BUTTERFLY, MY BUTTERFLY WAIT FOR ME DON’T FLY AWAY

BUTTERFLY, MY BUTTERFLY WAIT FOR ME DON’T FLY AWAY

Well we did get out of the mud.  Eventually.  After more rain.  A tractor tried for hours and eventually pulled us out, in the pouring rain.  When the rain stopped thousands and thousands of white butterflies fluttered by.  What a wonderful site. They all seemed to be going somewhere.  I wish I knew where.  Definitely somewhere more important than the mall.  We have been waiting 4 hours for the road to dry out (ha that sounds familiar) before turning back to the tarmac and the butterflies are still going by.   I wonder how this whole migration thing works.  There’s no memo that goes out to everyone saying pack up we’re moving south on the 13th at 09h00.  I can understand Wildebeest all migrating across the Serengeti but that’s more of a food thing.  I guess the main canoni Wildebeest nudges his buddy, hey dude the grass is greener on the other side.  His whole family move along, others join up and before you know it, 1 million Wildebeest trek off in search of better pastures.  The young are probably shown the odd landmark on the trek.  “Look Johnny, see that funny shaped mountain, it’s the halfway mark.  Flo, will you stop your whining, no we are NOT there yet and if you and your brother don’t stop fighting I’ll send you both to great aunt Mabel for the day and you can hear all about the good old days when the grass was sweeter before the Tsetse flies came along.”  Junior:  “Please no mother, she’s always on about us not swishing our tails enough”.  Translated into human simile that means “Aren’t you cold?  You must be cold, go put on a jersey before you get sick”.  Father Wildebeest puts an end to the whining.  “That’s enough children, you can be dam lucky you aren’t pulling an ox wagon over these plains.  Now follow my dung trail, eat grass and shut up”. 
So the butterflies are more of a solo thing since they don’t do the whole family thing in their cocoons. Thousands of them all going in the same direction are more intriguing to me.  Damm, its times like this that I miss having Wikipedia. Theo says he thinks they only live for a day cos what happens when the rain comes and their wings get wet.  So what, like they pop out of their cocoons and all just happen to fly in the same direction?  Keep the sun on the left, keep the sun on the left is all they think about for a day. Why don’t you get individuals who think to themselves, gee I think I’ll go left here at this bush. Where do they all go to is what I wanna know?  Are they off to their own butterfly Nevada?  It’s not like you come over a hill and there’s 4 million dead butterflies all lying in a heap.  What drives them?  Is it just to get laid?   I’ve forgotten the process again, do the worms bonk or is it the butterflies?  I know butterflies pollinate the flowers so do they pop out of their cocoons after a good stretch, think to themselves, wow that was an awesome dream, my goodness I feel different, less hairy today and hey look I can fly.  I think I’ll fly to that flower and suck out some juice.  Ooh look, there’s another one oh look there’s another.  My, I wonder if all those other butterflies know of a place where there are more flowers?  I think I’ll follow them.  Meanwhile the first butterfly is humming to himself, I believe I can fly, spread my wings and fly away……..as any right minded butterfly would, and next thing, jeez where did all these other dudes come from?  Follow me, I’m lost. There are hundreds of thin blue hairy caterpillars walking a thin blue line all over the show here as well.  I’m sure they must be connected to these butterflies.  I can just imagine them thinking, gee that butterfly reminded me of my old neighbour.  Same facial hair. 
All I do know for sure is, the guy who organised the tractor to tow us out the mud, said if you stand on one of the caterpillars, your foot will burn for 2 days.  What I’ll leave you with is, what came first the butterfly or the worm?                 

HERE I AM, STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU

HERE I AM, STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU
Driving from Henties to Spitzkoppe, I reflected on all the intriguing diamond smuggling stories we’d heard about along the whole West Coast from South Africa right up into Namibia.  Now the road took us away from immigrants on street corners offering you diamonds wrapped in old tissue paper and the bars filled with manne who either knew at least one person who made it big from smokkeling diamonds or they themselves had some dealings in the blink klippies, “maar ons praat nie uit nie”, is a well used expression.  More inland, the pigeons were safe to fly around without worrying about being shot out of the sky by a member of the pigeon security team since homing pigeons were sometimes used to smokkel diamonds in bags tied around their necks, sending the smugglers secret stash out of the secure mining areas.  
Back on the desert road, gravelly sand stretched all around us meeting the horizon.  We stopped in the desert overnight.  We walked to rocky outcrops and soaked up the desert stillness which is occasionally broken by the sound of a lonely bird in a lonely bush calling to anyone to hear its distant chirp in the desert sun.  We saw a variety of lizardy reptiles, painted in exotic colours, sunning themselves on the rocks.  No fences or power lines to be seen.  The occasional irritating beer bottle left to lie in the baking sun was the only evidence of man.  Not even Bear Grill would be able to survive out here. 
We stopped at Klein Spitzkoppe mountains where semi precious stones are excavated out of the mountains.  A cluster of poor people sell beautiful crystals for next to nothing, in fact favouring food in exchange for their collected stones. I couldn’t resist a crystal or 2 which cost us a little pap, sugar, veggies and rice.  We walked around the mountains and picked up a few more crystals ourselves.  I’ll dam well have to turn them all into jewellery or shove them up my bum like the diamond smokkelars but they are going back with me across the border.
Driving on to little towns, all having a Oma or a Otja in their name, and marked on the map with a reasonably significant white dot, we were to hoping to replace our burst tyre (we do have a second spare) and fill up our 2nd gas bottle.  Ha, no such luck.  You could only buy the odd groceries or a fuse or a pipe fitting etc at the general dealer and of course there’s ALWAYS a Pep Stores making sure everyone in the bundus has enough underwear and hankies.  We chatted to an old man standing in his shop doorway.  He told us that he moved to Usakos in 1954, as an apprentice, when the railway siding station was booming, having its own workshops, carpentry and stores.  He said that in those days, some people lived in tents or in garages and I definitely don’t think he made it up.  When the railway station died mid 90’s, so did employment opportunities and the town now barely survives on a bit of road works thereabouts and caracal sheep farming.  He gave us the lowdown on farming as well, saying that his friend, who had since moved to Cape Town, farmed on 60 000 hectare with 17 000 caracal sheep.  Caracal newborn lambs are slaughtered within a day for their pelts.  Shame.  My eye caught the antique looking wooden cupboards in the shop which were mostly bare but he proudly told us they had been custom made for the shop in 1922 when it first opened its doors for trade and that the shop had stayed in the same family ever since.    I imagined people coming into the shop, women in sweeping dresses and bonnets to buy a pound of sugar and men in breeches and braces to buy a pound of nails.

Then we moved on.  We had travelled the last 800km on good gravel roads but we were driving into the rainy area so decided to get onto tar roads for safety.  Tar roads here are nothing like home, no cats eyes, street lights or yellow lane for pulling over. Just a narrow tarmac stretching northwards, like the old N1 from Cape Town to Transvaal with a fuel garage at a dorpie if you are lucky.  Surprisingly the vegetation had changed to thick lush green grass, loads of acacia thorn trees, too thick to see the wild life we were passing, except an occasional family of warthogs running a fence line, stacks of raptors circling the skies and thunder rumbling in the distance. 
We had been well warned to stay off gravel roads during rain but the prospect of seeing dinosaur footprints about 30 km down a dirt road was too alluring. The sandy road seemed reasonably dry and firm so we risked it.  We negotiated the first pool across the road rather well and patted ourselves on the back saying we really shouldn’t underestimate our truck.  Right now I’m sitting in the truck where we spent the whole day and night stuck in the mud.  The only clowns to the left or jokers to the right is us, stuck in the middle of the mud.  Yesterday we dug, packed braai wood and our rubber conveyor belts and dug some more. The back wheel spat the conveyor belt out and the front tyre dug itself deeper.  Theo dug some more.  Eventually we gave up and ate massive mushrooms, bought from a woman on the roadside that morning and hoped the road would dry out during the night.  Thunder and lightening crashed through the night and it rained and rained and rained some more.  This morning the left front wheel is submerged in a mud pool. Theo and a Herero farmer, who pitched up on foot early this morning after also getting stuck 10 km back, have taken the bike down and gone in search of someone to tow us out.  Mmm, I wonder if you get 4x4 military tanks with a winch around here. 

I’ll see what the day brings.  The only footprints out here are Theo’s, squelched in the mud. The dinosaur footprints will have to wait for another day.
Manne  - men
Smokkeling - smuggling
blink klippies – shiny stones – word used to describe diamonds 

maar ons praat nie uit nie – mums the word

dorpie - village

And Thanx For All The Fish

AND THANX FOR ALL THE FISH
Henties Bay and its fishing frenzy go back a lonnng way.  People have been flocking to the coastal village from far and wide to hengel and others to fish during the holiday season since toeka se dae.  Eventually some of the manne met die kanna somer moved to Henties permanently and are still around to tell the tale.   
We rambled into town passing houses with names like Spyker se Gat, Die Vleisfreters and a hangout called Die Skubbebar which had a sign board stating Viswas, Karwas, Keelwas, Aas.  We had arrived at fisherman’s paradise and I could just imagine the tall fishing stories being conjured up here.  We pulled over next to very inviting looking pubs, quaint craft shops, fishing shops and a seal shoe shop (I knew you could do more with a seal skin than make a bedside maatjie).  Within seconds a bubbly woman came rushing over, waving a copy of December Weg magazine around vigorously.  Someone had posted a picture of our truck to Weg magazine and she was so excited to see us in real life that we had to pose for a photo, her clutching the Weg magazine while the truck looked very dusty, salt crusty and positively more rusty.  Besides being a keen photographer (she carried her camera around in a cooler box), she was connected to the local radio station, Kanaal 7, “Inspirasie vir die Nasie”.  We might have got mentioned over the air but unfortunately later that day we met Gaaring and his buddy who taught us how to hengel and that was us, off the radar. 
We met them just after experiencing our first tyre blow out which happened on the salt road around Henties’ endless magnificent coastline. Theo handled the moerse heavy tyre change fine and we were just done with cleaning up when Gaaring and Marius, who were out hengeling for the day, stopped to see if we needed any “refreshments”.  We ended up spending the weekend with them, which became a blur of fish, feast and I suspect fowl play when it came to our glasses which never emptied. 
We explored the coastline in their 4x4 bakkies, stopping when the sea looked right to cast a line.  Gaaring gave the men a head start to catch their fish while he hung over the back of his bakkie, telling stories from those days when Pick ‘n Pay was still a padstal and the Castle was still a tent.  He had Springbok fishing colours with a few records to show, and he knew the sea better than a woman’s body.  He claimed you could read a book from cover to cover while waiting for his cast to eventually land wayyy out in the ocean.  Theo caught a decent size Galjoen, about 1,2 kg’s which we braaied and which tasted deevine.  Sometime over the weekend we went to Mary’s house, Gaaring’s 73 year old hot looking girlfriend, and she fried some of the massive Kabeljou (Cob) which the manne had caught the previous day.  I didn’t get their weight but they were each about 3 foot long.  In between the fishing and hengeling (they explained the difference to a soutie like me and basically it seems it’s the difference between having either white mussel bait or coke for your brandy in your cooler box) we stopped at a cool pub and restaurant out in the middle of nowhere for a round or 2 or 3 of Jugermeisters.  The owner had 2 cute meerkate (surrogates) which were tame and I scratched their tummies while they jabbered away excitedly.  Gaaring got nipped and was hoping to catch klem in die kaak so that he could have an excuse to visit the new nursie at the doctors.  
We recuperated on the beachfront near town for a day, and got chatting to a young guy who together with his dad, do fishing tours up to Angola.  We nearly changed our plans to go to Angola instead of the Delta and Etosha, after hearing his stories about how cheap diesel and fruit & veg was and abundant fish.  We later found out that we should have done the paperwork (visas, letter of invite and yellow fever) in advance otherwise it costs a fortune. About R5 000 just for the visa. Diesel price had also gone up 2 months ago from R2,50 to R4,50 / litre – still cheap but our budget didn’t cover all the sommetjies . 
The newspapers up here all report heavy rainfalls further north – rivers flooding their banks and the gravel roads sound treacherous.  Since we’re heading in that direction we should be in for some excitement.  I must be honest, I’m a bit dubious about mud roads and malaria mossies. We are in two minds as to whether to take Malaria tablets or not since we met many people who proclaim the tablets give worse side effects that you’d like.  In fact Riaan, The Angolan fishing tour operator said he’s seen people go a bit bossies from taking the stuff and run around naked in the desert.  I didn’t tell him that Theo does that anyway without a dose of quinine.      
We’re not leaving Henties with a freezer full of fish since it’s not the best time of the year to catch fish, being January, but I do have a nice pair of handmade seal leather hiking boots for R450 and a bottle of seal oil for R45 containing polyunsaturated amino acids which is supposedly very good for you.  All I know is it smells and tastes like the insides of old vrot fish.  I hope those oomies at Doringbaai knew what they were talking about.

Henties Bay, fish, Weg magazine, hengel, 4x4 bakkie, seal shoes, Malaria
Hengel- and excuse to drink with a fishing rod at the sea
Toeka se dae – since the beginning of time
manne met die kanna – men holding drinks
somer – just because
Spyker se Gat- Someone nicknamed Nail’s house
Die Skubbebar – The Fishscale Bar
Die Vleisfreters – The Meat Eaters
Viswas, Karwas, Keelwas, Aas – Wash your fish, your car, your throat and buy bait
Maatjie – small mat
Kanaal 7, “Inspirasie vir die Nasie”- Channel 7 “Inspiration for the Nation
Moerse - massive
Bakkies – pick up truck used by 99% of Namibians
Padstal – roadside farmstal
Braaied – barbeque
Sommetjies – maths sums
Soutie – English person
klem in die kaak - lockjaw
bossies- crazy
vrot – rotten
oomies – old timers

SOUTHERN NAMIBIA

Feral horses mountainous Namibia

Feral horses near Aus

Friendly baker at Solitaire

Namibia desert

Luderitz Grosse bucht beach

SOUTHERN NAMIBIA

Theo peeled the Hoodia plant and we chewed it.  My mouth filled with a liquorice flavoured foam and the more I chewed the more it lathered.  I felt like a rabid dog, drooling at the mouth and the heat was enough to make a person want to strip naked and kill.  I couldn’t swallow the cactus foam but what the heck I had diarrhoea and didn’t have an appetite anyway.  Our freezer couldn’t cope with the heat either and 20 kg of vacuum packed meat started defrosting but quite frankly my dear, I didn’t give a dam.  Cold water and beer was all I wanted.  F.Y.I. they didn’t inspect our truck at Vioolsdrif border post.

We followed the Orange River on the Namibian side for 2 days, stopping every now and then to lie in the luke warm water, clothes and all, to cool off.  The greenery on its banks was a pleasant relief.    We arrived in Luderitz and camped on the beachfront for free with running water, loos, braai spots and best of all it was lovely and cool at the coast.  After living on gallons of water for 2 days, I’ve decided what the heck, I might as well make an effort about my body which has turned to shit, so I’ve started doing toning exercises on the beach.  I feel great and have a new zest for life.  Heck I even feel like going for a jog or a swim or singing at the top of my voice.  I might end up with the body of a wrinkly 16 year old and if I walk around with my arms crossed behind my head, I even have perky boobs - well almost.
After 4 days of relaxing, we headed north towards Walvis Bay along the gravel road which was 800 km through the desert.  The mountainous landscape is spectacular.  You drive over one mountain range only to find another one stretched out in the distance from east to west as far you can see. They range from purple to pink to brown and rocky and some seem as though they are fixed to the earth in a sea of mist from the mirage created by the shimmering heat.  Its hot, rainy season now in January (yeeha hardly any other tourists) so we took a fat chance opting for the gravel road, which when dry is in excellent condition but wet and slippery mud could be a different story.  The map showed towns about every 200 km so initially I didn’t know what all the hooha was about to make sure you are prepared for the desert.  We soon discovered that places like Beta, Helmeringhausen, Sesriem and Solitaire, all indicated on the map, aren’t towns but rather just a fuel stop and shop selling essentials like expensive cold beer and offered overnight facilities.  The friendly people all speak Afrikaans which made me feel quite at home as apposed to being in a foreign country and Theo fell in love with the jolly baker at Solitaire selling seed bread and delicious confectionary.    We passed about 6 cars the whole 800 km’s, and yes if you get caught in the desert without water or have an accident, you definitely could die.  Our cell phone doesn’t work out here but we do have a ship to shore radio although I don’t know how it works yet so if Theo does have a heart attack from all the chilli bites which he made from the excess of potjiekos meat which bounced around in the caravan drying on a rack as we headed north, I’ll have to dig into the recesses of my brain to recall the first aid taught to us a year ago. 
You don’t see much life except lots of Springbok and Gemsbok which have adapted to the harsh environment by being able to survive at body temperatures 5 degrees higher than normal without frying their brains.  Near Aus, we saw 100 or so skinny feral horses who had survived the tough dry winter and we passed surprisingly green beef and sheep farms where it had recently rained.  Further north we saw a few harems of Zebras nibbling on small tufts of grass, sprouted from recent rains but mostly we drove through dry gravelly landscape, beautiful to look at but difficult to survive in.  I was reminded of the koue bokkeveld back home in SA except this was on a much bigger scale.
We arrived in Walvis Bay and walked the town which had all the same franchise shops as in SA and where everyone used rands and spoke Afrikaans.  We searched for a bar and drank cold draught on tap and of course the mandatory Jugermeister. 
Tomorrow is another day to tackle my non existent six pack and perky boobs on the miles and miles of beachfront stretched out before me.             

CROSSING OVER

CROSSING OVER

Well we’ve left Kleinzee and I’m sure I left a little of my soul behind as well as chunks of my kidneys.  Keith on the other hand also left a part of himself behind over the new years holidays and now his false teeth are floating amongst the crayfish on the ocean floor.  Don’t ask.  I’m not sure why he had his mouth open under the water, its not like there are too many sharks to scream at but anyway he spent new years legless and toothless.

Theo and I were really privileged to spend enough time in Kleinzee to get to know the locals and find out what makes the town tick.  Our hearts went out to Hans and Hanneline whose daughter died in a car accident on her way home from the fishing club 2 days before Xmas. We were invited to spend Xmas day with Karen and Rocky at their beachfront spot, Brazil, with a bunch of other people.  Everyone brought food for the table and we had a good old traditional Xmas, our second one on the road.  Linda, Keith, Jacky, Dodgy and the boys arrived for new year and we finished off working at the Crazy Crayfish diner.  

So now it’s just Theo, me and the heat.  Yesterday it was 47 deg C. We are camping at Vioolsdrift on the Orange River (SA side) for 2 days to try and cool off but it’s not possible.  It’s so hot that pouring water over your head every 10 minutes doesn’t cool you down enough unless you use your ice cold drinking water.   It’s so hot we waited until 10 ‘o clock last night to start the braai fire and then it was still 38 deg frigging Cel.  It’s so hot that during the day you loose your appetite totally and we have a lot of meat to cook up before crossing the border.  And I still have to eat the friggin Hoedia plant before going through customs tomorrow morning.  Woopee. It’s so hot that I don’t even need to pee even though I’m drinking loads of water which sweats out before it reaches my bladder.  It’s so hot that sex is not possible since we would just slide off each other and shoot into different directions. It’s so hot my tan melted off.  It’s so hot I can barely stand the heat from my laptop right now and its sliding off my lap from the sweat on my legs.  It’s so hot that the chickens lay hard boiled eggs around here. Its so hot that the fish Theo tried catching in the Orange river came with slap chips. Its so hot my micro chip has malfunctioned and I can’t think straight anymore.

This could be my last post for a while since I’m not sure how I will be going online in Namibia but hopefully I’ll get access to WIFI and will still be able to blog.     

Anyway its time for me to pour water over my head so cheerio for now.

.

Moving Along

MOVING ALONG
Well Xmas is nearly here and so is the time for us to move along. My kidneys will be relieved mind you. I’ll miss working at the diner and all the friendly people we’ve met here at Kleinzee. Life for the family of foxes who come around for scraps to the diner at night will carry on. All the ostriches roaming the beachfront will carry on roaming and the wind will carry on blowing. It’s been a blast. I think I can safely say that I will now be able to recognise a West Coaster anywhere in the world by the way he tells a story with such descriptive adjectives that even the dominee finds him amusing. If he can clean a bokkom without spilling his brandy and coke and if he considers wearing shoes as being dressed up then that’s your man.
I don’t miss being surrounded by city people with their laptops, palmtops or IPod’s which are colour coded to their Rolex or new haircut while they spend lunch with their blackberry glued to their ear and handing out their business cards. Where’s the romance in that picture.
Being the romantic that I am, I’ve been thinking a lot about Adam and Eve lately. It’s something I do, letting my mind wander. Besides the fact that they could have been either angels, aliens or apes, we’ll never know since they didn’t leave any evidence behind, well none which we have found here on earth but who’s to say they were on earth in the first place and not up there in the heavens with Zeus and the other giants. What I wanna know is, what was the serpent doing in the Garden in the first place. All slippery slidey in between the fig trees looking like he couldn’t harm a fly. Don’t you think that’s a problem just waiting to happen? God must have been off on a coffee break and never saw that one coming.
We are looking forward to going to Namibia, the border being about 100 km’s from here. There’s a few things we won’t be able to take with like Theo’s 7 sins, I mean skins or his Gemsbok horns. My stone collection won’t be allowed to cross the border either so looks like Linda and Keith have a whole bunch of things to take back to Cape Town when they visit us over the new year holidays. I’m also sending a cow tail flyswatter which I’ve made for a Xmas present for my mom although I can’t imagine her actually using it unless possibly by now she’s learnt to line dance to the Waka Waka Africa then she can swish it around to get into the vibe. We’ve added a little boat, a dabchick, to our collection of stuff. We’ve tried it out on the dam at the yacht club and its cool. We will hoist it onto the roof next to the 200 litre stainless steel water container which was also given to us.
Theo is happily working his way through the half cow and all the biltong which he hung to dry in the warm crockery cupboard above the fridge and which we can’t take across the border. My Hoodia plant (appetite suppressant) also wont be allowed across so its gonna get munched some time between the Xmas cake and cookies which I baked myself. We are expecting heat, lots of space, friendly people and more heat in Namibia. Who goes to a desert country in the middle of summer? Us. We’ve decided to make a B-line to Luderitz which is on the coast and should be cooler. I wonder what awaits us.

But first, its party time for the next 2 weeks and the family is coming to join us. Can’t wait.
Dominee – priest
Bokkoms – dried fish

THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN WHO SWALLOWED A FLY

THERE WAS AN OLD WOMAN WHO SWALLOWED A FLY
Theo and I have put our names down on “the list” so perhaps we can buy cheap property when De Beers sells off the town of Kleinzee. It’s the perfect place for us to some day start up a little pub serving Theo’s nibblies and I could carry on dabbling in my efforts to find different things to do with all the seaweed and salt around here. I’ve smoked chunks of salt rock crystals, for culinary uses not in a roll up. It adds good flavour to food although I hope it’s not enhanced with guano or pickled miggies. I’m drying the Nori seaweed by spreading in out on my hammock in the sun, then roasting it for a few minutes drizzled with peanut and sesame oil. Then you crumble it and add it to your food as you would a spice. It tastes frigging awesome. I’ve made a good soup / seafood stock with fresh chopped Gigartina radula (that’s the stuff which looks like flappy rough riders), a dash of red wine, onions and stock. Yummy. Even Theo is impressed with my experimental dishes lately. I’m not serving him slimy green snot anymore but he draws the line at letting me wrap him in fresh seaweed then making him soak in a bath with lumps of natural salt drifting around blobs of jelly slime. Nor does he like my salted seaweed glycerine soap. It doesn’t lather so he can’t make soapy Mohicans between his nuts in the shower. People pay a fortune to go to health spas for a treatment which I’m offering for free.

One of the planned projects for Kleinzee is a frail care retirement village around the currently deserted little hospital. I fear the grannies who move in might have a hard time adjusting to this wild environment. Besides the confusing lonely robot (traffic light) stuck on the wall outside Spar, they could get blown all the way to the Port if they went for a stroll down to the beach. Dodging the wild ostriches patrolling the dunes in search of shiny things to eat and the odd fat fur seal sunning themselves on the beachfront could line them up for a pacemaker. I’ve never seen or heard of ostrich roadkill but it’s a strong possibility out here in Kleinzee and according to the manne, a true South African man has to eat his roadkill. You are expected to skin it and cook it on a fire right there on the roadside or in the unlikely event that you don’t have a bag of wood in your boot, you have to cook the meat on the cars manifold and eat it later when you arrive at your destination. Trying to wedge a dangly ostrich under your hood could be tricky I reckon.

You might have noticed that I’m becoming a bit blazѐ about hunting, me being a bit of a softie when it comes to cute furry animals and all. Well, truth is, I’ve come to grips with the fact that man is a hunter gatherer by nature. I’ve joined the good natured West coast toppies down at the abattoir for a brandy and coke (strange place for drinks you might think) when they slaughter their meat for the month (the same stuff which you buy in styrofoam bakkies from Pick ‘n Pay) and I haven’t blinked an eyelid. These guys aren’t one bit gungho and don’t swagger around with a rifle over their shoulder proclaiming their manhood. In fact they prefer free range or organic meat as apposed to eating animals penned in a cage the size of its body. Bottom line is I no longer feel like a barbarian devouring flesh when I eat meat.

I’ve really been industrious lately and quite enjoying myself. I’ve made a batch of green fig preserve and green fig jam which is a moerse lot of PT. I’m wondering how many wasps I will be eating as a by-product. The whole wasp fig tree relationship is nogal quite interesting. Did you know that fig trees go back as far as 80 million years ago and that each species (about 750) fig tree only has one species of wasp which is able to pollinate it. They therefore rely on each other for reproduction. Fig trees must have been pretty common back in Adam and Eve’s days cos Adam used a fig leaf as a loin cloth. They probably were originally vegans munching on things like pears and apricots, peaches, melons, basically everything to make a fruit salad except apples until that fateful day. Adam wouldn’t have had any animal skin lying around to cover up his suddenly exposed manhood so a fig leaf had to do. Maybe it was the result of strenuous hard work getting a soap tree to lather up (after eating a Granny Smith) and resulted in more than a hairy Mohican. But I digress from my wasp story. In most cases a female wasp squeezes herself through the tiny hole in the fig, her legs transferring fig pollen to the flowery seeds inside as she squeezes in, leaving a trail of now useless body parts. Her wings and antenna break off, and I bet she gets a tight facelift as she wedges through the tiny opening, then she lays her eggs and dies with a grin from ear to ear so to speak. That’s assuming she chose a male fig tree, otherwise she just dies and you get to eat a mouthful of dried up pregnant wasp on your jam sarmie. If things go well, the eggs hatch, they grow and the wingless males have a good time in the dark fig with all the females then they spend the remainder of their life trying to burrow an escape route for the pollen covered females to bugger off so that they can die in peace while the life of fig trees carry on as they have for millions and millions of years.
Now that the Biology class is over I’m off to swallow a spider to catch a fly and everything else living inside my stomach. I don’t know why.


Miggies- migges / dam nuisance flying bug
Manne – main guys
Toppies – old guys
Moerse – a hell of a lot of
Bakkies - container
Nogal – actually