Thursday, December 1, 2011

011211, Thursday, what a week…


Braai (note the improvisation for the lack of grill...)

The kids in Sarah's garden tent house...

You, me and Capri

Little big brother uncle Troye
Boys in the garden

Raindrops are just starting to land on my window again.  We had a break for about 2 days, which I tried to use to the fullest advantage, especially since it’s kind of holiday time and time is limited…

Let me start with Monday.  It was just about 9am when I came out of the bathroom and saw this wind coming around the corner from where I was standing and headed straight for my caravan.  At the same time rain started hammering down.  I ran for it, partly to try and keep dry and partly cause I saw this was not just any old wind.  This was in fact a little storm.  We like to refer to it as a little hurricane. 

As I reached my tent, one of the side poles had already flown out, just like that.  Then the centre pole went.  All I could do was grab onto it and ready like a soldier, I was standing with the hammer in one hand and the other hand holding onto this rope, which sort of keeps my tent together.  Then the next side pole went.  And the rain was pouring. 

I was already getting streams of water into my sleeve and realized that I’m not going to be able to stay dry for this little battle.  I was just standing there holding onto this rope for some time, while it wants to take me up like a kite, thinking, this is absolutely crazy, anything could happen now.  In these moments all you can really do is pray to God. Then I jumped into the rain and secured that centre-pole, then the next one.  I was immediately drenched in the first wave of wind and water.  I do not want to be on a sailboat on the ocean during a storm like this.

Then I ran to get my car keys and move my car into the wind and rain’s pathway to try and block the most of it.  That seemed to work.  This mighty storm only lasted a few minutes, after that it was just the rain.  My caravan started leaking all around the rooftop and even my tent’s floor got soaked on one half in those first 3 minutes.  If I had been in my first parking spot, I would’ve been either drifting or sinking at this point.

The rest of the day, what could I do, had to stay and fight the leaks and just hang low.  No chance of going anywhere.  Other people in Coffee Bay had some way more crazy things happening to them.  At Jah drums a couple of their tents blew away, with beds inside and everything.  One tent with beds and all landed on another guy’s tent while he was inside.  Also the whole fence blew down in an instant and sign-boards and who knows what else were flying all over the place.  H-finished houses collapsed and rooftops blew away.  It was a little disaster, I wonder if it was on the news.  I heard about people in Durban dying.

That was Monday.  Tuesday was a better day, even with sunshine and I went to visit my friends at Bomvu and just shared everyone’s crazy storm stories.  Yesterday was beautiful and I did my washing and went to swim in the sea.

Met Buyana and Aphiwe on the beach and they wanted to give me money to take them to Umdumbi for a braai.  How could I say no.  So, I bought some meat – you can now buy nice meat, a bit expensive, at the Nenga store… We went to get Snooks.  (Oh I forgot to mention that on Tuesday Snooks walked with Aphiwe all the way to my caravan and we ate 2 minute noodles before I took her back later).  So the four of us had a little road-trip with Johnny Clegg to Umdumbi and had a nice little braai.  It was a little tricky, cause we forgot the braai grill and we had to improvise with wet sticks, which caught fire every now and then...  It was still a very good braai, I'm becoming a champion.  After that, a good swim in the shallow water before we headed back and went to visit Sarah and Capri in their new temporary tent house in the garden at Bomvu. 

Last night I had to there again to make the best of the little time we have left… Sarah and Capri are moving to Cape Town next year and taking a piece of my heart with them.  I had a great time also with my other friends, my little big brother Troye and my other brother Zukho (aka young Michael) and Travis, my new poi friend.

Donovan has still not made his appearance but I remain hopeful.  Maybe tomorrow.