October Reflections

31^st October 2010

A little more rain this week just enough to lift the frustration rate to a packet a day of Prozac and 500mgs of  blood pressure pills. The air born hordes of insects are rising to new heights well above those I have experienced even worse than after the flood at Credo ,out the back of Uardry and the wost place of all I thought Dirk Hartogg Island where the only place to escape them was under the sea.

The road into town after a few mills is know basically impossible to get along with trucks and even 8 wheel drive cranes getting stuck. At least there is a feel that the rains have stopped pretty much.

Not been able to do anything except slow progress with the camp infrastructure due to still no containers still plagues our efforts to start the farm not the least the 4 inches of water all over it .

No communication this week with the out side world, as the net work is having a “Bookra Inshalla” time and god does not seem to up with the latest technology when it comes to phone systems.

The inability to go any where and do anything out side the Camp area is starting to take its toll on every body it feels like being in jail and you don’t even need any walls to keep you in as there is just no where to go.

I have always heard about the wet in Northern Australia driving people insane now  I know why they shut shop and keep just a few people around ,the heat ,humidity and boredom are just not conjusive to keeping ones sanity. You can only do so much reflection of life and the effects of your past and future on your continuig journey of life, we certainly have learnt to laugh at nothing  and are trying to subdue our contempt of  those of you out in the free world, of entertainment , and a supposed civil society. An environment that I think we all took for granted even the Zims who have had an extremely hard battle over the years.

Sitting under a Lalop tree in a plastic chair enjoying the cool. Is this  perhaps the Locals way of dealing with the forced inactivity.  Having no expectations of what we call a better life or dreams of the past or future beyond today and just living in the moment is their way of dealing with the environment we now find ourselves in.

Some of our containers have now being in customs for nearly a year and still are no closer to being released. The political meddling and corruption from the north to stop any development in the South is plainly evident with incomprehensible fees being asked for the release of the goods. In some cases more than we paid for the goods.

Still we will get a crop in next year some how and clear some more land. Those of of you who have lost your sanity and are thinking of buying Chinese equipment please don’t it is just plain old shit like when Japan started selling its manufactured goods in the 60s but worse.

We will just keep soldiering on task by task and get ourselves in a position where we can just concentrate on farm development once it dries out perhaps going away for the referendum will be a blessing as we wont be tempted and be frustrated by the conditions being too wet and it will be full steam ahead once we are back.

Luckily for me there is an insane embitted white African here who is keeping my tender grip on sanity a reality who as I write has just taken a photo of my washing hanging upon the door of the Grand Poobas’ who is currently and temporarily housed as described in Upington Africans Groot Doos “ a large box “ room small things I guess amuse large lateral minds luckily.

Large flocks of Quelia are now starting to fly with a black cloud just passing by a minute ago .These birds a really tiny and totally destructive of cereal crops such as sorghum, rice wheat etc and are arguably the largest single problem to agriculture in Africa apart from NGOs and politicians.

12 midday

Just back from an excursion in the swamp courtesy of the CAT a good bit of gear .Serious water for about 2 ks them starts to dry off where it has moved south towards us .The road travelling east west appears to be stopping the flow into the river to the south so when it drys out we will have to remedy this put a few more culverts etc in the road and make sure they are surveyed in and in line with our planned drainage system that will have to be implemented.

Went up to the north of our cleared area where it is quite dry and tempting to start chaining but will wait another 10 days and we should be ok .Still will not be able to burn for a while as all is very green away from the itchy grass with mountains of creepers and plants all looking very well and thriving so we will need mountains of herbicide next year as most appear to be pioneer plnts which are the hardest to kill.

The big snails are on the move and appear to live under the water and graze on the algae and slim on the bottom.

Many different types of water birds have moved in. Large flocks of Spur Winged geese a large bird about the size of a large turkey and look very appetizing along with numerous ducks, plovers, egrets, spoonbills and smaller birds I have no idea what they are.