Sun is shining, the weather is sweet, Make you wanna move your dancing feet now
To the rescue, here I am, Want you to know, yall, can you understand? - Bob Marley

I cant believe. iYo!!! So last week I am in a rather chipper mood, same mood that I feel I generally find myself in nowadays, and what do I get? Emails saying ok so who is she? Etc. etc. come on now, cant a negro just be happy?

Let me share something that happened to me last week, possibly as a result of my gleeful mood, which I took into a client meeting. I am not saying this to make u all feel jealous, but I guess feel jealous if u must who am I to tell u how to feel J, anyway so I go to a client meeting blah blah, it ends off with me getting invited to a Johnnie Walker Green Label experience, not red, not black, but yes Green… so what is this experience, we were to be chauffeur driven in a Bentley Continental GT, to Lanseria airport, where we would be flown in a Lear Jet, a Gulf Stream II I think it was, to the Lost City, where we would learn about whiskey, get to mix our own concoctions, head over to the Palace for lunch and networking, then take a speedy 15min trip in the Lear Jet back to Lanseria. Whole experience lasted the better part of 7 hrs. The only ‘dissapointment’ though was that there was no Bentley but instead we were transported Porsche Cayenne, driven by a lovele lass, oh darn ;-) …living the dream.

But now to much more important things! I could think of nothing better to send you than this. I have this good friend, he speaks a ton of shaite, but his heart is definitely in the right place and this extract below will show you exactly what I mean…

The Lonely Road Challenge

Africa and in particular Sub-Saharan Africa is faced with a threat that could see it lose more than 10% of its productive population (66 million people) by 2015. Already we are seeing the social effects of this threat with over 12 million AIDS orphans. In South Africa the problem has reached such dire levels that the only response now is damage control. If we had responded early enough we might have saved millions of lives but we are faced with over 1 million AIDS orphans in South Africa alone. We are not proposing to fix the problem across Africa or South Africa itself but if we can focus on an area that has so little even a small offer of support could mean thousands of children could be given a glimmer of hope.

I grew up a privileged black child in Southern Africa. I had parents who worked hard to protect me, feed me, educate me and love me. I have not appreciated nor given honour to that sacrifice until faced with the plight of children left without anyone to provide for them. The thought of these children and what they must go through at that age is one of shame and embarrassment that I didn’t have the foresight to see the great privilege life had bestowed on me. I would not have been able to fend for myself, feed myself nor find the strength to survive. Every day these children are faced with choices no child should have to encounter, they are faced with trials and tribulations that most of us only dream of or read in books. They are placed on a lonely road that seems to have no end but they remain on it in the hope that there is something out there, like only a child could believe.

I am going to get on a bike and cycle to Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, alone and unsupported. At the end of that journey I will climb Mt. Kilimanjaro the highest peak in Africa. I will face many choices, trials, tribulations and I will suffer physically, emotionally and spiritually but my suffering will pale into insignificance when compared to the lives of orphaned children living in Dikgale in Limpopo province for example and it is for them that I do this.

The journey will start from my home in Johannesburg, South Africa and I will cover over 5,000 kilometers on a bicycle. I will travel through more than six Southern and East African countries namely: South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania. I will have to climb Kilimanjaro more than 5 times in ascendancy on the bike. It will take more than 2 months and to be faced with a mountain to climb at the end of such a long journey it would only be the final challenge to what is already a daunting possibility. But it will be a poignant reminder of the mountain that faces all children without support after they manage to survive their brief childhoods. They are required to participate in a society that didn’t offer them anything in the first place and to do so at the same level as all of us privileged individuals.

We will attempt to summit on approximately 25/26 August 2007 and it will bring the challenge to an end.

We are trying to raise over R2,5 million. These funds will be placed in a trust for the support of orphaned and vulnerable children and will also be used to provide education and awareness, testing facilitites and healthcare advice to the community which will include building community Anti-HIV/AIDS capacity as a proactive response to the epidemic.

This attempt and its ideological parallels will hopefully also raise the awareness and understanding of the challenges issues and hopelessness that faces our children and our people… not just in South Africa but on the rest of the continent. I will take on the lonely road challenge because I must and it is my destiny

Thabang Abner Skwambane
(Privileged South African)

Please note that the lonelyroad.org website will only be up and running in 2 weeks time. But this is exactly what I am talking about. After reading this it made me want to get on my bicycle and join him, but I have to be honest, that’s too hectic for me. I wish you well my friend, I hope it all goes well in terms of you getting there and back safely and achieving your goal of at least R2.5mil for the kids of Dikgale. In the words of Al “good men are few” and u ‘Banger’ are definitely one of them, even before u finish your journey, the thought alone boss puts u streets ahead of many of us. I will forward all the details to you guys when I have them regarding the bank account and website etc.

Birthdays
25th Damsie
27th Fedile
30th Randall

Another week done and dusted, here’s to another equally as fulfilling in all ways. One more week of Lent. This Lent has been very easy and loads of fun for me!

Maximum respect

Y
‘Que sera sera’