Green Point & Signal Hill

As I climb the dirt road high above Green Point I feel like I am back on the edge of the African bush. Cape Town is fabulous but I desperately miss the vast rich freedom of spirit I feel when I am in the bush, or 'veld' as we say here in South Africa.

Green Point is the site of one of the most significant economic opportunities for South Africa's future. Not because of all the soccer fans that are headed here next year, but because of what will happen after the 2010 World Cup; when the vision and memory of this beautiful place travels at the speed of light around the world for years to come. I think of Shoeless Joe and the idea 'if you build it they will come'. Nothing could be more true for this country.

Behind me rises the famous Signal Hill, the slightly less well-known icon than Table Mountain towering high above Table and False Bays. It's called Signal Hill for its historical maritime use - the broadcasting and reception of ships signals coming into port. I love living in a port city. It's real. It works all the time. It's noisy and big and impressive. So much from so far away seems possible. Porcelain from China. Lumber from Indonesia. Cars from Japan. Ideas that begin halfway around the world and through innovation, technology and profit are able to come here and build South Africa. But there is a price for this continental edge as well. South Africa used to manufacture many of the things it now imports. With the textile workers striking for higher wages, even the remaining mills may have to close. The economic opportunity has gone elsewhere to the cheaper shores of China.

I think this is fine because what we really want South Africa to become is a knowledge economy, not a cheap labour one. Valued-added, exportable, trademarked, leveraged and expanded.

Tomorrow we meet with a TV production company called HOMEBREW that produces what I believe is the best series on air in the country; SHORELINE. I am hoping to buy its DVD box set and send it to my folks for Christmas. What a great tool to promote African investment. It's all there in 17 gorgeous episodes profiling the beautiful history of South Africa's coastline. Hopefully the owner Jaco will be excited about documenting our first youth employment product as it launches into the South African market. From that we can edit the footage into a pilot to present to broadcasters who hopefully...will recognize its innovation and potential to harness the energy of youth enterprise. I will focus on selling the show to America. I want Americans to see what I see here in Africa. It's strength. It's imagination. It's ability to overcome some of the biggest odds the global economy has created.

What a big dream. What a beautiful day. What a gift to live in Africa.

SHINDA = to win

Photos; Green Point & the Cape Town 2010 World Cup Stadium, Signal Hill rising

Casual Labour

One of South Africa's biggest hot potatoes here politically and thus, economically, is the use of 'casual labour' and how it removes the opportunity of employee benefits. Casual labour is a necessary and fantastic tool in some aspects of the economy - like in agriculture when, for ten months of the year you'd be insane to pay pickers to stand around and wait for the crop to be ready. But when it's used to run the operations of a para-statal like the post office, it's a hands down disaster. I learned this today when I went to the largest mail sorting office in the Western Cape - CHEMPET 7442.

When I complain about any kind of service delivery in Africa, I like to be polite and up front about the process. Usually I start by saying "I am about to complain. Are you the right person for this?" This gives the person the chance to either get ready or find someone else for me to complain to. I have learned this tactic here in Africa because usually it takes about 2-3 people to actually find the right person to complain to. Even though Africans great respect the concept of a complaint (god knows they have enough of their own), they don't like it when Westerners complain to them especially if they have to accept fault. I respect this but it also makes me sad because I believe that if Africans were more willing to see and accept fault within themselves and their societies they could get on with the job of making things better here for the majority of citizens. Like the South African Post Office where I am standing. The last thing we need is another commission.

It turns out my registered letter has been rerouted for a second time because it sat too long in the last place during the recent 3-week strike. There's that word again - who is not striking here? The polite and obviously overwhelmed operations guy tells me the workers make R6,000 per month, about $700 USD. I ask him what would be the fair wage and he says more than double this, R15,000. No wonder the workers strike. Who can live on $700 USD a month in an industrialized country like South Africa? Why is the government not paying their postal workers a fair wage?

The other issue is that of casual labour. He tells me over 50% of his workforce is casual labour which means that on a daily basis his staff is training and retraining people for the same job over and over again. It appears the SA Labour Federation is involved and trying to end the mis-use of casual labour because it's considered a violation of economic rights and is exploitive. Another dead-end economic street for young Africans. Who would aspire to work as an underpaid letter-carrier? Up at 4am, walk to the taxi rank in the dark, wait for the taxi in the dark, arrive at work only to be paid $35 for what will be 16 hours of expended energy that day. That's about $2.16 per hour. The Africans in the sorting room watch my every move as I move through the huge room full of strange-looking equipment from the 1950's.

Labour is so under-valued in Africa that massive amounts of wasted human energy distort national economies making them unable to grow. And urban workers are forced to uncomplainingly work for less money than they need because there is always someone standing right behind them willing to do the same. It's like leaders who have the ability to create change are so busy fighting over the small opportunities in front of them that they don't see the value in the ocean of humanity right behind them, willing to follow and wanting to thrive. It feels like a five-lane highway that suddenly merges into a one-lane bridge with hundreds of millions of Africans screeching to a halt and unable to bring their energy into the system. Africa needs wider bridges, less paperwork & a supply-driven mentality. The energy circulating around this continent in absolutely staggering and yet to be truly harnessed.

As I disappointingly leave without my package which has now gone to a third location, I tell the guy to call me if I can help reorganize the post office. This country is amazing and I have come here to prosper so I will do my bit even though my plan was to do so through compliant taxation. If they will have me, I will offer my organizational and profit-making skills to workers of CHEMPET 7442. I will increase the wages by 25%, lobby to raise the price of a local stamp, chuck all these depressingly grey metal cabinets and get Microsoft on the phone. This is how I know how to help 'transform' South Africa - old-fashioned hard work that puts something real in your pocket at the end of the day.

Every major disfunction in Africa is a big beautiful business opportunity waiting to be discovered. If only the governments would get out of the way.

Photos; CHEMPET 7442 SA Post Office on the Koeberg Road, Milnerton

Standard Bank & Proteas

Banking in Africa is almost prohibitively expensive, especially if you want to write cheques. SHINDA's new bank charges not only a flat amount on each cheque but a % of each cheque amount as well. I don't think that would be legal in Canada. And South Africa doesn't have cell phone banking yet like Kenya so I guess we'll bank the good old-fashioned way here. At least the branch is beautiful, and right in the heart of the city beside the large outdoor flower market where I buy my Proteas. As I leave the building and my meeting with the branch manager, I look around at this massive architectural feat. It makes me feel like anything could become possible here. Surely that's the first step to any success - as Ghandi said, to be the change.

Photo; Standard Bank on Adderly Street, Trafalgar Place outdoor flower market

Persistence

Finally, a return phone call to an email. If you want to be successful in business, you have to persist.

We have been offered a meeting with the owners of Clockwork Zoo TV production next week about the possibility of them making our 'youth employment TV show'. Instead of starting from scratch, the possibility exists to video-document SHINDA's calendar project from Oct 15-Jan 15th to create the pilot show. Rather crafty I thought. Besides the show is designed to be about real youth trying to make real money in real-life circumstances.

It would be however, a monumentally unscripted risk to take. Perhaps too valuable to pass by. Can SHINDA, Rob & I, an empty office on Strand St, Reghard and his Arctic Circle, Christmas shoppers and 7,000 students from Cape Town College together generate R1million in youth income? Is SHINDA ready for this in South Africa? We're just becoming a shelf company! I can still see the look on the young lawyer's face when we paid him cash to get started. You would of thought I showed him my underwear. And this is how it will start - me sitting on the hardwork floor using my cell phone trying to finish the day before it gets dark so I don't get scared walking to my car in the parking lot. Mental note, put cushion and pepper spray in the trunk of my car.

We chose Clockwork Zoo as they form part of a team that produces 60 minutes of the 90 minutes of daily youth programming on SABC 2 called 'Q-Base'. Hectic Nine-9 is produced in their studios on Kloof Road high above the CBD. And they do the cool new football show called PLAYA for the E-Network. I wonder how much SABC would pay for our program? Or would the phone just ring endlessly now because the acquistions department is being investigated in what is becoming a high level SA corruption case? One official-type woman in the paper said the level of the theft from the parastatal 'made her hair stand on end'. And this is a perfect example of why it's so hard to make money as a young person in Africa...

If the state broadcasters across Africa were run properly they would create thousands of jobs for youth, pay them good money - even export South Africa to the world. But instead, this beautiful and powerful national opportunity was hijacked away from a very young Africa by the greed and short-sighted self-interest of a few. It's like blowing your entire paycheck in the bar and then having to eat cup-a-soup for the next month. This is why Africa so many Africans suffer in poverty - the misuse of capital. It's just such a shame. At least here there's a good chance of prosecution.

I read in the papers today that the United States has created a list of 15 Kenyan politicians who they perceive to be blocking the pace of political reform. I can't believe it - 2 1/2 years ago, I watched 1,000 people get killed over an election and nothing's been done about it. And now, a foreign country (ironically with its president a Kenyan descendant), has resorted to threats to correct this? Travel bans if necessary. I remember explaining this to the kids in our Nairobi studio, that unless they contributed to the effort to reform their political system they didn't have a hope in hell of succeeding in life. What a brutal lesson that must have been for them. But Hector Pietersen did it and he was 15 years old. This happened in South Africa which is the only reason why the country is evolving. When I would talk about this, mostly what the Kenyans told me was that 'God would take care of them'. I am not a religious person but I don't think god gets involved with politics - let alone constitutional reform.

The South African civil institutions, albeit far from perfect, are slowly facilitating the emerging delicate democracy here. That magnificent social contract that emerges in societies - unequivocably declaring that everyone is equal, that the constitution is respected, that no one is above the law. It's seriously being tested here that's for sure, and I am very surprised actually how delicate things are in South Africa, but it feels like democracy has a chance to win. For 15 years the country has fought to reinvent itself from a painfully oppressed Apartheid system. But I think we still have 35 more years to get through before this really starts working. That's three generations.

The oldest generation bears the responsibilty to remember a brutal past. The middle generation gets the chance to forget, but only if they are willing and able to forgive. And the youngest generation? Hopefully, they will never remember but always be grateful for their inheritance.

NKOSI - 'thank you' in the Xhosa language.

Media City

On a suggestion from the Cape Town Partnership, I head down to a rather desolate scape at the bottom of the city to hopefully…find an ideal retail space to make my TV show. One of the main problems facing Cape Town’s regeneration is the huge amount of land that, unplanned in its use decades ago, is now creating massive blockages in how residents live, work and flow through the grid. It’s like if you follow certain transport patterns continuously, you might never know an entire community even exists below you or beside you – a few metres past your daily turn-off.

I think this is why Africans love living in informal settlements or townships so much - they develop based on community need and not by a few major stakholders that dominate, control or change the human landscape. And typically these kinds of human settlements aren't dominated by cars but rather foot traffic so it feels more normal even though you may not know why. They're like huge connected villages where everything is open, accessible and shared. The commons.

As I venture South of Strand Street I get flashbacks of when I lived in Montreal. Back then I thought the main train station WAS the Southern edge of the city. It seemed a natural stoppage point. You couldn’t see past the thing and there seemed no way around it. Only twelve years later did I discover the entire and gorgeously historic ‘Old Montreal’ hiding on the other side of all the trains. I could cry thinking of all the wine and fantastic cheese I missed out on. That’s why whichever city in am in, I always find the oldest places to understand how things evolved.

Spilling into Herzog Boulevard, I feel like I am entering Tiannamen Square in China or Red Square in Moscow. Everything is HUGE. The roads are huge, the sidewalks are huge, the boulevards are huge and the buildings are even more huge. There are almost no people here. It’s really windy and it feels like it might pick me up and toss me off the edge of Africa. I can’t even figure out where to cross the street. My instincts don’t know how to navigate this kind of place.

I know I will recognize the empty space as soon as I see it. Like everything about how I run my business, I will feel what is right instinctually. And I know what the youth will love, what will welcome them, what needs them. But walking around I think probably nobody ever comes here. It doesn’t even feel abandoned. It feels more like people didn’t know they were supposed to care this place was here in the first place. This wildly dehumanizing system almost scares me as I clutch my digital camera and nearly choke myself with my thin cotton scarf.

And then I see it. A big empty space. Huge windows that could become roll-up garage doors. A parking lot that’s almost pretty. A rear entrance. A boulevard of trees out front. Buckets of light. I can work with that. A friendly gent says ‘I have the key’ so we go inside my space while we talk about kids in Africa. I ask him if the owner of the building is a nice person. How old are they? And where do they come from? What would they think of a TV show for kids here? He likes the idea himself and tells me the owner if a nice Greek chap. BMW and MINI would be our neighbours. Cool.

Walking around the massive ARTSCAPE across the street I start to think logistics. A youth competition poster. An empty concert hall. Two outdoor plazas that could welcome thousands of young people should they make the trip. As I grab my camera a small bus pulls up and out runs a group of young people towards me. ‘Take my picture’ one yells as he jumps up posing for the camera. The last fellow is missing a leg, following behind on his crutches. I wonder if he is from Sierra Leone or Liberia. They are right in front of me. They’re already here. It’s like they discovered it at the exact same time as me.

How do I convince a Greek millionaire that I can create a space for change – that his building could become something more than rent and retail and equity? With paint and cameras and computers and white boards – slowly slowly, bit by bit – that I will do whatever it takes to make this happen. If I can build a home in Cape Town for FANYA KAZI! the youth will do the rest themselves. It belongs to them and it will grow.

When I started my business five years ago I memorized a precious quote that gave me strength when all I had was my dream. “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”. If there’s one thing I always tell young people, it’s what I experienced today – that to pursue a dream is living the dream itself. Because that hunger we feel when we dare to dream becomes satiated as soon as we begin to move towards it. All those little moments that unfold before us catching us off guard, making us smile. It’s not a big clunky thing that happens at the end. It’s the infinite amount of tiny little things scattered all around us waiting to be scooped up and put to use. They are the dream if we are still enough and present enough to understand them.

What a beautiful afternoon I had. What an incredible place I got to see. How precious it is to even have the chance to believe, to wonder and to try. So tomorrow I will find the Greek and thank the American who suggested ‘Media City’ might be worth a visit.

Photos; Herzog & Malay Blvd Retail, Artscape Plaza, Herzog & Malay Streets, Artscape poster.

Bo Kaap - High Cape

I am wandering around the very cool and colourful 'Bo Kaap' at the Northeast top of Cape Town cbd. This city is like Vancouver, Sydney, San Francisco and New York all rolled into one but smaller and friendlier and more folksey.

A Khosa guy and a coloured guy who have made Upper Lewellen Park their home tell me that 'bo' means 'high' in Afrikans. I already know that Kaap means 'cape' from Kaapstad - Cape Town. After a few more tidbits of info they share with me from their bunkbeds, they ask for small money to buy smokes. As I always do, I tell people they shouldn't smoke because it will kill them to which they stare at me like I am an idiot. Obviously their current living situation illustrates that health and fitness aren't exactly a daily priority. A lot of people in Cape Town have asked me for money to buy smokes and no one in Kenya ever did that which is interesting. Maybe they think that me buying them smokes will somehow ease their plight, take off the edge, create a bond between people trying to get through the day. But they always understand that my refusal means I care, that to help them smoke is hardly a gesture of kindness. What I want for them is to be healthy, contribute and thrive. Sleeping in a park isn't exactly an end-game plan.

The Bo Kaap was one of the communities of Cape Town where forced removal of coloured or African residents did not occur. Primarily an Islamic area, the neighbourhood was more like a hide-out for slaves &/or slaves who gained freedom. And the more I learn about Islam the more I see the small acts of courtesy and respect within its culture. Like the Sharia banking system and how it's illegal to charge interest on deposits. The Islamic faith does not allow that. They believe in taking equity from lenders and sharing risk to share gain. Slavery is a major story here in Cape Town much like in West Africa but far less told. Slowly the history is being rebuilt into Cape Town's storytelling, but there are few visible markers.

So the Bo Kaap is this funky blend of muslims, coloureds and brightly painted buildings you see in Cape Town postcards. Carved into the height of the city like the peak moment of a rollercoaster ride - the Bo Kaap immediately faces the front side of Table Mountain in an ideal residential setting. I would like to live in Bo Kaap and take a leisurely stroll down to work every morning. This feels like a place to call home. Extended, connected, warm. Not to mention the killer samosas. Where there are muslims, there are samosas.

Regeneration of Bo Kaap seems to quickly be taking place. With a finite amount of land for the CBD to expand into, the Bo Kaap is a target for urban renewal. How will these families who have lived here throughout the generations be able to stay? Hopefully they own their little smartie box houses - hopefully they're not just renters. Because if they leave, so much of the great community character will leave with them. Will the growing economy 'un-forceably' remove them from this place? When rents rise and developers come knocking, will the aging grandchildren of freed African slaves be able to hang on to their homes?

The market value of real estate in the cbd is extremely low compared to the world-class club of cities Cape Town is most definitely a party to. I would say prices are anywhere from 10-30% the price of what foreign investors would expect. But then there government buildings, the narrow streets, the locked security gates at night that all cut into the valuation structure. This is changing. Now is the time to buy with the fear of scarcity growing proportionately amongst the locals.

When the World Cup comes in 2010 all levels of government are bracing to exploit what will hopefully be an economic tidal wave. I believe when the soccer fans come in droves the masses will walk the streets as I do and think - what a fantastic opportunity all of this really is. So much is still possible here. The issue however is for these governments to use the coming growth trajectory to also lift the lives of its citizens in every small way possible. Can the people of Bo Kaap access capital? Do they understand the complexity of property rights? Will their Sharia banking system preserve their equity for the coming generations?

Photos; Upper Wall Street, off Bree Street, Upper Leeuwen Park, Bo Kaap Historic Mural, Bo Kaap youth.

ITHEMBA = 'hope' in the Zulu language

Ithemba - what a lovely word as it rolls off the tongue. Hope.

This week we begin to register the new corporation that will own Fanya Kazi!'s intellectual property. As the meetings, plans and paperwork gets done I think about ithemba - the collective hope of Africa's youth. How much hope do they have? This is so crucial with social change. Unlike the charity model which really has been nothing but a disaster for Africa and contrary to their traditions, true transformation only occurs within us. So instead of creating jobs for young people, I need to create the conditions where this change can become possible. My business has to create a space in the mental landscape of young Africans so they can begin to imagine constructing a foundation for themselves on which to build. That is my ithemba. I lost my ithemba in Kenya.

I see on my new favourite TV show about parliamentary affairs, the statistics about youth aren't great. Wilmot James of the Democratic Alliance political party says that in most industrialized societies around 61% of youth age 18-25 are in tertiary education. North Korea boasts 90%. In South Africa only 16% of this age group will receive post-high school education, and then the trickle down effects of that for themselves and their families. He also says that 2 million South Africans in this age range are currently not receiving education or are they employed. That's a time bomb. It's like Moi's lost generation in Kenya - 5 million of them called Mungiki.

This is my target market. Those 2 million youth who wake up every morning wondering what is going to happen to them, what they can make of themselves. I can only imagine what temptations await them in the informal settlements with one parent or both away at work all day. Television, hanging out, a little bit of trickery here and there. Before you know it maybe a life of crime in a gang. And it doesn't have to be this way. Great education breaks this cycle. And hope. How do you measure the value of something like hope? How do you factor it into economic policy?

This big government system reminds me of Canada in the 70's before we dismantled a lot it and created private sector partnerships. I mailed my husband a postcard to our new home (so he would feel excited to get mail) and it took almost two weeks to reach us. A new dialogue has to be started that big government is a big waste and this is not the route for South Africa. Can the African leaders acheive this here? It's very contrary to how their social systems have always operated. But Zuma can't make everyone happy. The failure of services delivery is testament to that. A new system has to be started, one that can harness the energy of the informal sector to provide for itself on its own terms. If the laws and policies were truly transparent, the government would choose to let go of its control and allow the people to get busier.

One of the most amazing things that exists here, and probably only in South Africa of all the African countries, is the idea of transformation. It's talked about, debated, expected - that hard work took 15 years at least. But now the country must do something with these ideas of empowerment; put them to the real test to see if society is truly willing to embrace them. I think about how hard it was to work in Kenya because this idea of transformation has not proliferated. The African politicians in Kenya are still oppressing their own people and the Kenyans aren't motivated enough to rise above this and change it so it won't change, it can't change because the people haven't achieved it on their own terms to feel the right to deserve it. That concept already exists here. Thank god.

'Rea Vaya' Bus Rapid Transit System (BRT)

Gauteng Province has launched a fantastic new surface-streets public bus system called Rea Vaya. State-financed movement of people so they can work, prosper and seek opportunity for themselves. Like education and health care, public transportation is one of the easiest empowerment tools a government can offer its citizens. http://www.reavaya.org.za/ - check it out. Rea Vaya means 'we are moving' - just like Standard Bank - 'moving forward' connecting Africa to the world.

The only catch here is - the private sector 'taxis' or minibuses aren't so keen about this evolution. Rightly so, they fear all the work they have done to build up ridership, systems and growth will be snatched from them by bigger, safer and probably more comfortable buses. They must be integrated into the new vision and many are through jobs, but some aren't. The papers say the main taxi association is angry they have not been given controlling interest in the new Rea Vaya private company that will operate the system. Like in Vancouver, the Coast Mountain Bus Company operates the system for the provincial government in exchange for the opportunity to profit. The right to gain economically. The right to prosper. The buses actually look like Vancouver buses so maybe they're manufactured by the same company. Will have to check that out.

The group here that is allegedly upset is a stakeholder in the new Gautrain, mass rapid transit for Josie riders, so they obviously support the concept - maybe just not the fine print of this particular deal. This really has revealed itself in a very ugly (but not suprising for Joburg - there is a 'gun safe' in an upmarket casino/shopping mall here - are people allowed to carry weapons around?) and violent outcome - taxis fired guns at a couple of the new buses doing their routes through Soweto. I can't help but think of the new South African film showing right now around the world called 'District 9' where this sort of thing is the norm. Not a great PR message for South Africa. Who on earth would understand a public bus system being 'under fire'? How extreme. How unnecessary. Fear rears its ugly head through violence.

But having lived in Africa now for over three years I always come back to the same idea. Africa is in transition. New ideas that are the result of industrialization are threatening. That's really what's going on here in SA - the country is rapidly industrializing and it's not going to work in everybody's favour. We all have to embrace change and dialogue to create a new future here. The trick is to uplift the most people possible - to utilize state institutions like media, judiciary, legislature, education, health care - to be the waves that citizen surfers can ride. It's as if Zuma gave every SA citizen a surfboard and told them to 'get riding' - or an ID card so they can 'get working' - it's these tools of empowerment that count - and when they truly are for everybody, societies evolve.

I would be very surprised if the Rea Vaya buses were under attack again. I think this first shooting must be some sort of warning or backlash that the majority of riders will not accept. A working parent who finally can organize his or her family's movements - what do they tell their kids about new buses being shot at? Let's not show more of this to the world who are busy booking their hotel rooms and rental cars for the Rugby World Cup. Foreigners coming to spend hard-earned cash in South Africa might not quite understand the rage of Joburg taxi drivers. This kind of violence will be perceived as backwards, dangerous and sad. But the free press has to do its job - let the world decide, let South Africans decide if this is acceptable behaviour here. This country has come so far and is such a shining example of what is possible for Africa. There's far too much at stake. Mandela didn't sit in jail to give his people the right to shoot guns at each other on the commute home.

My taxi driver in Joburg said he thinks the country has a 50% chance of evolving into a communist state. Wow. What a concept. I didn't realize Communism was an option anymore. We've got to be more evolved than this to go back to an idea we have outlived. Haven't we created something better than communism? Do we really want to stand in line waiting for bread?

Beyond scarcity. There must be a utopian possibility for what lies beyond scarcity. We just have to keep evolving...keep talking, keep accepting, keep loving & keep moving forward.

REA VAYA - let's go South Africa!

Photos; Sandton City Shopping Centre, Rea Vaya Bus Route.