Local Elections 2011

Between 22 April and 18 May 2011 we had four public holidays. This sort of thing makes my US colleagues very envious, a little angry and most of all, somewhat suspicious - like we're pulling the wool or taking the piss. But we aren't - they just happened. And the last was the best because it was a Wednesday - I love Wednesday holidays because you can get a lot done on Monday and Tuesday, have a good break on Wednesday and then put in a good spurt again before the weekend. I think there is a good case for making them a permanent feature of our monthly calendar. Down with 5 day weeks, say !. Of course we all work through our holidays and weekends anyway, but that is beside the point - at least we can do it from the comfort of our bedrooms.

Wednesday was Local Elections 2011 voting day. I have lost track of elections but I guess there was one in 2006, 2001 and 1996. I don't remember 1996 - we must have been in KZN. Maybe we voted. The princesses would have been very young. One of the others I missed because my ID document had gone missing, presumed stolen (actually turned out I had misplaced it). 17 years after the advent of democracy in SA we still get sufficiently excited about voting to at least make it down to the Civic Centre to make our crosses. Well, I do anyway. And two thirds of Cape Town did this year as well. Political talk dominated our  coffee machine social circle and the airwaves for a couple of weeks before the big day, so we were well primed. I was disappointed that no-one phoned or came round to ask me to vote for their party. Maybe they did and we just weren't in.

The day before the elections I went onto the IEC website to check that I was registered. I was, as was herself. I also downloaded and printed the list of candidates for the ward vote and the list of parties for the proportional representation vote. That was a shock. I had never heard of any of the candidates and I had never heard of at least half the parties. My fault I guess - should have attended those meetings, read those articles and listened to those programs. The result was that by the time I got to the polling station I hadn't altogether made up my mind whom to vote for.

The morning dawned bright and beautiful. We took full advantage and got in a lie-in, and a morning gym session before heading for the booths along with Princess Firstborn - her first vote. There was a fairly lengthy queue of people but it appeared to be moving and everyone seemed to be in a tolerably good mood with one or two noticeable exceptions - the tall fellow with dreadlocks who was manning one of the party tables looked like he had dropped a 100 rand note and picked up half a cent, and a lady who had failed to register and was now trying to make it the problem of the electoral officer.

We shuffled forward slowly, enjoying the sunshine and the vibe. A very old lady came out, helped by a nurse and we moved aside to let her through. "Thank you", she said. "Thank you", I returned, "for taking the trouble to come out and vote". "Young man", she said, "at my age, my vote is worth a million rands!" Couldn't quite follow the logic of that but I said "Good for you!" anyway.

A car drew up with an elderly couple in the back seat. The driver got out and opened the door - he was presumably a younger friend or relative. Mr Dreadlocks immediately sprang into action and started moving them towards the front of the queue. The driver said something about "You'll have to fight to get them to the front" to which he replied loudly "No problem, I've been fighting for liberation my whole bloody life". He looked about 25! And the point was that noone there would so much as thought of not letting them jump the queue. Idiot. Well that made my mind up - I voted for the other party.

The princess was a little overawed by the occasion. Not sure what she expected - tick the wrong box and the men in masks spring out and carry you away? The staff were all very friendly and helpful and very soon we were in the booths and making our marks, placing our papers in the boxes and leaving the station. My vote was one in a million cast in the province, I believe. So you could say it didn't matter. It certainly wouldn't have mattered in my ward, where the winning candidate got 92% of the vote, if I had stayed in bed. In a way, one votes mainly for one's own benefit - one gives oneself the right to crticise the government of the day, if one has participated in the election. If one hasn't, one should shut up. At least, that is my view.

Civic duty done for another 3 years - I went back to bed. When the results came out I emailed the Handsome Masha to ask how his "Trotskyist End Necrophilia Party" had done - he said they had been too poor to stand, but next time ...

Safari 2011

Normally the 2 Oceans and the Safari are about 4 weeks apart - the former is always on Easter Saturday and the latter on the Workers' Day (1st May) weekend Saturday. This year Easter Saturday fell on April 23rd and this meant that there were just 9 days between the two races, since they shifted the Safari to the 2nd May, which was a public holiday. No problem I thought. Silly me.

I arranged to collect the Handsome Masha at 5 since it was a good hour's drive to Wellington, where the race was being held. I got lost trying to find his house in Plumstead - the street names are small and illegible, and I didn't have my glasses on. Finally found it a little after five, which meant that by the time he got into the car I had heard the 5 a.m. news bulletin - Osama bin Laden had been killed by US forces. I guess it is one of those things one will always remember - I remember exactly where I was (driving back from Worcester on the N1 near Bellville) when I first heard news of the 9/11 terrorism. The Masha hadn't heard so we discussed the implications for a while as we headed north and then north east to Wellington. He has Islamic routes but is not a practicing Muslim and his views are normally a good mix of politics, philosophy and religion, which I find useful.We decided that OBL's death was probably not great news, given the likely reprisals on countless innocent people, not to mention travel delays to people such as us!

For once I took the right turnoff from the N1 (the R44) and before we knew it we were there. Well, in Wellington anyway. The trick is then to find parking which is reasonably close to the stadium. We finally opted for a recreation park. I was worreid about getting out so tried to squeeze the car (which isn't very large) into a space up on the perimeter,  an action which elicited a rather loud (as in meant to be heard) and sarky comment from the fellow standing next to the car alongside of "Moenie worry as hy jou motor scrape nie - dis niksnie!" (Don't worry if he scrapes your car - it's nothing). I got the hint and moved along about ten spaces, till I found another (better) spot next to a park bench also on the perimeter. We arranged to meet at the bench after the race.

Then it was a careful application of "glide" to the inner thighs, get the chest strap, earphones, Blackberry and  pouch sorted out, check and double check that the car was locked and head for the start, along with a gazillion others. We passed a number of portable toilets, each with an accompanying long queue. By the time we got to the start, I needed a loo myself, having had a cup of coffee en route. There appeared to be about 10 cubicles and around 30 people in the queue. This can't take too long, I thought. Well it did! The queue crawled along. I had lots of time to spare but it really was tedious. We had finally made it to just about the front when a friend of the bloke in front of me in the queue approached and informed us that this queue was for the ladies' toilet - the men's was "over there" and there was no queue since it was a "standing arrangement". Which it was - very quick, in and out. There are definitely some advantages to being male, even if one cannot multitask.

The race was ... well it was a pretty normal half marathon - usual frustrations, usual challenges. I was doing pretty well until around 13km despite some ups and down, with laps all under 6.30, many under 6 minutes (which is good for me). One then climbs about 100m in the space of around 4km, and my lap times went south - all over 6.30, some over 7, one over 8. One then drops those same 100m altitude in the final 4km, but by that stage I felt so stuffed that the best I could do was keep up a 6.30 so eventually clocked in at 2:18, just slower than my 2 Oceans (despite the quicker start). So not a great race - just ran out of energy.

On the other hand the race had many positives. I really enjoyed listening to Eagles, Elton John and Mannfred Mann while I ran. Not sure if it slowed me down or sped me up but it made it more enjoyable. I enjoyed the countryside, which really is lovely, with the farms around you the and mountains above and in the distance, the smells of woodfires, but also of cattle manure and once or twice things cooking. The little kids at the side of the road shouting "Hou bene hou! Hou bene hou!" which I guess is best translated as "Keep going legs, keep going". A female prison warder as we passed the Wellington prison, who spotted a colleague (I presumed) running, let out a loud shriek and careered after him, caught him up and fondly slapped him across the back of the head - he didn't seem to mind. She was rather large and very loud. And herself phoning me at around the 13km mark to ask if I was OK - that was a first. In-between puffs and gasps I managed to get out that I was.

The finish line eventually appeared and I gratefully accepted my medal and Pepsi and phoned herself to let her know that I was still alive and that she should hold off with the funeral arrangements. I made the mistake of sitting down on the grass to recover and very nearly couldn't get up again. I watched the runners and walkers coming in - some looked happy, some looked in pain, some just looked blank - I expect I looked like that. I didn't spot the Masha so made my way back to the car and had just got comfortable on the bench (Masha had the keys) when I heard a familiar voice say rather loudly "Now who's f**king crazy idea was it to run this race? Must have been yours!" - the Handsome Masha had returned.

We compared times, commiserated with each other about the toughness of the event and decided to head home. I somehow managed to fold my rigor mortis like legs into the car and we set off. It was not a comfortable journey but we made it home OK, just in time to go out again for herself's birthday lunch. Fortaunetly, P:rincess Firstborn now has a drivers licence, so I handed her the keys, got into the back with herself and pretended to be Prince William - ride on, James!

I think next year I may skip the Safari. Nice race but just wasn't ready for it.

Title	Safari
Sport	Running
Start Time	May 2, 2011 7:13 AM
Distance	21.23 km
Duration	2h:18m:23s
Avg Speed	6:31 min/km
Max Speed	4:36 min/km
Calories	1797 kcal
Altitude	147 m / 256 m
Elevation	121 m ↑ / 121 m ↓
Heart Rate	- / -

Invictus

Tonight they showed the movie "Invictus" on MNET. I had heard a fair bit about it - it has been out 2 years already - but had not seen it, so I was rather pleased that I had the opportunity - a cool, rather miserable night, so an excuse for soup and rolls and a couple of glasses of pinotage in front of the gas heater, and what better to do than to watch a nice feelgood movie, with a great director (Clint Eastwood) and actors of the caliber of Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon. I knew the basic plot about it being built around the unlikely alliance between our ex-president Nelson Mandela (then president) and our ex-Springbok rugby captain Francois Pienaar. In fact I remember quite clearly the final match which is also the climax of the film - I was mowing my lawn and could hear the roars of my next door neighbours who were big rugby fans erupting every few minutes. I played rugby at school, and enjoy watching the game, but for me it has never been a religion or a matter of life and death, the way it appears to be for many of my white South African friends and colleagues.

So the story wasn't new to me, although I enjoyed it anyway. I liked the clever way Eastwood tries to show how playing in and winning the cup had brought black and white South Africans together - little touches like the mixed security detail celebrating together, black fans gathering in a township shabeen to watch, white "madams" and black domestic workers hugging each other, and the best one, a white policeman dancing around in jubilation with a black street kid on his shoulders, after he had earlier told him to "Voetsak! Hamba!" for supposed loitering - all very moving and I guess even possibly true.

What I didn't know about was the poem Invictus, which is of course central to the story. Mandela tells Pienaar that he used often to read or recite it during his days in prison on Robben Island, when things were really bad. He then writes it out for Pienaar and gives it to him the day before the big match against Australia. They win the macth and the day after they are taken to visit Robben Island, and in particular the (very small) cell which was Mandela's home for so many lonely years - a visit which makes a huge impact on Pienaar.

I looked the poem up - turns out (according to Wikipedia) it was written by the English poet William Ernest Henley (1849–1903). "At the age of 12, Henley fell victim to tuberculosis of the bone. A few years later, the disease progressed to his foot, and physicians announced that the only way to save his life was to amputate directly below the knee. It was amputated when he was 17. In 1875, the Stoic ideal of indifference in the face of suffering inspired Henley to write his poem from a hospital bed. Despite his disability, he survived with one foot intact and led an active life until his death at the age of 53."

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gait,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

I am no judge of poetry. It is certainly better verse than I have ever written. Yet I find the assertion of invincibility worrying - I wonder whether true greatness does not lie in accepting and working around one's limitations, rather than deluding oneself that one has none. What I do like is the message in the last 2 lines - a message we could all profit from hearing in South Africa today, when half the population blames the old regime and the other half the new regime for whatever troubles us - a little acceptance of responsibility for making things work might go a long way. 

The final scene is both meaningful and moving. Mandela presents the trophy to Pienaar, the winning captain and they shake hands and look one another in the eye. "Thank you, Francois, for what you have done for our country", he says. "No, sir", says Pienaar, "thank You, for what You have done for our country!" Valour recognising greater valour, I guess. Pienaar was a great rugby player, probably a great captain, possibly a great man. But he isn't in Mandela's league and I expect he would be the first to admit that.

The movie had another effect on me - it reawakened in me some of the old idealism which propelled me in my twenties to work long hours with poor black patients in some of the most remote rural hospitals of the country for not very much pay. I resolved to read some of Madiba's writings - maybe they will inspire me to reclaim that vision and get back to a bit of nation building.