Best wishes for the New Year!

Christmas came and went, too quickly as always.
We had a very nice, relaxed Christmas this year. On Christmas eve we celebrated on our own at home just the two of us and all the pets. We had made Swedish Christmas food (meatballs, pickled herring, beetroot salad, jansons temptations, ham etc) the night before and spoilt ourselves with a proper Christmas eve dinner followed by the opening of presents. I must have been very good because I got some lovely gifts from Santa and so did the dogs whom had to open up the parcels themselves but did not mind doing so since the parcels were full of sausages On Christmas day we went to Craig, Neurens brother-in-law and his family were we all chipped in and had too much food to eat and the kids to many presents to open but I suppose that is what xmas is all about.. The following day we visited one of Neurens aunts together with two of the nieces and once again we had a lot of food. The two girls came with us home and stayed for almost a week refusing to go back home. We made them work hard; painting, gardening, cooking but still they remained. We started to wonder what their dad makes them do at home which seems even worse than to work for us I went back to work on Monday and then off again for New Years which was celebrated at our house. Most of our friends decided to go away this year but we still manages to wrestle up a small gang. Unfortunately the sky was pouring down before midnight so the spectacular fireworks experience last year was not repeated but I know a lot of pets around were most grateful for this so maybe it turned out for the best anyway. On New Years day we just stayed at home, being lazy. I even stayed in my pyjamas the whole day watching movies and eating chocolates. How wonderful!

The day after we took a drive to Heidelberg, a small town about one hours drive south of Johannesburg. Unfortunately most little shops were closed during the holidays but we managed, after some hard work, finding the informationburea (hmm an information bureau alced in a residential house without any signs except for one that points to the towns library…) and got a map over nice old houses to see around the town. From there we took to our feet and explored the town. There are some really amazing old houses to see. We also went looking for an automobile museum mentioned in my book “1001 things to do and see before you die” hoping to be able to tick of one item on the list only to find out it ha been closed in 2004 already.. The security guard allowed us in to look at the old train station at least and the old passenger trains still kept there. What a waist to have this lovely old trains just dusting away… Well, I am going to tick off the museum on the list anyway, not our fault it closed down right? On our way back to Joburg we drove in to a nature reserve for a couple of hours and on our drive we saw monkeys, kudus and impalas. Before we reached Joburg again we passed some lovely sunflowers along the road and Neuren being such a gentleman jumped out and picked me some. The following day we met with the relatives in Pretoria and went to visit Ouma on her 85 birthday. She has now moved in to an old peoples home and although it was a private owned place which seems to care about the old it was still a bit depressing to go there and see Ouma who up to about 6 months ago stayed in her granny flat in the back of Neurens aunts place and was walking around and talking and laughing now sitting in a wheel chairs and sometimes not recognising the people around her. It all went so fast. Well hopefully she enjoyed having everybody there. Afterwards we went to the aunts place for a nice braai together with Philip (Neurens dad) and his family and Craig and all the kids. The evening ended with us listening to old recorded radio shows from 40 years ago thinking of Ouma.

Now it is back to work again and I suppose the Christmas decorations should be packed away soon. Neuren is still enjoying some leave since the factory is still closed and most people are away on holidays still. The schools starts next week and then the rush hour traffic will be back. Business as usual.

Hope 2009 will be a super great year for all of us!

 

Sweating like a pig? Scared like a chicken?

Work has been busy lately. I have been on a long trip through Limpopo (almost as far as the Zimbabwean boarder) together with a colleague of mine. It was hot and many kilometres but interesting. You realise how difficult it can be to plan a trip and the farms you are going to visit when you encounter some problems in one place and have to stay over to sort it out. Needless to say we did not get to all the places that we planned but that’s part of the job. Our first day was delayed due to an over turned truck carrying pigs on their way to the abattoir. We all had to rush there first thing in the morning trying to beat the Joburg rush traffic. Must admit I sort of enjoyed driving in the emergency lane although some vice as tried to block me off. I hooted and pointed at my stickers on the car trying to explain to the idiot that I was actually on my way to the accident science which was causing the traffic jam in the first place. When I got there colleagues were already busy putting down injured pigs and the owner came shortly after screaming we were killing his pigs. Boy did he not get anywhere with my boss who told him we were putting down pigs that were suffering and would not make it to the abattoir and he could complain if he wanted but we were actually doing him a favour and did not care if he had a problem with it. Later on the new truck arrived and they started loading the pigs. By this time the pigs where totally happy rolling around in the mud and grazing in the field next to the road and did not feel like getting onto one of those trucks again. And when a pig does not want to move your way, it does not want to move your way. To add to the problem they had brought a truck without a proper ramp. The small ramp was long enough to fill the lowest compartment of the truck but not the top level. Some smart guy came up with the idea of parking a bakkie next to the truck and then we had the pigs climb on to the back of the bakkie using the short ramp and from there the guys had to lift the pigs onto the truck. By this time I left to pick up my colleague and head for Limpopo.

A week before the pig incident we had a raid at a hawkers market (where people are selling all sorts of things on the street including animals) in Joburg. Previous to the raid we had visited the guys selling live chickens for months asking them to provide the chicken cages with water and shade only to be ignored over and over. After several written warnings we arranged to have the chickens confiscated. With a court order and the assistance of the police we arrived at the market in the morning with bakkies and a horse box and started loading all the chickens. The owners only stared at us but did not say a word. I suppose I would also be quite if I was surrounded with police holding their rifles in the air. It might seem a bit drastic but this is a town ship we are talking about and in the town ships people stick up for each other and without the police we would not have been able to take any chickens. We counted almost 500 chickens and when all chickens and cages were packed we took them to the kennels and I think that was the best time of their short life. For the first time they could walk around freely after spending their life in cages laying egg and then being sold to hawkers who put them in even smaller cages to be sold in the market alive or cooked. The hawkers were given 7 days to collect their chickens but only if they came with proper cages and could show that they would provide them with water as well.

On Monday it was time for the yearly Muslim sacrifice festival, Qurbani. During three days the Muslims sacrifice animals like Abraham sacrificed a lam instead of his son and we were all out to ensure the slaughter was carried out as humanely as possible. Of course we can not be everywhere since there is about a million Muslims in the country but we visit areas where we have a lot of Muslims and overall they are very friendly and usually let us in to their houses where most slaughter is taking place. There are also organised, so called communal sites, where a lot of people take the animals to be slaughtered. Most common is sheep and goats but we also witnessed some bulls being slaughtered, which is more of a challenge than smaller animals. An interesting note is that the Koran also states that the animal must be treated with the greatest respect before and during slaughter and that it must be killed quickly and humanely. So basically the Animal protection act and the Koran is inline with each other which is a nice tool to use should there be any problems. The people might not care about the Animals protection act but they surely want to follow the Koran. The only problem we have with the actual slaughter is that the throat is being cut without any pre-stunning (bringing the animal unconscious) but when it comes to religious slaughter we can not demand that and so we can only try to ensure the animals is handled correctly and the throat cut quickly with a sharp knife and the person knows what he is doing. Overall we did not find many problems this year except for the colleagues who witnessed bulls begin slaughtered. A bull can’t be lead to the place of slaughter like a sheep but has to be caught and pulled there by ropes and then pulled down and tied up before the throat is cut and this is a lengthy and stressful situation for the bull. The one we witnessed took about 45 minutes to slaughter and that is too long.

On Saturday we went to a sale yard (auction) where they sell cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, chickens, rabbits, puppies etc. These sale yards are always a challenge as many of the guys working there do not care how they handle the animals (well it is not theirs, they are only doing there job). This sale yard was not too bad though, at least they had provided most of the animals with water (after being taken to court) but we still had some fights especially with people handling chickens. (Somehow it seems like chickens can be abused worse than other farm animals). When we told a black lady not to carry the chicken home by the wings she screamed at us accusing us of installing apartheid all over again and when we asked a white farmer to not tie up his goat in a improper way he told us we only inspect the white people while “those black people” can do what ever they want. Well what can you say? I told the black lady it does not matter if you are green or blue the law is the same and the white farmer I asked if he had not seen us stopping the black man from tying up a calf on the back of his truck and forcing him to go home and fetch a better vehicle. My colleague was told by a huge guy that he would beat her up and another bunch of guys accused us of trying to change their culture. Well, if you have one of those days and you feel like a fight, visit a sale yard.

Today is a public holiday here in South Africa so I will enjoy some time off. Christmas is around the corner and I really need some days off now, it has been two intense months.

Tjing!

 

Congratulations to us both!

Neuren inspecting a huge spider in the garden

Woke up this morning thinking we had an earthquake or something jsut to realise it was the two cats play fighting in the bedroom. Short after that the dogs started playing as well perhaps inspired by what was going on. Needless to say we do not sleep in these days..

Yesterday we had a lovely lunch at some friends place and popped a bottle of champaign. Neuren passed his assignment this week and now has a Bachelors Degree, well done! I am looking forward to the graduation ceremony next year when I will be taking some photos of Neuren in his graduation gown I finished my two weeks inspector course on Friday with an exam which I passed! I am now a step closer to becoming a qualified animal welfare inspector. Only one assignment to go which I will probably start with after new years. I have not been given my subject yet but hopefully it will be something regarding farm animals.

mmm I smell Neurens cooking. Time for lunch and then some gardening before a hot bath and some lazying in front of a Dvd.

 

A new family member

Tuesday evening. Neuren has gone to some lecture about the economic world crisis or something similar… I do not think I was paying too much attention to it I did not feel like spending my evening listening to someone telling us the world is going under and why. I rather spend it catching up with some e-mails and trying to introduce our new family member to the rest of the gang. Yepp..another pet joined us on Saturday. Adopted from one of the local SPCAs. We thought that Tiger the cat was feeling lonely, especially since his stray friend “Ginger” disappeared. Ginger used to live in our drive way and we could see Tiger playing with him. Ginger was getting more and more tame and our plan was to adopt him and take him in. Then one morning he was run over by a car and I Think Tiger is still looking for him from time to time. Hopefully he will grow attached to the new little girl instead. At the SPCA we though she had quit a cool coat (spotty) but when we came home and had a closer look we noticed she is a mix of a Tabby and a ginger and looks a bit funny. But hey we like pets with character in this family so she will fit in nicely!

 

The summer rains are here

It has been long since my last entry but we have been like busy bees both of us. The last couple of weeks I have been studying for my entrance exam for work which I wrote and passed yesterday. Thank god. Now I will join the next inspector course which will start in November. That will bring me a little bit closer to becoming a qualified inspector able to work out in the field on my own. This last weekend I attended the Annual General Meeting and I must admit it was a fascinating weekend despite me stressing about my studies. On Saturday we had a conference with several motivating presentations about our organisation and the work we do. Now usually I don’t like to brag much but it definitely made me feel proud of belonging to this organisation which does such a marvelous job all around the country sustaining only on funds from the public. In the evening we had a gala dinner celebrating the 10^th anniversary of the Tuli elephant’s saga which was a hard battle for many years until the organization finally won the court case and the owner of the elephants were found guilty for cruelty against animals. The following morning I struggled to wake up but managed to get to the AGM where I learn more about the board and the whole election procedure etc. Even if it was not as fun filled as the previous day it was still a learning experience for me. I realized that despite being an amazing organization there is still so much to do and achieve which made me feel confident I will not grow bored anytime soon.

Rains

The summer rains have finally started. The last week we have had the typical Johannesburg afternoon thunderstorms and is it not amazing what miracle some rains can do? Here I have been watering the lawn for the last two months and still it was looking all brown and sad. Two afternoons of rain and “poff” it is all green again. Lovely. We have been through the winter without any rain as usual and the whole city was so dusty and dirty. We really needed that “wash out”. It reminded me of a funny incident we had in the beginning of the year; I think I must tell you that one. We went for an outside concert in one of the parks in Johannesburg . The main attraction was a singer from West Africa , Ishmael Lo, and he was to come up on stage last. During the second last performance it started storming. And then I am talking about a Johannesburg afternoon thunder but worse. There was rain, thunder and hail! A lot of people ran but many of us remained, eager to hold it out under our umbrellas. We must have been sitting there under our IKEA umbrella for closer to half an hour when we realized this is going to continue and Ishmael probably will not come on stage anytime soon. So we grabbed our picnic basket in one hand and shoes in the other and ran. Now this is a huge park and the car was parked at the other end so by the time we reached the car we were soaked. Soaked into our underwear. Inside the car we removed our clothes and in our underwear we drove home. On the way home we passed Joburg city and came to a halt at a robot. It was still raining but not as heavily as before. This one suspicious looking guy came jogging along side the queue of cars and stopped at the first car. I could tell he was up to something and since we were last in queue I told Neuren to reverse. If I learned something here it is that it is always good to have some maneuver space in case you want to speed of from somebody. As Neuren reversed the guy smashed the window of that car and started jogging back toward us. I don’t now from were Neuren got his idea but he drove forward again towards the guy cutting of the escape route. The guy fell down, got up on his feet again and got about 5 meters before the guy from the second car caught up to him and hit him to the ground and started kicking him. Now me full of adrenalin leaped out of the car and started shouting “yes, you got him, good, beat him up!”. Ok I admit it is not such a nice thing to say but if you have been in the situation numerous times where guys check into your car looking for something to grab and you feel all vulnerable because your are stuck in traffic and cant get away, you would probably feel the same pleasure when one of them are actually caught. As I am jumping up and down sheering him on the owners of the first car who had their window smashed and things stolen came out. One for the guys told me he was a pastor and that the guy had stolen their bible. At the same time two ladies walked by looking at me funny and only then did I realized I was standing there in front of a pastor in the middle of Johannesburg only in my underwear. He must have been either in shock, very polite or used to most because he did not seem to react to my choice of clothing for a Sunday afternoon. I quickly got back into the car again where Neuren had had the sense of remaining during the whole incident. The guy let the thief go and so we all proceeded home. Another day in Johannesburg .

Otherwise the house still keeps us busy. Neuren has been such a handyman and put in laminate flooring in the upstairs guest bedroom. After some arguing abut the right shade of the floor and some trips to the shops the floor is now in and yes the room is starting to look nice. Next on the list is to finish off the braai the guys built for us and then paint, fix the leakage and fill up the pool again.

But of course, we do not spend every weekend renovating although it feels like it sometimes. We have been pretty busy attending gay prides, sex expos and having Neurens’ nieces over to visit. I found it pretty intriguing to see the huge attendance at this year’s Gay pride in Johannesburg . Well yes South Africa is more liberal than many other neighboring countries when it comes to sexuality and homosexuality (In Zimbabwe President Mugabe says they are worse than pigs- not that I think pigs are bad but anyway). I suppose with the black, macho culture or the old white Afrikaner upbringing or with the churches having such an influence in peoples lives it is still frowned upon amongst a lot of people. But what can I say, the parade had thousands of people joining it and it had as much glamor as any gay pride I am sure. I also forced Neuren to come with to the Sex expo held that same weekend. Ok he came with pretty willingly but anyway it was all about curiosity again. And once again it was a well attended function and it had all the required events like tap dancers, male and female strippers and the sale of all kind of toys. It was not that exiting though as it for me did not present anything new really but a great idea though to show and talk about sex and health issues in an environment where it seemed all natural. Judging from the audience everybody is interested regardless of race or age. Personally though I think the best part was the artist who painted portraits using his “willy”. No, we did not have our portrait painted mostly because we did not bring that much money :-0 This coming weekend we are invited to a birthday party on Saturday and except for that I think we should grant our selves the luxury of lazing in the hammock. Unless the thunderstorms continue of course. Or we come up with some new projects again.

Tjing!

 

The weekend is just to short…so is the time for Mbeki

..its another Sunday evening. We are back from a lovely (vegetarian) lunch at the local Spaza Art Gallery. The gallery is open again for lunch and we are delighted. There is a shortage of decent food places around here where you can go for a nice weekend lunch or a “fika”. We hope they will continue this good idea. We had the owner over to look at our newly built braai stand and give us an idea of how much he would charge to make something arty with mosaic for the table. We will now have to wait for his quote and see whether we will get an hart attack or not Neurens dad was away in Pretoria all day visiting Ouma ( Neurens grandma). She has finally agreed to move in to a home where they can give some proper fragile care and I think it is a relief to everybody involved since she been fainting constantly and hurting herself in the fall. I understand it is not easy to admit you are old and need help, hey I suppose we will all end up there one day unless something happens along the way, but it is also not easy on the family. Up to now she has been staying in a so called granny flat with Neurens aunt but them being away working all day it was difficult to keep an eye on her. Especially since she refuge to let the maid or any other help in. I know she can be frustrating sometimes but I cant help it, I like the old lady a lot. I think she is so cool.

I was away briefly last week for a Transport Campaign together with a collegue of mine. We packed our bags and set of to the small town of Ermelo in Mpumalanga for a week. There we were supposed to work together with the police stopping animal transports along the main roads. When we arrived at the police office on Monday we were told there were not really any transports going through Ermelo but that we could work together with the Stock theft unit and inspect the salesyards etc. Mondays there are no sales going on so we set out to find us some work ourselves. We found an abattoir to inspect as well as a municipal pound (where the municipality keeps stray animals like cattle and donkeys etc). On Monday night my colleague felt very sick and I had to take her to the hospital in town with help from the people working at the lodge. She spent the night and day and was released in the afternoon for us to head back to Joburg. Before we left the wire for the clutch broke on my car but luckily I was in town and Ermelo being pretty hilly I could roll downhill and turn in to a Ford garage where they changed the wire for me and we could set back home without any incidents. But yes, thats what can happen in Africa I suppose We are leaving again soon for another transport project further south and I hope we will be more successful this time.

Otherwise South Africa is mostly about politics at the moment. Maybe you have heard about Zuma, the president for the ANC (the ruling party) being charged for corruption etc etc. He challenged the charges and this week a judge ruled in his favor, stating that the President, Mbeki, amongst others have been meddling in the process. This basically means that the prosecutors (state) needs to come up with new things to be able to take him to court. The judge made it clear that this does not mean Zuma is innocent but that it has not been handled correctly. Of course this created an uproar within ANC and Zumas people who do not like Mbeki (who is also ANC) whom in fact was the one that fired Zuma (from being vice president) when the charges got known. Now they want Mbeki to resign and so Mbekis people (ministers etc) are threatening to resign as well if he has to go. Mbeki has  said he will resign once it is in line with the constitution. Mbeki is going to address the nation live on TV in half an hour so I suppose I should go and watch it. Interesting times. I always say that politics in Africa is far more interesting and intense than for an example back home in Sweden We also have the so called power sharing agreement in Zimbabwe. Where Mugabe will remain as President and Tsvangirai as prime minister. Ok, I do not want to be too pessimistic about things and  I wish nothing else than a peaceful solution that will bring better days for the Zimbabwean people but i cant but wonder how Tsvangirai is going to be able to rule together with Mugabe. Together with a man who has murdered so many of his supporters and whom will never be charged for that or the massacre against the Ndebeles in the 80’s. We must just wait and see but as I understand it they have clashed already over appointing ministers to the new government.

Tjing!

 

The weekend is here!

Friday evening, finally. I have been working solid for two weeks and can’t wait to sleep in tomorrow morning. I have been to Eastern Cape for 8 days joining my colleagues at the “Community Outreach programme”. In short the Outreach is about visiting underprivileged areas around the country to assist the people with their animal care. During the week we set up a temporary veterinarian clinic in a public hall in the little town of Cala. The first day we drove around talking to people and asking them to send their dogs (and a few cats) with us to our clinic for sterilisation and vaccination. It took a day for them to start trusting us I think but when more and more people witnessed that we actually brought their dogs back in the afternoon they started to approach us instead. Some dogs were also ill and most of the time the owners asked us to put them down or they might not have understood it was ill at first but then agreed to put them to sleep. We did it all for free of course and the demand was overwhelming. We could have stayed for weeks. We worked 12 hours per day and still the dogs kept on coming in. I was really amazed by the positive response and by my more experienced colleagues who handled aggressive 50 kilos dog like it was nothing. We are talking about asocial dogs that even wanted to bite their owners! I also learnt how to vaccinate dogs and, sadly, how to put down dogs as well. A sad reality, but rather that than leaving them to suffer. The main problem in the area was a dog decease called TVT, which is like a contagious tumor decease and spreads via dogs mating. It attacks the sexual organs and I saw one poor male where the most of the penis was rotten. You can imagine the pain when trying to wee, poor dogs. Every evening I came home to our Bed & breakfast feeling like I was full of dirt, flees, doggy hair, blood (from operation) and wee.. It was hard work, stressing around fetching dogs, carrying and handling aggressive ones but it felt rewarding at the same.

So I have now been working for about a month and I am still learning a lot every day. I will be a trainee for another two months until I write my entrance exams. It is different from the animal welfare work I did in Sweden on a local authority. This is a non governmental organisation but still we have more powers to act instantly and we also work more with animals “hands on”. In Sweden you demand the owner/farmer to call in a veterinarian. Here their might not be any around or people might not be able to afford one. We got the powers to take an animal away if it is urgent or we can put them down. Yes, that is the negative about this job. We have to learn how to put animals to sleep ourselves. During catastrophes or decease outbreaks for an example, SPCA is even called out to cull (put down large amounts of animals). At the moment there are a lot of fires happening around the country and some colleagues are out there ready to assist any animals caught in the fire. Putting down cats and dogs are with injections which I find a bit easier to do although it always sad. Now since I will be working with farm animals we do not use needles but instead we put them down by slaughtering them in a humane way. That means we first stun them (to make them unconscious) and then we must bleed them out. I have not yet done it myself and I am worried about doing it myself, of not doing it correctly etc. Luckily we do not have to do it on a daily basis. Most of the work is about inspecting farms and abattoirs (slaughter houses) to make sure the animals are treated in a humane way. SPCA is about animal welfare, we are not activists in anyway. We do not mind the slaughter of animals for an example as long as it is done in a humane way and the animals are cared for. A lot of people think we are against meat eaters etc but after talking with them for a while they usually understand what we are doing and why. Having an inspector background will certainly make the job a little bit easier although this is a different culture and I think the language might be a challenge sometimes. A lot of farmers are still white Afrikaners speaking and they might sometimes be stubborn and refuse to speak English although they know it. This could also be a good opportunity to learn a little bit of Zulu. I gave up on Nbebele in Zimbabwe but Ndebele being related to Zulu hopefully I could pick up something easier

Otherwise the guest bedroom is almost done now, only a few minor things to finish off. At least it is not pink anymore and Philip got somewhere to sleep. Troye found a way out from the property the other day so at the moment we got builders here putting up a small wall and a gate towards the ridge so we can close the dogs inside the garden should they find another whole to escape through. Troye did come back home again but I am always worried since we got a busy road below us. While the builders are here we decided to also build a Braai stand and Neuren is very excited by the idea of having a Braai in time for the National Braai day on 24th September haha.

Ok now it is time for my favorite show “Friends” so by for now!

 

Sunday lunch

It is Sunday evening and we are back home from a lovely lunch with Neurens Aunt at her place in Henry on Klip, outside Johannesburg. As always the food was perfect and her place green and full of dogs (we counted ten today but I am never sure of many they actually are! Troye and Squeeky came with are now they are sleeping heavily after a full day of dogs (think Squeeky is just relieved to be back home). Yesterday morning we spent running errands and then spent the afternoon lazying in front of the TV. Normally we do work at home (on the house), but sometimes it is just nice to relax and do nothing, which is something that happens to seldom. Before sunset we did get some plants in to the ground that has been waiting since May(!) in their pots.

I have done my first week at work and yeah, it still looks very interesting. As a new comer it is a lot to read (policies, legislation, procedures etc) and more will come these following three months before I take my exam and becomes a qualified inspector. By next week I should get my uniform (hehe first time ever to wear a job uniform) and start going out to the field a bit more together with other colleagues (whom all seems very cool I must say). So for now I do not have much to tell. As for Neuren he is working hard at the moment; the boss is away and he is now in charge of the curtain factory as well as selling the jobs. Suppose it would have been easier if the boss had left papers and jobs to be done in order but not really.. Anyway he is managing it despite the challenge and I am proud of him

So the Olympics have started but we do not have satellite TV so we actually have no clue on how South Africa or Sweden is doing, unfortunately.. On the news is also the talks in Zimbabwe between Mugabe and MDC. Sounds today like they are close to a solution, on how to make a “power sharing” solution. Yepp, it is one step in the right direction but I do wonder how they will actually work together after this. It is one thing to agree on a power set up, but will they manage to lead the country into something better? A dictator who has been killing people of the opposition and calling them all sorts of names, will he accept working together with those people he hates? Interesting times ahead. Here in South Africa the farce about Zumas trial continues. A man who claims he is innocent saying “I will have my day in court” is surely making his best to stay out of court or stop evidence for being used. A short while ago the talk was to postpone the court date to after next years elections (where everybody think Zuma will be president) and now their is an suggestion to make presidents of the country immune for charges etc. Wow…some things never ends to amaze me. Luckily this is not Zimbabwe and we do have a legal system that seems to be working so I so believe that Zuma will go to court before elections and that he will be convicted should he be guilty. I do not want to believe that he and his followers (whom are plenty) will manage to threat or cheat them out if this.

Ok time to get dinner going and then prepair for a new week.

Tjing!

 

The “holiday” almost over

I have only three days left of lazying around before I start my new job on Friday ( 1 Aug). Now the contract is signed so I suppose I can make it official: I will be an Inspector at the national SPCA (the Society of Prevention of Cruelty against Animals) based at their offices here in Johannesburg. For those who knows me you could say its the perfect job for me… saving animals. SPCA is a worldwide organization and if you watch Animal Planet on TV I am sure you have seen the American SPCA out in the field rescuing pets. I will be employed at the Farm Animal Unit meaning I will work with any farmed animal, from goats to crocodiles. The national SPCA overseas the 92 local member organizations around the country and act or help out in places where there are no local SPCA. This means a lot of traveling around South Africa on my own inspecting farms as well as abattoirs etc. The first three months I will go as a trainee before I take a two weeks course and a written exam to get my Inspector license. Here in South Africa SPCA stands for about 90% of all the animal welfare work and are regarded as professionals both by the public and by authorities who often consult them in issues regarding animal welfare.

Yes I am looking forward to start work and later on start traveling around the country. I am sure many of you think, like I did at first, how do you work with animal welfare in a country where so many people are struggling to survive themselves. Well I choose to see it this way: it does not cost much to treat animals in a more humane way. We are not talking about dressing our poodles in pink jerseys here but making sure animals are feed, healthy and not assaulted. If a person can not threat an animal in a descent way it is better for both of them if the animal is removed and placed with someone who cares or have the capacity to take care of it. I strongly believe that a person who assaults a defenseless animal is also prone to violent behavior against other people. As for me I will be working with farm animals and in that case you can always motivate the welfare of an farm animal with the fact that a happy, healthy cow is worth more to the owner than a sick, unhappy one!

If you want to read more about SPCA you can visit their website on http://www.nspca.co.za

Now I better go and enjoy my last days off,

Tjing!

 

Home renovations and operation

Sure…. you do not realize home renovations means a lot of work. And dust…fine building dust that spreads just everywhere. Into everything. Out builders were here for about a week plastering the walls in the staircase and guest bedroom upstairs. Then I had a lot of sandpapering to do after that. Now walls are painted (and i had to concur my fear of hight while balancing on the balustrade painting the staircase walls) but it took like three layers of paint to get rid off that awful dark pink color that was painted by the previous owner.. It is looking much better although we still need to do part of the floor still (it is raw concrete at the moment) and then decorate the bedroom nicely.

A couple of days ago I had a minor operation done at a hospital here in Joburg. After a couple of hours I could (slowly) go home so at least I did not have to stay over.  I had a so called laparoscopy (titthalsoperation) where they put one tiny camera through my belly button and another further down and look inside.  They removed some (harmless) growths and that was it. I was surprised though about the pain afterwards and worst was the cramp that stayed for days… And of course I was a bit irritated about not being able to finish off the painting upstairs for a while but ok.. at least it is done now and I wont have to go back again. I really do not like hospitals and especially not being put to sleep… This was my second time and it is a strange feeling of getting the drug and then 2 seconds later I am totally gone…. This time I was actually dreaming weird dreams and then I hastily woke up, staring at two nurses shouting “wake up, wake up”. It sounded like shouting to me but they probably did not When I broke my leg in 2006 it was more like drifting away, no dreams and then slowly waking up at the ward in a way you normally wake up. I suppose this time I was a day patient and it it more like “patients on a conveyor belt”…in and out… quickly, we want to go home on time… Anyway hope this was my last hospital encounter for a long time.