Despite the move to Cape Town and following more South Africans than folks back home it would have been well on impossible to ignore the near constant #flegs updates on twitter.
And once again, home is on the news for all the wrong reasons.
I didn’t know whether to pack my winter woollies or riot gear.
But homeward bound I came.
Layered up and ready to see all the faces I had left behind.
And sadly a few new faces that were not as welcome.
Leaving Belfast the other night a week before Christmas with the streets deserted at 6pm, the bars empty of the usual reprobates and rogues.
But on a street corner stood a crowd – 20-strong.
Children, some who looked as young as 10, swathed in flags of the union.
Protesting or playing…it was hard to tell.
A few adults were in attendance, but this all seemed a bit contrived.
Not a protest, but more like kids playing dress up.
Excited at the thought of stopping traffic while wearing a flag that many probably don’t even know the history of.
Do they know what they are supposedly protesting against?
Are they old enough to know the havoc they a causing, the livelihoods they are destroying and the embarrassment they are causing moderate unionists who just want to get on with Christmas?
What a welcome home…
“You don’t get this in South Africa?” A friend asked.
Sadly you do.
Where here we have #flegs, back in South Africa farmworkers burn down vineyards and sheds.
The economy here may be suffering, but as Africa’s biggest fruit exporter, the millions of rands worth of damage come at a time when the economy least needs it.
The only comfort Northern Ireland can take is we are not the only country projecting a dreadful image to the world.
In South Africa the fight is for a living wage, a cause of course that should be supported, but the methods, destroying their work places and of course the livelihoods that they are ostensibly protesting to improve, are shortsighted to say the least.
Here at home, the decision to only fly the union flag on designated days has kicked off two weeks of protests and roadblocks in the city. Some pubs estimate a 20 percent drop in business and I can certainly say that the usual drama of queuing for hours has not been a problem.
The fight to survive in South Africa seems so much more important than whether or not to fly a flag.
But for some, the need to ensure that their Britishness is protected by the sight of the union flag flying over City Hall, is just that – a fight for survival.
This is a step to far in the compromises they feel have already been made in the peace process.
And while both causes can be argued for and understood, the methods cannot.
Destroying your place of work, or making it damn near impossible for others to work seems incomprehensible, but for both sides – whether in South Africa or Northern Ireland – the cause seems worth fighting for.
But when all’s told – do the ends justify the means?
KAPANDE WRITES 
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