Shall we get entertained in the city?

The second edition of the City of Gold street art festival is rolling closer and I am going to be having some fun this time.

The festival and a fantastic blog called http://1000awesomethings.com have inspired me to do something mind-blowing and un-put-downable with my blog.

I want to count down the top 50 dance places in the greater Gauteng.

Sound undoable? Maybe a bit of a long shot, can there really be 50 of the top in Gauteng? There is only one way to find out and that is to get started.........

PS keep glued for other non-top-50-dance-paces related posts.
Awe! 

Credit: Ballerina Project NYC

Gritty Yellow Traffic Light Running

Let me take you on a journey. Imagine being in a place that will scare you the most and imagine running away from this. Now surrender yourself to the words and your imaginings and listen to this story.

It begins on the edge of the Nelson Mandela Bridge. In Braamfontein, after an icy cold rainstorm and the streets are glowing gritty yellow. Traffic lights flick green to orange to red to green to orange to red to...

I am standing next to a catholic church on Jorrison Street. Damp and sweaty. So am I. The air is cold and catches on the tips of my nostrils. It's the first lick of winter reminding us it shall be an early one this year.

It's nighttime and I am in the centre of Johannesburg

I step onto the bridge and begin to run. There are people running behind me now, faster and faster and I don't want them to catch up to me.

Over the bridge from Braamfontein and into... another dark place in Johannesburg.

And still I run.

Police cars park quietly on the sides of the road. And watch me run as I take a short cut through a darker green grass park and slam back onto the hard street.

People line some parts of the street shouting as I, we passed. They shout as the big fat bright shining-in-the-dark-light snake heaves and puffs past them.

It's a dark, cold, wet night in Jozi centre.

I run through Hillbrow and Mama's Tavern regulars leer friendly-like as me and we slap high five. This is the stomping ground of my folks!

And into another dark place in the city. The yellow snake pull me up the hill. Drums echo, ululation and cheering

Vuvu-vuvu-vuvuzela blows next to me, us.

The air quickly dries the sweat on my skin and hurts my throat. And then it's only a few kilometres until the finish line. More and more people fill the sides of the street. And hold signs

Into another dark place in Jozi. I look up and see Ponte building.

(Photo credit: Nike Running ZA)

And then the fun begins. Crowds grow and shrink people clap us along the route. Some hold signs promising, jokingly, that we should run because there is food at the end. Someone else shouts to a walking runner that "hey! this is run jozi, not walk jozi"

The yellow snake is 10 000+ runners, all reclaiming the night time streets of Johannesburg with each wet, beating step.

For the last 2km I run non-stop as more and more people cheer and sing and make us laugh, because even Pumba the fat warthog is running up this particular hill.

Kids chant run, jozi, run, jozi, run jozi until it becomes the mantra for the last kilometre. The longest kilometre I have ever run.

I snap the Nike wrist band onto the wrist of an unsuspecting little girl and she first jumps back in fight and then waves to me, glowing yellow like the snake in front of her.

I ran, ran through the streets of Jozi on a cold, wet, gritty yellow night. And I continue to run, run, back into the streets of Jozi, to continue what Nike began - reclaiming the city centre.

(watch this space)

 1:20:16.6

(Photo credit: Nike Running ZA)

(PS to my new running mates, Sars, Twitter and Nakhe - you made the three hours of the lead up to the race much fun)

Before Sunrise

Good things come to those who wake at 4am on a Saturday morning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGMlqQ8Wj00

This was the group:


And these were the ladies:


For more on the group click on the title of this blog post to be taken to the face book page.

Always keep dancing because where there is dance, there is life.

A Return

So I find myself in Pretoria again. It's like my other blog posts:

"I have returned to Zanzibar!"
"I am back in Nkhata Bay and working at Butterfly"

Now I am back in Pretoria, staying (for free?) at home. Here is the story:

I was planning on going to Maputo (again; do you see a pattern forming) to practice me some Capoeira Angola and to be taught some lessons in Argentinian tango, with an Afro theme. I would have had to have taken a bus to the Malawi/Mozambique border, then a chappa (minibus taxi) from the border to the first border town. Then I would have had to spend the night and catch a VERY early bus trip from Tete (said town) to Chimoio (horrible dusty bowl) and then spend the night. And then take a chappa to the Inchope junction and catch the bus on its route from Beira to Vilanculo (hopefully getting there in time!). Spend the night in Vilanculo (or three because I would be exhausted). Then catch the chappa from Vilanculo to Inhambane and maybe I would have been able (if I left early enough) to get the chappa from Inhambane to Maputo. Or I would have stayed the night in Inhambane and left for Maputo the next morning.

And suddenly the last thing I wanted was to have to make that tiring journey. Plus I hurt my hand and my back playing Capoeira the one day and the picking up and loading and unloading of my backpack was causing me body pains!

So I decided to catch the Lilongwe (Malawi) - Johannesburg Bus which would have taken from 6am one day to 4pm the next. Then I would have waited until 10pm that night to catch the over night Johannesburg-Maputo bus, arriving 3 days later as opposed to over a week.

I was still in Nkhata Bay when the response to a spur-of-the-moment email to a previous possible employee came through - get back to South Africa by the 7th of February and I can head up a project they are doing. 3-5 months. Perfect, I took it.

And that is how I found myself in Midrand on the 1st of February, with my backpack and hand luggage basket calling my baba (swahili for father) with a "Hi dad, I am back in South Africa, Midrand in fact. You think you could come by on your way home from work to pick me up?"

Now I am working 5 days, 8 hours and I am happy in knowing that I am working my way back to Stone Town.