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