Rwanda, in central Africa, is my new home. After seven years living in China, and thoroughly enjoying being there, I am now back in Africa. Between the two countries I spent six months in South Africa, at the mysterious place named McDougall’s Bay. On the first Friday I was in Rwanda, my wife Kathy and I found our way to the Nyamata Genocide Memorial. We were there towards the end of the afternoon. Singing, more mournful, soulful and grateful than I had ever heard before, came from a Catholic church about 40 metres away. We went inside the church to find people with their arms raised high and singing with…

Winter is a time of great cold. Yes, but for four South Africans freezing in Harbin, in the Heilongjiang province of north east China, the cold was cast aside by an act of great kindness. Often, acts of kindness are simple things, like a walk across town, as was the generosity of spirit we enjoyed. And as happens often the act of kindness was offered by one stranger to another. Let the story be told from the beginning. A few years back I, my wife Kathy, and our kids Keah and Joel went to Harbin to see the majestic Siberian tigers and the ice sculptures. We flew to Harbin out…

By Martin Challenor The town of Alice, in Eastern Cape, holds a dear place in my heart, especially the University of Fort Hare; albeit a heart that is seething with indignant rage now at what has happened there. My life has been a mix of being a student, an academic and a media person. I studied for my first degree at the University of Natal (UN), Durban campus, from 1972 to 1974. I benefitted greatly from the teachings of assassinated Dr Rick Turner and other esteemed academics. From there I went into newspapers in Durban, Johannesburg, and Surrey, England. Kathy and I found ourselves hiding hunted student In 1984 I…

In the very early hours of Friday July 29 2022, I thought I was going to die as I sat in my yak hair tent at the foot of Qomolangma mountain, in Tibet, China. I could not take in enough oxygen and battled to breathe. I started to shake. I prayed for my life to be spared, at least to save my wife Kathy the awful trouble of having to take my body off the mountain. At least 309 people had died over the years up to that morning while attempting to climb the mountain and more than 200 corpses have not been recovered, so have become part of the…