180413, The house that Sinevuyo built

At The Reading Hut

The mastermind having a moment

A work in progress

The end result.  Pretty cool mmm?

180413, Coffee Bay 'town'

It was raining a little this morning, so Thobile didn’t arrive for his class.  I can’t say that I mind.  I have enough to keep myself busy with. Right now (2:15pm) it's pouring and I'm enjoying some butternut/lentil stew...goodness!

One thing that is a little bit on my mind these days is the news (maybe old news for some but things happen so slowly around here, the effects may only be seen in a decade or two, who knows!) is that it is now official: Coffee Bay - Hole in the Wall is being turned into a town.  

I’m not sure exactly what that means but I do find it rather interesting.  It makes me wonder about some questions, like: 

What exactly makes a place a town?

Why do they want to make it a town?

Who will benefit from this idea and how exactly?

How will the local people be affected by it?   For better or worse?   

What exactly is going to be done to make this change?

How long will the process take and when will we start seeing results?

What are going to be the pros and cons in general?

Precisely what area will be enclosed in this town?

At this stage I can only guess.  I'll let you know once I have any answers.  I’m not sure if it is really a good idea to do this whole thing, since Coffee Bay is about 70km away from the main road (and the road is still pothole-riddled), it’s geographical setting is rather narrow, not much land close to the sea and then the hills start.  And how can they take land that has always belonged to the families of the community?  Logistically I can’t really see it but then again I’m not a town planner so what do I know.

Either way I must confess I find the idea of historical change rather exciting, even though I enjoy being here for exactly the reason that this isn’t really a town.  The fact that time hardly exists here.  And that some days nothing happens just because it’s raining.  Because I’m a dreamer, reflecting kind of person, I appreciate that. 

What does ‘a town’ mean?  Being able to buy property and having to pay tax on it? (The locals won’t be able to afford that.) That things are organized in a civil manner?  And that the municipality should be more responsible for the general upkeep of things, like keeping it free of trash, that would be a good thing. That’s one unpleasant aspect seriously spoiling the beauty of this place. 

And hopefully they'll ban bottle stores from selling alcohol on Sundays, cause that is a major thing that happens here on Sundays, it is party day for locals from surrounding area and I often don’t even want to enter the street on a Sunday because of all the noise of the drunken party buses and people trashing their glass bottles wherever they wish.  It is not uncommon to hear of someone getting stabbed at these gatherings.  If I want to go to the beach on a Sunday, I better just go early before the drunkards arrive to harass me.  It would certainly be a positive thing if they could change all of that business. 

An unavoidable negative point would be the increase of tsotsis.  At the moment it is relatively safe here.  Hopefully they'll have a police station in the centre of this town, wherever that's going to be.

170413, Daniel

I'm just putting up this little pic of my nephew, Daniel who lives in the Western Cape with the rest of my family.  It was great to get to see him while I was there and I already miss him and feel sad that I'm missing out on some precious times with him...  He took his first independent steps this week at only 8 months old!!! I really hope I can get back to see him (and the rest of the fam) on his first birthday...

170413, Back in the Bay

At Cintsa

Little Michelle having her breakfast coca cola...

René on the beach

It seems I have been absent for some time...  Well, I'm back now!  (I hope).  

Was on the other side of the country for a couple of weeks and this is already the second week of being back here, but it took me a while to get into the hang of things again.  This past weekend I also attempted another little road trip to Cintsa, to visit some people I got to know here in Coffee Bay last year.  Remember René, who I taught for a while last year in the campsite?  

I'm grateful to be able to continue this little friendship!

200313, Reading Hut

Mhleli

Afekile

At the moment I'm staying with my parents in Greyton, working on some wedding photographs.  It's always great to be able to come and visit at this side of the country...  I hope and trust that all is well in Coffee Bay and that the Reading Hut is standing with no problems. 

 It was a real good first 'term'.  I found it very fulfilling, and I'm looking forward to going back and spend more time with the kids.

040313, Wild Lubanzi

Will, checking if we're still heading in the right direction

Way to go!

Morning view from our dorm room door

Lubanzi chilling

Hole in the Wall on the way back

At Hole in the Wall

A little leap of faith

On Saturday evening I met Will and Hanni at Coffee Shack for dinner. They told me that they're walking to Lubanzi the next day.  Since we were all supposed to be in Bulungula that weekend for the NGO forum, but didn't go because of the rain and difficult roads, I reckoned there should be nothing stopping me from joining them, except maybe for laziness.

So Sunday morning at 7:30 we set out on our hike to first, Hole In the Wall, where I had a nice cooling off swim, (IT WAS HOT), had breakfast, chilled by the Hole a while and then did the last stretch to Lubanzi. I must say the first bit was tough for me, these hills always are.  Just going up and up this steep never ending hill and then another and another.  At one point I had to sit down because I was feeling dizzy and my 2 eperienced hiking partners just had to patiently wait for me.  I guess I'm not the fittest hiker around.  We did do it in quite good time though, about 2hr 30 min to Hole in the Wall where the last time I did it with a guide and some other backpackers it took us 4 hours to get there...!

We went  around the rocks a couple of times, which was much more fun than the hills, but one time I almost saw my life flash before me.  We got a little bit stuck and these young boys came to show us which way to go, I had to get a foot grip on these tiny rocks, looking down at more rocks and water down below and I thought that it probably works better if you've got tiny kid's feet and no shoes.  But thankfully I made it.  Luckily the other two found another route.  After that I was quicker to opt for the steep hills.

My two hiking partners are Dutch and I told them they have to speak Dutch all the time so that I can get used to hearing it again and try to remember some of my long lost Dutch (I used to be fluent 18 years ago when I lived in Rotterdam!  Man, I'm getting old..), which was fun.  I must say a few times my head was so confused with all the languages,  I'd be thinking in Dutch, Afrikaans, English and Xhosa all at the same time.

Lubanzi itself was excellent.  Have to go there again.  The backpackers is great and has such a lovely atmosphere created by it's owners (a South African guy married to a Swiss lady) who are also able to provide most interesting information regarding self-sustainability from a veggie garden for one thing.  And what a feast of a dinner we had, prepared by our lovely Swiss chef, father of Rahel.  Pork rashers, egg-plant marinated in a special sauce, carrot-and-egg salad, potato salad and a wonderful green salad with a great variety of fresh ingredients.

When you arrive at the Wild Lubanzi backpackers, you are greeted by a big cold beer (for free!) and a view from a deck that makes you feel you must be in paradise.  I was too tired to do much else than hang in the hammock, checking the view.  No guilty feelings.

I went to sleep early because the day's heat got to me a little.  Today on the way back, I wet my sarong and covered my head and shoulders with it, to create a cooling down tent.  It worked.  The way back seemed much more easy than the way there! We left there about 9 this morning, a bit late because we wanted to wait for the yummy fresh bread to be baked for breakfast.  And of course we had to check out the awesome garden and improve our own knowledge a bit.  At Hole in the Wall beach we had a nice swim again and got back to Coffee Bay around two.  Hungry and happy.

Awesomeness!

020313, Not an ordinary breeze

In the course of Wednesday evening the electricity flickered a couple of times and then cut out.  A little while later a ferocious wind started whipping through the air.  This was no ordinary wind, but a wind so hot it must’ve escaped directly from the furnaces of hell. 

I had to go outside and bring in my chair and dishes that were standing outside the tent, things just started blowing away.  And it was hot.  Aquila stood panting in the tent, looking confused.  My skin felt like it was burning.  I zipped up all the ‘windows’ to stop the heat waves coming in.  My caravan was still the coolest place and I had to be real quick to close everything I could, cause every second things just got hotter and hotter.  Eventually the caravan was also too hot to handle and I took a wet cloth to try and cool myself down, without much affect.  I couldn’t sleep much, listening to the wind blowing and not being able to open my window to cool off.

Miraculously all my tent poles stayed intact, I reckon I must’ve been at a good angle in the wind.  The next morning our gardener told of houses that lost their roofs during the night, both zink and thatch.  There is an old, mostly abandoned, rondavel not far from the Reading Hut of which the roof shifted completely to the one side.  I hope no-one was in there when it happened…

Another little strange thing that happened this week…  I’ve been suspecting a rat coming into my tent,  during nights, because something nibbled on some pears lying on the table, and have been looking out for the culprit.  Last night Aquila was standing in the tent, sniffing the air and I took my little light to investigate.  What I found was not a rat no, but instead a baby bat!  Hanging fast asleep on my little ‘washing line’ inside the tent.  Very strange little creature.  Amazing how it’s ‘wings’ (if that’s what it’s called) wraps right round it’s body, even the back legs and tail are all part of it.  I threw the little sleepy bat out and hope he doesn’t come back.