What a challenge!

Good afternoon!

Again this post will be only in English. I don’t have the possibility to charge the battery of the netbook. Trying to upload the previous post with photographs took so long that I am getting close to an empty battery.

I received an email that I will translate into English so that everyone can read it.

‘Dear Lodie!

You don’t know me but I got your book from friends. I read and enjoyed it.

I am an old man now, living my whole life in South Africa. I travelled intensively in Southern Africa, but due to the politics in my good years I couldn’t travel into real Africa, like you are doing now. Now I am too old to do any such trips. I will never experience Africa as I could have. That makes me so sad.

I love our country South Africa, and I love our continent. And I am afraid that we could lose it if we, the white South Africans, don’t stop complaining about everything. We have many reasons to be dissatisfied, but life is not only bad in South Africa. We became a nation of moaners.

I would love to donate R 20 000.00 to your fund raising campaign for Operation Smile, but it comes with a few conditions. If only one is not met, then you will get nothing.

Why do I put certain conditions? I want our fellow countrymen to again realise what a wonderful country we have, a country, in which one can travel and discover and enjoy.

I want five photographs from you. To take those photographs you have to go to the places mentioned. If you do all five then you will receive R 20 000.00 from me, R 4 000.00 per photograph.

1. I want a photograph from your motorbike with any wild animal in the background. Conditions: The animal must be free-roaming, heavier than 100 kg and may not be a domesticated animal.

2. I want two photographs from Garies: One of any of our beautiful brown people living there, and one of the flowers in the area. You have to wait in Garies until there are some flowers.

3. A photograph of your bike on Chapman’s Peak.

4. You have to visit any of the old missionary stations in South Africa, but it has to be a missionary station with a “First in South-Africa” label. Take a photograph of your bike there and write a short paragraph on why you’ve selected that missionary station.

5. The Owl House of New Bethesda. I want a photograph of your bike in front of the Owl House, and in brief tell the people what the Owl House is.

When you arrive at home and all those photographs are on your blog you will receive within 48 hours R 20 000.00 for Operation Smile.

I wish to stay anonymous. You already have my email address. That is enough.

I wish you every thing of the best on your tour to bring smiles to the faces of people. We ‘normal’ people don’t need an operation to have a permanent smile, only an attitude change.

God bless!’

What can one say? I am going for that! R 20 000.00 means three extra children …

I don’t have internet access. Pease help with research on the missionary stations. Which one has a “First in South Africa”? It does not mean it was the first one in South Africa, but as I understood it something at the station was a first.

I look forward to the next weeks of my ride. (And who is adding a new destination on my way home for a few extra Rand for Operation Smile?)

Have a great evening! (Mine will be cold in my little tent)

Lodie