| | Sho... So much to blog for such a busy and eventful week. 
The Date: It was magnificent. Euphoric. Glorious. Chocolate.
It started off with a lovely dinner at Soi, which is perhaps one of the
Joburgboy's favourite restaurants in Joburg. The Vietnamese/Thai
cuisine is to die for, and is extremely popular evidenced by the long
line to get in and the equally long wait list. After polishing off a
dish of pork in a caramalised sauce with peppers, we headed off
for some ice cream at Baglios on Sandton Square. We were rather
ingenious with our choice of three different flavours each - that way
we both got to taste SIX different flavours each.  We then walked
around Sandton a bit, spilling our ice cream all over the place (for I
feel the ice cream was too heavy for the little bowls we had), after
which we decided to go to the very oh-my-gawd Fashion TV Cafe. The
Fashion TV Cafe is one hot ass venue, and with our cosmopolitans, we
looked like true cosmopolites in the hip glam surroundings of Sandton.
The music was good too, and the crowd was glitzy yet rather laid back
and friendly. After that, well we went back to our respectives chariots
amidst much fraternizing ("to associate with others in a brotherly or
congenial way...")
The date was a lovely end to a week that has seen many ups and downs, such as...
The phone call: I
believe it was Thursday as I was preparing my presentation on women
that I got a phone call from an unknown number. As it characteristic
with me and unknown numbers, three thoughts suddenly came into mind: it
was either the bookstore where I am serving out my final month of
neanderthallic frustration, or it was my new 'employer,' or it was a
firm offering (or not) me articles.
It was the latter. However, the moment I heard 'Colleen' on the other
end I knew immediately I had not got in. My heart sank as she informed
me this was a courtesy call to tell me that it had been a really tough
call for the team, but that I didn't make it. She was at least
incredibly empathetic to my plight, and after she had wished me luck
with my future, I banged my head on my desk in absolute frustration.
I'm sooooo tired of being rejected. I'm sooooooo tired of my future
being in limbo. All I want is certainty. So after my brief mourning
period (I remember thinking to myself "I want to be miff"), I started
making plans for my next conquest, that being a clerkship at the
Constitutional Court. Me thinks it would be sooooo kewl to get that. I
have to submit a piece of writing (I wrote an excellent essay
critiqueing the Con Court's decision in the prostitution case, S v Jordan) as well as show evidence in research (which I'm currently doing on xenophobia in South Africa).
The Presentation: On
Thursday night my Model UN society held our Opening Banquet to welcome
new members and get them mingling with everyone. It was also a good
opportunity to celebrate International Women's Day, and we did this by
having a skit on women by someone, as well as presentation by me. I
made a powerpoint presentation (I shall give the link to it in another
post) on two issues affecting women in Southern Africa:
1) The lack of sanitary products in Zimbabwe: With Zimbabwe experience
hyper-inflation, and the pulling out of Zimbabwe of the health care
company, Johnson & Johnson, the country suddenly found itself with
a massive shortage of female sanitary products. And so the country had
to import these from South Africa: however, because demand is so high
and supply is little, the price has sky-rocketed, and thus the
'ordinary' Zimbabwean woman cannot afford to purchase these products,
as they cost roughly half of the average weekly wages. And sooooo...
(this is where you should start reading)... there is this international
drive to provide women in ZIm with sanitary products, and my
presentation was on how we should do the same and help out.
2) Black Lesbians in South Africa: this is a group of women in South
Africa that unfortunately is still treated with disdain and are abused
by South African males in particular, as their stereotypically
masculine ways are seen as challenging male superiority in this very
patriarchal society of ours.... And my presentation basically said we
must tell people to stop being homophobic and sexist etc etc etc...
The presentation was accompanied at first by 'Little Girl Blue' by Nina Simone, followed by 'Sisters are doing it for themselves'
by Aretha Franklin as the presentation got more upbeat and
GOOOO-WOMEN-GOOOO-ish. People seemed to like it for they said 'That was
a good presentation Thomas,' however there was seemingly an
undercurrent of pissed-off-ness amongst my fellow Comm members, for
they said I did not consult with them about the presentation...
This leads me to my next point...
My ditziness:
There are times when I just do not hear people. Or when I think I say
things to people, but I don't actually do so. Or when people say
something, and then I say the exact same thing thinking that I'm being
incredibly original.
You see, I really did think that I had discussed this presentation with
my Comm members: but I hadn't, hence their pissed-off-ness and their
surprise about the presentation.
Or this morning, Sarah asking me to get her brown sugar for her coffee.
And whilst I was getting Sarah, I saw the brown sugar and thought to
myself, "Oh, she WON'T want brown sugar." Dumb ass me.
Or also this morning, at a Model UN workshop for some kiddies going to
New York for a Model UN conference, I read a paragraph from a document
that Sarah had just read!
Quote Heather Hart: "Someone was asleep!"
Quote everyone else: "Ha Ha Hoooo Hoooo Hee hee."
Quote me: "Oh fuck."
Perhaps this ditziness has something to do with the weird dreams I have been having lately...
The Dreams: I think my
weirdest dream has to have been the one where I dreamt I was an old
black lady in the Rwandan genocide running through the jungle clutching
a baby whilst gun-totting Hutu soldiers were in hot pursuit (I was
Tutsi, you see). I escaped by rolling down a hill.
Then about a week ago I dreamt I was observing an Air India 747 taxying
out at London Heathrow for a charter flight to Joburg. It was thus full
of Indian South Africans. As it took off, however, it blew up, and
there was groot skandaal because it was full of SOUTH AFRICANS.
Then two nights ago I dreamt that I was a pregnant blonde woman, who
had to get off an Air India flight that was flying Mumbai - Frankfurt -
New York, because I was experiencing cramps and was thus in labour. It
ended up being a false alarm, however, for I stopped having cramps and
was no longer in labour.
Weird, neh?
The interesting lecture:
On friday we had a fascinating lecture in my HIV/Aids and the Law
course. It was conducted by the fabulous Mark Heywood, who is the
director of the Aids Law Project, which does fantastic work in using
the law to promote change in the government's pathetically apathetic
response to HIV/Aids.
One of the interesting things I learnt was how HIV prevention is to a
large degree seen from a masculine perspective. For instance,
government will distribute 500-million male condoms, but only
distribute 5-million female condoms. Thus if the male does not want to
put on a condom, the female is to a large degree powerless in stopping
him. If, however, she had easier access to a femdom, it might perhaps
be easier to prevent the transmission of the HIV, and in so doing,
decreasing infection rates.
Another way to decrease infection rates is through microbicides.
Microbicides are compounds that come in the forms of gels and cremes,
that can be applied inside the vagina or rectum to protect against
STDs, in particular HIV. As this website
says, the availability of microbicides would greatly empower women as
they are a preventative option that women can easily control and that
do not require the cooperation, consent or even knowledge of the
partner. Essentially what the compounds do is act as a barrier to
the HIV cells from reaching the target cells.
"A recent cost-benefit analysis conducted at the London School of
Hygiene and Tropical Medicine indicates that the introduction in 73
lower-income countries of a microbicide which reduced the risk of
infection by 40%, at 30% coverage, would avert approximately 6 million
HIV infections over 3 years in men, women and children (Charlotte
Watts, personal communication). In addition, this would reduce the
health care costs (excluding the cost of antiretroviral therapy) by a
staggering 3.2 billion US dollars. This implies that a microbicide with
relatively low-effectiveness could have a substantial impact against
the global HIV epidemic if it were used by a significant number of
women."
However, because of a lack of funding, governments in poorer countries
and civil society have been unable to afford microbicides, largely
because, as this website indicates, "large pharamaceutical companies have not invested significantly in this
field, pimarily because microbicides are a classic "public health
good" which would yield tremendous benefits to society but for which
the profit incentive to private investment is low."
Large Pharmaceutical Companies are bastards, neh?
A photo: To make this post visually interesting, I shall post a photo I took of Hillbrow, an inner city suburb in Joburg.
That's all for today kiddies. Hope you had fun! 
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| | Posted 3/10/2007 9:33 AM - 93 Views - 8 eProps - 5 comments
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