I’m having my first night home for about 10 days. Life’s been pretty busy. The Sydney flim festival was here last weekend which accounts for a few of the nights. It was fantastic. If you get a chance to see a Japanese film called “Departures” don’t pass it up.

Anyway, Africa! How do I begin!! In response to questions on my last blog - we went to South Africa, Uganda and Rwanda… and Kenya too (we walked over a bridge and found ourselves in Kenya for 10 minutes!). It was all part of a course I am doing in responding to trauma. We immersed ourselves in the appartheid history in South Africa and the genocide in Rwanda and found it all utterly devastating. We lived in a black township near Capetown and a remote rural village in Uganda and a disability project in Rwanda and received the warmest hospitality. We met a lot of people who should have had the stuffing knocked out of them given all the attrocities they have had committed against them on top of poverty and disease, but who still smile and have hopes and dreams and want to talk to us.  It was enormously humbling and deeply touched us. Particulary people who spoke about forgiveness to people who have so terribly wronged them. It was a significant experience and I feel changed by it. So many things to reflect on and hopefully some valuable connections to keep.

of course the big difference here is that they have teh black white issue which makes australia’s challenges look pretty nothing. in central australia we talk about town camps with hundreds of people. in capetown we have had teh honour of staying in a township (one of teh many) where tehre are probably 10,000 in just this one. most have humble but perfectly pleasant little houses, whilst thousands of others lives in makeshift shelters that makes alice spings towncamps look pretty comfy. thats the physical stuff but it is the spiritual stuff that has left such an impression.

the black freedom movement and what it has done to this place has to be one of the miracles of our time. so many amazing people like mandela. biko, subukwe, sisulu, mbeki, tutu all had the wisdom to fight for all south africans and not just black south africans although their task was undoubtedly to emancipate black south africa. 30 years in jail studying, teaching inmates, teaching their white prison guards,teaching to anyone who would listen, always believing that they were preparing themselves to govern the country for all south africans. robben island was a university inside a jail.

unlike in australia there are black people at every level of work although they still have a long way to go on this front. still it gives me hope for aboriginal australians who seem to have no such underlying spiritual paradigm that links their history to their future that can sustain them.

If one was looking for an African Che Guevara then Steve Biko is your man. the most insanely sensible, eloquent and courageous man i have heard for many a long time.

this trip has been a wonderful opportunity for me to stop a smell the daisies a bit but also to learn what a remarkable country this is. the people black and white are actually trying to do something i am not sure has ever been tried before. south africa must succeed. in a strange way it seems like all of our futures depend on it.

My baby needs a shepherd, she’s lost out on the hill,

Too late I tried to call her when the night was cold and still,

And I tell myself I’ll find her but I know I never will,

My baby needs a shepherd, she’s lost out on the hill.

My baby needs an angel, she never learned to fly,

She’ll not reach sanctuary just by looking at the sky,

I guess I could have carried her but I didn’t even try,

My baby needs an angel, she never learned to fly.

Oh I ran so far through a broken land,

I was following that drummer beating in a different band,

And somewhere on the highway I let go of her hand,

Now she’s gone forever, like her footprints in the sand.

Toora loora loora lo

First the seed, then the rose,

Toora loora loora li

My kingdom for a lullaby.

My baby needs a pilot, she has no magic wand

To help her part the troubled waters of the Rubicon,

But in my soul I know she has to go this one alone,

After all that is the only way she’s ever known.

But there is no lamp in all this dark

That could chase away the shadow from the corners of my heart.

I pray she rides a dolphin but she’s swimming with the shark

Out where none can save her, not even Noah and his ark.

Toora loora loora lo

To the cradle comes the crow,

Toora loora loora li

My kingdom for a lullaby.

My baby needs a mother to love her till the end,

Up every rugged mountain and down every road that bends,

Sometimes I hear her cryin’ but I guess that’s just the wind,

My baby needs a mother to love her to the end.

Emmylou Harris