some news from the fair trade front

why not put some additions to this sleepy blog? seen that we are over the hump and aire and i have exemplary send our interim report...so a few more weeks to fly by before we will fly home.

we've been rummaging a lot within the fair trade mafia and the confusions of a complicated system throughout the last few weeks. all in the name of the pricing study of course. for some clarification and first hand hard facts we even took a trip to the veld and talked to farmers - an enlightening though (waiting-)time consuming business.


back and armed with lots of insights, it was time to put together the final study, which unfortunately wasn't our task but the one of a well, let's put it that way, extraordinary consultant. result: 'unheard voices' - 50 pages of sheer entertainment and a good script for rooibos - the movie. since our contacts to reputable screen directors were rather scarce, we are now sitting on an abridged version whereas the director's cut is under revision. sounds blurry? it is. but a fabulous experience concerning NGO-work, diplomacy and fundings.

next week, it'll be another trip to Niewoudtville for the highly anticipated home days: 3 days of team building exercises with the EMG staff, one wild flower party in Niewoudtville and the entire staff being exposed to my cooking skills. this gotta be good!!!

to conclude with some more straightforward issues: part of the glen-team has had their own teambuilding exercise last week by climbing THE MOUNTAIN. up and down! no touristy shortcuts via the horrendously expensive cable way! 8 hours of sweat, pain and paths that sometimes had to be identified by stumbling and trying. under the south african sun - the weather update from my side predicts the end of winter has passed and we are heading straight into spring.




one small note to the european audience: check your fair traded rooibos before buying! search for the names of wupperthal or heiveld - this is the only small farmer produced ones - and there is large plantation fair trade rooibos in the market corrupting fair trade principles! if in doubt, consult the resellers website or your local world shop staff.

Terror Penguins

Yesterday I saw the penguins.
I saw this sign and was very sad. I wanted to hug this small nice cute friend.

But then it attacked me. Now me and the penguin are not friends anymore.

Shot! The 2010-Team.

Fellas! 2010-Dreamteam is a little delayed in contributing something to the magnificent GLEN-SA-Blog! So let’s catch up with Anne, Aire and Antonella who already did a good job to inform … mankind about their life and work in wonderful Cape Town.

First three weeks with CoCT (the official abbreviation for City of Cape Town, cool he?) are over and two of them have already been very busy. As we announced back in Europe there were no real projects defined for us before coming here so the first task for Aurore (and also Simon, another Swiss intern who sadly does not enjoy the financial and institutional support of GLEN) was to come up with our own three to four project proposals and present them in a final workshop which has taken place successfullyover one week ago already. But really - a huge task for us and quite a big challenge since we immediately were supposed to get in contact with other people in the administration or further stakeholders who could possibly now something of relevance regarding our ideas. Quite a challenge without really knowing anything about the city!? Anyway we did it and now our projects are fixed.

Aurore is dealing with a school project dealing with False Bay’s Ecological Park. Therefore she luckily can flee the office at least once a week and can spend the day outdoors with pupils. The only problem is the simple transport matter: How to get her there? I’m sure over the next days our boss Stephen and Aurore will find a solution. Today Aurore is enjoying herself at Abalimi's, the NGO Ida, Marika and Matthias are gonna work with.

My own project will deal more or less with the topic that seems to pursue me for the rest of my life. I wrote my BSc about Learning Networks and Energy Efficiency. Since it was quite successful, I suggested to investigate the chances of such a network and trying to built it up in Cape Town, possibly around 2010. Stephen and other people of our Department liked the idea and want me to do this. At the moment it’s really difficult for me since I really lack the necessary knowledge about stakeholders to be involved and similar activities being done already inCape Town and the region. I have to get in contact with “Players” like ESKOM, the South African energy company and therefore I’m struggeling to find someone who could support me a little more in this effort. Anyway – yesterday I had a promising chat with someone of the City’s Energy Department and will get a final answer over the next few days.

I’ve also another project dealing with bicycle traffic within Cape Town. I like it much more but it was decided, that I just spent not more than 25% of my time on this other project I suggested, thus the bigger part will now be done by Abbi, our very nice South African fellow intern here.

So I am quite busy with all my work, but there is still enough time to have talks with the other interns and colleagues. I really enjoy talking about South Africa, whole Africa, Europe … - basically life and the whole world with the other interns, of course especially the South African interns Cindy, Abby, Alric and Akona provide us interesting and most of the time very funny insights in South African life and culture.

So you see, we’re pretty well off here! Looking forward to meeting Matthias, the last GLENnie arriving tonight!

Cheers! martin