First two days

The Drakensberg from Cathedral Peak Hotel Overlooking Cathedral Peak

Breakfast with Phum my first morning

4/02/2009 6:29 AM

The last two days have flown. The heat is tiring and draining and I had opened the PC at 10.30 last night and then went to bed.

Monday started with breakfast with Phum at 7.30. Catching up on the year since she went back to SA and College to study. We discussed who various people are in Philakahle and then she took me to Philakahle and commenced introductions. The office is a large Zulu rondavel divided into offices housing a number of projects. World Vision rent space for a number of their projects. World Vision are based across the road and I was introduced to various staff there. V has quite an infrastructure. Met an Australian guy Micheal married o Ziosa (pronounced Zarsha) who are volunteering with WV. He is doing IT training and I was impressed with the computer training room when I visited to see half a dozen Zulus learning various MS Office programs.

Phum then took me to Cathedral Peak for lunch. Rang Linda from there to advise the hotel there is fully booked at Easter. Phum spoke to Linda as well.

On the way back called in to see Mam Dube with whom plans had been made for me to stay. The access track had been affected by heavy rain in the previous week. How we got down and out again was a miracle. She had lost a niece a few days earlier and was grieving. It was agreed I would not come till next week. However after some thought and discussion later that evening my accommodation plans changed and I decided to remain at Anthony’s B&B where I had stayed Sunday night.

Dinner at the B&B was an international affair. Carol Irish who operates the business is widowed, having moved to Bergville with husband Anthony who has since died. It is a comfortable house and serves a hot breakfast daily and dinner each evening. At dinner Monday were two French post grad students based at Uni of KZN Pietermaritzberg. Seraphine is a PhD in eco hydrology and he is a Masters in soils. Phum was with us for dinner as was Carol who by day is assisting at the Philakahle office as manager while a new manager is located.
Tuesday was up for brekkie at 7am. Was about to leave when Phum phoned to tell me Vusi was coming over to change the reg plates on the car. Apparently this occurs when ownership changes. I have use of this vehicle for my stay in Bergville and will allow me freedom to move around.
Took all my files to the office, met Carol and Ntombfuthi who is the Finance Officer for Phila. I am sharing the office with them.
An executive meeting from 10am concluded at 1pm. Discussed the organisational structure and projects and future plans. Will be writing up some position descriptions and project plans as well as reviewing previous project information for the main purpose of my visit which is to seek tax deductibility for AAF. Ntombi and I walked to town during the lunch break. As I was later to learn whites avoid town and I was the only white during our time there. She had to go to the Post Office which had a queue 50 deep outside waiting to enter. Lucky she only wanted to get the mail. Then to the bank where she appeared back in no time. Again when I poked my head in there were about 80 people seated waiting to be served (at least seats were provided as it looked like a day out for people in there). We went to a clothing store where she was looking at school uniforms for a niece. This store was just like the store my mother went to when I was young with boxes in the wall which had the various stock items. It appeared to specialise in school uniforms of which there were many (kids cannot attend school without the appropriate uniform).From there to the Spar supermarket where I bought more water. I also bough from a roadside stall BBQed corn which Ndombi ate as well as we walked back to the office. She called in to see the local GP about a staff member who was hospitalised. The walk back to the office took us past two mortuaries and funeral directors. A third was further up the street and as I learned later at dinner there are 8-10 mortuaries in town as the rituals surrounding death take ten days to complete before the burial.

The afternoon was spent poring over records for the work am doing. Zoisa came down looking for Carol and invited me to dinner some time. She and Michael have been here since October and have a flat in town.

The office closes at 4.30pm so I had to ensure I was ready to leave then. Ndombi was very helpful during the afternoon. There is no photocopier so she had to scan everything to copy which was a disruption to her.

Sat outside reading my Obama book between dozes. The heat is tiring. The French guys arrived. Seraphine sat at the other end of the pool going through grasses collected today. Her research has to do with the effect of cow dung on soils, erosion and dung beetles and their impact on the growth of the grass. An interesting discussion but science is not my forte.

Dinner agin with the same group including Phum who came over again. An enjoyable evening discussing all sorts of issues including death rituals of the Zulus. I am off to the funeral on Saturday of Mam Dube’s niece. My accommodation arrangements were finalised and I will be in Carol’s flat which was vacated today by the visiting police. A good night’s sleep with a fan and without a sheet. It would not get below 20 at night.