Adultery Fridays

New post up on Global Health about lead poisoning in China. Do you like all my uplifting posts about sunshine and rainbows, which I find set the tone nicely for the weekend?



This is my two-week mark. I leave in exactly two weeks. In fact, in about two weeks from this precise moment, I'll be headed for the airport. That's all I have to say about that.

Youth Day: Commemorating the Soweto Uprising

Sam Nzima's photo, above, of Mabuyisa Makhubo carrying the body of twelve-year old Hector Pieterson as his sister Antoinette Sithole weeps beside them, is the most iconic image of the Soweto uprisings.

Tomorrow, June 16, is a South African public holiday to commemorate the students who participated in the Soweto Uprising in 1976. They were protesting a recently-enforced government requirement that instruction take place in Afrikaans. The Bantu Education System, installed under Apartheid, intentionally provided an unequal education to blacks and prepared them for lower-tier jobs in the homelands or laboring for a white grootbaas ("big boss" in Afrikaans). Following an economic recession in 1975, the Apartheid government was spending R644 per white student and R42 per black student. That year, it was announced that half of all instruction would be taught in Afrikaans (the other half was to be in English), despite the fact that many students and teachers did not speak the language. Afrikaans was also considered the language of the oppressor.

Students were increasingly politicized following the foundation of the African Students' Movement in 1968, which became the South African Students' Movement (SASM) in 1972, and students in Soweto, a township in Johannesburg, organized to boycott and march on June 16, 1976, in protest of the Afrikaans requirement. The South African police barricaded the students' marching route and ordered them to disperse, throwing tear gas canisters. The students refused, and police then began shooting into the crowd. In the riots and chaos that ensued, anywhere from 200-500 were killed (or more...the record isn't clear), buildings associated with the Apartheid government were burned and otherwise defaced, and riots spread across the country. Students from the white University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg marched to protest the government's killing of children. The Soweto Uprising was one of the watershed moments of the anti-Apartheid struggle, cemented the role of students in the fight for freedom, and put further international pressure on the Apartheid government. It's pretty amazing, when you think about it, that a bunch of children were able to influence the course of history and willing to put their bodies in the way to stop an oppressive regime.

More here.

Music Day

It's gorgeous out today. So gorgeous that I needed to put my AC on in the car this afternoon. You get your share of icky, damp, howling days in Cape Town, but one beautiful day like this makes it worth it (and let's be real, there's no snow, so why should I ever complain?). But I've been listening to Adele a lot recently (I realize she's been a big deal for a while now, but I'm a martian at this point, let's let it go). And Adele is a wintry artist--perfect to listen to in front of a roaring fire with a cuppa or to get you all steamed up before you head out into the cold. Whatever your definition of "cold" may be. So, here's the video for her mind-blowing "Rolling in the Deep."






The NYT Bonnaroo coverage this year really made me want to go. And I've already asked around about this, but why do you think Lil Wayne was wearing that backpack on stage? I love the rest of that slideshow--the people in the illuminated costumes reminded me a bit of Afrika Burn and the awesome glow stick outfits some Burners were wearing.

Also, Ozomatli played at Thacher's reunion this year--my sister's 5-year and a member of Ozomatli's 25-year. That's kind of bomb.

Finally, President Obama has taken away the .gov-domain website of the Fiddlin' Foresters--the folk (bluegrass?) band of the US Forest Service--in an effort to cut government waste. Although one can't help but applaud the President's goal, this seems like pretty small potatoes. Plus, how cool is this song? Or the one below (and shades of Joan Baez, anyone)? That harmonica bit that goes into "Oh, Shenandoah?" Fantastic. Music with a nice message about conservation. Oh well. I guess we have to cut the lefty stuff to cut the righty stuff. Compromise shmompromise.

Walking the Bo-Kapp

Two weekends ago, a couple of friends and I did a walking tour through the Bo-Kapp, the brightly-painted, traditionally-Muslim community that sits between the City Bowl and Signal Hill. Mostly comprised of descendants of the "Cape Malay," or slaves brought to work the gardens in the old Cape Colony (which was a re-stocking point for the Dutch East India Company on its trading routes to the East), the neighborhood is closely knit and steeped in its unique traditions. While visiting the kramats, or shrines, and cemetery in Bo-Kapp, a very nice man gave us a brief history of the Muslim saints buried there. He'd come to pay his respects with his son. You can hear the muezzins calling the faithful to prayer when hiking Lion's Head. The area is most famous for its brightly-colored houses. It can be a bit dodgy in some areas, and I've heard that strangers are not always welcome (an understandable reaction to gentrification), but overall, I found the people to be welcoming, which is surprising and commendable in any neighborhood that gets overrun with photo-snapping tourists. Above, the oldest mosque in Cape Town.

The oldest house in the Bo-Kapp.






Chiappini Street












View of the city from the Bo-Kapp cemetery

Global Plan to Eliminate MTCT Launched!

This is very, very exciting news. UNAIDS, in concert with 25 countries and 30 organizations/corporations (including mothers2mothers), has launched a global plan, Countdown to Zero, to reduce new infections of HIV among children (mother-to-child transmission, MTCT) by 90% and AIDS-related maternal deaths by 50% by 2015. The plan calls for countries to strengthen community involvement, such as a "mentor mother" model for PMTCT. A mentor mother, according to the report, is "a mother living with HIV who is trained and employed as part of a medical team to support, educate and empower pregnant women and new mothers about their health and their babies’ health." So great to hear.

Of course there are things to be concerned about. The current funding environment is volatile, to say the least. These goals will require a massive coordination of efforts at the local, country, and global levels from a multitude of actors who haven't always played nice in the past. And the plan, of course, could go further. But this is the UN (plus 25 countries and 30 NGOs, foundations, civil society orgs, and private sector companies) we're talking about. In those terms, this is pretty bold.

For more reading, see the m2m press release. Full report here (it's a PDF).

Adultery Fridays

I copped out a bit and did another link post over at Global Health. Whatevs. It's got some good stuff in there, though. Enjoy!

Eesh.

That's something I'll miss--that South African expression. Eesh. Anyway, I'm short on inspiration, so I thought I'd try something new. Here's a poem I wrote back in November 2009 that's been rolling around in a folder in my computer.



Devil's Peak


We were walking
Out on the mountain slopes
Before the ground became too steep and rocky
And the old burns were there
Twisted blackened limbs
Trunks cracked and broken like dry skin
Pines and stands of eucalyptus, whispering.
We ducked under barbed wire to watch the quarry
Pied crows collared white, small birds chattering but unseen.
The grass was tall and still wet, old ruins creaking on the mountainside.
Lilies of some kind
All in a bunch.
I pointed over the bay to the grey spots
Where the clouds had blocked out sky from water.
You said that was not right,
But I didn't care.
I liked my way better.