If you’re to maintain your sanity, then “Third World Africa” or whichever politically sensitive term you wish to use has to be accepted with all its muddy streets, electricity shutdowns and taps that suddenly offer no life for hours on end. This is the comforting epiphany that hit me during a moment of numbness last […]
Lifestyle
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Another day of contradictions in Khartoum
Yesterday was one of those weird days showcasing the contradictions in Khartoum. I needed to collect some cash from Western Union. The money was from an Argentinian online journal, paying me for stories that I had done for it. I got to Western Union and the electricity had shut down. Power failure in the neighbourhood. […]
Posted inLifestyle
Thoughts on life in Khartoum
I can’t talk enough about the absolute kindness i have experienced from the beautiful Sudanese people … so caring, even among themselves; they smile from the heart. It’s that whole African-Arab mix of hospitality, community, compassion, humaneness. I was walking in the street at 2am the other night, went for a night swim at the […]
Posted inLifestyle, Media
I think you might like this book …
Title: Beautiful Ugly (African and Diaspora Aesthetics) Edited by Sarah Nuttall Published by Kwela Books It’s difficult to be emotionally complacent when examining what beauty means in Africa, juggling between its oppressive misrepresentation during the colonial period and its redefinition during post-colonial restructuring. Yet, with this book, it’s also easy to comprehend the complexities of […]
Posted inLifestyle
It’s not always about chasing deadlines, is it?
This evening I interviewed an artist from Darfur about his evocative paintings. As there are not many gallery spaces in Khartoum, his 16 pieces hung on the light green walls of the apartment of his German friend who has been living in Khartoum for the past two years. She works in the humanitarian sector. We […]
Posted inLifestyle
Islamic New Year 1429 … in Sudan
Friday January 11 2008 8.14am Sudan is known worldwide for bloodshed and conflict and corruption. All of that happens. But many other things also happen every day … beyond the headlines. The Muslim world is currently witnessing the first few days of the new Islamic year, 1429. Sudan is a country with an estimated 70% […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle, Media, Tech
Unpredictions for the SA web in 2008
It’s quite possible that I’m no good at short-term industry predictions and that this post is a ruse to avoid them, but my built-in BS filter (at least partially informed by a healthy serving of Nassim Taleb and Phil Rozenzweig) tells me that if you took a big enough sample of the informed and considered […]
Posted inLifestyle
Dear Charlene Smith: Please stop it already
Charlene Smith wrote an honest, truthful and soul-baring piece on the lot of the 21st-century writer. But more than anything else, it was really intelligent, well thought out, credible and well researched with references to literary icons such as Margaret Atwood. I had never heard of her until yesterday. God bless Wikipedia. It was a […]
Posted inLifestyle
Who are you? Changing identities and un-belonging
There is a disturbing “crisis of identity”, especially among young South Afrikans today, and it cuts across ethnic groups, racial categories, social and economic classes. Questions of belonging abound among a generally disconnected people, right around and possibly within you. People ask: Who am I? Where do I fit in? What do my clothes, car, […]
Posted inLifestyle
Come rain or shine
Waking up to pouring, violent rain — so hard that it seems impossible to get out of bed (but only if this happens on a weekend or other holiday day, so that getting out of bed isn’t immediately necessary!). Summer afternoon thunderstorms in Durban, when the whole world turns dark. Violent windstorms in Cape Town […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
We can’t run away from race
It was with great interest that I read Vincent Maher’s justification on the demographics of Thought Leader contributors. Unlike Maher, I am not white but like him I also voted for the first time in 1994. By that time I was already 34 years old and should have had a tradition of voting, but unfortunately, […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle
Eskom’s black presence
People in South Africa may understand fully the inconvenience of having a six-hour power cut (in the case of Cape Town several days in mid-winter) more than many other nations out there might understand, experience and tolerate. How can it be that a nation’s power utility was not fully prepared and anticipated the growth in […]