#Africa

Before this past weekend, the last music festival I attended was the legendary HFStival – sometime around the turn of the millennium in a grimy, beer-sodden stadium in southeast Washington D.C. It was oppressively humid and there were more than 70,000 attendees, mostly suburban kids aged 14 to 25. There was moshing. With the exception of my favorite ska/punk band, Goldfinger, I don’t remember who played.

Actress Kharyshi Wiginton, performing in Colours of the Diaspora*. She might be too much for most people, but I couldn’t get enough of her.*

Last night I was invited to see a show called Colours of the Diaspora at the Market Theatre Laboratory. The Laboratory, affiliated with the iconic Market Theatre, is an experimental theatre venue and drama school for underprivileged artists, located inside a cavernous converted bus factory in Newtown.

First in a two-part series. Read Part 2.

Yesterday there was a tournament at the Hillbrow Boxing Club. It was my first time watching a live boxing competition. Young kids competed, as well as youth and adults. There were eight three-round bouts. Seven of the fights were male fights and one was a female fight.

Yesterday morning I received a worried call from Horst, my landlord. A friend of his had just read on page 10 of The Star, a South African daily newspaper, that Horst’s house had been attacked by maggots.

Photo by Mark Straw, Joburg Photowalkers

Shortly after I publish this post, 2Summers will surpass 100,000 hits all-time.

The last time I wrote a celebratory post like this was in January 2011, when my blog surpassed 10,000 hits. In that post I wrote: “It’s a small feat, I know, but reaching that milestone is a pretty cool thing for a regular person like me.”

A few months ago I wrote about the thrill of walking in Johannesburg at night. Yesterday I discovered that running in Joburg at night is even better. Especially when you’re running with 10,000 other people, dressed in florescent yellow.