SOUTH AFRICA 

A breathtakingly beautiful country with so many problems its hard too know where to begin with the story of my time there.

I spent three months in Beautiful Cape Town in 2001 and four months in 2003.

I was training people in radio production. We had a small studio in Cape Town and were producing a 15 minute programme each week about work related issues. Sounds simple enough…….. 

BUT each programme had to be made in FOUR different languages……. Xhosa, Zulu, Afrikaans and English.

 Lots of Audio to add together with Video and Photographs so keep coming back to see the latest updates.

First is what I think is one of the most beautiful pieces of radio I have ever made. The people I was working for were…. shall we say….. extremely politically motivated but amazingly UN street wise. We had spent a morning talking through some ideas and I pointed out that what we were NOT talking about were the lives of ordinary people and that the staff had little or no idea HOW to talk to ordinary people.

So…… I had only been in the country for a few days….. I took 2 of my staff into the centre of Cape Town, parked the car and walked up to the first beggar we saw and turned the microphone on.

This guy is a LOVELY human being and a perfect example of the kind of South African voice that we rarely hear……

A success and NOT a disaster. Moi, one of my trainees was almost in tears because the feature she was trying to make was proving impossible because everyone she was phoning was…….. Unavailable.

But……… of course THAT became the story…….

A promo for a Racism Conference - In 3 languages……

A lesson in communication……. I have lots that I could say about this and will at a future date. This was one small part of a programme about hot topic NEPAD. Our presenters asked people in the building we were operating from (!!) what they knew of NEPAD and mixed their comments with some “Experts” we had spoken to.

Interesting on many levels….. An important subject well understood by the people I was working FOR… And little understood by….. The public…….. THINK about that…….. and the role ‘broadcasting’ should - or could - play.

Promo for our programme on BUSH RADIO in Cape Town - English

Promo for our programme on RADIO ZIBONELI in Khayelitsha Township near Cape Town - Xhosa

Programme Feature - Cape Town Prostitutes

Programme Feature - Cape Town Taxis

Health Education CASSETTE - Distributed to workers. This was played at a meeting in Cape Town and everyone gave me a big round of applause when it had finished! There are some…… LOVELY people in South Africa….. I must write more………. but some thoughts are on the ‘More Stuff’ page.