280611, Tuesday, A good day for washing. Beautiful sunshine and no wind.

Moses and Lukholo outside their house
The bright room inside Moses and Lukholo's house
The tap closest to the boys' house.  It sometimes goes dry for about 2 weeks at a time...
In Ninti's room

After the washing, Moses and Lukholo came to fetch me and took me to see their house in the hills.  (My students whose parents died  some years ago and they are basically fending for themselves)  We drove in my car and I’m guessing that walking would take an hour to an hour 1/2 one-way.  In the mornings they walk to school and in the afternoon they walk to town and later back home again.  That’s a lot of walking.  For me that would surely be way too much.  And I’m the kind of person who enjoys walking.

They have  beautiful surroundings where they live, quite remote with the blue ocean behind distant hills.  Ninti stays in a separate building a little walk from the other guys.  He shares this building with a girl who lives on the other side of a half built mud wall.  Not extremely private.  The only furniture he has is a bed and a broken plastic chair.  There is no kitchen or bathroom in this picture.  He has a little paraffin lamp.  When these guys want to cook any sort of food it would happen outside over a fire in the only pot they own.

The younger guys stay together in another building consisting of 2 rooms.  Only in the first room, which has the entrance, is anything visible.  A bed, an old chest, a little wooden ‘bankie’.   

 In the other room it is impossible to see your hand in front of your eyes, even in broad daylight.  There is a double bed and I asked Moses if he isn’t scared that there may be a snake and he wouldn’t even see it.  He says that once he heard a noise under a bed and when he shone a torch under the bed, it was indeed a snake that had just caught a mouse…

Sometimes when I’m alone in my caravan I wonder if I’m just crazy or am I even really supposed to be here and why.  When I went with these guys today, it feels like maybe that’s why, if only to be a witness to their lives and the hardships they endure.  When I see their living conditions, I really feel like I want to do something about it, although I’m not sure how.  It’s not like I’m loaded with money.  But I think of those American programs where they do those house make-overs and I try to imagine what they could do for these guys.  I wish I could build them just a little house with windows that let some light in and a little kitchen and a little bathroom and clean linen and a comfortable chair to sit in and read a bit. 

Milli will be on her way here by bus tomorrow!

270611, Monday

Just a little picture that I took yesterday afternoon

At last the wind died down a little.  Hopefully completely now.  It’s evening, The Cure remixed playing, got the soup cooking with some bacon.  It smells good. 

Onlyt did some admin stuff this morning before I went over to the other side.  Found little Snooks who was keen on drawing pictures again.  I drew her a butterfly and a hut which she coloured.  Fika was playing somewhere with Josh, so had Snooks on her own together with 17year old Ninti.  My newest student whom I’m teaching the alphabet to. 

It’s a bit of a challenge I must say.  His English is also practically non-existent, so I’m not exactly sure how to handle this.  But, we’re taking it each day at a time and for now he’s practicing shaping the letters whilst also practicing to recognize each one.  It’s amazing how much we take for granted, being taught from early ages how to write.  I must be very firm with him in exactly how he forms the letters.  As in, literally draw arrows from where he should start the line and in which direction he should be going.  I’m a definite believer in getting the foundations right.  Snooks is still possibly on a higher level of knowing the alphabet than him.  But he’s a keen worker and I have hope that he’ll have a steady progress. 

The other guys officially have holiday time now as well, so they’re taking that quite seriously.  Lukholo proudly showed me his report, he did better in English this term than before.  I hope he continues to improve, he’s a bright boy, as is Moses.

Snooks was mostly sitting on my lap, eating raisins and trying to distract me in any way from giving attention to Ninti.  We are sharing a ringworm infection now.  Great.  (I still don’t understand why doctors haven’t discovered an oral remedy for this problem- and if they have they should be more generous in sharing it) We had a good time though.  In the last 20minutes or so, I read her a couple of stories from the little ‘Aesop’s Fables’ book I got.  We laughed so much at the pictures of the people’s facial expressions and the way they were dressed.

On my way home I gave a woman a lift to my side of town.  I knew she was going further, so I reckoned I’ll just take her up the enormous hill leading out of town.  On the way up, I recognized one of the elder beading mamas and picked her up as well.  It turned out that both ladies were going quite a bit further and I took them as far as the road could take us.  They live in fact somewhere in the hills where there isn’t actually any road going.  I can’t believe these ladies have to walk this far everyday and most of it in the dark!

Mmmmm this soup is not bad.  I put in too many chillies last time.

250611, Saturday. Revisit to my favourite tree

Another windy day in Coffee Bay.  Seriously happy that my tent is still in one piece.  Didn't go out much today, just practiced a little bit of guitar chords in the caravan, I really don't have much of a natural talent for this, but it's fun. 

 The only time I did go for a walk, was close to sunset and since it was cloudy, I decided to visit my favourite tree again.  I feel this tree deserves an awesome shot, so I'll probably go there another couple of times.  Today when I got there, I thought it might not be such a good day for it after all and I just tried to figure out what would be the best angle.  The sun was going down, but was behind the clouds, so it didn't look like much.  Until the last moment before it disappeared behind the mountains!  It gave me the most beautiful golden light on the wavy grass that reminds me so much of Van Gogh's paintings... Thank You Lord!

240611, Friday

Didn’t do real much today.  Was bothered by a bit of insomnia last night and only got up at 9:30, feeling tired still and rather unexcited by the windy day.  After breakfast and revising Xhosa tenses I decided it was time again to visit Ncgwanguba store.

 So I drove the 20km in silence and was desperate to find some bacon and chocolate.  I almost didn’t find any bacon, the fridge slider was stuck and when I eventually got it open there were only 2 packs of bacon left, so I took both.  There wasn’t much of a choice for chocolates either but I got a Nikki (Choc with coconut and an Inside Story for one of the coming days).  Great was my disappointment when I found out they didn’t have any chocolate slabs… I could really do with a Top Deck today!  But no worries, I’ll stock up next week when in Umtata.

 Got some lemons and chillies and one of the wild avos.  Very stupidly didn’t grab a bunch of spinach while they were in stock, I was just governed by the meat/bacon craving today.  So just now as I opened the bacon, I saw that it had expired in April.  Nevertheless I took the chance and fried it with my last surviving brinjal.  It wasn’t as pleasing as I hoped it would be and I really hope I’m not going to suffer food poisoning tonight.  Well, that’ll teach me not to do it again.

For the rest of the day, I took some flu medicine and a nap.  Then read a bit from the Adrian Mole diaries that I brought for the kids.  I now regret not saving ‘Pillars of the earth’ for this time.  Oh by the way, happy birthday my friend Leon wherever you are today!!

230611, Thursday, cloudy

Spent most of the day with my bead friends an had a lot of fun.  I really love these women. I've only recently noticed that there isn't really any R sounds in Xhosa, which means when they use English words with an R, they pronounce it much like the Japanese people do, with an L.  So, they would often refer to my camela when I'm taking pictures.  And today I was taking more pictures than usual, with the overcast weather, they all just looked so beautiful today.  Of course most of them are quite camera shy, but in the end today, they were all having fun and taking turns folding a towel the traditional way, to wear on their heads.  

On the way back home, one of the ladies walked with me on her way to the hair 'saloon'.  Apparently they have to 'marinade' their hair to get it soft.  Anyway, we bumped into her mother and father and they let me take pictures of them after a short conversation in Xhosa.

I'm so glad I'm getting to the point where I can actually attempt short conversations, otherwise I don't think these people would be bothered with me wanting to meet them.  All they want is R5, but I bought a belt from one of the bead ladies the other day for R25o, so my charity budget for the month is a bit short and I mostly go around without any money on me.  It definitely makes things more interesting. 

It's 7:30 now, it just started raining a little while ago and I'm already so tired, I could go to sleep right now.  I might just do that...

Boy with his Toyota Hilux

Family of one of my bead friends

Today, my beading lady friends...

Miriam and her friend
Ivy
Mphethane and Lucy

The kids making my heart glad

In class today... I drew pictures for the little ones to color in, Fika especially loved circling his car wheels!  Thobile was teaching his elder brother the ABCs
Snooks in her new outfit, looking very serious while carrying my bag.

The three musketeers sharing the love in their pretend-caravan...

The Nenga River Lodge (where I stay) from the other side of the 1st river

Little boy taking the cows home

220611, Wednesday, Love Life

Been slow with everything this week. I’ve been feeling a bit down and tired, like the flu kicked back when all my friends left. But I’m feeling stronger again as the days go by.

On Monday, Miriam didn’t come around after all, or she did but we just didn’t find each other. So I just hung around and cleaned around the tent and caravan before heading off to teach later on. Yesterday morning I decided to tackle the washing myself and it took most of the morning again, but it was quite enjoyable and well on the meditational side.

After that I went to the other side and remembered the crayons and paper for Snooks and Fika who’ve now become regulars to the little class. We still have a few discipline issues every now and then, but it’s sort of under control. I’ve never been the authoritative type so it’s a bit of an experimental time for me.

I took some of the raisins that Brevan left here and everybody was crazy about it! (Brevan left a big shopping bag full of smaller bags filled with raisins). Snooks was the self-appointed raisin queen doling out to everyone in a fair and effective manner. Today I took another bag for the beading ladies and they were equally delighted by it. Take note: Raisins are definitely a wise treat to stock up on when heading towards the Transkei. The same goes for nuts, probably peanuts otherwise it can get a bit expensive. I’d say go for raw peanuts if possible.

Today I spent a nice amount of time again with the beading ladies and revised some of the Xhosa I’ve been learning. I still know quite little, but occasionally I manage to say something impromptu and make everyone laugh with my superb growing knowledge of this little bit of a difficult language.

A Xhosa man from Umtata, parked his car right there and came over to find out what’s the story with this white intombi hanging with the mamas. After talking to me for a while and finding out my name he decided that I should have a Xhosa name and that that name should be Nobomi, which means ‘life’. I have no idea why he decided on that, but I liked it and just laughed, because I always loved it when my Xhosa lady friends that used to work with me in the sushi restaurant a couple of years ago called me “Love Life!” (Remember that Love Life campaign on SABC TV? I think it was about HIV or something …)

I must say, today I’m rather craving meat. I should remember to buy some bacon when I go to Ncwanguba next. The meat they sell around these parts I’ll rather not trust. Meat is another thing to stock up on when coming here for a while, provided you have a freezer, oh yes, did I mention that my fridge is working now! Yes, on gas, I’m so happy, now my tomatoes will stay fresh too.

Another interesting phenomenon here is the bread. The shop closest to me only sell unsliced bread. I wondered why that may be. Is it that much cheaper to not pre-slice the bread? But then I think I might’ve figured it out. Cause the other night when we made those amazing braai-broodjies, I tried my best to cut slices without breaking the bread, which it did and even more when you tried to put the butter on. But, then I remembered from childhood that it’s a cultural thing to slice the bread really thick. So, that’s what you’re supposed to do. Cut it really thick and a little bit rough, so you can stack things on it, almost using it as a plate. And then you can also control the exact thickness of the bread depending on how many family members you’re trying to feed. And perhaps the father gets the fattest slice and the baby a smaller one. Not sure, but that’s my theory anyway.

Lobolo

At Papazela's

The amazing view from Papazela's pizza place.  Unfortunately they're about only open on Saturdays...

The top photo is of Jessica (the dog) charming the girls, while trying to sneak the balls off the table...

Coffee Bay Wedding

A quick Coffee Bay Wedding

Football action next to the road

Saturday morning, cleansing swim

190611, Sunday, we have water!

Evening.  Our water came back on last night (Saturday).  Thanks and praise!  This morning as I returned from the bathroom, the Xhosa lady who works here walked behind me and laughed “Everyone is smelling perfume today” and I said: “yes, everyone is clean today!”

Yesterday morning we went for a little bit of a chilly swim in the sea, more to get clean than anything else.  It was refreshing enough to get us going after that with amazing avo, (all my Port St John’s avos of course ripe at the same time) bacon and cheese omelettes with coffee Italian style on the burner. The omelettes should feature on my Friendly Butternut Hut’s menu!  It was the best we ate all week! 

2 of my housemates of the house I stayed at for the 1^st 2 weeks came by to ask me if I could photograph a wedding at the house later in the day.  Gogo’s (the grandmother who’s house it is) daughter was getting married again.

Then we drove the 20km road to Ngcwanguba store to refill the gas, stock up on some drinking water and a couple of other things.  On the way back we stopped for a while to watch a bit of a football match next to the road. 

After that it was time to quickly photograph a little wedding, my first Transkei wedding!  I hope there will be many more, even more traditional…

Then, it was across the road (slightly uphill) to Papazela’s, the pizza place with a view, where we watched a little bit of rugby before returning home to make another last little fire before Donovan and Brevan had to return home this morning.  Strange to be all by myself again now, but I’ll adapt soon enough.  Looking forward to Mama Miriam coming by tomorrow morning to do my washing!  She’s also been making a beaded belt for me, which I suspect might also be finished tomorrow.  It will definitely be good practice for my Xhosa, because Miriam doesn’t speak a word of English and she likes to chat.  Awesome.

Today I really needed to go for a walk, but I must say it's kind of an issue for a girl to walk on her own around here, so I couldn't go too far.  Just about all the people, young and old I met on the road asked me for money.  I just can't quite completely understand it  yet.  They really expect you to give them money, like they think you must have an endless supply raining down from heaven.  I don't know, do I? Even when I tell them I'm walking for exercise, I don't even have money on me.  I really want to get to the point where I can have conversations with the people.  I want to understand where this expectation comes from and where they can also understand that one can't just give money to every single person you meet on the road.  It's a bit of a mystery to me.  

Another day has gone

Not everyone survived the wind...

Scenery along the path

7:38pm, still Friday, still no water

Just got in bed, happy and satisfied after a strange, yet satisfying day.  Strange, because well, as I woke up this morning I was very curious to find out what’s happening with our water situation, so as I went to the toilet, the ladies who work at the camp, were busy with buckets of water that came from the river.  They had to refill after / or before each flush.  We didn’t go to the toilet very often today and it seems that somehow a system is being managed that doesn’t work too bad.  We could possibly survive this long weekend.  I just hope it doesn’t carry on too long.  I’ll still be here after the weekend.  But I guess, us humans can get used to anything? Or we'll have to see.

So, us 3 campers were not really ready to face the day this morning.  In the light of the day, did we only realize how little we could do without water, when we saw the dirty dishes of our feast last night,  (It wasn’t that bad, just a question of how to deal with it.)  Plus, really wanting to shower and wash my hair after another night sweat attack (I think the flu might be slowly coming out of my system).

Ilse and Steve came to say goodbye this morning, I hope at least my teeth were brushed!  (No, I’m kidding, I have gained some experience in washing with very little resources – as in water).  Your basic bucket and cloth system works not too bad, even with very little water.

We had some coffee and Ouma rusks (well, I had tea), then me and Donovan and Jessica hit the road for a little walk to the Bomvu river and followed a path that runs along it.  We played with the cameras a bit, but it was too early for really nice lighting.  On the way back, I talked him into just a quick look at my favourite abandoned hut on the hill with the beautiful view of the long golden grass and the tree that I like.

There’s a little pig sleeping inside the hut.  And the view is still as beautiful as I thought it was.  On the way back, Jessica started limping, looks like she has a little cut on her foot cushion.  Such a brave dog.  She’s wearing a bandage now.  I hope tomorrow she’ll be in tip top shape again. 

We got hungry and went home to make braaibroodjies (cheese / tomato /onion / chutney - toasties on the fire) again and potatoes and warm up some leftover meat from last night.  Great, wonderful.  God is so good.  I can get into bed now, warm, relatively clean and happy.  I hope Ilse and Steve are safe back in PE by now.

Camp fire

Donovan, exploring someone's makeshift fishing line

A fishing rod, made from a piece of branch and green wool.

Jessica (Donovan's dog) playing in the water

The ladies, filling bottles of sea water

Apparently they drink the water to cleanse themselves from the inside, I'm not exactly sure about the details of this...

Lukholo, reading about Leonardo's inventions

170611, Friday, no water

Can’t believe it’s Friday already.  I guess a lot has happened, but then again, not really that much.  I’ve been sick, flu I guess.  Ilse and Steve has been here, although I didn’t really see that much of them.  On Tuesday I had a nice day, spent a lot of time with Snooks and Fika, they also joined my little class and kept themselves cosy on the couch, causing the more than occasional disruption, but it was nice to have them there anyway.  Next time I must remember to take some crayons and paper for them.  The other guys all enjoyed their class very much, they read about Leonardo da Vinci and his inventions (I’ve got a couple of 2^nd hand TEFL course books that one of my Cape Town students collected for me from the residences- they’re coming in very handy now for these small classes)

Donovan and another friend Brevan also arrived here on Wednesday, a bit sooner than expected, so all of a sudden I had almost too many friends here at the same time!  But it’s been a good couple of days, we haven’t done that much, a good thing, cause I just feel like lying low really.  This flu has tapped a bit of my energy. 

The wind has been a bit wild on this side over the last few days.  We constantly have to keep an eye on all the tent poles and the guys have had to shift around their little tents to try and protect it from the wind.

Yesterday, Ilse and Steve came over with some crayfish and Donovan got the fire started, so we had a feast of lots of meat, potato salad, tomatoe/avo/onion/and crayfish salad and braaibroodjies.  We watched the moon rise (It was full moon the night before and we saw a lunar eclipse- amazing sight- you could see the moon in 3D!) and dodged the wind. 

At around the same time, the electricity of the entire campsite went out and the water got cut off.  It was still kind of okay functioning in the dark, trying to prepare food. Outside, the light of the moon helped a bit.  That was last night.  In the meanwhile, the electricity went back on.  But as I’m writing, there is no immediate hope for the water to come back on anytime soon.  Apparently a water pipe has broken at Mthatha River mouth.  So, now we can’t shower, can’t flush the toilet, can’t wash the dishes and it’s all feeling a bit on the dry side.  I wish I had a bigger tank to catch that rainwater last week.  I really hope the water gets back on again soon.  I could go and wash in the sea, but am not really feeling it with this flu.  We’ll have to go buy some water to drink…

 

The tree that I really like

Today's sunset from the hill

Hanging with my beading friends

Snooks with my shades & Fika with Mydog

140611 , Monday sun shine...

Just after 12 midnight.  Can’t sleep just yet.  Mind going haywire with too many thoughts, hope I can remember all now.  Well, was basically one of the good days. 

Woke up this morning, tired (Keep on waking up in the night with a sore throat-luckily I do have some Viral guard throatspray…)  I was very tempted to sleep a little later, but when I opened my little ‘curtain’ and saw the clear sky with sun shine all round, I almost jumped out of bed with the excited notion of finally continuing my clothes washing effort that got disrupted by the rain a week ago.  So, I had a shower and the last slice (which I bought in Mthatha when I was there the beginning of the month.) of my wholewheat Low Gi bread (that got slightly mouldy because I can’t get my fridge to work, I also had to toss half of my cheese! Like flushing gold down the toilet) Sorry, I’m getting totally sidetracked.  The bread I ate with the avo (that I also bought on that trip).  The avos are great.  Did I mention that I bought 8 big avos for R20 and they’re of course all ripe at the same time.  I love avos!  In Cape Town, sometimes you get so desperate for an avo, that you can buy 1 avo at Woolworths for about R20 – or probably more!

Right, so after that I started the washing, feels like I’m becoming a pro.  Did way more than anticipated, even washed 2 pairs of jeans rather than the usual one, and washed a duvet cover and sheet that’s been lingering in the queue for some time now!  My hands do look a bit funny and pinkish after the whole episode, but it’s well worth it.  My washing bag is now for the first time empty. 

However satisfying this all was, later in the day, when I got the chance, I did ask in very broken Xhosa if there was someone willing to do my washing for me once a week for R30.  It was no problem to find someone and I’m happy to say, the lovely candidate that got the job, is no other than my new friend, Mama Miriam, one of the beading ladies who I spent the rest of the morning with.  She helped me fix my broken string of beads (intsimbi) and I stayed there for quite some time longer, with my notebook and one of the children’s Xhosa Bibles. 

Basically Miriam can’t read or speak any English and well, I can read and I speak very little Xhosa.  So, it was a funny combination as I read to her, and she tried to explain to me in a very abstract way what I was actually reading.  Some of it I could kind of guess from the pictures.  Also, my young friend Michael and Lucy, (another beading lady friend) and occasional other beading ladies came by and attempted to help in this confusing reading/teaching session.  I hope they loved it as much as I did. 

My dog (I’ve now decided that I’m going to call him “Mydog” as a name, cause that’s what I’ve been calling him whenever I see him or when I want to call him.  Come her Mydog! And I think it’s quite ironic, cause whenever you ask someone whose dog it is they say:” It’s my dog” so now whenever someone asks: who’s the dog? Anyone can just answer and say it’s Mydog and everyone will agree, yes it is Mydog!  Well, I think it’s funny anyway.)

So, Mydog was also sleeping with his head on my leg while I was sitting there.  The ladies didn’t chase him away, cause I told them I like that dog.  Eventually they made me pull of his ticks.  There were 2 small ones and one really big fat one….I’m not sure I can type exactly the sound of squeamishness I made as I picked that one off. For a moment I knew what it was to be part of a pack of monkeys who sit and groom each other.  I really felt like I belonged.  I am laughing as I’m writing this okay.

Anyway, Mydog also had another dog friend there today and he was equally loving.  Later, 2 for the price of one, they walked me safely home.  It felt really good to walk that road with 2 dogs running with me all the way.  Every now and then they would show off by chasing away another dog or a stray cow.  They would come back to me when I called them.

I was just not sure what to do with them at the campsite, but I planned to go back almost straightaway and could take them back with the car.  Mydog wanted to come inside with me by all means, but I had to make them stay outside the gate and just took them some water.  After a little while when I drove back, they were gone.  I figured they must’ve gone back the river way-it’s shorter, they just have to swim through the river, but I’ve seen them do that no problem.  I’ll see next time how keen they are to walk with me again if they know I’m just going to leave them by the gate.  I hope they’re not put off by that idea too much. 

When I went back to teach, only Thobile was there, and he couldn’t stay long, so we just chatted.  I’m really interested to go and see exactly where these guys live, how far they have to walk and what little resources they have available.  Soon. 

I then walked up the hill to see if I could get a nice sunset photo (not particularly) and on my way back, Snooks was shouting at me from their house, so I went over.  She pulled her one tooth today and is so excited about it.  Fika was also there and I met their aunt.  I’ve really come to love those kids and they would be enough reason for me to want to stay here despite some difficult circumstances.

Then I went home and waited for my friends Ilse and Steve to arrive.  They were the people who brought me here, to Coffee Bay, for the first time, last year April.  So, it’s quite a special visit and the first of friends after Donovan.  I talked their heads off, because unfortunately they haven’t read any of my blog.  Sorry!  There’s quite a lot to tell…

 Well, tomorrow is another day!