Gallery
MOSSEL BAY NEWS - It was International Men’s Day on Sunday, 19 November. The Mossel Bay Advertiser interviewed four men in the community.
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School principal
One of them was All Saints Primary School principal Ronald Steenberg.
The school was threatened with closure by the Education Department a few months back, but after the residents in Tarka, where the school is situated, formed an action group and demonstrated against its closure, the Education Department relented.
At the end of this year Steenberg will have been principal at the school for 18 years. He is also a former pupil of All Saints.
Steenberg said: “It’s good that Men’s Day is celebrated. Men can think afresh about their duty and role they play in their family and community.
Your duty begins with your family at home. The man must look after and protect his family and set an example.
In the community, he should reach out and become involved in projects.
“There’s a high incidence of suicide, so an anti-suicide group has formed in our area. Men should become involved. The focus is also on preventing burglaries in our area. Men can get involved in neighbourhood watches.”
Steenberg was born in Brandwag and came to Mossel Bay in 1967.
Prison warden and reverend
Xolani Phithi is a reverend in the Ethiopian Church of South Africa. Currently he is supervising a church in Knysna, although there is an Ethiopian Church parish in Mossel Bay.
He is a warden at the prison in Mossel Bay and has worked for Correctional Services for the past 17 years.
Phithi is the conductor of the Southern Cape Correctional Services choir, comprising 60 prison officials from different towns in the Southern Cape.
He said he had not known it was Men’s Day, because it was not well publicised.
“Currently there are many special days, but not much is said about men. I’m not sexist, but 16 Days of Activism is mainly about women and their rights.
"There are still very good men that are supportive and protective of women. I feel men should also be taken into consideration and applauded for the good work they’re doing.
"Not every man is cruel. There are men who are exceptional, that have morals and values, that are principled, unsung heroes.
“For a man to have full recognition and respect, he must work and put something on the table. Joblessness takes something away from men.
"They lose confidence because they feel they can’t provide for their families. Even if they have something to say that is good and right, they feel they can’t say it because they feel useless.
“I strongly believe that since man was created to look after and cater for his family, provisions should be made for them to work to regain their self-esteem. I think that might minimise the high rate of alcohol abuse.
"Some men, when they have taken something to drink, feel strong and able to voice their grief and how they feel. This is not the right way of addressing things.
“A man feels: ‘My wife earns more than me and now I have to do all these minor chores in the house.’ We should always share chores.
"A man feels someone else is calling the shots in the house. Just as God is head of the church, the man is always head of the household.
"Yesterday he was supporting his family. Now, today he is jobless, but that does not make him a lesser man or lesser father to the household.
"He feels his integrity has been taken away. That is what makes men feel so small.”
Police officer
Captain Geoffrey Gordon is the commander of the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences (FCS) Unit in Mossel Bay.
His unit was ranked the third best in South Africa this year.
“I knew it was Men’s Day. I worked, but still enjoyed the day thoroughly. I see my work as a calling, not a job."
A detective, he works three weekends per month. “I work with extremely traumatic, sensitive cases.
“I started off studying law, but it was 1985 and at university, if you didn’t go along with the protests, they necklaced you.
I didn’t want to waste my parents’ money so I decided to be a police officer. I was in the September 1985 intake.”
In 1986 he was placed in Oudtshoorn and then later transferred to Da Gamaskop Police Station in Mossel Bay. His ambition to become a detective was realised in 1990.
Captain Gordon said that after 32 years’ service, nearly 28 of which as a detective, he still enjoyed every day of serving his community.
He said men contributed every day in their workplace, in their roles as husbands and fathers for their families, in their friendships, in communities, towards their nation, in sport and in terms of their life goals.
“I salute my fellow men for this. When a man meets his wife, she comes first in his life. I live for my wife and family.”
Athlete
Internationally decorated masters athlete Johan Windt told the Mossel Bay Advertiser: “To be a man is to be the leader of the house and provide for the family.
"That’s mostly what it is about. Now that I have retired, the first thing I’ve done is work in the garden. I’m into my first month of retirement. I’m 64. I sold my business.”
Windt competes overseas in biathlon and laser-run championships, among other events, and brings home several medals.
He is lean and physically fit, training five to six days a week. He describes being an athlete as “hard work” and adds: “Every time I tell myself, ‘Not again’, then five minutes later I feel better and I want to keep on.”
He says it is the “thrill” that keeps him competing. “With track, it is short and fast. You know who your competitors are, whereas with the Comrades – long distance – you do not.
"I like to see whom I am competing against. I’m very competitive in all I do and enjoy the adrenaline.”
Windt is married and has two children, after one of his three children passed away from brain cancer at age 25. Windt has five grandchildren. “I train them”, he says enthusiastically.
Following in his footsteps, some of them have even competed overseas already. He says he loves children and gets upset when he sees overweight, out-of-shape parents standing by the track, “chasing their poor children around”.
He says some parents are so hard on them that the little ones are not even smiling as they compete. “That is not the way to do it,” Windt says with despair.
“You have to make it fun for children.” He also stresses that parents of athletes should set an example for their offspring in terms of fitness and body shape.
ARTICLE: LINDA SPARG, MOSSEL BAY ADVERTISER JOURNALIST
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