Catching Stories

If we are to replace  consumption as the central meaning of Christmas,  and of our lives, what should the new centre be? Dianne suggests that South Africa is in fact a good place to try and reach the heart of the Christmas mystery, because of the outsider status of the Holy Family. They were unwelcome migrants, travelling to Bethlehem on the bureaucratic whim of the Roman coloniser.

Ruark Swanepoel is an engineer who works in Fochville. That is part of his life. The other part is cultivating and combining art and artists. His art company is called 4Ever Odd – @4everodd on Instagram. The October feed on his Instagram is particularly rich, as three of the artists he works have been producing drawings for inktober – take a look to get an idea of what odd art is.  

The light of the ordination makes the patterns that inevitably led there, very clear. Patricia served the Church and her people as a Dominican teaching sister for 44 years. In this time she studied Philosophy at Potch University. This opened the door to studying Theology in Rome. Here she experienced the first intimation of her calling, when a dying seminarian from South Africa asked her, and no-one else, to anoint him. In this second podcast, the preparation is completed, and her ordination takes place. At great cost to her position in the Church, and her whole way of living. This is the story of a pioneer, risking everything, journeying through uncharted territory, opening a path for those coming after her. Utterly content, through all the upheaval and change, that she has found her calling.

For Patricia, the easy route would have been to take a side step into a denomination which allows the ordination of women. But Patricia is Catholic in her DNA: this is the faith she knows, loves, believes in. It is the faith she grew up with and will die in. So she took the lonely road of Catholic ordination, which turned out to be a very hard road indeed.

To say that Tumelo is an IT consultant who writes books in her spare time would be to vastly underrate the time, passion and energy that Tumelo puts into her books. Perhaps she has cracked the secret of a day that is longer than 24 hours? Because listening to Tumelo, you would think that she wrote and marketed books, full-time. When you publish your own books, you do not have the luxury of relying on a publisher to do the marketing for you. So Tumelo works hard to make potential readers aware of her books, and to make sure readers have access to the books they want. Listening to Tumelo explain where she goes to discuss, and sell, her books, reminds you how vibrant the literature scene in Johannesburg is.

Joy Phala is passionate about togetherness in the plant world. In this podcast she explains how established plants can send food and nutrients to plants that are not doing well, even when the ailing plant is a different species to the helping plant. She talks about communities of microbes exchanging essential elements with plant roots, and easily destroyed by chemical fertilisers.  

Neil grew up in Norwich in England, and lived for a few years in Aberystwyth in Wales. Johannesburg has been his home for most of his life. In this conversation Neil talks about his love for his adopted city and country. Neil is one of those refreshing people who, if you say anything about times in South Africa being bad, reminds you fiercely how much worse things were in the past.  About the damage to individual lives and communities, that will take generations to repair. 

Dineo describes herself as “a reformed debt-aholic”  She chronicled her journey out of debt on her website. She writes articles on debt, savings and investment for a range of South African publications Dineo reads neuropsychology, and is particularly interested in the emotional component of our financial behaviour: why do we do what we do, and, particularly, how can we change the way we handle our money? This field is increasing in popularity, and is known as neuroeconomics and neurobehavioural finance

Marie Aoun is the founder of local organic perfume company Saint d’ici “Talking perfume” sounds like a contradiction in terms. Perfume is for smelling! But Marie’s enchanting stories enhance her perfume. There are stories of origins: Aoun is a Lebanese name, and the orange blossom she uses is collected from orchards on the slopes of Lebanese hills. There are stories of the meaning of perfume: “Our response to scent is primarily emotional: it resides in an ancient part of our brains– the amygdala and hippocampus. We seek the scent of flowers, fruit, roots, trees, resin and animals to complete us,” Marie says in an interview with Sowetan Live

“Communities need vessels for healing and love” says Nokulinda Mkhize-Horwood.. As a Sangoma she is able to do this healing work for her community, and help people to take their lives forward. In the past, following your calling may have been done in secret, and izangoma might have been perceived as poor, old and rural people. This is not the case today. The gap between the traditional world and a fast-paced city life is not as large as outsiders might think, and it is certainly not unbridgeable.

Wendy Carstens who runs the Koppies, and new volunteer Tamarin Scheidegger. Running Melville Koppies doesn’t mean sitting in an air-conditioned office. It means donning your blue overalls and gumboots, and pulling out weeds.   Melville Koppies is extraordinarily beautiful – a green gem in the heart of Johannesburg. You can admire the view that stretches off into the distance – or turn your back on all signs of civilization, and focus on grasses, flowers, rocks, birds, and history.   The knowledgeable guides have geology, archaeology, and history at their fingertips, as well the botany and ecology of the koppies. They are practical people, who put down carpets on the paths to limit erosion ( old carpets welcome) as well as spending hours poring over books to keep their knowledge up to date.

  It is risky, caring about something as fragile and area-specific as fynbos. Careless bulldozing of a parking area can wipe out a particular species for ever. So there is both grief and joy in the work Rupert does.

Bongiwe’s heart belongs to Johannesburg. Many people regard this city as a crass hub of commercialism, but she perceives its spirituality. She loves the smells, the sounds, the sights – the trees and the people.

Selling books in central Johannesburg, Griffin can talk with authority about a reading culture beyond the suburbs. About readers who would never set foot in a mall, booksellers who sell 400 books a month from a pavement stall, and a book club in Orange Farm where they read the latest Pulitzer Prize winners.   The name Bridge Books of course derives from the iconic Nelson Mandela Bridge, and that is the logo on the bookshop windows. The appropriateness of the name goes beyond its location. The shop is not just a retailer for customers, but a supplier for other, smaller, booksellers. They do not have the access to publishers, or discounts, enjoyed by formal booksellers. So Griffin bridges the gap. A gap which is more of a chasm, really.

Academic excellence and social justice are two sides of the same coin, according to Nadine Petersen. Nadine is no ivory tower Professor. After matriculating at Bosmont High school, she failed her first year at university. But she persevered, and is now Assistant Dean in the Faculty of Education at the University of Johannesburg.   Having travelled a long educational journey herself, Nadine has strong views on how teachers should be trained in and for our young democracy.

Michelle believes that each Christmas brings a gift. Not a commercial gift. Nothing that you could put paper (or tinsel) around. In the conversation Michelle explains how every person, of very faith or no faith, may recognise their own gift. “Christmas isn’t meant to take us out of reality. It’s meant to make us look differently at the real world around us”  

Retang explains that often local practices are devalued by their own community, let alone the outside world. So when you say “this practice, which has been carrying for generations is valuable in itself, and may also generate income” that changes the way the knowledge-holders see themselves.

It started as a silent protest against specific legislation. White, middle class South African ladies, dressed in hats and gloves, ‘haunted’ National Party cabinet ministers. They stood, wearing their black sashes of mourning, wherever the minister was due to arrive, or speak. Their only weapon was shame. Extraordinarily, the ministers went to great lengths to avoid them –  changing schedules and sneaking out of back entrances.

I met Baeletsi (@baeontheword on IG) on the @bridgebooks Underground Booksellers Tour, which ends with a storytelling session in Oppenheimer Park in Commissioner Street. Against a background of curious pedestrians, and ReeaVaya buses, Baeletsi transported us to other worlds.

I love Mondays because I love my work” says Dr Khanyile, currently completing her community service at Sebokeng hospital, in Vanderbijl Park in Southern Gauteng.

You can hear the hadedas, those ubiquitous urban adaptors, calling loudly in the background during this interview. Perhaps they are a good symbol for Chief Ntshingila: a lot of this podcast is about successful adaptation.   “I would like to keep for Africa what is good for Africa, and take into Africa what is different”  These were the words of King Sobhuza of Swaziland, Chief Ntshingila’s maternal grandfather.   In this podcast we hear a man fitting new and old roles and ideas together, as carefully and neatly as a master craftsman dovetailing different pieces of wood.   During Heritage Week, Chief wears his Zulu regalia to the Methodist church he attends; other Sundays he goes to services in the uniform of the Amadodana, as his father and older brothers have done before him. Cultural and religion, he finds, fit together much more comfortably than culture and business.

“Why?” and “How” are the questions that pepper this interview. Why start a new publishing house? Why call your book Red Cotton? How can people in Cote D’Ivoire respond so positively to poetry spoken in home languages from South Africa and Ghana?   The answers usually contain elements of feminism, or spirituality, or both, and are phrased in powerful, image-laden language. This is not surprising. Vangile is a poet. Her first collection was titled “undressing in front of the window” In the foreword, Don Mattera wrote: “Vangile’s quest – like so many critical and conscious young scribes, appears to want to jerk us into awareness of the hurt they are experiencing; the multitudinous social, political, economic and religious challenges they have to countenance”   But now Vangile is also one-third of impepho press, launching their third and fourth books at African Flavour Books https://www.inyourpocket.com/johannesburg/african-flavour-books_151504v  where all their titles ( and lots of other books from South Africa and the rest of the continent) are available.   Impepho press is Pan African and inclusive. One of their dreams is a network across Africa, of writers and publishers working together, making their resources available to one another, learning and teaching and listening. The African diaspora will be part of this network, but not its centre.   The dream has both its origins and its expression in Vangi’s travels to poetry festivals: she has entranced and challenged audiences in Malawi, Gabon, Algeria, Cote D’Ivoire, Mocambique, Morocco. Inclusivity goes beyond geography to LGBTQ+, and is centered on an inclusive feminism. It is LOUD, and also deeply spiritual.   Are loud and spiritual contradictory? Not for Vangi. She is a healer in training. Spirituality underlies everything she says and does. A spiritual connection, she explains, is what enables people across different languages, who do not understand the meaning of the words, to respond to poetry.   Perhaps it is also this spirituality that allows Vangi to address big issues through small domestic issues – the colour of the cotton used to sew on a button; a small girl who “feels the sting of loneliness” http://www.702.co.za/articles/289730/when-you-re-honest-people-feel-it-and-that-s-what-carries-storytelling     Are loud and spiritual contradictory? Not for Vangi. She is a healer in training. Spirituality underlies everything she says and does. A spiritual connection, she explains, is what enables people across different languages, who do not understand the meaning of the words, to respond to poetry.                     Vangile Gantsho is

MmeMaggie’s work as a mother to the wider community has been recognised by both Church and State. The Church awarded the order of Simon of Cyrene, the highest honour which can be bestowed on a lay person in the Anglican Church. The Order of the Baobab was conferred on her by the State President of South Africa.    

In this podcast professor Alex van den Heever sets out what South Africans need by way of health insurance, and what parts of this are and are not covered by the proposed NHI.   He also discusses social grants, and economic growth. No, he says, child grants do not cause pregnancy. All the research shows that fertility rates continue to decline in urban areas in South Africa.   Grants support families, mitigating some of the stresses on children that can shape the rest of their lives, from cognitive performance to relationships. Grants also don’t lead to dependency: “Our economy would grow faster if we pushed up grants to 6-7% of GDP…long-term evidence around the world shows that unequal economies grow more slowly”

For Ishmael Mkhabela, Black Consciousness is not an ideology, it is a way of life: “an examined life, where you reflect, and also where you accept yourself….history made people consider themselves as the lesser children of God…. the Black Consciousness project of humanising society is much richer than the rhetoric of politicians…we are humanised in our interaction with others. Ubuntu/Botho is an act of responding to real human needs.”  

Mmabatho Mtimkulu’s business is named after her grandmother. Selina Mtimkulu’s son was politically active, and in exile. This brought Selina continued presence of the apartheid police , harassment, imprisonment, assault and insult. Mmabatho hopes to bring to her activities, and the pressures and shocks of business, the resilience and courage which her grandmother showed. Mmabatho’s gift is to bring together the two halves of the healthy, organic equation: the customers and the suppliers. She knows her suppliers – all 40 of them – and has stories about each one. “You are buying from a real human being, supporting a real human being” Most of her suppliers are young black women – a network she began to develop when she first sold eggs at the Brownsense market  

Bookwormers is certainly not your caricature book club, where the books provide the background to a little gossip and a lot of wine. It is a high-energy community outreach and an ever-changing fashion statement. Books are not so much read as devoured, dissected, and sometimes the members of the club even offer visiting authors better endings for their books! Members arrive with books where the pages have been marked with post-it notes and highlighted, ready for a vigorous discussion.

If you ask Dr Geci Karuri-Sebina about her academic qualifications and interests, she explains that she is an architect, a town planner, a computer scientist, a sociologist and that her particular field of interest is innovation. But innovation does not mean only looking forward. We badly need to look back, like the Sankofa bird, and bring both indigenous knowledge and practice, and common sense, into the way we plan and heal our cities. We need to listen more, and fix less. In particular, we need to listen to our elders : “What is so profound about what my elders say is how sensible it is.”  

If the clouds come up when you are on the 51st floor of the Ponte building in Hillbrow, the light reflects of the red advertising sign above the building, and glow pink. This happened the night I was there, interviewing Nickolaus Bauer. It felt as if the building was wrapped in a pink feather boa. This was part of the inspiration for the TweetingGogo logo. Here you can see the view of the lights of Hillbrow through the pink cloud.  

MmeMaggie Nkwe is a pioneer, and a disturber of the peace. Some Johannesburg citizens will remember her as the founder of the Orlando Children’s Home, others as one of the first nurses trained in specialist paediatric care at Baragwanath Hospital. She worked with Professor Lucy Wagstaff to establish Primary Health Care services in Soweto. When roads were blocked and travel into and out of the township was stopped, the nurses in their uniforms were allowed through, to provide medical care to the children.

“Every day a mommy emails me to say that her baby is HIV-negative” Dr Sindi @sindivanzyl is probably best known for her work answering questions from mothers and mothers-to-be, about how to prevent HIV transmission to their babies. Using social media to reach mothers around the world, those who question her directly, and those who read her answers to other mothers and apply them to their own babies, has Dr Sindi says “changed my life”

  Our discussion soon turned from seeds to Land. Forced removals didn’t just take people from the land – they severed the relationship with land, and lost the knowledge, spirituality and ritual connected with seeds and plants – sowing, harvesting, storing, using. Ceremony, a sense of belonging, knowledge passed between and also binding generations, were all lost along with land. A seed dialogue attempts to hold and join together the knowledge that is still there, nationally and internationally.

Although the conversation with Karim focuses on the Suikerbosrand, it makes wonderful detours. He talks about the stone walls on the West Coast which were built 1300/1400 years ago. He explains the wide range of hunter-gatherer society, which included groups who kept flocks of sheep and practiced basic agriculture. The “click-speakers” is the name Karim uses for this early group of South Africans.  

Kwanele provides listeners with a history and a challenge. The history is one individual’s personal experience of apartheid and education, from the late 1970s to right now, in 2018. The challenge is very specifically to white South Africans, to stop being tourists and start engaging. To teach and learn respect. To stop narrowing everything into English. “To live with the joy and the sorrow, to have your heart broken by injustice…to be prepared to do the work of rectifying”

No-one in Johannesburg does one thing at a time, so podcasts are just right – a chance to listen to one person’s journey, while continuing on your own.   Johannesburg stories matter because Johannesburg is people. Other cities have rivers, seas, lakes, mountains. Johannesburg’s people provide the commerce, beauty and connection that waterways and geology offer elsewhere.