pictures

it’s election day in south africa and i’m sure the entire seffrican blogosphere has little else on it’s mind.

first and last time i got to vote in the ZA elections, was 1994. i got up out of a post-op-recovery bed and gladly went to stand in line on the sidewalk infront of the ZA consul in l.a. to vote for the very first time. and like virtually everyone else, my tick went next to the picture of nelson mandela, south africa’s favorite son. long may he live.

next two elections, what with living in l.a., my newly conferred voting status had evaporated. so this time, even though in theory it should be my 4th trip to the voting booth, is only the second time i get to make my mark in the ZA elections (i’m fortunate enough to hold dual citizenship, so i’m very proud to say that i helped make the change which put barack obama in the white house).

i must say that even though the wind was like icy knives slicing through everyone, i really quite vicerally connected to being able to vote in my motherland for the first time. last time i only saw pictures of the lines snaking endlessly. this time, i was part of it. and proud to exercise my hard-fought-for right to make my mark.

i’m such a dweeb wannabe nerd though! i passed some of the hour and a half waiting in line to vote by chatting to my neighbors in line and by doing random vox pop interviews which i recorded on my iphone. being the first time using the cycorder app, i only discovered afterwards that i had recorded all the interviews sideways. (this after discovering that i needed special software to download said video from the phone to my computer – netatalk). and i don’t have the requisite software to change the orientation of the video (only have imovie6, will have to upgrade powerbook to power imovie7 or higher). *pounds head in frustration* so now i cannot decide whether to post it regardless and have people cricking their necks to view, or just chalk it up to experience.

anyway… see it’s not just another straight-forward election post! 😉

that said, here’s my election story in (still) pictures.