Flood Victim: Back with a Vengance

So you're supposed to read the title of this blog like nimrod nkosi reads his voice overs for E-tv.  Now I'll wait for you while you quickly do it like that (flooood veeecteem: baaack weeth a veeeenganssss).

If you're living under a rock you'll have no idea about the recent, well, they're not so recent anymore are they?  But if you have half a brain you'll have heard about the flooding in da Hood in January 2012.

What's my angle on this entry you might ask?  Me? I have no idea either.  There are so many stories that you could write.  But I've decided to give you a couple of good 'ol Before and After photos and to tell you about my dude and another dude who had to haul a body out of the flooding river while a croc was chowing an arm and a leg.  More on this story after the break. This ad is sponsored by the jewish community:

Ok breaktime is over and I hope you've all used this opportunity to get something to eat while you read this installment of My Dude and another Dude (that can not be named due to privacy issues) retrieves a body from the flooding Lower Blyde River while a croc is having a bite.

A day after the flood water subsided enough for the Etv crew to be here. Well....they where here.  Our camp was called an "Adventure Farm' by some very young just-graduated-from-TUT while she was standing at the very damaged very wonky Blyde bridge on the Jonkmanspruit Road.

Tsele ma Krismisie

Krismis this year.  Or rather 2011 Krismis was one where we finally went out of hiding and attended three family krismis dinners.  Yes.  You read right.  We ate three krismis dinners in three days. Needless to say we both felt like stuffed sausages.  Here are some krismis photographs for you.  I didn't put any of the food photos in here because I might feel the urge...the urge to purge.

Every family has its tara reid.......here's mine.

Ok I lied.  Here is a photo of our fabulous krismis seafood platter

At Deon's parents we got some chicken though

I think cousin cousins' cat sniffing got a bit out of hand

Squishy finally passed away.  But at least found an awesome use for her.

Mullet-over and get back to me

Hallo my thousands of followers.


After a couple of weepy Wednesdays and sorry Saturdays I'm almost feeling like my old self again and decided to give you something to mull over.  Jip - it's the mullet episode.  
First I googled Mullets and this is the definition I got:

The term "mullet" was used frequently by George Kennedy's character Dragline in the 1967 American film Cool Hand Luke. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term mullet was "apparently coined, and certainly popularized, by U.S. hip-hop group the Beastie Boys",^[1] who used "mullet" and "mullet head" as epithets in their 1994 song "Mullet Head".^[2], although the term was used as early as 1982 in episode 3 of season 1 of the situation comedy Cheers. In that episode, the character Sam Malone calls a rude New York Yankees fan a "mullet head." The Beastie Boys' fanzine Grand Royal Magazine was the first to use the term in print.^[1]

In Canada, the northern United States and Sweden, the hairstyle is sometimes known as "hockey hair" or "hockey player haircut", as it was common among ice hockeyplayers in the 1980s, and this was a popular sport in all three regions during this time period.

What did I think of this definition?  YAAAAWN! I thought - bring me the mullets man! and this is what I found.

A place where you can actually buy a Mullet wig.  I'm going to buy one for every day of the week.  Deon will love it and other people will hate him because they'll want me.

Some awesome mullets I found will be cut and pasted shortly but first a little story about some-one I know and her strange obsession with mullets.  Let's call this lady.....um...um....ok. Let's call her Mirka.  Now Mirka likes taking photos of mullets.  She even has a mullet photo album and if you're at her house you can ask her if you can look through it.  She'll happily show you and tell you stories that will bring a tear of happiness to your eyes.

Ok so without further blabla from my side.  A wonderful selection of mullets that I've found.  Some are scary, some are scarily beautiful.

The most powerful of all the mullets

I would get one like this.  No seriously I would

Hey! It's uncle Jessie from Full House. Smouldering in his mulletawesomeness

Even Captain Planet had a mullet

This photo was not retouched


Then I found this really really cool website that is all about mullets and I've spent way to much time on it.
http://mulletjunky.com/picfix5.htm

Moving on up to the Eastside

Let me tell you a story.  A story of great love, adventure and eventually of indoor plumbing.

I firmly believe that all couple should suffer for a short time when they start living together.  This way when you eventually get awesome stuff then you really really appreciate it.  You know, the small things, like indoor plumbing.  You've probably noticed that I've said Indoor Plumbing three times already and if you've ever had to live in a house with an outhouse then you'll understand that Indoor Plumbing is definitely a luxury and not a right.  


So to get back to couples suffering when they first move in together......  Deon and I lived in a very comfortable house in Pretoria *coughhate* and shared it with a *coughdirty* lady.  This lasted 6 months and then we decided to tell Impact meters to take their electricity readings and shove it.  I basically did the same thing with University and off we went on the first of our wonderfully weird adventures.  We lived in Swaziland for a couple of years, then off to Joburg for 3 months, then Parrrrrys! and now we've settled here in Hoedspruit.  I'm feeling the itch to go somewhere again, but I like it here too much.  If someone out there wants to offer us a job that pays a lot and is in the middle of no-where please contact me and we'll see if it's pretty enough where you want to let us live. 


Now what you've been waiting for:  photos of our move up to the eastside.  And just to make sure I'm referring to our move from struggling with outhouses to living in paradise.

Our entire house. I'm sitting on the bed while taking this pic

Monkeys on the roof every day - which was awesome

Our outhous and there at the back our roomhouse

View from the kitchen section of our houseroom

Braaing in the courtyard with our neighbour. You can see his room door

Me sanding down the Outhouse door because it wouldn't close

 This was the most awesome house D and I stayed in.  It was 32 square meters, had no hot water, no storage, no floor coverings, an outside toilet that we shared with 4 other people, only a basin with a cold tap, loads of power points and two windows.  But we loved this home with all our heart after I got over myself.  Why do you ask?  Because it was on the mountain called Sheba's Breast and walking distance from work.  But most of all we were 100% and absolutely free here.


So when we left SD we moved to Joburg waiting for a job to come through so we stayed with my sister in law Moya in her townhouse in a security complex.  Lovely place but I don't have any photos of it.


Now after staying in Joburg waiting in vain for a job for three months does tend to break the bank.  So we sold our Kruger Rand and moved off to Parys.  Where we found a house in our price range:  R 1450.00 per month water included.  As you can imagine it was on the wrong side of the tracks and definitely in the slums.  We got broken into 11 times in 9 months and we shared the yard with a neighbor who woke us up in the early hours of the mornings with pumping afrikaans sokkie treffers.

Mmmmm backyard

Damm you photorotation button! but this was our  washing line.  No lawnmower

This was our house on the left and our neighbors house on the right

So eventually we begged to be allowed to move into a much nicer place in a retirement village.  They allowed us after making sure we had no kids or pets and off we went!  O the old people stories I can tell you........

Then we moved to Hoedspruit where we lived for a year in the house right next to the one we're living in now.  It used to be a dorm for a guesthouse and we had not one, but three lovely toilets in stall-style right next to each other.  Got 5 guests in our house - no problem! 3 of us can go to the loo at the same time and still have a conversation.

And now, finally, we live in a house we love and you might even call it........ heaven.  We have hot water in the kitchen, indoor plumbing and a lovely private yard.  Now I just need to get a pet and everything will be as I want it to be.  Here are some photographs of my heavenhouse that I love with all my heart.

Our backyard and da boosh just before the first rain

Parking area

What I see from my back door

Busbabies living in my roof


If you read all the way to here - kickass.  I'm going through a little bit of a weird headspace at the moment because of some attunements I got, so I'm not feeling too funny.  So I thought I'd just share with you how Deon and I have missioned when it comes to living in different houses.  Next time I'll do a mullet one - I promise Jeremy!

uuurg aaaargh blwarghgwar

Today.  I'm feeling not so good.  Not in a physical way - more a mental & emotional way.  And to ad to the insult....it's been days and days of grey weather and it's THAT time of the year when everyone's a bit sick of everyone else. 


Anyway, I haven't been able to get a hold of any of the people that I usually contact for a laugh or two.  So I'm cheering myself up by looking at old photographs.  Here are some for you too.  

This mullet is for you Jeremy

Mirka - madel adel serfontein

a cool chameleon i found in a tree

Check out the cool skin texture

When Deon and I lived in the slums of Parys we had this sign on our window.....was still broken into 11 times in 9 months.

What an awesome machine I got to play with

a dog with glasses.  

If you can guess what this is then I'll give you R10.00

My sweister and I 

When I still had a canon I could take pretty pictures

in Parys township. those of you older than 28 will get this

And that's it for today folks.  Send me some lovin and I'll maybe cheer up.   Better yet, send me some sunshine,  and a winning lotto ticket and I'll be like shirley temple when she still a child

Doom and Gloom

So it seems that our government has made a bad choice yesterday.  


Now if you where born under a rock that means that the muzzle they want to give us as a society has successfully gone through the first step.  


When I heard about it on the radio yesterday (i have no tv but more about that in another blawg) I also thought - Eish! That's not good! But I've really started choosing, and forcing, myself to look on the bright side of life. So instead of jumping on the internet and google-ing emigration agents for SA citizens I made dinner, had a laugh with my friends, stood in the rain for a minute and appreciated all the different hue's of green my garden and the forest has  become.  Now here is a wonderful thing that PJ Eales wrote on facebook today in the aftermath of the muzzling indecent
.
"All this doom and gloom this morning, come on guys, our government made a bad decision, it's not like it hasn't happened before. We still have the privilledge of living in one of the most beautiful countries in the world, a land defined by it's natural beauty and vibrant people, we have a lot to be thankful for! Let's look to the positives and get on with it, we shall weather the storm and overcome, we're South Africans, it's what we do!"


Get this man a beer!


Isn't it refreshing that out there, somewhere, some-one is still seeing the awesomeness in SA?  What would happen if we all started to at least try and look for the good things around us.  Instead of moaning about how we're all headed for hell and that SA is on the fast track to become another Zimbabwe (a little saying that I honestly megaloathe).  Why don't we jump on the SS-stopyoshit and consciously force ourselves to be positive?


Now I have to admit that living in relative isolation in the bush does have a huge influence on my daily mood and what I worry about.  I know that living in big cities does have a large impact on your thought processes and how you react to certain things in life.  Here in da boosh I don't worry about crime, I don't worry about protesters on the highway, I don't worry about a route that won't get me stuck in traffic just to buy milk and bread.  Oooooo! or a crazy toll road system that will clog up the backroads eventually.  I don't worry about freaky municipality bills or where I'll find parking in the mall.  I'm not bombarded with information during every millisecond of the day so I have honestly just stopped worrying about those things because I don't know/live it.  So I do understand that in the city centers in SA there is an underbelly of negative info floating around so much that you just can't help but be slapped in the face by it.  Over and over again.  Every day, all day. 


This is what I worry about:  the petrol price which currently stands at R10.98 and the fact that the town I buy my things is 30km one way.  What I'll buy my friends and family for Christmas because we only get African curio's and stuff here.  Everyday I worry really really crazily about this very important thing:  will there be a snake somewhere in my house and will I surprise it and get bitten.  O ja - that brings me to another thing I can worry about:  my doctor is 30km away and the closest hospital is 172km one way away.  And I also worry about my husband getting injured doing what he loves (almost more than me).


Now what I'm trying to illustrate here is:
I don't worry about these things because I live in a stress-free environment.  You might worry constantly about city things because you live in a stressful environment.  It doesn't make your worrying less legit, it just explains how I see it.  So stop moaning and start looking for positive solutions to your issues.


And if you don't understand what I'm trying to say here then I'm sorry, but at least watch the video and enjoy it./


I think I'll end of this little lecture by putting a video here:

Thursdays with Kids (a slight referral to Tuesdays with Morrie)

Aaaaaah Thursdays.  The craziest day of them all.  Unless it's really really busy here and it's Wednesday AND Thursday....the craziest days of them all.

What is so special about these two days of the week?  Is it date night? Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No - it's.......
Activity Day!

Now before I get to a photostory of this day; let me explain what Activity Day is.
At the camp about 70% of our groups book in on a Monday and depart on a Friday.  Every day they do something different and on Thursdays we have....Activity Day! I'll be typing Activity Day! normally from now on, but when you read it you must say: Activity Day! in your head. Ok?

If we only have one school here activity day is on a Thursday and if we have two schools here we have activity day for one school on Wednesday and then the other school on Thursday.  So what do we do on Activity Day! (ha - I thought I'd just quickly remind you of what Activity Day! should sound like in your head). Well, we do the following adventure activities:
Tubing on the Lower Blyde River
Zip Line
Kettie Paintball
and then after lunch:
Tarzan Swing
River Crossing
Super Slide

It does tend to get a bit crazy on these days and as you can imagine doing a tubing rotation of 20 kids per trip x 3 rounds if we have a school here of 120 kids does get a bit tiring.  It's loads of fun most of the times and after the crazy season you can bounce a coin off my rock hard abs.  But sometimes, in the middle of July, tubing sucks a bit.  No wonder Deon's wet suit pants smells like pee the whole winter long.  It's a relief AND it's warm.

Here are a couple of photographs of Activity Day!  Next time you are stuck in traffic on Wednesday or Thursday think of us, playing outside, and then slap yourself for being so stupid as to live in the city.

River Crossing

It's a jew!no - it's a kid falling from the river crossing

Me lifting my anchor to get a kid in the water

Tarzan Swing done the right way

Still doing it right

Tarzan Swing = this boy is doing it right

Tarzan Swing = this girl is doing it wrong

Super Slide

The Lower Blyde River and tubing

Me and Wille Willie taking a group to the put in

Sometimes the kids panic

Sometimes I amuse myself