Last week I had a very cool meeting with Lenina Rassool. A free-lance journalist and lucky for us, a very nice person. She has agreed not only to help us with our newspaper and magazine articles but also with some of our marketing. We’ll have another meeting soon to discuss our integration into the print media field.
Last week I also had the chance to speak to Fanie de Villiers, the former legendary South African fast bowler. Fanie’s daughter is deaf and had a cochlear implant operation, so the deaf cause is quite close to his heart. Although Fanie didn’t beat around the bush in expressing his concern, he did provide some useful information, especially relevant due to the fact that he cycled from Cape Town to Pretoria.Unfortunately he was not too keen on the whole trans-Africa cycle, as he thinks the risk is unwarranted and a trans-American or trans-Europe would be safer. There are many reasons for choosing Africa for the cycle trip, but the bottom-line is: I am an African. We know there are risks and that is the first step in avoiding and reducing them.
We now all have our bicycles and will have a photo shoot soon. If anyone out there is willing to take photos of us riding our bikes could you let us know?
Addition by Ria: Whilst reading Jiten’s blog (before publishing) I was taken back to the famous speech made by former president Thabo Mbeki. At the time he was the deputy president and this was on the day of the passing of the new constitution in parliament. The speech, titled "I am African”, is for me one of the greatest speeches I’ve ever heard, or in this case, read. SA Tourism has used excerpts and turned it a video. Click on the links below to read the speech (a bit long but highly recommended) or view the video.
Have a happy weekend
