in the real world

I've spent this week in Pretoria, meeting and interviewing a group of people who are really doing everything they can to make things happen in South Africa and I have been humbled by the commitment and dedication I have seen.
More than that, I feel that I have a new belief and hope in South Africa. A conviction that the ideals that took us to our miraculous new democracy have not been entirely drowned out in the greed and wabenzi mentality of so many of our new priviledged class.
Not to say that the challenges aren't there. There is still a huge gap between what turns out to be some pretty good, state of the art laws that create a framework for real excellence and the realities on the ground in our municipalities.
The number of people who are toyi toying to protest the lack of service delivery is a clear indication of this gap. But what I discovered this week is that the gap is being recognised on the highest levels, and bridges are being built across it. And those bridges are designed for two way traffic: bottom up as well as top down.
I would be dancing to the new rhythm I have found  if I wasn't so exhausted after meeting and interviewing 18 people in four days and filling a notebook full of notes that is so precious to me now that I contemplated getting it plastic wrapped at the airport for extra protection.

And then, the cherry on the top was meeting a fellow blogger in real life, and discovering that she was just as real and interesting as I thought she would be. I expected a Harry Potter scar on her forehead, but even without one she was magical.
It was a meeting that seemed doomed to failure at the entrance gate of the ultra high security complex she calls home (because her husband's company puts a high premium on their safety...). I refused to give the guard at the gate my ID number so he refused to let me in. I offered my address, phone number, photo... but no, only an ID number would do. So Extranjera had to walk down to fetch me (greyish green hair and all) and then let me in.

I spoke to my son while I was waiting and he was pretty freaked out by me arguing with men in uniform and planning to meet someone whose name I wasn't sure of and who I had met on the internet as through someone else in Denmark  who I actually haven't met yet either. (Thanks Julie!)
I had to promise to phone him immediately after I left so he would know I was safe and that she wasn't an axe murderer. (She wasn't, but I did have one of those "hmmm" moments when the first thing I saw in her home was her skull and crossbones tablecloth.)

Actually its pretty cool to have your son worrying about you, rather than the other way around.

(And I do worry about him, in spite of the fact that he is perfectly capable of looking after himself. As is my other son, Ben who is on a huge adventure here and quite obviously life life to the fullest.)

One of the real bonuses of meeting Extranjera was finding out that she was exactly as she appears to be in her blog. She's real, she's interesting, she's fun (and I suspect could be more fun but was maybe a bit on her best behaviour?). And for me, most importantly, she is not living in her security village, hankering for home and remaining cut off from the reality that is South Africa. She's teaching English to children in Diepsloot, a tin shack township which has more than its fair share of problems.
She is contributing to the solution in ways that many South Africans do not.

So... the end to a good, inspiring week. I'm feeling so positive that I don't even care that my 1Time flight to Cape Town has been delayed an hour (just like the one coming up to Joburg). At least it has given me time to finish this post.

For those that may need explanations of some of the words in this post:
Wabenzi are the newly rich who indulge in the bling lifestyle and drive expensive cars (like Mercedes Benz)
The closest definition I can think of for Toyi Toyi is protest dancing
The Harry Potter reference to Extranjera is explained in her blog. Go and read it. 

of housing and need

I've been thinking a lot about housing lately.
It all started with the Isandla 10th anniversary celebrations where Tokyo Sexwale, Minister of Human Settlements, spoke about his perception of the housing problems we have in this country. More importantly, he came to listen. Unlike so many of the government ministers, who arrive to drop "pearls of wisdom" and then leave in a hurry, Sexwale was very aware that the development practitioners in the room were the real experts.

“I don’t think it should come as a surprise that we are changing the way we are doing things,” Sexwale said. “We are seeing the end of denialism.

“We are looking at the situation of RDP houses that are dotting the landscape of this country: they are expensive, they take arable land, they’re ugly, they look like barracks. We take responsibility for them. We have provided unos that are worse than the Apartheid-era four roomed houses. We’ve done even less for our people. Our ministry is busy about attending to that. We need to look at other forms of housing and rented stock.”

But why are we actually providing houses for people? And are their needs really being taken into account?

At a recent meeting with Rene Moodley, a development practitioner working with the German funded Support for Local Government Programme in the Eastern Cape, I learned the importance of asking people what they want and need. In one of the areas that Rene works, for example, the men are emasculated by having the houses built for them. It is culturally important for the men to build the homes for their families.

It highlighted two things for me. One is that people need to be asked what they need, and the other is that blanket solutions are never the answer.

The work that Rene is doing centres largely around finding ways to ask the right questions so that the answers are revealing of the actual issues that the people face. I learned of a community, for example, where rows and rows of government houses had been built, but because no one had asked the old people, no one knew that the houses were directly in the path of the 50 year flood...the last one was around 48 years ago.

And I heard about the community who said that their biggest need was for a new clinic. By asking the right questions, the people who Rene had trained discovered that the need was not for a clinic at all, but for a doctor to be on duty in one of the three clinics that already served the community. Without a doctor, no prescriptions can be written.

Mokena Makeka, architect and head of the Isandla Institute Board perhaps summed the situation in South Africa up best:

“In some respects there is a poverty of imagination because we don't define space from a human perspective, but from an engineering one. We need an enabling environment where entrepreneurs, of all ages, can create their own destiny. The current status quo will not allow us to survive.

“We are creating a context where voices are being hidden. We are creating spaces where gangsterism can thrive. We need to be incorporating a clinic, a library, a market into our plans. At present development is around the containment of anger rather than the unleashing of people."

where there is a will there is a way

I asked Will King for some tips for entrepreneurs. His answers make inspiring viewing. As you can see, I'm still learning about videoing... don't miss the Adams Family hand that floats over the couch about half way through!

I always find it interesting to meet people who have succeeded in business, and to find out more about their attitudes to their success. In my time as a journalist I have met quite a few successful entrepreneurs and their behaviour has been as varied as their personalities.

Some are brash and loud, the kind of people who would have earned a disdainful sniff from my mother, and a comment of "you can always see new money".

Others, like Will King, the founder of the hugely successful shaving empire the King of Shaves, turn out to be absolute gentlemen, and a pleasure to meet.

When his parents decided to "take me off the payroll," after he finished his degree in Mechanical Engineering, he found a niche for himself in sales and marketing and did very well until the recession hit in the 1990s and he was made redundant.

"It was a traumatic experience," he said. Enough to make him decide then and there that he was going to be master of his own destiny, and to run a business was based on a product that he could sell.

The product which turned out to be the one that would bring him success was a shaving oil. The inspiration came to him when he was watching a girlfriend using baby oil when she shaved her legs and he realised that the oil may be a great way to prevent his sensitive skin from reacting so badly to shaving.

"People said the King of Shaves idea would never fly," he told me, but when you see his passionate belief in his product, you realise that if anyone was going to make it work, it would be Will King.

And, in keping with his royal name, he decided that the first customer that he would persuade to stock his product would be Harrods. Well, why not?

"I got hold of Mohamed Al Fayed's personal fax number," he said. "And eventually persuaded him to buy a small consignment."

That word "eventually" is key. So many would-be entrepreneurs fail because they give up too soon.

"I knew if Harrods stocked it, I could persuade Boots to take it too," he said. And the British pharmacy giant did just that in the following year. Then came Super Drug and Tesco and an endorsement from Will Carling - then British rugby captain - and Target in tne US and a host of stores in Australia and New Zealand. His products are now being launched in Clicks stores in South Africa.

By the end of the '90s, King of Shaves was the number 1 shaving preparation brand. It was a real David and Goliath story, but it wasn't enough for the intrepid Mr King.

"Most men only shave once a day, so our growth could never be exponential," he explained. So he launched a range of men's skin care products and found himself in the vanguard of what was to be a booming trend towards men's grooming.

Next step was the launch of the Azor, his revolutionary razor which is causing more than a few backward glances from the people at Gillette, who have discovered that their top spot in the worldwide shaving market is not quite as secure as it used to be.

Five years in development, the Azor is "the first eco-sensitively manufactured razor" King says. I have my husband and my son trying it out, so watch this space for their reviews.

Will King is also a enthusiastic disciple for social media... twittering as kingofshaves and blogging here. It's a great example of how social media can really be harnessed to increase a company's profile.

little and large

This past weekend was the Swartland Agricultural Show.
It's lots of fun to visit, especially if you like farm animals (which I do)



These are some of the prize winning cattle, lined up according to their breeds. I loved the handlers in their red overalls and white boots.



Our friend Christina came to visit because she'd never been to the skou, and it turned out to be a day that was all about transport.



she went for a ride with Greg on the Harley



she got to sit in some really big harvesters



and I mean BIG!





but some were more her size.



Some of the vehicles were more old fashioned. Eight horse power seems much more exciting than the 1800 in our bakkie (pick up truck)



Some were very elegant



And some reminded us that we are all inordinately proud of hosting the world cup soccer next year.



But, when all is said and done, it is always the cute girl that steals the show!

60 squares

My eldest son, Simon, came to lunch on Saturday with his girlfriend Larissa, and spent some time helping to take out the last of the lapa poles. See how the pole has rotted away in the concrete? We are really so lucky that the whole thing didn't fall down on our heads.



So now that the lapa is down, we are full of plans and ideas about what do do with the space.
(Yes, I know I used that pic in my last post. Yes I know it's my garden and I could go outside and take another (different) one. But I don't want to.)

We're back to square one, but as Seth Godin says, square one is an under rated place. So we need to make sure we enjoy being there.

Do we just cover the space in shadecloth so that we can escape the summer heat more cost effectively?

Do we build a big room onto the house? With an extra bathroom and a fireplace and windows all around? The area we are looking at covering is 12m long and 5m wide. The lapa had the same surface area (but a different shape) but somehow it didn't feel like a fixed space because it was open on three sides.

Our house is a very old (by South African standards). Typical farmhouse style... a long passage down the centre and three rooms on each side. So part of what we would want to do if we do build a solid extension would be to make sure that we don't ruin the look of the house, or its old fashioned feel.

Do we sell the left hand half of the bottom of our garden to help pay for these grand plans? (because anything that is built there ... down behind that green water tank in the distance ... doesn't interfere with our view). Or do we build something there ourselves, and boost our income with the rent (once we'd paid off the loan we'd have to take out to pay for it).

What would you do? How would you fill sixty square metres of space?

its gonna be a long, hot summer

We live in a place where the summers are blisteringly hot and dry. A place where, if you are lucky enough to have a swimming pool, you think twice before dashing outside to cool down.

So we built a lapa... a wonderful thatch construction, built with sturdy bluegum poles and a thick thatch roof. It was close to 60 square metres in size, and winter or summer it became the place where we lived. It was a place to do projects. It was a place to share food and laughter. It was a vital part of our home.

Until, sadly, we realised that it hadn't been built properly and it was beginning to shift away from the house. The first construction company had vanished into the wild blue yonder, so we got another company... a family business with three generations of thatchers... to come and fix the lapa.

Sadly, they were not any better than the first company, and earlier this year when a third roof pole suddenly snapped, we realised something had to be done.
So we did the logical thing, and contacted our insurance company (Standard Bank) who had sent an assessor to approve the original construction.

And they, being more interested in taking premiums than paying out policies, refused to pay because the construction was unsafe. (Yes, we told them their assessor had approved it).

Now we are trying to get the ombudsman to acknowledge our presence, but that's a whole other story.


So last week, Ollie came to help us take the thatch off.


He didn't realise how much there was!


Getting the concrete off the roof without it landing on anyone's head was pretty scary


Reuben and Ernie and Rauan came to help this weekend to take the structure down. I made lamb stew and lemon meringue pie and lemonade and stayed out of the way.


Getting the last few poles out was hard work, even though they were totally rotten under the ground.


Once the poles were out, they were stacked in the garden for use in the next big project.


And the space outside is big and empty.

But, like I've said before, there is always a silver lining...

Greg sees it as a blank canvas for the next structure. Looks like it will finally be a chance for us to learn some straw bale building skills. So watch this space.

(but I still feel bereft)

Happy 19th anniversary, Brian

Brian Keenan was an Irishman working in Beirut when he was kidnapped by Islamic Jihad. He was released four years later, on August 24, 1990.

I will never forget his words when he was released. He described being a hostage as like "a man hanging by his fingernails over the edge of chaos, feeling his fingers slowly straightening".

I wonder if he spent time in prison, planning his release soundbite? I'm sure I would have. That's not intended to sound cynical, especially as I read An evil cradling, the book he wrote about his experiences, and was moved by his raw honesty and brutally truthful descriptions of his life as a hostage.

I remember when he said those words as he arrived back in Ireland. It was a crafting of words that felt like a sword, stabbing sharp into my mind. And as a journalist it made me remember all the times I'd asked the inane questions that journalists do, interviewing people who have gone to hell and back: "So, how do you feel, are you happy to be home?" Usually I've been met with less than honest replies from people saying what they thought I wanted to hear. Here at last was a raw, shocking statement that really put things in perspective. I wish I'd been there to hear it in person.



This picture by Jann Arthus Bertrand of tourists at the Iguazu waterfalls in Argentina, made me think of Brian Keenan, and also made me think about how thoughtless we as a species can be. We often wander, oblivious to the precipice below, forgetting to be thankful for every moment that we are still breathing.

(The picture is from Jann Arthus Bertrand's free wallpaper collection. Really worth a look)