Teaching without Borders…

Barbara Mayer, a retired teacher from Hawaii, arrived in South Africa a few weeks ago as part of a programme called Teachers Without Borders.Mayer has come out to South Africa as part a group of 6 maths and science teachers who will lead teacher workshops at 3 different locations within South Africa; Vereeniging, Port Shepstone and Umtata.

Winter Sunlight

In the words of poet Don Maclennan, ” winter sunlight, clean as a cut orange” shines down on the Karoo landscape and the exuberant display of winter flowers that have temporarily transformed the face of the Tankwa Karoo National Park. The 85 000 hectare park protects one of the most starkly beautiful tracts of the Tankwa Karoo. It teems with life and character, from the dramatic landscapes, wide silences, eccentric richness of plant diversity, rare and prolific birdlife and the sense that time was born here, and with time, life.

A Friend of Mind

Sibongile Masuku Van Damme is a conservationist, poet, educator, healer, leader, scholar and philosopher. She answers my simple questions with responses that probe, think, listen, expound and explore. I’m not surprised she lists caving as a pastime, intrigued as she is by the language of Foucault, the dynamics of the mind and the strength of tears.

Objective Duke: Of Elephants and Epic Journeys…

History is full of stories about epic journeys, literal and metaphoric. Think Marco Polo, think Tenzing Norgay and Sir Ed, think Nelson Mandela. And there are a fair number of epic elephants around too-think Dumbo, Ganesh…the Magnificent 7.There are even stories about epic journeys that involve elephants.

New Beginnings for SANParks

Vaalbos National Park is on the move from its current location near Barkley West in the Northern Cape, to an area south west of Kimberly, currently known as Wintershoek. Along with the move comes a new name (yet to be announced) and essentially a new national park. The move involves huge logistical operations, including the translocation of about 1200 animals, and the establishment of new facilities.

Zimbabwean Debris at Grahamstown Festival

The shades of fallen winter leaves colour Roxandra Dardagan’s exhibition ‘Debris’ literally and metaphorically, as she sifts through incidents from her own life and the last three decades of Zimbabwe’s history. The exhibition is a collection of work in which Dardagan explores some seminal moments in Zimbabwe’s past, including the Viscount disasters in which Dardagan lost both her parents, the Matabele massacres of the 1980’s, and the more recent land invasions.

Weaving the SANParks Web…

The e-commerce division of SANParks decided, as part of the SANParks Week celebrations, to introduce learners from all over the region to the SANParks website. Students, many of them junior honorary rangers, were brought in to see the exhibits at SANParks head office in Groenkloof, and in groups of between 5 and 10 gathered around the laptop set up among the other exhibits, and began to explore…

The sting in Buckland’s tale

Andrew Buckland has developed an interest in arachnids, those creatures with long segmented tails ending in a venomous sting. His original play The Scorpion, performed by UBOM! Eastern Cape Theatre Company opens on June 30 and runs until July 9 at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.

Fear’s Finesse

Women dancing, moving, sweating, breathing, bleeding, dying. There is silence and poetry, the sea, and the sounds and shades of fear as Juanita Finestone-Praeg, in collaboration with Tanya Poole and a cast of 11 extraordinary performers, explores the subliminal space where “the inside and outside collide”.

shining