Stephen keeps it real (video)

My friend and former work colleague, Stephen Forder, explaining global warming on the South African youth-oriented show, "Keeping it Real". Nicely done, Stephen.



The original post is on his website, cognition.co.za.

Go North...

As some of you may know, I am soon returning to Germany for a brief period. At the moment, little is certain about the next few months, and a lot is possible. Next week I will be in Addis Abeba for a couple of days on business. After that I will be in Munich for a short while. I'll keep you all posted...

Adventures with petty criminals

South Africans love to complain about crime. With an almost morbid fascination, they will compare shocking stories of themselves, friends or family falling victim to criminals. Admitedly, South Africa has a high crime rate. It is certainly not the most dangerous country in the world (think of the DRC, Darfur or even Rio’s favellas) but it has the crime rate that you could expect with African slums and rich European-style suburbs being within a 20 minute walk of each other.

So, following in the South African tradition, here are my modest experiences with crime. As a rich white foreigner who likes to hang around central Cape Town, I seem to be targeted more than most people.

My first experience with crime was simply a smashed car window. Unfortunately for the thieves, there was nothing to steal- not even a car radio- so they stole nothing. The car was a fully insured rental (not Joanna), so all the only consequence for me was that I had to spend the morning in a South African police station. I spent almost an hour queing under a sign that said “Please be patient. We are understaffed.”

The second experience was less pleasant and more bizarre. In the middle of the day in crowded street of Cape Town, about 3 young teenagers walked up next to me and told me to give them all my money or they’d kill me. I turned around and saw three lightly-built 13 year-olds without anything even resembling a weapon. So I told them no. They continued trying to convince me until the end of the street, and then gave up.

The last time was similar. Except this time I was with Daniela and they actually bothered to show me a knife (and then immediately put it in their pocket again). I must say that they weren’t very convincing thieves (also in their early teans and not very confident). They got 30 Rand (about 5 Euros) off me.

Not bad for 3 months in the Western Cape. I guess I must have “stupid tourist” written all over me.

The Cape from above

I flew to Johannesburg (again) for a meeting. The Cape is a beautiful landscape to see from the air- especially in comparison to the urban sprawl of Johannesburg. But as you can see, the Capetonians need to do something about their air pollution problem.

Camps Bay

Water pump

A very effective water pump.

www.agama.co.za/reeep

This will probably only be interesting to other renewable energy people: but I have been working on a new REEEP web presence (including a news feed) at www.agama.co.za/reeep . Some of my first experiments in web page programming ;-)

Kuyasa

These are pictures from a solar water heating project that Agama did some time ago in Kuyasa, a township near Cape Town. The next project is searching for funding...

Green Market Square

In the centre of Cape Town there is Green Market square: a very touristic and very lively arts and crafts market. It's a great place to sit outside a Cafe and have breakfast whilst watching people go about their business.
There is a guy who walks around Green Market square. The first time I saw him, I though he was a security guard. He had one of those "stun guns" for security guards which deliver an electric shock.

I watched him walk around the square. Then without warning he takes out his stun gun, walks up to a guy and zaps him. The guy jumps, looks a little shocked and then walks on. The guy with the stun gun then continued to walk around and occasionally walked up to someone and zapped them. He would generally chose people who were walking around trying to sell little toys or souvenirs, people begging and the occasional prostitute who wandered through.

What an idiot.

Maybe he is some kind of jobless security guard who occasionally just gets the urge to "clean up the riff-raff" at Green Market Square. I haven't seen him recently. Maybe he zapped the wrong guy...

Me explaining stuff

At the African Utility Week in Cape Town.

Who farted?

David's bad joke about the biomethane plant reminded me that there is a biomethane plant sitting just 30 metres from my office. Only it runs off someone else's excrement. This is the inlet (sewage pipes from 2 toilets and a bunch of organic waste), the dome is where the fermentation / gasification business happens (you can't actually see it now, because it is buried underground), and the last picture is what comes out: clean natural gas. Now how cool is that. Better than trying to light a fart.



 

Some thoughts

Not having taken any good pictures recently, I guess it is time to write a bit.

I seem to be spending alot of time worrying about the South African energy sector these days. South Africa is going through interesting times. The Western Cape is going through "load shedding"- which is basically just planned power cuts - and people are asking where South Africa's power for the next few decades of growth is going to come from. The organisation that I represent (REEEP) is getting involved in a lot of lobbying work down here - so I'm getting my share of meetings with bone-headed utility managers, ministry officials and all sorts of businessmen.

But enough work. Life is still good down here. I'm beginning to get more of a feel for the place. South Africa has a hell of a long way to go before becoming Mandela's rainbow nation, but it also isn't the crime capital of the world that many people paint it to be. The city centres are multi-cultural and multi-ethnic in a way that European cities can only dream of. The townships are far from the centres of crime and violence that is often protrayed by some South Africans and even travel guides. This is where the developed world is forced to live door-to-door with the developing world.

Europe is truly boring by comparison ;-)

Maurice

The office

The other South Africa

I was up in Jo'burg this week and, although I had little time to do much sight-seeing, I thought this picture from January was worth digging up again. This is a part of Soweto.

Working late

Day 0

Thanks for your comments people - also to Paddy (but wouldn't Raoul Duke be more appropriate than Alex Delarge?).

I'm off to the airport today. And yes, I will actually be coming back after 3 months. However, there is also a very good chance that I will return to South Africa again for longer.

I know you people like pictures, so here are some more (click on them, to see them in large). Also, the link on the right hand side of this page will take you to a server with a full collection of pictures from January.

If anyone wants to know what I will actually be doing (expcept for getting a nice even sun tan): I will be managing the REEEP (http://www.reeep.org/) office for Southern Africa for 3 months. This office is run by AGAMA (link on the right of this page).

Going South...

Hi people,

This is a small experiment with this new technology. Hopefully this will allow me to keep some of you people back in Europe informed about my travels and adventures in South Africa.


For those of you who don't know, I'm heading off to Cape Town on Tuesday to start on a 3-month assignement. It all looks very promising: beautiful country, great city, interesting work. But there is also still alot that remains to be sorted out- like accomodation.

I'll be working with a renewable energy company down there- helping with various tasks- but also with running a local office of an international renewable energy network.

Incidentally, I am also escaping a relapse of winter in Munich (see picture), for which Cape Town is perfect (it is late summer down there). The pictures further down the page are from my visit there in January (which was clearly successful from a professional as well as a personal point of view)

More news and pictures to follow soon....