the long busride to Zambia....

This two week trip to Zambia and Zimbabwe meant quite the busrides. From our city in the south of South Africa, Plett, it is about 8.000km back and forth to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, which to compare it is as if you would cross Canada completely, from one coast to the other. And, broke and adventurous as we are, Thomas and me decided to do it all with the bus (as opposed to Kristien, who flew it all, taking about 5h per trip). Us, we spent a total of 119 hours traveling, 56 hours going up, and 63 going back down.

And we know and knew it, T.I.A. (cfr. Blood Diamond: This Is Africa) so why should we rely on timetables and ETA's? But somehow, living in South Africa and reserving tickets online at respectable buscompanies such as Greyhound, you tend to forget TIA...

So, a short list of what went wrong:

- our first bus (Plett-George, 2h) was swapped for a small mini van that nearly left us behind (after all, we were looking for a big bus no?)....

- our bus n°2 (George-Jo'burg, 12h) turned out to be the bus that was supposed to pick us up, and not the confy sleepliner we were expecting;

- our bus n° 3 (Jo'burg-Harare, 21h) started breaking down around 3h in the morning, being repared (with my borrowed pocket knife!) and then driven forward for another 10km, until fumes started coming out, and after three such make-shift repairs, it finally exploded and was put down to rest. We managed to hitch a ride to Harare but arived to late to be going with Veerle and Kristien in the car to Zambia - which meant bus n° 4....


- bus n°4 (Harare, Zimbabwe-Lusaka, Zambia, 9h): well, not much went wrong except that it left about four hours late, and then couldn't find any petrol, so we had to scout around till it was discretely refilled at some hidden away compound.... The picture to the right I found on the net, a petrol queue, saying it all about the situation in Zimbabwe. You can tell the regime was Soviet-inspired huh?

But after bus n°4 and a hitched ride, we finally managed to meet up with Kristien and Veerle, and from then on it was a confortable 4x4 drive around Zambia and back to Harare. All nice things coming to an end though, the bus rides back to South Africa still had some bad karma to send our way:

- bus n°5 (Harare, Zimbabwe-Jo'burg, 26h instead of the scheduled 16h) at the stop at a gas station in Zimbabwe, the scheduled 10 to 15 minutes turned into 9h cause some turning element in the engine had severed some wire (I know, this might be too technical for non-mechanics, but I wanted to be as precise as possible;-). In the morning, another bus showed up and we changed, and then another bus came and we changed again, and then still once more.... General gruntling was common among the passengers and a revolution was upcoming till Greyhound gave us breakfast and accomodation in Jo'burg for the once who had missed a connecting bus (such as poor us). It did mean however that we were going to have to spend an entire day in Jo'burg and miss out on our planned three day hiking of the world famous Otter Trail with our roommates.

But while we were in Jo'bug we got to visit the ApartheidMuseum (5 minutes walking away from the hotel where Greyhound had put us). Quite an interesting place to visit, and there was also a very good exhibition of pictures of Ernest Cole, a black photographer from the sixties that made it out of South Africa and published House of Bondage, which depicted apartheidrealities...

For more details about the trip in itself, check out Thomas' post.

BruTho go ZimZam for the next ten days

Thomas and me will be gone for ten days, heading towards the North, inside Zimbabwe and Zambia. Though I am announcing it a bit late, this is not a spur of the moment kind of decision. Kristien, responsible for dREAMCATCHER here where Thomas works, is going to visit the volens projects there and the partnerorganisations. Since Thomas and me are interested in some of the jobs that Volens is looking for development workers in that region, we kindly requested and were invited to come along. This will allow us to see the country through privilidged eyes, the ones of people trying to improve situations there, and to meet some of potential partnerorganisations where we might apply to. It'd be for three years, so it never hurts for us to have a better idea of the country and the organisations, and it won't hurt them either to have a better idea of what Thomas and me are like. It sounds fascinating, though the fact that the volens couple that will be accompanying us asked to bring 10 kilo's of baking powder, so that they'd be able to make bread is a bit scary... If it's that hard to get things that basic... We read articles of endless queues just to buy eggs, and estimates of one out of every three people in Harare (capital of Zimbabwe) being mentally sick. Guess we'll see.

But so, all this also to warn you that there might very well be some radio silence for the next ten days, till we get back in Plettenberg Bay and civilisation on the 1st of November.

Cheers!

je Kern in het kwadraat!

Sander riep me deze namiddag in zijn kamer om mijn mening te geven over deze kernkwadranten, en ik vond het zo interessant dat ik er een namiddag aan kwijt geraakte, en iets dat de moeite waard is, moet gedeeld worden, niet waar?

Hierbij dus, ontdek jezelf: Daniel Ofman's kernkwadrant : een hulpmiddel om kernkwaliteiten bij uzelf en anderen te ontdekken. Een kernkwaliteit is een eigenschap die tot het wezen (de kern) van een persoon behoort. De schaduwkant van een kernkwaliteit (het teveel van het goede) is de valkuil: de vervorming die u krijgt als een kernkwaliteit te ver doorschiet. De positief tegenovergestelde kwaliteit van de valkuil is de uitdaging. De kernkwaliteit en de uitdaging zijn elkaars aanvullende kwaliteiten. Het gaat er om een balans tussen deze twee te vinden. Dat is dus geen kwestie van of-of, maar van en-en. Het teveel van de uitdaging is de allergie.

Hoe meer u in een ander met uw eigen allergie geconfronteerd wordt, hoe groter de kans om in uw eigen valkuil te lopen. Waar u allergisch voor bent bij iemand anders, is waarschijnlijk iets goeds dat u zelf het meeste nodig hebt. Iemand kan dus het meest (over zichzelf) leren van de mensen met wie hij de meeste moeite heeft.

Probeer het maar eens zelf, het is grappig te merken hoe je uitdaging te ver doorgedreven bij anderen net is waar je een hekel aan hebt...

De volgende vier kwadranten hebben ik en Thomas toegepast op elkaar. Kunnen jullie ondekken welke twee van Thomas zijn, en welke twee van mij? Zie de poll in de marge!

1)

2)

3)

4)

Goodbyes are in the air

"I say hello, you say goodbye"...

There seems to be a smell of goodbyes in the air. Some of our fellow volunteers or people that shared parts of our lives left or are leaving. It always seems to become an emotional moment for me.

This Monday I was driving Jonas, another Belgian leaving, to the airport. He's leaving after having spend six weeks here, researching kwaito music in the Kwano township. We were listening to my iPod on the car's radio. In the spirit of the moment, I was flipping through my playlists, and put on the "goodbyes" one. There all songs that remind me of special People & Places, that I started some time ago, and have been adding special songs to ever since. As you can guess, it usually doesn't make me jump for joy ;-). And then I came to thinking:"how much does it say about my life really that actually have a specific playlist for goodbyes"?

Goodbyes are tough on me, and getting harder and harder. To me, it feels as if this past year and a half has been filled with temporary, but intens friendships, over so soon, often too soon. And somehow I feel like my friendships haven't gone as far as they could have. Mixed feelings really, also because of one particular incident.

These past two years, my life has continually changed every three to six months, which is a short period. Halfway through, you're already having to focus on what is next, to plan ahead. I started counting and noticed that, with our next trip to Zimbabwe and Zambia, and then going up to Cape Town to see a friend of mine, I have about two to three weeks left in Plett. Gone in the blink of an eye really. Now you see me, now you don't...

Resurrection

Through broken eyes of raindrops I cry
The nothingness, that is the pain of empty tears
Slowly creeping out of blinded eyes
Fading truth, once naked and clear

Above the surface of thick, black tar
There lies the illusion of a painful scar
There one can see the unseen face
The truth of the lies she so often got to taste

Behind the mask lies dreaded weakness
The façade which is her past
All she wanted was the sweetness
Of a friends admiration to last

But now she sighs at the pain she never felt
The game she was playing with cards never dealt
Now she stares at the reflection she refused to see
But continues fighting truth, living within a reverie

Time being her consolidation, her hero
To rescue her from an invisible danger
To be fooled by her act and not see her
As the person who to herself, a mere stranger

Can there be an end if the beginning is unknown
Can one shrink just as one feels one has grown
Do we choose to believe, knowing deep inside
That we are fooling ourselves from realities disguise

If the day comes where pain is indeed true
Will she be strong enough to cope
Does she not maybe need us to
Give her for what she has hoped

Judgement having surfaced on her skin
When all she wanted was for us to look within
Acceptance being the wing to the bird
The ear to the words she needed to be heard

Will she still hold on after letting go
And live her life in the illusion of hope
Or will she be accepted and fly away
From the ‘drama addict within’ per say

From the first moment you see the world
Till the day you close them for good
You are alone and this is how it stays
Only you can lead your way

No one can be a shoulder for your tears
‘Cos they go home and face their own fears
And revel in issues created by them
Being their own true best friend

Connecting with people and being alike
Is the weapon most used in this lifelong fight
We constantly need another, other than oneself
So that the loneliness does not surface quite as well

Some create their lives to be a misery
They seek bad happenings just to see
A concerned face, a pity look – unaware
That no one really truly cares.

From Nina, the youngest sister of the family where I am staying.