THINGS THAT GO BUMP IN THE NIGHT

So yeah, here we are still. The place is just as awesome as when we arrived but maybe one plus one makes five.

Before accepting the job here, I asked the barlady at the bushpub if Kalvin, the owner, gave problems when it came to getting paid. She said never, and that he was very approachable if the staff ever had financial difficulties, which made me more comfortable about accepting the job. I still thought he was a fast talker with pervert tendencies but since he wouldn’t be on the farm at the beginning stages, I was prepared to see how things went.

On the way here he mentioned that he had effectively got rid of all the unwanted farm labourers by not paying them since the place was not operational over the last few months. I made another mental tick against his integrity.

Warning lights went off when we were told that the previous girl who worked here just disappeared. Most of her stuff was packed in boxes and Kalvin said he kicked her off the place when he found out that she was “entertaining” a lot of friends and other people had moved into the spare bedrooms. It sounded feasible but I felt uneasy. People don’t just leave all their belongings behind. Why hadn’t she come back to fetch them? I visualized her half eaten dead body lying at the bottom of a crocodile infested dam. I even stared at the small thatch window above the bar and wondered if she was kept a prisoner up there for his strange sexual pleasures. I was starting to feel like a Desperate Housewife from Wisteria Lane.

There are 3 remaining labourers, Jethro the old guy who has been here forever and keeps a hand on the grounds, is in charge of Jacky who helps him as well as Goggo who keeps the chalets dust free. They say they haven’t been paid for 4 months either but are sticking it out in the hopes that Kalvin will pitch up to pay them. In the meantime they lend money from friends to survive, carry on working but are hungry so we’ve given them a little food but I feel bad. Jethro, who is very pleasant, knows a lot about farm life here and Theo can learn from him. He has also mentioned that Kalvin has beaten up one of the labourers very badly in a violent temper. The picture being painted of this guy’s character was getting worse and worse.

We’ve decided to pack things we don’t use daily back into the bus, in case things go sour and we need to make a fast duck. In the meantime my friggin knee is still buggered so I’m using the time to recover. Well see what happens at the end of October, pay day and according to Kalvin the start of big development here. We’re putting our C.V.’s out there again just in case.

So in 2 weeks, I’ll either be in Joburg, responding to a overland company who wants to interview us, have a game lodge management couple job lined up somewhere else or floating belly up at the bottom of the water tank.