Guns for Pens

HM Queen Silvia with the 2012 Child Jury (http://worldschildrensprize.org/photos)

It’s the child soldier who always makes me cry...this time it was a young boy with a round face and dark, haunting eyes which had seen too much. The boy on the stage could not have been more than fourteen years old, but he had seen his two friends killed and been forced to step over their bodies, on his way to becoming a killing machine. How can we do this – teach children to kill? How can we stand by when children are robbed of their youth, robbed of their right to a childhood – to learn, to play, to live without fear?

It was an ordinary day for Ndale when he left for school that morning. He and his friends were a little late and took a shortcut through the forest where they were captured and forced to march to a camp deeper in the bush. Their clothes were burned and they were dressed in adult uniforms with the legs and arms cut off to fit. Rifles were placed in their hands with the words – “this is your pen now”. It would be three years before Ndale escaped and made his way to BVES, an organisation which rescues children who have been forced to be soldiers in the war-torn D. R. Congo.

Ndale is the newest member on the jury of the World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child, the largest global organisation which teaches children about democracy and their rights. 27 million children are registered with the organisation which meets annually to honour child rights activists.

When I first attended the awards ceremony in 2008, Bwami was the child solider who brought a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes. He told a similar story and shared his revelation that education was the key to improve his life and the lives of all the other children in similar situations. Now Bwami is 18 and too old to sit on the child jury, but there are many more to take his place...

Overnight Heiress

This morning when I turned on my cell phone, I discovered that I was a millionaire! My cell phone number had been awarded R2,5 MILLION FROM "COCA-COLA PROMOTION 2012". I was instructed to CONTACT MR TIM VIA EMAIL: coca2549@live.co.uk or CALL ON 083 97 30 732 and was to SEND FULL NAME, CELLPHONE AND ADDRESS (all shouting at me in capitals).

I am obviously on a run of good fortune here. Last week I received a very official-looking email telling me that a relative in the UK had died and left me a fortune. In order for me to receive this, I was to email my bank account details to...drum roll...the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank. Apparently, for my safety and security only such an important official would be handling this transaction.

Last I heard, I had no relatives in the UK, living or dead. The email had the letters "HSBC" emblazoned down the left side. I read it again, impressed by the professionalism of the scam. And then I spotted it - the hotmail address that I was to send my details to - as far as I know, the government has not resorted to hotmail accounts. 

These are not by any means the only examples of my amazing good fortune, and it is not hard to see how people can be taken in by these con artists. But, remember - if you're not in it, you can't win it! The old folks were right again - you have to work for what you want in life. 

Rondebosch to Khayelitsha

Yesterday I travelled a relatively short distance from Rondebosch to Khayelitsha - it might as well have been on the other side of the world. We were going to one of the schools in the townships, all the way down Lansdowne Road, a familiar landmark on the Cape Flats. We went on and on for 45 minutes or more, leaving behind the tree-lined streets and high walls of the Southern Suburbs.

To start off, the road was pretty good and then gradually became more chaotic – cows were spotted rummaging through garbage on one side of the road, while on the other side, live sheep were for sale. A little further was a big open area where fires were going in drums which had been halved lengthwise, meat on the grill, fragrant smoke billowing into the air.

Here and there patches of green grass with colourful benches and tables hinted at previous attempts to encourage a communal gathering place. Along other stretches of road, shacks threatened to spill over into the road, so close that we could almost see right into their living areas.

Everything could be bought – mattresses piled high next to second-hand furniture, pre-assembled shacks of corrugated iron and wood, haircuts, general groceries and medical care. Streams of school children were making their way home past a billboard warning against the ills of drinking alcohol during pregnancy: “Your child needs a mother, not a dop”. Hooting taxis packed with weary travellers were weaving through traffic. A group of children on the back of a bakkie, passed away the time playing cards.

We attracted stares from curious pedestrians, wondering what our business was. We stopped to ask for directions only to be told to keep going straight ahead. At last we arrived at Chris Hani School where seven young girls were rehearsing for their trip to Sweden to perform in front of HM Queen Silvia. I can’t help thinking that our trip to see them was almost as far as the journey that they will make from Khayelitsha to Sweden!

Not the life and soul

I’m not the life and soul of the party. I don’t know just the right thing to say when at a cocktail party. I envy those who seem to have a store of one-liners which break the ice and start the conversation rolling. I am like a fish out of water, balancing a drink or a canapé in one hand, standing around making small talk. But I am a good listener, and once I get to know you around the dinner table or over a cup of coffee, I can ramble on as well as the next person.

My husband and daughter emit some kind of radar that draws people to them and they engage with ease, beaming in the afterglow of the interaction. People remember meeting them. On the other hand, I am always being told at parent-teacher meetings that my son has much to contribute, but is far too quiet in class, or he could be having more fun if he relaxed and opened up.

As a young boy, my son earned a reputation for himself as being a choosy playmate – teaching me to consult with him before I made any play date arrangements. “I need to rest today,” he would say, “I had a friend yesterday.” I learned to respect that – to give him his space to be by himself. After all, I could identify with that. We are both introverts and don’t need rescuing to come “out of our shells”. We are having fun, just doing it quietly.

At the bookshop last week, I spotted a book on how to make small talk; I picked it up, turned it over, read the back cover, and riffled through the pages. I was tempted to buy it. Maybe I do need to know what to say when introduced to the Prince of this or the President of that – to make a memorable impression. I walked around the aisles with it in my hand before reluctantly putting it back. I knew deep down that this was not something I could learn from a book. But, hey! There must be enough people with the same “problem” for someone to write a book, right?

Sometimes you have to accept the things you cannot change.  But I am free for coffee...

Jeffery Archer on Writing

On Friday I attended a very entertaining lunch with this prolific author. He really is an amazing story-teller and the talk was unexpectedly funny. He spoke about his writing journey and the trials and tribulations of becoming a successful writer. He started off his talk by saying that 1 in 1000 books submitted to publishers is accepted, and 1 in 1000 books published becomes bestsellers. He reaffirmed what I am rapidly learning - that writing is not for sissies!

I was quite impressed with his rigorous work schedule – he takes 50 days to write a book. He goes off to his house in Majorca (no telephones and no television) and writes: up at 05h00 writes from 06h00-08h00, 10h00-12h00, 14h00-16h00 and 18h00-20h00. In the breaks he takes two one-hour walks to clear his head and to allow the plot and characters to develop, and for exercise. He is in bed by 22h00 and up again at 05h00 the next morning.

A question from the floor was about the effect of technology on his sales. The percentage of sales of his books for Kindle has been increasing slowly and steadily, and the expectation now is that 50% of sales of his latest book will be electronic. In the 1970s, to promote his second book he went on a 17 city/21 day tour around the US, appearing on television shows and doing book signings. Now, he says, no one wants to see him. He has a blog, as well as a Face Book page and a Twitter account to keep his readers happy.

He urged those interested in writing to write about what they know, not what is in fashion. He said Jane Austen wrote about what she knew, viz. life in a small village. Her first book was about a woman trying to marry off her four daughters, the second about a woman marrying off her three daughters, in the third there were two daughters, and the last one was about a woman desperate to get married!

Cash is King

Yesterday we had a visitor from Italy for lunch. The news from the north is rather grim – depressed economy, high taxes, property prices down and more and more young people living on welfare since it is almost not worth working when you have to give away 70% of your salary to the taxman. 

I remember as a young girl that my grandfather always preached that “Cash was King”. He firmly believed that you should pay cash for everything and avoid getting into debt. His maxim was that if you couldn’t afford to pay cash for it, you should go without it or wait until you had saved the money. My fondest memory of him is of how he saved up his coins at the end of every day in a little money box that he kept in his cupboard, for my education. 

The banks have convinced us that it is alright to have things that we cannot afford, and they have lent money to us, allowing us to go into debt to get what we want. And now here we are in one big mess. Seems we should have listened to the old folks more closely.

Go For It

Towards the end of last year I came across a great school diary filled with ideas to "change the world", called "Go For It".  It starts off with a little quizz to check your eco-score, so that you can check your own lifestyle before you take on the problems of the world. It looks at the things you do, like turning off the lights or filling up the kettle with only as much water as you need,  picking up rubbish in the street when you see it,  performing random acts of kindness and using the political process to voice your concern on issues.

With two days a page it has suggestions of simple actions to help make a difference. I like the entry for 20/21 February which quotes Mandela's saying:

"If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. if you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart." 

There is then a suggestion to learn one of South Africa's 11 languages - even if it is only 20 phrases that you could use as much as possible. 

Another entry for 13/14 June talks about the many changes that are still needed in our country and encourages the youth to join up with other youth activists to make themselves heard. There is a suggestion to visit a website: www.youthnoise.com. 

The diary is only available in KwaZulu Natal this year but I hope that it will be available nationally next year. The positive message is inspiring but it is the practical information that is of enormous value. So often we want to do something but don't know where to start. 

The diary is based on Michael Norton's book, 365 Ways to Change the World.

Contact Lynn at lynn@goforitdiary.co.za or Kim at kim@goforitdiary.co.za