Entries by Athane Scholtz

Seen and heard

The story of Hagar is extraordinary. An Egyptian slave girl to the increasingly wealthy Abram and Sarai, Hagar was probably forced to leave her country, her people and her beliefs. Hagar was most likely not her real name and, since it means ‘foreigner’, ‘flight’ or ‘forsaken’, probably generic. The relationship between Sarai and Hagar was […]

Discernment for discontent

I have learnt to pay attention to discontent. I don’t mean moodiness, or heaviness or the general out-of-peace-ness of a few bad days. For me, discontent is usually the beginning of change. Typically, three to five years into a job, life situation or location, a shift starts happening inside me. Things that weren’t an issue […]

Water ways, water wise

In an all-year rainfall area where lush vegetation and water sources abound, it is hard to imagine that the southern Cape had seen two major droughts in seven years and that more is to come. Local authorities have heeded the warning signs and continue to address bigger-picture issues in one of the fastest growing regions […]

What is your story?

If someone asked you out of the blue, ‘What is your story?’, what would you say? Would you answer chronologically and begin with your birth, talk about where you were raised? Would you define yourself according to your career, your qualifications, and achievements? Or would you adapt your answer based on who was asking? Do […]

Dam overflows first time since spillway raised

George Municipality and the engineering community this week celebrated the success of the award-winning Garden Route Dam spillway as the dam overflowed for the first time since the spillway and dam wall was raised in 2019/20. George Municipality Civil Engineering Services Acting Director Lionel Daniels said the heavy rainfall and flash floods that occurred on […]

40 years at municipality for Adam Appels

40 years for Adam Appels Imagine a 20-something housing inspector on a bicycle in the early 1980s, the handlebar of his bike loaded with chains and locks, cycling in a rough neighbourhood on a mission to set tenants out of municipal houses and chain up the doors. Long before the formidable Adam Appels was Senior […]

Ultimate survivors

Doing business on the Garden Route is not for sissies and few companies outlast the complications of seasonality, high transport costs and other factors that have caused thousands of businesses to fail here in the past. South talks to six local businesses that have managed to keep head above water in the Southern Cape for […]

Classic Tsitsikamma

While the stormy seas and deep-green forests of the Tsitsikamma National Park have not changed much in its 50-year* existence, nearly everything else has evolved for the betterment of man and the environment – far beyond the park’s official boundaries. Tsitsikamma is an assault to the senses, in the most pleasant of ways. The crushing […]