Just us now, Kynsna

October 5, 2004

Stuart and David are out playing golf at a local Knysna course and I have some needed time to myself. Beryl is here and the rest of the Smith family left on Sunday. The boys are much more settled now. The peace and quiet and familiarity of people and routine must be doing them good. They are even settling in bed very well at night. Oliver has been such a handful, we don’t know whether it is the dreaded “two’s” or something else. Either way it is a huge change in his behaviour and quite upsetting for Stuart and I.

When I think about it, ever since he came out of hospital earlier in the year he has changed. Maybe he became accustomed to me alone being with him in the hospital all week, without having to compete with Benjamin for my attention. Up until that time, he didn’t seem bothered whether he was cuddled, Benjamin seemed to be the one that craved the bodily connection and skin to skin, cheek to cheek type of cuddle.

I wonder if Oliver has just been completely overwhelmed by the noise and people that he didn’t know how to cope. He has been completely clingy and demanding, not eating huge amounts or sleeping, just wanting to eat buckets of yoghurt. Benjamin on the other hand seems to be taking it all in his stride, he is very confident and relaxed and is quite happy to find something to do, I feel guilty that Oliver is taking all my attention away from him. When Oliver acts up, he seems to make himself into the perfect obedient child; it’s strange. Both boys went down for a sleep no trouble at all today Oliver even said he wanted to go to bed. Who are we to argue?

On another note, their language development is leaping along while still very much using their sign language. Benjamin is a great mimic and copies everything you say and that he hears, the clarity of their words is improving also by the day.

This stay in Knysna has been an interesting experience, as with most of Africa the extremes of wealth are fairly mind blowing. Staying on this island is surreal, a totally contained/confined settlement of very wealthy people. Most of the houses are holiday houses but are full of mansions, with private jetties and obligatory boats, jet skis, etc. When you leave the island you go to a normal holiday town with a mixture of tourist and local shops.

When you drive out of the town in both directions you see the flip side of all this wealth, the absolute poverty in the settlements that the workers live in. Some have electricity and look quite organised communities but they are shacks on dirt, nothing more. You would be pressed to find a non-black face in these areas.

Plettenberg Bay was the same, beautiful beach million rand homes and shantytowns on the outskirts. At the end of the day you see all the women heading off to their bus to take them home.

On Theson Island there is still a lot of building activity with several hundred houses yet to be built. There is a constant flow of traffic through the settlement and the ipace of work is truly impressive.

We took the boys to a monkey forest not far from Knysna yesterday. It was a great place and the boys were fascinated with the monkeys climbing around. We didn’t see a huge variety of species but it was a good day out anyway.

When we got back I saw something that really disturbed me. The rear of the house backs onto a waterway and along side and opposite, other houses do the same. Just as three boys were leaping off the jetty (wet bikes moored aside), a flatbed truck was passing over a bridge not far from the house on its way off the complex for the day. It was carrying at least 20 black workers, all huddled on the back.

It still seems to be (or maybe I am missing the point), that the have-nots get trucked to the island to work while the haves continue to enjoy their privileged life in their homogenised, coordinated, catalogue housing development.

I talked this over with Stuart who thought that it was really no different in any other country, New Zealand for example. But my observations have been a huge variety of nationalities on building sites and have seen many labourers that are not Polynesian or Maori or whatever. I don’t think it is a race related job in NZ.

The other amazing thing is the sheer amount of guys working on each of the homes at any one time. I counted five guys working together in one small area for one guy to lay bricks. One on ground level would be throwing the bricks up, one catching and throwing to another guy to put on a pile (not stacked), then that guy would throw a brick to another fellow standing on the wall, whose only job seemed to be to hand it to the fellow who was laying the brick. There were another three guys organising the mortar side of things. One guy mixing, he then gives to another guy a blob who then hurls it up to another fellow who hands the mortar to the brickie. Amazing.

Despite all the cultural shocks and daily dramas from the boys, we are really enjoying being tourists and having some family time.

Yesterday, we took the boys to Monkeyland about 45 mins drive away. We decided to take the guided tour through the forest (R80), then eat lunch at the open air café afterward. Really enjoyed the whole visit and think the boys did also. There were loads of monkeys climbing all around the place and Oliver and Benjamin had a good look at them all. They constantly used their signs with noises and were generally quite happy.
We also visited an elephant park, again not far from Knysna. The grownups had a great time but the boys weren’t so sure. They were more interested in the truck ride out to the animals. In picture books they love looking at the elephants but I don’t think they could quite adjust to the sheer size of the animals and were really unsure of them. We were fascinated and thought they were gorgeous, especially the babies. I didn’t expect their skin to be so warm – it was tough but they were so sensitive to touch. And those trunks!