Human Trafficking

Boy, does that sound like a heavy subject for a Monday morning? But the question is what happened to it? We were scared stupid before the World Cup about the dangers of human trafficking and warned to keep our women and children close lest they be snatched up by traders. (I am not in any way trying to undermine the terror that is trafficking, for the record). I just want to know whether any of it has actually gone on?


Or did Akon’s promise to “keep y’all safe during the World Cup” really pay off?
Akon's promise to fight trafficking


The one theory is that events like this are more important for cataloguing, and that because everyone is filming and photographing, no-one thinks anything amiss. They compile catalogues, and once an order comes through, they’re back to the original place to collect the parcel. (‘They” of course being the traders). Which would mean that it’s probably more dangerous AFTER the World Cup than during it. It’s enough to chill you.


What really made me think about this was watching a movie last night and realising that we live in different times. This movie has many clear shots of two little children swimming through the water, naked. Very clear shots. That would be UNHEARD of in a movie today, and the director would probably be locked up for child porn. Ten years ago we could play on the beach naked (ok, maybe more like 18 since I would have been 13 ten years ago), but the point stands. Now you have to watch children like hawks because a predator lurks behind every wide-angle lens.


No-one can be trusted, and all the traditional ‘safe’ people like scout leaders, teachers and priests are the targets of most suspicion. If it carries on like this, I’m not sure I want children. Who wants to bring an innocent little thing into the kind of world we live in? Even if Akon continues to live a long and healthy life, not even he can prevent our kids from falling prey to all this evil.

SPORT OVERLOAD!

Seriously?

Someone up there needs to turn down the dial. It’s sport, day and night, 24-7. When it’s not cricket (which is never, they seem to play continuously. You would think Graeme Smith’s ass would have shrunk by the assumed amount of exercise he must be getting), then it’s rugby. Luckily, rugby only happens over weekends, but by the time it comes down to getting to the bar early to get a seat and sitting there until man-of-the-match is announced, rugby takes a significant part of a Saturday.

Redeeming factors include Mark Boucher, Abie de Villiers, Pierre Spies, Dan Carter

Then, in case you weren’t aware, there is world cup soccer on all the time. The only reason this is better this week is that there are only 2 games a day (well, 4, but simultaneous). Soccer only now affects me because I watch the world cup, but normally there is premier league and championship league and little league (or is that baseball?).

Redeeming factors include Ronaldo and Fabrigas.

The French open just finished, so it must be time for Wimbledon. And as if we don’t have our whole lives dictated by sports timetables, then there is a Wimbledon game that goes on for 3 days. 3 days! The poor guys must be dead, but can you imagine those of us who had to follow the game?!

Redeeming factors include steely-eyed Fedderer and passionate Nadal.

And Tour de France cycling starts in a week, which I plan to watch religiously. Well, not religiously. Not with prayer beads and a shawel or anything. Just with dedication.

Redeeming factors include: hot men on bikes with amazing calves.

It’s just too much.
And it’s not like cartoon network, or the movie channel that you feel guilty watching night and day, but it is rather a compulsive need to watch sport. In fact, watching sport is noble. I wish the gym showed sport, I would probably be inclined to visit it more.

You might say that instead of ranting, I could just WATCH LESS SPORT, but if you think that, then you clearly don’t understand…

Bombardment

As you may have gathered, I like pretty people as much as the next person. Well, perhaps a little more. But I’m shallow like that. In fact, it warms my heart that there are ugly people out there for all the OTHER ugly people, so that the pretty gene pool doesn’t end up being sullied.

I also enjoy watching pretty couples doing things (note: not pretty athletic couples running with their Alsatians, that sends me into a fit of postal-rage). I like romantic comedies where girl-meets-boy and both are hot and they end up together. But I’m getting a little over the transience of it all.

(You may have noticed that I’m getting a little philosophical about relationships and romance, and well, I am. Perhaps it’s turning 23, but it’s about time for a review.)

I watched two movies last night: One was an adorable movie with a likeable (i.e. normal looking but beautiful) girl with a crappy job, a relatively attractive husband who loves her like crazy and a hobby (cooking – therefore I can relate). Life gets too much, and she has to find a way to keep the hobby to keep her interested. Granted it all spirals into a little unrealistic fantasy where she gets a book contract, but seriously? We all like to dream. It was nice for a change to have a movie about what happens AFTER they hook up.

The next was a movie about an unrealistically gorgeous girl who looks like women have been bitching about her all her life (read: hottest thing out) and an even more gorgeous male lead. Instant attraction, instant lust and despite a few minor setbacks, they end up in bed. Roll credits. Wow. I am so inspired.

What is wrong with our society that ‘I love you enough for tonight’ seems to be enough for everyone? What about tomorrow, or when the dog gets cancer, or when your big gorgeous man gets retrenched and you have to stand by him and his fragile male ego? Or when it’s time to have kids, and there aren’t 5 hours in the morning to do your hair, or he doesn’t have free time to gym and you both start to look a bit haggard? I know I sound depressing, but maybe it’s time our Hollywood heroes start depicting a little bit of reality. Escapism is all very well, but it’s a sick infection and it goes right to the heart of what our society considers the norm.

Kiddie Ramblings

Having a 5-year old around the house sure keeps things interesting. I guess as adults we take a lot of things for granted, in our speech, our understanding and the content of our conversation. It can occasionally take a small questioning voice to put a fresh spin on things. And no, before you shake you head and roll your eyes, this is not my version of “Kids say the darndest things”, but rather an account of how kids can really put things into perspective.

Because of the kind of upbringing I have had, and the parents I have, the ideal for a future partner is one long, lasting romance. Marriage is not a debate, and the plan was to meet my sweetheart and stay happily in love forever. Sadly, we don’t live in the past and life is very different for us these days. With modern dating comes all the complications of finding out a person you have invested years with is not the one for you, and looking sadly into their eyes for the last time, while your world crushes around you. The heartache and upheaval that comes from any break-up can be bad enough, but we at least to a certain extent understand it and some of the finality it brings.

My little brother asked me the other day “What is an ex-girlfriend?” He is not in any doubt about what girlfriends and boyfriends are, having 5 older siblings have made that a lot easier to accept. But then this question raised the concept of an ‘ex’ girlfriend. I explained to him, with as PG detail as a 5-year old needs what it means to break up and why it happens. I painted a picture using all my siblings significant others as a pinpoints to try and make it understandable to him. He looked a little bemused and said “Oh, I just thought you had a lot of boyfriends!” In his mind I guess they had never become exes, but remained part of the landscape that made me. And well, he is right. While they didn’t turn out to be my life partner or the person I maybe wanted them so hard to be, they certainly shaped the person I am today and are as much a part of my past as they are a part of my present.

Of course, it didn’t end there. He sniffed somewhat dismissively after my explanation, turned away and said, with a superior tone, “Well, I have had the same girlfriend my WHOLE life!” Sigh, yes you have my boy. Good luck with that…

Sick and tired of size zeros

I know many an article has been written like this, and there appears to be a trend moving towards using fuller models in advertising– my question is, where is the evidence of it?


America’s Next Top Model contestants are all still stick-thin and look as if they may snap like a twig at any second. Los Angeles stores have started stocking a new size – Double 00 (equivalent to a South African size 2) for the pre-pubescent and skeletal waists of Victoria and Nicole. Anorexia and Bulimia statistics are rising, not declining. Although adverts may be using slightly bigger girls, role models have not changed their weight and are setting the bar at way too skinny for normal girls to healthily compete with.

While actresses such as America Ferrera (Ugly Betty) may be appearing on the screens and back articles of fashion magazines, the ones gracing the celeb pages are still as skinny as ever. Granted, clothes look better on slimmer frames and designers will agree that it’s easier to design clothes for a skinny model as she has less to cover up. However, that does not justify a multi-billion dollar industry which glorifies women who look like they stepped out of war-torn African country.

With starvation figures throughout the world what they are, and the growing level of poverty in Africa, surely this craze to spend hundreds of rands on no-carb sushi and weightless rice cakes is something of a slap in the face? If the models want to starve themselves to near-death, at least let them do it cheaply.

On the other hand, I have serious praise for companies who have started using more natural looking girls in their advertising campaigns. And no, I’m not talking overweight or chubby, but normal size 10 and 12 girls with beautiful bodies and lovely faces. I will buy their clothes simply because I can see they design for the girl on the street, not some emaciated lollipop who lives on celery sticks and a treadmill.

Designers need to become aware of the growing need for girls to see their own bodies as the models for the clothing which they buy. I personally cannot wait for the day when models look human and feminine again, not like some late-developing teenage boy.

FIFA

It’s no surprise that I intensely dislike FIFA, and luckily for me it’s a popular opinion. But the fact that South African authorities think that it’s ok to collude with them (translation: bend over and take it whenever FIFA shows the hand signal) is something that should worry us. They are crippling country funds while making a fat profit themselves, and have even managed to bully our normally-take-no-shit tax officials. As if that wasn’t enough, we have now managed to help offend the bong-and-a-biscuit loving Dutch, who did nothing for us but spawn a huge part of our nation.


There are few of us who didn’t laugh encouragingly at the Goldmember portrayal, and at least once in our lives have dreamed of living in Amsterdam. Drugs are cooler when they are legal. And honestly, the Dutch are just cool themselves. Most of my friends wouldn’t kick a Dutch girl out of bed, and as tourists to our country they are polite, attractive and well, really European.

So WHY did the officials need to arrest a couple of hot, fun-loving beer-swilling gals who did nothing more offensive than wear their country’s national colour and make it a little more sexy? Because FIFA have a monopoly and are using force, intimidation and wrongful arrest tactics to scare everyone into submission. Good for those girls, and I sincerely hope nothing too bad happens to them.

What the story did do is remind me how much I love the word ‘guerilla’. It ensures that the images conjured up are scary and intimidating (thanks to its relation to the word ‘gorilla’). Had English developed to term that style something lame like chim-pansy fighting or orangutan tactics it wouldn’t have half the impact. Although, terming what the Dutch girls did might be more relevant as ‘ORANG-utan’ marketing!

World Cup Madness

Madness takes on a lot of forms, and especially in the last 100 years seems to have totally changed its meaning. ‘Mad’ used to mean insane. Then mad, like wicked, became an adjective meaning ‘very’ or ‘extremely’. Madness now is a marketing slogan, to describe anything from the local supermarket’s specials on eggs and margarine to national patriotic pride. (Of course, we also define madness a little differently these days, and there are conditions for every single type of madness you can get. Mrs Rochester would have been diagnosed with clinical depression, being a bipolar or with yuppie flu and ‘locking her in the attic’ would more likely involve expensive rehab.)


So what is in fact ‘mad’ about this world cup?

# 1: It’s Soccer:

I don’t want to be the person to rain on anybody’s parade (I’m trying to be prophetic – I have to watch a game in Cape Town today and I’m pleading with the rain gods), but soccer is an INCREDIBLY boring game. I’m sure the semis and the finals will be really exciting, but watching each of these round 16 games puts me to sleep quicker than a cup of warm milk. Of course, there are the odd amazing games like Germany’s catastrophic defeat of Australia, but otherwise these games end in 0-0 draws. I totally refuse to sit in a bar and watch my friends play foosball since it’s completely anti-social, so I don’t see why watching a game where no-one does anything is any less so. And when the comparison is the Springboks using power and skill to dominate the French 42-17, soccer falls far short.

# 2: Soccer used to be the sport of defiance:

Mad perhaps is not the best word here, and perhaps ironic fits better. Soccer was the game of defiance that was played during Apartheid. They played soccer in the townships and the homelands because they DIDN’T want to play rugby, and they were defying the traditional Afrikaans/White sport. But now that we are a unified nation, soccer is uniting people and bringing them together in townships, in Ellis Park and in areas where black and white don’t tend to mix.

# 3: You have to pick sides (to which you don’t belong):

It’s a world cup, and I realise that’s what is to be done. I support Bafana Bafana, but I also know that African soccer has a lot to learn from the sexy bedroom soccer of the Argentineans and the elegant upright soccer of the Europeans. So now we pick. I have chosen to support England and France, because I speak English and I like France. But it’s not much in the way of national allegiance, and everyone is randomly picking a team to support in the event that Bafana are out in this round. It doesn’t say much for a sense of national pride.

# 4: This ‘unity’ is shallow:

This may sound totally pessimistic, but unfortunately it is a reality. There may be some nation building going on during this month, and a bout of infrastructure, development and job creation was spawned. But somehow everyone seems to have forgotten how racial tension was flaring up to fever pitch just before all the vuzus brought us together as one. The AWB leader was still murdered in his bed, Malema still got an E for woodwork and sings about Killing the Boer, Shaik still defies the Justice system and Zille still fights tirelessly to win more votes from the apparently-useless ANC government. Our only hope is that the wave of goodwill flowing over this country continues to colour the future of the country, and that when it comes to real issues we can still blow our vuzus together as we stand side by side.

Friday afternoon joys.

In the spirit of things....

Freddie Lumberg

David Beckham

Waka Waka Ayoba!

Tired of being cynical, I have finally given over to Ayoba-ness. It’s a lot more of a welcoming world than the dark muttered curses of the unpatriotic. I have had a bad attitude towards the World Cup since its announcement almost 5 years ago, and have not been looking forward to it at all. But I’ll admit getting teary eyed during Vuzu hour on Wednesday, and since then have thrown myself into the spirit.


Because the fact of the matter is that we just can’t help ourselves. Patriotism and Nationalism (in the most positive sense) seem to be lurking somewhere underneath the surface of all of us and it takes something like the World Cup to bring it to the boil. Even though FIFA is running the show under the guidance of a despotic Mafia boss, South Africa still has to show the world our mettle.

Uit die blou van onse hemel, uit die diepte van ons see…
Suddenly these words don’t symbolise the pain of the past, but make our hearts swell with pride when Americans gasp “Oh my God, Oh my God” at the sight of Table Mountain, or when gorgeous Italians take to the beaches of Camps Bay to freeze their bollocks off.

Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika…
we are filled with national pride and the general feeling of well-being seems to be filling the air. God Bless ALL of Africa, not just our neighbours to the left and right. Soweto, which 5 months ago no Joburg koguls would visit, was last night chock-a-block fill with all of Joburg lucky enough to get a ticket. Fans all over Cape Town stand shoulder to shoulder, no longer black and white and coloured and Indian, but Red-White-and-Blue, Blue-Green-and-White and of course, Yellow-Black-Green-Blue-Red-and-White.

Today I am proudly wearing all the colours of our national flag, my ‘i heart SA soccer’ underwear and a big ol' PROUDLY SOUTH AFRICAN smile on my face.

Go Bafana Bafana!

Viva South Africa!

and for everyone else, Waka Waka and Wave Your Flag!

Going out

As it was my birthday this week and I am starting to feel the wintery creep of age in my life, I rebelled against it by trying to prove I was still young.


On the night of my party, I attempted to push past my now-12pm bedtime and partied on until 5am. Not sensibly, of course, but will determination and a lot of encouragement. I got home and thought, “Work is in 3 hours, so I may as well stay up until then”. Obviously, it was a SH%T idea and I obviously feel asleep moments after trying to watch a thunderstorm. But then, reality wakes you up. Work felt like a graveyard. I was so tired and lacked concentration that I was out of normal functioning for 2 days.

I never want to do that again.

But true-as-bob, every time I start feeling old and like I have the need to party until dawn, I realise a very sad fact: I am an 18-til-I-die year old stuck in a Let’s-go-to-bed-early-and-exercise 23 year old’s body. My mind can party like a rock star, but unfortunately my body does not keep up. The song “Party like a rock, party like a rock star” can be aptly re-named “Party like a first, party like a first-year” as that is pretty much the last time you can party and still function the next day.

And the sneaky part of an adult hangover is that you wake up feeling fine (because you are probably still drunk). And you go to work and you just feel tired. And then gradually you feel like your eyes are burning and then it all goes steadily downhill. My only consolation is that I only work until lunchtime, at which point I can go home and feel sorry for myself.

Today, however, I am a perky little soldier since I learned my lesson. As long as I get my 8 hours of sleep and am in bed before 12pm, it turns out I can still party like an aging rock star!

What true friends are for

Explanations and Tips

The weekend passed saw three awesome events – dinner on the beach with the boy, Wacky Wine Fest and my birthday. How lucky am I? The boy took me out for steak and calamari on Friday night, to a beautiful restaurant overlooking the ocean. Before that, we got cocktails (ok, a Peroni draught) and sat on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll in.

Wacky Wine was as epic as I had imagined. I’m glad we didn’t overstay our welcome though, as it seems that more than one day of driving around and tasting wine is MORE than sufficient. We started off at Rooiberg, which was quiet enough and served gross greasy bacon rolls (the best for lining the stomach). We then made the epic mistake of attempting Graham Beck.

Tip # 1: If people from Gauteng have heard of the wine farm, don’t go there.

I had to fight my way through crowds of people to even get near the wine tasting counter, and even then I was surrounded by ladies of inferior birth tasting wine with ICE in their GLASSES (!). It was 10am. In Heyer’s words, “they smelt of the shop”.

Luckily the boy, like my older brother, curls his lip in disgust at other people, so we dodged a bullet and left quickly.

The next stop was Clairvaux, where we were offered brandy cocktails (no was the answer, it was 10.30), hanepoot and loads of olives. It was, well, nice. And exactly what was to be expected of Robertson.

I, however, am a snob, so we moseyed along to Springfield.

Tip # 2: The more expensive the wine, the more beautiful the wine farm. As a rough guide…

Springfield was fantastic. The views were unsurpassed, and on each table was a large bowl of olives (not for very long, we did some serious damage to our bowl as soon as possible). But truth be told, there are few wines are delicate and interesting as the Springfield Whole Berry. I made sure that all my 5 allowed tastings per hour (as per guide instructions to safe drinking) were spent on Whole berry.
We made the severe mistake of thinking Bon Courage would be a good next choice. If Graham Beck was an abortion, then this was a bad-door, wire-hanger one. I must have been taking barbiturates the first time I had the Bon Courage Blush and thought I liked it, because it tastes like soda-streamed Four Cousins Rose. And they were selling the foul potion by the barrel-full. I went up to the tasting girl and asked her something about the red wine I was tasting, like barrel maturation and blend percentages (not exactly higher grade stuff) and she looked at me with a wide-eyed blank expression. When I asked whether no-one else had asked this, she just meekly said “No man. Everyone just drink!”.

Tip # 3: If the wine is made for people who want to just suip, avoid the farm.

Excelsior was both fun and very entertaining. Picture the scene: Robertson Valley, small wine farm with horses and goats everywhere, cellar floor strewn with hay, Supersterre singing karaoke, ‘tannies’ selling vetkoek, boerewors rolls and pannekoeke and an Asian sushi chef. What, wha- whaaat? Pick the one that doesn’t fit. I love how small-town Afrikaans people have suddenly ‘discovered’ sushi and it now symbolises the height of schmancy. For us, it’s getting a little cheesy, but I tell you in Robertson fashion obviously takes a little longer.

Tip # 4: The smaller the farm, the better time you will have. We made our own wine, tasted with the wine maker and sat on a stunning deck wolfing down pancakes. No queues.

With a now-wiser view on the festival, we quickly gave Van Loveren the skip. I didn’t think the boy’s heart could have taken it. De Wetshof was the next location, a beautiful classy farm with plenty of olive tasting. By this time I was a little over the olives, but they did have lots of bread to taste with olive oil and cabernet sauvignon vinegar. After my 30th tasting of the vinegar, the girl behind the counter gave me a somewhat tiresome sigh as if to say “Are you really still pretending to taste?” I quickly left, tummy full.

Tip # 5: Tasters mean just that. But in Robertson, people are too polite so you can usually push your luck. Yum!

Finally, the lure of something far greater pulled the boy further down the road. Jip, you guessed it.

Tip # 6: If there is rugby on, you will have to taste wine by yourself while your companion watches the Boks.

I spent the remaining two tasting hours of the day sitting outside in the sun with what I discovered to be a group of the local wine-makers, sharing their wine and speaking my best attempt at Afrikaans (my tongue was well-oiled by this point so I think it went well!)

We headed back into Ashton in a good mood (the Boks were victorious, I had a bottle of wine…win-win situation) and to a friend’s fish braai. I won’t even get into how awkward that was, that’s a post on its own.

Tip # 7: Sober up before going to have dinner with a friend, his parents and his granny. Find out BEFORE the time that these are the dinner guests.

However, it was a fantastic experience and one well-worth repeating. Oh look at that, there is the Slow Wine Festival in August. See you there….

Attraction

Lately I have been wondering a lot about attraction and how it works. Reading Georgette Heyer makes it alarmingly clear that 150 years ago, different things were considered attractive to what they are not. What we would now call an independent, assertive and empowered woman, they called an impudent hussy. What we call a soft, emotionally-in touch metro man, they regarded as a spineless fool.

And of course, pointing out the fact that things have changed is scarcely an illuminating concept. But it is interesting to see how society constructs and decides who and what we find attractive. Especially when you come down to it, we are society. So ultimately, we control our own thought processes to define our own limits through collective consciousness (or something. I’ve gone on a far more philosophical angle that I meant to here).

(excuse the typo)

But our society is built on sex. 50 years ago, pin up posters of cartoon girls were considered raunchy. Now, you struggle to go on the internet without being bombarded with half naked people (I’m not complaining, I like a half naked man as much as the rest of us). And in fact, that’s exactly my point. With all these perfect images of perfect people naked all the time, how are any of us normal people supposed to be attracted to any other normal person?

There are 6 billion people in the world, and yet ultimately people pair up with one other individual for their whole lives and find them attractive the whole time. How crazy is that? I have been with the boy for over a year now, and I still want to be with him more than anyone else. I’m still more attracted to him than anyone else. To me, he is gorgeous, but he is no Ryan Reynolds. Just like I am no Candice Boucher. But we want each other.

I’m not giving answers here, I’m asking questions.

Friday afternoon joys.

An old favourite of mine, and worth sharing!

Traffic Offences

Hazard lights used to be something that were used to indicate emergency, or a distressing reason why the driver cannot move out of the road. They were used in extreme cases. These days, hazard lights are basically get-out-of-jail-free cards for drivers. And it’s like, “I’m in the middle of the road, loading furniture, but it’s ok because I have my hazards on” and “I’m driving on the wrong side of the road but understand, I have my hazards on” or “I pulled in front of you and then braked sharply to pull into the parking you wanted, but look! My hazards are on.” You want to yell at people and make them understand that no, it is in fact no acceptable to just put hazards on and then do just about whatever you want to.


I suppose the first to go was the hooter. When you do your learners, the answer to “When may a hooter be used?” is always “c) Only in case of an imminent accident to warn other drivers”. Once you start driving, it seems that a hooter is anything from “Hey guy” to “How’s my driving?” It reminds me of the scene in a Simpsons episode where the family are about to embark on a long journey and as they pull onto the highway, there is back to back, unmoving traffic. Doh! Homer then announces, “Don’t worry everybody. I have a trick up my sleeve’ and sits on the hooter.

Don’t even get me started on traffic circles, which, like technology, are only as smart as their users. Unless circles are used correctly BY EVERYONE, they do not work. Giving way to someone you shouldn’t is not KIND, it’s just f%#$ing stupid and causes breakdown in the system.

It concerns me slightly though that these things bother me so much now, where I drive maybe 5km in a busy week, in a traffic-free little town, with reserved parking. Perhaps I shouldn’t apply for work in Johannesburg…

Birthday Wish List

1. World Peace (duh).


2. A baby bushbaby (nagapie) because they are so freaking cute.

3. My friend to have a better time than she is having.

4. A huge cash bonus. Reserved only for spa treatments. For me.

5. A moleskin wine tasting reference book. So I can look official when I go tasting, and not like a little bar fly.

6. A case of expensive wine. So that I can impress my friends.

7. I Love France! World Cup underwear.

8. To sit with my grandparents and have tea.

9. A night of being wined and dined by my boyfriend. And a bag of shiny shit from my best friend.

10. A surprise party. Hint hint.