Essential Travel Item

Since I have previously mentioned the Teddy it seems only right that I should give you the full background on our acquired travel mascot.

While we were working at Hole in the Wall, South Africa a young Afrikaans couple had booked in for camping with us. During a night of debateable merriment, the girl brought in her teddy and demanded that he be put on the bar fridge to keep an eye on proceedings. Ever keen to ensure excellent customer service (!!??) we obliged and up the teddy went.

A few days later, towards the end of our time at Hole in the Wall we noticed that the poor chap of a teddy was still sat on the bar fridge and the couple had long since left, neglecting and abandoning the teddy to a fate we could only guess at. Being big softies at heart, we adopted the teddy, named him Mr. Teddy Malleddy and took him on our fantastical journey round the world. He has since travelled round the rest of South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique and nearly all of Australia. What can I say - he is entertaining at all times but especially during roadtrips in Australia! And there you have it - the irrelevant yet crucial story of the unstoppable Mr. Malleddy.

Indigenous Issues

So another country, another form of racism. Not that I can offer any defence or particularly insightful comments on where I come from either, it's just in other people's country's there is the ability to be the outsider looking in and so is possibly a more objective view...??

In Broome I have seen more Aboriginals than further south in Western Australia and yet they are no more integrated into this society than the very white one further south. And disappointingly I have yet to meet an Aboriginal or chat to one for more than a nod of the head. From what I understand there has been a lot of past misdeeds directed at the Aborignal population; the initial settlers aiming to annihilate them being rather a major misdeed. Uncomfortable thought really.

In recent times the governments of the day have tried to rectify the wrongs of the past, but seem to be going about it in such a way is to keep Aborinals and white Australians totally alienated from each other. There are, of course, no easy solutions but it seems that man's inhumanity to man continues in its current guise resulting in not being able to reconcile differences and move into the future together. I think I may be rather an idealist in this respect, but here's hoping.

As a traveller there seems very little difference that I can make for the short period of time that I am here. Visiting their National Parks (now leased back to the Government though) and buying directly from them seems to be about the sum of it. How can I, as a foreigner, help them integrate into a society which isn't even one that I belong to? And more to the point, why should they integrate into a relatively young society when their's has been in existence for centuries? Issues of equality and culture seem to raise more questions than it does provide answers. Maybe once I've left the country I'll have the benefit of hindsight and objectivity and be able to see things in a different light.

Roadtrippin' Teddy

From Fremantle to Exmouth by the airways, from Exmouth to Broome by the highways and only now have I totally had it up to the proverbial "here" with bugs. After a great week of roadtrippin' with my reunited travel buddy and generally roughing it true traveller style we arrived in Broome (north Western Australia) for a pitstop to top up the Travel Treasury.

Roadtrip Part 1 was a gentle introduction to the ways of the road Aussie style. I finally saw the famous yellow diamond road signs warning of kangaroos and other such weird and wonderful observations for several kilometres, came face to face with the infamous road trains that stop for nothing and do lovely damage to windscreens if not careful, plus the unending roads for as far as the eyes can see and the unrelenting heat in red dust desert country with just shrubs and bushes for company. But it was grand - me, the travel buddy and the travel teddy on the open road with a motley music selection to break the monotony.

The heat is a very special 40 degrees and I am now sadly intimate with sweat and sweat patches (lovely?!) but after a while we moved to a site with a view of the turqouise paradise beach - what a great idea we thought......

Until an infestation of ants devoured all our food - carbohydrates only mind you - into unopened packs of food they burrowed and then to add insult to injury, a little team of cockroaches decided to join us every bloody night - arrggghhhh. Needless to say we weren't happy bunnies. So we moved. Air conditioned room, TV, movie channels, fridge, 3 meals a day cooked for us - pretty much like being at home really. Except we were working. But you can't have it all I guess. I think we deserved it for a while - there is only so much hoo-ha one can take before needing civilisation for a short period to regain one's sanity.....

And now the Great Teddy Roadtrip Part 2 is soon to commence...... (Did I mention we have an adopted African teddy??)

A New Start

Well, I have since moved on from the hoo ha of my last post and currently living in a lovely town just twenty minutes from Perth. It is refreshingly normal to live in a town with a bit of hustle and bustle in it and some great weekend markets with plenty of bargains to be found if you like fish, fruit and veg. It has a real cafe culture about it and despite it being winter, the sun still shines and actually gives off a little heat which is a bonus...sadly though, the carefully cultivated tan from my South African days is gently fading back to the pale and pasty look.

I have found a spot of work for a few weeks again working in a backpackers, this time though for financial reasons rather than a lifestyle choice. It couldn't be more different from the place I worked in in South Africa if it tried. For a start, there is more than one shop and more than one other backpackers, not to mention all the restaurants, bars, cafes and entertainment centres. The beach is a ten minute walk away and the area for "bathing" is pathetically small although nice enough give or take the McDonalds right on the beach front. Everything in Australia (I presume more so on the East Coast) is set up for backpackers - it is so easy and so unchallenging and so bloody normal that it's like home with sun and different accents. Almost.

There are backpacker car markets, backpacker car rentals, backpacker bank accounts, backapcker mail holding and forwarding, backpacker guided tours (all extorionately priced in my view), numerous backpacker buses, backpacker houses that aren't actually backpacker hostels and of course, the obligatory backpacker food and booze specials. Everything is sorted for you before you've even arrived...so tell me...where's the fun in that?? I'm sure I have the slightly romanticised view that travelling is all about getting off the beaten track and trying to go where no backpacker has been before, or if they have, then not many of them! It'll be hard if near impossible to find this in Australia, despite being in Western Australia, which plenty of travellers don't get to and planning on a jaunt to the Northern Territories. I shall however, give it jolly good try! 

Made the usual mistake of talking racial politics the other night when slightly inebriated, although this time to white Australians about Aborigines rather than Afrikanners regarding tribes. I have to confess to not knowing perhaps as much as I should regarding the history of Australia and its current political climate, but I'm working on it and will still argue equal rights whether male, female, black white, pink or blue. Sadly, it didn't seem to cut the mustard and the over riding comment from that night from a white Australian was: "99% of Aborigines are trash, 1% are okay and 99% of white Australians are okay and 1% are trash". Oh plus the usual, when I sort to discover more on this astonishing view, "...but there are statistics to prove it". How you define human "trash" I'm not quite sure.

However, it was just one fella with his one view and I'm sure I'll come across many other people with different perspectives on life here. It's always interesting to talk and while living in a backpackers you really do meet people from all over the place from all walks of life.



  

 

Shattered Illusions

A new continent, a new country and a new way of getting involved with local life. Just three weeks into my Australian adventure and I sometimes wish I hadn't bothered.

I am in a South Western town of Western Australia and .... I really don't know how to start this story. I am volunteering at a wildlife centre (which is great) and living in a weekly rental room (cheap and cheerful) in a shared guest house with mostly out of work and out of luck Australians.

Down the road is a backpacker hostel that I stayed at for a couple of nights, made friends with the managers (an Australian couple; Karen and Adam) and generally go there for some social life. Or at least I did.

Friday just gone came around and off we all went to the local bar for two for one beers. Don't know what happened, I ended up on a girly mission to the loo with Karen and she ultimately pointed out the fading black eye and scar over her eyebrow from where her fella beat her adn wanted to know how you get strong enough to get out. Apparently it occurs every couple of weeks. He has already broken one of her ribs. She has a lot of fight in her but isn't yet ready to get the hell out of this destructive relationship. It may be for financial reasons but also because she is scared of being alone and scared of him. Funny that.

Anyway, sworn to secrecy as I was we headed back to the bar and ultimately back to the hostel. A new guest was getting angry about the noise levels and was rather stressed. Adam then got involved and physically chucked him out getting very aggressive with it. (Customer Service / Hospitality was like a bad joke that went right over his head.)One of the other semi permament guests (Gavin) also got involved and told the stressed guest to smack Adam one because he loves beating women.....and so the proverbial shit hit the proverbial fan. The rest of the night seemed to pass in a blur of Gavin packing his stuff up and Adam fronting up to him for a fight. The police were called by one of us but Karen would not or could not make a report to the police about her domestic violence so the police went away again. Then later on, five of us cajoled a relatively drunk Karen to the local police station...it took five of us approximately three hours to get her there to start making a start on her life. The police said "come back at eight in the morning". For us and for Karen it was now or possibly never...what a joke.

In our company we also had another guest who works in a different state as a sexual harrassment officer, and although she worked wonders with Karen she also gave up at the first obstacle shouting at me that do I think Karen is the only one who gets beaten and that this is real life. I disagree and I told her. It doesn't have to be real life....for all the good it did me.

The next day was like nothing ever happened...Adam doesn't know I was around at all that evening and the other guests involved treated it as a usual night on the piss with only a slight undertone of something more serious....

The one thing that strikes me with real irony is that Australian radio and television shows are keen on their commercial breaks. A lot of them are either for men who use violence against women and how they can be helped or for women on the receiving end of violence and how they can also be helped. So as with most ads, despite this being sponsored by the government, it is also surface selling and the reality is the police don't want to know unless it suits them.

Needless to say I am moving away from this both physically and emotionally. I'm not in a position to help, nor do I have any experience of what to do. All I know about is how to be a friend, and I shall be that for Karen. If the sexual harrassment officer is anything to go by I've got it all wrong anyway. As Gavin said about Karen and reporting to the police at one point on that crazy Friday night; "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make her drink".

Names have been changed.

Lone Ranger

Throughout South Africa I was exploring with my travel buddy; for various reasons we have now moved apart in Australia for a couple of months - all frighfully daunting to start with.

My first night alone was spent in a private room at a backpackers and oh how easy it would have been just to sit and fester in my room feeling lonely and pathetic. It took a lot of forced will power, but I slapped some face on, put some clean clothes on and headed out to the TV lounge to meet the other backapckers. It was a fairly quiet place so I wasn't overly hopeful on the night out, but off I went in the name of making friends! It actually turned out to be a rather good night; playing a bit of pool, doing a bit of dancing and of course having a few drinks to help the evening along. Once that first night was out the way, it was much easier for me to be social and want to chat to random people.

I have since moved to a different backpackers which is busier and has a few people (also travellers) that are almost semi permanent residents a bit like me and luckily they're my kind of people. We've had some excellent and messy nights, mainly in the backpackers to conserve money.

Contrary to what people may say, it's very easy to judge people on appearance without making an effort to get to know them. I try really hard not to, but tend to form any opinions after about 3 days as you get more of a gradual chance to get to know people over a period of time. I have to say that my thoughts on a person have been proved completely incorrect and have more often than not been pleasantly surprised. It just goes to show that by making an effort to talk to people and giving them the benefit of the doubt, friends can be made that are worth having.

Tortoise World

I am continually amazed at how much I have learnt in Coffee Bay about South Africa and in particular the Xhosa culture. It is a rich yet complex country that celebrates "10 years of democracy" this year. Unfortunately the time had come for me to move on and continue my travels up the coast of South Africa - a regular tortoise, with my home on my back. First stop a non descript town just south of Durban reknowned for its scuba diving and not much else....and then Durban, King of Curry in South Africa. What a joyous feast my taste buds had there.

Durban is a hot pot of tribes; Afrikanns, Indians and Zulus plus more besides. I popped into the "City" area of Durban to sort out some travel admin (mind numbing) and decided to travel back to the hostel via mini bus taxi. These are small mini buses primarily used by "locals" ie. the Zulus in Durban. Other South Africans warn you off with the usual scaremongering of getting robbed, abused etc., but I've found nothing but curiosity and shy friendliness when travelling this way. When I left the bus at my destination, the 'conductor" (usually a young kid who takes the fares for the driver, most proably related) thanked me for taking their bus. Bless. He charged me the same as the locals and it was obvious that I was an unusual occurance in their world.

A quick visit to Swaziland was next on the list which is rather small and frightfully clean and tidy with friendly people - apparently so because they've never been ruled by outsiders...! Sadly my time there was limited so beautiful scenery was noted, plus a mental note to go back there at some point. Off from there to Nelspruit, east of Johannesburg. A small tidy Afrikaans town which appeared to be lacking in personality but a gateway to the Kruger Park, hence my visit.

The Kruger National Park is a gorgeous, natural beauty and I felt humbled to see the animals living in their natural habitat, yet saddened that they have to cope with tar roads, hundreds of tourist camps and all us humans ogling their every move. It must be like living in a rather large gold fish bowl!

So I continue with my tortoise world off to another country and another continent...
[Photo: View of Rondavel and Coffee Bay village / Credit: Bomvu Paradise Backpackers]

Polls and Politics

So the South African election passed me by this year, despite residing in Coffee Bay - an area of the Xhosa people which Mandela and Mbeki are also....

I only realised what was taking place having read news websites from abroad. The only hint was a truck that passed by a couple of times with a loud speaker. I asked Jay, one of the local gardeners what was being said over the loud speaker, and it was asking people to go to their Headman's Hut to vote. The Headman in this area is the tribal chief and much of what happens in the area is governed by tribal law; this is slowly being taken over by government municipalities, but not without some conflict for the loss of their traditional way of life.

I spoke with most of the local staff regarding their thoughts on the election (once I realised it was happening!) and apathy ruled the day. They weren't all that keen on Mbeki and the progress he was/wasn't making and nor were they enthralled with any of the opposition, therefore they didn't bother to vote. Another barrier to voting is the Passbook. All South Africans are supposed to have one or apply for one - it seems to cover their national identity details, driving licence and voting allowance. However, try living in Coffee Bay with little hard cash, no vehicle and the nearest place to get one of these books is over an hour way by car and you can see that some have problems applying and receiving their passbooks. Add on top of that the apathy felt in rural areas by some of the people I spoke to...need I say more.

Got Stuck... Still Stuck

Well, since my last foray into the blogging world I have had many adventures – most of which I can’t remember anymore. I think I’ve cycled down mountains, drunk wine on little boats, visited a city township as well as got used to weird things (weird from my English perspective); cleaning my teeth under the stars, waking up early out of choice, living through water shortages, wandering around in bare feet (frightfully liberating), learning when it’s safe to go in the sea depending on the weather and wind direction……..

Amusingly I am still in Coffee Bay, having planned initially to spend only 3 nights in October 2003. Flights onwards are easy to change and in mid November we moved to Hole in the Wall to live on the cheap and help out. The actual Hole in the Wall is beautiful – a left over hill/mountain coming out of the sea with a hole through it where the waves have pounded the rock into oblivion – wonderfully literal name – no imagination required. Anyway, the pounding waves lead into the Esikhaleni River mouth which is in total contrast – still and peaceful with a couple of cliff jumps to round it off.

The time I spent there was not so beautiful though. The backpackers I was based at had in-fighting, politics and school playground gossip with lots of back stabbing. Absolutely pathetic and the weirdest environment I’ve come across so far. Inside those fences was another world, which should have been cool, but instead was a hot pot of idiocy. Peaceful times there were rare and when they did come about and I had a chance to think it made me yearn for home, my family, my friends and anything familiar in my frame of reference. Christmas there lacked any festivities whatsoever and to top it all off the weather was cold, rainy and just like home. I decided to sneak off for New Year’s back to Coffee Bay and instantly relaxed – my karma felt whole again (new word of the week and probably mis-using it, but I’m sure you get the drift).
The only thing I can put it all down to is experience and something to learn from.

Happily though, I’ve moved back to Coffee Bay and am officially a happy bunny. Storms are throwing us all a little off course, but the fork lightening is beautiful and we need the rain anyway. The days are gorgeous – got up today when it was still quiet and not many people around. Stood on the deck watching the sunlight through the forest garden and the sea shimmering in the distance. Horses were roaming in the garden and the frogs, crickets and grasshoppers were all out in force having a little sing-song. Tranquility itself.
[Photo: Sunrise over "Sugarloaf Mountain", Coffee Bay / Credit: Bomvu Paradise Backpackers]

Musings...

I always find that at random times during the day or night, I come up with the most profound thoughts or observations to add to my journal. Typically when I find time to add to it, I can’t remember a damn thing – frustrated writer syndrome or something…

All I can think of now is the things that have now become the norm for me that I wouldn’t have imagined – certainly not functioning like this on a long term basis. Guess it’s on of those things you get used to - forming new habits.

Rain water is drinking water, tap water is river water (hence will make you rather icky), being propositioned daily by the local oiks out the gate offering “dagga”, “shrooms”, crayfish, mussels, oysters, jewelry beads and just generally wanting money or sweets, being woken up by the sounds of nature and the wash of the ocean, the beach at the bottom of the gate, the sexy smell of Eau de Deet, wandering round Nomad style barefoot, waking up in the mornings out of choice not necessity, horseriding and yoga for free whenever I want, nearest supermarket 2 hours drive away, no bars, restaurants, clubs or shops, lots of rondavels and friendly locals, learning Xhosa and understanding their culture, living without a lot of unnecessary luxury items that seem of maximum importance back home (make up, hairdryer, moisturisers)….I guess you get the drift.

The Local Community - Xhosa Tribe

The indigenous population of this area are pre-dominantly the Xhosa Tribe. The language is very distinct with lots of clicks made with the tongue on the roof of the mouth which form words – very hard to master but have got some basics, which seems to please some of the elders.

Coffee Bay is on the Wild Coast in the Transkei, which used to be a separate state during Apartheid. From what I understand, the apartheid government were aiming at keeping all the black people in one contained area – it is no longer like that, but many people are wary of coming here, although I never had any warnings before I arrived.

The locals are mostly friendly and generally live in Rondavels (round mud huts) over the hills – some of which are quite basic and some are rather sophisticated. The living is earned almost hand to mouth from the land and from tourism in the area which is slowly growing.

Their society is very paternalistic – women are defined stereotypically and do the cleaning, cooking and childcare. However they do have the most amazing ability to balance all sorts of things on their heads including huge branches of firewood and 25 litre drums of water, and then walk up and down the hills for several kilometers back home. The villages in the Transkei are controlled by a Village Headman (always a man) which can clash occasionally with the government controlled law enforcement, but it always pays to meet him and build a rapport so that the communities continue to work in harmony together.

A lot of work in this area is based around education and training so that the younger members of the community can grow up to use their initiative and support themselves in perhaps less traditional ways than their parents.

Much of what I have written here is my understanding of what I have learnt while staying here; apologies if I have not taken this all in correctly.