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MORE SAPHOTOSAFARI "PHOTO ESSAYS" FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT ARE A
CLICK AWAY! >>>>> KOLMANSKOP: saphotosafari explores this fascinating desert outpost - a ghost town built by diamonds... ...AS USUAL, AT SAPHOTOSAFARI WE LET THE PICTURES DO THE TALKING...
(35 carefully selected photos)... Stop/start/forward/back buttons at base of photos control speed of pictures. "Photo Essay" loads in about 10 seconds. LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA / USA... May 28, 2012 "CREATIVE DESTRUCTION... OF JOBS" It's one of life's simple pleasures to clear the decks, cup of tea or coffee at hand, and open the pages of a new book. Filled with anticipation, I like books best when I'm the student and they're the teacher. I like to wrap my feeble mind about new worlds of which I know little. Last year at our cabin, I ploughed through 900 pages of the Napoleonic wars and was weak-kneed for days. Books. How could I live without them?
We're busy at our Utah/USA cabin again this summer, but there's a new twist: I bought a Kindle. Actually, I'm getting along quite well with my new gizmo and I love the idea that I can carry a library of 3,000 books around in my shirt pocket (well, it's slightly bigger than my shirt pocket and the 3,000 books will take a few years to accumulate...). But even though the reading quality of the Kindle is fine*, there's a nagging sense that I've shot myself in the foot - once again. Why? Kindle and Amazon are busy getting rid of, literally, hundreds of thousands of decent jobs across America and around the world. And I'm as guilty as everyone else in this jobs massacre we've all consented to when we buy the latest trechnology. The book industry is a metaphor for the this brave new world. It's reeling in the USA as "real" books don't get printed on paper from the paper mill, the publishing office departments filled with editors, graphic artists and layout personnel are emptying out, the transporation network that warehouses and ship millions of books around the country are slowing - as independent and even corporate national book chains get clobbered by "e-books" and go out of business.
In a nearly ideal conflation of technology, communication and cost-lowering, married to the profit motive, we brilliant humans are ridding ourselves of millions of the one thing we can't live without: jobs. The assembly robots, the software programs, the "virtual" worlds we now create - that are housed on vast cloud servers with minimal employees reduced to subservient roles feeding these beasts, are giving a thrashing to employment prospects for millions. Microsoft, Intel, Google and others are installing giant server "farms" at the dying small farming town of Othello, Washington. There's more tumbleweed that techies at tiny Othello, so how can they run their businesses? Simple, the "farms" are remotely operated by mere handfulls of personnel. Cheap electricity contracts are the sole reason these "peopleless" businesses have located here. The nearby Columbia River guarantees dirt-cheap hydro power.
This tectonic shift in production is most certainly the greatest event in human jobs history since the industrial revolution began in the early 19th Century. Now, with 7 billion mouths to feed we are beavering away eliminating, not creating jobs. The riches accumulating to the techie Mark Zuckerbergs (Facebook IPO winner) of the planet are further skewing income distribution to what seem like revolutionary proportions. Ask young people across our world what future prospects they see for employment and you'll hear a groan of excruciating pain.
South Africa is an unemployment migraine headache on a terrible scale. So, as I drive around the Western Cape Province or walk around our small "dorp" (town), I always take note of the hundreds of people labouring away at tiny tasks from which they extract a living ("guarding" cars, cleaning streets, hawking goods, etc). It's a tragic waste of potential. We all wish that we had fulfilling work lives, but sadly most of us in the human family will never experience compensation commiserate with our abilities. Creative dreams will go unvisited and we will plod through our several decades here on earth, trying to comprehend the injustice of a world where a few gain enormous wealth through this technological revolution, while all the rest suffer silently and go without. What if we committed these genius talents to creating jobs, not destroying them? Will I actually be a happier man with my Kindle? Or will I read those thousands of books at my fingertips with a vague knot in the pit of my stomach? Sala hantle,
Eric
* The Kindle doesn't have a backlight, the Barnes & Noble "Nook" e- reader does. There's a funny ad circulating here in which Barnes & Noble take aims at it Amazon competitor with this quip: "Sorry, Kindle, You're not that good in bed..."
LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... May 23, 2012 "IN A FRACTURED
AMERICA, THE NATIONAL PARKS STILL MAKE THE SPIRIT TO SOAR..." These are unhappy times across much of the vaunted United States. The politics stink, jobs are scarce as hen's teeth, the social fabric is badly frayed, the rich/poor divide has reached unconscionable levels - even the bloody WI-FI that I depend upon to operate this website is completely sporadic. Americans are on edge. They sense the great salad days reaching all the way back to the 1950's are over, but there's little clarity, and few leaders, to offer hopes for brighter times ahead. The Yanks are "blue" and you see it everywhere and in every sidewalk conversation. Hard times...
 So what does a body do? This is the beginning of Memorial Day weekend across the vast country and many Americans would like nothing better than to visit a national park. We're at Bryce Canyon Nat'l Park today and it is a pleasure! The parks are well-run, the staff professional and, for savvy Americans, there's an excellent chance that you might meet an overseas visitor, and good grief, learn something about the rest of the planet! Only 10% or so of Americans have passports and that's a big problem. As the world swirls away in ways we couldn't imagine even a few years ago, it's critical that the Last Standing (now a bit stooped) Superpower have a keen sense of the world's pulse. That's not happening so much, but here at this park 75% of the visitors are foreigners and they're happy and willing to have a chat and compare notes. Lynn and I love these serial conversations (they remind us of South Africa), and they are always a great tonic for the spirit. Our lives are so bound up with the whole planet that it's hard to imagine not wanting this contact with everyone, but we humans as a species are particularly prone to paranoia - the more so when politicians stand to harvest votes by scaring the begeezus out of their constituents. That's, sadly, tragically, where the Americans are stuck these days: fear of the "other".
And it's led to a polarizing of politics that is bringing the country, inexoribly, to its knees. So it's a decided pleasure to spend a day here, where all the boundaries that separate us fall away, and we can revel, for a few hours at least, in a world where people smile and laugh and take gazillions of pictures of new friends from Switzerland or China or -South Africa - backdropped by some of the most gorgeous natural beauty on earth... Sala hantle, Eric
LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA / LAS VEGAS, USA... May 16, 2012
"LAS VEGAS: ALL THAT GLITTERS MAY NOT EVEN BE GOLD-PLATE, BUT IT'S STILL GAUDY - AND FUN! ... AND A PLANE RIDE I'll NEVER FORGET!" Returning to Vegas is always a jolt. Exhausted from a tech-rich (more in a minute), 40 hours of travel from South Africa, Lynn and I hoped to slip into town unnoticed, sleep off the jet-lag for a couple OF days - and then, briefly weigh into the buzz. Unfortunately, when the African Jamaican guy next to us on the shuttle, from the airport to our hotel, was dressed in a knock-out, movie-grade replica Darth Vader/Star Wars costume, you realize it's fruitless to resist ( Darth Vader reports the economy sucks...) Capitulation, all over again...
Vegas is an infectious, indefensible, often silly and ludicrously overdone themepark for grown-ups. And that's why millions from all over the world come here - to blow off steam and forget hard-bitten "reality", even for just a few days. We booked a lovely hotel room for $26 on-line from South Africa (never waste your hard-earned travel money on expensive hotels!). Of course, when I tried to switch on my laptop this morning, I learned of the diabolical $11.99 daily hotel internet connection charge. G-a-a-k! Most sane adults realize that Vegas makes its money on the adage, "a sucker is born every minute". But also being human, I was hoping that the teaser hotel rate would prove me to be the Winner I want to be - and not the Loser just revealed. In other words, I came to Vegas hoping to beat the odds. Good luck,Chump!
 Two south Africans and a Spanish flight attendent were part of our Emirates flight crews from 2o different countries. If you would like to talk about "life. love and the pursuit of happiness" at 2:00 o'clock in the morning - and we did, these professionals would be happy to welcome you aboard... And, no, I'm not a paid shill for Emirates! But what I'd like to visit this morning, somewhat blearily, was the jaw-dropping plane ride that delivered us from our home near Cape Town to Las Vegas. It was a bewildering confluence of new technology and dizzying 2012 flying. Quite candidly, my head is still spinning. We flew Emirates. They're not paying me to say this, but they've put it to the American dinosaur airlines that continue on their merry way into mergers and bankuprtcy, because, idiotically, they forgot about service. The other villain in the story is Heathrow Airport. For dozens of trips, we've been routed through this British Airways owned and operated airport - where travel dreams go to die. The ruinously expensive taxes on flying in an out of Heathrow have accelerated hugely, and now amount to several hundred dollars on a return ticket for two from SA to onward destinations. So we (and apparently millions of others) routed through Dubai - and flew Emirates... P-s-s-t: we had fun!
Wow. The service. Even in economy (never waste your hard-earned travel money on expensive airline seats!). The flight crews were youngish, professional and conversed easily and in many languages (our two flight crews came from 2o countries). So passengers had ready access to English, Arabic, Spanish, Mandarin, Hindi, even SA Afrikaans, Russian, Japanese, Korean and on and on. You'll never see this with an American airline and, yet, it's so basic to air travel in our Global Village of the 21st Century. Pax (passengers) clambered on board from at least 30 countries on our two flights from Cape Town to Dubai - a three hour layover - and then a daring non-stop strike over the North Pole - for 15 long hours. And no Heathrow. The aircraft was a brand-new audacious Boeing 777-300, extended range, long-haul model. Leaping off the screen in front of our seats was Emirates super savvy new personal entertainment system: I.C.E. With this quantum jump forward in technology, it makes the fading memories of a single movie shown, after in-flight dinner, to a whole airplane full of disgrunyled customers - seem like a dog-earred page from the distant past. There are now a hundred movies to chose from, of course,including current movies, plus 20,000 songs, plus international sat phones (extra charge) and real-time internet e-mail connections, live financial tickers, world weather, news, plus hundreds of audio comedy routines, interviews with newsmakers and gazillions of TV sitcom shows. If you want to listen to 25 Seinfeld stand-up routines, it's right at your fingertips.
I have a weird, junkie need to listen to American "country" music for a few hours a year, so while I took a pick & shovel to this gold mine of hot artists and past legends(Merle Haggard), Lynn prospected a veritable library of films. Around us 300 passengers goggled Bollywood to Hollywood - and anything else that caught their fancy. Then I listened to two hours of opera arias, then Norah Jones, Buena Vista Social Club, then ancient Doors hits back to back ("People Are Strange" is still great shit after 40 years! ). On and on, as the airplane hours whooshed slowly past...
I followed my real-time route map screen as our aircraft cruised at altitude over Zimbabwe (world music), East Africa, Somalia (Tim McGraw/Faith Hill) , the Yemen coastline (Prince/"Purple Rain"), Iran (Green Day), Russia (Maria Callas), North Pole (Norah Jones), Canada (Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, of course), USA (vintage Talking Heads/"Burning Down the House"). As we seemingly inched across the North Pole, I said to a South African flight attendent, "Can you believe this? We're flying exactly over the North Pole!" Without missing a beat, she quipped, "So it must be Tuesday, right?" I guess, for her, the thrill of Arctic exploration is gone...
 As our flight passed exactly over the North Pole, Lynn snapped this photo showing open water leads in the Polar Ice Cap. Sorry to break the bad news, but Global Warming is the Real Deal... Let me wrap this discourse, with a comment about our Emirates crew. These attractive people interacted at length with their guests on this forever flight. For the first time in a long while, I felt genuinely welcome on an airplane. We passengers weren't just today's "burden" for a jaded flight crew. We chatted through 24 hours in the air, day and night and day again. We ruminated while staying hydrated with glasses of water, about our small lives, hard employment times for young people everywhere, how we love the sense of "community" in our home countries, travel war stories, expat living, damned politics and everything thing else under the sun - and the moon. If you can believe this, the entire crew of this Muslim-owned company, including the aircraft captain, lined up to thank each of us as we disembarked from our journey. They will rest up in Seattle and do it all over again in a few days. It's hard,repetitive work. But these are professionals and they shoulder their responsibilities without complaint. Shukran!
On our last two-hour puddle-jumper, between Seattle and Las Vegas, we had a different experience. When I casually commented to a U.S. flight attendent, in the galley, that the plane was two-thirds full and would possibly turn a profit, she looked at me and said, "I'll make a profit. I don't know about Alaska Airlines!" Her two female stable mates burst into raucus laughter at their colleague's witty cynicism. As we got off the plane, the flight attendents were busy talking to each other - about their costume jewelry (really!)... No eye contact with the passengers - not even a nod. Like it or not, the 21st Century is already about brutal, cut-throat competition - all over the world. In every sphere of life. If any of us, or all of us, can't do our jobs with energy, pride, commitment and excellence, there will be no mercy - and no paycheck... I'm going to have a nap! Sala hantle, Eric
LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA...May 13, 2012 "SOUTH AFRICA: MEET ME IN THE MIDDLE!" Tom Friedman, writing in the NY Times this morning (I enjoy seeing the Times' columnists hours before the Americans even wake-up!), piquantly observes that over the past few decades the United States has moved from being a "market economy" to being a "market society". Big difference, with disasterous results. A "market economy" is a means of organizing society for productive efficiency. MacDonalds builds a better burger cheaper, offers free Wi-Fi and "drive-through" dining (don't you love that notion!) and wins a place in consumers wallets, if not their hearts. MacDonalds makes shareholders, including the founders, wealthy. It's a better mousetrap...On the other hand, a "market society", as Friedman notes, is a place where everything is up for sale. Even the well-travelled Friedman is taken aback to learn, in a new book by Michael Sandel, that there was, in 2,000, a giant Pizza Hut logo embazoned on a Russian rocket - to launch the first advertising into space. And that's just an ordinary example of the commercialization of practically everything in the U.S. And, increasingly, our whole world. School buses now have commercial ads painted on their exteriors. Seattle, where I lived for some years, sold "naming rights" to two publicly-financed baseball and football stadiums (about $1,000,000,000 of public money between them) to an insurance company and a telecommunications behometh. This is de regueur across the U.S. Public universities are building "skyboxes" right and left, so that those corporations and rich individuals - who can afford thousands of dollars for mere sporting events - don't have to rub shoulders with regular folks with ordinary incomes. It's everywhere, it's ugly and it's cratering any residual sense of community that might remain in America. (The inpending Obama-Romney race for the White House, is a perfect metaphor for a society that's bunkered and broken. And paying taxes, as notorious New York hotelkeeper, Leona Helmsley, once famously stated "is for the little people..."  Poet Ari Sitas interviews author and Al Jezeera correspondent, Azad Essa.
Politics, race and religion are SA's favourite fodder for conversation! Will it be the same in America next week? Switch to South Africa. Yesterday, Lynn and I went to the Franschhoek Literary Festival. 3,000 people jammed this small, idyllic town and traipsed from one sizzling seminar to the next. The notorious South African "arms-deal", a long running corruption scandal involving senior members of the post-Apartheid government, drew a packed house of several hundred to hear authors and journalists toss around this hot-potato. We attended another seminar, featuring the young Al Jezeera correspondent for sub-Saharan Africa, South African/Indian/Muslim, Azad Essa. He decanted on politics, understanding Africa, the generation now coming of age in a free South Africa and - with a lovely, light touch - Islam. "Great religion, terrible PR program!", said the Muslim to a sympathetic, chuckling, mostly Christian audience. And that, thank you Azad Essa, is what captures my imagination here in SA, year in and year out: we can talk about our problems. All day long, "lit fest" participants rubbed shoulders with the country's top writers and journalists and thinkers. We all sat squished into too warm halls, on cheap chairs. And the panelists? They sat on the same ordinary furniture in their jeans and open-collared shirts and shot off their mouths in a way that made all of us proud to live in a free-wheeling democracy. In South Africa, in the public arena, there is an agreed upon equality. Later, Lynn and I bumped into Azad Essa on a Franschhoek street and, immediately, our conversation shot to religion, politics and race in South Africa. People, from all walks of life want and need to talk about these crucial issues everywhere and in South Africa - with all it's historical prejudice -these conversations are imperative to keep the social thermostat dialed down and our collective spirits up...
Tommorow, Lynn and I start off on a long trip back to North America. I'll be photographing again in the U.S. West and in British Columbia, Canada, as well. I'll be looking to see if Americans, particularly, are making any progress in the critical "we're all in this soup together" department. Or will it be another year of visiting a "market society", where everything is up for sale and the walls dividing Americans, rich and poor, liberal and conservative, Christian, Muslim, Jew or non-believer, just keep getting higher - brick by brick by brick... And I'll be missing this rich, imperfect, hand-woven tapestry, South Africa, every day I'm gone. Sala hantle, Eric P.S. We fly into Las Vegas (inexpensive flights!), as we have before. I'm putting up a frothy essay "Viva Las Vegas" and a few photos of the larger-than-life Cabella's Huntin' & Fishin' Emporium. If I get some fun snaps, I'll add those later in the week. Stay tuned and thanks for the hundreds of thousands of hits on SAPHOTSAFARI. It's fun for me - and I hope it's a two-way street! LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA...May 8, 2012 "WORLD TO POLITICAL LEADERS: WE'RE "GATVOL!" (FED UP!)" The European elections over the weekend, in France and Greece, were just two more nails in the coffin of a global political leadership that's exasperated voters beyond the limits of endurance. In Greece, where the vote was basically for "none of the above" and in France, where the strutting "business-minded" Sarkosy showed his true colours - by pandering to the far right, citizens are furiously semaphoring their frustration, but to little avail. This whole consumer-driven capitalist pile of junk has hit the wall and, now, there's nowhere to turn. Please don't assume that I have any particular faith in the socialists - and none whatsoever in the Commies (South Africa has prominent Communists in powerful government posts and they are beyond redemption). All manner of politicans these days have a single-minded mantra as far as I can see: Living well! I was taken aback by a recent, annual White House correspondents dinner for President Obama. Basically, this has historically been a light-hearted evening of roasts and toasts. And a few of the best jokey punch lines made it into the next day's news... This year, again, the Elite Media and much of the Washington political class joined in inviting every other Hollywood star and starlet (Lindsay Lohan?, Zooey Deschenel?, even our beloved South African Oscar-winner, Charlize Theron, were all guests of the media tribe that hangs out in the White House Press Room. Why? They have new products (movies) to promote and sell. The NYTimes ran a breathless front page slide show of the designer dresses worn by the powerful media mavens and celebrities for what was, until a handful of years ago, a little-noticed "family affair". G-a-a-k! All over the world "public servants" have seemingly forgotten their mandate to serve the public. And to live moderately in doing so. South Africa is absolutely no exception...
 I SHOT THIS PHOTO AT A LOCAL SECONDARY SCHOOL RUGBY MATCH LAST SATURDAY.
SOON THIS FIRST SOUTH AFRICAN 'BORN FREE' GENERATION WILL BE ASSUMING ADULT RESPONSIBILITIES... I HOPE THEY REMEMBER: DEMOCRACY IS NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED. PERSONALLY, I THINK THEY'LL BE BRILLIANT! So, do we slide into anarchy, each citizen a soldier and bitterly plod on? Gad, I hope not. As I survey the landscape from this obscure perch deep in the South Atlantic, I see a political class that's never been tested, no figurative "baptisms of fire". They're simply annointed, instead.These politicians are products of privilege or family dynasties or zealous religious groups, "luck-of-the-draw" winners in life's lottery or political hacks coughed up by parties. Parties that need patsies up front so they can run amok, unmolested by the law. We, all of us, need to look for leaders who know how to sweat. For whom pain, mental or physical is part of their vocabulary. Men and women who live modestly by choice, who understand self-discipline, who naturally lend a helping hand and who, most particularly, don't see outsized wealth as the only worthy goal in life. Nelson Mandela, here in SA, never strutted around "living large". Nor Bishop Tutu. Nor did the Lincolns or the Ghandis. Or Martin Luther King. These people drew their inspiration from the people they served and never forgot that service is a privilege. These cheap imposter pols that plague far too many of our societies today need to be given a spanking and shown the door. The citizens of Tunesia, Egypt, Russia, Syria, Thailand and now, perhaps, Kenya deserve kudos from us all. They stood up! Europeans finally, and even the recalitrant Americans(Occupy Wall Street et al), are signaling that they,too, are "gatvol!" - fed up! - in SA Afrikaans. Good governance is a right and a responsibility for progressive societies. For the people to abdicate this task to profligate politicians is, in the end, our own fault. Successful democracy is citizen participation. Anything less is exactly the hi-jacked mess we look at - everywhere. Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA...May 5, 2012 "EDUCATIONAL EARTHQUAKE AS HARVARD, M.I.T., OTHERS, SUDDENLY GO ON LINE - FOR FREE!" News this week of two major American universities announcing $60,000,000 investments in putting a range of their courses on-line for free, has more than a few heads turning - they're spinning! As usual, the Americans are late to the party, but better late than never... This epic development may have direct roots in this god-awful recession the world is mired in. The cost of bricks and mortar education at the university level has shot through the roof in the U.S., in part because conservative political groups have on unvarying theme -low taxes. This quickly translates into cuts for the poor, the sick, the homeless and, naturally, that other enemy of the people -students! Meanwhile, the children of privilege are being admitted as never before for the simplest of reasons - they don't need scholarships. At the University of Washington, in Seattle, where I earned my Masters, foreign students, mainly Chinese, are being given scarce enrollment seats that used to go to Washington State residents because they, too, have hard cash.
 THE WORLD'S THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE. SUDDENLY, THE VERY BEST EDUCATION MAY BE DEMOCRATIZED... The punted programs from Harvard, M.I.T., Stanford, etc. will be available world-wide - free. Excellent. Did you know that South Africa's UNISA (University of South Africa) is years ahead of these Johnny-come-Latelies? The UNISA on-line university has 300,000 enrolled students in 130 countries. It's the largest university on the continent and, some say, the world (it has a physical campus, as well) and for years has been offering distance-learning to millions of students who otherwise could never afford a quality education. The whole idea of building enough higher ed classrooms for an education-obsessed world, boggles the mind, so we can expect UNISA and these new U.S. programs, and others elsewhere, to fill a pressing need. UNISA offers academic programs (check it out at www.unisa.co.za), but it also does important work with vocational instruction. I'm frankly a strident supporter of these programs, because societies need all those physical skills, think "blue-collar", just as much as it needs engineers and doctors and teachers, nurses and poets. South Africa currently has a woeful shortage of professional welders, which is slowing down the build-out of two huge new power plants at Kusile and Madupi. We will have a touch and go electrical grid here for the next several years - so this welder scarcity has critical implications for the whole economy. Meanwhile, gazillions of young people in SA have no usable skills whatsoever. Distance learning (on-line education) should have a huge impact on just these skills distribution inequalities. And here, and globally, quality higher education may have a whisper of a chance of becoming universal over succeeding decades. Let us hope...
That leaves you, reader, with only one remaining conundrum: what do you want to do with your professional life? "Ha-ha", you laugh weakly... At the pace with which our world is accelerating, that's not quite as absurd as it sounds. Here's my free, unsolicited, distance learning "Tip Of The Day". Go slowly in throwing all your energy into one arcane field. I have a Masters in Journalism / Communications that was dearly paid for over two years of my life (no regrets). But professional print journos are fewer by the hour these days. Did I mention, I was a professional fine furniture designer and maker for 13 years? In the U.S., most of that work is long-gone, replaced by computer design and cut software programs, with much of the assembly done in low-cost labour sectors of the world. So there are two high-skill, time & money investments that evapaorated, in my short time on this earth. Don't get trapped in one niche, because statistics clearly show that many, perhaps most, of us will have serial careers. An then, finally, work goes so much better if you enjoy your occupation. (Many lawyers and doctors are miserable, but can't re-invent themselves because their sunk costs are so high. At least that's what they say...) In SA and many countries, young people of 16 and 18 years are embarking on higher education careers with, say, chartered accountancy or law. How can you possibly know what you'll be interested when you're 30, 40 or 50? So give youself a little wriggle room. For me, that's always meant having a dedicated curiousity for new interests. Pure pleasure! Yesterday, I put up a new website I built for a property sale in North America - decked out in cool photos and text. When it went up, I even got a jolt! It looks terrific and the hits are already coming in. Two years ago, I didn't know "boo" about website design, construction or management. SAPHOTOSAFRI is closing in on 700,000 hits - and I couldn't be happier with my own, new 0n-line education! Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... May 2, 2012 "THE WAY THINGS ARE GOING, SOON 'NORMAL' - WILL BE THE NEW NORMAL..." Ten fingers, ten toes! What new parent doesn't first look in wonder at their miracle baby and not instantly think, "Thank god, ten fingers, ten toes!" In these fraught times, I like to do a quick reality check, and not just the toes, to remind myself of how many blessings I have - even if our collective budget is getting squeezed here in South Africa, seemingly by the hour. In the last weeks, horrific increases have taken place in SA electricity (groan!), petrol (ouch!), groceries (expletive deleted!). Up-country around Johannesburg, ugly demonstrations have erupted over something called "e-tolling". This hare-brained scheme sought to set up toll booths on all the main carriageways around The Great Metropolis and tickle motorists a king's ransom - mostly electronically, thus "e-tolling" - to pay for all the new concrete fly-overs and extra lanes etc. that have been built for a growing city. So what's the problem with that? Simple, the "e-tolling" was to be done by an Austrian outfit that got the juicy contract by agreeing to collect 3 rands for every 2 rands used to pay for the R20,000,000,00 concrete build-out. Taxpayers smelled an e-rat! Plus it would be so much more cost-efficient to just add the tax into the fuel levy. But, no, the powers-that-be elected - to add a whole new bureaucracy. South Africans smoulder and simmered! Cosatu, a huge umbrella union, led the street and media protests and it proved a big time hot-button issue for SA's strapped citizenry. Government here, as in so many other places, seems tone-deaf to the staggering burden they dump on taxpayers. Having lived and travelled around the world, I know there's nothing more inflammatory than seeing elite "public servants" living it up (no profit required in government work!), while the constituent taxpayers squirm in pain at the lack of service deliver or even simple humanity issues...  THE NEXT SOUTH ATLANTIC GALE FORCE RAINSTORM WILL BE COMING SOON.
THANK GOODNESS, OUR ANTIQUE WOOD HEATER WILL BE KEEPING US TOASTY IN OUR LIVING ROOM... FOR CHEAP! So why not commit hari-kari and fall on our collective sword? Simple. Life in South Africa (and where you live, too!) isn't about bloody fools in government. And that's what I, and likely you, need to focus on in this rough patch. Autumn, by way of example, has been giving the very bottom tip of Africa (where I live) a seasonal thumping in recent days that's been downright spine-tingling! And welcome! Our area is a Mediterranean climate. Winter rains, good or bad, acccurately forecast the coming year for our huge fruit and wine farms. Even the historic "leiwater" (irrigation) system that scoots torrents of water past our house once a week all summer, depends on these winter storms for the life-giving soak to our huge oak and plane shade trees in our village. Your correspondent takes a certain manly pride on these chilly mornings, in setting wood fires in our antique French wood heater. South Africans don't have central heating, so in the cold winter months of June, July and August, we all pile on the sweaters - and if we're lucky, keep one room nice and cozy for meals, conversation, reading, "projects" and visitors - with a wattle hardwood fire. That one warm room is a joy of no small proportions... And those wood fires are affordable here, even in a pinch.
And that's the scale of living that, increasingly, many of us around this wobbly planet are going to have to adjust to - and be happy with. Is it just the food - or the company - that make meals a pleasure? Is it the kilometres travelled - or the destination reached -that makes us feel buoyant and happy inside? Is there something better about our rainy season than yours? Of course, not. Or the view from where I live (mountains) or your likely busy urban landscape with humanity bustling all around? No. Lynn and I recently saw three movies (there's cheap entertainment), that absolutely enchanted us -all three screens were only a few k's from where we live, so a tiny petrol burn. The Best Marigold Hotel (India), Separation (Iran) and Semi-Sweet (South Africa /Afrikaans). You know what? We were captivated with each one for different reasons. Movie-going lesson learned: we all have beguiling cultures we inhabit! Even when the money's tight, we still have our ten fingers and ten toes. And since normal looks set to be the new -normal. Rejoice! If only we didn't have those dreadful government officials to muck things up... Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA...April 28, 2012 " SOUTH AFRICA'S FREEDOM DAY CATHARSIS... : CATHARSIS: the release of pent-up emotions. South Africa's Apartheid scars may never completely go away. What was done in the name of race, privilege and position was unforgivable. Eighteen years after democracy was voted in by all South Africans, April 27th still brings raw emotions to the surface as I found out yesterday. The country has made remarkable material strides (the gorgeous airports, highways, shopping malls to rival the best anywhere!), the smiles are as beautiful as ever, millions are free to make better lives for their families, but the pain of remembrance continues, even if it's less raw. Yesterday morning I was drinking my mug of coffee and listening to a talk radio show that multitudes of Seffricans wake up to every day. For this national holiday it was simulcasting to both Joberg and Cape Town. I knew it was Freedom Day, so I expected to hear the usual politician's guff about how great we all are, while conveniently forgetting to mention the 50% unemployment rate. But that's not what happened...
 MADIBA'S MAGIC GAVE BIRTH TO THE NEW SOUTH AFRICA. HE IS STILL LIVING - AND UNIVERSALLY ADORED! There were no politicians. Instead, ordinary callers, Black, White and Coloured, recounted their memories of the first day in South Africa's history that everyone voted. Blacks and coloureds confessed to the intense emotions, throughout the long waits in the voting queques. People voted - and were immediately convulsed in tears. (A black woman once told me it was the first time she'd felt like a human being in her whole life!) A white woman phoned to tell how her husband, days after Mandela was overwhelming elected, saw a small crowd in Somerset, a town outside of Cape Town. He strolled over and the next thing he knew he was shaking Madiba's hand! "He was so kind and gentle!", her husband exclaimed as he breathlessly raced into the house with the news. Mind you, most South African Whites thought of Black revolutionaries as fire-breathing terrorists. But, no, they began to realize, Blacks wanted to live in peace and freedom, just like their oppressors. The country was on tenterhooks for a long time after that 1994 vote. It was hard to imagine that an earthquake like South Africa was experiencing, the peaceful handing over of political power from Whites to Blacks, could possibly go smoothly and without violence. But it did. Madiba magic brought out the better angels in all South Africans and no political shot has ever been fired since that vote... The country is and will always be imperfect, of course. Our current black political leadership is wanting, but somehow in voting, freely and universally, for a new constitution and a new President, all South Africans committed themselves to a peaceful political future. Look around you at the tormented world we live in. South Africa's peaceful transition to democracy is a towering acheivement... Repeatedly yesterday, Black callers remembered the one moment that grabbed their emotions the most. It was Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela's swearing in ceremony on May 10, 1994. As Mandela strode up the steps of the Union Buildings to take his oath of office, a White Army General saluted him. Millions of South Africans, watching on TV, gasped! Maybe the terrible pain of Apartheid really was over. I have to tell you I cried along with the announcer and thousands of listeners. Catharsis: the release of pent-up emotions. It felt good. Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... April 24,2o12 "A REVOLUTIONARY CAR BATTERY? (We already know Mr. SAPHOTOSAFRI isn't a 'car guy', so now he's going to give us a primer on automobile batteries... Great! OK, maybe I barely know my "boot" from my "bonnet" (I'm talking about cars here!), but I have to bleed cash to get propelled around this planet like everybody else, so I've got this ready-made bully pulpit and I intend to squawk loudly. Until Big Oil gets a throttling from consumers, who would expect them to behave any differently than the arm-twisters they are. Besides, governments around the world are making a fortune in taxes off of oil products, so they're complicit in the extreme, right? I know it. Suddenly, your restless correspondent, at the tired end of a work day, did something I almost never do; I picked up the "Drive Times" weekly insert in the Cape Times, and began a casual perusal of the "World of Cars". Then whack, one story leaped off the page! "IBM READY TO REVEAL REVOLUTIONARY BATTERY" Yada, yada,yada... How many times have we all been flim-flamed by the PR department at some goliath corporation? Still, gullible citizen that I am, I plunged into the story. My friend, there's a tiny ray of hope in our collective future... The current crop of battery-powered vehicles are duds when it comes to any sort of extended driving range. The Nissan Leaf, the world's first true, mass-production battery-powered car gets 160k's before it needs to be re-charged. Predictably, it's quite a flop in the marketplace. South Africa has glorious, wide-open spaces and many beautiful highways to sweep you along to your destination. But, do you really want to pull over for a bathroom break, cup of coffee - and an eight-hour recharge? I thought so. Me neither.  '"LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA". BUT DID YOU REALLY WANT TO GAZE FONDLY AT A CAR BATTERY? BESIDES THESE MODELS ARE SOUTH AFRICAN GIRLS, INTRODUCING VICTORIA SECRET'S NEW LINE OF FRILLY SOMETHINGS IN NEW YORK CITY. THAT'S SUPER HOT! NOW WILL YOU PLEASE CONTINUE GROWING YOUR MIND WITH MY CAR BATTERY "LETTER"? THANK YOU... So, into the chasm stepped IBM, of business services and main frame computer fame. They started researching new battery ideas. And with deep pockets and some partners, they've hit on a doozy of a battery tech break-through. Their battery uses "energy-dense lithium metal" to react with - free oxygen in the air. The battery stores 10 times more energy than the lithium ion baterries that are the world's current benchmark (My laptop and your iPad, smartphone, etc. are lithium ion-powered in their portable lives). These new batteries can store giant quantities of energy and will send your fuel-efficient green car of the future down the highway for 800 kilometres on a single charge. Wow! Better yet, since the lithium metal batteries react with oxygen in the air, they are light and compact. This latter issue is tremendously important because current battery-powered cars have huge, heavy batteries that have to be lugged around in the vehicle, tamping down mileage. IBM is talking about having this technology in family cars in five years. Yowsa! Still, I have one concern. I foolishly thought "air-time" would be nearly free - for cell phones and computers. I mean "air-time", how can that be priced up there with gold and platinum? You don't think they'd dare charge for "free oxygen", like they do for air-time", do you? I doubt it, because all the car ads in the Cape Times car supplement clearly indicate these mega-corps are responsibly striving to save the environment - while providing us consumers with astonishingly low-priced transport. Apparently, we're home free. Still, don't get your hopes too high just yet... Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA...April 21, 2012 "SONY TAKES A DIVE... OUCH! I grew up coveting SONY products. They were cool and, while I always groused about paying a premium for the brand, I and millions of others felt a little extra swagger in our step jogging with a SONY brand Walkman. We haven't owned a TV for decades (shocking, I know!) so no Triniton, but I've shelled out the big bucks for fancy SONY semi-pro camcorders and their newest digital cameras. Today, I'm the happy owner of a SONY 580, one of their rare way-cool products. It takes twenty-five or so photos in panarama mode and stitches them together - in the camera. That's hot!
 But sadly, not much else has gone right for the company for a good long while. They flubbed flat-panel televisions and took a pass on digital music players like the iPod. Where were they that they didn't quite get the Internet / digital marriage? Answer: chewing up their reputation in departmental "turf" wars, from what I read. Everything SONY touches always has to have proprietary features. This drives customers nuts, me especially, as Sony attempts to coerce their loyal fan base into buying other work-together SONY products. A case in point: I've been "gatvol", SA Afrikanner for "fed up", having to pay a fortune for SONY Menory Sticks for my cameras. Then they shrunk the damn things and I had to use an adapter to load photos onto my computer. When my SONY laptop finally tanked, I bought a Toshiba (great product for running SAPHOTOSAFARI.COM and it travels well which is really important to me!) Thank goodness my new SONY 580 takes dual memory cards, so I can use SD cards like the rest of the planet earth Tech Tribe. But if they hadn't done that, I may well have drifted off and bought a Nikon or Canon. Too stupid!  THESE DAYS IT'S KIND OF LONELY OWNING SONY PRODUCTS, SINCE THE COMPANY RAN OUT OF FRESH IDEAS. MY CAMERA, BEING THE EXCEPTION THAT PROVES THE RULE, OF COURSE. ISN'T IT? Maybe corporations are more like people than we realize. Maybe countries are more like corporations than they realize. As I noted in my last "Letter From South Africa", on Walmart, there's absolutely nothing sexy about going shopping while eating yourself to an early grave. The vaunted Americans seem hell-bent on this fate and as a nation-state, the U.S. (and E.U. countries, too) also, and dangerously, seem bereft of fresh ideas. In a world of competitive ideas and marketplaces, more of the same doesn't cut it for long, eh? So how long before Apple gets too rich and too set in its ways? And too fat. Sala hantle for now, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... April 16, 2012 "WALMART: "DEATH BY DISCOUNTS" If I were running for political office - and hoped to be elected - "Everyday Low Prices" would make an excellent campaign slogan. For the simple truth is, Walmart is only killing the competition with something we Global Village Inhabitants demand in the 21st Century: We want it cheap! We hate taxes, but even more we hate paying even a jot more than the lowest price the marketplace can summon. So predictably, Ol' Sam Walton, Walmart's founder, realized that the way to get rich (all his kids are billionaires) was to pile 'em high and sell it cheap. When you tour a multi football field-sized Walmart, as we did in the USA last year, you quickly see that nothing's changed in half a century. It's just a giant soulless warehouse packed to the rafters with, dare I say it, stuff. You want, need, desire, crave the latest stuff - Walmart's got it. And got it cheap. I'm somewhat puzzled by the pack-rat nature of modern consumer society, because, as with your supper, you're supposed to know when you're full and stop eating. But consumers, Americans especially, seem to have lost the "switch" button on their appetites, both with food and consumer goods. They don't seem to know when enough is enough.  One of the fastest growing businesses in America is "mini-storage". That's where your consumer Consumer spending represents 70% of the U.S. economy ( and 33% of adult Americans are obese), so you can see that the society that's been constructed since WWII, has lost much of its individual creative, physical, do-it-yourself "spark". People can't think of anything better to do, so they drive to Walmart and shuffle through the aisles tossing stuff into the trolley. Do you see much smiling while customers hypnotically walk through this exercise? Are people happier in America, and the world, because they're experts in "retail therapy"? Nobody asked for my opinion, but I don't think so. I'd venture to guess that Walmart's staggering success in throttling the competition is a pretty stark omen for humankind's future prospects. The passivity, the dull eyes, the waddling bodies, the abject lack of taste, the absence of meaningful conversation that we witnessed at Walmart is truly depressing. Because I have the great privilege of travelling - and living - in many areas of the world, I immediately notice the American malaise. I feel it has its umbilical cord linked to "affluenza": too much affluence dulls the mind - and the conscience. We see its tentacles here in South Africa in a political apparatus that has lost its mission to uplift the poor of this magnificent country and, instead, merely live extravgantly. Elsewhere, it's serial wars that no one can find on a map or quite remember when or why they were started. And it's an emerging plutocracy that puts wealth and acquisitions above all else.stuff goes to die when you're bored with it...Rentals units now available!  How about a convenient Walmart or other Big Box right in the middle of this Utah hayfield? Hay is low value and the Walmart super-store will generate taxes and jobs, right? And a tidy fortune for the seller of this ranch. Maybe we should have a discussion about selling our souls for plastic disposibles? "Why does it always seem to go, we don't know what we've got till it's gone.Pave paradise and put up a parking lot..." J. Mitchell, songwriter So. Mr. SAPHOTOSAFARI, if you're so savvy, what should we all do to save ourselves from the perils of Walmart? OK, are you ready? Turn off the tube, your smartphone, scratch-cook a meal, actually read a book on your new Kindle and then write a book(!), take a walk, then take a hike, then ride a bicycle from one side of your country to the other - camping as you go. Play a new sport where you're forced to run until you drop. Help the poor and screwed over in your community(!) And then take an ethical political stand on one issue you care about -and fight like hell to change the world! Walmart and general shopping is a pathetic excuse to be alive on this precious planet. In your heart you know it, so do something about it.... Excuse me, I've got to dash over to the store and grab a few things. And check out that pressure washer I still hankering to own. Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... APRIL 13, 2012 "THE 'AWL BIDNESS': WHY IS THE BLACK, GOOEY STUFF SO DAMNED EXPENSIVE?" Those legendary Texas oil barons who used to refer to the "awl bidness" (oil business) in the 'awl patch' (Texas), always seemed to be poking another 'wildcat' well into the 'back forty' on their outsized ranches and, bingo, another gusher! Sadly, those days are so far gone they seem almost quaint. Today multinationals bring up the demon 'black gold' from kilometres below sea level (there's nearly always a hefty oil slick somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea or off-shore in poor Nigeria these days. Or at least it seems that way...). Now with new fracking technology, even the U.S. is dramatically increasing its oil production. Much of the world is still in recession. China and India account for some of the growth in oil demand globally, so, yes, we can imagine a slow uptick in oil prices... But no, instead South Africans ($1.50 litre / $6 a gallon here) and everyone else is facing another giant spike - in oil prices. Joseph P. Kennedy II, writing in the NY Times a few days ago, laid the blame on speculators. And wouldn't you know it, the speculators are the same usual suspects who've sent food prices through the roof as they trade wheat and maize, particularly, to stratospheric levels. Here in SA, a loaf of white bread is now almost out of reach of millions of poor people. It's shocking! Kennedy notes that speculation is quite new to the oil trading markets. In the 1990's, Goldman Sachs got the rules changed with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which allowed them, hedge funds and investment banks to trade oil futures. And, boy, did they!  In my experience, our SA lions roar because of their insatiable appetites. I wonder if they might fancy a speculator or two from time to time? Safari bungles do happen, you know... Just kidding, of course. While the world produces about 85 million barrels of oil daily (so-called "wet" barrels), the oil futures markets routinely trade more than one billion "paper"barrels every day. Here's the math: 9 out of every 10 oil futures contracts traded are by speculators. They pour billions of dollars into the markets and, surprise, surprise, the price of oil rockets to nose-bleed levels. And you take a whack whether you own a car, ride a taxi or train or eat your breakfast. Or drink a Coke (transport, chilling costs go up...). Unlike trading orange juice futures, Kennedy notes, which consumers will stop drinking if the price goes too high (and switich to, say, appple juice), the boys in the oil trading racket have got us. We have to buy oil. Lynn and I have committed in recent months to consuming a single tank of petrol a month as our little protest - and with our fuel-sipping Toyota, the pain has been pretty minimal... What is the real price of oil? Well, it costs, globally, about $11 a barrel to pump oil out of the ground. Plus refining, transport and government taxes, plus retailer profits. After those imput costs, the price of oil is still 40% too high, Kennedy calculates. He should know. He's been the head of a non-profit organization for thirty years that buys and sells home-heating oil for poor people struggling to survive the freezing New England, USA, winters. Joe Kennedy's uncle, assassinated U.S. President John F. Kennedy, used to famously inspire Americans to "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country!" Over on Wall Street, speculators scoff at those idealistic words. These days it's "Drill, baby, drill!" - and grab all the oil futures you can finagle... Sala hantle, Eric In previous "Letters", I've alluded to a lifetime of, mostly, small business self-employment. So it seems pretty natural to me to survey the South African and African business landscape continually, which is easy to do because SA has great business coverage in its newspapers. (CNBC AFRICA, predictably, is headquartered in Johannesburg, SA.) Africa is the second fastest growing region in the world (around 5% annual growth, less in SA) after Asia. With the convergence of its stupendous patrimony of mineral wealth and a China-led commodity boom, that's not that surprising. What is surprising is to see the boom across much of Africa in air travel, tourism, automobile manufacturing, agriculture, pharmaceutical production and primary industries like steel and aluminium smelting. SA's big on the latter... An interview this week in SA's excellent Sunday Times caught my eye because of everything I've mentioned in the previous paragraph. Mark Bristow is the CEO of Randgold, a mining house with mines across the continent. Unlike President Barack Obama, whose Secret Service minders put him on Air Force One (a Boeing 747!) to give a speech for an hour, 170 kilometres away in Richmond, Virginia and then fly home, Bristow spends a huge chunk of his worklife zipping around Africa in a light aircraft, inspecting company assets, talking to his workforce and managers and consulting with government ministries everywhere he travels. That caught my eye...  THESE YOUNG MEN FROM ST. ANDREWS COLLEGE (secondary school) IN GRAHAMSTOWN, WILL MAKE EXCELLENT FUTURE CITIZENS FOR SOUTH AFRICA... Bristow happened to be in Mali, West Africa last week. This prospering democratic country had a "surprise"coup by junior army officer, even as scheduled elections were in the offing. Tauregs used the political vacuum to make a lightening seisure of the northern half of the country, assisted by leftover mercenaries, et al, from the failed Kaddafi regime in Libya. The Americans and British issued their usual shrill travel warnings to their sundry compatriots - and raced for the exits. H-m-m-m. As part of his task, Bristow keeps an ear to the ground via his in-country employees and he'd already been tipped off that some military mischief was in the works. He stayed put in his hotel and the next day, after the coup, made the ministerial rounds to show the Randgold colours and to reassure civil servants in the ministries that Randgold would continue making its normal mining tax payments ($1,000,000,000 since 2001). He departed Mali for his next stop - the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where as usual, Bristow arrived in a small plane, grabed his duffle, and was driven off to inspect a mine by his on-site, usually local, managers. In the Times interview, he specifically noted that Randgold resists all temptations to slip government ministers a dodgy bribe for mining concessions. That practice just leads to further bribes down the road. His company has no problems when governments change, even after legitimate elections, because Randgold has followed best ethical business practices. How's business, Mr. Bristow? Business is good, he reports! Mark Bristow is very keen on Africa's future with his one cautionary being "south of the Limpopo", namely South Africa. He notes the governing party in SA is spending way too much time in internecine party ructions and way too little time pushing SA into the 21st Century - with quality education, infrastructure spend , R&D investments, clean, productive governance (including a meritocracy in the civil service). And that issues of racism, both black and white, unlike West Africa's former French and British colonies, continue to plague the public space. Wow. That's quite a statement. I live here and I can't really disagree... and millions of South Africans, of all descriptions, won't disagree, either. So, is Africa a good place to do business? You bet. And when businesses apply the same practices that are expected everywhere else in the 21st Century global marketplace, they strengthen African institutions and ramp up their chances for success. If Bristow's stunning South Africa is a bit of a laggard, I'd love to see the rest of the continent. Right now! Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... April 7, 2012 SA'S RIAAN STASSEN: A BANKER YOU CAN LOVE! Can one individual change the world? Yes, but rarely, you correctly reply. South Africa's Nelson Mandela did - and overt racism has been back-peddling ever since. Burma's Aung Sung Suu Chi is changing the political face of her country and inspires millions by her selfless acts. But the individual I'd like to introduce you to today isn't a Mandela or a Suu Kyi. He's just a modest South African businessman, who in looking to make a profit, revolutionized conventional banking here. His name is Riaan Stassen. He's an unassuming chartered accountant, who saw an opening for SA's millions of "unbanked" poor. In 2001, he launched Capitec Bank as a super low-cost venue for impoverished blacks and coloureds. These enfranchised citizens suddenly had modest incomes to protect and to spend on consumer goods, education, etc. Many of us might not think having a plastic bank card is a big deal, but in South Africa it's the first tiny, dignified step in entering modern society... It's a Big Deal.  Flying under the radar, Stassen carefully opened his Capitec Bank branches in poor shopping neighbourhoods, avoidly any direct conflict with the majors. When Lynn and I opened our account with Capitec three years ago at a packed branch, we were the only whites in the 'store'. No matter! Everyone, including the Capitec employees, were chortling through their banking chores in good humour. Then 40,000 new accounts were opened monthly, then 70,000! Once you're signed up and have your card, the Capitec business model relies on automation. We withdraw cash virtually free at Capitec's omnipresent branch ATM's and stand alone ATM's and can get cash at supermarkets -up to R2500 ($325) - for a banking charge of one (1) rand (12 cents U.S.)! Cheap. All other tasks, money tranfers, etc., we do on-line. If you need help - a Capitec employee actually answers your phone call! And in 2012, everybody's still smiling - that snarky smile of hard-pressed consumers saving their hard-earned money. Savings accounts pay excellent interest rates. Have you ever heard anybody brag about where they bank? Capitec customers love their bank and brag about it. The only South Africans who aren't smiling are those stodgy Big Banks - who now run full-page adverts in the newspapers leading you to believe that free banking services are their only passion in life, while laying off employees. Riaan Stassen doesn't gloat. He just keeps opening new branches, next door to the majors these days. And SA's Middle Class, white, black, or brown? They're opening Capitec accounts at a fevered pace. Stassen's headline earnings were up 68% last year and still shooting out the lights in 2012. Weird guys like Riaan Stassen may just save Capitalism from itself. Meanwhile, as I regard my plastic Capitec Bank card on my office desk here, I'm secretly thinking, "Boy, am I smart!" Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... APRIL 4, 2012 "THE LIGHTER SIDE OF AMERICAN HANDGUN DEATHS..." It's tough after a week covering the SA Cape Epic Mountain Bike Race, to wake up on this chill autumn morning, filter a strong cup of Joe and look at the on-line New York Times. Oh geez, here we go again. This time in the land of milk and honey, seven college students were shot dead and three more wounded in Oakland, California - at a religious college. Natch, thousands more are in the streets after a Florida "Neighbourhood Watch" dude blasted a seventeen year old black kid, Trayvon Martin, to death. Trayvon's crime? He was drinking soda and munching Skittles as he walked to his step-aunt's condo in a gated community. The guard quickly draped himself in Florida's "Stand Your Ground" handgun law, which apparently allows you to shoot anyone if you feel threatened... I actually read a selection of American newspapers, daily, because I am a Natural Born Idiot. I used to read the papers for politics, travel, humour, sports, editorials and feature stories. Oh, did I forget to mention"world news"? Oh well, few Americans bother with that exercise any longer. The world? Ha! What's that? The handgun murder dramas trump just about everything else these days...  A FEW MACHINE GUN ROUNDS... IT'S THE FUN THING TO DO! As I've written before, Utah and one or two other states, now have gun laws that allow students to arrive in their university classrooms packing heat. There's a great idea! The theory here is simple and illustrates the keen thinking of your average American concealed weapon enthusiast. If the good guys in the classroom have concealed weapons, then when the next deranged student leaps up for another run-of-the-mill shooting spree, they can leap up and mow him down. Because of the marksmanship of the good guys, no other students will be injured. Yes! Who among us can oppose this wisdom? I wonder if Arizona Congresswoman, Gabriel Gifford, had packed some punch in her purse, if she might have lobotomized her assailant before he lobotomized her ( and the other dozen bystanders that were killed and wounded that grim day in the Tucson supermarket parking lot...) A commonplace American bumper sticker (from the same crowd of handgun enthusiasts) states: "Guns don't kill people, people do!" Would I offend you if I said, "Bullshit!"? The U.S. is the only country on earth that has a love affair with handguns. Here in South Africa, getting a licence to carry a handgun is extremely difficult. If you're caught with some of the weapons left over from the Bad Old Days, or if you're in possession of a stolen weapon, do not expect any mercy from the judge. Frankly, it's too late for America. Countries, like individuals, make bad choices and then have to live with the consequences. Absolutely millions of handguns are currently washing around in the U.S. Here are the gratifying statistics in case you've studiously not been paying attention: 30,000 Americans are shot to death each year by handguns, including some suicides (about 900,000 over the last 30 years). Another 105,000 are wounded each year, but survive (at horrific cost!) because of para-medics and hospital emergency room treatment. About 80 Americans die each day from handguns... If you are planning an American holiday, I recommend wearing a Ten Gallon Cowboy Hat. My theory, and it's a good one, is that the empty space in the hat increases the chance that one of those "Stand Your Ground" Yanks will aim poorly and pump lead through your hat, not you head. While the hat will no longer hold water, not even a gallon, it will make a dandy souvenir of your visit to the one place on earth where "Packin' heat - is still sweet!" Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA...March 31, 2012 "SURE THE 'CAPE EPIC' RIDERS ARE COMPLETELY DAFFY, BUT THEY'RE SO POLITE ABOUT IT..." The Cape Epic (Extreme) Mountain Bike Race finally wraps tomorrow. Mercifully! I've been covering it this week and even I'm tired - just watching. If you've been following the coverage here or elsewhere, you know absolutely every imaginable weather, including unholy torrents of rain, has taunted these tempters of fate. Yesterday, many competitors were in the saddle for seven to ten hours. Last night most of the riders slept in soaking wet tents. An heroic laundry team was up most of the night cleaning their mud-caked lycra riding gear. Yech! At least they had clean, dry clothes to squeeze into this morning, as usual, at 5:00 A.M. - when the bagpipe music starts blasting. Yes, today is day six of the race and the joyful regimen never changes...  DEAD MEN WALKING? THE WORLD'S TOP MOUNTAIN BIKE RIDERS, TWENTY MINUTES (AND A SHOWER) AFTER WINNING DAY SIX AT THE CAPE EPIC - IN FIVE MUDDY HOURS OF POURING RAIN! EVEN THOUGH MOSTLY UNCONSCIOUS, THEY'RE STILL POLITE... So having watched the 'Epic' for six or seven years now, I've stopped seeing it as a contrived sporting event for over-stimulated, affluent dilettantes. This race costs real money - and contestants do fly in from all over the world - so, yeah, there's spend. But many of these riders scrimp all year and blow it on this one race. It's that powerful an experience. Plus there are African teams from around the continent that do get financial support. But the Cape Epic is a dream for thousands of riders, who somewhere deep down inside need to find out how they stack up with the competition. It's a basic human need for many, if not most people, but we're furiously suppressing it in our office worklives - or channeling it into military bravado. This blood, sweat and tears scenario is the preferred choice in my book. I joked earlier this week about the London Summer Olympics and the gushing media attention that will follow the 100 metre dash. After chasing these sodden fools this week, '100 metres' sounds like a dreadful attempt at a yuk-yuk joke. You cannot have a sporting event that lasts under 10 seconds! But how often in our contemporary world do we package trivial efforts as serious endeavors? "So You Think You Can Dance?" or "Idols" artists who warble for 3:30 minutes are the real warriors of the 21st Century? I know differently. If you've finished the 800 kilometre Cape Epic, the one that climbs the equivalent of one and a half Mt. Everests in eight days, you're in a league of your own. Finally, despite the enormous growth of this South African race (it's the world's biggest), everybody - racers, organizers, traffic officers, vendors, a thousand people at least - still are nice, helpful, quick to smile. That's what we expect in South Africa! I walked up and chatted with top riders from all over the world this week and unfailingly, I can report, they're normal people. The several thousand spectatators shout encouragement to the riders, sometimes until they're hoarse. Because Seffricans are so decent, they often yell encouragement and applaud! My favourite taunt: "Death Before Dishonour!" With that, up come a dozen, sweaty, exhausted Cape Epic rider faces - laughing! Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... March 26, 2012 "GOOD BUDDY, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT CARS!" What's wrong with me? While other guys, South African 'oakes' (Good Ol' Boys) not excepted, love to crack a cold one and stand around talking c-a-r-s, I find myself quite content to just stand around... and crack a cold one. Not good. Still, I'm a Total Guy as you'll readily discern looking at the photo of my truck that Lynn and I keep at the ready for our explorations of the U.S. West. Here in SA, as petrol prices blast through the roof, we're proudly driving a newish Toyota Corrola - and enjoying, on average, one tank of petrol a month, thank you. In our small town, we walk everywhere, including for much of our groceries. Once a week we zip off in air-conditioned comfort to a small city nearby and load up our Corrola with all the 'stuff ' modern man requires to get through daily living. I call it hunter/gathering. My wife says it's just consumerism and I have to be in serious denial to think otherwise. (At this point I clam up and decide to save serious arguing for more fruitful topics...)  If you take away my truck, what will happen to my tough-guy image? I'm bringing this dreary subject up because I'm going crazy hearing the price of oil on the news every hour of the day, reading about it in the newspaper or simply trying to quick-scan the New York Times. "IRAN TENSIONS SPIKE OIL!" is this month's excuse although it could easily be "Ferry Sinking In Philippines Spikes Oil!" Oddly, all the headlines about end-stage oil and the collapse of life as we know it (what a relief that would be!) have suddenly been replaced by "Fracking Heaven!" stories. The aforementioned NYTimes had a massive in-depth piece about America inching towards energy independence last Thursday (March 22nd). In it, readers learned that our ingenious American energy-type guys (car lovers for sure!) have discovered startling new ways to revitalize old worn out oil fields. First, they drill deep underground with their astonishing, sturdy drill bits. Then they inject toxic stews and explosives, also deep underground, and, after a suitable Richter 7 earthquake is detonated (not to worry), voila, up comes clean, pure oil! The new methods are so effective that wells can now be drilled in half the time and for a fraction of the former cost. Wow! Since fuel consumption is dropping because Americans, the Times noted, are driving considerably fewer miles owing to the recession, stupid, fuel inefficicent vehicles and high-priced petrol, the break-through surge in American oil production can only mean one thing: higher prices! Forget that Exxon-Mobil just reported a jaw-dropping quarterly profit of $9,400,000,000, the real reason for sky-high oil prices is: "IRAN TENSIONS SPIKE OIL!" I'm quite sure Exxon doesn't want to scoop up all those petro-dollars, but they do it anyhow in patriotic support of American foreign policy... I'd like to wind up my latest wing-ding rant about the world with a small story that happened on our oak shaded street this week. Next door actually. Our neighbours, and good friends, got a new car. Well, actually, it's three years old, but it is in showroom new condition, let me assure you. When I saw it gleaming next door, even I felt an ancient tug not felt for years and began, almost involuntarily, to drift into the new car's orbit. My neighbour, Adriaan, sensing my light-headedness, opened the driver's door with the same aplomb rich guys must use when they invite beautiful women into their BMW's - just for a spin. He turned the ignition key part-way only. The dash lights gleamed like something out of a deep space Spielberg flick. Important motoring information was made seductively available in several luxe hues. The upholstery, the chrome finishes, the tinted glass, the music system... Adriaan's daughter, aged 12, arranged for other neighbour girls to sit in the back seat and giggle. Plans were made to ride in the car to school the next day, a special treat! After all the fuss had died down and I was sitting under my old pear tree in our patio, I thought: Boy, I needed that car moment. For just a few minutes, to have everything perfect in life, what a pleasure! And so, exactly what was my neighbour's new car dream-come-true: a Honda Civic! That's the South Africa I love. Not over the top ,but just right! Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA...March 23, 2012 "MALACHITE, AMETHYST AND DOUBLE-COLLARED SUNBIRDS TO THE RESCUE..." Jeepers creepers what a week of bummer news. Social upheavals here in the Western Cape. Torrents of political corruption, incompetence and downright boneheadedness stories filling the front pages of our newspapers. Then, of course, Toulousse, France. Ugly! Then for comic relief we've been hearing the tawdry tale of the U.S. Congress defending its least-known perk, the right to insider trading! Great. I've been wondering how they all got so rich. And not just the Senators and Congressmen and women, but also their staffs apparently had a legal right to buy and sell equities (stocks) on insider information. Prominent Wall Street types have been sent to prison for this dodgy business in recent months, but until the TV show Sixty Minutes outed the practice this month, it was a sacrosanct privilege for America's national politicians. Enough already!  CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: FEMALE AMETHYST SUNBIRD, MALE MALACHITE SUNBIRD, MALE DOUBLE-COLLARED SUNBIRD Shading our brick patio, a couple of steps from our kitchen, there's an ancient patio pear tree that's our pride and joy... The pear tree dates from 1928, about the same time our old Cape Country brick house was constructed. At lunch most days, and then again late in the afternoon, Lynn and I repose in its shade and unwind from the daily rigors that accrue to people who attempt to operate an international website (72,000 hits last month), teach English as a second language to SA's previously disadvantaged and all the other hoo-hah that goes into being alive in these strange, awkward times. We've had serious protests in our small town and adjacent communities this week that on the surface seem to be ructions over crowded schools and housing shortages for the poor. A more careful look reveals an important bi-election next week and the political opposition making mischief to de-stabilise local government. These issues are compounded by a stalled South African economy that is not creating many good jobs - or decent living standards for millions of Seffricans, 18 years after democracy arrived. Ouch - as in pain. The prices of petrol, electricity, commuter trains, toll roads (upcountry) and foodstuffs are all going through the roof and everyone is knocked off balance and anxious. I think, too, South Africa has for too long basked in the shadow of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, now deep in his twilight years and out of politics. It always seemed that with a saint like Madiba on our team how could we come up short? SA remains wealthy with vast minerals, brilliant infrastructure, top notch talent and, basically, good-hearted citizens, one and all. But, nirvana? It won't be happening in my lifetime... So back to those, tiny buzzing Sunbirds... Lynn and I relax for happy minutes, daily, under that old pear tree, watching these hyper-active, brilliantly coloured birds battle it out for feeding privileges at our sunbird feeder. They're acrobats. And each has a dozen tricks to gain a few moments access to easy-living (sugar water) with their long curved bills, before being displaced by zooming competitors. Maybe, a little like we humans, their pleasure isn't entirely in the syrupy liquid, but in the combustible nature of their social relations. The undeniable buzz we get jostling for our own place in the sun - and succeeding, seems to apply to our feathered friends as well. But until this wobbly planet settles down and economies begin to grow again (or we all decide to do with less), there won't be too much succeeding, laughing or general joie de vivre for humankind here in South Africa or anywhere else... Now, if only we could find some larger-than-life honest politicians to set things straight... Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA...March 20, 2012 "YADAV DELIVERS A LIGHTNING STRIKE TO INDIA'S POLITICAL LANDSCAPE..." Uttar Pradesh is India's largest state, but also its poorest. It's the home of the Taj Mahal. It's way up top, close to Nepal, north of Delhi. Much of it is very beautiful (I once stayed in a Himalayan hill station, ate fresh chipatis on the street and nearly froze in my unheated hotel room. Just what independent travel is all about; I loved it!). But a political earthquake rocked all of India this week and its epicentre was, unexpectedly, Uttar Pradesh. Akhilesh Singh Yadav was elected and became the U.P.'s new Chief Minister. He's just 38 years old. While he comes from a political dynasty of sorts, he was not given much chance against the real dynastic candidate, Rahul Ghandi, heir to the Nehru/Ghandi political throne. I'm not going to focus here on Indian politics, except to note that there is a major "gatvol" (fed up! in South African Afrikaans) streak running through Indian politics over the last year or so. Corruption, incompetence, maladministration are not confined to India by a long shot, but its worse than in many other countries, so maybe it's not too surprising that voters are up in arms there. Or that the spark was struck in Uttar Pradesh. So how did the long-shot, Yadav, pull off his political coup in a state bigger than most countries - 190 million people?  UTTAR PRADESH'S NEW CHIEF MINISTER, 38 YEAR OLD AKHILESH SINGH YADAV I noted several positive signs in the news accounts. Yadav did his graduate studies abroad in Australia, in environmental engineering. Good! If you haven't been out in the world and you hunger for political office - you're going nowhere. The velocity of life now, the collapsing of nation-state barriers ( free-trade zones are a perfect example - from South America, to Asia to Europe to North America), the mingling of people of all races and regions and economic stations has to be tasted to be believed (If you don't know how to use chop-sticks - get with it! How cheap are they? Or for that matter, a knife, fork and spoon...) . This commingling stuff is the world's DNA in 2012... it affects all of us whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not. While Mr. Ghandi flew around in a helicopter to big rallies, Yadav got on a bicycle and rode 120 miles in one march and made a point of stopping at small gatherings in villages - on his bicycle or his campaign bus. He made himself accessible to people of all backgrounds, even bloody journalists. Yes! Politics is visceral; people want to see their elected officials, touch them and speak to them, even if it's just for a brief moment. Ghandi reportedly isn't comfortable with "visceral" politics - and neither is Mitt Romney, the increasingly desperate Republican candidate for the U.S. presidency. Good luck to these two losers! Yadav married out of caste. Even as a non-Indian, I know what that means. This guy's betting with his heart that the future will blow the doors of discrimination off their hinges. A meritocracy is the only future to believe in. If you're indifferent to excellence, privileged by birth and coasting on it, lacking ambition, living with a sense of entitlement - the future will not be kind to you. Yadav apparently gets this truth... He did one other thing that resonates with a "Letter From South Africa" that I wrote a while back December 5, 2011 / below). He relentlessly focused on poor people's aspirations. Cell phone penetration in India is exploding. Yadav promised tablet computers for students (Recall that India has produced the world's first affordable tablets and students are getting them). I know this from South Africa: parents, no matter how poor, have a huge faith that education is the way up and out of poverty for their children. We've had serious demonstrations this week around our municipality (county) here in the Western Cape and one of the explosive issues is overcrowding in local schools and the lack of first-rate schooling in Africa's wealthiest country. Globally, way too much time has been wasted on suffocating politics - corrupt, patronage-driven politics. Politics indifferent to the fate of constituents. As Mr. Yadav is showing in Uttar Pradesh, the stagnant, discredited politics of the past and present do not have to be our collective future. Yadav said this week as he was sworn in, "From today forward, the responsibility is ours!" I like that. Forget blaming everybody else for failed governance. Take responsibility, yourself. Individually. I'll be watching India, bursting not just with a billion citizens, but from this week on, with a new found hope... You go, Yadav! Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA...March 16, 2012 "SOUTH AFRICA'S GREG SMITH BLOWS THE WHISTLE ON GOLDMAN SACHS... OUCH!" If you have any appetite for business, economics or world markets, then you could hardly have missed the high-profile resignation of Goldman Sachs' London employee, Greg Smith. Smith, a South African, was born and raised in Johannesburg ( and educated at Stanford in California). He blew up his career with style: he gave a single-finger salute to his G.S. bosses via an op-ed piece for the New York Times. Whoa! Having looked in the mirror at thirty-three and not liked what he saw, he did what many dream of doing - but most don't have the intestinal fortitude. OK, guts. I'm sure Mr. Smith, and your deep southern hemisphere correspondent here, are in agreement about the Goldman Sachs culture of greed first, then the muppets (clients). Hey, this is bare-knuckle capitalism... They work these brilliant stooges for 80 to 100 hours a week, make sure they only sporadically see their spouses and kiddies, ruin their sleep and dietary habits and when they're suitably exhausted, make a few of the most aggressive - Goldman Sachs partners! You'll forgive me, but this is news? Good for Mr. Smith. He still has prospects for a worthwhile life. Somehow, he mistakenly thought working on Wall St. was some sort of public service? I was intrigued to read the accompanying analysts' stories about Smith's dim prospects for future employment in the "industry". As in, what a tragedy to burn all your bridges just because you had a bad day at the office. No, to Smith's credit, he threw in the towel understanding the consequences full well. Like a reformed alcoholic, he's apparently keen to avoid any further temptations by re-joining his comrades with their over-imbibing bad habits down on Wall Street. Nope, he's a goner. Excellent, so far, Greg! GREG MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN MEETING THESE TYPICAL
SOUTH AFRICAN YOUNG WOMEN...  BUT WOULD THEY BE INTERESTED IN MEETING HIM? But what now? I recommend he return immediately to South Africa (his native land) and get his head screwed on straight. He needs to purchase a mountain bike and grind through the gears around our mountainous dorp for a month or so. Biking, he can expel the fetid cubicle air of his G.S. London office and drink in the pure ocean breezes that swirl around us here from the Atlantic or Indian oceans. Summer is just starting to drift into autumn now, so hand-splitting some apple wood (from our farmers' huge orchards) for winter fires would be a perfect complimentary exercise. No one has central heating in SA, you just pile on the sweaters and hug your soulmate to stay warm. Then Smith needs to be gently re-introduced to the SA "braai" (barbeque) culture, whereby hours are wasted poking the coals and talking about, well, life. This local religion is helped along with a bottle or two of our splendid merlot or sauvignon blanc or, better yet, our home-grown pinotage. And it's cheap. R35 ($5) gets you talking brilliantly! That will be a sweet moment to break the hard news to Greg: "Dude, it's not about the money. It won't make you happy and may actually kill you. "Speed kills!" And so does greed...WHITE SHIRT & TIE, HAIR GEL, PREMIUM OFFICE PARKING SPOT... C'MON GREG, THESE WOMEN ARE LOOKING FOR REAL MEN! Finally, Mr. Smith, a presumed singleton, will need to be re-introduced to our beautiful South African women. Have you never heard the most lovely English on the planet spoken? SA women actually work, play the piano, garden, laugh out loud and only occasionally go shopping - because most of us down here don't have Goldman Sachs' material ambitions, either. That's OK. We've got actual lives... Here's a tip, Greg. The most beautiful of these South African creatures can be found hiking on wilderness trails or ocean beaches or hang-gliding off Lion's Head in Cape Town or photographing lion prides in Kruger. They even sweat beautifully... You come on home, Greg Smith. You're a good guy. And we're building a new country down here that will put a smile on your face... Now, can we talk a little about philanthropy, Greg? There are so many good causes down here. And after those 12 years at Goldman Sachs, you're filthy rich, right? Sala hantle, Eric P.S. In 2010, 37,000 SA expat professionals returned home to South Africa. Yesterday, I chatted with a woman attorney whose husband is a civil engineer. They've just returned after four years in Australia. Uh, I'll let it go at that... LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... March 12, 2012 "NOTE TO WORLD: PERHAPS YOU'RE LIVING BEYOND YOUR MEANS - AND YOU'RE STILL NOT 'HAPPY'?" I'm not sure how recently "happiness" has been defined as a 'three car garage', the presumed 'constitutional right' to store your excess 'stuff ' in mini-storage, the need for a cruise ship holiday or ownership of closets full of brand-name clothing, but I kinda think not too long. Post-World War II at the earliest... This "consumer" lifestyle that now hugely infects South Africa, has interesting roots in my mind, roots that were likely sprouted in the years after World War II. Mass urbanization came at a cost. Office workers, commuters, conventional suburbanites who only a generation or two earlier were mostly rural farm folk or town or village merchants, needed an incentive (bribe?) to eschew the wide open spaces of rural life (Do you hear frogs singing where you live?), for the much more cramped conformity of city living. Consumables to the rescue! Charles Dickens was writing about this phenomenon in England with the 19th Century advent of the Industrial Age. Scrooge put a face on the discomfort and banality of "worker bees" packed into tenement living condidtions...without creature comforts... Seventy years later we are still, will-nilly, chewing through the world's finite resources at an horrific rate - to fuel consumer spending. Here in South Africa, the monthly new car sales figure is breathlessly reported on all the media business shows. Apparently our depressed consumer appetites here are starting to show "green shoots" (don't you love cliches!), while consumer and business confidence figures are rising. Yippee! Consumer spending here is still heavily skewed toward food purchases among our multitudes of impoverished citizens, but the middle classes, both white and black, are furiously hoarding stuff from what I can see. To top it off, WAL-MART has just arrived here in the last few months and their latest new store features something like 45 high-speed check-out lanes. That's industrial-strength shopping you've got to respect, isn't it? Approximately, 65 or 70 % of the USA economy is driven by consumer spending. The recent bad patch for the Americans has at its core, beyond banking and mortgage shenanigans, the tapped-out consumer failing to buy enough stuff. Say what? I find it difficult living in South Africa, where so many have so little, to take seriously a civilization that's built on pack rat acquisitions. And worse, to have to listen to depressed neurotics, featured on Dr. Phil, who can't believe their shopping impulses have been given the chop... THIS DUTCH COUPLE ON HOLIDAY IN UTAH, USA, CAN'T BELIEVE
WAL-MART'S EVERYDAY LOW PRICES!  DID I MENTION WAL-MART'S EVERYDAY LOW PRICES? So, once more with feeling, I dare ask readers to pause, just for a moment, and ask: "Am I happy carting these consumables back to my smallish flat, then fiddling with them for a few days until the allure has faded - and that old bogeyman raises his head once again to cry out from the pit of your soul: "I need to go shopping!" Give the planet a break, put your feet up and have a satisfying "jaw" with your mates or spouse... That will make you happy... These heart-felt rants from your SAPHOTOSAFARI correspondent are well and good, as far as they go. We all like to take the high road and be sanctimonious, n'est pas? But I can't help noticing the WAL-MART advert in this morning's paper. What's this? A high-pressure washer for the incredibly low cost of R699 ( $93 U.S., VAT included. ) With attachments! But only 300 available at this impossible price??? I promise not to make this shopping business a bad habit, but I've needed a pressure washer for years! Now, if only I can just convince the wife... Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... March 9, 2012 " USA: A CASE OF 'ARRESTED ADOLESCENCE'?" Watching the American election's Republican primaries from an ocean and a continent away, it's easy to laugh at the parochial sound-bites posing as serious debate, the ignorance of anything that isn't 'redwhiteandblue'. Basically, all the contenders seem to be in a bun-fight to see who can appear the most idiotic to mainstream voters. But who cares about mainstream voters? First, Romney, Santorum, Gringrich and Paul have to run the gauntlet of 'real' Republicans. You know the red-meat crowd that's always itching for another foreign adventure against a suitably weak opponent (...who then drubs the Yanks by outlasting them in an old-fashioned war of attrition. Ten years in Afghanistan... no victory? Ouch...). No matter, Romney et al have already announced that Obama has virtually capitulated to the Iranian mullahs, and that, as America's new President, they stand ready to position the aircraft carriers and send in the marines to fix the Iranian problem (Note to Yanks: careful now, there are 70 million Iranians, most of whom aren't too happy with their government, but who will all happily fight to the last man, woman and child when the first American Marine boots hit the beach...) There's a long Republican list of what we will call "Drill, Baby, Drill!" business issues (scrap the Environmental Protection Agency!, etc.), why-pay- for-education positions, get-rid-of-government rants and, my favourite, allow concealed weapons into university classrooms. Yes, the Colorado Supreme Court upheld just such a law this week - Way Out West. It seems that too liberal professors and students at the University of Colorado (and the other state colleges) dared resist the state legislature's handguns-for-everyone edict and needed a supplementary spanking from the state's highest court. Would you like to study in a classroom where an unknown number of your testesterone-fueled classmates are packing heat? No thanks... It's also OK to take your guns to the national parks in the USA now. Yikes. (Just a reminder to SA overseas visitors: In South Africa, if you're caught with a firearm in Kruger National Park, for example, you could be shot (as in rhino poacher) or go to jail... No foolin... )  We met this American couple travelling "incognito" in Egypt last year We notice the 'oddness' of Americans in the SA newspapers here, regularly. Almost alone among tourists, they fall off of Table Mountain and have to be helicoptered to hospital. Two weeks ago a brash American wing-suited "base-jumper", leaped off of Table Mountain and promptly hit the rocks a few hundred metres below. He body is completely broken, but he's alive and able to hold the citation (fine) issued to him by Table Mountain Nat'l Park (U Tube / Jeb Corliss / Table Mountain crash). He was specifically refused permission for the stunt... Another American, this time up the Garden Route from Cape Town at the town of Wilderness, was swimming at the gorgeous Indian Ocean beach there last week when a rip tide pulled him out to sea. Luckily for him, the SA Nat'l Sea Rescue people were holding a fund-raiser at exactly that Sunday morning moment - and their Zodiac was able to race out and save him. His first comment: "Wow! That's the second time this week I've been rescued. I nearly drowned at Durban on Tuesday..." (I'm paraphrasing here, but that's what he said...) - during the revolution... In our travels, we comment on the immaturity of so many American tourists. Bad dress, of course. Tone deaf, yes. The 'High School Harry' jokey photos, the cultural blinders, etc., natch... The inability to see their hosts as real human beings, completely worthy of engaging... guilty. And it's that last bit that is particularly troubling, because the world is now so congested and globalized that breaches of manners are inexcusable. It worries me that with all the wealth and privilege that has accrued to the Americans, there hasn't developed a sophistication to match their responsibilities... So, I hope the numerous American viewers of SAPHOTSAFARI don't get their "back up" reading this, but instead keep goading themselves to peer at this skimpy website, yes, and all the other millions of Internet, news, movie and music outlets with which to explore the world... their world. They're actually pretty remarkable, all of them who constitute the 96% of the world's population that isn't American, even if they don't pack handguns into their classrooms or do cool "base-jumps" off of Table Mountain... Sala hantle, Eric P.S. If you haven't guessed it already, your correspondent was Born In The USA. Say, it just occurred to me that, like, maybe Bruce Springsteen, the Boss, should run for U.S. President? On second thought... oh, nevermind... LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA...March 5, 2012 " 'THE ELEPHANT WHISPERER' FALLS SILENT... THE UNEXPECTED DEATH OF LAWRENCE ANTHONY..." A small, seismic shock rippled across South Africa this week among those who still read books: the 'Elephant Whisperer' is no more. Lawrence Anthony wasn't a writer, as far as I know, until pretty late in his life (he died, of a heart attack this past week, at 62). He obviously didn't need the money, since anyone who can afford to buy a herd of rogue wild elephants and build an electric, elephant-proof fence around his 5,000 acre wildlife reserve, is comfortably well-off in my book. But something compelled him to write- - and that something was a great story. The understanding that this one man struck with a terrified, rampaging elephant herd was and will be the stuff of dinner table conversations for years to come. Though he wasn't a professional wildlife biologist, Anthony dug deeply into the psychology of his great gray beasts - to try and unravel the natural fears they harboured of all humans - and to get them to see that one human was different... He would search out the herd on his huge, forested reserve, park his Landy (Landrover), zig-zag in the herd's direction at a shambling pace - and begin talking to the elephant matriarch, Nana. In the beginning, she and the herd charged at him, chased him, trumpeting their fear and anger with shrill, mighty blasts. But eventually, Anthony became part of the landscape - and then the miracles began to unfold. The stomach rumbles that communicated with other elephants tens of kilometres away in Umfolozi/ Hluhluwe Reserve. The incredible sensitivity these pachyderms displayed for each other, their tiny off-spring, deceased animals and, finally, Anthony as well. You stand stock still while a multi-ton wild elephant strolls over and affectionately tickles your ear lobes, tousles your receding hairline and drenches you in generous quantities of elephant 'snot' - to let you know that, yes, Nana the matriarch, thinks you're an OK guy after all. Anthony stood his ground...  A matriarch-led herd of elephants dozing in the heat in Kruger Park... I haven't read Anthony's book about six months in Bhagdad, saving zoo animals during the Bush Iraq invasion, but in the 'Elephant Whisperer" we learn of his return to South Africa from Iraq and his arrival at his cherished Thula-Thula Game Reserve's front gate. Somehow, his herd of elephants knew he was coming back that day(!) and paraded out of the Kwa-Zulu Natal bush to welcome him. It's that kind of miraculous book - and one readers everywhere will treasure. His new book on saving Africa's threatened rhinos was to be rolled out at a major Durban conservation event later this month, but that will now, sadly, be a memorial - and not much fun.I dunno... So many of us lead, perhaps of necessity, perhaps not, such plodding, conventional lives. Living for a few hours with Lawrence Anthony and his magic elephants made me want to recommit to pushing my life as hard as I can, while I can. His strong voice has now vanished, unexpectedly... I have no doubt, though, that Nana the matriarch and Anthony's herd of wild elephants will have come out of the acacia forest and are standing silently, respectfully, at the bottom of his Zululand Thula-Thula bush camp - mourning with his thousands of grateful family, friends and readers... Sala hantle, Eric A review of "The Elephant Whisperer" was my "Letter From South Africa" on February 17, 2012. Photos are available on the Thula-Thula website... And for the elephants? That's exactly what happened. A couple of days after Anthony's death in Johannesburg, the two herds abruptly appeared at the bottom of his garden to mourn - for the first time in two years. They stood, respectfully, for two days and then vanished, like smoke, back into the acacia bush... LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... March 2, 2012 " FUNDAMENTALS OF HUMAN HAPPINESS : THE WEATHER REPORT, KIDS PLAYING IN THE STREET, GOSSIPING WITH THE NEIGHBOURS..." SAPHOTOSAFARI, on the surface at least, might be earmarked as a travel website. Yeah, I suppose that's true... But I (with my sweet wife, Lynn) never have any pretensions about living out of a suitcase for very long. When we do take extended trips, like the one you're viewing this week into Argentina ( 7 weeks) - we cheat! We rented a studio apartment in a famously lower middle class neighbourhood (Palermo Hollywood) in Buenos Aires for the first week - and then for the last. We secured a base for our trip and then set out to explore Argentina... We find that if we eat in the same neighbourhood resaurant twice, the owner and staff immediately treat us with every imaginable kindness. If we look half-civilized, they may even comp a plate of tapas to our table. In Palermo, the apartamento doorman / manager smiled graciously at us as we arrived and by the third day - introduced us to his grandchild. The young, the old, in a real neighbourhood people's routines are immediately visible, including, on our Palermo calle, the handsome Yuppie couple in an apartamento across the leafy street from ours. They were always rushing to work, rushing to go our at night, driven in that way that young go-getters move about in life... The Bomberos (firemen) at the fire station down the street waved a daily "Buenos Dias!" at us as we trooped by. We were charmed and relaxed. Dare I say it, we felt safe and secure in our new surroundings... It's no different here in our South African dorp. The paucity of cars on our street means we get to watch babies blossom into children, then morph, miraculously, into crazed mountain bike riding pre-teens. Right in front of our house. Suddenly this summer, the bike riding girls and boys are milling around together on our shaded street, an ocean and a continent away from Buenos Aires. That's a big switch! This dorp is so perfectly pokey that we adults have running, uninterrupted, arm-waving conversations right in the middle of the street. That's the best neutral turf to talk about SA politics, keep an eye on the expanding horizons of off-spring bike riding around the block, get a health check-up on the elderly widows on our block, and, yes, speculate, as humans must have done now for millennia, about the weather...  LIFE IN THE FAST LANE... As summer in South Africa reluctantly slips into autumn, there's a richness and a ripeness to being alive here that has nothing to do with the armada of harvest fruit-loaded vehicles chugging in all directions. No, that lovely emotion I can only deem a sense of place - to appropriate one of my favourite authors, Wally Stegner's apt description of this fundemental human need. It's the need to belong, to fit in, to be accepted, to be smiled at - and return the smile. Out of this sense of well-being, first recognized in childhood, we, all of us, can spread our wings and explore our world - whether it's a small South African town or far further afield. I love to travel, but I return home with an equal passion... Sala hantle,SECONDARY SCHOOL SMALL TOWN RUGBY GLADIATORS PREPARE TO DO BATTLE WITH ARCH RIVALS - FROM A DORP (VILLAGE) DOWN THE ROAD... Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... February 28, 2012 "ENTREPRENEURS AREN'T BORN, THEY'RE MADE..." South Africa's previously disadvantaged population (am I making myself clear here?) is a perfect case study of the complex and complicated ingredients that go into making successful entrepreneurs. Most come from long family backgrounds tarnished by Apartheid, poor schooling, unemployment (many villagers have never known formal work), abysmal medical care and abject poverty. Were you thinking that they should jump up, put on a coat & tie and punch a time clock? I have often thought that it's a miracle that my fellow countrymen stay alive in this dangerous world. But they do. And good survival skills are required of every entrepreneur. Africans do have complex support systems that buffer some of their life risks; people support each other and share hardships, etc. But in this competitive world, that's not enough to break people out of the poverty straight-jacket. You have to be blind in South Africa (and elsewhere?) not to see the pain in young people's eyes: they want to succeed in life. They want to make the right choices, but decent roadmaps are distressingly hard to come by... I've written about this previously; here are some additional thoughts...
THIS IS A SMALL BUSINESS...  ERIC'S ONE SQUARE METRE POULTRY BUSINESS. DAY OLD CHICKS GO INTO THE TOP COMPARTMENT. AT TWELVE DAYS THEY ARE MOVED TO THE MIDDLE COMPARTMENT, THEN TO THE LOWER UNIT AFTER TWENTY-FOUR DAYS. NEW ENTRY BIRDS CONTINUE THE CYCLE (GENERALLY AVAILABLE AT AG SUPPLY STORES). CHICKENS ARE READY FOR MARKET AT 36 TO 39 DAYS. THE "CHICKEN FACTORY" WOOD LEGS ARE IN OIL TO REPEL ANTS, SHEETMETAL SQUARES ON LEGS KEEPS VERMIN OUT. PLASTIC FEED SACKS DROP DOWN TO PROTECT AGAINST WEATHER. ALL LOCAL MATERIALS, INCLUDING BAMBOO SECTIONED FEEDERS. CHICKEN MANURE IS COLLECTED ON REMOVABLE TRAYS AND WORKED INTO FAMILY'S GARDEN... IT'S A BUSINESS - ON ONE SQUARE METRE! AND YOU DON'T NEED A FANCY DIPLOMA... I PRODUCED THESE IN THE PHILIPPINES AND AFRICA'S LESOTHO.
I was raised in a middle class, two parent family. I realize that, right there, I was blessed with a huge advantage in life. By some modest miracle, I had jobs at a young age (10) delivering newspapers, shovelling snow, then, later, working after high school at a small neighbourhood grocery. And I always landed a summer job and saved some money - from a pretty early age. The work ethic got instilled...More than I imagined, I'm sure that my parents were subtly channelling me (and my two terrific brothers) along this work trajectory. If there's a work opportunity, seize it. You'll learn plenty, no matter the job... The social skills generated by meeting the public and becoming confident and assured around strangers have lifelong benefits. How else could I possibly sit down and inflict the pain of "Letter From South Africa" on thousands of people I don't even know? Socialize, smile at strangers or at least give passersby in your life an affirmative nod. You'll get a boost when they smile back, I promise! Entrepreneurship is a cumulative process. All of life's seemingly unconnected experiences get folded in... There is no pat formula. Start accumulating skills, however minor. I happen to have a graduate degree in journalism and am a professional furniture / cabinetmaker (I loved that hands-on career!). But learning happens informally, too. Pay close attention to how things are done as life swirls around you. Invest thousands of hours in learning... and condition yourself to keep learning. Even if it's only by being a keen observer. I've built or restored 17 interesting houses with Lynn in three different countries, on two continents. Hard, physical work, but rewarding... Lynn and I were successful innkeepers, but only after making a huge physical and mental effort - and doing it on a shoestring. For two years we slept on the floor to get our business up and running. Then it became a notable success! Three Peace Corps tours (volunteering for two years at a time) brought me into contact with many other extraordinary cultures (Burkina Faso, the Philippines, Lesotho) - and I learned of other ways to be happy and succeed in life- by different measures, not just money. Every small life experience got added to the mix...CLICK ON SIDEBAR ITEMS AT RIGHT>>>>>> And I learned flexibility...Entrepreneurs better have flexibility (Plan "B"), or most assuredly they're going to end up "toast". I always enjoy retelling my favourite small business start-up story, which, at its heart, is a flexibility tale... An American GI returned from army service in South Korea with his new Korean bride. They settled in Grand Junction, Colorado (in the American West) and someone told this somewhat naive, would-be businessman that hottubs were the next big thing. He'd be smart, the tipster taunted him, to get in on the ground floor. The couple invested their modest life savings in hottubs. He and his new wife stared at those loathed huttubs for months. Sales were terrible, their future prospects glum. Then the Korean wife offered to give some Korean cooking lessons in the back of the store to shore up their income. Think of the courage that must have taken for a new immigrant! Her classified local newspaper ad struck a modest chord and she began teaching 'wok' cooking to increasing numbers of Grand Junction's middle class women, whom I'm sure couldn't find Korea on a map if their lives depended on it (Now these same women probably drive Kias and Hyundais!).
The cooking school customers had one complaint: they coudn't find Asian food ingredients, not to mention
staple bulk rice at the city's chain supermarkets. Really? So, our couple adroitly converted a small section of the hottub store and began stocking Asian foods. When we first met the couple, the last of the hottubs were still gathering dust in the corner of their store. But their new business was jammed with customers, many of them Asians - from a 150 kilometre radius around remote Grand Junction. Like us, just returned from the Philippines (where we'd acquired a new set of taste buds!), these customers had an Asian background, including returned Mormon missionaries (!) - and for whatever reason their buying habits were completely off the business radar in this "whitebread" Colorado city. Asians who wouldn't give each other the time of day, in Asia, giggled collectively as they filled their shopping trollies with all their fond favourites. And our hottub entrepreneurs giggled, too -all the way to the bank! That's entrepreneurship! Seeing a market opening that others have overlooked. And pouncing! So I ask you, what hidden knowledge or skills do you possess that will prompt the world to beat a path to your doorstep? Don't you giggle. New businesses are hatched thousands of times a day - all over the world! And often, most often, with very little money. If you'd like to copy my one-square metre poultry production platform - be my guest! Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA February 25, 2012 "BOB, FILL 'ER UP - WITH ETHANOL!"
I like writing occasional puffy pieces (see below / mangoes) for my L.F.S.A. column. It's just that it's a tad difficult doing it when I'm interrupted by people coming to my front door who are, let's face it, hungry (We keep a basket in the hallway filled with packets of peanut/raisin mix). South Africa produces mountains of food, maize (mealies) and wheat not excepted. But a funny thing happened on the way to a huge maize surplus with last year's SA crop. With nobody paying much attention (government), huge amounts got exported - at premium international prices - definitely benefiting the farmers (that's OK), but most particularly the middle men and the speculators. The country is now busy importing maize - at far higher costs than our home-grown product. Brilliant! The price of SA food stuffs is shooting up and we're not just talking 'samp (cooked, mashed maize) & beans'. Chicken, Coca Cola, and all the things that use maize in our modern processed diet are being jacked up as staple food is commoditised around the world. One of SA's labour leaders, Zwelinzima Vavi, calls it a "ticking time bomb"... All across the world food insecurity is a root cause of government instabilty. When people don't eat they become angry and then sometimes the smallest incident becomes the flashpoint that ignites - revolutions. Skyrocketing food costs are clearly a factor in the on-going ructions across the Middle East and North Africa. And elsewhere. Bread subsidies get cut - and enraged (and hungry) citizens pour into the streets... pissed as hornets.
 OK, OK... I'M TRYING TO WHITTLE DOWN MY STASH OF MANGO PHOTOS (see below).
I MEAN THIS BLOG IS ABOUT 'FOOD', SO WHY THE ARCHED EYEBROW? Reuters is reporting that Ethanol production (maize to liquid fuel) will consume 30% of the U.S. maize crop in 2012. This is a huge issue of morality, isn't it, in pumping world food stocks into U.S. full-sized Ford pick-ups? But as far as I can tell, the morality issue has the same traction, politically, as NASA's fantasy about permanent manned colonies on the moon. It's going nowhere... We like to think that collectively people act in their best interests, when, in fact, people merely act in their own interest. Historically, we've buffered that selfish impulse with government regulation. Am I truly loopy or is the wheeling and dealing in the world's food supply (including ethanol) going to turn into the nastiest future any of us can imagine? Let's hope, all over the world, that our political elite, with their own lovely sense of entitlement, are paying attention to this 'ticking time bomb'... Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA..February 20, 2012 "MANGOES: LOVE AT FIRST BITE!" What is it about mangoes? Am I the only one who suffers involuntary rictus at the supermarket when I realize it's, finally, finally, mango season? Don't you also shiver, just a little, when you pick up a full kilo beauty, give it a slight squeeze and, heart racing, realize you're just a day or two away from nirvana? Just as most people remember their first romantic moment, I remember my first emotional encounter with mangoes. That memory sprang to mind writing my "Woody Allen" 'Letter' (February 14, 2012) about Burkina Faso last week. Oh, I'd known skanky imposter mangoes before Burkina. In Seattle, the food chains were always touting ridiculous 'Jet Fresh!' mangoes from Hawaii - at the same ounce price as platinum. Damp squib, that's what they were. First, they were intentionally unripe, to give the retailer the maximum amount of time to unload these frauds. And then, despite my keen vigilence, they always went off when I turned my back to do something as simple as answer the phone... Starbucks began and got traction in Seattle to lift community spirits from months of wet, cloudy weather.. and bad mangoes. The Burkina Faso mangoes were the "ordinaires", stringy, small, but full of flavour. You did need a toothpick afterwards to fiddle out the odd bits caught between your teeth. But the love affair had begun and on trips into Cote D'Ivoire and Ghana, it wasn't unusual to screech the Land Rover to a halt when I spotted a small pile of mangoes tucked back in the shadows of a villager's food stall. These relatively rich African countries had the lucious grafted mangoes, which were heavy, juicy and easily spooned up like melon fruit! For better or worse, this marked the beginning of my 'rapture' phase. I assume nowadays you can get some kind of addiction intervention therapy at this juncture, but for me the only fix was... another mango.  Oh-oh... I see trouble brewing. I'll have to share half of this mango with my wife. Two years in the Philippines and two more in the mountains of Lesotho further compounded my mango problem. It's embarrassing to ask your local grocer or street stall vendor, " P-s-s-t! When will the good stuff be coming in?" Over and Over. The true mango connoisseur gets a little cranky this time of year. He/she/me always remembers the peak season mangoes as arriving in South Africa from Kwa-Zulu Natal and Mpumalanga provinces, weeks earlier than the actual date of appearance. Where are they? Have the newly rich Chinese or money-spinning Americans bought the whole lot this year? Was there a freak frost back in October that got by me in the newspapers? I'm sure you can readily see how a little thing like the search for a perfect mango can easily spin out of control... Can't you? Happily, it's that time of year once again in South Africa. I'm sure there are many others who, like me, run outside and takes pictures of favourite mangos from each year's crop (see above). Isn' t it fun to arrange the fruit just so? Then I can watch them on my screeensaver the rest of the year - when mangoes aren't in season. Everyone does that, don't they? You say I'm the only one... Oh no, this thing with mangoes may have taken me hostage... Excuse me, gotta run. I've still got to do another mango 'photo shoot' this morning... Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... February 17, 2012... "'THE ELEPHANT WHISPERER':
Here's The Perfect Book For Your Next Safari (or to read surreptitiously at the office when the boss is leading another dreary 'team building' exercise...)" I've just finished "The Elephant Whisperer" and it's that rare title that immediately makes you want to proselytize the book with everyone. In these morose times all over the world, it's a breath of fresh air to enter the animal kingdom and, at least for a day or two, be free of bad politicians and worse economies. "Whisperer" is a shot to the heart of anyone who loves wildlife. Author Lawrence Anthony, perhaps idealisitcally bought a 5,000 acre wildlife reserve in Kwa-Zulu Natal, back in 1999. Typically, this is one of those business endeavors where to make a million - you need to spend five. Our intrepid South African conservationist ( and his new French wife) hope to bring tourists to their wilderness resort, but first are unable to resist adopting a rogue herd of seven elephants that have been abused on another reserve - and are a day away from being put down. When the sedated animals arrive in the middle of the night on a huge lorry, poor Anthony learns that the herd's dominant matriarch has just been killed by the previous owners - too wild and carzy, they maintained. Beyond redemption. The surviving cows, calves and lone young bull are, predictably, hysterical as the drugs wear off. Where are they? Who are these new tormentors? So what do the frazzled elephants do? They explode through his re-enforced "boma" (corral) high-voltage fence, then plough through his new 30 kilometre electrified perimeter fence - shocks be damned! - and make a beeline for the famous Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Wildlife Park thirty kilometress away - and break down that park's elephant-proof fence to hook up with kindred souls... Needless to say, the outlook is filled with foreboding...  I've heard elephants' stomachs rumbling several times over the years, but I thought they just needed a very large antacid. Now I know better... Anthony's refusal to accept defeat with this new elephant herd is the grist of this page-turner ,and he quickly learns to appreciate the astonishing intelligence, sensitivity and valour of these misunderstood pachyderms. He goes into the bush and talks, calmly, to his elephants - for hours (the whisperer...). It's quite dangerous in the beginning... As the two warring parties slowly accept each other, there comes a joyful detente between man and beast. I promise you, you'll be viewing wild critters with a new appreciation after reading The Elephant Whisperer. Nature, once again, proves to be the salvation of our own human spirit. You think elephants can't possibly have anything to teach you? You'll sing a different tune, when you read this book. So how did the elephants even know the location of Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Park? They'd never been anywhere near it in their lives. You'll learn to your amazement that elephants' "stomach rumbles" - low frequency sound waves - allow these monarchs of the bush to communicate with other elephants over thirty kilometres away! And this is only the beginning of your Elephants Intro 101... Say, isn't that your boss, still droning on in the conference room down the hall? Sala hantle, Eric P.S. The Elephant Whisperer is available in major book markets everywhere and has been translated into French, German and Italian, as well as its original English... P.S.S. March 3, 2012 /Author LAWRENCE ANTHONY, the Elephant Whisperer, died unexpectedly at Thula-Thula Reserve where this book was written. Death, at 62, was from a heart attack in his sleep... LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... February 14, 2012 "NOSTALGIA IS MIDNIGHT IN PARIS' REAL HOOK..."
Woody Allen's 41st film, Midnight In Paris, is making the rounds here still and we caught up with it at our favourite screening room in swishy Franschhoek this week. The screening room has 30 ostrich covered seats to sink into, glasses of red or white are served and the ambiance of this evening's audience of Europeans and Seffricans had a whiff of, dare I say it, wealth. A little 'wealth' never hurt anybody - in small doses, did it? The movie oozed pleasure. Midnight has a charming, slightly surreal plot, complete with naive Americans trying their utmost to fathom Paris, beautiful actresses (Marion Cotillard (!), Carla Bruni) and even the Woody Allen stand-in (Owen Wilson) tore up the screen. Brilliant. But it's Midnight's subtext, nostalgia, that I'd like to explore in this Letter.   When I was a punkster in my twenties, I lived in Burkina Faso for two years as a Peace Corps worker. Africa. Adventure. Why not? I was married to my first wife, Terri (bless you!), and we drew the short straw in our group: the to-hell-and-gone village of Sebba. This isolated habitation, up toward the Sahara desert proper, was a humble collection of mud huts with thatched roofs, a few hundred souls altogether. White people (us) were unknown, particularly the weird sub-species with university degrees. Our Fulani neighbours tended their fields of millet, seasonally, and, with luck, saw a few pieces of goat meat from time to time through the year. It was over 45 degrees for months at a time. Dust storms were finally ended when the cool Harmatan winds brought sporadic deluges of rain (see above photos taken from our front door). That caused torrents of flooding which ruptured the 75 kilometre track to the outside world, sometimes for two months at a time. We listened to scratchy BBC news broadcasts on our SW radio, but that was it. There was no other contact with the outside world. I was regularly suffering from dysentery problems and my weight dropped until I had a, um, rather skeletal appearance. I got malaria (pain like no other) and suddenly appreciated why my neighbours sat with their heads in their hands for days at a time, under the giant Baobab tree in the background of the "wet" photo. I saw people with leprosy, elephantiasis, shistosomiasis and measles epidemics that wiped out whole classes of children in our area. Getting sick had a strong corrolation with dying for our neighbours. What could you do? When I got nailed by a scorpion and writhed around in agony for twelve hours, the male village elders filed into our tiny living and remained there - presumably to await the demise of the unlucky Tubaco (white guy). It was a show of respect. I survived and was forever grateful for their courtesy. Finally, there was next to nothing to read in Sebba. And we weren't used to not having books around... Poor us, huh? But we adjusted to this jarring new world - and made do. The Fulani taught us everything there is to know about courage in the face of hopeless odds. Our first year, nearly all the village cattle died from drought. The villagers never complained once. Their Muslim faith allowed them to accept life's despair and keep their heads held high. The Fulanis were terribly proud of who they were... Spear fighting broke out between lifestock herders at scarce water points. The wounded limped through Sebba. Terri worked in the simple village maternity - where no woman ever cried out in child birth. Ever. I built small, rural schools, installed concrete boreholes through a U.N. scheme and dabbled in gardening projects. Slowly, inexorably, two years passed... When I think of that time, which is heavy with nostalgia for me, it is through rose-coloured glasses. I became the person I am, writing this "Letter from South Africa", because of that experience. I learned to get knocked down and get back up - one of the single most important life lessons any of us can obtain. I learned that no matter what adversity I faced being alive, millions, billions of others on this planet have it infinitely worse. So shut up and soldier on! I remember the Sebba smiles and the kindness of people who would bring a small, fragrant mango to our door for a treat when they had almost nothing to eat themselves. Those are powerful emotions to carry through life and I hope some of my nostalgia for those first two, tough years in Africa - shows through on this spartan website. Midnight In Paris took me back to a place I haven't visited for quite a while. Thanks, Woody. Nostalgia. I needed that! Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... February 10, 2012 " DO YOU LIKE YOUR RHINOS FRIED, SCRAMBLED... OR POACHED ? South Africa's rhino poaching epidemic continues unabated. SAPHOTOSAFARI wrote about this scourge in an earlier "Letter" (December 13, 2011 / see below) and will continue to put the painful facts out there so the whole world can share decent South African's revulsion with this madness. Yesterday, we learned in the Cape Times newspaper than another veterinarian has been linked to the poaching. Dr. Johan Hendrik Meyer (yes, a white guy) was found guilty of unprofessional conduct after he sold 26 bottles of M99 - enough to kill 390 rhinos (!) to a lay person. This drug of choice for rhino poachers is strictly controlled, unless of course, the people who are supposed to control the M99 are in cahoots with the criminals behind the syndicate killing of these huge, simple-minded beasts. So what was the good Dr. Meyer's fine? Six months suspension from the practice of veterinary medicine - suspended - plus a fine of R25,000 (roughly $3,300). A South African wildlife vet called the sentence "ridiculous and puny" and said the guilty Dr. Meyer should have had his veterinary licence permanently revoked. Izzut? Other angry SA vets were similarly quoted.  What's going on here? As previously noted it's all about, what else, m-o-n-e-y. A kilo of rhino horn fetches around $40,000. And, of course, the fewer the rhinos, the more expensive the horn, right? The law of supply and demand (bless those capitalists...) applies most particularly to endangered wildlife. There's general agreement that Asian syndicates are behind the slaughter, but many people cast aspersions on the poor, usually black poachers who do the actual dirty work. In covering this story, one would be remiss not to note the "white" connivance. Last year, another white veterinarian from Limpopo Province was caught red-handed using a small airplane to dart rhinos in the bush from the air (then ground crews dispatched the animals and cut off the horns) along with his white pilot and their wives. Also late last year, Dr. Douw Grobler, an internationally respected wildlife veterinarian and the former head of Kruger Nat'l Park's wildlife capture unit was apprehended after he sold M99, illegally, near Port Elizabeth. Almost immediately, we began to have rhinos darted and killed for their horns on Western Cape wildlife reserves... So, there's a move afoot to sedate rhinos professionally (there's M99 again), inject poison into the matted hair rhino horns and also a microchip for tracking, and then turn the animals loose, hoping poachers will be deterred. Yesterday, in front of national and international journalists, a high profile save-the-rhino horn poisoning, chip inserting was done on a big time rhino reserve outside of Johannesberg. Apparently, the rhino selected for the honour was the biggest, meanest critter on the reserve. He even had a name: Spencer. For forty-five minutes Dr. Charles Van Niekerk, a noted veterinarian, laboured away while others monitored ol' Spencer's vital signs. The journos videoed and scribbled. Then, horror of horrors, Rhino Spencer abruptly stopped breathing and died! Bleak, bleak and bleak is the SA rhino story right now. SAPHOTOSAFARI will keep you posted... Sala hantle, Eric I've never bought a lottery ticket in my life. For a pretty simple reason: I don't like the odds. I do appreciate that luck plays a role in all of our lives. It's just better, isn't it, to be, say, occupationally prepared and then pounce when a lucky opportunity presents itself, rather than to sit back hoping for manna from heaven - without your CV ship-shape. In a world where many of us imagine being successful artists, only to give up because the odds are so long, an artist's success story caught my eye this week. I thought it would be fun to share it with you...
 David Choe, is a California graffiti artist. You know, spray can art. Early on he had a pretty hard-scrabble start in life. He persevered, however, and eventually his spray-can artistry caught the attention of a new kid in town, twenty year old gung-ho entrepreneur, Mark Zuckerberg. "Zuck", as his acquaintances still call him, was busy swinging elbows to clear out any competitors for his new business idea, something called Facebook. He was setting up his first Facebook office in Palo Alto (2005) and it was arranged for Mr. Choe, who graffiti work bears all the hallmarks of what some might label "street art", to drop by and paint his free-form, semi-psychedelic murals on Facebook's edgy new office walls. Being a sensible businessman, Choe completed the job on time and to his employer's satisfaction. As a former professional furnituremaker and long-time self employment case, I well know the tightness in the throat that accompanies every artist's payday. (One commonly held artist's cliche opines that the richer the client, the cheaper the price!) Anyhow, David Choe was offered several thousand dollars in cash or - some "stock" in yet another Silicon Valley start-up - this new Facebook thing he'd never heard of. When the idea behind the company was explained to him, Choe, according to the NYTimes, thought the Facebook business model "ridiculous and pointless". Nevertheless, he accepted - the stock. Very interesting decision, David...
In the next few days, Facebook will go public with its first IPO. The company is expected to be valued around $75 billion. Yes, 'the little start-up that could' will have a market value of , here we go again, $75,000,000,000! Zuckerberg will get his gazillions and so will other early investors. U-2's Bono, who is always urging others to save Africa, instead invested $120,000,000 of his own money in Facebook shares in 2010. He will make a killing - and presumably now save Africa by himself... But the sweetest payout of all must go to our graffiti artist, David Choe. His handful of stock certificates - for the graffiti job over at Facebook's first office? Well, they will cash out for an extremely plummy $200,000,000! Wannabe artists alert! Do not throw away your brushes - or spray paint cans! Carefully, examine a sample of Choe's work (see above) and then immediately start perusing the on-line business websites to determine the next big Internet winner. Simple! And with a little luck - you'll be home free! Meanwhile, I can't help wondering if "Zuck" needs any more office furniture? Or a run-of-the-mill-ion dollar picture frame? I make free deliveries! Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... February 4, 2012 "IS SOUTH AFRICA THE CAR ADVERT FILMING WORLD CAPITAL?... The joys of car ownership are undeniable - at least as the televised adverts would have it. I'm laughing through my tears this week after a small incident involving just such a car advert, in this case one of many being filmed in South Africa. Franschhoek Pass, in the Hottentots-Holland mountains 90 minutes outside of Cape Town, is the non-stop filming locale for global car companies with new products to tout. This time of the year (high summer) BMW, Mercedes, all the usual Japanese and Korean suspects, etc., are furiously shooting adverts for new product launches - in South Africa. Why? Firstly, the industry hates winter: short, cold days, snow and slush, irritated drivers inching to work in freezing weather, weather-related accidents - gaak! Ah, summer! Now there's where we have our car fantasies firmly planted, isn't it? Convertibles with the top down, cute girls riding shotgun while hunky guys patrol empty, scenic roads -completely in command of their universe... Plus, there's one other reason the auto titans like SA: there are damn few paparrazi to take bootleg photos and plaster the Internet with them...  WHOA! THAT'S A NEW, TOP SECRET BMW(!), HIDDEN UNDER A BLACK WRAP IN THE TRUCK, ON SA'S FRANSCHHOEK PASS THIS WEEK.
THE CAR ADVERT FILM HELICOPTER IS IN THE BACKGROUND. PLEASE NOTE THE FRIENDLY SECURITY PERSONNEL RACING TOWARD US
WHEN THEY SPOT THE SAPHOTOSAFARI CAMERA POP UP-FOR JUST AN INNOCENT - QUICKIE PHOTO! Which brings us back to Franschhoek Pass, South Africa. The traffic police close off the pass at both ends for up to half an hour at a time, while truck mounted cameras and helicopter mounted cameras chase the latest (top secret!) Beemers, etc. back and forth for, often, several days. They're desperately trying to catch just the right light, backdrop, sleek new sheetmetal lines, and the apparent care-free cache of owning a BMW (your favourite car - fill in the blank). No mention of your car payments, of course...All on a perfect South African summer day. Uh, it's just that they would never admit it's South Africa. The adverts look just generic enough that they appear to be - anywhere! Why do the motor industry heavyweights descend on South Africa? Despite your possible preconceived notions of South Africa (grass huts, loin cloths, elephant burgers, spear-throwing contests, etc.), SA has a sophisticated film industry, lots of beautiful highways & byways for car ads and, the little hamlet of Franschhoek, 90 minutes outside of Cape Town. It's drenched in high-end lodgings and five-star restaurants (Prince Harry or Scarlett Johansen might be seen popping into the world-renowned Quartier Francais restaurant there...) So after a rough day of filming a thirty-second car advert, in gorgeous settings few consumers will ever see, the tired & thirsty crews can retreat to their posh digs. Yummy! Since they drop a bundle of bucks doing this work in South Africa, we say "thank you!" Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... February 1, 2012 "CRUISERS ARE LOSERS!: SAPHOTOSAFARI BRANDISHES THE TORCH FOR INDEPENDENT TRAVEL..." OK, OK, everybody gets to choose not only if they want to travel, but how. Still, as I beaver away on this website, I keep seeing the news photo of that luxury beached whale, the Costa Concordia. Oops, indeed! Previously, I recalled a news item that reported that on any given summer day 70,000 Americans were travelling in Europe - but, actually, sleeping and spending most of their time on board a cruise ship. Whoa! That nailed me. That means 3,000 or 4,000 Yanks, in their white takkies (running shoes), lumbering down the gang plank, en masse, to get a glimpse of, what, some harbour, some church, some tout with a one-hour special? That may be "travel" for them, but that's not what I have in mind...  Independent travel sunk its clutches deep into me during, and after, my first Peace Corps tour - two years in Burkina Faso (remote!). As I've noted in my brief "bio sketch" elsewhere on this website, the independent travel bug bit hard. It was like getting a university degree, without setting foot in the classroom. Everyday was an eye opener and the further off the beaten path, the greater the insights. The least disturbed countries or locales carried the greatest impact. Until, finally, I realized mass tourism, as it's marketed today, isn't 'tourism' at all... That good word has been hi-jacked. Tourism, in my skewed, daffy brain is all about taking risks (and managing them!), seeing how far outside your comfort zone you can get, meeting any and all people to see what you can glean from them about their lives - and then use that experience to shape your own view of the world... Are you interested in religion? Then why not have a personal experience with all the world's great religions? My travels with my wife, Lynn, this past year in revolutionary Egypt, immersed in a Muslim ( and also Coptic) culture was an astonishing eye-opener for us. The respect we received, the warmth of our welcome (this after a few thousand years of tourism!), our personal safety, the unfailing graciousness everywhere we travelled from Alexandria to Aswan, was rooted in Islam... Hm-m-m... I needed to know this as I survey the endless ructions in that part of the world. CNN is only telling you part of the story. Of real urgency on this conflicted planet, the rest of the story is yours to, personally, discover. Only then you can form a truth that is unique to you. A little short of money these days (and who isn't?), Independent travel is the bargain of a lifetime. Gap year in the cards (and maybe that "gap year" is a function of involuntary unemployment or a mid-life crisis)? Independent travel, at your own pace, with your own sense of style, may be just the elixer you've been searching for. So, here's a tip or two from a veteran long-haul traveller. Bone up on the region you're going to visit. Tourism, of all kinds, is an imposition on your hosts. So be gentle, discreet and restrained. Always dress modestly. Be informed, including local customs. Grab a Lonely Planet / Rough Guide, etc. (in my opinion they're much more sophisticated guides than they used to be) - and grapple with a little local language, even if its just the greetings. Simple greetings and a smile - are the easiest way to suggest to your hosts that you're interested in them - and it's not only about you. Hot tip: there are only two kinds of travellers, those who travel light - and those who wish they did! Finally, take a camera. And practice composition beforehand! Digital photos are so cheap these days that you can freely shoot pix to your heart's content - so do it! You're wondering about the photo above, aren't you? In 1989, Lynn and I were some of the very first outsiders to travel by public bus (we stayed in government communes!) - for three unending days - to reach Jing Hong, China, down near the Burma/Laos/China border. Nearly everyone we saw had never met a white person before. Nor we them! Evidence of the Red Guard spasm was still very visible. People were extricating their hidden statues of Buddha now that religion seemed somewhat safe to practice again. That's the mighty Mekong River behind us in this picture, issuing down off the Tibetain plateau on its way to Vietnam and the South China Sea. What an experience! Little did I guess that what I was seeing - and photographing - was history in the making. And it's still happening, of course, everyday all over the planet. So go! And you can join the next generation of documentary photographers... Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA...January 29, 2012 "CAMILLA VALLEJO: GLOBAL PERSON OF THE YEAR! SAY WHAT?" I often wonder if you good people in the northern Hemisphere, actually ever wonder "What's going on in the Southern Hemipshere?" No, probably not... So that's one of my tiny tasks with SAPHOTOSAFARI - to keep goading you into remembering that our beseiged planet belongs to us all. So whazzup down here? It's the height of summer, so we're not above having a braii, regularly ( SA barbeque is religion here), and enjoying the long, warm days. There's just the right number of humans per square kilometre in the southern hemisphere, so it's easy to get out of town and go to the beach, for instance. Do you realize how much coastal real estate we have in New Zealand, Brazil, South Africa, Australia, Argentina, Tahiti, etc., etc.? I know you have to process looks of stats up there, so suffice it to say - we have lots of dreamy beaches...  A typical uncrowded southern hemisphere beach (Ipanema / Rio de Janeiro)... Natually, we produce much of the food you enjoy. Those Argentineans and Brazilians crank out the maize and soybeans, let me tell you. Here in SA, we export gazillions of tons of premium fresh fruit and even some veg (avos) your way. Right now juicy, ripe mangoes are in season (and ridiculously cheap here!). Plus we grow lots of apples, pears, nectarines, peaches (the latter four items are being harvested from manicured orchards around our dorp (town) right now. You're always yelping for more wine to wash the last of your endangered seafood paella down your gullets, aren't you now? There, too, South Africa, Australia and Argentina (those malbecs & torrontes are divine!) labour night and day, so that you can have the demon grape aplenty. And those of you who are weary of scraping frost off your window, the better to watch a squirrel hopping about in the snow, would do well to remember that South Africa (and others) have saved the greatest wildlife pageant on earth for you to enjoy - just a few hours from our gorgeous airports - on our lovely sealed carriageways...(Yes, SAPHOTOSAFARI must trudge to Brazil to bring back the spot news photos viewers expect...) But there's one or two things we don't have down here that might disappoint and throw you off balance. There are zero nuclear weapons in the southern hemisphere. Sadly, we're unable to beat our chests (we leave that to our mountain gorillas) and threaten our neighbours with annihilation when they get even slightly out of line. And some do get out of line, eh, Mr. Mugabe? The great military powers are not here either. South Africa used to be one, but we threw in the towel after 1994 and now, dammit, have to negotiate the inevitable impasses with our prickly neighbours. Southern hemisphere Latin America? They've given up on dictator governments, although only reluctantly (the generals hate to walk off the stage...) As for Australia and New Zealand? What a joke! They've had to let the Americans set up some kind of forward base in Darwin - to, what, protect them from the Chinese invasion? Gimme a break... OK, so now that I've hi-jacked your valuable time with my sarcastic primer on the other half of the planet that you barely knew existed, I'll tell you about the beautiful Camilla Vallejo. She's Chilean, twenty-three years old. She's the fire-brand focal point for Chileans pouring into the streets to protest sky-rocketing tuition (and grievous imbalances in who gets into universities...Would you believe it's the rich?). Now, the Chilean struggle is addressing larger social issues, including the environment and the rich/poor (formerly middle class) divide. Her regular Santiago street demonstrations draw over 200,000 people (!) and she's attained rock-star status. But not like Amy Winehouse... The British Guardian newspaper's readers named her Person of the Year for 2012 - by a huge margin! Um, maybe you should be paying closer attention to a part of the world where things are looking up. And not down - the barrel of a gun. How 20th Century is that! Sala hantle, Eric P.S. Now that the Australian Open is finished (congrats Aussies!), feel free to ignore the southern hemisphere until the A.O. starts up again this time next year. I'm quite confident nothing will happen in the interval... LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA...January 25, 2012 "YIPPEE! DAVOS IS BACK!"
I'm grateful, and I'm sure many of you feel the same way, that there's still a place where the super rich can go and commiserate with endangered fellow travellers. Particularly right now, when the northern hemisphere days are so cold and short and, otherwise, they might be feeling a little lonely and isolated... But now, starting today, with a speedy helicopter ride from Zurich to Davos ( 9,000 British pounds each way), they'll be yodeling and yukking it up with right-minded men and women - who suffer the same misunderstood lives as they do. But, hold on. It's not just the super-rich at Davos... No, our global elite political class, including, for heaven's sake, our own President Jacob Zuma - leading a strong South Africa delegation, will be there. Yes, the South African taxpayer will be footing the bill... Plus heads of state from 40 other countries. These pols wouldn't miss this annual Great New Ideas For Saving The World extravaganza for anything. And why should they? The bond between the wealthy and politicians these days is one of the world's great love stories. Oh, excuse me, for getting overly sentimental... Anyhow, at just one Davos 'whoop-de-doo' (excuse me, again, 'World Economic Forumparty') last year all those attendees hoping to make the world a better place - drank 16,000 British pounds of wine - to help clear their brains for the Really Big Thoughts we expect when the mega-rich and politicians team up to deliver us from evil...  SHOULDN'T WE BE WORRIED THAT SOME OF THE DAVOS SUPER-RICH MIGHT HAVE PERISHED ON THE LUXURY CRUISE SHIP, COSTA CONCORDIA? ABSOLUTELY NOT! THE SUPER-RICH WOULDN'T BE CAUGHT DEAD ( OR ALIVE) ON THIS SARDINE CAN... Davos was founded in 1971 by the German economist, Klaus Schwab. He's still kicking and remains the president of Davos, Inc. (750 people are permanently employed to plan the bash.) Sadly, even Herr Schwab sounds a little jaded and weary in these recent remarks: "Capitalism, in its current form, no longer fits the world around us. We have failed to learn the lessons from the financial crisis of 2009. We have a moral divide, we are overindebted, we have neglected investments in our future, we have undermined social cohesion. And we run the risk of completely losing the trust of future generations," said Schwab sternly . Do you see any real problems in Herr Schwab's reckless statements? I don't, either. So let's party!!! Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA...January 23, 2012 "SAPHOTOSAFARI: IN CASE YOU DIDN'T NOTICE, IT'S NOT REALLY ABOUT (1) SOUTH AFRICA, (2) PHOTOS, (3) SAFARIS. READ ON AT YOUR PERIL..." Don't you loathe those dreary websites, TV shows, books, etc. that didactically tell you what it is you're studying with your very own eyeballs? Still, at some risk, your SA correspondent wishes to 'stop the music' for just a moment and decant his 'thinking' about this blossoming website. Screw mission statements. They're just another excuse to hold meetings (I concur with the Dilbert cartoon strip 100%!)... I've noticed in my travels over the decades, and right here in South Africa, that government is failing miserably in assisting people to build lives they feel are worthy and successful - and giving them that buoyant feeling we call happiness. That said, I recognize that we all need government, contrary to what the Lilliputian-minded American Tea Partiers may think. I also understand that all of us should expect to have to struggle for excellence in government, continuously. So having said that, I, personally, look increasingly not at GDP figures or per capita income stats, but at what's happening in countries - on the ground. "Smiles per capita" might be a good way to put it. This week's apparently frothy Photo Essay on the Stellenbosch Saturday Market is either about very little - or about a whole lot. Sure it's whimsical. But I see powerful forces at work in these pictures, forces that signal a promising future for South Africa. Unhappily, Apartheid didn't stop with a simple vote in 1994. I can still remember being in a small dorp (town) in Kwa-Zulu Natal Province in 2,000, when I saw with my own eyes an Indian teacher on a playground with white school children milling about. I was amazed! I'd never seen that before. A dozen years later, South Africa still has mediocre governance (mostly) and a real revolution in how most people think and act. This is happening, importantly, among the white community as well. The Stellenbosch Saturday Market has - examine those photos! - new business people of colour who now have the confidence and skills to start small enterprises. Here's a sweet Muslim woman offering me a food sample, a black guy doing wire sculpture, a coloured woman selling hand-made leather bags - and on and on. Stellenbosch is a major university town and there are, finally, black students everywhere. And the graduates are starting to take their degrees and enter the professional life of their country. Our recent town manager - a terrific coloured guy, had a town planning degree from Stellenbosch University, which not so long ago was an all-white Afrikaner school. Unfortunately for us, he was so terrific he got poached by a larger community than ours - with a fatter paycheck! His replacement, also coloured, is just as good. Can we hang on to him?  So, the civic life of South Africa isn't, of course, just what you read in the paper or see on the tube. I try and use SAPHOTOSAFARI to tell the other story, how life is on the ground, here and everywhere I travel. Because in the end it's the only story that really matters, isn't it? End of sermon... Now, back to a healthy whacking of Wall Street, greedy politicans and bloody war mongerers! Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA...January 20, 2012 "OUR WACKY, WONDERFUL SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE ISN'T THE ONLY 'LOONEY BIN' ON THE PLANET: AN UPDATE" "At least the war on the envirnment is going well!", read the slogan on the back of a camper vehicle I spied recently. How true, how true... This week news reaches South Africa from the Sea Shepherd folks who are battling the Japanese whalers in their annual tussle over "research" harvesting of whales off the coast of Antarctica. A South African photographer, Russell Bergh, who is filming the clashes for Animal Planet, was injured Wednesday when he was struck by iron grappling hooks thrown by the Japanese. The Sea Shepherd flagship vessel, the Steve Irwin, has for several years, been hectoring the Japanese whalers, including successful attempts to board Japanese processing ships where, natch, they're immediately arrested. This leads to giant international press coverage for the anti-whaling protesters and the arrested are eventually released. Enviros: 1, Japan: 0.
 Isn't it odd that the Japanese persist against world-wide adverse publicity? For what? Whales are high order mammals and, just as we don't shoot mountain gorillas (legally) anymore, it seems strange that with all the other problems the Japanese are confronting, whaling still gets green-lighted by the government there. Presumably, this demonstrates (to the Japanese public) that the Japanese government won't back down when "cultural" issues are at stake. Isn't this analogous to the Americans' determined need to fight back-to-back-to-back wars against smallish countries that shouldn't possibly be able to defeat the Yanks (Although they do! Remember Vietnam?). That curious behavior is actually a function of the domestic "cowboy gunslinger" image that Americans impose on their politicians. Even Obama, as practically his first order of business in the White House, had to oversee blunt force treatment in Afghanistan - to presumably demonstrate what a macho guy he is and how, under no circumstances, is he going to allow the Taliban to come ashore in New Jersey! South Africans, too, have their blinders. How do you think Apartheid chugged along for fifty years without tacit support from the minority white community? Swart Gevar! (Black Peril! in Afrikaans, was the government's cry of the day). I guess every society needs it "demons" - to keep paranoia alive and well! And it's so much easier for governments to chase bogeymen, than to tackle fractious domestic problems like education, healthcare or expensive infrastructure updates... Please don't eat any whale burgers... Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA...January 16, 2012 " 2012: SAPHOTOSAFARI'S 'A Year For Indiginous (Traditional) People'" As I sort through my not inconsiderable digital / film library (25,000 images +-), I see faces jump out at me that catch me off-guard time and again. As I've mentioned previously, I'm always drawn in my travels in remote areas by the indiginous peoples. Often, these days, their dwindling numbers reflect their poverty, lack of education, their remoteness from political centres, where the more astute citizens of their country manipulate the levers of power to their financial and social benefit. We live in a very assertive, consumer-driven world and traditional people are often left dazed and confused with social rhythms they can't comprehend. Almost universally, they are ignored, invisible, swept aside by 'progress'. Yes, they are marginalized. But they are there!  I hope to use this website as a platform for bringing these invisible people to your attention. Each photo is accompanied by a short text profiling what I saw or recalled as I encountered these small lives in my travels. They can be viewed regularly with a click of the "Quick Snapshot" button on the SAPHOTOSAFARI home page... Did you happen to catch this photo last week? I took the picture on the China / Burma / Laos border when it first opened to outsiders. I wondered then, "Is this the last woman on earth with bound feet?" I'm still "wondering" every time I take a photo... Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... January 12, 2012 "NOAH'S ARC!: YOUNG SA COMEDIAN TREVOR NOAH'S CAREER TAKES OFF LIKE A ROCKET AFTER APPEARANCE ON GLOBAL COMEDY'S TOP SPOT - JAY LENO'S USA TONIGHT SHOW"
Trevor Noah's cheeky humour puts South Africans in stitches. He's a mixed-race guy of 27 (Mum, SA black, Dad, Swiss white) who isn't shy about teasing all races about their foibles here in SA - and in doing his wicked impressions, has legions of fans from, you guessed it, all South African races. But instead of resting on his home-grown laurels, Noah made the toughest career decision of all: he moved last June to L.A. (where promising entertainment careers go to die). His first stand-up comedy gig drew six (6) people. Cool. Or, should I say, ouch! He plugged along anyhow, working American audiences, realising immediately that their sense of humour was way different from South Africa's. I, personally, never hear Americans joke about race in the good-natured kidding sense that is central to SA's success as a vibrant democracy. The country's top cartoon strip, Madam and Eve, captures this SA 'funny bone' pitch perfectly with a starchy white lady, the Madam, her gin-guzzling mother and the pair's laid-back black domestic worker, Eve. The strips are amusing, and deadly so, because they play to people prejudices - and make fun of them. Trevor Noah does just that, letter perfect!  Noah, a little desperate perhaps, entered a comedy contest in L.A. and won (he has a beautiful South Africa English accent). Before the dust had settled, he was tipped for an appearance on Jay Leno's Tonight Show. Our small potatoes South African comedian, with the Big Dreams, was picked up for the TV event in a studio limo that parked in front of his tiny Pasadena apartment. He brought along his girlfriend and manager. In the Tonight Show's famous Green Room, with chanpagne, flowers and bowls of splashy fruit aplenty, Leno dropped by, plunked down and jauntily shot the breeze with Trevor to get him loosened up for the biggest gig of his young life. So what happened? Doing his stand-up routine in front of Leno, the other guest, actress Glen Close and a global audience of millions, Noah drilled it! A ten out of ten. Talking about his parents' mixed-raced marriage and his dad's attraction to his black mother he quipped, "For my dad, it was like, well, you know how the Swiss love chocolate!" He jabbed his finger at the audience and declared, "America, you have the credit rating of a black man!" The audience whooped and cheered. Leno and Close dissolved in laughter. At the end of Trevor's six minute routine he got a rare accolade indeed: a standing ovation from the toughest audience he'll ever face. The first African comedian ever to appear on American television, may have scored the same breakout performance that made Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock the reigning 'Kings of Comedy' - on the same show. But the sweetest words of all, according to Trevor Noah, came when Leno put an arm around his shoulder and said, in front of millions, "Come back and see us, man!" That famous Leno endorsement will be Noah's 'Ticket To Ride'... Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... "A SOUTH AFRICAN 'JURASSIC PARK' STORY - THAT'S TRUE!" January 9, 2012... Just before Christmas in 1938, a young museum curator without, in fact much training, went down to the docks in East London, South Africa, to casually sort through the day's catch. Majorie Courtenay Latimer, in her early twenties and with a limited education to say the least, had improbably become Director of the new East London Museum. The museum was the typical product of a small, isolated town trying to spiff up its cultural image. There was , however, just one problem. The museum building was largely empty (a modest oversight by the town fathers?) and Miss Latimer was trying to fill it up. Maybe, she surmised, a display of stuffed fishes might make a suitable exhibit...  On the docks, Latimer's eye was quickly drawn to a bizarre fish jumbled in with an assortment of the usual East London catch. "My word", she thought. "What is that?" Well,'that' turned out to be the fish that changed the world! "It was five feet long, a pale mauvy blue with faint flecks of whitish spots; it had an iridescent silver-blue-green sheen all over, and a strange little puppy-dog tail. It was such a beautiful fish - more like a big china ornament, but I didn't know what it was." It weighed 127 pounds and, frankly, to my eye, looks positively prehistoric. Latimer bought the fish for a pittance from the boat's skipper - who in thirty years of fishing had never seen anything like it, either. There followed a completely inspiring tale of human persistence, curiousity and courage (Latimer was a young woman operating in a traditional man's world). It being the festive season, the closest ichthyologist (fish scientist), Rhodes University Professor J.L.B. Smith, was off on holiday. Latimer iced down her mystery catch, but after two weeks of frantic telegramming, had to throw away the off-putting innards (I bet!) She made sketches and then proceeded to have a taxidermist mount the oddity. Eventually, Dr. Smith ambled down to East London from Grahamstown, took one look at the fish - and nearly feinted! It was he pronounced, after further furtive fidgeting, almost certainly a Coelacanth (see-la-kanth). There was just one small problem: the coelacanth was first disovered in the geologic fossil record 400 million years ago and was presumed to have died out with the dinosaurs - 75 million years ago! So how could they possibly be staring at a recently, well, living fossil? Smith's announcement to the scientific world had a bombshell effect. Recall that Darwin's Theory of Evolution was still hotly contested in the 1930's, particularly by fundamentalist Christian religious groups who maintained that the earth was created in 7 days, literally. One of Charles Darwin's propositions was that at some point life moved out of the oceans and onto terra firma. Suddenly, here was a"fish" that had, what looked to casual observors - like nascent legs! Professor Smith received death threats and, regularly, hate mail. But the race to find another Coelacanth (with those innards!) was on and Smith placed circulars - with a sizable monetary reward - up and down the east coast of Africa all the way to Zanzibar. Unbearably, it was 14 long, agonizing years, until the second Coelacanth turned up on a primitve hook, line and sinker, caught by a local fisherman in the Comoros Islands, north of Madagascar. Smith's life became obsessed with the Coelacanth and the controversy that surrounded it. Eventually other fish were caught, including, astonishingly, all the way around the other side of the Indian Ocean in Indonesia. A riveting book, A Fish Caught In Time, by the British author, Samantha Weinberg, brilliantly illuminates this page-turning mystery with all the drama of a 'Sherlock Holmes' detective thriller. Published in 1999, I turned up a mint copy with a perfect jacket at a second-hand bookstore here in South Africa (No, I categorically will not tell you where I get my great reads at budget prices!) Finally, after all the great scientists and politicians of the era had weighed in about the Coelacanth, it was left to Professor Smith to name it. He did: Latimeria Chalumnae*, after Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, the young, non-scientist, who ferociously preserved a smelly marine 'curiousity' for weeks, the importance of which she could not possibly have understood. Miss Latimer's living fossil changed the course of scientific history and our understanding of, ultimately, our own human origins... Thank you, Marjorie Courtenay Latimer (she lived into her nineties). I hope you were able to throw open the museum's windows and give it a good airing out... Whew! Sala hantle, Eric *Chalumnae was the river off of which the Coelacanth was first netted (the geographical site of the discovery)... A FISH CAUGHT IN TIME, BY SAMANTHA WEINBERG, IS DEFINITELY IN PRINT AND AVAILABLE ON-LINE AND IN BOOKSTORES. LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... "SA'S 'BRAIN DRAIN' REVERSES SHARPLY AS EXPATS RETURN HOME..."
January 5, 2012... Amid all the depressing news from around the globe, there's a good-news story playing out in slow motion here in South Africa. Our diaspora is coming home! Last year 37,000 professionals returned from overseas. This year the figures are up sharply further. What gives? Well, obviously, the turbulent economies of the developed world have dampened job prospects and the swishy paypackets that SA expats had raining down on them have slumped. South Africa for years has trained highly sought-after doctors and engineers and teachers, etc. that have been shamelessly "poached" by the likes of Australia, the U.S., Britain and Canada. These rich countries are too cheap to train their own high-skills workforce (or the students don't have the necessary drive to complete the degrees?) So, if your medical school isn't producing enough doctors (British Columbia, Canada!) why not just entice South African medical specialists with their sterling skills and renowned "bedside manner" to plug the gap? There are major ethical considerations conveniently overlooked by most developed countries in recruiting the best and brightest from India, China and, yes, South Africa. The Americans train thousands of foreigners in their engineering programs particularly, but this isn't done for altruistic reasons. They (think Microsoft and Google) have insatiable needs for tech personnel and have the financial clout to buy these skills anywhere they can get them... So, again, why are the Seffricans coming home in droves? "Well, East, West, Home is Best" does tell part of the story. They're longing for the comfortable lifestyle that the South African middle class enjoys. Younger couples are ready to start families and want the relaxed, family-friendly culture South Africa affords (we're even seeing it in our small town!) The beauty and open spaces of South Africa make travel fun and irresistible. Housing is up in price here, but utterly reasonable compared with, say, Britain or the States ( OK, southern California is dirt cheap - but who wants to live there?) No, the thinking I see in news stories and hear in person, is that South Africa is about much more than making money. Individuals can make a difference in South Africa! It's not about getting rich for most people (I'm speaking, of course, about our swelling middle class), but about leading a life that feels human, part of a community - and one with a restructuring task that commands the interest and commitment of the country's best and brightest - no mater their skin colour, religion or ancestry. South Africans shed actual tears for this magical, fraught place, what it's been through and where it can go if it has the willpower. Powerful emotions that well up from deep inside are unleashed here at regular intervals. When was the last time an American or a Brit cried for their native land? No, the Culture of Money, I feel poorly saying this, has so corrupted politics and the citizenry that you actually here Yanks talking blythely about "Winners" and "Losers" - as if a nation or a community operates on the same business model as a casino. Say what? National Health care in the U.S.? Why, it's just another plot by liberals or worse, social democrats, to take over the country! Gimmee a break... Let me conclude with a few facts. South Africa moved up in the global competive ranks four notches this year to 50th place, second best among the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). We had the top stock exchange in the world as ranked by best business practices and transparency. Our banking system is in the top 20 globally (the U.S. is around 67th, just a step ahead of Tanzania). And with a stellar National Credit Act, the country never went beserk on consumer debt during the recent bubble. Finally, SA's public debt to GDP is around 43%, up, but still nothing like some flagrant E.U. member states - or the U.S. (100%). Said Ann Nurock, an SA advertising executive who was transferred to Toronto two years ago and returned to SA two months ago, "I honestly think people don't realize that even with the big issues we face in SA, you don't appreciate how good it is here until you leave." Then they do. And now they're coming back. Welcome home! Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... "RACISM: GAAK! (AS DILBERT SAYS) WHO WANTS TO TALK ABOUT THAT?" January 2, 2012... I awakened this morning, plunked down on the couch in our big kitchen to watch the day begin. I was enjoying my first sip of strong coffee and listening quietly to Cape Talk radio - when I got a bucket of cold water thrown over my daybreak reverie. There it was, again, being talked about in civilized company (or not), the dreaded subject: racism! Today, the Chinese business community, which is popping up in SA like mushrooms after a rain, was getting a swell dose of, well, rascist spew. From blacks, no less. Then we trolled the usual terrain of white/black racism, black/Indian racism, coloured/black racism and so on... I began to sip my coffee with increased relish because it's this very subject - and the ability to talk it out in public - that keeps our bigotry thermostat down in these South African fomerly fraught fields of fractured feelings ( you remember Apartheid, right?). The radio personality was a black woman who wonderously juggles the white, black, brown and Indian callers - and appeals to everybody's better angels. We have a reasonably non-racial media in South Africa. A stunning accomplishment when you think what that involves. It takes multi-racial print journos and air personalities, but, as importantly, it takes millions of rainbow-type Seffricans to tune in and support the advertisers, or it's a no-go. And that means rich, middle class and poor people listening to the same on-air programming (or buying the newspapers) because the market demographics are not that big here. But on 567 Talk Radio (Cape Town) and 702 Talk Radio (Joberg) that's exactly the miracle we're seeing! This morning, our female "presenter", as they're called here, had this insightful observation for a frustrated black caller: "Is Cape Town racist (or any SA city) because whites make it so or is it because blacks suffer low esteem, are too passive - and so get taken advantage of. That got my attention! Ask anybody across the Middle East if their new-found freedom was handed to them or if they had to, physically, take it and OCCUPPY the democratic space... As we always say here at peanutty SAPHOTOSAFARI, democracy is a full-time job... Millions of South African whites wish this country to succeed (there are about 5 million whites or 10% of the population) - or they would have all fled to Australia by now... Race and its repercussions are subjects of conversation and debate continuously here - across all colour, economic and religious faultlines. Is that awkward? Sure, a little, but there's enormous pleasure, dare I say fun, in having this crucial, serial, societal conversation as South Africa leaves its tormented past where it belongs - in the dustbin! Sala hantle (good-bye in Sesotho), Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... " THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE REALLY ARE FREE - OR DAMN CLOSE TO IT..."
December 29, 2011 You cannot live in South Africa, be a reasonably moral citizen, and not see poverty on a scale that is darkly dispiriting. Or India, or Brazil or China or, well, just about everywhere including the previously fortunate Land of Milk & Honey, America. You cannot visit Egypt without realizing how few job opportunities there are now for young people ready to flex their muscles and make their mark on life. I'm afraid it's the new normal... So I want to turn the tables on this malevolent historical moment in 2012 by asking a simple question: Is making lots of money a meaningful life or an ethical life? It's obviously not going to happen anytime soon for billions of people on our congested planet, so maybe we need to STOP waking every single day to that addictive media drumroll: the hourly price of gold, oil (platimun in SA), the fate of financial markets by the minute, the Euro's dire prospects, etc., ad nauseum. I don't think for a minute that any of us, individually, can stop this torrent of information being peddled by the, frankly, commercial interests that produce it. But do we have to listen to it? At our house we don't have a TV. That's right, for twenty-some years Lynn and I have taken a pass on the idiot box. What do we do with our time since we also don't have iPods, Kindles or Smartphones (we do seriously work our laptops, I must blushingly confess)? Well, one thing we do is enjoy our friends and neighbours in our modest dorp (town) because, thank heavens, South Africans are highly social. We read, big time (If Kindles are how you read - great!). We have frivilous, but also serious, running discussions about the arc of our personal lives, politics, why has America lost its compass, etc. We read the terrific SA newspapers, physically, and the NY Times, but also the Toronto Globe & Mail, The Australian and occasionally, the China Morning Post on-line. (We get pretty good feeds of the serious British press mixed in with our SA newspapers. I never miss a chance to read Robert Fisk, from Beirut, when I have a chance and recommend him to viewers.) My wife has completed a Cambridge University CELTA degree and expects to be teaching English as a second language in the new year. Uh, I take pictures from time to time and then torment viewers who dare to watch them streamed onto the Internet. We work out and walk everyday. Lynn gardens, quite ferociously it seems to me ... Are we rich? No, we're middle class, so we budget our money for the SAPHOTOSAFARI trips you see profiled here. We car or tent camp regularly (and, yeah, stay in a decent hotel from time to time). We, personally, viscerally, detest injustice, poverty, political corruption, junk schools, etc. - and never say "No" to the people who knock on our door for handout food -everyday (It's hard to be dignified when you're hungry. I know this first-hand.). So what's the point of this turgid self-revelation? 2012 promises to be a rough year for many, many people. I'm not speaking so much here about the cruel fate of those that subsist on $2 a day, but rather your life and my life, the great global middle class. A quick glance at what I've just written is riddled with activities that are free or dirt-cheap. Most take self-motivation, but that's free, too. The C-O-N-S-U-M-E-R future that Big Corp has in store for you is, actually on reflection, yours to accept or decline. I find that the fastest (and cheapest) way to put a smile on a stranger's face - is to smile at them. I did it hundreds of times this year - with black people, brown people, white people, rich and poor people, Muslims, Christians, and all other "isms" - and it works like a charm! Forget the pathetic glam life that's punted day in and out in the media - you need Adversity to make you strong! And we have a special sale on it coming soon: In 2012!... Sala hantle and Happy (forget prosperous!) New Year. Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... "TIGHT TIMES? WHAT A PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO DO A 'COURSE CORRECTION' - AND, THIS TIME (OUCH!) LET YOUR CONSCIENCE BE YOUR GUIDE! ..." December 26, 2011 Alright, we all have one week to blow off steam, sleep late, eat & drink too much (you'll be sorry!) and generally stumble, bumble and fumble. South Africans, with or without money, will be doing their utmost to behave like idiots on the country's carriageways... with predictable results. Then it's all hands on deck. It'll be 2012 - a year of upheaval to make 2011 look like a bowl of cold oatmeal! How about this recent statistic:the Capitalist shenanigans have lurched so far out of control that in the U.S. the richest 400 people now have more money than the bottom 150 million. Yikes! As people, around the world, pour into the streets, even the Putin government is back-peddling in Russia. That's right, even the stoic Russian middle class is acting up! What a sight to see. Unless, of course, you're peering out from behind a curtain in the Kremlin...
My gut tells me that politicians are basically cowards. They strut their stuff as long as constituents put up with it and then scamper for cover when their irate citizenry starts to carry on like a hive of angry hornets. Speaking truth to power is an absolute for those of us who wish to live in democracies. The moment the chicanery, corruption, incompetence, etc. is not called down - that's when the trouble begins. South Africa is going through just such a period with an entrenched government that has generally lost its moral compass. To watch the press here go after high government officials for huge breaches of conduct, is to stand in awe. South Africa is heavily unionized in the formal workplace and there, too, the COSATU union leader, Zwelinzima Vavi, misses no chance to snap at the heels of errant government officials. These institutions in South Africa, plus academic institutes are standing up to the authorities! 2012 will be a long year and, surely, a hard year, but make sure it's not another year of fiddling, prevaricating, looking the other way, condoning corruption - while the thugs of capitalism run rampart. Which brings me to my final thought... My gut also tells me the easy living days aren't coming back any time soon. So use these tight times to update your own life. (I'm doing it with this website.) Find hobbies that don't cost an arm and a leg, take some inexpensive on-line courses, start running or fitness walking, plant a damn garden - it doesn't matter. Just so that when you look in the mirror, you like what you see... For the last fifty thousand years most humans have spent their entire lives in subsistence living. Why should you there - with the new smartphone - get a free pass? Eh! Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... " SOUTH AFRICAN RHINO POACHING UPDATE: RHINO HORN AS AN APHRODISIAC OR MEDICINE? YOU MUST BE HALLUCINATING!" December 13, 2011 As we enter the not-so-jolly festive season this troubled year, I reluctantly need to (further) burn my correspondent's candle in defense of SA's priceless patrimony of wild rhinos. The assault on these completely vulnerable creatures continues to gather speed even as SA's park rangers and police set up strike forces to deal with the scourge. Here are the dreadful stats: Year 2000, 7 rhinos poached; 2007 13 rhinos poached; 2009, 122 rhinos poached, 2010, 333; and 2011, through December 12, 431 rhinos poached! The ghastly nature of this apparently syndicate-organized slaughter, was brought close to home this past weekend when a bull and pregnant cow rhino, on a near-by game reserve, were darted with M-99, the super morphine drug. Then they had their horns chopped off with pangas (machetes) - while they were still alive! The animals are in a vet's care and may or may not live, it's too soon to tell. If they weren't endangered rhinos, a vet would almost certainly have put them down for humane reasons... This story has been splashed across the front page of the Cape Times yesterday and today, a good sign that the newspaper's readers are pissed as hornets about this attack on what is a fundemental tenet of being a South African: our country has stunning, bountiful wildlife and a flawless reputation for protecting this global asset. That "given" is now being challenged by end users in Asia. I don't like to point fingers without facts, but this a generally agreed upon fact... Now for the "CSI: South Africa" story. M-99 is only available through licensed South African vets. The product is so powerful that an antidote for humans is included with each packet of the drug, as it's otherwise fatal. The rhinos, within hours, received this antidote and that's probably why they're still alive three days after the attack. Two fingerprint covered darts were taken from the cow rhino and tests are underway in the regional crime lab. The wildlife reserve owner speculates that a veternarian, somewhere, will be found to have been involved, since the drug is so tightly controlled. Last year a major rhino poaching ring was smashed in Limpopo Province, involving a helicopter pilot and a veternarian - both whites by the way. A few weeks ago, a world-renowned game veternarian and former head of Kruger Park's game capturing unit, Dr. Douw Grobler, was held on charges of illegally distributing M-99 and has made his first court appearance... H-m-m-m. Of course, it's not just whites. Plenty of Africans and Asians have already been killed, wounded or arrested in rhino poaching shoot-outs with the authorities in this escalating war, for that's what it is, a war. The good news? There were 21,087 rhinos in South Africa in 2009 and this is a relatively bearable dent in the population. So far... Why would anyone take these risks of death, injury or long prison sentences? Why, of course, for the money! Rhino horn (composed of tightly matted hair) sells for over $40,000 dollars a kilo. South Africans are angry and fed up about this travesty, so, wannabe rhino poachers, if you're caught, expect no mercy!! Sorry to bum you good readers out! I have some very positive material for my next blog... Sala hantle for now, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... "ARE YOU REALLY AN ENTREPRENEUR? THEN DON'T FORGET THE DIABOLICAL 'TEN THOUSAND HOUR RULE'. OUCH, IT HURTS, BUT THE PAIN IS NECESSARY..." December 9, 2011 In these dreadful economic times, it's extremely tempting to have a "brainstorm" in the middle of the night and decide, what the hey, I'll toss the last of my savings into the wind and start my own business. STOP! South African business people are struggling mightily with the rest of the world to stay afloat in these wretched times of financial and business turmoil. As I move around this country and, in the last year or so, Argentina, Namibia, Egypt and the USA, I've been seeing great photo opportunities for SAPHOTOSAFARI, but damn few business opportunities that I would bet the ranch on - or even one euro, dollar, rupee, yuan, peso or rand (SA's currency). Businesses are contracting and falling over dead in unheard of numbers right now, so best keep your powder dry! Even the best business ideas need optimistic customers to try new 'dreams and schemes' and I don't see the optimisim here in South Africa or elsewhere at the moment (Asia and Australia may be a different landscape...) Banks aren't lending on trial business balloons (do they ever?). And if your savings are already largely depleted, then you're surely not in a position to take one of life's biggest, scariest gambles - starting a small business. So what should you do, if you know, deep in your gut, that you, congentially, are a self-employment case (Tragically,I'm one of those happy fools!)? Here are a few simple questions to ask yourself before you take the plunge. Do you have a commitment to "do or die"? Many would-be entrepreneurs find out too late, and painfully, that they were really just hoping to get lucky at the business roulette table. The wounded and disabled with this attitude are too numerous to count. So don't you be one of them... Honestly now, are you willing to outwork the competition? Small business is civilized warfare, as any real business person will tell you, and if you have any suspicions about you determination to succeed - don't damage your finances or your family - or your self-confidence unnecessarily... Finally, do you have a skill that many others don't, that people will pay for and that is, critically, defensible? Because, sadly, if it's a good idea, but plenty of other people can copy it, with low barriers to entry - they will! And you'll be burnt toast... Here's a final thought for these perilous times. Study other people's businesses that are successful. What do they do? (I promise you the owner will be close at hand, or some kind of mischief will finish off his "milk cow" quickly.) Volunteer at a successful business and ask the owner thoughtful questions. Small business people love to talk about their successful businesses, because all of us enjoy flattery and there's lots for you to learn from entrepreneurs in the flesh. Lastly (and most ghastly!) there's the Ten Thousand Hour Rule. That's roughly the amount of time it takes to build a skill so that you can outcompete the competition. Whether you're a tech-savvy software designer or a plumber or a car mechanic, farmer, a nurse or a teacher, plenty of well-qualified people are doing what you dream of doing - and the only way to protect your business (or career) investment is to be the very best! And, frankly, that's the way it should be in life. If you're shooting for average and coming up short - get ready to stand in the queue at the unemployment office for a very long while... These are desperate times and they call for desperate measures. So get prepared now. Your no-risk research efforts will count against the ten thousand hours. When your entreprenurial moment arrives - you'll be ready to succeed. And to savour the fruits of you own efforts! Sala Hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... "WHEN WILL THE LAST STUDENT ON EARTH HAVE A HAND-HELD COMPUTER - SO THE CHAINS OF POVERTY CAN BE SHATTERED FOREVER? MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, SOONER THAN YOU THINK..."
December 5, 2011 If you're looking at SAPHOTSAFARI.COM right now, your life is moving in the right direction. No, I'm not giving myself a slap on the back, I'm just pointing out the obvious: you're computer literate and have the means to go on-line. So for you life may or may not turn out perfectly, but at least you have control over a sizable chunk of your destiny. You know what's going on in our madly shrinking world - and you can adjust to new realities, including buffing up your educational/work skills. But what if you're so poor, as many kids are in the developing world, that you have never seen a computer-like device, can't afford one, and are doomed to a life of impoverished ignorance? Tom Friedman, the tech-savvy New York Times columnist, has just been in India - and the answer to the above question, apparently is coming from the new Indian Insitute of Technology in Rajasthan - one of India's M.I.T.'s (elite engineering schools). There, Prem Kalra, the Insitute's Director, asked that same "Last Person" question. And then he went to work solving the riddle, not in America or Europe, but in India. Developed country iPads, tablets, netbooks, iPhones are, to no one's great amazement, ridiculously over-priced for developing countries' poorest citizens. So Kalra and his team set about sourcing cheap commoditized "ingredients" from China and South Korea. They based their rock-bottom priced, hand-held gizmo on the Android 2.2 open operating system, with a 7-inch touch screen and three hours of battery life. After months of tinkering, they did it! They produced the Aakash Tablet which will download important educational materials, including YouTube videos. Whole courses will be available around the world - for free, so that aspiring poor students can watch chemistry courses or learn English on their hand-held devices. This gives the poorest students a shot at the best teachers, too, since so many educational short-comings can be attributed to weak instruction, as weak schools predictably produce badly educated graduates with few job prospects... And the cost, you rightly ask? Not $150, not $75, but only $30 (thirty dollars)! That's 1,500 Indian rupees or 240 South African rand. And that sum, which is still hugely significant to people earning $2 a day, in India, will be financed over a year and include a government subsidy.When the Director's wife, Urmila Kalra, was asked by her maid if the rumour she was hearing could possibly be true, she was told, "It will be so cheap you will be able to buy one for your son and one for your daughter!" What can I add? If you're tired of wars, disease, malnutrition, wasted lives, over-crowded prisons and the guilt that all of us must share for the dreadful curse of poverty, this is one mighty salvo to put decent educational opportunities into the hands of the poorest of the poor. And there are millions of these gentle souls right here in South Africa - and a sweet few dozen at the primary school where Lynn and I attended graduation just last week. Now let's pray that our greedy multi-national corporates don't somehow throw a spanner in the machinery, eh? Those Aakash Tablets will represent a lot of lost profits! Sala hantle for now, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... "A SOUTH AFRICAN FARM 'SCHOOL FOR HOPE' (AN UPDATE!)
December 2, 2011 Lynn and I had been waiting for the phone call and several days ago - it came. Mr. Wilson, the farm school principal was on the line: "Thursday, 19:00 hours", Wilson said simply. We shared a bit of small conversation and rang off. Great news! Graduation evening at Stettyn Primer is always a special event in our small lives and I get a little emotional just saying it. Annually, for some years now, we've been privileged to spend a few hours, often the only whites, with coloured farm workers, their beautiful, hope-filled children and the remarkable, dedicated teachers of Stettyn Primary School. Last night was no different from previous years - which is what makes the evening so special. There's a procession with recorded music as the kids take their seats in the decorated classroom. Proud farmworker parents, scrubbed and polished, the two of us and the four other teachers round out the assembled faithful, 60 people tops. First, the Grade "R" students (aged 5-6), in their tiny black gowns, received their tassled tiny mortar board caps and diplomas. What a fun sight! This may seem odd to sophisticated viewers of this website, but the teachers are showering attention on these tots to re-enforce their ambitions (and self-esteem) to continue in school and thrive as youngsters. And it works... Then the Standard 7 graduates, 12 this year, sang "When I Stand On Your Shoulders, You Raise Me Up To Be More Than I Can Be" - to thank their parents and teachers for their support. The singing was so sweet and melodic, as only African a cappella voices can be, that there wasn't a dry eye in the room, ours included. Then, a first. A graduate of this farm school has just finished secondary school in the near-by dorp (town) - and has been awarded a full busary to the University of Cape Town, the top school on the African continent. Whoa! Danny, our young scholar, then rose and spoke to the students about his determination to become a chartered accountant. A small shiver went up my spine... Then Mr. Wilson and Martha, another powerhouse teacher, exhorted the parents to support their young scholars' ambitions to succeed in school and in life. The farmworker parents are mostly poorly educated, impoverished and more than a few have alcoholism problems, but after Mr. Wilson and Martha get finished speaking, I could see they want to re-double their parenting efforts - and some will. The Grade "R" (kindergarten) teacher, a beautiful young woman, grew up on a near-by fruit farm where her parents were farmworkers. She, with determination, got her teaching degree and is, in her early twenties, a perfect home-grown role model for every aspiring life in the room. She's graceful and poised and as Mr. Wilson whispers to us, a natural born leader... Lynn and I are called upon for our tiny role, to present the diplomas, with applause for each of the beaming graduates. And then it's over. There are snacks and drinks and handshakes and smiles and small talk. We bid farewell to Mrs. Kallie, a Muslim teacher, who is a favourite with the kids and whotiring after nearly 30 years of teaching. Thank you, Mrs. Kallie, for your service! Mr. Wilson, the principal (who recently received his Masters Degree from UCT) sees us out into the cool, damp night. We tell him we'll be waiting for his follow-up phone call in January, when the new school year begins. That's when we get to dig a little into our pockets and show up with school supplies for the 100 +- students: writing notebooks, calculators, pens, pencils, rulers, coloured drawing crayons, etc. and some teacher supplies, as well. Why is this small gesture important? Because many of these kids walk 5 kilometres to school with no shoes - and no breakfast in their bellies - and they've never owned a pencil. The school provides the breakfast and we get to pitch in a little, too. It does takes a village here to raise a child... On the drive home, we don't talk much. But in digesting another graduation night at this small, rural primary school, I can't but think: South Africa you can break my heart, and do regularly, but you mend it like no place else on earth... Sala hantle, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA..."HARD TIMES? DIG DEEPLY TO MAKE THE BEST OF THIS WRETCHED ECONOMY!"
November 15, 2001 The hard economic times are plain to see right around me in South Africa. While, tragically, many here have never had decent work, for a good many years after democracy arrived in 1994, you could palpably feel millions of South African's lives improve. That now, just as palpably, is evaporating as opportunities for young people, particularly, erode... It's rough and unjust and pretty attributable to the runaway Capitalism so beloved by the planet's greedy bast----- . Oh, excuse me, privileged few... So we're stuck in the muck or are we? This feeble voice from South Africa has had an insistent theme over the last year and a few months: it's not the money that will make you happy! ...We had a small social event with our neighbours the other day, you know, to catch up on each other's lives after we'd been away. Rita, the wife, pulled out her photo album from her recent bicycling holiday to the Netherlands (don't worry, we're all firmly planted in the middle class!). It was stunningly arranged with route maps, well-shot photographs that told her story chronologically, margin notes, the works. Every picture does tell a story and each of Rita's led to a free-flowing discussion about the Dutch (Very well informed, Rita reports. Sorry to report, our take on Americans after three months travelling there: not very well informed...), the dike and water management systems, the ancient water mills, the millions of bicycles, the designated bike paths - some complete with their own robots (!). Plus the complete absence of fat people, the somewhat formal nature of Dutch society compared to South africa, the gorgeous architecture, some of it dating to the Middle Ages, etc. Wow! I learned a ton about the Netherlands in an hour, but even more about my wonderful neighbour, Rita. She put a huge amount of creative effort into her photo album project and it was a complete pleasure to learn what she saw and felt about her travel experience. Mr. SRL Camera, of course, stupidly, then had to ask what camera she used to take her great pictures. "Oh, just a small, inexpensive one", Rita replied with a slight, dismissive flick of her hand... The rather obvious moral of this tiny tale from a small town in faraway South Africa is simple. We all need to finds ways in these hard times to be creative, to continue our educations (for life!), to have fun, to be social and to grow into the fully fleshed-out (but not fat!) adults we want to be. So why not pick up your cell-phone camera (I know you've got one!) and learn enough about people (young people?, old people?), plants, pets, weather, architecture, sports teams - it really doesn't matter, does it? And start taking the best pictures you can make. And become an expert on one managable subject...The only thing that does matter is that all of us get through this sticky economic business with our pride and self-confidence intact, our joy in being alive and our pleasure in having fruitful friendships (and societies?). Do you need to make a photo album... or write an article... or a book? I recommend it! I do something similar every week for this website. It's a great exercise in self-discipline for me to sit down, organize my thoughts, give it my best shot - and create something. And by doing it over and over, hopefully, I, and you, will get better at our chosen task. I was a professional furnituremaker (and happily so) earlier in my life - and after 10,000 hours of concentrated effort, I got pretty good at my craft - and made a successful living at it. Miracles do happen! So money or not, why not get cracking with your favourite pursuit, so that your friends ,or maybe even an employer, can see your uniqueness shining through. Besides, wouldn't it be embarrassing to have written on your tombstone one day in the far future: He (she) was an ordinary consumer, a TV layabout or the two billionth Facebook member! So pick up a cell phone camera, or pen and paper, or coloured pencils and paper (!) - and have at it. And don't complain to your friends that you couldn't afford to do anything because life is unfair... It is, but you're bigger than that, aren't you? Sala hantle for now, Eric LETTER FROM SOUTH AFRICA... "FINE-TUNING SOUTH AFRICA'S FAMED WILDLIFE PARKS FOR THE FUTURE..." October 31, 2011 Few visitors to South Africa aren't simply floored by the wealth of bio-diversity with which this country is so abundantly blessed. 30,000 species of plants (see this week's photo essay), something a little shy of a thousand species of birds. Everybody knows about SA's prodigious animal life. Does your country have lions, elephants, the best protected rhinos on the planet, giraffe, hippos, buffaloes, gazillions of antelopes, cheetahs, wild dogs, etc.? It's exhausting to even think about... But think about it we must. For in this world of 7,000,000,000 (how's that for zeros) humans, every hectare now how multiple aspiring uses and users and abusers. Does bio-diversity have a place at the table? Well, that depends on who you talk to, but in the final reckoning keeping wild places safe for bio-diversity is a surprisingly sophisticated concept. And that brings us to the nub of this "Letter"... The head of SANPARKS, the South African National Parks system, is the brilliant Dr. David Mabunda. As he looks over the horizon and peers into SA's future, he's alarmed to see how few South African blacks are utilizing this country's world-renowned reserves. And he's been asking why is this? And he's made a lovely observation that I'd like to share with you. The staple lodging in Kruger Nat'l Park, and the numerous others, is the rondavel - the classic circular, thatch-roofed "African-style" self-catering unit that is so beloved by park visitors. On closer inspection, it develops that it is whites (including many overseas visitors) who are the prime occupants of these atmospheric dwellings that exist in their hundreds and hundreds at popular park rest camps. But what do South African blacks see when they venture into the wilderness parks? They see that the high-priced "primitive" lodgings looks suspiciously like the traditional housing they've left behind in the poor, rural villages they have abandoned for urban professional lives - and the amenities that go with urban affluence. No way are they forking over the big bucks to sleep in facilities that to them seem, well, degrading... Hm-m-m, I never thought about that point of view... But part of being in the new South Africa (and it's a fun part!), is keeping an open mind. So when our thoughtful Dr. Mabunda announced a plan to build single-story "hotel-like" rest camps in two new areas of Kruger, many whites (and environmentalists) rose up in consternated disbelief. But this lodging, Dr. Mabunda responds, is what black South Africans enjoy for their holidays stays, including restaurants, spas and the usual hotel amenities. And if South Africa is going to develop a new generation of stewards for its critical wild parks, then blacks have to begin - in numbers - using the parks, bonding with them and teaching their children that parks are wonderful places to restore frazzled urban spirits - as well as for preserving wild places and wildlife far into the future for its own sake. The new facilities will be built to world-class aesthetic standards, of course. The grumbling from traditional users of the parks (under Apartheid, the parks were safe havens for white holidays) will continue, but I, for one, want to applaud Dr. Mabunda's passion for seeing to it that all South Africans use and cherish our parks - so that 100 years from now, the whole world can still marvel at this spectacle of thrilling wildlife in the wild. No matter how many billions of out-of-control human beings populate the wobbly planet in that distant time... Sala hantle for now, Eric |