Four years ago, during my travels in South America, I visited Chile. I loved the country. If it would have not been the completely other side of the world, I would seriously consider moving there. Only one thing I found strange: many Chileans – although certainly not all – told me they still loved General Augusto Pinochet, the cruel dictator who killed socialist president Salvador Allende in 1973, and then reigned over the country for almost two decades, oppressing opposition, violating human rights, torturing and kidnapping opponents, and throwing them out of airplanes above the Pacific Ocean. How could so many Chileans love such a monster? The answer sounded: he paved the way to Chile´s current economic development. He enhanced infrastructure, for example. Giving up democracy, for a short period, was the bargain price that had to be paid for today´s prosperity. Read more…

Often when I read the newspaper in South Africa, it makes me laugh cynically or shake my head in disbelief, especially when it concerns stories about the ANC. Take yesterday’s The Times newspaper, in which an article on page six read: ‘Cosatu [workers union] general-secretary Zwelinzima Vavi has been given a “long rope” to hang himself after the ANC’s National Working Committee decided not to drag him to a disciplinary hearing after he [most likely fully justified] accused two ministers of corruption.’ Once a heroic resistance movement, fighting the crimes of apartheid, the ANC has declined into a joke after 1994. Its antidemocratic reflexes, its deep-rooted corruption and its economic incapability are so shocking that all too often it just becomes funny. Read more…

Life in South Africa can be so sweet – if you have the money for it. Some people do. Most of them don’t. The gap is very visible and I’m always astonished by how insisting people can be in ignoring. I guess it just lives nicer within a bubble…

In Camps Bay the rich and the beautiful and the wannabes of these categories meet for “sundowners”. It’s a bit like Cape Town’s catwalk. People sip on cocktails and praise each others outfits, until the sun disappears at the horizon. Their iPhones tell them where the coolest party is happening later on. Their new cars with bouncing speakers take them to the hippest clubs in town… Read more…

I could see him pretty well, although from large distance, from my spot in the stadium: the greatest football player ever. He wore leather shoes, a grey suit and a silver tie on a white shirt. His beard was grey, he had dyed his mustache black. It made him even more charismatic. It gave him some sort of movie star look, that of a younger brother in the Don Corleone family. He limped a bit, and while watching the game he leaned backwards a little, supporting his chin with his right hand, the left one crossed horizontal below, in front of his stomach. As if he was a painter, judging his last revolutionary creation from a distance, proud and concerned about the actual quality at the same time. Was it as genius as his last painting, he seemed to ask himself. Read more…

What do you do at the end of a trip? You start organizing all the stories and pictures you have collected on the road. Not too seldom, you find, during that process, a lot of unused material. Quite often good material, mainly pictures, photos that you forgot or that somehow did not appear on your website. It is like going through last year’s winter jacket in October, you always find some money in its pockets… Well, during our road to 2010 we have shot so many pictures of soccer pitches that some of them simple had to get lost. The last weeks, though, we went through our achieves and found back enough okay pictures to even enough to fill a whole new web log post. So here we go: photos soccer pitches – the leftovers. Read more…

During the FIFA 2010 World Cup, most people will cheer for their own countries – at least while they are still in it. However, there are 30 other countries are playing, when your country rests. And what if your team didn’t qualify at all? What if you are, for example, Austrian? Many people will, in that case, cheer for the underdog – Honduras, perhaps – or a neighboring country. Maybe you cheer for an African team, because the cup is played in Africa this year. But how do you feel about taking a more political approach? How about supporting the team that gives most aid to poor countries? Or do you like cheering for the poorest country in the World Cup and booing the land that spends most money on weapons? To aid you in your decision, the World Development Movement has put together the who do you cheer for website, which ranks the participating countries based on social justice and poverty indicators such as carbon emissions, inequality and military spending. Choose your favorite team on that website and receive regular updates throughout the World Cup. It is your chance to gain interest and take sides in those games you would normally find boring. And at the same time, you enlarge your knowledge about social and political aspects of the current 32 greatest soccer nations! So, who are you gonna cheer for?

I love Joburg. And I hate this city. Both with a passion. It’s difficult to capture what exactly it is, that makes this rough place so incredibly fascinating. Having lived here for about a year, we’ve had countless talks and discussion about what this city does to somebody. The first 5.20 minutes of this clip gives you a first insight on how this place fucks up your head. It’s the trailer from a documentary called “Unhinged – Surviving Joburg.” Its premiere is only next week – we’ll let you know how the rest of it was…

South Africa might be the proudest nation I know. Nothing in the country is ever just good or okay, it is always the best and greatest, or even better: a defining moment in history. When something fails, on the other hand, South Africans have the exceptional ability to ignore, to forget and to move on, as if the malfunction has never occurred. Immediately they cry out again how blessed their country is, and how positive the spirit of its people.  Today my old newspaper The Star even printed a full-page story listing the ten things of which South Africans should be most proud: wildlife, inspiring historical figures, moviestars, the vuvuzela and the braai apparently. Oh, and optimism of course, on place six. Read more…

We made it… and I am sure that happy fact is costing quite some people a bit of money; because in Amsterdam a small, fine and very sophisticated group of friends had set up bets on the outcome of our road to 2010. Whoever put money on a successful and happy ending of the trip could make a lot of money, because most bets counted on a break-up before we would have reached South Africa. We proved them all wrong. However, it does not mean that it was all too easy all the time. A combination of travelling, working, camping and 15.000 kilometers driving takes a lot out of a relationship. Still, if you have the chance. we would certainly recommend this kind of trip to every couple and every set of friends. How Anna and I both experienced being five months 24/7 on each other’s lip, Dutch people can read in the late August edition of the Dutch Viva magazine. As soon as the article is published, we hope to translate it and put it up on this website too. For now, we take a short break from journalism and will enjoy being back in Johannesburg, the city where we met. We will keep posting blogs here though, upfront and during FIFA World Cup 2010. Read more…