A snake on the road and the festival of light

the mouth and fish traps

kids in the veggies patch

best advertisement

the mouth

halloween(premature)

the bookshop

Life is back to usual. I am back home after a marathon trip to England to produce my videos for the last component of the GP exams.

Cecily seems to be doing very well and sounded very chirpy on the phone. She sound settled in Edinburgh.

I did the videos in London and worked at Park Medical Centre (old job). It was nice to see all the old faces. Nothing has changed. Sandra is still creating lunch time feasts and Nicky is as annoying as ever.

I came back via Doha and spent 2 days in Joburg. Had a great lunch with Jaco(remember this name Lukas!) and worked hard with the Snymans to produce what we now will call the best video ever. This was achieved with Janine 's large edit machine and patience, Piet's cheese platter and whiskey and the dates from Arabia!(Janine hates dates).

Back in Manguzi...

Eunace goes to the bookshop which is open from 2-4 pm in KwaNgwanase town. Louis is now going to school in flexi-time fashion due to Ceri's working arrangements. Ceri is now doing 2 days of anaesthetics and it is working out very well. I am doing a mixture of clinics, paediatrics, male ward and the occasional septic list which is always a surprise. It ranges from full hand repairs, evacuations and to large absesses...anywhere!

We have celebrated Diwali at the parkhomes. Bavani created a real festival of light. The boys were dressed up as usual and Louis ate a very hot chicken Briyani

Ceri 's vegetable patch is looking good and we are taking our 5 portions a day-some from the garden and some from the trees !

We continue to go to the mouth(pictured) as usual. Louis is now swimming on his own in the sea with only general supervision. This is so fantastic! The fish traps at the mouth are held within the families(handed from father to son)and are very old. They are woven from reeds found in the swampy area and sticks found locally.

The people from manguzi are not truely zulu-they are Thsonga people(fisherman) and the fish traps are important culturally. They are designed in order to cath the larger fish (so the ecosystem is supported). the traps are within the heritage sites within the lake system.

On a trip back from the mouth we saw an african rock python on the road one evening. It was approximately 2 metres long and this was a very unusual sighting. To see such a reptile in the wild is just really amazing! Ceri drove over the snake's tail/ end bit! The snake disappeared into the bushes after an initial slow start, which meant we were able to view it very closely. No pictures sorry!