I watched the 2010 Olympic Winter Games Opening Ceremony with butterflies in my tummy, my foot tapping nervously and only one ear on the conversation I was having at the time. The ceremony took place while I was attending a “Purse Party”, which pretty much came to a standstill as I jumped up, clapping and cheering for my team. “Canadian?” You ask. Not on your life. After the long wait through Romania, Russia, Serbia and Slovakia, out marched an admittedly small but valiant team dressed in green and gold and carrying a multi-coloured flag: the South Africans. Pardon me for being unreasonably (some would say insanely) proud of a team from a developing country – my country – that does not have the climate to practice Winter Olympic events!

In the words of Corné and Twakkie, “Deed you kneooow”… that there were South Africans competing in the Vancouver Winter Olympics of 2010? Not many South Africans did. And it’s really not our fault – the media were tchoep stil about it; even a comprehensive internet search does not yield very much. As well as athletes from South Africa, teams from Ghana, Morocco, Kenya, Ethiopia, Senegal and Algeria also competed. These African Olympians were not medal hopefuls, many of them were self-funded and very few received the recognition or praise they deserved, although the other athletes from Africa were lauded far more in their own countries than our homeboys. Although the South African athletes are in part supported by Snowsports South Africa, the official body representing, well, all snow sports, nobody really knew about them.

The most experienced South African athlete at these Olympics was Oliver Kraas, who competed in a ski event (the Men’s Individual Sprint Classical). Kraas is a thirty-four year old from Germiston who placed 61st out of 62 in his event and carried the South African flag through the arena during the opening ceremony.

Peter Scott, who took part in the Giant Slalom skiing event, is only nineteen years old and trains with teammate Bruce Warner in Europe. They are coached by South Africa’s most successful skier to date, Alexander Heath. Scott did not complete his event in the 2010 Olympics (neither did some of the favourites, namely Bode Miller from the U.S.A.)

Representing South Africa in the Paralympics later this month will be Bruce Warner. He will be competing during the course of the games which run from March 12 – 21st. This Bloem local now trains in Switzerland and will compete in no less than five skiing events: Slalom, Giant Slalom, Super Combined, Super G and Downhill. Wow – Good Luck Bruce!

The South African media’s taciturnity about our Winter Olympic team has astounded me. Yes, we have more athletes competing in more events in the Summer Olympics. But haven’t our Winter Olympic team overcome as many obstacles, if not more, than our supported, sponsored Summer Olympic teams? In the build up to the Vancouver 2010 Paralympics, let’s be aware that we have a South African competitor and support his efforts to reach the podium.

Sarah Laurence is a South African writer based in Canada.

The morning of revelation, as I have coined it, started with my waking up to an alarm of deceit I had set the night before. I woke up with a spritely stretch following the 4:30am wake-up call I’d set to ensure I’d have enough time to endure the daily torment of a one-hour-long public transport trip to the upper-end gym I worked at in central London.

I stood languidly in the kitchen still half-asleep, smugly sipping a strong cup of coffee while reflecting on how pleased I was with myself for getting up so early. While mentally preparing myself for the day of noveau riche angst that undeniably loomed before me, I took a moment to glimpse at the kitchen oven’s digital clock. 6:00am.

At that moment a sense of pre-disposed panic shot through me. Toppling over the kitchen stool and spilling coffee everywhere, I choked while clambering for my phone (slash alarm clock). 5:00am.

It was at this point that, somewhere between the front door, and my panicked feet slapping against the hard, wet road, alarm bells of shame went off in my head. Daylight Savings.

Amidst the ominous moaning of rain and hopeless tackling of the umbrella that flailed wildly above my head, I made the mistake of thinking to myself that it couldn’t get worse than this.

At that exact moment, as if on cue, the big red bus symbolising my last chance for redemption brazenly cruised past me, slicing a thick puddle of rainy dirt that spewed all over my pathetic and ghostlike silhouette.

I stood defeated like a drowned flamingo on the roadside in a ridiculously optimistic pink coat. Raising a helpless blank gaze to the greyish black hole that jeered right back down at me, my eyes begged the question: “Why”?

In response, the heavens opened their mocking mouth with a rumbling crack of reply that left me solidly drenched. I imagined a cosy tea party of gods in the sky all pointing and cackling hysterically at the entertaining expense that was my misery.

Crying was considered as an option, or perhaps even belting out a howling tantrum. I stared sulkily at the road and considered flinging my pathetic umbrella and bag into the puddle that reflected the cave of sky above.

Instead, I found myself nervously glancing around for some kind of camera equipment and TV show host to spring out from the shrubbery and announce that this was all just a cruel joke.
But, as black cars splashed on through the puddles in the road, coupled with blank figures avoiding eye-contact who passed me by, the voice of reason seeped in with an ironic giggle from the top of my throat: “What was I doing here?”

Melodrama aside, I felt like a goldfish in salt water. Zombie-walking to the next bus stop I took it all in.

Considering all the “Saffas” I’d seen patriotically huddled together at the nearest boerie roll stand at the Just Jinjer concerts, or outside the nearest Walkabout pub down the road, I couldn’t help but speculate as to why so many of us travelled half-way across the world to clump together and deck out in Springbok rugby gear.

It’s no wonder the SAA terminal at Heathrow airport feels more like a family reunion than anything else. Suddenly everyone is your cousin and they all want to know what you were up to in London, and if you were also living along the District Line. Of course a few Afrikaans words are thrown around because even though you may not have spoken it since your Grade Twelve “mondeling” now’s an opportunity to speak it – so why not?

Truth be told, I loved hovering with the Saffas at that airport terminal, dreaming of the chutney, Provitas, Nik-naks and biltong I’d soon be able to buy in Rands. Although when I got back home some of the novelty in that thought was lost, I realised how much I’d missed my country, my people and my sunshine.

As for London, maybe I’ll be back in a few years, but for now, here’s to 2010 being hosted in South Africa. Paint me green and bring out the boerie rolls.

Jade Adami is studying Brand Leadership at Vega.

Let me start off by saying that Caster Semenya is a chick until proven a dude. Oh, hang on, she has been proven to be a chick by her parents, her teachers and her friends, mind you.

The accusations of racism levelled at the IAAF have been a bit excessive. But one can understand why this would be our first line of attack. The problem with screaming racism every time one has been affronted causes some to turn a deaf ear because they start thinking “oh boy, here we go again” even when the claims are in fact legitimate. It does the fight against racism a disservice. The key is to know when to cry racism. I am not so naïve to claim that there might not be any elements of racism in the IAAF.

But let me start off by saying how incredibly proud I am of Semenya. She did a sterling job and she is so young, far too young to be going through this. I have been incredibly proud of the manner in which she carried herself and still managed to win with all that focus on her. I felt personally affronted at the end of her race when the commentators talked to her as though it was an obligation then promptly talked about the silver and bronze medallists as if they were the real winners. I was tempted to claim racism but then realised they were British, they praised the bronze medallist as if she were the winner, this was the case during the medal presentation too.

When Semenya ran for her province, several provinces lodged complaints because they suspected she was male. Tests came back proving she was in fact a young girl. According to news reports, Limpopo Athletics secretary Leon Bammau said a gender test was conducted on Semenya after an appeal was lodged by the National Secondary School Championships in 2007. He said the test results confirmed she was female. A second appeal was lodged by two provinces with regards to Semenya’s gender the same year.

He said a basic test was conducted: “A physical test was conducted on whether she has a female part. We did what we thought was necessary, thereafter there was no complaint.”

Of course no one accused any of these provinces of racism when they wanted proof that she was in fact a girl.

This is not racism. It’s a new, unnecessary and dehumanising debate on gender. If anything, those who tried to dehumanise her have done nothing but turn her into a national hero. If she carries on in this dignified manner I suspect she will become an international one too. She deserves to be. Not many young people could endure the pressure she has these past few days.

Many of us are confusing the issue. It’s about gender.

Why does the IAAF want to conduct more tests to prove whether she is female or not? How do we define what a female is if having female organs is not enough?

If we are truly honest with ourselves we will admit that we did think that she appeared to be and sounded like a man. Even so, she was not the only female athlete to resemble a man. When looking at the 100m and 200m sprinters, I remember saying to myself “I wouldn’t want to meet any of those in a dark alley” not in any alley in fact. There’s a difference between saying someone looks like a man and questioning their gender. I never questioned Semenya’s gender or that of the other female runners because it is something I have seen over and over again.

I had a bit of a persecution complex initially, I thought, first they tried to prevent Oscar Pistorius from running because they claimed he had an unfair advantage. It was all rather strange that a man with no legs had an advantage. He won the case but couldn’t train because he had spent so much time in court. It was just ridiculous.

If the IAAF is racist then how do we explain the success of so many black athletes? Do we turn a blind eye? Are we going to call it anti-South African perhaps?

A British newspaper claims to have access to Semenya’s preliminary test results. The results allegedly prove that Semenya has more testosterone than the average woman. Even if that is the case, how did they get the tests? For argument’s sake, let’s assume that she does in fact have more testosterone than the average woman, does that mean she ought to be disqualified for having a genetic advantage?

Professor Tim Noakes on Kaya FM asked how you decide what an unfair genetic advantage is. According to Noakes, some women will have more testosterone. He said most top athletes do in fact have a genetic advantage over others. What if Bolt is found to have superior genetic coding? Should he then be disqualified as well? I just wonder, what if she has more testosterone than the average professional female athlete but less than the male professional athlete? How do they decide what the threshold is? All I have to say to the IAAF and those bloody Australians is, leave Caster alone!

A friend of mine put it very well when she said (yes, she’s a she and I won’t be needing a gender test thank you): “I’m peeved that the Australians were the cause of this saga, how quickly they forget how we rallied behind Cathy Freeman!” Hear, hear!

Semenya first came to the prying eyes of the IAAF this year when she cut more than seven seconds off her best time of 2008. They then investigated possible doping violations but found nothing. Well, I say just because she pulled off a Superwoman effort doesn’t mean she’s not a woman.

Khaya Dlanga is was named Africa’s top Digital Citizen Journalist in 2008.

In South Africa, Women’s Day on August 9, commemorates the march of thousands of women to Pretoria’s Union Buildings in 1956 in protest against apartheid’s evil pass laws that sought to restrict the movements of non-white South Africans.

Across the country, males will doubtless be wondering why can’t there be a “Men’s Day” too. The answer, of course, is that every day (including August 9) is in actual fact a man’s day.
While South Africa’s Constitution enshrines gender equality, bodily integrity and reproductive rights and, undoubtedly, there are many women playing an active role in public life, there’s a long, long way to go.

South Africa is a country where girls are fondled on their way to school. Minibus taxi drivers strip a woman to her underwear for daring to wear a miniskirt. The barbaric practice of virginity testing continues (despite it being illegal to subject girls younger than 16 to this). Sex workers are harassed and persecuted by the police. Women face discrimination in the workplace. And the president purportedly believes that a woman wearing a kanga (a wraparound cloth) is an invitation — or, even worse, a justification — to have sex with her.

South Africa is a country where there are 54,000 rapes reported annually — and countless more women face unspeakable abuse.

The advent of South Africa’s democracy has done little to improve the lot of women. Why? Because misogyny and patriarchy are ingrained cultural norms among men — both black and white. It is accepted, even if only implicitly, that women are second-class citizens, subservient to and owned by their masters — men.

South Africa has a crisis of values in which men are brought up to believe they are entitled to treat women as objects to abuse, hurt, exploit, rape, harass, control and patronize. Young boys growing up seeing their mothers being bashed about know no better. And so this vicious cycle of oppression continues.

But can men alone shoulder responsibility for this parlous state of affairs? It is important to bear in mind the role that some (and not all) women play in perpetuating patriarchy. They do this in passively accepting their fate, and in reinforcing the misogynistic worldview espoused by their husbands, raising chauvinists as a result of this.

Senior women members of the African National Congress ruling party — especially those who have served in the Cabinet — have failed utterly to take action against the rampant domestic abuse women face. They have been bought — co-opted into power, perks and patronage. Their loyalty to a patriarchal regime indifferent to the suffering of women has thus far ensured that South Africa’s women remain trapped in their suffering.

Most of these senior party women have remained silent over the HIV/Aids pandemic — of which women bear the brunt. They have been toeing a line that has led to countless deaths and unnecessary infections — the latter, especially, being a direct result of the government’s recalcitrance over the implementation of programs for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. The most notable exception, the erstwhile deputy minister of health, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, was fired for daring to show integrity and initiative in her response to the crisis.

There are signs of hope. South Africa has a vibrant civil society — and its successes in challenging former President Mbeki’s Aids denialism has proven that through strength, courage and perseverance, things can change.

The local media can also make a huge difference in dismantling the notions and representations of patriarchal society and the tyrannical, dehumanizing symptoms that stem from it. Last year the inspirational talk show host Redi Direko led a protest march to the Noord Street taxi rank (where the above-mentioned miniskirt harassment incident occurred), accompanied by hundreds of women voicing their opposition against misogynist thugs.

The struggle to achieve nonsexism is not over. Liberation and true gender equality is an elusive dream for many millions of South African women and still needs to be fought for — and won. The status quo of the implicit oppression of women will continue unless women — and enlightened men — actively challenge sexism (and the patriarchal systems that underscore it) in all its manifestations.

Alex Matthews is editor of The Soapbox. He writes this in his personal capacity.

South Africa, 2009. JZ is president, GodZille is the premier of the Western Cape. We have our very own Ponzi scheme and a World Cup to put on.

The glass is very clearly half…ja, Well no, you know… in some sort of dynamic equilibrium. Not having the ability to solve for the x-factor and work out equilibrium, I have decided to keep filling the South African glass, and maybe one day our cup will runneth over.

Rather than make this a rant about apathy and indifference, I’ll give you an alternative… Do something.

On the 1st of July, go to www.doitday.co.za, and volunteer for Do It Day (18th September). All it costs is your time; there will be plenty of projects to choose from. You will find all the projects you expect, like building houses, veggie gardens etc, and a few bizarre ones like flapping elephant ears in Jo’burg zoo (apparently it calms them down while the vet does a check-up). This is a country wide initiative by GreaterGood SA, and the target is 20 000 Volunteers and 2 000 projects (all over SA). So that’s about 10 people per project. The materials (where needed) are paid for by corporate sponsors, so all you need to do is sign up and do it…

You still there? Excellent… most of the chaps are switching off as soon as some-one mentions charity or volunteering. But, if you haven’t done something like this before, rustle up a posse and sign up for a project. It will be something that you will be proud of, getting you hands, heart and head involved in helping and building South Africa.

You can do it…

Michael Mulcahy is a spokesperson for GreaterGood SA. Drop him a mail if you have any queries about Do It Day: michael@ggsa.co.za

I have finally decided to break my self-imposed silence on our recent elections.

The first thing I would like to do is congratulate our new president, Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma. Whatever one thinks of the man, you have to admire how he managed to clear every single obstacle in his way. I know that many people have mixed feelings about him. Whatever you feel for the man, it is imperative we support him because if we don’t we won’t be able to solve the unemployment problem.

It is for this reason that I believe we need to look forward to his success as president. If he fails, we fail. If he is a disaster, we become one. If he succeeds, you succeed. Wishing him to fail will be counter-productive to the goals we have as a country. We have to put the country above whatever personal feelings we may have towards him. Our support does not mean we blindly follow every decision he makes.

As some of you may or may not know, and in the interests of full disclosure, I would like to point out that I campaigned for and voted for Cope.

It is a mistake for Cope supporters to wish that the president or his government fail. Our success as a party should not be built on the failures of the ANC but rather on our ability to communicate a superior message and an improved articulation of our positions. To wish that the government fails so that we can succeed is self-defeating. It puts party before country. We cannot afford that. When Barack Obama took over, one of America’s most famous conservative radio talk-show hosts, Rush Limbaugh, said he wanted Obama to fail. Of course, if Obama does fail Limbaugh will not suffer because he is a multi-millionaire but those people who lose their homes will feel the failure.

During these past few months I have become a born-again South African. We live in a truly beautiful, surprising, resilient country. My faith in this country was renewed by the debates I saw, the interest young people showed in politics for the first time. We live in a new South Africa again. It is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But it is being perfected every day by those who know they have a responsibility to the country, by those who know their success depends on the political success of the country.

There is something remarkable about how the ANC achieved its overwhelming victory. And I am not talking about the huge percentage it got. I’m talking about the small percentage it did not.

Think about it. They needed less than 1% to achieve a two-thirds majority. So, what is so remarkable about that you may ask? They could have cheated so easily just to get that, yet they chose not to. That is evidence that we live in a true democracy. This small, yet great, temptation was resisted. This achievement must be commended. We just have to be grateful our votes weren’t counted by M-Net. On the flipside one can also say why congratulate them on doing the right thing? As Chris Rock once said: “Some men like to brag about never having been to jail. Well, you’re not supposed to go to jail!”

So what’s next? We cannot talk about what’s next before we have talked about what has been. The future is always connected to the past. We should not talk about the future while we forget about the past. It is often said, “forget the past”. “No,” I say. To remember the past is to pay tribute to the future. The past may shape us but we decide who we become. Maybe the real question is what kind of a people are we deciding to become? We are either shackled by the past or freed from it. We are either shaped by it or we use it to shape the future. The choice ladies and gentlemen is ours. First as individuals, then as a people. The destiny of this country is not written for us. We chose the kind of future we want. And the people chose a Zuma future.

As a people we need to realise that we come from different pasts but what we all want is the same future — a better one. I would like to drive through Khayelitsha without being assaulted by shacks all dressed up in poverty and nowhere to go. Many of the residents there see a bleak future for themselves, a vicious, poverty-stricken future, with no way to escape, except through crime, drugs and violence. The social consequences of this endemic poverty are too depressing to enumerate. We don’t want that to happen. We want to see all South Africans employed. And we as South Africans can have solutions to these problems, they are not going to take a generation to solve, but we can’t just close our eyes and pretend there is no problem.

If there is one man living in a shack, then I am not yet free. If there is a farm worker who still endures being called a “kaffir” by his bass on a daily basis then I am not yet free. If there is a white farmer killed simply because he is white then I am not yet free. We are not free. If I bribe a traffic officer for my freedom, then I am not free. All of us are still striving towards freedom.

We have to hold our government accountable. We must question them without fear or favour. We need a youthful, respectful academic militancy. We need to cultivate the celebration of intellectualism. There has been a rise of anti-intellectualism in our political discourse. Anti-intellectualism is something new, we cannot accept it and to abandon it is to insult the Sol Plaatjies, Oliver Tambos and Steve Bikos who celebrated intellect.

For us to turn this into an extraordinary country will take a few ordinary people to take ordinary steps. If we all do what we are supposed to do, what we must do, we can turn this into an extraordinary country. Small things like not jumping a red robot. Refusing to bribe a traffic officer, refusing to bribe that home affairs official, demanding good, not great, just good service at the restaurant. Doing our best at work. Starting a business instead of being employed. All these small ordinary actions will turn us into an extraordinary country. If we have high ethical standards for ourselves, then we have every right to have high expectations of our leaders. But as long as we continue to cut corners, lie, cheat and bribe, we deserve the leaders we get.

So, what is next? The truth is we don’t truly know what is next. None of us are prophets. The important thing is we all know what needs to be done. But what’s even more important is doing what needs to be done. What young people need to do is turn us into a generation that future South Africans will talk about, we should be a tribute to the 1976 generation that fought despite insurmountable odds. The odds we face today are nothing like the ones they did. Maybe we are not desperate enough to see a great South Africa. Maybe we are too comfortable to change anything. Maybe we are not restless enough. Natives of South Africa, be restless, the country needs you to be.

Khaya Dlanga was named Africa’s top Digital Citizen Journalist in 2008.

Let’s face it: more than three months since its inception, Zimbabwe’s so-called government of national unity is a failure.

This is a unity government in all but name. Oppression and coercion is embedded within its architecture, with the impotent opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) serving as little more than a legitimising mechanism for ruling party Zanu PF’s totalitarian agenda. Little wonder that the country is still falling apart when Zanu PF shamelessly grips onto power. Stalling reforms proposed in the GNU agreement and having unilaterally appointed ambassadors, it’s sent a clear message that it remains the party calling the shots.

Furthermore, human rights activists, lawyers and MDC politicos continue to be unlawfully harassed and detained. Hundreds of prisoners die of starvation in jail. And land grabs and persecution of farmers occur with impunity.

The MDC has shown itself powerless to prevent all this and unable to ensure that the rule of law is respected. Instead, it pleads for smart sanctions against Mugabe’s cronies be lifted, naively assuming this will kickstart the very economy that these vile specimens actively destroyed through their avarice and tyranny.

It is clear that Zanu PF’s undemocratic participation in government is only further aiding Zimbabwe’s disintegration and prolonging the suffering of our beleaguered neighbours. Yet Pretoria remains silent about the continuing subjugation of the Zimbabwean people, preferring, rather, to silently condone the brutality of a fellow “liberation” movement.

Instead of propping up Zanu PF, South Africa’s ruling party, the ANC, needs to act in the best interests of all Zimbabweans and force the party to accept the rule of law and ensure that the obligations in the unity agreement are adhered to. Otherwise one can only assume that our ruling party’s endorsement of Zimbabwe’s dictatorship is an indication that it too believes that rapacious oppression is justified to maintain an increasingly slippery hold on perpetual rule.

Alex Matthews is editor of The Soapbox. He writes this in his personal capacity.

The first is that of the “mosaic policy” – ideally, each culture is respected for the uniqueness that it brings to the nation and the observance of its traditions encouraged. This is the policy that Canada has held for many years, and of which it has been very proud. From guidebooks to radio advertisements, the benefits of the mosaic policy is heralded as a blueprint for racial, cultural and religious harmony.

The Conservative Party however, find fault with this policy and are publicly pointing out a few of its shortcomings. They would prefer more of a “melting pot” stance to be adopted, where Canadian ideals and values are adopted by immigrants and where immigrants are encouraged to mix with Canadian-born citizens and immigrants descending from other nations and cultures to their own. For example, they would like to insist that all immigrants are able to speak either French or English, and that the citizenship test have more of an emphasis on history and current values (such as tolerance) than on practical issues such as the rules of the road. They stress that people should not cut themselves off from their own culture or people from their own nation, but that there should be more prominence given to inclusion than to separatist values. This proposed plan also has its disadvantages as it could unfortunately result in traditions, languages and cultures being lost in the global pop-culture of materialism so embraced in this country.

The party has pointed out that the immigration and diversity policy should strike a balance between the aims of immigration policy – pragmatism (what would work best socially and economically for Canada) and altruism (offering Canada as a safe haven for refugees).

One of Canada’s most pressing diversity problems remains the prejudiced treatment and the resulting overcompensation management of the First Nationers. As has been seen in Australia and South Africa, the fallout of racial imbalance is very difficult to repair, as guilt-led overcompensation can lead to as many problems as the original ill-treatment.

Canada is a rich and powerful country, blessed with natural resources, sound governance and a broad mix of people. Despite this, it asks racial questions with no easy answers, and is dealing with a difficult hangover of previous inequality. While South Africa’s diversity problems might seem newer and rawer, closer to the bone, and complicated by other social problems, we need not feel that we are the only country fighting what seems an uphill battle for tolerance, acceptance and true multi-culturism.

Sarah Laurence is a South African living in Canada.

On the one hand, we have the South African Health Department, headed until recently by a woman who publicly denied the link between HIV and AIDS (perhaps taking her lead from the head of state), at the cost of possibly millions of lives. Admittedly, in taking over power in 1994, the Health Department faced an uphill battle – expanding health services to cater for the whole population on a budget which had previously been used to cater for a mere 15% of the population. The way they have gone about it, however, has been nothing short of disastrous. Primary, secondary and tertiary services are facing similarly ominous challenges; increasing patient loads and increasing burden of disease with the same or dwindling staff numbers and other resources. The hospital I was working at before I left was witnessing a year-on-year increase in patient load of 10-15%, yet the number of doctors in the past 10 years had remained unchanged. In essence, each of us was seeing at least double the number of patients as our predecessors 10 years earlier! From speaking to colleagues at other hospitals, I am certain that my story is in no way unique.

Government’s response to this unsustainable burden has been ludicrous to say the least. They have failed utterly to increase the number of medical professionals on the ground in the public sector, and have dragged their heels on any changes to improve the working conditions of their employees, the most notable of this being the still-unresolved negotiations over doctor’s salary packages (which has not been implemented nearly 18 months after its proposed date of commencement). As a public service doctor — and I am relatively certain this would reflect the opinions of a large amount of public sector workers, be they nurses, educators or members of the police force — one is made to feel unvalued, unnecessary and unappreciated by the people who employ you.

Contrast this with Canada. Upon arriving here, I have been given approximately CAN $ 26 000 to cover relocation expenses and to enable me to establish myself. The town where I am working is throwing us a welcome party which will be attended by the mayor, and is offering us a CAN $ 50 000 interest free loan, to be paid off over 2 years. The various medical associations will cover costs of further training and equipment to my heart’s content. Working rurally, I can earn about 10% more than if I were to work in a major city. The provincial government and clinic managers go out of their way to make sure that their staff are looked after.

Each country has their own set of challenges, and I know that it is futile to compare apples with oranges. South Africa is not currently as resourced as Canada and there is not a lot of capital to “throw” at problems such as these. But one of the great discrepancies I have noticed between the two countries, financial reward aside, it the attitude of those in power towards the people who are vital for society to function cohesively. In Canada, public servants are treated with respect and rightly valued for the role they play in their communities; in South Africa they are treated like outcasts and pariahs.

I plan to return to South Africa in a few years time; the financial rewards and comfortable lifestyle do not tug strongly enough to allow me to ignore the land of my birth – a land that needs the help of all who are able to give it. But thousands of other professionals, medical included, have fled its shores and are not willing to come back. The government needs to realise soon that if you treat people badly they will seek other options, and they have every right to do so. Moaning that these people have no passion for the country considering the country well rid of them is counter-productive, short-sighted and essentially immature. Jacob Zuma and his government will soon need to realise this and implement change if they do not wish to wake up one morning to a country without education, policing or health care. It is good government alone that can respond to such a challenge.

Craig L is a young South African doctor who has recently relocated to rural Canada, but is not yet a maple syrup or RV convert.