Something had changed back in Cape Town. The winter had arrived and with the winter there was a change in mentality. The hordes of German tourists had left the city and Long Street - that busy, loud waterhole for the Bazbuz crowd had calmed down to a pleasant evening stir at weekends only. The strollers (as the begging street kids call themselves) were busy storing glue underneath the man-hole covers, and the homeless added extra sheets of cardboard paper to their beds. Truly there was winter in the Mother City and it affected all its inhabitants, but the chilly nights hit the weak and marginalized, the hardest. Thick fog would cover the Cape Flats in the mornings and foghorns from the harbour would add a pleasant base to the sound of police sirens and the calls ... read more

Somewhere north of Tsumeb in northern Namibia the German influence ceased. I found myself back in the African cultural heartland - unorganized, dirty, crowded and vibrant. After some lame attempts by the Angolan border-police to extract bribes, I was inside the country, swarmed by teenage moneychangers. In a dirty 4x4 a fat white man with a wry face, sat jammed between the seat and the steering wheel, which sank into his belly. He would take me as far as Xangongo for a beer, he said, which sounded great to me although I had no clue where it was. Big fields of late-summer grass would glow with a pink hue in the sunset and the great Baobabs would rise from the plains like petrified monsters. Along the roadside there were only a few houses, but the fat ... read more

They found a map of the crossroad between Africa, Asia and Europe where someone had jotted down sharp lines for borders; “Modest claims by Theodore Herzl”, it said. The map wasn’t of much help to them. They opened an atlas named the “The spread of the humble Jihad” and they looked at a map that depicted the Mediterranean Sea with Arabic symbols and swords drawn on it. “I recognise this sea, but not all these symbols.” The ghost said. They went through a number of atlases and maps until they finally found a map that the ghost recognised. It was a map in old Ionic Greek that depicted the known world of 405 BC. “There it is!” Adonis pointed on the map. “Where?” The fairy couldn’t see where he pointed. “There!” He moved her hand to ... read more

Without a doubt the fairy would have overslept and missed the full moon if it hadn’t been for Siren - the farm’s grey donkey - braying his usual three o’ clock wake-up-call. A wake-up call that, as usual, turned into a wake-up-jam-session as the aptly named roosters; Posy and Florid, joined in with their cacophonous crowing. The young man was still asleep. Careful not to not wake him up, she sneaked out of the tent. It was pitch black outside, not even the stars could be seen since dark clouds filled the sky. “He must have been mistaken” She thought. “There’s no full moon tonight.” She walked down to the pond where the stone fish lay still at the bottom. The frogs had gone to bed and the pond was as still and quiet as ... read more

The Flipperty Gibbets did what they knew best; giggled, then led the fairy into the kingdom. The road was a patchwork of donated tar, a scar tissue of asphalt. On an open field to her right, a group of kids taught a crimson kite to fly by gently stretching its string with rhythmic pulls, then giving it some slack to try its own wings and rise above the silhouette of the Table Mountain and the tree pepper pots that now stood aligned on the slope of Devil’s Peak. On the other side of the road a colourful kindergarten exhaled, exhausted after a full day of vehemently playing kids and admonishing adults. A small dog with a straw and cream coloured fur came bouncing towards her. “That’s Storm.” Said Madame Windbag as the dog reached them. ... read more