Column

Wekelijkse notities in de kantlijn van waar de wereld over praat. En waarover ik vind dat de wereld moet praten.

De maandagcolumn is een institutie in niemandsland.

February 14. Art that pulls the trigger.
Sunday. Lazy sunday. We hang around the pool and engage in writing again or at least attempt. It is six weeks later that I write these lines describing this memorable day so I guess, well, let's leave that be. This is supposed to be art. In art and in war, it is said, everything is ...
February 12. Big Brother.
Friday. What's going on? Guess who's back. Bruno has a list of ngo's that work together with Volens, and we go through it. Some organisations are located in other cities like Bulawayo, but the bulk of activities takes place here. Oasis and Streets Ahead are the most suitable for our intentions.
There's now time to ...
February 11. Good Ol’ me.
We are presented with a few NGO options, and pick two of them. We will visit two Harare-based organisations working with streetkids, teaching them life skills and preventing them from going down a spiral of addiction, depression or worse by organising Capoeira and Hiphop classes. We hope to link them later on with ngo's working ...
February 10. Zimbabwe.
We enter Zimbabwe safe and simply by hitchhiking. A couple takes us all the way for a minor gas contribution. We end up in a typical Zimbabwean household, the head of it introduces himself as an entrepreneur waiting to make his next move as he struggles with the symptoms of the dictatorial regime. He calls ...
February 9. Consumerism.
We spend a lazy day writing our memoirs in Beira and take in some of the refreshing sea breeze of the long Mocambiquean coast. Such days, spent in the spirit of happy absent-mindedness commonly known as relaxing, give me the strength to go on and on. The Africa part of Charity Travel is nearing its ...
February 8. Terra Nova.
We pay a visit to our cause here in Beira: Terra Nova, a start-up social company (in the sense of M. Yunnus) composting urban waste. Its goal is to recycle 90% of Beira's urban waste - even mondially a quite unique figure for a town of this size. Sadly, local ngo's are not interested in ...
February 7. To Beira.
The chapa (minibus) to Beira leaves at 4 in the morning, and arrives at around 2pm. The road is long and good, but the seats where we have to try to sit on, provisionally installed in the aile of the jampacked vehicle to transport even more passengers, are not comfortable. Yeon's back hurts and I ...
February 6. That pretty coast.
Vilanculos/Vilankulo. A picturesque coastal town some 600 kilometers north of Maputo. Stroll along the lush boulevard and lodge in one of the beautiful guesthouses as you prepare for your boatride to the miraculous archipelago of Bazaruto where pristine beaches are awaiting the intrepid traveler and diving courses and whales and... okay, we did go to ...
February 5. Hitch. Crash.
We hitch from Maputo to Inhambane. In the boiling morning heat we head out by means of a big construction truck. Oswaldo then takes us to the police control point where we need about half an hour to get picked up by a group of funny men. A pack of partying boys that invite us ...