The belief that we can be done with our past is a myth.

In the West, it was believed that attitude and ambition saved you. In Africa, we had learned that no one was immune to capricious tragedy.

I remember Karoi as a very hot, flat place, but in reality, it is all hills. We just lived next to an airstrip - the only flat piece of land around. That was my world as a three-year-old and sums up the indelible power of memory to a young child.

In southern and central Africa, tragedy roared at us, and we roared back. We shared dramas publicly, bled them on the corridors of hospitals, laid our corpses on the beds of neighbors, held our sorrows up in full light. We were volume ten about our madness and disorder, even if we were also resilient and enduring and tough.

I'm not a role model. I say parents should parent and monitor their kids.

My father was a schoolteacher and my mother came from a teacher's family.

What I love about Popsicle and the moments I can be with Camden is that their whole philosophy is family and these moments that it can create to just sit with my son, read a comic book or go outside on a hot day, take a swim and have a Popsicle treat with him.

Useful lessons can be learned from our more successful local authorities - as you move into government, it is even more imperative to communicate speedily and persuasively with your members and your voters.