Snail Mail

Yesterday, I received a letter in the post. It was sitting in the mail box, just waiting to be received! I took it out, noticing the foreign postage stamps with expectation. The post mark was 16th August - not bad for the much-maligned postal service! I brought it inside and sat down to examine it. I turned it around to see the sender's address - old friends from Paris. It's not often that I get snail mail that does not have an envelope with a window, and I intended to savour this one. 

Slowly I slit the envelope and removed the A4 page - writing on both sides! Our friends in Paris have resisted all attempts to "globalise" and jump onto the technology highway. Sometimes this can be frustrating as we could be in much more regular contact if they were at least using the email address that they do have. But what a pleasure to enjoy the dying art of letter writing! I can imagine them sitting down to write the letter - and usually all four family members write a few lines - putting it into the envelope once they are satisfied that they have said all they want, and then going out to post it. All that time they are thinking about us and sending us positive thoughts!

They were replying to a letter I wrote a while ago (I had to remind myself about the contents - but even that was a pleasure as I had sent them a picture of my son with Madiba and could replay that event in my mind). They said were going to have the picture framed and displayed for all to see. Now if I had sent that via e-mail, they would probably not have printed it out!

Sometimes life is so fast and everything is so accessible that we forget to appreciate the small events and the small gestures that make life so meaningful. So, take a minute - write a letter to someone - it doesn't have to say much, except that you are thinking of them.

A Place to Play

I am getting involved with a project that aims to get kids off the street and give them a space to have fun, relax, be kids, be safe, exercise, channel energy, offer an alternative to the temptation of falling in with the wrong crowd, a place to hang out when there is nowhere else to go. It is really exciting and apart from the yoga class I will be teaching, there will be a dance teacher, and a hockey and soccer coach. It is going to be wonderful - there is such a need for a project like this in Langa. (Go see for yourself at Project Playground. 

We have the use of a large hall as well as another smaller room and a small outside area. There is a very nice soccer and hockey field around the corner from the project. It would be perfect if the field was made available to them in the afternoons. 

Sounds wonderful, doesn't it - a great project for all the right reasons and the facilities to make it happen. Here's the thing though -  the fields cannot be used because they need to be protected during the week to save the grass so that it can be used on the weekends for matches only.  So where are the kids who play matches practising? On the streets and anywhere else they can find space. Apparently people even try to break into the field to play! Langa could be harbouring the next generation of Bafana Bafana players and yet someone has come up with rules like these. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

Our project co-coordinator, Frida, had a meeting with the board (of the soccer section only - she has to have another meeting with another board re the hockey field) and pointed out the folly of this arrangement (her petite status belies a fierce determination to get this project off the ground). So we now await the decision of the council. In the meantime, I am thinking of practising my toyi-toyi! 

The Human Race

Name. Age. Race. Why am I  being asked to fill this in? "We invite you to..." or "we know it is a sensitive issue but..." or "we need this for transformation purposes..." - these are some of the excuses I am being given. I say excuses because I do not view them as valid reasons for having to fill in race classification. Why after 16 years of democracy are we still so hung up on race classification? Is this not what we fought against for so many years - for non-racialism, to not be classified and treated in a certain way, based on that classification? I can understand that we need some way of addressing the enormous disadvantage of our apartheid legacy, but there has to be a more acceptable way of doing this.

Apparently we have Count Arthur Gobineau, a French diplomat in the 19th century, to thank for all this racial demography. He started writing about the 3 races (yellow, black and white) and laid the foundation for all the Hitlers who came after him. Of course, science has now proved that there is no such thing as different race groups, that differences in skin colour are an adaptation to climate and environment, but that will probably take another century to filter out. 

Racism is a learned trait and the sooner we can change the environment that we live in, the sooner we can change peoples attitudes. As long as we are still being asked to classify ourselves along racial lines, we are entrenching those ideas and have little hope of finding that holy grail, a non-racist society.

This issue also needs tackling at  a university admissions level where students have to earn points for admission. Different points are assigned depending on the student's "race". Surely if the university receives an application they can take into account the social circumstances, schooling and other background details of the student and make decisions on that criteria? The student from the poor township who attended the less than prestigious school, who has succeeded beyond all expectations, deserves a place at university without having to classify him or herself as "black". What about the "black" student who had the fortune of going to a top government or even private school - do they deserve to get a place at university more than  their fellow "white", "indian" or "coloured" students?

I remember getting my new identity book post-1994 - the last 3 digits had to be changed because they previously classified us as being of a certain race. My husband and I come from different "population groups". We rejoice that our children do not have to suffer the indignity of apartheid. Yet we are often asked to fill in forms that classify them. Now do we have to decide on what race they should be? Shall I say that they are "coloured" since they must be mixed to have parents from different population groups? Or is my husband's previous classification more dominant than mine, or vice versa?

My kids will tell you that they are South African and that is all the classification they need. Or their classification is H for Human Race - and that is how it should be. The sooner we start changing the seemingly small things, the less likely they will continue to be firmly entrenched.

Happy Women's Day

This morning I attended a Women's Day brunch to raise funds for St Luke's Hospice. The keynote speaker delivered an interesting talk from a very different angle - Does the public attention of celebrities with cancer help with cancer awareness? She mentioned many actors, First Wives, singers and captains of industry, who have been diagnosed in recent years with different types of cancer. She could not really answer the question but left us with the message that the real heroes are the ordinary people - the people who you and I know - who battle the disease.

Both my maternal grandparents died of cancer, my grandmother of lung cancer and my grandfather of prostrate cancer which had spread to the bowel. My grandmother spent her last days at the hospice and both my parents have been volunteers there. In recent years several of my friends have been affected directly or indirectly by the disease, mostly with breast cancer. I think that the camaraderie of our circle of friends has helped enormously -  helping with kids, cooking a meal, company during chemotherapy sessions, just being there for a cup of tea and a chat, laughing about choosing a wig or helping to find different ways to tie a scarf.

But at the end of the day, I think that it has come down to them walking that journey by themselves, drawing on inner strength and faith. I can well understand the war terms used to talk about the disease - doing battle, surviving, attacking, long struggles. They have all survived, rising up to the challenge and emerging as stronger women. On this Women's Day, I would like to salute each and everyone of them, those who are in my circle and beyond.

Building Gardens of Hope

I have just been reading an edited copy of the 8th Nelson Mandela lecture given by Ariel Dorfman in Johannesburg yesterday. Unfortunately I missed it on the radio - I managed to hear his last few sentences before his voice broke and the crowd roared. He spoke about the gardens of hope that people like Nelson Mandela and others living in conflict, created. Nelson Mandela's garden that he created while in prison, brought him much hope, joy and dignity. He urged us to remember that gardens grow like justice  and reconciliation should, and that we need to sing to the earth to forgive us and continue to give us hope.

I have been thinking that the people around us who do good, who help others, who share what they have, who do what they can to in some small way make the world a better place, are all growing gardens. Planting seeds, nurturing and willing them to yield beautiful products.

From the  NGO's down to the little Gogo who takes children into her care so that their parents can earn a living, the projects that aim to get children off the street, the people who make soup to feed the homeless or the musician who gives his time to build a jazz band with borrowed instruments in one of the poverty-stricken townships, we are all building and growing. We need to know what people are doing. We need to peek over the walls and admire and copy what is being done. My "favourite" function that I attend every year, is the Inyathelo Awards for philanthropy, that identifies and celebrates the people who are building the spirit of ubuntu in our communities.

We have a friend, Bobby Sager, who travels the world with his family, from Rwanda to Bhutan, Afghanistan to South Africa, India to Palestine, doing good. We are fortunate to see them regularly and hear of their adventures. In between visits, he keeps us updated with mostly black and white pictures that he has taken of the places they have visited. Many of the pictures are of children and my favourite picture is of 2 young girls standing with their arms around each other, having a good laugh.

The picture was taken in Afghanistan in the middle of conflict and I have framed it and put it on my desk. It reminds me that children, no matter that the world may be falling down around them, will always manage to find joy. This is why I am so passionate about being involved with the World Children's Prize. The fact that the organisation is powered by children who at the same time, are learning about democracy and human rights, gives me immense hope for a better future society.

Everyday we are bombarded with negative images and stories, we absorb them and they become part of the very fibre of our being. We start to believe everything that we read and hear. Whenever we have been out of the country for a while, I find that the news feels like a physical onslaught on our return. It is as if I build up some kind of immunity to all the negativity when I am away. It hits you in the face when you come back.

We need to build a culture of hope. We need to start changing the energy around us. We need to start building hope and excitement about the future. We each need to find a garden to work in - one person can make a difference. As Bobby says, "Hope isn't just nice; it's a game-changer."