Blog
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Spirit
There is a breeze, umoya, that wafts like a spirit, umoya, over the sand and between the cross currents of the mind. There is a human on the shore, with waist length dreadlocks, forehead broad like a horizon, smart shirt shimmering bright as noon. He holds beads and a small bottle that he fills with sand and seawater as he chants to the ocean and the notes dissolve like salt. I tread the sand, millions of years in the making, like all our lives, whether crafted into flag-flying castles to be photographed for a price, or sifted unseen below the tides.
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Between the tracks
The tourist train between the city and Ntshongweniidles at Dalbridge then glides towards Berea. Past the black plastic shelters of those who have lost their homes and their hopes. Along embankments of litter. Into long tunnels hewn through cliffs (How many people took how long, at what cost to achieve this?) The train emerges into sunshine and stops next to a waterfall, splashing into a pristine pool. At the unkempt Ntshongweni station, a bus waits to take passengers to the market. There you can buy joy, love, peace and happiness, beautifully spelled out in wooden letters, serif or sans, natural, white, grey or…
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You can forget this
I am reading two books in parallel – Reiff, In Praise of Forgetting and Rosenberg, A Brief Stop on the Road from Auschwitz. As if I could choose between remembering and forgetting, when both are inevitable and neither any longer a product of my will. A case can be made for absolutely anything. The question is always for what purpose. For what purpose should we remember or forget, or share our memories? How, if at all, and to what extent, does memory alleviate or prevent suffering? Do those in power, who repeat the history of human oppression and brutality in ever more legalistic and distant ways, have memory or amnesia…
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Smoke
Smoke rises from small fires and dissolves above the black tarpaulins along the railway line. Young men emerge, their lives worn wearily on hunched shoulders or gathered hurriedly in plastic packets as they are chased to nowhere. Hungry ghosts of lost hope. Backed against the very edge of existence. Smoke rises from the braai stands at the beach. It wafts the fatty aroma of boerewors and burnt chicken above the heads of laughing crowds. Cans, bottles, bones and boxes mark the territory. Litter as status symbol. Smoke rises from the pavement fires where vendors roast mealies. It mingles with the fumes from buses and taxis. Mixed messages rousing appetite and…
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A Coloured president
‘A Coloured President’ This is the title of a poster on a lamppost. ‘A coloured president’ K reads aloud. What is that about? It is advertising a show by comedian Carvin Goldstone. Mm well the White presidents were awful, the Black presidents aren’t turning out to be much good so maybe it is time for a Coloured president. And then an Indian, remarks S
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Out of Context
A naked man walked carefully along the concrete barriers of the central reservation on the M4 outside Durban this searing December morning. The naked man did not glance down at the traffic on either side. He did not look up to check destination or distance. He appeared fit and calm, eyes focused on the next step. He walked steadily, southbound, away from the city. It was dispiriting to think that this young man, walking away from the grime and noise with the morning sun shining on his back, would be judged crazy, while we, in a claustrophobic queue of cars and taxis, constrained and clammy in our clothes, on our…
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Life at 10
The planet does not need us It will survive without us But we need the earth Kannon Sazi Apelgren 2015
