The year usually takes a while to get going. Holidaymakers gradually trickle back from the coast or the big cities over the first few days – but some establishments were still closed for the first week… or maybe it was the first ten days… of the year.
The year usually takes a while to get going. Holidaymakers gradually trickle back from the coast or the big cities over the first few days – but some establishments were still closed for the first week… or maybe it was the first ten days… of the year.
It seems the year needs a push-start before all cylinders are chugging along. Perhaps today, when pupils finally go back to their schools, is the real beginning of the year, when we can sort of expect normality to reign in our business dealings? Well, not really. You see, the students haven’t come back to town yet.
Varsity only begins at the end of this month, and since the 7 000 students collectively have a massive impact on the workings of Grahamstown, we can’t honestly say that it isn't back to business until they are here.
So while we wait for the return of the students, we can muse for a little longer on the months ahead. Is 2011 going to be a good year? Will it be better than 2010, which had its fair share of ups and downs? There are signs indicating that we could be cautiously optimistic.
For example, the matric results have improved substantially – perhaps with a little help from Umalusi – but the change suggests that our education system might have bottomed out and now we are going to see a great leap forward.
The horrendous death rate on our roads appears to have diminished marginally – which is better than increasing marginally – so if fewer people are dying, that is a good sign. Our national economy appears to be doing reasonably well, with high prices on offer for our mineral resources, and interest rates look set to remain at manageable levels.
At a local level, the municipality is keen on building new houses, and has been unusually responsive in answering our questions with more detail than we had been accustomed to. An encouraging development for those of us in the local media was the way in which the police handled the protest march featured on the front page of this edition.
In the past, police officers have been quite aggressive towards our photographers at protest marches, but on Friday, they were positively friendly. Well done, we hope it continues this way. And we hope that 2011 meets and surpasses the early, positive expectations.
