Lavonne Bosman Photographic Art

170813, Absolutely Awesome Exhibition Evening...!!!

What an incredibly blessed night I had last night!  Thank you so much to everyone who braved the wild weather and came out into the night to give me support at my exhibition “Makhelwane (My neigbour)”.  It meant the world to me.

After spending two years with my Eastern Cape neigbours, apart from my family and friends that was an indescribable experience to have so many of you there together in one room.  I wished I could instantly clone myself and spend the whole evening with each one of you individually but it was also a dream come true to have so many friends from different walks and times of my life together and meeting each other.  My cup overflowed with love and blessedness!

And those of you that weren’t able to make it I felt you there too in spirit and it means so much to me to know you were thinking of me and wishing me well.   I trust that we will get together soon.

I want to give a big thank you to Nicoletta and her family and the Associazione Piemontesi who sponsored this event and for giving me this wonderful opportunity to showcase my work at this time and turning it into one of the most special evenings of my life.

Thank you for all your hard work of the past months and weeks, putting this together, from getting everything printed and mounted, (sorting out the bubbles and what more!),  to presenting my work in such an original and uplifting way, I absolutely loved the Pilchards and Peanut butter idea, it was so close to home and such a true reflection of the unpretentious lives led by my “Makhelwane”! And thank you for all the finer details, wine and lovely snacks! Well done!!! 

Thanks Ian, you are the best wine pourer and multi-task man to have as a friend!! Una, you are an angel..x

I want to give thanks, praise and glory to my God of love, the great orchestrator, for leading me in His way, opening doors for me, protecting me always, working His love through me and blessing me with so much love.  I can always hold on to Your word.

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed in us.”  Romans 8:18

MAKHELWANE (MY NEIGHBOUR)

A PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION

FRIDAY 16 AUGUST 18:30

@ EC LANGUAGE SCHOOL

CAPE TOWN

75 CHURCH STREET 

(Opp. Christiaan Barnard Hospital) - (Park your car @ Heritage square)

140713, Sunday. I hate goodbyes...

The kids on their way to their umakhulu Gloria

One of Gloria's neighbors with his dogs

Gloria, my Xhosa mama

Yes, unfortunately it is good bye... (FOR NOW). Due to circumstances out of my control, I had to leave for the moment. Hoping to return in the future with more support! All in God's will. Being a single white female in Africa comes with it's share of problematic situations which I needed to leave behind and trust God to lead the way to either a new adventure or provide the means for me to come back as a stronger unit and continue the work... Time will tell!

130713, Family day in prison

On Wednesday morning  I set out with one of the bead mamas and 2 of her sons to go and visit her other son in prison in Umtata. I’ve been with them to visit him a few weeks before and we planned to go again this week for the official ‘family day visit’. 

We were under the impression that there’d be a braai, so we stopped at a shop in Umtata to get some supplies and then wasted another hour to go deeper into town on the mission for cheaper meat which turned out to be just a greater waste, because arriving at the prison we found out that there is indeed no braai happening at all.  (Don’t ask me about the misunderstanding, I’m the only umlungu in the whole place and don’t understand everything that’s going on…Xhosa…)  So in the end we had apples for lunch.

There were a good number of people that turned up for family day and we had to wait in queues for the prison taxi to escort us with our food packages and djembe drums to the prison gate.  We were clever this time and left all our cell phones in the car which meant we could skip this great long queue of checking in cellphones and move on to the next one to get into the door.

After that there is yet another queue for strip-searching (After the packages have been searched).  The previous time they had a male / female cubicle where you went in to be searched one at a time.  This time, I guess because of the greater number of people, they did it right in the waiting room (Male and female apart).  So people were being strip-searched right there in front of everyone else.  Very interesting.  They basically felt you up and down and then you had to take down your pants or lift up your skirt.  (At least you’re allowed to keep your underwear on). And I must say the people who did the searching were nice enough. 

Reaching the outside people pointed me into the direction where the music was coming from, I had seemingly lost the rest of my party and people thought I must be part of the entertainment being the only white person and carrying a djembe drum under my arm.  When I got there I found my friend already playing his drum next to the speakers.  The man with the mike saw me and called me closer to join my friend, which I did although it was not really in the plan.  I actually brought the drum for who-ever of his friends wanted to play with him, which in the end turned out to be only me. 

So there I was having a rather epic moment, playing drums together with my inmate friend in front of a couple of thousand prisoners and their family members inside Maximum Prison.  It was fun and I was almost disappointed when it ended after not too long.  But he wanted to spend the time with his family rather, which I understood cause after all the delays and queues we weren’t left with a whole lot of time.

He told me that he has very few friends in the prison and rather keeps to himself than to be part of the gangs.  There is apparently a great deal of weed smoking going on inside the prison and the police themselves are the biggest dealers who sell to the inmates.  I know that sort of thing goes on in prisons all over the world, but really, we think our police are there to uphold the law and some of them try their best, but in actual fact a lot of them should be locked up themselves.  

070713, Elliot

050713 Friday, photos in a forest

For only the second time in a whole year of staying at this campsite in Coffee Bay, I have a camping buddy for a few days who happens to make the best coffee I've possibly ever had.  Donald is doing a couple months road trip with his big dog Luka and I've been lucky enough to have them join me on a little area exploration today at Umtata river mouth and Umdumbi.

Since the April flood this year, the sea is coming up much higher than before at the Umtata river mouth and much of the forest area has been under water.  Quite a surreal landscape...

A dead mule along the way.

A small section of the view at Umdumbi, my own little serengeti.