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Julien’s Journal

 

Much more civilised…

 

I’m writing now at a far more civilised hour, 6pm on Thursday night. Hold on, just let me get another beer. Ahhh, that’s better. I am trying now to wind down after finishing all my interviews and driving up to Johannesburg today. I don’t like Johannesburg much at all. I spent 40 minutes in a traffic jam in the middle of the day thanks to a single accident 10 km up the road. The management of traffic issues in this country sucks, they hadn’t even attempted to shift the vehicles (which weren’t even that badly hit) on to the side of the road and this road, which is the main road from Jo’burg to Pretoria was choked. I then managed to get lost for an hour, skirting around the area which I should be staying called Ruimsig. The roads that I was supposed to take off the main road weren’t signposted and when I was on them they had different names to what was on the maps! I must be boring you stupid with all the crap I’ve been talking about the roads, the road rules and the traffic over here. I’ll stop now. Anyway, I’ve only got 2 more journeys to make in this car – a return visit to Pretoria tomorrow (perhaps they’ll have cleared up the accident scene by then) and then to the airport. Can’t wait to get home.

 

I feel like a researcher in limbo at the moment, just hovering in the academic ether with this undocumented body of knowledge, not at home putting it into print and not out in the field gathering it. I’m quite happy though to hide myself away for a few days and catch up on sleep. I’ve got to write up my interview for tomorrow and I’m going to do a bit of schmoozing in the morning with Monaaash South Africaaa geography staff. I’ll then watch a DVD I’ve rented and go to bed. What’s the DVD? I was very mainstream in my coice and picked Bridget Jones’ Diary for the simple reason that all the other decent ones were more action and violent and I don’t want to be put in the mood right now where I’m fired up and want to drive my car really fast. I’ll most likely get lost.

 

Oh, a message for Will Duffy if you’re reading this I picked up from Cornje a Citibug cap he wanted to give to you last year. I’ll find you at Uni and pass in on.

 

The last couple of days have been most pleasant at Laura’s (Laura is a friend of my supervisor who lives in Nelspruit). Yesterday I attended a workshop on Marula products and the potential to market these products as a means for regional development in the same area I was studying. For those of you who don’t know what Marula is, it is a fruit that grows in large quantities from trees here and is most commonly found around the world in Amarula Cream, a baileys-style liquor. It was an interesting day but very long, especially when I agreed to take Teresa (a friend of Laura’s and Derick’s) and a couple of her friends out for a few drinks at this hideous pub called the Jock and Keg. It was hideous because it is basically a chain pub and is set up in the same manner as Sizzler used to be. All artificial set up – please, someone take me to the Daulton bar in St Kilda or anywhere with a bit of character!!! I then hit the second wind and took us all to a club called Bourbon Street, where we sat at the bar watching middle aged men try to pickup young ladies and young men trying not to look like an idiot while dancing… and failing. It was quite a good laugh.

 

The drive down from Wits Rural was also very pleasant. I’ll put the pictures up ASAP of the three sisters, a part of the Blyde River Canyon park. It was a totally awesome view from up there and the cool mountain air was a fantastic contrast to the stinky, hot festering air of the townships I’d become used to working in. It was just a good wind-down as well to come back by the scenic route.

 

Now I’m here at Monash. I really feel like I’m being phased back into life slowly. The first step is to attend a branch of my Uni. It’s a shame that Monaaaash follows the same semester dates as back home as there’s no other students around me here. I’ve got this big room which 4 students will normally live in for a year all to myself and was kinda hoping for loads of students to be around as most South African unis have been up and running for a couple of weeks already. I’ve never lived on campus before and was hoping to get a taste of the scene. Instead its just little ol’ me sitting in a room and typing this stuff up. It was good to get back here though and see Lebogang, a member of the Geography department here who came out with all the students last year. He kindly took time out to show me around the area of Ruimsig and even went to the lengths of taking out a membership at the video club so I could get this movie tonight.

 

I’d better go and grab another beer before I begin writing up this interview. I’ve actually got some Beck’s tonight as a break from Windhoek. It goes down very well. Oh, by the way, for all the other students from SA-2002, I went for a final drink with Cornje and Martin the other night and they took me into this very conservative Afrikaner pub. If it was a Friday or Saturday night I could just picture it full of big burly bearded Afrikaner banana farmers, calling me names in Afrikaans and then laughing to their mates that I couldn’t comeback to them as I didn’t know what the funk I was talking about. Only Cornje and Martin were doing that.

 

See you laaater,

                    Julien