Foreign Policy Blogs

Durban to East London

My travels have taken me from the sub-tropical coastal city of Durban to the raw and rainy coastal city of East London. The drive was long and slow, if uneventful, and divided by a night at a B&B in Mthatha. Within seconds of finishing this morning’s breakfast I knew something was seriously awry. To make a long and chunky story short: food poisoning!

I still made it to East London but have decided to head to Fort Hare in sleepy Alice tomorrow morning rather than this afternoon. While there I will be conducting research in the Sport Liberation Archives. I have not been in this part of the Eastern Cape in many years, so it is nice to be back, even if under somewhat unfortunate circumstances. I’ll be writing more substantial updates as the day progresses.

For those of you who also read dcat, my personal blog, I have no idea what is going on with that but I fea that I may have been hacked in Durban. I am receiving a message that it is closed for business, so hopefully that gets resolved soon.

 

Author

Derek Catsam

Derek Catsam is a Professor of history and Kathlyn Cosper Dunagan Professor in the Humanities at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin. He is also Senior Research Associate at Rhodes University. Derek writes about race and politics in the United States and Africa, sports, and terrorism. He is currently working on books on bus boycotts in the United States and South Africa in the 1940s and 1950s and on the 1981 South African Springbok rugby team's tour to the US. He is the author of three books, dozens of scholarly articles and reviews, and has published widely on current affairs in African, American, and European publications. He has lived, worked, and travelled extensively throughout southern Africa. He writes about politics, sports, travel, pop culture, and just about anything else that comes to mind.

Areas of Focus:
Africa; Zimbabwe; South Africa; Apartheid

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