Week 9 comes to a close

It's a really quiet Friday here today. Some of the department members are at a workshop, and the department manager is in the Executive Council meeting. I've been able to organize a little bit and get things straight on how to approach these final 3 weeks - areas to focus on to achieve some of our opportunities and initatives while I'm still here, as well as plans to equip the department to keep moving forward after I depart.

Got up pretty early this morning and had the chance to make my coffee, just sit out on my back porch and watch the sun rise, as the waves crashed and the tide came in. I will certainly miss those views and some of those peaceful moments, the relaxing times to take it all in and think about anything and everything.

Then when it was off to work, when I quickly forget about that serene view, as we drive away from the coast into the hills of the Eastern Cape. We happened to see a pretty bad car accident this morning (fairly common on that road, in addition to some of the atrocious driving... we drive by many of them). But one thing struck me today, which I've noticed before, but never really wrote upon or thought about how crazy it is, because it just seems so regular now.

I've talked about all the school children walking in packs along R61, 3 and 4 deep as they flow into the road of speeding cars. But many of them are carrying chairs in one arm in addition to their backpacks. So on top of having to walk a mile or two to school, some also have to carry a chair so they have somewhere to sit in the classroom all day. Could you imagine? And it's not all of them, it's just some... so it made me wonder what is the deciding factor of whether or not you have to carry your own chair to school...

I'm hanging around Port Edward this weekend, which I am looking forward to. Thinking about seeing if my local friends that work at the Estuary are around or I might just take it easy myself. Tomorrow a friend from the Municipality has invited the UNDP team over to his home for a braai, so looking forward to that.

Oh, and I've taken MANY photos here over the last few weeks (surprise, surprise). I need to put them on my computer and organize, but I'm hoping to post a mix of some for next week.

Have a good weekend!