AllyKat

My town Mossel Bay,

What can I say about it? Most times I am proud of it. Some times, not so proud. Especially when it affects me directly and the people I care about.

Okay, so what is my beef now? I own the only Non-White crèche in the town of Mossel bay catering for upto 60 children. The premises I operate on is rented, for obvious reasons I wanted to build my own premises. I approached the municipality to purchase land that was designated for education purposes. All the vacant plots where not available to me. They could not tell me why for some top secret reasons.

Eventually I bought a plot in a residential area. I jump through all the hoops that they threw at me and paid all the costs they could think off to get the process started in giving me permission to run my crèche from my new plot. One of the things I had to pay for was advertising the request to have a crèche in Heiderand, A suburb of Mossel Bay, No problem.  Off the approximately 2000 + people living in Heiderand only 8 people objected. The objection was mainly based on the devaluing of their property, using up the tar on the roads around their homes; increase in traffic and noise and of course the bad and unsavory elements that would be present in their area and one even stated that they should stay in their area and go to crèches there.

Oh and by the way, the bad elements being the majority black 2 to 6 year old children that attend my crèche. Mind you I also have Indian, colored and white children in my crèche. The children have no problems integrating BUT the phobia, it seems, still exists with the adults.

I managed to acquire the objection letters of the individuals and strangely enough they all said almost the exact same thing. Right down to referring to the bad elements and unsavory characters. It’s as if one person had called a meeting and conspired to prevent the crèche from opening. Anyway BASED ON THIS the municipality had a closed doors meeting and voted in private against giving me permission to run the crèche in the new premises because they found ‘the objections were valid and we have to listen to our constituents”. 8 out of 2000 + constituents have had thier say and our democratic municipality agreed with them !!!!!!!

A person working in the municipality later told me of a crèche that was given permission to operate in Dana bay, A far more affluent suburb and of a much higher residential value than Heiderand. This I had to see, so off to Dana Bay, here I meet a very kind, generous and caring white lady who informed me that she had done exactly what I did and can not see why I was not given the same treatment as she was. She was very apologetic that I was not treated fairly, She too had a dozen or more objections but it was deemed insufficient for grounds of rejection.

Now I can’t help but think one of two things is it corruption or is it racism? I am still fighting this ruling and I have sent my letters to the Provencal department to object to this biased behavior. Are we going backwards? Our so called democratic parties should be fighting for better education and safety for our children BUT what do they do instead?

What next?  I am no politician and nor will I support corruption so if all else fail I know who I will not be voting for in the next municipal elections in Mossel Bay.

To the people of Mossel Bay, I leave you with your conscious as to who you will vote into power to take us forward.

First off, Please forgive my sarcasm and open ended statments or retoric questions. I just want to try and understand ( okay rant and rave if you insist) about how some people ( The majority actually ) think.

This being my first blog I would like to start with something close to our hearts, well actually our wallets. yea liquid gold, black gold, gas, petrol whatever you call it. I read an artical in News 24 and more so the comments some of our brilliant comment makers had so I decided to add my 2 cents worth to the comments as well ( I also want to be part of the prob er solution yea thats it solution) so let me share with you as well

” Lets see the facts on other countries fuel prices BUT ignore their cost of living and salaries. first petrol and then diesel averages in Rands.

UK 17.27 & 16.76 / US 7.39 & 6.33 / Canada 9.80 & 9.63 / Europe 13.50 both and Algeria ( Sit down and take out your hankie ) 1.47 & 2.41

all countries in Rands per litre costs. Of course 3rd world countries pay lower salaries and costs of living are higher in 1st world countries.

Now lets consider the value added by and the cost there off, of the following items in relation to fuel prices. lets see 1 litre coke, 750Ml of head and shoulders, Bottled water, Revlon lip stick, Olive oil, a bottle of Scotch and a pack if cigs. Mmmm I wonder should we not also be protesting this stuff also.

Finally let’s look at the cost of exploration and production of oil versus that of the other more essential stuff mentioned.

I do not know, Should I laugh or should I cry / . What a pickle we are in !!! “

 Okay, I know I landed on my head BUT  tell me where I fell off the bus