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I want to thank everybody that has already voted in the writing competition. We were 155 votes behind the leader a fortnight ago. Now it is down to 60. If there are any more votes out there....?????
Could I just mention that I will have a webpage up and running,hopefully within the next three weeks (ericonhisbike.com),on which I hope to bore all and sundry with details of my training trips and,hopefully,updates on news from Thamsanqa.
I have been most fortunate this week in that I have had an interview with Costa Blanca News (to be followed by an article in the paper) and a radio interview with Hit FM. They will serve to generate interest,I hope,in the Tour and consequently Thamsanqa. On Thursday,I am invited to a Ladies' Luncheon to speak about Thamsanqa.And really,I just want to go out on my bike!
I shall be doing the Tour whether or not I win the writing contest; but winning might stop me from having to sell my RBS shares!
Best wishes,
Eric.

I have found out from the organisers that a vote does not count unless a comment is left. They make no mention of this in their web site! At the moment, I am trailing the leader by 155 votes. That is a lot of comments, so if you know anyone that is willing to spend a couple of minutes...some might just like to say "push off"!
Thanks for your interest!
Eric.
PS Some friends have had difficlty finding how to vote; I should perhaps have mentioned that, once into the site, you first click on "Win a free trip" and then "View all submissions".

I have registered to cycle in the 2010 Cairo-CapeTown race/expedition.It will be over 11000km.,over a period of 4 months,starting January 16. My intention is to raise funds. I am paying the full cost of the trip myself and all costs relating to the trip. There is, however, a chance I could get a 25% discount  if I win a story competition run by the organisers of the cycle race, Tour d'Afrique. The winner is not neccesarily the one who has written the best story, but the one who gets the most votes!!This is where I implore you to pull out all the stops and get me votes,votes and more votes! Whether it be through email, facebook, family, friends and acquaintances.
The story has to be connected with a bike journey,so I have entered the only such one I have written, namely the one on the blog about going to Baviaanskloof Wilderness.
Voting is simple:
1Type in www.tourdafrique.com/contest 

I have registered to cycle in the 2010 Cairo-CapeTown race/expedition.It will be over 11000km.,over a period of 4 months,starting January 16. My intention is to raise funds. I am paying the full cost of the trip myself and all costs relating to the trip. There is, however, a chance I could get a 25% discount  if I win a story competition run by the organisers of the cycle race, Tour d'Afrique. The winner is not neccesarily the one who has written the best story, but the one who gets the most votes!!This is where I implore you to pull out all the stops and get me votes,votes and more votes! Whether it be through email, facebook, family, friends and acquaintances.
The story has to be connected with a bike journey,so I have entered the only such one I have written, namely the one on the blog about going to Baviaanskloof Wilderness.
Voting is simple:
1Type in www.tourdafrique.com/contest 

Two thoughts,above all else,will remain with me: how mundane and self-created are the majority of the problems for us in the West;and the amount of work quietly being done by so many people to address the very real problems encountered by the majority of people in this world.

As we inched up the rough,dirt road of the Sani Pass,I asked the driver/guide whether there were taxes in Lesotho.Oh yes,he replied,but they all have to be 4 wheel drive up here! A similar accent-induced misunderstanding occurred later,while in the Basotho (Lesotho) village. Having just photographed a shepherd neaxt to his pile of wood and stacked,dried dung,I enquired whether it was good-quality shit. No speak English,was the reply.Luckily,our guide was fluent in their language,Susutu.Ask him if it is good shit,I said.The answer came back: he does not wear a shirt!
Inside the rondavel hut,the Basuto woman had treated us to a taste of their local  home-made beer and bread.In the centre of the hut,a round hearth was set into the floor.There, lay a pan of bread underneath a tray of embers.I have never tasted such delicious bread for decades and I kept it for tomorrow's lunch.

The lifesaver was clearly bemused. He was seated under a canopy, his state-of-the-art jet-skis in readiness alongside him. Right beside him, coincidentally, there was an area of about 12 sq .metres pegged out with umbrellas. In the middle, sat a table with 24 hats. By the table, an Englishman wearing an Australian hat, sat waiting. Curiosity overcame him. ‘’What are you going to do here, man?’’ In answer, the kids started to appear through the sand dunes.
They were not stigmatised as poor orphans by wearing shorts and shirts. In their new swimwear, they were as smart as anyone else. They ran to the water excitedly, picking up wet sand to throw like snowballs , with unerring accuracy- I know,I got two full in the face in rapid succession!
For the younger ones, this would be their first experience of the beach. They all had a marvellous day. When they crowded into the minibus at about 5 pm., they had no energy left!

A young woman,whose documents we sorted out this week,was bringing up her children on her own.Her husband died of Aids and she has it also.Yet her youngest child is not HIV positive.The new drugs available to protect the child in child birth were administered.Some good news to start the day!
Eric.

The sinking sands of racial imbalances are incredilbly difficult to address, as Europeans themselves well know! So perhaps we should be cautious about denigrating the efforts of this still young democracy of South Africa. Undoubtedly, there have been mistakes made since the change from the apartheid governments to black government. On taking power, it was natural to try to reverse the process of reducing the black.  In retrospect, the only agenda  should have been to educate the black population and lift it out of poverty asap. When the child support grant was introduced, (now higher, at R250 a month=17 pounds a month) it was too little to do much good. But it had the unbelievable effect of encouraging black women to have babies. The grant was insufficient to feed a baby properly, but to somebody with no income, it must have seemed better to share their hunger with a child, rather than starve alone.

The sinking sands of racial imbalances are incredilbly difficult to address, as Europeans themselves well know! So perhaps we should be cautious about denigrating the efforts of this still young democracy of South Africa. Undoubtedly, there have been mistakes made since the change from the apartheid governments to black government. On taking power, it was natural to try to reverse the process of reducing the black.  In retrospect, the only agenda  should have been to educate the black population and lift it out of poverty asap. When the child support grant was introduced, (now higher, at R250 a month=17 pounds a month) it was too little to do much good. But it had the unbelievable effect of encouraging black women to have babies. The grant was insufficient to feed a baby properly, but to somebody with no income, it must have seemed better to share their hunger with a child, rather than starve alone.

I made a mistake in my blog!Instead of Tia trying to get 50 businesses to sign up for donating 10 pounds each per week,it should read per month!
Sorry for that.
Back soon,Best wishes,
Eric.

Last Saturday,we set our pitch outside Florence’s to sell the donated clothing and shoes.We had sorted the items into 3 price categories,R5,R10 and R20 (R15=1pound=1.15 euros).Soon we had to reduce everthing to between R1-R5.One very old lady picked up a pair of old,but warm,slippers;she said pointedly-but without looking me in the eye,as if she was ashamed of herself-I have no money!It kind of pulls the rug from underneath you when you are looking for a good haggle!A young teenager,having just paid R5 for a quality worsted jacket,was parading around,clearly feeling ``the man’’.But it must have been 3 sizes too big for him!A good number of people went away with clothing at prices they could just afford,others had fun trying clothes on.Two thirds of our wares were sold.We took R520.This,to you ,will sound pathetic.In terms of the work we all put in,it was.Nevertheless,Tia was happy.Cash is hard to come by,and she is in desperate need.It is more than the child support grants for 2 chi

Monday
We have 2 new volunteers this week;Hilda has worked for 22 years in a kindergarden and has been out here to an orphanage before (Agape).Tamara is a professional photographer.For 2 weeks ,she will be building up portfolios of each child for a charity called Photos for Orphans.Back in Holland,schoolchildren will assemble the photos into albums.Each orphan will then receive their individual album of shots of themselves.Without any personal mementoes at all,these are treasured and help to give back some of the self-esteem that has been drained out of them by their traumas.
Tuesday.

On Friday morning,we had our weekly meeting with Tia.She was sporting a relaxed smile.But she wouldn't spill the beans till we had made her a coffee.Then she told us of an incredible breakthrough:the previous night she had attended a meeting called by the government department.Nothing was expected out of it,but you never know.It turned out that there was  money left in the annual budget of the department,that was available till the end of the financial year;any family in need could collect vouchers for a total of 3 separate food parcels (before March next year)and money for school clothes.Imagine what this will mean for many people without a certainty of food!