Ok, I’m back in the US, settled in, and ready for regular posting again. When I was in South Africa I was able to see two very good friends who are Zimbabwean expats. One works in the business end of biotech and we were both graduate students together at Rhodes University back in 1997 (Oakdene […]
Today marks Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela's 90th birthday. The great man is slowed but still robust, with his characteristic grace and wit still intact. As South Africa muddles through, the country's leaders would do well to dwell on Mandela and his meaning, not merely his undeniable symbolic power, and not even the mythology that surrounds him […]
40+ hours, one lost piece of luggage, three movies, several television shows, two read books, several newspapers, and virtually no sleep later, I arrived back home last night. I am catching up on life and will resume posting soon. [Crossposted at the FPA South Africa Blog and at dcat.]
After three weeks here in South Africa, this evening I will board a South African Airways plane bound for Washington, DC's Dulles International Airport via Dakar, Senegal. If all goes well I will land at 6:00 am eastern time tomorrow, Tuesday, at which point I’ll hope that I can get to BWI in time to […]
I'll be the first one to admit that I tend to see most social phenomena through a political lens. Those of us who work on politics are akin to the guy with the hammer who looks at most problems and sees nothing but nails. That said, South Africans tend to be a politicized lot. Everything […]
I'll be the first one to admit that I tend to see most social phenomena through a political lens. Those of us who work on politics are akin to the guy with the hammer who looks at most problems and sees nothing but nails. That said, South Africans tend to be a politicized lot. Everything […]
My apologies for the silence here for the last week or so. Traveling in South Africa sometimes means not having the sort of internet access or opportunity to write as I might like. The last few days have taken me from Cape Town to Grahamstown and Rhodes University, one of my old homes. From there […]
To my readers in the United States: Happy 4th of July! To my readers in South Africa and anywhere else on the globe: Happy Friday! In the last dozen years I believe I have spent more American Independence Day holidays outside of the United States than within it, with most of those spent here in […]
Just a quick break from the travelogues to let you know that you should take the time to read FPA editor Robert Nolan's important recent viewpoint piece “Moving Forward in Zimbabwe.”
At the end of the day, travel is, for me, about people. Whether I am returning to Africa or to the UK, places I visit regularly, where I have lived and worked, or whether visiting someplace for the first time, such as when I went to China a couple of years back, the most important component to […]
Greetings from Stellenbosch, the historical intellectual center of Afrikanerdom. I am here for a conference on sport history at the University of Stellenbosch, and as I did with Melville, I have seen changes in this picturesque little university town. Clearly the city parents here are no fools. No longer can Stellenbosch be merely the epicenter of Afrikaans intellectual […]
Sawubona! I'm writing from the 7th Street Guesthouse in Joberg's Melville. The trip here was quite the trek, involving many layovers (Houston, Jackson, BWI, Dulles, Dakar) and more than one trip in an automobile, but I finally got into my B&B at about 8:30 South Africa time last night. Not wanting to go to sleep and […]
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