I fully support the recent initiative by Dr Saleem Badat, Vice Chancellor at Rhodes University, to convene a public forum to debate the ongoing water and sanitation crisis in the greater Makana area.
Author: Busisiwe Hoho
Dakawa Arts and Craft Community Centre was once a flourishing project. Formed by the African National Congress (ANC) and the Swedish Government during the apartheid era and located deep within the struggle movement, today it is struggling for funds. The centre started as an ANC textile printing workshop in Tanzania at a place called Dakawa in 1986.
Since Rhodes University has urged its students to build the community around them, the words “community engagement” have become incredibly sexy.But for most students this kind of calling can be quite daunting.
Most of Vuyo Booi’s one bedroomed house is dedicated to the children he works with. The walls are plastered with colourful paintings created by the often 40 strong group.
Having been traumatised by some horrible attempts-atcooking ranging from burnt utensils to mild food poisoning.
A professor of mathematics, who also happens to be a magician, presented the most entertaining mathematics display on record at SciFest Africa this week. Dr Arthur Benjamin had the entire audience rolling around with laughter and sheer amazement as he performed a variety of magic tricks and incredible feats of calculation at the Guy Butler Theatre.
Prof Gary Gordon, Head of Rhodes University Drama Department, will take up a post at the Hong Kong Academy of the Performing Arts (HKAPA) for two years. Gordon says: “It’s a very exciting move in one sense because it’s one of the great conservatoires in the world; it has a wonderful international reputation for training in the arts.”
As a young boy in Stellenbosch, Malvern Van Wyk Smith lived in the shadow of apartheid. Smith was 12 years old when the National Party came to power in 1948 and grew up within a school of racist thinking.
Elton John rocks. Even in the pouring rain. On Friday night, about 10 000 fans descended on the NMMU Sports Field to experience a musical legend firsthand. Sir Elton performed for the first time in Port Elizabeth as part of his Under African Skies concert tour. The area has been in the grip of a drought, but the heavens opened on PE on Friday evening.
I arrived expecting to see an offbeat anthropologist swallow a chocolate covered cockroach. But what I found was an explorer. Investigating how animals eat, David Raubenheimer’s vast array of exotic work takes him to locations so intriguing, it distracts me from the content of his talk.