from the SHOULDER TO THE WHEEL

happy new year.

i’d wish everyone a happy 2008 but here in south africa we’ve woken up to a different year altogether. Eskom, the nation's power company, through a little lack of forethought, didn't think to build additional power plants for the additional people that were planning on both being born and using electricity. the paper today even went so far as to say that eskom encouraged local power companies to shut down their plants.

so the supposed year of 2008 has started here in south africa with much of africa watching their power turn off wherever they are during the day... then going home and having the power shut off again. luckily, i've just returned from a three week camping trip so it saved me the energy of having to pack away my (citronella) candles.

so i'm sure it's 2008 somewhere... but not here yet.

but to be fair, i learned on my three week camping trip, that south africa, whether or not it has made it to the year 2008, is way ahead of the rest of southern africa (maybe 2008 B.C.). this is based on my trip through swaziland and fairly deep into mozambique. i've put some pictures up online that sort of tell the story and document some of the more amazing sights and transpirings.

here're the pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/jonahptak/Mocambique

but did things worth mentioning happen that weren't captured on film? maybe. i'll bullet the stories and anecdotes for easy digestion.

- story one: for the drive back from inhambane i had acquired two travel companions from germany. johanna and juliana. juliana was in my 4-day open water scuba course. johanna was her sister. captured in the pictures online are parts of the ordeal of changing one's tyre in mozambique. directions to tyre shop: "drive 70 kilometers and you'll see a big orange sign on the right. the tyre shop is on the left. you can't miss it." johanna hit a pothole and blew the front left tyre one hour into the return trip. the trip there took me 2.5 days of solid driving with close to 8 hours of that spent driving well under the posted limits due to potholes. so it was disheartening that one hour into a 2.5 day drive we were using my space saver spare to get through the same terrain to get to a tyre shop.
but i learned my lesson: germans aren't meant to drive in africa. and it's not because of the reason i'm sure you're thinking. it has nothing to do with the audobahn. it has to to with german adherance to rules... adhering to the rules of the road has NO PLACE in africa. regardless of oncoming traffic, pedestrians or animals anywhere, you can drive anywhere. you're not driving in africa correctly unless oncoming traffic is flashing its brights and hooting at you. i've got some video of driving in moz. it looks like a scene from grand theft auto...

- story two: turns out that once the roads improved, the germans were big on catching up on their sleep. so i had lots of time to think about the road in front of me. southern swaz and northern south africa have tons of these yellow and white butterflies. judging by the fact that the yellow ones are always chasing the white ones, i've concluded that the yellow ones are the males. point is, these little butterflies are always flitting across the road in front of you. left alone with my thoughts i noticed two things. 1.) my little bean-shaped car feels like it's starting to lift off the road at 160kph, and 2.) that under 140kph the butterflies pass over my windscreen but over 140kph they smack into it with a little 'tic' and leave a smear.
when juliana woke up i felt like i should share my discovery. a few butterflies hit the windscreen to prove my point. and it wasn't more than ten minutes later that the point was really driven home when a medium-sized bird, with a very loud 'crack!' crashed right into the windscreen in front of juliana. i think we both saw the bird well before it made like a ricochet. this made it way worse. my soothing, parenting instincts activated and i immediately blurted, "i'm sure it's fine! glancing blow!" juliana countered that the two spatters of blood told a different story. and naturally the blood was in the small area of the windscreen that my windscreen wipers didn't reach.


- story three: on new year's eve i dove for a frisbee and totally destroyed my left shoulder. the left side of my head was numb for hours and i'd thought i'd damaged my collarbone. for two days i couldn't lift my arm or move it enough to take my shirt off. so i had to wear the same shirt for three days. this wouldn't have been so bad if i hadn't already been wearing the same shirt for three days before that. i was trying to conserve because i'd promised the girls that i'd try to have two clean shirts for the two days drive home.
on new years eve i popped three tylenol pm, the only drugs i brought with me not counting toothpaste and soap, and was almost unable to make dinner. i felt like i was moving through water. when the girls came to wake me up at 11:30 so i wouldn't sleep through new years i had no idea what was going on. the fireworks / pipe bombs that were going off all around were confusing me enough so i just went back to sleep.
and like i said, when i woke up, i'd traveled back in time to a land where there was no running water or electricity.

abracadabra! the magic of africa!