Category Archives: South Africa

Short update from Obz

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This weeks Wednesday post will be a short one, I’m tired from surfing and don’t have much inspiration.

Got back from Namibia, moved into Obz, where I’m house sitting a friendly Burner’s fab apartment, overlooking Devil’s Peak. Spending even more time on Lower Main Rd, mainly drinking coffee and using the internet at Hello Sailor and bolo’bolo. Went to the Karoo with lovely people, saw a lot of wildlife and even more stars including some shooting stars. Realised I still need to braai a lot before I’m even close to becoming a braai master. Took some more pix with my super cheap plastic fantastic analogue camera (none of that Lomo bull, the real crappy deal) and got my Fairphone underway from Belgium to Cape Town, so expect some pix some time soon. Lovin’ Obz and Salt River (walking home from Woodstock bus station). Doing some paid web development work and soon some paid modeling, so finally feel like I’m earning my stay in South Africa. Thinking more and more about moving to Cape Town for a more permanent stay. That a bout wraps it up for now. Check back next week or subscribe to my blog via e-mail using the form on the right at the bottom. And I’m out!

Cape Namibia Route

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This weeks Wednesday post, is about my hitch hiking adventure to Namibia. You know it’s been an intense trip when you come back and feel like you need some quiet time to process everything, this has been such a trip. Two weeks ago I set off to hitch hike toward Namibia from Cape Town. We cheated a bit accepting a ride from Biánne’s parents to Vrededal, which is already halfway to the Namibian border.

Bianne and me ready to hit the road, at the gas station in Klawer

Ready to hit the road

After spending a day in this Northern part of the Western Cape with a trip to Strandfontein, the game was on and we set off riding our thumb from Ruwe on the N7, the Cape Namibia route. My only experience of hitch hiking being in European, we tried asking drivers for a ride at the gas stations. After two hours of unsuccessfully asking strangers for a ride north and finding that they either (claimed to) have a full ride or going south, back to Cape Town the gas station attendant told us they didn’t allow hitch-hiking. So we joined the people trying to get a ride on the side of the highway.

Highways in South Africa aren’t like the ones in Europe, so cars can actually stop there and this is the way everyone who lifts here does it (didn’t see any other white people try it though). After another 3 hours, one dodgy truck driver asking for a lot of money and refusing the a ride because it was only to the next town, we got in the back of a bakkie for a ride to Vanrynsdorp,  the next town. This is the way to hitch, at least in this part of the country, since almost all our rides where working people who let us jump in the back of their pick-up.

This first ride was the nicest, sitting in the back of an open bakkie (most had a canopy), the wind blowing trough your hair, rolling trough the open landscape of the South African West Coast is pure bless. Two more one hour waits got us, John, giving us a ride to Bitterfontijn where he at his and his “partner” Dawn’s guest house he insisted we stayed the night. This provided him with a good excuse to offer us beers and drink some himself, telling us about his life and how the Lord provides for everything we need. “That is, the Christian god, not the one from Islam”.

Apparently we where just coping with beginners misfortune, since the next day it never took more than 15 minutes to get a ride. The first on got us to Garies (chief town of the Namaqualand) where we ate a good hearty breakfast at die Koperketel, cat lovers who spoiled their felines so much that they where as wide as high and could hardly walk. From there got a lift to the middle of nowhere in Northern Cape but before the scorching heat could take us down we got to a ride to Springbok, arriving in town around noon.

The infamous Springbok Lodge, a long-standing travellers café known for its rude service as well as its impressive mineral collection (Northern Cape being a mining region, mainly diamonds) provided us with lunch and cold beer. After that we located the Caravan Park, outside of town, where John had told us his pall Anton would take good care of us. We found him in the “office”, a thin, tall, man with glasses. In a half an hour monologue he told us all about his 250 cc motorcycle, stop and go’s on the N7, the Caterpillar 5600 with a special water tank. Maybe he had been locked up in this little office not seeing people for too long, maybe the heat that got to his head. Maybe it was growing up in a small mining town, where heavy machinery is the only exciting thing, but we found it hard to make any sense of it all.

We managed to dip into the small pool filled with green water and spent the night camping there. The 150 Rand would turn out to be the only time we had to pay for accommodation on the whole trip. The boereworst and mielies an unknown fellow camper had left in our tent provided us with a breakfast before we hit the road to finally get to Namibia. It took us 50 Rand to get to Noordoewer on the other side of the border, the only time we paid for a ride. When we finally gathered the courage to leave air-conditioned Wimpy, we got our first taste of the Namibian heat. Even in the shade the hot North Western wind would hit you in the face as if you just opened a hot oven.

It turned out to be the owner of Wimpy who gave us a ride to Felix Unite (owned by his brother-in-law). Our possible CouchSurfing host at Aussenkehr was and Wula, who we could ask about a job on the Orange River was out on a river trip. So we ended up chilling by the pool drinking cheap Windhoek and Tafel lager and pitching our tent at the Felix. The next day we heard from Wula that we had just missed the river season and there ws no more work as a river guide until March.

Hiding from the sun under towels  we managed to hitch a ride to Aussenkehr, which turned out to be just a Spar surrounded by straw shacks for seasonal workers, working on the grape orchards. Aimlessly walking we passed the clinic, where it was clear we where a bit lost, white people with backpacks not being a common sight. Luckily Johannes, the friendliest and most gay boy helped us out and offered us to pitch our tent at the Christian Community Centre behind the clinic.

As it turned out Antonie our CouchSurfing host passed by to drop off frozen fish at the community centre and we could spend the night at his air-conditioned guest house next to the Orange River. He managed the Cape Orchard Company, the second largest table grapes producer in the Southern Hemisphere and making up the big farm that is Aussenkehr. The next day some awkwardness occurred as it seemed we were already outstaying our welcome. Antonie dropped us of at the Norotshama River Resort to get a ride out of Aussenkehr from there.

The receptionist told us her manager was driving to Noordoewer at noon and we could probably get a ride with him. Juan, was heading to Felix Unite since he was in desperate need of some time off, his season also ending. Given the choice between trying to find a ride to Keetmanshoop (a very depressing place according to Juan) only to pay for a train or bus towards the coast seemed like the lesser option when he invited us to join him at Felix. Lost of drinks and craziness around the pool, the only sensible place to stay in 47° heat. Literally a truckload of Norwegian girls in luminescent bikinis turned up, braving the mid day sun with their Scandinavian skin. Lots of Jägerbombs with whiskey chasers gave way to dancing and playing pool at a Noordoewer shabeen.

The next day Juan invited us back to Noroshama, where we could stay for free right next to the river. It was too hot to do anything but sit in the pool or in our air-conditioned room, but I could think of worst ways to spend the days I needed to get out of RSA to get another 3 months in the country. After 3 days including a braai at Noroshama’s impressive braaiplek we got a ride back to the border with Wula. The kilometre between the Namibian and RSA border posts we walked and the South African policeman confided in us that he would love to go hitch hiking to one day.

The next three days we stayed at the farm Krisjan was taking care of on the South African side of the river. After which he gave us a ride back to Vrededal which took half a day where hitching in the other direction took us three days. Another ride with Biánne’s mom from the gas station in Ruwe where we started our adventure back to Cape Town where the 33°C heat felt refreshing after weeks of plus 40°. Lots of  good times and strong impression only road tripping can give. Cape Town is a good place to come back to, almost feels like coming home.

Off to Namibia

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OK, I put it out there so no coming back from it, I promised a new blog post every Wednesday. Biggest thing today is hitch hiking to Namibia. Since I am here in South Africa on a tourist visa and have been here for almost 3 months, it’s time to do a border run. Also a good reason to finally get out of Cape Town that has treated me so good that I found it very hard to leave.

So off to Namibia it is. This will be only my second real hitch hiking adventure (the first one was hitching from Brussels to Berlin) and first time in South Africa. But the road fairy is favouring me, already have a ride to Vrededal, which is half the way to Namibia. Must be good karma from picking up people roadtripping trough Europe with my van.

Not sure what to expect from Namibia, Orange River and Fish River Canyon are on the way and definitely on my list and Kolmanskop, the ghost town that is half buried in the sand is on there too. Probably try to stick to the coast since everybody has warned me that it is going to be scorching hot. I love desert and heat, those are a few of the reasons I love Nowhere, so we’ll see how this goes. Will post an update of my adventures, so check this space next week!

My gunsteling Afrikaanse woorde

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I’ve been making a list of my favourite words in Afrikaans. My mother tongue is Dutch and Afrikaans sounds a lot like it, being an offshoot of the Dutch. So I understand Afrikaans pretty well, it just sounds like a simpler version of Dutch and some of the words sound archaic, since it came from 18th century Dutch, spoken by the first settlers. I love the language and here is a list of my favourite words:

  • babelas: hung over, plenty opportunity to get proper babbalas in Cape Town.
  • baie: many, a lot, in Dutch it would be the plural of bay, so I imagine it comes from there. My favourite use is “baie liefde“, lots of love or bays of love.
  • bakkie: a pick up truck, used to move anything and everything, South Africa’s most trusted vehicle, often a Hilux. Also a bowl.
    “Die hond drink se melk uit ‘n bakkie uit, hierdie is ‘n Hilux.” The dog drinks his milk out of a bowl, this one is a Hilux.
  • bergie: a homeless person, they used to sleep on the hills of Table Mountain, now they sleep under bridges or on the stoep of an abandoned house. Bergies will sort you out with anything or at least tell you they can. I’ve seen bergies completely strip a row of building in two days, selling off the scrap wood and metal. Be nice to bergies and give them something if you can, you never know when you need their help.
  • braai: barbecue, although it is much more than that, it’s what South Africa is about. You braai on wood fire and it takes a braai master not to let those boereworst and braaibroodjies burn. In SA September 24th is nasionale braaidag a national holiday (actually Heritage Day) where the whole country unites around the braai. You haven’t seen South Africa unless you’ve been to a braai.
  • dagga: weed, cannabis, no matter what you’re used to smoking at home, beware SA dagga, it’s potent stuff and the locals smoke it pure.
  • dankie: thank you, if someone you think someone wants you to “buy a donkey”, they are saying “baie dankie”, thank you verry much
  • deurmekaar: confused, literally trough-each-other
  • doos: in Dutch would translate as box, and has that meaning in Afrikaans, although if someone calls you a doos they mean something different. Not as bad as poes, but not a very nice thing to call someone.
  • dwelms: drugs, not the ones you buy at the pharmacist
  • gooi: literally throw, used to say “go for it”
  • grondboontjiebotter: peanut butter
  • gunsteling: favourite, a “gunst” in Dutch is a favour. Just sounds so nice, Cape Town for sure is my gunsteling plek op aarde.
  • fok: fuck, although it sounds much nicer in Afrikaans, as in “hy’s a fokken poes!” or in fokof, to get out of somewhere, to fuck off
  • kak: shit, the opposite of lekker, unless something is “kak lekker“, also used in “talking kak“.
  • kuier: kuieren literally is to stroll, but to kuier is hanging out with someone
  • lekker: nice, delicious, in Dutch you would only use it do describe food. Lekker is probably the most used Afrikaans words in Cape Town, but then Cape Town is lekker and there’s a lot of lekker people in Cape Town!
  • mal: mad, crazy, as in needing treatment in a malhuis
  • moerse: a hyperbole, very much, very big or a lot of, like: “Namibia in Jan. es moerse warm”
  • nou nou: just now, in Cape Town could be anything in between now (nou) and in 4 hours
  • poes: cat in Dutch, don’t call your cat a poes though that would be very rude. You cannot say anything more rude than “joe mah sah poes“, I won’t even translate it, but it’s about your mother.
  • skelm: rascal, crook, doing something illegal is skelms 
  • skoenlapper: butterfly
  • skollie: hooligan, almost the same as skelm
  • snaaks: funny
  • stadig: slow or slowly
  • stoep: the porch, front of your house, in Dutch it would mean pavement.
  • tronk: jail
  • verkleurmannetjie: chameleon, literally from Dutch: “little colour changing man”
  • vinnig: fast

More Cape Town slang, mostly Afrikaans in Your Guide to Cape Town Slang.

The other side of Cape Town

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I have written a lot about how beautiful Cape Town and South Africa are, how much I love this place and it’s people. I have written nothing on the other side of it, because it is invisible to me, because I choose not to see it. At the Anarchist Bookfair last Saturday I got a big reality check, hearing the story of grass-root social activists of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the South African shackdwellers’ movement.

Gugulethu, Philippi, Nyanga, Khayelitsha are not just places I as a white, middle class European tourist don’t go to. These are places I choose not to know exist. These are places without electricity, running water, sanitation. The people who stand up against eviction and for land, housing and dignity are attacked by the police, shot, killed.

While on the Atlantic seaboard people enjoy the good life in their villa’s, on the other side of Table Mountain, others live in the worst possible conditions. I would like to pretend I am somewhere in the middle of those two extreme’s. I’m not, I am filthy rich compared to the people living in shacks on the Cape Flats. When the police shoot them for standing up for their right to a decent life, they shoot to protect my middle class interests.

“If you want to show solidarity with us, come to our township, buy a shack, live in it.” Saying this to the white middle class anarchists at the bookfair last Saturday, the angry young black man knew nobody would come live in Khayelitsha. Nobody would choose to live in these conditions. But we will not change the shackdwellers’ living conditions just by donating some stuff or by sending an NGO to help.

I do not know myself how I can truly help, for now I can only share the stories of their struggle:

Cape Town Honours Nelson Mandela

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I will leave the words about Madiba to a South African as she can write them better and I could not give him the honour he deserves with my own words. I would like to take this opportunity to (again) write about South Africa and Cape Town and what it means to me.

I heard the news of Mandela’s passing only around noon since I was to babalas to get up earlier, but the news was a reality check about how pathetic I was to feel sorry for myself for drinking too much. Visiting the Cape Town Honours Nelson Mandela exposition in Civic Centre felt like the most fitting a day like this.

“The many people who know Cape Town as their home can trace their ancestries from across the world.” – Nelson Mandela

Going to the bus stop and seeing Mandela’s face overlooking Cape Town from the building opposite Cape Town train station (my first image of Cape Town arriving by bus about 2 months ago) is symbolic of how much he is part of this city. His face is on so many murals, buildings and a highway carry his name, but most of all his idea of a Rainbow nation lives in the diversity of Cape Town.

I cannot claim to have known Mandela, not as a president or father or tata as he is lovingly called by South Africans. I do feel his idea of a rainbow nation is something I saw even before arriving in South Africa, seeing the very diverse  people boarding the plane to Johannesburg in Adis Abeba. I continue to experience it every day I am in this beautiful country. I also feel the smile Mandela seems to have always shown in the warmth of all the South Africans I meet.

“In Cape Town resides part of the souls of many nations and cultures, priceless threads in the rich diversity of our African nation” – Nelson Mandela

Sitting on a terrace on Greenmarket square, the waiter does a little dance to the music of street musicians playing kwela music, I feel this is how Cape Town honours their tata, in a festive, not a sad way. And more than by buying flowers to put at a memorial I feel like honouring him by buying The Big Issue form someone on the street. The klein bietjie flowers at churches seem to show that South Africans feel the same.

Drinking my coffee there a woman asks me if I am South African, I’m not and she goes back to her own table on the other side of the street. I contemplate on how long you have to live here to call yourself South African. Cape Town has been many people’s home and I do feel it is mine a bit too. The woman, Amanda , comes back and ask to join me for a coffee. She is from Switzerland and I explain I am living here since a few months. Her first enquiry was to know from me if there was anything special happening today.

“Cape Town, more than any other city in South Africa, has been home to people from different cultures for a long, long time.” – Nelson Mandela

Apart from the MyCiTi buses being free for the day, official buildings hanging the beautiful South African flag half post and banners with the words “Mandela”, “father”, “tata”, “Madiba”, there doesn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary on this hot spring day in Cape Town. Might it be the relaxed vibe of Capetonians that keeps them from too explicit shows of mourning over the death of Mandela or celebrations of his life?

It seems fitting that on a day like this I would end up talking to another European, about why we are here instead of Switzerland or Belgium, what makes South Africa so special and how much I feel at ease in Cape Town. She doesn’t understand her South African colleagues who are happy to live in cold Switzerland and have the opinion that South Africa has no future. I feel this country has a brighter future than any European country and it invites me to make a good future for myself. Besides, the weather is better here.

“Let us sing, let us dance for Madiba” – Brenda Fassie

After my coffee and a nice chat I head back home to Woodstock, to have a little rest, I haven’t completely recovered form last night’s drinking and want to have a little rest before going to a concert of The Future Primitives tonight. I feel like dancing for Madiba tonight!

Devil’s Peak and Woodstock

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After living in Woodstock for a month and looking up to Devil’s Peak every time I leave the house, last week I finally hiked up there. Coming from Belgium, where open space and unspoiled nature are almost un-existent, being able to take a bus and a brisk walk and within one hour being in the middle of a stunning nature reserve is just heavenly. The fact that then you look back and see the most beautiful city in the world (not just my opinion but that of Capetonians) from birds eye view is just an added bonus.

I made the hike on a sunny and almost windless day (rare this time of year) on which Jan van Hunks wasn’t holding his pipe-smoking contest with the devil. Supposedly the origin of the name Devil’s Peak and of the clouds known as the table cloth that often surround it. So I could enjoy the stunning view of the City Bowl, Table Bay, the Cape Flats and Muizenberg and False Bay on the other side. Taking the alternative route back to Tafelberg Rd one that apparently isn’t used a lot since it is half overgrown, was a good choice as was doing this in spring when everything is still green but it isn’t cold and rainy any more.

Woodstock, between the slopes of Devil’s Peak and the train tracks and harbour, is the complete opposite of the nature and tranquillity of Devil’s Peak. While moving here Roger, who for years lived a few blocks from here, told me that I shouldn’t worry too much on the streets here. Dreadlocks are a gang of their own and no one messes with them, unless they want to risk a AK47 shoot-out. He himself (with dreadlocks) was only stabbed twice and shot at once (by the police). Good to know!

Another neighbour gave the advice not to leave the battery in the car, it would get stolen. So on day three I found myself chaining and locking the battery down. It felt like a rite of passage, something you do when you live in Woodstock. Living here, you can also survive in the townships, at least that is what a taxi driver, a big black woman, told me. She didn’t drive into Woodstock at night, and dropped me of in the centre of town. She lived in a township herself, I guess she doesn’t drive her taxi there either.

I do love Woodstock though. On the first days of walking around here, I’ve had people come up to me, shake my hand and start a conversation. There are car wrecks on the streets, cars on blocks the wheels taken off, shady looking characters at night. But this is also an area that feels more like Africa then Europe, unlike most of Cape Town. With its brightly painted shop fronts, its hair salons, shebeens and street vendors, this neighbourhood is alive and loud. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else, except in Obz maybe, but that has just as bad a reputation as Woodstock, just more bars.

Cape Town bucket list

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I don’t do bucket lists. I don’t like expectations, I find they keep me from keeping an open mind and inviting the unexpected. On any good trip there is no way to know what to expect. If you already know what is going to happen, what would be the use of going? That said, it is good to know what you want, especially when there is lots and lots to see and do and taste as there is in Cape Town. So I decided to make this bucket lists. Some of the things on it have already been marked off and it will probably become longer as I discover more.

  • Nature:
    • Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point
    • Chapman’s Peak Drive, preferably in a ’72 VW Beetle without a windscreen
    • Kirstenbosch Gardens
    • Company’s Garden
    • Cape Agulhas, the most southern point of Africa
    • the Karoo
    • dive with the Seven-gill cowsharks off Millers point
    • say hi to the penguins at Boulder beach
  • Hikes:
    • hike up Table Mountain via India Venster, have a beer and hike back down via Platteklip Gorge or take the cable cart
    • hike up Table Mountain via Skeleton Gorge and have a swim at the dam
    • hike up Devil’s Peak
    • hike up Lion’s Head, preferably at sunset/full moon
  • Beaches:
    • chill on the beautiful beach at Llandudno
    • surf at Muizenberg Surfer’s Corner, the birthplace of surfing in SA
    • surf overlooking Table Mountain at Milnerton Beach (at the lighthouse)
    • surf Big Bay beach break (between Melkbos and Bloubergstrand)
    • swim between the penguins and big boulders at Boulders Beach (Simon’s Town)
    • watch the sunset at Clifton 4th Beach
    • watch the big wave surfers at Dungeons
    • more beaches, surf spots and local surf forecast
  • Rock climbing:
    • Paarl Rock
    • the quarry’s on the slopes of Table Mountain
    • indoor climbing at CityRock
  • Drink (beer/wine/coffee):
  • Eat
  • Going out:
    • party at The Rooftop at 113 Loop Street, one of the mother city’s many rooftop bars
    • see Jack Parrow live in his home town
    • hang out with the crazy cool cats at The Bombay Bicycle Club
    • hang out with the locals at the bar at the Kimberly Hotel (at Roeland & Buitenkant)
    • hang out with the tourists on Long Street (The Waiting Room, The Slug & Letuce, Beerhouse)
    • hang out with the students and cool people at Obz, Lwr Main Rd (Obz Café, bolo’bolo, Obviously Armchair)
    • go for “just one” at The Shack and end up closing the place (beware of the Brandy Special)
    • check out the music (can be anything from dubstep to live bands) at Mercury Live
    • bust a move on the dance floor of Evol, trashy in a 90’s way
  • Places:
    • District Six and the District Six Museum
    • Kaly’s fish and chips in Kalk Bay harbour
    • Brass Bell in Kalk Bay
    • V&A Waterfront, not for the up-scale shopping and restaurants, but for the 18th century maritime scenery
    • Riebeek-Kasteel and the Swartland
  • Sport:
    • watch cricket at Newlands
    • watch Western Province play (rugby)

Thanks to Travelstart.co.za for some inspiration and lovely photo’s: 50 Photos of Cape Town that will make you want to live in the Mother City. More on CapeTownMagazine.com’s Must-Dos, Must-Sees & Must-Visits in Cape Town and Things to do for free in Cape Town.

The Edge

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TEDx Table Mountain was about exploring the edge. It made me think a lot about overcoming fear, coming out of my comfort zone, going into the unknown. Exploring the edge is what I am doing here in South Africa, in Cape Town. It was the love for my Afrikaans meisie, but also the love for travel, for new things and for myself, that gave me the courage to leave my safe European home.

Coming to a new place where you only know one person, without any plan how to make money or stay seven months on a 90 day tourist visa is like stepping over the edge. It is scary, but also exciting. It challenges me to do what I’ve always dreamt of but didn’t have the courage to actually pursuit. So here I am, before me lays an inspiring land and an unknown future, mine to shape.

TEDx Table Mountain

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I am just back from TEDx Table Mountain – Exploring The Edge and I am very much impressed by the level of their speakers. I went to TEDx Brussels a few years ago and these guys here in Cape Town have blown me away with their line-up doing a TEDx with a fraction of the resources they had in Brussels.

I come back even more in love with South Africa and it’s people. Hearing these stories of South Africans overcoming set backs and difficult situations to make a difference not just for themselves but for others was truly heart warming and inspiring. I cannot wait for the video’s to come on-line so here are a few of the talks that touched me the most.

Before coming to South Africa, a friend let me watch “Forest of Crocodiles” a 2009 documentary about white South Africans addressing their fears of crime and violence. Hearing the story of underwater cameraman Roger Horrocks overcoming his fears and getting up and close with Nile crocodiles to film them says much more about South Africans then Forest of Crocodiles did.

Another incredibly inspirational person is Nicky Abdinor who didn’t let a small physical challenge like being born without arms keep her from her dream of driving a car. She started a non-profit organisation to aid other people with disabilities through the funding of car adaptations and is working with the Cape Peninsula University of Technology to develop an adapted car for her and others to be mobile and independent: Nicky’s Drive.

The story of Braam Malherbe who was ready to step out of life, but accomplished the incredible feat of running the 4218 km of the Great Wall of China and in doing so funding the charity Operation Smile he started to pay surgery for children with facial deformities.

A man who radiates warmth is Mpumelelo Ncwadi who grew up in a township, from where he had to walk 15 km to school and made it to the University of Texas, Berkeley, Cambridge and more. He co-founded Indwe Trust putting his skills and expertise to use for sustainable agro-ecology and rural development in South Africa.

Jennifer Lovemore-Reed overcoming her fear and walking alone for four months. Actor and comedian Siv Ngesi delivering a chilling message urging men to stand up against rape. And free solo rock climber Matt Bush climbing Table Mountain and some the most challenging rocks South Africa has to offer, like 8+ climbs without ropes or any security: no strings attached (video).

Lance Brown who grew up in suburb, surrounded by violence, but had a dream of going to London and the determination and love and aptitude for taxation made that dream real. Anthony Turton calling for closure mining, cleaning up the mess left by gold mines.

These are just very short summaries that don’t do justice to the beautiful stories these speakers had to tell. As soon as the video’s are on-line I hope you watch them, because these are all stories that need to be shared.