Staying with the reverend's family in Kokstad

After Coffee Bay, we went on hitch hiking towards the Drakenberg and Lesotho, but first we had a stop in Kokstad. A reverend of the local baptist church, Rowan, picked us up by the side of the road and since the hour was growing late, he kindly invited us to spent the night at this house with his family. They first had an award ceremony for the end of the school year at their local school. We were kindly invited to assist and I tried to make myself useful by taking pictures, especially since I want to try out my new camera. Before the awards though, they had a little Xmas play, which was enchanting!
They had six children, three of themselves and three adopted, of which only one boy, but quite the handful.So lovely to meet them.


It once again confirmed my love for the hitch hiking way and how it is one of the best methods of meeting the salt of the earth!

Now, off to Drakensberg and the pony trekking trail in the Sani Pass that we're undertaking for the next three days!

On the Wild side of the Coast

Coffee Bay was very hippy... we spent a morning having several Kodak Moments on the cliffs,
getting sunburned at the beach and in the afternoon a guy invited us to go speak to a sangoma (a local witch doctor) and then the initiation of two 18 year old that become men through circumcision. It was all very fascinating, especially since we did it through a guy, Lihle that we met by chance in the bus. He just introduced us to these people from his little village, and though they had never before seen tourists, they managed to explain it all very well.

The sangoma, who was actually quite young, 34 y/o, had been called three years before by first becoming sick (headaches and hallucinations) that couldn't be cured by pills or shots. She then experienced dreams and visions, in which ancestors of her, dressed in white called her to become a sangoma. She went to consult another sangoma who confirmed the message and she spent a year in training (as a twaza), learning about medicines and consulting the elders. They have to be able to say what the problem is of the people that come to see them (which costs 60R) and then for the remedy (oils, roots, specific rituals to be performed) another 350R.

We next went on to see a little hut (rondavel) in which two young men were spending their one month initiation period.
As you can see on the pictures, their names are changed after the one month period and the new names are written above their sleeping place. They are painted with a kind of white ochre that is meant to have a link with the ancestors (white meaning the peaceful ones, who passed away in their sleep and whose bones are white now). During the one month, they are taught what responsibilities come with manhood, how to behave towards their wife, how to ritually kill a goat or cow, etc. This is also sometimes used as a punishment, for youngsters that are behaving badly. If they go through the entire initiation, their former crimes or sins are forgiven, since they are supposed to have been committed by others. No women visitors are allowed except for sisters(though they made an exception for Estelle). Funny to note thought that they were playing with a deck of cards with nude (white) women on them though.

First departure: rained out....

Leaving Plett prooved harder then expected... Not because of sentimental reasons (which were there of course as well) but because of massive rain. The entire area had already been flooded and quiet a number of houses had to be evacuated.

Check out the biggest hotel and see where the little bridge is leading to now;-)



And the morning we wanted to leave, the minute we stuck out our thumb, Mercurius started crying. After 45 minutes of acting pathetic like drowned kittens, we abandonned and retreated to the nearest gas station where we tried drying off. B-plan was to take the night bus so we spend a quiet day, which was actually quite nice, without worries and hassle, before heading off to East London. Off course our usual luck off buses prevailed and we again broke down two hours away from Plett. But eventually we arrived in East London and from there we hitch hiked to Coffee Bay on the Wild Coast.

Future plans

Departure is eminent from our dear Plettonian life: this Monday 26th of November, Thomas, Estelle and me will be taking off towards:
- first stop : the Wild Coast (26 till 28/11) , where some of the less touristy and most beautiful and secluded beaches are supposed to be (around Port St John probably).
- second stop: Drakenberg and Lesotho (29/11 till 2/12): the high mountains and the little kingdom I once spent some time teaching and horse riding.
- then through Durban and Swaziland (3 and 4/12) into Mozambique: over to the capital, Maputo 5 till 9/12), from where Estelle is flying back home on the 8th of December and where Tina, a friend of Thomas is arriving till the 18th of December.

Once Tina will have abandoned us, Thomas and me might try and buy a motorbike and head along the Mozambican coastline to the north, spending time wherever it suits us. Around Xmas, we would either head towards Malawi or straight into Harare, Zimbabwe. Anyway, the flight we booked (but have still not paid since Ethiopian Airlines doesn't make it that easy ;-) back to Brussels, Belgium is on the 1st of January 2008!

The rest of the future is still uncertain, though chances are we might be spending the next three years working for Volens in Harare, Zimbabwe, with the projects we visited. Keep your fingers crossed!

Estelle in south africa

En première, Estelle se la pête en Afrique du Sud....

Sketch: l'Addition (Muriel Robin)

Un des sketches que j'ai vu il y a des années et qui m'est toujours resté à l'esprit, surtout quand on fait des soirées resto ;-)...

Thomas is trying to get everything finished...

But where does this extra money comes from in my bookkeeping?!

aaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGG GHHHH HHHHHHH!!!!

Parting...

"The meeting and parting of living things is as when clouds having come together drift apart again, or as when the leaves are parted from the trees. There is nothing we may call our own in a union that is but a dream."

William Blake

Birds of Eden

Last Tuesday we went with Goedele's visiting family and Estelle to a bird park, a place we had been putting off going to for far too long...

Birds of Eden keeps tropical birds in the world's largest dome (2 hectares so larger than the UK millennium dome and the Eden Project) and spans a gorge of indigenous forest. The sanctuary provides a better life for 3 000+ previously caged birds. It has got an 80 ton structure with 1.2km of walkways, a 200 seater amphitheatre, and even a little walk-behind waterfall.



But the real attraction are of course the wonderful colours of all of the birds, and how the more sociable ones come to get food or scratched in the neck...

Our little spunky punker

Video: the field band

For those who want some more info on the project I am involved in here, building a field band here in Bitou (see former blog entry), you can watch this promotional video of the field band in Kimberley, sponsored by De Beers (as heavily noticeable during the video ;-)...

The Otter Trail

As a final accomplishment before our departure from Plett and the Tsitsikamma Park, we had kept the best for last: the world famous Otter Trail. It winds for 42km (yes, just like a marathon) along the coastline of South Africa, past beautiful gorges and cliffs, lagoons and hidden away beaches.


View Larger Map

This 5-day trail is well established and has become quite touristy, with confortable huts for 12 people every 7km a part, but these are so popular that it is usually booked months, sometimes even years in advance. It has also become quite expensive, about 260R = 26e a day. So we had to be creative, sneaked in and brought our tents. The next pictures show some of our adventures, thought the highlight was our crossing of the Bloukrans River at 18h, us wading through with the tide coming in and our bags high (and hopes quite low). But no pictures for that climax...


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Also observe Sander's strange eating habits, the famous morning -mug-shots, and the night spent at the beach...

Off to the Otter Trail

Off this weekend with Sander, Goedele, Thomas and Estelle for three days to the world famous Otter trail, the first officially created hike in South Africa!

Pictures and stories will follow!

Finalement, acheté mon appareil photo!!

Eh oui, apres quatre mois d'hesitations, de doutes, de recherches etc, is de kogel eindelijk door de kerk: j'ai acheté un appareil photo! Ca a été tout une histoire: à la base, je voulais acheter une camera vidéo digitale, mais les prix sont tels que c'est pas encore tout à fait abordable pour pauvre petit moi, même avec le soutien reçu pour mon anniversaire. Puis, tu t'imagines moi, voyageant avec un appareil qui coûte autour des 800€?

Puis, si le job au Zimbabwe se concretise, l'organisation partenaire de Thomas aurait du matériel vidéo que je pourrais peut-être emprunter pour faire des petits documentaires...

Un appareil photo me servira quand même plus souvent, et me permettra également de faire des petits films dont la qualité est suffisante pour le mettre sur ce blog (et c'est tout ce qui compte pour vous, non;-) ?
Donc, apres une tentative echouée de commander un appareil à travers la Fnac en France et le faire venir par Estelle, j'ai acheté pour 2000R/200€ un Kodak Z710. Normalement, c'était 2.300R/230Euro mais petite erreur de leur part et qui suis-je pour les corriger ? Ce qui plus est, j'espère pouvoir récuperer encore 30€ de TVA en quittant l'Afrique du Sud.

Cela vous étonne peut être que ce sujet est digne d'une entrée spécifique sur ce blog, après tout, ce n'est qu'un appareil, mais je n'ai que deux objets qui ont une valeur matérielle importante: mon iPod, mon ordinateur portable et maintenant cet appareil photo. Et chacun j'utilise quasi quotidiennement, ainsi une acquisition comme celle-ci représente bcp pour moi, d'où cette joyeuse entrée! Et vous en verrez les résultats sur ce blog!

Estelle in Cape Town

My dear Estelle, French friend from Haiti, arrived this monday. She'll be travelling the next month with us, so you'll be sure to see her here again. But here are already some pix from our four day stay in Cape Town.

Hannelie, whom I met sailing in the Caribbean and we stayed with her for two nights in the most wonderful restored farm house right on top of the Cape Peninsula Nature's Park.

The African penguins (also known as Jack-ass) at Boulders' Beach.

In the jaws of Jaw...

It was sometimes a close call, dangerous mountains and lions to climb...

But we got there!!!

Us in front of Table Mountain, from the tip of the lion's tongue, euhm, sorry, Lion's Head...

The Eugene session

This weekend, Thomas and me had come up to Cape Town to see Eugene, our roommate that had disappeared a month earlier. Eugene was the first person we met here in South Africa, and lived with us for four months. He has had quite the past, and almost every issue that one can go through in childhood and adolescence, involving alcohol, drugs, sex and STD's... A year and two months ago, he went into rehabilitation, and was clean since. He came to start over, here in Plett and started a job working around HIV/AIDS awareness raising. It looked like he was doing extraordinarily well, surrounded by positive people, supported by friends and other volunteers, resisting temptations while going out and staying away from alcohol and drugs. I helped him draft a project which would have allowed him to go to New York for a two month training. Even his love life was looking prosperous...

But a month ago, when we were all in Cape Town, he disappeared without a trace. Finally, after almost a week of worries, we heard through the grapevine that he was in a recovery center in Cape Town. I also discovered that a rather large amount of my money had gone missing. It didn't take a genius to figure it all out. He had relapsed and used, and stolen my money, after which he had taken off to Cape Town, to the same center he had been treated in a year ago...

It is hard to describe the emotions I went through, even now, a month and three sessions with him later. I mean, it is not uncommon, on the contrary, we have all heard of these ex-addicts relapsing and stealing, so I shouldn't have been surprised or felt so betrayed, but well, knowing shit happens and have shit happen to you is very different, no? It was even harder since we decided that we would keep it quiet, as to allow him to maybe pick up where he had left off, so that he could come back to Plett and not have a reputation. Sort of not to make a bad thing even worse...
So we made up excuses and avoided questions, while meanwhile all of these emotions were quite strong inside of me. Maybe this post, though I am going to hide it in the past entries, is to compensate for that time.
But so this week, we have met up with Eugene three times, twice just Eugene, Thomas and me, and once with Eugene, me and his counsellor. These discussions have been with mixed results. though it definitely feels good to confront him and hear some questions answered, a lot of them still remain unanswered, partly because he himself doens't understand it all. But mainly, it is just very sad...

Hard Times - The Scabs

A classic, from tiny Belgium...

Some of our ZimZam people

Since People make Places special, here are some of our special ones:

Our Zambian team: me - Kristien - Veerle - Thomas - Brian.

The family: me - Thomas - Brian - Lena - Veerle - Rutger - Luk - Kristien,
going out to eat at the local ethiopian buffet....
And paying millions to do so....

The scarf experiment....

Veerle in one of her less aware moments....

And the kids:Rutger (14y) ________________ Lena (13y) _____________ Jan (10y)

Anorexia: check out this animation video from Rafa, a brasilian artist, friend of mine : Ana Mia

Check out this animation from an artist friend of mine in Brazil, Curitiba, Rafael Wensersky. It was his graduation project and definitely wears his signature! He is the one who also made the drawing I displayed before.

Zimbabwe: something about the country and Mugabe, its President

Let me give you some stats on the country we have just visited, compliments of Wikipedia...

Zimbabwe is a country of 13M people in Southern Africa, bordering on South Africa, Mozambique, Malawi, Botswana and Zambia.

It is independent since 1980, but situation has deteriorated greatly since then.

As for records, it is now the country with :
- The highest inflation rates in the world. Inflation rose from an annual rate of 32% in 1998 to an official estimated high of 7,634.8% in August 2007,[46] a state of hyperinflation, and an unofficial 15,000% on the black market.

- The country with the lowest life expectancy in the world: for men = 37 years and for women 34 years.[54]
- Zimbabwe has a very high HIV infection rate. In 2001 it was measured at its highest level ever of 33.7% for people aged 15–49. An association of doctors in Zimbabwe have made calls for President Mugabe to make moves to assist the ailing health service.[55]

- It has over 1 million of orphans (or what is called OVC = Orphans and Vulnerable Children), due to migrating parents or parents that passed away from the HIV epidemic.
- A third of the population depends on food supplies from the World Food Programme to avoid starvation.[43] Agricultural production has plummeted and the economy is crippled. Once the "bread basket" of southern Africa and a major agricultural exporter, Zimbabwe now depends on food programs and support from outside to feed its population.
- 80% formal unemployment rate.
- The economic meltdown and repressive political measures in Zimbabwe has led to a flood of refugees into neighboring countries. An estimated 3,4 million Zimbabweans, a quarter of the population, had fled abroad by mid 2007. Some 3 million of these have gone to South Africa. An estimated 570,000 people are displaced within the borders of the country, many of whom remain in transit camps and have limited access to assistance.

- Number of people living with HIV: 1.700 000 and adults aged 15 to 49 with HIV: 20,1% (men 13,3 – women 27,6) = 1 500 000.

- Deaths due to Aids: 180 000
- Children aged 0 to 14 living with HIV: 160 000

Mugabe has waged a violent campaign against homosexuals, arguing that prior to colonisation Zimbabweans did not engage in homosexual acts. A little quote from him during the 1995 Zimbabwe International Book Fair regarding homosexuality:
"degrades human dignity. It's unnatural and there is no question ever of allowing these people to behave worse than dogs and pigs. If dogs and pigs do not do it, why must human beings? We have our own culture, and we must re-dedicate ourselves to our traditional values that make us human beings... What we are being persuaded to accept is sub-animal behaviour and we will never allow it here. If you see people parading themselves as lesbians and gays, arrest them and hand them over to the police!"[32]

In September 1995, Zimbabwe's parliament officially approved persecution of homosexuals.[31] In 1997 a court found Canaan Banana, Mugabe's predecessor and the first President of Zimbabwe, guilty of 11 counts of sodomy and indecent assault.[33]

Mugabe was criticised for comparing himself to Hitler. Mugabe was quoted as saying "This Hitler has only one objective: justice for his people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people and their rights over their resources. If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold." [1]

VZW dREAMCATCHER: presentation video

This is the promotional video that I helped Michiel make, presenting dREAMCATCHER's (Belgian NPO) involvement in Die Sterreweg, the day care center for children with special needs here in Plett, South Africa, where Thomas has been volunteering the past five months. If you want a brief reminder (in Dutch), go to my entry "what we are trying to do here", actually an excerpt taken from a letter to my grand parents.