070811, Sunny Sunday

Lucy and her lovely family

Lucy's Mother
A hand-broom in the making

So happy for a little bit of sunshine today!  I missed my bead friends, so I went to see who’s there.  It was nice to see my ‘tjommie yam”, Mama Miriam.  She hasn’t been there for a while.  Lucy was also there and wanted to go and show me the new window in her new hut!  She has a great view. 

 Then I went with her to her mother’s place, where I took some family portraits of them.  They’re such a lovely family.  I sat by her mother while she was making a traditional broom out of grass.  She talked and laughed and I understood only bit and pieces, she speaks not a word of English.  I should go and spend more time with her if I want to improve my Xhosa. 

 After that I went for another visit at one of the locals who's been living her for about 20 years. and had a really interesting conversation.  She told me some the history of Coffee Bay.  Sounds like some really bad unthinkable stuff used to happen here in the past, people thought they could get away with anything because it’s such a remote place.  One example is the road from the N2 to Coffee Bay originally was built with money that was supposed to be used for the road to Umthatha, just because the minister who was in control, had a holiday house here!  The other stuff are just too horrible to mention here.  I also need to do more research about that. She is very happy that things are changing and that more God-fearing people seem to be moving to the place these days.  Also, the new and better roads are opening the place up and exposing everything that was hidden in  darkness before.