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Julien’s Journal

The hard part over…

 

After working my arse off the last few days, I can finally say that I’m into the home stretch. I’ve said before that time is going very quickly here and I’ve now done 17 interviews, spoken to the traditional healers, interviewed one extension worker and one extension officer, read documents about the climate of the region and have now got two days in which to do absolutely bugger all. Which I fully intend to do. I have arranged to go to a friend’s house tomorrow where we will have a braai (barbecue) and I might even be able to get on to the internet. If not, these journals are going up on Tuesday when I get to Nelspruit.

 

The plan for the rest of the trip is:

Monday, hopefully go out and find some farmers. I’m no longer relying on people to help me ‘cause it is just a house of cards situation working with these people. Hopefully I’ll be just grabbing some farmers in the field and will talk to them. This should get my total interview numbers up to 20, a nice round number.

 

Tuesday, Get out of Wits Rural and head down to Nelspruit. Taking the scenic route down and will enjoy a stop at Blyde River Canyon.

 

Wednesday, going to a workshop on Marula Beer brewing. Apparently it should be a big do – people coming out from all over the world! I won’t be able to wear shorts. Christ – I’ll probably even have to iron my trousers!

 

Thursday, driving to Johannesburg. Haven’t been able to do so yet but will arrange to stay at Monash South Africa. I’ve just got my fees invoice for semester 1 and hope to cash in on them!

 

Friday, Have an Interview with Melton Mugeri of the South African weather service. Should be useful to piece together some of the stuff I’ve been finding out about the information coming from the Service out to the farmers.

 

Saturday, Again, bugger all is on the agenda and I intend to keep it that way.

 

Sunday, have to return my rental car so I’ll probably take it back and just stay at Jo’burg airport.

 

Monday, Get the hell out of South Africa!!!

 

All the medical students that have been here have gone home now. It’s totally quiet at the moment which is nice for the time being (some more students arrive out here on Sunday) but I’ll take company over solitude 9 times out of 10.

 

There are some things about this place I won’t miss.

 

- The crack in the toilet seat which if you happen to shift your weight you’ll lose a bit of your left buttock in;

 

- The ants, who have the capacity to sense a single molecule of sucrose and bring out all their mates to share it up fairly;

 

- The monkeys. Those fearless, scavenging, ugly as sin bastards!!! I fucking hate them!

 

- The electric stove which makes boiling an egg a major event.

 

I’m sure there are others but those are the worst. Oh yeah, the black mumbers. Apparently there was one on the kitchen the other day and that is way too close for comfort.

 

I’m actually coming to grow to the area. I’m sure that attitude will change when I get back to Melbourne – or even Nelspruit! The whole thing though about being the only white person in a town and copping funny looks from everywhere is just something you get used to and now when I return the looks with a smile and a friendly gesture people react really well. I know all of the roads in the catchment, most of the major dirt tracks. I encountered a rather severe one on Wednesday where I applied all my 4-wheel driving techniques (of which I possess very few) to a two-wheel drive car and pulled up outside this guy’s place with a damn flat. The flat tyre was all I got out of that interview as well as he was bloody useless. I knew he had plenty of information for me but for some reason he wouldn’t disclose anything. He is a headman of the village and has been farming for over thirty years – he just seemed useless though.

 

It is so tough when you get a shit interview. I’m doing three a day and if you start the day with a bad one, it really knocks the drive out of you. I’ve said it before but the hardest thing is to tell yourself to keep going and this dude was a case in point. I’d have happily gone back to Wits and tearfully got drunk but you just can’t. Mind you, I’m getting drunk at the moment but have had a really good day. The guy who was supposed to show us around today only took us to one place and seemed annoyed that he had to do it. I so wanted to turn around and say “Fuck this, I’m going back to bed”. You are relying on people and have little else to fall back on so it totally takes the wind out of your sails when they let you down. However, for every 20 crap people you meet there will be one really good person and their combined positive and negative efforts cancel each other out. I just keep going back to the good ones.

 

Better go now as this has been a long entry. Will get this up ASAP.

 

Oh, before I go, there’s this beer here called Carling Black Label and its totally awful. They have big billboards advertising it and the slogan is that “You’ve earned it”. I thought it appropriate that the billboard be out in an area like this where the unemployment rate is greater than 60%.

 

See you later,

                  Julien