Fuckin special

https://youtu.be/axrqVfuGHh0

Youtube, warping your mind

SUGAR Worse than heroin, twice as tasty

No more sugar

It's those granulated cyrstals we infuse into our cafinated beverages. The white powdery substance no breakfast cereal can be without, we crave it's stickly caress. It's sugar.

Chemical component,  fructose di carbonate sucrose. Science has now found it to be more addictive than opiates,
A generation of hyped out, buzzed out candy loving kids strung out on Sugar Smacks, Frosties and Coco poofs.

Sugar has beem found to be so addictive that rats

Although sugar wont kill you, but blue batmans may.

Fear of the pay-day

Recent newspaper reports about the hifh accident rate over pay day weekends has lead to an interesting phenomenon, mp one gas gone out,
Town is empty.

The newspapers and their fear mongerjng have lead us all to be sensible with our meagre wages ans instead squander the collective booty on things like food and rent.

Which for me is completely ridiculous.

The Medicine Man

Lungiswa had other things he could be doing that Saturday than follow his uncle around a mountainside looking for bushes and digging up roots.

“Hey uncle Joe, are we almost done here?

The slapping of N’anga Wuyo (Joe) Modisa’s car-tyre sandals came to a screeching stop. He was dressed in the traditional white wrap and leopard print pants of a Xhosa herbalist.

“What can you do that is more important than learning your culture. It’s your culture!” he shouted without turning around.

Joe marched off and dismissed his nephew’s show of disobedience with a stick wave and a “Tsk suga-man”

Lungiswa hurried up after him.

His uncle’s mood was soon to brighten however, because upon rounding a ridge he found what he was looking for. A thin and spindly stem poking out the veld earth. Lungiswa knew it lead to a bulb buried beneath, a bit like an onion if you knew what to look out for, he just couldn’t remember what it was used for?

His uncle set to work digging it up.

“What’s this one for again uncle?” he asked. All roots and bulbs looked the same to Lungiswa,
“Ahh mfan, the bombillo bulb when dried and sliced and taken with a nip of brandy will relieve flu symptoms.” his uncle regaled, happy to hear his nephew was taking an interest in the subject matter.

“It can also be used crushed as a fine powder...”
Lungiswa concentration strayed like a lone hyena scamping the landscape, he remembered the stories the mystical properties and practices, people’s claims of being knocked out when hyena fur is burnt, making someone fall in love with you by using a hardi da feather,

“Bring that newspaper, come we go now!” 

Lungiswa calmy complied , he could tell his uncle wanted to get going as soon as possible,he’d been caught by conservation offices before for illegally harvesting protected species. He opened the newspaper pages, he started to read “Decapitation, police on the hunt,” before the bulb was dumped into with a clod of blood clotted coloured earth and he could read no more.

The pair loped down the hill side, a scene acted out throughout the generations, medicine man and apprentice.

The couple soon reached a tar road in the suburb of Camps bay, jumped into a taxi and headed for town. His uncles’ stretched earlobes swung to the sway of the stop start as the taxi made it’s way through Sea-point, passing the newspaper headline ads strung from lampposts,they read “Muti Murder Terror Reign” and “Police on the Hunt” 

The two disembarked the taxi on Strand street and made their way to the top deck station platform where his uncles consulting room come dispensary was and still is.

“Opening hours 9-5pm weekdays

Sat by special appointment” the sign reads

His uncle removed the rusted lock from the red rusty painted security gate and pushed the white washed windowed door open.

The exotic mix of spices, fur and vegetable smells rudely pushed their way into Lungiswas’ nostrils like a bad mannered commuter boarding a train.

Strange dried shapes and textures hung from the low roofed room, his uncle pushed passed them and into a back room, Lungiswa gazed about wide eyed and then flopped into a animal skin bean bag on a threadbare carpet. A candle with spent matches, a red coke bottle lid, chicken bone, beaded string, and a collection of other curiosities where splayed in front like an African themed Kim’s game.

Lungiswa could hear his uncle on the phone in the next room, his Xhosa wasn’t the best but he could make out the words, “police” “evidence” “arrest”
His uncle came rushing through the consulting room.
“Mfan, you stay here, I have to go somewhere on urgent business.”

“I’m back soon, Mama Tando is coming in for here rheumatic herbs, they are there in the blue plastic, Temba is coming with bones from the butcher, give him the R50, and don’t touch anything else while I’m gone, okay”

Within seconds his uncle had grabbed his walking stick and with the slide of a taxi door and the vroom of a HIACE engine was gone. Lungiswa was left in the lingering silence the beads and dried barbles above him jingled in the breeze from the open door.

He sat for a bit taking his surrounding in for a moment, then stood up and walked behind the weathered oak counter, it’s glass topped cabinet full with all manner of animal, mineral and vegetable.

He opened a few draws, they were stuffed with plastic bags and, other shop type items, then a small box tucked underneath caught his eye. It was waxed but seemed to have a greasy stained quality at it’s sides and bottom. He slid it closer with his foot, it had a strong smell coming from it, he slowly lifted it’s top flaps, but dropped them back down in a recall of horror when he realised what it contained.

Dead give-away

When the news broke of the Ohio slave girls and Amanda Berry's dramatic ordeal and rescue, details of the rescue came to light and when they did an unlikely hero emerged,

Here is that hero

Charles Ramsey a local resident and neighbour had heard the screams and together with some other community members come to the girls aid.

And as is normal, heros be they true or unlikely ones are often emanated and their deeds acknowledged.  It is said that once the story of Charles heroic deeds came to the fore a local business honored him with a card that entitled him to eat a burger daily from that establishment free for life.

South African learner

There is big push for school students to focus on Maths and Science subjects because to drive economic growth it is vital for the country to supply those related industry with the future work force.  

Another school of thought is that entrepreneurial skills should be taught in schools, practical real-life small business skills that can be put to work ensuring school leavers are able to contribute to broad based economic driving.  

I think they're right, here is one school aged entrepreneur that's making it happen.