Life is Art

I sit gazing over my balcony at 09h20 on your average Thursday morning looking over the city having a late breakfast.  In my constant tension of both loving and hating city life, I look over with fascination and curiosty as two men paint the wall of the building across my apartment block. A freshly coated bright orange wall stares back at me, painted with such perfection, with such care and attention.  The chubby guy with his overalls sagging a bit too low in a mechanic fashion steps back, admires his work and applies another coat.

A well-styled black guy who looks like a creative runs by, on a mission to get some place fast. In the opposite direction saunters a guy contrasting his attire and carrying recycled garbage. Cars of various makes and classes whizz by with hands of different shades dangling out the window, greeted by the chill of an autumn morning. All of these people have their own story; their own joy, their own pain, their own quest for life. Some of them have even ceased to live in the  lifeless routine of their mundane existance.

I sit in my ivory tower having the intellectual debate with myself: does life imitate art, or does art imitate life? My ephiphamy is that life is art and that there is an art to living.

Stories from the Land: Lesotho

Someone once told me that once you’ve heard someone’s story then you become part of it. Once you’re part of someone’s story, you cannot go to war with him or her. This past week brought with it the emersion of a few people’s stories. The stories of people, the stories of African land.

My story starts with a Lesotho trip, with Kenya to follow…

A few friends and I decided to take a road trip to Lesotho last weekend. Less than 1 hour out of Jozi and we knew that we were in for something special. Being the only South African (1 out of 4: German, Jamaican/American and Hollander)), I am accustomed to the landscape, but still; getting out of the city smog is always refreshing. I sat in the back seat adamant that I would complete and send off a proposal before submitting to bliss. As we hit the Drakensburg Mountains, we kept circling a cloud that put on a dance show of thunderstorms contained in it. None of us had ever seen this before and were overwhelmed at just how spectacular it is.

Our weekend going across country was made up of stargazing below the clear Milky Way, for the first time I saw fireflies and excited that some stories introduced to me in fairytales come from the ‘real world’.  We took an early morning dip in a river braving a cold waterfall; went hiking and horse-riding. On our horse-riding expedition in St. James, Elias, our guide took us to a local village where we were greeted with the local bitter beer, homemade traditional instruments, and song and dance. Making our way back to South Africa on the Sani Pass route definitely kept Alexander my co-driver and I on our wits end. It was quite scary driving through clouds, not being able to see our steep descend ahead while attempting to avoid potholes and rocks.

With this being my second trip to Lesotho, I am once again taken back by the sense of nothingness in the place. To elaborate on this; the place is breathtaking in terms of natural beauty and tradition is not historical but a way of life; quite rare in my Jozi existence, but there is not much to support the local economy. To put facts in perspective: Lesotho has a population of 2.1mil people and an urban population of 26%. Their main export product is textiles. With cheap Chinese alternatives there is however a reduction in demand that sees this industry being wiped out in both South Africa and Lesotho. At R450 (approx. $60) I was disappointed to see how expensive traditional blankets are, with several carrying a ‘made in South Africa’ tag.

 

Spreading the bubble: urban regeneration

The topic of urban regeneration has fascinated me for a long time. I have been taking groups to Johannesburg’s inner city for a few years now to explore all sorts of themes ranging from social innovation, entrepreneurship, low-tech solutions, culture, the second economy etc. Being an unofficial self-proclaimed urban ambassador for the city, I decided to take the plunge by moving to the city as well. I have put my money where my mouth is; have set up home and office so I am personally invested now.

The process of trying to find a home was a challenge in itself and an eye-opener on the interaction between the city and her people. How we include and exclude people by sending clear messages about who is welcome where and how structures contribute to or take away from human dignity (re-reading this text reminds me of the architecture of apartheid). It is quite disturbing to see the evolution of living conditions based on income bracket. Quite a number of apartments that my now flatmate and I saw did not feel welcoming at all. The entrance met us with security gates, often times queues to sign in the visitors’ book, proof of identification and highly suspicious security guards.  Surely after a stressful day at work, one would not want to go home to a prison cell? On the other side of the coin is the emergence of luxury apartments Ashante, Mainstreet Life, The Newtown and The Franklin. While I do not think that this is inherently bad, I am concerned about them manifesting into ivory towers within the city. These are to a large extent aspirational spaces to live in, but are bubbles darted around the city and I am yet to understand if and how they engage with their surroundings.

I am excited to have, within a week started forming part of a community, although on reflection; this is largely a transient community made up mostly by visitors and newcomers from North America and Europe. It is interesting to compare these arrival and possibly permanent points to the African Diaspora’s “checks in” to dangerous Hillbrow on arrival in search of a better life, but the dismal conditions do not lend itself to a positive stepping stone to progression. I wonder if there is a role for our international transient community to play in shaping the environments in which we find ourselves?

I dare myself to park my car three times a week, so what do I need in my environment to do this? A local food market and supermarket that supplies the needs I would get from its suburban counterparts, on-time arrival of bus with clear schedule, a sense of safety when walking to the Market Theatre, outdoor exercise space, a local church. I know that it will take time for all of these things to come into being, but think that these are the basic needs to break the bubbles and have people engaging with the city. I count perhaps a handful of developers shaping our lifestyles in the city; I do hope that they can guide us and the spaces they create in interacting with the surroundings in which they position themselves.

Now that I am immersed in the city and not just a regular visitor, I do feel like my previous interactions were quite sterile with often a research question creating a vastly different lens of experience to aimless wondering. My challenge now is to discover how Hub Johannesburg interacts with its surroundings that include our society’s undesirables of prostitutes and the homeless. Hmm…

Rembering Purpose

This morning I came across the 1907 George Bernard Shaw quote ‘The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty’. While I have read it on numerous occasions, this coupled with reflections of resent occurrences has struck a particular chord with me.

South Africa this year has hosted a highly successful 2010 Football World Cup. It did me proud sitting in Soccer City and Loftus stadiums observing in awe that this is indeed within driving distance from my home. Walking in the streets of Melville and Sandton City could have easily been mistaken for walking down the streets of London’s cosmopolitan Trafalgar Square. A few of my pro-poor activist friends were angry as they believe it contributed to the demise of the poor as once again a few elite would benefit from this spectacular event. My counter argument has been that the World Cup has supported the country in turning a curve in terms of social cohesion and with confidence in the nation to host a world class event, there will surely be benefits for all resulting from repeat tourism.

I am no economist so do not hold substantive knowledge on any of the above, but have my doubts as to whether we have reached a tipping point that would result in a wave of collective positive change. My thoughts wonder to the conditions that create a positive society. How do we convert interest and positive dialogue to a change of behaviour and action? I park my cynicism for a moment and dare to hope as I see the faces of the New Ideas for Africa participants; Heartlines forgood platform the Primedia LeadSA initiative and slow but sure development of Hub Johannesburg.

I stood behind a man in the queue at my local Spar the other day.  He was counting out his coins carefully to pay for a packet of candles.  I looked in my basket and realized that I had selected five items to purchase instead of the original two intended. In a split second I realized that I have come a long way in my personal journey, but I also realized these past few months I have been caught up in the meta-level of ‘doing’ the work while the intention behind it was severely lagging behind. While I appreciate my strengthened skills set acquired this year, being able to talk the language of society’s influentials could so easily be a distraction from focusing on the people I feel called to serve.

When facilitating a GIBS Spirit of Youth event yesterday, a soon-to-be school lever asked my opinion on South Africa’s economy, the media, how we’re perceived in the world and the subjects she should take to support her role as a young passionate white South African. Thinking back to fifteen years when I had similar conversations with people I admired; I knew that my response would shape her thinking. I only hope that I responded in a way that would inspire her to find and pursue her own purpose. What she did for me is help me remember mine.

Under African Skies

I spent this past weekend on faculty induction with Columba 1400. It’s roots lie in Scotland and the academy is coming to South Africa with a focus on realizing the potential of youth who primarily come from troubled backgrounds.

Through miscommunication, I hopped into my car heading for Esemvelo Nature Reserve on Friday morning thinking that it is about an hour (max) out of Joburg. It was just over 3 hours and I found myself roughing it on a weekend away without luggage!

With most of us operating from a similar ethos, we bonded as a group quite quickly – this also helped the extention of my personal wardrobe . I always feel more fully human when in nature, so appreciated walks, playing cricket, looking across the open landscape and stars that shine brighter than in the city.

After completing a really tough exercise on perserverence, our group went on a game drive (better known as a Safari to non-locals). My wisdom of hindsight does not seem to recall anyone questioning our guide Jackson as to why we drove around the “do not enter” read and white ribbon. We merrily spotted all sorts of animals and birds with jubilation until Jackson stopped just before a deep pool of water in our path. He climbed out, inspected its depth and locked the wheels of our game drive vehicle before proceeding into the pool. And that’s where we stayed!

We were all hyped up from an exciting day and the guys; confident in their strength hopped out of our open-top vehicle to attempt to push it out of the big puddle of mud with the girls cheering from the sidelines. At some point there was an erruption in song as we all gathered in and around the sinking vehicle. It was getting dark as we debated whether we should hike back to our conference site, well aware that we were surrounded by leopards, wildbeest, snakes and other forms of creatures.

We spent a further two hours laughing, singing and dancing under African skies appreciating the constellation of stars of the South – Orion’s belt and the Milky Way. In a total of 2.5 hours of waiting in the cold, the African Spirit emerged keeping us going with nobody voicing fear or complaining. Our tractor arrived and saved us within 10 minutes

The celebrity factor of social good

The dust has started to settle following my participation in last week’s Africa-Middle East Regional Microcredit Summit. There were too many inspiring people to meet between sessions and dinners late into the night so I did not get to blog daily as intended. My new friends have since left back to their home countries or traveling Kenya and I’ve decided to extend my stay in Nairobi to process my learnings, experience the place and have a few intentional meetings with locals.

Now for my reflections on the celebrity factor of social good. I see two categories in this factor (1) celebrities who are famous first through successes ie. rock stars, actors, authors etc. then use their fame to support causes they believe in (2) those individuals who have wide spread solutions to social problems and have become well known for their good deeds.

I personally am not one for groupie hysteria but will attempt to keep an open mind as I grapple with the pro’s and con’s of the celebrity factor in this work.

I do not know what the role of the Royals are in this day and age, but these individuals have been born into this system and their voice and actions using applied systemic thought can bring a whole lot of good to an issue. I was quite moved by the speech of Princess Maxima of the Netherlands. I consider her to be a conscious actor in this work with clear insight in her contribution. Queen Sofia of Spain has been supporting the microfinance movement for a few years now so her thoughts on the regulatory frameworks of micro-credit deserves the peak of every influential ear. It was wonderful seeing the beauty and grace of the royals. President Kibaki played his role by officially opening the summit. I also noted other political dignitaries from parts of Africa and Europe.

Prof. Muhammed Yunus

The other category of people that I celebrate is the social entrepreneur (if they identify themselves as such) are those amazing individuals who often slog away at the cause they believe in for decades. Sometimes without recognition. When they do receivce recognition then it catapults the scale of their work. Their newfound fame has the value in expanding their contribution. According to Jim Collins, a key characteristic of a level 5 leader is that of humility. I have come across quite a few level 5 leaders who just want to get on with their mission. Society however values fame, which often conflicts with a level 5 leader’s modus operandi.

Linking this topic back to the microcredit summit, I consider both Prof. Muhammed Yunus as well as Ingrid Munroe to be level 5 leaders. Prof Yunus is acclaimed as the father of microfinance and is a Nobel Prize laureate because of his outstanding work. When I met him for the first time during his book launch tour in London in 2008, fans were almost fanatical around him. To me, Ingrid Munroe has a Mother Theresa demeanor about her. A feisty almost seventy year old who deviates the spotlight to the benefactors of her work. Ingrid is the lead founder of Jamii Bora and has lifted thousands of Kenyans out of abject poverty. On the final evening of the summit, she happened to be dancing next to me when women were called to the dance floor. Someone actually stomped on my foot to dance next to her! The media and groupies went wild trying to take a picture of her. I could see her discomfort and her moment of ‘letting her hair down’ was ruined by the nature of groupie hysteria. Why can’t we just let people be?! Support and appreciate their work while allowing the human factor to preside.

So, you decide on what side of the spectrum you lay, and your conscious response to it.

From Kosovo to Soweto in a day

I spent the day on a field visit with Jamii Bora. If anyone doubts that micro-credit can work in an African context, then save up your plane fair and make your way to Kenya!

A project started by a retired Ingrid Munro and 50 determined street beggars now boasts loans of over 300 billion Kenyan Shillings (do your own currency conversions!). But I am less interested in the statistics than the human stories I witnessed today.

There is Wilson Minor, a former thug who seems to have specialized in muggings. His logic was that he would not wait to die from hunger, which is slow and painful. A bullet is much faster so if the police caught him then one shot would save him from a prolonged death. After 18 micro-loans, he now has a few businesses under his belt, lives in a beautiful house and about to purchase a car with the help of Jamii Bora. He is an articulate speaker who now also has experience speaking internationally. This is but one of about 20 inspiring stories/visits experienced today!

Kosovo slum

I am fascinated by the names of slums being borrowed from other parts of the world and their related history. Kosovo slum was named as such because of the land grab when the location came up around 1990. We also spent time in Soweto, named after the South African township. It also happens to be more developed than Kosovo )

An unedited video clip of Mary’s story:

Mary & her chicken heads from Lesley Williams on Vimeo.