Friday, May 25, 2007
Africa Day: Take the first step
Happy Africa Day! And it’s a stunning start to the weekend in Cape Town! We have got the most incredible blue skies and quite a pleasant temperature, which really opens your eyes as to why we are so lucky to be living down at the 'bottom' of the stunning continent!We have much to be thankful for.
I was in Camps Bay this morning, taking part in my old high school’s Founding Day assembly, with a number of ‘old’ boys & girls who had been invited to celebrate the schools history, and its future. I got to chat to Andrew Ingram, Chief Photographer of the Cape Times and Andrew Mac from Flat Stanley (keep an eye out for some vid coming soon!) and a few others, before we sat on-stage; staring at the future, staring at us.
We were played some Jazz by the school orchestra, an amazing violin piece by a Grade 9 pupil, Anele Mhlapo, and listened to a talk by Nature Conservations old-boy Dalton Gibbs, and then ended off with our old school song,
”Song of the wind in the pine tree’s,
high on the mountain crest
Song of the waves of the western sea
Where the sun sinks down to rest…”
It brought back many memories.
Not everyone is fortunate enough to share the positive memories that I have, but good or bad, being able to look back to where you have come from should give you the confidence to know where you are going! Nothing has to be the same as it was, if we choose to make it different. And as I always say, you can't go forward if you don't take the first step.
So – to celebrate Africa Day – I hope we all think about how we can make a difference; starting with ourselves, our neighbours, our communities, spreading outwards until a wave of change ripples over the entire continent.
This is Africa's century.
Labels: African, Proudly South African
