Science, orbs and skulls

I’m a scientist; it’s a simple as that. To make sense of the world around me I use science to figure things out, including my feelings on ghosts/sprits/ energies, the afterlife, if there is a soul and so on, you get the point. I would have to say that you would not have found a bigger cynic than me; well I’ve been made to reconsider this on several occasions over the past year. I have changed my views on few things, I never doubted that there is a lot we just can’t explain- not that we won’t be able to explain. There is so much we don’t know, but why is it that the general populous thinks that if we can not explain something by science at this point does mean that it won’t be able to, it’s not like we’ve hit the pinnacle of knowledge or anything.

When we were staying at the Hole in the Wall we went to the Hole in the Wall (pic 1) obviously. The day we got there we decided to go for a bit of a walk before it got too dark, we walked to the Hole in the Wall and started taking a few pictures but it started to get dark and we didn’t think most of pictures would turn out and we knew we were going back there the next day so we took off. The next day we go back take some pictures before we continue on our hike. We found a skull of what I believe to be goat beside a couple fire pits. We took a picture (not developed yet) just because it’s not often one finds skulls lying on the beach. So that all well and good we have a great hike and leave the Hole in the Wall. When I got my pictures developed the ones that we took the first day we got there were well look (pics 2, 3). Were on a rocky beach so there not sand particles reflecting, were far enough back that it wouldn’t be spray, and pictures taken seconds before and after these few photos which were pointed up and down the beach from this area don’t have the little circles, so it wouldn’t be something on the lens. Than I realized when trying to figure out what they were is that we would have been basically standing on top on the skull when these pictures were taken. Hmmm, I’m not saying there isn’t a perfectly logical explanation for these things but until recently I have to say I don’t think I would have even put together the fact the skull was right there and would have dismissed the orbs/circle as nothing but now I’m considering all the possibilities…. You decide yourself

But I wanted to see a tribal war

On a fourth day of our trip we left Port St. John's after travelling back roads (dirt) for about an hour to go up to an old airstrip with the most amazing views (pic 1). We were headed to Coffee Bay and the Hole in the Wall. We get to Coffee Bay around midday and realize that the only tar road in the area was the highway we had turned off of about 30 minutes back. We stop for a drink at the 1 hotel in the area because there weren't even any shops close by. We hung out for a while looked at the pretty views and took off for the Hole in the Wall where the hostel was. So it turns out that the little line on the map that connects Coffee Bay with the Hole in the Wall is not really a road at all but rather gravel and rocks that are about 1.5m wide for 30km or so, its not level there is areas where there is no gravel or rocks just patches of dirt and grass. We had found some bad roads but I think I can be assured that I will never come across a road like that one every again. So to travel approximately 30km it took us about 45 minutes. There were several locals walking the road so at least it wasn't completely deserted and they were walking just slight slower than we were driving.

After 30 minutes on a dirt road and 45 minutes on a so-called 'road' we reach the Hole in the Wall. And it really was worth it (pic 2), I love getting off the beaten track and finding these little areas. We get to the hostel and check in, the manager dude apologizes for not getting up to meet us but he has a spider bite on his foot and is having difficulty walking. Than he tells us we have our own dorm room because the only other guests around are cops from Mtata down to help out with the tribal war.... I kid you not. The two of us stop and look at the guy and 'your shitting us right' but nope. We were chatting (kind of of, their English was not very good and my Xhosa is even worse) with a couple of the cops later and we thought we'd check with them about this whole tribal war thing because it really kind of seemed that we should have heard about it some how if it was of any significance but there were about 20 cops around from Mtata so that's a lot of cops and they had been in the hostel for over a month already. The cops did call it a tribal war as well but I got the feeling it was more of a tribal dispute rather than a war but hey what do I know I'm a whitey.

We got so excited thinking we get to see a tribal war, with spears and shields and all painted up, but alas we didn't get to see any tribal war. When were driving back to Durban on our last day three boys did cross in front of us with spears, no tribal war just a couple kids going off to initiation school to get circumcised- not completely sure about this but it’s the right time of year, right area, and the boys were about the right age so through the process of elimination...

We did discover the spider bite the manager got had basically killed his foot. It was completely black and they were pretty sure they were going to have to amputate (got this from his wife, she was scared shitless obviously). The day we left they were going to the hospital to see if the medication was working or if his foot was coming off. I have to say we got a little bit paranoid of spiders for the rest of the trip but likely all of our limbs are still intact.

The pigs just wanted some bacon for their sandwiches

I keep meaning to write something but I have been writing up a few chapters of my thesis so the idea of doing un-productive writing is not compelling. But here I am. A few weeks ago went on holiday up the wild coast, one if not the best holiday I've been on. Everything went smoothly and I don't think you could find a more gorgeous area than the sunshine and wild coasts.


We flew into Durban hired a car and started driving. First day spent around Durban, than we proceeded to Warren's Beach, Port St. John's, Coffee Bay/ Hole in the Wall, Cinsta (about 20km from East London) and on the way back to Durban we stopped at Port Shepstone.

We were searched twice by police looking for pigs, seriously. Close to the border between the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal is where the road blocks were set up they are having issues with swine flu (never heard of it).

We pulled up to the road block a police women comes up to the car and we think she says she's looking for pot, she says this a few times because although this area is well known for it marijuana (when the government basically gave the all the wheat farm rights to the whites a lot of the black farmers switched to weed - good ol' apartheid) it still didn't seem right that she was using the term pot and they weren't looking for any other drugs. After repeating herself several times she says looking for pork, this is when it clicked and we realized that in fact they were not looking for drugs at all but actually pork. Of course we both break out laughing and she realized I think that two white girls in the middle of the transkei are not likely pig smugglers and starting laughing herself. Although she still looking in the backseat of the car.

We continued our trip for the rest of the week, and on the way back (close to the border) we were again stopped and searched for pigs. This time though they even searched the boot! He made us get out of car and watch him go through the bags (so that we can't accuse them of stealing, he actually told us that). We got back into the car and we on our way again. I understand they have to check everyone but the two of us are the last two people you will find smuggling pork. Neither of us eat it and to top it off one of us was Jewish!

These incidents cement one fact for me, I will never become an international food smuggler. When I was caught by the fruit and vegetable dog in the Halifax airport with my apples I had my suspicions that my life as an international food smuggler might not be right for me but now I realize I get searched for meat products too - guess I'm sticking to geology.

Hey ho they must go

I know unions have there place but really strikers seem to do nothing but piss me off. Especailly this past week since the public servant strike started, the main components of the strike are the nurses and teachers, there are plenty of others but they aren't having such an impact on me or rather getting in the papers. I have nothing but the highest regard for teachers and nurses and I believe they should be paid very well but the way there going about...

The nurses are the ones pissing me off the most. They are considered essential workers for some unknown reason and so many hospitals across the country are working with skeleton staff and patients are taking care of one another. There were reports from one hospital where the able body patients were helping others to the bathrooms, or turning people in beds over so as not to get bed sores. I'm sorry but if you took on a job knowing full well it was considered essential, yes you have the right to strike and should be able to negoitate a decent contract but you can not not work! They have been barring people from entering the hospitals, at some unless it was an emergency the staff weren't letting you in, they even prevented docotors from entering. It got so bad at a one hospital the police fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd. I'm sure if one of the protesters were hurt the would demand to get immmediate help from the hospital they just prevented the docotrs from entering.

The teachers aren't much better, first you don't work you don't get paid but you are allowed to strike. Stupid! I think this way you put people in a really awkard position you need to feed your family but if you go to work there is a good chance that one of your co-workers will threaten you for doing so. Read in the paper today one school had to shut down becasue the prinicpal got threating phone calls saying 'they were coming and weren't responsible for what will happen' because the principal should not be there. Some teachers went into another school and started ripping up exams that kids were writing and when one girl refused she was assulted!

I say fire the whole bunch of them, if your going to use violence and intimation to get your way is this really the people you want teaching your children or taking care of the wellfare of your family in the hospital! Just to bad there is such a skills shortage because if you fire them there is absolutely no one else to take over. Why is it that as soon as people go on strike they forget that they are decent human beings, or is it that these are the people who are psychos and just use the strike as their opportunity to get away with shit. Either way I can't wait to the strike is over and I only hope it doesn't get any worse before its over, last years security guard strike was crazy enough for me.

here we go again

I knew I hadn't posted anything new in a while but not since March 20th! I didn't realize I was that bad. I had been think about restarting again (I've had a few complaints) but I got another little push from Leslie, so here we are.

I have a habit of naming people and things, sometimes due to the fact that to pronounce a person's name would be futile for me (when you have two distinctly different clicks in your name there's no real reason to tell me I will never in my wildest dreams be able to repeat it) and sometimes you just don't have a name to call them. I have several people that provide me my breakfast essentials, the muffin man, the coffee guy and the croissant dude. This morning none of my breakfast consortium were around! Three different people at three different location and they all disappeared. I did manage to get myself fed but not what I wanted, I realized the muffin man was gone and settled on the croissant dude only to be disappointed again. So I made my way to the coffee guy deciding that I needed a real coffee this morning since I would be going without my pre-determined breakfast, he wasn't there but at least he has others to cover for him so I got a coffee just not made by him and it wasn't as good.

Something that I have realize I really enjoy is the market shopping. The problem which I outlined above, is that you can't guarantee that the market people will be there when you want them or what stock they'll have. But instead of going to big chains or malls the markets can fulfill your every need. I am careful when I go to the major markets because with the accent I have to fight to get a decent deal (I suck at bargaining). I avoid tourist season in the market or go to the ones not so frequented by the tourists, and I go at the end of the day because if it hasn't been a very lucrative day they are more likely to let the price go a bit lower. I wish I would be able to even fake a have way decent SA accent, but there is no hope for that at all!

It is one of the weirdest accents, usually I can at least pick up a sentence or two in another accent (i.e. British) but not the SA one, I've lived here other a year and I could not for the life of me even say one word with the accent. The problem, you can not put your finger on what makes it different. I saw the preview for Blood Diamond on TV a little while back and I realized that Titanic dude was trying to do a SA accent, it sounds absolutely ridiculous, they should have just let him do another one and forget about the 'authenticity' or you know maybe get a SA actor its not like there's a short supply.

I do want to see blood diamond but movie get released to theatres here much later than in other places so basically as soon as a movie leaves the theatre its available for rent so why spent 4x as much when you only have to wait a week or two. Its winter which means rain (hopefully not to much) so I think its best that I've waited for a few movies to go to DVD I wanted to see so I don't have to leave the wonderful confines of my flat.

Ass Kicking

I have been scaring myself lately. I try and keep informed I pick pieces of info to store when needed or as little reminders, but you put it all together it just a kick in the arse. These inconspicuous tidbits have been picked up over sometime now but just in the past two weeks is when the ass kicking began. It started by getting hit by a car a couple of weeks ago, only got a bruise that hurt for a day, but funny enough it was on my ass as it was a bakkie grill that actually hit me and not the bakkie itself.

So I went on with life but took the advantage to complain for a few days, than last week a house down the road (dodgier area but only a 5 minute walk if that) was robbed and the girl there raped. I actually know these people, not overly well but its obz you know everyone. My friend used to live in the house and date the girl’s girlfriend who lived in the there. A couple of guys come up and say their cops she lets them in and… you just don’t do that, its bad because its not her fault but here the tendency is to sort of feel that way because you should have known better. I guy I know who was car jacked said it was his fault because he didn’t look behind him when he pulled in. That’s weird but such common sense in someway; it’s not the criminal’s fault (it is and they do report it of course) but your stupidity in those situations because you knew they were out there. To add to everything their house was again burglarised the next day when someone pried the security bars of the window apart to jump in – nothing you can to there, at least almost everything was gone.

Excuse that little side note, but as a result of that a few flyers were post around about it as a warning and listed a community website, so I went on. The have a lots of stuff including a neighbour watch section, to keep informed of what to watch out for and to keep better statistics, a lot of things you wouldn’t report to the cops not worth it but the website is perfect. They’ll even email you with updates if you want. I thought this was bull-shit but it’s not, a woman read the email 10 minutes before a knock on the door from ‘cops’, crazy eh! So they keep updating it with descriptions of people to watch out for, they were seen breaking into cars chased off properties, and roofs (yup roofs to avoid the 50kg rutwellers) or one that creeped me out and had me looking at all the walls around my building, a guy who climbs storm drains to break in. Well I finish up this one later because Seamore needs feeding and changing.

Use a little sense with your scent

Scent free zones or even the idea of such things is a completely ridiculous idea for any South African. In the past I have discussed this many people and they think that it is hilarious. I would say the majority of people here were perfume/ cologne on a regular basis and would never think twice about, it is unheard of that people are allergic to scented things. In most cases I have no problem with it, I haven't started wearing any just because it has been drilled in my head for so long that scents are bad and the only place you can really where them is going out to a bar, everywhere else is basically scent free. I just returned from a quick pee break and there was someone in the other stall, I was in the bathroom for maybe 30 seconds before I was inundated by the strongest perfume I have ever smelt, obviously the women next door was trying to cover up smells but for fuck sake I nearly died. I was only in the bathroom for about a minute and I left with a horrible headache, how is that possible. I realize that there is no rule against scents but give me a break there needs to be a least a little common decency.

It is very rare that people here have allergies it seems, there are some but nothing compared to NA. My old roommates were allergic to quite a bit, and gluten seems to be a pretty common allergy but really not much else. You never see packages that say may contain nuts, and half the time its difficult to even find out. I know I'm not allergic to nuts but they still bother me so I do try and avoid, so the other day a little outlet here on campus had cookies, you don't get cookies here you get biscuits so I was quite excited. They were even chocolate chip (my fave) so I ask the women is there nuts in them, figuring there would be, she kept saying no there chocolate and I said I realize that but do they also have nuts, no no no was the answer - guess what they did! Its not like they couldn't or shouldn't have know they were baked about two feet from where they were sold so really. But if I actual was allergic it could have been very bad. I don't blame the women she probably had no idea why I was asking and probably didn't even realize you could be allergic to nuts but still.

I wonder why the huge difference in the frequency of allergies between here and NA, is it that people are more likely to go to the doctor to find out, there just wimpier so they are bothered more, I don't know. But I was thinking (I have absolutely no proof or validation for this theory) that there are lots of people allergic to gluten here, and I was thinking that it has some connection to the fact that maize is used and is much more common than wheat for many. So people are not as used to it in there diets and have developed an allergy? Again no idea. But related to that, I read awhile back that there has been a huge increase in the amount of bread sold and a decline in maize (maize being the cheaper) so the government was using this to state that there has been an increase in low economic class income as they aren't resorting to maize and can afford bread. Crazy eh?

The Problem with being good...

Over the past few years I have stopped killing bugs, it just didn't seem right. I have mind you been made fun of extensivly for this, especially for my catch are release tactics that I used on fruit flies when I lived in Bridgewater. I have been continuing to do this even with the ginormous things that they call bugs here, do be proud.

Now here's the problem with my moral stance on murdering bugs, what happens when you become infested... I have not become over run, actually I've seen very few buggies lately although I still have several bites to prove that there still around. I just read an article (http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=29&art_id=nw20070312091528444C682189) about these monks whose temple has become infested, and they are against killing and have tried several methods of removing the ants, and still have no solution. I hope beyond hope actually that I will never find myself in this position because I think I would find something to get rid of the bugs but then I have to live with the guilt of killing thousands of poor innocent creatures even if they do tend to be ugly and even a little creepy.

Jinxed

I jinxed myself I said I wasn't going to comlpain about the cold if I made it through summer well... I complained about the cold yesterday (I didn't mean to really) so of course today is over 30 and this heat wave is expected to last a few days. Maybe it was the new jersey I bought yesterday, just like sun glasses as soon as you have a pair you'll never actually need them.

The Law of Me

• I had one of the nicest Sunday's I have had in a very long time. A cold front has been around for a few days now which means that I was able to curl up with my blankets and read. I literally haven't been able to curl up inside a bunch of blankets and just read since August. Especially during the day it was not humanly possible to cover oneself with a blanket, so to be able to spend an entire day curled up under a blanket I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I was even planning on working for a few hours but once I realized I was not going to be able to work while I was all curled up I gave up the work in favour of my blankets, now that's a great work ethic.
  
  I think I must be the denses person sometimes. Somehow I missed the Cape Town Festival street party this weekend (the festival runs for a few weeks so I can still do other stuff but still). The street party closes down one of the longest and busiest street in the city centre and has been called the SA version of Rio Carnival and I even read the paper almost everyday, I've heard people talking about it but I didn't realize it was Saturday, and I missed it, so very sad. But to make it even better a friend of mine held this event/ gig called pussy's on fire on Saturaday night as well, it's meant to promote and show case female bands, DJs, artists and whoever else had something to include. I think it was a great idea and they are going to hold them occassionally but this was the first one and they wanted to make sure a lot of people came so that there would be more, but me being the denses person around I completely forgot about it and spend the night watching movies with friends. How hopeless pathetic am I?
  
  I did go out on Friday night and so my weekend was not a complete homebody weekend but why is it that when I do have a homebody weekend I miss out on all the good stuff? It's like the law of me, something good's going on I don't want to leave my house, if I want to go crazy the only thing I find to do is stare at a wall. Now that the work week has started and my weekend of homebodiness is concluded I see a lot of wall staring in the coming week, this is also covered in the law of me (subsection 2), I have a boring/ relaxing weekend and during the week I get all of this bottled up energy that just wants me to take it out and have some fun, but to no avail as I am a dedicated student. Maybe I'll switch things up this week and do some watching of boiling water instead.