Seal it

When I was younger, my sister and I collected stamps and put them in an album.
These, by Susan Eve Woolf, would have been quite cool to add to the collection. This year, she created another series, called Gestures of Note, also based on the system of hand signs that taxi commuters use to indicate where they would like to go. I assume the system in Gauteng differs from the one in the Cape, because there I've seen people holding money bills in order to show how far they would like to go.

       

 

   

All via the South African Post Office

Protest

On TV, there are often ads encouraging responsible electricity use and tips on how we can contribute to saving the environment. But I wonder how many people actually do something? When they ask us to turn off all non-essential appliances like the geyser or the pool-pump, we don't do it. I mean, we do general things like recycling, turning the lights off when we're not in a room, having a compost heap ( well, sort of. We had one but rats started living in it so it had to be destroyed and now we collect all the vegetable/fruit rests and go bury them when the container is full) and not driving unnecessarily. But everything is also connected to saving money. I only boil as much water as I need, or my sister turns the geyser off, in the hope that it will reduce the bill.

The same goes for the rhino killings. I have no problem buying a bag at Woolies or sending an sms to donate R10, but actually going to protest somewhere seems like too much hassle. So there is a bit of a contradiction here: we want to save the planet without wanting to give anything up. But it shouldn't be easy to save the world. I mean, it shouldn't need saving in the first place if everyone could just have lived slightly more responsibly, but it's too late for that. We need to consciously take action. A friend of mine studies in Hamburg and he is constantly part of some student protest about fee increases, or world economics or saving the rainforest. When students at my university protest, it is because they feel the student elections are "racist" or because the food in the cafeteria is too expensive. The highlight was when they protested because Spring Day ( a huge get-drunk party) was cancelled. We still had a day off, but students were angry because the university did not provide a party. I think that was ridiculous. Find another party. Throw your own. Or maybe just do some work.

I think it was easier to protest in earlier years. There was one specific thing wrong at the time, and now it seems like there is so much wrong with the world that we don't know where to start. The ANCYL recently marched from Johannesburg to Pretoria to protest. My one friend works along one of the roads they marched past and she said she had never seen so much hatred. But I don't understand whom for. Who do you hate? The Apartheid government ended about 17 years ago, so that falls by the wayside.  Also, the Youth League should deal with the youth's current problems, like AIDS, education, getting people better living conditions, preparing them for a bright and productive future. Instead, 40-year-olds march in order to nationalise the mines, chanting "Viva Gaddafi" and singing songs that were deemed hate speech by a South African Court.

Half of what the ANCYL says does not make sense. I don't know it they are generally against anything ending with an -ism, or if they can define what communism is, or if know what they are marching for. How can you follow a leader who knows not what he says and has no respect for democracy? I would like to stuff Malema like a pinata and beat the shit out of him for taking advantage of people with no options and no education. If you don't know better you can't do better. But instead of inciting anger and hate, and basically destroying ideas of nationhood, unity and a "Rainbow Nation", you should consider what you are protesting for and if it will actually benefit the youth. Not by throwing money at a problem, but by actually trying to advance a society through hard work, education, dedication and compassion.

Malema has been suspended as President of the ANC Youth League.
Although this is great, it worries me that he could have become president in the first place and that the league is just a place for power-hungry people in their middle years to be overpaid for doing nothing. I say restructure the entire league. I say fire all incompetence and focus on building a better nation. We have so many other problems, a silly little man dancing on a podium should not be one of them.

Sundried

Fruit 'n Veg had a special on: 3 packs of tomatoes for R12. So I bought them and dried them. Normally I halve the tomatoes ( the small Roma ones), arrange them on baking trays, sprinkle over a salt/pepper/sugar/spices mixture and bake them at 100°C for a few hours. But yesterday the oven stopped working in the middle of my drying-out session. I figured out one of the fuses had blown ( a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle, hey?!).

So now the tomatoes have been actually drying outside in the sun for two days and it worked pretty well.
When they are dried to your taste ( I like them to still be slightly "wet" and then I eat them like candy) you can fill them into some glass jars and top the jars up with olive oil until all the dried tomatoes are completely covered.

Nice.

Pragtig

Pretoria city centre 2011.

As my neef iemand as pragtig beskryf, dan weet hy, sy is (dis altyd 'n meisie). Maar nou wonder ek, is nie almal pragtig nie? Is nie almal mooi op hul eie manier nie? Gister aand was ek by 'n partytjie en die twee ouens wat saam woon het die selfde meisie op 'n skala van 1-10 'n 2 en 'n 9,5 geprys. As twee mense iemand so verskillend kan sien, dan moet elkeen van ons tog pragtig wees vir teen minste een ander persoon? En dis nou net hoe mens lyk. Ons praat nie eers van innere waardes nie.


* If my cousin describes someone as beautiful, then you know she is ( it is always a girl). But now I am wondering if not everyone is beautiful? Isn't everyone pretty in their own way? I was at a party last night and two guys rated the same girl as a 2 and as a 9,5 ( on a scale of 1-10). If two people can see someone so differently, then every one of us has to be beautiful to at least one other person? And this just concerns what we look like. We're not even taking about inner worth.

The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.

These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep, loving concern. 

Beautiful people do not just happen. 

--Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

via Dialogic

That's not my name

In The Crucible, John Proctor, a farmer who has an affair with a young girl, is willing to confess to witchcraft in exchange for his life. However, when they tell him his signed confession will be nailed to the church's door, he tears up the paper. To him, what others say and what he signs is not the same truth, and his name becomes essential as representation for his good character. Also, he cannot save himself through lies if others were willing to die whilst adhering to the truth. When asked why he will deny this confession, Proctor cries :

"Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!" ( Act 4). 

Not many of us will ever be in a similar situation, but I think many heard their name misspelt or misspoken or have themselves been unsure of how to say a name. I have been giving conversation classes to a Korean student named Taejin, and the whole time I called him Taidjin or Taygin, until I asked him how it was actually said: Tejin. One doesn't say the "a". 

Perhaps not saying a name right is not the end of the world, but like Proctor says, it is the only one we have and because our names are so interwoven with our identities, I think it is important to try and say them the right way. Sure, if you occasionally shorten it or if you prefer your pet name or nickname, that is fine. Or if you really dislike your name, you can still change your name. A friend of mine told me how a friend of his ( keep up now with whose friend it is haha) changed her name legally to William Kentridge, who is already a well-known South-African artist. I don't know why she did it. Does a name constitute the worth of an artist? Is it worth more because it is made by someone famous? Perhaps that is the commentary she was trying to make.  

But I like my name: Sabine ( please don't stalk me now). It stems from the name of an Italian tribe that was conquered by the Romans. So I like it so be said right. It has become increasingly irritating that people are just inventing their own little modifications of it. Or they call me S. I am not a l
eggy, blond bimbo in Gossip Girl, so I would appreciate people expanding on the one-syllable naming. Please. Occasionally it is fine, but please, it is not my name. I know I have said that as long as it starts with an S, I will assume you mean me. But it should continue onward from just the S. 


Have you seen Horrible Bosses? In it, the three main characters have a navigation system in their car which allows them to call someone if they need help. When they do call to find a dodgy bar, an Indian man named Gregory answers. They ask him if that is his real name, and he answers that his real name is Atmanand but that he was assigned that name because Americans would struggle with pronouncing the workers' real names. One of the characters says that he will call him by his real name, but after failing to pronounce it correctly states that "that name is a nightmare" and that they'll just call him Gregory. 


I feel that this is a typically American approach. If you aren't called Judy or Jim or if Robert can't become Bob the world of names does not make sense. I know this is a generalization, but if this attitude is sampled in quite a large international film, there must be some truth to it. 

Not that I can pronounce everything well: hardest for me are Xhosa names. There are different clicks and my tongue gets all tied. I am further afraid that by trying to say it right I am butchering your name and you will judge me for it. So I kind of avoid saying names that I can't pronounce.  Or I avoid saying names if I can't remember them. Perhaps my question is if it is better to butcher a name, but to try and say it and hope through repetition one will succeed? Or to just avoid the name-situation completely?

Books

*A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. 

I like to think I am a literate girl.

Read why You should date an illiterate girl by Charles Warnke (there are 2 pages, so remember to click 'next' at the bottom).

Koekeloer

* Jammer ek kry dit net nie reg om 'n dit (:) op die (e) te sit nie. Simpel Alt+ wil nie werk nie.

Party keer is ek moeg van sit en moeg om na my skootrekenaar se skerm te kyk en moeg om te maak as of ek gym toe gaan en moeg vir goed leer en moeg vir die mense om my en moeg vir die verantwoordelikhede van die aldag en net moeg vir die lewe. Party keer wil ek net my oe sluit en slaap tot ek volgende week van self wakker word en die wêreld heeltemal verander het.

Vandag het ek die tweede eksamen uit nege geskryf en ek is al klaar uitgeput. Dis nie dat ek dit nie geniet om te leer nie, dis net dat ek dit nie geniet om daaroor getoets te word nie. Ek sou verkies om net mondelinge te doen. Om julle te oortuig met my woorde, nie my skrif nie.

Nou ja. As ek moeg raak vir hierdie vier mure gaan stap ek party keer deur die buurt en koekeloer vir die mense wat hier om my bly. Noudiedag het ek die fantastiese heuwel ( haha) aan wie se voet ons bly  uitgestap (dis letterlik net 50m, ek laat dit nou na 'n berg klink). Toe ek aan die ander kant weer afstap kom 'n ouerige paartjie uit hul kompleks. Ek sou skat altwee was in hul sewentigs. Sy het 'n donker blou broek en blou toppie en 'n string pêrels gedra. Haar hare was mooi opgepof soos die dames in Mad Men. Die oom het 'n deftige helderbruin ( nie juis bruin nie, eer soos sandkleur) broek gedra met 'n ordentlike hemp, 'n bruin belt en netjiese bruin skoene. Dit was snaaks om mense te sien wat vir 'n sondagmiddagstappie so uitegevat lyk.

Die tweetjies het handjies gehou. Hulle skaduwee het een geword soos hulle die heuweltjie afgestap het. Hy het net een keer vinnig haar hand gelos om oor die straat te stap maar dadelik weer daarna gesoek toe hulle aan die ander kant was.

Ek powerwalk toe maar verby. Ek wil nie die derde wiel wees hier nie. En dit lyk bietjie snaaks as ek so vir hulle dophou. Dis snaaks wat mens so Sondagmiddag sien: kinder speel in tuine, mense braai, honde blaf. Dit lyk as of almal tog heel gelukkig is.

Later sien ek toe weer 'n ouer paartjie. Hierdie keer was hulle nie heeltemal so uitgevat nie: sy het 'n beige sak aangehad en sy wit hemp was die selfde kleur as sy hare.

Toe hulle sien ek stap aan die selfe kant van die straat as hulle het hulle vinnig gewissel. Ek wonder hoekom. Oor my? Ek hoop nie so nie. Ek hoor hy sê vir sy vrou dat die son nie so sterk sal wees aan die ander kant nie. Ek weet darem nie, dis 'n Sondagmiddag en die son is oorals.

Dis vir my lekker om vir die bure te kyk. Mens weet nooit wie woon agter al die hoe heinings nie en niemand gesels meer met mekaar nie. Vroeer het ons partytjies gehou en almal om ons genooi, maar daai dae is verby. Met party bure praat mens en het 'n goeie verhouding, maar met die meestes nie. Agter in die een hoek van die tuin is daar 'n hekkie wat na die bure se tuin gaan. Ek ondthou ons het hom toe ek klein was dalk een of twee keer oopgesluit. Nie meer nie. Ek wonder of die mense wat na ons in die huis gaan bly dalk weer die hekkie sal oopmaak of of ons gemeente maar almal agter hul mure sal skuil.

Street

I wish there were more street art in Pretoria. But we are so used to sitting in transport rather than walking ourselves that I don't think street art is "big" here. Also, I doubt whether all the nice neighbours will appreciate art on their pristine walls.

Here is one from my Paris days. Harsh?!

Finish something

found on Kate Voegele's website

Yes to all. Except number 5. 

Moerbeie

Die Boerboel blaf hier onder my. Genade maar die muurtjie is tog effens hoer as wat ek gedink het. Ek het op die muur agter in die hoek van ons erf geklim om die bure se moerbeie te steel. Hulle versteek hulle boom agter ander bosse en niemand maak gebruik van die glinsterende swart bessies wat swaar an die takke hang soos druiwetrosse. Ons erf grens an drie ander: daar is die een met die boom, die een met die Boerboel en 'n maar takkie, en die een van Tommy en Liesel.

Gelukkig sien mens my nie omdat die bos so dik is, maar almal se honde het agtergekom ek staan daar en blaf vir my. Nie juis die beste situasie om in te wees nie as mens besig is met diefstal. Ek pluk vinnig al die bessies wat ek kan en maak amper my hele bakkie vol. Maar daar hang nog só baie net an die ander kant, net buite my bereik. Die Boerboel se tuin het 'n elektriese heining wat ek verkieslik nie aan sal raak nie. En natuurlik sou ek verkieslik ook nie die hond se middagete wil word nie.

So ek hang maar tussen die takke soos 'n enorme apie en probeer elke bessie gryp wat ek kan kry. Eintlik wil ek die bure vra of ek kan kom en van hulle kant af die vruggies kan pluk. Maar hulle het ook 'n reuse Bougainvillea wat my ma en die tuinier 'n jaar of wat terug vergiftig het omdat die ding die heeltyd ons erf vol pienk blomme mors, so ek is nie seker hoe vriendelik hulle is nie. Toe ek jonk was het ek ook een keer my bal oor die muur gegooi en hulle wou hom nie eers soek nie. So ek skat hulle wil nie juis met hul bure verkeer nie.

Maar uiteindelik was my plunder nie te klein nie. Ek kon immers 'n botteltjie of drie konfyt kook.

Moerbeie uit hul tuin, appeliefies uit ons s'n.

Laat lê die bessies in lae met suiker vir 4 ure en kook dit dan oor 'n lae hitte om kopnfyt te maak. 

Drie botteltjies plesier. 

Ek het die konfyt en nog meer gesteelde moerbeie toe vir hierdie heeeeeeeerlike shortbread ook gebruik:

Austrian Raspberry Shortbread ( as always by smitten kitchen):

1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly softened (about 400g)
4 egg yolks
2 cups granulated sugar
4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon lemon zest

1 cup raspberry jam, at room temperature
1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar

-Cream the butter in a mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or using a hand mixer) until soft and fluffy. 

-Add the egg yolks and mix well.

-Mix the granulated sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt together. Add to the butter and egg yolk mixture and mix just until incorporated and the dough starts to come together. Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and form into two balls. Wrap each ball in plastic wrap and freeze at least 2 hours or overnight (or as long as a month, if you like).

-Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

-Remove one ball of dough from the freezer and coarsely grate it by hand or with the grating disk in a food processor into the bottom of a 9×13-inch baking pan or a 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Make sure the surface is covered evenly with shreds of dough.

-With a piping bag with a wide tip or a zip-lock bag with the corner cut off, squeeze the jam over the surface as evenly as possible, to within 1/2 inch of the edge all the way around. Remove the remaining dough from the freezer and coarsely grate it over the entire surface.

-Bake until lightly golden brown and the center no longer wiggles, 50 to 60 minutes. As soon as the shortbread comes out of the oven, dust with confectioners’ sugar.

-Cool on a wire rack, then cut in the pan with a serrated knife. I find that for this an all bar cookies, chilling the pan in the fridge makes it a lot easier to get clean cuts. ( Ok I found it easier to cut them when they are warm...)

Love after Love

Love After Love

The time will come

when, with elation

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror

and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

 - Derek Walcott

57th percentile

I am a person that achieves. Not necessarily top of my class or best at something, but I like doing well. I guess everyone does. We like knowing we can do something better than others, that we are not just average and mediocre and that somehow, this being good at something enhances our individuality. Perhaps our achievements and talents are what set us apart from the other 7 billion.

English is not my strongest subject. At school I loved it because the ways of language made sense to me and it was enjoyable to learn. Now, however, English as subject has become tedious. I don't want to read Middlemarch or Portrait of a Lady. There is nothing in those words for me. 

Emma was great fun. I previously saw the BBC TV series with Romola Garai and the book was more fun having a specific image in my mind. It was therefore quite a surprise to get (only) 57% in my assignment. Normally, I do the assignments and I check that I answered what was asked and I move on. This was a punch in the face, a big red letter screaming at me :" HA! you underachieving shell of a person!" Somehow how I see myself is still always linked to how I achieve academically.

Sure, admittedly marks do not constitute a personality, but with a bad mark comes a lower average, and the lower average in English brings down my average in general, which could impact the amount of scholarship money I receive from the university for my degree. The better I do, the less I pay. So perhaps the disappointment is threefold: the work was not as good as I thought it was, my talent for English isn't either, and this will reflect badly on the amount I will have to pay for tuition next year ( since it is my mom who pays, it is even worse). 

There was a girl in school with me who always went to the teacher if she thought she could get just one more percent out of an argument. Even if she had 98%, it was not good enough. I also went to talk to my lecturer, but more to find out what I had done so that in future I could do it better. There are times when fighting for marks is the right thing to do, but here it was more of a learning curve. I still think marking is a subjective thing in the humanities, because it is hard to give the reason for each percentage. But I must admit my own mistakes. Also, there is no use in crying over spilt milk.

Now, after that lesson learnt, is another remark I have to make. 

Giving. 

There is a monstrous egotism that lives in people and they choose to feed it instead of combating it. Why would you give your old clothes to your cleaning lady, ask her to sell them to people living in poverty, and then still ask her to give you half of the profits? I know, you bought the clothes originally. But by now, you will not wear them any more. If no one would take them, you would probably throw them away. Furthermore, you have already replenished your wardrobe, I don't really see why you cannot just give your clothes away? 

The same goes for Matric Ball dresses ( = prom) . Mine was supposed to look like the one Catherine Zeta Jones wears in this ad: 

Needless do say, it didn't. 

But perhaps now someone else could use my dress. I won't wear it again. 

So if you are in the same situation, consider donating your ball-gowns to The Princess Project. I am unsure if they only take celebrity-owned ones, but that seems a tad silly. I mean, it is not as if SA has a lot of celebrities. 

Bride & Co has a similar idea in Johannesburg, so if you are in that area, you could drop your dress with them. 

Maybe I am a hypocrite. My dress has been hanging in the closet since 2006. I wore it once to Halloween. But I've never gotten round to donating it. However, I do clean out my closet about twice a year and get rid of everything that I haven't worn in a while. As in a year or three, not a month. Our cleaning lady takes the clothes and I assume she keeps what she likes and either sells or gives away the rest. I don't care. I am not wearing them any more and if someone else can use them and profit from them, that is my charity for the day. 

Swift Transitions 2

The 4th year Fine Arts students have to host an exhibition at the end of their final year. Last year, they were divided into three groups with different themes, and my friend Delène Human exhibited her ark. The other works are also by last year's group, but I cannot find the name of the artists.

Delène Human

This year, there were onyl two groups and both exhibited under the title Swift Transitions at the Pretoria Art Museum. If you are interested, this exhibition still runs for I think 2 weeks, so you can check it out. It costs something ridiculous like R5. 

Museum Hours: Tuesdays to Sundays 10:00-17:00
Closed on Mondays and Public Holidays

The first group was very disappointing and my friend and I were standing there, wine-less, not understanding anything and not even being treated to a pretty sight. I know art is not just something pretty ( yay for 3 years of art history) and that the status and definition of what constitutes art is constantly being questioned, but often I can not understand a work and still see something appealing in it. Sometimes, you can look at a work and inexplicably like it. In 2004 I went to Germany to visit my dad and travel with a friend. In Berlin, the MoMA was hosting an exhibition and we went. On a laptop screen Jackson Pollock's stuff just looks like a toddler had fun with paint and canvas, but up close, the works are immense and somehow suck you in. You can stand and look at it for hours without needing an explanation or looking for understanding, merely content in looking at paint on canvas.

So in comparison to the first Swift Transitions, Part II was greatly enjoyable. The work was interesting, there was wine and it didn't feel like a wasted evening.
Here are images of some of the works:

Ann-Marie Bothma, Reaction Ovservations ( video)

Stephanie Geral, Ambivalent Subject Matter 1

Lelani Nicolaisen, Hysteria

Herman le Roux, Number 5

Stephanie Geral, Connections 3

Leana van der Merwe, Baby's First Three Months ( out of nappies, earbuds, lace, wipes, breast pads..)

Leana van der Merwe, Surge

Leana van der Merwe, Surge (detail)

Christiaan Harris

Christiaan Harris

Christiaan Harris

I liked Leana van der Merwe's stuff because it is made out of ear buds and diapers and still looks very cool. Also, Christiaan Harris staged his photographs in Three Acts, and the last act is shot in 3D, so to look at the images one had to put on some 3D glasses. I thought that was cool because no one looks good wearing 3D glasses and yet everyone did it. Art :1, Superficiality:0.

Bloei my pers

View from the Human Sciences Building at the University of Pretoria

Dit voel as of ek hierdie jaar die Jakarandas vir die eerste keer sien. Ek weet ek swot nou al amper drie jaar hier en dat ek dit seker al voorheen moes raakgesien het, maar in ander jare was die pers bloeisels eer 'n irritasie omdat ek elke keer op hulle gly en amper my gat sien. 

Maar hierdie jaar wil ek net van die hoogste verdiepeing moontlik afspring en op die enorme kussing van Jakarandabome land wat deur die stad versprei is. Kyk na die fotos: dit is werklik soos pers wolkies wat deur die stad se strate trek. 

By die universiteit sê hulle as 'n bloeisel op jou val sal jy jou eksamens goed deurkom. Ek weet nie, die hitte wat met die lente deur die stad trek laat my aan drankies by die swembad en somervakansie by die see dink, en nie aan die stapel lees- en leerwerk wat langs my op die tafel lê nie. Die papierberg gluur vir my en laat my weet dat ek nooit alles sal gelees kry nie, so ek voel as of ek nie eers gaan probeer nie. Mens moet nie teen papier veg nie. Net 'n skêr kan hier wen en ek recycle maar eer. 

So hier volg 'n paar kiekies van die stad wat ek in die afgelope paar weke geneem het. 

  

Here is a translation for the non-Afrikaans speakers:

It feels as though I am seeing the Jakarandas for the first time this year. I know I've been studying here ( Pretoria is known as the Jakarandacity) for almost three years, but previously the blossoms were more of an irritation because I always slipped on them and almost fell. 

But this year I just want to jump off of the highest building and land on the enormous pillow of Jakarandatrees that are spread throughout the city. Look at the photographs: they look like little purple clouds that line the streets of the city. 

At university they say that if a blossom falls on you, you will get good results in your exams ( November is exam time here). I don't know, with the heat that has accompanied the start of spring I am thinking of drinks by the pool and long summer vacations by the sea, not about the huge pile of readings I have to get through. The mountain of paper is eyeing me and letting me know I will never make it, so I don't even want to try. One shouldn't fight paper, only scissors can win and I am more of a recycling kind of girl. 

So here are a few images that I've taken over the past few weeks.

"Entitled" to rape

In last Monday's Pretoria News ( their site is currently under construction so I can't give you the direct link to the article, but if you have October 24th's paper by any chance it is on page 5 under "Study finds motive for rape worldwide") Esther Lewis reports that in South Africa, 70 % of men who have raped someone felt "entitled" to do so.

How does anyone feel entitled to harm another? ENTITLED???? How must your mind work? How can you not respect another human being enough?

Even worse, the research ( done by the Sexual Violence Research Initiative) revealed that most rapes of girls under the age of 15 and gang rapes are done out of boredom and "for fun". Raping for fun? For fun??????

The article further states that 17 % of the men that rape were raped themselves, that 45 % said their mothers were rarely at home and that 72% said their fathers weren't at home very often either. Furthermore, 3/4 of those interviewed said they had raped someone before their 20th birthday.

I was watching Special Assignment or Fokus or something on SABC once and they reported that 50% of South African children grow up without their fathers. Now I wonder if this can link to the 56 272 people that were raped between April 2010 and March 2011. That would be round 154 people per day and 6 people per hour.

The article states that boys "need to be socialised at school and community level, and taught what it meant to be a boy or man, and to gravitate away from violence". But should not a parent, a father, take responsibility for their son or daughter and teach them right from wrong? I think the high level of single-mother households and absentee fathers is partially to blame. Who are we to learn a moral code from when there is no one to teach us?

Perhaps it also depends on the level of education and the support from people around one that the child receives. My father left when I was around 11 and my mother had to find a job very quickly. However, my sister and I turned out rather well because we always knew that she was working so much to provide for us and that in turn our responsibility was to work hard at our education. One need not be rich to feel accomplished in life.

According to the article, most rapists had been exposed to childhood trauma. Does trauma define a person? Does it either bury you or make you rise above it? I don't know. Mine was not very traumatic.
But I believe there must exist a basic humanity in all of us. There must be something pure that is corrupted by circumstance. I don't understand how we cannot see each other as equal. By respecting you am I not also respecting myself?

I don't think one can blame anyone for one's own choices. I am excluding mental instabilities and psychotic problems here, but in the case of people of sound mind and body everyone is responsible for their own actions. Sure, life beats some up more than others, but ultimately, you choose your own reaction.

Rape

          Adrienne Rich

There is a cop who is both prowler and father:
he comes from your block, grew up with your brothers,
had certain ideals.
You hardly know him in his boots and silver badge,
on horseback, one hand touching his gun.

You hardly know him but you have to get to know him:
he has access to machinery that could kill you.
He and his stallion clop like warlords among the trash,
his ideals stand in the air, a frozen cloud
from between his unsmiling lips.

And so, when the time comes, you have to turn to him,
the maniac's sperm still greasing your thighs,
your mind whirling like crazy. You have to confess
to him, you are guilty of the crime
of having been forced.

And you see his blue eyes, the blue eyes of all the family
whom you used to know, grow narrow and glisten,
his hand types out the details
and he wants them all
but the hysteria in your voice pleases him best.

You hardly know him but now he thinks he knows you:
he has taken down your worst moment
on a machine and filed it in a file.
He knows, or thinks he knows, how much you imagined;
he knows, or thinks he knows, what you secretly wanted.

He has access to machinery that could get you put away;
and if, in the sickening light of the precinct,
and if, in the sickening light of the precinct,
your details sound like a portrait of your confessor,
will you swallow, will you deny them, will you lie your way home?