2. MEDUNA AND YOGI

Madala Meduna

Exhausted but happy, we made a big fire in the fireplace. The house has been empty for a while, so I have been quite busy cleaning and redecorating.  


Madala Madula is a old Xhosa man that also lives on the farm, he is a fairly wealthy man, he has a lot of cows. He only speaks Xhosa and the little bit of Xhosa I did speak is very rusted, but we manage to communicate. He collects his cows (from all over the place) and since we arrived, he stops by for a "chat". I managed to understand that he had toothache (and gave him some tea tree) and he understands that I would like to buy/barter some milk from him.  I said "mina ibisi"  which translate to "me milk", but he got the message, he told me his calf's are drinking at the moment, but he will tell me when he has got, all done and well communicated via body language. I did find a Xhosa/English/Afrikaans Dictionary in the library, better start learning.


I am actually to exhausted to write much, but let me just finish by saying the our fire circle is getting a new look and a new life, thanks to Riaan doing a bit of physical work. It is like the hart of the place, but because the house was empty this also got neglected and looked very sad. 

The fire Circle before the clean-up, disappearing in the long grass.

I have not even started on the garden yet, there is some veggies and lots of herbs, but again its all neglected. I have worked in permaculture gardens before, but I am no expert, I cannot even find the pathways, but this will be a great challenge and seeing that we have been invited to attend a Permaculture course in July (nice birthday present), things should be back on track very soon.

We are also allowed to take from the other gardens and this feels weird, because we are just so conditioned into trespassing and taking from somebody else will get you shot at and/or arrested. It feels like you are doing wrong, when you are not. Besides these other people the gardens belong to are not here at the moment, so if we do not take it, the monkeys will.


We also met Yogi today, Yogi is an acrobatic cow, which belongs to Madala, she is called yogi because she can wiggle herself through gates and spaces that other cows only dream of. She was in the back yard this evening (gave me a bit of a fright) chomping away on the grass, it sounded like somebody was digging in the garden.



Well, it is time for tea with honey and then bed.