Hello blog,
I am at Spier Wine Estate in Stellenbosch, looking forward to a gig by Amanda Palmer. A bucket list event that I am insanely privileged to tick off. There have been lots of thoughts going through my mind and now is as good a time as any to get them out 🙂
There was a tragic shooting in Parkland, Florida, United States on Wednesday. 17 people were killed. I have been blown away by the response of the teenagers affected. I am not afraid for the next generation. We just need to not fuck things up too much and then support them in their actions and problem solving. Teenagers and young adults blow me away.
I have been thinking a lot about grief lately. How it becomes a part of you. How the nature of the pain changes to be less engulfing, and then now as I write this. I miss my dad acutely. There is a rugby match on the television in the wine bar and I miss my dad. We often watched the rugby with him. I have barely watched since he passed on. It hurts too much, it brings in some acute grief.
South Africa got a new president on Thursday. I am glad that the Democratic Alliance didn’t force a secret ballot. I am not a huge fan of the DA at the moment, it would be lovely if they stopped grandstanding and did some work. I wonder if crime is going to improve under Cyril Ramaphosa…I wonder if Jacob Zuma knows the number of people murdered on his watch. I wonder if Cyril Ramaphosa will. I wonder if we will become less angry as a country. I wonder if our politicians can pull together to defeat DayZero in Cape Town. The people are doing well. I am impressed at the water saving efforts at Spier hotel. I do think pilots / flight attendants should make an announcement about the drought on landing in Cape Town. Reminding people to save water.
I worry about the inhumanity to one one another and am glad to see small acts of humanity and connection.
I finally saw wild dog on our trip to Kruger National Park last week. I am saddened by how inaccessible our national parks have become…they used to be much more affordable. But I was given hope (which is the thing with feathers) when I saw two black teenage girls posing for a photo in front of a statue of three old white men who founded the Kruger National Park and when I heard a young white lady speaking fluent Zulu in the shop at Skukuza.
I took two taxify’s today (A South African alternative to Uber). I love chatting to cab drivers, such interesting perspectives. I stopped using Uber because of their failure to care for their people in the US. When I chatted to my drivers today both of them felt like the company’s didn’t care about them. Only about their commissions. One of the drivers drove for both Uber and Taxify. He thinks that neither care about their drivers but Uber is safer to drive for, allowing drivers to cancel more trips and showing whether the pickup is a cash pickup or not. I did my first cash trip today when the driver was panicked about not having enough petrol to get back from dropping me at the airport. We spoke about kasi boys and kasi girls, he said he didn’t think he wanted a relationship with a kasi girl and said thank you for not judging him. I told him I don’t have enough energy to judge that type of thing. I suppose there is an advantage to having been so sick.
It’s half-time in the rugby now and I remember my dad commenting on how he preferred the much shorter interval in rugby compared to soccer.
And that’s some rambles done 🙂
Love and rambling,
Trisha
