Chandler's Overseas

If the whole of South Africa were a single village, with only 100 inhabitants, the infrastructure in the village would be as follows: 76 homes have electricity; 70 have a television; 68 have tap water in the house or in the yard; 30 have a motor vehicle; 17 have a land-line telephone in working order; 80 own, rent or use a cellphone; 41 have a savings account; 36 have an ATM card; Their earning capacity would be: 42 are employed (full-time or part-time); 26 are unemployed and looking for employment opportunities; 49 are poor (the total household income a month is below R2,499); 4 earn incomes of R300,000 a year or higher; 14 earn incomes of R100,000 a year or higher; 25 year incomes of R50,000 a year or higher; 32 have a matric ; and 8 have a university or technikon degree. They spend their money as follows: R21 out of every R100 on food; R17 out of every R100 on housing and municipal services; R4 out of every R100 on clothing and footware ; and R9 out of every R100 on income tax. (n...

On numerous trips to Pilansberg Game reserve we have passed the Magaliesberg Range and wondered what the view would be like from the top. The Magaliesberg Range forms a division between the the high-veld in the south and the lower lying flat semi-arid bush-veld in the north. One section of the mountain range overlooks Hartebeesport Dam, a popular weekender for the residents of Gauteng . Chris & Nix did some investigating and found a hiking trail which we embarked on one Saturday and which took us to the top of the Range.

Hiking seems to be the latest craze in South Africa so hiking it was over the long weekend. I suppose it seems logical considering the close proximity that we are to Mt Kilimanjaro... After spending Saturday night with some local South African's (we were the only expats for once!) at Paul's birthday braai & bonfire, we headed to Suikerbosrand on Sunday with our weekend companions of Soph , Ga and Tim. It was a typical highveld winters day. Warm & sunny during the day (24c), however freezing after dark. We set up camp and immediately settled into some ciders and played French cricket enjoying the rays of the warm sun. Definitely a perk of living in Johannesburg! We made a delicious potkjie for dinner and had some fun times around the camp fire. The temperature continued to plummet eventually forcing us to bed. When we woke in the morning the car was recording -2c! Ouch.... sooo cold but luckily our sleeping bags are good. We hiked within the nature reserve amongs...

Jen is currently reading 'Olive Trees around my table' by Cecile Yazbek . It is the story of Cecile Yazbek , a Lebanese girl growing up in South Africa under the shadow of apartheid. The trauma of growing up in Apartheid eventually led to Cecile migrating to Australia in 1986. The following is an interesting observation of Cecile's: 'The Australian way of communicating, I soon learned, has a reserve about it. South Africans have a reputation for speaking their minds and being overly proactive which has made some very successful. But apartheid poisoned many white South Africans with a sense of entitlement, something we can be aware of and attempt to moderate. In Australia I found an invisible class system based on accent, geographic location or suburb in Sydney; the criteria differed from those in South Africa, where occupation was a class indicator that, along with colour, had been the most obvious sign on which all of life was predicated.' I was rapt to come across...

Pete travelled to Port Elizabeth ("PE") for work on Wednesday and was so tempted by the sunshine & the coast that he booked us plane tickets to Durban for the weekend. From the advice of friends Paul & Heather, we stayed in Southbroom which is on the South Coast of KwaZulu -Natal. The South Coast is dotted with towns interspersed between luscious green rolling hills of either sugar cane, dense tropical forests or banana plantations. It's incredibly picturesque. Southbroom was a lovely quaint community which is described by locals as a village. We visited Oribi Gorge Nature Reserve on Saturday and enjoyed a picnic on an overhanging rock (hanging 100m over the gorge!). We weren't crazy enough to partake in the gorge swing- a free fall of over 70m into the Canyon before being saved by the swing. But the curdling death squeals did make for good entertainment over lunch! We decided to explore the surrounding region on the return drive to Southbroom and got a ta...