the long busride to Zambia....

This two week trip to Zambia and Zimbabwe meant quite the busrides. From our city in the south of South Africa, Plett, it is about 8.000km back and forth to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, which to compare it is as if you would cross Canada completely, from one coast to the other. And, broke and adventurous as we are, Thomas and me decided to do it all with the bus (as opposed to Kristien, who flew it all, taking about 5h per trip). Us, we spent a total of 119 hours traveling, 56 hours going up, and 63 going back down.

And we know and knew it, T.I.A. (cfr. Blood Diamond: This Is Africa) so why should we rely on timetables and ETA's? But somehow, living in South Africa and reserving tickets online at respectable buscompanies such as Greyhound, you tend to forget TIA...

So, a short list of what went wrong:

- our first bus (Plett-George, 2h) was swapped for a small mini van that nearly left us behind (after all, we were looking for a big bus no?)....

- our bus n°2 (George-Jo'burg, 12h) turned out to be the bus that was supposed to pick us up, and not the confy sleepliner we were expecting;

- our bus n° 3 (Jo'burg-Harare, 21h) started breaking down around 3h in the morning, being repared (with my borrowed pocket knife!) and then driven forward for another 10km, until fumes started coming out, and after three such make-shift repairs, it finally exploded and was put down to rest. We managed to hitch a ride to Harare but arived to late to be going with Veerle and Kristien in the car to Zambia - which meant bus n° 4....


- bus n°4 (Harare, Zimbabwe-Lusaka, Zambia, 9h): well, not much went wrong except that it left about four hours late, and then couldn't find any petrol, so we had to scout around till it was discretely refilled at some hidden away compound.... The picture to the right I found on the net, a petrol queue, saying it all about the situation in Zimbabwe. You can tell the regime was Soviet-inspired huh?

But after bus n°4 and a hitched ride, we finally managed to meet up with Kristien and Veerle, and from then on it was a confortable 4x4 drive around Zambia and back to Harare. All nice things coming to an end though, the bus rides back to South Africa still had some bad karma to send our way:

- bus n°5 (Harare, Zimbabwe-Jo'burg, 26h instead of the scheduled 16h) at the stop at a gas station in Zimbabwe, the scheduled 10 to 15 minutes turned into 9h cause some turning element in the engine had severed some wire (I know, this might be too technical for non-mechanics, but I wanted to be as precise as possible;-). In the morning, another bus showed up and we changed, and then another bus came and we changed again, and then still once more.... General gruntling was common among the passengers and a revolution was upcoming till Greyhound gave us breakfast and accomodation in Jo'burg for the once who had missed a connecting bus (such as poor us). It did mean however that we were going to have to spend an entire day in Jo'burg and miss out on our planned three day hiking of the world famous Otter Trail with our roommates.

But while we were in Jo'bug we got to visit the ApartheidMuseum (5 minutes walking away from the hotel where Greyhound had put us). Quite an interesting place to visit, and there was also a very good exhibition of pictures of Ernest Cole, a black photographer from the sixties that made it out of South Africa and published House of Bondage, which depicted apartheidrealities...

For more details about the trip in itself, check out Thomas' post.

BruTho go ZimZam for the next ten days

Thomas and me will be gone for ten days, heading towards the North, inside Zimbabwe and Zambia. Though I am announcing it a bit late, this is not a spur of the moment kind of decision. Kristien, responsible for dREAMCATCHER here where Thomas works, is going to visit the volens projects there and the partnerorganisations. Since Thomas and me are interested in some of the jobs that Volens is looking for development workers in that region, we kindly requested and were invited to come along. This will allow us to see the country through privilidged eyes, the ones of people trying to improve situations there, and to meet some of potential partnerorganisations where we might apply to. It'd be for three years, so it never hurts for us to have a better idea of the country and the organisations, and it won't hurt them either to have a better idea of what Thomas and me are like. It sounds fascinating, though the fact that the volens couple that will be accompanying us asked to bring 10 kilo's of baking powder, so that they'd be able to make bread is a bit scary... If it's that hard to get things that basic... We read articles of endless queues just to buy eggs, and estimates of one out of every three people in Harare (capital of Zimbabwe) being mentally sick. Guess we'll see.

But so, all this also to warn you that there might very well be some radio silence for the next ten days, till we get back in Plettenberg Bay and civilisation on the 1st of November.

Cheers!

je Kern in het kwadraat!

Sander riep me deze namiddag in zijn kamer om mijn mening te geven over deze kernkwadranten, en ik vond het zo interessant dat ik er een namiddag aan kwijt geraakte, en iets dat de moeite waard is, moet gedeeld worden, niet waar?

Hierbij dus, ontdek jezelf: Daniel Ofman's kernkwadrant : een hulpmiddel om kernkwaliteiten bij uzelf en anderen te ontdekken. Een kernkwaliteit is een eigenschap die tot het wezen (de kern) van een persoon behoort. De schaduwkant van een kernkwaliteit (het teveel van het goede) is de valkuil: de vervorming die u krijgt als een kernkwaliteit te ver doorschiet. De positief tegenovergestelde kwaliteit van de valkuil is de uitdaging. De kernkwaliteit en de uitdaging zijn elkaars aanvullende kwaliteiten. Het gaat er om een balans tussen deze twee te vinden. Dat is dus geen kwestie van of-of, maar van en-en. Het teveel van de uitdaging is de allergie.

Hoe meer u in een ander met uw eigen allergie geconfronteerd wordt, hoe groter de kans om in uw eigen valkuil te lopen. Waar u allergisch voor bent bij iemand anders, is waarschijnlijk iets goeds dat u zelf het meeste nodig hebt. Iemand kan dus het meest (over zichzelf) leren van de mensen met wie hij de meeste moeite heeft.

Probeer het maar eens zelf, het is grappig te merken hoe je uitdaging te ver doorgedreven bij anderen net is waar je een hekel aan hebt...

De volgende vier kwadranten hebben ik en Thomas toegepast op elkaar. Kunnen jullie ondekken welke twee van Thomas zijn, en welke twee van mij? Zie de poll in de marge!

1)

2)

3)

4)

Goodbyes are in the air

"I say hello, you say goodbye"...

There seems to be a smell of goodbyes in the air. Some of our fellow volunteers or people that shared parts of our lives left or are leaving. It always seems to become an emotional moment for me.

This Monday I was driving Jonas, another Belgian leaving, to the airport. He's leaving after having spend six weeks here, researching kwaito music in the Kwano township. We were listening to my iPod on the car's radio. In the spirit of the moment, I was flipping through my playlists, and put on the "goodbyes" one. There all songs that remind me of special People & Places, that I started some time ago, and have been adding special songs to ever since. As you can guess, it usually doesn't make me jump for joy ;-). And then I came to thinking:"how much does it say about my life really that actually have a specific playlist for goodbyes"?

Goodbyes are tough on me, and getting harder and harder. To me, it feels as if this past year and a half has been filled with temporary, but intens friendships, over so soon, often too soon. And somehow I feel like my friendships haven't gone as far as they could have. Mixed feelings really, also because of one particular incident.

These past two years, my life has continually changed every three to six months, which is a short period. Halfway through, you're already having to focus on what is next, to plan ahead. I started counting and noticed that, with our next trip to Zimbabwe and Zambia, and then going up to Cape Town to see a friend of mine, I have about two to three weeks left in Plett. Gone in the blink of an eye really. Now you see me, now you don't...

Resurrection

Through broken eyes of raindrops I cry
The nothingness, that is the pain of empty tears
Slowly creeping out of blinded eyes
Fading truth, once naked and clear

Above the surface of thick, black tar
There lies the illusion of a painful scar
There one can see the unseen face
The truth of the lies she so often got to taste

Behind the mask lies dreaded weakness
The façade which is her past
All she wanted was the sweetness
Of a friends admiration to last

But now she sighs at the pain she never felt
The game she was playing with cards never dealt
Now she stares at the reflection she refused to see
But continues fighting truth, living within a reverie

Time being her consolidation, her hero
To rescue her from an invisible danger
To be fooled by her act and not see her
As the person who to herself, a mere stranger

Can there be an end if the beginning is unknown
Can one shrink just as one feels one has grown
Do we choose to believe, knowing deep inside
That we are fooling ourselves from realities disguise

If the day comes where pain is indeed true
Will she be strong enough to cope
Does she not maybe need us to
Give her for what she has hoped

Judgement having surfaced on her skin
When all she wanted was for us to look within
Acceptance being the wing to the bird
The ear to the words she needed to be heard

Will she still hold on after letting go
And live her life in the illusion of hope
Or will she be accepted and fly away
From the ‘drama addict within’ per say

From the first moment you see the world
Till the day you close them for good
You are alone and this is how it stays
Only you can lead your way

No one can be a shoulder for your tears
‘Cos they go home and face their own fears
And revel in issues created by them
Being their own true best friend

Connecting with people and being alike
Is the weapon most used in this lifelong fight
We constantly need another, other than oneself
So that the loneliness does not surface quite as well

Some create their lives to be a misery
They seek bad happenings just to see
A concerned face, a pity look – unaware
That no one really truly cares.

From Nina, the youngest sister of the family where I am staying.

what is most frustrating about this blog?

Do you want to know what is getting the most frustrating about this blog? Not keeping it up to date, which in a way is fun, as much for yourself as it is for others. No, the worst i s having to keep things OUT of it! Let me explain: now, I have alsways tried to be as honest as possible in my stories, and be able to write about everything which touched me or made me sad, angry, happy, whatever. This usually involved other people (l'enfer,....). All fine so far, but now, since we are quite a number of volunteers, and all of our blogs are linked and checked and scrutinized by everyone, a lot of my stories would involve the others and things that are meant to be kept private or secret. And sometimes I would just wish that I could publish somebody's story, problems, cause writing them out would actually sort of clear it out in my head as well...
But that's the internet way nowadays, isn't it... You never know who might stumble upon it, and who they might know ;-)

weekend in Cape Town

Just a quick one to let the faithful followers know that I am in Cape Town for ten days. We got here last Thursday, in order to wave goodbye to Pieter who had his flight leaving from Cape Town on Tuesday. He traveled up first with Sander, and then Goedele, Thomas and me drove up in a rental. We stayed at a backpackers in the Center (long Street) and did tons during the first three days, actually 12 out of the 24 recommended highlights for Cape Town and the Garden Route, in an amazing three days:

1. Cape Point and Goede hoop (with even two whales)
2. Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden
3. the Cape Flats and townships: driving through them and vistint them with the Field Band project
4. Table Mountain cable way and walking up through the Botanical Gardens (2)
5. African cuisine: a change from Plett's limited offer: Marco's Africa restaurant and African Image, both worth a visit.
6. Cape Dutch architecture: the neighbourhood of Bo-Kaap and Muizenberg with the oldest colonial house of South Africa (where Agatha Christie learned how to surf ;-)
7. Boulders Beach, the one of only two existing places where you can see the jack-ass penguins (official name : African penguins)
8. the wine tasting along the Stellenbosch wineries
9. Robben Island where Nelson Mandela had been incarcerated

Since we still had time to spare, these are some of the others things we did, and recommend:
- artist Imma Stern museum
- National SA Art gallery
- the Company's Garden and the cute squirrels there
- Lion's head
- The District Six museum
- going out to Bronx and other fun places
- meeting up with Kate (our first Couch Surfing experience), and Ian and Magda (our most recent CS experience)

- the ballet with a Queen musical (not that great though)
- going out to a striptease joint and getting two cm nipples pushed in our faces
- Sunday morning church

I am staying till this weekend 13th and 14th of Oct. and see the field band projects here, maybe stay in the township around Stellenbosch to meet up on Saturday with Sacha who's coming for a week of holidays from Congo.

Next, maybe plans to go to Zimbabwe?

Video Born in Africa

De promotie video van Born In Africa waar ik ook aan heb meegewerkt.

Pieter's leaving, long live Pieter!

PLETTONIAN TIMES

To the tune of "Hard times" (The Scabs)

We shared us a Plett time
It has been so fine
There's no I'm leaving
cause you will still shine.

The things you've been doing
The things that you've said
The road to Plett
where we all met.
___________
They promised us sunshine
They promised us a thousand whales
Instead of the hard times
Pieter came and took our hearts away.

We shared some good times, Pieter
We lied and we killed
We shared some great times, Pieter
We ran, squashed and hiked...

________

Our reasons for coming

Don't know what to say

Maybe it's Belgium
Having its way.

You know that we love you.

but that's easy to say

It'd make us proud of you

If you would've stayed.

________

We were silly believing

Your stay would last

Cause sooner or later

You'd be in the past.

We'll often wonder

How the things would be

if you would have found

that famous pantshee.

________

We look at Kranshoek

Watch the school kids grow

Life was so easy

in Belgians House.

There was only Flashbacks, Nothando and Kwano

Now just goodbyes, and time to go...

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

A day at Die Sterreweg

This morning, the caregivers from die Sterreweg went on training, so me and some other volunteered to help out to look after the children there. Though I had passed by the center before, and helped out with like the construction of the sand pit, it was my first day spending time with the kids where Thomas, Goedele and Sander spend all of their time.

It was actually more intense than I had expected. When we went walking with them, and Jonas passed me the child he had been holding, I was looking into the eyes of Bongiswa, a girl looking 3 years old but is actually 9... She was brought to the center only a couple of weeks ago, extremely undernourished and apparently she's just started opening her eyes... I wish I could say something deep, like I saw infinity in her eyes, or wisdom, hell, even happiness, but truth is, I couldn't see anything. I couldn't even make her react or look into a direction I was pointing at. It is funny how it is small things or events that I feel most confronted with the work done to try and... do something. There was nothing great or splendid at the fact of holding her, and you do wonder how many more Bongiswa there are out there, but your admiration for the people working to improve all this does go up a notch...

Did you know, there are 500 million disabled people in the world - one tenth of the human race. Eighty per cent of disabled people live in developing countries. One third of them are children. Everywhere, disabled people are the poorest of the poor. Access to buildings, information, independence, opportunity, choice and control over their lives are denied.
At least half of all impairments could be prevented or cured. 300, 000 children are still impaired by polio every year. 1 million a year are disabled because of malnutrition. 20 million blind people could have sight restored by cataract operations. There are some countries in the world where 90 per cent of disabled children won't survive beyond the age of 20 and 90 per cent of those with intellectual impairments won't survive beyond the age of five. The World Health Organisation estimates that 98 per cent of disabled people in developing countries are totally neglected.

In South Africa, every day, 52 people die from violence but for every death, three people acquire permanent impairments. One in three women can expect to be raped. One in four children has been abused, for which disabled women and children are particularly vulnerable. Fifty per cent of disabled children have never been to school...

Jo'burg: the second field visit

Last weekend was our second field band visit: to Jo'burg, where the National Gathering and Competition would take place off all of the field bands in South Africa (25 in total). I must admit I wasn't looking forward to going to Jo'burg, with the reputation it has and the robbery that took place there last time I was there. This happened 5 years ago, in 2002, when I had stayed in South Africa for three months or so and arrived in Jo'burg as well. Obviously ignoring all advice and heeds of warning, I was walking the streets, and trying to get to Park station to take a train to Pretoria. Everybody had told me not to got downtown, but I just had to try and see for myself, didn't I? So, 50m away from the railway station, in a street black with market stands and street vendors, a guy walked up to me and asked for money. When I refuse, he pulled out a knife and suddenly four people were all around me and grab me. Felt like a hundred hands were going through all my pockets. I remained sort of paralysed, out of good sens (don't want to give the impression I am going to make a run for it or reach for a weapon) and out of fear. I just looked about, eyes pleading for help I suppose, but people were just looking on, without lifting a finger (perfectly understandable of course). Anyway, they wanted to take away the money belt that I am wearing, and since they couldn't find the buckle, the first guy was trying to get the knife underneath it to cut it and winded up hurting me of course. Just a scratch, but enough to get me startled and out of paralysation. "I'll get it, I'll get it", I shouted, and slowly undid the buckle. The minute it came loose, they all shot away and disappeared in all directions, leaving me standing there.
It is funny, I just wanted to explain very briefly what had happened, but details just seem to keep coming back. I can even still smell them. Maybe because it was the first time I ever got threatened... Sadly enough, since I have had more than my fair share of being mugged or held at gunpoint (thanks Haiti and the DR) but that one made me feel insecure for a long time, maybe because it happened in the middle of a busy street... Anyway, you can understand I felt a bit stressed going back, but also thought it might be good to face old demons. Reactions from other South Africans didn't help. Jo'burg seems to inspire images of violence, Gangsta's Paradise, drugs and poverty.

But on to the weekend itself. I arrived by myself on the Thursday (the two others from Plett coming the day after), and got into the Ritz Backpackers, where my first image was the telephone I had cried on when calling my dad five years ago. Coincidentally, my backpackers was the same one I had stayed in all that time ago. I had to get straight out to a southern part of Jo'burg for the celebration of 10 years of the National Field Band Foundation and the launching of a cd, and for once didn't even bother to check whether I could get there by public transportation, but asked for a cab to come and pick me up. Turned out to be the right choice to get there in time (though it still took over an hour to drive through the rain) but a rather pricey one: 200R (20€). It was quite fancy and I felt a bit uncomfortable, not knowing anybody until I decided to fuck it and just mingle. Met a couple of nice people, many Norwegians who were there (they support the FBF), Marleen, a woman who sits in the board of directors for the Cape Town Field Band, and Nicky, who did the feasibility study ten years ago for the creation of the field band. She gently drove out of her way to drop me off at the hostel and I was quite exhausted, what with the hitch-hiking to the airport in George, the stress of arriving in Jo'burg, hurrying to get to the event, and the effort of chatting, so it was straight to bed for me.
The day after, I gathered up my courage, and decided to try the public transportation to get the Turffontein Racecourse where the "new" bands would be rehearsing. It took me straight past the spot where the mugging had happened, and I had to stand an uncomfortable half an hour to swop buses, but afterwards I did feel better. Got to the event, and loved the fact off being recognised and chatted to ;-) .The baby bands (as the new bands are called) were amazing and I was blown away by how quickly they had managed to make great performances. In five, six months time... Next were the individual and specific contests, with solo dancing and instruments playing per band, which allowed to focus on just one aspect of the bands (while you're always missing out on things if you see the entire performance, cause there is just too much going on).
The afternoon, we went with Nicky and the international supporters to the Constitutional court which used to be a prison under apartheid. Fascinating.

In the evening we managed to get invited to a fancy dinner at Bertie Lubner's place. Great food, all of the important players, and they have had the 16th best choir in the world performing! We took a moment of Rheta's time, the national coordinator of the Field band Foundation, who explained in a very straightforward way the setting up of a new field band. Turned out I (or we) had gotten it all wrong, cause we were focusing on trying to get the community involved, and set up the structure for the rehearsals, getting all the local stakeholders motivated. Rheta said we just needed to get the money together for the first year (about 1,2M R for buying the instruments and the salaries for the five hired people in charge) and then they would come in and do it all, take it from there. I felt a bit devastated cause it meant I didn't have much else to do. Fundraising was what needed to be focused on now, and that was Tony's department. I hardly see myself moving in his circle of Polo friends... But then I wondered where the empowerment was, the involvement of the community if we just play out the blue print that they use nationally. Of course it allows for less mistakes, but isn't each community entitled to making its own mistakes and learning from them. Seems to me like we have very little input or autonomy...

Saturday was the big day for the bands presentations, and all the senior bands showed the best of what they had. Heartwarming and I did feel a bit like the project was really worth it again. After kissing everybody goodbye, Tony and the Lubner clan gave us a ride back to the hostel and we decided to meet up later again for a jazz festival that was taking place down town, in a recently renovated area called Newtown. At the hostel we met James, a guy from Brooklyn who has just spent 7 years in Sierra Leone working with a bee-honey project. After supper in a local mall and efforts to try and see the Lion King (didn't come through though), we left for the Jazz Festival where a lot of West-African and Brazilian band were performing. It was amazing to spend a night out in Jo'burg Central and have it be so nice and secure.

Sunday morning we'd booked a bicycling tour through Soweto with Lebo Backpackers. Soweto is the main tourist attraction of Jo'burg and where I feared to spend a morning behind the glasses of a van looking at total misery, it turned out to be the complete opposite.


Friendly faces, children greeting us, hardly any pleas for money. Intense places such as where 600 students were shot by the police in 1976, the only street in the world with 2 Nobel Peace prize winner (Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela), a lot of innovative and original community projects... .

Then it was time for us to say goodbye to Jo'burg, after a weekend that had turned out far more pleasant than I thought but a bit disappointing for me personally on the Field band level, since I now doubt to be able to contribute much more in the near future.

Famous photograph of the Soweto riots
showing a student carrying the body of Hector Pieterson,
a 13 year old boy who was one of the first casualties.

Port Elizabeth: first field visit

Last weekend, four of us went to visit the Field bands in Port Elizabeth (PE), 4h driving away. It felt nice to finally be doing something int his project other than meetings and discussions. And it is also nice to get away for a weekend from Pretty Petit Plett. So we left on Friday morning, Kristien, Etienne, Shaun and me, in a rental, and met up for lunch with Marcellus (Regional Coordinator, stepping down) and Heidery (Band coordinator, stepping up to fill Marcellus' shoes) from the PE Field Band. So nice to hear from an existing and working field band how they go about it. I was surprised though how little of the budget they run themselves, only like 10% of it, the rest is run by the national field band foundation. But Marcellus is more like a passionate music man than a manager, so that might have explained it. He gave us a lot of tips and straightforward answers to our questions. They have two field bands, one in Zwide, a coloured township, and the other one in Bethelsdorp, where it is mostly blacks living. For the national competition in Jo'burg next week though, they mix both boands though and use the best members.

Next, we went to Zwide where we could assist the rehearsal of that band, which was simply wonderful. It seems to be so much fun for the kids, who are enjoying themselves immensely, and though it was far from being perfect, there sas such an energy and joy radiating that it was amazing. I mean, we are talking about kids from townships here, who have difficulty sitting still in schools and remaining discplined, while here they would be performing figures and such which requiered just that, a team spirit and working together, while smiling and making music at the same time. Heartwarming! We did a couple of interviews (well, I did, cause the others didn't want to interrupt the rehearsal), and then we left to get ready for the gala dinner.

Cause yes, Marcellus had invited us to partake in the launching dinner for the Northern Arts & Culture festival which was going to take place that weekend and in which the Field Band was active as well. So, very fancy, with famous artists and politicians, loads of speeches and food slow to arrive.
It always strikes me as funny funny how my work in developping countries allows me to move in such different circles, going in one afternoon from a township rehearsal, where poor kids are sewing their own uniforms with handouts, to the fanciest dinner in town that day, where everybody who was somebody was there.

Next day, Saturday, we went to the morning workshops that the field band was conducting during this festival, and tried ourselves to play on the steel drums, dance a little hip hop and misbehaved ourselves on the theme park that was meant for the kids ;-)

After that, back to Plett, where our own local jazz festival was awaiting for us...

conversatie

- Ik vraag me soms af hoeveel van mijn leven wordt bepaald door het verlangen dat anderen zoveel om mij zouden geven als ik om hen...
* Moet toch wel steeds teleurstellend zijn.
- Bah, misschien wel, maar 't is een keuze, en ik kan maar blijven proberen.
* Maar de andere kant is ook moeilijk.
- Wat bedoel je?
* Altijd het gevoel te hebben niet genoeg te kunnen teruggeven.
- Ja, daar had ik eigenlijk nooit echt bij stilgestaan. Wat is er moeilijker, veel geven aan anderen en de indruk hebben niet genoeg terugkrijgen, of de indruk hebben niet genoeg terug te geven en dus steeds anderen teleur te stellen?