Right, I know it's been a terribly long time and anyone who was for some strange reason actually reading this blog gave up...but it will all make sense in the long run, I promise.

You see, some changes are about to ensue, and I'd like to reflect them in my blog. The problem is, I like this blog for what it is...an African Ramble, even if occasionally I pause in my rambling. So what I decided to do was to start a second blog...

My Masters research project topic is now just about settled - "Automatic Detection of Age and Gender Pretence in Blogs" is the working title, though I'll probably end up concentrating more on age, just because fewer brilliant people seem to have given it a go. Have been puting some stuff together so that when I do get the blog concentrating on my research up, it'll start at a run, rather than the slow crawl this one has been. What I want to use it for is as a running commentary on my project, that hopefully people will give me feedback on. Plus it allows me to include all the little language/tech things that make me go a bit tingly. Think it will be fun and useful for me too.

So where does that leave this blog? Still going...and I will be updating more regularly, now that work is going quite smoothly and we won't be in a terrible panic all the time!

Ok, then, let's start with a bit of a recap:

We're all settled in to Tsumeb now - have made friends, found out where to drink and what's good on the menu at the Makalani and Minen Hotels (I would recommend the Chicken Sophie at the Makalani...). We even have a Namibian member of the family - our little pup Eddie, who comes to us direct from the Tsumeb SPCA.

So, here, for your enjoyment, are some piccies. The clouds in Tsumeb are for some reason incredibly beautiful, so it's hard to resist taking photos!

Our house is kind of funky (particularly it's very applicable Rhodes purple...), but our garden could really do with some attention - this is the best bit. All the houses here look exactly the same (old mining houses), so they have to go all out on the details to distinguish between them...you should see some of the other colours!

I wish it was possible to show how incredibly long our office is, but the pic just doesn't do it justice. If you look really carefully, there is a person at the far end of the picture - that's Andries, the 84 year old geo who is still working here (and flying his plane on the weekends). After 6 months, we still have no idea what he actually does, but have an inkling it has something to do with sharpening pencils.

Since my hubby stole all the good pics to put on his blog (and I don't want to copy!) I'll finish there, but will get up my post on our amazing trip around Namibia last month up before his...hehe.

Mugabe's mess is Africa's problem

Many of you will know my opinion on the tragedy that is Zimbabwe (see my earlier Zim posts if not), but Mugabe's regime has truly outdone itself over the last few days. If you haven't come across the latest so-called "excesses" - which include police brutality that borders on torture and the police shooting of a protester at a prayer meeting, in a country already trying to cope with the highest level of inflation in the world - take a look at http://www.zimbabwejournalists.com/. The site is run by exiled journalists, and their incredible effort to get information about the crisis out there, while avoiding biased reporting, is truly laudable.

Now, please, please, will someone explain to me why it takes the torture of a 60 year old grandmother, amongst the scores of other people beaten, for the international community to even admit that there is a problem? How could it get to this point? When thousands and thousands of people protest a terrible situation for years on end, why does it take actual physical injury for the economic power houses to suddenly be up in arms? Freedom of speech is all well and good, but if no one listens to what you say, well, you might as well be living in Zimbabwe.

"Up in arms" is, of course, a slight exaggeration - the reactions have seemed closer to embarrassment than outrage from the African contingent, while the rest of the world appears suitably unimpressed but are waiting to see what Africa will do about it. So what will Africa do? The eyes of the world are on our continent - is she going to step up to the plate? Zimbabwe managed to get into this position while Africa merely looked on. As wonderful as it is that the world as a whole is suddenly noticing the problem (I saw Tsvangirai's injuries as a headline in a Jamaican online paper today), it is fairly obvious that we cannot rely on people with no stake in Africa to solve this. We cannot always assume that someone will step in and rescue us. So where are our great African leaders now?

It would be very good to see Mbeki exercising his right to speak up. If he remains close-mouthed over this (which he has up until this point), it does not bode well for the future of South Africa, particularly given the rather quiet land reclamation programme underway there. You know what they say about good men who do nothing...

Man coffee

So much for the progress of women's lib...

We've just started work in new offices in Namibia. On our first day here, I went to find a cup of coffee, work starting a little too early for my taste. As I started to pour the delightfully strong looking filter coffee from the pot in the corner, the cleaning lady walked in. She asked me who I was pouring coffee for. I said it was for myself. She looked extremely shocked... Now I'm busy wondering if the coffee's laced with arsenic or something (not impossible in a mining town) and thinking what a sweet, caring woman this must be, when she says, "Not that coffee, that's for the men". She points to the "chick"ory mock-coffee in the corner, says, "Ladies' coffee", points at the filter coffee, "Man coffee".

Really. I'm not kidding.

Katherine and I drink man coffee. It puts hair on your chest.

The journey to Tsumeb

A 2 day car trip with a lot of our stuff and our dog (Sam) and cat (Grimma) in the back of the bakkie was the beginning of it all. To get a bit of a better idea of where everything sits, take a look at the trip as I've marked it here...about 2000km from Johannesburg to Tsumeb.

We traveled from Johannesburg up to Botswana, entering the country from just below Lobatse. Lobatse happens to be the town that my grandparents spent many years in, possibly the dullest town in Botswana. Not much seemed to have changed from the last time I saw it, which was probably 12 years ago.

We crossed the border at around 6pm, but realised pretty quickly that we weren't going to find anywhere to stay that would accept the animals too. So we decided to just carry on driving as long as we could. The trip to the closest border post to our goal of Tsumeb took us along what is known as the Trans-Kgalagadi highway. This roads heads straight through the Kalahari Desert, a rather boring, repetitive piece of countryside, redeemed by it's stunning sunsets and sunrises and abundance of game (apparently, though we only saw jackals, mostly very close up while avoiding running them down). You can't lose focus for a second due to all the cattle and game not fenced off from the road, which made for a rather strenuous night's driving.

Ended up getting a couple of hours sleep by the side of the road. Just before we napped, we foolishly released the cat for a couple of seconds so that she could pee behind a bush. She promptly decided she'd like to live in the Kalahari. Ensue hilarity, which almost ended tragically under a truck...anyway, eventually we got her back :)

Crossing over into Namibia was such a relief - the freezing cold night drive was over, we could see a few metres down the road, the animals had finally exhausted themselves, and the border was a dream. No funny questions, no bribes - just straight through, with no trouble, as long as your paperwork was sorted. What a difference from the chaos that is Beitbridge (SA to Zim), or even Ramatlabama (SA to Botswana)! And then we got past the border, and there were fences on the sides of the roads. Joy of joys...

Several very hot sweaty hours of driving took us through some fairly uninteresting country, and then we neared Otavi and the mountains appeared. To go from flat expanses of pretty much nothing, to one of the prettiest little mountain ranges around was so unexpected that we both just started grinning. And then we finally arrived in Tsumeb...we had been told it's the loveliest town in Namibia and they weren't kidding. Full of parks and well kept historical buildings, with a colonial edge, but desire for modernity, Tsumeb is a marvel!

Well, that journey took place in February, so quite a bit of time has passed, but still loving Tsumeb...

Richards Bay & Botswana

After New Year, we headed down in convoy to Johannesburg from Harare - a very long, hot, dusty trip, not improved by the lack of a radio and air-con in the car I traveled in. Spent a night in Joburg and then headed straight down to coast to visit my folks.

Spent a couple of weeks in Richards Bay in the end. Was supposed to head back to Botswana in early January to finish up the project there, but had a miscarriage the day before I was supposed to fly. Was 10 weeks into my pregnancy. It was all very scary and awful, made worse by Ian already being in Botswana, with no phone or Internet at the time. Anyway, that was a while ago now, and we seem to have bounced back just fine from it all. Certainly not an experience I'd like to go through again though!

So I got back up to Botswana a bit later than planned, just in time to get the project finished up and get ready to head to Namibia. It was really good to get finished in Botswana - it felt like the right time to move on.

Xmas and New Year in Zim

All in all, a rather quiet, pleasant holiday season... But, first, Zim:

It was very interesting getting back to Zimbabwe after having left in March 2006. At the point when we left, things were getting extremely difficult for a lot of people, including ourselves. We had reached the end of our savings, which we were living off even though Ian had a full time job as a geologist at a gold mine. Around us, we had been watching the general population find life harder and harder, while the children became borderline starvation cases. The cost of incredibly basic living had sky-rocketed to the extent that the monthly salary of an average farm worker might buy a bar of soap. Prices changed so rapidly and illogically that you never knew how much money you would need to go shopping. No one could carry enough cash to go shopping - cheques were the only way of paying for a typical grocery stock-up. Many basic goods, such as sugar, flour, rice and meat were often not available. It was almost impossible to find fuel unless you knew someone who could get it in from outside the country.

So, what had changed in 9 months? Well, they decided to knock a couple of zeros off the currency, to make things seem better (you feel a lot better paying $100 for something, rather than $10,000, even if the price has actually increased relatively). We found things quite cheap when converting from South African rands, but saw that for people living and working there, not earning foreign currency, life was even harder than when we left. Somehow though, most people came across as more content with their deal than before - maybe you just get used to a way of life, even if it isn't ideal, or you just give up fighting - I'm not sure why.

If you'd like a bit more info on the Zimbabwean situation or didn't know that there was one, check out http://zimbabwesituation.com for some daily news updates, or http://people.cs.uchicago.edu/~dinoj/zimsummary.html for more of an overview, slightly out of date but with lots of links.

For all of it's problems, Zimbabwe is still an incredible country, and we had a fantastic time. Before Christmas we spent time with Ian's folks at their place at Mazvikadei Dam. It was very relaxing...spent quite a bit of time on the water on Ian's dad's new pontoon. Then headed through to Harare for Christmas and Boxing Day with friends. The Henwoods, who have actually relocated to Australia but were back in Zim for a visit, managed to host Christmas lunch as if they'd never been away - fantastic stuff!

New Year was rather quiet, especially as I was being a good preggie girl and not drinking :) Needless to say, Ian didn't seem to find it necessary to abstain. Hmmph.

In January, we drove through to Richards Bay on the east coast of South Africa to visit my folks - a 2 day drive in total, but a good road trip as always.

Will add some pics to the posts as I manage to sort out all the photos we've taken over the last few months, so if you find this a bit boring, have a check back soon!

Busy times = no blog

Well, it's been a while since I updated. Sorry - but I really do have a few excuses...it's been a very busy couple of months! I'll update over the next few days, beginning with Christmas and New Year, back to Botswana, then the big move to Namibia.

Right now, Ian and I, along with our animals are very happily settled in Tsumeb in northern Namibia. As things stand at the moment, we'll be here for at least the next 6 months, but as you may be able to tell, our plans can change quite rapidly!