Difference Three

One of the helpful things we did not long after moving to South Africa was to subscribe to a UK newspaper (cheap deal for people living abroad). When I say subscribe I don’t mean some 13 year old boy (maybe girl) arrives at our house on their bicycle each morning with a copy of The Times. No, I mean an electronic copy is delivered to us each morning onto my Tablet, I do not even get to recycle the papers! So I bounce between news in the UK (it will be our home again at some point) at the same time trying to understand our situation in South Africa.

South Africa Lock Down 

So to Difference Three

I have been entertained if not directed and made curious by the UK newspapers on how to use the time on our hands in lock down. This has often be carried out by The 50 Best; books, podcasts, films, plays, albums the list and opportunities seem to go on to a point when I will need a longer lock down, only joking honest. I can even complete an Open University course for free. But what list in lock down would not be compete without a ‘how to keep your sex life alive guidance’. The lists are there seemingly to enrich your life. By the time lock down turns into freedom I should-could have read the books, seen the films, heard the music that transform me into a full blown lock down intellectual, fat chance.

In our transition to South Africa we left a 5 bedroom, study, large lounge, small lounge eat-in kitchen with granny flat. Oh yes and a 600 seater church in the garden for a quiet time. In the end for a number of years it was a big home for two people plus a dog. Here on the farm we have a wooden home on stilts beautiful, one bedroom, study, and combined kitchen living room, our newish home is similar to a reasonable size caravan. Its beautiful and we love it. It fits into our spiritual outlook of wanting less needing less, taught to me by Nigel Schibald, thank you.

So difference. What does lock down look like if 10 people live in two rooms, you cook outside, no toilet, no running water and no internet? How do you enrich your marriage or partnership how do you become this lockdown intellectual? How do you morph into better person culturally richer person? How do you help your children this situation if as a parent you have never finished your own schooling? In the privileged situation Erin and I hold we look for our own space our own time our own existence outside the other.

So when you live like many people do in South Africa what can be the alternative to cultural enrichment? 

One figure that has come to the news this week is 87,000. Police Minister Bheki Cele says police have received more than 87,000 gender- based violence complaints during the first week of the 21-day national lock down.

He says one of the 87 000 cases, includes a case of rape, where a police officer was arrested for allegedly raping his wife.

This comes after a KwaZulu-Natal granny was raped and murdered, allegedly by men posing as soldiers who said they were going around sanitising homes. https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/more-than-87-000-gbv-complaints-received-during-lockdown/

 Consider the plight of women in South Africa, where the femicide rate is almost five times the global average, and sexual assault is rampant. In 2018-2019, the police recorded an average of 114 rapes a day, an increase of nearly 5% from the previous year  https://mg.co.za/analysis/2020-02-26-barriers-to-achieving-development-agenda/

I am aware gender based violence is an issue in all places yes in the UK. What I am trying to do is reflect the difference between hear and the UK. For me and maybe for you lock down could be an invitation to cultural transformation, for many that is not the case.