I wanted to write a quick postscript for those of you who were wondering about Brian, my friend from Zimbabwe. I saw him yesterday and it turns out he does live in Du Noon, an informal settlement where two Somalians were killed on Thursday and where the violence started in Cape Town. On most weekdays anjd Saturdays, Brian can be found selling his wares in front of a set of shops near my flat and is well known by people who frequent the shops. When I saw him yesterday, he told me that a family who lives in Rondebosch has taken him in -- the husband is a British Airways pilot who has always been friendly with Brian. As we stood there and talked for 20 minutes, several older women came by to ask how he was, say they were worried about him. Brian is not the only one experiencing this generosity -- my friend Louise said that her partner's friends have taken in a young Zimbabwean who lives in the township of Philippi. I hear these stories and see the huge relief effort and try to feel a bit optimistic ... I saw several kids this weekend, all of whom met me in my side of town instead of being picked up as I usually do. It was Mongamo who initially said, let's meet somewhere safe. He looked terribly tired when we hung out and I asked what was wrong and he said he is just so sad... Nyanga was chaos on Friday and bullets on Friday night, and he is simply so sad that this is happening in his country.
In more positive news, Testing Hope has been getting a lot of great press in papers here and I want to share a couple of the articles.
One was in the Sunday Times today -- a nice profile of the students:
http://www.thetimes.co.za/PrintEdition/Article.aspx?id=772179Another is from Friday's Star newspaper (also national) about the film's implications for education in SA --
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=105&art_id=vn20080523054804169C716049 Sending out love and hopes for calm.
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