Ma Wa Gray

 As we all emerge from the perimeters of our gardens, a little shell shocked and promising that the next time we are caught in a riot we will not be caught with one litre of long life milk, icing sugar and a frozen loaf of bread bought in 1997, there is a very silent conversation going on. A conversation that I can guarantee 90% of us would never have thought we would have to have. A conversation we are all too scared to start, one I would imagine that is akin to admitting to erectile dysfunction or saying that your wife’s food is indeed better than your mothers. It’s the conversation that starts with admitting that maybe we need to consider other future options outside of South Africa, if not for us then for our children. The emigration conversation.  And do you know what? I’m going to pop that festering boil right now. We need to have this conversation and we need to not be ashamed by it because, like I said in a previous blog, there is a very clear line between being resili...

 This morning I read a political research note written by JP Landman titled ‘The Centre Is Holding’. It was a brief, insightful overview of where South Africa currently stands as a democracy. The document was littered with intertextual reference to Dickens, Yeats’s gyres (which I mentioned not long ago in my own blog) and various other (colonial) examples of when South Africa was on the brink but came back.  After reading it I wondered how many average South Africans would have had to Google ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ or in-fact the genocide of the Khoi and the San to be able to fully understand the article. As a relatively well-educated person I understood probably 80% of the references that he was making to moments in history and literature and for the rest I relied on my common sense to work it out. When I say relatively well-educated I mean to say that I hold a Masters Degree in Applied Theatre and Dramatic Studies which I completed at the University of Massachusetts and I am ...

  Most high schools have a prize for the student who never gave up. The kid who overcame unbelievable obstacles to make it to matric and, what is more, make it to matric leaving a legacy and example for the kids who are to follow after them. A few years ago a boy at my school won this award after surviving a savage hyena attack. He was camping in a game reserve and woke up to a hyena mauling his face. His early teen years were punctuated with several reconstructive surgeries to his face. In a time when acne should have been the main focus of every teen’s existence this little guy was saying to his mates - ‘hold my beer.’ I’ll never forget his final matric art exhibition which included the installation of a tent and some of the most moving art I have ever seen. It was remarkable. He is remarkable.  Yesterday I read an article by one of my favourite journalists, Rebecca Davis who happened to tutor me in Journ1 at Rhodes (for the one year where I reckoned I had the stomach to han...

  I don’t think many of us would have foreseen, a week ago, the sudden need to potty train our two year olds because we may run out of nappies. Or that lunch time would become a very real battle ground where if your kids don’t eat their lunch that’s it, no special top ups. Or that the litres of milk our children seem to mainline throughout the day would suddenly run dry.  This week we’ve had to climb into the skin of many South Africans.  I’ve never gone to sleep to the sound of gunshots and the smell of burning rubber.  Not only have I climbed into my bed, I’ve climbed into the skin.  There have been very few times when I’ve really had to ponder the future of my children in this country. Their prospects - both emotionally and financially.  I’ve climbed into the skin of the insomniacs who have to accept whatever education is offered to their children. When people queue in their vehicles for countless hours to get their share of fuel - climb into the skin of...

  I have purposely not posted the entire picture. Most of us are familiar with it - it’s a little toddler in mid flight after being thrown from a burning Durban building by their mother. The first time I saw it I wanted to be sick.  Today I want us to look at the rainbow of hands about to catch the child. Strangers standing as the soft landing. Strangers filling the gap between life and death. But they’re not strangers really, they’re South Africans.  I don’t have the energy to go into the complexity of what it means to be South African. It is as mysterious and diverse as the eleven official languages and multitudes of cultures that make up the rainbow. There has also been a lot of discourse - both good and bad - about who we are as people when little bits of hell open up as they have done this week. And I think we can agree that for the majority of South Africans trying to survive their lives is a daily hell - it’s not just a once off crisis. It is their reality. Quite a...

The thing about a virus is that you don’t know how bad it is going to get.  The thing about a virus is that it takes over your body and alters the very way you function.  The thing about a virus is that you have to ride it out and take as many precautions as you can.  The thing about a virus is that it’s scary.  The thing about a mob is that you dont know how bad it’s going to get.  The thing about a mob is that it takes over your body and alters the very way you function.  The thing about a mob is that you have to ride it out and take as many precautions as possible.  The thing about a mob is that it’s scary.  The thing about Jesus is that He knows the virus and He knows the mob - all the mobs, even the ones we are a part of.  He is present in the microscopic and the macroscopic.  He heals viruses and He stills the crowd.  He is a champion for the hopeless, the angry, the hungry and the lost. And He knows why we do what we do....

When Stephen saw me emerge from my Cave of Wonders this morning wearing jeans he looked positively hopeful. I then told him to ease up cowboy the only reason I am wearing jeans today is that all my tracksuit pants are in the laundry basket.  I did manage to hang up a load of laundry this morning. As I was doing it I was reminded of the very slow tortoise in the intro to the delightful BBC comedy ‘One Foot in the Grave’. Although I suspect that the tortoise moved faster than me. And he didn’t have to check his oximeter afterwards.  There have been some silver linings to this whole covid quarantine. Eva has gone through one of the most important milestones in childhood development - she is now choosing to watch Paw Patrol rather than Peppa Pig. I think we can all agree that this moment in parenting is very special and deserves to be celebrated with a marshmallow before breakfast.  Gray has pretty much gone feral. I don’t really see him all day because he’s busy rutting arou...

  When we speak of war and it’s heroes we raise monuments. We tell stories of heroism and sacrifice. We make movies that show the grand gestures and often individual feats that raise one human above the others. Our heroes are often loud, decorated and somehow superhuman.  But today, as I lie here recovering from a very mild dose of Covid, these are my heroes… The paediatric nurse, Debbie, who slipped her personal phone number into my handbag yesterday after giving me my third (and final) covid test. I told her that Eva had been having fevers and she told me to contact her if needed. Last night after trying in vain to get Eva’s fever of 40 down we phoned her and she gave us all the advice we needed. She stayed up into the night waiting for us to phone back with a progress report and this morning she has seen to our little girl and has confirmed both an ear infection and tonsillitis. If it wasn’t for her I don’t know what we would have done.  The friend, Cherrie, who, on th...