My mother’s house nestles in a shallow valley with lush trees and undergrowth. It’s lovely but it offer lousy Internet and wi-fi connectivity.
My first visit here – 2014 – was maddeningly frustrating. It reminded me of the early days of the Internet - before many of us had been spoiled by technology!
I’d hoped connectivity would improve over the following year. Instead, a visiting ISP technician explained that the “height of the trees blocked the signal.”
I took to visiting a local café where I confined my Internet use to an hour a day.
Competition between businesses to provide customer service isn’t much of a thing here, at least in this part of the province. Apparently, neighborhoods are divided into sectors with one ISPs “owning” the right to provide services to all residences in that sector. Residents are hostages to the efficiency and professionalism of their neighborhood’s ISP.
After three years I found an ISP that provides most of my needs.
Until recently, I paid for 20G per month but used far less. Pandemic anxiety switched that around and, these days, I regularly run out of bandwidth!
I “topped up” another 10G mid-month, then used that up by 27 May. I had two options: 1) pay for another 10G (for the remaining two days of the month), or 2) wait until 1 May.
I opted to wait.
Internet withdrawal is nasty!
Imagine being stranded on a tiny desert island with an active and curious brain, no access to online library e-books, no cellphone, and no intelligent friends.
Add pandemic lockdown anxiety, only Clorox at hand, Donald J Trump making decisions – and you get an inkling of my Internet withdrawal!
Thoughts on pandemic
Much news these days about stir-crazy people contravening stay-at-home/shelter-in-place orders. Unless one is directly impacted, it’s easy to assume the pandemic is relatively under control.
A trip outside quickly shows pandemic anxiety is alive and well, and that nothing virus-related is under control.
A week since my last foray into town, this week I planned a trip to: fill my mom’s monthly pharmacy scrip; convince the vet to sell meds for my mom’s dog’s skin irritation without bringing the dog in for examination; purchase hardware store items; purchase a new tire (tyre in SA) for my mother’s car; find a technician willing to troubleshoot my mother’s Telkom wireless landline phone. (She’s been incommunicado for 3 weeks.) Plus, a big ask of local police: permission for the gardener to return to work at least one day a week.
I phoned some places before I set off.
A clerk at the hardware store answered – good sign: the store was open – and he explained that only essential businesses – plumbers, electricians, etc., – could purchase. He added stores would be fined up ZAR30,000 (US$1,700) for contravening this rule.
Since I had him on the line, I asked if he knew whether the local tire repair shop was open. (Front passenger tire has slow leak that I’ve had repaired three times in the last three years. Time for a new one.)
Alas, only emergency tire repair service is available.)
Backstory: My mom has been advised not to drive but…stubborn … she drives when she decides a dog needs veterinary care. Scary truth: when I’m not here, my mother is the only person in the house who can drive. (This is one feature of my mother’s puzzling decision not only not to downsize for retirement, but to burden herself, her family, and her domestic workers with a large house and garden, too many dogs, etc.)
My first week back this year, I drove my mother, one domestic worker and an assortment of dogs to the vet four times – for minor issues such as skin irritation.
Following that, I drove my mother and a domestic worker to the vet to euthanize two elderly and ill dogs, 2) drove solo to pick up two fancy urns with dog cremains, 3) drove solo again to pick up two fancy urns with dog cremains that hadn’t arrived according to the first schedule.
When it comes to dogs and vets, I thank the gods for lockdown!
***
I’m delighted by simply wiping the dust off my vehicle, strapping on the seatbelt, and exiting the security gate.
I’m thrilled with having a valid reason to experience life outside the security fence.
Potholes, once objects of frustration and derision, now warm my heart – like running into a long-lost friend.
Full parking lots at mini malls present an opportunity to ponder human behavior. Are those shoppers really shopping? Or are they enjoying liberation? Maybe I should escape more often?
At the vet's clinic, I bought two bottles of dog skin irritation muti (Zulu word for medicinal concoctions cooked up by songoma/ "witchdoctors”).
While we waited for the vet to agree to dispense meds without seeing the actual dog, the receptionist and I agreed that, yes, indeed, people locked down in houses have unrealistic views of what’s going on “out there” until they visit “out there”.
Lockdown underplays the potential threat from coronavirus. We agreed that the elderly and frail seem least willing/able to grasp the concept of lockdown.
By the way, I noticed the skin muti cost about the same as “the kit” of injector pens for whose purchase I’d felt soundly berated.
My quest to ask police permission for the gardener to travel failed utterly.
I handed over the letter describing our household’s need for a strong male to perform certain tasks for a frail 87-year-old.
The officer’s refusal wasn’t adamant. Rather, she looked at me as if I’d asked her to become president of the United States: bemused.
(After I returned home, I contacted the neighbor who’d described another frail 87-year-old’s success requesting the same of the police. I learned that after police received that woman’s letter, they visited her home to confirm her need. Hmmm, I doubt police visiting here would result in permission.)
My visit to the police station had an unexpected bright side.
Angels’ Care, a center that feeds and supports underprivileged children, is located right across the street.
Last week, I’d tried, unsuccessfully, to donate funds online to Angels’ Care.
Seeing the facility right there felt like divine intervention.
I dropped by, explained my online experience, and the office admins cleared a path to successful donation.
***
Meanwhile, back at the ranch…
Humans who live in the cushy west routinely discard items that could easily be reused/ recycled/ composted.
I grew up on rural KZN before the widespread use and abuse of plastic, before municipal services, at a time when precious water was pumped from a stream and stored in tanks; when septic tanks were common; when food waste was fed to pigs or composted; when only refuse that couldn’t be recycle was burned in burn pits.
I’m grateful for running water, electricity (unless Eskom is load-shedding!), and flushing toilets - although my houseboat hosts a composting toilet.
Convinced the contemporary world is wasteful, I try to conserve. I carry my own shopping bags and complain to grocery store managers about frivolous use of plastic containers.
Do I sound like a stuffy ideological puritan?
I’m not but I try to act on my belief that mindless cycles of consumption and dumping threatens people and planet.
My latest pro-compost action?
Recycling that soft pond weed (I’ve described in earlier posts) and making a footpath through long grass.
Background: Swamp cypress grow in wetlands and send up aerial roots that act as secondary lungs when the area is flooded.
Grass and weeds also grow think and fast under these beautiful trees. The combination of lush grass, weeds, and aerial roots create tripping hazards. Bushwhacking the area is difficult but not impossible – at least for the gardener. The bushwacker contraption is too heavy for me.
To cope while he’s away, I laid a footpath made of pond weed and clumps of invasive waterlilies.
***
First thing in the morning, after I step outside, I check my gumboots for spiders before pulling them on, strap on my camera, and call the dogs for a walk around the garden.
Two of seven dogs accompany me (the rest hunker on beds under blankets).
I carry a big stick while walking and wave it in front of me as I apologize to spiders for breaking the webs they spun overnight.
This wards off spider bites and furthers my reputation as Neighborhood Crazy Lady.
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| Pond weed path. |
See photos Spying on Garden Creatures
