Waking at ten

It has been years, quite literally, since I woke at ten in the morning. But this morning, after getting up at 3.30am yesterday to catch a 6am flight to Bloemfontein, and getting home again just before nine, after a half-hour delay to my flight and a long day in-between of planning and budgeting discussions with the local college, I was startled to look at my watch and see that it was just after 10am. My god, I thought, I haven’t slept like this in ages!

I got up, and ran a bath, and climbed back into bed to wake Rob. I looked again at my watch, in disbelief – and saw, to my surprise, that it was still five past ten.

My watch had stopped. The clock radio told a different and more mundane and plausible story: it was, after all, just 6.45am. After all, these days I wake like clockwork, work-days and holidays, and today, Friday, was no different.

For a while there, though, the feeling of waking late on a weekday, luxuriating in bed in full exercise of my independence and my discretion, relaxing in the balm of a good night’s rest after the stresses and busy hours of the preceding day, was simply delicious. And, such is the power of suggestion, I have to say that, even though it is only 7.15 as I write, I feel deeply rested!

Game viewing

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Blade Nzimande, Gwebs Qonde, Marakele National Park, Mary Metcalfe, South African politics and government

Home this evening after an early start to a day out in the colleges, my thoughts turned to Marakele National Park and the weekend of game viewing and barbecuing and chilling out on the deck of our luxury tent that Rob and I have just enjoyed. There are photos to share, impressions to mull over and find the right expressions for, discussions we had about life and marriage, the past and the future, that might bear some (edited) retelling. So I sat myself down at my desk at the upstairs office window, with Rob’s newly planted window boxes bright and cheerful before me in the late afternoon light, and logged on to my mail and the internet, thinking of the hundred things I need to do this week, thinking of a few notes to record for my blog, thinking of Marakele, when my eye caught an email from the SkillzHub, something about a replacement for Mary Metcalfe, the DG for Higher Education and Training.

Last night after Rob and I got home from our relaxed and happy private escape there was an SMS from Mary, thanking those who had worked with her over the past while, and indicating that she would be going on leave as of Monday – today. We would hear in due course, the SMS indicated, who had been appointed to act in her place.

Not a good sign. From the first joint announcement by the Minister and DG, a week ago, that the DG would leave ‘by April,’ to a sudden ‘going on leave’ on Monday,  there clearly had been a horrible and rapid deterioration. A senior official told me this morning, in confidence, that one reason for Mary’s departure might have been tensions and a power struggle between her and one of the Minister’s advisers.

And so it was with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that I read the SkillzHub newsflash that it was the same adviser whom the Minister had decided to appoint, with immediate effect, as Acting Director General of the Department.

There is – there has been – no question of Mary’s competence, diligence, application, intelligence, loyalty or commitment. Not a word has been said, or whispered in corridors, that I am aware of, about great matters of policy or differences in strategic approach or indeed in any weighty matter of substance and national concern.

What, then, is the issue? Does this latest announcement tell a tale? If so, it is a sorry tale indeed, and one that should concern all of us who still love this country and believe it has a future.

Politics and music

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Johannesburg Youth Orchestra

In the midst of all the dramas – rudderless government, the Breitling Brats of the ANC Youth League, the sorry saga of Mary Metcalfe and Blade Nzimande – ordinary life continues, as it always does. And it was a relief and pleasure on Sunday to support the Johannesburg Youth Orchestra at its grand finale concert outside Johannesburg, and to see Kathy playing again, after several years away from her music.

Sometimes, not always, a picture speaks louder than words, so here are two photos.

Jazz

Mary Metcalfe

Tags

Blade Nzimande, Department of Higher Education and Training, Further Education and Training Colleges, Mary Metcalfe, South African government

There has been a pattern since the Mbeki era, of Directors-General falling out with their political masters, the Ministers. In some of these cases, the DG has been incompetent, or worse; in other cases there has been a fundamental difference of temperament or outlook; and in others again a DG has come a cropper for daring to insist on good governance, a separation of political and administrative roles, or the due exercise of accountability.

Mary Metcalfe, DG of the new Department of Higher Education and Training, and her Minister, Blade Nzimande, General Secretary of the South African Communist Party and a member of the powerful National Working Committee of the ruling African National Congress, were the last politico-bureaucratic couple one would have expected to fall into such marital difficulties. Yet yesterday, after a short weekend of leaking news, denial and uncertainty, the Minister and the DG released a brief and opaque statement confirming that Mary would be leaving her post as DG no later than April next year. Some story was concocted that it had always been the intention that she would leave once she had set up the new Department, and that that time had now come, but no-one with two brain cells to rub together could fall for that one. Something, clearly, has happened – something, in fact, has gone badly, awfully wrong – but what?

It is a secret. Why, I don’t know. To save someone, or some people, embarrassment, seems obvious enough. But it is in the public interest, presumably, that we should know.

Meanwhile, what can one say, under the circumstances? That I am shocked and surprised? Deeply dismayed? – certainly, yes, all of the above, and so no doubt are many others, at least, those outside the senior ranks of the Department, the Minister’s advisers and DG’s confidantes.

One wants, somehow, to say more – to express indignation, even outrage; though the ignoble thought arises, even as I think this, that I myself am doing some work for the Department, and should probably exercise some caution. More defensibly, and sensibly, however, I have to ask myself, what can I reasonably say, knowing next to nothing about the actual circumstances and facts of the matter?

What I can say, though, is this. Fact is, I have known each of the Ministers and DG’s of Education since 1994 (I dont know the current Minister of Basic Education, however); and I do know, from experience, that Mary is the first and only DG properly to understand the neglected and enfeebled Further Education and Training colleges sector; the first to address the challenges of its development with honesty, integrity, and real foresight; and the first, I suspect, to command widespread respect and even admiration, within the sector and amongst key stakeholders, for her forthrightness and leadership in this arena. Respect, I say, which is not to be confused with fear and loathing.

Mary, quite simply, has been the first DG since 1994 to promise deep and meaningful change, and to grasp the importance of building a colleges system.

Whatever the merits or demerits of her case, Mary’s loss as DG will set back this reform agenda, if only because it will confirm, once more, the settled view that people – Ministers, DG’s, advisers, funders and consultants – come and go; initiatives are launched with fanfare only to sink at the harbour entrance; and nothing, in the end, changes.

I have to add that I feel for Mary personally, too – mild mannered, soft spoken, a visionary with a deep and nuanced grasp of the detail, Mary worked like a true Stakhanovite in the mills and furnaces of government, to advance the cause of education, skills and higher learning. Beyond the personal, and the specific instance, the turn of events seems emblematic, also and more broadly, of a country where the lines between state and party are blurring, where partisan loyalty and arse-licking trump professionalism and competence, where those licking the arses above them only too-readily dig their heels into the hungry faces below them, kicking them down to hell like fallen angels.

According to the Business Day today, the current tally is as follows: the DG’s of Public Enterprises, Rural Development and Land Reform, and the COO in the Presidency, all have resigned in the past 14 months. The DG in the Department of Labour, a vulgar buffoon and populist, has been suspended. The DG for Communications has been dismissed. The DG in the Presidency has been transferred.

Mary Metcalfe’s going does none of us, friends, citizens, countrymen, a favour.

Posted in error

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Mary Metcalfe

I began a blog this morning, about Mary Metcalfe, Director General of Higher Education and Training, whose departure from her post was announced yesterday. Inadvertently, I posted it to the web whilst still unfinished and in draft form – some of you, who subscribe to this post, will have received it in error. I apologize.

I am writing about Mary, and what her departure means; but please bear with me for a few hours or so!

Love, care, management

Tags

care, David Goldblatt, home, love, management, photography, South African colleges

 

Home

 

Saturday. Sunlight takes its first peek into the bedroom around five in the morning, a pale golden eye lighting up the tall book case that I made nearly a quarter of a century ago, casting its rays across the bed, warming the plain white curtains and placing bands of light across the still-bare white walls. This weekend we will hang some of our pictures and artwork, here and in the living room downstairs, but first we are off to Sandton, shopping for diamonds and a wedding band for Rob, for shorts and sandals for me for our trip next weekend to the Marakele National Park, up in the Waterberg, for a Tivoli radio for Rob’s office and a few other things we need. Then to the Goodman Gallery (David Goldblatt) and Gallery MoMo to see two very different photographic exhibitions; roasted quails with balsamic vinegar for dinner tonight – and tomorrow afternoon we will head out of town for a ‘metamorphosis experience,’ the 2010 concert finale of the Johannesburg Youth Orchestra Company, where Kathy is playing and where we will enjoy an afternoon of wine, food and music in the hills at Thaba Ya Batswana.

The house is looking comfortable and inviting. Rob has been busy all week, and the week before, unpacking, sorting out the kitchen, setting out books and knick-knacks, or tchotchkes, as she calls them, planting out herbs in our empty pots: we have a home, at last, and it is ours. I thought to myself, coming home one evening after a long day out of town, this house tells a story, and it is a story of love, and care. I held Rob in my arms, quite moved, and told her so, and we had one of those moments couples have sometimes, when the world is right and everything is as it should be.

 

Township college

 

Last week I was in Cape Town and East London, visiting colleges; this week it was up at 3.30 in the morning to get ready to fly to Durban (Monday) and Kimberley (Wednesday). A team of consultants and officials from the Department of Higher Education and Training was reviewing college plans and budgets in a series of workshops across the country. The meetings took place on college campuses, and the campuses, just as our house here in Hyde Park does, each told a story. In East London and Kimberley we convened at colleges in the city centre; in Durban, we met on a campus in a poor and sprawling African township covering the rolling hills twenty or more kilometres out of town. In all three, one was obliged to use the student loos; in all three, the loos were practically unusable. Smelling of urine; broken toilet seats and locks; not a sheet of toilet paper in any of them. At one campus, another toilet behind the hall where we were working had walls that were clean to the height of a man, and beyond the arc of a human arm outstretched, the walls above, all the way to the ceiling, were a deep dark grey. They hadn’t been washed down in years; no-one had thought to bring a ladder or a long-handled mop; no-one had cared and no-one had bothered to check.

I thought to myself; what a story this tells, about how some of our colleges regard their students: just bums on seats, that’s all, not worth the simple dignity of a clean toilet and a sheet of paper to clean their arses. The colleges are under-funded, it is true, and there is a great need for training and staff development – but this was not about money or training, it was about simple supervision, basic management, ordinary accountability. More than this, it was about love and care.

If we don’t care for our students, what business do we have trying to educate them?

Home again, after a busy day out, David Goldblatt’s images, simple and monumental in their clarity of perception, timeless in the precision of their observation, stayed with us both for a long time.

Talking to my dad

Msasa

Thursday evening was the first chance I had, since we moved in last weekend, to sit out on the front porch with a cigar and a whiskey, and allow a new sense of place slowly to sink in. The little patch of lawn, the high white garden wall and the arcing branches of the trees above, sketched against the evening sky, seemed calm and still, and I found my thoughts turning to how much has happened and is about to happen, in this memorable year of change and transition.

As the cigar smoke trailed into the air, and the whiskey rasped in my throat, I thought how pleasant it would be, to sit out here with my dad, amiably smoking our cigars and sipping our whiskies, chatting about this and that. I wanted to talk to him about my new consultancy, and compare notes from his own days as a businessman, starting up his own companies, trying to make a go of it. I wanted to chat about the divorce, reminisce with him about the difficult times long past and the hope and happiness I feel now, as Rob and I plan our wedding. We would joke about marriage, and wives, in a blokish but ultimately affectionate and appreciative way, and he would tell me, I know, how glad he is that there is a good and loving woman in my life, at this stage of my life.

And as I sat there chatting to my dad, in my head, I thought how reasonable and understandable it was, that so many cultures and societies around this planet of ours should see the ancestors as their friends and guides, their protectors, those who intercede on their behalf with the angry and jealous gods.

Somewhere up there, I know, the old boy was listening.

New day

It is a bright, fresh morning, sunny and clear, and I am looking over the rooftops and tree tops from my upstairs office, in our new home – the first home, you will recall, that Rob and I have chosen together and moved into together. Around me are boxes, filing cabinets, a table for the printer, a bookshelf, all just where they landed, last night, when the movers came. Downstairs, chairs, tables, the sideboard and drinks cabinet are surrounded by boxes of kitchen ware, appliances, glassware and crockery. It might take a month, before we return to normality – except that, knowing Rob, I know we will be pretty much done in a couple of days.

Yesterday, as I was making my final rounds of the Emmarentia house, doing the idiot check, making sure that nothing was left behind, I thought to myself, this is a good feeling, in so many ways. Not just that Rob and I are finally moving into our new place; not just that there is money in the bank; but a feeling of satisfaction and self respect, that Rob and I were leaving this place infinitely, unimaginably more decent, clean, livable, than we found it after Eileen left, leaving behind her filth, her trail of detritus and the wreckage of what had been a family home. No shred of decency there. Not much self respect either.

So it felt good, as I watched the men load the last few things on the truck, in the gathering darkness, and drive away: a clean departure, a fresh start.

It was another hour or two, of course, before we had unloaded at Hyde Park and Rob and I, exhausted and beyond ourselves, could head out for a bottle of vinho verde and a plate of king prawns, at the Portuguese restaurant in Benmore Gardens. And I did feel, I must admit, a little daunted and uncertain, when we got back home, not just by the boxes and the disorganisation, but by how small, how minute the place looked, after Emmarentia.

But then, this morning, I went downstairs and opened up the house and went out into the garden, filled with light and birdsong, and my spirits lifted. It is a new day, after all.

Moved at last

One is either moved, or not moved, right? One would think.

I am speaking of houses – moving from one of them to another. Just as you can’t be half-pregnant, you can’t be half-moved. Except that we are. Everything we could take to Hyde Park in the Landy, we have. Everything we couldn’t, remains here in Emmarentia.

A removals guy called Sean – if any of you want his number, let me know – had booked to move us at 8am. Rob, being Rob, called him at 8.15. He was on his way, he said – the traffic was bad. She called after nine: he would only be there by 12 noon. No, 11.30.  By 11.30 I had taken three loads across in the Landy. At noon I called him. He would be there in 10 – 15 minutes, he said. By one, both Rob and I were calling rapid-fire: his phone was off. His mail box was full. He was not responding to sms’s.

Rob and I had the same idea at the same time – call someone else. We did, and now I am waiting on the front porch of the Emmarentia house, waiting for Heinrich and his 3-ton truck with trailer. With any luck, we will get our stuff finally moved just after dark. Rob is back at the Hyde Park house meanwhile, putting up some curtains in the bedroom, so the people in the street up the hill behind us will not look straight in, when finally – if finally – we climb, exhausted, into our own bed tonight, in our new home. Moved, fully; moved, O Lord, at last!

Not a word meanwhile from that lying shit Sean. Perhaps he has suddenly gone bankrupt, his truck repossessed, and there is a god, after all.