Monday

So what have I been doing since last Thursday? Not a lot really. Having filleted the travel writing piece from something I wrote several years ago (and that Rob thoroughly lambasted), I went back and re-edited the piece, moved the pictures round etc. Actually I don't really mind whether anyone liked it or not - it is a recollection of a couple of months of my life in 1960, a long time ago now! I've also spent, or wasted, quite a bit of time doing searches on the net about Matatiele, Oribi Gorge etc. and very illuminating they were too.
Of course back in the '60s apartheid was in full flow. The population of Matatiele was about 250 white people with a further scattering in the surrounding farms, Cedarville, eight miles away, somewhat smaller. The Bantu, as the Africans were called, were mostly in reservations out side and between the two towns. In total some 4,000 people. Very few of them were allowed to live within the town boundaries, and they were subject to the pass laws, which included always carrying their passes with them and a night time curfew. I regularly signed passes for them to go out in the evening.
One was very aware that if there was an uprising the populations of little towns like these could have been wiped out over night. I don't know how much bad feeling there was under the surface but all my experience of the natives were friendly, they were, are, charming and cheerful people. However, the set up then was such that one never met the natives in a social situation, they were always servants, or workers of some kind or another. It is fascinating, to me anyway, to see that the Municipal Council of Matatiele is now predominantly native, with only three white people among the thirty or so counsellors. One knows that South Africa has tremendous problems still but to me it is a miracle that the hand over to African rule happened without the bloodshed that might have been expected.
Oribi Gorge too has changed tremendously, it is now a venue for extreme sports! Look at the website and you will see similar pictures to mine but now with bungee jumps and white water rafting etc. added.
It is one of the great sadnesses of my life that I didn't stay in South Africa. Why didn't I? I was brought up not to be colour prejudiced, and I knew that sooner or later I would come into conflict with the powers that be and I'm too idle or non-political to take on that kind of challenge, as well as which my father had died whilst I was there, I came home for a few weeks and then went back. Being from a family with a dearth of relatives and my brother being a missionary in West Africa, I did feel I should come back as my mother would have been without any relatives in England.
Enough of the past. Mind you the weather has been such that going out has not been that attractive an option - though I did brave the rain and wind to clear my various drainage channels, and I must do that again to-day after the very heavy rain last night. At this time of year, it is a bit like the forth bridge, as soon as I've cleared one build up of leaves I have to start over again; when I was working it was always my Sunday afternoon job, now it's whenever I realize I can't go out without my wellies on.