Edyn's African Adventure

If you're new to the blog, and want to start at the beginning, stop reading now and scroll down to the first post.

Great news...my sister and her Jack Russell, Jesse James, arrived for a 10 day visit on Sunday. I am VERY happy to see them. I thought my stuff was going to arrive from Canada while they were here so she could help me with setting up my place, but it only arrives in Durban on Aug 26th and doesn't get here until the first week of September. That's okay though.

Things are always the same when we are together--all about shopping. We made it a mission to get some of the appliance and house shopping done while she was here. We went out for a couple of hours and bought major stuff and managed huge bargains: fridge, microwave, vacuum, hair dryer and some odds and ends all for less than $500!!!! Insane! And we're going out to get a 29" tv...and it's on sale for $250!!!! This place is crazy, man!

Of course with the sunshine comes the rain and true to form, I am working hard to make sure all the crap stuff happens up front and I have a joyous and funfilled time whilst here in South Africa. The first month presented it's challenges with getting culturally acclimated...see previous post. I figured with the start of a new month things would get easier and run a lot smoother. See what a positive attitude gets you--the first two days of the new month have seen crap happen yet again. Last night I experienced the joy of a South African hospital. Not to worry...I live in a really nice area and the hospital was quite nice, actually. So why was I inside a hospital you ask? All I can say is Stay away from really sharp exacto craft knives if you aren't paying attention and don't really know what you're doing. Ooops, I slip with it, gashing into my left ring finger at the top knuckle, palm side. As soon as it happend and the blood spurted...yep, spurted, I knew it was bad. Thank goodness for the map book...turns out I live about three blocks from the hospital. Think stuck pig and you'll get an idea of the amount of blood...I had a look at the clamp actually inside my finger holding the blood vessel. Nice. One hour, one tetnus shot, a couple of tries at doing stitches, and one tournaquet later, all was reasonably right with the world again. It took 7 stitches but it's alright. the doctor wouldn't win any cosmetic surgery awards-- the stitches are a mess and the sides don't quite match up so there will be some scar tissue, but at least it's done. Now I'm afraid to take the dressing off...no doubt it willbe gross and will look worse than it actually is. It's a cut for goodness sake...not brain surgery!!! The house did look like a CSI episode though with all the blood.

Oh yes and today...the hits just keep on coming. Had to take the rental car back and get another one for this month. Stopped to get gas and it's a mission to use credit cards here. I decided to use a bank machine and pay cash. And something I've never done before happened...I must have left the card in the machine because ten minutes later at Hertz it was no where to be found. Obviously gone from the gas station as well. No worries...I cancelled the card with no damage but now have no way to easily access cash in a cash based society. And without the card, can't do online banking to pay off the credit cards to at least keep cash advances going there. Of course I'll figure it out, but man...when does the fun start?

On the bright side, I finally got a post box so can now start getting mail reasonably reliably. So, at least one step ahead...got to take success where you find it!

On the other bright side, the weather is getting nicer as Spring is on it's way here in the southern hemisphere, and so I look forward to using the pool...this is the "little" one across the drive from my door.


Well that's it for this time. Check in often for updates and please feel free to leave comments in the comments section.

Miss everyone!!!!