move evenly spread across urban, rural, opulent and impoverished areas. And perhaps more evenly spread across racial lines too?

The ID doesn't have much support. But the areas where it does have support are also areas of strong DA support - I suppose the ID and DA appeal to similar sections of the electorate. But here is another interesting thing - DA and ID peaks pretty much always go together. But there are COPE peaks where there are no DA and ID voters. What is that telling us? That COPE was getting votes from areas that are not traditionally opposition party strongholds. In other words - in those areas COPE was taking previously ANC (or UDM) votes! Also interesting in that COPE and the UDM often have similar areas of strength.

Interesting!

I'll make a map of the Western Cape for curiosity's sake too quick, then I had better work!

Election party

My friends and I decided to have an election party. But we live in a block of flats so we have limited options party wise, unless we sucker someone else into letting us use their house as a venue. Which is a mission. So we were trying to think of something fun we could do to celebrate the elections. Because it is important to celebrate these things! (We celebrated freedom day last year, for example).

Se we eventually came up with "30 Seconds: SA Election 2009 edition" - we are going to play the board game 30 seconds, but make our own additional South Africa and election themed cards to supplement the original cards. I have been charged with making the cards. The words I have to put on the cards, so far, are:

affirmative action, alive with possibility, African Renaissance, Alan Boesak, alliance, aluta continua, arms deal, Ballot paper, Bantu Holomisa, black diamonds, black economic empowerment, Blade Nzimande, bourgeois, broad based black economic empowerment, bus rapid transit, cadre, campaign, civil society, coalition, cock a snook, Colonisation, commission of enquiry, comrade congress of the people, conscientise, constitution, COPE, Cosatu, counter revolutionary, crime, Currie Cup, Deborah Patter, democracy, deploy, Desmond Tutu, Drankensburg, Elections, emigrate, Eskom, Evita Bezuidenhout, fifa world cup, food parcels, food security, freedom, gautrain, Gwede Mantashe, Helen Zille, Hugh Masikela, Human rights, Imbizo, Independant Electoral Commission, informal settlement, Interface, investigation, Isidingo, Jacob Zuma, judiciary, Julius Malema, Kgalema Motlanthe, KFC, lambast, land reform, liberation, Luthuli house, Madiba, Mafikizolo, Mahendra, Mangosuthu, Msholozi, Buthelezi, manifesto, MEC, Miriam Makeba, mobilise, Motorcade, national democratic revolution, National Prosecuting Authority, Nelson Mandela, Nkandla, Nkosi Sikeleli, opposition party, Orlando Pirates, Outcomes Based Education, parliament, Patricia de Lille, Polokwane, premier league, president, province, rainbow nation, rally, reconciliation, republic, Rivonia, ruling party, rural development, SABC, SAFM, scorpions, Sevende Laan, Steven Friedman, swart gevaar, Table mountain, Task team, tender, Terror Lekota, Thabo Mbeki, Third degree, Thulasizwe Simelani, trade union, transformation, travelgate, treatment action campaign, Trevor Manuel, two-thirds majority, ubuntu, UDM, Umkhonto we Sizwe, umshini wam, Union buildings, universal franchise, vuvuzela, woodwork, Zapiro, Zwelinzima Vavi

I was trying to strike a balance between ones people are more likely to know, and ones people are less likely to know! I'm still thinking up more - anyone want to contribute some? :)

Just for fun

Some posters I saw outside the local Pick 'n Pay last year:

Three words on Umshini Wam

Listen, its not my favorite song. I don't sing it in the shower or hum it as I walk to campus.

But, you know... really.

It seems to me that this is a classic case of much fuss being made about nothing.

As far as I understand, it was a song sung in a certain time period in our history. When young men hopped the border and were trained to fight. And the machine gun, it was part of that. The armed struggle - was it right, was it wrong, did it do more harm than gooda? Was it necessary? I don't know. I'd rather like to know more about it. But whatever way you answer those questions, the fact remains that some South African's took up arms in the hopes of winning their freedom. And it was part of how we came to be here today, a democratic society.

And to remember that aspect of our past? Surely its okay to remember? To sing the songs people sang then? Isn't that part of remembering? And some people sacrificed a lot to be a part of that. Soldiers fighting for a free South Africa. They are worth remembering, I think.

So me myself, I don't really have a problem with "Umshini wam." Unless there is a verse that translates "I am going to shoot Laura with my machine gun if she doesn't vote for the ANC on the 22nd." If there is, gosh, please let me know and I will change my mind. But for the moment, I really don't have a problem with the song.

And I think that the irony here is that if people had not made a fuss about it in the first place, it wouldn't be so widely sung at all.

Perhaps I'm wrong. But it seems to me that the reason there are Umshini wam ring tones, that it is sung in election queues and at all ANC events, is just ANC members being defiant in the face of disapproval from some sectors of society. How dare they say we can't sing this song that is meaningful to us! We will sing it! We will sing it at every possible occasion! And, ha, there is nothing you can do to stop us!

And the problem is that getting angry about Umshini wam is really majoring on a minor minor issue. And when you major on minors, the actual problems get overlooked. There are real reasons to be concerned about the ANC. But we get too caught up being outraged over Umshini wam and other such small things. So there is no time to listen and think and engage, and offer informed criticism.

Yup, those were my three or so words on umshini wam.

We're poor people

I had all of these ideas for blog topics, but they have all just entirely escaped me. Oh well.

I'm busy watching Blood Diamond with some friends. Having just finished an argument about Zuma/Mbeki and a discussion about the EAC (East African Community).

Ah this is a sad movie. What they do to these child soldiers especially.

I was all ready to blog about the NPA announcement, but I'm just over it now. All I have to say on that matter is to share a proverb I remembered today: "When two bulls fight, the grass suffers."

Instead let me tel you about a terrible faux pas I made a few days ago. I was in Pick 'n Pay shopping with my digsmate. We were walking past the meat section, and I noticed these huge rolls of polony, and I said...

*pause here*
You need some background. Firstly, I had recently been speaking to my digsie about the sad state of my bank account, and were were commiserating about our lack of money.
Now you know when you hang out with the same people for many years, you develop your own slang. One of our slang phrases is "we are poor people." I don't know where it came from, but it is said with a certain itonation and it is just a way of saying that we don't have any money.
Okay, secondly, I quite like polony. My digsmate loathes it.
*unpause*

... and I said something along the lines of, "Hey, lets get one of those polonys, because we are poor people!"

!!!

Now I was really just teasing my digsmate about her polony aversion, using a turn of phrase we always use.

But *woops* - because that is not what it looked like! It looked like I was mocking poor people eating polony!! Eish. A man walking past gave me quite a look!

I should watch my tongue!

The cutest boy ever

For the past week I have been working at SciFest Africa, the national science festival in Grahamstown. Scifest is great actually... it is a big festival of exhibitions, workshops, talks, talkshops, games and so on, all with a science theme. And thousands and *thousands* of kids come to participate. Mostly from the Eastern Cape, but also from all over South Africa.

I was stationed at the SAAO Astronomy exhibition. I suppose they put me there because I am studying Astronomy-ish type stuff. It was all pretty intense, especially the times when there were masses of kids.

It is the International Year of Astronomy at the moment, so the Astronomy exhibition was *massive*. The SAAO was exhibiting, and the SKA, and the Cape Town planetarium, and some organisation that does Astronomy education for schools. So all of the Astronomy people had a massive exhibition with real telescopes people could use and posters and models of telescopes and planets and other demonstrations. And the biggest attraction - a big portable planetarium. Where about 20 kids at a time would go sit in this little planetarium in the dark, and look at a projection of the night sky. Then someone did a talk about the stars in the night sky (sometimes it was me doing the talks!!).

But one of the most wonderful things of the whole week was the most *adorable* boy I met today. He was in Grade 4, and he came to look at a solar system model I was showing people. And he was *so* keen. He was amazed by everything I said. So I took him all over the exhibition and showed him different things and different pictures. And he was priceless. Sometimes he was just speechless with awe. Like when I told him that stars were actually as big as the sun, just far far away. His little eyes just got big and he was amaaaazed. Wow! Wow! That's amazing! And he would just ask questions...

Ah what a lovely boy! Made my day today :)

Malema

If any of you remember... last year my birthday wish was to have tea with Julius Malema.

Well I was very excited last week, you must know. I thought my chance had finally come - I heard Julius Malema was coming to speak at Rhodes. So the day before the event I found some ANCYL people chilling on a wall on campus and offered to pick Julius up from the airport.

They laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed :)

So I didn't end up going to pick up Malema from the airport. And in the end, he didn't end up coming to the Progressive Youth Alliance meeting he had been scheduled to address. But I went along to the meeting anyway.

And aside from the fact that it was mostly 3 hours of sitting around waiting for things to happen, I had a great time.

A journ student from Rhodes put up a bit of an account of the event here. It is funny how two people can have such a different take on the same situation. As I left the venue at the end I bumped into a friend and I asked her how she felt about the event... she said she found it very disturbing. Why? I don't know really. Perhaps it is that same "Polokwane" image we saw on TV, of dancing shouting hordes of people. If you look with one eye, it is people having a good time, getting into the spirit f things. If you look with another eye, it is a marauding mass of angry violent people who are going to shoot you with their machine guns.

Which it isn't. Really. Its mostly people having a good time, supporting their party. And if the way you do that is shout "hah!" and sing songs in your own language (not english!)... well... hey, whats wrong with that?

I am a but of a Youth League sympathiser myself. So I'm probably biased :)
And they can get carried away, to be sure. And they really shouldn't mock people in their speeches. It is just coarse. And at this particular event they *really* shouldn't have lied about Malema not being allowed on campus (That really was a lie, I don't know why they did it. Probably a combination of covering themselves for not telling people Malema wasn't coming, and general anger at Rhodes admin.)

But ja. This idea of people in yellow t-shirts being angry violent neanderthals is really not ok.

The day before the meeting, after I asked the ANCYL guys sitting on the wall if I could pick up Malema from the airport, and after thay had finished laughing, we sat and chatted for about half an hour. About Zuma and my qualms about him and COPE and separation of powers and what not. And it was all very pleasant. And I saw them at the event itself and waved and they laughed at me all over again. And it was great.

I wish people could just get a glimpse of the other side of these events, and this bunch of people. And realise their fear and indignation are a bit misplaced.

Confederation cup

A conversation between my brother and I:

Laura: Let's go to a confederation cup match!
J: What's that? Tennis?