Esikhawini

Today I was speaking out at Esikhawini. They were apologetic that the attendance was down as some members had returned to school this week. They usually only attend during holidays, but with the recent teachers strike, they were sent home by their boarding schools!




This is a view of the chapel. As far as I know, the chapel for Port Durnford is the same design.



At Esikhawini there is a baptismal font (above)

Usually at Richards Bay the attendance at Sacrament meeting is around 40 or so, but when I was at Port Durnford, the count was 55 persons. At Esikhawini the count today was 85. When I last spoke at Nseleni the count was 45 heads. The huge problem at the ex twigs is that at least 50% of those attending are aged under 12! There are very few active Priesthood holders from whom future leaders can be chosen.

Currently the Richards Bay branch has a few members looking for spouses:-

Me - on the EQ and District Presidency. I feel that I have found a suitable spouse, but I need to convince her that I am nothing like her ex husbands!
The EQ President - seriously dating a member from Kloof! I have assured him that he is safe from me poaching his lady friends. Turns out that I am only just older than his Dad - and that is saying something! Rob - the branch president feels that I stole his intended whilst he was on mission, but I'd cross my heart - if I had one - that this was definitely not the case!
Thw Second Counsellor on the branch presidency - although he too is looking at a different quality of woman.
The Young mens President - although he too is looking in a generation too young for my tastes!
The Sunday School President - 21 - although he is not seriously searching, since he has his application papers in for consideration.

There is a new member of the District Council, who too is unmarried, but he is seriously dating - may even be engaged - to the Branch Choirister! She is maybe the right age for me - a divorcee also - but I know that she is completely the wrong character for me! Before Divorce, I know that Michele was anxious for me to get involved with Breeze! I dont know, but I like to choose my friends, not have an ex wife choose them for me! She is now twice divorced, and I am not sure that her choices are suitable for me - in fact I dont trust her choices further than I could throw her, and that would not be easy, literally singlehandedly!

CRAZY DAYS

Today I am going to draft my sacrament talk for tomorrow. I am speaking at Sacrament at Esikhawini.

I am kind of looking forward to this since I still feel kind of close to the members there! It is not so very long ago that I was Presiding Elder out at "E".

I intend to take photographs and then to go through to Richards Bay, so that I can attend to my calling as Counsellor on the EQ Presidency! I just hope the EQ President can be there. Poor guy is smitten by the love bug, heavily! His Mom even says that he smiles in his sleep!

It would be strange if both active members of the EQ Presidency are engaged to be married! I feel that for the EQ President, this is not too far off, and feel that Satan can see that for me, this is not too far off! Hence his objection to me dining with the lady in my cross hairs! However I KNOW what I have been told - in the Temple - and am confident that Satan will not have his way!

I had to cancel - for the third time - my date with my headshrink. She had to rush up to Johannesburg to attend to her mother! I would have gone with her, but I need to be here on Sunday! If I have to, then I will fly up to Johannesburg on Monday and drive back with her on Tuesday!

When I was at the restaurant, they laughed at me but have said that when I can, I must just arrive with her! Such is life in a small village! That is why life here is a little crazy!

The end of another perfect week?

As the week draws to a close, I am loking forward to some interesting days!

Friday - I get to see my headshrink - as a headshrink! AND
Saturday - I get to go shopping in Durban - with a clean slate on my credit card! I need 2 things ("need" is such a relative word!) - some spare Porsche brake light bulbs and a portable DVD player for my bedroom. I can burn my own DVDs on my DVD Recorder, but they will not play on my computer in my bedroom - I suspect because the DVD Recorder does not record in a suitable Windows format! I need to upgrade my Widows version. Besides if I have a portable DVD player that runs off batteries, then passengers in my Landy can be spoilt with DVD entertainment on the move! Maybe then, I can shoot DVD movies on my DVD Camcorder and watch the result on screen, before I start releasing my own feature films! I LOVE technology! I used to have a cassette camcorder, but donated it to charity when a client needed it, more than I needed it!

That killed 2 birds with one stone:-
I found a worthy home for something that I was not using (tapes are so cumbersome to handle!) AND
It was being put to excellent use, by a needy charity!

It was so big and cumbersome! My new DVD camcorder is a small thing!

On Saturday I and Di are going to Durban, and when we get back, are going to Zanj for supper - finally! I have eaten there and the food is as if it has been prepared by a 5 star restaurant! The only other time I have had a meal so memorable is when Michele and I went out to supper at the Royal Hotel, then to a show at the Natal Playhouse! If I remember correctly, it was Andrew Lloyd Webers "Evita" - within easy walking distance of the Royal Hotel.

The way I see it is, Di will love to eat out at Zanj - she enjoys Mugg and Bean where the service is more of a fast food style! Zanj is a quality restaurant, that is definitely not a fast food joint! The name is Arabic for "East Coast"!

I have recorded a film that is excellent - "I dream of Africa" that is a true life story of a woman who immigrates from Italy to Kenya! It kind of hearkens back to the typical idea that Americans have of Africa - lions off of the verandah and elephants in the veggie patch! I have seen elephant around 2 kilometers away from my home - up the hill, but these were tame elephants from the circus!

I find it hard to come to terms with someone constantly apologising! It is strange to me that someone who is otherwise completely in control of their lives, constantly has to apologise - Sorry for.... before anything else is said! Sure we live in a time of Instant messages, but how instant should the response be? I believe that otherwise confident people are suffering hangovers from previous marriages! How can anyone demand instant responses? Surely NO-ONE is THAT important! I know of people who think they are, but the more important they think they are, the smaller cogs they actually are in the larger scheme of things! I am speaking here of Di - who is otherwise very confident! She may take 2 days to Email - because she is busy! Big Whoop! I know that not everyone has all day to Email. In fact I send the occasional Email to my ex, and days or weeks go by without response! No skin off of my nose! I am retired, so can stand to wait a day or two for a response - especially if the other party is busy!

In fact the fastest way to send a message used to be a telex message, but they have not been used for decades - at least since faxes became commonplace and even then, a fax could get lost or mislaid! SMS is fast - but even then, can take up to 12 hours to deliver! Email is fast, but I wonder what is next on the list of inventions! I can Email across the globe literally, and can get an instant response - depending on the time zones! Who says that Email is the answer to messageing? They used to think that faxes were fast, and now they are more or less snail mail! It used to be that the fastest way of delivering messages was by hand, by flying across the globe! When I flew to LA it took 25 hours flight time. I think that if you had said in 1980 that satellites would exist - and in fact would be a household standard - you would have been locked up and they would have thrown away the key! Now if you cannot Email at least, they tend to look at you sideways!

I learned how to blog, but even this must surely, be old hat to some! When I was at school - not that long ago - if you wanted to communicate, you actually put pen to paper! I even remember using pens with actual nibs, and that was before they used ballpoint pens as standard. When I was at school, you could get inkwells for the holes in your desk! The use of quill pens was kind of in the past, but I remember having to refill my pen with ink into the cartridge! I even remember that I had a fountain pen with a gold plated nib! I also remember bored kids throwing ink soaked blotting paper missiles! Were those really the "Good old Days"?

Fears of Man

Watching BBC Knowlege on my DSTV Satellite, I am HUGELY amused. On one hand there is huge fear that the world is warming up - Global Warming. On the other hand, the scientists who monitor volcanic erruptions are scared witless that a super-volcano is overdue to errupt, sending ash into the air, The fear is that we will be subject to Global Cooling! Sounds like you should panic if we are getting warmer and panic if we are getting cooler! Next step is just to panic because there is no change in weather patterns! What next? This hardly sounds like the influeces of our Creator! All that is being created is mass hysteria that we are getting too warm, headed for a mini ice age, or something! "If you dont panic, what is wrong with you?" I think that some force wants us to live in a state of panic, as if our creator has gone mad and is out of control! To me, this sounds like Satan keeping us involved in panic rather than communicating with our creator!

One thing that I am very happy about is that they are going to broadcast on one of the channels, the recordings of the trip made by Ewan Mcgregor from London, by motor bike from London to New York - East - the Long Way Round! I am very interested, since then I wil be able to see how they crossed from Russia to Canada. If they managed on motorcycles, surely it was possible to walk from America to Africa when the tribes of the earth were dispursed after the Tower of Babel!

It is hilarious to hear the theory that the Garden of Eden was in Africa, and man started out in Africa and migrated to the rest of the world! I think that it is 'politically correct" to believe that man descended from Africa! Strange then that when white hunters arrived in Africa, the most advanced discoveries were grass huts, not your average brick built splendour - with accessories like running water and housing for garages!

Something that I think that I learned in Chemistry at school, was that Carbon Monoxide is an unstable gas, and pretty soon combines with other oxygen to form Carbon Dioxide - which is plant food! That is what plants do! They absorb Carbon Dioxide and give off Oxygen! How scary is that???? Next thing will be a theory that man needs carbon to reproduce (we are carbon based life forms) so panic, the plants are eating our food! Just another reason to wake up in a cold sweat that man will die as a species!(???!!!)

As far as I can remember is one of the main products from combustion engines, is Carbon Monoxide - which soon enough convered into carbon dioxide that is plant food. Man eats what? Plants!!! Sounds like Circle of Life stuff to me!

In Zululand again, today is C-O-L-D. Should we worry that someone more important than Man has gone insane? I really refuse to believe that! It is cold because it is cold, no reason to panic! If we panic, we forget to think of our Creator who by the way, outdid himself creating such wonders as the Game Reserves of Africa. I refuse to believe that man evolved from Africa, and somehow the gene for a black skin was not at all dominant! Strange then that Coloureds (Like President Obama) exist, and they produce children who are definitely not white! Some natives look heavily suntanned but some from further up Africa look almost purple! This is an observation, not a racially motivated comment!

Secret (I think) is to hold onto Heavenly Fathers mission plan, and to have joy - not fear! It is a well known fact that it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown! A thought - is smiling then a Green Activity? - less muscles used, means less heat and by the way, less energy and less CO2 - therefore is it ecologically and environmentally more friendly to smile than it is to frown? Just a thought! Maybe by worrying about global warming, we are contributing to Global Warming? Take the advice of a song - "Dont worry - be happy!"

FAITH

My faith(?) in humans - particularly the members of the Branch - was restored today! I attended a branch Council meeting and was horrified when a member of the Branch Presidency raised the question of the less affluent members who claim that transport to Church is too expensive, and what could the branch do about paying for them to be transported to and from Church, even though they live fairly close to the chapel. It amazes me that my EQ President and his family drive 3 hours just to get TO church. Other members drive 100 kilometers to get to church, and I drive a short 55 kilometers to get to Church. It is very few weeks - if any - when one of us is not there! Then there are members who cannot manage to get 5 kilometers to church! I question, where is their comittment? Also try to mention 2 other points to them and you only get blank looks!

1. A Prophet of the lord stated that he promised that the way to walk out of poverty was to pay your tithing! Amazes me that the poor members who dont come to church for reasons of poverty, are the first to complain that 10% tithing is too much to pay and their budgets dont allow them to pay tithing!

2. Something that I have seen time and time again is the equation - no input = nothing out! 10%, 100% or 1000% of nothing is still - youve guessed it - NOTHING! Amazingly the most affluent members of the Church were the ones who paid their tithing! Is this coincidence? I personally dont think so!

What also never fails to amaze me is that no matter how far over backwards you bend, these members are never satisfied! Trouble sometimes is the further you bend over backwards for them, the bigger target you present to receive a kick in the face!

Still that is the natural human response! "You are wealthy - where is my cut?"
Then they look at you sideways when you dont give them anything! I have had times where I have taken members to the Temple - at my cost - and they have not even offered to buy me lunch - or a cooldrink - let alone contribute to fuel! I never complained, but I bet they wondered why I stopped driving across town to collect them for Church! As I said, my faith in human response was restored! Those who refuse to pay tithing, were the first who expected a return from membership.

Mocambique

Last year, I was stunned to find out 2 things:-

It was 30 years since my cousin was killed on a cross border raid into Mocambique, fighting against ZANLA terrorists who were attacking the country then known as Rhodesia. I had always understood that the Puma helicopter he was in, exploded when it was hit by a Sam 7 Anti aircraft missile! I always believed that either his body was destroyed by fire either when the heavily armed helicopter exploded or when the wreckage hit the ground

It turns out that the bodies of the 17 killed in this tragedy were buried by the locals, and that the gravesite is reasonably well maintained, again by the locals!
At the time of the incident, the RLI did not try to recover the bodies as the area was obviously teeming with the enemy! Since I was in the Pat Corps, our office was ordered to take money down to near the Moz border and to pay the "returning heroes" I think it was just Mugabe trying to get on the good side of criminals! I am convinced that the gang of "heroes" who shot down my cousin, were there! - Heroes my foot!

Trips into Mocambique are occasionally conducted by the people who found the grave - as well as some of the wreckage of the helicopter, and this is a reason that I was keen to buy a V8 4x4 Landrover. Amazingly fortunate - for me - that it is Automatic!

Always when I get advised by the people who found the grave, a poem is quoted

“They shall not grow old
As we who are left, grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn,
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.”

If my (greying) memory serves me, this is from a poem by Robert Browning. It is however 35 - 40 years since I was seated in an English poetry class!

These people put me in touch with a group who are involved in an RLI Regimental association, which keeps all advised of current happenings! I hear more about my old regiment than I hear of my old high school. The ex RLI are currently active in places as diverse as Botswana, Australia and New Zealand.

This always gets me in the strings of my heart. This poem was used at my primary school and then at my senior school as a standard quote at any memorial day. My primary school was named after a WW2 Ace, John Nettleton - a Spitfire pilot - who was awarded the Victoria Cross, and was in a sports house also named after another WW2 Ace. When I went to High School, the houses were also named after WW2 aces, who were awarded the VC decoration. Then when I was in my years national service, the unit that I served in, also used this poem as a kind of anthem! When I served my national service, it was in Base Group in the barracks, since I was in the Pay Office. My cousin had served in 1 Commando, and practically the barracks he lived in was right next to the Base Group barracks. Every day, we had to march across what was called "Holy Ground" and salute the "Troopie Statue" next to the chapel, and was a memorial to those who had died serving their country!

Whilst I was in the Pay Office, this statue was airlifted out of the barracks and brought down to SA - the military museum near the Zoo in Johannesburg. I went there to see the statue, but they would not admit to the fact that it had been taken to Hatfield House just outside of London. It is erected overlooking a river there! Next time I am in the UK, I intend to go there and pay tribute to the statue! When I was in the army, it was the only link that I knew of to my cousin! I do not feel that this is in any way a version of Idol Worship - at least no more than visiting a gravesite.

Since I found out that my cousin was buried and his grave has been located, I have bought myself a 4x4 Land Rover Discovery - V8 automatic - that I want to use to drive in to Mocambique!

For 30 years, I truly believed that the explosion had completely destroyed the bodies, but found out that there exists a mass grave, that is accessible by road, in an ordinary car, although the last time I was in Mocambique, the roads were not very good, and in their 35 - 40 years of independance, the Moz government has done nothing to maintain the roads. Even the bullet marks in the walls from the fighting when there were cross border raids in 1980, have not been plastered over or repainted, 31 years later! If they have not repaired or even repainted buildings, there is absolutely no chance that roads have been maintained. The roads into Mapai are still dirt roads!

I have a friend who was involved in a project to tar the roads off of the main SA to Maputo road, but they soon stopped, as the graders were exploding buried landmines!

When we used to visit Beira (nearest sea to Salisbury where we lived) the roads there were in terrible condition. We had huge fun the one time watching a worker repairing potholes in the tar road on a one way bridge over a river. The traffic was held up when the lights changed on the one end, and the worker would run into the road with a bucket of stone/bitumen that he flung into the hole and patted it briefly with a spade, before he had to flee from the oncoming traffic! Then he had to wait for another change of the robots, to attempt the same suicide mission!

Those were the days when I and my brothers were bitten by a real live African Lion! Ruff was maybe 4 weeks old and played endlessly. In playing, it bit although the teeth left no bite marks. What amazed us was the size of Ruffs paws! They were HUGE! So it is honest to God truth when I say that I have been bitten by a lion - admittedly it was playing, not vicious - but it was a lion!

I remember that this was one of our holidays where we were away at the sea at the same time as my cousins. I even remember that the one evening, we went out to a restaurant - "The Oceana" - on the seaside near the docks. That is one time where we were graced with a sight of an Ocean Liner leaving port in the evening!

I even recall the Christmas decorations on display - plastic soup plates glued together!

I remember Jeremy fishing off of the pier with his father. Terry was moaning that Jeremy was not casting far enough out to sea to catch fish. Jeremy would cast, be shouted at, reel in, take a fish off the hook, rebait then recast! Terry moaned at his son, but in all the time we were there the only fish caught were by Jeremy!

That was before Moz Independance, and even then there was an air of decay about EVERYTHING. That must be 35 or even 40 years ago, and I am not sure that they have bothered to maintain anything since then! The only capital development is that since we last went there, the Zambesi has been dammed with the Cahorra Bassa Dam. I know that many people in Eshowe own property in Mocambique.

ZULULAND TRUE STORIES

Yesterday, I was hanging around Empangeni waiting until I was due to take a fellow Council member out to his first District Council meeting at the Chapel in Richards Bay. I bought a really fascinating book on the history of Zululand, from 1780 to 1978.

The Zulu people basically becane a united people under King Shaka in the 1760 region of time!

What is kind of shocking is that he had no children. That is not to say he did not get women pregnant, but he was fanatical about killing the foetus before it was born!
That is why his direct line stops with him, and the current royal household, is descended from his brother. The current king (Ling Goodwill Zweletini) lives in a palace up at Nongoma. I know that this must be a really incredible building. I have not seen it, but when a client that I was dealing with at the time was drawing the plans for my house, he was putting the finishing touches to the plans for the new Royal Residence. To this day the house that was designed for me is lived in by my parents, and is a brilliant building! I can imagine that a Royal Palace would have been built with more attention to detail!

Esikhawini developed as a housing estate for the workers at Alusaf! Strange that they import everything to Richards Bay (the electricity, the raw materials and the labour) process it locally, then export the metal ingots, then re-import aluminium sheets to manufacture things like Coke cans etcetera! What a waste of time and effort! Something else that stuns me is that they chip up the logs grown locally, export the chips to be glued together into pressboard, then re-import the pressboard to make things with! How can anything be cheap here?

Richards Bay started off as a fishing resort. The natural harbour was developed and now Richards Bay is a booming industrial town