Please note: This post was uploaded at April 30th.
Hello everybody!
Time flies, unbelievable! I was asked a few times this
weekend to upload a new story and I thought to myself: “my god, I just did!” It
has been ten days already! Not that I didn’t experience lots of things!
Firstly, Puck and Brienne left last Thursday. So sad! They
are irreplaceable and I really miss them. Veetje (Vukani) is here to replace
them when it comes to cooking, because he also doesn’t know how to cook eggs
and rice. He also doesn’t know that you should turn off the gas cooker when
you’ve finished ‘cooking’. I sometimes still listen to Love on Top from
Beyonce, despite hearing it over 22933 times thanks to Puck. Last Sunday I
visited Umlazi with them for the last time and there I was recognized because
of my djembe-act in Cool Runnings. I think I should definitely stay here. I’m
becoming famous.
Second, my Iphone. It is a long stupid story so I’ll save you
guys that one. It’s gone anyway. There are definitely worse things than that. I
just learned that you have to be careful about whom you trust and that you
should always make sure you’re stuff is in a safe place. Yes I know you warned
me, but I like to learn the hard way;)
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| Green squad! |
Despite the fact that my two lovely roomies left I did have
another great weekend. On Thursday, we had an OneVoice teambuilding day at the
Botanic Garden. I put some of the photos on my facebook, which you may have
seen already. I had a great time! Every round was about teambuilding and
believing in yourself as a part of that team. In the first round we had to play
a board game. Our team was definitely the best team, but it turned out that the
bests don’t always win;) After that we made some sort of painting with all different
types of materials. The theme of the painting was Teamwork. Some pictures are
made off this painting, but I will upload them later because I don’t have them
on my computer yet. As I’m not the handiest person, I worked on painting the
letters and getting a tan. Got to know your talents here.. After this round we
had a quiz about general knowledge. Probably general knowledge in South Africa
is about knowing how long a snail can sleep, how many taste buds a pig has and
how fast a dolphin can swim. We had so much fun and I learned a lot haha. In
another round we had to fix this puzzle and build a brancard afterwards to run
a track with. After this we did the blindfolding game and some shooting with
bow and arrow. Thank god I wasn’t born as a man in prehistory, because I
would’ve definitely starved my family. After all, I had a great day and got to
know everyone a little bit better! I would love you guys to meet my colleagues
because they are all amazing people!
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| Red squad! |
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| Hard work! |
Friday I had the day off because of Freedom day. It
celebrates freedom and commemorates the first post-apartheid elections held on
that day in 1994. They were the first national elections in South Africa in
which the franchise did not depend upon race. This is quite a formal day and
not a good excuse to get drunk like our Queensday back in Holland. That’s why I
went to a Cricket tournament with the team which was also staying at Tekweni.
It was about time to get to know the game as it is one of the major sports in
South Africa. The first game was still a bit confusing to me but after a while
I really started to like it. After two games I got so enthusiastic, I got back
on the sideline on Saturday. Honestly, this was not the only reason for me to
come back. The team is really amazing and they’re all very nice guys. I want to
thank all of them for being so kind and generous during their staying in
Durban. Actually every single one
of you deserves a shout out here, but that would take way to long. Thanks guys
for the amazing weekend! I miss you already.
On Saturday I
went to an Indian Party with some people from Tekweni. We went there by truck.
On our way there the guys helped us girls very gently to climb in but on our
way back it was the other way around. Wati didn’t need any help to get off
though... The party was in Cuba at the stadium and we had a blast! The music
was great just as the crowd!
Another difference compared to Holland is the money and with that I mean
the notes. R10 is around €1 and most of the time when I’m winning money I
obtain R1000. That’s 10 notes of R100 because R100 is the highest note they
have. Can you imagine that the ten euro note would be the highest note we had?
I told Veetje that we even have €500 notes and he almost fainted. R5000 notes!?
How can you ever give change then!? Ehmm.. with €200 or €50 maybe? He shook his
head: I’m from a stupid country..
It could be a stupid country but some things around here are really
stupid to me too. Even at the busiest roads you can cross the streets here with
the ‘help’ of traffic lights. Just as in Holland you press the button and then
the red man will switch to green. The sign that you don’t have to watch out for
the cars anymore and you can just easily cross the streets. At least, that’s
what I thought. This little green man actually needs to tell you that no cars
will drive straight on anymore, but all the other cars will drive on! After
lots of hooting, I’m watching out very carefully now.
Today I finally did what I was postponing for 10 days, namely visit the
hospital. About two weeks ago I bumped my knee in the swimming pool, nothing to
worry about. Puck and Brienne both had a very bad infection after a similar
accident, but that won’t happen to me was what I thought. Luckily they left
their Dettol here, because my knee started to look like a fly agaric. It
started to hurt more and more and it didn’t look very well. I will spare you
the details. I took a cab to the hospital and had an appointment at 11:10 with
dr. Roberts. I was prepared to wait, because when Brienne went to the hospital
she had to wait for 3,5 hours. Luckily I only had to wait till 11:30 and my
doctor was a young Indian girl. She said she could see it was infected, because
it was red and infected (Are you kidding me?). That was it. Next up, pharmacy
to get the antibiotics. When I got there I was the first one up but I left
after another 7 clients. When I was waiting, this elderly tiny man came in. He
came to pick up medicines but these medicines weren’t there for the second
time. He had to come back the next day. He asked if he could spend the night in
the hospital. “What’s wrong sir? Are you not feeling well?” “No I’m fine, but I
can’t afford another taxi ride tomorrow. I can walk but that means that I won’t
be able to earn money”.
After another excuse he was sent back home. By foot. I could feel the
tears burning in my eyes and gave the man some money. This was the first time I
gave someone money, but this man spent all his money on medicines and now there
was this chance that he wouldn’t pick those up because he might not be able to
get there. He said to me that he was so grateful, because of me his daughter
would get better and because he didn’t have to walk tomorrow he would have more
time to earn money. Imagine... all these beautiful words for less than two
Euros...
As you can see, lots of things have happened again! I thought this would
be a short story but apparently not! I’m sorry! I hope you are all doing well
and I hope you guys enjoyed reading my new experiences! I’m looking forward to
your responses again. Be well everyone!
Lots of love Esther
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