A New Star
A new star God placed in the sky
The night when you were born
Another light so high
on our eyes adorn
A new baby brings hope
Your laughter swirls in the air
Bringing warmth inside my coat
As we give love and care
So, you were born for a reason
A puzzle piece in this world
Growing from season to season
How grateful we are for this little girl
To sweet Alexa from aunty Domelia, written in 2023.
Good Bye 2025! Some reflections of 2025 and new hopes for 2026
As I start writing this blog on New Years Eve, I realise that some years ago I would never imagine myself blogging on New Years Eve. I must be getting old! But it is as fun just to relax at home in the company of people who care about you like it is to be out there amongst strangers.
This past year as been a year of beginning and endings, of intense anxiety and immense reward. My personal life has been a bit quiet and fairly lonely. My partner V who lives with me ads some love and excitement in my life, as well as appreciated emotional support and nurturing in making me a better woman. I hope to socialise more and be involved in more activities in 2026.
I have been unfairly retrenched from a toxic job at an accounting firm in the Durbanville area at the end of May. I just went along with it as I no longer wanted to subject myself to mental abuse and covert racism. Soon after that my coloured colleague who has a different job there, was retrenched the same way I was, however she was replaced by a new person. Does not make sense but ok she also was happy to leave, as she could no longer deal with the abuse. My partner then at the same time got a big project and could cover our rent for a few months. I withdrew from the UIF and applied for jobs every day.
I had to make a decision. I had to decide whether I will work in Century City 25km away from home for a better work environment away from the 'boerewors gordyn' and face more stuck up colleagues in that environment, or stay behind the 'boerewors gordyn' and experience emotional abuse and racism but be closer to home and spend less time on the road. I decided to choose Century City and guess what, the Universe/God gave me exactly what I wanted, a senior job at a smaller but successful and growing accounting firm with a much better culture where people of colour are less oppressed. I got this job exactly a month later, so I was only unemployed for one month. The coloured colleagues at the new job are more free to be themselves but still seem to feel inferior to the white people, while feeling superior to blacks and Khoi, as is the social norm in Cape Town. But overall the culture is much better, with a mix of good and evil personalities and those in between.
I finally have a wonderful manager, though she has her flaws, she is friendly, open and supportive. I finally have a manager and workplace that will support me with studies and give continuous training, after 20 years of being a bookkeeper. For this I am grateful and I hope the year ahead will even be better, though I have decided not to study this year. I have already received wonderful feedback from clients for my service to the senior staff who shared that good feedback with me. And I received a certificate of recognition with some wonderful words of praise on it, though everyone got a certificate of recognition.
I have had some trouble with my health but with the support of my mother and making full use of my medical aid benefits, and further investing in my health, I have gotten much healthier and still on a journey to improve and optimise my health, as health is actually the normal and natural state of being for a human being. In nature, we are not meant to be ill but are supposed to be healthy generally and use natural medicines for healing. Much of today's pharmaceutical medications are based on natural ingredients or knowledge.
So 2025 has been a year of beginnings and endings, and one of miracles of which I can only attribute to a higher power. It was a year of change and challenges on the way I view the world and other people. It has been a year of the beginning of loving myself and my loved ones better, and the beginning of creating balance in my life.
As my seniors at work and my boyfriend has said repeatedly, 2026 will be a good year of growth and prosperity. Cyril Ramaphosa gave me the hope that I needed when he did not back down when Trump bullied him and our country. I was shown that not all white people are racist or at least extremely racist when many white people criticised Trump and those Afrikaaners who went to the US as refugees from a country in which in reality they live in luxury and privilege.
After resting during my holidays I feel much better and am preparing to take on the new year with new vision of balance and well-being. I hope the new year will be the year you want it to be and may the world experience more love and positivity than hate and division. Hands up for 2026, the world and all the good people who want to see goodness reign over evil and darkness and who will strive for that in their own way. Non-alcoholic cheers to you and your loved ones for 2026!
Update - Lovedrops Jewellery and UNISA Studies
As some of you may know, I started a new job at the beginning of July and have been on probation since then for three months, coming to an end soon. It has been quite an interesting journey so far, as the environment is very different from the northern suburbs, being more multicultural but very English with a bit of Cape Flats dominating, making it a bit more tolerable than behind the 'boerewors gordyn'. Anyway, so it looks promising that I will be made permanent and I will know for sure at month end.
As for Lovedrops Jewellery, unfortunately I had to close my online store and cancel my subscription, because I am not allowed to have side businesses while working there unless I get permission, but it is risky asking this when I am still new. I guess selling them at a flea market stall is harmless from time to time.
This month September, I applied for UNISA studies. I was unable to apply for accounting, when finally deciding to make this my first option, but I was unable to apply due to the past where I did not register for the course repeatedly, due to not having finances in the end to study. I do not believe in personal loans as these are risky and can make one bankrupt. I also do not qualify for the NSFAS bursary offered by government, as our household income is above the threshold. I also can't stop working to study full-time (NSFAS is only for full-time studies) because I have chronic medical conditions and need medical aid in case of emergencies. Government hospitals are not in humane condition and the risk of dying there in an emergency is higher in my opinion. I don't want to put my parents under the stress of me not having medical aid.
I have been accepted at UNISA for my other three options, namely BCom Industrial and Organisational Psychology, B Business Administration and BCom Marketing Manegement. There are certain jobs in these industries in which I have an interest, but due to various reasons I decided not to pursue these studies. It is factors beyond my control and I found that I actually don't have the physical stamina to study part-time and work a stressful job for the next 6-8 years. I also find the accounting industry to be toxic towards people of colour, so I am looking at studying the ICB Financial Accounting courses to qualify with an NQF 6 in financial accounting in 3 years time. Contradictory I know, but I have plans for empowerment. I will not reveal yet what my actual goal with this is, I will tell you once I get there, but the sooner I empower myself with formal qualifications, the better.
I have had so many dreams and goals over the years for myself, from studies to my jewellery, but due to finances and lack of being exposed to opportunities, I could not fulfil these dreams. I just hope that my heart does not become hard in my pursuit of success and financial freedom, that I forget to be human and still see the world through the lens of truth, righteousness and love. The world is in a bad shape due to all the right wing and gangster forces around us in the media, business and government. The good people who are truly humanitarian, progressive and loving should make their voices heard and actions felt. For myself, my wish is to start an NGO on the side that will support vulnerable families with food and educational supplies for children, basically a charity. I do not want to become an accountant who is cold, selfish and conservative. I still want to hold on to the human within myself and serve my community. This is possible.
On a lighter note, I got my first pair of reading glasses yesterday. I went for an eye test for prescription contact lenses two months ago, and the optometrist mentioned that at my age I might start needing reading glasses, and I actually have been struggling to see close by for a couple of months, so yes she just confirmed that I needed reading glasses. After really struggling to see text on pages and computer screen at work, I got them yesterday. See pic below, I love my new specs!
Lovedrops Jewellery - One of my Longstanding Passions
As some of you may know, I have been making beaded jewellery since 2011. I was unemployed at the time and wanted to start my own business. I looked on the NYDA website for some ideas, and found jewellery making as something I would be interested in.
I have been crafting jewellery ever since and enjoy it immensely, when I get to do it. I have taken breaks of months or years in between at a time due to lack of funds to buy beads. I currently have a whole lot of jewellery I'd like to let go of that I have made over the years.
I'd like to ask my readers to consider supporting my jewellery hobby by purchasing one or two items, if not for yourself then as a gift for someone you love. In my new job I am not allowed to have side businesses, so I was thinking to rather donate a percentage of proceeds to people who need it. I was unable to make a success of my business due to lack of funds for marketing and not being able to afford an online store. The logistics of selling online full-time is also not feasible due to working full time in a demanding and tiring job. However, I'd like to make my current online jewellery store go live and then just have the jewellery posted once on a Saturday through a Postnet or by collection from my home in Kuils River.
I'm just putting this out there for those who would like to help me help others in need through my hobby. So essentially the funds will go to people in need and to fund bead and supplies purchases. I would not get any of the profits, so it would run like an NGO, but won't be an NGO. Just being able to do my hobby will be rewarding enough for me. Please consider supporting this wonderful initiative, coming from a place of love and creativity. I will post the link to the online store once it is live, probably by next week.
UPDATE: I AM ALLOWED TO SELL JEWELLERY IN MY NEW JOB. I have not made the online store live yet and might soon.
Me and My Kinky Hair - a Journey through different times
I know some of you might think, is hair really such an important thing to talk or write about? For the intelligent maybe it is irrelevant, but generally in society people still get classed and judged according to the texture of their hair, particularly in racially segregated and in my opinion, generally racist city like Cape Town.
People wear many different types of hairstyles and it is acceptable generally in society to wear one's hair as one pleases. However, I find in the coloured communities and in general in Cape Town, hair is still a determinant on how you get treated in society and in the workplace and how successful one can become in one's career. It determines one's social affiliations. For example, on Instagram I noticed less likes on my posts with my natural hair than with straightened hair. It determines which men take an interest in you. Lighter complexioned and straight haired coloured men would rarely be seen with someone with African hair. I am glad and lucky to have found a decent and intelligent Rasta man who loves my natural African hair.
While wearing natural African textured hair is a noble and powerful thing, it can also increase discrimination and isolation, particularly among coloureds especially in the work environment where they would isolate, undermine and disrespect a coloured person with African textured hair in hopes of impressing and getting favour with their white superiors who still use divide and rule tactics (by approval of one 'type' of coloured versus oppression of another 'type' of coloured). Or one can be perceived as a trouble maker for coming across progressive and in being defiance of European beauty standards and thus be isolated and excluded.
But let me talk about the pain and journey of healing of having my type of hair in a racist South Africa. When I was a toddler in the early 80's, all I saw on apartheid TV was white women with long blonde or black hair who were portrayed as the standard of beauty. We lived on the 'platteland' in Heidelberg at the time until I was about 11 years old. I then started wearing this fuschia headscarf belonging to my mother and pretended it was long hair. It upset my parents that I would do this but I felt a deep shame and inferiority about my short kinky hair and wanted to be like those women on TV.
I had my first discussion about straighteners and relaxers when I was about 10 years old. I remember my mother and I having this conversation about using a straightener while sitting on our stoep looking out on our large garden in Heidelberg. My best friend from Heidelberg who had long wavy hair, told me about this miraculous hair product from Cape Town called a relaxer that her cousin was using, and that is how the conversation came up. My mother refused to straighten my hair with chemicals and just used rollers, a hair tong and a hair dryer on my hair. I had my first relaxer when I was about 15 or 16 years old. There were always girls who bragged about their long straight hair and were vain about it. There was also the narrative that girls who had textured hair were less beautiful and less attractive to the guys. However, growing up in a home where education, intelligence, good values and virtues were valued, I focussed instead on my school work and hobbies such as my art and poetry and playing with my Maltese poodle called Jessie instead of obsessing over hair. I based my self-esteem on my other qualities and also believed that I was beautiful in my own way. When I started relaxing my hair I developed a deeper sense of inferiority, as the straightened hair reinforced the idea that straightened hair was more beautiful.
After university, and after a couple of years of relaxing, I discovered the GHD ceramic hair plated straightener when it became all the rage around 2013. I also bought one and soon my hair was dry, brittle and damaged from using the GHD. I became tired of the chemicals and also had a boyfriend from Mitchells Plain who reinforced this practice of going to the hairdresser like the other girls to get my hair done. I started focussing too much on my appearance and this made me feel emotionally unhealthy and unbalanced. Then in 2016 after a few weeks in hospital for a serious condition, from which I fully recovered, I thankfully discovered the Natural Hair Movement. This was a breath of fresh air for me and a chance to rediscover my natural beauty. One one of my aunts commented before I went natural just how wonderful I would look with natural hair, but I think in her mind she was imagining curls that they advertise in ads with mixed race girls. Unfortunately, my natural hair was not like those bouncy curls, but tight kinky coils, strongly African textured hair like the Afro's once donned in the 1970's. I had to accept that my natural hair was not how I would have liked it but was strongly African and Khoisan. I then felt at peace once I went natural and accepted that 'this was me in my natural real state'. I no longer tried to achieve an image or strived for straight hair. It also reinforced the emotional connection I have with the Xhosa people, as I believe I have Xhosa lineage. I am proud today of my African Khoisan and possibly Xhosa heritage, even though this kind of ties is frowned upon by many Capetonians. But definitely from both my parents I have Khoi and San lineage.
My hair reminds me that I am a child of the African soil, that this is my heritage and that I belong here. I still hold space for my European and Asian lineage, but I am proudly African and Indigenous. I may be talked about or frowned upon by certain other people who find hair like mine unacceptable and ugly, but my heart is clean from hatred and ignorance and I prefer to walk in the light of love and acceptance of blackness and humanness. I try my best not to be influenced by the ignorance, racism and xenophobia in society and try to embrace all people as equal, as we are. Black and Coloured people have been disadvantaged and we are not always as developed and educated as White people, but we are still human and deserving of dignity and respect. My thoughts go to the people of the Cape Flats as I write this. And the same goes with hair texture, whether your hair is bone straight, wavy, curly or kinky, all hair textures is beautiful and perfect as it is. I am also lucky that my features allow me to have different types of hair textures to suit my face. I have experimented with braids and that also looks good on me and I have made my hair into curls and that also suits me nicely. I am lucky to have this hair on which I can try diverse styles and each style suits my face. So in essence, for everyone, all types of hair is beautiful and should be accepted and embraced by all.
Something few people know about me is that I was a medical student at Stellenbosch University after high school. While I did not get to graduate, the journey is one I will never forget and which will always stay with me.
At first I was accepted for and started a BSc Dietetics degree in the year 2000. I attended about a week or two of the dietetics classes, when I felt unsatisfied. I felt that I could have more potential. However, I might have over-estimated my abilities and asked the university to accept me into the MBChB degree for medicine, which they did on the 7- year extended program. I then had to attend academic support classes and do the first year over a period of two years. I was very happy about this and started with great eagerness and excitement. I was going to use my life to help others.
Anyway, this did not work out, when I fell into a depression for various reasons including the isolation of being only a hand-full of students of colour on campus, and failed some subjects which I had to repeat. When I failed the 3rd year, I was unable to re-write any subjects and my studies then ended. However, I had the option of returning after completing a BSc in Medical Biosciences and then resuming from the first year or third year again.
Unfortunately my parents did not have the finances to support my studies any further and I dropped out. This devastated me and I stayed at home for a year wallowing in depression. I eventually got out of it and became a bookkeeper, which I have done ever since these past 20 years. But if I had the opportunity today, I would return to medicine and be more mindful of my health. However, my interests are also in art, psychology and social work. I am very passionate about helping people and tend to understand people, however I am at a stage in my life where it is very difficult to change careers, let alone work and study part-time, which I know a lot of people do but due to being prone to stress and burnout, I don't know if I can do this.
I have a few stories to tell of interesting things that happened during my medical studies, which is the point of my post. Firstly, in my third year during my obstetrics module, I delivered 7 babies at Karl Bremer hospital in my clinical rotations. This is one of my greatest achievements in life. During a gastro-intestinal operation I had to attend, I became nauseous from all blood and guts I was seeing and thus vomited in the scrubs area. Luckily a senior 6th year student who was mentoring me was there to support me.
And one night I had a very creepy experience. During one night of rotations, when my shift was nearly over and the nurses gave me permission to go home, I did not have a lift home at 3am in the morning. I then walked down the eastern passage to the lecture halls of the university. The lights down the passage was dim and one had to pass a chapel in the passage. At the lecture hall there were small booths with couches, and I decided to take a nap on the couch. However, I started hearing creepy sounds. I heard the sounds of footsteps which came closer and closer and then eventually just disappeared. Besides the chapel there was no other room in the passage and the chapel was further towards the hospital. I still believe it must have been a ghost. I also heard the sound of what sounded like a cat maouwing or a baby's shrieks. I also believe that could have been ghostly sounds. After that night I promised myself never to walk alone late at night in the isolated passages of the hospital unless necessary. I was also very fit from all the walking I had to do in the hospital. I still remember my white coat and my lithman stethoscope I had to use. And my dissection set which I had to use for dissecting the cadavers.
We also had to dissect the bodies of cadavers (human bodies which were preserved with formaldehyde) and that did something to one's psyche that stays with one for a long time. I dissected the heart, the brain and the penis amongst other organs. The smell on one's body after those classes were terrible, but it was part of the fun. We also had to take half a skeleton home, a skull and pelvis to learn the skeletal system. It was very interesting but also difficult to remember all those difficult medical names. I had my medical knowledge gained, with me for many years after I left and could help my family with some medical knowledge where I could give advice.
I still feel like a professional today even though my role as a bookkeeper is a semi-professional or clerical like role. I feel out of place in my bookkeeping career and still have a strong desire to help people and change society. I hope my dreams of going back to helping people in humanities this time, one day soon. I stayed this long as a bookkeeper due to lack of funds to study something (part-time) I like and hope this change can come soon.
Welcome to the Personal Blog of A Cape Daisy
Welcome to my personal blog, where I would like to share some of my interests such as my thought-provoking poetry, some of my art and jewellery designs and recipes etc. I will tell you a little about my background in this post.
I was born in Mossel Bay in the early 1980's to my father who was originally from Mossel Bay and to my mother who was originally from Athlone on the Cape Flats. At the age of three years old we moved to a small town in the Western Cape called Heidelberg, where we lived at the Municipality's Water Works where my father worked. Our house with the row of houses on the site were government subsidised housing and were literally surrounded by farms. I grew up eating fresh farm vegetables often, raw honey from the comb we got from nearby farm workers, warm home baked bread with butter and fresh meat from the local Spar. Later when we had to start attending school, we moved to inside the town, also to subsidised housing and went to primary school there until I was 11 years old. Then in the second term of school in the Std 3, we moved to Cape Town and I left behind close friendships and a best friend, whose mother taught at the primary school I attended there. It was a bit traumatic moving from a small plattelandse town where everyone knew everyone, to the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town at the water treatment plant in Constantia Nek, where most people spoke English.
However, my two brothers and I adapted very well and very quickly in our new environment and excelled academically and extra-murally at Battswood Primary School in Gosford Rd, Wynberg (the school is no longer there but relocated to another area) in 1992. I achieved the highest marks in the over 100 year history of the school only in the first term I was there in 1992, with a 92% average pass mark and was first place in my grade. I obtained 100% for some of my subjects and adapted very quickly to speak English to my teachers and peers, when not being a complete stranger to English as my youngest brother was raised English even when living in predominantly Afrikaans speaking Heidelberg. I excelled at ballet at the arts centre across the road, and the ballet teacher often praised me in the class, causing some jealousy and resentment from some of the other girls. I often entered competitions and Eistedfodds, including when living in Heidelberg. One of my art pieces for a project the City of Cape Town ran for school children, depicting a baptism of a baby in a church, was so highly regarded that it was displayed in the City Hall for a period of time in 1993. This was around the time when there were talks of peace for our land which was a common theme at school assemblies and church sermons.
We attended the Catholic Church in Constantia and were the only Coloured family, a lower middle class family, in the church amongst the wealthy elite of Constantia. We attended Cathechism classes with the children of wealthy white families of Constantia. There was only one other black child in the class, an adopted coloured child of a wealthy woman, and this child identified as white and not coloured, as he told us and was a bit nasty to my brother and I initially. Later he became our friend somewhat.
My second eldest brother who attended Cathechism classes with me, and I often had to wait long hours after school before the classes would start at the church premises. We would take the taxi to the church which was en route to our home in Constantia Nek for the classes on some days, and we would wait for hours in the cold, being cold and hungry, for classes to start and then to go home afterwards. On normal school days, we would take a taxi or sometimes a bus from Wynberg where we attended school, to the bus stop in Constantia Nek, then walk about a kilometer to our house from the entrance of the council property.
Our Cathechism teacher, a very caring and compassionate older white woman, took pity on us and brought us to her home after classes, gave us sandwhiches and tea, and let her son drive us to Constantia Nek in his expensive luxury car. He was a little racist and annoyed at his mother's kindness shown to two poor Coloured children, and told us not to speak to him in the car while taking us home. It is because of this woman that I don't condemn all white people, as she has shown me that there are good white people who care about black people who have been disadvantaged as a result of apartheid. She showed us kindness and inclusion when often some of the white kids in the class were nasty to my brother and I.
In 1994 my father was promoted to assistant manager at the water treatment plant in Blackheath, northern suburbs of Cape Town. He was the first black assistant manager and later first black manager at the plant. We moved to council subsidised housing again but this time it was much better than cold, dark and damp Constantia Nek. The houses at Blackheath Water Treatment Plant were on top of a hill off the Stellenbosch Arterial on the way to Stellenbosch, just outside of Kuils River. It was a bit of a culture shock moving to the slow paced of life and conservative northern suburbs, but living up there on the hill was the best time of my life. We were blessed with a view of the whole city, stretching from False Bay to Blouberg, with Table Mountain right in the middle. At night the city lights were sighted just by looking outside our lounge windows. We had a big beautiful garden with a nut tree, cherry trees and a grapevine. Often I would sit in the garden with my maltese poodle Jessie and sketch the plants and flowers around me. I often wrote poetry as well. It was safe and away from crime, away from the rush of urban life and was surrounded by vineyards, being right next to a wine farm. We often had school friends and cousins visiting due to the fun we could have in the open field across the house and the safety of the environment.
I often went jogging from up the hill and down Stellenbosch Arterial or cycled on my mountain bike sometimes. It is also on the Stellenbosch Arterial where I drove a car for the first time at age 16 when my father started teaching me to drive. The only negative was being far away from schools and amenities like shops, post office etc. and often could not do many extra-mural activities due to how far it was from everything. For example the closest ballet school was in Durbanville and in those days after 1994 fresh after Apartheid, those institutions were not always friendly to people of colour, so I had to give up my ballet. I have always fantasised of starting ballet classes again in my adult years, but now not so sure as my outlook has changed to being more afrocentric. However I believe all cultures can learn something from the other and participate in each other's cultures, excluding practices of cultural appropriation.
In 2010 my parents bought their first home and it was my mother's dream home, large with wooden floors and a fireplace. We did a lot of renovations and built a swimming pool later on and the property was totally transformed into a beautiful and tranquil place. I enjoy the tranquility of my parents' large garden, deck and pool and still live with them in the granny flat on the property and don't think I will move out as housing is extremely expensive in today's life. I want to be here to take care of my parents as they age.
Professionally, after high school I studied medicine for four years but it did not work out for me, and decided to become a bookkeeper with job security being my main motivation. As an introvert, I think this career is perfect for me, although I often wish I could dedicate my life to something more altruistic. But I would like to one day work for an NGO or start my own bookkeeping services business and help the poor and previously disadvantaged people and businesses empower themselves financially, as most social problems stem from poverty.
I believe people should be empowered to follow their dreams and not be in survival mode their whole lives. People often seek refuge in religion and churches and often become prey to exploitative spiritual leaders who are actually running a church business for profit and not saving souls. I believe that heaven is in one's heart and mind and you create it right here on earth in your daily life. It was the actual message of Jesus who is God incarnate alongside many incarnations throughout the ages. Each of us actually has God inside of us, we just need to purify ourselves so that our Godliness can become visible to us and to enjoy the fruits of the Holy Spirit in religious terms, which are the true riches of this life, not things like fame, money or material wealth. Heaven is a place on earth and we should all share in it equally as humans on this planet, while living as close to nature and our souls as possible. Those of us who can empower the poor and help them escape poverty should do so in our personal capacities however possible.
Welcome again to my blog, I hope you will find something that will touch or heal you when you visit my blog. You are welcome to comment, although comments are moderated and only appropriate comments will be allowed out of respect for everyone.
A New Star A new star God placed in the sky The night when you were born Another light so high on our eyes adorn A new baby brings hope Yo...
