Joburg City Triathlon

Okay, you folks who know me really well know that I hate running. Hate hate hate it. I do it from time to time (like when I was training for Kilimanjaro), but I always hate it. In fact, I swam in a race in January where they were selling shirts that said, “I swim because:” and there are checkboxes listed below. The reason I bought the shirt is that the second reason is “It’s better than running.” I should check that box with a permanent marker.

So, it may shock you to hear that I competed in a triathlon last Sunday (25th Feb)! Not to worry, I haven’t gone mad. The competition allowed teams, and I did the swim leg for a team. Colleen and Ralph have friends named Wendy and Wallace. (Wendy was Ralph’s boss when they all lived in Nigeria a few years ago.) Wallace was interested in competing in the triathlon, but decided that he wasn’t fit enough to do the whole thing. Also, he’s not a strong swimmer. So, Colleen (who completed the full, standard triathlon) suggested that we put together a team. A few weeks ago, we were all having dinner with Ziad Khatib, who is from Lebanon, lives in Sweden, and is working here for six months on some sort of HIV/AIDS project (he is in public health). (Ziad's older brother was Wendy's manager in Nigeria.) The subject of the triathlon came up, and Ziad said that he would do the cycling leg if someone could lend him a bike. And thus, Team 140 (or The Internationals, as Colleen registered us) was born.

The race was at Victoria Lake in Germiston, just south of the city. It is the site of the race I swam in January. Colleen’s race started at 7.00 a.m. Wallace, Ziad and I arrived about 8.15 for our 9.00 start. The cheering section -- Ralph and Brody, Wendy, and Wallace’s visiting niece and nephew -- arrived shortly before we started. I started first with a 750 meter swim, then Ziad cycled for 20K, and Wallace finished by running 5K. This was considered the mini-triathlon. It seems do-able for one person, hey? If I ever become really inspired, I might try to do a whole mini by myself. Gotta start running and find a bike first…

After the completion of all the races (there were standard, mini and sprint triathlons, as well as the team triathlon), we all stayed on and had a very nice picnic by the lake. It was a good day.

Midmar Mile, 2007

Well before Christmas, Colleen and I decided to swim in the Midmar Mile competition again (http://www.midmarmile.co.za/). Trouble was, both of us were so busy before and after Christmas, and neither of us seemed to be taking the training very seriously. A few weeks before the race (on 11 February), I broached the idea of skipping it this year.

“I think we should swim,” Colleen said. “First of all, you may not be around for it next year. Second, we won’t swim well, but we won’t drown.”

True enough. Colleen is always much more fit than I am, but I am a very good swimmer even when I’m not in tip-top shape. And since we knew what to expect this year (as opposed to last year, when neither of us had ever even seen the Midmar Dam), we decided to forge ahead.

We had good intentions. But it seemed that something always came up at the last minute for one or the other of us, and we were lucky to get in the pool once per week. I competed in a Midmar seeding event in early December in the Vaal River, and again in January at Victoria Lake in Germiston. (Col took me to the one at the Vaal, but could not get a babysitter for Brody, so she sat that one out. She had to miss the one in Germiston altogether.) I thought of them as good workouts, rather than as real competitions.

I did do something that was very important to my performance, though, and that was to have 3 inches cut off my hair so that my swim cap would fit better!

Colleen’s husband Ralph and his friend Chris are competing in the Cape Epic bike race in March (http://www.cape-epic.com/). They decided to come along with us to KwaZulu-Natal for the weekend. They planned to spend much of Saturday cycling, and then be our support team and Brody-sitters on Sunday during the swim race.

We decided that not all 4 adults, Brody, luggage and bikes could fit in the Mills’ car, so I also drove. Because we now had an extra car (and space), I asked my young friend, Lisa Glenn, to join us for the weekend. Lisa arrived in South Africa just a week and a half earlier. She has a Rotary International fellowship, and will be in Johannesburg for a year studying at the University of the Witwatersrand (otherwise known as Wits). Her parents live in Murfreesboro, and her father is a VP at Middle Tennessee State University, from which both my parents retired. She graduated from Birmingham Southern College last May. I met her when we were both in M’boro for Christmas, 2005. She is an exceptional young woman – bright, kind, fun -- and I’m going to enjoy having her in Jo’burg.

We stayed in the same house where we stayed last year, but Shona and Charles Mason were at their condo in Port Alfred. Johnson, the live-in gardener, let us into the house on Friday evening, and Dolly, the housekeeper, took care of us on Saturday. Ralph and Chris set out on their bikes after breakfast, and Colleen, Brody, Lisa and I spent a leisurely morning shopping at a nearby farmers’ market and then mall. We went back to the house for lunch, then Lisa and I drove down to Durban (about 20 minutes from Botha’s Hill, where the Masons live when they’re not in Jakarta) so Lisa could have a look around. We got out and walked around the old, ornate City Hall, then drove to the beach and walked out on a fishing pier to take a look at the Indian Ocean. We drove around the city a little bit more, then back to Botha’s Hill. We all had a nice dinner, and then sat through quite a spectacular thunderstorm. Some of the lightening strikes sounded frighteningly close, and we lost power in various parts of the house several times.

We had an early start the next morning because Col and I were scheduled to swim in the first event at 8.30 a.m. We were a little bit less rushed than last year, but not a whole lot.

The race was okay – neither of us drowned! But the weather was not so good. It was rainy and somewhat windy. I ended up swimming breaststroke much of the way. If I swam freestyle and turned my head to breathe, waves would break over my head and splash into my mouth, so I often didn’t get enough air while swimming freestyle. At least when swimming breaststroke, it’s a lot easier to dodge waves because you can see them coming!

Consequently, my time was slower than last year, but when the results were posted on the Web site, I discovered that my time wasn’t as bad as I’d thought. I had thought I’d swum about 10 minutes slower, but according to them, I was only 5 minutes slower. This year, Colleen finished before I did.

Colleen
Category: 31-40; Finish time: 40:31; Position: 772; Category Position: 731; Gender Position: 164

Katy
Category: 41-50; Finish time: 43:03; Position: 960; Category Position: 918; Gender Position: 174.

Our Visit to the Orange Farm

Before I tell you about our visit to the orange farm, it occurred to me that I should tell you a little bit about Youth Day. When I first heard of it, I assumed (as maybe some of you have) that it’s another false holiday, created by the candy or toy industry. I’m sure some of you have heard my diatribe against Valentine’s Day. But a couple of days before Youth Day, I heard a story on the news about the Soweto Uprising which occurred in June, 1976. Aha! There is a real, logical explanation for Youth Day. In 1976, the ruling party, the National Party, introduced Afrikaans as the language of instruction in all schools. Students in Soweto rioted in protest, which was the beginning of weeks of violent protests across the country. The introduction of Afrikaans was probably just the straw that broke the camel’s back. The protests were also about the poor facilities, overcrowded classrooms, and poorly trained teachers. Youth Day honors those young people who lost their lives during this struggle.

So. As I mentioned earlier, Colleen and I went to Cape Town a couple of days before the book fair so that we could call on customers. Friday was Youth Day, so there were no customer visits to be made. We went to the gym to swim, had breakfast at my wonderful guest house in Constantia (http://www.capestay.co.za/constantiastables/), and then drove north to an orange farm 18K outside Picketburg.

Colleen was very close with the family of her best friend in school, and the woman we visited, Nadine, is a sister of that friend. Nadine and her partner, Eleni, bought an orange farm last year. Eleni is still living and working in Cape Town; she comes up on weekends. They have a 2 ½ year old daughter, Cassandra. Nadine’s parents recently moved to the west coast down from Jo’burg, and they were visiting, too.

Eleni put Cassandra down for a nap, and she and Nadine drove us to the orange groves. The trees had been kind of neglected by the previous owner, but Nadine has been working hard to get them into shape. She improved the irrigation and drip lines, sprayed for pests, and did a lot of pruning. Last year, they produced only 3rd grade oranges, and not too many, that they sold to a local broker. This year, the crop was much larger and better in quality. We learned that the 1st and 2nd grade oranges are sold for export, largely to the U.S. The main difference between the grades is the appearance. Beautifully colored oranges with no blemishes (or only tiny ones) are first grade and go for export. The skin of an orange can be affected by several things. An orange can be sunburned! High winds can damage the skin. Tiny mites and rain can also make unappealing marks. Here in the regular grocery stores in SA, we get mostly third grade oranges. But there is little, if any, difference in the quality and taste of the fruit itself.

The block in which we walked had not yet been harvested, and there were quite a few trees with so much fruit that some limbs were bending low to the ground. We spent a little bit of time picking fruit to relieve the trees. You must twist and gently pull an orange to get it off the branch.

When we got back to the house, Nadine started a fire for a braii. Brian, her dad, showed me how to properly score and peel a navel orange. It’s so easy! I think I’ll be eating oranges more often now.

In addition to the oranges, Nadine and Eleni are raising chickens, turkeys, sheep and goats. They have 4 or 5 female goats that will deliver kids any day now. Two lambs are still being bottle-fed in the evenings, and Colleen and I got to do that. Colleen also helped round up the goats for the evening. Ever since they ate my vegetable garden in Zimbabwe, I have no fondness for goats, so I decided not to participate in that.

The farm is in a valley with rugged but beautiful mountain ranges on either side. The sunset was rather spectacular. Beautiful sunsets make me think of my neighbor and dear friend, Bonnie Snow, who passed away in the summer of 2001. I always feel her with me when I’m admiring a lovely sunset. I seldom try to take photos of sunsets; they never come out as nice as the real thing. So, I just try to lodge them in my memory. I think I’ll remember this one.

Nula, Yvonne, Ursula, Colleen and Katy at the Cape Town Book Fair.

The Cape Town Book Fair

Those of you in the business know that the Frankfurt Book Fair is the biggest, most important book show in the world. EBSCO is not a bookseller, but we go to Frankfurt in order to have meetings with many of the publishers with whom we work. Sometimes it’s a good chance to meet with publishers that don’t attend the American Library Association, which is the largest library association meeting in the world.

The organizers of Frankfurt decided to try a book show in South Africa, and they chose Cape Town. The first Cape Town Book Fair was held 17-20 June at the Cape Town International Convention Centre, a world-class convention venue. (In fact, I cannot figure out why the International Federation of Library Associations, IFLA, chose Durban instead of Cape Town for its 2007 conference. Cape Town is much nicer than Durban, and the CTICC is more than adequate.) Colleen, Salome Potgieter and I attended so that we could meet with some publishers, meet and greet our librarian customers who attended, and generally support the book fair.

It was wildly successful! Attendance exceeded expectations after the 2nd day; they had to print more tickets and hire more staff. I was really pleased by this, because SA is not a country with a strong reading culture. They have already booked the CTICC for next year, and I’m sure we’ll go again.

The stand next to ours was fun. It was three Irish ladies there to promote a book that one of them has written. It’s called Suitcase Number Seven, and is about the travails of an Irish rugby player named Tom Cleary (Ursula’s uncle, as it turns out). It’s a “fictional memoir.” The ladies – Ursula (the author), Yvonne and Nula (maybe short for Fionula?) – were so nice and fun. Ursula and Nula are going to travel around SA for a couple of weeks, and they will phone Colleen and me if they make it to Johannesburg. They’re following in the footsteps of Tom Cleary, who traveled here in 1961 with his team on a tour of SA.

A publisher called Jacana Media (based here in Jo’burg) had the cleverest display in their stand. They had the artwork or photos from their book covers printed on fabric and made pillows out of them. And then at the end of the conference, they sold the pillows! I was so excited when Colleen told me the pillows were for sale. I got one (that she had picked out and put aside for me; it was perfect) called The Drum Café’s Traditional Music of South Africa by Laurie Levine. The book came with a CD enclosed. The pillow did not. :)

We went down to Cape Town a couple of days before the book fair to call on customers. One of the visits we made was to the library at Parliament. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any photos of the Parliament buildings. You have to get permission from the PR office for that, and we didn’t have time. Maybe I will do so in advance on the next visit. But I did get some photos of the lovely library. I’m putting some of these in as individual posts.

The day before the fair, 16th June, was a public holiday – Youth Day. Colleen and I drove north of CT to visit an old friend of hers who has an orange farm. I’ll write a separate post about that day.

Shopping Shopping Shopping

Oriental Plaza
I met Colleen at her house on Saturday morning (3rd June), and she and I (and Brody) went to Oriental Plaza for non-specific shopping. Remember that here in SA when people say “Asians”, they’re usually referring to East Indians, and that’s true of the word “Oriental”, too. Oriental Plaza is a mall, but it’s sort of open-air, like an Indian bazaar, and it is full of imports from mostly India (I did see a shop called Dubai Designs). You can find almost anything you want here – clothes, shoes, linens, cookware, jewelry, etc. Those of you who have been with me to music festivals know that I have a penchant for hippy swag, and this place is full of it. Gauzy, fun printed dresses, pillows with sparkly things, bedspreads, purses, incense, etc. I’ll go back to Oriental Plaza for that kind of stuff, but also for fabrics. I finally bought a Nelson Mandela kanga! (A kanga is a colorful piece of cloth that African women use to wrap around themselves. In some countries, like Zimbabwe, it’s worn on top of regular clothes, usually to keep your regular clothes clean when you’re working around the house or traveling on a chicken bus. In Zim, they called them “zambias.” I think in east Africa, kangas are usually a whole outfit unto themselves; you’ve got the wrap-around cloth, plus a matching piece to wrap around your head.) There are quite a few curtain stores in Oriental Plaza, and I saw some stunning fabrics. Maybe I’ll take some with me whenever I move back to the U.S. My dining room on Clairmont Avenue in Birmingham could use some curtains…

http://www.orientalplaza-fordsburg.co.za/index.htm

Artists under the Sun
Last Wednesday, I had lunch with Feng-hua Wang in Pretoria. She’s a Chinese-American who is the Information Resource Officer for Southern Africa. She’s based in the Information Resource Centre in the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, but she visits U.S. embassy and consulate libraries in several Southern African countries, evaluates them, makes recommendations, and gives training sessions and workshops. We met briefly at Liasa last September; she had just moved here from her last post in Nairobi, Kenya, where she was doing the same thing for East African countries. She invited me to join her and another American woman at an art show at Zoo Lake here in Jo’burg on Sunday morning. It was a beautiful, sunny day, though a bit chilly, but perfect for walking around looking at art. The artists were almost exclusively painters, and there were some very nice works there. I found out that the show is there the first weekend of every month, so I didn’t make any big purchases but instead will hold off until I’ve been here awhile and have seen more things. I did buy a little bitty watercolor of two African ladies carrying things on their heads. Some of you may know that I also like to collect small watercolors that are representative of places I’ve visited. I have ones from Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, Mexico City, Beijing and Hanoi. This small one will join the collection in my hallway on Clairmont Avenue. I may also start a collection of African ladies carrying things on their heads. I already have an oil painting that I got in Zanzibar, and now the small watercolor. And I saw another acrylic painting at this show of women carrying bundles of sticks (firewood) on their heads that I liked an awful lot. But I’ll wait a bit…

http://www.artistsunderthesun.org/index.htm (not a very good site)

Rosebank Craft Market
After the visit to Zoo Lake, Feng-hua and Traci Mell (a political officer in the U.S. Embassy; she works with refugee programs; her previous post was 2 years in Pakistan!) didn’t need to get back to Pretoria right away, and we were close to the Rosebank Craft Market, so off we went. This is a huge craft market that’s held only on Sundays and public holidays on the rooftop of a mall in Rosebank. I didn’t realize just how huge it is, or I would have planned to spend more time there. As it is, I’ll have to go back. It will also be an excellent place to take visitors who want to buy presents or goods for themselves. There is all the usual crafty stuff that you see in many markets (bead work, wire work, masks, dyed and painted fabrics, caftans, wooden bowls, spoons, etc.). There’s also a largish section where you can get cheeses, dried spices in bulk, biltong (dried meat, like jerky but better; comes in beef, ostrich, kudu, and other game meats), olives in various kinds of mixes, cakes, pies, bagels (bagels! They didn’t actually look all that good, but it was amusing), and then a food court with Thai, Middle Eastern, Chinese, Portuguese and African foods. I had some beef with pap (pronounced “pop”; same thing as sadza in Zimbabwe, ugali in Swahili-speaking countries, nzima in Malawi – a cornmeal porridge kind of like polenta from Italy only lots thicker) and tomato gravy. I couldn’t eat pap every day, but I do like it every now and then, and it’s no fun to cook.

http://www.craft.co.za/index.htm

The Midmar Mile

A few weeks before Christmas, Colleen talked me into swimming the Midmar Mile. The Web site (http://www.midmarmile.co.za/) identifies it as the world’s largest open-water race. These days, I seem to need some serious motivation to get exercise, so I thought this would be perfect. I had already joined the Virgin Active gym in October (part of British entrepreneur/showman Richard Branson’s empire), and had been working out with some regularity. So, from a fitness standpoint, I wasn’t starting from scratch. The days before the holidays were hectic, so Col and I weren’t able to swim together much, but we each managed to get some time in the pool, and I was able to swim a couple of times while I was home in Tennessee. After Christmas, we managed to get together a few times for practice. Some days I would want to swim less, and some days Colleen would want to swim less, so it was good that we could encourage each other to carry on.

The race is held in the Midmar Dam (they use dam to refer to both the structure and the lake created by the structure), which is about an hour northwest of Durban, in the KwaZulu-Natal province. Ralph is not a swimmer and decided not to join us for the weekend, so Colleen, Brody (their 2 year old) and I drove down on the evening of Thursday, 9th February. We stayed in a Durban suburb, called Botha’s Hill, with a friend of Colleen’s. Shona and Colleen met when both their husbands were working in Lagos, Nigeria. Shona and Charles now live in Jakarta, Indonesia, but Shona comes home every 8 weeks or so, and we caught her on the tail-end of a visit.

This visit, in itself, made for a very pleasant weekend, indeed. Shona and Charles have had some financial ups and downs, but I think they are currently in a very nice upswell. The original part of the house was built 100 years ago, but they’ve added on substantially. The current project was to convert the huge verandah on the back of the house into a huge kitchen/dining room/lounge area. Two of the walls are solid windows, a very unique kind of thing I hadn’t seen before. They are floor to ceiling panels; when you open the end panel, you can then slide the next one down to it, and fold it back. And so on with each successive panel. So, the whole room can be open as if it were still a verandah. The kitchen is very deluxe, and the whole thing is such a pleasant room. The work was just finishing up when we were there, so we spent some time helping Shona, her daughter Caitlin, and her housekeeper unpacking boxes of dishes, washing, polishing silver, etc. We had hoped to go to the beach at least one day while we were down there, but the weather wasn’t very good. But Shona’s house was so pleasant that it was okay by me just to laze around, reading, napping, drinking tea, and polishing silver. It also introduced me to a lifestyle (big house, lovely grounds, swimming pool, live-in staff, etc.) that I hadn’t seen yet.

The race was on Sunday morning, and we got a late start leaving Shona’s. We also underestimated the crowd and attendant traffic! Plus, we found out from friends later that we should have received an information packet in the mail that would have given us parking and shuttle instructions. But we didn’t have that in hand, and since neither of us had been there before, we bumbled around trying to decide where best to park, how to get the shuttle to the other side of the lake, etc. By the time we finally ended up at the registration point, Colleen just had time to thrust Brody into the arms of her friend Rene, who had agreed to keep him while we swam, and we rushed to the starting point. If you see her, ask Colleen what else she did not have time to do beforehand, which proved to be quite uncomfortable for her.

The race is separated into age and gender groups, but even then, because there are so many participants, the start times are staggered. If you have never swum in the Midmar Mile and you did not participate in a seeding event, then you are given a white swim cap and you are in the last group to start (for your age and gender). This identifies you as a “Midmar virgin.” Because Colleen and I had done a seeding event (the 1K race in Germiston in January), and based on our times in that event, we were given yellow caps. I think, though I’m not sure, that there were two groups before us. Red and either blue or green, I forget. So, for the 31+ and under 13 women (yes, us oldies were swimming with the youngsters), the red caps started at 8.30 a.m. There was a delay of 6 or 7 minutes (I couldn’t always hear the announcer), then the next group, 6 or 7 minutes, then the next group, and so on.

One nice thing about this race is that it is a straight shot. You swim from one side of the lake to the other, within a lane that is marked by buoys along the way. The race in Germiston was like a big triangle. Swim a few hundred meters to the first buoy, around it and to the next buoy, around it and to the finish. Midmar is easier. One not so nice thing about it is that because it’s such a big lake, there’s a likelihood of bigger waves in the event of bad weather. When we started out, it was cloudy but calm. Sometime during the race, though, it started to rain and the wind picked up. Fortunately, that lasted only for a few minutes.

There are small boats and lifeguards on surfboards all along the route, so if anyone gets into trouble during the race, someone can quickly paddle over and give assistance. I don’t know if this happened during our race. I was worried about how young some of the girls were, but they seemed to do just fine!

Colleen’s biggest problem during swim races is that she gets bored. My biggest problem is that I get frustrated with all the bodies around me. The beginning of the race is particularly crowded, but then it thins out. At one point, though, I got stuck in a gaggle of 5 or 6 youngsters, and couldn’t seem to get around them or power through them. Finally, I just slowed down a lot, let them pass, then changed my course around them.

As you finish the race and exit the water, there are volunteers who hand you a medal (everyone gets one), and a timekeeper who is calling out times. There are also photographers, and you can later find your photo on the Web site and place an order, if you wish. Then you have to walk through a throng of onlookers, most of whom are seeking their friends or family members who were swimming. I managed to find Rene and Brody. I was astonished to discover that I finished before Colleen. I am a good swimmer, but she does triathlons and is just much more fit than I. She’s also only 35!

Here are our results. If you want to view the file yourself, go to http://www.midmarmile.co.za/Catergory%20Results.htm, scroll down to Event 5, combined results.

My final time was 38:23. My position was 854, my category position (female 41-50) was 124, and my gender position was 828.

Colleen had a final time of 39:01, position 903, category position (female 31-40) 196, and gender position 877.

This past Sunday (19th Feb) we swam in a 1K race in Midrand (between Jo’burg and Pretoria). Colleen finished before I did again (as she did in Germiston), and we each imporoved our times for the 1K. Then we came back to Jo’burg, showered, collected Ralph and Brody, and had a nice Sunday brunch at Betty’s restaurant, near their house. There’s another race in March, but I won’t be able to compete in that one because it’s while Dad will be here for a visit, and we’ll be in Nelspruit that weekend. Maybe Col and I can find one for April. I want to continue competing, because it gives me motivation to stay in the pool!

Cheers, everyone!

View of Betty's Bay from the Mills' deck

Tidal river at Pringle Bay beach

Brody catches the ball

Brody and Shelby play

Betty's Bay

Colleen and Ralph lived in Nigeria for a couple of years while Ralph was working for MTN (one of the 3 big cell phone companies here). When they returned to South Africa, they bought a house in Betty's Bay, which is about an hour southeast of Cape Town. They moved back to Johannesburg in June of this year and rented the house for a few months. The renters recently moved out, and the Mills have decided to sell the house in Betty's Bay. They flew down this past Thursday (8 December) to mow, clean, etc. in order to have an open house on Saturday. They invited me to join them for the weekend, so I flew down on Friday afternoon, after the office year end function. Ralph picked me up from the airport, and we drove to Betty's Bay. The drive is not quite an hour. I was glad he was driving, so that I could enjoy the scenery. The drive is right along the coast, and it reminded me a little bit of Highway 1 that goes up and down the California coast. It was really windy that day. Ralph told me that some of the locals say that wind was invented in Betty’s Bay.

He also warned me that they had come into the house to find it infested with fleas. They bought some spray from a veterinarian friend in nearby Kleinmond and hoped that dealt with it. Unfortunately, we battled with the fleas all weekend. But apparently fleas feel the same way about me as mosquitoes, because I had only one bite the whole time. Poor little Brody (Colleen and Ralph’s 23 month old), on the other hand, was tortured by the tiny demons.

On Saturday the estate agent (realtor) had planned an open house from 9 a.m. until 2 p.m., so we loaded up the car and drove to Hermanus. First we visited Hamilton Russell Vineyard in Hemel en Aarde (heaven and earth) Valley (http://away.com/features/south_africa_wine_4.html). It’s a really lovely place, and reminded me so much of a couple of vineyards I’ve visited with Ginanni cousins in the Sierra Nevada foothills in California. This particular estate produces only two wines – Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. I especially liked the Chardonnay and bought two bottles. They also grow and press their own olives to make a very nice olive oil.

We then drove on into the centre of Hermanus, which seems like a real holiday town. Could just be that everyone in the country is on holiday now (or will be soon), so the town was teeming with tourists. We had lunch at a nice outdoor café, did some shopping at the outdoor market, bought some books at a nice used bookstore (new books are very expensive here; it’s the shipping fees), then loaded up the car and started driving back towards Betty’s Bay.

One final stop, though, was at The Wine Village (http://www.wine-village.co.za/default.asp). I’ve been looking for a wine that Colleen and Ralph introduced me to weeks ago – Steenberg Catharina 2002 (a red blend) – and we thought they might have it. They did! I bought half a case. But wow, they had everything! A sign outside announced some accolade the store had won from a South African wine magazine, and did they ever deserve it. The proprietors were very nice, helpful and good sales people. Colleen and I each also bought a bottle of a divine dessert wine that has a good bit of Chardonnay brandy in it. Not too sweet at all.

We arrived back in Betty’s Bay tired but happy. The weather, which had been cloudy earlier in the day, had niced up, so we decided to walk down to the jackass penguin colony (they’re called “jackass” because of the braying sounds they make, which they demonstrated for us). Brody especially enjoyed that, but I did too! It is moulting season for them, which means they can’t swim for a few weeks, so there were plenty of them sitting around. Ralph spotted a few out in the water who must have finished moulting. They were trying to come in to shore, but apparently they don’t do well in shallow water. It was pretty funny to watch them as a wave would wash them in so close to their rocks, but then wash them back out to sea. A little bit closer the next time, then back out. And so on, until they finally got close enough to scramble up onto the rocks.

On Sunday one of Colleen’s older sisters and her family came to join us for a picnic at Pringle Bay beach. Michelle, Kevin and Shelby (Michelle’s daughter) live close to Cape Town. The beach we went to was so nice, and not very crowded. There is a closer beach in Betty’s Bay, but the good thing about this one is that there is a tidal river that borders the beach on one end and flows into the ocean. It is shallow and warm enough for Brody to play in. The beach also has an area that is big and flat enough for a local group to play touch rugby, which Ralph stayed over later in the afternoon to do.

We had such a nice time. We had lunch, I took a brief dip in the ocean, we played in the river, everyone played beach cricket while I read for awhile. Very relaxing. That evening, the Mills and I went to nearby Kleinmond (in between Betty’s Bay and Hermanus) to have dinner with their friends Vanessa and Peter (the veterinarian).

We needed a fairly early start to get to the airport for a 10.40 a.m. flight on Monday morning, but Colleen was determined to have a swim in the really nearby freshwater lake, and she woke me up to join her. I’m glad I went! It was a beautiful little lake. The bottom was very sandy. The tannin content was so high that you could barely see your hand in front of you as you swam. It looked like incredibly strong tea, but the water smelled good and it was so delicious to swim in the cool morning air. We swam out to the center of the lake and back. Then we rushed back to the house, ran around like chickens with our heads cut off packing up and cleaning up, and then dashed to the airport. We just barely made the flight.

All in all, it was a fine weekend, even though I’m not used to being with such a young child full time. But Brody is a sweetheart, and adorable, so it was actually a pleasure. I’m glad I went, and I wish they weren’t selling the house!

Lipizzaners and Polokwane

I’ve mentioned to a few of you that I haven’t done much writing lately because I haven’t done much travel lately. I still don’t have my work permit and until I get one, I cannot get either a local bank account or, more importantly, a South African credit card. That makes it a little difficult to travel. But I did have a few interesting experiences last week.

On Tuesday, I went to Wits (University of the Witwatersrand) to do a little bit of training for a customer there. Just as I was packing up to leave, one of our local competitors (and a former EBSCO employee) walked up! We chatted for a few minutes – I’d actually been thinking about phoning her to see if she wants to play with our softball team, as we are chronically short of players. I think we made the poor customer a little bit uncomfortable!

Wednesday afternoon was the year-end function and AGM for SLIS (Special Libraries and Information Services group; sort of like a very mini-SLA). It was during this meeting that the Information Specialist of the Year award was presented. Jean and I had both served as judges for that a few weeks earlier, so it was really necessary for us to be there for the presentation. The meeting was held at the Kyalami Equestrian Centre (http://www.knet.co.za/lipizzaner/lipizzanersofsouthafrica.htm and http://www.horseworld.co.za/Articles/lipizzan.htm). It was a poor venue for a business meeting (I’d thought they must have some sort of conference centre, or at least big meeting room, but we met in the stands where audiences watch the horse performances!), but then we did get a special one hour performance from the horses. I thought it was going to be mildly interesting, but it turned out to be quite something! I don’t think I’d seen Lipizzaners perform since my 5th birthday, when Mom, Dad, Claudia and I went to Nashville for dinner at Shoney’s and attendance at the circus. At times I thought that the training those horses go through must be kinda cruel, but they really were beautiful to watch. Afterward, there was a very nice cocktail reception in the courtyard where the horses are stabled. And there was a plentiful supply of big carrots for those of us who wanted to give special thanks to the horses.

On Thursday morning, Colleen picked me up at home, and we met Julia Mofokeng, a customer service rep, at the office to begin our 4 hour drive up to Polokwane to visit the University of Limpopo. Limpopo made the 8th of the nine provinces for me to visit. It borders Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Botswana. It’s one of the hottest areas in the country, too. I’ve been seeing their temperatures in the mid-30s C pretty consistently now. (Here’s my favorite conversion site that I’ve found: http://www.metric-conversions.org/temperature-conversion.htm.)

As we were driving up to Polokwane, I suddenly remembered that I have a young almost-relative who’s living there. Maureen FitzMaurice is the niece of my Cousin John Shine’s wife, Barbara FitzMaurice. John and Barbara live in Sonoma, California but Maureen grew up in Idaho. She is a recent college graduate and is currently serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer here in South Africa! Her experience is going to be very different from mine, I think. She is living right in Polokwane, which is the capital of Limpopo province and, I think, a pretty industrialized area. Apparently, Polokwane gets a lot of traffic, because it is on the Great North Road (the N1) that goes from Pretoria all the way up to Zimbabwe.

Barbara had let me know about Maureen, and I’d had an e-mail exchange with her, but completely forgot that she is there in Polokwane until I was on my way. I called from the Crackberry, and we arranged to meet for coffee when Colleen, Julia and I were on the way back from our appointment. Unfortunately, this was not meant to be. Sometime during the drive, my stomach started to hurt. It was okay while Colleen was making her EBSCO Publishing presentation but then became worse and worse as we were driving back towards town (the university is not right in Polokwane). We had arranged to meet two of the ladies from the library at a nearby mall for lunch. We had planned for this to be a working lunch, so that the 3 of us could get back on the road to Jo’burg sooner. But as we were discussing journals business, I had to excuse myself so I could go be quite sick in the ladies’ room. I managed to make it through the rest of the lunch, but by the time we got back in the car I really just wanted to get home. I called Maureen to explain, and promised to call her the next time I’m up that way and to give her more advance notice next time. During the ride back I felt progressively worse. By the time I got home, I had a mild fever and felt pretty achey (in addition to a still-upset stomach). So, I took some ibuprofen, beef broth, tea, and a hot bath, and went to bed at 8.30 that night.

Also last week, I had to take my laptop to the IBM hospital, and my car to the VW hospital. But those stories aren’t very interesting, so I’ll stop here.

Kruger National Park

In the last update I told you that Colleen, Rehette, Vic and I drove from Nelspruit to Kruger National Park. Going out of Nelspruit, we passed an enormous citrus plantation, the Crocodile Valley Citrus Company. Vic says it’s one of the largest citrus farms in the country.

We had gotten a late start, so it was 4.30 pm by the time we arrived at the Malelane Gate. The gates close at 6.00, and there is a fine if you’re late, so we wasted no time in starting our drive.

We probably hadn’t gotten 200 metres inside the park when we saw a bakkie (Afrikaans for little pickup truck) pulled over, and most of the folks inside were peering into the bush with binoculars. Colleen was driving; she mouthed, “What is it?” to the other vehicle. “Leopard,” they replied. LEOPARD?! Sighting a leopard at that time of day is nearly unheard of! We spent several minutes straining to see something when Rehette finally spotted it. And it was so close to our car I couldn’t believe it! I did see her, but didn’t get a good photo before she finally walked away.

That was an auspicious start to the drive. We didn’t see loads and loads of other people. Sometimes when we did, they were already pulled over, and we’d try to see whatever they were seeing. Or, we’d be pulled over, and the other car would ask us, “What do you see?” There was a nice spirit of camaraderie, of helping each other out.

We were so very lucky to have Vic along. He loves game parks, and has spent a lot of time in them, including Kruger. He had advised through which gate to enter, and which drive to take. And he spotted more animals than any of us. He was very patient as he helped us find, with our eyeballs or through the binoculars, the many animals he saw.

It’s not a particularly beautiful time of year for Kruger. It’s just barely spring, so it’s still pretty brown, dry and dusty. There were still some stunning sights, driving up into the hills and seeing the waning sun shining on some rocks. But even though it’s not especially pretty right now, the lack of vegetation on the trees and shrubs means that it’s a whole lot easier to spot animals. Here is a list of what we saw, pretty much in order:

Crocodiles, barbels (like catfish), tilapia, saddle billed stork, goliath heron, greenback heron (all these were actually in the river just before we passed into the park), leopard, buffalo herd, guinea fowl, impala herds (these are a dime a dozen, like deer in the U.S.), horn bill, kudu family of 4 (I had no idea they are so big!), lourie, giraffe, dwarf mongooses (or is it mongeese?), francolin, fork-tailed drungo, lilac breasted roller, 2 white rhino, elephant family (including a baby!).

The elephant was really special. We’d just seen the rhino and were happily racing to the gate (didn’t want to be fined), and Colleen said, “Okay, Vic, we’d like an elephant, please.” Not 10 seconds later, I swear, he said, “Okay, stop. Back up.” And there was a little elephant family!

Wow, what a day. I thought it was going to be fairly interesting but probably not something I’d want to do over and over. I was wrong! When my first visitors come, I’m going to purchase a WILD card. It’s only R350 and gives you a year of free entrance into any national park. What a bargain.

Who’s going to be first? :)

On Friday, we decided to do a little sightseeing before driving back to Jo’burg. I won’t go into great detail about that, as I’m afraid these missives are getting too long. But I will say that Mpumalanga Province is very beautiful, and I look forward to spending more time there. It is one of the biggest producers of timber in the country, and driving through seas of pine was somehow comforting to me! A lot of nuts are grown there, too. When we stopped for gas and a quick run through a gift shop, several vendors approached us to sell bags of roasted cashews, macadamias and peanuts. We visited an overlook at The Pinnacle, and then on to another one called God’s Window. The drive back was boring in comparison.

Nelspruit and Liasa

Jean Smith (general manager) and Rehette Spaanderman (sales representative) left in one car, and Colleen Mills (regional sales manager for EBSCO Publishing) and I left in another on Monday morning (9/26) for Nelspruit to attend Liasa.

Nelspruit (nel’ sprate) is a medium sized town and is the capital of the Mpumalanga province. Spruit is an Afrikaans word for river. Nel is a surname. Nelspruit is pretty much due east and a little bit north of Johannesburg, about a 4 hour drive. It's not very far from either Swaziland or Mozambique. I think I’ve mentioned that we need rain right now. Driving away from Johannesburg, the dust in the air was so thick you couldn’t see very clearly. At one point, when the wind was blowing particularly hard, it was so dark that Colleen had to turn on her lights. After an hour or more, the air cleared a bit, but as we approached Nelspruit, the air became thick again with smoke due to recent forest fires in the area.

For the first couple of hours of the drive, we went through gently rolling hills with fields that haven’t yet been prepared for planting. About an hour from Nelspruit, the landscape suddenly changed, and we were in a canyon or valley surrounded by pretty tall hills/mountains. It reminded me somewhat of the drive through the Feather River Canyon in California that my friend Sam and I made up to the High Sierra Music Festival in July, 2000. Lots of rocky, arid land, but some greenery, too and very beautiful.

Nelspruit and area is a little bit greener, and it is absolutely lovely. I don’t know why, but I wasn’t expecting it. The guest house we stayed in, The Rest Country Lodge, is 9 kilometres outside of town, and it is fantastic. The owners are a South African man and his Austrian wife. He is a medical doctor and she runs the guest house. They have 11 hectares (10 acres in a hectare, I think). Jean said she bet it used to be a farm. “So hilly!” I said. She guessed cattle, and Anita (the owner) confirmed that later. The main house is absolutely gorgeous. There are three main sections, each with one section of circular walls. One section is the private quarters for the family. There’s also a large, airy, light-filled dining room, similar lounge (den or living room), a lovely deck and small pool. The décor is perfect; lots of African art and artifacts, but not over the top. The guest rooms are in separate cottages. Jean and I were in a double A-frame cottage but with completely separate rooms. Walk in the front door and there’s a little kitchenette and full bath to the right. Keep walking straight ahead and you come to a HUGE bedroom with cathedral ceiling and French doors onto your own private deck. There’s also a small loft with twin beds. It is so nicely appointed. Lovely cotton sheets, ceiling fan, portable radio/CD player with a small but varied CD selection, little bottle of sherry on the dressing table, etc.

At 7.00 every evening, Anita puts out food to feed some semi-tame bushbabies and genets (a type of wild cat, related to the mongoose). If you sit very quietly on the deck or patio, you can watch them. There are also quite a few louries (a big, colorful bird) around, and lots of other birds too numerous to know, let alone mention. I have GOT to get a book about South African birds.

Tuesday, the first day of the conference, was sooo hot and humid. It really reminded me of summer in Alabama. Don’t know if I’ve mentioned this yet, but Johannesburg is VERY dry. I have used more moisturizer and lotion in the few weeks I’ve spent here (including my time in July-August) than I might use in several months in AL. But it’s a different story in Mpumalanga. Most of the vendors were complaining, but I welcomed it. My nasal passages felt better after a day of that!

When I told Steve “Smartypants” Murden that, “I’m in Nelspruit for Liasa,” he asked, “Is that English?” I’ve explained Nelspruit. Now let me explain Liasa. It is an acronym (they seldom capitalize acronyms here, which drives me crazy because EBSCO is an acronym and I hate seeing it spelled as Ebsco!) for Library and Information Association of South Africa. We are in Nelspruit for the annual conference. “Gee,” you might be thinking, “Nelspruit doesn’t sound big enough to host the annual conference of the biggest library association in South Africa!”

(For those of you on this list who are not librarians, let me give you some background information. The American Library Association has two conferences each year, Midwinter and Annual. Midwinter has grown in recent years and now has around 12-14,000 attendees. Annual has always been larger, and attendance there is between 18-24,000 depending on the convenience and popularity of the venue. There are just a handful of cities in the U.S. that can now hold ALA.)

So, back to the question. Is Nelspruit big enough? At just around 400 delegates, you bet it’s big enough! It’s actually quite a shame. The main reason for this low attendance is that a few years ago, Liasa decided to “take the conference to the people.” Instead of having it in one of the larger cities (Johannesburg, Durban, Cape Town, even Port Elizabeth), they’ve held the conference in more remote towns in more remote provinces so that the people in those areas will be able to attend. I admire the reason, but it hasn’t been very successful. Apparently, Liasa used to draw 800-1,000 participants, but it has been falling off for the last three years and this year is the worst. Another problem with having the conference in these smaller towns is that there is not always an appropriate venue. This conference is being held on one of the campuses of Tshwane University of Technology. Tshwane used to be a smaller technical college, but as a result of a number of higher education mergers earlier this year it is now a university level institution. This particular campus has only one hall large enough for all of the delegates to meet together, so they’ve put us vendors in tents on a sports field. It sounds a little primitive, and it wouldn’t have been too fun if it rained, but it has turned out to be okay. Tuesday was beastly humid, but the weather on Wednesday and Thursday has been quite lovely. A wind came through on Tuesday night and cleared out the smoke (remember the forest fires?), and it’s been clear, sunny, not too hot, and a bit of a breeze all day.

Exhibits ended on Thursday afternoon, and Rehette, Colleen, another vendor friend named Vic, and I drove up to Kruger National Park for a quick game drive. I’ll tell you all about that in the next update.