Friday 23 January 2009 - Over breakfast Sandra regales her previous nights episode - the baboon in the fridge! Sat there with the fridge door wide open mmmm.......what to choose! Cheeky monkey!Through the thunderstorm and severe fork lightning, we head off into town - Acornhoek to do some food shopping and get a taste of life outside the Park. Pete barefootedly braves the rain saving a puff adder on the road (our hero!).
Lunch is spent at Anjos' - where we sample the best flame Peri Peri braai chicken in the whole of SA, accompanied with mealie pap and washed down with Americas' finest - Coca-Cola. Anjos' business had an unusual start, whilst walking outside his town, he stopped to help a driver with a flat tyre, the guy was transporting frozen chickens, which would be ruined by the time he made his intended destination, he therefore gave his haul to the good Samaritan and Anjos Peri Peri chicken was born! Photo is Kirsteen, Pete and Sandra in Anjos.
Being out of the Park gives you a real sense that you are in Africa, the locals hurriedly go on with their business trying to avoid the rain, ladies balancing either bundles of sticks on their heads or babies on their backs. Children are racing home from school, goats huddled under trucks, trying to stay dry. There are rickety market stalls lined up on the streets, all selling the same thing, bananas, mangos, avocados, onions.
We stop at the local Spar to get most of our provisions, peanut butter and sweet chilli sauce a must or there will be a mutiny! Most of the food available is similar to what you can buy at home without the obvious choice, although we do find packs of calf hooves and a joint of meat with its hide still attached......mmm maybe next time eh! We leave the store after having our receipt and bags checked (job creation) and brave the rain to buy a couple of avos and onions from the ladies on the stalls, trying out our bartering skills too.
As we drive around Acornhoek, it is easy to become perturbed by number of funeral parlours that are running within such a small community. Unfortunately HIV/AIDS is a way of life across South African, with approximately one third of the population being infected with HIV. I personally have found these figures difficult to get my head around.
The HIV/AIDS epidemic increases with a possible 1500 new infections in SA every day. Difficulties such as illiteracy, diversity of population i.e. 11 official languages in SA, lack of infrastructure in rural areas, hinder educational campaigns to actually influence peoples behaviour. Together with inaccurate information provided by people of importance, for example an African politician Jacob Zuma, now running for President was previously tried for raping his niece, who is known to be HIV positive. During his trial, the politician stated that he had consensual sex with the girl and had showered afterwards in the belief that it would decrease his chances of becoming infected. This is worrying to say the least.
Having acquired our marula beer from a large group of high spirited locals (the delicacy of mopane worms being unobtainable, shame!), we journey back on a dirt track, travelling through the local communities, where young children ran out excitedly to wave at the white people in the van. A little cutie sticks in my mind, stood at her gatepost frantically waving, wearing little pink T-shirt saying 'Superstar in the Making!' Life in the rural areas is hard, with some of the children starting work as young as six, as we drive through, we see teenage girls wheelbarrowing barrels of water home.
Eagle eyed Pete to the rescue again, we stop to save a chameleon jerking across the track. As we aren't in the Park, we jump out of the vehicle for a closer look. Aiming for the sun, the chameleon steadily climbs up my hair to get to the top of your head, I tell you its the strangest sensation having an chameleons foot wedged in your ear!
Tonights tea is accompanied by marula beer, very bitter - an acquired taste, me thinks!
Going Wild about giraffe - they are so jurassic looking!
