A lonely car is sneaking through the gravel roads of Joe Slovo West, a township in the north of Port Elizabeth in South Africa. The navigation system does not find a way through the alleys, since the streets have not been mapped yet and there are no streets signs either. Whoever is not street-smart here, … Continue reading
People are wearing hats, scarfs and gloves. Usually a weather to stay at home, drink hot tea and watch TV. But these days no one seems to care. Thousands of people are crawling through the streets of Grahamstown, a city in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. A city with round about 50.000 inhabitants, … Continue reading
Bonfires lighten up the sky. Dark clouds of smoke hang over the city. Soldiers fire canons and jets thunder trough the air. The sun glows mercilessly and burns the faces of hundreds of soldiers and thousands of spectators. It is the middle of February in Port Elizabeth: the South African military is celebrating itself. … Continue reading
„I did not want to leave the way my family were forced to do in December 1971. At the time I wanted to plant my one foot on Devil’s Peak and the other on the Table Mountain and shout, ‚Let us stay, don’t force us to go. You are destroying our families and our lives!’ … Continue reading
Languages in South Africa Before I start, here is a story from Belgium about how sensitive the issue of languages can be. When you travel by train in Belgium the language in which announcements are made depends whether you are in the Flemish-speaking part of the country or the French-speaking area. So, if your next … Continue reading
So you think wine is either red, white or rosé and it comes in sweet, medium-dry or dry. Basically you’re right but the wine world is a little more nuanced and complicated. First of all it is a mass market and you can get anything from wine in a tetrapack to a ridiculously overpriced bottle … Continue reading
As a foreigner in South Africa it is interesting to observe how a country deals with the situation where their most prominent leader in history and global icon, Nelson Mandela, is in hospital with his health declining. Mandela is suffering from a recurring lung infection which is probably a result from the harsh conditions on … Continue reading
Maybe Paul Kasonkomona knew about the risk he was taking when Early-April, he gave an interview in Zambia’s TV Channel Muvi TV in Luanda about gay and lesbian rights. The HIV and human rights activist appeared on a live television show and called for the decriminalisation of homosexual relationships which are strictly forbidden in conservative … Continue reading
Some people say if you repeat something often enough then it will become the truth. Imagine how shocking that is, because it exactly means, that our reality is only what we make out of this world. With other words, everybody just sees what he or she wants to see. Many stories can be told about … Continue reading
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