Blog

In the years that I have been working and travelling as a journalist on this continent, some of my most memorable experiences have been on aeroplanes. For me, that precise moment when the wheels lift off the ground is always a thrilling experience. As you hang in the sky in that first ethereal split second, time itself seems to be suspended, holding you in the thrall of the promise of the destination that lies ahead. But sometimes, the flight itself is as much of an adventure as the place you are going to.

I can proudly say I have covered Africa from south to north - from lovely Cape Town to fascinating Algiers...

Years ago, I visited Debre Bizen, a remote and ancient Coptic monastery in Eritrea that was founded 600 years ago. I found it a moving and spiritual experience . . .

Mombasa, the second largest city in Kenya, is also the busiest port on the East African coast. For more than 500 years it has stood as the centrepoint of trade between East and Central Africa, India and the Middle East.

In 2003 I visited the Marsh Arabs of Iraq who were struggling to rebuild their lives after decades of oppression. Their almost forgotten way of life left a deep impression on me.

Some years ago I hiked deep into the Drakensberg to see these marvels of human creativity

I have always loved travelling on trains. My best memories from high school were taking the train down from Joburg to what was then Grahamstown. These are the memories of a particularly fascinating journey I made a decade or so ago.

‘It isn’t safe’: South African first responders attacked while saving lives Ambulance crews and paramedics are increasingly being robbed, their vehicles hijacked while they are working, in a country with one of the world’s highest rates of violent crime.

My Xhosa teacher Ally Weakley (seen here centre) was a powerful advocate of non-racialism in apartheid South Africa. He was tragically gunned down in rage after Chris Hani's assassination. Rhodes honoured him this weekend by naming their main sports field after him. Here, published in the Sunday Times this weekend, I remember just what a powerful influence he had on my life.

Years ago I went to the Svalbard islands in the Arctic circle. What a powerful, magical experience it was! Under the little-known Svalbard treaty, South Africans have the right to live, trap, fish and prospect for minerals in a remote archipelago deep in the Arctic Circle. Hamilton Wende went there to try his luck.

Al, ex-British army and our security advisor, spread a map out on the hood of our vehicle. ‘We’ll take the Amarah road,’ he said. ‘The other road through Nasiriyah is not too good. Bandits are operating on that route.’ He paused. ‘I must make one thing clear. There are no weapons on this convoy. If bandits pull us over, we comply 100%. There must be no threatening gestures.’

Al, ex-British army and our security advisor, spread a map out on the hood of our vehicle. ‘We’ll take the Amarah road,’ he said. ‘The other road through Nasiriyah is not too good. Bandits are operating on that route.’ He paused. ‘I must make one thing clear. There are no weapons on this convoy. If bandits pull us over, we comply 100%. There must be no threatening gestures.’

Al, ex-British army and our security advisor, spread a map out on the hood of our vehicle. ‘We’ll take the Amarah road,’ he said. ‘The other road through Nasiriyah is not too good. Bandits are operating on that route.’ He paused. ‘I must make one thing clear. There are no weapons on this convoy. If bandits pull us over, we comply 100%. There must be no threatening gestures.’

Al, ex-British army and our security advisor, spread a map out on the hood of our vehicle. ‘We’ll take the Amarah road,’ he said. ‘The other road through Nasiriyah is not too good. Bandits are operating on that route.’ He paused. ‘I must make one thing clear. There are no weapons on this convoy. If bandits pull us over, we comply 100%. There must be no threatening gestures.’

‘I never knew Hemingway was that witty,’ my friend Allan said as we chatted in his apartment in the 5th arrondissement of Paris. I was reading aloud to him from Hemingway’s classic memoir about his early days as a struggling writer: A Moveable Feast.

The toxic legacy of a century-old lead mine in Kabwe, Zambia, is still poisoning children. A years-old class action suit on their behalf has moved to the Supreme Court of Appeal. Hamilton Wende went to Kabwe to film a documentary for Al Jazeera and reflects on the legal, moral and humanitarian dilemmas surrounding these children and their ongoing suffering.

There is something eerie about the beauty of an old bomb crater at 20,000 feet.

Poetry to me has always been a form of travel. I first learned to love poetry at boarding school in the Eastern Cape in South Africa.

I’m no supporter of the Taliban regime at all, but the news that South Africa will play Afghanistan in the World Cup caught my attention. It reminded me of my Afghan translator and fixer in the village of Khuja Bahauddin in northern Afghanistan only weeks after 9/11. I’ve never forgotten him and his love of cricket.

“Today we’re going to look for the ‘Big Five!’” South African guide Eelco Meyjes announces from the front of his safari vehicle - a strange thing to hear on the streets of suburban Johannesburg.

I was commissioned to write a piece about my face years ago and for various reasons it never saw print. I thought it would be interesting to post now.

Memory is layered into our lives. Our understanding of what happened in the past grows as we grow. And the southern autumn for me for the last decade or so has always been a time for memories.

Recently, the President of Botswana, Mokgweetsi Masisi, frustrated by European moves to ban the import of hunting trophies from his country recently threatened to send 20 000 elephants to Germany so that they “should live with animals the way you tell us to.”

At the far western end of Bulawayo’s wide streets lies a small, well-tended garden. It is the city’s railway museum. A neat lawn and a few bright coloured flower beds swelter in the heat.