Carefree Childhood

The most important responsibility of a parent, I believe. And the one that is the most difficult to deliver as we just cannot control everything that happens in our or our childrens' lives.

An Adventure - Discovering the Cradle of Mankind

We were on mid term break the other day, so I took my kid of to the Cradle of Mankind to learn all about where the earth and humanity started. It was so interesting and he lapped all the information up. I was really scared that he would get bored half way through as it is rather intense and packed with scientific information. But he loved it, we went from exhibit to exhibit and he never tired at all.

Running past the creation of earth, on our way to the underground boat ride through the ages
As we slid down the ramp into the belly of mother earth, I noticed that my little man was a little bit worried about this experience
We travelled through fierce winds, dripping ice water and erupting vulcanoes, my kid was in awe
Phoning a dodo and a kwagga - both animals have been extinct. E had to listen to each one's story
Just look at the concentration ;-)
The need to protect our planet and our fellow human beings from exploitation was evident everywhere
The exhibition hall reminded me of the Pompedou Art Gallery in Paris, with larger than life pop-art made into surreal science exhibits.

Faces in the mirror
Maropeng - Science in a burial mound
The views of the Cradle of Mankind - the area is littered with sites of paleonthological interest
Down Sterkfontein Caves - I forgot my camera on manual, the result, lots of blurry pictures in the dark. This one is the best of them all
Where they found Ms Ples, who was actually a teenage boy......

Through Fresh Eyes

Reading the posts by Mckmama on her visit to Kenya and the adopt a child programme has really touched me deeply. I remember those feelings she describes very clearly, the tears rolling down my cheeks and the nightmares that followed me home, the first time I visited a slum. That was a very long time ago.

Looking at myself today, I have lost that emotional reaction to poverty. I have learned that even though we work very hard at changing it, it just seems like such an uphill battle. I get all confused in my head on the theory of capitalism and the potential alternatives. The continuous encounters with corruption, deceit and self enrichment schemes, often at the cost of the most desperate families are just evident every where. All the poverty alleviation projects that have failed across my country, mostly due to financial mismanagement, lack of skills and political leverage has tired me to the point where I just want to turn a blind eye to the whole problem. I believe they call it compassion fatigue. That overwhelming feeling that there are so many people so desperately in need of help, right at my doorstep and no matter what I do, it just is not enough.

And then somebody comes with fresh eyes, a new heart and reminds me again – about why I really started this in the first place. When I was still young enough to believe that we can make a difference. And it is true, we can, each in our own little way, make a difference. Even if it is only in one child’s life, it is a difference and it matters.

As we all well know, we should not wait for the world to change, we should change the world. I said that at a women in mining conference the other day – Come on people, do not wait for the mining industry to change – you be the change in the industry. Let us not get tired of changing business mindsets and practices because even though it is very difficult to turn a wheel that size, the benefit will be seen in the lives of countless women and children throughout my country. This country I love and I fear so much.

A certain melancholy

Today I feel the hamster in the wheel so acutely. Running and running in circles. Living a life of…what? Futility? Being alive because I am not dead?

Maybe I just worked too hard this week. Maybe it was the Women in Mining Conference. Facing the hard facts again of the inherent risks associated with mining, men and women working underground in very harsh conditions. Both sexes preferring that to the alternative. However, women are literally carving a way into this environment because it is better than subjecting themselves to their traditional roles in the villages.

Or maybe it is none of that and it is the insecurity and fear of building a business and a brand in this industry. Becoming more and more visible whilst I would really prefer to hide somewhere on a beach, ride a horse and have somebody else take care of the world.

Or maybe it is just that we are walking such a fine line every day. Between happy and sad, alive and dead, fulfilled and frustrated, confident and scared, loved and rejected, successful and forgotten

It must be PMS

You can cut it

My nerves are finished! on Wednesday we should know whether we will call this place home
I know it does not look like too much right now, but it is all about position, position, position and not to forget about the endless open spaces that will surround us

Oh the headrush

I am giddy with success!
My to do list is done

Oh the relief, I have not felt it in months

Boiling over

The Love Child saga in South Africa has to make one stop and think about the state of affairs in our fair country. A country that generally tries very hard to achieve some form of legitimacy as a world player and in doing so convince the developed world that we are not just the most southern part of a large crime ridden and dark continent.

The hope given to our rainbow nation by Madiba - viewed as the father of peace by many, are being trodden to pieces by JZ, the father of many. It still irks me that a president can be voted in by just over 4000 people in a country with a population of over 48 million. How will democracy ever be realised here? How will we ever hold our government responsible for their actions if they are only concerned with keeping their electorate happy? An electorate constituting of poverty stricken rural people that still view the ANC as their redemption and refer to their president as 'father?' There is no sense anywhere that interest and focus should go to some form of true leadership and development of the country - not economically, politically or even in terms of education, infrastructure, health, the list can continue ad infinitum.

I wonder how much longer it will take the current government to reward all their freedom fighters and whether it is possible that, when that is done, somebody will have the guts to stand up and say - Enough of this, fatcats, lets get our hands dirty and build this country up, from the soil, one brick at a time, regardless of whether we will personally benefit from it or not.

Curious kid

My kid's questions drive me around the bend. Much as I enjoy the conversations with him and am fascinated with the kind of things he asks about, I just don't have any answers for him. Half the time I feel like telling him, baby mommy really dont know, and I dont even know if anyone can tell us more. Some of the latest questions

Mom, how did the first person get born, before there where anybody to birth them? (Now I know there are a whole lot of thoughts out there on how this happened, but do we really know?)

What is space? I know it is where the stars and the planets are, but what is it?

If the wind had to blow you where there is no gravity, will you blow away? (And I am wondering if there can even be wind where there is no gravity?)

His latest favourite thing in the house is the Oxford dictionary - oh how he loves the sound of words and what they mean, we can read the dictionary and tell stories about the words we find until we roll on the floor laughing. Invariably his stories will be full of potty humour and fantastic super feats but it is hillarious what he can do to serious words like - necessary and deportee

Big school

We are nearly to the first mid term break and now only do I post the pictures I took of Elrich's books we had to cover for Grade R. Marking his entry into slightly more formalised schooling.

He is a die hard Bakugan fan


Can I say that I cried to think my little baby is so grown up, that time flies so quickly? Nope, I am afraid, those were not the sentimental thoughts that occupied my mind as I struggled with the paper and the cellotape. Not at all. I was thinking about the long hard slog ahead of my kid, the many many more books we are going to have to cover in the years to come. I remembered the conversations I had with my mom as she covered my books - in a very demure, brown paperbag kind of way.

My kid got bored with the task at hand long before I was done and I had to fight my way through with sticky cellotape fingers, book covers pulling in opposite directions and that tricky bits where you tried to flatten the paper with one finger, whilst holding the back of the book up with your chin and sticking the proper bits down with your pinky. In the end, the job got done and E could be send of to school with halfway cool books to help him on his way in this quest for knowledge

Josh, We Welcome and Love You

On Wednesday night we welcomed a little baby boy into this world. I was honoured to witness his birth, an experience I will write about a little bit later. But for now, enjoy the memories as captured in these pictures

Booked into the birthing centre and waiting for the magic to happen. We could not sleep so at 3am we had a photo session in the garden
Starting to come to terms with the idea that this is becoming more and more of a medically assisted birth

A new born baby on mom's chest, Josh spend about the first half hour of his life here, it was beautiful.

The first morning after his birth, a content healthy little boy

aaah isn't he just the cutest thing?

John is quite the wordsmith

A poem that appeared in my inbox yesterday

Die Meisiekind

She's cheeky as hell
But cute as well
She's sexy and smart
And has a good heart
My lover and friend
the perfect blend.
She can make me mad
but never sad.
xxxx

To conclude a weekend in which we both expressed our need to have a loving relationship, rather than just co-excisting in the mad rush of life.

Maybe Just Maybe

We are in the market to purchase another property. Now I know that we have not even taken ownership of the land we bought last year.

I am seriously excited about the new prospect.....see it is an equestrian property in the heart of horseland. There is very little on it. Just an old cottage and a huge garden. If we take it, it will be a fixer upper and a serious project for us.

I have no idea what we will do about the other land in the estate. Suppose it remains a good investment

We Are Familyyyy

An interesting dynamic is created when two (previously) single children are thrown together for a weekend. Both are intelligent and well mannered, but they are just kids, competing for the same person's attention.

In this case John; and even though Nikyle and John have a good relationship, the emotional attachment between Elrich and John is far more evident. I think this is just a natural result of the histories shared. John came into E’s life when he was three years old and we have spent a lot of time together as a little family. Whereas Nikyle only spends a couple of hours on a Sunday at John’s place, playing a computer game and going for a sandwich. I normally do not join them, unless E is with me and we go somewhere together as a family.

The result is that John is a bit distanced in his role as a father in Nikyle's life, I don’t really have a relationship with Nikyle at all and we have not even begun to blend as a family of four. I never really thought about this or realized it, until the Christmas weekend we spend at my parents. Even though the weekend was relaxing and fun it became clearly evident that, if we want to ‘play house’ we will have to do something about the configuration of our family.

When I am big

I am going to find dinosaur fossils and build their skeletons back together so we can figure out what they looked like and what happened so they all disappeared.

Was the conclusion my kid came to after he interogated me for more than half an hour about what happened to the dinosaurs and why he cannot go to see them.

We definitely have some research work to do

The Good Samaritan

As I crawl along the corrugated dirt road towards my client, I am amazed at the number of insects scurrying across the road, super sized shongololos, piss-krieke with their antennas waving around in a mad dance and beetles of all shapes and sizes. All the while thinking, careful now, we do not want another flat tyre, this is a little city car and not a big bakkie. Then the shongololo appeared out of nowhere, I turned the wheels slightly to the left and....dwah, tsssssssss

I just knew it. I busted that wheel. Totally busted. Fortunately I was just about a hundred meters from the gate of one of my new clients. A very small, marginal chrome mine. I told the security guard about my predicament, he had one look and shared the news that I don't have one flat tyre but two. Yikes, and only one spare. The general manager of the mine appeared around the corner, covered from head to toe in dust, sweat and grime. Told me that he is on skeleton staff because of the season and that something needed fixing in the plant so he is the boilermaker for today. As I shared my predicament, he looked at me with patience in his eyes and told me not to worry about a single thing. Then offered to take me to my client in his own vehicle and promised that the car will be ready by the time I am done.

When I phoned him a couple of hours later he told me my car is ready, where can he deliver it to? So I fetched it, thanked him profusely and am still struggling to understand how somebody in that position with so much work pressure and so little time can still be so patient with someone that is basically a complete stranger that landed unannounced on his doorstep.

It is South African hospitality at it's best. And it humbles me, because I get so impatient and so ratty when I am stressed and under pressure.

Peeking over the fence

When we show cased our new web based reporting tool at a recent mining convention we were approached by a Canadian company mining in Zimbabwe. That short conversation led to an invite to visit them onsite and explore possible synergies and opportunities for business.

But life was hectic here and by all accounts even more so there and two months passed in a wink of an eye before we, my business partner and I, found ourselves standing outside the hanger, cause an airport it is not.....slightly bewildered and very bemused by the fact that we never even thought to confirm the actual arrival and pick up arrangements. That after the receipt of our e-tickets about two weeks earlier. E-tickets that had us staying in Zimbabwe from the 16th of December 2009 to the 17 November 2010. Uhhu yes, a slight mistake. After a short caucus we decided we will not panic, we will keep a cool head despite the 37C, the overgrown gardens and clear signs of neglect. Never mind that we did not get our phones on roaming and even if we did, we did not have a local number to call.

Turns out, our pick-up did arrive and was as surprised to see us as we were to see him. And how honoured we were with none other than the general manager of the mine, a smallish but successful operation about an hours drive from the airport. Which were exactly where we headed next, on an excuse of a tar road. Taking turns to drive on and off the road to allow enough space for vehicles to pass from the front. Our driver telling us all about live in Zim and how everything has changed in a short period of time. The pleasure of dealing in US $ even if the locals think nothing of charging 10$ for everything. I suppose if you are used to charging a gazillion 000 behind everything then one zero must look very cheap - just imagine paying 20000 zim dollars for a loaf of bread.

What an informative afternoon, walking around those old mills, hearing people talk of the economic energy building up. Turn- key solutions for new mills to be installed in the new year, 24 hour shifts to build up a stock pile. Tongue in cheek warning and safety signs posted at the gate. The high density village where children ran around, white teeth shining in vaseline round faces. Naked fat babies toddling in the sand with men standing around and watching these two foreign looking women talking and peering through windows. Learning how dependant the community really is on the mine, treating the managers as respected elders in the community. Managers that speak with international accents even though they grew up in the community with parents doing community work. People with a real heart for their country. That wants to do what is right because it is right, and not because legislation so requires.

Our challenge - to work outside the box of our legislative framework. The ability to think laterally and design a solution that will add value to their operation - and do so cost effectively and within a very short period of time.

The next day as we were sitting on the tarmac, waiting for our plane to return from Zambia, where it had to refuel before the trip home, we were mulling all these ideas around. It is going to be exciting and I can see a big learning curve coming our way but an opportunity is knocking on our door and we are all in agreement that we need to grab this opportunity with open arms.

Yay!! New wheels

Life has been crazy hectic working 16 hours a day sleeping very little piles and piles of deadlines all lined up the one after the other

but at last good news

welcome the latest addition to the mad cap family of mine - she is sexy and savvy and lots of fun with low down torque and diesel economy.

If only I could take photos like E - the boy has a really talented eye!

Active active active

I love sport and movement and the feel of sweat and sore muscles. I am determined that E will be active too, he does not ever have to compete or win anything but move..... he will. And even though the bakkie and outdoor travel experience has been put on hold for a year or two, outdoor fun is still to be had

First it was the children’s cycle race and this year there was just no stopping E. After all the excitement of getting his race number pinned and awaiting our turn (with 500 other would be enthusiasts) E bolted away and went down that 800m track with great gusto.

He was very proud of his medal and the buzz took a long time to pass, I am sure that bottle of energade he got at the finish line helped us a bit as well ;-p
A family photo with Oupads, Ouma, mom and a very proud little boy


Then mom eventually made it to her first little show with Shiloh. It was so much fun and I was really pleasantly surprised by the guts and enthusiasm my normally rather docile little horse showed all those cross country fences. John was my back up groom and the city slicker walked my horse, carried teff-nets and water buckets without complaint. He even commented at the end that it was so much fun that he would not mind a horse of his own. Now that really impressed this horse girl no end!!

Boys will be boys

Having fun on the small holding

E said to me this weekend
I wish, I wish upon a star
that all the baddies goes away
and we have our bakkie back
and everything is back to normal

we are all taking a bit of strain with this car thing at the moment

It is about all the S'ss

At Salt Rock, we are enjoying the sea, sand, sun, sex, sleep, strolling and slow meals.It is beautiful and very relaxing

The view from our hotel balcony

Taking a walk down to the beach just as the sun rose through the palm trees

Oh, how I love early mornings at the sea