Not about the destination

  FIRST YEAR - PART 1 It has been a while between drinks hasn't it. I have been meaning to recount these tales for a while but being back in Cape Town for the past few months strengthened the desire. I was fortunate enough to turn 50 during this time and honoured to celebrate with so many people from all of life's stages. Nine weeks later I still look back at the room and feel nothing but humility…emotional really, that you would take time out of your day, for some even more than a day, to come and hang. What truly made it special was that my day ones were there, my dear 80-year-old folks and my siblings. They say it takes a village to raise a child but it sure takes one to get a guy to 50, so thank you. As previously mentioned, Garth, Philip and I had planned to go to the University of Cape Town (UCT) to study accounting. My matric results weren't as great as I would have hoped. My father was of the inclination that I should be a doctor, in my mind I was like, dude, when s...

  What an interesting day of travel yesterday the 20th of September was. I decided to leave late because well Skopje, North Macedonia, is actually quite a lovely city and I’m glad I went there as opposed to staying in Pristine which I found a bit too chaotic when I got there. The drive was just a little under two hours, well worth it. The drive from Skopje to Sofia was supposed to take 3 1/2 hours or so I gave myself five hours just in case and wow what a drive for some reason my GPS was taking me through little towns where the speed limit varies from 90 to 30 in batting of an eyelid. It was only the last 70 kilometres or so that i managed to to get a highway where I could cruise at 120+. But that is not the story. I was making good pace, I got the border between North Macedonia and Bulgaria I crossed the north Macedonia side perfectly, I get to the Bulgarian side which is 100 m away and they wanted the original car papers, mind you I am driving a rental, I have paid for cross-bord...

The above photo is my metric dance with dear Phidelia. See, I've been wearing traditional since before it was a thing. Edward and I had a plan to design and make our own suits..WIIILLLDDD!!!   As I started writing what I thought would be a short replay of senior school, I just kept typing and I realized ain’t no one going to read 6 pages, so I split it up into parts. So where were we? Yes, The story of Reindeer…   ….During one science class, Mr. Coetzee wasn’t there and so the boys were huddled up in the top right hand corner of the class (our classroom for some reason had rows of desks on different elevations if you can picture it. One of the gents dared me to do something and if I failed to do it, they would all ‘plattie’ me. Plattie was when the guys surround you and then they rain slaps on you until you got out the circle. Not just potentially painful, but rather embarrassing, ESEPCIALLY as a teen. My dare was to call her and tell her I loved her. YIKES!! Idea… At the...

  “Hey dudes, this is our school and we love it with all our heeeaaarrtts, remember you’re gonna get where we are and we hope that you love it as much as we do”  Sang to the tune of hey Jude. This was one of the lines in our valedictory pool song..   Around about this time 36 years ago, our time of being the big kids in the small school was up and now we were set to be the small kids in the big school. Standard 6…High School. Even though the whole school from Sub A (grade R?) to Matric (Grade 12) was called Umtata High School at the time, we were finally starting high school and boy was I petrified!   You see back in the day, being initiated was a rite of passage. This initiation took many forms ranging from physical abuse to the even worse emotional abuse and embarrassment or a combination of both. When you entered senior school or any sports or other team as a newbie, you expected some form of humiliation, public flogging, deep heat somewhere. I had heard of many o...

I keep wanting to write, but I’ve been struggling with how to frame high school, so I’ll continue parking it. Today, however, 4 th   July 2023, marks the 1-year anniversary of my arrival in Amsterdam. It was during one of my discovery strolls in the early weeks, that I started thinking “how did I get here” which actually started this series of blog posts.   I keep getting asked, so Amsterdam, how is it? It must be amazing. I always seem take a moment to answer this, even when I don’t intend to. It sure does present an opportunity for a story doesn’t it, so here we go.   A few years ago, I had made up my mind that my time at my old job was coming to an end. I had a good relationship with my then boss, Tim, who I also considered a friend. Those who know him will know that he is one of those persuasive types so I stayed on a little longer, because, after all, I didn’t really have a solid plan that I was leaving for, just the way I like it sometimes. In 2021 I told him that t...

Yep this was us, co-ed, multiracial school in South Africa, in the apartheid years offering good quality affordable education to all. UNTHINKABLE, but our reality. Lord, behold us with Thy blessing; Once again assembled here; Onward be our footsteps pressing; In Thy love, and faith, and fear; Still protect us; By Thy presence ever near. This is the hymn that we would bellow out at the first assembly of every term. Remember the scene from the Lion King, where Mufasa holds Simba up to the kingdom after his birth, that is what it felt like that morning when Mr. Webber walked Elly and I into Miss Koening’s Standard 1 (grade 3) class for the first time. There was much excitement around the new kids. I recall one young lady, Angela Bennett, being particularly kind to me. This kindness, set off years of silent infatuation, until I got distracted in std 4 I think and I had to call off our relationship that only I was aware of. It wasn’t you, it was me. 😊 I even recall so many permutations of ...