Fanie who?
(A little more about Fanie – as it appears on his website.)

According to Successful Blogging for Dummies I should use this space to reveal a few things about myself for the launch. Very well, be that as it may …

I’m gentle, loyal and love children – just like an SPCA dog. Sometimes my nose bleeds for no reason and I have shaken hands with Naas Botha. I like Jan Smuts more than Eugene Terre’Blanche and in twelve years I have not been absent even one single day from school. I’ve never been in a fist fight and I had made a living by doing dishes. I have an almost obsessive love for cricket and I’m married with a child. Well, not really with a child – that is unlawful. I am married to a woman and we have a child.

I am an Afrikaner to the core – born and bred in Pretoria. One primary school, one high school, one university, with Christian National Education the guiding principle in my youth. But in 1998 I got on a plane to work in London for a year. Like thousands of other young South Africans I wanted to see the world, save some money, and “find” myself.

When I kissed my friends and family goodbye in the airport’s departure hall, I would never have guessed how my life would turn out – that the envisaged “one year” would become the rest of my life. Or that I would follow my passion and qualify as a history teacher (for the first five years in London, I worked in a bank – and hated it). Or that I would travel to dozens of different countries. Or that I would be a columnist for The South African, the largest South African publication in the northern hemisphere (ahem). Or that, after fifteen years in Her Majesty’s kingdom, I would divert to an international school in China.

Look, I’m not a writer, I’m just a guy who writes. I am no adventurer whose travels lead to the four corners of the earth and grab the world’s imagination. I also don’t do any pioneering work that is of interest to the masses. And I am certainly not a human angel who dedicate my life to the upliftment of the disadvantaged. I’m just an ordinary guy.

My website is my labour of love (I wanted to say “my fruit of love”, but that sounds far too suggestive for a family-friendly site like this). I don’t reveal the secret to a long and happy life here and I do not even try to address the world’s horribleness – this is simply the watering system I use to water my Afrikaans roots. And if anyone finds it entertaining or informing … Well, that will be wonderful.

There we go. Let it fall where it wants to. Happy reading and enjoy the watching.

Be healthy, be happy, be “lekker”.

Regards
Fanie