#South Africa

Periodically, “awards” (otherwise known as chain letters) circulate through the blogosphere. One blogger nominates another for, say, “The Most Fabulous Blogger” award. That blogger writes a post accepting the award, says a few witty things about how honored she is to be considered fabulous, then nominates a number of other bloggers for the same award. The nominees are “encouraged” to respond, usually with threats of low traffic and bad juju for those who abstain (all in good fun, of course).

Before launching into a post about celebrity-watching, I want to say that my heart goes out to those affected by the unthinkable violence in Norway yesterday, as well as the ongoing famine in East Africa.

UPDATE (March 2017): I wrote this post six years ago, at a time when I was pretty clueless about life in South Africa and how to write about it. I regret the title of the post and the poverty-porn-like tone that much of its prose conveys. But I have a policy of never deleting any of my old posts, so it will stay.

When I moved to South Africa last year, I had a vague understanding of the role Nelson Mandela played in ending apartheid and reinventing this country. (Nelson Mandela is often referred to as Madiba, which is his clan name. It took me a while to figure out why people are always calling him that.)

Today I attended a “Jazz Breakfast” fundraiser on the roof of a vacant building in Melville, to raise money for an upcoming poetry festival at the Melville Visitors Centre. The weather was splendid, the view was sensational, the conversation was pleasant, and the music was lovely. It was a perfectly enjoyable – and blog-able – morning. I had a blast taking photos.