The white aphids of africa

While I'm on the topic of insects I'm definitely starting to feel a bit like how an aphid must feel.

Sunday afternoon I was doing some handyman chores at the sisters-in-law and walked outside to leave only to find ... nothing! My brand new Fortuner, she was gone! Eish! Go back inside and have another drink. Walk back outside ... still gone. Sh!t.

Phone the Tracker people, report the incident to the police, start gathering all the boxes and invoices of what was stolen - we're getting quite efficient at this now having done it so many times. I know I should be more upset than I actually am but really, what does getting upset achieve other than a raised blood pressure. I have low blood pressure so maybe I should be more upset, even if only to raise the pressure a bit.

Coming back to the aphids, and I really hope I aren't maligning the incorrect insect here, but they are husbanded by ants and milked for food. That is pretty much how I feel at the moment, all I seem to do is to work hard to earn so that someone else can enjoy the fruits of my labour. It's not quite like I don't enjoy the fruits since I simply get the toys back from insurance so I'm not really losing out, other than for the inconvenience and, of course, I have to pay for the insurance and a little bit of danger.

It's a little bit of zero sum game really. Salaries in Johannesburg are a bit higher than elsewhere in South Africa and, I'm sure, partly as a result of crime. So here we sit, earning a little better, so we can afford nice toys so that other people that don't earn or work hard can also enjoy nice toys. The government one would think would be intensely interested in protecting it's citizens because after all, that is where the pot of gold that they enjoy spending so much comes from. It certainly doesn't come from tax on criminals! So while one would think they should be interested in protecting it's citizens, all of them, they clearly aren't interested; maybe they're too busy spending the pot of gold. Of course it may not be that they're uninterested, they may just be hopelessly incompetent but either way the net effect is the same.

So, what to do. Of course if one earned less, one couldn't afford the toys so people without toys wouldn't be able to take them. Then the government also wouldn't earn so much so they wouldn't have to make a pretense of being actually interested in their citizens which would solve that little conundrum. So the answer to crime is ... become a pauper which holds about as much attraction for me as I'm sure it does for you, the reader, i.e. absolutely no attraction whatsoever. Damn!

The real question, of course, is not about having a few things stolen but what the risks are that one may not survive to enjoy anything thereafter at all! This, unfortunately, isn't such a low probability here that it doesn't warrant a bit of thought. Essentially, one takes a risk staying in S.A and the reward is a slightly higher salary (or lower expenses) than elsewhere, earning the slightly higher salary and spending it attracts the less savoury members of the population which makes it riskier which makes the salaries higher ... Phrasing the question the other way around, would one be happy with the lower salary as found elsewhere with the attendant lower levels of crime?

It's all in the net income ration vs the risk and this varies from location to location not to mention from individual to individual both in terms in income potential and risk aversion.

Quite a conundrum. I haven't solved it but writing about it somehow makes things slightly less murky.

The outdoors invade ...

I'm not sure about other people but I quite like plants and insects and, preferably, animals to be on the outside of the house and not inside the house.

I was walking through the lounge after a hard hours training and having finished the morning coffee in the glorious morning sunshine when something caught my eye that just didn't look right. Sure enough, we're being invaded by insects; in this case ants and they're using my lounge as a vegetable patch. Little squatters! This is what the vegetable patch looks like, you can see the skirting boards in the background.

I have a horrible feeling that the stuff the mushrooms are growing in is reprocessed skirting board which means that I will have to replace these at some stage.

I am already replacing the skirtings in the passage because they are completely eaten away but one would never know. Somehow they manage to leave a 'skin' of about 1/2 a mm of wood so it all looks fine until one day someone bumps the skirting at which point all is revealed!

I am surrounded by heathens!

First I receive several less than complimentary comments on my last blog while I was taking a break after 3 months of solid daily blogging ... then my neighbour opens fire on us!

On would think that living in S.A. one would be rather immune to being shot at but this is not the case!

Caron and I were sitting peacefully on our newly completed and painted patio when we heard a loud crack from somewhere nearby and it took us a while to figure out what it actually was. It was only after about the 10th shot and having pellets rattling around the patio that we finally figured out that it was our neighbour playing around with his bb air rifle. What a moron not to mention a truly lousy shot!

We thought it was children which had been left alone so I drove around to the house and rang the door bell several times but they weren't coming out. Arriving back home he was still at it so I climbed up into the corner where I could see and it wasn't a comfortable feeling looking over the target to where our, very drunk, neighbour was sitting on his patio drinking and taking shots. One feels like one has a big bulls-eye between the eyes.

I shouted at him that the next shot would have the cops coming over and that started the altercation which eventually he conceded that maybe, just maybe, he shouldn't be using his rifle and definitely not when he was drunk.

What we have to put up with.

So this is what they're for ...

Being a proud owner of a brand new 4x4 I just had to try it out on a 4x4 course so we ventured out with Carl and Kirsten in their Prado along with my brother and assorted children; lots and lots of them.

We went out quite early to miss the rush and it seems that the 4x4 crowd are not particularly early risers so we had the track to ourselves for most of the morning. The track was dry and dusty for the most part and the order of the day is as follows

• Arrive at an obstacle and think to oneself "Oh S***" the track really does go over there. For the record we both chickened out on doing this particular obstacle; we couldn't do all the obstacles because then there wouldn't be anything to come back for!

• Everyone jumps out of the car and walks the obstacle trying to weave an imaginary path through it that will keep most of the wheels on the ground most of the time. Sometimes living in a less than PC environment is very funny.

• ... so that is what we did. Jordynne, for the record, volunteered!

• Everyone bar the driver stays out of the car to be able to record the impending spectacular accident.

• Driver gingerly enters the obstacle and carefully navigates through it by memory because it is completely impossible to see anything less than about 5m ahead of the car due to the bonnet and all the interesting stuff that one must avoid is just within the 5m blackout zone.

• Very relieved driver completes obstacle and everyone gets back in; the photo opportunity having been missed.

Although the track isn't actually that long it takes quite a bit of time because one is constantly jumping in an out of the car but I find it quite amazing what the cars can accomplish. The video below was done without diff lock which is why I stopped on the hill but it gives quite a good idea what the terrain is like. It's quite a lot of fun.

About two thirds of the way around there is a picnic spot with boma's and braai facilities which I think that we are going to make use of in future. At the picnic area is a sign to beware of the donkeys which aren't really donkeys; I think that they're called zonkey's or debras because they're a cross between a donkey and a zebra.


The whole outing turned out to be a great experience and I think that it is safe to say that everyone is keen to do it again in a couple of months time.

Oh No! Not AGAIN!

It was a week almost to the hour that we had had the armed robbery that we had yet another break in. This time we weren't at home thankfully so we arrived home to find that the bedroom window and the 'intruder proof' lounge window weren't so intruder proof after all! I would hazard a guess that these two incidents were related. The second group weren't the same as the first I think but were definitely looking for the replacements that were a result of the first. Unlucky for them, the first group got away with just about everything and the second got away with just about nothing, I think the only thing they actually took was a 7" digital picture frame without the power adapter. What all these guys (I assume it was guys) do with the electronic equipment without the power adapters is beyond me. In particular the apple equipment has special power supplies and one can't just go and buy them. So now, on top of all the work to repair the damage done last weekend we now have to replace window and clean up the house - again!

Strangely, although the second incident wasn't as physically intimidating it has had a far more severe psychological affect on us so instead of sleeping in a glass covered bedroom with no windows we went and stayed in the sandton holiday inn for the evening. When I was parking the car I didn't know that there was reserved parking for hotel residents so I parked in sandton square and then tried to move it. Unfortunately for me, leaving co-incided with the end of some huge event and the queues for the parking payment were literaly about 40 people deep so I went in search of another pay station and each one I got to had a similar queue or was out of order and my sense of humour was fading fast with each successive one. So in addition to all the normal last minute things that have to be attended to when going overseas we had to get the glass replaced, alarm repaired, gate remotes replaced and re-programmed, garage door lifter fixed, electric fence fixed and so on. Damn but I really actually do need a very long holiday!

I should be in Lagos

but I'm not and here is the story which I have been told that I have to write by the trauma counselor. Trauma counseling appears to be a booming business in south africa, just about every organisation we have to talk to offers us some.

The problem actually started on thursday or friday although I didn't know it at the time and even now, I can't really prove it, when I went to standard bank to draw foreign exchange for my tip to lagos and then for our overseas trip next week. As a general rule, we never have large amounts of cash in the house but in the few days before an overseas trip it is hard not to.

We arrived home on saturday afternoon at about 16:10 from the holmes's place and saw two men walking down our road and one's instinct warns you that there's trouble coming but they were about 100m up from our drive and aside from thinking that we're just being paranoid, we thought that ought to be enough to get in and close the gates so in we drove. Well, weren't we wrong! The next moment the doors were flung open and we were both dragged out of the car while being threatened by two 9mm pistols. Caron told me later that the she had seen the second of the two attackers just squeeze through the gate as it closed but didn't even have a chance to shout before I was dragged out. It is not a great feeling having a pistol pointed at one and even less hearing the click as the pistol is cocked, it really does chill the blood and we're still trying to get over it. Even writing about it is distinctly uncomfortable and the pistols looked a lot bigger than they really are.

The first thing they wanted was that we don't make a sound and the second was to know how many people were at home and how many dogs.

The criminals held onto each one of our arms and shepherded us around to the back door, clearly not comfortable with using the front door but since we only had front door keys we had to go there to get into the house. They gave me the front door keys back and before I opened the door I warned them that the alarm was going to go off, I didn't want it to take them by surprise and end up with a bullet in me because he got a fright. We opened the front door and the alarm went off and I carefully punched in the code, this being no time to have finger trouble. Alarm off, the taller of the two criminals used me like a shield as we moved into the lounge just in case I had lied about there being nobody at home I guess. Once they were happy that the room was clear we both had to lie face down on the floor while they took rings, watches, cell phones and wallets. This done, they wanted to get into the rest of the house but it was all locked which meant lots of close contact with the criminals in the passage as I retrieved the hall cupboard key and then the passage key from the hall cupboard. Each time I had to do something which I thought may make them nervous I would explain exactly what i was going to do and then let them tell me to do it before continuing and doing everything slowly and deliberately.

Once the hall doors were open, we were again used as shields and marched into the bedroom where we both had to lie on the floor while they drew the curtains and used shoe laces to tie our feet together and our hands behind our backs. Once we were trussed up like turkeys and totally incapacitated the tall one asked where the socks were and used a pair to put over his hands so as not to leave fingerprints. The shorter one had gloves on the whole time. The questioning started in earnest about where was the safe, where was the cash, where was the jewellery and so on. Fortunately or unfortunately we don't have a safe in the house but as soon as I told them how much I had in my wallet in USD they persisted a while but changed the focus onto jewels which we told them where to find and then after the jewels to electronic goodies. It's hard to argue with someone who has a 9mm pointed at one's back so we basically answered as truthfully as we could without volunteering anything more than necessary. As soon as we were incapacitated their cell phone started going off and they must have made or received between 4 and 8 calls during the next 10 minutes so I don't think that this was just an opportunistic hijacking, I think we were specifically targeted. While we were being tied up, the taller of the two tied my hands quite tightly and an involuntary "ouch" came out, I remember his answer quite clearly, he said "sorry, master"! Strange words indeed for a criminal who is tying me up while intimidating me at the same time with a 9mm pistol.

They wanted to know what was in the garage to which we replied a bmw320d which would, I thought, be of interest to them. A bit of to and fro occurred on the cell phone while they negotiated with whoever was on the other side as to which one to take; the mini it was which was a huge relief because getting the bmw out of the garage would have prolonged the ordeal just that much longer and we were already starting to take strain. I don't know if they were or weren't in the room but I asked caron how she was doing and she bravely replied "fine" which under the circumstances was about as good as I could have hoped for.

We heard some noises from the other side of the house and the scrunch, scrunch of them walking on the path before they came back to ask how to open the gate and how to start the mini which we told them in detail. They had also previously wanted to know if both cars had tracker on them which they both fortunately had but it didn't worry them enough to risk not taking them.

Suddenly everything went quiet and we heard the gate opening, the car reversing, the car pulling off gently and then the gate closing. At this point I thought there was a reasonable chance that we were alone and managed to get onto my feet with a bit of effort and head butted the panic button but nothing happened so I used my tongue to set the alarm and hopped through to the kitchen while caron moved around as much as she could so that the alarm went off. I got a knife out of the kitchen drawer which is a lot more difficult than it sounds and went back to the bedroom where Caron had managed to get one of her hands free enough to hold the knife and cut the shoe string. On the way back to the bedroom the phone rang which I thought was ADT responding to the alarm but I couldn't answer it at the time. From there on it didn't take more than a minute or two for us to be completely free and get onto the phone to call ADT, police and tracker.

We were no longer victims but survivors now!

Road rage continued again!

I turned up at court at the appointed time only to find a notice that all cases have been transferred to another court so I went to that one and sat at the back waiting for my case to be called but after a couple of hours of nothing I thought I should check that I was really at the right place which, as it turns out, I wasn't. The time spent watching the wheels of justice move, although 'move' is entirely the incorrect adjective, was not without benefit to me. I now understand why we're in such a mess, all the magistrate or judge or whatever she was did was postpone and transfer cases. What an utter waste of everyone's time and because everyone knows it; people don't take it seriously and just use any old excuse to not appear which results in a postponement.

My experience, thus far, of the police and justice system is that it is more the justice system that is broken rather than the police. The police also have their challenges but right now it looks like the justice system is incompetent and incompetence over a long period of time leads to irrelevance which is exactly what is happening in south africa. Since the justice system isn't seen to be dispensing justice it leads to frustration from the victims and eventually statements like 'Just shoot the criminals if you get the chance' by one of our politicians or was it assistant to the someone or other.

Back to my story, I was then told to go and speak to whoever was in an office opposite court one which I did. At the end of my explanation as to what happened, the prosecutor simply told me that he wasn't going to prosecute and that I could just go. I think that he's seen this tit-for-tat type of charge before. I now wait with baited breath to find out what is going to happen to my case against the bmw driver but given my experience of the courts today, I should unbait my breath because it is going to take a long, long time and may never actually happen.

Road rage continued

On thursday, the day after the incident, I received a call from the police requesting that I come into the police station because they wanted to clear some things up which I did at about 16:30 to be informed that they had to arrest me! This was a bit of a surprise, apparently the driver of the bmw had laid a charge of reckless and negligent driving against me. I think it was just in an effort to get back at me for laying an assault charge against him but it just goes to show that if one decides to wrestle with pigs, one can't expect to come away spotless. Being arrested was a bit of a novel experience having avoided it for 43 years but the police were very polite and just went through the motions as quickly and painlessly as possible and I had to turn up at court on the friday morning. My shiner has really blossomed in the last day and there are some quite fetching colours starting to make their appearance. I took some photo's with my cell phone which I would have posted if it wasn't for the events of the following week.

Road rage Strikes back ...

It has taken me little while to put this down in writing but on the 11th of this month I was involved in a road rage incident; apparently south africans are the world road rage champions.

I was driving my motorcycle between the stationary traffic and as the traffic pulled off I pulled into one of the gaps which naturally form as traffic starts but the bmw driver behind me, instead of driving at a normal distance decided to tailgate me. Having someone tailgate one when one is in a car is plain annoying but having someone do it to you when you're on a motorcycle is just downright dangerous. I couldn't speed up because of the cars in front and pulling left so the moron can squeeze past on the right is very dangerous so I gently put the back brake on, not so much to slow down as that would have been plain stupid but just enough to get the brake light to go on so he would back off. Needless to say (now!) this just infuriated him and his antics to get past me just got worse. At about this time the road ahead and to my left cleared so I pulled into the left hand lane so he could overtake which he did at a furious rate but I think he was so busy shouting at me that he didn't see that the traffic ahead had stopped at the next set of lights and he only just missed going into the back of the car stopped at the traffic lights but in doing so he swerved into my lane and across my line. I had fallen back by this time so this was all happening in front of me so when I pulled up on his left hand side I hammered on his window with my fist and gave him a piece of my mind which wasn't very polite at all but at the end of the day it was only words and there weren't any threats made. I should have known better given the way the idiot drove but sometimes I just can't keep quiet. He took this very badly and got out of his car and walked around the back of it and up to the back of the motorcycle. I was looking at him over my right shoulder when the first punch arrived; I can remember thinking "What does he think he's doing trying to punch someone with a helmet on!" and it was a really big surprise to find that a fist fits neatly into the slot that the visor normally covers. I tried to duck as best I could but there wasn't really anywhere to go because the robot was red so I took a bit of a beating to the back of the helmet before he got bored and got back into his car. I pulled forward and memorised his number plate and drove off to work. Another motorcyclist pulled up beside me at the next traffic lights to ask if I was ok because there was blood dripping out from the bottom of my helmet from the one punch which made it through.

When I got to work I went and washed up and sat quietly for a while trying to decide whether or not to press charges and at the end of this I decided that this could not go unpunished. It is not acceptable to deck someone no matter what they've said so I went off to the police to lay a charge before going to casualty to have the cuts stitched up. Two cuts and three stitches in the one and a couple of hours later I was sporting a really impressive shiner.

Aaargh! Sometimes things are just so frustrating

I read today about a $1.5 million "investment" from AECF to Monitise to "develop m-banking services" in africa. AECF which is backed by the Rockefeller and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations is supposedly to be helping africa to develop, which it obviously desperately needs, but I fail to see how this kind of "investment" really helps africa.

If this investment was really to help africa it should be "invested" in african companies that will develop real skills and IP that would stay in africa and be of long term benefit to africa. If it is not going to do this it just ends up being the first world gaining an aura of respectability by appearing to "invest in the development of africa". I can just hear the nay-sayers saying that an "african" company couldn't possibly develop this kind of product to which I say bullshit; there are probably at least 5 small companies in south africa alone which can and have developed mobile banking platforms and this is without even looking at zimbabwean and kenyan companies which could do just as good a job.

If you don't believe me, just ask yourself what IP this investment develops that will remain in africa? What are the software development skills that are developed that remain in africa and loading an OS and installing an application doesn't count as real skills development. My prediction is that on both counts the answer will be NONE and if this was really about the development of africa the answers should not be NONE.

Even worse, this not only takes an opportunity away from an african company but actively keeps african companies from developing by removing potential customers from what is already a small market place. The "investment" effectively subsidises first world software development and helps to ensure that third world software development can't and won't compete.

Now that the rant is over, I have to say that I really hope that AECF is doing this unwittingly and that their intentions really are what they consider "best" for africa but what they consider "best" doesn't make much sense to me.

The builders are ....

GONE and just not having them on the property has increased the quality of life dramatically. For the last 4 months we have been building a patio as shown below which is quite a long time for a fairly small job.

but then expecting the 'quality german' builders to actually finish on time seems maybe just a bit too much. Anyway, it's done and despite the numerous imperfections it does actually look quite good at first glance.

At the moment we are both sitting at the table with out laptops connected via wireless while the cat looks on from his perch on the puke green cushion. The night is one of those perfect african evenings, cool and quiet with the sound of cicadas and the odd bird to entertain us. Sometimes life down here really is just too terrible for words!

Boep Club 2008

It's a terrible thing to have to admit but I get together with a few like minded guys while the wives are at book club to drink whisky, smoke cigars and generally chew the fat. After a while this acquired the unfortunate name of "boet" meaning "brother" club which has since been corrupted into "boep" meaning paunch club. I think the book club think that they're very clever! At the end of each year we have taken to going away for a weekend which is proving to be quite a win. This year we buggered off to Sondela for the weekend; five christians and me, the token atheist.

Sondela proved to be an inspired choice of venue because it's actually a game reserve but with no predators so one can walk, run and cycle everywhere so the mornings would start off with a two or three hour cycle followed by loads of nothing, a braai for supper before we settled down to the real reason for coming to Sondela ...


The first cycle ride on the saturday we had but a small taste of the sand that was to come on the sunday; fortunately we were blissfully unaware of our fate at that stage so we thought the deep sand was pretty cool and experiential. The wildlife at sondela is pretty chilled and you can get quite close to them before they move off as you can see from the next photograph.

Although this looks quite far away they weren't more than 20m. We saw nyala, zebra, giraffe, kudu, eland, warthog and wildebeest which made for quite a satisfying morning. Actually one can't lose by cycling in the park, if you see game it makes the ride and if you don't you still get a great ride to enjoy. The afternoons were spent slumming it at the pool which as you can see looks decidedly dodgy ...

Just next to the pool in the picture was a large heated spa pool with jets'n all which we migrated to in order to get out of the sun of course. We were all sitting in the pool when a group of young afrikaans boys (approx 13 years old or so) asked to jump in and when they did so the pool overflowed which led to the usual jokes about fat people and water and in one of the lulls in the conversation we heard a quiet "Ja rynauw" from one of the boys to another which had us all laughing. There is definitely something about afrikaans and humour that english just doesn't have, I can't quite put my finger on it but somehow jokes and banter are just that much funnier in afrikaans.

Back to the lodge for the traditional bush supper of meat suitably singed; oh and a potato and some green stuff as a concession to me. Here we have hennie striking the traditional south african pose as he tends to the fire.

We were there for three nights and each night the menu was identical and did anyone complain? No, did anyone even notice that we'd eaten the same on all three nights? Again no, but if there were the wives with us would there have been complaints? Absolutely and not because the food wasn't good nor balanced but it simply wasn't different; guys just don't get this need to have different food all the time. We're actually quite happy to have the same meal for at least 3 or 4 nights at a time. Two weeks might be pushing it but changing every night definitely isn't necessary as long as the food is good.

The next morning hennie, carl and myself went for another ride which would prove to be quite a learning curve about riding in deep sand. There is only one word for it; don't! We struggled up these gently sloping hills sweating like pigs in the hot morning sunshine and sucking in great lungfuls of air, the heart rate monitor going peep, peep, peep or in english "slow down, you're about to die!". Hennie had the narrowest tyres so he was battling the most and fell a little bit behind so carl and I waited halfway up a hill only for him to come cruising past us like he was on tar. Big lesson to learn here, when riding in soft sand let your tyres down to 1 bar and it is impossible to describe how much easier it makes the riding. Amazing! and even more amazing is that we, all three of us, should have known this because we have all looked at people in 4x4 struggling in the sand because they stupidly hadn't let their tyres down. At the top of the hill we climbed up to the trig beacon which had an awesome view over the valley.

After recovering from the ride we read, ate and slept before venturing out to the pool in the middle of the afternoon only to have to endure the sight of two teletubbies cavorting in the pool. Whatever happened to the svelte young damsels in bikini's - very disappointing. Some of the people really did look like they had swallowed a webber braai. Back home we went for the final braai

Packing up the house the next morning carl picked up a plastic bag and was just about to throw it away when something made him look inside only to find a mouse looking very dead. That was until one eye opened, didn't like what it saw and went straight back to playing dead. Very cute indeed.

So that was it; what a great weekend.

So very metrosexual

It's that time of year again when management of companies sit around and scratch their collective pate's and try to decide what to do for the year end (very pc) function. Fortunately I am not generally involved in these deliberations, so it was with some curiosity that everyone arrived at work, swimming costume at the ready, to be whisked away to destinations unknown. Rumour was rife as to why we needed to bring swimming costumes but no hats nor suntan creme; my personal favourite was that we were going to indulge in a spot of mud wrestling.

After all the anticipation we ended up at a day spa; for an end of year party? at a day spa. You could see that everyone was a little uncomfortable to start with since it is not the kind of thing that guys tend to do, even if they are in IT. Manicures, pedicures, facials, massages, sauna, jacuzzi and plunge pools kept everyone entertained and amused the whole day and it was fascinating to watch how everyone, guys especially really got into the swing of things; even the ones that I thought would be reluctant. Before we knew it, the day was done and we had to leave the peace and tranquillity to get back to the hubbub of life.

That evening I drove through to pretoria to meet some people in hatfield which is pretty studenty happening kind of a place and used my tomtom for the first time and I must say that it passed with flying colours. The home stretch was particularly great because I came out of a parking lot in a different direction to that which I went in and was completely disorientated but the GPS had me on the motorway going home in no time at all. Fantastic, what a toy!

Saturday morning broke at 05:00; time to get up and ride and the very last thing I felt like doing was just that but get out I did and carl and I did a 94km ride including krugersdorp hill. We did it at a rather slow 23km/hr but it was still quite a ride, significantly more difficult than the 94.7 and I definitely felt much better for it. When I got back, caron was at work so I had a great lunch at woolies while I read the newspaper and then caron met me at a sports bar, another novel cultural experience, to watch new zealand annihilate england. New zealand are just awesome, how they haven't won every single world cup is beyond me and I am starting to think that winning it requires a substantial amount of luck as well as being a pretty good team.

From the sports bar we went out to movies to see "body of lies" which was reasonable and that brought to a close a very satisfying and enjoyable two days. Sometimes life down here just really sucks; I think that we have to put up with so much crap that when things do actually go right we savour it just that much more.

Rwanda

I have been taken to task for the lack of communication on my blog and I cannot really say that I have not had enough time; I just seem to be permanently tired and totally uninspired to do anything at all.

So what have I/we been up to in the last month? Besides the ever present work we have started the construction of the patio and most recently, I arrived back from a business trip to Kigali in Rwanda.

This turned out to be a rather fascinating trip and very pleasant indeed. Maybe my expectations were so low that anything pleasant would have been fantastic but I don't think that this was the case. Kigali is an interesting place, it is clearly very poor and third world but unlike anywhere else, it is spotlessly clean. Apparently the third saturday morning of each month is clean the country day and everyone is allotted their piece of ground to clean. Nobody is allowed to drive anywhere and there are monitors around to ensure this; one doesn't want to argue with someone who has recently been in or through a genocide!
Although Kigali is a city, it is on quite hilly terrain and there are big gaps everywhere that are still farmland so you seem to be looking out over fields to shacks or over shacks onto fields all the time.

Not only are farmlands interspersed between the buildings but well to do houses and poor shacks are nestled cheek by jowel, not at all like the expensive squatter camps ala dainfern that we have in south africa.

The hotel was very pleasant, well maintained and pretty much everything worked including the wireless internet in the room so I was able to keep up with email and generally in touch with work and the world.
What was truly a surprise was the quality of the restaurants; two that we went to were really fantastic and the food available at the hotel was very good as well. For some reason the fruit was just that much juicier and tastier than what I am used to - maybe it has something to do with the total lack of fertiliser used. The restaurants would have been entirely at home in upmarket Johannesburg and sitting outdoors in the warm evenings overlooking the lights of Kigali was a little magical.

Below is the "First Class" lounge at Nairobi airport which, after the luxury of Kigali, was a bit depressing.

The most depressing moment of the trip however was the welcome we received from the incompetent immigration official at ORT. Because the flight lands late they only have one official on duty for the entire plane and I think that he gets the late duty as punishment for some indiscretion. Very annoying welcome back to South Africa; lots of queue jumping and frayed tempers but I'm home.

Ai maar dis mooi by die see, ne!

We've just had an absolutely fantastic weekend with kirsten and carl down by the riverside; okay it's actually a dam. We left after work on friday a little worse for wear after a hard week at the grindstone and it was quite difficult to rustle up the energy to load the canoe and the bikes onto the car and go driving all the way down to the vaal even though it is only an hour and a bit away.

We haven't been down for a while so we took an accidental detour through vereeniging, of which the less said the better. We were relying on the GPS that is part of caron's new Nokia E71 but the maps are somewhat outdated so the closest we could get to vaal marina was vaal dam which only has 400km around it's perimeter so it was lucky that caron recognised the road as we approached and that we could find our way from there. I can see that navigating with the GPS is going to be a bit of a learning experience.

Saturday, carl and I started with a 90km ride at an average of 26km per hour which meant that I was pretty tired before we started the boating and canoeing and finished the day up with a braai and lots of whisky, cigars and wine. The ride was great and I managed to finish it quite strongly. There was only one real hill on the ride and it is quite a hill, fortunately it is quite short but it nevertheless managed to push my heart rate up to 107%; I think I need to adjust my max heart rate to 190bpm so that I only just get to 100%.

Sunday was a bit more relaxed and we all rode to the local cafe to have breakfast and then rode back, me pushing caron up the minor hills along the way. Caron really needs to get out and exercise some more. This was followed by more paddling around the vaal marina section of the dam with the kids which was quite hard work since they don't really paddle much leaving me to paddle into the teeth of the gale that was blowing. Alistair and I found the perfect canoe mooring between two jetski moorings, it couldn't get any more snug. When caron got in the back of the canoe it felt like we were on turbocharge but unfortunately we ran out of time to get a real workout for caron in.

Back to the house, pack up and leave; get home, unpack; pack a picnic basket and head off to the RMB starlight classical concert with kim and maureen. The concert was engagingly conducted by richard cock; what were his parents thinking when the named him "dick cock" on purpose, I mean really!

The concert was a little chilly and one could see one's breath as we watched the performers, several of which were truly excellent. Dick the conductor wasn't joking when he noted that there was a excess of talent when they had to choose the 20 tenors to make up the "20 tenors" (Duh!) group. What a fantastic group, they're already great and they've only just been formed. There was also a saxophonist called shannon something or other who was great but the soprano singing verdi or something or other left me totally cold. I'm not old enough to appreciate opera and I like it that way!

A fantastic if a trifle busy weekend. The moral of the story is not to let a little tiredness get in the way of going places and enjoying your time with the people around you.

The day of the dog

The sunday mountain bike rides are turning out to be quite eventful these days. Although there weren't any dead bodies blocking the path this week it was just as interesting. The day started at 04:45 and it is amazing how much having the first digit on the clock being a 4 makes it feel so much earlier than if it was a 5. Met up with Jason at his place and watched the sun rise over the horizon as we cycled down to meet Vaughn before heading over to Nothern Farm where we met Vaughns brother Scott and a couple of his mates.

While we were milling around waiting for scott to get his kit together there was this dog wandering around not taking too much notice of us but when we set off he followed us. After a kilometer it was clear that he was keen on a real run; keeping up with the bicycles quite easily, especially on the uphills. At the tops of hills he would wait for us, maybe have a lie down in a pool of water as if to say "... so what took you so long?" By the 15km mark jason was starting to work out how he could entice the dog to follow us all the way home. He was clearly very experienced with bicycles because when he was going downhill and he could hear you coming up behind him he would jump off the track and wait for you to pass before getting back on the track. By the 25km mark Jason was in awe and the dog was in danger of being muttnapped! I'm not sure exactly how far we rode with the dog loping alonside but it must have been quite close to 30km although you could see that he was getting at bit tired right at the end; one can easily understand being tired after a 30km run.

Jason's rear brakes have been binding a little which makes it very difficult to pedal; this I know from experience! While I enjoyed getting to the top of the hills ahead of everyone else, I think I may be in for a tough time when jason gets his brakes sorted out.

On our way home we were cycling next to each other about a metre apart and a snake crossed our path slithering in front of jason and behind me; clearly terrified and moving as fast as he/she or it possibly could. That would have been an experience getting a snake wrapped up in one's wheel.

Cathy and her sister Robyn, Vaughn's wife plus attendant children met us at northern farm for coffee so that the husbands could take the children for a bit of a ride. This seems to really work out well for everyone and if it wasn't for church I'm sure Carl and Kirsten would enjoy it was well.

Becoming a statistic

I arrived home from work on friday to find my front gate next to the opening it is meant to close; not good! Walking into the house I found my mother and father-in-law sitting in the lounge, a bit shell shocked that some miscreants have invaded our privacy and made off with our possessions.

Piecing together the modus-operandi it was obvious that a crow bar is a very useful implement if you are a thief. A crow bar can be used to break open pretty much anything short of a bank grade safe and this is what they used to break the rack on the front gate enabling them to open the gate. Any physical security measure that is actually workable vs a crow bar; something has to break and it isn't going to be the crow bar. The crow bar also made short work of the sliding door and they must have been in the house no more than five minutes but in that five minutes they made off with both Caron's and my PC as well as my brand new LCD TV. Very inconvenient because the took my entire photo collection, including the backups on CD leaving me with only one remaining copy which I desperately hope is ok.

Roland law of escalating security: Accept that you are going to get ripped off every now and then, insure accordingly and without making it easy for the opportunist miscreants, don't make it difficult for the real criminals. You are entering an arms race where the opposition isn't bound by the same morals that you are so don't enter the race.
By way of examples;
Car hijacking used to be unknown but then everyone put alarms and immobilisers into their cars making it all but impossible to steal an unoccupied car. The bandits escalated to stealing the car while you are inside; personally, I would rather not be inside the car.
Once upon a time, criminals would steal or copy a credit card so VISA and Mastercard put PIN's on the card to prevent this. What do criminals do? well they kidnap (worst case scenario but it has happened) you and your card and force you at gunpoint to divulge the PIN. Personally, I would rather they just took the card and left me alone.

The moral of the story is that if you make it difficult enough for criminals, they aren't going to stop stealing because it is difficult, they're just going to change modus operandi and because their reluctance to the use of physical violence is less than most peoples, it is most of the people that lose more than just their possessions.

Don't get me wrong, I don't condone in any way criminal behaviour but in the bigger scheme of things, possesions are just money and if you value them more than you value your and your families well being you really should start examining your priorities as a human being.

One of the things we purposefully did was to make one of the entrances to the house easy to break into so thieves can get in and out with whatever they are taking as quickly as possible. While making physical entry easy, we do have an alarm so that they know that they have only 5 minutes before big guys with big guns arrive to take them on. This is a conscious effort not to prevent theft but to limit it in a similar manner to a credit card. Yes, it can get copied and used fraudulently but at the end of the day, there is only so much the criminals can get away with.

Surprising, even now after a few days, I am unable to actually get cross about the missing possessions. Sure it is annoying and it is going to cost a bit to replace everything but nobody was harmed and it isn't anything worse than an expensive inconvenience.

Third World Ingenuity

Burglars aren't what they used to be ...

Sunday morning was going to be a nice gentle ride with He who shall remain nameless. I was just waking up when I received a message informing me that He would be late as they had had an attempted burglary. Although we do live in a crime ridden environment it still isn't an everyday affair so it was a relief that everyone was fine and the would be burglar was languishing in jail.

During the ride the whole story came out bit by bit. It started at 04:00 with the fence alarm going off and loud noises at the door or window. He, obviously, called the security company and the cops and they arrived in due course to catch the miscreant who was still on the property. They knew this because He had re-armed the fence and it hadn't gone off again but after 30 minutes of searching they couldn't find him and this is not a big piece of ground we're talking about here. The mystery of the vanishing burglar was resolved as dawn broke and he could be seen perched on the top of the water tower - an ingenious place to hide but one entirely lacking in an escape route.
An hours worth of trying to get him down was eventually brought to an end by the promise of a cigarette which he gratefully accepted and started to climb down. It took him an inordinate amount of time to climb down and the reason for this became clear when he reached the ground and picked up his crutches and hobbled over to get his cigarette. I had to concentrate on staying on my bicycle at this point as images of the burglar gaping it over the veld with a TV on one shoulder, crutches flying ... You get the picture I'm sure.

By now, He - the would be victim, was starting to feel quite sorry for the burglar and asked the burglar what he was trying to steal. The burglar didn't really know but said that he was really hoping to get shot in which case he would've ended up in hospital. At least there are beds there and food every day but it gives you an indication just how utterly desperate sections of our society are becoming.

Of course, the burglar could be lying through his crutches but somehow I don't think so. I think that we are going to see more and more people that are utterly destitute in our society and it is incumbent on those of us that have the wealth to spread it around.

More (or less) Power to ya

Power is becoming a major topic of conversation here so I read with great interest the loss of BHP Billiton's business by Standard Bank because a senior executive from Standard Bank dared to suggest that BHP's smelters should be shut down to get South Africa out of it's electricity spiral. For a company to react as BHP did shows me two things, firstly the level of maturity of the top management of BHP is not what it should be and secondly, they (BHP) are clearly hyper sensitive to this issue. When people are this sensitive to something it usually means that they're in the wrong or guilty of whatever they are being accused of.

Maredi Mogodi, spokesperson for BHP, states that "the view was uninformed" so I would challenge BHP to put data in the public domain so that we, the public, can conduct an informed debate about the smelter's electricity usage.

Specifically, I would be very interested in the gross consumption in MW by individual smelters and the price paid to ESKOM for the electricity by month for the last two years. In addition, I would like to know how many people are employed at each smelter.

Of course, the first response as it is of all charlatans, is that this is private or privileged information to which I would say the following. BHP clearly knows that it doesn't get the cheapest power, how does it know that if it doesn't have access to other companies private or privileged information. Secondly, until the data becomes available we, the public, can make whatever claims we like because BHP is withholding the information that we require in order to make "informed decisions" as they say.

Reference : M&G 4 April 2008 "BHP says it does not get the cheapest power"