Stephanie Nolen on the road

Hey all,

I thought I'd use this space to let you know that Stephanie Nolen will be speaking in a town near most of you in the near future.

KINGSTON - Monday, Nov. 5 - 7 p.m. - Dunning Auditorium at Queen's (where I've previously witnessed performances by Professor Jonathan Rose, Professor Robert Malcolmson and Joel Plaskett)
Here's the only web posting I've found. I think admission is by donation.

TORONTO ISLAND - Friday, Nov. 9 - 7:30 p.m. - Algonquin Island Club House - $28 includes wine and cheese. Go here for more.

Apparently she's also guest hosting The Current on CBC Radio next Friday, or maybe the Friday after; The Current's website doesn't have anything about it.

And if you haven't heard, 28 was nominated for the Governor-General's Award for non-fiction.

Some stuff

Hey,

I've got a few more blogs up at JournAIDS, and there should be a couple more up on Monday.

And here's something I wrote for CMFD/Gender Links a while back. Apparently it has been picked up by The Southern Times, an online newspaper that I can't really figure out.

The article was part of a project that Erin and I facilitated when we were with CMFD. We got migrant women to write short biographies about how they came to live in South Africa and what their experience had been like since they arrived. We called them MyStories. There was also photo element to the project, facilitated by an American student, also named Erin, who's part of a media access organization called ImMEDIAcy. She lent the MyStories participants point and shoot cameras and told them to document a day in their lives. The photo essays were supposed to be published alongside the MyStories, but that seems to have fallen by the wayside. Anyway, the stories that Erin and I edited can be found here. (They're the ones from October)

And I've now posted my photos from Mafikeng at my Flickr here. I took tons of videos of the ceremony and all the ANC singing and toyi-toying, but it would kill my Internet data bundle to post those, so the photos will have to do for now.

Ha

I found this here.

But it's kind of misleading because when you read the source article here, the story is actually about the scarcity of jobs, not the relative safety/enjoyability/comfort (or whatever) of the thing. See:

Another endangered species: journalists. Despite the proliferation of media outlets, newspapers, where the bulk of U.S. reporters work, will cut costs and jobs as the Internet replaces print. While current events will always need to be covered (we hope), the number of reporting positions is expected to grow by just 5 percent in the coming decade, the Labor Department says. Most jobs will be in small (read: low-paying) markets.

I imagine septic-tank cleaner is still the one to beat on the worst job list. Coal miner's probably up there too.

Forgive me my ominous secrecy

... it seems the Globe has already published Stephanie's feature on the exhumations in Mafikeng (and elsewhere) in this past Saturday's Focus section.

Go here to read about it. And I'll let you know when I get around to posting my own photos.

(Thanks, Anna, for pointing this out to me; I've fallen a little behind in my Canadian newspaper reading.)

Can't call me Cal no more

... 'cause my streak is over: I got mugged in Cape Town. I totally forgot to mention it in my long trip-update diatribe. I guess that says something about the severity of the thing. As far as muggings go, I think it was pretty tame.

I was walking back to my hostel from the train station after spending the day in Khayelitsha and I was about a block away from Long St., which is the main thoroughfare in downtown Cape Town. Just before Long St., I saw a sign pointing out the direction of the "company gardens" which Kylie had told me were worth a visit, so on a whim, I decided to turn down the street. I was in the heart of downtown Cape Town, which hadn't seemed dangerous at all, and it was around 6pm and still very much in daylight, but I quickly realized that I was the only one on the street. Well, the only one aside from a very aggressive-looking panhandler. As he approached me, I knew pretty well that he wasn't going to be content with any pocket change, but as he got close, a car passed near us which presented a brief diversion and I turned around and tried to speed walk in the other direction up to Long. He, of course, caught up to me, grabbed me (not too forcefully, though) and told me to give him my money. I resisted a little, telling him I didn't have much (which was true, and I was a little worried that he wasn't going to be content with what I had) and then he told me he didn't want to use his knife, so I quickly reached into my pocket, grabbed some cash and handed it to him. Then he left.

I only lost about R80, which is about $12, so really it wasn't too bad. And I'm pretty sure he was a drug addict looking to get a fix, because I had another R50 in my pocket, but he seemed content with what I gave him. He was about the same size as me and by himself, so not physically imposing at all, and I never saw or felt a knife, but I wasn't exactly wanting him to prove to me that he had it. It's possible that if I had resisted more or shoved him away or something he would have backed off, but I figure that for R80, I wasn't really prepared to call his stabbing bluff.

I was a little shaken up after it happened, but then I was just annoyed by the irony of it all: Everyone gasps when I tell them that I'm in Hillbrow once a week - or even that I've been living and working in Jo'burg - and they all say, "You should go to Cape Town; it's way more chilled and laid back." Fuck that. It may have been that I let my guard down in Cape Town and wasn't as sharp as I usually am walking around Jozi, but still. I actually can't imagine getting mugged in Johannesburg - it's just too chaotic and insane to allow for that to happen. Then again, I'm not usually walking around downtown at that time, when the shops have all closed. I don't know, it felt annoyingly ironic anyway.

It was actually a good thing that it happened on my way back from Khayelitsha, because I had prepared myself to be mugged there, so I didn't have much cash and I wasn't carrying my bag or my camera. Again, the irony.

My mug-free and crime-free streak ended at 144 days.

Give me Jo'burg's filthy, angry streets over Cape Town's ritzy cafes and narcissistic beaches any day of the week.

A visit to Home Affairs

So I went to Home Affairs in downtown Jo'burg today to straighten out my visa situation (which looks like it'll be OK) and it was surprisingly painless. I don't know if I jumped the queue or something, but I just walked up to one of the windows without waiting at all and the lady helped me out.

Anyway, what was more interesting about the field trip was what I saw taped to the wall behind the glass of the window of the lady that was helping me. As she took my passport and disappeared to do some inspecting, I was left at the counter to wait and I read the response to a request for asylum from a woman from the Democratic Republic of Congo, which was for some unknown reason taped to the wall just on the other side of the glass. It went like this:

"... On 2005/06/28 you lodged your applications [sic] for asylum. Your application has been rejected as unfounded.

YOUR CLAIM:
You claim that you left your country because of war."

It then cited the relevant policies that defined how one could gain asylum.

I wonder what happened to this woman. What happens if war "officially" stops but the ground-level reality is much different? What happens if you want to leave before fighting starts again? I'd like to think that someone from Home Affairs went out to find this woman, chased her down, caught up to her and said, while gasping, "Shit, geez, we're really sorry, you can come in now. We had know idea that you meant war was about to happen. Our bad, really. Hah, you know you should buy a lottery ticket or something, hey? OK, well, now come have some soup."

I'm pretty sure that didn't happen

And I wonder why this was posted in the Home Affairs office for employees. Is it to remind them that sometimes they have to be ruthless, and that they should be prepared for this? Or could it be to say that sometimes they make mistakes?

Anyway, I thought it interesting enough to jot down on my little pad.

Go here for some basic DRC updates.

And here for a Times article sent my way by Agatha a little while back. Disclaimer: This is not a pleasant read.

Free Falling and SA traveling update

Bungee at Tsitsikamma
Originally uploaded by BK 14

So this is me bungee jumping at Bloukrans Bungy, just outside Tsitsikamma National Park in the Eastern Cape. Apparently, it's the highest commercial bungee jump in the world, and they had the certificate from Guinness to prove it. I have to admit, I'm not really much of an adrenalin junkie, but I was staying at a backpackers that was literally a 30-second walk from the jump site, so it seemed silly not to do it - I mean, it's the world's highest. It was pretty wild - the first fall only lasts about five seconds, but in those five seconds you're not really conscious of the bungee cord (they only attach it at your feet so your upper body is surprisingly unencumbered), so it's pretty exhilarating. It was completely painless and totally smooth - when I reached the end of my line, it gently bounced me back up, so I got another couple falls (at about 80% and 40% of the original height, respectively) from my original jump. If you're ever in the western part of the Eastern Cape, I highly recommend it.

So if you click on the photo here you'll get to my Flickr account where I've posted photos from my entire hardly-working trip in SA. The photos have descriptive captions, but I'll give a quick rundown of the trip here anyway.

So I guess it kind of started on the first of October, when I went to Mafikeng in the North-West province with Stephanie. She called me that day and asked me if I wanted to tag along as she covered a story there. I can't tell you what she was covering, because then I'd have to kill me, but I ended up staying a night in Mafikeng and having a pretty amazing time the next day. Stephanie has a way of providing surreal experiences for me that go way beyond anything I'd be able to have access to on my own or through any internship.

Although I can't tell you anything about why we were in Mafikeng, I can tell you about our hilarious drive to the flat, somewhat-Saskatchewan-like North-West province. So we leave from Stephanie's place around 6:30 on Monday night and the hotel has told her that it should take about two hours to get there. Not a chance in France; it took us a solid four and a half hours. But I was happy with the long ride because it was basically like storytime for me as I peppered Stephanie with questions the entire way and just made sure she always had a steady supply of M&Ms in hand.

(For my non-journo-inclined friends reading this, driving to Mafikeng with Stephanie Nolen to cover a story is basically the equivalent of going on a road trip with Joe Thornton - and every once in a while he lets you tape his stick.)

It was a beautiful nighttime drive because there was a brilliant electrical storm and North-West seems to be entirely flat, so the views were spectacular. "This country knows how to do thunder storms, hey?" Stephanie said, as wide, silver bolts cracked across the sky in the distance. But the highlight of the drive came about half-way to Mafikeng when the South African photographer, who was driving her bakkie up ahead of us and leading the way, flashed her hazards at us a few times. Just as Stephanie and I were trying to figure out what she was trying to tell us, a large boulder-looking object became illuminated by the headlights and Stephanie had to expertly swerve out of the way and then get back into the lane. I was left looking stunned by how she avoided the object so quick and smooth; it was surgical. After we were back safely in the lane, she turns to me and says, "That's from all those years in the West Bank." Fucking Hollywood. See what I mean about surreal? We also witnessed an attempted smash and grab at a set of lights on the highway that was broken up by the cops but almost had the culprits getting smashed themselves, by oncoming traffic, which included our photographer.

So I got to tag along on that great field trip. I mostly just carried stuff and tried not to get in the way - oh, and like I said, always ensured there was a healthy supply of M&Ms.

So then the next day I took my first long-distance combi ride from Mafikeng to Jo'burg, which took about five hours. As a skinny white guy at a taxi rank in Mafikeng, I was met with a few stares, but the ride was fine and I got home all in one piece. There were a few hairy moments when I arrived at the downtown Jo'burg rank at dark, which is not really somewhere you want to hang out very long. But I found a metre-cab soon enough and made my way safely home.

So then the hardly-working tour officially started the next day with a family drive to the Drakensberg, near Lesotho. Kylie and I were supposed to go to Durban to be present as the project's current fellows (but not Zackie Achmat) presented some of the stuff they'd been working on, and Kylie's partner, Alastair, and their two-year-old daughter, Sophie, joined us so they could have a little vacation. And then there was me. But I had a great time hanging out with them; Alastair may be one of the most laid-back guys I've ever met and Sophie was wonderful. So we spent a night in beautiful North Drakensberg (at the same place I stayed at before) to break up the 8-hour drive to Durban, which obviously made things easier on Sophie.

We arrived in Durban on Thursday and stayed until Sunday morning. I didn't do a whole lot in the city, but I swam in the ocean and ate Indian food (I highly recommend Amaravathi Palki, if you're ever in the area), which is all I really wanted to do in Durban anyway. And I got to play with Sophie a lot, which was good fun.

We spent a good part of that Friday at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, where the fellows were presenting. It's probably the greenest campus I've ever seen (I guess I haven't seen too many campuses, though). They had this outdoor student lounge area and you actually couldn't see the students through all the palm and jacaranda trees. There were also monkeys walking around like squirrels, which is definitely not the case at Wits. They were just walking among the students, and nobody was giving them any notice. Kylie's friend who goes to UKZN told us that they get to be a pretty big nuisance - monkeying around and whatnot, I suppose. I didn't get to explore around too much, but if you look at my photos you'll also see an ominous building which seemed to be the centrepiece of campus and looked like it came straight out of that silent movie from first-year film, Metropolis.

So that was Durban. I flew to Port Elizabeth that Sunday morning.

Sleepy Port Elizabeth, South Africa's windy city, was absolutely quiet on the Sunday afternoon I arrived. It's a fairly large city, certainly one of the largest in the Eastern Cape (East London and Grahamstown might be bigger), but compared to Jo'burg, it might as well have been Gravenhurst or Stratford. I did some grocery shopping, wrote a blog for journaids.org and that was about it.

After the night in PE, I caught a bus to Tsitsikamma National Park, where I stayed for a couple of nights. In addition to jumping off a bridge, I did a five-hour hike through pouring rain at the Park, and other than that, mostly just hung out in the cabin-like hostel reading and watching the rain. It was weird: The backpackers I stayed at was completely empty. There was two dorm rooms, each with 7 bunks, and I was the only one. There was a Dutch couple who stayed one night in one of the private rooms, but other than them, there was no one, which added to the isolated and untouched feeling of the whole place. The Eastern Cape actually reminded me a lot of Canada; it's all forest and mountains. It looks like it could just as easily be British Columbia or Newfoundland. It's too bad b'y didn't get to see it before she left, 'cause parts of it look a lot like her photos of the Cabot Trail. I enjoyed the peace and solitude of the place, though, and plowed my way through a couple of books and a good chunk of Long Walk to Freedom, which I've been reading on the backburner, basically since I arrived here.

I headed back to PE for a work day - I was supposed to interview a couple of people working in HIV/AIDS in the area. But they canceled. So I ended up just writing another blog for the website.

And then I was off to Cape Town for a week.

I arrived on Friday afternoon and didn't do too much other than shop for groceries and settle into the backpackers. The next day I set out to do this kayak thing around the Cape Peninsula, but I underestimated how long it would take to get from Cape Town to Simon's Town, where the trip was taking off from, so I ended up just hanging out at the fish markets in Kalk Bay and walking along a few beaches on the Indian-Ocean side of the peninsula.

On Saturday afternoon I started to feel ill, which might have been sun stroke or might have been a bug of some kind. Anyway, I ended up not doing or eating very much on the weekend.

On Monday, I went on a tour of the Cape Peninsula to see Cape Point and get a glimpse of where the two oceans meet. I also saw some African penguins and did some cycling around the area.

The next day was a work day and I headed out to Khayelitsha, Cape Town's largest township, to interview people working at the Treatment Action Campaign and Medecins Sans Frontieirs. I traveled to the township by train, which was an interesting experience, because despite the convenience and economy of the train, I was the only white person I saw ever using it. And I actually ended up using it almost every day I was in Cape Town. This stuff drives me crazy about South Africa, because obviously there are tons of white people in Cape Town. I did hear that the trains are considered fairly dangerous, but I didn't have any trouble - whenever I had to ask anyone any questions, they were completely friendly. And even when I had to ride the rush hour train back to Khayelitsha at around 5 o'clock to meet with the director of MSF, and the carriage was packed to bursting, nobody gave me - or anyone else - a hard time. Weirdest moment in Khayelitsha: Standing on the stairs above the platform, waiting for the train in the shade like everyone else, I looked at the rows of shacks (there are parts of Khayelitsha, like Soweto, that have formal, middle-class-looking houses; but also like Soweto, there are rows of informal settlements) and noticed that on the side of one of the homes were the painted logos of Nike and Reebok, side by side. I can't believe that this was actually any kind of paid advertising, so the only other possibility I can think of is that the owner of the home painted it their him or herself as a kind of decoration - like putting up posters of athletes or rock stars. I could probably fill this whole blog up with similarly confusing globalization scenes like this, but this one really struck me. But I didn't bring my camera - I had been warned about high crime in Khayelitsha - so I don't have any shots of it. Anyway, it was nice to visit Khayelitsha without really feeling like a tourist.

The next day I hiked up Table Mountain with some German guys I met at the hostel. One of them - Dimitri - had just spent a year at U of T as part of some exchange thing and was now interning in East London at Daimler-Chrysler. So we had a good time talking about Toronto - and the Dance Cave, mostly.

Obviously I wanted to visit Robben Island while I was in Cape Town, but I heard that it was almost impossible to reserve a place on the ferry as an individual (apparently people book well in advance - I had no idea), but if you go as part of a township tour, they have reserved places so you'll be able to get on.

Despite finding the idea of traipsing around a South African township with a bunch of other camera-toting, sun-hat wearing, fanny-pack-strapped tourists almost intolerably uncomfortable, I reluctantly signed up for a township tour that seemed the most respectful and respectable, mainly so I could get to Robben Island. I found one that only used guides from the area and founded a trust fund from the money from their tours that offers loans to help people in the townships start their own businesses.

And then, just after the tour started, they told us the ferry to the island was canceled due to severe winds. Foiled.

Anyway, the tour wasn't too bad. There were definitely some awkward moments; the whole poverty as tourism thing unsettles me, and especially after already spending a day in and around Khayelitsha, riding the trains and actually being with the people, it felt weird to distance myself again and set up that, you know, tourist barrier. A lot of times it felt like people's homes and neighbourhoods were made into a museum against their will, as rich tourists snapped away with their digital cameras. Our guide was great, especially in terms of imparting a lot of the history of the area, and we met a few of the local entrepreneurs who have been helped by the trust fund (a woman who operates a B&B, another who makes dresses and teaches dressmaking to other young women, a woman who runs a local feeding program for children, a few women who run a creche or pre-school and a man who makes impressive crafts from pop cans and other discarded materials), but I still didn't feel comfortable taking many photos. I let a few of the kids at the creche take some of themselves, but other than that, it just felt too uncomfortable. I think I've got a blog in me about my discomfort in taking photos, so stay tuned for that.

I ended the day at an amazing Cape Malay restaurant at the top of an insanely-steep hill in the Bo Kaap area of Cape Town, which is Cape Town's muslim area and is filled with beautiful multi-coloured houses and a few small mosques. The restaurant - the Noon Gun Tea Room and Restaurant - had a spectacular view of Table Mountain and the city below, and I was the only one in the place, so it felt pretty posh despite being relatively inexpensive. It was the only time I ate out in Cape Town, and I'd read it was a great place to sample traditional Cape Malay food, so I was pretty pumped and it definitely didn't disappoint. I had bobotie, which is basically a curried meatloaf. I think that's the best way to describe it. Anyway, it was amazing and the matriarchal family owner was hilarious. See my Flickr for a great shot of her.

And that was Cape Town. I flew back to Jo'burg the next morning around 6:30am, and the recently blossomed jacaranda trees were waiting for me. It feels like I've come home to a completely different neighbourhood as spring has, at last, really started to settle in. As I said, the jacarandas have all bloomed and now there's a purple canopy covering my entire street. And the grass is actually green! When I arrived and for the long, dry months afterward, the grass was all brown and dead, red soil was visible everywhere and though the trees weren't exactly bare in the Canadian sense, they weren't really alive either. I'll make sure to snap some shots of the jacarandas soon and post them.

So, yeah, I think that's a good update. As I said, you can click on the bungee photo to get linked to photos from the whole trip and more. (Unfortunately, you'll have to see me personally when I'm at home to look at any of the photos from Mafikeng.)

BK!

Blogs are dangerous

... so now I have to try to not get deported.

And how many editorial boards have I sat on that repeatedly made this point? I should know better.

Sorry for my virtual disappearance. I just got back from Cape Town yesterday, and my Internet access while I was away was limited to Internet Cafes, which I had to use mostly to do the little work I was tasked to do.

I'll be blogging about my recent trip and posting photos soon.

Danger! High voltage!

So I'm an idiot.

Last night, during a thunder storm, I decided to move my laptop, and in doing so took it out of the surge protector (I don't have a battery for it), plugging it directly into a wall outlet. Lightning crashes. Power surge. Laptop now acting screwy.

I'm writing this from an Internet Cafe on the outskirts of Jo'burg's tiny Chinatown, otherwise known as Cyrildene. My laptop is in getting inspected and I'm hoping it's not completely fried.

Anyway, expect my blog posts, e-mail responses and Skype chats to be irregular for the immediate future.

Talk to y'all later.

BK

Work update

I haven't written much about my new job on this thing, so I should probably give you a bit of an update.

The placement itself is by no means perfect, but I'm being exposed to more interesting stuff and it's more flexible.

So I work for The HIV/AIDS and the Media Project , which is run out of the School of Journalism at the University of the Witwatersrand in Braamfontein, Johannesburg. If you click on the link, you can learn more about what the project does generally. My job is mostly as an administrative assistant, helping the project coordinator, Kylie, with the project's daily operations. Sometimes that means writing press releases or contacting local media, other times it means dealing with caterers and putting up posters.

I'm also supposed to monitor the print media for HIV/AIDS coverage and then blog about it, but I haven't been able to do very much of that because we've been busy getting ready for a couple of big events. I've written one blog so far, and you can read it here.

I have a few more blogs almost ready to go, but, like I said, we've been so busy with other stuff that I haven't been able to get them refined and then uploaded.

Seems like a good time to segue into talking about the project's upcoming events.

Tomorrow we will be hosting a large-scale discussion forum entitled "Democratising Science: Science reporting and HIV-prevention trials," which is the event that has been tying up most of our time since I arrived at the project.

The forum aims to open discussion on the reporting of clinical trials for HIV-prevention technologies, with a particular focus on microbicide trials. The forum's participants include researchers currently involved in microbicide trials, HIV-vaccine researchers, health journalists, HIV/AIDS activists, academics and people living with HIV. To read a press release for the forum, go here.

And we will be streaming the forum LIVE, tomorrow at 10 a.m. EST, HERE. I've been told that you'll see a link to the stream somewhere on the site - and you'll need Winamp to listen.

If you've never heard of microbicides as an HIV-prevention technology, I'm sure you can wiki it. In short, it is a cream or gel that can be applied to the vagina to protect a woman against sexually transmitted infections. Currently, an effective microbicide has not been developed, but several clinical trials are in advanced stages. If an effective one is developed, it has the potential to dramatically reduce infection rates among women, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, by allowing them to protect themselves against HIV infection without requiring male assent--potentially life-saving for women who are unable to negotiate safer sex with their partner.

The following day, Friday, we'll be hosting a much smaller seminar talk to showcase the work of some of the project's current fellows, Suzanne Leclerc-Madlala, Mike Saneka and Sabelo Zondo. Their seminar is entitled "Can abstinence kill you?" and it looks into issues of morality, infidelity and the media. You can get a taste of their subject matter here. But we're not streaming that one, so that taste will have to suffice.

After this rather hectic week, I'll be heading out of Jo'burg for a few weeks, mixing some business with some pleasure. Next Tuesday I'll be traveling with my supervisor, Kylie - and her husband and two-year-old child - to Durban to see Suzanne and co. present some more of their findings at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. We may stop for a day or two around Drakensberg, but we're not sure yet. After staying in Durban for a few days, I'll be heading to Port Elizabeth and then after another few days I'll head to Cape Town for a week. In each city I'll be interviewing local HIV/AIDS workers, caregivers, activists, as well as people living with HIV, to ask them what they think of local coverage of HIV/AIDS issues. When I get back to Jo'burg I'll write some kind of report about it and use any recurring themes to make key suggestions for the direction of the project.

So that's my job, pretty much. I'm mostly an administrative and logistical assistant, but there are obviously outlets for more challenging work. And Kylie is wonderful, so I'm very happy.

I think that's a pretty good update. If you have any other questions about my work, you can ask them in the comments section of this post, or just e-mail me.

BK!

My Zulu chief ...

mphomeandclemforblog
Originally uploaded by BK 14

... is the one on the left, otherwise known as Mpho. The dude in between us is his friend Clement who tagged along for this week's lesson.

Clement was pretty hilarious: he ate about 19 popsicles over the course of the two hours that we hung out, and he was all hyper-active and fidgety through the whole thing. He was also not as patient as Mpho; every time I stammered or struggled with something Mpho was quizzing me on, he'd be all like, "Oh my God, that's soooo easy."

Anyway, I thought I'd post a pic to show y'all who's behind my weekly Zulu lessons.

For Bert

IMG_0669forblog
Originally uploaded by BK 14

Sorry it took me so long. Click the photo for a zoomed-out shot. I'm also about to post photos of a bunch of interesting walls from my neighbourhood. You might find them interesting, too.

... and I added a pretty hilarious photo of Erin standing next to the Church of Scientology to the blog about her leaving (scroll down a bit). The Church is actually only about 10 mins from our place. Erin and I talked about going in one day to see what it was like, but we never got around to it.

Have some extra money lying around?

I'm a little late on this, but I read on Meghan Sheffield's blog about Tidal Mass going on in Kingston a little while back, and it got me thinking (not for the first time) about the potential for Kingston to sustain a decent alt-weekly. It seems that now would be the right time to start thinking about it anyway: the new entertainment centre should be done by the new year, Queen's looks like it will be expanding over the next decade, the Artel is now in its second year, this Apple Crisp music series seems to be pretty cool, King-Can and reelOUT film fests are still going strong and I know music venues have been closing almost annually, but there seems to be a really vibrant core of young, creative people living in the city these days.

But it's basically hopeless if Kingston can't support it on its own, because it's too close to major centres and not close enough to any other middle players. See, 'cause I know Guelph, Kitchener and Waterloo share an alt-weekly called the Tri-City something, and that might be the problem with one working in Kingston: there's nobody to share it with. And I do worry a little about what an alt-weekly might do to the Journal's music coverage.

Maybe I'm being totally naive.

But if anyone is in the mood to make a super risky investment in me and any friends I can arm-twist into this potentially hopeless endeavour, you know how to find me.

(Why am I writing about this? Didn't I make a pact to not write about non-SA issues a while back?)

"All I have to say is that my life is pretty plain"

You got it, "No Rain" by Blind Melon.

And there's been no rain in Jo'burg ... until tonight. I was going to write a blog about how the last time we had any precipitation was that crazy day when it snowed. Other than that, it had only rained once since I arrived - and that was in early June - until tonight.

So I was going to write about how it was so dry and dust was getting into my eyes and throat when I was walking around and how much we just really needed the rain. (And how tragically ironic it is that East and West Africa -- mainly Ghana and Uganda, it seems -- are dealing with horrible floods at the moment while Swaziland and Lesotho are suffering through devastating droughts.)

But tonight it rained. You want to know how I noticed? I'm downstairs, listening to music and checking my e-mail when I start hearing a sharp, crackling noise snapping every second, regularly, like a metronome. I go outside to see what it is, and it seems that the electric fence surrounding my house is, kind of, shorting out or something because of the rain; sparks are flying and everything. I tried to take a picture, but it didn't really turn out.

Wild.

Anyway, I may not have my usual home protection tonight, but at least the rain has finally come.

Hilarious

So last night I took a cab home from the northern suburbs that cost me more than the plane ticket I bought earlier in the day that will take me from Cape Town to Jo'burg.

Rosebank to Kensington by cab (about half an hour) = R170
Cape Town to Jo'burg by plane = R159 (I found a wicked seat sale)

From Oct. 2 to Oct. 19, I'll be mixing some business with pleasure as I travel to Durban, Port Elizabeth, Cape Town and then back to Jo'burg. The project is covering my travel from Jo'burg to Durban and Durban to Port Elizabeth, and I found a great, last-minute seat sale to nab cheap seats on flights from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town and Cape Town to Jo'burg. Those two flights, in total, are only costing me R420, which is, like, $60 CAD.

We'll be visiting with the project's current fellows in Durban, then I'm going on a bit of tour to talk to local HIV/AIDS advocates to interview them about local media coverage of HIV/AIDS issues. I'll also be reading newspapers and clipping stuff along the way. Yeah, it's a pretty sweet deal, but I'll be paying for most of it myself.

Yeah, so last night I went to see an American doc called Have you Heard From Johannesburg? which was playing in Rosebank as part of the Tri-Continental Film Festival. I think the film takes its title from a Gil Scott-Heron song, "Johannesburg."

It's so weird: all these cool film festivals always take place in the fancy northern suburbs which are such a hassle for me to get to. It's like instead of going to Bathurst and Bloor to see a cool movie, you'd have to go to Richmond Hill or Vaughn. Or, for my friends in Kingston, it'd be like going to Sharbot Lake or Napanee instead of Princess and Montreal.

Anyway, the film was great - one of those gripping docs that makes you disappointed when it's over. It was one part of a multi-part series about the global anti-apartheid movement, which I imagine will make it to PBS one day. The part they screened at the fest was only about the movement in the U.S. in the '80s, and specifically the divestment movement.

The filmmaker was in attendance and their was a pretty lively Q&A after the film, mostly, I think, because the South Africans watching the film seemed to think that some might perceive the film as suggesting that post-apartheid South Africa is a big happy place and all the struggles have been won. But it was a film about a specific time, place and event, and I don't think you can expect a filmmaker to tell a comprehensive story about a country. The filmmaker was an American, who was telling an American story, and she had a great response to the person who was upset at how the film didn't talk about the ongoing struggles; she said, "I hope you make that film."

Steve Bantu Biko, 1946-1977

Stephanie Nolen wrote a great piece in the Globe today on the 30th anniversary of the death of Steve Bantu Biko, one of South Africa's most famous anti-apartheid activists and founder of the Black Consciousness Movement, who was killed by South Africa's security police about a month after he was arrested--without charge--under SA's Terrorism Act of 1967.

She offers much more than a tribute, providing a solid, contextual reflection about Biko's legacy in South Africa today.

Here she writes about the dissolution of the Pan-African Congress ...

The political party that grew out of his ideas, the Pan-African Congress, was officially declared dead a few weeks ago, when its last handful of members defected to other groups.

It's kind of weird; in South African politics, there's an official floor-crossing window for MPs. I don't fully understand its origins, but from the editorials and op-eds I read around the time it was going on, I gather that it was once a valid and desired part of the system but has since become extremely undemocratic: like in floor-crossing scenarios in Canada, the floor-crossing MP's constituents feel jerked around and robbed of their vote. Zapiro sums it up pretty nicely here.

This part is also pretty interesting:

"That goes fundamentally to explaining why we've got massive protests all around the country... poor communities protesting the lack of services delivered to them," Mr. Hamilton said.

I can't find the story now, but back in June, the Mail and Guardian's lead feature story was about how already there was something like twice as many person-days lost to strike in 2007 (in June) than any previous year. The story looked at the growing wealth gap in South Africa and while an elite few are reaping the benefits of BEE, the majority of people aren't experiencing the supposed rapid economic growth of SA, which was causing the unrest among lower classes.

And then, in the factbox ...

His friend, journalist Donald Woods relentlessly investigated his death. Mr. Biko had told him that if the state ever claimed he had died on hunger strike or by his own hand, Mr. Woods would know it was a lie.

I always read that Helen Zille, former reporter at the Rand Daily Mail and current mayor of Cape Town and leader of South Africa's Demoratic alliance, was the one who vigorously investigated and exposed how Biko was actually killed by security police and did not die of a hunger strike. I hadn't heard of Donald Woods before. That's kind of crazy how Biko predicted what would happen. I guess apartheid's security police were kind of predictable in some ways, though.

Weird aside: Helen Zille was arrested a couple of days ago (yes, the mayor of Cape Town was arrested in Cape Town) for her participation in an anti-drug protest. Wow, there's already something about it on Wiki. Her statement about the arrest is here. Now that's a mayor.

So long, b'y

So I just came back from the airport after sending Erin off on her way home.

Like I said in a previous post, she decided to quit CMFD as well, but she did so after taking a full-time reporting gig at the Cape Breton Post. (She was working with CMFD on behalf of Journalists for Human Rights.) ...

Shame.

No longer will I be able to make fun of her accent or sing Stan Rogers to make her homesick.

I think we actually helped to quell each other's homesickness by talking in Canadian accents about mythical Canadian characters: she adopting a full-blown Cape Breton one, and me mimicking the guys in FUBAR or Dave Little (a family friend who farms in Saskatchewan).

"Donnie, drop your net, grab the charrgh-ter, we're going to the barrrgh"

"Hey Dougie, can you get me a double-double and a coupl'a crullers?"

"How's goin?"; "How's she going?"

"Lord thunderin' b'y, would you look at that."

It would probably be annoying to do it in Canada, but over here, it was pretty entertaining meal-time banter.

...

At least now I'll get to resume talking to myself.

Hambe kahle, Erin.

PS ...
Erin: "That year I took Criminal Law and the Charrrgh-ter."
BK: "the what?"
Erin: "Shut up."

Erin: "I've got to make payments on my carrrrgh."
BK: "You've got to make payments on what?"
Erin: "Shut up."

That's how it usually went down.

She also frequently referred to my "fancy Toronto" things or "fancy Big City" whatevers. I've never thought of the North York-Scarborough border as fancy, but I've never been to North Sydney.

Country of Babel

South Africa has 11 official languages. 11!

The official languages are, in alphabetical order:

Afrikaans
English
Southern Ndebele
Northern Sotho
Sotho
Swati
Tsonga
Tswana
Venda
Xhosa
Zulu

Now, the status of all the languages as official is mostly symbolic; signs and labels don't have to be in all 11 languages. But I'm pretty sure the government is required to provide translators for every language, if requested. And the official version of the national anthem actually includes a verse in each language, but that version is rarely used.

In most cases, signs are just in English, or, occasionally, Afrikaans and/or Zulu.

Because of the close proximity of SA to former Portuguese colonies Angola and Mozambique, there are also a lot of Portuguese speakers, as well as Portuguese cafes, bakeries, restaurants, etc., especially in Kensington, my neighbourhood.

At one point, I was trying to learn basic greetings and pleasantries in all 11 languages, but that proved to be too confusing (there's a fair bit of overlap between the African languages, enough to make it more confusing than helpful), so I decided to focus on Zulu.

I picked up bits and pieces from people I met and tried to complement it with this book I bought in Toronto before I left. But the book sucks, and is mostly just frustrating.

So my progress was pretty slow until about two months ago, when I met a kid in the park near my house. I was reading and feeding some ducks bits of my banana peel because I didn't know what else to do with it. The kid joined me and we hung out for a while.

Then, a couple of weeks later, I saw the same kid, and he said he usually hangs out in the park on Sundays. So I asked him what his home language was (a question I ask pretty much anyone - cab drivers, servers, etc. - to make small talk), and he said it was Zulu. So we made a deal then, that he would teach me Zulu every week.

Since then I've been meeting him at the park every Sunday afternoon for my lesson. It's pretty sweet: he's totally patient with me (especially with my initial incompetence with the language's various clicks) and all it costs me is a few slices of pizza.

The kid's name is Mpho, he's 11 and he lives in Yeoville, a neighbourhood north of Kensington.

When I was in KZN (the ancestral home of the Zulu people) a couple of weeks ago, my lessons with Mpho seriously paid off. I never needed to speak the language, but it was a lot of fun to practice anyway. I was usually able to sustain a conversation with someone for about 2-3 mins until I'd used up all of my vocabulary, but it was enough to impress most people. It's also a great icebreaker, and an extremely satisfying way to show up everybody you're traveling with.

I use it occasionally around the city, mostly simply to say hello, but sometimes to practice, and like I said, to break the ice. For the most part, my attempts are met first with confusion and disbelief, and then what seems to be genuine appreciation or laughter.

I get the sense that despite the fact that many black people in South Africa learn Afrikaans in school, few white people attempt any African language. I know for a fact that Afrikaans is part of the public-school curriculum in the country, as are some African languages; but, as far as I know, none of the predominantly white private schools teach any African language.

My favourite times are when I come upon a large group of older women and say "Sanbonnanie" (hello to two or more people), because without fail, they'll literally sing their response back, in unison, always drawing out the penultimate vowel: "Yeeeeebo!". (Sanbonnanie, or Sawubona to one person, literally translates as something like, "Are you alive?" so a common response is simply, "Yes!" or "Yebo!")

I'm telling you this because I'm about to head out to another lesson with Mpho, and I realized I've never mentioned him on this thing.

If you don't believe me, or would like to test my extremely limited vocabulary, feel free to holla at ya boy on Skype.

BK

Blog help

Does anyone know why I can't edit my linked lists anymore? I can't seem to delete the current ones or add any news ones.

Also, why is the text in my most recent posts so scrunched up?

Hluhlwe-Umfolozi National Park

<> Hluhlwe-Umfolozi National Park
Originally uploaded by BK 14

So on our third day, we hopped back on the bus and headed to South Africa's eastern coast, settling in Durban. We didn't get into Durban until about 6 p.m., and we had to be ready to go the next morning at 5:30 a.m., so there wasn't much time to explore the city. Even still, Erin and I were determined to see the Indian Ocean, so we walked the half-hour from our hostel to the beach. It was pretty dark by the time we got there, but we did get to do a little wading (see photo at Flickr). Just before we got on the beach, two women warned us that they had been mugged about 10 minutes earlier on the same beach, so we mostly just got our feet wet and then got the fuck outta dodge.

As I said, the next morning we were up at around 4:30 a.m. and on the road by 5:30 a.m., heading north to the Hluhlwe-Umfolozi National Park in northern Kwazula-Natal. We got to the park around 9 a.m., where we spent the first half of the day on a land safari through the park and the second half on a water safari. For the land portion of the day, we shared our ride with two nice English people: Chris and his daughter whose name I can't remember.

Weird but illustrative story: As part of our package, we had lunch at a B&B in a town called Mtuba-Mtuba, about a half hour away from the park. The place was a little uncomfortably swanky and I was happy that we were only there for lunch, especially after meeting the owners. The man was a big, white South African with a shirt buttoned far too low. The conversation went like several others I've had over here: people seem nice at first, but then the veiled racism comes out, and it gets less and less ambiguous as the conversation goes on.

"You like Jo'burg?" he says to me.
"Yeah, well, it took some getting use to and stuff, but it's really grown on me," I reply.
"How much longer are you there for?"
"Until the middle of December."
"Well, by the time you leave, you'll be a racist."

That was one of our clumsy interactions.

Luckily, Chris and his daughter were equally uncomfortable, and we were able to talk about it after.

Back to the safari ... On land, we saw one elephant; lots of giraffes and zebras; a few distant rhinos; lots of impalas, nyalas, kudus and baboons; a few warthogs; and several packs of wildebeasts; but no cats. Still, I thought it was pretty good for a half-day. On water, we saw tons of sleeping hippos and a few crocodiles. Click on the photo to see crappy versions of all the ones I've uploaded.

The one elephant we saw was a pretty lucky thing: We were literally 30 seconds into our drive when we saw it; I could actually see the park's parking lot in the distance. So when that happened I was like, "Alright, this place must be full of elephants." And that was the only one we saw. But the day was still pretty thrilling. The park itself was so beautiful that even when we couldn't spot anything, it was still a fun ride.

BK

North Drakensberg

North Drakensberg
Originally uploaded by BK 14

So we started our eastern sojourn by spending two nights in North Drakensberg, which is located along Lesotho's eastern border. We stayed at this beautiful little backpackers' hostel, which seemed as if it was just dropped in the middle of nowhere; there was nothing but fields and mountains all around. We spent the first day walking around in Royal Natal National Park and the second day doing a full-day hike to the top of the Drakensberg Amphitheatre. We also hiked to the top of Tugela Falls, which is apparently the second highest waterfall in the world ... but it was totally dry. Our hiking guide, when telling us our itinerary, would say "... and then we will be heading to the top of the second highest waterfall in the world, with no water."

Despite all the stunning scenery, one of the highlights for me was sitting just outside our hostel on the morning of our third day, before the bus came to take us to Durban, with a pot of rooibos tea, reading, breathing fresh air and just staring.

When Erin and I first arrived in North Drak, we were kind of in shock. After spending so long just in Jo'burg, the fresh air and expanse of the Drakensberg landscape was actually kind of jarring. Bur jarring in a beautiful, serene, peaceful kind of way.

I really wish we could've stayed longer.

You can click the photo to see more.

BK

PS - As an aside, it was hilarious to hear that the typical hostel soundtrack hasn't change since I last traveled in 2002. Five years ago, when I traveled through Scotland with my brother Dan, it seemed like every hostel had the same soundtrack: Coldplay; David Gray; Bob Marley; anonymous ambient trip-hop. But maybe it's not that it hasn't changed, but that it took a while to make it to SA. Hmm.

DISCLAIMER: Because I have a weird USB Internet connection, through which I pay by how much I download and upload, I didn't upload all of my photos. I also compressed them to about 1/10 of their digital size, so their resolution and their actual size have been compromised. Rest assured, I'll have the originals to show y'all when I get home. Oh, and my Flickr photos are kind of disorganized.

I'm sorry ...

IMG_0573forblog
Originally uploaded by BK 14

... for being such a bad blogger and keeping-in-toucher.

Thanks to all who sent "Are you alive? Replying with yes or no will suffice" e-mails.

My excuses are that the last few weeks have been a little topsy-turvy busy and it took me a while to compress the photos from my trip and upload them to my Flickr.

So I offer this photo from the Africa Remix exhibit at the Johannesburg Art Gallery as part of my apology, hoping that it'll make you laugh a little. (If you can't read it, the text is "WE ARE ALL POST EXOTICS" and then there's a mirror. I had to stand kind of far away to get it all in.)

...

So, there's lots to update you all on:

1) I quit my job at Community Media For Development
2) My roommate, Erin, has decided to go home
3) I found a new job at the HIV/AIDS and the Media Project at Wits University
4) I'm staying in Jozi, keeping my funding, still getting credit and still living at the same place
5) My mini vacation to the KwaZulu-Natal province was great, but I'll blog about it in a separate post

1) As some of you know, I wasn't very happy at CMFD. I don't want to write too much here because of the public nature of this thing, so if you're really interested you can Skype or e-mail me. But don't get your hopes up; there aren't any juicy, controversial stories. In short, I didn't feel that I was getting the learning experience that I thought I would, so I decided to look for other options. My dissatisfaction with CMFD stemmed from both the work I was being tasked to do and my bosses.

2) Erin, my roommate since July 18, who was working with CMFD on behalf of Journalists for Human Rights, also decided to quit. She decided to go home after she got a full-time reporter job at her hometown paper, the Cape Breton Post. She also wasn't happy at CMFD, so I'm sure that played a part in her decision to head home early; but she was also worried about missing out on an opportunity for full-time employment, which doesn't come very often in the Maritimes, and especially on Cape Breton. So my bachelor pad is back in operation, and I'll once again be able to stretch my falsetto to absurd lengths while dancing in my underwear.

3) Before I handed in my resignation letter to CMFD, and even before I made any contact with Queen's or my funders, I made sure I found another job. I sent e-mails to five organizations operating in Jo'burg that seemed interesting to me and fell under the media-development banner. One of the organizations that got back to me was the HIV/AIDS and the Media Project, which is run out of School of Journalism at the University of the Witwatersrand ("Wits" to everyone here) in Jo'burg. After a few more e-mails and a couple of phone calls, they offered me a position. My job is basically to be a general assistant to the project, helping out with logistical stuff and minor tasks; but I'm also supposed to blog on their website - www.journaids.org - about HIV/AIDS coverage in the print media. This new internship is by no means perfect; it isn't part of a formal internship program, the project is pretty disorganized and most of my work will be of the administrative/logistical nature. But I'm a lot happier because even though I may not be doing the most thrilling work, I feel like I will be exposed to a lot more learning experiences - even simply from being at Wits. The new job is also a lot more flexible in terms of hours and time off and stuff, which will give me a better opportunity to do some more traveling. I'll take a separate post to write more about the project and what I'll be doing with it.

4) So, yeah, it's all cool; I'm not getting deported or having my funding taken away or anything like that. I've actually been amazed at how supportive everyone has been, both at Queen's and at the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (my funders). Most of the administrative paperwork stuff has been dealt with, but I still have to have an official re-approval. For future reference, I'm pretty sure at least one of the reasons why everyone has been so supportive of my decision was because I had another job lined up and ready to go. My guess is that's why the transition was relatively smooth (I quit CMFD on Aug. 30 and started at Wits on Sept. 3). Even still, mad props go out to Queen's Global Development Studies, Queen's International Office and the folks at the Students For Development branch of the AUCC.

5) See above.

Alright, now I'll get to what everyone is waiting to see: pictures of animals!

BK

Leave the City

Hey all,

Today I am finally getting out of Johannesburg on a much-needed mini vacation. I've worked the last two weeks straight and haven't had two consecutive days off since June, so I'm pretty excited to get away for a while. Work has also been particularly stressful this last little while. I may have more to write about on that front in the future, but for now I'll have to stay mum, unless you e-mail me.

So I'll be spending the next five days in the KwaZulu-Natal province in the east of South Africa.

Erin and I are going by the Baz Bus, in the direction of Durban. We're spending two nights in North Drakensberg, along Lesotho's eastern border, and then two nights in Durban. During our time in North Drakensberg, we'll actually be staying inside the Royal Natal National Park, which is a world heritage site.

And then we move on to Durbs, but we won't be spending too much time actually in the city, because on our only full day, we're heading about three hours north to Hluhlwe-Imfolozi National Park, where we're hoping to see some wild animals and stuff. We're doing the Hluhluwe-Umfolozi in a day tour through these folks.

I'm just relieved to be getting out of town and away from work for a few days. Jozi's gritty charm has been growing on me, but the city can really tighten your nerves as it sharpens them, and I'm excited to get a chance to do some traveling and actually see some more of this country.

I'll be back on Tuesday and I'll be sure to post photos then.

BK

Nothing to celebrate on Women's Day in SA

This is what I was talking about when I said there was bad news on the SA health department front last week.

But this sums things up best.

And here's an impassioned rebuke from the Treatment Action Campaign.

In short, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge was the deputy health minister in the ANC. Manto Tshabalala-Msimang is the health minister. The two didn't get along. Not long ago, Tshabalala-Msimang was, along with President Thabo Mbeki, an ardent AIDS denialist, espousing the use of garlic, olive oil and beetroot as legitimate cures for HIV/AIDS and denouncing ARVs. Fortunately for South Africans, she was hospitalized due to illness a few years ago, and in that time Madlala-Routledge stepped in and completely revamped SA's HIV/AIDS treatment program. Madlala-Routledge is a major reason why prevalence rates are slowly declining among young people in SA, and why thousands more South Africans are on ARV treatment.

And she was fired by Mbeki on Women's Day, ostensibly over an unapproved trip to Spain for an HIV-vaccination conference at which she was a keynote speaker. But the whole thing is a bit screwy.

She also recently called the situation in some of SA's hospitals a "national emergency," because newborn babies were dying due to staff and equipment shortages. Her "over-hyped" language upset Mbeki and Tshabalala-Msimang. This, along with a long history of rabble-rousing and pot-stirring, seem to be the real reason for her firing.

All in all, a pretty shitty Women's Day in SA.

But now there's weird stuff coming out about Tshabalala-Msimang getting hospital staff to fetch her booze and food while she was in hospital two years ago. I don't know where this fits into the mess, except to remark on the karma.

If you're interested, check out the Mail and Guardian's site for tons of stories.

Maru

I saw a bad play a few weeks ago and wrote a review for that Plays on the Net site. If you click on the magazine cover or "Read Latest Issue" tab on the left, you can get to the 'zine. But I can't read it because the fancy program is too much for my USB-modem's "data bundle."

I wrote the review when I had a bad head cold, so it may be worse than the play.

The play was an adaptation of a Bessie Head novel of the same name. I think Bessie Head is brilliant, but the play was exhaustingly bad.

This is why I've always thought of myself as a bad critic: When I see or hear something I don't like, I don't seem to have the same ability or enthusiasm to articulate why I don't like it. I usually feel comfortable explaining why I love something, but I'm no Meghan Harrison or Anna Mehler Paperny, who seem so gifted with the cutting, acerbic wit.

Anyway, friends ...

Wolfe Island Music Fest

Good luck Virginia!

I'm late with this, I know

I know it probably annoys people when I talk about non-South African issues on this thing, but since I couldn’t be on the jury this year, I wanted to weigh in on the Polaris Prize shortlist that was announced a few weeks ago.

If you missed it, here are this year’s nominees:

Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
The Besnard Lakes – The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse
The Dears – Gang of Losers
Julie Doiron – Woke Myself Up
Feist – The Reminder
Joel Plaskett Emergency – Ashtray Rock
Junior Boys – So This Is Goodbye
Miracle Fortress – Five Roses
Patrick Watson – Close to Paradise
Chad VanGaalen - Skelliconnection

I haven’t heard the Miracle Fortress record at all, but I read that Jessie Stein plays guitar in the live band and I love her SS Cardiacs stuff, so that makes me interested. The only other record from the list that I haven’t heard is Patrick Watson’s.

Anyway, here are my thoughts on the others …

I love how The Besnard Lakes seem to have written their album title with this competition in mind. And aside from Miracle Fortress, they seem to be the biggest underdogs. But if the award was for “Most Epic Stoner-Rock Song” then they’d win hands down for “And You Lied To Me.”

If the award was given for a body of work, I think Julie Doiron would and should win (with Joel Plaskett nipping at her heels). And part of me thinks Julie should win anyway. These days I feel like Woke Myself Up is the best of her solo records—probably because it reminds me most of Eric’s Trip.

I was a little surprised to see Joel Plaskett make the list, considering that Ashtray Rock is a pretty straight-ahead rock album. It is a narrative concept album, though, so I guess the whole is more ambitious and clever than its parts. And Joel proved once again that not only is he a decent songwriter, he’s a great albumwriter. (Meghan Harrison, if you’re reading this, I’m looking forward to our next “The best Joel Plaskett record is …” argument.)

Feist is too popular to win. If the prize wasn’t money, she might have a chance, but I just can’t imagine the jurors allowing themselves to give her the cash. Whether Steve Jordan likes to admit it or not, the Polaris Prize was created as a response to the laughable Junos to recognize the supremely talented, but underappreciated and underpaid, music artists in the country, and the jurors know this.

Same goes for The Arcade Fire. But their previous work probably poses even bigger competition for them than their fame. Funeral may not officially be in the competition, but no judge is going to reward the band for making a lesser album. And Neon Bible is definitely a lesser album.

You could say that for a lot of the nominees, actually: I like Gang of Losers, but The Dears haven’t done anything that comes close to touching the down-and-out beauty of End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story; The Reminder isn’t as good as Let it Die; and Skelliconnection isn’t as good as Infiniheart (my jury is still out on Julie and Joel).

If I had a vote, I’d probably give the $20,000 to either Julie Doiron or Chad VanGaalen (probably Julie), but my hunch is that the cash will go to the Junior Boys, which would be good; So This Is Goodbye is a beautiful record.

In a very Canadian way, some of the country’s music critics have already turned on the prize, one year after it was so widely praised (see here and here, specifically). The criticisms are mainly about the lack of diversity among the nominees; how all the nominees are white indie rockers. They criticize the jurors for not including any Francophone or hip hop artists, specifically. Last year at least had Malajube, K’naan and Cadence Weapon, they say.

But I’m not ready to jump off the Polaris bandwagon just yet. There are flaws with the process, for sure, but I still think it’s something worth celebrating—and I don’t see anything wrong with giving any of the nominees 20 large to help them make another record.

I do agree with Dave Morris's criticism; there should be less jurors. There aren't enough credible music authorities in the country to merit a 174-person jury. The fact of the matter is that most of the jurors probably get paid peanuts to write about music while working other jobs and/or going to school. They can't give every album the attention it deserves and they can't be expected to be well-versed in multiple genres--at least not for what most of them probably get paid. At least that was my experience.

The shortlist is heavily weighted towards indie rock because the pool of people Steve Jordan drew from to make up the jury (music journalists, college radio programmers, influential bloggers) are largely indie-rock fans who write about and review indie rock bands for publications and radio stations that focus their content on indie-rock music. There are a few exceptions, of course. The above-linked Dave Morris, for instance, is a knowledgeable and credible critic in lots of different genres; I just don't think there are more than a dozen Dave Morrises on the jury.

Jordan could work harder in future years to diversify his jury selection; that would be much better than trying to influence the jurors decision by mandating nominees from certain genres. The prize is not supposed to give any consideration to “genre or record sales,” and I wouldn’t want them to veer from that spirit.

I think the heavy indie-rock quotient also has a lot to do with the fact that indie-rockers dominate the touring circuit in Canada, and music writers and radio programmers—especially the ones that work for certain-city-centric print publications and community radio stations—focus their writing and listening energies on bands that play their towns. The fact of the matter is that hip hop acts, turntablists, jazz bands, DJs, classical orchestras, opera singers, and Francophone rock bands don’t usually do the kind of touring that English-singing guitar bands do.

That being said, my shortlist probably would’ve included Land of Talk’s Applause, Cheer, Boo, Hiss; Shout Out Out Out Out’s Not Saying/Just Saying, Jon-Rae and The River’s Knows What You Need Holy Fuck’s self-titled EP and Les Breastfeeders’ Les matins de grand soirs. I would’ve left Miracle Fortress, Patrick Watson, Feist, Arcade Fire and The Besnard Lakes off my list.

Can anyone name a Canadian hip hop record that they felt should’ve cracked the top 10? I was kind of expecting Classified to squeak in. But I have to admit, I don’t know much Canadian hip hop from last year. I did like what I heard from Les is More and The Carps, though. I actually thought The Carps were going to be huge, but it doesn’t seem to be happening. I listened to their debut album on a whim while working at CFRC, and it was like a mix of Bloc Party and Death From Above 1979, but with house-like beats and cheeky rhymes about Scarborough. And with Bloc Party going all soft and moody (read: boring) with their latest album and DFA79 biting the dust, I thought The Carps would swoop right in to fill the void.

But I was probably most surprised that Fucked Up’s album from earlier this year didn’t crack the Top 10. It wouldn’t be on my personal list, but I really thought there’d be more aged metalheads or punks or math-rock geeks among the jury that would’ve considered Hidden World to be manna from heaven.

In closing … I think my vote would go to Julie Doiron.

But what I would love the most is if B.A. Johnston could somehow win as a last-minute write-in. Imagine how many Casio keyboards and how much poutine he could buy with $20,000.

Happy Women's Day!

"Wathinta abafazi, wathinta imbokodo" (You strike a woman, you strike a rock)"

Today is Women's Day in South Africa. It commemorates a day in 1956 when 20,000 women marched to government buildings in Pretoria to protest against a law requiring black women to carry passes.

Erin and I made cookies to give to the security guards in our neighbourhood, and anyone else, who like us, is working on this public holiday.

I tried looking for uplifting stories about women in SA papers today, but so far haven't turned up much. Here's one, with a great headline, about the opening of a photo exhibit showcasing photos from the march in 1956 and of other South African women.

Here's something else that's pretty good. The article in the M&G's hard copy is a lot better, but it seems that the paper and the web version are only complementary, not identical, because I can't seem to find the article anywhere on the website. This part makes me hopeful: "Tshabalala-Msimang said an important finding was that infections in women under 20 years had continued to decline to 13,7% from 16,1% in 2004 and 15,9% in 2005."

28 Launch

me&stephforblog
Originally uploaded by BK 14

Stephanie and I at the launch of 28 in South Africa. The night was great: free wine, Ethiopian finger foods, Stephanie's beautiful and hilarious baby boy.

I bought a copy of the book for my parents and Stephanie wrote a funny inscription. All in all, a very nice night.

You can click the photo to see a few more from last night, but uploading photos really puts a dent in my "data bundle" so I didn't post them all.

28 in SA

I'm just getting ready to head out to the launch of 28 in South Africa. I'll post the photos tonight.

Oh, and today was the first meeting of the weekly creative writing group I'm facilitating in Hillbrow. I think it went pretty well for the first "class", but I kind of feel like I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

I'll post more soon.

It seems that every third person I meet is a Zimbabwean

There's lots to say about what's going on in Zimbabwe, but I didn't know where to start, and the situation seems to be deteriorating at such a rate that it was hard to keep up.

Anyway, here's a short article that quickly illustrates the impact of the situation on SA, but provides little in the way of context. It's also kind of problematic in that it subtly blames the refugees for potentially creating instability in SA and not, say, the power-crazed dictator who's rapidly destroying what was once one of Africa's largest economies.

If you're interested in the "situation," I just found this, which provides a daily compendium of Zimbabwe news stories from sources around the world. The first story in yesterday's batch - and other stories like it - make it especially frustrating to read about the gentle diplomacy practiced by Mbeki and other regional leaders towards Mugabe.

...

Earlier in the week, I interviewed a few people about migrants, refugees and xenophobia as part of the research I'm doing for work. One was the co-director of an organization called Gender Justice and the other was the director of an organization called Engender Health. We happened to touch on the Zimbabwean "situation" and what it means for South Africa. They both called on the South African and Johannesburg governments to do something to tackle xenophobia, but they had very different ideas of what should be done to deal with all the people. The Engender Health guy said that the problem has become so dire that the country should set up refugee camps near the borders to take care of all the undocumented migrants; the Gender Justice guy said that we have to work harder to integrate Zimbabweans into South African society and ensure that they are aware of the rights and resources available to them.

I understand there are significant economic and social strains put on the country by the daily stream of refugees, but I have to agree with Mr. Gender Justice: I don't see how creating crowded refugee camps would do anything but create more problems for South Africa and for relations between everyday Zimbabweans and South Africans.

I'll do some more posting on this a bit later. (I know, I say this a lot)

Do other people know about this?

A friend just showed me this a few days ago.

Apparently the black screen saves energy, and it's the exact same search engine as Google.

The explanation is here.

When other blogs are better ...

Head over to Bert's blog to check this out.

Pretty wild.

ps - Bizarrely, I've noticed that some people have elaborate front lawns, complete with gnomes and comfortable-looking benches, behind their massive fences. Do they really sit out there to stare at their wall and razorwire, or is it simply a reminder of safer days?

The Rainbow Nation does not extend to my corn rows

"I just think salons are something that should stay separate!" Mandisa, who was sitting one row in front of Mandla and I, said firmly, before turning around and therefore bringing an abrupt end to the disagreement.

Somehow the disagreement between the three of us, which was played out on a kumbi ride into the city, had become ridiculously heated.

Mandla was relating a story about how a hair salon in Grahamstown (a city in the Eastern Cape that's home to Rhodes University) had turned him away saying, "Sorry, we don't do black hair." Mandla was saying that's not cool, and I was agreeing. But Mandisa didn't seem to have any problem with it.

The problem with our disagreement was that Mandla and I were arguing from a big-picture standpoint--from a larger, philosophical viewpoint--while Mandisa couldn't get past the issue of hair.

"Mandla, look at Brendan's hair and look at your hair. Can't you see the difference?" she asked, incredulous.

"Yeah, but it's one thing if they can't do black people's hair and another thing if they won't do black people's hair," I countered.

"See, she could have said, 'I'm sorry Sir, but I don't think we have anyone who knows how to do black people's hair very well, but we're looking into hiring someone,' " Mandla added.

"Mandla, we have [I can't remember the name of the "black" salon Mandisa mentioned], why didn't you just go there?" Mandisa asked.

"But can't you see the bigger problem with them saying, 'We don't do black hair'?" Mandla said.

Still in disbelief, Mandisa asked, "Do you really want a white person touching your hair, Mandla?"

I just thought it was a pretty funny disagreement. I was surprised the other people on the kumbi didn't pipe in with their two cents.

(Mandla and Mandisa are two Rhodes students who worked with me at CMFD during July. We were heading into town to do some surveying or something.)

A funny exchange

So today I was walking through a park near my house and I stopped to watch a bit of a soccer game. "Who's playing?" I asked the guy closest to me. "These two," he said, pointing at the two teams on the field. I stared at him, expressionless, for a full second after he spoke, thinking about what he said. "Cool," I said, and then walked away to ask someone else.

Happy No More Calculus, Nat!

nomorecalc for bloguse
Originally uploaded by BK 14

Yes, I recycle.

Thrillside

Have fun at Hillside this weekend Brian, Jeff, Gord, Rach, Beck, Janet and anyone else who's going.
It's only the second one I'm missing in six years.

ps - And good luck Journal kidz.

pps - The best Hillside performance I ever saw was the Rheostatics vs. Senegalese band, H'Sao, in an afternoon workshop ... they took turns playing each others songs. I don't think I've heard anything more wild than "Dopefiends and Boozehounds" West-Africanized.

Dream of the Dog

I saw a play a few weeks ago and reviewed it for an online magazine called Curtain Rising, which has something to do with some big online theatre operation called Plays On the Net. My friend and former Queen's Journal colleague, Karen Jackson, edits the magazine, I think. Anyway, she enlisted me to be something of a Jo'burg correspondent - for free! Whatever, I'm happy to get free tickets.

Anyway, you can see the review here. Click on the "Magazine - Read latest issue" tab on the left. My review is on page 10. I find it terrible to navigate and I haven't even read the published version yet because my eyes got so tired after the first few graphs.

If you're looking for an abridged version ...

It was a one scene play almost entirely based on dialogue between two characters. It dealt with the trouble with truth and forgiveness in the New South Africa. I loved it.

(The long version is much better. I'm still working on writing more concisely.)

ps - On the cab ride home from the theatre that night way back when, my driver was the most blatant misogynist I've ever met. It was an awful, awful ride. If I was at home, I would've stopped the cab as soon as he started going off; but since I was in the middle of deserted downtown Jozi, I endured it. You know those moments in your life when you feel as if you're actually in the presence of evil? That's what it felt like. (As soon as I got home, I Skyped Natalie and told her to hug as many women as she could find for me.)

New features and future posts

Hey people who read this thing ... I've added a bunch of links on the side below the weather stuff. If you work in an office and need to kill some time, there are some friends' blogs, MySpaces and other stuff to keep you occupied. I'll be adding more within the next couple of days.

I've also got a backlog of things to blog about, but I can't do them justice tonight, so I'll leave you hanging with a list:

- Last week's announcement of the Polaris Prize shortlist
- The Zimbabwe "situation" - Yes, that's what they're calling it now: a situation. It's probably closer to one of the worst economic crises of human history, but I guess "situation" works better when nobody wants to upset Mugabe. I've been meaning to write something for a while, but didn't really have anything to say other than, "It's a fucking mess and, oh, there goes another 100% of inflation." Then I read something on Sunday about HIV rates declining because nobody has any disposable income to maintain mistresses. Have Thoughts Will Post.
- I went to Soweto last week and it was pretty amazing

23 years ago today ...

IMG_0174
Originally uploaded by BK 14

... Raymond Jean Bourque's biggest fan was born.

Happy Birthday Jeff.

Here's hoping Peter Schaefer takes you all the way next year.

Who needs Joe when you've got Peter Schaefer!

But seriously, happy birthday buddy.

ps - I know his birthday is July 20, and as I'm posting this it's still July 20 in Toronto. The reason why I'm posting so late is because I've been trying to call the jerk all day but he hasn't been answering his phone -- and he hasn't initialized his voice mail either. Jerk.

better photos

And you can see much better photos at the Globe's site as well.

A real report on the press conference ...

Stephanie Nolen's report of the press conference.

It sure beats my gushy meanderings.

I think "sprightly and elfin" are perhaps the best adjectives to describe Archbishop Tutu.

And yes, he certainly did do a jig at the end of the press conference.

The Elders

IMG_0157
Originally uploaded by BK 14

Today was kind of surreal.

I sang Happy Birthday to Nelson Mandela, while sitting between Stephanie Nolen and Zackie Achmat, at a press conference hosted by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and featuring Kofi Annan, Mary Robinson and Jimmy Carter, among others.

Peter Gabriel sang "Biko", a cappella, on a whim, because Tutu asked him to.

Richard Branson was there with his beautiful hair, beautiful tan and beautiful money-face.

But I have to say, the biggest thrill was probably having Zakie Achmat make jokes about the press conference directly to me, and me alone. My hands were sweating so much. I could barely say anything back to him. Anytime he said anything to me I was only able to nervously stammer out a "heh heh" or "hmm" or "yeah". I should've hugged him or something.

The press conference was to announce the creation of The Elders, which seems to be a new humanitarian lobby group made up of some of the most influential and popular political figures of the last half-century. Their aim seems a little unclear at the moment, so it remains to be seen how much influence they'll actually have in the world. (Tutu emphasized that anyone of "The Elders" could call up anyone in the world anytime they wanted -- I guess that's something in and of itself.) They made vague references to alleviating poverty, working to create peace, combating disease and fighting environmental degradation, but they didn't specify when or how.

But I must admit, the whole thing was pretty inspiring. There was a lot of heady language about changing the world and that sort of thing, which would've sounded overly precious and trite if it was coming from anyone other than Tutu, Annan and the like.

I have some more thoughts on this, but I'll blog about it later. Enjoy the photos for now.

(I only posted a few because my Internet sucks, but tragically, they're the best of the best. So many turned out blurry which may have been because my hands were shaking because I was so nervous or because I couldn't use a flash.)

Happy Birthday Madiba! ... and I'm invited

I almost forgot to mention ...

After I pick up Erin from the airport and get her settled in, I'm going to Constitution Court on Constitution Hill for some super-special press conference with Nelson Mandela! Tomorrow (July 18) is his birthday and apparently he's using the occasion to announce some new humanitarian initiative. It's being hosted by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Kofi Annan and Bill Clinton are supposed to be there, too. I think Stephanie Nolen told people I work for the Globe to get me in.

I'll do my best to snag some pics ... and then post them.

I wonder if my social skills have waned ...

So tomorrow I get a roommate. Her name is Erin Pottie and she's from a small town in Cape Breton. I suggest Facebook-stalking her. Her flight from Halifax to Toronto last week was her first time on a plane. Judging by the shock I went through for the first few weeks I was here, I'm guessing her head will be spinning for a while. She's joining the CMFD team as an intern from Toronto-based Journalists for Human Rights.

My place is definitely too big for me, but it might be too small for two. We shall see.

I guess this means I'll no longer be able to see how far I can stretch my falsetto while dancing around to Joni Mitchell songs in my underwear. Shame.

Number 1 ... with a virus

I read here on Friday that South Africa just passed India as the country with the greatest number of people living with HIV--about 5.7 million.

Do you think that has anything to do with this?

Fortunately, Mbeki has since changed his tune, but who knows how long the harm he caused will be felt.

I'm going to see an unauthorized biographic documentary about Mbeki on Friday. I'll make sure to tell you how it is. There's actually a lot of controversy around the film; the BBC commissioned and then refused to air it. That's the simplified version. But anyway, legal wrangling ensued, but eventually the filmmakers got a grant to tour the film independently. So far they've sold out every show. Since one of the filmmakers is a Canadian, I thought I'd pitch the story to some newspapers and magazines back home. So far The Post has said no, but I'm still waiting on Maclean's and The Walrus.

ANYWAY ...

India apparently cut its numbers by more than half, which seems unbelievable. But it's difficult to tell whether it's the result of effective prevention or simply an adjustment in survey techniques.

"The estimates for India were slashed following a survey of HIV infection levels among a group of people representative of the entire population. The previous estimate of 5,7-million people had been based on surveillance of women attending ante-natal facilities and high-risk population groups."

See what I mean? Why was their previous test group so non-representative of the regular population?

Anyway, neither SA or India are at the top of the list in terms of prevalence (the percentage of the population living with HIV). That dubious honour goes to Swaziland where 33.4% of the population is living with HIV.

All of the countries in the top 10, in terms of prevalence, are in sub-Saharan Africa. South Africa is fifth. The numbers are kind of overwhelming: 2/3 of people living with HIV live in sub-Saharan Africa; the 2.1 million AIDS-related deaths in sub-Saharan Africa represent 72% of global AIDS deaths.

Everyone should read Stephanie Nolen's (relatively) new book, 28. You can buy it here.

*This seems like the most responsible time to tell everyone that I've been working as a part-time researcher (about one half-day a week) for Stephanie Nolen, the Globe's African correspondent. I'm sure I'll blog more about it later.

Race and rugby

WHITE
TAUNTS
ALL BLACKS

... is what I read on a lamppost headline biking home from work yesterday.

To me, the words were immediately striking; it took me a second to really understand what was being said. But I probably wouldn't have been so affected if I was more interested in rugby.

See, "White" refers to South African Springboks coach, Jake White, and "All Blacks" is the nickname of the New Zealand rugby team.

But I wonder, if I was South African rugby fan, could those words have been defamiliarized enough by the sport to not illicit some kind of emotional response? Would I be numb to them? Or would I laugh at the cheeky sub-editor? Hmm.

A small thought

It seems that blog posts, like goals, come in bunches.

I resolve to be more regular.

Africa Remix

Africa Remix
Originally uploaded by BK 14

When I first walked into this installation, my very first thoughts were, "Oh my God, I'm walking into my brain during my first two weeks in Jo'burg!" Seriously.

If you click on the photo you'll be led into my Flickr account where you can see a bunch more photos from Africa Remix, a fabulous exhibit of contemporary African art currently on display at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in Joubert Park, downtown Jozi.

But I won't say too much about the exhibit because the Globe's Stephanie Nolen does it a lot better here.

If that doesn't work (it's pay per view, I think), read below.

JOHANNESBURG -- There was drilling and pounding, and acres of bubble wrap being hauled out of crates. The air was pungent with the smell of fresh paint. Crews at the Johannesburg Art Gallery were in a dignified frenzy late last week, installing the most important exhibit the South African gallery has ever shown.

And in the middle of the chaos, Simon Njami materialized, the curator from central casting in a black turtleneck, a black wool scarf with fringe draped just so and, bien sûr, very dark glasses, although it was dim in the hall. "Good morning," he purred, with 48 hours to go before the grand opening, and then turned on one stylish heel to lead the way through the semi-assembled shape of his masterpiece.

Few have done more for African contemporary art than Njami, a Cameroonian-born critic who founded the influential Paris-based journal Revue Noire and who conceived this show, back in 2000, as a way to shake the developed world out of its belief that African art consists of carved wooden masks, woven baskets and beads. There is not, let it be noted, a solitary bead to be found among the hundreds of works that make up the exhibition Africa Remix. There is, however, plenty of video, some sound installations and a piece that incorporates Chinese calendars, razor wire, miles of cable and an inflatable sex doll.

The show has, in the past three years, toured from the Centre Pompidou in Paris all the way to the Mori Art Museum in Japan, breaking attendance records all along the way. But Africa Remix had never come to Africa - most of these works had never been seen in Africa. In fact, a large show of contemporary art like this has never been held anywhere on the continent before.

It took painful fundraising, but Remix is now here, in one of the cities that can claim the title of continental cultural capital. Njami walked through a room or two before halting in front of Zoulikha Bouabdellah's Dansons, a cheeky video of the artist's midriff, as she ties on red, white and blue scarves decorated with a belly dancer's spangles - and then starts to shimmy to the tune of La Marseillaise. Bouabdellah was born in Moscow to Algerian parents, and lives in France. "Is she French? African? I'm sure you take the point," Njami said - that purr again.

It's a recurring theme both in the show and in debates about it: Who gets to decide who is African? Is Njami himself - who grew up in Geneva, lives in Paris and teaches in San Diego - an African? Of the 85 artists exhibited here, a third are living outside of Africa; some were born in the diaspora. Do they count? In whose eyes?

For many of the artists - a dozen of whom flew to Jo'burg for the Remix opening - the question is highly charged. "When people make [contemporary] art, they can't perceive it as being African - they say 'it's not really African,' " said fiery Fernando Alvim, an Angolan with three large, insouciant canvases in the show. "People are thinking that Africa doesn't need sophisticated processes of art and culture" - he threw his hands in the air - "yet America has deep problems of poverty but it has the Guggenheim!"

Remix involves a staggering array of media - from large-format photographs to multimedia futuristic cities painstakingly constructed by Democratic Republic of Congo's Bodys Isek Kingelez to a show highlight, The Room of Tears by Cameroonian Bili Bidjocka. The room has 30 centimetres of water on the floor and a scattering of concrete stepping stones. Video screens along the wall show loops of pained faces muttering indistinguishably. As people walk through the piece, their footsteps trigger different sounds.

Although it is organized around three themes (Identity and History, Body and Soul, and City and Land), Remix lacks an overall coherence. In his desire to show the breadth of contemporary art by African artists, Njami may have inadvertently fallen prey to one of his own critiques, lumping it all together just because it is "African" - when in truth the line drawings of William Kentridge of South Africa have little in common with the projector-and-mirror creation Dancing with the Moon of Goddy Leye of Cameroon.

In the end, what ties the show together is a strong flavour of irony and a subtle sense of being observed. Alvim mocks this explicitly, with a large canvas bearing the words "We are all post exotics" and a mirror that reflects the observer.

Njami, making his rounds through the exhibition, stopped in front of an enormous, curvaceous body imagined for Osama bin Laden, naked but for his turban and his beard, splayed on a patchwork American flag overlaid with Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Great American Nude, by the Sudanese artist Hassan Musa (inspired by La fille allongée by 18th-century French painter François Boucher) is about Africans looking at America, but with a sly poke. The America of flags, Harleys and pornographic terrorists, of course, is no less accurate than an Africa "of people with bones in their noses." Njami, being a Parisian curator, quoted Jean-Paul Sartre on the subject. "It's the shock of being seen."

Yet the intended target for this shock is not just the developed world; Njami aims Remix just as much at Africans. "You have a lot of preconceived ideas in Africa about Africa. Very few Africans travel within Africa - they know very little."

That curiosity may account for the mob scene two days later, when the show opened. The Johannesburg Art Gallery was, in the apartheid years, located beside a park in a graceful corner of the heart of the city - but when the white rulers fled with their money at the dawn of democracy, downtown became the territory of illegal immigrants from across the continent and gangsters.

So the sidewalk barbers and broom peddlers looked on in astonishment on the last Sunday in June as lines of Mercedes Benz SUVs battled to get into the gallery parking lot; eventually most people just gave up and left their cars in the gridlock, pouring in the gallery doors. Inside, heavyweights from the new black cultural elite gave speeches and toasted each other while township mamas with their babies tied on their backs mingled with wide-eyed, blue-haired ladies from the old gallery-going crowd and curious children surreptitiously reached out to finger the art. Half of the works were invisible behind the throng, but

everywhere, there was an electric conversation - "Did you see ... ?"

The gallery's curator, Clive Kellner, looked sweaty and ecstatic. He first saw the show in Europe and vowed he would get it to Jo'burg - but he has an annual exhibitions budget of $4,200, while bringing the show here cost nearly $1-million. Kellner threw himself into a frenzy of fundraising. Njami, meanwhile, had always intended for Remix to be exhibited in Africa, but found that was easier said than done.

"From the beginning, I knew I wanted the show to tour three countries in Africa - one in the north, one in the central [region] and one in the south - but this is a show that is a bit expensive and complicated. You need a big building, a crew, infrastructure and money - conditions that only [Johannesburg] could fulfill," Njami said. There were political considerations, too - a museum in Cairo wanted the show, for example, but he rejected it because the curator is a political appointee of President Hosni Mubarak and, Njami said, he views glorification of the president as his chief task.

For Kellner, there is a transformative value in having the show here in Johannesburg: The gallery has recruited a raft of unemployed young people to train as guides, provided art education to the builders who put in place the exhibition space (and invited them all to the opening) and mounted a large program to bring local school groups to the show. "There's a much bigger cultural process at work," he said.

As Njami muttered as the last works were uncrated, it's about time. "If you want to understand African art history, you go to London, Paris and New York. It would be a pity for our grandkids to [have to] go to London, Paris and New York to understand what is being produced now."