Tuesday, 13 February 2018 to Monday, 19 February 2017
Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ came to mind as I watched the political drama unfold in South Africa during the next few days as they got rid of Zuma who called himself president for the last 10 or so years. Finally hope returned to a country that promises so much.

The changing times have been a long time coming, but was never guaranteed. The following verse from that beautiful and haunting song by Bob Dylan rang true for the media. It was their dogged determination during tough years that exposed the criminal activities and state capture – which was seemingly perpetrated in broad daylight – never giving up, never giving in, not even an inch.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’ F
or the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’

And yes, the corrupt politicians should heed the call below:

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled T
here’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’

But, I’m running ahead of myself. It was Tuesday the 13^th. I assume Zuma is superstitious, lucky for him it was a Tuesday and not a Friday, it could have been far worse. Realizing that SA had been on a slippery slope and declining fast, the new ANC leadership, elected in December 2017, was ready to take decisive action. Not that it was plain sailing, many of Zuma’s cohorts still occupy powerful positions within the ANC. But, sanity prevailed and Zuma was recalled as president of South Africa in the midst of the night.

 

 

 

Night turned to day, it was Wednesday the 14^th and Valentine’s day, must be quite a costly day for Zuma having to keep all six of his wives happy. Yes, you read that correctly. We were following the proceedings closely on television, not daring to move lest we miss a speck of news. It was reported that Zuma would address the media at 10H00, with everyone hoping that he would announce his resignation then.

True to form, Zuma did not resign, and in fact he did not even do the media briefing, proving once again that he really does believe the country is his fiefdom. It was only in the afternoon that he addressed the country in a rambling interview, which, true to form, said nothing other than that he was not guilty of anything, and that he was not resigning. The country’s hopes were shattered. The ANC needed to do more to get rid of him.

And somewhere during this day of being glued to the television we did get a chance to go out and buy flowers for Adri, and flowers and chocolates for Lucie, which we delivered to her house. We did not stay long; we had some further gluing to do. But on our way back we decided to stop off at the creperie where Philippe and family took us to on our first day back in France. It was a welcome reunion with both the creperie and the bottle of cidre… and so we spent a wonderful Valentine’s lunch.

 

 

It was late in the evening on Valentine’s day that Zuma finally relented and resigned, still not acknowledging the great harm he had done to the country. The country breathed a collective sigh of relief… Oh what joy, and did they rejoice! People were congratulating each other, people were partying in the streets, the following interview I guess summed up the feelings South Africa has for its ex-president. Click on this link, scroll down a tad and activate the video clip. Hilarious, and that neatly summed up the general feeling regarding this delusional criminal.

And on a totally different note, but I guess in line with the words used in the above clip, I was reminded of Mweb’s cool TV ad below. This one is from 2016.

Below is the latest one.

Anyway, night turned to day again, it was Thursday the 15th and my birthday, oh what a joyous birthday this turned out to be! My birthday from now on will always be remembered as the turning point of South Africa, not that I can take credit for any of that of course…

Today was the swearing in of the new president of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, and I am proud to call him my president. After the laboured resignation of that doos (box – but usually used as a pretty bad swearword) Zuma. Although Zuma should be held fully accountable for the decline of the country, we simply cannot exonerate the ANC as a whole; they were wholly complicit in the creation of this monster, idly standing by with hands folded, or rather in their deep pockets, while the looting of our state was in progress. And many of them were also filling those deep pockets with the proceeds of corruption and state capture. But, we will give the ANC a chance to drain the cesspool of filth that they had created… one last chance…

Anyway, speaking about the unfolding political drama in SA politics with Philippe and Lucie the other day I suggested that in my next life I would love to come back as a politician. Lucie immediately suggested that I start my political ambition and career by running for maire (mayor) of Guingamp!  Now there’s a thought. I have the French surname, my first name might be a problem but I can always change it from Terry to the French Thierry, pronounced exactly the same. But, oh dear, there is that small issue regarding my French language skills… Maybe, just maybe, I should leave these aspirations to my next life!

Anyway, it was my birthday and we had to celebrate, obviously. We ended up at the Le Bistrot bistrot for a Menu du Jour, Adri having the starter and main course and I the main course and dessert, obviously. The main course was a veal stew accompanied by a potato and cheese dish, simply irresistible, man, these people know how to make delicious food. The beer was not too shabby either.

 

 

 

 

And by the way, not just did South Africa join me in my birthday celebrations today, but so did the whole of Serbia! You may recall from my post of last year (Saying goodbye to Belgrade and travelling to Budva by bus) that we were in Serbia on my birthday and the 15th just happens to be their National Day, a public holiday and a day of celebrations.

Friday happened along and we watched the State Of the Nation (SONA) address which in the past I would refer to as the SONAvabitch address, when delivered by Zuma. Today, I watched the SONA by my president, Cyril Ramaphosa. It was a well balanced address, delivered well, he was firm, he was conciliatory, he admitted deep corruption within the ANC but also pledged to rid us of those deep flaws.

It would be a few weeks later when Philippe, who stayed in South Africa for 18 months during the 80s, asked whether I had ever seen the movie Invictus, which I had not. He gave me his DVD and urged me to watch it and remarked “It is a great movie but sad, sad because of what could have been”. And he was so right. Invictus is essentially about the Springboks winning the Rugby World Cup in 1995. At the time there was so much goodwill coursing through South Africa’s veins, there was no stopping us. But, sadly, since Madiba left the presidency, the country had gone slowly in reverse which gained momentum with a fast slide backwards under Zuma.

But, after listening to the SONA today I truly felt that South Africa can once again lift itself up from its downward spiral, we are better than that, we are certainly much better than what we have been the last eight years under the Zuma dictatorship. I have a lot of faith in President Ramaphosa and I truly hope that he will cut away the corruption from the ANCs body and make it breathe fresh and clean air again, as it did under Madiba.

Sometime during the SONA address, somewhere upstairs, something started up, it sounded like the old Lister diesel generator we had on the farm in Ladismith back in South Africa when I was a young boy. Of course there was no electricity on the farm back in the mid 60s, and as soon as the sun went to sleep, my dad would start up that Lister in the waenhuis (barn). It would start with a few splutters and hiccups, winding itself up until it smoothed out to an even put-put-putting gallop, a welcome distant background noise. It always gave me a reassuring feeling that all was well and the darkness would immediately disappear from all corners of the family home.

I was soon enough woken up from my trip into nostalgia when I realized it was our landlady upstairs whose washing machine had started a different washing cycle, with a few splutters and hiccups, winding itself up until it smoothed out to an even put-put-putting gallop, not a particularly welcome distant background noise.

Saturday I spent almost the entire day watching the different rugby matches that played out across the southern hemisphere, a wonderfully relaxing day.

Adri went to the cinema with Lucie and the kids; La Boheme was showing on the big screen… I decided to abstain, the rugby was far too important and in any case, we did see La Boheme live in Belgrade exactly a year ago, so it was still fresh in my memory…

After dropping Adri off at the cinema I went shopping at Carrefour for beers and stuff, more beers than stuff though. It was only at around 20:00 that Adri called me for a pickup, a wonderfully relaxing rugby day it was.

We rested and relaxed for most of Sunday, readying ourselves for the live show tonight called “A Tribute to Neil Young…” I simply had to see it. We picked Philippe’s family up from home, who now consisted of Lucie, Xavier, Armelle and Marie, sans Philippe as he was in Paris working, and sans Alexis as he was in Strasbourg working on his PhD. Soon enough we were seated in La Grande Ourse in Saint-Agathon, the same venue we saw Elliot Murphy perform a short while back.

The show started off low-key with Sunny Inside (yup!) performing solo, accompanied only by his guitar and his voice. He kicked off his session with some of Neil Young’s older classic songs and hits, it all sounded just perfect. Soon enough he was joined by another musician playing banjo, then by yet a few more musicians and soon enough that place was rocking to a full band.

And after a song or two, a band member would disappear off the stage and another would take his place, and so the band members replaced each other all through the evening, all 20 of them! This is something I had never seen before, it was quite unique! We later found out that Sunny, who has a regular band that he tours with, actually stays in the Giungamp area and has a lot of musician friends here whom he asked to join the show, for one night only! So, we were treated to an amazing and unique show, one of the best live performances I had ever seen! Really!

Monday, for most of the day, we watched the debate, i.e. the debate on Friday’s SONA delivered by President Cyril Ramaphosa… Some of the debates and comments were good, some mediocre, some appalling, and some downright atrocious… But mostly it was great to see decorum being restored to parliament, a far cry from the chaos that reigned during Zuma’s reign over the last number of years; it used to be rather quite embarrassing… We can only hope that mutual acceptance and respect will continue to be shown by all parties in parliament. I can hope, can’t I…

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