“Do you believe in life after death?” I was asked recently by a friend. “Certainly,” I said. “Not only do I believe in it. I have proof.” “Oh, really?” he said, an eyebrow raised sceptically. So I told him the story of my mother’s ashes. “And you imagine that proves
We did our utmost to write a polite letter. We were writing to Eskom and they have a lot of influence in our lives. They are, after all, the people who decide when we will have electricity and when not. This was not about the matter of power cuts though.
Never make friends with a fiction writer. Your supposed friend may base a character in a book on you. And for them everyone is fair game, even his or her mother or grandmother, not to mention husband, wife or children. And, if he does base a character on you, don’t
Criminality is not good, not for the country and not for you and I personally. We probably all agree on that. But real, deeply felt agreement is not reached until we personally feel the effects of criminal activities on our lives. We have a cottage twenty or thirty metres from
The crow first came to visit us one fresh autumn morning. It has to be said though, that autumn is not that big a deal in the Bosveld. Very few trees shed their leaves and daytime temperatures drop by only a degree or two. We have less cloudy weather than
In August it will be two years since Babita Deokaran was gunned down outside her home. She was killed because she was in the process of telling the truth about the theft of public money in the Gauteng Department of Health. As acting Chief Financial Officer in the Department she
We live today, and have always lived in a strange society. Morality, regarding racist discrimination, and morality, regarding the misappropriation of public funds, do not seem to be related. Those who have gained stature as fighters for freedom are sometimes remarkably free with the money of others. When a dozen
Towards the end of winter our ground dries out. It does not dry out a little. It dries until a handful of dirt, pouring through your fingers, has almost no substance. Water poured onto the earth soaks away in moments while the sun beats down without mercy and without pause.
The Chinese have worked hard at keeping their population growth even lower than more developed western countries. Between 1980 and 2016 the Chinese one-child policy was stringently applied and its effect has been profound. That country’s population growth at the present time is still only 0.1% a year, the same
I have been feeling a bit down lately, but then, I fancy, has most of humanity. I have wondered what ails me and found the answer in what is for me an unlikely place. It was explained to me by a writer in the Essential California newsletter. According to him,