I discovered that someone I know  is doing the most incredible thing.  OK, maybe it’s not that incredible, but normally people that do this are stay-at-home moms… I think… or I’ve just assumed that they would be, to have the time to do it properly.

She has not only got a very successful professional career, and has 3 children of her own, but she’s fostering a 3 year old child… and for the last year she’s been providing emergency foster care too!! She takes in kids under the age of 1 in the bridging period between homes or until they’re placed in foster care or children’s homes – and it’s between 1 month to 6 month periods.

Isn’t that’s just awesome! I really take my hat off to her.  I would get so attached to the little babies I’m not sure I’d be able to see them go.  But she said that she doesn’t.  She gives them loads of loves and cuddles while she has them, but she knows that she’s providing them the best possible care when they need it most.  To her it’s all about giving… and not about receiving anything, and she said that if she was getting anything in return, then she would feel sad.

They’ve looked after quite a variety of kids too with very different stories… some have been abandoned… the one little 1 year old boy was found outside a shop with a bag containing all his stuff.  And others have been taken away from their families.  The baby she’s looking after now was dropped off at Child Welfare by his/her mom when he/she was 5 days old.

We need more families like that in this world.

I found this YouTube clip posted on my sister-in-law’s (Nicole) Facebook wall, and then my mom noticed that one of my images had been included, so I had to share it.

My image was taken at Connor’s birthday party (link to the party), not sure if you remember… Fiona’s son Ethan had got injured in the pool, and thankfully Carl and Nicole were there and called ER24 or else we would have really damaged him. Wow that video brought back lots of memories from that eventful day.

ER24 asked me a few days later if they could use images from the day, which is why they had it (and Fiona agreed).

It’s quite a video actually… the guys in emergency services in South Africa all deserve medals

The location for Kathy’s cancer photoshoot was the Idiom vineyards in the Da Capo wine estate in Stellenbosch.  My mom’s cousin is the farm manager of the vineyard, and Kathy loves going there so the shoot was organised there.  My mom’s cousins and aunt waited for us to finish the shoot, and then we all had a picnic… on the edge of the vineyard.

Sounds fantastic right?  Well, it was a brilliant idea, except the weather didn’t exactly play along.  The rain started during the shoot, and by the time we finished it really was miserable! We ended up huddling around a table under a lapa.  What a beautiful place though! It’s high up in the mountains close to Sir Lowry’s Pass, and overlooks the whole valley…. you can see Strand and Gordon’s Bay etc from the deck that’s been built on a rocky outcrop.

Anyhoo, because of the shoddy weather, we were much more interested in having some red wine and cheese well… not really… any excuse for a good wine!

It was so special having a meal with the guy responsible for the vines! Tim told us that the vineyard that we used for Kathy’s shoot was a Sangiovese lot, and that it had just received Gold Veritas status! How cool is that?!

And in fact, we drank a bottle of Sangiovese 2007… oh wow… what a gorgeous wine… especially with strong cheeses! I have to find that now, and buy some!

We also had a 2007 blend of Cab Sauvignon, Cab Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot… OMW you should taste that with chocolate!! This one wasn’t that great with cheese

It was such an amazing few hours on top of the hill… and so nice to see family that I haven’t seen in very very many years.  It was the perfect way to end a perfect day… even though I froze my butt off (I was wearing 2 jerseys, and rain jacket and a K-Way jacket and I was still cold!)

If you’ve been following my photoblog you would know that I went to Cape Town over the weekend with my mom. It was actually the first time the 2 of us have travelled anywhere on our own… just the two of us… so it was very special… especially because she likes photos and wine as much as I do!

The trip was planned for me to take photos of my aunt, who is fighting breast cancer (photos are on my other blog).  And other than that the weekend was ALL about family visits and relaxing.

Here’s a rundown of my weekend…

1.  Kulula was again late.  Surprise.  Surprise.  Both ways.  Don’t understand why I book flights on that airline.  And in fact, after having to get another car at Avis after the first car’s front seat was jammed, and having to find my mom’s drivers license because I’d stupidly left mine at home;  we only got to Ian and Kathy’s house on Friday night at 11:30pm!  Oh and the photo on the blog post… that’s the view from their house…

2.  On Saturday morning, my mom and I drove to Hermanus (roadtrip photo on the left) to see my other aunt and uncle.  It was quite strange visiting Hermanus without my grandmother being there.  My aunt made the most incredible lunch… and I stupidly didn’t take a photo of the plate.  She made chicken breasts stuffed with bacon and sage and rolled in bacon.  The chicken was cut into discs and place on a bed of homegrown lettuce with homemade garlic mayonnaise (the family recipe I use at Christmas time) and homemade crostinis. It was delish!! Felt so very spoilt having such an amazing meal at lunchtime.

3. On Saturday afternoon, we drove to the mountains in the Stellenbosch region to the Da Capo Wine estate to take Kathy’s photos.  We met up with my mom’s family and had an extreme picnic in the freezing wet weather… and that’s quite a story so it deserves a blog post on it’s own  But we did have some magnificent wine and cheeses so the weather was somewhat ignored.

4.  Then we crashed… had an early night to recover from the previous 2 days

5.  On Sunday morning, Kathy booked a table at Tokara for breakfast, and that also deserves it’s own blog post, because it was a gorgeous meal!

6.  Then we ambled back down the mountains and up another hill to stop at Uva Mira for a spot of wine tasting and wine buying (this will be in another blog post too), and a few more images before we went to visit my gran in the home in Somerset West.

7.  And then I took some scar photos (if you haven’t seen them yet, please go and look, my aunt is so very brave and just incredible), before heading back home.

The only thing I didn’t get to do, was have a tweetup but that was my own stupid fault because I didn’t have my drivers license on me (and we got stopped in a roadblock on the first evening and I didn’t feel like taking a chance).

I did have LOADS of wine, and LOADS of good food, and LOADS of awesome family time it was perfect.

So, are you joining us? It’s tomorrow morning starting at Zoo Lake.
If you don’t know what it is, this is from the Slutwalk website

We are here to unite behind the simple idea that there is never an excuse for rape. We are here to unite against the naming and shaming of victims. We are here to unite against the idea that a women can be blamed for rape if she was wearing a miniskirt.

We are asking you to join us for SlutWalk Johannesburg to make a unified statement about sexual assault and victims’ rights and to demand respect for all. Whether a fellow slut or simply an ally, you don’t have to wear your sexual proclivities on your sleeve, we just ask that you come. Any gender-identification, any age. Singles, couples, parents, sisters, brothers, children, friends. Come walk or roll or strut or holler or stomp with us. This has become a global movement, with satellites happening all over the world. Help make our voices heard in Jozi.

 

It’s a 3.7km walk, and all the details with the map is on the Facebook events page

Hope to see you there with your poster and your rape survivor kit (to donate to rape survivors… the details are on the website and on the events page)… I’ll have my camera instead of a poster

Even though today’s weather was sunny, it wasn’t warm enough for the beach so we took the kids to Crocodile Creek, which is about 12km from Ballito (and we were thankful that this time we drove a 4×2 and not a normal car)

We’ve been there before, but the kids don’t remember… in fact Bradley was tiny when we went the last time.  It was awesome going with the kids this time because they’re the right age for this type of outing.  We got there half way through the one tour so caught up with that group to walk around the place, and then joined the next tour group (which was a group of 60 kids on a school tour from Johannesburg) to hear about the anatomy of the crocs… and to hold the crocs.

The handler took out a 4 year old Nile crocodile for everyone to touch… much to the delight of Connor because the croc was the same age as him.

And now the kids are very excited to have photos of themselves holding the crocs to show their teachers and friends at school

This is brilliant!! I found this on Melissa Attree’s blog, and the singing is phenomenal.  Love the crowds at the end…

I’ve been mulling over this topic for a while, but haven’t managed to get around to blogging about it.

When you get a form that asks how many dependants you have, you’re generally expected to fill in the number of children you have… not right?

Well, I don’t think that’s entirely accurate.

Just think about it, it’s not just your kids that are reliant on your income for survival, is it? Well, it’s definitely not in our case.

To start, our income has to pay for our living expenses including housing and food for ourselves and our children.  So that’s 4 people.  And that’s all we normally think about when we calculate things.  But there’s a load missing from this equation.

We have a full-time domestic working in our house, and she’s the breadwinner in her family (well apart from her one son that now shares the rent with her) and she has 5 dependants… one useless husband who hasn’t worked in 7 years, 2 sons (one of which is now working and the other one is still at school) and one grandson.  In addition, I know that some months she sometimes has to give money to her grandson’s mother who often ends up in shelters because of her circumstances.  So that’s another 6 that we provide for.

Then there’s our gardener who only works for us on Saturdays, so the money we pay him isn’t his sole income, and I know he lives on his own, yet I also know that he sends money home to support family there.

Then there’s Lance’s mom who we also support.

So, our household income actually has to provide for 12 people on a good month.

That’s a lot! But I also know that that’s not unusual, and it’s also not something that we normally think about.

Have you ever worked it out for your household?  How many people do you support directly without monthly donations etc?  I’m assuming that this is a South African phenomenon, primarily because the average home in the ‘burbs has some kind of full-time or part-time home helper or domestic worker or gardeners in our employ.  But it would be interesting to hear from non-Saffers in the comments

I’ve seen the Wonderbag being used before… in fact, last year my mom blogged about how she used one to cook my birthday dinner because the power went out on the day we celebrated my birthday at her house… so, I was intrigued when I got invited to Microsoft for today’s launch.  But the launch ended up not being about the bag… but about how the company intends distributing it to communities.

Oh and we got to eat lunch that was cooked in the bag!!

Before I start, it probably makes sense to explain what it is.  It’s a bag that looks almost like a duvet with a cushion that you tie around the top.  The way you use it, is to boil your food in a pot, and once the cooking process has started, you take the pot off the stove and put it in the bag, seal it, and leave it.  And the bag’s insulation acts like a slow cooker and cooks the contents of the pot.

So, as you may think, this save electicity or fuel or whatever it is that you cook with, and is good for the environment… and effectively saves you money if you use it regularly.

What’s interesting about this product though, is the way in which it’s being “sold”.

Natural Balance has now reached agreement with some municipalities to distribute/sell the bags to the residents to reduce the power consumption as well as household costs.  The mayor of Newcastle spoke at the launch today and told us how 22000 of these bags will be distributed to the residents of the town who are on the ingident register (those households registered as only earning < R1900 income per month.  And then other residents will get bags if they prove that they pay their electricity bills for 3 consecutive months… as an incentive to paying for electricity.  They’re hoping to encourage the use of the bags to reduce power bills… and effectively giving the residents more disposable income to spend on other things.

Interesting hey?

I really hope that the community project is successful, because I think it’ll really help those that are struggling to pay for electricity… and to keep their consumption under the minimum “free” limit. In fact, there was a guy from the Ekhuruleni municipality at the launch trying to understand how he could get the concept working in his area… good sign!!

What was also interesting was that a product design agency Frog has built a mobile USSD application for field agents to capture basic information about the people that use the bags (and the data is then sent real-time to a cloud based database and system provided by Microsoft) in order for the company to monitor the use of the bags… and then enabling them to claim carbon credits.  Carbon credits are tradeable in Euros and will essentially mean that that money  received from the sale of the credits will be plugged back into the project enabling more bags to be produced and distributed.

Some facts about the bags which I found quite fascinating:
- The Wonderbag saves approximately 0.5 tonnes of carbon per year if it is used 2 or 3 times a week.
- With regular use, the Wonderbag can save at least 15kWh of electricity and 1.6 litres of paraffin a week, and as much as 50% of the energy needed of cooking.

Oh and it’s pretty!
I think it’s a really worthwhile project they’re embarking on… I think I want to get one for my domestic worker… I’m sure it’ll save her some money.

However, even though it’s so cool, I’m not sure how often I would use it… other than what my mom did… use it when the power goes out and you want to cook something for a long time.  We don’t really eat a lot of stewy stuff.  But if we did… this would make a huge amount of sense

PS. Some of the images taken with iPhone and Instagram and the others with my DSLR

A rhino at the Krugersdorp Park was killed by poachers during the night.

Lance and I were discussing it this evening, when Bradley asked about what we were talking about.

So I told him.  He asked how they killed the rhino.  I said that they used poison.  He asked why, did they want her skin?  I said, no, her horns.  They cut her horns off once she was dead.

He says “Oh ja, for the chinese people because they think it’s makes them clever”

Then there was silence.

And he said “That makes me sad.  Where am I going to see rhinos now?”

Ja thanks a LOT Mr Poacher… you selfish git!!

It’s not just future generations that you’re depriving of beautiful animals… it’s my kids!!!

And I’m so not happy about this!  It doesn’t only make me sad.  It makes me very very angry.