One week to go now until Comrades and I am really excited. It is a huge event and all South African’s seem to know about it. 12,000 odd runners and lots of history. I feel pretty fit now and don’t (touch wood) have any injuries, so I think I can manage it. The weather will be the biggest factor and if I don’t finish it, I think it will be humidity that does for me. If, by some miracle, it is cool I am going to bash it out good and proper.
It is going to be nice to be in a city again too. Last night we were gutting ourselves laughing as we sat round the fire pit as another chicken cock-crowed at the wrong time and then a bunch of goats went off too. The dogs followed suit and completed this Transkei symphony. Yes, it is mental here.
As we sat there digesting the fillet, we put the world to rights. The fillet was good with the George’s Marvelous Medicine marinade. No complaints, anyway. And we have leftovers today.
Talk turned to race and incentives for societal improvements. We often go back over the turf of the hand-out culture, the education (and other infrastructure) deficit in the black community, and the fact that SA is very young indeed. Liz was saying that the first Apartheid laws came in back in 1920-ish. So if it took that long to set it up, it will take a bloody long time to reverse.
I am getting a little obsessed with how that impacts on my work. And how can we make helpful projects that are what the community wants and needs and that can last and thrive when we bugger off. There just isn’t a supply of IT literate workers here, who could run projects. Fortunately, Kate the therapist just did a thesis on community engagement in Zithulele, so I am off to have a read of it (exec summary at least!).
My gut feeling is that the solution is to plan for a stream of external expertise to come in for the short and medium term and build projects, in full consultation with the community, at all times involving community people and looking to education to support. We also could use a needs assessment done of Zithulele and a continuation of the community engagement strategy that my predecessor started.
It is hard to ask people what they think they need for their community without prejudicing the discussion with possible solutions. “What would you like for the community, a library?”, “Yes please, I would like a library.”
There is a cross-over here with my old job at the Department for Transport. We were at pains to try to identify what the transport problems of the main UK corridors (ports to cities, between cities and so on) are, without messing it up with thinking of existing motorways and projects that already exist in the planning stage. There are tonnes of existing proposals for motorway improvement out there and it is hard to take a blank sheet look at congestion, for example, when there is already expectation there.
Interesting. Or not. For ‘not’ read previous entry on poo.
If at any point you get bored with this chat, please feel free to send me some abuse, via the comments section.
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