Isn’t Cape Town the most beautiful graveyard you’ve ever seen? Okay, that’s maybe too cynical. But let’s get real about a few things. Cape Town is not the most beautiful place in the world. It doesn’t have the best beaches and neither does it have the greatest value for money. I say this not to […]
Yazeed Kamaldien
This blog Thought Leader thing seemed like an interesting social experiment to say YES to. Besides, quite a few of my friends and acquaintances had already been invited to blah-blah, so why not join the party?
The official bit anticipated: Yazeed Kamaldien studied journalism and media management in South Africa. He's been a journalist full-time at newspapers in Cape Town and Jozi. Spent a few months at a time working in Egypt, Jordan, Germany and Sudan. Loves the beach. Works freelance on All Sorts of Stuff.
Check the website at www.yazkam.com.
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
(Maybe) I wish for too many things
The invitation letter from the Thought Leader website brains suggests that it would be ideal to post at least one blog entry a week from my fingertips to the aforementioned website. I wish I could do that; be more regular in meeting the “ideal”. But I don’t always have something to say. Well, actually there […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Free newsletters from the African Union summit
I didn’t know what else to do with these created newsletter things. Posting it on a forum shared by writers and readers from and beyond one of Africa’s strongest nations with hectic identity issues and self-loathing seemed optional. And opted for YES, did I, without much doubt or second-guessing what the repercussions could mean for […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Behind the scenes at the African Union summit
Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese President, was standing just a metre away from me. I thought of asking him if I could have a picture taken with him. I wanted to show the photo to my neighbours in Khartoum. But then I thought about my friend Huda who had just quit her job with the Sudanese […]
Posted inLifestyle
When the Nuba Mountains called my name …
Zillions of stars eyeball you from a quiet night sky as you dodge creeping goggas when using the toilet in Dilling, one of the 99 villages surrounding an equal number of Sudan’s Nuba Mountains. I’m still undecided which was more surreal: using the roofless, hole-in-the-ground toilet in the dark or finding a Pepsi bottle cut […]
Posted inLifestyle
Nobody wants my dollar$?!
I feel sick in the depths of my stomach. I’ve got that I-can’t-believe-this-is-happening feeling — because I really can’t believe this is happening. I’m sitting inside my room at the Thewodros Hotel in Harar, a small town in eastern Ethiopia, and I want to get out of here. Yes, I was chirpy when I arrived […]
Posted inLifestyle
Security is comfort …
I have left behind me the security found in the comfort of friendships. When I reached Khartoum International Airport earlier this week, my friends Abdalla, Asma and Huda were waiting for me. They had been there at least an hour already. I had waited for two other friends, Muddather and Imam, to pick me up […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
PS: I am still living in the Military Republic of Sudan
The event depicted below occurred in December 2007. Today was not the first time that rough-talking “intelligence police” took me to an interrogation room after spotting me with a camera in public in Sudan. It’s the second time. And each time it’s been a deeply unsettling reminder that I am currently living in a country […]
Posted inLifestyle
Blog entry number one (Suppose this title could’ve been less creative …)
As a journalist by profession, writing is something that I usually do for cash. So when an email invitation arrived in the Yahoo! inbox from Thought Leader I was suspicious. Because here was this newly established website staffer who suggested I post bits of writing on here without the promise of a positive reflection in […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
‘Africa’s not for sissies …’
If you’re to maintain your sanity, then “Third World Africa” or whichever politically sensitive term you wish to use has to be accepted with all its muddy streets, electricity shutdowns and taps that suddenly offer no life for hours on end. This is the comforting epiphany that hit me during a moment of numbness last […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Another day of contradictions in Khartoum
Yesterday was one of those weird days showcasing the contradictions in Khartoum. I needed to collect some cash from Western Union. The money was from an Argentinian online journal, paying me for stories that I had done for it. I got to Western Union and the electricity had shut down. Power failure in the neighbourhood. […]
Posted inLifestyle
Thoughts on life in Khartoum
I can’t talk enough about the absolute kindness i have experienced from the beautiful Sudanese people … so caring, even among themselves; they smile from the heart. It’s that whole African-Arab mix of hospitality, community, compassion, humaneness. I was walking in the street at 2am the other night, went for a night swim at the […]