Missive from parts of Africa

A light hearted and sometimes serious look at moving 6000km into a place in Africa: April 2007. Promoted back to South Africa, the missive will continue to track my foray's into deepest Africa as and when I get there.

Name:
Location: Joburg, Africa, South Africa

Thursday, August 26, 2004

Updates from the car

Sheesh I have been rather remiss in updating my blog over the past week, which I can quite happily blame on month end (as accountants are wont to do) and the fact that I am now well into the 5am wake ups, which require sleep to be entered into around 9 in the evening. Am I a woes or not.

This blog gets written while I am once again doing the 4.5 hour drive to Bibiyani to attend a client’s shutdown. This is where I have to draw on the 15 years I spent around paper mill machines so that I do not look too much like a doos. I have worked out that the cyclone is a bloody big centri cleaner and pipes and pumps, are jars that – pipes and pumps. Should not be that difficult huh? *chuckle*

The last week has been pretty uneventful with work taking up most of my waking hours and the Olympics occupying the remainder. The rugby on Saturday was a nice break, when everyone broke at 12 here – remember we have a 2 hour time difference – and went to the respective places to watch the “final “ of the super 12. We ended up at the house with beer and biltong and a little bit of cheering meant that it was fun. The fact that we won made it that much more fun *chuckle*. We also have a large contingent of Aussies working on the project for the consulting engineers, and if I say there was a bit of needle, I would be underestimating it.

Braai in the evening, was accompanied by the fact we can send the security guard to “town” to find Captain Morgen. Three trips later he came back with Smirnoff which by that stage we did not give a damn and proceeded to kill two bottles post haste. A raucous party, with Ian losing all feeling in his legs and spending an inordinate amount of time in the loo. Rose left him with headache tablets for the morning.

Foolishly – and we do things like that when we are pissed – we agreed to go play golf the following morning, preceded by Jason (one of the site supervisors) making breakfast. A hangover breakfast was duly prepared the following morning, consisting of French toast, eggs, bacon (imported from Denmark), smoked sausage and orange juice. A stunning brekkie, which was just what was required.

Off to play golf. Imagine once again – a fourball of which 3 have played a few games of golf between them and ONE set of golf clubs. It was a hoot. The poor caddie and the spotter spent a lot of time running between people and thank fark we only played nine holes. They were buggered by the end of the day, but were well rewarded. I on the other hand now have almost no golf balls left, no tees left and my clubs were given a workout of note. We did laugh a lot tho. The fact the last 4 holes were competed in the pouring rain, meant our time in the pub was fun, drying out, drinking captain morgen and playing pool. R130.00 for the day (all of us), I love club prices, and I went home for my afternoon nap.

I did get a phone call from an old friend who too was pissed and it was good to hear from her. M thank you.

We have been awarded a nice contract just 30 mins away, and that should keep us in bread for a while at least. *g*

Other then that, the kidz are fine, I do try and speak to them once a week or so, Nessers is great and our mutual hawniness makes for some interesting email/sms/evening chats, Esther is still waking up late and not working too hard *chuckle*, and I do send her an SMS at 7.30 odd her time to piss her off. *chuckle*. My dad learnt the hard way that when Cyprus entered the EU, getting a visa is not possible at the airport. The fact that his travel agent did not tell him that and the fact that they allowed him on the plane without a visa is rather interesting. My sis phoned me this am (they 4 hours ahead of us, so the call was at 5.30 am) and updated me as to the fact the airline took responsibility for the fark up and have issued him a free ticket to go back next week. I can however imagine that he was less then a hoppy chap when he was detained at the airport and flown out on the ext plane.

Still planned home 01 October, which I am looking forward to no end. The work on my house is coming along, with curtains hung, aircons installed and furniture arriving slowly as they make it. The one interesting thing is the stove has vanished, and a bit of a slanging match ensued with the owner when he advised me it as my responsibility to supply a stove. Fark I was livid, threatened to cancel the cheque we had given him and stomped off before I hit him. The one thing that does bug me is cause you a brunie everything must be a handout as “you have lots of money”. This attitude pervades the system and everyone is chasing money without offering anything in return. It is rough when this issue is faced on a daily basis.

The chute is finally finished – refer previous blogs – and currently is been installed at the client. I will now go visit them – suitably armed with a case of whiskey – as see if we can recover from this fark up.

I have once again managed to get the Ghana nose drips, which I think is due to two hot nights when I slept with the airconditioner on. Bad form, and at least in the new house there is an aircon in the other rooms which can cool the place down, while I sleep with the bedroom door open.

Updated you are: Hopefully I will return more often as the news comes in.

Have a goody!!

2 Comments:

Blogger Esther said...

late is relative. One day I'll teach you all about how to schedule time effectively to your own advantage ;)
Then again, I have an almost perfect job.

9:58 AM  
Blogger Angie said...

Ooops!!!! Could have been worse, I could have called you at 7:30 a.m. our time :) Will keep in mind the difference in future. Sorry lil' bro.

Love ya.

1:14 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home