A New Chapter Begins

The last 6 months have brought many challenges about in our lives, which have consumed my mind, my thinking and my energy.  This is the reason that I have not spent much time blogging, not because there is nothing to write about but rather I have not been inclined to.

The events leading up to the here and now, have made up our minds to close the chapter we are currently in and start afresh.

When we made the move here almost 10 years ago, we were both excited and sad.  Excited that we would be a family again, with Johan, NiQi and I together, but ever so sad that we left Matthew behind in KZN.

I confess that this chapter has not been as I had hoped and imagined, but we have made the best of it.  There have been both advantages and disadvantages to living where we are and at the same time I have to remind myself that much of where we are now is brought on by circumstance and the current situation in this country.

I love that we are away from the hub bub of town and the masses of people, the noise and the pollution.  The quiet mornings broken by the bird life waking at dawn and the cool winds that end a stifling hot summers day, have been some my favourites.  The short rain season, the dry winters, the dust storms, dirt and filth are the things that I have not enjoyed about living here.

We arrived with 3 dogs, the koi and a lot of budgies and have had a variety of animals join us over the years.  As with the change in season, some have stayed and some have moved on.  We had our pigs and our sheep, the rabbits, chickens and pea fowl, the koi - new ones from the ones that came with us, squirrels and the tortoises, the dogs and cats, and lastly, the horses and our collection of birds, which started out just being budgies and now is a wide variety of both smaller and bigger birds.  When we leave here we will be taking the birds, dogs, cats and horses....much less than we are used to, but it is time to cut back on the work now

Once settled, we were shocked to find out that our cell phones were our main form of communication as we were immediately plunged into a different life in South Africa where cable theft was and still is rife.  Telkom has long given up on replacing cables that have been repeatedly stolen, leaving inhabitants to the area little choice in telephonic means.

Added to that, comms. are bad here, no matter what cell phone provider is used.  Between the 3 of us we have MTN, Vodacom and Cell C, with each giving their own challenges.  When one network is down, another may be working, but fairly regularly we have battled with none of them at all.  This doesn't only affect use of our cell phones but the internet as well.  We have dongles, but for some reason unknown to us, it is easier to connect directly by turning on tethering and portable WiFi.  At one point in time when Mariana and Bryan were living in the flat, Bryan contacted Vodacom about their poor and slow network service and it transpired that we fell just beyond the boundary of the closest tower to us.  They had plans to, and did erect another tower leaving us falling within its' boundary and it did improve matters immensely for him, and NiQi who is also on their network.  Strangely, we have never had a problem with SABC reception, in fact it is very good and even E-TV has always given a pretty clear picture.

The roads have been a continual problem for us and driving the last 7km on the dirt road that first night we arrived here, the Astra shook until it could shake no more.  Yes, the roads have been unkind to our vehicles these last 10 years.  The engine of the Astra almost fell out with the continual shuddering each trip it made from home and back again.  We have replaced more tyres in the last ten years than we ever did in previous years... it is amazing the number of times we had a 'slow' leak, only to find a nail or some such thing embedded in the rubber.

We have been burgled five times over the years - two times in the main house and three times in the flat.  The worst being just a couple of days after NiQi's 21st birthday whilst she was in hospital having IV treatment. Sadly she had all her presents stolen - most of which were jewellery.

One morning we woke and both our vehicles had been broken into and vandalized.  All the door locks were broken, windows smashed, wiring cut and the batteries swiped.

Yes we have had more to cope with than most in a lifetime, but moving here was an end to a means.  We moved so that NiQi could receive better health care and so we could be together as a family...and that has happened.  She almost hit rock bottom but she bounced back in more ways than one.  She is at last listed for a lung transplant and she has been told that she can live anywhere in the country so long as they know where she is. , There has been good and there has been bad, but now is the time to move on.  Our plan is to go back home...home to KZN...and home to Matthew who too is starting a brand new chapter in his life.  Our prayers are that God will lead us in the right direction -  and we will follow wherever He wants us to be...