The Tap that Waters a Thousand

There's been lots going on. About two weeks ago I went on a Soweto ‘tour’. I thought I had opted for the touristic minibus version, but it turned out to be a bit more personalized, and in a Mercedes no less. Our guide was an hour and a half late collecting me, thanks to major roadworks that he hadn’t anticipated. After we got over the hurdle of his stress and my irritation, all was well. We eventually negotiated our way through the worst of the traffic to pick up the two Germans who were visiting my office.

We started in Kliptown at the Walter Sisulu Square, the site where the freedom charter was adopted in 1955 as a guiding document for the ANC. The Freedom Charter Monument, a tad reminiscent of Great Zimbabwe's architecture, is frequented by a man with a penny whistle playing Nkosi Sikelel'i. I quite like the monument but I'm not the biggest fan of the penny whistle guy.


A guide from the Kliptown Youth Foundation walked us around the dusty informal settlement adjacent to the square which is home to over 45000 people. He works at a soup kitchen and hostel for local children. There is no running water or sanitation here -- instead, a tap that waters a thousand, and the occasional porter-loo that each service a dozen families, if not more. The Germans were quite taken aback at this point. It reminds me of parts of West Caprivi, only on a grand and much more urbanised scale. I bought onions and avocado to take back to Wisteria Lane.



We visited the Regina Mundi church, the largest Catholic church in Soweto, by a smooth-talking guide with an acutely dry sense of humour. The church was a key site in the Soweto student uprisings of 1976. It still bears bullet holes in the ceiling, and the permanent photography exhibition upstairs is quite moving. Time was not really on our side (a 'Soweto tour' would surely be incomplete without some participants having to catch a plane), but we spun by Orlando West, including the houses of Tutu, Mandela and Winnie, before driving back past the freshly finished calabash-inspired Soccer City Stadium. It's looking good.


The next weekend was busy and explorative too. My Ethiopian-American former-war-correspondent friend took me to the Ethiopian quarter of the bustling CBD in downtown Jo’burg...in his car that was stolen and miraculously recovered a year later, with a bullet hole in the back. There are some fifty thousand Ethiopians in this city, apparently. We idled in a few stores before heading into the unnamed restaurant on the third floor of what used to be a key medical practitioners’ building in the city. There at a plastic table in a cosy, clean, wood-panelled room probably once used by an expensive medical consultant, we indulged in fabulous Ethiopian food for the princely sum of R25.

I bought Ethiopian coffee on the way out, and then we tussled with the traffic and the taxis before heading to Sandton for the annual Joburg Art Fair. What a juxtaposition it was after Little Ethiopia: I could have been in London. The young, the artsy and the metrosexuals were all out and about, and the quality of the art was high. I bought a hot chocolate halfway for the same price as my entire Ethiopian lunch, and people-watched from the comfort of a large black sofa, as if I were at Tate Modern...

Groot Marico and Afrikaaner Alternatives

Last weekend Janice and I decided on something of a whim to drive Groot Marico in North West Province (former Western Transvaal) for a ‘Biekie Bosman’ weekend – Bosman being the celebrated South African writer and poet, Herman Charles Bosman. And what a weekend it was. Groot Marico is essentially a two-street town, and allegedly one of only two towns in the entire country that still has a phone operator.

The weekend was organized by the local Literary Society, and took place on white-owned farms that run along the beautiful Marico river. This LitSoc group seems to represent a sort of alternative, hippified Afrikaanerdom that I hadn’t experienced before. One of our hosts, inappropriately named Egbert, looks like a character from Lord of the Rings: a long sinewy man, all arms and legs, with Gandalf-like grey beard and hair. He was perched mostly next to a collection of sizeable soot-coated kettles from which he produced honeybush tea and smoky coffee.

We went walking the first morning with one Koos Olivier to absorb the trees and plants of the riverine belt and the hills beyond. Afrikaaner/English divides were a running theme for the weekend, with Koos describing the enkeldoorn (ankle-thorn) acacia tree as ‘engelsdoorn’ (English-thorn), that is, good for nothing. We nibbled on the cardamom flavours of Berchemia discolor berries (tcindjere in West Caprivi) and saw one of the tallest Shepherd’s trees possible. Brunch was served later on the fire back at the farm – roughly ground locally-grown pap/sadza, onion and tomato relish, a mountain of scrambled eggs, cabbage with feta, and various other tasty delights.

Janice and I napped before taking a furtive skinny dip in the river, and then rushed to catch the afternoon convoy to a local mampoer farm, a few kilometers out of town. Made from fermented fruit, mampoer is a particularly strong home-brewed moonshine, also known as witblits in the Cape. Just in case we were looking for a stereotype, the farm owner was an imposing sjambok-wielding (yes) Afrikaaner with frighteningly blue eyes called Johann. After making a slightly uncomfortable scene around the prettiest girl in the group, he led us past a large barrel of fermenting marula fruit into his distillery barn, stressing that he only spoke English in self-defence. Between lecturing us on the distillation process and the much-debated origins of the term ‘mampoer’, he casually beat his dogs away from a Cape cobra that appeared amidst machinery a few metres away. Some of the more urban guests were suitably alarmed.

Thereafter we sat on the farmhouse veranda and sampled a variety of mampoers and liqueurs, served by the farmer’s somewhat XXY wife, with some of the dogs in the background (‘PH’ (Professional Hunter) and ‘PS’ (Pavement Special). One shot of mampoer was enough to get the entire group chattering rather excitedly, and we wondered what was to become of us after a few more. We were actually surprisingly fine. We equipped ourselves with bottles to take away, as well as homemade rusks and jams (the staples of any half-decent Afrikaaner pantry), and returned to the fireside for Bosman story-readings and stargazing. Our cottage was tucked away in the riverine forest and impeccably dark at night. I did try to convince Janice that we could make it back without a torch, but she was probably right in persuading me otherwise.

The crowd was a slightly indeterminate white middle-aged mix but one of our more bizarre conversations was with a woman whose home doubles up as a sort of animal shelter. We heard all about her tortoise that eats mangoes, and about her albino duck with a malformed beak which nevertheless gets shagged by the boy ducks. On hearing we didn’t have pets of our own, she extended an invitation to come babysit. Why thank you.

Janice and I caused a bit of a stir, we suspect, Janice being the only non-whitey present and a PhD botanist at that… and the two of us generally not fitting any mould that was familiar to these folk. One man asked us whether we were friends. (Janice and I laughed privately afterwards about who should be whose maid.) We later helped him to change the flat tyre on his Toyota, which really flummoxed anyone who had thought we were city gals from Jo’burg.

On Sunday morning we went to the Bosman cultural centre where we heard poetry readings and some history, whilst hymns and organ music emanated from the NG Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church) next door. But at midday I had to rub my ears because, sure enough, drifting up from somewhere in the middle of Marico Afrikaanerdom was the Muslim call to prayer. It turns out that Janice and I weren’t the only ones to disrupt assumptions that weekend.

From Lagos to Doornfontein

My welcome to humid Lagos included spending 40 mins sans passport at 0430 in the morning -- an immigrations official disappeared with a stack of them for 'processing' of some kind, which involved him actually walking out of the main terminal with all the docs in his hand. In my various third world travels, this was a special and unsettling first. The official, clearly enjoying his regular power kick, refused to give us any information whatsoever, and patronisingly chided us to stay where we were rather than follow him outside, which is what I did.

So there I was, outside the airport, in Lagos, of all places, without a passport, watching this guy saunter off… After being refused re-entry to the immigration section, I realised that the entire planeload of passengers had been similarly deprived. They were all sitting on the luggage conveyor belt, waiting with the sort of acceptance that you only generally see in Africa, no matter what one’s background. We got the passports back in the end. Friends have warned me to look out for my double.

It was a heavy week on the work front, and I didn’t have much time to explore, sadly. That said, Lagos reminds me of Indian cities, actually: sprawling, vibrant with women dressed exquisite print fabrics, and one crazy traffic scene. My visit was for work, so I was sadly confined to sanitised air-conditioned spaces much more than I would have liked…though I have to say that the air-con wasn’t all bad. I enjoyed the Nigerians; they were friendly, welcoming and confident. We sampled local delicacies, including even giant snails cooked with tomato [impressive achievement for my mostly vegetarian self]. Rubbery comes to mind.

I had a surreal evening visit to a bar called Pat’s, much to the horror of a South African journalist friend who knows Lagos well. Pat’s is frequented solely by foreign men and pretty long-legged Nigerian women in 4-inch heels and very miniskirts. This little excursion was followed by an armed escort back to the hotel...I did try to get a photo with the two gunmen in their unbuttoned shirts but they sadly declined.

My return to the airport was also memorable – in the most embarrassing of fashions. Since I was travelling in the early evening, the company security coordinator arranged an armed police escort again. I presumed that, like the night before, this second vehicle would simply follow behind. But no. They drove ahead of us, aggressively hooting, gesturing out the windows and, intermittently, using flashing lights to push the Lagos rush-hour traffic out the way. It was like being in a high-speed car chase, African dictator style. Instead of taking 2.5 hours to get to the airport, we took only one. This was the closest I’ll ever get to being Idi Amin or Robert Mugabe. I was absolutely mortified and hugely grateful for the tinted windows. My driver was sympathetic to my embarrassment, but reassured me, “Don’t worry, this is how they do it in Lagos. Everyone will be wondering who you are.” Oh what comfort.

Anyway, I made it to the sweltering airport in time to queue and be searched multiple times over a 3 hour period. The flight routes to Jo’burg all depart at midnight and arrive in the early morning, and there were no other passengers of my age-race-gender. Not that that’s anything new in my travels. I have to say I was somewhat relieved to step out into the fresh sunrise air of the rand again.

This past Saturday afternoon I went on a historic tour of Doornfontein in downtown Jo’burg, run by the Westcliff Heritage group, in a large and cumbersome bus. The whole thing was bordered on surreal, in a sort of amusing fashion. My friend and I were basically the youngest on the bus by quite a long way, he was the only black guy, and my java print skirt looked positively loud next to all the floral cottons.

The tour was four hours long, believe it or not, with only one disembarkation at an old curtain rail factory, still functioning, and which still has the defunct apartheid racially-segregated signs above the toilets: “Bantu Males”, “European Males”, “European Females”, and so on. Quite extraordinary. We saw all sorts – synagogues, factories, transport depots, a crumbling mayor’s house, the ridge behind the Ponte tower, theatres, mosques, old wells, and more. Really quite fascinating, though best done when tired or hungover, I’d say. We ate delicious pizza at Ant’s in Melville afterwards and watched the full moon rise.

It’s a hundred days till the World Cup, the newspapers shout out. I’ve been on radio a few times talking about search trends and the new stadiums -- oh the random things I've ended up doing. The evenings are warm and borderline sultry, and the mornings are starting to cool a little. I’m determined to start Zulu lessons soon. It’s already been way too long. Oh, and the worms have survived, by the way, so the wormery lives on after all.

Southern Africa Love Child

It’s February and love is in the air – at least for the ANC and the South African media. The coverage of Zuma’s love child(ren) and those of other politicians is extensive. I spent the past week working in Cape Town, enjoying the odd juxtaposition of the ‘baby showers’ scandal with the commemoration of Mandela’s epic release from prison twenty years ago. The fair Cape was a welcome change from corporate Jozi. Everything there is more relaxed and a bit more hippie.

Work started off quite slowly this year but it’s predictably started to escalate. Despite the deluge of emails, I had the chance to catch up with good friends which was great. Chris took me on a suitably strenuous two hour run up and around Silvermine from Muizenberg, followed by a swim and laze on the beach. We went for dinner in Stellenbosch another evening. Not to mention outdoor Antony and Cleopatra in Wynberg with my cousin (I really didn’t follow most of the plot, admittedly), an early morning solo beach walk in secluded Kommetjie, and a visit to a huge protea export warehouse with a superb view over the docklands.


I keep on telling people that I’ve only been here four months, but it’s actually been five. Coming back from Cape Town, I even found myself using the phrase ‘going home’. It feels kind of good, actually. Jozi is growing on me. I’m trying to convince myself to do less, or at least do it more slowly. Two weekends ago, I went on this awesome public art trail, a first time ‘tour’ by the owner of the Spaza Gallery in Troyeville who specialises in community mosaic projects. It was just fabulous. I saw downtown Jo’burg up close for the first time: the grit, the urban energy. Afterwards we had lunch back at Spaza – an enormous quiche, salad and roast vegetables in their quirky little courtyard under dappled tree shade. I have to add that I am just loving leading an outdoor life again. The skies here remain tall and each evening sky is different.


What else? I’ve started ignoring my surrounds – a sure sign of settling in, political disengagement and general apathy. I try to avoid the Lonehill shopping centre apart from the gym, though I have to say that coming across a kitsch restaurant called Byzance, run by Aristotle and Ludmila (displaced former Balkans perhaps?), was quite special. I have applied for World Cup tickets (Germany-Ghana), in the spirit of everything happening here…but no word yet from the FNB bank whether I’ve got mine. Lastly, I also have to announce, with some sadness, that I think my worm farm has failed. I think worm farming and me are just gonna have to try reconnect at a later stage in life. The next trial is going to be the Bokashi Composter. My flat is filled with a lot of germinating plants – mostly herbs and a few vegetables. I enjoy coming back to them in the evening. My own kind of baby shower…

Back to the Borderlands

I've already granted my “global best customer service award” for this year to the Zambians. What an amazingly welcoming, polite, courteous, helpful bunch of people they are. I love arriving at airports which are small enough for one to walk across the tarmac to immigrations…including Livingstone. I was greeted by a beaming official with Handel’s Messiah playing in the background. [Note that in the departure lounge, there’s a man who sells colourful Zambian postage stamps, including a recent set to commemorate Queen Elizabeth’s birthday (!), whilst at the Sesheke border post, the vehicle tax officials sit in the shade playing chess. Oh the postcolony.]

Through some strange coincidence – especially given Livingstone’s prolific herd of blue taxis – I ended up meeting one of the same drivers that I’d met previously. He took me to a café to wait for my Namibian NGO friend Friedrich. On that sweltering afternoon, the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone, well, converged, as my friend Carol puts it. Amidst the rain showers we explored Livingstone’s huge Maramba market, hopping between muddy puddles and amused looks to buy sumptuous mangoes and bananas, and beans from Tanzania. Although dinner at the lodge bordered on disappointing, the fact that we were sitting right on the banks of the mighty Zambezi certainly made up for it. It rained hard much of the night; twinned with some particularly raucous frogs in all directions, my tent was quite the auditorium.

From Livingstone we drove 2 hours to Namibia, first to Katima and then on to West Caprivi. One of the first friends I made in West Cap, and one of the most dynamic women in her community, is dying of HIV/AIDS. Her illness was one of the main reasons for my visit. It’s easy to forget just how small a human skeleton is, until you see someone rendered unrecognisable in the advanced stages of this awful disease. Her limbs are the width of my wrists. Some of my feelings have been those of frustration and anger: why didn’t she take her ARVs properly? Why isn’t the hospital doing more, and why is there no doctor in sight? As another friend noted, it is impossible for the likes of us to know what it is like to be HIV positive and poor.

Overall, returning to West Cap for the first time in some twenty months, and for the first rainy season since ’06, was really special. I crossed paths with lots of old colleagues and friends. Life there goes on with the same old politics as ever. Friedrich’s garden in Buffalo is overflowing with herbs and his rather larger ‘back yard’ is frequented by two hippo, two bushbuck and an unusually tame francolin called Paul. There is a profound sense of earth, space and sky. It’s curious to find peace in a place which is a centuries-old trading route, a former military base, the site of land contestations, and currently a diamond prospecting zone. Something about it has drawn people from all walks of life, it seems!

Back on the Katima Fish Farm, which has expanded its quota of horses and goats, I shared a drink on the Zambezi with some of the new set and their plus ones – including an Afrikaans optometrist. A few years ago in Katima there was only one supermarket and one pharmacy, let alone an optometrist. I spent the night at Carol’s place in her absence. It can safely be described as its own ecosystem, an insect specialist’s paradise, in fact. Fortunately the American WWF lodger seems to have adapted very well. She drove me across the Namibia/Zambia border early the next morning. Her discussions with the border gate guards were hilariously minimal (“I’m just taking this lady across and then coming back, ok?”), met with a slightly bored laissez faire nod. No passport, no vehicle papers, no nothing. I love it.

The Mazhandu Family Bus from Sesheke back to Livingstone, as always, provided entertainment. In contrast to my earlier ‘African time’ departures, the Mazhandu Family Bus left promptly on this occasion at 7.07am. I was allocated a seat in the front row which, I later realised, appeared to be reserved for “special” passengers: an Indian doctor; a tall gent with a very bling necklace; my white self; and the two very stylish and made-up girlfriends of the bus driver and his trusty ticket collector. The girlfriends definitely didn’t look they hung out in dusty Sesheke too often and, having rapidly transitioned back to NGO-worker-with-grubby-sandals mode, I felt positively underdressed in their company.

Back in Jozi, the city is deep green from the rain, my potplants have just survived my absence, and the Hillbrow Tower seems to have unsurprisingly acquired some kind of giant football attachment. Life continues in Lonehill, surrounded as I am by complexes with names like ‘Plaisance’ and ‘Manhattan’, though my rather loud Shona-speaking and Nigerian neighbours regularly remind me that at least I’m in the African version of Wisteria Lane. Roll on 2010.

A Southern African Christmas: Zimbabwe & Mozambique

How pleasant to fly only 1.5 hours home instead of ten and, for the first time in a decade, not to be heading back into the frosty urban wilds of England. Needless to say, I bumped into old friends on the flight. We went straight from the airport for tea with friends on one of the few remaining white-owned farms, about 20km out of town. The road beyond Westgate is horribly pitted and potholed; another rainy season and many of the roads will look like Beira’s did at the end of the civil war. On the positive side, Harare is green and full of beautiful trees, fragrant blossoms, and the occasional road-crossing tortoise who, like other Zimbabweans, enjoys living life on the edge.

My parents hadn’t had any electricity for a few days. At first we thought it was ZESA trying to extort a Christmas-time bribe, but it turned out to be our uncooperative neighbours whose trees overhang the electricity lines, and which they refuse to cut. Anyway, it was back to the no-power routine which, because we can’t run the borehole pump using the generator at the same time as using any electrical appliances, means that the toilet cisterns have to be filled with buckets from the swimming pool. And/or if water needs to be pumped at night, the house mains need to be turned off. The family have it down to a fine art now…I just sit and watch, torch in hand.

The local economy is now fully converted to US Dollars and things are expensive – apparently it’s the only country in the world without its own currency. We didn’t spend much time mulling over politics. There are still lots of problems, and Mugabe lives on. I heard two first-hand accounts about him this trip, one hilarious and one shocking. That’s always the mix in Zim.

Anecdote 1: A white friend of my brother’s constructs carports. He received a call-out one day to take measurements for a carport in the Crowhill area. The woman on the other end told him to look for the blue gate on xyz road. Off he went, and drove up and down the road, but couldn’t find the place. He phoned the woman, saying, ‘I’ve driven up and down, but the only place with a blue gate is Bob’s [Mugabe’s] place’. She said casually, ‘Oh yes, that’s the one’. So off he went to Bob’s place, removing his shoes as instructed by the front door guards, only for Grace to enquire why he was barefoot.

Anecdote 2: Much less savoury. A black friend of mine who studies in the UK was driving in the same area a year ago, and failed to hear the president’s motorcade approaching a T-junction. The golden rule is that all plebs have to move completely off the road. The outriders had already driven past when she pulled into the road. The armed soldiers at the back of the entourage stopped, forced her out of her car and beat her before letting her go. She was due at a wedding two hours later as a bridesmaid.

Our departure for Mozambique turned out to be rather dramatic: we left at 4 in the morning, only to hit a huge rock on Harare Drive. Given the unlikelihood of a rock that size coincidentally appearing right in the middle of the road, and given that a car pulled out of a nearby road as soon as we stopped, we suspect it was some kind of near-hijack, but that they were discouraged by the fact that four of us then stepped out our vehicle. After a rocky start (no pun intended) we were able to borrow another vehicle and left a few hours later to navigate the Christmas kumusha traffic, with everyone returning to their rural homes for the holiday.

My brother smoothly negotiated our way across the Mutare borders with a good mix of Shona and Portuguese. We had expected a lot more bribe-seeking, but a friendly sandwich here and a packet of smokes there seemed to be the extent of it. In general all the officials were incredibly pleasant to deal with. The last time I crossed that border was in the opposite direction in 2002. There was no food in Zim and I was bringing in a big sack of maize meal for people at home, convinced that it was going to be confiscated. In those days the border searches were quite intense, but I just lay (literally) tight on my sack and grinned and it was all fine.

Mozambique’s roads now make Zimbabwe’s look run down…what a fast switching of circumstances. It was extremely hot. The bush there is lush and thick, with villagers on the roadsides selling cashews and pineapples in their multitude, plus a few trussed-up live chickens to add variety to the mix. And of course there are a few enormous lorries carrying loads of valuable indigenous hardwood – a pattern that is sadly now well established.

Our road journey to the tiny coastal town of Inhassoro took ten hours, and we arrived just in time for sunset. The coast is beautiful: mile after mile of blue water against terracotta cliffs, and then the Bazaruto Archipelago not far offshore, featuring brightly painted starfish, glittery reef fish and giant turtles. The next ten days were spent with some of the large number of white Zimbabweans who all flocked to Inhassoro for the holidays. [Apparently the Rhodesians used to do the same before Mozambique’s war]. All of them drive 4x4s of the nicest kind; in fact, too many Christmasses in Inhassoro and you would come to assume that a Toyota Landcruiser GX is a basic essential of daily life. I have to say the wealth-poverty mix (or, lack of mix) was all rather bizarre, though nothing new in Africa, and I doubt that tourism has established a good name there. That said, the local market was quite popular with visitors, and I indulged there in print fabrics and bagfulls of fresh coconut and pineapple.

We spent lazy hours in the 30+ degree heat sitting by the ocean with drinks in hand, children running and shrieking in the sand and tea-temperature waves. It was all so idyllic and yet from time to time I’d overhear disquieting words from the other end of the table: “Eight weeks in the intensive care unit”… “wounds to the head”… “brain damage”… “arm with wire”. There amidst the drinks and sound of the surf, Zimbabwe’s violent crisis continues for, amongst others, the Chegutu farmers who in my opinion have been foolhardy enough to stay on their land. It has now been ten years – whoever would have thought.

New Year’s Eve was also spent on the beach in the sultry night time air under a full moon and with a rising tide. How glorious it is to lead an outdoors life again. As for the white Zimbos, they were there en masse with more cooler boxes than ever before witnessed, some of which were inevitably acquired by the incoming tide whilst their distracted owners socialised. On leaving at 3am, our bakkie got stuck in beach sand, at which point those who were still standing all disembarked and, in true Zim fashion as if it were the most normal thing in the world, pushed the vehicle a hundred metres to the next exit road. In our inebriated state we failed to notice one of our crew fall flat on her face in the sand during this little endeavour. It was much funnier during the re-telling over breakfast the next morning. Finally, there was a fair bit of spilled vodka and coke sloshing around in the back of the bakkie which I unsuspectingly wallowed in all the way home -- in my white beach dress, naturally. A pre-dawn solo moonlight swim avec dress sorted out that little problem in no time.

Reading back through this post feels strange– the themes being decay, violence, inequality and alcohol, combined with exquisite natural beauty. Nevertheless, a window into the motherland and, in some ways, into the dying and insular gasps of white Zimbabwe…although history seems to show that they won’t ever actually disappear.

Month Three Begins: Unpacking, Exploring

Things have been pretty busy. A few weekends ago I went to the famous Drakensberg for the first time, with a group of Afro-Indo-internationals featuring a good smattering of McKinsey, De Beers and small children thrown in. Possibly the most vociferous group of people I've ever been on a trip with, in fact. We were stopped by a large-bellied policeman on the way for speeding. For some reason he decided to let us off. We consumed large amounts of good food and wine and debated (well, they debated; I wasn't loud enough to get a word in edgeways) everything under the sun.

The Wisteria Lane Frontier is fine. The dense Johannesburg forest has greened with the rain and my balcony is slowly being populated with plants. I've done quite a bit, now that I think about it, including an open air electro-jazz concert at Emmarentia dam, a concert by the Joburg Philharmonic, a Christmas Carols in one of the Fourways shopping centre theatres (yeah, it's early for that, that was my thought too) , and a party with some the city's urban black chic in a completely amazing refurbished refinery warehouse downtown. I've done work-related radio interviews for SABC Durban, a Jewish community station (random) and visited the SABC headquarters.

I've been to an art exhibit by a Nigerian collector in Parkhurst, hosted by a very elegant Zambian woman. And I've been beekeeping with the crazy French-Portuguese man and one of my botanist friends in a sprawling grove of blue gums in the grounds of a nuclear research station in Westonaria (yeah, I know, how bizarre does it get). We picnicked with white wine and quiche and argued considerably about gender relations, marriage, and nature versus nurture. I've experimented with a few yoga classes, sadly none of which I like. I've started one-to-one sessions with a trainer at the gym, and could barely walk this past week, needless to say. This morning I met this Polish immigrant woman with a great sense of humour who runs a ramshackle organic farm in Kyalami. I brought preserves and gem squash for eight rand a kilo. You can't really go wrong on that. Last but not least, I hired domestic labour for the first time two weeks ago -- not sure how I feel about it. The lady took some of my cardboard boxes back to Diepsloot - to board up her broken windows, she said.

My crate arrived, finally. They sent it on the back of a ridiculously oversize truck completely disproportionate to the crate - the kind of truck that's used to carry several tonnes of black granite across the Zimbabwean countryside. Anyway, this truck was so big that the complex guards wouldn't let it in. Fair enough, it probably wouldn't have rounded all the corners of the maze. So the truck had to park outside, and then we ferried boxes in my little car backwards and forwards. It was quite amusing. More amusing because whilst all this was going on, a small and shabby white van was parked downstairs from my flat with two cat-catchers in it. I kid you not. These guys go around catching cats which appear to be homeless, and sterilising them in a humane fashion.

I have been a firm supporter of Gumtree since arriving in South Africa: one washing machine, one fridge, one coffee table, one futon, two lamps, one disaster of a SatNav device, crockery...and one dining table with benches. The latter was quite a mission. I called up the man at the brickyard who sold me the dodgy SatNav to get a recommendation for a truck, praying that this time the truck would be smaller than the one which delivered the crate. Truck, driver and two accomplices duly followed me to the table owner's house. Loading and travel went fine; getting it up my stairs and inside the front door was a whole other story. It took all four of us to carry it, and I had to remind them that they couldn't just dump it on the bricks whenever they felt tired. Then it wouldn't fit through the door, so we had to take the coasters off (sixteen screws later). Anyway, it all worked out in the end and I am delighted to now have a nice big wooden table to eat and work on.

My flat is finally looking vaguely under control and virtually all my boxes are unpacked. It feels pretty good, I have to say. I had a little birthday-come-housewarming gathering last night to celebrate. And my wormery arrived - yes, in the post! Despite my concerns, the worms did not go to worm heaven en route and are now speedily fattening themselves on my veggie peelings. Bring on the compost...