Temba1′s Blog

Our Shopping Expedition to East London              by Jane

This morning we set off before sunup for the 2 ½ hour drive to East London with Joanne to shop for Bethany Home.  The children’s toys here are a sorry collection – either parts are missing or originally required batteries which have long since expired so we compiled our list, had 15,000 Rand in our pockets and off we went.

The drive was interesting and we enjoyed the varied landscape, from the rounded rather bare brown mountains of Mthatha to the steeper more angular mountains as we got closer to the River Kei, which is the boundary of the former Transkei homeland.  There are always villages of various sizes visible in the hills and mountains and can be seen for miles over the rough terrain.  As we got closer to East London, the surroundings became flatter and considerably greener with more trees and vegetation which is starting to come into spring bloom.  We saw many Flame trees with vibrant red flowers covering their branches even though the leaves are still only buds, along with various pink and white blossoms which reminded us of cherry or other fruit trees and many palm trees.

East London is an attractive,  rather large city on the shores of the Indian Ocean and is a favoured resort area with loads of amenities.  The first mall we visited had a specialty toy shop that was a match for anything at home and we had a field day purchasing cars, trucks, road mats, blocks, black dolls, dress up clothes, shoes and jewellery, soccer balls and books in Xhosa for the carers to read to the children (we hope).  We also purchased lots of socks, warm jackets and cozy pj’s for the children.  After lunch we headed out to see what was available in other children’s’ stores and rounded out our purchases with a slide with a climbing house underneath, musical instruments, some play cooking utensils and little brooms for cleanup.  Then we headed to the beach to collect buckets and bags of soft, creamy beige sand for sandboxes – followed by dipping our feet in the cool blue Indian Ocean. We managed to spend most of the money with enough left to order several new gym mats for the toddlers in the Day Room to sleep on.

The long ride home was somewhat quieter as we were pretty well tired out and as darkness fell, it was necessary to concentrate very carefully on the road – thankfully we did not encounter any cattle or sheep on the highway but we did see a monkey scamper across the road one point. After unloading the bakkie, we made a brief visit to all the children to give them good night hugs and kisses and were ready to fall into our own beds with much further ado.