Posts Tagged ‘South-Africa 2010’
|Cat murder
Friday, January 8th, 2010
Sunset in the African bushveld
I made it to SA and had 4 hours sleep when my step Dad woke me to propose we hit the bushveld for 3 days. Usually that’s not an issue for me, but having 6 parents makes things tricky, particularly if you haven’t seen them for over 3 and a half years. I figured I needed to debrief from the UK so I went a long and we headed for Naboomspruit, named after it’s abundance of highly poisonous and interesting Naboom tree in the Northern parts of South-Africa. It was gloriously warm with temperatures pushing past 30 degrees celcius every day. The heat didn’t deter the wild animals we saw in the neighboring camp and I hold a fond memory of my Step dad driving with his 4×4 Nissan Sani through the bush with a full glass of whiskey and spilling it all over himself as he navigated the bush roads.
The potholes on the roads here are larger than I remembered them and we narrowly avoided a collision with oncoming traffic trying to dodge a cauldron sized pothole. I think this is why it seems like 80% of road users own 4×4’s. Other things I’ve noticed is the huge gap that exists between those that have and those that don’t have, something I grew immune to before I left for the UK. It’s heart breaking and frankly, I’d be a criminal too if I had to live like some of the South-African people are forced to live here.
3 days ago, I went walking with my Mother in-laws dogs on their small holding and got a fright when one of the larger dogs, Ntsiki, sped away in a madden frenzy after something towards the shed. I now know the full extent of the term “ape-shit” when I saw Ntsiki trying to make her way towards the back of a fully packed shed after the creature. All her attention was directed towards a half full lawnmower bucket and I was forced to watch from the side of the shed through the wired fence. In the crazy 10 seconds that followed I thought she was after a snake or a skunk as she repeatedly retreated and attacked with her head ducking in and out of the lawn mower bucket followed by some yelps of pain. When Ntsiki next pulled her head out, it had a furious cat attached to her face. At the time I thought it wasn’t so bad since it wasn’t a snake ( we’ve lost dogs to the popular Rinkhals snakes who seems to thrive in the area ) but a few seconds later the dogs stopped being crazy and I managed to get them out of the shed. Poor wild cat. Almost eaten in half as it gave it’s last nervous system convulsions.
I buried it close to one of my favorite dogs.
WARNING:
Some images in this gallery is not suitable for sensitive viewers
2 days later with the murdered wild cat still fresh in my mind I thought I imagined hearing kittens. Upon investigation (and a lot of work keeping the dogs at bay) I found 3 kittens barely 5 days old meeoing their tiny little heads off. Shame, poor things didn’t know the half of it I thought as I organized some straws and reduced milk to force feed them and nurture them. If I had tits, I’d have gladly let them suckle on them. The next day, I took them to the SPCA for fear that the dogs would eventually chow them too if my in-laws were to keep them, something they considered because they were bloody beautiful and incredibly cute. I felt like a shit if I’m honest and the donation we gave didn’t do anything for the feeling of abandonment I was suffering but would you believe it, it turned out that they had a wild cat in the back that had 2 week old kittens running around like crazy. When the girl put the 3 orphans close to her, the rocketed like barracuda to her teets and went deadly silent as she let them suckle. I feel tears well up as I’m writing this and I’m thankful that I have never before been forced to deal with the issue of adoption.
This episode with the dog that killed the cat and her orphan kittens that got left behind brought up some strange reminders about my previous years in SA.
Ok, I’m off to see my Dad for the next 4 days and uber excited to learn that he is taking us to an art town nestled in the the Drakensberg mountains called Clarens. Bet your fur ball I’ll get some images for you 
Pool side service is pretty good here
Tags: clarens, constantia, dog killed cat, gauteng, kittens, krugersdorp, mpumalanga, naboomspruit, oaktree, potholes, South-Africa 2010, wild cat
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SA after 3 and a half years
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
looking forward to it YARRR!
If I didn’t move to the UK in 2004, I’d probably be dead and divorced by now.
When my skinny feet hit London Heathrow that day in June my life expectancy increased into something I could only describe as tangible inside me, even though I was hung over from the 3 stumpy Stella Artois that didn’t mix with my low blood pressure during the flight. Fast forward 5 years, 6 months and bet your ass, it feels like I’ve come to within an inch of running on empty.
Having to go back to South-Africa is like suspecting you have Colon cancer. You know it’s only a matter of time, but you don’t know what to expect and crying over it won’t help so although I have nothing to return to, nor anything to look forward to, I’m going to get the fuck up, and try to rebuild my life over there. Unless my plan and the efforts of many work and we make it back to the UK somewhere in the spring of 2010
While I’m there, I figure I’ll document my debriefing from a 1st to 3rd world developing country and take you on a virtual tour of my valley. I pan on taking pictures of the things people don’t get to see about SA, I plan to write about things the media can’t be bothered to publish because Katie Price left her cross dressing boyfriend and that sells better than the everyday horrors normal families have to live through. You can trust me when I say, I will go out of my way to find the good things about South-Africa too.
Wish me luck.
ps. Happy birthday DAD!
Tags: 2010, expat, Heathrow, immigrate, Julius Malema, Katie Price, resession, South-Africa 2010, stella
Posted in South-Africa 2010 | 2 Comments »