Today, I am writing as I wait to catch a plane to Cape Town. I have not visited the Cape before and I look forward to linking up with my Rastafari families in Marcus Garvey then driving for 5 to 7 hours to spend some time with the families in Judah Square, including Mama B, an elder Matriarch who has repatriated from Jamaica. These are well established Rastafari communities and I know how easy it would be to have a home in either of them. However, I am eastbound, finding my space in the horn of Africa.

We have been spending much time in the company of another Elder Baliwa, who told me about a year ago that he would be repatriating to Malawi. He left Malawi and tried Zimbabwe but now thinks he will settle in South Africa and has begun to go through the necessary processes. He is a highly skilled craftsman and this will help.

Over the last few days, I’ve been working from my Brother Ras Elijah’s restaurant, The Sweet Pot, located on the ever buzzing Rocky Street in Yeoville, Johannesburg. Rastafari brethren own and manage businesses in two adjacent buildings on Rocky Street and Sweet Pot is located on the second storey of one of them. At home, Ras Elijah’s Queen, Sister Nonhlanhla, is the perfect host and I am truly enjoying spending time with their four bright and beautiful children.

The Sweet Pot is a central meeting place and home of the Rastafari United Movement so, sooner or later, everyone passes through. Two days ago I looked up from my computer and watched as a familiar face entered the room. I could not remember her name immediately but I remembered that face, first seen many years ago on a Moonsplash stage as a backup singer for Bankie Banx. It turned out that Sister Aura had stopped by because she had heard I was visiting and might be there. We had not met before but she was so eager to hear all about Anguilla and Bankie and the Music and the Dune Preserve. I was only too happy to oblige. She is concentrating on her own music now and on several community ventures. She looks as good as when I first saw her on stage and I reflect on how small the world really is.
Last week was also a media week for me and the Elder Ambassador Priest Irie Lion, with whom I am travelling. We recorded for two television programmes and last night I had a brief telephone interview on Bongo Lotion’s programme on Radio 2000. The Media institution is very much on my mind, as I prepare mentally for life without Heartically Yours. Yes, I haven’t found my African Village yet but I have decided that the move needs to be made quickly and it will be in the land where Ras Tafari Makonnen was born. I wonder how I will feed my mass media needs in Ethiopia.

The African Village also came home to me last Saturday when I enjoyed the first of my two weddings in South Africa. This one was unplanned but it was a Rastafari wedding and therefore a family affair. It was my second Rastafari wedding. Just like the first, it ended up in stage performances that included the beautiful couple. If these newlyweds had offered a CD for sale even during the wedding party, I would have bought one. They were that good. I especially enjoyed the interaction with the Elders from both sides of the family, dressed in traditional clothing, embellished with the Ites, gold and green colours in honour of the bride and groom. Once again, I felt blessed to be in the land of those who gave high fashion to the world. I am especially blessed to be a most favoured daughter of Rastafari. Life is sweet as I continue the Rastafari Mission in South Africa. I have to prepare for an African Union technical meeting in Uganda that resulted from the meeting with the AU Citizens and Diaspora Directorate in Addis Ababa. I look forward to travelling to a new African country but my in flight reading material will be about the Caribbean.

I can only hope that all of Anguilla’s social engineers have reviewed the Report on Adolescence and Youth in the Caribbean, drafted by the CARICOM Commission on Youth Development. It will help to put into perspective the situation of Anguilla’s adolescence and youth and bring home the ways in which we are more Caribbean than we realize. The report will also help in the planning process for the YES 2010 Conference as it provides some evidence-based indicators of appropriate points for intervention.

There is also much that can be incorporated in processes of Parenting Education and Support and I look forward to enriching both the quantity and quality of my offerings when I return to the rock.

Meanwhile, I look forward to my visit to Cape Town and to seeing the sea again.

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