Mzoo Spot

To be honest I did not think the police would come to examine fingerprints at the scene of the crime. A very studious Sgt Ditshego brushed with his powdered brush on areas he suspected thieves fingerprints could be visible. According to his assessment, the thieves may have used the window at the back. I was astounded by this, because any person using that window jumps straight into the main bedroom. The only way to gain access through the back window is if somebody can use a ladder or something like that. If Sgt Ditshego's version of things is to be believed, then clearly our own security guard was obviously fast asleep not to see this activity.

This morning I was awoken to an interesting scene right inside my flat - the obvious thing, flat screen TV was gone! I immediately jumped out of bed to inspect, indeed it was gone. All the plugs were properly removed, and nothing to show rushed action. On closer inspection it became clear that my laptop, a brand new video camera, which my girlfriend had bought me as a birthday present was also gone. Also a Pat Metheny Group - The Europe Tour CD was stolen. Stories of something called Udosi Lwempisi (tail of hyena)were told in association with break-ins similar to that which happened in my flat. What happens is that the would be robbers would burn this tail next to the cracks in your door. The smoke apparently will induce even deeper sleep such that you will literally hear nothing. And I suspect that is what happened. it is a scary thought actually, when you consider that these persons (I am assuming they were many, probably 2)even were in our room. Clothes that were on top of the washi...

This is the title of Sihle Khumalo's second book. His first book "Dark Continent My Black Arse" was about his adventurous travels (by road) from Cape to Cairo. In Heart of Africa he takes us from Johannesburg to the "source of the Nile River" in Uganda. He travelled right around Lake Victoria in an anticlockwise direction and back. During his travel he touched countries such as Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi and Rwanda. He encountered interesting characters mostly "boda boda" (scooter) drivers. The book is written in simple English, and is a good guide for anyone who wants to learn more about the African continent.

On the 14th of October, I gave a talk to a group of school children in Bronkhorstspruit about the importance of weather observations in climate variability and change. I was told that my audience will be high school learners, but on the day very young learners from the nearby primary school turned up. There were about 200 learners in the hall, and most of them still in primary school. My challenge then was to tailor my presentation, which was initially intended for high school learners to now suite this rather young group. Luckily enough I had more pictures than text on my slides. The school - Erasmus High School , from which the majority of learners came, teaches mainly in Afrikaans, but the learners understand English very well. The highlight of my presentation was how these young learners perfectly understood my message. This I was able to determine from the many questions they pose after the presentation. They wanted to find for example, when did climate change begin?; how can we ...

Clearly the concept of customer is king is entirely foreign to MTN. Today I discovered a strange charge in my MTN statement. Upon enquiry I was told it is attributable to a subscription I entered into with a company called Samber Trading.I have indeed been receiving sms's containing scripture readings, but had no idea where these come from. Apparently I subscribed to this service. I called MTN to tell them I did no such thing. They told me their hands are tied, I need to call Samber Trading, which I did. Samber Trading call centre operators are so casual that it borders on downright rudeness. They told me they will cancel the subscription immediately; they even sent me an sms to confirm that. Now I asked MTN what this whole thing was about, to which they said, the subscription was between myself and Samber Trading. The problem here is that I have not subscribed anything with Samber Trading. I checked quickly on Hellopeter.com entries of this Samber Trading company, and they all wer...

This past weekend (22 Aug) we buried our patriarch. He lived until the ripe age of 103! “Utata” as we all called him lived most of his life on a farm owned by an English family - the Ford. He raised not only his kids, but those of the Ford’s too. He was the towering father figure, revered by all. Sad though the period was, one got the opportunity to meet once again with almost all family members, some I have not seen in many many years! The meeting of the family showed how much time time has passed; children who were crawling not so long ago are now grown ups, some of them with kids of their own! This meeting gave one an opportunity to catch up on family gossip. One of the tragedies of the remaining (enlightened) generation, is their failure to document the wealth of knowledge and heritage contained in the 103 years lived by Utata. We need to sit with our old people, learn about how they grew up. We need to write these stories down for posterity. Utata for example was a carpenter, but ...

There was a time when Tribute Magazine occupied a valuable space in many people's hearts. It was seen as a serious magazine with serious journalism. During his time as its editor, Sbu Mngadi unmasked the real person beneath the veneer of Eugene Nyathi. His name was in fact Albert Nana, a university drop out. Quite remarkably Eugene Nyathi as we came to know him, occupied our lives as this know it all political/economic analyst. In fact he was even called Dr Nyathi. Even our own Mathews Phosa, while premier of Mpumalanga, contracted Eugene Nyathi to do some weighty business, as a consultant, in that province. But this magazine has since died. In recent years there was an attempt to get it back to life, but it died - again. An equally exciting magazine called BL!NK was born about 3 years ago. It was meaty,exciting, fresh, targeted at Black men, but it died. After BL!NK came Blaque. Not quite as serious as its predecessor, but targeted at Black men all the same. It is now on a start a...

I have now watched a few performances and would like to share my experience. The work of Paul Mpumelelo Grootboom is always interesting (to me). This time he brought two shows to the festival: "Cats and Dogs" and "Foreplay". Cats and Dogs which the author thinks will be changed to "Welcome To Rocksville" is a story of violence. A subject Grootboom likes to grapple with in his plays. Equally prominent in Grootboom's plays is sex, and that is explored in Foreplay. Grootboom is always hard hitting and does not mince his words. These plays were in the Fringe category. My Xhosa, which was performed in Egazini Center was also in this category. It attempted to take a nolstagic route into the Xhosa history. It wanted to promote the return to such useful values as Ubuntu and above all to be proud about one's identity. The subject of identity was also covered in the play ID Pending whose main character was the son of John Kani - Athandwa Kani. The play ...

The last time I was at the Grahamstown Arts Festival was in 1999. This time, ten years later I decided to do the famous G'town Arts Fest; this is arguably the biggest arts festival in Africa.A few things have remained unchanged since the last time I was there: for one, the street kids are still sprinkled all over the place; the free concert venue at the back of the City Hall is still there. On my visit to the stalls at the Village Green, I found the place desolate. Upon enquiry it turned out that this year there were two areas earmarked for trading, and this arrangement disadvantaged other traders. It would appear to me that the festival has two faces: one white and another black. The latter is represented by mainly foreign nationals from the African continent, local people from such areas as Joza etc, who after trading hours huddle in makeshift tents for a night's rest. These are the people who for some reason or other miss out on an opportunity to trade where the lucrative ma...

We are now well into the new administration - the JZ era. We have started to count the 100 days in office. For now it is proper to suspend any judgements. Once again I am a victim of bad service. This time the offender is MTN. For the month of May my account has shot up so significantly it was difficult to believe. Even MTN cannot give an answer to this rather strange situation. A quick look at customer complaints in the Hellopeter website is quite instructive; customers, it would appear have been overcharged during the months of April and May. It would appear that MTN is battling to understand where the problem lies. The clueless call center consultants tell you of a technical problem that they encountered that led to the problem. The problem though now is that we are faced with huge telephone bills that we don't where they come from. I have lodged two complaints, first through their website and secondly via the phone (this after the initial complaint was not answered). Last week ...

I spent a week in Cape Town, and this allowed me to explore the city. During this time I noticed one thing - Cape Town city is clean. Everytime I was making comparisons with Pretoria. In Cape Town it appears taxis do not cut right into the centre of the city, and this makes for better traffic management. The businesses unlike in many other cities in South Africa are still in the city making the city centre a vibrant place to be at. One brilliant innovation I noticed was how street vendors had neately packaged their wares in a movable, yet portable stand. The neat and slim stand allows the vendors to remain within their alloted bay on the pavement. The other half of the pavement is then free for walkers. Pretoria city centre is more congested than Cape Town. There are many taxis that drive into the centre of town causing traffic chaos and littering. These taxis hoot endlessly causing an incredible noise pollution. Pretoria's residential areas are a stone's throw from the city c...

This year I decided not to go home during the Easter weekend just like last year. As expected very few people remained behind, as a result there were not many places to go. This time gave one space to relax thoroughly. It will be remembered that a week earlier I visited Cape Town to attend the 10th anniversary of the Cape Town Jazz Festival. What an occasion, even though I only managed to attend the second day, where Hugh Masekela was celebrating his 70th birthday. He gave us an explosive show. I extended my stay in Cape Town in order to see the many places the city has.It is such a magnificent. In the midst of all this, the NPA decided to drop all charges again Jacob Zuma, because there was an abuse of process. This abuse was captured in secret tapes that were presented by Zuma legal team to NPA, where conversations about a plot to frustrate Zuma ascendancy to power between Lenard McCarthym Bulelani Ngcuka, and Mzi Khumalo can be heard. It is believed that Ngcuka and co may have oper...

Who would have thought that a Jazz festival will be sold out in these credit crunch times? I wanted to punch myself for not buying tickets well in time for the Cape Town International Jazz Fest. I missed the first day and am now looking for tickets for the final day. I am hopeful, but will be so sad if I fail to get these tickets. I think jazz fans like us should be allowed to watch their music. All those pretenders must never be allowed again!! But Cape Town is lovely. Yesterday was very hot, and night was nice and warm. I ended up in Waterfront where a live band doing cover versions kept us awake until late.

VISA for the UK The British government ran adverts in the major newspapers this weekend notifying South Africans intending to visit that country that a Visa will be required upon arrival. In the past any South African visiting the UK did not require a Visa, provided their stay was only a month. One gets the feeling that the English had long gone fed up with South Africans, possibly of the darker hue! A colleague of mine who was visiting Hungary (via the UK) was turned back at the Heathrow for no reason. Heathrow immigration officials denied my colleague entry, or least transit .They booked him the next earliest flight back to South Africa immediately after refusal. What is so strange about this whole saga is that my colleague was not alone on this journey to Hungary, he was with another colleague. Before they left for Hungary (via Heathrow), they had made sure that their papers are in order. Surprisingly one colleague was allowed transit, even though he had the same papers as the othe...

It is likely that in April we might go to the polls to elect a new crop of leaders who will represent us in parliament for the next five years. For some this will be the first time. Those of us who have been voting since 1994, there is a sense of de javu . But this vote is interesting in more ways than one, not least because this time around there is COPE. This new baby on the block is threatening the ANC. My vote 1994 had to go the ANC, I mean there was no question about it. In 1999 I did the same. This was Thabo Mbeki’s first term. After this we gave the guy an even bigger majority. It is the second term that we saw so many wrong things, even his own party saw a lot wrong in Mbeki (suddenly)! Our few years of democracy have taught me that through my vote it is possible to curb certain tendencies. This time I will not be voting ANC. I am open to suggestions. I am taking a position that it will be a great disservice to ourselves if we all vote one party. We will not get what we want e...

My understanding of the US politics is below par. Ever since that country decided to wage war with Iraq my respect for it plummeted to the lowest ebb. The inauguration of Obama this week into the White House captured my interest, and made me want to follow the US politics with keen interest. As Obama and US big day arrives, Israel and Palestine were once more at each other’s throats, in this never ending war in the Middle East. This was as if to say to Obama: in case you did not know, we are one of your biggest challenges! By this time the body count was close to 1000. Obama has to fix the mess that is Iraq. He must also sort out Afghanistan. Whilst at it, he must close Guantanamo Bay. Maybe he must eschew the belligerence of his predecessor by unleashing his true humanity in solving sticky world problems. A great deal is expected out of the man; climate change negotiators that will converge in Copenhagen will very much like to hear what position will the US take on climate chang...

2008 was a year with mixed fortunes for some of us; it started well only to end with a credit crunch. Food went up, petrol and life in general was not easy. But we soldiered on. Now it is 2009, we are hoping for a fruitful year. It is also the year for the national elections, and for the first time the ANC will face a serious (I think) opposition from COPE. I don’t think however COPE will take a significant chunk of voters from the ANC.   Here in Port Alfred, the ANC took its charm offensive to the revellers at the beach! I had a lovely time with friends this December. Facebook has also made it easy these days to hook up with friends. I hooked up with Nostras (iigirls) in East London. I also met the Pres. I predict that there will be more Nostra hook ups this, and possibly marriages and Nostra children! The weather on 1 Jan 2009 was a complete disappointment. It rained heavily and was accompanied by thunder and lightning. It dampened the mood completely. But fun was had nonethele...