Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye
It was time for us to go. After restoring my mothers house and the garage to somewhat resemble its previous orderly fashion, although the pots would never be the same, we were ready to head off to the old Transkei. After contacting a few people up in the Eastern Cape who were involved in upliftment programmes, nothing concrete materialised as to an income but teaching English and sharing our knowledge in rural villages about covered the general idea and we would wing it. We were mentally ready. We packed the truck and squeezed in as many things a person might need for an indefinite period of stay in rural Transkei. We packed the obvious fishing gear, extra canvas for a makeshift tent to extend from the truck, two massive hammocks which I had made but which we never got around to testing and in fact we were under the impression that there weren’t any big strong trees out there. Our spade got strapped back onto the side of the truck, the panga inside, 10 different kinds of chilli seeds and a handful of butternut seeds and we were about as set as space would allow in our efforts to being self sufficient, which was our ultimate aim. We once again had loads and loads of spices although I swore we wouldn’t take as many this time round but somehow it never happened. In fact this time we even had Miso, Dashi, Tomyum paste and some other funny Japanese stuff, not 1 but 2 sushi mats, 5 litres of soya sauce, and enough salt which was left over from my seaweed products to spike the whole of Coffeebay’s blood pressure off the chart for the next 5 years. Then there was the cast iron hand mincer, why?! well, you never know what might come in handy. We squeezed in bags and bags of books, files and files of English lesson plans and even a blackboard. To keep my crafting desires stimulated I packed bags and bags of leather scraps which I could use to make more bags or even plait around a walking stick with a few beads, bags and bags of fabric scraps including 10 meters of left over wedding organza to weave into bags or make flowers or such things, 1300 wooden skewers left over from our corn dog days which could be turned into a shit load of flower stems or woven into more sushi mats in case people in rural villages fancied a bit of sushimi. We also wedged in the welder and angle grinder, both electric but you never know. We were prepared.
My mother’s hyena club wished us well and with a blessing and a prayer from them, we set off.
We made a detour to say our farewells to Theo’s family before following the road up the East coast. We were in no hurry to get anywhere and I wanted to adjust to being on the road again. Theo and I had not been communicating very well the year we’d been in Cape Town and we needed time to work on it. His habitual hours of facebook, constantly checking on line news about things such as what Lady Gaga wore to bed and his senseless daily dose of Judge Mathis on TV bugged me endlessly. The more perfect I became the more he retreated. He refused to change to my idyllic lifestyle and I realized I was drowning him with my constant pushing, which I thought was a dam clever observation but I didn’t know how to fix it. Like I said, I was almost perfect.
A few days on the road with no city life distractions and short before long we started opening up and sharing our thoughts. We were happy again. Happy with each other and excited about our adventure. Staying on the N2, ticking off the kilometres didn’t offer very scenic pullovers but was more cost effective diesel wise. At Groot Brak we found an old but still maintained day camp site at the river mouth so we stayed for 2 days while Theo fished and I hauled out our “Introduction to isiXhosa” booklet and we practised greeting each other and how to buy meat which Theo deemed more important. We also practised Poi. I’ll explain what Poi is in case you haven’t heard about it. Basically you attach 2 balls, each onto a piece of string or wedge them into the bottom of a pair of long socks (I put bags of salt in my socks since I had an endless supply of the stuff). Then you swing them round and round in different directions trying to avoid knocking yourself over the head. It’s cool. Except the bruising part. The heavier the ball, the more you bruise as I soon found out. Theo kept whacking himself in the knackers and my glasses sat at a strange angle on my face giving me a distorted view of the world. We loved our new pastime and soon we had a good rhythm going with the balls. The tutorials at www.playpoi.com were a great help but we had quite a way to go before reaching the final stage of swinging fire balls to music and I wasn’t ready to light my socks just yet. Apparently Poi is an old Maori custom which was part of the haka and warriors used to swing rocks tied to the end of a rope in order to strengthen their muscles and prepare themselves for war. These days it’s sometimes practised by trance party goers who spin their glow in the dark or fire balls to music pulsating through every nerve and muscle as they prepare themselves to dance through the night.
We stopped at Sedgefield and Knysna and leisurely strolled through a few craft markets which got me all inspired to make things with wire and fabric. Oh yes I forgot to add that I had also packed 3 big rolls of telephone wire which we found in my mothers garage ceiling which I planned to strip and make things with. We spent a night at a cool free picnic pullover in the forest between Knysna and Plett. We went for a stroll, me with my coffee cup in hand, in search of edible mushrooms. We got so enthralled with the jungle-like mangrove forest with ferns twice the size of a man, that before we realised it, we were lost and it took us three hours to find our way back to the truck.
Closer to East London we passed loads of river estuaries tucked away in dense natural forest vegetation with a couple of houses dotted here and there overlooking the sea and river mouth. What beautiful places. How awesome it must be to live there I thought. The hills, which there were many of, were all covered in thick dense thorn tree vegetation spreading for miles, reaching the horizon in every direction. Further along we passed game farms and the narrow road was flanked with lush thorn trees but we still spotted loads of Gemsbok, Nyala and Springbok close to the road.
We stopped for free at another cool free beachfront braai spot at Kidds Beach, 30 km’s before EL. We stayed there for 3 days waiting for the weekend to pass, going for long walks, drinking Pinacolada, (well Theo’s home brew Vodka liqueur), making love at midnight and even got caught in the rain. Every morning at 7 o clock we watched a pod of a hundred or so dolphins leisurely pass by in their morning patrol, surfing in the waves and having themselves a great time. On Monday we set off for East London to do some business and shopping. We needed to take the truck through road worthy which passed YEEHAA and then get the new yearly licence. It’s quite a rigmarole and moerse expensive (R5000) to keep our truck on the road.
We pulled in at Nahoon Caravan Park, and met the weirdest couple ever. Off the chart odd balls. They cornered us as we drove in and within minutes Theo and I started making excuses that we desperately needed a proper shower which by the way wasn’t a lie. The husband had a beard and was going for the Jesus look except he combed his hair from his left ear across his bald head all the way to the right side. He dashed around, alternating between playing his homemade pan flute and preaching nonsensical gibberish. He reminded me of a toothless, scrawny guy who lived in a pit, surviving on Juniper berries in a Monty Python comedy. He had a serious A.D.D. problem and we struggled to follow his gist but I caught the word Jawe, Zeus, and penis and I tried really hard to follow since it showed potential interest but I couldn’t grasp the plot. His wife told me that we were in the final season for the end of the world and that they were prepared by stocking up with dozens of tinned food and a solar panel. This was within 2 minutes of meeting us, and that’s when I moved upwind, lifted my arms and flapped them a few times in the hopes that my exposed armpits might distract her and give me the gap to disappear. After our first meeting, every time we needed the loos we sneaked passed the Evangelists’ camper home, which by the way was very nicely equipped and even had a big organ.
A much more pleasant meeting was getting together with John, who I had contacted from Cape Town before leaving and hoped he could give us some assistance or ideas about our plans. He was a really nice person and thought our idea of living in a rural village, assisting with teaching and any skills which we could offer the community was wonderful. His church and community work took him to rural villages so he was able to give us some direction as to where to find unspoilt rural villages that we could settle at. He suggested that Coffee Bay did not fall in the above category as the influx of tourists there had brought drugs, alcohol and polluted beaches. He suggested alternative places, gave us a map and told us God would guide us to the right village. We chatted about the people, fishing, road conditions and our ideas. His quiet calmness left us assured that we had made the right decision.
The next day we excitedly broke up camp, packed up our fantastic new sputnik washing machine which I’d used with squeals of delight, and headed into an unknown territory of Xhosa people, goats, mud houses and the Tokkolosie.
It was time for us to go. After restoring my mothers house and the garage to somewhat resemble its previous orderly fashion, although the pots would never be the same, we were ready to head off to the old Transkei. After contacting a few people up in the Eastern Cape who were involved in upliftment programmes, nothing concrete materialised as to an income but teaching English and sharing our knowledge in rural villages about covered the general idea and we would wing it. We were mentally ready. We packed the truck and squeezed in as many things a person might need for an indefinite period of stay in rural Transkei. We packed the obvious fishing gear, extra canvas for a makeshift tent to extend from the truck, two massive hammocks which I had made but which we never got around to testing and in fact we were under the impression that there weren’t any big strong trees out there. Our spade got strapped back onto the side of the truck, the panga inside, 10 different kinds of chilli seeds and a handful of butternut seeds and we were about as set as space would allow in our efforts to being self sufficient, which was our ultimate aim. We once again had loads and loads of spices although I swore we wouldn’t take as many this time round but somehow it never happened. In fact this time we even had Miso, Dashi, Tomyum paste and some other funny Japanese stuff, not 1 but 2 sushi mats, 5 litres of soya sauce, and enough salt which was left over from my seaweed products to spike the whole of Coffeebay’s blood pressure off the chart for the next 5 years. Then there was the cast iron hand mincer, why?! well, you never know what might come in handy. We squeezed in bags and bags of books, files and files of English lesson plans and even a blackboard. To keep my crafting desires stimulated I packed bags and bags of leather scraps which I could use to make more bags or even plait around a walking stick with a few beads, bags and bags of fabric scraps including 10 meters of left over wedding organza to weave into bags or make flowers or such things, 1300 wooden skewers left over from our corn dog days which could be turned into a shit load of flower stems or woven into more sushi mats in case people in rural villages fancied a bit of sushimi. We also wedged in the welder and angle grinder, both electric but you never know. We were prepared.
My mother’s hyena club wished us well and with a blessing and a prayer from them, we set off.
We made a detour to say our farewells to Theo’s family before following the road up the East coast. We were in no hurry to get anywhere and I wanted to adjust to being on the road again. Theo and I had not been communicating very well the year we’d been in Cape Town and we needed time to work on it. His habitual hours of facebook, constantly checking on line news about things such as what Lady Gaga wore to bed and his senseless daily dose of Judge Mathis on TV bugged me endlessly. The more perfect I became the more he retreated. He refused to change to my idyllic lifestyle and I realized I was drowning him with my constant pushing, which I thought was a dam clever observation but I didn’t know how to fix it. Like I said, I was almost perfect.
A few days on the road with no city life distractions and short before long we started opening up and sharing our thoughts. We were happy again. Happy with each other and excited about our adventure. Staying on the N2, ticking off the kilometres didn’t offer very scenic pullovers but was more cost effective diesel wise. At Groot Brak we found an old but still maintained day camp site at the river mouth so we stayed for 2 days while Theo fished and I hauled out our “Introduction to isiXhosa” booklet and we practised greeting each other and how to buy meat which Theo deemed more important. We also practised Poi. I’ll explain what Poi is in case you haven’t heard about it. Basically you attach 2 balls, each onto a piece of string or wedge them into the bottom of a pair of long socks (I put bags of salt in my socks since I had an endless supply of the stuff). Then you swing them round and round in different directions trying to avoid knocking yourself over the head. It’s cool. Except the bruising part. The heavier the ball, the more you bruise as I soon found out. Theo kept whacking himself in the knackers and my glasses sat at a strange angle on my face giving me a distorted view of the world. We loved our new pastime and soon we had a good rhythm going with the balls. The tutorials at www.playpoi.com were a great help but we had quite a way to go before reaching the final stage of swinging fire balls to music and I wasn’t ready to light my socks just yet. Apparently Poi is an old Maori custom which was part of the haka and warriors used to swing rocks tied to the end of a rope in order to strengthen their muscles and prepare themselves for war. These days it’s sometimes practised by trance party goers who spin their glow in the dark or fire balls to music pulsating through every nerve and muscle as they prepare themselves to dance through the night.
We stopped at Sedgefield and Knysna and leisurely strolled through a few craft markets which got me all inspired to make things with wire and fabric. Oh yes I forgot to add that I had also packed 3 big rolls of telephone wire which we found in my mothers garage ceiling which I planned to strip and make things with. We spent a night at a cool free picnic pullover in the forest between Knysna and Plett. We went for a stroll, me with my coffee cup in hand, in search of edible mushrooms. We got so enthralled with the jungle-like mangrove forest with ferns twice the size of a man, that before we realised it, we were lost and it took us three hours to find our way back to the truck.
Closer to East London we passed loads of river estuaries tucked away in dense natural forest vegetation with a couple of houses dotted here and there overlooking the sea and river mouth. What beautiful places. How awesome it must be to live there I thought. The hills, which there were many of, were all covered in thick dense thorn tree vegetation spreading for miles, reaching the horizon in every direction. Further along we passed game farms and the narrow road was flanked with lush thorn trees but we still spotted loads of Gemsbok, Nyala and Springbok close to the road.
We stopped for free at another cool free beachfront braai spot at Kidds Beach, 30 km’s before EL. We stayed there for 3 days waiting for the weekend to pass, going for long walks, drinking Pinacolada, (well Theo’s home brew Vodka liqueur), making love at midnight and even got caught in the rain. Every morning at 7 o clock we watched a pod of a hundred or so dolphins leisurely pass by in their morning patrol, surfing in the waves and having themselves a great time. On Monday we set off for East London to do some business and shopping. We needed to take the truck through road worthy which passed YEEHAA and then get the new yearly licence. It’s quite a rigmarole and moerse expensive (R5000) to keep our truck on the road.
We pulled in at Nahoon Caravan Park, and met the weirdest couple ever. Off the chart odd balls. They cornered us as we drove in and within minutes Theo and I started making excuses that we desperately needed a proper shower which by the way wasn’t a lie. The husband had a beard and was going for the Jesus look except he combed his hair from his left ear across his bald head all the way to the right side. He dashed around, alternating between playing his homemade pan flute and preaching nonsensical gibberish. He reminded me of a toothless, scrawny guy who lived in a pit, surviving on Juniper berries in a Monty Python comedy. He had a serious A.D.D. problem and we struggled to follow his gist but I caught the word Jawe, Zeus, and penis and I tried really hard to follow since it showed potential interest but I couldn’t grasp the plot. His wife told me that we were in the final season for the end of the world and that they were prepared by stocking up with dozens of tinned food and a solar panel. This was within 2 minutes of meeting us, and that’s when I moved upwind, lifted my arms and flapped them a few times in the hopes that my exposed armpits might distract her and give me the gap to disappear. After our first meeting, every time we needed the loos we sneaked passed the Evangelists’ camper home, which by the way was very nicely equipped and even had a big organ.
A much more pleasant meeting was getting together with John, who I had contacted from Cape Town before leaving and hoped he could give us some assistance or ideas about our plans. He was a really nice person and thought our idea of living in a rural village, assisting with teaching and any skills which we could offer the community was wonderful. His church and community work took him to rural villages so he was able to give us some direction as to where to find unspoilt rural villages that we could settle at. He suggested that Coffee Bay did not fall in the above category as the influx of tourists there had brought drugs, alcohol and polluted beaches. He suggested alternative places, gave us a map and told us God would guide us to the right village. We chatted about the people, fishing, road conditions and our ideas. His quiet calmness left us assured that we had made the right decision.
The next day we excitedly broke up camp, packed up our fantastic new sputnik washing machine which I’d used with squeals of delight, and headed into an unknown territory of Xhosa people, goats, mud houses and the Tokkolosie.
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