"But I Digress ..." by Darrel Bristow-Bovey Read Free Book Online

to Jessica Pitchford in a helicopter. “What does election day look like from the air?” Nadia asked from the very hub of the elections. Jessica chattered away, but she must have been borrowing Graeme Hart’s microphone. We sat staring at the skyline of Pretoria, hearing only the mocking whirr of rotor blades. From that vantage point, election day looked much like any other. A cloud drifted by, but I was inclined to ignore it.
    Eventually Jessica’s voice crackled into life: “We’re flying over the IEC, the very hub of the elections …” Down in the very nerve centre, Vuyo and Nadia had developed the unpleasant habit of crossing for regional updates.
    That left those of us in Gauteng in the company of what appeared to be a pair of dressmaker’s dummies in air-stewardess’s uniforms. They were identified as Paula Slier and Noxolo Grootboom. Noxolo was the one whose lips had to be manually operated by the sound engineer; Paula was the one with the pop-eyed manner of a trout who’d been stunned by a blow from a grizzly bear. They eyed the camera in rubbery silence, as though afraid it might make an improper advance.
    Embarrassingly, due to a technical glitch, the viewers could hear all the instructions the producer was murmuring into Paula and Noxolo’s earpieces. Political analyst Sheila Meintjies stopped speaking. Paula goggled at her piscatorially.
    â€œThank you, Sheila,” crackled the producer’s voice.
    â€œThank you, Sheila,” wobbled Paula.
    â€œNow you, Noxolo.”
    â€œThank you, Sheila.”
    Finally they could take it no more. “Let’s cross to Jessica Pitchford, our eye in the sky.”
    There followed the familiar sound of rotor blades, then: “Yes, hi, we’re flying over the IEC, the very hub of the elections.”
    Every so often, a music video was played. It was always a song called “The Rainbow Nation”, rendered by two Spur waiters in black pullovers. Their accompaniment was a reedy tune picked out on an E-Zee-Play Organola. Their names, if you can believe it, were Bobo and Kellam. “The world is awakening,” they crooned, as though masked intruders were tampering with their ingrown toenails, “to a global fee-ee-dom!” By all that’s holy, who could like that song?
    Back to the studio. “I really like that song,” said Nadia.
    Oh, there were wondrous times in the very hub of the elections, but by the time Vuyo and Nadia moved over to make space for Alyce Chavunduka, the fun was draining away. Without Vuyo’s shiny dome to light the way, it all became a little dreary. There was simply no news worth reporting. By Friday, the circus had left town. “Welcome again from the IEC,” said Vuyo, “a very hive of activity.” I could take a hint.
    When a hub is no longer a hub, it’s time to leave.

I am Wat Siam – TV in Thailand
    SUNDAY INDEPENDENT, 9 JANUARY 2000
    O N THE NIGHT before Christmas I hired a high-prowed wooden fishing boat and put out through the breakers, skimming fast across the surface of the Andaman Sea, as warm and dark as a glass of mulled red wine. The wake swirled and gleamed with faint phosphorescence, like the distant glimmer of the lights from a department-store Christmas tree that had slipped overboard and lay unravelled across the sea-bed. The moonlight danced on the sea like tinsel. After an hour I arrived at Buddha Island, a tiny, unlit dot off the west coast of Thailand. I made my gift of bottled water and loaves of rye bread and a small tub of Philadelphia cream cheese to the head monk. He spoke no English, and my Thai should be punished with a coconut-husk flail and sharpened length of bamboo, so the boatman translated as we stood under the rushing, swaying hurricane palms in the uncanny glow of a tropical full moon.
    It is a tradition in these parts to bring gifts to the monastery, and to ask the head monk, who has a reputation for