SA Rocks

This is a difficult topic because the reason for staying or leaving anything from a club to a sports match or a pub is so personal. There is no generic reason for any one person.

I am going to try and be personal about this and give my 5 reasons:

5 reasons to stay in SA

1. The potential to succeed is always present – whether you achieve this potential or not, I cannot help but keep trying.
2. The people are passionate – If they are genuine, hateful, passionate, kind or helpful they are passionately so.
3. South Africans live life – We might sometimes live in fear, but we live. Everything we do is real, harsh, exciting or dull but it is everything. There is almost no room to be lazy with your life. Everyday I choose to live
4. The country is stunning in every way – By this I mean that I have lived here my entire life and I still haven’t seen everything that SA has to offer.
5. Many South Africans are socially aware (we have Ubuntu) – We can try to resist it but the realities of life are everywhere, on the street corner in the news or in your back yard. I am aware that my gated community is not the only community that exists

5 reasons to leave in SA

1. Crime
2. Lack of sufficient government leadership
3. The ever present reminder that life is hard – Wherever you turn there is a feeling of guilt shoved at you. Beggards, government telling us, critics, sceptics and anyone else who cares to try and tell you
4. The world is smaller – I want to travel and the world is so incredible that I want to see more of it.
5. Big fish, small pond – I would want to leave to see if I can make it somewhere else, somewhere without the support structure that I have here.

There are more reasons on both ends of the spectrum but I could go on forever, I wont. What are your reasons to stay and to leave. Which one outweighs the other?

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Here’s a great video produced by Jason Von Berg at The Times:

This is one smart rapper with a very intelligent voice who makes sense and raps it. Originally from Uganda, Obita speaks his mind and says what he feels.

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A massive gripe of mine living where I live is that I don’t do enough things. I do things, but the same things. Most of the time it’s the same things with the same people over and over.

Do Stuff CT is trying to fix this problem for people in Cape Town.

The site isn’t too big just yet but hopefully with more exposure and more people getting involved there will be more exciting events listed.

Take some time, if you live in CT or are travelling there soon, to get to the site and see what’s available to you.

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Calling all South African foodies: remember the 2007 South African Produce Awards? Well they’re back!

The awards started in 2006 and are a partnership between the annual food directory Eat In and RMB Private Bank. The awards are unique in their nature and scope in South Africa in that they aim to celebrate our outstanding local produce and to support the people who create and market it.

And now is your chance to nominate independent producers and shops for this year’s awards. All you need to do is go to the nomination form on the Eat In website, fill in a few personal details and then nominate your favourite new products, fabulous producers, shops and interesting foodies (or even yourself ) for the Awards. You have 3 choices in each category and you can vote as many times as you like – just rememebr that the deadline is 2 June 2008.

By voting you stand a chance of winning a Le Creuset Pasta Pot (with sieve). Not only is it convenient for pasta cooking, serving and straining but it’s also handy as a deep casserole or a steamer for veggies and fish.

So please take a few minutes to recognise our excellent local artisinal producers and retailers!

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Yes, that is the name of a band, a great South African band – Zebra and Giraffe.

Before I ramble too much, have a listen:

Be sure to check out their Facebook and MySpace pages as well as their YouTube profile and their blog.

You can visit Just Music and purchase the album now (and I suggest that you do).

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12 years ago our current president made a moving and motivating speech to his nation-to-be. 12 years on and I feel more African than I ever thought I could. But I fear that some might have forgotten the words that moved me.

Here is an abriged version of President Mbeki’s “I am an African” speech:

I did manage to find a full transcript of the moving speach. Do yourself a favour and read it. Today on African Day, read it and take it on, take it in and make it about your context, your situation and the lives of those around you. This speech unfortunately came from a man who has lost his nation to travel, who has lost his way to keeping up relations with mass murderers and dictators who seem to have some sort of hold over him. This man has lost his way and I think he needs to go and let our African diamond (SA) grow from without his grasp.

Here is my take on the incredible I am an African speech:

I am an African, Mr Mbeki, not you or your brethren. No Longer. You might at one point have been but no more.

We are about the people, the places, the feeling and emotions. You have become too good, too high and too mighty for us. You and your kind have lost your way and been blinded by capitalism and absolute power.

It is us, the man in the street, the face in the crowd, the class that works, that pays, that suffers and battles.

It is us that make Africans African, that make people proud and that make our nations what they are – whether good or bad.

It is us that makes Africa emotional, engaged, heated, enraged, moved and moving, grown and growing.

It is us and we are African.

We are taking responsibility for our brothers and sisters and their actions. We are the ones who stand in the street, sit in our houses, behind our computers and condemn or praise the actions of other Africans.

We are the ones who cannot leave when times get tough, who will not leave when the grapes sour and who refuse to let our nations divide.

We are Africa, we are African and we will not let one man, one ruler, one dictator, one government or one president take that away from us.

We are African and this is our continent.

image found here

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Would you believe that today it will be four years since my first post on my food blog?  I know it seems hard to believe, but I’ve been tending my little patch of the Internet for 48 happy months.  Who would have thought?

When I started, I suspect that I was something of a novelty act – a South African blogging was relatively rare at that stage, let alone a South African blogging about food and wine.  But slowly over the years, others have emerged, writing either about our rich culinary heritage or our world-class wine industry.  Of course, I kept a close eye on these, welcoming each newbie as best I could and offering advice and support where necessary.  Somebody (who knows who they are!) even gave me the moniker of Yoda at one point .  And slowly the number of South African foodie blogs grew in my Google reader.

But it still seemed that nobody really had much of a feeling of connection and community, partly because it’s not always easy to track down South African food and wine blogs unless you go on a mission to look for them.  And so to raise our profile as a community I have today launched the official South African Food and Wine Blog Directory on its own shiny new page – please go and take a look.  Would you be surprised if I told you it features 23 food blogs and 13 wine blogs?  Thought you’d be!  Some blog more regularly than others, some do not focus exclusively on recipes or wine, but between them I think you get a lovely cross-section of the food and wine State of the Nation.

Starting next week I plan to feature a little weekly biography of a particular blogger, based on the answers to a questionnaire that I sent everyone on the directory.  So please do subscribe to the blog’s feed or check back regularly to learn a little about each of our colourful collection of bloggers.  A little link-love to spread the word woudl not go amiss either :)  And if you know of a blogger that I have missed, or if you have an idea for what you’d like to see featured on this page, please do drop me an e-mail.

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Ed’s Note: This post is a contribution from Carly Ritz.

I am more proudly South African today than I have ever been – perhaps a strange statement to make when the last two weeks have been characterized by a plague of violence, brutality and senseless hatred. I don’t think I need to describe the gruesome images and tragic stories that have already played out in local media all week. I have been sad and angry and afraid, but I have also been so uplifted and inspired by the generosity of the wonderful people of our country.

Today I visited the Red Cross office in Johannesburg. I stood in a storeroom on the 16th floor of The Sable building in Dekorte Street in Braamfontein. It was filled with donations of food items and clothing, tinned food cans and nappies. I was filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude – I was thankful to be part of a nation that opens their hearts and even their homes in this time of crisis.

A colleague of mine has taken 5 Zimbabweans into his own home after they were beaten and chased from their homes. He is trying to keep them safe and offer them refuge from the volatile streets.

YFM’s DJ Sbu led a march for the youth in protest of the violence. Another march has been planned for the weekend. This saturday, people will gather at Marks Park to defend the foreign members of our country. The members of Wits University marched today.

I have had the most wonderful support from friends and colleagues in the office who have contributed so generously for the Red Cross collection. People have even been to load up their cars and help with delivering these loads to the Red Cross office. Another colleague has even offered to accompany me to the various refugee points to help deliver some supplies directly to the people in need

I am so proud of the journalists and photographers with whom I work – who have roamed the streets, day and night to show the country and the world the reality of the humanitarian crisis. I am sure their dreams are haunted by the visuals, the pain and the human suffering they encounter so intimately on a daily basis.

I am not proud of what is happening in our country right now and I desperately want the violence to cease, but I am more proudly South African than ever

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Here’s a list I found from a facebook group:

1. Speak with your local councillor, individually or in a group, and ensure that (s)he calls a ward meeting to condemn violence.
2. Start conversations with family members, friends, neighbours, colleagues, fellow learners and students, etc. about xenophobia and violence and about taking a public stance against it.
3. Call a meeting at your place of work and organise a discussion on the violence and on xenophobia.
4. Join your community policing forum and ensure that the CPF acts to protect foreign nationals and anyone else being threatened or targeted in your area.
5. Report any agitation or threats against foreign nationals or groups of South Africans to the police.
6. Check with police stations, community centres and churches sheltering victims of violence on what material donations are needed, and donate blankets, food and clothes, as needed.
7. Participate in any public forums you can access, including calling into talk radio shows, public meetings, writing letters to newspapers, etc.
8. Check that your foreign friends/ colleagues/ neighbours/ cleaners/ gardeners and their families are safe, and, if necessary, offer them refuge in your house.
9. If foreign nationals in your neighbourhood are likely to be targeted in their homes, organise a group of people to spend the night at their house so that a South African can open the door if someone knocks in the night asking about foreigners.
10. Encourage any public figures you know, including artists, sports persons, business people, teachers, etc. to speak out publically against racism, xenophobia and violence.
11. Do not let racist and xenophobic comments go unchallenged.

Mike and Stii are also asking what we can do, maybe this list can help.

I was also informed of a march taking place on Saturday:

I was informed about a march that will be taking place on Saturday:

Time and PlaceDate: Saturday, May 24, 2008
Time: 9:00am – 12:00pm
Location: Pieter Roos Park, cnr Empire and Queen, Parktown – north of Constitution Hill
Street: cnr Empire Rd and Queen Street, Parktown
City/Town: Johannesburg, South Africa

So get involved if you can.

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Yes, I am saddened that people are dying on the streets of their so-called “haven”, their safeguard from the tyrants in their own country. That saddens me, but most of all I am saddened that our President and his cabinet have let this happen.

The blood of those who have died rests on thier hands, not ours. Saul wrote a post today saying that he has had it and decided that SA is not for him, that he is sad to be South African today. Well I am not, not at all, not in the slightest.

I am not going to say that due to one single event (the xenophobic attacks) that is happening now that I am ashamed of my heritage, my culture and my fellow South Africans. I am not. I am uplifted. I am uplifted by the number of people talking, disagreeing and loudly rebelling against this sort of action. A small faction of savages are destroying people’s lives and we must all feel as if we are part of it? Rubbish. I am not a part of that, I never was and never will be. I am a part of the solution to it. I am a part of the growth in people’s consciousness that allows them to step back and say no to this sort of human rights violation.

It makes me feel good when people don’t keep thier mouths shut, when they stand up (or speak up) about wrong doing and actively seek to end it. I am uplifted by the journalists and police officers putting thier lives on the line to get the truth out there.

I don’t think that we cannot know joy and contentment until we have lived through true pain and suffering. Right now we are caught between the two as a nation and the one will lead to the other. Which one comes first is up to us.

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