A long, long time ago when I was an apprentice telecommunications technician, and that was very long ago, the qualified technician to whom I was assigned, told me his theory about how to get promoted. “The bosses have to know about you,” he told me. “If they don’t know about
Things that Dogs Know
We have two dogs. One is a middle-aged lady called Chloe. She is black. A little grey around the mouth reveals her age. Tiny grey spots around her head are marks of past battles. Chloe does not always act her age. She is part poodle and part pit bull. The
Willie
Willie’s problem is that his plot is up against the Wildsplaas. Now, the Wildsplaas is no longer a place where wild animals are kept, as its name suggests. But it is an excellent place for thieves to hide out and raid the plots bordering it. In a month, Willie lost
Padkos
In the past I have written about magic from time to time and always advised my readers to take it seriously. Never say things like “there’s no such thing as magic” or “magic is just trickery” or any such silly thing. I also spoke that way at one time, but
The Middle Ages and Us
British student of political economy Susan Strange said of the Dark Ages, “There was no vision of how one made a better life.” The Book of Proverbs in the Bible discusses the consequences of a world without vision. Part of Chapter 29 reads, “Where there is no vision the people
Morality in South Africa
I cannot help but notice that in my country morality, regarding race 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 years after
A Shocking Moment
We have a big pile of bricks. We had torn down a partly built house in the bushes, on the far side of our plot. Criminals had been using it as a place to overnight while looking for opportunities to raid the properties of other plot dwellers. The incomplete house
The Writing of Closed Circle
The day in the late 1980s when I visited the Oudtshoorn township should have been an unremarkable one, but because a councillor of the township had been killed by a mob not long before, because I was being accompanied by a member of the local comrades and because the security
The Bad Old Days and Closed Circle
Most South Africans complain about the way the country is run. And, heaven knows, we have reason to complain. We all know about rising prices, political bosses living off the fat of the land while your supermarket trolley becomes increasingly unaffordable. And then, Eskom plans a price increase few can
A Place Called Sunshine
The community of Sonskyn is one of those made up of the people who missed the opportunities offered by the old regime and now feel excluded by the new one. The difference is that, while most such communities are black, some others, like this one, are white. Whether segregation among