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 10th 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!
