Grayville: Take Two... and call me in the morning.

my second trip to grayville was much less eventful than the first which is not to say nothing happened. i had a "t.i.a." moment very shortly after parking the parking lot by the department of home affairs. "t.i.a." stands for "this is africa" emphasis being on "africa", used to explain occurrances here without having to explain them. here's how it works:
me: "outside the department of home affairs, i saw a bakkie with the bed filled to capacity with severed cow heads"

south african: "t.i.a., man. t.i.a."

if you're thinking, "i wonder if jonah can describe the smell of that bakkie", i've already been asked twice the question and both times i replied that i started to take a whiff to see if they were as fresh as they looked but halfway through rethought the idea. it smelled subtly like uc davis... tercero specifically. a "subtle" hit over the head.

resetting, the d.o.h.a. has a meat wholesaler next door (naturally) so that's why the bakkie was there. the cow heads weren't applying for marriage licenses if that's what you were thinking. rolly-polly cow heads. as i was sitting in the d.o.h.a., i looked out the window just as the truck was driving away. true to south african form, there was a passenger riding in the bed sitting on the heads. maybe to keep from stealing them?

and just to recreate the scene a little more, outside the d.o.h.a. there is a man selling pens. it's a living. "another day, another dollar" he might say. also, the d.o.h.a. has a metal detector you have to walk through to get in. bear in mind, this isn't an airport. the only thing it has in common with an airport is that you should show up two hours early.

i sat down in the queue for window seven and waited. half the people in the queue were not foreign nationals but just poor black south africans who couldn't find anywhere else to sit.
after a quick 20 minute wait i got to the front of the queue and i gave them my passport. they said it would take a little over an hour to take care of everything. i was torn. should i wait in the refugee camp or should i hop in the car and drive around the mardi gras / bladerunner city?

i remembered driving past a botanical garden the previous day while be lost. so i hopped in the car and drove over there. this place is a destination for anyone that makes the trip over here to visit. a quick destination compared to kew gardens in london but still amazing and just as beautiful if not more so. kew gardens was about plants of the world, placed in greenhouses so they'd survive. durban botanical was all about the trillions of plants that grow in south africa. no greenhouse needed.

click here for the pictures (and click on the flower too). in the pictures, you'll find a picture of a cycad called "wood's cycad" as well as its description. the circumstances surrounding this plant are totally unique to me. if you're familiar with tolkien's "lord of the rings" you may think of the ents and their entwives. otherwise you may draw parallels to the garden of eden and adam's rib. a spiritual mind will have an easier time of wrapping around wood's cycad than a scientific one. enjoy and let me know your thoughts.

after about an hour i went back to the d.o.h.a. and sat down. i got called up to the front of the queue and was handed my passport back with a work visa sticker and new stamp. i waited for them to call me back up to take my picture for south african i.d. number and do whatever else i needed next.

in line with with me was a skinny white hare krishna in salmon robes. we talked. he travels the world at the behest of his guru doing martial arts sword shows at hare krishna festivals. next stop: england.

he travels the world spreading the word of hare krishna (it's literally just three words). i warned him not to do too good a job otherwise he'd be out of a job. his philosophy is that world is full of sadness. it's tough to argue with him whilst in south africa.

the couple behind him in the queue were an american couple from san francisco. they were much more fun to talk to. a married couple that put all their stuff in storage, sold their car and moved out to a town called "compensation" by ballito up the coast from durban. they were going to do 6 more months of volunteer work building schools if the d.o.h.a. would approve their volunteer visas. The couple were jehovah's witnesses. it seems like religion is behind most of the volunteer visas being given out.

well what'ya know? south africa has a brain drain and religion is moving in.