PARTING WAYS AND GOOD DAYS

Beautiful old building in Pietermaritzburg, as much as I do not like cities, I love old buildings

Suddenly I am all alone, Riaan left yesterday, he is going to work for Protrack and look after our Rhino’s. Protrack is an Anti Poaching organization in the Limpopo province of South Africa. A Part of me feels very lost and lonely but I am also very happy for him, it is great to be able to do things in this world that can really make a difference. Life carries on and I have a lot to keep myself busy, we will see him soon enough.

 I still feel exhausted two days after I took Riaan to the bus station in Pietermaritzburg. What a nightmare! Driving in a City I do not know, in Friday afternoon traffic; it took all my willpower and Yoga breathing and unearthly power not to go crazy. I have a claustrophobic streak (got stuck in a lift once) and peak traffic will drive me insane, I feel completely trapped. How do people put up with this on a daily basis without road rage reaching pandemic proportions, I do not know. People are different, that I do know, but I think I should seriously stay away from big cities and traffic jams, they will drive me to Cream soda and School boys. The funny thing is that I am a very calm and relaxed passenger, I can just close my eyes and go somewhere else, but you cannot do that when you have to drive.

My little project for the week was to make a canvas window for the communal kitchen area. The problem is that the smoke from the donkey blows straight into the kitchen from that specific opening.

So the measuring continued (after the land meter job) and then the cutting and the gluing and now it still needs to be hanged and here I get stuck, Shine found some wood that I can use and this wood must now be nailed to a cob and wattle wall and I think I am going to need some help here. It also needs to be stitched, but so does the canvas for the new Yurt, so I am hoping that will happen soon.

The slow Internet does remain a bit of a challenge, but we went to WESSA this week and that one day at high speed makes such a difference. We or rather me are busy trying to put a basic website together for the Rainbow homestead and this with numbingly boring slow Internet, but patience is a virtue so we will try that and if all else fail, I will eat a cookie and start again. Our neighbor just got Wi-Fi, so maybe it is worth looking into, it is faster and cheaper.

The other points of focus are the fundraising for various projects and for this we need to put together a Portfolio. Something Sam and I urgently need to work on. Then there is the marketing of the Empendle Eco tourism and more specifically the Voluntourism programme. 

Another thing on the to do list is to register with SARS as a PBO (Public Benefit Org.), the huge advantage of facing the red tape and tons of paperwork that comes with it, is that your sponsors can deduct their contribution from tax. This obviously makes fundraising much easier.

Then there is the Space of love gathering next weekend and we might be planning on “building” a Gingerbread house or a big Gingerbread man.

Aumji building a Dehydrator

David, with the compost toilet in the background

I haven’t said much so far about the people that live here. People come and go, the old story; you still have to make a living, but let me introduce you to the Rainbow Homestead crew - you have Sam Rose and Shine Murhpy and their children, Kei and Oriah. Then you have me and Aumji living near and working at/in/around the homestead. Then there is David and Evelyn, they also live on the farm and  work here every day. There are seven other houses on the farm and there are some of the people I haven’t met yet, like Dale. He stays in a beautiful big round cob house further up the hill and we wave at each other in the distance, but we have not actually met.

We are expecting two Volunteers to arrive in early July and that also put the yurt building business on the priority list, the weather is not playing along. The first attempt blew over and some of the poles broke. Back to square one!

Dale's house

My "house"