Are cattle deaf?
It’s been a rollercoaster of a week. Thank you for all you lovely people who read my blog last Monday and instantly prayed for me (you know who you are!) as I had such an amazing sense of well-being, peace and joy around lunch-time that carried me through.
The week turned out to be very busy as well as riding the waves of emotions, probably part and parcel of being in a foreign country clubbed together with a fairly large dose of spiritual attack at my weakest points. Here’s a summary :
On Tuesday I visited one of our preschools in the valley, which was quite peaceful actually, despite there being 68 kids there! We had a meeting with a social worker who arrived to tell us she wasn’t coming, and then left. Welcome to Africa!
Tuesday also started me on a train of thought about whether cows are deaf. A small herd of them decided to cross the road in front of my car and stopped, completely blocking the road. They seemed impervious to my car horn. These aren’t little cows either, I don’t think my car would come off too well in a cow-road rage incident so need to tread carefully. This was by the preschool, which is situated in the grounds of a massive abattoir. If I was a cow, I wouldn’t be crossing the road anywhere near that place, I’d be running in the opposite direction and fast!
On Wednesday I had a meeting with a funder from Holland in a fabulous guest house in Durban (www.164.co.za), where I came across the only swimming pool I’ve had any desire to dive into as of yet in S.Africa. I’ll be returning there for a weekend away at some point...
Thursday afternoon had me driving round the Valley in thick fog looking for the place where I was supposed to be attending a forum. I happened to be out just as schools were emptying out and, in addition to the fog and speed-bumps, I had to manoeuvre round hordes of kids on either side of the road. But I got there eventually! Hairpin bends in the fog are not that much fun though…
Friday saw me once again back in Jo’burg, which was a very productive meeting and good to meet with the rest of the people in one of our funding partnerships. A Dutch organisation has brought 10 S.African NGO’s together to do some work and we are one of them, but most of the meetings are in Jo’burg (hence the fact that I know have more friends there than in Durban!)
A day in Jo’burg is tiring enough, but add on an unexpected storm to wipe out Air traffic control at JHB and it becomes even more exhausting… there were more planes than they knew what to do with, our bus, when we eventually came to board, drove us round the whole airfield to find the plane. The pilot then announced that the caterers were on strike too so no food… it was interesting to note, however, that no-one complained at all, in fact people seemed to find it all rather amusing (if only us Brits could learn from that laid-backness, life might be so much nicer!) I used my delay time productively and slept for the extra 2 and half hours on the plane. Ironically, it would have been quicker to drive home on this occasion. I finally made it back to GGA at 1.30am Sat morning having set out from there at 5.15am! So it’s not all fun and games… ;-)
The week turned out to be very busy as well as riding the waves of emotions, probably part and parcel of being in a foreign country clubbed together with a fairly large dose of spiritual attack at my weakest points. Here’s a summary :
On Tuesday I visited one of our preschools in the valley, which was quite peaceful actually, despite there being 68 kids there! We had a meeting with a social worker who arrived to tell us she wasn’t coming, and then left. Welcome to Africa!
Tuesday also started me on a train of thought about whether cows are deaf. A small herd of them decided to cross the road in front of my car and stopped, completely blocking the road. They seemed impervious to my car horn. These aren’t little cows either, I don’t think my car would come off too well in a cow-road rage incident so need to tread carefully. This was by the preschool, which is situated in the grounds of a massive abattoir. If I was a cow, I wouldn’t be crossing the road anywhere near that place, I’d be running in the opposite direction and fast!
On Wednesday I had a meeting with a funder from Holland in a fabulous guest house in Durban (www.164.co.za), where I came across the only swimming pool I’ve had any desire to dive into as of yet in S.Africa. I’ll be returning there for a weekend away at some point...
Thursday afternoon had me driving round the Valley in thick fog looking for the place where I was supposed to be attending a forum. I happened to be out just as schools were emptying out and, in addition to the fog and speed-bumps, I had to manoeuvre round hordes of kids on either side of the road. But I got there eventually! Hairpin bends in the fog are not that much fun though…
Friday saw me once again back in Jo’burg, which was a very productive meeting and good to meet with the rest of the people in one of our funding partnerships. A Dutch organisation has brought 10 S.African NGO’s together to do some work and we are one of them, but most of the meetings are in Jo’burg (hence the fact that I know have more friends there than in Durban!)
A day in Jo’burg is tiring enough, but add on an unexpected storm to wipe out Air traffic control at JHB and it becomes even more exhausting… there were more planes than they knew what to do with, our bus, when we eventually came to board, drove us round the whole airfield to find the plane. The pilot then announced that the caterers were on strike too so no food… it was interesting to note, however, that no-one complained at all, in fact people seemed to find it all rather amusing (if only us Brits could learn from that laid-backness, life might be so much nicer!) I used my delay time productively and slept for the extra 2 and half hours on the plane. Ironically, it would have been quicker to drive home on this occasion. I finally made it back to GGA at 1.30am Sat morning having set out from there at 5.15am! So it’s not all fun and games… ;-)
posted by Caroline @ 9:39 am
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