An excellent Op/Ed column by Peter Godwin, author of Mukiwa: A White Boy in Africa (1996) and the new When a Crocodile Eats the Sun. This column helps me begin to understand, at least a little bit, Thabo Mbeki's disappointing silence on the matter.
http://tinyurl.com/386a6j
04 April 2007
01 April 2007
Another Mile
One of Ralph’s oldest friends is Martin, aka Bully. I think they’ve known each other since age 5. Bully is married to Jenni. One of Jenni’s friends, a former co-worker, is Mike. This year was Mike’s first time to swim the Midmar Mile, and unlike Colleen and me, he put in a lot of time training for it. Then the Midmar was finished, and he felt a little bit of a post-race letdown. (I remember feeling this after climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro; I had sort of a “What now?” feeling.) A few weeks ago, Colleen said that Mike was keen to swim the Bosveld Mile in Bela Bela (formerly known as Warmbaths), and was I interested in swimming? I agreed, and we decided that we would actually try to train for this one.
Colleen knew that she might have a difficult time finding someone to look after Brody, because Ralph would be away this weekend finishing the Cape Epic bicycle race (http://www.cape-epic.com/). A couple of weeks ago, I realized that it wasn’t going to happen, so I gave up on the idea of swimming. Then on Friday night, when I stopped at Col’s for a glass of wine, she said that Mike really wanted to swim, and she strong-armed me into going with him so that she wouldn't feel guilty for not going. :)
So, Mike picked me up at 7.30 this morning and we drove to Warmbaths, which is a little over an hour north of Pretoria. The race was held at Fish Eagle Bay, a very fancy name for another man-made dam. The first event started at 11.00 and our event was at 1.00. This was a pretty small race, so the genders were mixed – boys and girls, men and women. We were in the 31+ group (Mike is just a year older than I at 46), and I would guess that there were fewer than 100 in our event.
It was a beautiful day. Blue, blue skies with a few puffy white clouds, and not too hot. The water was quite nice, too; cool, clean and clear (no muck on my body afterward!), with a soft, sandy bottom. I swam fine, about the same as last year’s Midmar – somewhere between 38 and 39 minutes. The official time will be posted on the Web site this week. And now I have another cheap medal to add to my growing collection. What shall I do with these things?!
An interesting thing about this was that it is in a very Afrikaans area, and most of the announcing was done in both Afrikaans and English. Some of the non-critical announcements (e.g. “Number 1401 from Event #2, please come collect your prize”) were not made in English at all. Mike doesn’t speak Afrikaans but he understands it; I would have been lost without him there!
Mike actually grew up in Zimbabwe, worked in the police force for 4 years after high school, and then came to South Africa for university. He went back to Zim for a few years, but has been in SA now for 13 years. As with almost anyone I meet from Zimbabwe, I quizzed him about the security of visiting there. As with almost everyone else, he says that it would probably be safe enough. At this point, I guess the thing that keeps me from going more than anything else is the hesitance at re-opening the relationship with my host family. I haven’t heard from them in quite some time, and I have no idea how they are faring. When I was staying with them, Baba had a good job as a supervisor at a factory in Bulawayo. He’d had that job for 15 years, and I don’t have any reason to think he would have lost it since I left there. But I just don’t know. And I just don’t know what they might expect of me. By their standards, it is true that I am rich, loaded beyond any measure they know. But would I be able to help any one of them find a job? Emigrate to the U.S. or even to SA? This is something I’ve talked about with a few of my other RPCV/Zim friends, and we all feel torn in the same way – feeling guilty about making the break, but not knowing what we could do to help if we stayed in touch. And seeing Zim so much in the news right now brings all those feelings back to the surface. It’s hard, but not as hard as life is for them right now, god help them.
Please pray for peace in Zimbabwe, even as they walk another mile closer to resistance against Mugabe.
Colleen knew that she might have a difficult time finding someone to look after Brody, because Ralph would be away this weekend finishing the Cape Epic bicycle race (http://www.cape-epic.com/). A couple of weeks ago, I realized that it wasn’t going to happen, so I gave up on the idea of swimming. Then on Friday night, when I stopped at Col’s for a glass of wine, she said that Mike really wanted to swim, and she strong-armed me into going with him so that she wouldn't feel guilty for not going. :)
So, Mike picked me up at 7.30 this morning and we drove to Warmbaths, which is a little over an hour north of Pretoria. The race was held at Fish Eagle Bay, a very fancy name for another man-made dam. The first event started at 11.00 and our event was at 1.00. This was a pretty small race, so the genders were mixed – boys and girls, men and women. We were in the 31+ group (Mike is just a year older than I at 46), and I would guess that there were fewer than 100 in our event.
It was a beautiful day. Blue, blue skies with a few puffy white clouds, and not too hot. The water was quite nice, too; cool, clean and clear (no muck on my body afterward!), with a soft, sandy bottom. I swam fine, about the same as last year’s Midmar – somewhere between 38 and 39 minutes. The official time will be posted on the Web site this week. And now I have another cheap medal to add to my growing collection. What shall I do with these things?!
An interesting thing about this was that it is in a very Afrikaans area, and most of the announcing was done in both Afrikaans and English. Some of the non-critical announcements (e.g. “Number 1401 from Event #2, please come collect your prize”) were not made in English at all. Mike doesn’t speak Afrikaans but he understands it; I would have been lost without him there!
Mike actually grew up in Zimbabwe, worked in the police force for 4 years after high school, and then came to South Africa for university. He went back to Zim for a few years, but has been in SA now for 13 years. As with almost anyone I meet from Zimbabwe, I quizzed him about the security of visiting there. As with almost everyone else, he says that it would probably be safe enough. At this point, I guess the thing that keeps me from going more than anything else is the hesitance at re-opening the relationship with my host family. I haven’t heard from them in quite some time, and I have no idea how they are faring. When I was staying with them, Baba had a good job as a supervisor at a factory in Bulawayo. He’d had that job for 15 years, and I don’t have any reason to think he would have lost it since I left there. But I just don’t know. And I just don’t know what they might expect of me. By their standards, it is true that I am rich, loaded beyond any measure they know. But would I be able to help any one of them find a job? Emigrate to the U.S. or even to SA? This is something I’ve talked about with a few of my other RPCV/Zim friends, and we all feel torn in the same way – feeling guilty about making the break, but not knowing what we could do to help if we stayed in touch. And seeing Zim so much in the news right now brings all those feelings back to the surface. It’s hard, but not as hard as life is for them right now, god help them.
Please pray for peace in Zimbabwe, even as they walk another mile closer to resistance against Mugabe.
03 March 2007
Drakensberg Boys Choir
Earlier this week, Lisa Glenn suggested that we go see the Drakensberg Boys Choir (http://www.dbchoir.info/) on Friday night. It turns out that this was their first performance of a program they will be taking to the U.S. on Sunday (tomorrow!) They’ve been invited to represent South Africa at the upcoming convention of the American Choral Directors Association. After that appearance, they commence a three week tour of the U.S. They’ll be in FL, GA, TN, OH, Great Lakes region and end in NYC.
The Drakensberg mountains are mostly in KwaZulu-Natal province, although they extend up into Swaziland and down into Lesotho, too. Draken is the Afrikaans word for dragon, and the mountains do look sort of like the back of a dragon with their jagged, steep, sharp peaks. I’ve seen only bits of the mountains on the drive to Durban and from the air. It’s on my list of places I need to visit.
I met Lisa and another Rotary scholar from the U.S., Ursula, at the Linder Auditorium on the Wits (University of the Witwatersrand) Education campus. (This was formerly the Johannesburg College of Education, until the merger of tertiary institutions a couple of years ago. It’s also where Lisa attends classes.) The auditorium is a very nice hall. I’d heard of it on the classical radio station I listen to. Now that I know exactly where it is, I’ll go more often!
The concert was delightful. I’m a fan of boys choirs anyway, and their program was enchanting. They did a couple of classic choral pieces by Ravel and Bach; a lovely and unique arrangement of “The Star-Spangled Banner”; the Japanese pop song “Sukiyaki”; the American “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord” (a “Negro Spiritual” as the program said; Ursula was bothered by this); "Operator", made famous by the Manhattan Transfer; "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Freddie Mercury; and two pieces by South African composer Martin Watt, including the world premier of a piece that was commissioned by the DBC, “Rea Ko Pele” (“We are Moving Forward”). My very favorite, though, was the always beautiful “Prayer of St. Francis”, arranged by R.Delgado, made even more moving with the addition of each chorister also “singing” in sign language. This was so beautiful I cried. Copiously.
(It may be that I cry a little too easily these days. Just Thursday, I heard Schubert’s Trout Quintet on the way to work, and that made me really homesick and weepy, for some reason!)
There were a few choristers who hadn’t made the cut to travel to the U.S., and they served as ushers. Ursula chatted up one of those boys. She found out that the Drakensberg Boys Choir School is a boarding school, and boys from all over South Africa attend. The academic program is pretty rigorous, and the school just celebrated its 40th birthday in January. The choir is ethnically diverse, with white, black, coloured and Asian boys.
To my friends in GA, TN and NY -- if this choir is anywhere near you, do yourselves a favor and go! They’re very good and present an interesting, diverse program. You'll love it!
The Drakensberg mountains are mostly in KwaZulu-Natal province, although they extend up into Swaziland and down into Lesotho, too. Draken is the Afrikaans word for dragon, and the mountains do look sort of like the back of a dragon with their jagged, steep, sharp peaks. I’ve seen only bits of the mountains on the drive to Durban and from the air. It’s on my list of places I need to visit.
I met Lisa and another Rotary scholar from the U.S., Ursula, at the Linder Auditorium on the Wits (University of the Witwatersrand) Education campus. (This was formerly the Johannesburg College of Education, until the merger of tertiary institutions a couple of years ago. It’s also where Lisa attends classes.) The auditorium is a very nice hall. I’d heard of it on the classical radio station I listen to. Now that I know exactly where it is, I’ll go more often!
The concert was delightful. I’m a fan of boys choirs anyway, and their program was enchanting. They did a couple of classic choral pieces by Ravel and Bach; a lovely and unique arrangement of “The Star-Spangled Banner”; the Japanese pop song “Sukiyaki”; the American “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord” (a “Negro Spiritual” as the program said; Ursula was bothered by this); "Operator", made famous by the Manhattan Transfer; "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Freddie Mercury; and two pieces by South African composer Martin Watt, including the world premier of a piece that was commissioned by the DBC, “Rea Ko Pele” (“We are Moving Forward”). My very favorite, though, was the always beautiful “Prayer of St. Francis”, arranged by R.Delgado, made even more moving with the addition of each chorister also “singing” in sign language. This was so beautiful I cried. Copiously.
(It may be that I cry a little too easily these days. Just Thursday, I heard Schubert’s Trout Quintet on the way to work, and that made me really homesick and weepy, for some reason!)
There were a few choristers who hadn’t made the cut to travel to the U.S., and they served as ushers. Ursula chatted up one of those boys. She found out that the Drakensberg Boys Choir School is a boarding school, and boys from all over South Africa attend. The academic program is pretty rigorous, and the school just celebrated its 40th birthday in January. The choir is ethnically diverse, with white, black, coloured and Asian boys.
To my friends in GA, TN and NY -- if this choir is anywhere near you, do yourselves a favor and go! They’re very good and present an interesting, diverse program. You'll love it!
Joburg City Triathlon
Okay, you folks who know me really well know that I hate running. Hate hate hate it. I do it from time to time (like when I was training for Kilimanjaro), but I always hate it. In fact, I swam in a race in January where they were selling shirts that said, “I swim because:” and there are checkboxes listed below. The reason I bought the shirt is that the second reason is “It’s better than running.” I should check that box with a permanent marker.
So, it may shock you to hear that I competed in a triathlon last Sunday (25th Feb)! Not to worry, I haven’t gone mad. The competition allowed teams, and I did the swim leg for a team. Colleen and Ralph have friends named Wendy and Wallace. (Wendy was Ralph’s boss when they all lived in Nigeria a few years ago.) Wallace was interested in competing in the triathlon, but decided that he wasn’t fit enough to do the whole thing. Also, he’s not a strong swimmer. So, Colleen (who completed the full, standard triathlon) suggested that we put together a team. A few weeks ago, we were all having dinner with Ziad Khatib, who is from Lebanon, lives in Sweden, and is working here for six months on some sort of HIV/AIDS project (he is in public health). (Ziad's older brother was Wendy's manager in Nigeria.) The subject of the triathlon came up, and Ziad said that he would do the cycling leg if someone could lend him a bike. And thus, Team 140 (or The Internationals, as Colleen registered us) was born.
The race was at Victoria Lake in Germiston, just south of the city. It is the site of the race I swam in January. Colleen’s race started at 7.00 a.m. Wallace, Ziad and I arrived about 8.15 for our 9.00 start. The cheering section -- Ralph and Brody, Wendy, and Wallace’s visiting niece and nephew -- arrived shortly before we started. I started first with a 750 meter swim, then Ziad cycled for 20K, and Wallace finished by running 5K. This was considered the mini-triathlon. It seems do-able for one person, hey? If I ever become really inspired, I might try to do a whole mini by myself. Gotta start running and find a bike first…
After the completion of all the races (there were standard, mini and sprint triathlons, as well as the team triathlon), we all stayed on and had a very nice picnic by the lake. It was a good day.
So, it may shock you to hear that I competed in a triathlon last Sunday (25th Feb)! Not to worry, I haven’t gone mad. The competition allowed teams, and I did the swim leg for a team. Colleen and Ralph have friends named Wendy and Wallace. (Wendy was Ralph’s boss when they all lived in Nigeria a few years ago.) Wallace was interested in competing in the triathlon, but decided that he wasn’t fit enough to do the whole thing. Also, he’s not a strong swimmer. So, Colleen (who completed the full, standard triathlon) suggested that we put together a team. A few weeks ago, we were all having dinner with Ziad Khatib, who is from Lebanon, lives in Sweden, and is working here for six months on some sort of HIV/AIDS project (he is in public health). (Ziad's older brother was Wendy's manager in Nigeria.) The subject of the triathlon came up, and Ziad said that he would do the cycling leg if someone could lend him a bike. And thus, Team 140 (or The Internationals, as Colleen registered us) was born.
The race was at Victoria Lake in Germiston, just south of the city. It is the site of the race I swam in January. Colleen’s race started at 7.00 a.m. Wallace, Ziad and I arrived about 8.15 for our 9.00 start. The cheering section -- Ralph and Brody, Wendy, and Wallace’s visiting niece and nephew -- arrived shortly before we started. I started first with a 750 meter swim, then Ziad cycled for 20K, and Wallace finished by running 5K. This was considered the mini-triathlon. It seems do-able for one person, hey? If I ever become really inspired, I might try to do a whole mini by myself. Gotta start running and find a bike first…
After the completion of all the races (there were standard, mini and sprint triathlons, as well as the team triathlon), we all stayed on and had a very nice picnic by the lake. It was a good day.
22 February 2007
Midmar Mile, 2007
Well before Christmas, Colleen and I decided to swim in the Midmar Mile competition again (http://www.midmarmile.co.za/). Trouble was, both of us were so busy before and after Christmas, and neither of us seemed to be taking the training very seriously. A few weeks before the race (on 11 February), I broached the idea of skipping it this year.
“I think we should swim,” Colleen said. “First of all, you may not be around for it next year. Second, we won’t swim well, but we won’t drown.”
True enough. Colleen is always much more fit than I am, but I am a very good swimmer even when I’m not in tip-top shape. And since we knew what to expect this year (as opposed to last year, when neither of us had ever even seen the Midmar Dam), we decided to forge ahead.
We had good intentions. But it seemed that something always came up at the last minute for one or the other of us, and we were lucky to get in the pool once per week. I competed in a Midmar seeding event in early December in the Vaal River, and again in January at Victoria Lake in Germiston. (Col took me to the one at the Vaal, but could not get a babysitter for Brody, so she sat that one out. She had to miss the one in Germiston altogether.) I thought of them as good workouts, rather than as real competitions.
I did do something that was very important to my performance, though, and that was to have 3 inches cut off my hair so that my swim cap would fit better!
Colleen’s husband Ralph and his friend Chris are competing in the Cape Epic bike race in March (http://www.cape-epic.com/). They decided to come along with us to KwaZulu-Natal for the weekend. They planned to spend much of Saturday cycling, and then be our support team and Brody-sitters on Sunday during the swim race.
We decided that not all 4 adults, Brody, luggage and bikes could fit in the Mills’ car, so I also drove. Because we now had an extra car (and space), I asked my young friend, Lisa Glenn, to join us for the weekend. Lisa arrived in South Africa just a week and a half earlier. She has a Rotary International fellowship, and will be in Johannesburg for a year studying at the University of the Witwatersrand (otherwise known as Wits). Her parents live in Murfreesboro, and her father is a VP at Middle Tennessee State University, from which both my parents retired. She graduated from Birmingham Southern College last May. I met her when we were both in M’boro for Christmas, 2005. She is an exceptional young woman – bright, kind, fun -- and I’m going to enjoy having her in Jo’burg.
We stayed in the same house where we stayed last year, but Shona and Charles Mason were at their condo in Port Alfred. Johnson, the live-in gardener, let us into the house on Friday evening, and Dolly, the housekeeper, took care of us on Saturday. Ralph and Chris set out on their bikes after breakfast, and Colleen, Brody, Lisa and I spent a leisurely morning shopping at a nearby farmers’ market and then mall. We went back to the house for lunch, then Lisa and I drove down to Durban (about 20 minutes from Botha’s Hill, where the Masons live when they’re not in Jakarta) so Lisa could have a look around. We got out and walked around the old, ornate City Hall, then drove to the beach and walked out on a fishing pier to take a look at the Indian Ocean. We drove around the city a little bit more, then back to Botha’s Hill. We all had a nice dinner, and then sat through quite a spectacular thunderstorm. Some of the lightening strikes sounded frighteningly close, and we lost power in various parts of the house several times.
We had an early start the next morning because Col and I were scheduled to swim in the first event at 8.30 a.m. We were a little bit less rushed than last year, but not a whole lot.
The race was okay – neither of us drowned! But the weather was not so good. It was rainy and somewhat windy. I ended up swimming breaststroke much of the way. If I swam freestyle and turned my head to breathe, waves would break over my head and splash into my mouth, so I often didn’t get enough air while swimming freestyle. At least when swimming breaststroke, it’s a lot easier to dodge waves because you can see them coming!
Consequently, my time was slower than last year, but when the results were posted on the Web site, I discovered that my time wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. I had thought I’d swum about 10 minutes slower, but according to them, I was only 5 minutes slower. This year, Colleen finished before I did.
Colleen
Category: 31-40; Finish time: 40:31; Position: 772; Category Position: 731; Gender Position: 164
Katy
Category: 41-50; Finish time: 43:03; Position: 960; Category Position: 918; Gender Position: 174.
“I think we should swim,” Colleen said. “First of all, you may not be around for it next year. Second, we won’t swim well, but we won’t drown.”
True enough. Colleen is always much more fit than I am, but I am a very good swimmer even when I’m not in tip-top shape. And since we knew what to expect this year (as opposed to last year, when neither of us had ever even seen the Midmar Dam), we decided to forge ahead.
We had good intentions. But it seemed that something always came up at the last minute for one or the other of us, and we were lucky to get in the pool once per week. I competed in a Midmar seeding event in early December in the Vaal River, and again in January at Victoria Lake in Germiston. (Col took me to the one at the Vaal, but could not get a babysitter for Brody, so she sat that one out. She had to miss the one in Germiston altogether.) I thought of them as good workouts, rather than as real competitions.
I did do something that was very important to my performance, though, and that was to have 3 inches cut off my hair so that my swim cap would fit better!
Colleen’s husband Ralph and his friend Chris are competing in the Cape Epic bike race in March (http://www.cape-epic.com/). They decided to come along with us to KwaZulu-Natal for the weekend. They planned to spend much of Saturday cycling, and then be our support team and Brody-sitters on Sunday during the swim race.
We decided that not all 4 adults, Brody, luggage and bikes could fit in the Mills’ car, so I also drove. Because we now had an extra car (and space), I asked my young friend, Lisa Glenn, to join us for the weekend. Lisa arrived in South Africa just a week and a half earlier. She has a Rotary International fellowship, and will be in Johannesburg for a year studying at the University of the Witwatersrand (otherwise known as Wits). Her parents live in Murfreesboro, and her father is a VP at Middle Tennessee State University, from which both my parents retired. She graduated from Birmingham Southern College last May. I met her when we were both in M’boro for Christmas, 2005. She is an exceptional young woman – bright, kind, fun -- and I’m going to enjoy having her in Jo’burg.
We stayed in the same house where we stayed last year, but Shona and Charles Mason were at their condo in Port Alfred. Johnson, the live-in gardener, let us into the house on Friday evening, and Dolly, the housekeeper, took care of us on Saturday. Ralph and Chris set out on their bikes after breakfast, and Colleen, Brody, Lisa and I spent a leisurely morning shopping at a nearby farmers’ market and then mall. We went back to the house for lunch, then Lisa and I drove down to Durban (about 20 minutes from Botha’s Hill, where the Masons live when they’re not in Jakarta) so Lisa could have a look around. We got out and walked around the old, ornate City Hall, then drove to the beach and walked out on a fishing pier to take a look at the Indian Ocean. We drove around the city a little bit more, then back to Botha’s Hill. We all had a nice dinner, and then sat through quite a spectacular thunderstorm. Some of the lightening strikes sounded frighteningly close, and we lost power in various parts of the house several times.
We had an early start the next morning because Col and I were scheduled to swim in the first event at 8.30 a.m. We were a little bit less rushed than last year, but not a whole lot.
The race was okay – neither of us drowned! But the weather was not so good. It was rainy and somewhat windy. I ended up swimming breaststroke much of the way. If I swam freestyle and turned my head to breathe, waves would break over my head and splash into my mouth, so I often didn’t get enough air while swimming freestyle. At least when swimming breaststroke, it’s a lot easier to dodge waves because you can see them coming!
Consequently, my time was slower than last year, but when the results were posted on the Web site, I discovered that my time wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. I had thought I’d swum about 10 minutes slower, but according to them, I was only 5 minutes slower. This year, Colleen finished before I did.
Colleen
Category: 31-40; Finish time: 40:31; Position: 772; Category Position: 731; Gender Position: 164
Katy
Category: 41-50; Finish time: 43:03; Position: 960; Category Position: 918; Gender Position: 174.
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