'Death': For Pearl van Wyk

TEXT WRITTEN BY A PRIEST IN 1918:
'Death means nothing at all…I have only slipped away into the next room, I am I, and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, we are still.
Call me by my old familiar name; speak to me in the easy way we always used; put no difference in your tone; wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh, as always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile; think of me. Pray for me. Let my name be the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without effort, without trace of shadow in it.
Life means all that it was ever meant; it is the same as it ever was…there is absolutely unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you, for an interval somewhere very near, just around the corner.
All is well. Nothing is past, nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before.'

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

i carry your heart with me

Sitting alone, I'm eating chocolate mousse cake, and drinking cafe mocha, but for two.
I'm surrounded by couples who no longer notice each other, whose eyes constantly peel off other relationship's clothes. Hungry eyes as Sixties jazz is piped through bookstore speakers; it's a moody Sunday afternoon.
I've been looking forward to Christmas since last year; this time it arrived without fanfare; slipping in through the back door it didn't even disturb the flies. Gaudy-expensive decorations - primary colour red, keywords 'passion' & 'sizzle' - glitter cheaply in the un-spontaneous sunshine.
A good corporate woman at the next table wades through a file thick of emails. She's proud of dedicating all seven days of every week to her career; it shows on her smug, self-satisfied slave-face. (A slender apple core on her table stains itself brown from green and looking back, I've no doubt, on orchard days. My bet is that it was organically grown, just like the once-were-fir-trees that are now printed emails. A whole thick file full.)
It's my turn to have my clothes peeled off: this by a hungry-looking, wolf-like faced young guy over there. Smashing his 'sexy' facade, he reeks of the neediness scratched across his smooth face.
On Thursday night an 80-year woman (riddled with bed sores) died from kidney failure in a provincial hospital ward for one. Next year April she would've been married for 50 years. Last week I'd visited her and prayed that she wouldn't be staying long; '7 score and 10' is a long time to keep on smiling.
'Love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage,' croons some velvet-voiced sixties dude (ha-ha, imagine!) over the same speakers (surely this can't be good for book and mag sales?).
If I wasn't in love I'd probably have slit my wrists in the sterile, extraordinarily expensive toilet next-door.

For you, my love, from YOU:

i carry your heart with me

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it (anywhere i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear no fate (for you are my fate,my sweet)
i want no world (for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

ee cummings

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Renaissance Stadium, Cape Town

These are photos I've just received of the first lighting of the 'Renaissance' Stadium in Greenpoint. They are from my Cape Town-based friend and journalist, Andrew October. From this perspective it looks like an incredible work of architecture.



Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Night of a 1000 Stars

It's a magnificent evening in the Lowveld, there's not a breath of air stirring and a festive atmosphere reminiscent of the coast during the summer holidays. In support of the Cancer Association, it's the Night of a Thousand Stars where some of Nelspruit's finest restaurant's have closed off an entire street and have magnificently decked tables to cater for a 1000 people. The food, thus far...sumptuous!

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Name Changes: What the hell were we thinking, were we thinking at all?

There's been vociferous resistance to the latest of town names in Mpumalanga gazetted for immediate change. These include changes to the names of Belfast, Machadodorp and Waterval Boven.
In fact, out here, its the very first symbolic step towards the demolishing of the Apartheid laboratory-bred separation anxiety experiments that still keep our towns and townships viciously apart.
While the battle lines were originally drawn along lines of colour and so-called "separate development" (early, original policies of the Apartheid state), it also perpetrated silo-societies living shoulder to shoulder, but with deep foundations of mistrust, fear and suspicion.
All of these, especially poverty and horrendous crime, were easily pushed under the hideous old carpet chucked out of the madam's big white house over there in the normally substantially much better-off town: "Thank you for your thrown out mat madam, here outside the town and under it's threadbare luxury we'll be out of sight, certainly out of mind!" (Who the hell did they think we were kidding?)
The town and township phenomenon is downright evil and will never ever contribute even an iota towards a normalised society in our country. It's a Frankenstein experiment gone horribly wrong.
PS: Waterval Boven has, in a riling twist for many, been renamed Emgwenya after it's 'former' township. I believe I'm one of the very few to see the humour... .

The local changes:
Belfast to eMakhazeni
Waterval Boven to Emgwenya
Machadodorp to eNtokozweni
While Dullstroom's name has not changed, the proposed future name of Dullstroom-Emnothweni (meaning "place of wealth") is expected to be gazetted in the near future.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

I went into the woods...

"I went into the woods because I wanted to live deliberately. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life...to put to rout all that was not life; and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." ~Henry David Thoreau

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

There's a fire raging in my heart

I'm unable to sit at my desk for another second; both my mind and heart are elsewhere, there's an internal restlessness that stubbornly refuses to accept that the mundane tasks associated with living in 'the valley' are acceptable today. I'm craving the 'mountain top' experience of the past weekend.

Opting for great coffee, and an environment different to this one - all distractions for my busy mind - I head for Seattle Coffee at Millys.

The valley between here and there - like my heart - is moody with fire and reminiscent of a brooding storm, or winter. I'm damn grateful it's early summer and now the season of new beginnings.

I sense that now it's time to leave the cave and to enlarge my 'territory' ...adrenalin gorges my veins and arteries; my burning, pumping heart is evidence of someone certainly not the living dead.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

39 protesters refused bail

The 39, not 35, Siyaththuka service delivery protesters arrested on Tuesday have all been refused bail, even the woman with the baby. Arrangements are to be made with the police for the baby to be fetched by family. The case is postponed until next Thursday, 22 October.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Mpumalanga Unrest: Privately owned bulldozer set alight

This Belfast businessman - Oumar Kone - is the owner of this bulldozer that was set alight last night on the R36 skirting Emthonjeni township, outside Machadodorp, at about 21h30. His company, Di Kone Transport & Plant Hire was hired by the local municipality to move waste in the adjacent rubbish dump. He says he has been ruined by this incident, that all the money he had invested in this machine was now lost.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Mpumalanga Protests: 35 in Belfast Court

There's 35 people in court after being arrested in Siyathuthka, outside Belfast on Tuesday. I can count 6 women, one with a baby in a blanket. They are charged with arson and public violence. All of them have asked to defend themselves. The case is being postponed for 7 days until next Thurs, 22 October. All the accused are to remain in custody, except for the mother who says her baby is sickly. A few of the men limped into court. One man has a lot of dry blood on his t-shirt and shirt. Right now the defendants are one by one maintaining they should be released on bail..some of the reasons include fear of losing jobs, that some of them are scholars, that they were arrested for public violence and the public violence is over.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

10 Best BlackBerry Apps, Features for Journalists

The BlackBerry has long been the smart phone of choice for many newsrooms, particularly for large news organizations. The most obvious use is e-mail for staying in contact with editors, colleagues and sources while out in the field or away from the office. But like the iPhone, the BlackBerry has lots of other apps and features that can help journalists do their jobs. Here's a look at some of the best apps for journalists as well as some examples of how journalists use the device on the job. Like the iPhone, the BlackBerry has an app store, called "BlackBerry App World" (you have to download if it didn't come on your phone), but not all apps are available there. Others can be downloaded directly by visiting the developer's Web site on your lackBerry browser.

For the rest of the Poynter Online article, click here or on the title of this article.

Calm Western Front & Blackberry Challenges

All calm here today, I'm grateful. I've wondered around the courts, it seems they might have decided to have the various protest-related court cases next week, with the intention of keeping the situation calm.

Yesterday my new Blackberry Bold, not even a week old, was put to the test on the journalistic 'battlefield'. I chose this handset specifically as a work tool, over the iphone (not an easy decision). Where Blackberry has failed me is in terms of battery life. It's a brand new phone and its battery only lasts a day on average...probably because of all the applications running simultaneously. It means I'm going to have to purchase a spare battery, also a car charger, and to keep the spare battery charged, particularly for days like yesterday, where I've no access to electricity but need to remain constantly in communication with radio stations, other journalists, and sources 'on the ground' who are feeding me info via sms. And obviously so that I can constantly keep on blogging.

More, later, about the many, many pros of the Blackberry as a journalistic tool.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Mpumalanga Unrest: Shoeless in Siyathuthuka

This was the pile of shoes that was left behind after alleged service delivery protesters in Siyathuthuka township (outside Belfast) were dispersed this afternoon by police firing rubber bullets.

I've just received a message from a friend in Siyathuthuka; she says that protesters are allegedly planning to burn down the clinic tomorrow, also the homes of friends and family of councillors of the Emakhazeni Local Council.

Mpumalanga Unrest: Siyathuthuka township, Belfast (some more photos)

Mpumalanga Unrest: "Ons is fokken moeg!" (We are fucking tired!)

Emthonjeni township, Machadodorp: "We are fucking tired of poor service delivery," is what the few hundred community members protesting outside Emthonjeni were chanting in my face as I barely stood my ground - despite, quite honestly, my insides turning to water. This was on the barricaded and burning R36 (between Machadodorp and Carolina) earlier today.

I had driven slowly around barricades as the police quickly retreated back to Machadodorp for reinforcements; I had to know what - in the community's eyes - this was all about. But what I felt right then was pent up anger spat into my face; I was, suddenly, the enemy. (My thoughts included - 'Just how many journalists have died in identical situations...and was it worth it?')

A pen, a spiral-bound notebook, my camera, and an earnest face prepared to listen might have helped me this time. Also my back was against the wall, this time an impenetrable and writhing circle of chanting human beings. Then, thank God, one woman in the crowd screeched out my name - "Charleseee...!" - and ran me into her arms. This was always-smiling Gloria from Seattle Coffee at Millys on the N4, who had served me great Cafe Mocha's on countless occasions. "He's a journalist, he's a friend," she screamed back at the crowd. That was the turning point... in my favour.

Mpumalanga Unrest: Library books saved from flames

Despite the Siyathuthuka municipal building still burning after being set alight this morning, librarians and fire department personnel are - right now - carrying out mostly unscathed library books; they have already filled two 'bakkie' loads with books.

While this is happening in Zakheni Street, a police helicopter is overhead and police armoured vehicles bristling with shotguns are up and down the streets; this is reminiscent of the state of emergency in 1985 when I was growing up.

There are also police, some in plain clothes, behind walls and in-between buildings taking pot shots at protesters as they raise their heads; most of these protesters seem to be on the run and retreating into the depths of the township.

A podgy white police inspector with a shotgun over his shoulder and what looks like a 'knopkierie' hanging on his belt turns around suddenly, as I click my camera at him. "Don't you dare publish those photos," he roars at me pointing his finger into my face. "Don't threaten me," I yell back with more resentment than he anticipated. Like all bullies he imediately backs down and talks nicely to me. "Those days where middle aged white men with inferiority complexes talked down to me are long over," I think to myself with glee. Respect is earned, not demanded.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Mpumalanga Unrest: Bird's eye view

An unusual sight, a police helicopter armed with tear gas and shot guns outside the Engen Belfast on the N4: As I was interviewing the two police pilots from the Provincial Air Wing (based in Nelspruit), and a local policeman from Belfast - all three refused to give me their names or to take their photos - they were alerted to trouble in Siyathuthuka, the township outside Belfast. They then started preparing to take off. I had noticed two shotguns and asked them what the grey canisters were. "Tear-gas, but maybe we shouldn't be telling you that," they said before clamming up. I'm now on my way to Siyathuthuka after a harrowing morning in Emthonjeni, Machadodorp.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Mpumalanga Unrest: Service delivery protests

There is a sense that the immediate area is going up in smoke as pockets of protesters suddenly emerge where they wre least expected. These photos were taken just after 7am this morning at the Waterval Boven tunnel after protesters from Emgwenya township were dispersed with rubber bullets. TRAC was quickly on the scene to clean debris and rocks, to reopen the N4 highway. A lone man and his mangy dog did much more than his fair share to see the road cleaned up. I'm now on my way to Machadodorp and Emthonjeni to find out about the sporadic gunshots and worker intimidation I've had people sms me about. There is a sense of being caught up in a runaway fire that's being fuelled by a strong but invisible wind.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Berry thumbs

Despite two Nokia Communicators down-the-line (and at least four other Nokia devices prior to those), tonight I cross the divide to Blackberry (Bold). The Finnish mobile device company has lost me for the foreseeable future. Apalling software challenges in what was, at the time, supposed to be their flagship business phone has alienated me. They've also left me isolated in a technological backwater with no promise of a replacement in the near future. That water-hosed away what was left of my loyalty. This is most likely my last blog entry from my Communicator. See you on the other side of 'berry thumbs'....

An owl called my name

It's way past my bedtime, I can't sleep; but it's not in a hectic or frenetic way that I'm being kept awake. I keep having to pinch myself at the sound of crickets and frogs, that it's no longer the dead, frozen silence of winter nights. Just this last weekend I was gobsmacked by Christmas decorations in the mall, a sure sign that summer's here. Tonight, unusually, there's a soft, repeated hoot of an owl in the distance as it calls my name. It's the very first, and perfect, summer's night here on the escarpment's edge.

Rain

On Thursday night Waterval Boven got it's first summer rain. It was a storm that raged for hours, beginning at about midnight. After a long harsh and dry summer, the sound of rain on the roof and the slap, slap of blinds in the wind were welcome sounds. At 5h30 Imemeza, the mountain behind the town, was shrouded in cloud. Waking, gulping in deep breaths of rain-wet-earth-summer-early-morning air, it was a thank you-get-down-on-my-knees moment. The makeshift altar was right before my bedroom window. The day before my team had completed planting new grass. Blessings all round.

Today

Sitting in a coffee shop waiting for breakfast and my cappuccino. The afternoon summer sun is just catching the side of my face, piercing my right eye. Although it's now officially summer in the southern hemisphere, inside me it feels like winter and that I'm desperately in need of a hibernation period. Like a snake I want to curl up under a rock and wake up another time. That's how I feel today. My batteries are flat.

Beautiful Minds

To write here that between my last blog entry and this one I have barely kept my head above water would not be an exaggeration. In fact, on at least two occasions, I sank so deep and went without air for so long, that I thought I was tickets. Only now do I fully understand that in the twlight of no sleep and exceptionally high stress levels it's easy for one's mind to begin bending, then to unhinge. However, this is not to complain - I'm exactly where I should be, where I want to be in my life; I made all my choices consciously - but to apologise to the followers of this blog for my silence. From the correspondence I've thus far experienced, I at least know they are caring, patient human beings...all with beautiful minds. Thank you for your patience.

Cold front

These pics are from dusk on Tuesday as the cold front hit Grahamstown and ripped through the city. I've been chasing it the whole day, for 1000km now. Just behind it, sometimes driving through hail, I finally drove into its eye outside Warden in Free State. For the next hour my car was lashed by rain and a howling wind; I loved it.

1000km is a lot of thinking time: if Highway Africa was the journalistic 'mountain top' experience, then my journey today has been the slide back down into the valley of reality, implementation and the grind of challenges. A community newspaper in SA in a recession, also while they're becoming extinct in the rest of the world, is frontier territory.

I've just stopped at Steers in Ermelo for coffee, fast food and to stretch my legs. I've got another 2hours minimum to go before I'm home and can sleep...albeit in the very battleground itself.

Synchronicty

When the door opens make sure you walk through it. I should have left Grahamstown early yesterday morning. I felt compelled to make a few calls before leaving to follow up on conversations in the hurried, passionate stream of the conference. Thank God that I did: I spent the entire day meeting with passionate and dedicated journalism professionals who are backing me fully with the newspaper endeavours. The ideas are endless and, despite an average of five hours sleep a night, my energy seems boundless as I return, always, to my Source.

I spent last night at Historical Cottages, in 1 Scotts Avenue just off Main Street, two minutes walk from the university. I highly recommend this B&B that is the collection of buildings that formed part of a military HQ commissioned for the British government and built by Piet Retief between 1820 and 1823.

The group of buildings consisting of accommodation for six officers, 180 rank and file, 12 horses, a powder magazine, and commissariat stores extended from High Street to New Street and was originally surrounded by a high stone wall, parts of which still stand today.

Contact Roswitha Hobson on +27 46 622 8936 for more info and to book. www.historiccottages.co.za

Grocott's Citizen Journalism Centre launched

In the same year Nelson Mandela was released, as a first year journ student at Rhodes, I walked into the editor's office at the Grocott's Mail - SA's oldest surviving independent newspaper - and asked Jill Joubert (who had a lit fag perpetually hanging from her mouth) if I could work for the newspaper. For free. I needed experience, especially as only 80 of over 200 journ students would make it into second year.

Tonight, many years later, the mayor of Grahamstown cut the ribbon at the opening of the new Grocott's Citizen Journalism centre that will see the paper and its website open to the citizens of of the area... they will be able to directly impact the content of the paper, whether by submitting a story and pics at the 10 PC stations in their main street office, or via sending sms's and mms's directly to their uniquely 'home-developed' Nika Content Management System (that I had the privilege of test driving this afternoon) that will see the content delivered straight into the news editor's in-box.

This conference has been an incredible meeting of dynamic, creative minds from right across the world. And every one of the delegates seem to have their hearts in the right place.

The virus is in my blood. What's the big deal?

"I am Beauty Mbewe from the Malawi Institute of Journalism. I'm a 49-year old woman, almost 50 now, and I've been living with the virus for 18 years now.

"Journalists always focus on people in the last stages of of their life. Why don't they document the lives of people like me. People don't believe me when I tell them I'm positive. Document lives like mine.

"I've been taking antiretrovirals since December 2005, they are working well. Ask me about how I live: I don't live with pain, like someone with arthritis would, for example. The virus is in my blood. I don't even feel it. What is the big deal?

"My husband died 8 years ago, that's how I got infected. I have three kids, all of them I've seen through university. Who would've looked after them? That inspires me to keep going.

"I'm a normal human being and I'm going to live for the next 50 years... ."

HeartsMinds website details

HeartsMinds' website is not yet up and running. But they do have a FaceBook group by the same name. The site should be up soon.

Highway Africa 2009 - Re-thinking how we report HIV and AIDS in Africa

HeartsMinds is an initiative to see reporting on HIV and AIDS that humanises stories on the epidemic.

I'm sitting in the HeartsMinds Highway Africa seminar, which is highlighting the media fatigue with HIV and AIDS, that is manifested in various ways:
- An over reliance on 'gray' statistics
- Rewriting of official speeches
- Reporting only on staged events
- A lack of individual initiative by journalists

They say that essentially the result of media fatigue is reporting that is lacking Heart, that it's just another story to be covered. This sees reporters not developing engaging stories, it also results in a situation where editors don't any longer see any reason to run HIV/AIDS stories.

This results in audiences that don't recieve the neccessary information, or at least not in a way that engages them well. The -audiences, too, are fatigued.

Whose fault is it, this fatigue? Let's keep asking those questions.

The content, for one, is lacking in heart, also lacking in useful, engaging info. It's also lacking in creative ways of telling the story. Let's ask these questions!

Solutions to this challenge include finding different angles on human stories, also putting a human face to the story (e.g. journalists should strive to convey feelings, but still remaining objective. Most of all we should always remember that there are human beings behind the statistics).

And what about stories about the challenges faced by sex workers...particulary in the light of the debate around sex workers being legalised in SA in 2010. Approach this journalistically, also remembering that these stories would be about human beings.

Let us, as journalists, also remember that there are no victims of HIV/AIDS...who made them a victim? Let's, as journalists, change our Hearts and Minds in our reporting...let's remember that we're reporting about real humans that, just like ourselves, have real Hearts and Minds.

Journalists get your hands on the HeartsMinds Toolkit, which will help you with your reporting on the epidemic in a way that will help overcome the media and audience fatigue on a subject that MUST be reported on in innovative new ways.

The Toolkit - on a flashdisk - contains, among many others, the SAEF Guiding Principles Ethical Reporting of HIV and AIDS and Gender; also the Kaiser Family Foundation Reporting Manual on HIV/Aids (July 2009 edition).

think-love-act.

(Sitting in the seminar I've been unable to successfully Google the HeartsMinds website address. I'll post it on the blog straight afterwards, as soon as I can track it down.)

Path of ghosts

At dusk I walked up the path from campus to the 1820 Settlers Monument. It crests the prominent hill behind the town and university. Along the path the uniquely aromatic scent of the Eastern Cape vegetation, especially prominent at dusk, stirred memories and gave life and sustenance to ghosts on the stoney path that last had life 19 years ago.

My challenge is that I've not had the time to intellectually process emotions locked up so long in Mr Jones' landlocked locker... I believe it's time now.

It's the new media awards tonight, including dinner, which is probably the social highlight of Highway Africa.

Later, in terms of a circle I hope to see closed forever, I'll be meeting someone beneath the Drostyd Arch, historical - and romantic -entrance to the university. And then a beer at Rat.