While travelling in other parts of Africa in the last few months I came to a startling revelation - according to my fellow Africans north of the Limpopo, I am white.

The month of January may be South Africa’s biggest test in the arena of international diplomacy.

The email sent to a journalist on January 8, supposedly containing the presidential address of the ANC centenary celebrations, was empty.

Political science is what they teach you at university, but in reality politics is anything but a science. It is a messy, emotionally charged chess game where almost nothing can be explained or predicted beforehand, but afterwards everything seem crystal clear.

My mother is a very tough woman, but you would never know it by looking at her. Soft-spoken and well-mannered, she hides her will of steel behind a smile that never belies what she is really up to.

Ethiopia prides itself at being the only African country that was never colonised. There was apparently some small altercation with the Italians in the 1930s, but it only lasted a few years and the Ethiopians refer to it as an “invasion” rather than colonialisation.

It is in January that you learn the value of money. You indulged extravagantly in December, completely forgetting that a year-end bonus also has a limit and that January brings an extra load of expenses.