Never eat chocolate with a hole in your tooth

The days already seem to be flying past faster and faster.  I guess when you are busy, the minutes go by so quickly they almost pick up a speed wobble.  When I was in Cape Town recently, I was eating a chocolate bar, one of those nice ones with toffee and biscuit in the centre, and my filling came out.  I thought I'd get it seen to when I returned to Tanzania, dentists being much cheaper here.  Every week I say to myself, this week I'll make an appointment with the dentist, but that never seems to happen.  The time just flies, the week is over, and I still haven't made a dentist appointment.  Yesterday, while eating some chocolate I suffered from serious toothache.  The moral is, don't eat chocolate until you've made the time to fix the hole in your tooth.  But life is a bit like that.  We make time for hanging out with friends, watching our team win a rugby match, but we don't make the time for essential things like dentist appointments.  Learning to prioritise is a skill, and I can't wait until I learn it.  However, as I'm getting old now I'm beginning to realise that it might be one skill I might never learn.  Time is running out.

This weekend though, I did make the time to write two new hubs and make a video of Part One of The Great Mountain to Mountain Safari - the down trip.  The hubs are completely different from each other - one is about a Thyroidectomy and Weight Gain and the other is Part One of my Mountain to Mountain Safari, with excerpts from the book I'm currently working on.  So, I guess I should feel as if I accomplished something, worked on Sunday, went to TWO BBQ's on Saturday, but still no dentist.  I seriously must make the time to make that appointment.  It's that or no more chocolate.

Have a great week ahead!

Love
Cindy
http://hubpages.com/hub/Driving-from-Kilimanjaro-to-Table-Mountain

http://hubpages.com/hub/Thyroidectomy-and-Weight-Gain

xxx

Good wine, good food, good friends

Sometimes we just have to take time out of our busy lives and relax a little, socialise with good friends.  I often find it difficult to go out, I think I'm a closet agoraphobic, but when I'm home and settled into doing something, I find it really hard to stop what I'm doing and go out.  Maybe, it's something to do with my shoes.  When I take my shoes off the minute I walk through my door, I'm loathe to put them back on again except when I have to leave for work in the morning.  So, I blame my agoraphobia on my shoes.

Anyway, yesterday evening, after standing making sausages for about four hours, I ventured out to a friend's BBQ.  I had to make a conscious effort to go out, but I'm pleased I did.  Because once I was there, I enjoyed the company of my friends.  Alistair and his wife Kate put on a splendid BBQ, I took them some of my freshly made sausages, there was heaps of good bottles of South african wine, great conversation.  I had a ball.
I guess, it's all about leaving your comfort zone.  Many of us are too scared to leave our comfort zone and try something different.  Once we remove our shoes and settle down on the sofa, that is it for us.  But once we make the effort, put on our shoes and leave that zone, we often have a pleasant surprise and are shocked with ourselves that we even contemplated not leaving the house.
So my message to all of you out there, is make a conscious effort to do something out of the ordinary this week.  Take the plunge, leave your comfort zone.  Do something different.  Otherwise, you might regret missing out on a good evening with good wine, good food and good friends!
Have a great week!
Love
Cindy
xxx

Book Giveaway on Goodreads!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Not Telling

by Cindy Vine

Giveaway ends August 31, 2010.







See the giveaway details

at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Time flies when you're having fun!

It’s hard to believe that it was only just over a fortnight ago that we were still travelling back from Cape Town! The past two weeks have flown by, with there hardly being time to catch a breath. It seems like nothing can top our arrest in Zimbabwe, but there always has to be one kind of drama or other, or just some small thing to liven up a day.

In Malawi my ATM card packed up, leaving us stranded without money, but luckily with help from some kind folks we made our way back home. We stayed at a sugar plantation in Dwangwa in Malawi and then drove to Nkatha Bay where we'd initially wanted to stay.  What an amazing place right on Lake Malawi!  Absolutely magical and I think we'll return to holiday on the lake during the Easter holidays.  We had a rest day in Mbeya holed up in a hotel while we waited for the school to send money with the cellphone.  Amazing how they do that.  You get a text message saying go to Vodacom to collect your cash.  It's a big problem when the magnetic strip on your ATM card gives up the ghost.  The money from the school should have been enough to get home, but by the time I had travelled 20km from Mbeya, I had already picked up 2 spot speeding fines, so we crawled the rest of the way knowing we couldn't afford to pay out more money to corrupt policemen.  But still, we were about 200km from Moshi when the car hit empty.  Amazingly enough, we managed to drive 100km with my fuel light on.  I had to leave my camera as security at Same, 100km from Moshi so that I could get enough petrol to get home, but that just makes life a lot fuller, and our adventures more interesting.

Once again we travelled through Mikumi National Park, and this time had to stop while a lion crossed the road.  Of course I couldn't get the camera aimed in time and with Siobhan swearing in my ear as the lion was on my side of the road, tracked it through the grass while snapping away merrily.  Some other travellers stopped and started shouting at the lion so that it would look at them while they hang out of the window with their camera phone.  Crazy people!
One has to look on these little adventures as good material for my book. Driving the 100km to Same a couple of days later to pay our debt and retrieve my camera was a bit of a pain as just between you and me, I was a little tired of driving! The whole trip from Kilimanjaro to Table Mountain and back again was a whopping 11980km! But I have to say, I have caught the bug and I want to do more driving trips in the future! I quite fancy driving to Lake Victoria and the southern coast of Tanzania. There are some interesting ruins on the Mafia islands I’d like to see.

I didn’t have much time to reflect on the trip before I was back into the swing of things at school, meeting the new teachers, helping with their orientation and getting everything sorted for the first week of school. So far I am absolutely loving my new role in management, even though one of the kids asked me, “Miss Cindy, have you dyed your hair grey?” I ask you, would anybody intentionally do that? I decided over the holiday to stop fighting the grey hairs that sporadically appear, as when you colour your hair they quickly reappear at the temples making me look like a poor imitation of a Siberian hamster. But now, my daughter has instructed me to colour my hair as the salt and pepper grey look ‘doesn’t suit’ me. Of course, easier said than done as my dark blonde dye is not so easily available in Moshi! I could go red I guess. Our English teacher let his daughters colour his grey hair red and it came out shocking pink! Poor blighter even let them colour his beard. Luckily for him, it was virtually all washed out in time for the start of school on Monday.

Sometimes, you meet interesting people who you immediately know you are going to use as characters in a book. I met one like that, a lawyer whom I had to see to stamp his commissioner of oaths stamp on a document I have to send off. A small man, probably pushing eighty, with a full head of snow white hair, and a booming voice that seemed to come from a far more imposing figure than him. I was solemnly ushered into his office, a dead leopard’s head mounted on the wall behind the chair I was shown to, and was amazed to see him reclining back in a large black leather swivel chair that seemed to swallow his tiny frame up. What was more amazing to me, was that his waistband button and zipper was undone and he didn’t seem concerned about that at all. He looked up at me and smiled, and kept his sunglasses on even though he was inside his office. All very bizarre. He wouldn’t look at the form he had to certify until he’d heard about where I’d come from and my trip down to Cape Town. Then his phone rang, he politely asked my forgiveness while he took the call, and I listened to his booming voice alternating between Swahili and a delightful very upper class English accent when he repeated interesting parts of the conversation in English, obviously for my benefit. So I heard about corrupt politicians who were little more than thieves who were trying to set up a casino with prostitutes flown in, in the central part of Tanzania in a game park somewhere. The way his lips moved as he enunciated his words was quite fascinating, like a cartoon character. In fact, he was like a real life cartoon. I eventually managed to escape from his office with the form duly stamped, about an hour and a half later.

We arrived back home from our trip to find that termites had taken over in Siobhan’s room. Although they were living in the room, they were starting to eat through her ceiling and holes were beginning to form. In fact, if you banged on her wall you could hear them scuttling, and if you stood still you could hear the steady sound of them chomping. It seemed like it would be only a few days before her ceiling collapsed on her. Of course, being terrified of anything with more than four legs, Siobhan moved herself and all her possessions into my bedroom. So began my nights of interrupted sleep, as I desperately clung to the edge of the bed while she spread out like a starfish, and grabbed all my blankets, leaving me shivering in the cold. It’s been quite cold at night since we got back, and on overcast days it’s been decidedly chilly. We’re glad we brought our winter stuff back with us. Anyway, they fumigated her room and roof, removed part of the ceiling, and as is here took ten days to get round to putting in new ceiling panels. They still haven’t painted, so madam is still in my bedroom.

As happens here, simple jobs become more complicated. We were unable to shower, with only one continuous drip coming from the left side of the shower head. Strangely enough I never connected the lack of water in the shower to termites in the ceiling. One puts in the maintenance request and then you have to wait until they find the time. By that time, Siobhan has washed her hair in cold water in the basin and my hair looks like I’ve been working part-time in a grease factory. Five days later and they discovered that when they fumigated, they accidentally disconnected the water pipe in the roof that goes to the shower. At least now we can shower.

I’m setting aside weekends to work on The Great Mountain to Mountain Safari. It is just way too hectic during the week. Hopefully, the initial huge workload will lessen in time, but I have my doubts. The trick is going to be managing to juggle time, so that I can still keep up with my writing. At the moment I get home between 6.30pm and 7.15pm, eat dinner, watch CSI and then am ready for bed at 8.30pm-9pm. Just been feeling so shattered at night. But last night I managed to stay awake until 9.30pm, so I think I’ll start to build up stamina again.

Otherwise, it’s good to be back. I love life here and have good friends. But the way time is flying, before I know it it’ll be time to fly to Cape Town for the Christmas holidays. Yes, we’re flying not driving this time!

Have an awesome week ahead!

Luv

Cindy

Introducing Vogue

Encouraging words from fellow author, Vogue.

Underlying Messages

I decided to write this post after receiving a text message from one of my friends. She had given an autographed copy of Diamonds in the Rough as a gift to a young lady. According to my friend, she gave the young lady a copy of the book to inspire her to go after her dreams.

After reading the message, I automatically began to think about the numerous amounts of people who have told me that I have inspired them to reach their dreams. Some even have gone on to start working on them. For example, I have a friend who is now a published author as well as a relative who is working on opening up a clothing store. It’s like a domino effect in a way. Since I decided to take a chance with my own dreams and goals, others have automatically done the same. I rest peacefully at night knowing that I have had this impact on people.

It is because of this experience that I ask all of you authors out there, what is the underlying message that you want your readers to get from your books? When I discuss Diamonds in the Rough, I often label it as a story of ambition and determination. Anytime I get feedback on the novel, I try and listen to see if the reader sees this in the storyline.

If you don’t have an answer yet the question, try and remember some of the feedback that you’ve gotten. What did your readers get from your book?

Regardless of what your book is about, there is always a hidden message there that can inspire others. Remember this: Words on paper have the same effect as the words that come out of our mouths!

April L. Blanding/ Vogue

Simply Vogue- www.simplyvogue.net

faith...hope...trust

Arrested in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe, great potential, beautiful landscapes, some lovely friendly people, but OMIGOD some nasty pieces of work as well. I think there’s a certain nastiness/bitch detector that they use on all applicants to the police and CID. Those with grades of 8 or higher on the bitch scale are immediately selected. Other would be applicants are only occasionally taken in and then given jobs low on the ladder until their bitch grades improve. Okay I admit it, I am having a bit of a rant here, but having just been released from 20 hours of incarceration I feel entitled to whinge.

We got lost getting out of Pretoria, ended up going through Graskop to Polekwane, the scenic route. So as that route took longer, we stayed over at Louis Trichardt instead of Messina in a backpackers, where lo and behold, bumped into someone I knew there twenty years ago. Small world. He’s been married and divorced 4 times since we last met.

Messina, and we quickly found a police station to get copies of my passport certified. You have to go to a special lawyer to get this done in Tanzania, and they charge $20 for it. Free in South Africa. We took a wrong turn and ended up going to the jail instead, but the woman dishing up the inmates lunches was able to certify my documents. HATE TO HAVE BEEN IN THE Messina jail though, corrugated iron shed, no windows, barred gate for a door and extreme heat. It can’t be a pleasant experience. Siobhan was excited to see prisoners in a real jail, little did she know what lay ahead for us.

The border crossing at Beit Bridge was completely uneventful, we got through relatively quickly with no questions asked. Nobody was interested in our over-loaded car, just commenting that we were obviously relocating as it’s filled with our personal possessions. I didn’t notice that the customs lady accidentally kept the police clearance we got from the Zimbabwe CID.

We arrived at Masvingo and checked into a hotel, and explored the Great Zimbabwe Ruins in the morning. Leaving Masvingo for Harare, I got caught for speeding, doing 71km in an 80 area. The female officers were hiding behind an electricity pylon with their speed camera, 25m in the 80km zone, catching people just as they started to accelerate as they left the 60 zone. Unfair, definitely. Illegal, probably. They told me they were trying to make the roads safer as speeding kills. I said if they wanted to make the roads safer, they wouldn’t hide they’d stay in the open so that motorists slow down. By hiding, they are wanting motorists to speed so they can catch them. An argument ensued, I managed to get the other locals who’d also been caught and were waiting for their fines to be written out, on my side and shouting at the unfairness of the location of the speed camera. A sort of a riot ensued and I was threatened with arrest. Siobhan shouted from the car for me to calm down, and I backed down, paid the fine to a very angry policewoman who wanted my head, and went on my merry way.

Harare and we accidentally found the right road to the backpackers in our guide book. Unfortunately, even the latest guide books are outdated when it comes to Zimbabwe. None of the backpackers in the book exist anymore. We turned up at a dilapidated property, the tree-houses that had attracted us in the guide book falling from the trees. But, the people living there now directed us to another house around the block who sometimes took in backpackers. The guy actually owns Hippo Pools Bush Camp, but he took us in, let us use his room, and only charged us $10 for the night. There was no power, so they had a fire going, we nipped down to the supermarket and bought some meat to BBQ. I survived the lumpiest pillow ever, woke up with a chronic migraine from fighting the lumps all night, and then faced our next challenge. Finding an ATM that not only worked, but also dispensed cash and worked with visa cards. This challenge took us 2 hours. By this time, my fuel light was on and my mild panic was causing my migraine to develop into a jackhammer pounding away at my brain.

Having the speed camera system sussed, we made it to the Zambian border at Chirundu in good time, arriving there at 4.30pm. This is where our luck changed chronically. On the Zimbabwean side of the border (Zambia and Zimbabwe share the same building), the CID asked for our police clearance from Beit Bridge border post. We didn’t have it. This proved to be a huge problem. The CID guys were very aggressive and definitely looking for a bribe. They opened the car bonnet and checked the engine and chassis numbers, but the engine number didn’t match the engine number on the car registration card. This was because the school had replaced the engine with a reconditioned one several years ago, and unbeknownst to me, had never registered the change with the police or Tanzanian Road Authority. Therefore, according to the CID, I had stolen the car engine in Zimbabwe and put it in my car. The car with all our belongings and us were impounded subject to further investigation. They were mean, even threatened Siobhan when she asked a question, rude to us and refused to contact the SA Embassy. They relented, let us sleep in the car instead of the cells, when I told them I was going to put all this in my next book. A very jolly inspector arrived later the evening, completely different to the two CID boys, and told us he was going to pray for us. When they refused to escort Siobhan through the village next door to the toilet, he stepped in and sent another female inmate to accompany her. He wasn’t happy with us sleeping in the car as lions, hyena and elephant come there at night, so he walked us across past the long line of trucks to a motel where we were then allowed to spend the night. All of this started happening when I threatened them with the embassy and a bad write up in my book.

This morning, while we were sitting waiting for 5 hours in the hot car to be cleared of the theft charges, the jolly inspector arrived and asked me if I could give him a copy of one of my books, so I gave him a copy of Not Telling that I happened to have in my bag. Soon after that they came to tell us that I’d been cleared, my car wasn’t stolen and we were free to go. An extra days delay, an extra night in a motel to pay for, I was singularly unimpressed.

Anyway, final exit at Zimbabwe border post and entry into Zambia took a total of 45 minutes. I decided to be upfront, tell Zambian CID about the engine problem that the number was different, and all they said was to make sure I get it sorted when I get back to Tanzania. Now why couldn’t CID Zimbabwe have done that when it came up at 4.30pm yesterday?

Now in Lusaka at the Comfort Lodge on the Great East Road heading for Malawi. Internet access for the first time since Saturday morning. Hold thumbs, we have no problems leaving Zambia or at the Malawian border! Then of course, we still have to enter Tanzania!
Hold thumbs for us!\love
Cindy

Heading back to Kilimanjaro

All good things come to an end.  Our holiday in magical Cape Town is over.  In the morning at 6am, we start our long drive back to Kilimanjaro.  The car is packed, just recharging the camera batteries, putting our clothes for the trip into day packets and then we need to seriously sleep.  Correction, I need to sleep.  Siobhan will sleep along the way.  I've made sure that there is enough space for her chair to go back.  Our car resembles a packed Zimbabwean bus minus the chickens and goats tied onto the roof.  Behind the front seats there is a solid wall of clothing, linen, toys, kitchen utensils, and other crap we think we desperately need back home in Tanzania.  The challenge that lies ahead, is going to be getting across the borders of 4 different countries without paying duty or bribes to corrupt customs officials.

This is the first time we haven't done too many touristy things in my beloved mother city.  Sorted out Tony's flat, saw him settled (his first night there he returned home from a club to find two dead bodies, a shot up car and a horde of policemen in the road near his block of flats.)  That took up a good part of the holiday.  Then we also raided our storage facility and decided on what to keep in storage and what we wanted to take back with us.  Have to say, we are taking back enough clothes to clothe the whole of Moshi.  Siobhan always loves fashion and has been very frustrated having to wear the same clothes twice a week for the past year.  The big thing, is that we are taking back summer clothes which we had a sad lack of the past year.
Had my first sem-run-in with customs today.  Had ordered some of my latest book to give family and friends here, thinking it would be cheaper to ship to South Africa from the US than it is to Tanzania.  Boy was I mistaken.  Not only is shipping more expensive, but the customs here grab hold of the box of books, and won't release them until you pay duty, vat and a clearance fee.  I managed to b-s my way out of the duty when I saw they had opened the box up upside down.  I knew that the invoice was always on the top of the books, but seeing that they had opened up the box from the bottom, I told them the books were a gift from my publishers.  "See," I said holding the back of a book up next to my face.  "This is me, I am the author."  After scrutinising my face and the author picture on my book, they agreed that I was indeed the author, so didn't have to pay duty.  But I still had to pay vat on the value of the books.  I made up a ridiculously small sum which they accepted, and paid their $3 handling fee on top of that.  Total outlay $10 to collect my books, even though I had to fork out a lot for the shipping.  Never ever will I ship books to South Africa again. 
When I got back to my car, which was already packed to the brim ready for tomorrow's trip, it was surrounded by custom's officials, some with cute golden labradors.  "This is not a South African registered car," one very astutely pointed out.  "Is it from Zambia?" he asked pointing to the Tanzanian flag on the number plate.  Granted, he might have been fooled by the 'I love Zambia' sticker on the back of my car, but Zambia?  Obviously the education system had failed him and I knew then he was not one to be trifled with.
"Tanzania," I said pleasantly with one of my winning smiles.  "As you can see, I came to fetch some of my things to take back to Tanzania with me."
"Passport," he sneered holding out his hand.  Now seriously, how many South Africans drive around South Africa with their passport.  In fact, many South Africans don't even have passports.
"I don't have it with me, it's with my things at my brother's house in Rondebosch."  I quickly replaced my winning smile with a perplexed look.
"Oh, are you South African?" he asked, lightening up a little.  My South African accent is so thick, you can cut it with a knife, this guy was very slow.  I nodded, trying my best to look demure and intimidated at the same time.  "Okay, you can go then.  But you better keep your passport with you, as other cops might stop you and ask what with you driving a foreign car and all.  So, what is it like in Tanzania?  Is it peaceful?  Are you working there?"  First he was so aggressive and now he wanted to make chatty conversation.  I bared my teeth in what I hoped was a pleasant grin.  The labrador he had on a leash lay down and rested its head on its paws.  It obviously found my car boring, probably because I wasn't a drug smuggler.
Goodbyes to friends, but we'll be back in December when the weather is better.  The World Cup was awesome, I was one of the millions proud to be a South African.  Hopefully, our rugby boys will improve the weekend.  Not sure when I'll have internet access again to update you about our travels.  But, I'm recording all the information and am really excited about The Great Mountain to Mountain Safari, the book I'm going to write about this mammoth trip.  Have done quite a bit of work on it already.
Thanks to my brothers for looking out for me here, getting my car sorted and serviced and letting us stay with them in Cape Town.  Thanks also to my Mom and Jem for helping to sort out Tony.  Ten days minimum of travel lie ahead.  Hopefully, not too many adventures, but they are always good to write about in a book!Sayonara!
luv
Cindy