Margot and Zara: June Diary Writing

What animal is that?

Margot’s June writing

1/6/10

Bitza

A few weeks ago Zara, my sister found a tedy (teddy) in a tree at Hluhluwe game reserve. It’s position was quite funny; he was lying on tummy with his front paws and his head over one side of the branch and his back legs and tail the other side.

Zara wanted to keep him but Dad said that we should leave him. In the end Mum said that we would keep him but leave our phone number on the tree. Some days later, we got a text from someone and it read:

“ Hi, I am Liz. My son Tom lost his teddy in Hluhluwe. I gather you found him. Please call me back on….”

Zara was so pleased and we were too! The problem was that they lived in Balito and Balito is 3 ½ hours away from here!

When we went down to visit Grandad, we decided we would drop Bitza on the way back. The next day we arrived at Balito just in time for tea. Tom went mad when he saw Bitza. They had some lovely chocolate muffins on the table and they gave Zara and I each a “Charlie and Lola” magazine and a Kinder surprise egg! We said a big thank you and Tom did too!

4/6/10

Comrades

Dad had been training for the Comrade marathon since February. He has been dreaming about running it from when he was a high school boy. The Comrades is an 89.4km running race from Pietermaritzburg to Durban with 23,000 runners. Dad had never run the Comrades before.

He got up for his morning training at 5:00 O’clock and came back at 7:30. We didn’t see Dad much except for breakfast, sometimes lunch and dinner. I am happy that the Comrade is over.

Sit back in your chair and let me tell you a story about Dad and how he finished an 89.4km running race in 8h53minutes.

“Creek” went the floor as Dad got up before his race. “Zara” I called to my sister, “ do you want to see Dad start his race”? “Let me sleep”, she said as she rolled on her side of the bed. “OK then” I said and cuddled back under the thick woolen blanket. “Good bye girls” Dad shouted out from the doorway of our room. “Good brrrrye Drrrrad” Zara said Sleeply.

“Brrrrr” I heard the car drive down the driveway. I felt bad about not coming to see the start.

After breakfast mum drove us to the second drink stop. We parked on the side of the N2 and walked up a side road and onto a bridge. Everyone else was shouting to the people they knew that were running. We didn’t get to shout to anyone, we didn’t see Dad.

At the third stop we didn’t see him either but along the road on the way to the fourth stop we saw a big crowd of people running and one of them held a flag in the air. Then we saw a little man in a white and red shirt with a cap…it was Dad! We sprang out of the car and ran to the sidewalk. “Hi, Dad!” we all shouted and threw him some goodies. “Well, see you at the finishing line”. I waved to Dad as he ran away with the group. At the finish line we couldn’t find anywhere to park. It was chaos. Dad felt a bit sick when we found him after parking. Dad was exhausted, so were we. Well done Dad!

Lilac Breasted Roller

14/06/10

If Aliens invaded Earth…

If Aliens invaded Earth in their oval shaped flying saucers armed with guns that shoot poison that kills you in one second, what would become of us humans?

Would we get extinct? Maybe they would turn us into frogs or something disgusting. All the beautiful marigolds and irises would droop to the ground as the bright lights of the space ships approached and lowered their ladders to attack.

But what if Aliens were nice and offered to bring us to their planet. What if they looked like us but could breathe in outer space. What if in their world everything could walk and talk. What if they lived in Lollyland and everything was made of candy. What if from their world you could go to the attraction park in the blackhole.

I would like to meet an Alien and I bet they would like to meet me!!

11/6/10

Horses

Horses are mammals. They have four legs and hooves. Horses have lived for the past 45-55 million years. They were once a small multi toed creature. Most horses today are domesticated but the only real wild horse is the Przewalski’s horse, as well as some common populations. Horses can sleep standing up as well as lying down. The mare (a female horse) carrys (carries) her young for about 11 months and the foal (a baby horse) can stand, walk and trott (trot) soon after birth. Most domestic horses start training at about 2-4 years of age and this is when you can ride them. They reach full adult age at 5 and have a lifespan between 25-30 years. They have three temperatures of horses blood: hit, cold and warm. There are over 300 breeds of horses in the world today used for many different things. Horses were historicly (historically) used in warfare. Horses provide many products for us such as meat, milk, hide, hair, bones and medcines (medicines). We provide food, water, shelter and care/attention to domesticated horses. The oldest horse we know of is called “Old Billy” and he lived to 62! Horses can run very fast to escape from predators.

Horses are amazing!

Art at home!

18/6/10

Mozambique

On Wednesday, my friend’s dad Joseph invited our family to their family home near Mozambique. It didn’t seem a long dive. When we arrived, they had set the outside table under the magnificent flowering yellow and pink mango trees ready for lunch. The table looked very nice because the table cloth had happy looking pompoms hanging down from the edges of it.

Joseph is a Tongan. Tongans are people that lives in Tongaland, an area from the South African/Mozambique border to south of Maputo, the capital of Mozambique.

Me and my friend Siphesihle played with cards while Mlando (her brother) played hide and seek with Zara, my sister.

For lunch, we had some nice Tongan dishes. There was some mashed potato stuff that tasted kind of like mash sugar beans (it was really nice), with some lamb gravy and cassava (an underground long potato). When I was eating my lamb, I realized there was only fat but I didn’t want to spit it out in front of everyone so I swallowed it! It didn’t taste very nice!

After lunch, we drove up the dusty road to the Mozambique border. The border itself was quite small and if you had spike-proof gumboots and gloves, you could probably climb over it! It was easy to get to Mozambique because there was like a V-shaped gap in the razor wire fence. On the other side of the fence, there was a nice little market. I tried springbok meat there. We were sad when we had to go but we will see each other another day.

28/06/10

On Sunday last week, Dad drove down to Durban to pick-up his sister Amanda, his brother-in-law Johan and his nephew Nick. Amanda is probably my favourite aunty. When we are with her, she almost always treats us. She has short orangish coloured hair and is very practicle. Johan isn’t much different except that he hasn’t got orangish coloured hair . He works for an insurance company and is quite sporty too. Nick is a quite boy, always reading or finding something to occupy himself. (I guess there is nothing better to do if you are a single child!) and he is twelve years old.

We planned to have a one week trip with them but because they aren’t the full on camping type, we had to stay in luxury resorts the whole way!

We started off by staying at Hluhluwe/Umfolozi research center, then we went to a real nice place called Nibela Lake lodge. Then we had to come back home because it was Amanda’s birthday, Andrew and Maddy (our Friends from Mseleni) were leaving and it was Bafana Bafana vs France game. It was a real cool party!

The next few days, we stayed at Kosi Bay Cottages, Tembe Elephant park and Rocktail Bay lodge. We don’t usually get visitors so we had to make the most of it! Next time we get friends, we will have holidays for one whole month!

Zara’s June writing

1st June

I went to the Royal Show. Kobus was going to arrive (arrive), but we left too early. At the Royal Show, I went on a scery (scary) ride called Spin Doctor. I cride (cried) after that. I will never go on a Spindocter agane (again).

7 June

Aliens

Aliens come from Kindoo. Kindoo is a big, round planet where all Aliens live.

It depends how many legs they’ve got. If they’re green, they‘ll have three legs and if they are red, they’ll have six legs.

Aliens have a bad habit when they eat. They leave all of their food scraps on the ground. Then, the planet sucks up all their scraps on the ground and shoots them out into their lunch boxes.

I might meet an Alien one day. Would you like to come with me?

11 June

Zara wrote a truly amazing story book with fantastic illustrations about a teddy she found in a game reserve and that got reunited with its four years old owner 10 days after. The book is being printed and assembled by a printing company. She intends to sell it!

15 June

I am Zara. I love rabbits. Rabbits are nise (nice). Did you know that I’ve held one befor? (before).

Some of them have infecshons (infections) on them. I would love to have one. One got killed for us to eat. I wanted one that was allive (alive). I wanted one that was black, cute, fury and snugly.

20 June

Ones apon (once upon) a time, we went to Michelle and Sarah’s place for a party. At the party, we had berryany (Biriani). Berryany is quit (quite) spicy. Everyone wanted my book that I made. My book has twelve pages and it is called “Zara found a teddy”.

29 June

We had a big party at home. It was fun. We met lots of peplle (people) there. I loved it because we had some cake. When we had finished the party, we had a small shower.

Whalesharks on Saturday, Elephants on Sunday.

I was supposed to work this week-end but the rota was amended to my advantage and we found ourselves wandering what to do. Friday night got gobbled up pretty quickly with an excellent session at the Sodwana Lodge with a crowd from the hospital. We braai’d in true Safrican style with buckets of steak and cases of beer and ranted at Bafana-Bafana in their opening World Cup game. Reluctant to risk the roads and wandering cattle we booked in at the Lodge and enjoyed a bit of comfort and a real bath, which doesn’t exist in our Park-home. The morning was bright and clear so we negotiated child care and rushed off down to the beach to join one of the local dive operators. They were off to 7-mile reef, touted as one of the top ten dive sites in the world. The dive was good. The usual array of impossibly bright, coloured fluorescent fish, exquisite nudibranchs, honeycomb speckled morays with gaping mouths and a green turtle gliding by, calm and serene. Busy clown fish defend their anemones and slide between succulent tentacles and a massive, curious Potato bass, drifts up to us to see what we’re up to. We get back in the boat, raving, but the fun has only just started. A pod of dolphins beckons us into the water and we swim with them briefly only to be distracted by a massive submarine-like shape beneath us. A huge whale-shark glides gracefully along the sandy bottom, her massive mouth gaping and pilot fish fussing about her. We swim along above her, mesmerized and humbled by this spectacular site, literally at our fingertips. She rises up briefly towards us as if to say farewell and then plunges away into the blue depths leaving us numb and ecstatic.

After a delicious pancake brunch in Sodwana we drive west to the Ubombo Mountains. A dusty, rutted road takes us to the spectacular Jozini dam and from there we climb along the spine of the range with spectacular views down over Swaziland. We pass the grave of Dingaan, the great Zulu king, and continue to the high hamlet of Ingwavuma. Here we are hosted by Afrikaans locals who have lived here for more than 20 years, he running the local hospital and she starting, firstly a school, and then a world-renowned tapestry business to provide work and income for destitute women, victims in this Aids ravaged area. We continue onto the next range and there camp next to Border cave and enjoy crystal clear night sky and shimmering bright stars. The next morning we find a guide at the local store and for a mere R20 are guided to the cave, tour the little museum and learn how this is the site of some of the oldest human remains in Africa. We enjoy breathtaking views over Swaziland again and revel in being up high again.

We start our trek home and our route takes us past our much-loved Tembe Elephant Park. It is late but we have about an hour to enjoy the nearest hide. We are lucky to see a massive bull enjoying a sand shower and then a number of antelope come down to the water for their evening refreshment. As night settles in we leave the park to make the short drive home, glowing in the memory of these beautiful creatures with whom we are privileged to share this amazing world.

African Potpouri

I sit here now in the fresh dawn listening to the dogged tapping of a woodpecker in its quest to ferret out bugs from the tree bark and also a myriad of other shrill and sonorous chants that make up the dawn chorus. We are camped in the thick bush of one of the many private game reserves that abound here in Northern Zululand and this morning were treated to a Nyala doe and her calf grazing near our tent. Ilda has gone for a bike ride, which is an option in these smaller non-“Big 5” game reserves, although there are elephant here which I hope she avoids! I am relaxing in post Comrades bliss and the girls are still tucked up in their tent awaiting more sun.

The 89km Comrades Marathon from my old home town of Pietermaritzburg to Durban, on the coast, was the realization of a childhood dream. The highlight for me was not so much the finish, where members of our sub-9hour ‘bus’, whom I had run with for about 60 of the 89km, locked arms and finished together in a bunch of about 30 exuberant runners, but the start in PMB. Huddled together with about 23 000 other excited runners in the chilly, dark predawn under the magnificent floodlit city hall, we sang together. First it was “Shosholoza”, then the national anthem and finally Vangelis and the theme tune from Chariots of Fire. It was a stirring start to the ‘Ultimate Race’ and this year there was even more pomp and ceremony as it formed part of the preparations for the World Cup Soccer. Thank you so much to those who sponsored my run in support of the local Aids Children’s Home.

The World Cup Soccer is about a week away and the sound of the “Vuvuzela” is already deeply engrained in our psyche. Someone seems to be blowing one at least 24 hours per day! Given the traffic chaos at the end of the Comrades, a mere 2km from the soccer stadium, I have grave concerns for the fluidity of the World Cup and recent coverage in the press suggests that the local Durban Emergency Departments are barely equipped to manage a major car crash let alone a stadium disaster. We have elected to follow the football from the comfort of our neighbour’s living room!

Things have definitely brightened up on the home front and our loo is flushing again and the septic tank has ceased discharging. Ilda even started one day with “do you know what I love about living here?.....the simplicity of our life!” I nearly fell over and at last all the frustrations seem to melt away. The girls are still plagued with various ailments and although the sandworm has left Zara, ringworm has infested Margot! Home-school is going very well and I loved Margot’s comment “I love playing with Serena because they don’t have a TV and she has imagination!” which suggested that we were on the right track. Zara too, after I had turned her light out came in to our room sobbing “but I’ve got the reading bug and HAVE to read……!” Everyday I am thrilled with what they have done and they earnestly recite poems or demonstrate the latest bugs or paintings. It is fabulous too not being restricted by school terms so that we can travel and explore ad lib. They both had a day at Cowan House in Hilton recently to get a taste of ‘real’ school and absolutely loved it.

I am now spending more time in the OPD/ED and have been able to get more involved. This week I continued my quest emptying out filthy cupboards with rotting bandages and POP and continue to try and get some order into the place. We introduced a triage system, which amazingly is an alien concept here, where time of arrival means everything and how sick you are irrelevant, if you got here first. The World Cup soccer has been the catalyst as we had an order from on high to introduce a triage system and so thankfully I am not the bad guy.

We have had some fascinating and tragic cases. A 30 yo woman lit a candle in her hut early one morning unaware that her husband had placed a leaking barrel of petrol nearby. She had about 80% burns to her body but thankfully managed to fling her young baby to safety. She survived long enough for us to get iv access via a cut-down and give her much needed morphine to ease her agony. A 13yo boy came into my clinic with strange depigmented patches over his extensor surfaces, spoon nails and stumpy fingers. He probably has leprosy. My quick ward round last Thursday before my clinic turned into an epic. A 16 yo paraplegic boy who had previously had a tumour cut out of his spine now presented with a relapse of his leukaemia. His kidneys had failed and his biochemistry was pre-terminal. He was groaning in desperation and we were only able to palliate him with morphine. Right next door a 55yo man was struggling to breathe as an aneurysm of his carotid artery encroached on his airway. An oropharyngeal airway eased things and the vascular surgeons in Durban were happy to see him. He didn’t survive the 4 hour ambulance trip. Then there was the 34week pregnant woman with the headache who fitted in the waiting room. Her BP was a catastrophic 145/110 and we treated her with the mandatory magnesium, first iv and then 2 massive injections into her buttocks. We induced her, as delivery is the only definitive cure, and she had a healthy daughter the next morning. Or the snakebite chap whom we all saw and discharged and who then represented 2 weeks later with his fracture-dislocated ankle that we all missed! The 30 yo woman who presented short of breath and with the aid of our now-working ECG had atrial fibrillation. We successfully cardioverted her only to see her relapse the next day and despite an hour of CPR and a multitude of shocks for every rhythm imaginable we lost her. We think a nasty cardiomyopathy was to blame and, as always, HIV.

The HIV saga continues and although we have spanking new guidelines, introduced in 2009, we don’t have the drugs to go with them. Our promised new dream drug, Tenofivir, has failed to materialize and our pharmacy has a mere 1590 tablets, enough for 20 patients for about 2-and-a half months! Circumcision has been mooted as the next wonder ‘cure’ for HIV as it is supposed to dramatically reduce transmission and so we will all be vigorously chopping of foreskins in an effort to make a dent in this catastrophe. Then hidden under the HIV coat-tails, TB is taking a grip like never before and is cleverly disguised so that all the tried and trusted drugs are failing and resistance is escalating dramatically.

Enough, I think. Let me leave you with images of early morning runs along dusty red tracks, heavy mist and speckled Mguni cattle suspended motionless. Figures emerging in the dawn light with bucket on head or school books tucked under arm. Then the golden African sun appears, majestic and warm, arcing up into a cloudless sky, mist dissipates and the cocks stop their incessant crowing and the day begins.

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M + Z May writing

Elephants at Hluhluwe

Margot’s May writing

3/05 Ushaka Marine World.

On Friday last week, we stopped at Durban for an hour and a half before granny had to catch her plane at the airport. Granny wanted to take us (Me, Zara, Mum and Dad) to the aquarium. A man warned us that the aquarium wasn’t like we thought it would be. We did a really nice walk along the beach to get there. When we arrived, we certainly agreed with what the man said! It was soooo different. There were 2 main parts; Wet n’ Wild which was the swimming part and Sea World which was the aquarium part of it. The main place was called Ushaka marine world. It was quite a lot of money so Granny said that she would wait outside. The Sea World would close soon so we only did Wetn’Wild. We also managed to persuade Granny to come inside and in the end she did.

It was so much fun because first you go down a water slide, then it spits you into a stream and you go past big tanks with sharks and fish and you go under bridges and through an old wreck. We were very sad when it came to the end of the day.

a Cassava

Cashew nut trees

17/05 Our visit to the Cashew nut farm

Last week on Friday, Mum took Zara, Wentzel, Annalou and I to the Coastal Cashew nut Farm located on the road to Mabibi.

We drove to the front door of the factory and went to sit in an office to hear the history of the cashew nut farm. We sat for ages listening and in the end, we got fidgety. The lady offered to take us on a tour of the farm and we shouted “Yes!”. The farm was really big so we had to take the man’s car. It was quite squishy because it was a Bucky and the lady was a “big Mama”. They also grew pineapples and an underground, long potato called “cassava”.

We bought some cashew and we are now doing a project on them. It will be fun!

24/05 Lions at Hluhluwe

On Saturday, Andrew and Maddy invited us to Hluhluwe Game Reserve to stay with one of the game ranger in a bush hut in the middle of nowhere. There were lots of other people there, at least 14 of us! The hut was very small. It only had a stove, a fridge that didn’t work and some mattresses. The mattresses were piled on top of each other length-ways and me and Zara made some hiding places underneath them.

When night fell, we had a “spag bol” (Spaghetti Bolognaise) heated on the fire (braii). Everyone slept on the deck outside but me and Zara slept inside because there were hyenas next to the hut.

The next morning, Mum woke us up for sunrise. It was really beautiful with all the different shades of red, orange and yellow. Later in the morning, we went on a game drive. First, we drove past four white rhinos grazing the grass with their big flat mouths.

They were a bit like lawn mowers and they were so fat! A bit further on there were some more but they had very pointy horns because they were females and male’s horns are blunt because they fight a lot. We watched the rhinos until another car came behind us. We were only a few meters down from the rhinos where we spotted some big orange figures in the bush, some ears twitching and heard some moaning noises. Then, something started moving towards us and we saw that they were actually lions! When they stood up, they looked 10 times bigger than they did when they were lying down. They were almost the same colour as the sunrise! It was a mun and dad and they sparkled in the morning dew. The only thing we didn’t see in the big five were leopards!

27/5/10

Distance learning

I like being home-schooled, partly because we have a game reserve a few kilometers down the road from here. It is also nice to have such a “laid-back” mum, except mum gets really stressed-out when Zara (my little sister) gets all the attention.

Sometimes, we go on special outings to game reserves and end up making projects on African animals. I have also done a project on cashew nuts and pineapple ice-cream.

We also love to receive big parcels from our correspondence school teacher in NZ. We enjoy opening them and finding surprises in them!

We usually do some exercise before we start school. Then, we recite or choose a poem to read aloud to our friends. We normally only have about 4-5hours of school every day, unless we are being lazy! We start at 8:00 and finish at 12:00.

Home schooling is fun!

Margot

Zara’s May writing

5/5 My Taddpolls (tadpoles)

I cort (caught) ten taddpoll’s in a pond. Dad came with me. I broght (brought) them home. Ther (there) were little wons (ones) and big wons! I love them to bits. They sound like pigs when they crock (croak) when they are adollet (adult) frogs.

11/5 The ant and the elephant

The elephant was trumpeting all down the street,

And the ant was chattering with his fleet.

The ant steped on his feet,

And the elephant ran away with a big Eeck!

18/5

It is Uju’s birthday and we are invited there. Uju is my best friend. I love birthdays. She is terning (turning) four years old. I am making a card for her. Her present (present) is my bicke (bike) because it is too small for me.

12/5

We fond (found) 4 kittins (kittens) with 1 mum. (They are verry (vey) wiled (wild). They live under my house. We feed them every day. They have got a siknes (sickness). I wold (would) love to have one. I wold have the black and white one. The end.

20/5

I have only got four pages to go in my book. I am going to do two pages. When I have finished this book I will get a new one. The end!

Zara