Why is the defence advocate, Barry Roux, considered a star by the faceless social media when a defenceless woman was killed? One realises there are sub-editors, and part of their jobs is just to make a sensational headline. But the story in reports like these celebrate Roux as if he were a chess grandmaster. The…
“South Africans here in New Zealand have a reputation for being aggressive — especially the Afrikaners,” groaned Mark, a fellow English-speaking South African, over a beer. “Why Afrikaners?” I asked. He shrugged his shoulders. “They arrive here with a huge chip on their shoulder, walk into our workshop demanding a WOF for their car and…
You know that sensation when you mistakenly walk into the other sex’s dressing room and there is that sudden fluster and flurry of clothing being pulled back up and stifled or not stifled squeals? Of course you do. Well, for the purposes of description, entering a decent library can be the exact opposite, especially when…
It was the very recent death of his mother that emerged in him during this time, this fleeing from snow-swept China. Now in New Zealand, he felt his creative fingertips for the first time in months. He re-discovered the warmth of Marion’s hands and laugh again, the hearth which had always been there, the arms…
Wooosshh! I upended the large bin and hundreds of colourful Lego-like blocks and bally-shaped thingies scattered across the floor in front of the delighted Chinese four-year-olds that I am currently teaching. The floor was now a rainbow that had come crashing and splintering down from the heavens. “Pick up the green,” I roared, “the green,…
I have written this with the Marikana massacre in the back of my mind. It is a pity it is in the back of my mind, where it should actually be in the front. I think of the surviving of those mowed down, the frightened families, the grief-stricken mothers, the bewildered, sad and probably hungry…
The Things that Matter I Pale and bloody in the evening, the vlei is a new-born creature, ripples suckling, tugging at the light, gulls whimpering in the dark. Here, a place denied and unvisited for years and years, pebbles knocking my shoes, I’ll never forget your limp (toe amputated in World War II). Recalling that…
“Just breathe deeply,” said James, ironically lighting his third cigarette in a row. “Just breathe … deeply … ” he muttered, placing his hand on his solar plexus and breathing in, “because all you have got IS now”. Or words to that effect. I noticed how James’s heartfelt, life teachings were a simple as a…
Ding dong. I cringed as the doorbell rang. Usually such a welcoming sound … guests arriving! But we feared being thrown out of the apartment here in China. On the streets. At least one good Western friend said he would take us in. Foreigners, stuck in Suzhou, suddenly without jobs along with the other teachers…
In South Africa I My ancestor sits on a wall, smiling at me, skirt billowed out, shoes muddied in tussocks. She leans forward, waiting to step to me through the centuries. She’s been there since childhood, in words whispered by a sister or brother, in the songs shimmering on a mother’s Irish lips, when I was first…
