As a white guy (well, off-white) living in South Africa I often get called “sir” by people of colour. “How are you, sir?” at the shopping mall, “hello, Sir, can you spare 5 rand?” and so on.
Every time I hear this I feel sad and angry.
I feel even more frustrated when it’s someone who is my father’s age or older.
I might be hyper-sensitive, but it reminds me of the awful relationship that the people of South Africa have had with Europeans during the past 200 years. It upsets me that someone would feel the need to subjugate themselves, to not accept that they are equal to me.
Our interactions don’t have to have this awkward, undesired power structure built into them, but thanks to decades of inequality, of “putting them in their place,” I’m supposed to live with it.
Or I find myself getting angry at someone who also didn’t choose it.
I was really inspired by the packaging that my new GiffGaff sim card came in. Click here to view the rest of the set.
And if you live in the UK and want to get a seriously cheap Pay As You Go deal, order your sim here. I pay £10/month and get unlimited internet, unlimited texts and 250 free minutes.
Back in 2004 Simon Mann, Mark Thatcher and a few other wealthy, power-hungry individuals decided to stage a coup in Equatorial Guinea. Their scheme was stopped thanks to Zimbabwean intervention, and Mann has recently been pardoned. Last night we watched a BBC documentary about this fascinating story. If you're in the UK, Check it out here before it gets taken offline.
I took this two weeks ago when we spent the weekend in Småland at Sofia's parents. When we arrived we'd just had the Swine Flu Vaccination, so it wasn't until our last day that we felt up to wandering in the forest…
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We're leaving Sweden.
It's been a couple of months in the pipeline, and we never promised we'd stay, but now it's actually happening.
Over the past few months both Sofia and I have been knocking on doors, trying to find work and to give life in Sweden a go while we prepare for whatever the future might hold.
From the start getting work here was always going to be a challenge since my Swedish isn't at a professional standard, but I contacted all the design agencies I could find, and applied for SFI, "Swedish For Immigrants," in the hope of increasing my knowledge of Sofia's mother tongue. I heard nothing from the agencies (or other random jobs I applied for) and was told that SFI had a 2 month waiting list.
In the meantime, Sofia learned that for every job she applied for in Malmö, there were often 300 other social workers applying. She sent in applications, but heard nothing and ended up working shifts as a carer in various homes for vulnerable people in the city.
So we began to think seriously about giving the UK a go. We did some research and realized that there is a real shortage of Social Workers in Wales, and a greater variety of roles within the field. There are also more opportunities for me there.
After a few weeks of discussing it, thinking and praying, we made a decision.
So on Tuesday we fly.
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