I was looking at the statistics of my blog. It amazed me that there were so many page views from Russia!
I watched the series "Long Way Round" as well as "Trabant Trek", and I am kind of deflated that a visit to Russia appears to be somewhat of an impossibility. Often also the USA series of "The Amazing Race" shows like the other 2 travel shows that it gets really cold for much of the year in Russia.
2 things have made me and cold incompatible:-
1. Where I was damaged in my fight with an out of control articulated truck, my joints are affected
2. Where my heel was recently operated on, gets extremely sore in temperatures of less than 18
degrees celsius
For some reason, where the bones were broken or cut, the reasulting injury never seems to heal completely, especially where the muscle mass has been disturbed.
That being said, Russia appears to be attractively wild! I rather enjoy the wilds although my experience first hand is limited.
I love the wilds of Africa - since that is where I have always lived.
I experienced the wilds in America - around Los Angeles and Salt Lake City
I saw the rather tame wilds in England when I was driven between London, Manchester and Blackpool.
That also is a concern in that I realise that having been stung by thousands of bees, I am deathly allergic to bee stings. I was informed that my blood has converted the venom into anti venom. 1 sting and all of these will swing into action to counteract the venom of 1 sting and since there are so many that will not be used, it will be just as if another few thousand have stung me! The effect will be the same, in that the anti venoms will act just like venoms - and without urgent attention, mybody will shut down. Fancy being deathly allergic to yourself?
I do carry emergency vials of adrenelin and a syringe. I understand that this postpones the effects of a bee sting for around an hour, but then I urgently need medical assistance!
One thing that I am sure of, is that this allergy is not hereditary. My nephew in LA was stung by a bee and like his Dad - my younger brother - his face swelled alarmingly. My allergy is from MASSIVE amounts of venom, and that only comes from being stung so much!
Stragest thing is that I turned 51 before I became allergic. My brother was stung once when he was maybe 10, and he reacted badly, although it was not so serious that he needed to see the doctor! I was in the ICU unit of the nearest hospital for 4 days.
Friday, November 23, 2012
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Travel
Recently I had to drive up to Parktown in Johannesburg. It was a long way and I managed it with no problem. I drove up on the Friday (everywhere from the coast, is up!) stayed overnight with friends - did what I had to on Saturday morning and drove back on Saturday afternoon.
It was a long way and made me realise how fortunate we are in coastal KZN, to recently have had a Temple announced for Durban. I can hardly wait until a Temple is an hour south instead of a further 6 hours (and huge toll fees) inland!
I had not realised that Parktown is 690 kilometers away - 120 to Durban, then the rest up the N3 to Johannesburg. I was blessed to have the use of my GPRS. Going up the N3, you are blessed to skirt past tiny little towns. Once you leave Durban, the first town/city you actually com across is Johannesburg. Then all you need to do is skirt past the high building of the Carlton Tower (highest building in Africa) and follow the offramps to the Temple.
My GPS directed us up the N3, M2 and the M1, taking an offramp to the Temple. On the way home however, it directed us through Hillbrow to the N3 and then home via Heidelberg and Standerton.
I was amazed at how run down Hillbrow appears. It has always been seedy, but age has not been kind to it!
The Durban Temple has been announced, but that will take a few years to be finished. The construction of a Temple is special, so care is taken in building it! They truly are magnificent buildings.
I have been to temples in Los Angeles, Salt Lake City and been through the grounds of several others. It is not so very long ago that if members of the LDS Church wanted to visit a Temple from Africa, that they had to either go to London or to Salt Lake City. Now there are 5 in Africa - either opened or announced to be constructed. This is a really recent thing - when I joined the Mormon Church, there was only 1 Temple in Africa. Soon enough there will be 5 - with others to be announced soon!
It was a long way and made me realise how fortunate we are in coastal KZN, to recently have had a Temple announced for Durban. I can hardly wait until a Temple is an hour south instead of a further 6 hours (and huge toll fees) inland!
I had not realised that Parktown is 690 kilometers away - 120 to Durban, then the rest up the N3 to Johannesburg. I was blessed to have the use of my GPRS. Going up the N3, you are blessed to skirt past tiny little towns. Once you leave Durban, the first town/city you actually com across is Johannesburg. Then all you need to do is skirt past the high building of the Carlton Tower (highest building in Africa) and follow the offramps to the Temple.
My GPS directed us up the N3, M2 and the M1, taking an offramp to the Temple. On the way home however, it directed us through Hillbrow to the N3 and then home via Heidelberg and Standerton.
I was amazed at how run down Hillbrow appears. It has always been seedy, but age has not been kind to it!
The Durban Temple has been announced, but that will take a few years to be finished. The construction of a Temple is special, so care is taken in building it! They truly are magnificent buildings.
I have been to temples in Los Angeles, Salt Lake City and been through the grounds of several others. It is not so very long ago that if members of the LDS Church wanted to visit a Temple from Africa, that they had to either go to London or to Salt Lake City. Now there are 5 in Africa - either opened or announced to be constructed. This is a really recent thing - when I joined the Mormon Church, there was only 1 Temple in Africa. Soon enough there will be 5 - with others to be announced soon!
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Always things to learn
I am still learning things!
The chapel at Port Durnford has electricity connected and to save Eskom the hassle of reading meters, calculating costs, printing bills, running debtor’s ledgers and monitoring debts, the current “thing” is prepaid electricity.
It is brilliant – because there are none of the costs above, the power is slightly cheaper than if it is on tap all the time. Downside is that if the prepaid electricity runs out, there is NO power until you recharge!
You are never in debt to Eskom. Now if you are not in credit – NO POWER!
In Mtunzini – on the other bank of the Umlalazi River, we don’t have prepaid electricity! The new installation at the Chapel, is an education.
Last weekend we screened (computer displaying through a projector) one of the recent General Conference sessions. When the cable was extended to the building and connected up, it came with 2 units of power, which the outside lights used up 1 unit of! We were not sure how long this 1 unit would last! Turned out we used half a unit, so there was some power left over.
I took the card through to Eskom in Empangeni to get it enabled, to buy more power. I used the pole number of the pole just outside of the chapel, and they managed to link up the card. Hopefully tomorrow, I can use the card to purchase more power tomorrow, ready for this weekend.
Something that really amazed me was that when at Eskom, most of the staff are indigenous and the PRO person I dealt with is a minority white woman. She was really pleasant and helpful. I had to wait for her to deal with a regular customer and he was giving her grief, and I got the impression that he was not the first trouble inducing customer of the day!
I spoke to her and found out that further contact face to face was unnecessary. I had to supply the account number and the card number by Email and she could link up the card. Now I can get prepaid electricity at a store like the Spar in Empangeni or even Pickand Pay.
It is sure true what “they” say – “you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar!” – In other words, be pleasant ALL THE TIME! It takes less effort to smile and be pleasant than to be grumpy, and you sure get more response from a smile than from a frown. Even if you don’t get the response you want to, a smile helps you to feel better about yourself. I have the impression that modern city lifestyles are such that people are too busy to take the time to be pleasant. It is always more relaxing to greet people in store in small villages. I get the impression in cities – Durban, Johannesburg and even Richards Bay – it is a crime to smile, and if you do smile, they will call the cops and have you locked up, for insanity!
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Excavation
A question that has crossed my mind – that needs someone learned to explain to me – is, how come if we need to find details of former generations, do we need to always dig?
Sure in Pompeii where it was covered by a volcanic eruption, you need to did to locate the existing remnants of a “lost” city, but everywhere else, previous civilizations (if they even WERE civilized) you need to dig! From Egypt to the Andes, even in Britain, relics are discovered by digging! Where do the “experts” think that all of this soil came from? There are heaps of digs that discover things like ancient boats, and it defeats me why the ancients took the effort to bury things like buildings or boats?
The desire to dig up history is fairly universal as I said from Ancient Britain through Egypt to the Incas of Peru.
I can see the “need” to dig up graves to find out history, as if civilized man actually “needs” to disturb the burial places of former populations. Does the quest for knowledge allow us to selectively desecrate graves or tombs? I know in Egypt there was great excitement at the discovery of tombs of ancient kings – mainly because of the wealth that people such as King Tutankhamen were buried alongside.
Another thing that astounds me is that the “learned” interpret what is uncovered, and expound their theories on what details are unveiled. It always amazes me that their theories are taken at face value by the general population to be absolute truth, and are taught as absolute fact in schools and universities!
This extends to such things like carbon dating of artifacts! They commonly show that bones etc are carbon dated to thousands or millions of years old. Surely THAT is a theory, maybe impossible to disprove, but the way I feel now, the absence of alternative explanations is hardly proof of a theory!
The way things are
Life here is interesting to say the least. The delivery drivers wanted more pay so they all went on strike. Consequently the delivery of fuel country wide was disrupted. I heard there were rumblings so I refuelled both of my Landrovers beforehand. Now I attend Church in Port Durnford, that gave me around 3 months of fuel. The fuel delivery drivers threatened to strike for 6 months if they had to, but 3 weeks with no pay, they decided to accept the offer of 10% increase. They are not ediucated enough to realise that they messed up the economy for 3 weeks, all for 1.5% increase, The way I see it is, 1 day without pay (official that no work = no pay (no strike pay either!) they are massively behind the curve. They will NEVER recover the wages they gave up. They do not think of higher taxes, higher costs at the supermarket till and everything that goes with higher wages. If they were getting any pay, they would receive less than they used to!
I have been blessed to move from Richards Bay branch, to Port Durnford branch. Now Church is virtually within spitting distance, not 120 kilometers a week round trip away! Since the strike, I have used less than a quarter (WAY less) of a tank of fuel in my V8 Discovery and a quarter of a tank of diesel in my Freelander.
Port Durnford branch is mainly a Black membership branch. There is no other way to "politically correcvtly" say that. I dont believe that they see much difference in colour to us "mhlungu's"
It makes no sense to me that the darker USA citizens claim to be "African Americans"! Does that mean that the native races of Africa need to claim to be "African Africans!" The government of SA had a series of court sanctioned operations - "Reconciliation" - to get to the causes of displeasure after Apartheid and to resolve the differences. Now everyone born in Africa (like me and my members) are South Africans, even though I was born in Southern Rhodesia. I was born there before it was called Rhodesia, and I left Zimbabwe for a better life in SA!
I have been blessed to move from Richards Bay branch, to Port Durnford branch. Now Church is virtually within spitting distance, not 120 kilometers a week round trip away! Since the strike, I have used less than a quarter (WAY less) of a tank of fuel in my V8 Discovery and a quarter of a tank of diesel in my Freelander.
Port Durnford branch is mainly a Black membership branch. There is no other way to "politically correcvtly" say that. I dont believe that they see much difference in colour to us "mhlungu's"
It makes no sense to me that the darker USA citizens claim to be "African Americans"! Does that mean that the native races of Africa need to claim to be "African Africans!" The government of SA had a series of court sanctioned operations - "Reconciliation" - to get to the causes of displeasure after Apartheid and to resolve the differences. Now everyone born in Africa (like me and my members) are South Africans, even though I was born in Southern Rhodesia. I was born there before it was called Rhodesia, and I left Zimbabwe for a better life in SA!
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Life in a small (for SA) village
I am amazed that life in Mtunzini can be so rewarding. It is a small - but growing - village (too big to be a hamlet, but too small to be a town) but life for me is preferrable to living in the fast lane!
Sure only a handful of shops can be seen as a downside, with the common misconception that we are being ripped off every time we shop for groceries. If you need to get more "bang for your buck" there are alternatives:-
There is a huge new Spar outlet in Esikhawini. This caters naturally for the darker members of the population, but the fears that existed before of black hatred of white people, is unfounded.
There is a Pick and Pay in Eshowe, that is in the line of sight of Mtunzini. Sure it is 45 kilometers away by road but in a straight line is only about 20 kilometers in the Ngoye Hills.
Empangeni has a full selection of shops - Spar Superstore, Checkers, Shoprite, Woolworths and Pick and Pay.
Richards Bay is only about 20 kilometers up the coast, but is around 55 kilometers by road.
Ballito is only just over an hour south, and has the best Woolworths that I have seen in a long time! Woolies is supposed to be expensive, but I find that the quality of food is such that if you buy a lettuce, you eat all of it,but from Spar, you throw about half away!
I find that in a small village, the people are far more accepting of me. In a town, the attitude is "Go bother someone else if you have to!" and cities are really unaccepting of disability. The attitude there is "Don't use up my oxygen!" - even if the air is foul with pollution. On the way down the coast from Mtunzini to Durban, you can see when you are getting near the city - there is too much traffic and the air is a smudgy grey colour. Driving up to Johannesburg, you can tell when you are nearing the city because you can literally cut the air with a knife it is so grey with pollution. At least in Mtunzini the air is only polluted when the sugar cane is ready for harvesting and the cane fires burn off the rubbish! Where I live, the sea breezes clear all the waste in the air!
I am so glad that I attend Church in the village of Port Durnford, where the air is similarly unpolluted. The air in Richards Bay is foul with pollution from Alusaf - the aluminium smelter - and from Mondi - the paper mill! I literally cannot breathe properly there and speech is a function of breath. If you cannot breathe properly, there is a snowballs hope of speaking properly. After about 30 minutes there, the air tends to get to my spastic diaphram and I can barely talk well!
It is apparent to me that when you view places like Singapore, New York, Bombay or London, it is easy to be discouraged that there is land for everyone - and to spare - but it is obvious to me that there are huge tracts of land that are barely inhabited. Flying to Cape Town from Durban, there are huge areas where they dont even farm! Sure lots like to live in Cape Town, but there is more to life than a view of Table Mountain over picturesque Table Bay. Living in Rural Kwa Zulu Natal (Mtunzini?) is way better than views of mile upon mile of freeway and concrete buildings!
Sure only a handful of shops can be seen as a downside, with the common misconception that we are being ripped off every time we shop for groceries. If you need to get more "bang for your buck" there are alternatives:-
There is a huge new Spar outlet in Esikhawini. This caters naturally for the darker members of the population, but the fears that existed before of black hatred of white people, is unfounded.
There is a Pick and Pay in Eshowe, that is in the line of sight of Mtunzini. Sure it is 45 kilometers away by road but in a straight line is only about 20 kilometers in the Ngoye Hills.
Empangeni has a full selection of shops - Spar Superstore, Checkers, Shoprite, Woolworths and Pick and Pay.
Richards Bay is only about 20 kilometers up the coast, but is around 55 kilometers by road.
Ballito is only just over an hour south, and has the best Woolworths that I have seen in a long time! Woolies is supposed to be expensive, but I find that the quality of food is such that if you buy a lettuce, you eat all of it,but from Spar, you throw about half away!
I find that in a small village, the people are far more accepting of me. In a town, the attitude is "Go bother someone else if you have to!" and cities are really unaccepting of disability. The attitude there is "Don't use up my oxygen!" - even if the air is foul with pollution. On the way down the coast from Mtunzini to Durban, you can see when you are getting near the city - there is too much traffic and the air is a smudgy grey colour. Driving up to Johannesburg, you can tell when you are nearing the city because you can literally cut the air with a knife it is so grey with pollution. At least in Mtunzini the air is only polluted when the sugar cane is ready for harvesting and the cane fires burn off the rubbish! Where I live, the sea breezes clear all the waste in the air!
I am so glad that I attend Church in the village of Port Durnford, where the air is similarly unpolluted. The air in Richards Bay is foul with pollution from Alusaf - the aluminium smelter - and from Mondi - the paper mill! I literally cannot breathe properly there and speech is a function of breath. If you cannot breathe properly, there is a snowballs hope of speaking properly. After about 30 minutes there, the air tends to get to my spastic diaphram and I can barely talk well!
It is apparent to me that when you view places like Singapore, New York, Bombay or London, it is easy to be discouraged that there is land for everyone - and to spare - but it is obvious to me that there are huge tracts of land that are barely inhabited. Flying to Cape Town from Durban, there are huge areas where they dont even farm! Sure lots like to live in Cape Town, but there is more to life than a view of Table Mountain over picturesque Table Bay. Living in Rural Kwa Zulu Natal (Mtunzini?) is way better than views of mile upon mile of freeway and concrete buildings!
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
GPS
I have decided to invest in a second GPS unit for my cars. It is so depressing to be driving say my Disco, only to realise that my Garmin is sitting in Ladybug - my Freelander. I love driving each of them and it is impossible to drive them both at the same time - even though they are both Automatics!
Now I have a Garmin for each, one a Nuvi 500 and the other a Nuvi 50 - wider and as far as I can tell, it allows you to see on screen which lane to be in on freeways.
I see from the icon line above, that I can now post photographs again! Last time I checked, I was unable to access the function where you can post photos to the blog!
I anticipate that on Monday next, I can again go up to the Game Reserve with the 2 Elders from Port Durnford Branch. I am really stimulated at being on the Branch Presidency of Port Durnford. It gives me a way to be creative as a leader of a not so tiny branch of the Church. I feel that the members there loveand appreciate me just as much as I love them.
Now I have a Garmin for each, one a Nuvi 500 and the other a Nuvi 50 - wider and as far as I can tell, it allows you to see on screen which lane to be in on freeways.
I see from the icon line above, that I can now post photographs again! Last time I checked, I was unable to access the function where you can post photos to the blog!
I anticipate that on Monday next, I can again go up to the Game Reserve with the 2 Elders from Port Durnford Branch. I am really stimulated at being on the Branch Presidency of Port Durnford. It gives me a way to be creative as a leader of a not so tiny branch of the Church. I feel that the members there loveand appreciate me just as much as I love them.
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