Dear Jozi,
I'm feeling rather nostalgic for the early mornings when I would bust huge missions getting out of bed to make tea, braving the cold of the kitchen floor, forcing myself to get dressed for school. Trying to explain the best past of you to foreigners is so difficult.
They don't understand the beauty of being able to go to The Boheimian or Tipsy Gypsi every night, for a drink or some sweet tunes to the bitter taste of Zamelek. They could never even begin to understand the concept of being able to drive a little ways out of the city down to Splashy Fen, or having RAMfest not more than 4 minutes from your house. They will never understand the Jagermeister girls, or the thought of POGO pits. they will never understand the kind of mutual understanding of gig goers, to llet you go to the front because you're short. They will never appreciate going stage diving at Cool Runnings Fourways and our constant protests and petitions to let the municipality not close down our pubs and bars. I miss only needing to know that its the purple house on the corner and one street down from the Wimpy. I miss
I miss our drunken escapades through the streets of Melville for Joburg Burning and staying out just those few more minutes to cath the last acts in the form of 340ml and Fire Through the Window.
So here's a video, that pretty much sums up the beauty of our Country, our city, the people that we all to easily forget come from the same place as us. We forget that we're united under the seven colours that make up our flag, those seven colours that greet me when I wake up in the morning. Weather we speak Zulu or English or Afrikaans the gesture for a lighter remains the same in every language. We forget that we're all part of the same generation. We forget that we're fighting for the same cause ansd no matter how hard we try, racisim is still a big part of life for us. People here dont understand the kind of society we come from, where you have shacks and mansions on the same streets. Where the languages of Africa are all around you and you have no choice but to listen past sounds and clicks but to peoples eyes, their hands their emotions that they're pouring into their words, trying to express themselves.
They don't understand.