Down By River

At the bottom of my garden is some veldt and a little beyond that is the Jukskei River. Now as you know by a previous post that our land is dying of thirst as the summer rains have been delayed by El Niño.

Thankfully we have a very deep borehole that is at least 50m below the Jukskei River and water table but the news around the country was that our countries reservoirs are nearly empty and that some boreholes are drying up, hence our walk down to the river to check on the water levels.

By the looks of it, the water level has dropped about 10cm since last month. The water is flowing strong but a few sandbars are starting to show but no concern for us just yet. When I can walk across here without getting wet then you will see me panic about our home water situation.

They say we need over 25mm of rain to help break the back of this drought. Substantial rain is only expected in March next year although we will get some storms between now and then, it will be too little too late.

River of Mist

The temperatures dropped below freezing along the Jukskei River in the early hours of this morning. I awoke after a coughing episode all throughout last night, to a beautiful river of mist flowing downstream along the Jukskei River.

Yes it was freezing and this cold bug which I have contracted doesn’t help one iota. I had to pull on some thermal underwear, okay overshare, under my normal work clothes just to be able to stay warm while riding to work this morning.

Of course I needed to be well lubricated with cough medicine before setting out for work only to find out that when I arrived at work, the security at the gate were doing alcohol testing of everyone coming in. I tried to explain the the security guard that I had just taken cough medicine before being tested but luckily nothing registered on the blower thingy and I was let in unceremoniously.

In the end of it all, I am not feeling too well even though everything around me is beautiful.

Jukskei Runs Through

At the bottom of our new place, the Jukskei River runs though. Although the river looks peaceful and tranquil, I wish that it was clean but that is not the case as we are downstream from many poor communities including informal settlements.

So now as we take up our long walks again, the dogs can enjoy the open spaces to run while we appreciate the surrounding scenery and the quietness of it all.

Take me to the water

I woke up this morning from a weird dream which was still vivid in my mind and although still very early, I phoned each one represented in my dream straight away to see if they are okay. This is not the first time that God had given me such a dream; I will put my dream to post soon on my other blog where I rarely post. My other dream still resides there to this day.

After a wet summer, it seems that winter has arrived early this morning, as took a stroll in a chilly 7˚C down to the waters of the great dirty Jukskei River. The icy wind tore right through me while I tried to generate heat by a frisk pace and all the while my mind was trying to make sense of the dream.

Down by the water's edge, it was even colder, but a singing and clapping of hands drew me ever closer. As drew nearer, a group of Zionists all dressed in white greeted me with big smiles on their freezing faces as they were getting baptized in the blessed Jukskei River. Now who would have thought that there was religion in that dirty water? It must have been freezing in the water but the Zionists had the biggest smiles on their faces as they saw me and invited me closer to the cold water's edge. After a Zion Christian Church (ZCC) congregant gets prayed and splashed on with the holy river water, they emerge reborn anew with their old selves floating down the dirty but blessed Jukskei River. So take me to the water of the blessed Jukskei. Take me to the water where none but the righteous shall be saved.

A taxi shell remains

Last Sunday, I posted Taxi in the Jukskei and this is all that remains in just two days after the minibus taxi did a swan dive into the Jukskei River. The wheels disappeared first on the Sunday, followed soon by the doors, engine, gearbox, lights and steering column. Nothing was spared even the floor paneling was removed all to be used on another rattle trap on our South African roads.

The minibus taxis are the most popular mode of public transport in South Africa. They are also the most dangerous means of transport in South Africa. According to the Automobile Association of South Africa there approximately 150,000 public minibus taxis and are reported to be involved in 70,000 annually in South Africa with an estimated 3 taxi related deaths daily. It is a big yet dangerous industry that won't be fixed over night. Be careful out there.

Taxi in the Jukskei

Waking up this morning to news of Whitney Houston's untimely death on the radio wasn't the best wake up news to receive on a Sunday morning but the weather looked good, so Matthew and I headed out to BBC. We didn't get far when we saw crowds of onlookers at the Jukskei River bridge. Curious, we stopped to see what the commotion was and were greeted with this sight in the photograph above.

A mini bus taxi had left the road, went through the bridge railings and landed in the Jukskei River below. From what I could gather this happened yesterday, possibly in early evening as we saw nothing when we went past here about 6pm. The side windows look like they have been broken post accident, possibly to pull the survivors out. There has been nothing in the local news so they must have been no or few fatalities.

Mini bus taxis are notorious for getting into accidents in South Africa so it is common to see them been involved in accidents but seldom do we see them trying to swim. Later on in the afternoon, there was another mini bus taxi parked on the banks with a number of young men standing on the banks drinking. I wondered if they were opportunists trying to salvage what they can from the wreck for their taxi.

Klein Jukskei

This afternoon I took the boys to the small river that runs near us, the Klein Jukskei River. Matthew and the Italian Greyhounds loved exploring along the river bank while I enjoyed looking at all the lovely decks built overlooking the river. The word klein means small in Afrikaans which rightly means that there is a bigger Jukskei river. This smaller river runs into the Jukskei River about 11km downstream where this photo was taken. Now there is only one word which you may not know that is the Afrikaans word Jukskei. This is an Afrikaans folk sport that originated about 250 years ago in the Cape and become popular during the Great Trek in the early 1800s. Skei is the pins used in the yokes that were attached to their cattle to pull wagons. A peg is planted into the ground and the object is to try throwing your skei to knock over the peg.