Mzoo Spot

So many horror stories have been told about Johannesburg. Before I came to work here, I was simply uninterested in what happened around this city. Everything just looked chaotic, and life seemed precarious.   My interface with the city was mainly through the Noord taxi rank – an epitome of chaos.   But what was strange was the order you will encounter just a few meters at the Park Station.   The station is itself iconic, because migrants from the Eastern Cape used it many years before us. For the last three years I have been based in Braamfontein, an area that has seen tremendous improvement in the last ten years. A friend who went to Wits University in the late 90s, told me of stories of crime and grime that were manifest in Braamfontein of his time. Things have changed for the better. I have since walked the streets of Hillbrow will little or no trepidation.   I have also comfortably visited Newtown with not much worries. Armed with this background, I was ...

As a groom I am at a disadvantage during lobola negotions - I am not allowed to be there. I then pin all my hopes to my delegation. The idea to send delegates to Soweto was long in planning, but things hit a snag when one of the chief negotiators took seriously ill earlier this year. A replacement was not easy to find, but eventually a family friend accepted our request.   The protocol is like this: I tell my mother that I intend to pay lobola and therefore suggest that she, on my behalf request this old man to be a chief negotiator.   Luckily upon hearing that I am planning to start lobola negotiations, my cousin, who lives in Midrand, readily availed himself to be part of the delegation. The delegation was effectively a duet of this old man ( a family friend) and my cousin. When you tell your parents about your intentions to start lobola negotions, you must have somehow introduced them to the future bride.   Luckily this happened during the wed...

I have been something of an accidental traveller. Over the last 7 years I have been to 5 countries, viz.: Kenya, Sweden, Germany, Netherlands and United Kingdom, in that order. This was all by chance, thanks to the jobs I chose. My first visit outside of South Africa was to Kenya in 2005. It was a good one month stay, that I must admit gave me enough time to explore the country. Whereas there is a usual excitement about visiting a new country, it is true that on the 3rd week in that country homesickness tends to get the better of you. This happened to me twice. My stay in Sweden was also a month and on the third week I felt sick, literally. Even normal food caused me to vomit; it was a strange feeling. In Kenya I thought I had Malaria. This was so serious so much so that I had to see a doctor. It turned out I was perfectly fine. I then suspected Malaria tablets, and had learnt later that they have terrible side effects. They actually make you sick! It is probably this exposure to tr...

Traveling abroad is always a nervy affair; there will always be that one thing that doesn't fit into plan. I was not certain my shuttle pick-up will be present at Heathrow airport to fetch me. Heathrow itself resembled the chaos we have become accustomed to at Noord taxi rank. Immigration officials are very glum. Maybe I arrived at busiest of times. When all was checked, there was my pick-up shuttle, waiting for me. What a relief! The drive from Heathrow to my hotel was very long thanks to the bumper to bumper traffic. It looked like Joburg complete with accidents and motorbikes that have run out of petrol. London Metro were visibly hard at work, I spotted two roadblocks.  London looked very busy and the weather on this day was unusually beautiful (weather can be miserable in London, I am told). People were generally cheerful and walking with an extra spring. As one has come to expect in European cities, good weather is never allowed to go to waste, people were walking, cycl...

This was my second visit to Germany, Bonn in about 2 years. My first sojourn is summarised here . All trips to Western Europe start with that laborious process of acquiring a Schengen visa. You must produce all documents exactly as they require including: medical insurance (in case you are run over by a car); proof that you have enough funds in your bank; and if like me, you travel on Official (government) Passport, you must produce a Note Verbale. The good thing though is that once all documents are in order, it is quicker to process a business visa. Although I requested the Germans to grant me a 5 day visa, they decided to give a year long access, presumably on the strength of my previous travels to Schengen states.  Bonn is a small city with a population of just over 300 000 people. The airport nearby services both Bonn and Cologne. On these trips with connecting flights things rarely go according to plan, and this  time was no exception. I discovered in the connecting f...

I got a job after a grueling 18 months of studying at Tukkies. Before this I have never heard of a field of study called meteorology. With good reason too, because this was neatly reserved for Whites under apartheid, but vestiges of this mindset were evident well into the early 2000s. Our assignment at Tukkies was to complete, in 18 months, a BSc Honours degree in meteorology and thereafter the South African Weather Service will give us employment. There we were, 12 of us drawn from almost all provinces, Black BSc graduates and unemployed. An outrageous claim is made up to this day that, this country is bereft of Black youth with the right skills and potential. What palaver! This group of 12 students approached this foreign subject with so much enthusiasm, so much so that it was such a mystery as to why Blacks were denied such opportunities in the past. Some lecturers were needlessly hostile to us, but that would not dampen our spirits. In the end we enjoyed the course and each others...

I am not sure where I first heard the music of Wasis Diop, but I suspect it must have been from either Richard Nwamba's African Connection on SAfm or Nicky B's World Show on Kayafm. In my search for his music I could only find one CD at my trusted record store in Braamfontein. Recently, I discovered that iTunes is in fact a treasure trove of musical delights including an array of songs from Wasis Diop. Those of us who prefer obscure artists are in a disadvantage, because record shops cater to the commercial tastes.  Wasis Diop is from Senegal, but like most top African artists lives and records in Europe. He sings mostly in French. He sings with a languid, deep and melancholic voice. A feature of successful African artists at the world stage is always their originality, that extra element that is inimitably eternal. Often music like Wasis' is filed under the amorphous category - World Music.

A startling revelation is that my first ever girlfriend was in fact older than me.  I have just accepted her as my friend on Facebook, and she happened to write her date of birth in full. So there it was, a clear indication that she was 1 year older than me! I suppose this finishes the puzzle of the reason why she dumped me. Of course we had a beautiful love affair that lasted for just over two years. As you may have guessed, she dumped me for an older guy.