A bare Stellies campus and a bear’s birthday 🐻

Some stories deserve a little more space between the bad news and the weather.

Wellington, a Stellenbosch University security guard affectionately known as Wellie, initially asked for help raising R5,000 to get his driver’s licence. He wanted a chance to earn more and build a better future for his wife and sons.

People responded. Donations poured in, carrying his fundraiser far beyond its original target. And now, with his licence secured, Wellie has bought a car, bringing him closer to his ambition of earning extra income through an Uber business. There are still a few things to sort out before he can get started, but those keys represent a huge step forward.

It’s easy to scroll past a story like this. A man bought a car. Lovely. What’s next?

But pause for a moment. Think about what it means to see a possibility for your family that previously felt out of reach. Then imagine hundreds of people helping you get there, one contribution at a time.

To everyone who donated, shared his appeal or encouraged him: you’ve helped turn a plan into something he can park outside.

Here’s to many safe kilometres, Wellie. And to a community that helped open the road. ❤️

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Stellenbosch University is investigating reports that male students ran naked across campus on Tuesday evening. The circumstances are still being established, including whether it was linked to an organised residence activity.

An investigation into students wearing absolutely nothing. Finally, a case where nobody can accuse anyone of concealing evidence.

Anyone familiar with the old men’s residence stories will know that the occasional mass streak is hardly a revolutionary concept. These things traditionally happened under cover of darkness. “Under cover” doing quite a lot of work for people wearing none.

Somewhere, a former student is reading this with deep concern, hoping his children never discover that their respectable father once crossed campus wearing only his running shoes and misplaced confidence.

Now, obviously, the circumstances matter. If anyone was forced to participate, harassed or harmed, that deserves attention. Calling something a tradition doesn’t give it a free pass.

But if it was simply a few willing idiots having a brief, ill-advised gallop, must we turn it into a national crisis?

Are we becoming so boring that every piece of student nonsense needs a task team, three statements and a PDF?

University is where you’re supposed to expand your mind. Ideally while keeping your trousers on, but apparently some students misunderstood the brief.

With exams approaching, we can only hope they’ll soon apply the same enthusiasm to covering the syllabus.

Winnie-the-Pooh celebrated a big milestone this week: 100 years since A.A. Milne’s first Pooh book was published on 14 October 1926. A century of honey, friendship and getting stuck in places he probably shouldn’t have entered.

And frankly, the bear has aged better than most of us.

No skincare routine. No gym membership. No cold plunges. Just honey, naps and a fairly relaxed attitude towards employment.

Meanwhile, we’re tracking our sleep, counting our steps and wondering whether bread is trying to kill us.

Pooh has spent a century wandering around a forest looking for snacks. Somehow, we’re the advanced ones.

If the Hundred Acre Wood were in Stellenbosch, Rabbit would have opened a farm-to-table restaurant, Owl would be charging R1,800 for a leadership workshop, and someone would have subdivided the forest into a lifestyle estate.

Eeyore would still be complaining. Although, after receiving his levies, he’d have a point.

But perhaps Pooh’s lasting appeal is that his idea of a good day remains wonderfully small: something nice to eat, somewhere peaceful to sit, and a friend with time to spare.

No personal brand. No five-year plan. No need to turn the honey habit into a side hustle.

Happy birthday, Pooh. A hundred years later, we’re still trying to afford your lifestyle. 🍯

For many families a generation ago, one parent could work while the other stayed home. One salary could cover a home, children, groceries and a bit of breathing room.

That was never everyone’s reality, especially in South Africa. But today, even two working parents can do everything “right” and still spend month-end moving money between accounts like they’re hiding it from themselves.

And here’s what gets overlooked: the household gained another salary, but lost roughly 40 hours a week of someone being available to run it.

The cooking, washing, shopping, school admin and sick children haven’t disappeared. They’ve been squeezed into evenings and weekends. Or outsourced, swallowing another chunk of the income everyone is working so hard to earn.

Two salaries being taxed. Two people exhausted. And somehow, nobody has bought milk.

Then your child has a birthday.

“We’ll keep it simple,” you say. A few friends, snacks and a cake.

By Saturday afternoon, you’re checking the receipts wondering whether you hosted eight preschoolers or catered a diplomatic summit. Someone has eaten the icing, ignored the food and cried because a balloon is the wrong colour.

It’s easy to feel we’re working harder just to stand still.

But our generation also has opportunities our parents could barely have imagined.

Starting a business once often meant premises, stock and expensive advertising. Today, many ideas can be tested from a kitchen table. You can find customers, sell a service or reach buyers overseas using the phone in your pocket.

You can also learn an extraordinary amount online: bookkeeping, marketing, coding, carpentry. Although watching fourteen videos about fixing a toilet does eventually require you to pick up a spanner.

Access to knowledge and tools has expanded enormously. Success still takes work, judgement and persistence, but more people have a chance to try.

That doesn’t mean exhausted parents need another lecture about launching a side hustle between bath time and a nervous breakdown. Another job won’t necessarily solve a shortage of time.

But we shouldn’t confuse being under pressure with being powerless.

Life is expensive. Raising children is demanding. There are real reasons to feel squeezed, and real opportunities to build something better.

We’re allowed to be frustrated by the cost of living and still be excited about the possibilities of being alive.

Somewhere along the way, we started treating every day like we were late for something.

Rush through breakfast. Rush through work. Rush through a conversation while mentally rehearsing the next one. There’s always something waiting, and this nagging feeling that we should already be further ahead.

But does all that rushing actually help us get more done? Or do we simply arrive at the end of the day more exhausted?

You can move with purpose without carrying a sense of panic. You can have a full day and still take a proper breath. Sometimes, slowing down enough to think clearly saves you the time you would have spent fixing a hurried mistake.

And be careful with that to-do list.

If you give yourself an impossible amount to accomplish every morning, you’re setting yourself up to feel inadequate every evening. You could spend the entire day making an effort, solving problems and helping people, then look at a few unticked boxes and decide you failed.

An unfinished list doesn’t erase a worthwhile day.

Some days, you’ll make great progress. Other days, something unexpected will need your attention. Give yourself credit for what you carried, including the things you never thought to put on a list.

Be ambitious. Keep your promises. Do the work. But set expectations that leave room for being human.

Calm the hell down. Take the next thing, give it your attention, then move on to the next.

You’re allowed to build a life you’re proud of at a pace that lets you enjoy living it.

🌤️ Friday: A pleasant mix of sunshine and clouds. 15–22°C

🌧️ Saturday: Cooler and cloudy, with morning showers and a possible afternoon shower. 13–18°C

🌧️ Sunday: Cloudy and cool, with light morning rain and a few afternoon showers. 9–17°C

🌦️ Monday: A possible morning shower, followed by a mix of sunshine and clouds. 10–19°C

🌤️ Tuesday: Sunshine filtering through high clouds. 13–20°C

The weekend appears to have rejected our summer application. Keep the jerseys handy.

As always, thanks for reading. If you spot something in town worth knowing, reply and tell us. Half the best Stellenbosch stories begin that way.

See you around town,
Stellenbosch Brief

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