Ralphie is 2 . The director 's house and the chickens

Lego was the toy of the year

our first potjie

Chicken on a wire

Polwyntjies

Ponta d' Oura (golden beach)

Ralph in the director's house

in search of the dolphins

It was Ralph's birthday on the 11th of February. We celebrated it in Ponto( literally on the beach). From Manguzi it is a 20 min drive to the Mozambique border and then another 20 min 4x4 drive through fairly thick sand. The road is not really sign posted but most side tracks end up in the same place, so you just go for it...

We stayed at the Dolphin encounters... a quirkie set up with alot of enigmatic type art and cool, trance like literature about swimming with dolphins and being close to nature. You stay in amazing reed huts(you have to fumigate it first) on the beach and then there is a lounge with sea views where you can sit on poofs and learn about dolphin encounters' research and activities. We took the boys out on a very rough sea(the dolphin lady who wriggles her body in the water and attracts the dolphins didn't join us) but there was little to see and both the boys puked-their pale faces are noticable on the picture). We met 2 nice couples with kids and we celebrated Ralph's birthday breakfast overlooking the golden bay.
We then came home and had a small birthday party with Bella and her 2 kids. Ralph was thoroughly pleased and sang 'Happy Birthday' several times(close to 100 times). Ceri produced a plate of home made cup cakes and also a large home made cake. We ate and ate..

happy birthday little goden hair boy!

Ralphie celebrated his birthday during the time that we were still camping in Ettiene's house(here he is pictured in a smart shirt)

We were in Ettiene's house until March. It was called the palace and it had a lovely stoep around most of the building. We regularly saw the chickens(the so called no - man's birds) of the hospital. They are like cats. They wander around and treat every house as a home.They multiply like rabbits and it is not unusual to walk to the hospital and see chicks, young adults, older hens, and even perhaps a dead one(this was only an occasional sighting as they are fairly robust and live amongst the strongest bugs in the world(including multi-drug resistant TB); so all the generations except for the egg! The chickens are a discussion point at the hospital. They sometimes are found in the maternity ward, in the trees, in the vegetable patch(little buggers). Chickens do well in this part of the country and I always suggested that patients start a small chicken business when they receive a disability grant for chronic disease(DG). The african word for chicken is chickeeeeeeen.