Cops and Robbers

There are three things I need to clarify before plunging into an update:

First of all, I have been informed by Mr. Dave Kokai (Geza Kokai's vigilant brother who is a chef) that the photo of the picture of spinach below is not an African version of spinach, but is actually Swiss chard. My mistake. The stores here label it "spinach" and I did not question it any further since I had never purchased Swiss chard in the stores in Canada (apparently, it is available at Dominion and Loblaws).

Secondly, I have changed the settings of this blog so that everyone may post comments, and not only those who are members of blogger.

Thirdly, to those of you who are not too familiar with the internet and blogs: if you click on a picture, you can view it in a separate window in a larger format.

Now, on to the news:

You will note that there is no personal picture with this update to the blog. Why? Well, on Friday evening, while I ate dinner at the "Rat and Parrot" (the local watering hole in Grahamstown) and had a few beers afterwards, I momentarily failed to pay attention to my purse. It was stolen from right under my nose and I never even saw who took it. Another dumb blonde also had her purse stolen that night. We were sitting ducks. The contents of the purse were as follows: camera, wallet, cell phone, gucci sunglasses, denim jacket, mascara and lip gloss.

My dearest mother has been so assertive in this matter and immediately cancelled all my bank cards for me. Replacements are to be mailed to my work here in Grahamstown. Furthermore, she and Klaus have bought a new Sony DSC-T9 digital camera for me. It costs more than the Pentax Optio S6 that I had, but it is a beauty [see picture to the left]. It is about the size of a credit card, and has 6.0 megapixels. "Make no mistake", dear readers, I must reimburse her, but it is cheaper to purchase a camera in Canada than here, since they import them all from foreign countries anyways.

The locks on my door needed to be changed, at my expense of course. *sigh*. I have kicked myself in the tush over and over again. I hereby do solemly vow, from henceforth on, to sport a "man-purse" as my former supervisor, Grant, is so clever to do. A "man-purse", or a "manurse" as I refer to them, is a small purse that one can carry over the shoulder sideways, and are often Diesel purses or what not. I shall also emanate a gutteral growl at anyone who comes within one metre of my "manurse".

After being robbed on Friday, I spent the Saturday and Sunday at my supervisor's house (Sarah) in Bathurst. We visited Port Alfred (where the beach and the great whites are) with Sarah's family and a handful of other friendly people. The weather was HOT HOT HOT (32 degrees), and I proceeded to perfect my South African tan yet again. On Saturday evening, Sarah hosted a party for the other Canadian intern at the LRC and that was extremely merry. I even managed to win 20 rand through a well-played game of pool. Dinner was truly scrumptious and the company was great :)

That sums up my fifth weekend in South Africa. Off topic: I received a few more pictures of the Bushman River Canoe Trip from a friend and have posted them below. I will post more pictures when I get my new camera on Saturday, when my mother arrives from Amsterdam to stay in Grahamstown for 6 weeks.