a weblog of whereabouts & interests, since 2010
More artwork .. this rhino in The Watershed building in the V&A Waterfront is part of a public art exhibition campaign to save the rhinos. There are fewer than 5,500 black rhinos and 22,000 white rhinos left on the planet and poachers are still killing them at an alarming rate.
The Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA) opened in September 2017. The art collection is housed in an old grain silo complex at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town.
There is a big lawn at my guesthouse, and early in the morning a few hadada ibises are out foraging for worms. Amazingly, the lawn is still a little green in spite of the drought, and they have to work at it with their beaks, but they do find an earthworm or a bug now and then.
The 54th National Conference of the African National Congress (South Africa’s ruling political party) is set to start on Friday at an exhibition center near Johannesburg. The event is more or less the equivalent of the national party conventions we have in the United States before a presidential election. By Sunday, the ANC will have elected a new chairperson, and it is very likely that this person will become South Africa’s new president as an outcome of the 2019 national elections.
Even though Cyril Ramaphosa served as deputy president of South Africa under President Jacob Zuma since 2014, many (most?) South Africans hope that he will prevail over his rival Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, ex-wife of Jacob Zuma. It is time to pay serious attention to South Africa’s economic challenges and clean out the worst of the vast corruption and cronyism in the Zuma administration. Ramaphosa has tweeted that he wants to address infrastructure challenges, and wants to target a 5% growth rate for South Africa’s developing economy (currently at about 1% annual growth).
It drizzled a little bit today here in the far northern suburbs of Cape Town (68 °F/ 20°C). I am sure the precipitation did not add even a fraction of a percent to the water level in the dams here, though. At the current dam levels (34.2% full) and water usage, city officials estimate ‘day zero’ to be May 18, 2018. Day zero comes when dam levels have dropped to 13.5%. At that point there will be no more water coming out of faucets, and residents will have to collect water from some 200 collection sites around the city.
Monday was ‘Black Monday’ in South Africa: a day of organized protest against the continued high murder rate of farmers in the country. Accurate numbers are hard to come by, but it is impossible to see the frequent reports on the front pages of newspapers, and not to acknowledge that there is a problem.
I wish I knew what the solution is. It is an issue fraught with race relations, the recent history of white farmers in neighboring Zimbabwe, and one of broken promises from the South African government to provide better security and justice to citizens that produce the country’s food supply.
The Cape Pioneer Trek mountain bike competition ended on Saturday in the southern Cape in South Africa.
It is a very beautiful part of the country, and the riders go through trails in nature reserves. I have to believe they are safe from predators, but they still have to watch out for zebra, giraffes and antelopes.
The brothers Grimm’s fairy tales were first published in 1812, so this year marks their 200th anniversary.
I have had my eye on a South African publisher’s ‘Die Mooiste Sprokies van Grimm (2010)’ (The Fairest Fairy Tales of Grimm’) with illustrations by artist Piet Grobler for a while now, and today I finally purchased it.
The pictures are from Johannesburg’s Oliver Tambo airport.
The airport stores are well-stocked with African handicraft and souvenir items, and seemed to be doing a brisk business even though it’s winter time and not the tourist season.
Our Airbus A340-300 was filled to capacity. The number 4 engine did not start properly, though, and we went back to the gate for a check-up.
Take your time, technicians, I thought .. make sure everything is A-OK. All was resolved after 30 minutes, and we were on our way.
I am at Cape Town airport. It’s a 2-hour hop to Johannesburg and then onto a direct flight of 13 hrs to Hong Kong from there. I resisted buying any more Afrikaans books (already bought 4), t-shirts or bottles of South African olive oil that are shaped like Table Mountain !
Our project manager ran out to Walmart yesterday and brought back a bunch of space heaters for the office. Yay! and Thank You! we said. There will be no gallivanting around Shenzhen or Hong Kong this weekend : we have to work !
This metro bus with the giant giraffe, advertising South African Airways flights out of Hong Kong, pulled up across from my hotel when I was there last weekend. The direct flight to Johannesburg is 13 hours.
