My friend Thandi Gamedze is an exceptional poet and wordsmith and her 'Dear South Africa...' comes in the form of a poem Beloved South Africa, I bless you to let loose the oceans of tears that you have carried, and cry For your sons that have been trodden down and stripped of their dignity And your daughters that have been raped, abused and dehumanised For your fathers that have turned to unfeeling stone, under weight [...]
Dear South Africa: I wanted to write you a love letter, but it does not feel like a good idea right now. I want to write about hope but it just doesn’t feel like the right time. We keep talking about how far we have come and so many are saying we have not come far at all. We are stuck, not simply because we can’t admit how deep in the shit we are, but [...]
Dear South Africa... And so the letter begins. A letter penned to a nation. Well, not 'penned' per say, because who does that anymore? Typed. A letter typed to a beloved country. But what type of letter might that be? How would yours look? Would it be filled with hope or be more likely to resemble a tired, worn out missive of anger and accusation? Might it call people out to be what we've seen [...]
Will i see you today? Behind your skin? Through a hastily rolled up window and averted gaze at a traffic light? Over that high and mightily barbed wired electricity-generating fence? Through the veneer of your class distinction? Peeking nervously out from behind that oh-so-hipster handlebar moustache? Through the tears? Behind the laughter? LOL Will i see you underneath the weight of those plastic environment-destroying bags? On the other side of that quinoa-and-lime salad wrap? Behind [...]
Let me be honest here. i'm not a fan of Christmas carols. i judge a successful year by how late in the year i hear my first Christmas carol in the mall [and this year was a pretty decent year let me tell you - may have even been December, although that might say more about how often i find myself in malls these days than how early the carols started droning]. At least i [...]
i think this is my most embarrassing photo ever [and for me, that's saying a lot]. i call it my fat face photo and i keep it to remind me of a time when my face was about as wide as it was long. This is me in Umtata in 2002 and clearly it wasn't an epidemic of weighty proportions, because by Umtata 2003 i'm looking pretty healthy and average sized again... [...]
Last night tbV and i attended the end of year function - AGM and celebration - of the local non-profit organisation Bottomup. Who are Bottomup? i will let them introduce themselves to you in their own words: What is Bottomup?: Bottomup positions itself as a catalyst for organizational change in the under-resourced schools in the Grassy Park, Lotus River and Ottery area. We aim to apply an assets based approach, assisting schools to leverage their existing [...]
Let me introduce you to Ujamaa... Definition: The Swahili word ujamaa means 'extended family', 'brotherhood' or 'socialism'; as a political concept it asserts that a person becomes a person through the people or community. Yesterday i was given the privilege of hanging out with a small group of truly inspirational people doing small but country-transforming things. The Ujamaa Collective, as they are known, are in the middle of a seven-day walk, starting in Khayelitsha where [...]
What kind of church will you be part of? i have written a little bit before about my diving into studies this year with a course called Leadership in Urban Transformation, a one year certificate through the University of Pretoria looking at Theology and the City. This week finds us in week four of our physical class weeks and so i had an assignment due and read a book called 'The Prophetic Imagination' by Walter [...]
i am busy reading a book called 'The Prophetic Imagination' for my Leadership in Urban Transformation studies course and this passage jumped out at me: 'The prophet is the one, who, by use of these tools of hope, contradicts the presumed world of the kings, showing both that that presumed world does not square with the facts and that we have been taught a lie and have believed it because the people with the hardware [...]
