Free Love

On Wednesday, I attended a conference on xenophobic violence against non-nationals. The event was co-sponsored by the South African Human Rights Commission and the Center for Study of Violence and Reconciliation and was attended by a handful of local NGOs, government officials and interested citizens, most of which were foreign nationals. The day before, my first official day of work, was spent in planning meetings for the event.

At the end of the symposium, there were multiple organizations handing out complimentary pamphlets, magazines, t-shirts and stickers. As most of you know, free stuffs makes me real giddy (Dad, you taught me well). Free hand sanitizer-- sign me up! Free toothbrushes—i’ll take three! Free Costco food samples—yum, yum! In my hurry to collect as much free stuff as possible, I was not paying attention to exactly what I was grabbing.

While riding the bus home from work I decided to take a look at the loot that I had snagged. One item in particular stuck out—a sticker. Now, I’m a big sticker fan. I’ve got hundreds at home that I’ve been collecting since I was 8 years old. In middle school, at the peak of my sticker craze, I would give one of my friends about $40 every summer so she could buy me some from California (they’ve got ties to the famous Japanese sticker market). This particular sticker was unusually large (16x8 inches) and had “This is where Xenophobia belongs! 1 future” written across it. Surely they don’t mean xenophobia belongs in the future, do they? Maybe they meant to stay it belongs on a sticker/paper, but why should it even belong there? In general, I was confused about the meaning of the sticker and didn’t really want to plaster it across my wall if I wasn’t exactly sure of what it was trying to say.

Then, in a 4am stroke of brilliance, I realized I had the perfect location for my new sticker-- my trashcan. I felt around for my glasses, switched my light on and hobbled over to the bin. As you can tell by this picture, I was so excited by my realization that I didn’t even bother to properly align the sticker. In conclusion, lucid dreams rocks.




In other news—While Bill just returned from his Pyongyang mission that has “catapulted him back onto the world stage”, Hillary is in Jozi chatting it up with Zuma and Mandela. Go Billary!

Sidebar—I bought way too much yogurt last week. I’m averaging about 5 per day so I can finish them before they expire (2 more days!). If someone offered me some free yogurt, I’d have to reluctantly refuse.