h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello again!

You probably know South Africa is a very dangerous country. So basically at all times I have to be prepared to respond to violence against myself or my loved ones ... my parents, my sister and her family, basically, over here. I know how to handle a gun, even if I don't think I'll ever own one ... I would love for society to become more peaceful.

Anyways for other stuff ... the greenhouse is just for starting plants off! I've a sort of an arrangement with a farmer over here, I'm going to improve the plant diversity of his farm! Only indigenous South African plants, native to the Bushveld, Forest and Grassland regions of the old 'Transvaal'. There's a very impressive diversity of suitable species. If that guy lets me, I'll make a very interesting botanic garden for him!! I start the plants off here at home and then take them to him when they're big enough to plant out.

I also would like to have a piece of land of my own one day, for starting out my own Botanic Garden!

So, you're in Auckland! Looking in my atlas, I see that it lies at about 37 degrees South. I live in Pietersburg (now renamed Polokwane) and we are at about 24 degrees South ... in other words we are closer to the tropics than you are. In fact, the Tropic of Capricorn lies only a short distance to the North of the town! Where the road crosses into the tropics, there's a place where you can pull over and get out, and I've been there many times. There's a little rocky hill covered in candelabra trees at that spot, and I've a coupla photos of it.

Anyways so we're close to the tropics here. But like I said, Pietersburg is on a plateau of about 4500 ft in height, which makes the climate somewhat cooler. We only get a few frosty days in Winter and I've never yet seen snow.

This is a good place for cultivating plants. I am very interested in succulent plants, and Pietersburg is a dry enough climate for them. We get about 20 inches of rain, on average, annually, pretty much all of it in Summer. But it's not too dry for forest plants, and with a little bit of extra watering it's easy to cultivate them. Basically the climate of Pietersburg is such that you can grow almost anything without inordinate difficulty ... it's not too cold, not too hot, not too wet, not too dry.

I used to have a bit of a 'brown thumb' as well, at first ... I'm now slowly learning how to do better!

I really do love plants, animals and Nature!

I'd be very interested in visiting New Zealand some day. I'm very interested in the plants and the birds! Especially interesting to me are the links between New Zealand and South Africa. Hundreds of millions of years ago they were situated fairly close to each other in Gondwanaland. They broke up and drifted apart... but there are still links ... for instance in New Zealand are found several species of trees called Podocarps, of which we have four species here in South Africa as well. Podocarps used to be widespread big forest trees in the times of Gondwanaland!

Hi, Willem, I am sorry, this got pushed down and I didn't see it for a while...

I have got obsessed with weather in the last few years, it has been so much colder than it used to be, but the last weeks have been breathlessly hot. Today, we had a little tiny bit of rain, which was very welcome, and everything is still so lovely and green. A former tenant of this house planted many trees which now, about 30 years later, grow up past the roof - that includes lemons (in the back yard - I give them to my neighbours.) The woman next door works in her garden all the time, even though she's 85 at least - she has beautiful roses everywhere.
I have heard that SA is a very violent place. My son's maths teacher, Thea Killian came from there in about 1999, she and her husband left because of just that. Last year they had their first child, a boy called Damon or Dannon or something...

New Zealand has a very varied climate wherever you happen to be, in fact, it has lots of what are called, I believe, "micro-climates". There's snow down south, mountains and fjords, and here, well, we're right on the sea. (I should grab my son's atlas and look for Pietersberg. (Do you find it odd and inconvenient to have your town
change its name?)
Your own Botanic Gardens, what a great idea!
If you come to NZ, let me know, we could meet and talk in person. That'd be great!
Del.

Hey again Del! Don't worry about not having responded sooner ... you have responded at least!

Yeah for me the weather is also quite a big topic. I am very worried about climate change! I'm a kind of 'eco-nut'. I am very knowledgeable about climate and the way it affects ecology. I can draw you a detailed climatic and ecological map of South Africa ... in fact of the entirety of Africa ... from memory. In my head I know about the different kinds of habitat and what plants are found in them. To me this is a lot more than just 'theoretical' knowledge. The different places and the different creatures that inhabit them are like friends to me. For instance I know that on top of a certain plateau in the Lekgalemeetse Nature Reserve there is a patch of forest in which grows a gigantic Yellowwood tree (a Podocarpus by the way - like I said earlier, Podocarpus species are also in New Zealand). It is a very strenous hike and climb to reach that tree. Climbing up and visiting that giant tree was one of the highlights of my life. Having gone through all that trouble to see the tree I felt like I had a special bond with it.

In the same way I feel about so many other places here in South Africa, and about the vast variety of different things I have already met here. I also feel this great urge to go and visit other places and see other things. Not just to see them, but also to experience a bond of unity and love with them.

I love not just individual nature-beings but also entire 'habitats'. It's like seeing the trees, and the forest as well. There's something I came to think of as the 'spirit' of a place, which is compounded from the spirits of all the things that live in that place. And even the rocks and the soil, the air and the sky, the clouds, the rain and the rivers.

Climate change is going to wreak incredible havoc with these very sensitive living systems of this country and in fact the whole world! So I am extremely anxious every year about how much it rains, and about the temperature, and so forth, here in Pietersburg as well as in other places.

Oh - about Pietersburg changing its name ... I don't find it as odd and incovenient as some other people do. I've already known about Pietersburg also being called Polokwane since my elementary school Northern Sotho (local language) lessons. It used to be unofficial but now it's official. I think the best approach with 'names' in this country would be the allowance of places to have dual names.

I would certainly love to visit New Zealand! I would be very interested in the different micro-climates (AND the vegetation and wildlife as well!) Nez Zealand stretches quite a distance from north to south and it has those nice mountains as well. From what I saw in 'The Lord of the Rings' it is also scenically spectacularly beautiful!

Talking about the weather! Wow, I woke this morning to torrential rain, the first rain we've had for weeks, I suppose it was necessary, but we have have had such a long time of baking sun, it's hard to adjust. It is so lovely and green... and not cold, which is excellent.
I love the sea, that is my favourite area. We lived quite a way away when we were children, but now beaches are nearer and easier to get to, and somehow, we don't go as much as we did when it was a day trip. I remember white sand dunes, with scrubby grass growing in them, like hair on the head of a gradually balding man... and the uniquely beautiful smell - the screech of seagulls, and out at sea, the mournful honk of freighters and tankers (ships.)
We have some amazing mountains to the west of this city, and the sea to the north. Auckland contains several micro-climates all of its own.
So, you learned the local language at school. That's great! I assume you are at least tri-lingual, because as I understand it, Afrikaans and English are compulsory at school. Excellent skills!
It would be great if you get the chance to visit New Zealand. It is a great place, and you could spend decades here and never exhaust all there is to see...
My son has started Uni, I am pottering, there is a heap of stuff I should be doing right now, so I had better go, for now.
Cheers!
Adelaide.

Hello again Adelaide!

You're lucky to live so close to the sea! Even if you don't go there very often ... you *can* go, if you really want to, and that's good isn't it?

I live about a thousand miles from the sea! I love the sea, but not always the seaside ... not when I have to share it with loud noisy crowds of people! I like 'pristine' beaches ... with clean sand, lots of seashells, undamaged dune vegetation, and enough quiet so that I can actually hear the seagulls.

I learnt Northern Sotho at school ... but not very much of it, and I have forgotten much of what I learnt. I know 'Polokwane' means something like 'Place to Cherish/Preserve' or 'Place of Preservation' ... I know a few other things ... but I certainly can't get by in the language. I would love to get to know it better ... jeez, I just don't have time right now for extra classes. The only way to really learn a language is to study it intensively. Maybe later!

I am more or less quadrilinguals because I can speak Afrikaans and English and I can also read (and understand a lot of spoken) German and French. I am taking German classes at the moment in fact ... German is rather easy to learn because it's not far from Afrikaans (or English for that matter). Once I am very good at German I'll tackle some other language. In the end, maybe even Northern Sotho ... but this language is *very* far from any European (or derived) language ...

So what does your son study at Uni?

When I was coming home from the shops this morning, I passed a suburban garden and saw a *giant* seabird, a gannet or something, eating bread the homeowner had left on her lawn for sparrows or pigeons. This thing was so large it scared me, and I was on the other side of a wall!

My son has just begun a nursing degree, and my daughter-in-law is in year 2 of the same course. My son soaks information up like a sponge, which is rather brilliant. When he was at school, he studied Japanese, Russian and French... I studied French and German at school, and Russian and Spanish outside of school. German is the only one I've actually used, however...

In my experience, a language is easier, the closer it is to ones own "mother tongue". So, Northern Sotho must be quite difficult.

Today has been cloudy and rainy, which probably explains the sea birds in the garden. Scary!

Hello again!

Wow, I would have loved to see that big seabird! I really do wonder what kind of bird it was ... there must be some really nice seabirds over there in New Zealand! I love birds ... would love to go to New Zealand just to watch birds!

I really hope your son does well at the University with the nursing degree! Did he meet your daughter-in-law at Uni? Do you have another son as well ... I've some sort of idea you have a younger one?

It's great that he's interested in languages, though! Every language is a different way of looking at the world. I'd love to learn Japanese and Russian! In addition to German and French, I know a tiny little bit of Spanish ... I'd love to learn more of that as well ... and also a bit of Danish I learnt from a single Danish Lucky Luke comic book. I wish I had more time! OR, alternatively, I wish I manage to live for very, very long! There's so much I wanna learn, so much I wanna do!

Over here we've experienced a bit of cold weather these past few days. Heading towards winter now ... does it ever snow in Auckland?

Hi, it's nice to hear from you... Yes, we have a plethora of birds, many of them unique to New Zealand. There are tiny wee ones in our garden, they can sit on the stalk of a flowering plant, they are so small, and beautifully coloured. In size, they're the opposite of the huge sea bird...
I have three sons, and the one at University is the youngest, he's just 18. He's doing the nursing degree, and the middle one is an IT specialist, who lives in Rotorua, which is about 400 km inland from Auckland. His wife is a nursing student, like my younger son, and he met her when he was an IT student and she was studying a different qualification. She is a second year nursing student, and my younger son, Jim, is a first year student. She has a revoltingly long and complicated essay that's due very soon, and Jim's first test isn't until April, so it seems that year 2 is a different thing from year 1.
Snow, thankfully no, not in Auckland. I've just got a letter from my penfriend in the UK, where he talks about "wind from off the Urals" and the fishpond in his garden having been frozen for a month. Jim's e-friend from Germany sent him some pictures of the view from her window - snow up to the roof of her garden shed!
Here we've been having rain like we haven't had for a month - and I suppose it's needed (or would be soon) but it's gone again, which is okay, because I have to go out again, later...
Languages are fascinating things...

Hi again! Sorry for not being around more ... I do like talking to you! Just not getting enough time for the 'net ... right now, my sister and her husband Jakobus are visiting, with their little boy Christiaan ... a year and four months old! Very active and very adorable.

So you have three sons! And they seem to be doing quite well for themselves! Best wishes for their respective studies!

I've only the one sister, and she only has the one boy ... for now! I'd like to have kids too some day ... will have to find the right woman first!

Oh, so no snow in Auckland! Figures ... climate is probably not that far from that of, for instance, Cape Town here in South Africa.

Over here it's still very dry ... and probably will not rain any more, since it's heading for autumn. Over here there's not really a clear season such as 'autumn' ... just the rain stops and the climate gets gradually colder until in May or June it's really cold (by our standards, that is).

Yeah languages are fascinating!

Do you know much about the Maoris? I saw an interesting movie a while ago about a Maori girl and her community, was called 'Whale Rider'...

Hello, Willem. It must be so good to have your family visiting, I bet little Christiaan is getting into everything, and chattering away, even if he hasn't got many words yet... Give them my greetings.

My youngest son (the only one who lives with me) has gone out with his friend Jin Koo (a Korean/German (!)) to two movies, so they'll be out all day. It is sunny and warm although we had a wee bit rain earlier.

Talking of Maori, my middle son is married to a Maori woman, and they live in Rotorua, about 400 km south of here. He is in IT, and she is a student nurse. My ex-husband, the father of that son, is part-Maori, and Whakatane, where John lives, is like Rotorua, a town where probably 30% of the population is Maori. It was not uncommon when I lived there, to hear Maori spoken in the streets, although that is rarer in the cities. (Today as I went to the bus stop with Jim, I heard two elderly men talking what I thought was Maori, at the bus stop, but which I realised was probably Samoan.. )
We saw 'Whale Rider' in January on DVD, we hadn't seen it in the cinema when it came out. It was interesting, but I thought ultimately unsatisfying, because some of the actors appeared to be doing what they call "phoning it in"...
When we were children in Rotorua, we visited, from school, a reconstruction of a Maori village, although now, most Maori live pretty much as anyone else does, especially urban ones. Many New Zealanders are mixtures of varying amounts of Maori and Irish or Scottish ancestry.

Heya again Adelaide!

What exactly do you mean by 'phoning it in'?

Anyways, I'd like to know about standards of living in New-Zealand, Maori as well as non-Maori ... here in South Africa of course we have terrible inequalities ... I don't like speaking in terms of 'races' ... or even 'peoples' ... but people persist in identifying themselves with certain perceived 'races' or 'peoples' ... many of the 'black' or 'African' people in this country are living with extreme poverty and deprivation. Most of the 'whites' are affluent ... but there are very poor people among them, as well.

There is still a heck of a lot of racism over here. I really don't like that, one little bit. I want goodwill between all people, not all of this enmity, where people see other people as belonging to an 'enemy' group.

Phoning it in, is a phrase I got from film reviews, basically it means that the actor or actors didn't seem to really be living the role, not to care as much as they should...

Living standards... Since the late 1980s, and a monetarist takeover of government, inequalities have grown. In the 1990s, Unemployment was very high indeed, and some people and families have never really recovered, even though unemployment has fallen drastically in the last year (yay!!!).

Inequality isn't really very much along racial lines, although Maori tended when unemployment was high, to have a higher rate of unemployment, also they have a higher percentage of people under 20 in their population, which drags their overall per capita income down. That said, there are poor people of all races, and comfortably or even well off people of all races as well.

How are you doing?

Hey Adelaide! Sorry for not answering sooner.

I'm happy to hear about the living standards over there! I do get the general impression that New Zealand has a fairly high standard of living, and relatively few problems compared to South Africa. That's great! It's great to hear, as well, that the unemployment rate has dropped! Over here we have massive unemployment. Strictly speaking, I am unemployed as well! But I do have a trickle of income from my art, and from selling plants, and other bits of odd jobs.

I tell you, I *want* a society with as little inequality as possible. I am not a materially rich person, but I have a fairly comfortable and rewarding life, and most of the things I really want and need. Mainly, I just need food, shelter, books, a bit of music, and room to move in - especially, vast natural regions to explore! And the last I have, I guess, here in South Africa a lot more than I'd be likely to have it in any other country. This country's natural areas and wildlife are limitlessly fascinating to me.

But I want good lives for my fellow-South Africans as well! I look around the country and I see many people living in terrible squalor. Many people are 'squatting' all over the place. They live in desolate, depressing places, in houses they make themselves from sheets of corrugated metal, old advertisement posters, bits of wood and cardboard ... their only energy is dry firewood cut from the radidly-thinning bushlands ... their only water from little rivers and streams getting more and more polluted, and drying out at the worst of times ... their only food from a few scruffy goats and chickens they keep, and a patch of corn growing in a small dusty yard ... and only the barest fickle prospects for employment ... and as for the children? They're lucky if they get much parental care, not even to mention any kind of education.

Please pardon me for talking 'politics' ... but I don't think what I have to say would offend you, and this stuff is pretty close to my heart! I also want that people overseas should have a bit of knowledge of what's happening here in South Africa. The way I see it, all of us are sharing this world, and everything we do influences all of us, for better or worse.

I really want that the government should take a serious look at the life-quality of such a large part of the country's population. We are still stuck with a very strongly race-based way of looking at problems. The government, right now, is into 'black empowerment' which means putting black people into positions of authority and affluence. But this happens only to a very minuscule proportion of black people. Now we have a very small minority of very affluent black people, but still a large majority of poor black people, and a growing proportion of poor white people. We are firmly stuck into a 'capitalist' economy, and that - to me - is the heart of the problem. I've never been a fan of capitalism ... I am fairly certain we need some form of socialism. But this will have to be a people-friendly and environmentally-friendly sort of socialism. I think we need to start with education, especially environmental education. In my own view of things, spiritual - even religious - education should have a strong role ...

Hi, from sunny Auckland.. I am listening to a documentary on the Ferrari car company my son is watching on DVD, because he has a mid-term break from his studies. I have been out all day until now, enjoying the warmth and the sun.
I absolutely see what you mean about the condition your country is in. It would seem that there has maybe been a bit of an over-reaction the other way from how it used to be, and now there are both black and white people who are in grinding poverty. This is not good - and you're right that a good dose of socialism is the only workable answer.
I am glad you are comfortable, and that it is because you are not a materialistic person (I am not one myself.) A spiritual outlook on building a good society is a necessity, I agree, because there is so much more to life than the body and material goods!

Please excuse my intrusion here, Apple. In my travels, I have seen a poem you might like. And the author may be someone you would like to meet.

In your time, a look at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/brunel/A3920302

Enjoy.

*checks back, ... shrugs, ... unsubs*

Hello, *, why did you unsub? I've not seen this before, so there was no reason, I wasn't ignoring you! I'll have a look at your link.


Apple.

I am reasonably certain that you have seen me measured, judged and labelled. You do not require me about to 'taint' you.

It seemed that the author of that poem may be a kindred spirit, of sorts, for you. Or that you may guide them to others of similar views ...

Another day, I may return. For now,

Right-o! Message received and understood...

Over and out!