Today is the day or should I say I’m back after 5 years I’ve decided to add another post to my blog. To be honest I’d forgotten I had this blog until I received an email to say I need to pay – typical.

I have just re-read my blog from 2016, my trip to South Africa – what a great holiday, I really could have been more descriptive with my writing – my aim now is to really improve on my attention to detail and expand on my writing skills.

The problem has been I haven’t felt like writing, life has just been too busy, I could compare my life to London’s ring road the M25 – cars bumper to bumper, you could walk faster than the cars – it often looked like a car park. Well that’s been my life for the last 4 years. Now its time to clear the deck and make more time for me……………………….

My aim is to clean my office over the next week or so, complete an outstanding report and then I can spend more time writing – its hard to write amongst this clutter, my office is like; I want to say like a tip, but its not as bad, its not dirty just messy – like a jungle, no – its just full of stuff – papers, more papers, books, empty boxes, trinkets, crafts etc- I’ve got it – its like a maze, no – maybe it has the makings of a hoarder – that’s a better description.

That’s it for tonight – its bedtime and I have work in the morning – until next time

Ciao Bella

Jo’berg the concrete city – Joberg was very disappointing, its infrastructure failing, empty buildings and really for a woman travelling on her own not really the place to be. Thankfully I was only in Joberg for a couple of days – I needed to do something other than shopping – this was my last few days in Africa before going home and I wanted to connect with the land. By far Africa is one of the last wild frontiers so I decided that I would do another safari or some sort of tour. I had booked a Hot Air balloon experience which included a balloon safari, which I thought was so novel, fancy flying over the top of the animals of Africa. If you ever spend time in Johannesburg book a hot air balloon experience, it was one of the best things I did in Africa. Bill Harrop’s Original Balloon experience started with Mary collecting me from my hotel at some ungodly hour (4am ish) and then driving to her property – we were greeted with a beautiful hot cuppa and the  other 4 people who I was travelling with in the Balloon together with our pilot. We climbed aboard  had our safety brief and was ready for the adventure and watch the sun rise over the Magalies River Valley. It was breathtakingly beautiful experience, I never felt afraid at any point and saw many animals from the air – after we landed (by the way the pilot was amazing) we were treated to a fabulous English breakfast. I would highly recommend this trip for anyone who has some spare time. The hospitality of Mary and Bill was outstanding.

The second part of the day was spent with a remarkable man Tim Smith from WildSide Tours & Safaris. This was a one on one tour in which I had the most incredible experience getting up close and personal with the Elephants. We also visited a safari park, with lions (the one where a woman was killed by a lion). Lions are one of my favorite animals they are truly magnificent, as we are driving through where the lions were sleeping, I wondered how would anyone be so silly to get out of the car or even have their window down. In saying this when we were travelling through in the caged 4 wheel drive with a guide who was very knowledgeable about the lions, one of the men in the group asked the guide to “please can you wake the lions up so I can see they move” – i thought to myself you stupid fool….. there is one in every group.

Overall I had a fantastic time in Joberg – the city itself was a disappointing however I stayed in Sandton which is shaping up to be the new Joberg – The Sandton City Shopping Centre is first class – all the great  & exclusive brands – not that I really wanted to do any shopping I much prefered the safari’s.

  
This is the view of Port Elizabeth (PE) from the top of the lighthouse – this SA flag is the largest flag within SA and flies proudly in PE. 

I stayed at the Beach Hotel, which is just across the road from the beach and next door to the Casino (not that I visited the Casino). I spent quite some time on the beach front watching the waves – I have noted that the beaches I have seen have quite freroious waves at times – and when the wind is up all you can see is white caps on all the waves, it is fasinating to watch – I’m quiet capitvated by the waves, its almost hypnotic.

  
Port Elizabeth seems still quiet colonial and the buildings are reminsinant of a British influence, however some buildings are in need of repair. In is a rather pretty city and the people I met were gereally friendly.

My reason for going to Port Elizabeth was to go to Cradock where my grandmother was born. I hired a car and drove to Cradoch which was about 2.5 hrs north of Port Elizabeth. Driving in SA is easy the only thing you need to be weary about is not to stop along the way – make sure nothing is visible in the car that is worth being stolen, keep all handbags etc in the boot of the car- my phone and camera was kept in the glove box – before leaving Port Elizabeth I had contacted the pastor/minister of the Anglican Church I was visiting in Cradock to see the church records for my grandmother – he was expecting me around lunchtime.

It was a pleasant drive the roads were reasonably good, the speed limit was 120km (no reason to speed). I was monkeys and the occasional Baboon along the way. As I approached Cradock there where a couple of township close to the town, and it was easy to find the Church. The street was covered in Jacaranda trees, it was so quaint looking almost like a postcard.

After spending some time with the pastor of the church and going thought the church records we could not find my grandmothers records he suggested going to the Dept of Home Affairs – I thanked him, he gave me a blessing and I was further on my way, to the Dept of Home Affairs, thankfully this is a relatively small town and I didn’t have to wait long as I did when in Durban. You do have to remember when I Africa everything is on Africian time ( slow).

I spent several hours looking through the old birth registers, the one for my grandmother was destroyed in a town flood, however I think I found a sibling in a later register. For now I have come to a dead end however the searching continues.

I also went to the Dutch Reform Church to look at there records without any success …… I decided to have some lunch, the easiest was KFC and then decided to drive back to Port Elizabeth before it got dark.

The drive back was uneventful apart for stopping for a couple of photo shoots…..

Next stop Johanesburg …….

   
 My family journey has now bought me to Cape Town, my Grandfather William Ernest Botha was born here. The name Botha is far to a common name to chase, it is a typical Afrikaner name, as common as Smith and Jones is to the English. However my mother said he was a Methodist preacher and was very strict, so I wanted to explore Cape Town.

What a beautiful city – as I spied Table Mountain, I remembered twice leaving this African coast as a child once in 1963 on the SS Galileo Galileo (Lloyd Triestiono) and again as a teenager in 1971 on the FairStar – two long ocean vouages. I dont remember much except for watching the ship pull out of the harbour and seeing that beautiful mountain cradling the city and a long ocean journey.

  
  
On face value Cape Town seems a bustling cosmopolitan city with a diverse population. Mixed marraigeis the norm here, the disparity between the rich and poor is palable.  The population is roughly about 3.7 million in the metro area. The ethnic and racial make up according to the taxi drivers are roughly 40% coloured, 40% black, 12% while and the rest is whatever you see, I think he meant Asian or Indian. As opposed to Durban which has the largest Indian population outside of India.

Here the beggars are more prolific than in Durban and there are more security people here, so on almost every corner there is a secuity person, namely men. These secuirty people are there to make you feel safer. I have been relatively good whilst travelling in Africa, that is eyes forward and not engaging, for me this has been very difficult. However in Cape Town they come right up to you….”please madam, I am hungry, I need some food” not only are they saying this but they look hungry…. this one day I made the mistake and hesitated and looked at the woman, from then I was lost. She offered to go to the shop and let me buy her some food, I thought this was a great idea. We went to the local shop and she picked a large box of cornflakes, 2 litres of milk and a 500gm bag of sugar, she said for taste. I happily  paid and we both went our separate ways. A few seconds from leaving the shop a security man came up to me and said ” hello madam how are you today” I said good, have i done something wrong…. he said ” what does your heart tell you” I said my heart was happy… he said “then you have done nothing wrong…. and went on to say that I must not buy things for these people because they will sell them for drugs…that woman will sell it back to the shop keeper for money for drugs…..” I must say I felt very disapointed, did not know if what he said was true…but it stopped me from doing it again. Later that night I was buying my dinner from a chicken place simplar to Nandos and a boy maybe 10 – 12yrs asked for some food…. it was very hard….to know what to do…this was the ugly side to Cape Town.

The best way to see Cape Town if travelling alone is on the Big Red Bus tours, they are a great trip, hop on hop off…best way to see the whole of Cape Town, I did this as well as the Sun Set tour and the tour of a Township….. all though that was a bit unverving.

The other personal experience was I went to a Methodist service on Sunday All Saints day, I wanted to experience a Methodist Service and compare the difference between this and Catholism…. they were very friendly and welcoming… the service its self was slightly different but really the prinicples are the same… the Pastor Alan made a very impassioned sermon about the plight of the universtiy students and the need for calm and rational discussion…. I was truly capitvated by his sermon. We spoke after the service and he put me in touch with the the Rhodes University Cory Library in Grahamstown which houses the largest Methodist archives…. another step closer.

  
The weather was a little disapointing in that I had four days of cloud/sunshine and wind – wind meant that the cable car was not working to get to the top of Table Mountain…and to walk up was two hours, however the cloud also meant that the top was closed. Still I enjoyed looking down from the Table base and have had a fabulous time in Cape Town – it is well worth a visit….. next stop Port Elizabeth and I still have to write about Durban.

Durban host some great shopping centres. Gateway is a R50 ($5.00) taxi ride away from Umhlanga Sands Resort – I bought my new camera from there prices are comparable to Perth if not slightly cheaper – it has many shops very similar to the ones we have in Perth. It is comparable to Garden City or Morley Galeria. It also host several restaurants as you walk into the shopping centre – I have tried two so far, I usually buy a meal around 3-4pm then have something light if I’m hungry later. My bug bear is restaurants who say they are Italian just because they cook pasta  and it tastes awful, they have used to much sauce with little flavour – so now I have gone for steak meals or my mothers favourtie peri-peri chicken – the other food I really love and had forgotten how good it tastes – is samosa’s mince samosa’s – they just taste devine and I have only ever tasted good ones here in SA…… 

  

This afternoon I met a friend who lives in Bellair took me to this shopping center – it was lovely smaller than Gateway but shopping I’m used to – we had lunch at Mugg & Bean and I had my first real coffee from Gloria Jeans. I also bought my Big 5 African charm – LOOK a pandora – and Ian they even had a Jeep store. My friend lives in a secure complex with a secuity guard, she shops at this shopping centre and never goes far from home. Her friends and family all live in the same complex so she rarely has to travel far, she has created her own little world within the complex and she is happy. She rarely travels into Durban due to the crime rate and when she droped me back into Durban she was accompanied by her friend so she did not travel alone. 

Things I noticed; when I got into a car the doors where locked, handbags went in the boot or when I was in the taxi never on the seat, windows were never opened fully and you never stop for anyone – you never stare at anyone, and everything takes a long time to get done……A different way of living.
  

 

 
I remember Durban vaguely as a child when we lived in Africa, we visited my Aunt Violet who lived in Durban – 1971 and then again when I bought my children to Durban when we lived in Zimbabwe in 1987 – I remember my children commenting on the signs in Durban that said “for Whites Only” and the beaches were segregated – how times have changed, Durban has changed as you would expect – after doing the math it has been 28 yrs since I was last in Durban. I walked along the foreshore reminiscing when I bought the children to Durban and most of what was there is gone – much to my daughters delight as she was traumised by her mother treating the kids to a fun ride, which off course she hated and when she was on the ride she vomited over everyone – spinning vomit – well you live and learn, apart from that they did enjoy the holiday and the beach. If my mother had only shared her life I would have known the significance of Durban – it was her childhood place, but alas maybe for her she did not want to remember or share. From all accounts grandfather was a very strict man after all he was a Methodist Minister.

On my grandparents death notification it stated that they lived at 45, 6th Ave Durban which is in Morning side, so by all accounts they lived close to the city of Durban – it is really fasinating going back and tracing there footsteps. Most of the area has been rebuilt – it would be interesting to see if there are any old photos of the area – however I think I will do this via email, I dont fancy waiting in the long cues when dealing with government related issues – but I will follow this up before I leave.

  
The city its self is a bustling place and there are now many street vendors – they pay a small fee and can set up a stall – sadly the crime rate is through the roof and so is unemployment – I feel quiet unsafe walking through the city – I hid my camera and kept my bag close to me – both times I have been into Durban the taxi drivers have accompanied me and I must say I was grateful – off course there was a fee to pay but it was worth it.

Durban is also home to the largest Indian community outside India – both my taxi drivers were Indian one was 4th generation and he reported he only speaks English. I had forgoten how hilly Durban was – off course there is the Drakensberg – Durban has a fasinating history – from the Zulu, Boer and British wars – I am still confused by it all.

Apartheid my be over but you can still feel the racial tension between the different cultures – the taxi driver reports that there is approx 60% Africans, 10% Indian, 10% whites and 20% coloureds, my observation is that there is probably 5% whites, 15% Indians the rest African, I didnt see too many coloureds….but I only have a snap shot of one week I’ll have to consult Google when I get home.  The other thing that strikes me is the disparity between those that have and those that don’t – as many rich Africans there are twice as many that have none and equally I saw some young white beggers – its all very sad.

Africa is certainly a beautiful country, it has many political issues, corruption is rife and I am not sure how they will resolve their problems, however Africa will always be where my heart is – I feel at home here but could never live here again. I am grateful I live in a beautiful country which I now call home.

Go the Wallabies!!! 

Sitting at the Stellawood cemetry – I could not believe the transformation of the grave stone – from hardly being able to identify it to the restoration – it was just brillant – I also paid for a further 6 months maintenance   and will make a decision re what to do next when i get home. 

It is a beautiful sunny day, the birds are singing, the gardeners are working, I am sitting contemplating my life…..and suddenly I am over come with sadness then peace – In that moment I realised that my grandfather has been by my side guiding me all my life – I felt blessed and loved. I also realise that longevity is not on my side, my mother also died at 66 therefore I need to take care of me…. and my health is a priority.

I feel a sense of peace & achievement in finding and ensuring my grandparents grave is restored to how it should be – I also found out that at Stellawood Cemetry that the graves purchased in the 50’s are there for perpetuity – so if I wanted to be buried there I could be, not that I do – also now the graves are leased for 10yrs only – any grave without a tomb stone will be reused in 10yrs – even if the tomb stone fades and looses its writing they still can’t remove it, so my grandparents have there place in SA history – as for me I want to be cremated, none of this upkeeping of a grave. 

My job here is done, I will continue to find out more about William Ernest and Rose Jane, may you both rest in peace – God be with you. 

Your loving grand-daughter Pauline Rose xx