Life in the bundus

So I’ve moved back to my home town after 8 years of studying. I always knew I’d come back so I’m not THAT surprised. I love the country life. Sure, cities have their plus points (friends, services, convenient shopping…) but then there is also peak hour traffic which, I’ve noticed, extends noticeably into non-peak hours of late. I’d prefer Chinese bamboo torture over driving in bumper to bumper traffic behind a taxi covered in WWE wrestler stickers and blasting kwaito (music which is local, homegrown, ethnic and also utter trash!).

Country life should be chilled out. Wake up early go to bed early. Farmers in straw hats ferrying loads of cabbages to market in beat up old Toyotas. Fishing and fresh food. Home baked cookies and unsliced rusks. You get the idea, all rustic like…

Where I live, things are a tad more exciting though. Just yesterday a gang of armed robbers held up a local shop. Police in the area actually coordinated a road block and nabbed the bastards in a surprisingly well oiled operation. Well, when I say ‘nabbed the bastards’ I really mean ‘chase them into the mielie fields and shoot them to pieces’. If I was a criminal I’d definitely decide to lay low if I lived hereabouts. In fact some of SA’s most hard core criminals come from around here. ATM bombings and mall robberies in Johannesburg (who robs the mall!?) have links to rural Kranskop. Not to mention old Jacob Zuma’s posse down the road in Nkandla (which has recently overtaken Dubai as the world’s fastest growing city in the middle of nowhere).

Yes things do happen out here in the bundus. The best part of it all… NO TRAFFIC!

The most fun I had today

Ever had one of those days where the most fun you've had was watching all the red bars on your de fragmenting hard drive turn blue?

I'm having one of those days right now. I've been endlessly working on my theses, correct here, edit there, cut out here, paste there, type here, delete that, find references for this... AAARGH!!! It's so monotonous that I look forward to any break or possible escape from the hellish cycle. I found some relief staring at my defrag for around 5 minutes before realising how desperate I was and watching half an episode of Top Gear to regain some sort of sanity.

Writing up is far from easy, even if you have everything you need in front of you and all you need to do is assemble bits and pieces into one sensible paragraph. If I could just work my way around these mental blockades I could probably finish off the rest of my thesis in two days! Instead I have budgeted two weeks to complete the work.

Wish me luck fellow strugglers/stragglers

My life in a nutshell

I woke up early this morning. It was pitch black. The couple next door just wouldn’t stop rattling about their place. What is the problem with some individuals, don’t they realize the rest of us are trying to sleep? Oh well, I hope they get eaten by something large and ugly!

I noticed a weird smell coming from the basement. It’s probably my brother. Some say that parents always neglect the youngest, especially when there are three of us to take care of and bring up in the house. He is much smaller than us on account of the fact that he is given less to eat. I guess mom figured that she’d rather have two healthy offspring as opposed to three undernourished and feeble ones. I guess we should thank him in a way. It’s just so hard when the guy never leaves his room and smells so bad that we can’t even go in there. I wonder if he is okay?

Yesterday I lost my best friend. We were pretty close. In fact Jeff and I grew up together as neighbours. He was a big lad… I guess it was only a matter of time before he got chosen. The big guys always tend go first.

As for Alfie, my older brother, I’m just sick and tired of staring at his fat arse all day. I swear mom had better get that ceiling fixed soon. I’m going to go crazy here…