Forever Friends

I just love stories of how good friends meet.  The one of how I met Charmaine is one of my favourites.

In my matric year I announced that I was off to Varsity College PMB to do a Diploma in International Hotel Management.  My dearest friends, who's family resided in Malawi at the time, told me that another friend of theirs was doing exactly the same.  I thought little of this at the time and went about finishing off what had actually been a great high school career (in hindsight, of course).

On the second day of Orientation Week at VC, we headed off to Water World in Durban.  Yip, I'm that old... uShaka had not even started construction yet!!  The most amazing and wonderful Falan and I had some brandy, awfully sneakily hidden in some ice tea bottles and were having a grand time!  While taking a break from the water slides and probably chatting up some poor guy or the other, we were just lying on the grass in the sunshine, and I overheard a girl mention that her family were from Malawi (at this stage we had not yet met any class mates).  With the brandy dulling what little brain-to-mouth filter I have, I looked her square in the eye and said "You must be Charmaine!"  Can you imagine?  Just arrived in a new country, knowing no one and some random, tipsy girl knows who you are!  If I was her, I would have moved away slowly and pretended not to know what the tactless girl was on about.  But not Charmaine.  Once she got over the surprise and I explained how I knew who she was, she obviously decided that although a little crazy, I wasn't any sort of psychopathic stalker, and of no real danger to her.  And I am so very glad.

I once read that soul mates do not necessarily have to be lovers, and I truly believe that I found my soul mate in Charmaine, who later became known as Sparky (it's a long story).  We had so many similarities, but enough differences to make life interesting.  Parties were never dull, and study time was serious business, and for two years Falan and I just about lived on the floor of Charmaine's bedroom at 'The Digs.'  We become regulars at local pubs and clubs an for a little while the world was ours for the taking, and we took all we could get.

Every time Sparky was set to head back home for holidays we would go out and insist the DJ play 'Leaving on a Jet Plane' as many times as we could and sing along as though we would never see each other again. (side note: sometimes she was going by car or bus, but that was besides the point).  Unfortunately the time did come when our next encounter was indefinite, and our world seemed to be coming to an end.  We were growing up, getting jobs, moving on.  Charms was headed to Zimbabwe, where her family had moved to, as she had a job waiting for her there.

The reason, you see, for this introduction to my friend Charmaine, is that now you know how I ended up on a 24-hour ride in the giant tin can of doom on my way to Zimbabwe.  The adventures we had there to be my next post.

Peace.
xx

Road Trips

There are very few things better than a great road trip.  As a complete list-making freak, I love the planning and packing and have many many lists along the way!  There are however, few things worse than a bad road trip, and a 24 hour trip in an 8-ton tin can of doom takes the cake of bad road trips!!

This time last year I was packing my bags (boxes of wine included) to head off to Zimbabwe.  One night in Harare and then to Lake Kariba for the long weekend.  I'll say right now that when there's a long weekend in S.A and Zim on the same weekend... Don't travel to Zim on an overnight bus!!!

The trip to the border post wasn't all that bad, despite a fire extinguisher going off under the foot of the sleeping co-driver.  To whoever invented those - Good job!!  I certainly felt like I was being extinguished.  And no amount of wet wipes or hand sanitiser could get rid of the grit that was now an extra layer of my skin.

A bit of a blurry view from the bus window.  Beautiful parts of S.A. I hadn't seen before.

I had been warned to take an open mind and closed shoes to the Beitbridge Border Post.  This was not warning enough for the chaos that prevailed.  Getting the passengers stamped and ready to go was the easy part, you queue by bus groups, so it goes pretty quick.  I was not particularly surprised by the level of unfriendliness with which I was received, but hey, it was late and I was thrilled to have gotten this far.

Getting the bus and all our luggage through was a different story... The buses all park on a field in a very loose description of the word queue.  And to get to the front of this queue you drive your 8-ton giant vehicle as though you are a taxi in the middle of Church Street on pay day.  After much arguing and yelling and fighting with other drivers and officials, I think they let us through so that our bus driver didn't end up dead or in jail - delightful chap he was.  And there we sat, and we waited, and we waited some more.  The deal is that they are supposed to check all your luggage before they let you through.  Seven hours later we were in exactly the same spot paying off some guy to let us through without having anything checked.  Now I understand that bribery and corruption is rife at border posts, and while I don't particularly agree with it, if that was the plan, why on earth did it take so long??

We finally arrived in Harare, a staggering 9 hours late, after a few stops in the middle of nowhere for toilet breaks, an extra hour stop to drop off/pick up more people, and making all of one friend.  I have never been so relieved in my life!

So a few words of advise for your next road trip...

- Never ever take a Citiliner bus, ever!

- You can never be over prepared (yes, you'll need those wet wipes!), and

- Unless you're driving, take a Valium or three!

More on my Zim adventure later.

Peace.

Moving again

It seems pretty fitting that my first blog post be a week and a half away from another move... Back to my folks house!

Now, this isn't permanent or for any reason other than I'm scheduled to have surgery next week to remove a neuroma from my foot.  For two weeks after that I need to stay off my feet as much as possible.  And let's be honest, where better to recover than with Mom and Dad?  The complicated part is that two weeks ago my Dad had a little accident on his motorbike and broke his ankle bone.  So my poor mother is going to have two semi-invalids hopping around her house on crutches for a while!  Let's hope she retains what sanity she has left after raising me and my two older brothers.

I have been in hospital more times and had more operations than both my brothers combined, so I think we know who the accident prone child was!  I always believed my brothers when they told me I could do something and that I'd be fine, and to be honest, I probably would still believe them.  Things didn't always work out as planned and I'd end up with a broken arm or broken teeth, but they were there, so really I was fine.  

To prove my point, here's a photo of them trying to put me in a pair of (police issue) handcuffs!!

So, this adventure is not a terribly exciting one and will be rather painful, but once it's done and healed I can start running again and get out on the road.  Man, I miss it!!  And then more adventures can begin...