Another beautiful day in Africa comes to an end, well kinda beautiful if you don’t mind the irritated sinus and itchy eyes J. To my Muslim peeps, big love for this holy month of Ramadan which starts tomorrow, hope you all stay strong and keep a pure mind and heart over the period and beyond.

Another addition to the mailing list, Philip and Mimi welcome to our little community of life love and everything else hope u enjoy your time with us. To read any of the older blogs or to comment on a blog posted, please go to www.mondaymail.blogspot.com or alternatively drop me an email with all your comments and suggestions.

So anyway I’ve been holding out on you guys, and with good reason it so appears. This year work wise has been an absolute ripper in many ways, I have been challenged, tempted, successful, failed…but ey all in a few months work. The last 2 weeks have been pretty hectic…well up until a few hrs ago J. In the last 2 weeks or so I managed to get 3 deals in, thank blessings for that cos one of those was a pretty decent 7 digit deal…I felt like we had won the Zama Zama…win today...everyday. Happy times, but true to the form of all big corporates, they expected us to make miracles happen overnight. Mind you we had pitched to them in May, if I am not mistaken. They loved our idea, but they signed at the end of August expecting to go live a week before the end of September. They know very well that our lead times are roughly 6 weeks, but do they care…errr NO! Anyway last week was plenty stress! We worked tirelessly and pulled some rabbits out of hats, granted not all the rabbits were the ones that they were after, but damnit they were pretty fantastic rabbits, given the time they had given us…one week instead of our usual 4 odd weeks. So we submitted the list to them the client came back on Monday chuffed, we breathed a sigh of relief, patted ourselves on the back for a job well done. Then last nite she calls us and says, boys…hold the fone. Bra, I nearly stripped my mo er!! After all that work, stress etc. But anyway, I built a bridge and got over it…ey that’s life…its not entirely dead I hope, but its just not going to happen when we wanted it to.

Speaking of building a bridge, and seeing how much some of you have a bit of a chuckle at my random life. Here’s one for you. So last week I’m out having a ripper with my mates, went to some Smirnoff event, free food, booze, good company…great recipe for a good nite ey. We move from there to Rosebank meet the boys and the girls have a chuckle or plenty. Then along comes the ex. But wait things were different, I don’t know whether I was no longer Superman or she was no longer Kryptonite…guess it was a bit of both, cos I got tired of being superman and underwent training to become Jason Bourne, so whether she was Kryptonite or not, it didn’t matter…Jason Bourne has no weaknesses J I was well chuffed and chuffed I should be damnit its been almost a year. So with a bounce in my step and a smirk on my face, but keeping very cool ala Jason Bourne I carried on with life…till Monday…

We became facebook friends on Monday, only to find that she is becoming friends with all my mates, most of whom she has hardly spoken to whilst we were together and most probably hasn’t even breathed a word to post us…yes its silly, but I felt exactly how grated cheese feels…grated. It really bugged me for some bizarre reason…yes fair enuff I am mates with some of her mates 3 to be exact 2 of whom invited me to be their friends and the other well that was all meeeeee. But its funny how it all works, how when u feel that its all good, something TOOOOOTAAALLLLYYY random such as this happens to make sure u remember its not all good. But anyway, as I mentioned before, I have a huge supply of cement this year so once again I built a bridge and I’m getting over it J

K so today is Thursday now, I am chuckling quietly to myself… I had a meeting and from that meeting I had to stop off at the gym to fetch my skipping rope that I had left there yesterday. On my way into the precinct I decided to put the power of positive thinking to the test and I had no idea what whole situation would be like, but all I knew is that I didn’t want to mission for parking so from the time I decided I should go and fetch my rope till the time I got to the gym all I was saying to myself was there will be parking right outside the door…something that is hardly the case, cos the precinct is insanely busy with all the offices, restaurants and shops etc. but nothing was going to sway me from my thinking. So I get close to the gym and there is not a spot of parking anywhere. As I approach the front door I see the pleasant white light at the rear of a car shining bright…indicating he is reversing to exit, I shake my head and smile, think I may even have let out a giggle. And where was this parking? I couldn’t have asked for a parking more outside the door even if I paid for it! I know I know, I am the most random guy ever, but ey thats me J

Here’s more randomness, the 12th September other than being the 30th anniversary of Steve Biko’s death, was a WednesdayJ, but we move on swiftly, the 7th September was the 10th year anniversary of the death of Mobutu Sese Seko, the president of Zaire (once again called the Democratic Republic of Congo) who was best known for the leopard skin hat he used to wear.

Mobutu born Joseph Desire Mobutu, in a town called Lisala, studied in Belgium and joined the Belgian army at the age of 19. In the 50’s he returned to Belgian Congo, whilst they were in the long process of gaining independence. He worked as a journalist and joined the Congolese National Movement of Patrice Lumumba. In 1960, Belgian Congo gained independence and was known as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Lumumba was the prime minister and Joseph Kasavubu the president. Mobutu Lumumba’s private secretary and later his chief of staff.. Lumumba fell into disfavour with the west following his allegiance to the Soviet Union (he and the president were conflicted which resulted in turmoil). In 1960, Mobutu, through a coup, removed Lumumba from office and placed him under house arrest. Full control of the country was given back to Kasavubut. Lumumba was later murdered.

Mobutu aligned himself closely to western intelligence such as the CIA. The intelligence agencies used Mobutu’s ‘country’ as a springboard to launch operations into other ‘rogue’ countries such as Angola. Mobutu led another coup 2 yrs later in 1965. This resulted in him becoming president in 1970 when he ran unopposed in the elections through his recently established party the popular movement of the revolution.

The theme of Mobutu’s 30 reign was the ‘return to African authenticity”. The first step was to change the country’s name to Zaire (apparently the old name for the Congo River) in 1971. The next move was to change his name to Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu wa za Banga (meaning the ‘all powerful warrior who, because of his endurance and inflexible will to win will go from conquest to conquest leaving fire in his wake’). After that he banned Christian names and European dress. In 1973 he did a Mugabe (kind of) and his government seized about 2000 European owned businesses which he gave to his inner circle. These businesses failed…as expected. Next on his agenda was to squash tribalism and any dissent or uprising of any form against his regime. A proper dictator he became. On the one hand he was preaching national unity on the other he was stealing from the hand that feeds the nation.

Political exploitation and corruption was his middle name (if you can fit in any more words into that name of his). Many have been heard referring to his regime as a kleptocracy. So grave was his theft and squandering and mismanagement and whatever other term u want to call it, but it was reported that in the 80’s his personal wealth was in excess of $4bn, that would be US dollars not Zim (currently ofcourse). That’s hectic. I heard reports that at the time of his death or prior to it, his personal wealth could settle his country’s debt. But anyway I guess his time would come. In the late 80’s to early 90’s the whole ‘cold war’ between the West and the Soviet Union became less of an issue and as a result the West had no need for Mobutu.

All of a sudden they could see the human right abuses and the corruption and in 1990 they ceased all aid to his country. He managed to sidestep and tap dance his way to 7 yrs of further rule till the rebellion, led by Laurent Kabilla that started in the east, grew so huge that in March 1997 he relinquished power and fled to Morocco where he died on the 7th September 1997.

I guess I will never know nor understand, but I can still ask! What the hell makes a person do such things. DRC is a wealthy country, timber, natural minerals (diamonds, gold and oil too I think) but they are plunged into poverty instead of harnessing the potential power of the region you rather focus on your pockets. $4bn just for you, and now you are dead and then…?? Oh well!!

Birthdays
10th Tumi Morule, Sefa
13th Inge and Maud
14th Will Mapham and Kyle
15th Goochie

Congrats to Jonty on his wedding the other day, looked beautiful boss! Secondly, T-bang, bro congrats on cycling almost 6000 km on your own and climbing up a mountain also 5000 meters above sea level, it shows that if you put your mind to it, even the unthinkable is possible. MAXIMUM RESPECT!!

That’s me for another week, but I thought I’d give you all a heads up. All things going according to plan, we will be launching another business in the next few days, hugely exciting times. I can’t really say more but I hope you guys are like me and when someone tells u half stories like I just did, the anticipation leaves you NUMB J

Maximum respect

Y

“que sera sera”