Yesterday I was at once awed and very overwhelmed as I watched my two worlds meet. I had the privilidge to watch Tracy and Lionel Davis of the Robben Island Museum take our Standard Bank Clients through a yet another chapter of the Standard Bank “Connecting Conversations” Programme. The session took place at Consitution Hill, in the Old Fort. It started with Lionel introducing himself as an ex-political prisioner, a tour guide and an artist. It was perhaps quite piognant that the session was held the day before Human Rights Day. Listening to Lionel talk about the struggle for identity, the truimph of the human spirit, his role in the struggle for democracy and his life on the island both as a political prisioner and a resident, I am overcome by the power and wonder of this country and by the enormoity of what individuals have achieved through their desire to bring change and understanding. How is it possible that one can have suffered so deeply and yet retain such a strong sense of self and still be so utterly selfless… Listening to Lionel I cannot but be awed by his positivity and his sense of belief, by his very connectedness to his fellow human beings. Put quite simply he is because they are.

How proud I am too of Tracy and the team at Avocado Vision that can create programs like these. What has started as an idea,or rather as a discussion around what culture is, has flourished into a program that allows South Aficans to communicate, to share, to gain insight into themselves and into each other. It takes it’s basis in diversity and just grows it to a whole different level. How wonderful to be able to sit with someone and talk, how wonderful to seek to understand, how wonderful to be able to just listen and just relate to a stranger without the theories, or the posturing.

Tracy I salute you: this program allows South Africans to confront themselves, to challenge their ideas and to stand firm in their Heritage. I am so very proud to be associated with Avocado Vision. Thank you Lionel for being part of our program, for your insights into the ongoing struggle for identity, and for facilitating discussions which are enormously powerful and insightful. Thank you for your guidance during my Robben Island period and for teaching me to celebrate my background and my history!