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Julien’s Journal

 

From Transit to Transvaal

  Its probably not the best idea for me to write my journal immediately after arriving here in rural South Africa. However, I’ve got bugger all else to do except sort through paperwork – so here goes.

 

  To say that it’s been a long day would be something of an understatement. Today has in fact lasted 33 hours, I watched the sun rise for two hours this morning, and when I took off from Singapore I hadn’t even left Melbourne according to Johannesburg time. When I finally arrived in Johannesburg it was the morning after I left although managing to spend a day in limbo had put me out a bit. Nonetheless, I decided to drive the 400 or so kilometres out to Hectorspruit, the town where I’m staying the next couple of days. I’ve got a couple of days to suss out how I’m going to conduct my fieldwork and then on Friday I’m going up with the group to Bushbuckridge where I’m going to be left on my own.

 I’m actually shitting myself about that. Even though I’m  going to be set up with contacts and all that the enormity of the task is just sinking in. Preparing for something and talking about doing it are two very different things. I felt incredibly lonely when I first sat in that car and had to get familiar with the controls whilst driving in the wrong direction in a foreign country. I’ll talk more about the driving over here another time – it deserves it! However, I’m here now. I got out to Hectorspruit which is something not long ago I didn’t even think I’d manage. Hopefully every other challenge can be taken in a similar vein.

 

  Here’s a little aside about the conspiracy against vegetarian travellers. Dining sans carcass means that whatever portions of food I was to be given have the meat removed and in its place a selection of beans is placed. I was fed from Melbourne to Singapore on kidney beans and chick peas and by the time I reached Singapore had enough wind in me to power a city. Feeling a heavyweight title bout of the shits coming on I rush around Singapore airport trying to find a cubicle that wasn’t a “squat over the pond” design. It is not a wise idea to shit into a small pool on the floor of a public toilet when your arse has the aim of a drunken Geordie trying to knock a coconut off the monkey’s head at the funfair. I therefore held on through the three hours of transit lounging that remained and went on the toilet on the plane. There to greet me when I sat down to do my business was a full length mirror on the wall not half a metre away. My reflection went about his routine hoping that I wouldn’t mind. Advice to vegetarians boarding long-haul flights: Get the beef – at least you’ll know it won’t bother you for at least a week.

 

  I mentioned the 2-hour long sunrise earlier. That was in part due to the fact that the plane was flying away from the sun and also that we were at 11.5 km altitude. From there, all the colours of the spectrum were visible. Any one you care to mention was in the sky in a layer on the horizon up to about 5° from the horizon. Slowly, the sun began to move up over the horizon, stretching this band further across the sky. As we flew over Madagascar the redness from the sunrise hit the high clouds in the atmosphere, illuminating the lower clouds and giving the impression that the ground was alight with wildfires. It really was spectacular. As we passed over the African coastline the sun rose up and lit up the ground. The only way of describing it was fucking cool.

 

  I’d better go now as I’ve been here for about three hours, have only had one beer and not even been in the pool. I’d best go and upload all this stuff. If I think of anything else I’ll post it. So far so good though although the nerves need settling. Cheers,

                             Julien