Taxi Strike Mayhem

Yesterday 17 May marked a very disruptive day for Durban. Taxi drivers were in complete rage over what they call "ridiculous" fines that they are made to pay to the metro police. Their complaint is that they are being ripped off by the metro police because they ask them for bribes and they make them give the money to their girlfriends. Their biggest complaint is that the money that they are made to pay does not come from the taxi owner but instead comes out of the driver's own pocket. They say that this is unfair because it is taking bread away from their children.
The protest started off peacfully,  being led by Musa Ndlovu who is the chairperson of the Durban Region Taxi Association. The march started at Botha Garden and heading up West Street( Dr Pixley ka Seme) and ending at the city hall. They were marching to hand over a memorandum to the Durban Mayor (James Nxumalo) who was nowhere to be seen. The person that is actually incharge of handling metro police matters at the municipality is currently suspended on suspision of corruption. Roy Ngcobo is the representitive of the municipality that actually had the guts to come out and recieve the memorandum from the angry taxi drivers. They were all complaining about a guy who they call "Nzama" and they actually had plack cards that had rude messages about Nzama. They said that he was incharge of the metro police and he was the reason for all their troubles. They now reffer to the metro police as "run x" because most of them drive run x's.
After they handed the memorandum over then the strike was supposed to end, instead that is when all hell broke loose. The crowd started attacking taxis that were on the road. They through bricks and injured passengers. Other drivers went into different shops and forced shop owners to close and physically attacked some of them. They went into shops and started stealing stuff. They were carrying sticks and they were throwing bricks in every direction. Police tried to disperse the crowd using tear gas and the police on motorbikes tried to discipline the crowd but their efforts were of no success because in turn, they were also physically attacked. Tyres were burnt in the market and any bus that went past was bricked. They injured an old lady and bricked her on her head. They tramped a taxi driver to death at berea. They forced people out of buses. Bins were turned upside down, they destroyed the people mover shelters, they physically attacked each other. They were cursing at anyone with a camera, it was just hell!!
I could not believe that a protest that started off so peacfully could end up so dramatic. I also could not understand why they had to attack the passengers because they have a problem with the metro police and not the passengers.
Who's crazy now? The driver or the metro police?

I'm not sure if you guys are aware of this but there is a wall currently being built between Palestine and Israel. It is meant to seperate the two countries and will be the longest wall in the world. It can be compared to the berlin wall that was built by Hitler in Germany because like it, This wall aims for racial segregation and if you are found on the wrong side of the world then you are killed. This wall will seperate many families and will cause a high unemployment rate as people will not be allowed on the side of the wall. This wall will break relationships, cause death and just cause total distress for people of both countries. I feel that it i our responsibility to raise awareness and try to stop the Israeli government from doing this.
Or am I crazy??

Powers of Darkness???

I know know that it is true, when we sleep that set to work. They want all of us to fall to their principalities and follow thier rout of evil. I've seen the devil! I've felt his presence but through the grace of God I conquered him!! We as society choose to deny this truth and as a result we become easy targets for the devil. We need to think things through before we do them and It should be in our daily culture to question things around us. Just know that your 6th sense is never wrong so you should always listen to it. Prayer is the answer to everything so you should always believe that once you pray you have conquered!!!
God is Love..
Am I crazy now???

Its yet another day, You don't know what happened when you were sleeping but all you know is that you alive. Have you ever wondered what happens to your brain when you sleep??MMM I can't help but wonder

Fear

I was talking to a friend via a social network and I realised how much prejudice we have within us. We were talking about homosexuality and how it affects the other people that are not homosexuals. Part of why we have so much hatred in the world because we fear what we do not understand. If only we gave ourselves time to understand everything around us then we would not have any fear! And if we have no fear then we would be powerful beyond measure. A challenge to you is that you give yourself time to understand all that is around you.

Since we are a country that knows first hand what apartheid is like, I feel that it is upon every individual to try and help end the situation in Gaza. It is not fair that people in this day and age still have to suffer such injustices. Imagine if you were to be seperated from your family by a great wall.

Introduction

I came into the journalism industry knowing absolutely nothing! Of course I only realised this after I entered the newsroom. Not to say that what we learn in university is useless, but it honestly does not prepare us for the amount of learning that we had to do in an actual newsroom.

The best way to start any story is always to start from the beginning. The year is 2010, the country is excited about hosting the World Cup, the atmosphere is filled with joy. I on the other hand am stressing, I have to make a decision that will change the course of my life. I am a matric student and before me is a C.A.O form that I have to fill out, stating the possible careers that I'd like to study towards. Like anyone else from a Black family, there is so much pressure from both parents and relatives, each of them have their own ideas of what I should study. With my mom being a nurse, she'd really like for me to study towards becoming a doctor. She knows well and good that open wounds freak me out and I can't stand the smell of medicine. Not just that, I don't believe in western medicine at all, which means I don't take medication, as in ever! So imagine the irony of studying towards a medical degree. Crazy right?!

My dad on the other hand is obsessed with the law and everything surrounding it. You can wake him up in the middle of the night and ask him to recite the constitution and he will without any trouble. So it's no surprise that he wanted me to study towards a law degree. His side of the family wanted me to study Tourism, imagine! I'm an A student studying Physics and doing pure Maths and these people want me to study Tourism??! Of course there's a reason behind it, my cousin had recently got a job in the tourism industry so they felt that was a place I was guaranteed a job after graduating because my cousin would have to pull some strings. I was hearing none of that! I'm anti-social, always have been and probably always will be, so I definitely would not survive in a tourism environment. 

I on the one hand have always been obsessed with words and writing. From as early as I can remember, I've been writing poetry and short stories. I've always known that I want to end up in the media space. I have to be honest though, I thought I would be on the entertainment side of things. No, not in front of the camera, I wanted to be writing, producing and directing soapies and that kind of thing. On the other hand I'm obsessed with crime channels and investigation shows. On the Case With Paula Zahn, 3rd Degree, Cutting Edge... all of these are shows I always fantasise about working for. So by now you can clearly tell that I am very confused.

In the midst of my confusion, I was invited for a radio interview at a community radio station close to where I lived. The presenter on the show loved my voice so much that she offered me a news reading gig on the spot. I was very excited so I agreed. That was my first taste of broadcast journalism and after that I was sure what I wanted to study after school. I was going to be a journalist, a broadcast journalist to be exact. And so I studied towards a diploma in journalism at Durban University of Technology and had three years of bliss, frustration, triumph, tears and so much more. At the end of it all I felt I was ready to face the world... but not before I completing an internship. 

My first taste of practical journalism started at an investigative journalism organisation called Roving Reporters, run by award winning journalist, Fred Kockett. I was there on a six-month internship... which I desperately needed to complete if I had any intention of graduating.