Here it is, June 16th, Youth Day here in South Africa. In 1976 the youth, unarmed as usual, of Soweto, gathered together to protest the new law that said that they would now have to study Afrikaans as a required subject in school. There were many other things that were going on at the time and this was the last straw. It seems that when the police, who were caught off guard, saw the 20,000 or so students, they got nervous and one of them pulled out a revolver and shot into the crowd. Of course this was like lighting a fust for a bomb. All hell broke loose and the students wound up throwing stones at the police and the police then were firing live ammunition into the crowd of students.  The famous picture of a young man carrying the dead body of Hector Peterson, who had been shot directly in the chest, was circulated world wide, it brought to the attention of the world the brutal regime that was, at the  time, the apartheid government. The youth of today have other problems to face like drugs, cheap and daily sex, and love for money , along with a sense of entitlement that they deserve everything for free that most people in the world have to work for, like free education, even in university. So the challenge to the youth it to emulate the willingness to make sacrifices for the good of the country and the nation as a whole as did those youth then.
    But, in the meantime, I have had a not good at all weekend. We discovered on Friday that thieves have been busy dismantling the palisade fence that had just been put up, and not just in one place but a whole section, maybe 15 meters  or more of fence. We spent most of Saturday morning and afternoon trying to put it back togethers and have asked the guy who did the job to get someone to do something so that the thieves cannot just unbolt the bolts and walk away with whole sections of the fence.
    On top of that, my cell phone stopped working so that I can't call anyone and I can't receive calls. Our home landline phone doesn't work either. And then my modem doesn't work well where we are located as the signal keeps changing, sometimes ok, most times very slow or not at all. So I was not able to send messages to anyone. I am in Fr. Guys's house now, Sabelani Home, where the signal is good so that I can get this out.
    As I have said often, I am glad that I can't be bored but sometimes I think that the Lord overdoes it, if you know what I mean.
    So, you all take care. Love and Peace, Cas. (June 16, 2013