Concerns

I know that the new Church Leadership manuals have included instructions that relieves pressure on the Branch President. I am still waiting for my new leadership manual so that I can assist with keeping the Elders Quorum Presidency on track with keeping the branch running smoothly! I kind of fear that the BP is of the "old school" and of the opinion that he needs the new manuals, but no-one else needs to know what the manuals require of callings.

I am required this weekend to give a talk at our Port Durnford branch. I really enjoy the members there, and their spirit is always uplifting! Another huge thing for me is that in a straight line, the branch cannot be much further away from my home than 5 kilometers! I have been assigned to the Richards Bay Branch (55 kilometers by road) and I am happy to be there. The membership is mature and English is always spoken. Without being racialistic, when I attend Port Durnford, I am lucky if one of the missionery Elders is white, and I feel that the 2 hour meeting block is too limiting for my growth in the Church! I get way more out of being on the District Council in a predominantly white branch than I would get from a wholly Zulu branch! My Zulu is limited to 3 words:-
Sawubona (greetings)
Ikona (dont know) AND
Angaas (Have NO idea!)

I live in an English area of the country, where Afrikaans is a dying language! I can understand a fair amount, but I dont like speaking it! I have lived in Zululand for 3 decades now, but I have enough trouble forming the words in my home language to learn another language! I was born in a British Colony so grew up speaking English, and have never found the need to change! I speak English now, and always will!

That being said, I can follow a conversation in Afrikaans, although I speak schoolboy Afrikaans! What is even more strange is that I was taught the language to a British Standard - "O" Level. At least that is one of the subjects that I earned a distinction at!

Living in Zululand, I have found that the Afrikaans community - mainly in Richards Bay here on the North coast - speak a "pure" Afrikaans, just like the Zulu's speak "Pure" Zulu! If you analyse what they say, it is at least 50% is of English, usually with a really strange accent! In Afrikaans, they talk of "Ge-braaied" - burnt offerings of ex steak that has been killed (again) over an open fire! That being out there now, a really good braaied cut of meat that really I enjoyed, was a slice of fish! Maybe it was the infusion of wood smoke from the fire that made the fish slices taste incredible, or it was the company! My (and Di's) usual lunch spot is Wyetts, in Empangeni (just inland from Richards Bay) has a braaied meat selection at lunchtime on Fridays! For a fair cost, you can select your own steak bits, and have them braai (barbeque) it. I dont order it because the steak is a 500 gram slab of meat! 500 grams is a HUGE slab of meat! That is a half kilo of steak, when the average steak that I usually eat, is 100 grams. Half a kilo is a huge steak, almost like a complete cow that they trim the legs and horns off of, and throw the carcass on an open fire!

As far as I know, the word "braai" is an afrikaans word, probably derived from the English "burnt" as the average Afrikaaner likes his meat well done - browned to an absolute crisp. They usually use beer to put out the flames on the meat! I tend to think "You killed it (the cow) once, why then kill it again!" I tend to order restaurant steak as "medium rare" which some people see as too pink inside! I find that "rare" is too raw, but medium rare is not yet too dried out! If you order steak "well done" it arrives too crispy, almost as if they have set fire to it and trimmed the charcoal from off of the meat! To be absolutely honest, I enjoy Calamari as a meal. That is something that they simply cannot crucify. I know that my daughter likes prawns, but since I was hospitilised by bee stings, I understand that I am most likely to be allergic to any shellfish. In any event, I refuse to put myself at risk of it being true! When she orders prawns, I like to order Calamari Steaks!

As far as I am aware squid (from where Calamari comes) is not a shell fish. They do live in shells some of the time, but these are not their own shells.

Something else that I rather enjoy - as a starter - are snails! Christine freaks at this, thinking I must be allergic to anything with a shell, but snails are NOT seafood! Sure they have shells! I know some people think "Snails! Disgusting - looks like lumps of snot!" but I rather enjoy them as starters. I first started ordering them as starters at a restaurant in Waterval Boven, run by an Irishman and his wife! Practically there is no difference between eating snails or eating a steak! I refuse to try eating snake or Crocodile! I would hate to think of your supper fighting you at the table, and the meal winning! Is that paranoia? Maybe, but it is genuine!

Something else that I enjoy (but dont get to have very often) is caviar! I first had this one day after playing golf in an inter-office sports day held at the Kloof Country Club! It went well with Cabernet Sauvignonn - before I joined the LDS Church. I preferred red wine to beer - any day of the week. When I joined the Church and gave up drinking alcohol (no big feat!) I had a complete case of Cabernet Sauvignon that I had bought at the winery in the Cape. I laid it up and 7 years later - just as it matured - I sold the case off at huge profit! Reports from the buyers were that it was brilliant wine, at the peak of its taste! Still, I found something in my life worth more than aged red wine, and have never looked back! I also preferred red to white wine, although red wine is somewhat heavy to drink in the heat!

I remember that at the office where I trained as a Chartered Accountant, there was a social club called "the THOOPC (silent C) Club" - standing for "The Honourable Order Of Piss Cats". We used to meet after work once a month, and to drink quantities of mainly beer! I used to drink beer because it was not the done thing to drink Orange Juice!

That is where I found out that there are hippo in the water next to the John Ross Highway in Richards Bay! There are warning signs on this stretch, but the average motorist thinks that they are a joke! An office colleague had been drinking quite heavily, and he wrote his car off when he ran into a hippo on this road! Apparently the hippo survived, but his car was pretty messed up! I know that he wrote off another car on the old Melmoth Pass when he overtook what he thought was a slow moving truck, only to find that it was the warning signs of a sharp bend in the road! Boy was he surprised!