Free smiles!

First of all, today is Women's day in South Africa! It started in 1956 from the great women march in Pretoria, where over 20 000 women demonstrated against the apartheid legislations. Today in many places women are treated well; free coffee,  free tours, smiles! 

Then, for you to check it out: South African youth are having important radio program, Children's Radio Foundation where the voice of the younger generations is heard. This time they are talking about the gun violence in South Africa, here a photo report from the Guardian. Also local newspaper has an comment about how the fear of crime affects to the everyday behaviour of children.

This week I have started the work for Juma Art Tours and I'm very excited of the project I will focus on: to create a painting space for the local youth of Woodstock. Aim is to get shipping containers and transform them into a workshop space and art gallery. Besides this project I will be attending to the street art tours of Juma in Woodstock, Salt River and Khayelitsha, as well as modifying the webpages and design posters. Working with this project feels like good balance for the other internship-work for the schools; I don't mind sometimes drinking smoothies and cappuccinos while doing effort to understand better this cool street art scene of Cape Town!

Yesterday there were a big strike on the the streets of Cape Town. Protests are very frequent and are held by homeless people or people living in townships or backyard shacks demanding the decent living conditions that already Mandela's government promised over 20 decades ago. These protests are supported by the City of Cape Town, but often they turn out to involve violence and vandalism. Common rule is to avoid to go on the streets on those moments and also to avoid to commute by car. We had a plan to go with my student college to visit our local professor, but we also postponed our travel. Now finally in Stellenbosch, beautiful and clean university town, but also one of the most unequal city in the world. Here the main language is Afrikaans, vineyards and hiking routes invite tourists to come enjoy high life with illusion of security and equality. It is beautiful here, spring slowly starting to hit and coffee nice and fresh!