AAF News
Tim's Diary - Sunday 7th June 2009
26/10/2009
As I write this diary I am listening to two little boys telling each other stories. Dan and Bailey are in bed together in a bed and breakfast cottage in a place called Bergville. Bailey has just confessed his love for Dan and told him to have a lovely sleep and he will see him in the morning.
Bergville is in South Africa about 300kms south of Johannesburg. We are here because Renee has come to teach maths at an all black primary school for 2 weeks. It's a long story, but her doctor used to live in South Africa for 10 years and his practice was in the Bergville area. Since returning home he founded the African Aids Foundation. For a decade he has been trying to turn the tide on the aids pandemic in Africa.
Through his charity, Dr Schwarz has been helping Intumbane Primary School by raising funds in Australia. He has encouraged St Peter's Primary School in Campbelltown to become a sister school. The school and its children have raised money to buy computers and books for the African children to use. He knows that Renee has been to Africa before and that she loves African children. She thinks they are all beautiful. Dr Schwarz is a Good Samaritan and a very good talker.
We arrived in South Africa on Saturday 6th of June 2009 at around 4pm. It was a 13-hour flight so we were very tired. The time passed pretty quickly because you can watch movies non-stop or play video games. I watched at least 4 movies including seeing "Australia" for the second time.
The boys were both angels this time. Dan has had a reputation for playing up since we flew to Korea. This time we kept him off the orange juice, which we now know is full of sugar. We flew South African Airlines but the plane was Qantas, staffed by South Africans. When we arrived at Johannesburg Airport, we picked up a hire car from Europcar. They couldn't find the GPS or our travel documents so we sat around for at least an hour while Renee rang our travel agent to find out what happened. In the end we got our car and drove to our hotel, Garden Court, which was only 2kms away. In Australian time it's now about 2am so we are exhausted.
We have a quick dinner in the hotel restaurant and go to bed. At 3am South African time, we all wake up and watch cartoons. It's Sunday and the hotel restaurant doesn't open til 7:30am. We are all starving having been awake for so long. Renee is in a feeding frenzy, she begins with healthy yoghurt and muesli but things turn greasy and ugly after that. She eats half a pig and then a croissant with jam. Dan's not far behind with 4 bowls of cornflakes mixed with rice bubbles. He had 4 weet-bix for breakfast during the week so he's in form. Bailey has one bowl of cornflakes and a croissant and he's happy. I have 4 pieces of toast with Marmite. It's got the texture of glue but tastes the same as the Aussie made product.
Our travel agent rings to tell us that our paperwork is still lost but she has located our GPS navigator. We decide to go back to the airport to pick it up. Renee picks up the navigator and then by chance calls into Europcar. They have found our paperwork so now we can continue on our trip.
We have never used a GPS system before but friends from Sydney have said we must have one. It's a disaster; the bloody thing sends us about 50kms east of Johannesburg when we are supposed to go south. It costs us at least an hour. We go back to using a map and Renee gets us back on track.
Eventually we discover that it's just a flat battery that caused us all the problems. We plug it into our cigarette lighter and it starts telling us to go in the right direction. We have been warned to remove the GPS from the window whenever we park. They even told us to remove the suction mark from the window because the robbers go looking for this so they know which cars to break into. GPS are worth more than mobile phones so they are hot property.
As we travel down the N3 towards Harrismith we keep looking into the vast grass paddocks for animals. The first animal spotted was a squashed rat at the airport. Our next sighting was 2 Jack Russell dogs chasing a rabbit into a shrub on the highway. Renee sees a couple of ostriches. It is obviously no different to Australia in that you have to get far away from the cities before you see animals. Apart from the rat the only other road kill was a very flat fox.
What has been interesting is seeing the africans waiting on the side of the road for a lift. These Toyota vans pick them up and they are full of black faces. I've been warned to watch out for these vans because their drivers don't obey road rules and they are often not roadworthy. We did see one go through a red light.
It's also amazing how far the africans walk. Today was Sunday so most would be going to church. They are all well dressed. We often saw older men wearing suits as they walked along the highway. The africans live in villages in tiny houses no bigger than a single garage. We would often see these beautifully dressed people walking across the paddocks.
At 4pm we arrive in Bergville. It's a small town that is littered with rubbish. Until now I have been so impressed with how clean the roads have been. Anthony's Bed and Breakfast Home Stay is on the edge of Bergville. It's called Anthony's but we have only met Carol so far and she is very nice. Our accommodation is like a granny flat out the back. It's nothing fancy but it has a garden - which we quickly explore. The owner, Carol has 3 big pecan nut trees in the yard that are covered with nuts. They are ripe and hundreds are on the ground. The boys and I pick up a few and go into a feeding frenzy. I have just planted 3 pecan nut trees at home so I am excited to see the boys love eating them too. Carol says we can eat as many as we like.Carol has an older garden that could use a little TLC. She also has 2 big dogs and a cat which she lets go inside the house. One dog looks like Renee's mum's dog called Lucy. The boys start calling her Lucy immediately. The other dog is as big as a wolf. I don't like seeing dogs in houses especially when they are so smelly and dirty.We have dinner at night in Carol's house. Roast chicken and vegetables. Carol is a Christian so before we started eating she said a prayer thanking God for helping us arrive safely. Half way through her prayer I could hear Bailey scooping up peas with his spoon. The stare of death across the table saw him get this huge grin on his face. It's our first prayer together as a family.
Carol tells us not to worry about locking our room. She tells us she leaves her house unlocked all night. She does have a dog the size of a wolf. I do notice however in our room a sign which says "Anthony's Guest House nor any of its employees accepts any liability for any loss, injury or damage sustained by any person, car or goods in or around the premises".
We noticed all the houses in Johannesburg had huge fences around the boundaries. They also had barbed wire and many had electric fences.