Another type of aloe

Here is another type of aloe, not quite in bloom yet. The leaves on those are quite dramatic.

The silver blue leaf behind it is obviously a eucalyptus and not native of South Africa.

Johannesburg street vendor

The problem with Artistic Freedom in South Africa

South Africa can be SO depressing !!!!

The big brouhaha in South Africa these days is about the painting of Zuma (the South African president) which shows him in a Russian political poster style but most of all, in addition, showing his genitals.
In all honesty it is a ridiculous painting which does not deserve any of the attention it is getting.
The painting was defaced at the art gallery where it was exhibited and today thousands protested against it.
I had forgotten about the protests organized by the ANC (the ruling party in South Africa) until I tried to go grocery shopping a block away from the art gallery who had the painting.

Here is what regular news pages have to say about it:
CNN, BBC World News, the Mail and Guardian, Updated News and City Press.

And just like everything else in South Africa it has turned into a racial issue !!!!!

These 3 photos (2 above and 1 below) are from News 24 and the sign in the one just above says "Draw your white father naked not our president".

Here the point of view of a blog from South Africa which deals with political and social issues. Be warned they do have a representation of the offending painting. If it offends do not open the link.

From a much simpler and possibly naive point of view I would like to point out that traditional African art is full of naked bodies with both men and women genitalia exposed, exaggerated in some cases, and nobody would comfortably admit to being offended.

The Goodman Gallery, I always thought, is always trying to have provocative art on, often it seems that shocking people is more important to them than showing art. They are sensationalists. To me they come across as poseurs who think themselves as oh-so-sophisticated. Well they should be happy now, they managed to shock!

Johannesburg is quite hilly

As I mentioned before Joburg is quite hilly. This is the view from the top of the hill behind where I live. Obviously an evening view.

In these photos you can also see at that this time of year, as it is getting cold especially in the evening, Joburg is also smoky. In fact I love the smell of fires in the evening. Here we are in a fancy big city and you can smell the fires in the evening. In Addis Ababa you can smell the eucalyptus fires here it is just regular wood fire.
Even most of the million dollar houses do not have proper heating.
South African are generally in total denial of winter. They use little electric heaters, or gas heaters with gas bottles but usually do not have central heating in their houses. They say that winter does not last long enough to have some plan about it. I have to disagree, 3 to 4 months of cold is a quarter to a third of the year! but here you are this is the way it is.

I promise you the house in the photo above which has a huge garden and is in a VERY expensive area of town is worth a few millions US dollars (just so we all speak about the same currency) and unless they have found the new pope (white smoke), and it is very unlikely for multiple reasons from timing to location, they heat their house with some sort of wood stove or fire place.

As I was saying it makes Joburg smell quite nice during the winter evenings and I do like it. Another nice treat of my evening walks is that from the top of that hill I can watch the sacred ibis going to roost for the night. They fly above the hill in perfect formation then when the pass the top of the hill they tumble down in a big swirling mess and  go down into the next valley yo Zoo Lake. I'll try to get  a better picture of the sacred ibis for you.

Agnes in Parkview, Johannesburg

This is Agnes. Five days a week she sits at this very spot which his her "store" and she sales things she has crocheted herself, various items she has bought somewhere and is re-selling as well as magazines people donated to her. She is a lovely lady. Today she had scarves, gloves and hats as well as some more of the fuzzy warm socks I bought from her (remember it is winter here). I try to buy something from her every now and then to support her business.
She also sales single candies that you normally only get in packs as well as cigarettes.

Blooming Jade plant

In Joburg I often see what I normally consider house-plants growing outdoors, some are native of South Africa (like geranium, or really pelargonium), some I really don't know. I'll admit that I did not know whether or not jade plants were native to this part of the world so I checked it out and indeed they are. I wasn't really surprised considering how well they grow here. In fact at this time of the year they produce a lot of blooms. Just like the aloe's bloom unfortunately the bloom are unscented.

This one is from my garden.

Johannesburg security

In Johannesburg houses are walled in (houses in themselves show some sort of affluence) . From mypoint of view it is very much a "golden cage" situation. You are supposed to feel safer but you are locked in.

Some of the razor wires, spikes and spines people put on the walls around their properties are right out medieval looking. Here are two which in a way appeal to me in their ugliness.

Avocado on its tree

I am not sure why a lone avocado left in the tree, usually the trees are pretty much covered in them, but here it is.

Recycling in Johannesburg

Now, I know that South Africa is an unusual country on this continent. It is one of the few countries which cannot be considered "third world" (I really dislike this expression but it carries a meaning so I'll use it for sake of communication). Still some aspects of South Africa are not so "first world". One of those things is recycling.
Recycling in Joburg is not impossible but limited and not always easy. However if you really want to truly recycle it is easy. On garbage day keep your garbage cans sorted out with things like paper, cardboard, metal and glass on the side of your can and it will be picked up and reused or sold .... but recycled. This is unless of course you live in one of the "gated community" where men like the one in the photo are not allowed ... for "security" reasons.... Ultimately even if you do not sort out your garbage the odds that that those guys will sort them out for you, but then don't complain if some of your garbage does not make it back into the bin and things are a bit messy.
I'll admit sometimes I find them frustrating because they walk in the middle of the street quite often and it is SO unsafe. This guy below is walking on a 4 lanes busy and fast road, right in the middle of the traffic. But it is part of Joburg and truly they fulfill a great role.

Their carts get HUGE and heavy and Joburg is very hilly. Sometimes it is hard to imagine how they can even pull those things.

Aloes are in bloom in Joburg

It is fall, nearly winter (end of May so winter is around the corner!!!) and in fact the last three nights have been positively cold, though not freezing yet (we do get freezing nights in Joburg) and it is the time of year for aloes to bloom.
Joburg has wonderful gardens. It is not truly surprising since it has a climate that allows to grow anything from avocado trees, to oaks to roses, lemon trees, mint, fushias and all kind of stuff.
But first here are some of the aloes on my regular walk to the grocery stores.

The only disappointing things about aloes is that the blooms do not smell of anything that a human nose can smell, the bees on the other hand seem to be able to smell them quite well.
With the fall blooming season on and me stuck in Joburg I suspect a lot of the photo-a-day might turn out to be plants.

Starting a photo a day for hopefully a month

One of the blogs I follow started a few months back to do "something a day" and it is a different thing every month, things like "a photo a day", "a recipe a day" and "place where I would like to live a day" and honestly it has been a blast to follow. I don't know that I have the discipline to do it but for roughly a month I am going to try "a photo a day".