I Wish I Had Two Heads & Four Hands

I'd use one head and two hands to do what I need to do, and another head and pair of hands to do what I want.
I planned to do some intensive writing today. Have 2 news articles and one feature to finish and send out to editors. The interviews are done, the research is done. All I need to do is write. Instead, my inclination is to sit at this desk and surf on the Internet, email friends and read interesting blogs.

BTW, the response to join the blog party has been very good, with some of you responding on the post and others emailing me directly. Many thanks. Your support is very much appreciated!

And please feel free to ask your online friends to join us too. The more, the merrier, and I would really like to provide platforms for your voices to be heard. 

Invitation To Join A Blog Party

Huh! I’m finding out that my body does not recover from travel as it used to. The road trip over the weekend  covered around 950km in total. Enough distance to get me to get me to Cape Town, I think. And it was all done on one day (Sunday).

So, for the past couple of days, I've been feeling rather sluggish. I'm going to have to be kinder to my body next time - travel shorter distances, take more rest stops. Anyhoo, I have a few things I want to highlight today.

I've joined Place For People

I've joined the team of PlaceforPeople, an Internet start-up which offers a web advocacy platform which non-profits and civic leaders can use to promote their cause and promote leadership and collective action for a specific cause. The company' head office is in Nice, France, and they have a branch office in Chicago in the US.

My job, as a grassroots team member is to interview NGO leaders and elected officials and leaders of civic associations in Johannesburg. The interviews will be published on the platform. Sound like the kind of project that fits with the campaign work I already do, no? So. If you're a head of a non-profit, or an elected official, or know someone who you think fits my criteria, email me? I'm kind like offering you free publicity:-)

We're going to have a blog party

I'm busy making preparations for the online leg of the 16 Days of Activim Against Gender Violence for clients I work with, and their partners. The annual campaign runs from the 25 November - 10 December and during this period, I would like to ask you to blog about violence against women and what we, as individuals, can do to stop/prevent it. Talk about what you can do, what impact you can have a a blogger/photographer/writer/mother, sister/friend/man/woman/brother/health professional/housewife or whatever role you can think of. Talk about why we shouldn't just stand by and "not interfere in people's private business" when someone is being abused. You can also just share your own story.

Email me a link to your post, and I'll highlight it on the following web sites as part of the blog party:

1. Shukumisa
2. OneLove
3. Kwanda
4. Tshwaranang Women's Legal Advocacy Centre
5. WomensNet
6. GirlsNet

Links to your posts will also be published on Facebook pages of Shukumisa and the Imagine A World Without Violence Against Women & Girls group.

If you don't have a blog, I'm happy to publish your guest-post on the Shukumisa web site. I'm would also like to do guest posts for those bloggers who occassionally use guest-bloggers. Please let me know what you'd like me to talk about, and I'll send the post to you ASAP, so you can schedule it.

Hope in Reitz

So, over the weekend I another road trip. This time my friend and I went to Reitz, a small town in the Free State, where we attended the hand-over of a new house by the Department of Social Development to a Reitz Ntekoana  resident, Mme Paulina Mokoena. (my friend work for government, so for her it was a work-related function)

It being a government event (and local government elections coming up soon), of course there was the boring political rhetoric. But the heart of the event, which made the event meaningful for me was also not lost.

Mme Paulina in brown dres old tin shack behind her

Basically, for me, the event was about hope: hope for the Mme Pauline, who was so excited she was practically bouncing. Born in 1933, she is a single woman with four children and grandchildren, and in the past, they all had to pack themselves up in a tin house (see behind her in the pic). Now they are proud owner of a three-bedroom, one bath/toilet home.

The event was also about hope for the locals, who also have a strong need for jobs, real homes ( instead of shacks) and many other things that you and I take for granted. 

Free State Social Development MEC Mantu Ntombela

Delivering her keynote address, Free State Social Development MEC Mantu Ntombela noted that the circumstances that led to  Mme Paulina getting the house was simply the luck of the draw. 

During Free State Premier Ace Magashula’s previous visit ( as part of their Operation Hlasela), Mme Paulina had managed to tell him about her problem and need for housing, she said. The explained to him that she was growing old, and at the rate life was going, it was a sure bet she would never be able to build her own home. So government decided to present her with the house.

BUT this was only the first step, Mtombela said. Plans are underway to develop at least 150 more houses for the poor in the Reitz Ntekoana  Municipality, she said. They’re also looking to address other community needs.

I was not the only person who was inspired by the event. Thabang Mokoka, deputy director: Communications in the office of the Premier, was also inspired to give in his private capacity. He met a little boy in the crowd of revellers, whom he decided to buy school shoes for every year, until the boy finishes school.
“It will only cost me a couple hundred Rands, and I  realised that I could do something that is meaningful for the boy, but which actually does not require too much from me. In the great scheme of things, I could miss lunch and save a life,” he said.

crowd of participant at the event

My road trip also involved visiting two young women farmers in the Free State and spending some time chatting with them and their parents, and getting a tour of the cleanest toilets located in filling stations in the Eastern Free State. (My friend, who is a former journalist who has travelled all over the country, swears knowing where clean public toilets are in every town is a basic necessity for a journalist.  I had a more sheltered experience as a journalist I guess). But I'll tell you more about the rest of our tour, and upload more pictures, some time this week.

Growing Up In Phokeng: My First Day Of School

So last week I promised that I would consider telling you more about my years growing up in Phokeng. 

As  Po said: “ I feel like the stories you have to tell of the way of life when you were young are important because that way of life is probably going to be extinct soon. And as you are a storyteller, what better person to preserve an account of how life was for future generations than you? Future generations would know nothing of the way life was for you if they are not written into stories or memoirs now.”

So. I’m not going to promise to write my memoir, because I’m not in that space where I feel ready. But I  decided  to tell my story on (some) Fridays and see how it goes.

I decided to start with my first day of school, because it sorta helps me draw a line in the sand. Arbitrary I know, but for now, it works for me. Enough explanations! Let’s get to the (hopefully) interesting bits.

Birth of Independence

I don’t actually remember anything about the first day of school beyond the fact that two of my cousins (who were 6 and 8 and also starting school) were responsible for getting me to school that morning (and every morning thereafter).

My mom taught at a school outside Kgale, the village where I lived. Kgale is part of Phokeng, which is made up of 29 villages. I think she had to catch a bus before 6am to get to her school on time. I'm not sure where my father worked then. I do know they were both long gone by the time I woke up in the mornings.

My grandmother was sickly ( and bedridden, and therefore no help) and my grandfather, who was already 87 years old then, wouldn't have known what to do with me, even if I gave him a chance.

Grandfather was an old, traditional man who I suspect, couldn't even contemplate giving a girl (or anyone for that matter) a bath. One of my earliest memories during those mornings was of me bragging to him that I managed to turn the radio on ( it played with a battery, which was expensive) and he threatened to give me a hiding if I didn't turn it off. IMMEDIATELY!

Undaunted, I told him to leave me alone or I'd sic my father on him and he'd give HIM a hiding. You can imagine my horror when he explained that my strong, fearless father, the threat that I could beat anyone into submission with, was actually his son. Sons always had to listen to their fathers, I thought, and there was no way mine would side with me against my new enemy. So I stayed well away from my grandfather in the mornings.

So, I was responsible for bathing and dressing myself and getting myself to school. My older sister, who is 3 years older, was not adopted by us yet, so she was not even a factor.

Also, at five, I was considered old enough to be able to do certain tasks for myself.  And why wouldn't I? Most kids in Kgale village had been getting themselves ready and walking more than 7 kilometres to the then nearest Primary Schools and I only had to walk a much shorter distance.

Anyhoo, school was half day, so it was assumed I'd be home by the time I got hungry again. So no big worries about a 5 year old with a knife, trying to make sandwiches for school lunch:-).

So, most mornings, my two cousins would come to my house and start yelling for me to hurry up to get ready or we won’t have time to play with the other kids before the morning bell rang.

Not that we were walking far. Kgale Primary School was slightly more than 500 metres west of my home.

Birth of a school

Image courtesy of ASAP Africa

At the beginning of 1973, Kgale Primary School was one of the biggest developments in the village of Kgale, or even in Phokeng in general. 

It was a brand-new school and our batch of learners was the very first that school ever had. 

We were a combination of new learners, like me, and local kids in higher standards (now called Grace 2 and Grace 3) who attended schools outside the village before and were culled from those schools to come closer to home.

Except, there was no actually no official structure to house Kgale Primary school. Lessons took place at the local Ethiopian church, and most of the younger learners ended up attending classes under the numerous trees surrounding the church.  Which means…. yup… I began my academic career under a tree. Sometimes I look back and think, what a ridiculously cliche of Africa that is! But there it is.

I have vivid memories of learning to write the alphabet on the ground, on the soil, with my finger (not sure where my slate was those times.) And the one memory that stands out from that time is that it was hard to write the letter G on the ground.  Too many lines working their way into each other!

Another vivid memory is the phraseology we used to ask to go to wee or do other private business. See there were no toilets, so you couldn’t ask to go to the toilet or bathroom.  But, there was a small hill near the church, and in a pinch, you would ask the teacher for permission to “go to the small hill," pass as many trees as can hide you from public view, maybe even find a big boulder to hide behind, and then do your business. I hesitate to think about how hygienic that hill really was, but were always taught to make sure you don’t do your business in the footpaths, and you always, and I mean, always covered your organic matter with lots of soil and grass if that’s what you went there for.

And since this whole story was started by my 2010 Blog Action Day: Water Story, let me mention that there was no water source at the school that first year.  So if you were thirsty, you either waited until school let out, or if you were brave enough, you approached the nearby houses to ask for water.  They were more likely to agree if you’re asking for teachers, who were highly respected, than mere students, who were too numerous to cater for and the families wouldn’t want to set their home as a precedent as a water source, when they too had to go fetch it from somewhere.

This situation didn't last long, though. There were other developments in the works during that same year....

To be continued next week....

Taking The Paypal, First National Bank Journey

I've had a Paypal account for a long while,but I never used it because I couldn't transfer the money to a SA bank. So there was no point in accumulating money that I could only use online.It was easier for international clients to pay me by money transfer or to mail me a cheque.

Then a couple of months ago First National Bank announced that it was partnering with Paypal, and they're not my primary bank, so it took me a while for me to even consider opening an account with them.

But now finally, I have activated my Paypal account, and will have to open a FNB account . It's been eye-opening how easy getting paid has become from the Paypal end. Now instead of waiting for days for the transferred money to hit my account, I've received payment as soon as it's made.

And I know I will have to open a First National Bank account, but still, I want to know from you: do you use the bank? Do you like their offering? What's their service like?

Ups & Downs Of A Writer's Life

Yesterday was a rough day and soo emotionally exhausting. You know when lotsa things go wrong at the same time at work  and you feel like you've been on the job for a hundred years? Yup, that was me. So, I worked and I pushed and follow-up, but productive I was not! So I sorta wrote the day off, and decided to wake up at 3am this morning to catch up.

Found that a feature article I did about 2 weeks ago was accepted ( new client), and the guy will give me work in fuure. Just not as much as we initially discussed when we first spoke. I'm not complaining; we both came out ahead and he was cool to work for.

And a book project that I have been brewing is close to contract stage. I like the terms on the table and if I say yes, they'll send me the contract full of legalese to sign. The email offering the contract was very nice to wake up to.

Now it's 5h25 and time I got back to the work I pushed aside yesterday.....

Short Stories, A Book Launch & Lots Of Writing

Well done to Tiah, for publishing her short story, Ever After, on Botsotso. Thanks for sharing the link on your blog. And after reading Tiah' story, check out the story by Zukiswa Wanner. She made me laugh. And I could sooo relate!

Congratulations also go to Arthur Goldstuck, he who writes very interesting books about urban legends ( when he's not doing his ICT research and analysist stuff:-). Arthur is launching his latest book, The Burglar In The Bag, on Wednesday 27 October (next week). Arthur says copies are already available Exclusive Books, so get yours. And for my favourite raeders' interest, Arthur says I - yours trully, nna, moi - gets a big mention in the book. Now aren't you just dying of curiosity?

Meanwhile, today promises to be a hectic day. Doing an interview for a feature article, finishing a paid-for blog post, drafting a media statement and  have other client assignments due today and tomorrow. So I'll just have to suck it up and work....

The Job Situation

What's the job market like in your area/industry/among people you know? I thought it was fairly stable though businesses were still tightening their belts ( and that does affect me A LOT - the amount of work I get, whether clients pay on time, even the demographic of my client base).

Then I spoke to childhood friend of mine this morning and she's getting retrenched. AGAIN! I think this is her fourth retrenchment in two years or something ridiculous like that. And I don't see how she manages to cope, being on a merry-go-round like that. I was retrenched twice in my whole career, and both instances rate in the top 5 worst incidences in my career.

I suppose that's why I like working for myself. Yes, the workflow can be very unstable, and getting the cash flow to match the workflow can also be rough. And yes, I have lost big income generators at some stage and had to scramble to replace them. Still, during hard times, I feel comforted by the fact that, I can still wake up everyday and go to work. Even if working involves looking for new clients and I don't see the results of that effort immediately.

But I digressed a bit. What I wanted to know was your thoughts on the current job market. Are people you know holding extra hard onto jobs, even if they hate them, because a job in hand is better than nothing? Are your friends getting retrenched?

P.S. Happenings in my world today involve:

1. Oral hearings on the Protection From Harassment Bill by the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Constitutional Development. Many thanks to those of you who expressed your opinions/even blogged about it. Laura (at Harassed Mom), your input was included in the written submission, so parliament did get to hear what you think.

2. Landed 2 international clients this week. Not sure how much volume of work I'll get from them. Maybe once-off. Maybe regular. But in the lead up to Christmas spending and a new assistant in place: the more the merrier, I say. Weird that it would happen in one week though:-).

3. Doing a lot of waiting. Waiting for graphic designer to send back proofs of client newsletter. Waiting for responses on proposals I sent out. Waiting for clients to approve material I sent to them ( or at least express an opinion). Waiting for clients to pay. Waiting for my mother to phone me back.....

Another Matter of Time

I recently mentioned remarked that I was evolving into that mobile worker pundits keeping talking about. You know, the one to whom location doesn't matter because they can actually work anywhere. That observation led to a nerve-wrecking adventure where I was stuck in the middle of farmland in the Free State( which I don't regret and will be followed by another adventure in due course.)

This past week something else occured to me: time is a very important factor for a mobile worker. Or rather time-zones, if you are a mobile worker working with global clients/associates/audience.

See, I was trying to arrange an interview with representatives of an IT company for an article for BizTech Africa. The company's PR rep is based in SA, so I saw nothing amiss in suggesting 14h00 as the time of the interview. Problem was, the executives I needed to interview are based in Singapore and it would be 20h00 there when it's 14h00 there.  Doable, but highly inconvenient for my sources, and it's never a good thing to needlessly inconvenience your sources. Makes them cranky, and like every human being, they could respond by being less chatty/helpful.

And that was not my first time-related blunder this month. When I was working on another IT-related feature article the previous week, all my five interview sources were based in the US. For some reason, I assumed that they were all located within the same area/time zone, except for the guy who was en route to Berlin. So I gave them the same deadline. Turns out that there was one guy, who went through the interview questions at the last minute (which made him late) but when his agency told me their time zone, I realised to my horror  that he was going to be EXTREMELY late.

Oy! That problem could have been prevented, if I'd double checked their cities' or regional time zone.

So from now onward, the time-zone converter is my new best friend. OK. Maybe  that's a stretch. But it will be a tool I use daily.

Laura Is Organising A Christmas Party For Kidz Clinics In Pretoria

My blogging friend Laura at Harassedmom is organising a Christmas Party for Kidz Clinics and you can help her make the party special for the children. The party is to be held in Pretoria ( details on Laura's blog) on the 3rd December.

Laura says: "the party is held for all children currently receiving treatment at the clinics as well as a gift is provided for each child that has come through the clinic during the year."
More about Kidz Clinics

Kidz Clinics are one-stop child-friendly centres providing free medical and psychological treatment for children who have been sexually, physically and emotionally violated.  The clinics help the abused child from the minute the crime is reported right through to the court case. The are six clinics and Laura is hosting a party for one of them.

The clinics are run by "Women and Men Against Child Abuse,"  an organisation committed to fighting for the rights of the child and to end the abuse of children in South Africa, by striving to form a multi-faceted, dynamic and aggressive offensive against any form of abuse.

Interestingly, this is one of those times when my own work and a friend's interests unknowingly collide because Kidz Clinic is one of the partners of my client Shukumisa.


What Laura needs

Laura says she needs:

• Photography – we need this because the identity of the children can not be made public so the organisation wants to speak to the photographer first. Also this is obviously going to need to be done free of charge.
• 35 Gifts – I have a list of names/ages etc of the children. Limit is R100 per gift.
• A face painter – we need this so that the children can have their faces painted and still remain “anonymous”
• Money for the lunches. The Dros will supply each child with a meal but we will have to find money to pay for it. I will have the price of the meals by monday but it will be around R30
• Sweets/snacks to be set out around the play area.
• 4 volunteers to help watch the children. They will get dropped off and fetched. Their parents are not allowed to attend the function.

For more information about Kidz Clinics here is the quarterly report for April - June 2010.

There Are Many Sides To Every Story

There's a popular saying that  there are three sides to a story. My side, your side and God's side ( or whatever omniscient Higher Power you believe in). Then this morning I listened to two friends give me an account of an event they attended, and they told completely different stories. Not contradictory stories, but their life experiences, biases and expectations completely coloured the accounts. It made me think that there are as many sides  to a story  as there are people involved.  And I'm sure that's not an original thought (LOL), but it was my Aha! moment for today.

The event was a prize-giving ceremony of the 13-year old sister of one of the friends. It's a private boarding school in a small town and this was a very special visit. The friend's account centred on how happy the girl was to see her family, more explanation on what the award was about, and a short mention that the school is in the middle of nowhere but offers no extra things that the girl can get locally.

[quoting almost verbatim]: Oh, the little girl was soo happy to see us! she's a really beautiful girl and so easy to please. Her mum brought her a couple of apples, and you should have seen her thank her for them and eat them as if they were a beautiful gift. The food's good there, so she just loved the apples because her mom brought them. And he and her friends were very well-behaved when we later took them out to KFC..... you get my drift.

The sister's account was a critical analyis of the school, the students' behaviour and dress, the principal and teachers' failure to enforce discipline and the way her sister had caved into behaving in a manner that reflects the school's rot. No mention of her sister's feelings, award or what she's good at, or that they took the girl and her friends to KFC afterwards and their general behaviour on an outing. Just outrage that they were able to get the girl's friend for an outing without comment, even though they have no legal right to the girls  and practically speaking, endangers the girls(cos it means anyone, even a paedophile, can pull kids out of that school at night during an event without the principal or teachers noticing).

I'm not debating the merits of either story my friends told me. I just found it fascinating, as a human being and as a writer who constantly grapples with telling other people's stories and creating characters, that they both saw different things from the same event. And to the writers in our midst, I'm sure you can see how this would influence your characters' motivations and create conflict, even if you never explicitly say so in your story.


I'd also be curious to hear what you picked out of my perspective of this incident, and I'll bet, based on your life experience, interests etc, some things that I said stand out more than others. Talk to me!

Blog Action Day Post: My Water Story

So. Today is Blog Action Day. And the theme for this year is WATER. So I’m going to tell you a bit about myself so you can understand why the issue of universal access to water very important to me. If you’ve been here long enough, you know I’m from Phokeng, a village in the North West Province best known for its platinum mines.

People in the media call us the richest tribe in Africa. I just call them crazy, because even though we do have resources, and in the past 15years or so those resources have been used to develop our village, that was not always the case.

Back in the days of Apartheid, I think we had a middle man (not sure what government called him, but he was supposed to hold the royalties from the mines in trust for us, like we were kids. And basically, we did not have access to the money, so we couldn’t build roads, or schools or clinics except by each individual family making a contribution to the communal pot ear-marked for projects (which they did). We certainly didn’t have access to running water in the village.

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The many ways to skin a cat… ahem.. collect water

There was however, a river that ran at the bottom end of the village ( less than 300 metres from my own home), which had a dam for general water use and a spring for drinking water. There was also a communal water pump in the centre of the village; the kind that has a long arm and you had to push it round and round to get it to pump water. I tried to find an image of the pump to show you, but unfortunately couldn’t. Must have been a really old model.

Anyhoo, the kids who were responsible to collecting water for their families either went very early in the morning, or in the afternoon. There were several ways the children and women who were responsible for getting water could collect the water from either source:

1. You can carry a 20litre bucket on your head. Problem with that scenario is that you have to go several times, because 20 litres of water doesn't go very far when you use it in the household to bath the family, cook, wash dishes, clean, drink and do laundry. And yeah, occassionally you have to do your windows or wash your curtains and blankets.....
2. You could take a big plastic container ( one of the 50litre things that were originally used to contain industrial material, washed clean). You fill it up with water, close it and then you kick the container home. If you’re lucky, your home is on a downward incline from the water source, so the container just rolls along.
3. You hire the local donkey cart owner to take you and your many 50litre containers to the water source and back. It probably cost less than R10 for a trip, but most families couldn’t even dream of affording that cost.
4. Then there were those who could afford to hire a van to transport their water. That was nice.

Lucky, lucky, lucky!

Yes, I was lucky, even way back then. My crazy parents, who weren’t actually well-off, sank a fortune into digging a borehole at my home. I think we lived on beans for a decade after that ( and I mean the dried ones we grew, not the canned stuff:-)

But it also means that for many years, I was one of the lucky few who actually didn’t have to collect water. I was envious, because it was a communal activity I could never participate in. And it took place everyday. Even when I went with the other kids, they knew I went for entertainment and not because of a need. Which didn’t endear me to them. I suspect that’s when I actually got used to watching people for the most part, rather than being with them, which led me to the writing and journalism.

So where are we now?

Things have changed a bit. The South African government is installing water systems for villages across the country and has been doing so since the democracy began. As you can imagine, this was a huge backlog. The Bafokeng won the legal right to manage their royalties, and that story has also been a success. And some of those resources have been used to provide water for the people.

But, here’s the thing: water is usually brought closer. As in, you have a water tap in your home and have access to the municipal water system. But that does not mean that you have a plumbing system of any kind in your home, or the money to hire a plumber to install it. Yes, new houses are now built with plumbing. But older houses? Not so much.

So, I thank God when I go home and see people easily accessing water from their taps. But, I also know that if I spend the night at a cousin’s house, chances are very big that:
a) Someone has to constantly go outside to get the water. Same 20 litre bucket or industrial container; shorter distance.
b) You have to use a latrine outside (ever had to go after 11pm and been told you had to do your business outside, in a small, dark room?
c) You can’t take a quick shower because you want to freshen up. Wipe with a cloth and wear extra strong deodorant!
d) Your real bath water comes from a kettle ( or a couple, depending on how many people are in the family and how soon y’all have to get ready), in a bowl.
e) And for some luxury, you can heat up huge pots of water, take a big metal bath to your room and then pour hot, then cold water into it and then indulge. It’s a bitch though, having to carry that bath full of water outside to throw away, so best you have someone already prepared to help you carry it.

So. No. I don’t take my own easy access to water in my home for granted. And I want to ask you not to either.

I also want to ask you to do whatever you can to help any initiatives that take water to more people. And once the taps are brought nearer to the people, don’t dust your hands and assume your job is done. Because there’s still more that can be done.

Back To Normal Writing Schedule

I think it was late yesterday when my mind cleared enough to realise that I've been stoned for days. Don't laugh! I took the meds, the stomach pains stopped and why would I care that my mind was kinda fuzzy and I spent most of Tuesday trying to keep my eyes open? So, I'm really better now AND sane enough to know for sure:-)
Spent part of the morning scoping a new web site project, which I hope to start ASAP. It will be nice to get a big project to sink my teeth into. Small projects are a reliable source of ready cash, but big projects help me plan my business better.
I also had a chat with my  writer friend Chantal Collings about the business of writing and collecting payments from clients. And I was thinking that sometimes it's easy to focus on the creative proces and lose sight of the fact that you still run a business. Chantal said:
"I, myself, am guilty sometimes of being too trusting and have done jobs without a deposit before, but with people I don't know I've realised that I have to 'play hard ball' re a 50% deposit, 50% on delivery. This is pretty standard and I figure if they give me trouble about paying half the fee to secure my time (when I have myriad samples for them to 'prove' I can write), then they are likely to give me trouble about paying the full fee afterwards - so I just don't go there."

What are your views on the issue of trust between client/editor and service provider?



 

Monday Was A Complete Write-Off

Sunday night/Monday were my worst days, healthwise. Ulcer was acting up big time ( my fault; I deviated from my normal diet plan on Sunday because I was travelling) and my stomach felt bloated and sore and I couldn't keep meals or even water down. So I lay in bed all of Monday, praying for death.

Death didn't come, but the meds kicked in and today I feel better except for the aftertaste from Rehydrate. I can live with foul aftertaste:-)

So instead of blogging about anything happening in my writing life, I'm going to lead you to some ongoing online discussions  I participated in:

Writer Lee Cahill  started a discussion on Breast Cancer Month on Facebook, but somehow the discussion grew to encompass sexual expression and the dynamic of women using their bodies to sell their careers ( e.g. Madonna, Shakira, Britney Spears) and the argument that these women may not be in control of the situation as much as they think and are being used as objects to ogle by men.

We also started talking about how sometimes society tries to force women to dress in a certain way, and talk in a certain way. If you don't comform, you are seen as inviting disrespect from men, maybe even rape.

We also wondered if encouraging men to think about the possibility of being rape victims would help them to appreciate women's perspective more, and that maybe, they will start seeing rape as a human rights issue, not a women's issue. This could go a  long way to improving how rape victims are treated by society.

Join the conversation

The latest interesting letter from my OneLove audience is from a woman who is married with 3 kids. Her husband was deported, and it took a year for him to be considered eligible to come back to their country. Meanwhile, the wife felt abandoned, and started a relationship with a man who is married (separated) and also has 3 kids. At this stage, being with the husband will be about duty, rather than love, she says. What do you think? Should she try to make the relationship with new partner work  or try to rediscover the feeling she used to have for her husband?

Lessons Learnt From Holding Meetings With Government

Had a productive meeting with the E-Task Team of one of  SA's provincial governments. Representatives at the meeting included deputy directors of communications of a number of government departments including social development, public works and the premier's office.

Lessons learnt from the meeting: 

1. Government wheels turn very slowly, so you need to be able to nail down things that can be done immediately to see results ( and alleviate personal frustrations due to challenges they face in their work) while they also endlessly discuss their long-term vision.
2. Make sure participants don't leave the room without a concrete plan of action, with definite deadlines set.
3. Take notes, preferably as a Powerpoint presentation outlining your discussion and plan of action, so you can email all participants copies at the end of the meeting. That way, THEY don't have to go write reports for their own bossses: they can just polish your report and forward it (less work for them; makes them look good).
4. Take nothing for granted. One report mentioned that the provincial government has a Facebook group, and I asked the different comms heads how effective they were in using it. Turns out their IT department has blocked Facebook, so they're not using the group at all (beyond the fact that it was set up by someone) and their the comms people haven't quite figured out how to get IT to grant them access. And yes, many people choose to have in-person meetings, rather than just sending an email outlining an issue and cc'ing everyone involved. "There's no guarantee the people you send emails to will read them," I was told.

All in all, participants were convinced it was a productive meeting, which always gives me a good feeling. But I just want to see a content development contract on the table. That's when I'll be convinced that the meeting was a success:-)

1400 Readers, Writers, Editors, Publishers & Librarians Like Read SA

I just want to celebrate with you the fact that the Facebook page for Read SA now has 1400 fans. This is a great milestone, I think. Many thanks to all of you for supporting this worthy initiative and telling your friends and business associates about it.

If you're in the book publishing industry in some way ( writer, editor, publisher or even accountant), or if you're a parent/educator or just love reading and want to encourage South Africans to read and be well-read, please join us?

I'd also like to ask you to tell you book club, forum where y'all talk about books you're reading, your writing group or even your family members about this initiative.

Help us get South Africa reading!

A Matter Of Time

I've just submitted a feature article that I was working on, on and off, for the past couple of days. I was a couple of hours late, which made the writing process a tad hectic, and actually put my client under pressure. And the reason I ws late is because some of my sources were late...

This process reminded me that I need to be more proactive about pushing deadlines I give sources forward, so that when they are late, I still have room to manouvre. Because, when you're a writer or journo and you're late, no one really cares why you're late ( in the great scheme of media publishing). The only message that comes across is that you're not dead or bleeding to death, so why is your story late?

Long, Long Day

Workday started at 7.30am and went on until 22h10. Did lots of research, interviews, writing. Tired now, so  I'll do a proper update tomorrow.

What To Do If Your Car Gets Stuck In The Middle Of The Free State Farmland

The Plan: 

It was inspired by my last post and Po’s response to it. Why not travel, she asked, when I said that I didn’t seem to be tied to a location. My friend Christelle, who lives in Bloem and was visiting me for the weekend agreed with Po’s assessment. So we decided that I would go visit her for a week or so in Bloem.

The Trip

A 420km car ride from Johannesburg to Bloemfontein. In theory, it would take us a little over 4 hours.

The problem
Car stopped just over 20km outside Kroonstad. Other than the passing cars and trucks, the only thing was endless farmland with an occasional dot that looked like a house out far in the horizon.

Step 1: Call your insurance company

Christelle wanted to open the hood of the car to see what the problem was. I didn’t see how opening the hood would help, because neither one of us understand cars. Sure, we’d see SOMETHING! But it wouldn’t mean a thing to us. [We later found from our friendly tow-truck company that there was something wrong withe engine, and it was losing water too fast and overheating.

]

So we called the insurance company to report the incident. For the record, 1com, the insurance company, sucks. The consultant SMSed us the contact details for the nearest tow company and we had to contact Europcar directly to arrange a rental car (you qualify for it, if you’re more than 150km from home.)

Europcar only had an outlet in Welkom, and the representative was home enjoying a leisure Sunday afternoon, so he couldn’t help. We would only be able to get a car the following day, he said. Grrrrrrr!

Step 2: Find another way out of Dodge

The next available Greyhound bus from Kroonstad to Bloemfontein was at 19h45 on Monday night, I think the consultant said.

Step 3: Find a friendly farmer

Zoutspruit is a cattle farm

Thank God Christelle knew of Zoutspruit, a farm that had a bed and breakfast operation within a 2km radius of where were stuck. 

Many thanks to our hostess Inez, who already had the double room ready when we arrived. 

By the time we arrived, it was around 16h00, and after giving us enough liquids to start feeling human, she got dinner ready in an hour. It was delicious, filling, and quite a relief to have one less thing to worry about.

The cost for the bed and breadfast was R650 (R550 for 2 people in a twin room sharing  and their dinner plus breakfast for R55 each. )

Inez sat with us under the tree, while we called Europcar again to make sure the rental car was still coming, and Christelle called her boss to tell him she’d be late for work the following day.

I loved sitting under this tree. Sorta gave me the feeling that I was on a holiday, not stuck in the middle of nowhere.

After a nice shower, we went to bed early.

Step 5: A normal workday?

The breakfast menu was varied, including herbed egg dish, toast, butter, jam, boerewors, bacon, pap and the usual cereals, tea and coffee varieties.  Unfortunately I couldn’t eat most of the food because they either had wheat or dairy in them. I should have thought to warm Inez – she was so helpful I’m sure she would have made a plan.

As for work, I had my laptop and modem, but Internet in that area sucked big time. I use Vodacom Mobile when I’m travelling, and their networks are everywhere and I usually connect with no problem. Except on that particular spot, I could only get a dodgy EDGE connection. So, work was S-L-O-W.

But I did manage to update the sites, follow up on some interviews, look for some gigs and listen to a work-related audio tape I’m supposed to work on for a client.

Step 6: Lessons learnt

Rental car only arrived by mid-morning. Then we drove for two more hours through more farmland to Bloem.

Lesson 1:  When insurance people tell you terms and conditions apply to your supposedly “comprehensive “coverage, find out what it means. In the many discussions  we had with the insurance company, the issue of whether we did qualify for the rental car came up, and the consultant was arguing that we couldn’t possibly be over 150km away from Bloem.  Check the damn map, I wanted to say.

Lesson 2: Never to under-estimate the power of a friendly farmer. The world looked much better when we were sitting under the tree on the farm, drinking icy cold water, than it did when we were in the car, waiting to be towed.

Lesson 3: Ubiquitous Internet is in the eye of the beholder:-). 

My non-techie friend Vuyo made me laugh. I was moaning about having EDGE connection in Kroonstad, and her response was " EDGE? What's that?" As far as she knew, Internet acces = ADSL or 3G.

How Tied Are You To Where You Live & Work?

I was working on a feature article this evening, chasing a number of international sources to interview, when it struck me that I'm actually that mobile worker that lots of trend pundits talk about. I can actually do my job from any location ( either in this country or globally) and it would still be like I'm in my home office. (P.S. Working while sitting on the beach remains a dream, mostly because laptop battery life still sucks big time.)

But I digress. What I wanted to say was that, practically speaking I have no big tie that says I have to live in Joburg, or in his surburb or this house, in order to continue doing the work I do. I could be in Bloemfontein or Blantyre tomorrow, and unless my Internet connection was affected, my clients wouldn't care and my work output would not be affected.

It was a liberating moment, but also a sobering one. Because if I can live anywhere and still earn the same living I do here, where exactly do I want to live? What do you do with all that wonderful freedom ( of location) once you have it?

Question: if you were in my shoes and could live anywhere and still be able to do your job, would you move? Where would you live?

"Oh For Art's Sake!" says Zuki

I was going to blog about something interesting, maybe even meaningful. I swear.
Then I saw the latest post by my friend Zukiswa Wanner, she who recently released  her third novel "Men Of The South," and it resonated so much I decided to link you to it instead.

Zuki says:

"I just found out recently that some Jordan/Paris sorta starlet in Joburg gets paid mucho bucks for selling her story to a magazine (Yay for journalism, Ms.Editor. Someone really cares to know the name this starlet whose claim to fame is a defunct Pop Idols career is sleeping with) . This after I had been asked by the same magazine to write YET another story for next to nothing. ‘We will give you publicity,’ was how they tried to sell it to me. Weirdly, two years ago, I would actually have done the story. I was under the dumb illusion that if someone sees my name on page 20voetsek of a magazine writing about something totally irrelevant to my writing they would be interested in buying my book and I would be the next Dan Brown. Didn’t happen."

Read the full post.

As for me, I've found that I get paid me more for work done without a byline than work that is published with a byline. So for the most part, I do bylined work as some sort of marketing ( though I still get paid by the magazines etc), as if to say, "hey, I'm still here, and I'm still somebody."

Question: What does Zuki's post, and my experiences tell you about the writing life? Is it much like you expected?