Three dinner meat ...

I don’t know about you, but there’s something about clean laundry that I love. Today the sun is shining, there isn’t a rush, the witoogies are singing outside. I am freshly showered and feel good, so I decide it’s a crispy white t-shirt day.  We’re flying through to East London, moving onto the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal leg of our journey, our flight’s only at 13h00 so for once I have a quiet morning to gather myself.

I meet up with Tim and Mark at the airport and discover that checking in 70kg of overweight camera and photographic equipment is time-consuming. What makes things worse is that for some reason, our pre-booking reference for the overweight luggage cannot be located by the airline. My earlier feelings of calm are starting to dissipate, we should have checked in by now and there is a terse discussion taking place between me, the check-in counter lady and the overweight counter lady. In the midst of these cross-conversations, Mark hands me a bottle of mineral water which he had sweetly retrieved from our car last night and carried in all this way to give to me in the morning. Whilst I am having an animated discussion with the two counter ladies, I screw open the bottle-top and immediately its entire contents fizz and explode all over me. My crispy white t-shirt is sodden and I am looking like a contestant in some sort of bad taste competition.People at the next counter turn to stare, the counter ladies stare. I close my eyes realising I have lost my calm space.


On top of this, a boarding announcement person is now calling for us repeatedly.  Finally sorting out the overweight altercation, we leg it through security to the boarding gate escorted by an airport employee parting the crowds in a neon bib. I am trying to run modestly, which is difficult in a wet, white t-shirt, clutching handbags, laptops and boarding tickets. We are the last ones to board the plane, everyone stares at us pointedly.

Luggage troubles

Landing in East London is always a treat for me. I love this little airport and this small town, all too often overlooked. In small towns there’s no rush, no crush, no traffic-jam and no stress because it takes five minutes to get anywhere. It’s as if life slows down to the pace that it should be.

Loading up our gear

Our bakkie is collected from the airport and we head out to Cinsa to get a head-start on tomorrow’s long drive. Immediately I notice a change in vegetation, it’s more humid, open grasslands and thorn-trees, somehow the land feels more African, as opposed to the Cape’s Mediterranean climate and unique fynbos. A few years ago I had the opportunity to spend a year living in Grahamstown and it was then that I fell in love with the Eastern Cape, with its soft energy and rolling green hills, with pineapples ladies on the side of the road, banks of ‘red hot poker’ aloes and a coast line that stretches on as far as the eye can see, line after line after line of white breakers rolling in.

Mark getting weird with the evening light

On the way there, I phone ahead to tomorrow’s project to ensure that our accommodation is confirmed. “Yes,” says the person at the end of the line in Bulungula where we’re heading next, “do you want dinner when you arrive?”
“Yes please,” I answer.
“Dinner meat? Dinner veg?”
I turn to the guys and ask oddly, “Dinner meat? Dinner veg?”
They shrug shoulders, the universal sign for whatever …
“Three dinner meat,” is my equally odd reply.


Today is a down day as we have no planned project visit, but despite this we still only get into our accommodation late in the afternoon.  We arrive and unfold ourselves from the bakkie. I had forgotten that in this part of the world the sun sets early, getting dark from 17:30 and is completely dark by 18:00. The first thing I notice is the smell of the sea and the muted roar of the Indian Ocean, there’s thick green brush edging the sand dunes, with an unending stretch of beach that’s covered by soft evening mist hanging above the waves. Mark hustles off as soon we stop the car, he has spotted a photo. I look up and see Scorpio hanging low in the evening sky.

Sean Veldman, 23, porter at Crawford Cabins, Cinsa.