What I am
I refer to myself as an African.
Whilst I can claim British descendency through the arrival of my father in Africa after the Second World War I can just as easily claim French Huguenot lineage on my mother's side through the de Kok, Rousseau and Malberbe family trees. So I am South African born and Rhodesian/Zimbabwean bred but hey, ultimately..... citizen of the World !
What I have Done
Well I must say that looking back at the years I have done more than some and less than others, and there is still so much to do !
Someone I recently met left me in awe of all the things they had done, but then when I look at them I wonder if any of them would be things that I wouldn't land up doing anyway, he had twenty years on me so there's plenty of time - or is there?
I am not a great risk taker, I take risks, but they are generally calculated. Like many I also like my share of the cutting edge, the thrill of forbidden opportunities and of course the limelight, after-all if it costs you nothing except a little effort why not take that little trip to boost the ego.
I conclude that it must be something in the blood. As early as the mid 1970's a friend and I appeared in the local newspaper revealing secrets in peoples' backyards of home-town.
In conjunction with the local Archaeology Department at the National Museum, our Scout Group and a small following of groupies (our parents) we rocketed into the local Bulawayo Chronicle as the tombraiders of the day - long before Harrison Ford and Laura Croft - we were the Howard Carter's of our generation!
Since that time, archaeology and things of antiquity have remained a passion of mine but something for which I seem to have so little time....
My fellow 'raider' went on to become a colourful DeeJay, whom I would continue to cross paths with to this day. For more than a decade though, we have lived thousands of kilometers apart.
As a student in Grahamstown in the 1980's I wrote a regular column in the local rag - Grocott's Mail on developments in the field of philately and collecting of those curious bits of paper with ragged edges and the late 1990's I started doing a radio show with my disc-jockey friend 'Sir' Roy on Radio Algoa. The radio show persisted for a couple of years until eventually the station changed hands and the program management went in another direction. Concurrent to live terrestrial radio I participated in one of those pioneering web-radio projects, live and canned, with my friend Ken Rutkowski, another Ryzer!
With the internet in Africa being a commercial fledgling I quickly found HTML and this whole idea of websites a fascinating exercise and so started up a little webpage weaving shop, this quickly became a fledgling ecommerce business with the prospect of government tenders and a private ISP and then tragedy struck, one partner fled the country with debts and the other died in a motor accident.
Whilst this was all going on I managed to hold down a job, change jobs, buy and sell houses (to live in) and build-up, own and run a retail book and magazine shop business with two branches in the beautiful city of Port Elizabeth. Those who have lived there for any length of time will almost certainly remember them... Would you say I am entrepeneurial?
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That DV Green Card
Well for those of you who never heard of a DV Green Card, here's the 'Gen' !
Every year since....er....skip that....a long time ago... the department of State decided that they would continue the spirit of the Ellis Island economic refugee migrations from Europe and thus was born the diversity visa lottery.
Many permanent resident Asians, Arabs, Africans and Europeans living in America these days are the children of or more recent beneficiaries of the DV program.
For foreigners living outside of the USA without much hope of getting entry to the US unless a benefactor reveals himself as a sponsor, or unless they can secure employment with a company that will sponsor them, the 'American Dream' is just that...a dream.
Every year the Department of State opens up a mail-entry lottery where you get to send a free entry into this lottery run out of Kentucky. Some rogues will do the entry for you, though it is free, and they charge a fee for doing this and ensuring that everything is done properly.
60,000 visas are on offer, 5,000 are reserved for countries like Nicuragua and the balance are offered to the world. Certain countries are excluded, like India and the UK, on the grounds that there are enough Asian-Indians and brits in the USA. More than a million entries are received.
We entered in Sept 2001 for 2003 and received notice of a lucky draw in March 2002. In May 2003 we had the interview and success was indicated - on July 4 we made our official entry as immigrants and now we are firmly ensconced in the US system with our little Green Cards, SSN's, Driver's licences and the other paraphenalia associated with being a US resident
2004 DV Green card Lottery
Finally, the department of state has decided to make the visa lottery a web registration. A lot less precarious than in the past, and now eliminating the lottery processors who were profiteering from foreign nationals.
ENTRIES FOR THE DIVERSITY VISA LOTTERY MUST BE SUBMITTED ELECTRONICALLY BETWEEN NOVEMBER 1, and DECEMBER 30 APPLICANTS MAY ACCESS THE ELECTRONIC DIVERSITY VISA ENTRY FORM AT WWW.DVLOTTERY.STATE.GOV DURING THE 60 DAY REGISTRATION PERIOD BEGINNING NOVEMBER 1. PAPER ENTRIES WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED. You can buy my book on MY experiences at Amazon at Enter & Win the Green Card Lottery
Life as a Perpetual Candidate...
So now, it is a new continent and a new work game and general playground...aaah the job hunting game has been anything but a challenge and of course one has to wonder - does it actually ever end? It seems like I have been looking for alternative jobs all my working life - put it down to A.D.D. - others have attributed it to having a badly wired brain (I must have been a Friday baby....hey, if it holds true for cars, why not people?) - I on the other hand view it as being more related to a belief in being destined for greater things and so I keep my eyes open and my ears pricked in the hope that someone will come along and offer me that magnificent 10 hour work week that keeps the wolf from the door...
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