12 / 11/ 8
Having arrived at 10 in Pietermaritzburg this morning, I rang Kadir as previously arranged. But, due to ongoing illnesses, he was unable to meet with us this morning. But he did agree to answer questions via email which is excellent. So, David & I will be putting together a list of questions for him (and that will save us from transcribing!!).
So, the day off……again. This is nice, but I get a bit anxious with not enough to do. We do have a lot of transcribing to do, but after a couple of hours of looking at a computer screen, the eyes start to cross.
And I was hankering for a home cooked meal. The last couple of days, due to the fact that our Durban backpackers was in a bit of a blackhole as far as restaurants and markets go, I have been eating my fair share of ‘Bunny Chow’ – a delicious meal consisting of a hollowed out loaf of bread (or a half or quarter) filled to the brim with spicy broadbeans. Needless to say it is filling and delicious. After having one for lunch, there is no need (ever for me) to have dinner. But there is absolutely nothing ‘green’ in them.
Thus the home cooked meal quest.
Here in Pietermaritzburg, there was a ‘Super Spar’ – not my first choice of grocers, but do to the fact that I was ‘Bunny Chow’ed out, I went in and bought my weight in vegetables. I had missed cooking – the last time I did was in the early days in Soweto so it had been a couple of weeks. I home cooked nothing exciting – spag & salad, but it went down well.
We have decided to stay another day (Thursday 13 November) here as we don’t have any plans in Jo’burg until Saturday when we interview Michael Dingake. Pietermaritzburg is a bit more ‘Western –user friendly’ than the hubbub of Johannesburg.
We will arrive there at 4pm on Friday and interview Michael on Saturday. He is flying in from Botswana just to speak with us, though I would assume that he has friends here as he spent a good deal of his life in this city.
