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This newsletter is only sent to those who have voluntarily requested to be on this mailing list. We do NOT send this unsolicited! It is delivered once a week, usually on a Monday, to keep subscribers up-to-date on items of interest to South Africans living overseas, as well as the latest happenings at South Africans WorldWide.

Today as I write it is back to near winter conditions - with snow flurries forecast for tomorrow! My plants all think it is summer already so this afternoon I will be covering them all up to escape tonight's frost!

But it is April... and everything looks green and growing now... the cats have shed most of their winter fur (I hope) so this week is definitely spring cleaning week. Last week I went to Indiana with Captain Ken and while he was working with one of his doctor clients I was getting a complete eye exam to see if I was a candidate for an op to fix my eyes.

The outcome was positive! And we will go back to Indiana in a few weeks so that I can operated on for a clear lens exchange (similar to a cataract op without me having cataracts... and having two lenses 'piggy-backed' in each eye as I have such a 'strange' prescription)- then I will be glasses free for the first time in my life!

Because of this (even though I should be able to see straight away), I decided to not add any more stress to the situation and will not be publishing a SAWmail the week I am away. At the moment there will be no SAWmail on May 13. If this changes I will let you all know! So wish me luck!

I am still receiving e-mails asking where to find the rest of the articles in the current SAWmail. PLEASE read the section below - it tells you all you need to know. Thanks!

Each week subscribers ask how do they get to read the articles published in SAWmail in full. Here is all you have to do...

All you need to do to read the rest of the articles is simply to go to the Web site (www.saw.co.za) and then click on the SAWmail icon just underneath where you would input your e-mail address and password if you were logging on to the site. Then you can read each issue of SAWmail in full... that is where the articles are.

If you are already logged into the SAW site, then simply click on the SAWmail icon on the left had

I thoroughly enjoy the expat stories on your website. Recently I wrote my own story and submitted it to a few South African magazines with no positive results. I get the feeling they only want to hear horror stories and not success stories.

I met my husband on the internet and have been in Kentucky for a year and a half now. Life in Kentucky is wonderful, slow and laid-back - but please read all about it.

I'm standing next to a young black man, shouting "Hey brothers! Take off your Wal-Mart Halloween costumes and come and give me a hug! Come around for dinner tonight!"

On this beautiful balmy spring day, I am standing in Town Square in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. On the courthouse steps stand twelve Ku Klux Klan members. Three are dressed in KKK outfits, one is wearing a Nazi uniform, the rest are blue-jeaned. The man in the white sheet is trying to shout his message through an ineffectual megaphone while the anti-Klan onlookers chant "Go home!" He turns instead to the pro-Klan side where he can be heard, and is greeted with Nazi salutes.

If a clairvoyant had told me two years ago I'd be married and living in a little town in the American South, I'd have thought she was taking me for a ride on her broomstick.

I wasn't looking for love when I found my husband on the Internet. I was looking for some intelligent person to chat with in cyberspace. In the Washington Watch Yahoo chat room, I watched a debate between republicans and democrats ensue and checked out people's profiles. I was having no luck, but at 2 o'clock in the morning I read the most interesting one I'd found to date. 'Mal Contented' said he was into fishing and was yearning to climb a tree and learn to play the flute. I PMd (private message) him.

I learned his real name was Pat, he was divorced with a nine year old daughter, and lived and worked as a social worker in Elizabethtown in the state of Kentucky. We chatted for several hours, until my eyelids drooped and I had to go to bed. It was 5 in the morning for me, 10 in the evening for him. The following evening we chatted again and exchanged email addresses. We began writing letters to each other every day as well as chatting for several hours each night. It was not until several weeks later that we exchanged photographs of ourselves. What a hunk, I thought. 6ft1, greying blonde hair, blue eyes. He thought I was gorgeous too, but I had sent him the most flattering picture of myself I could find.

Six months later he took four weeks leave and booked himself a flight to Cape Town to come and meet me. I waited nervously at the airport. Would he be disappointed to meet the real me? I wasn't so chatty in real life ­ would he find me boring? What would we find to talk about for a whole month? Would there be something about him I didn't like? Maybe he laughed too loud, slurped his soup, or had a roving eye. But the moment we met, we grinned at each other, hugged, and after a few hours felt totally at ease.

We lunched in Hout Bay, watched the fish in the Waterfront aquarium, went window shopping in Kalk Bay, bought gifts for his daughter at craft markets, and spent a day wandering around Stellenbosch. I took him to meet my parents and my friends who all approved wholeheartedly of him. In the evenings we'd watch TV and chat for hours. We were having a wonderful time.

And then I came down with a severe sinus infection. I felt dizzy and tired and all I wanted to do was sleep. I told myself I'd get over it soon and tried to sleep it off. Pat kept himself busy watching boeremusiek Afrikaans TV programmes in fascination, reading books and sunning himself in the garden. He'd make me tea and toast when I crawled out of bed for a few hours, full of concern, begging me to see a doctor. Finally, after 2 weeks, I realised a visit to the doctor was a necessity. The antibiotics made me feel better almost immediately. Pat had certainly passed the patience and nurture test.

It was 29 February 2000, a week before he was due to fly home. We were sitting on a bench at the flamingo cage at the World of Birds in Hout Bay, when I decided today was the day. I couldn't let this special one get away. My family and friends loved him and so did I. After all - he didn't laugh too loud or slurp his soup, and he only had eyes for me. I was 40 years old and had managed to avoid marriage until this point. "Will you marry me?" I blurted, and immediately regretted it as he gave me a stunned look. He hesitated. "Yes!" he said. "Yes, I'd like to marry you, very much!"

A week later he was back in the USA and we resumed our cyberspace relationship, talking long into each night. Six months later, after I'd given away most of my possessions and found a tenant to rent my house in Cape Town, I was on my way to USA. On the flight from Detroit to Louisville, I sat next to an American who asked me where I was from. "South Africa," I told him. "Oh, what country in South Africa?" he asked interestedly. "Azania," I replied after a brief hesitation. He nodded knowingly.

I arrived in August, a hot and humid time of the year. The climate in this neck of the woods is lush and tropical in summer. I always envisaged Kentucky as having lots of picket-fenced green pastures with horses. I wasn't far off. Even a drive to Wal-Mart takes you past corn fields, soy or tobacco plantations. A two-minute drive out of town along just about any road will reveal plentiful green meadows, cows, and even some horses. The population of Elizabethtown is 22000, and although it's full of churches, tanning salons and fast food places, a feeling of quiet spaciousness prevails in this sprawling town.

This is Appalachian Mountain country, where 'hillbillies' and 'rednecks' lurk. The right to own guns is fiercely protected. You can pick up a gun at the local auction without having to go through the rigmarole of having your records checked or fingerprints taken by the local police. Wild deer and turkey are plentiful, and in the hunting season, you will find the local supermarket stocked with hunting gear; rifles, camouflage suits, hunting boots, day-glo orange hunting caps, and even a spray to rid yourself of human scent. For the fishermen, there are live bait machines here, as easy as getting a coke.

I slipped into my new life easily, surprising myself at my adaptability. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment, with a view of cows in the pasture. Six weeks after I arrived, we had a small, simple wedding at Pat's sister's house, with my beautiful new stepdaughter, Caitlin, and niece, Jenny, blowing bubbles instead of the traditional throwing of confetti.

Then came fall, and the leaves on the trees turned a riot of yellow, red and orange. It was Halloween time, and the shops were crammed with candy and Halloween decorations. I'm fascinated by Americans' penchant for decorating. Almost every house sported straw bales, pumpkins, gourds and an assortment of ghostly decorations, from fake gravestones to witches hanging from trees, riding their broomsticks. This is the time when kids have a ball. They get to dress up and go trick-or-treating door-to-door. A two-hour walk through the neighbourhood will procure a kid a shopping bag full of glorious candy.

One day, a few months later, Pat opened the blinds while I was sleeping and I awoke to a hushed white world. My first snow! We dressed up warmly and went outside to play. After chucking a few snowballs at each other, he asked "So what do you think of snow?" "It's COLD!" I said, feeling like my nose would soon fall off. We went inside and made hot chocolate. I enjoyed my first white Christmas with my new family, who has welcomed me with open arms.

The transition from Cape Town to Elizabethtown has been remarkably easy for me, in spite of the challenging language difference. "Where do you keep the bin bags?" I yelled from the kitchen to Pat in the lounge the first week I was here. "The what?" he asked. "The bin bags!" I shouted. "The stuff you put the rubbish in!" "The what you put the which in?" he asked, and trotted though to the kitchen. "Oh, you mean trash bags!" he laughed.

When Pat was telling me about his 'freshman year' in college, I wondered for a while what on earth Americans do with fresh manure in college. I once asked a cashier if I could pay with a card. "Sorry?" he asked. "A card," I said. I had to repeat myself about 5 times until I produced the card and rolled my 'r' like an American. "Oh, sure!" he laughed. "I thought you were a madwoman who wanted to pay with a codfish!"

At the bookstore I was hunting for a particular book, before finally asking the shop assistant "Do you have a copy of Into Thin Air in paperback?" She gave me a puzzled look. "Can you spell that?" she asked. My husband cracked up laughing later. "You said 'Intothineh'," he howled.

I've had to teach Pat the difference between 'just now' and 'now'. He'd complain "I thought you said you wanted to leave now." "No, not right now. Just now." I'd say. "'Just now' is now." He'd argue. "Nooo, 'just now' means soon, like within half an hour or so. 'Now' is right now."

For years South Africans have been exposed to American TV, but in America, and especially Elizabethtown where 99.9% of the population has never travelled overseas, there is minimal exposure to South Africanisms or accent. Everyone assumes I come from England. I've gotten used to the puzzled looks when I speak, but I no longer ask where the mincemeat, earbuds, or plasters are. I ask for hamburger, q-tips and Band-Aids. Once a week I put the trash out on the sidewalk for the garbage collectors. I load the groceries in the trunk of the car and I wear a sweater when it's cold.

There are lots of things I miss about Cape Town. Most of all my family and friends. I miss the salty tang of the sea, fishpaste, ostrich biltong, Liquifruit, superjuice, Cadbury's flakes and Mrs Ball's Chutney. I miss the vibrancy of Cape Town with its rich cultural cosmopolitan atmosphere. I even miss the regular beggars who came to my door every day for a 'stukkie brood asseblief'. I don't think I'll ever quite get used to air-conditioning in summer and furnaces in winter and living with the windows closed.

I swapped it all for the humid scent of the woods in summer and the crisp dry air of winter. I swapped it for beef jerky, cranberry juice, Hershey bars, and the love of a gorgeous, intelligent hunk who can make me laugh. And I learned to make my own chutney.

We bought a 101-year-old house recently, in the historic district of Elizabethtown. It is around the corner from Town Square, where a cannonball is lodged in the wall of a building. With its strategic location on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, Elizabethtown was an important outpost during the Civil War. The only battle to take place was on December 27, 1862, when 3,900 Confederates under the command of General John Hunt Morgan shelled the town from a hillside cemetery. A cannonball lodged in a building in Town Square. In 1887 this building burned down, but when it was rebuilt, the townspeople saw fit to remount the cannonball into the wall of the building.

Also around the corner from us is Elizabethtown's main claim to fame ­ The Brown Pusey House, which housed Civil War's General George Custer and his wife from 1871 to 1873. General Custer and his men were stationed in Elizabethtown to suppress the Ku Klux Klan and Carpet Baggers and to break up illegal distilleries that began to flourish in the South after the Civil War. Mrs Custer is quoted as saying: "Elizabethtown is the stillest, dullest place".

Perhaps it was. And after the pace and vibrancy of Cape Town, I think one could be forgiven for thinking it a still and dull place, where one can still not buy an alcoholic beverage after all these years. But I've come to like the feeling of slow motion and not having to lock my doors, or look over my shoulder when I draw money at the ATM. I love living without security gates and alarm systems. I love it that people still sit on their porches on warm, steamy summer evenings and wave to their neighbours. And I check out the rednecks and hillbillies in voyeuristic fascination.

The most exciting thing to happen since I've been here is the appearance of the KKK on the courthouse steps. They're an ineffectual bunch since the mother of a black man who was lynched sued the organisation and won a huge sum of money. Lynchings are hopefully a thing of the past. Unfortunately it may not be because racist whites have finally come to their senses, but because their funding has been halted.

Although I see the young black man at my side is shaking as he shouts his jokes to the KKK, the mood here seems benign and non-threatening. The two sides fling verbal insults at each other, but the police presence is strong. After an hour, the KKK pack up and go home. They were supposed to be here for two hours, and I feel vaguely disappointed. "We just ran out of things to say, " the local newspaper reported the grand poobah of the Ku Klux Klan as saying.

South African rape survivors warmly applaud government's necessary move to provide immediate access to antiretrovirals after rape for all rape survivors.

Growing numbers of women, children and men were being infected with HIV as a result of South Africa's significant problem with sexual violence.

We believe that government's bold step although initially costly, will save far more in medical costs in the private and public health sector. The cost of medication at discounts offered three years ago was R200 for Post Exposure Prophylaxis (PEP), the post-rape antiretrovirals - we call on the Pharmaceutical companies, Glaxo SmithKline makers of AZT in particular, Merck, Bristol Meyers Squibb and others to immediately offer significant discounts for these drugs to assist government's noble efforts. The cost to the State of not giving PEP to rape survivors is R150 000 in the lifetime medical treatment costs of a person who becomes HIV infected as a result of rape, and R650 000 in private sector treatment.

However, we cannot now sit back and expect the grossly understaffed and pressurised health sector to carry this burden on their own. South Africans who complain incessantly about crime must mobilise to offer their voluntary services as counsellors for pre and post HIV testing and rape counselling. Rape Action Group is presently setting up such a network, and had begun doing this two weeks before government's dramatic announcement. We call on religious leaders to open their closed church, temple, mosque and synagogue halls to community groups offering such counselling and support to those who experience the trauma of violent crime.

We call on the various medical associations, SA Medical Association, the HIV Clinicians society and the various medical schools as well as the SA Medical Journal in conjunction with pharmaceutical companies to begin an urgent and rapid series of courses for all doctors to inform them in Post Exposure Prophylaxis. The levels of knowledge of most general practitioners about HIV treatment, in particular Post Exposure Prophylaxis after rape is criminally lax, this urgently needs to be reversed.

This is a huge opportunity for every South Africa to get involved in healing the negative impacts of crime, and we believe make a positive contribution toward fighting crime and showing the sort of care that South Africa so desperately needs to make it a caring nation.

South Africa's millions of rape survivors, their families and friends pay tribute and give thanks to President Thabo Mbeki, the Minister of Health Manto Tshabalala Msimang and the top level officials in the Department of Health who have cemented this democracy by listening to their people. It is actions such as this, that do more than any grand African plan to make South Africa a great nation, that leads by example.

We pay tribute too, to those companies and individuals who have despite criticism and controversy quietly continued to do the research and work to make this government position possible, mostly particularly Dr Adrienne Wulfsohn of Netcare, Drs Lyn Denny and Lorna Martin of Groote Schuur, Dr von Mollendorff who was prepared to get fired in the cause of social justice and many others.

Our work has not ended - it begins NOW.

* Journalists needing to find out more about PEP and international research into it should access www.speakout.org.za and go into the Medical and HIV sections or key in the relevant search words on the search engine.

Issued by: Speakout, Rape Action Group and Media Against Violence

For further comment contact rape survivor, Charlene Smith 0824958716 or Monique Strydom 0832129824 or Rose Tamae of Let Us Grow 0721188945 (who has been raped on three separate occasions and as a result is now HIV+)

Here is more info about these evil swine and their scams for your info.

Each time I download my email I get about three of these stupid letters. Can we put something in the newsletter along the lines of:

"To all Nigerian 419 and similar scam operators reading this newsletter. Please do not waste your time sending ridiculous 'business proposals' and 'requests for assistance' to the addresses you may find in this newsletter. We all know about these scams and are not gullible or stupid enough to fall for them. You will be reported to your email provider and ISP and to the authorities investigating these scams"

Cheers

MIKE

Here are some examples of how gullible people have been:

Location: Sunday 14 Apr 2002 National news. Victim says greed cost him all his savings Nigerian 419 Scam JOCELYN MAKER. When Steve Chow handed R100 000 in US dollars to a 419 gang in a Gauteng hotel, he could almost taste the $8-million they had promised him. Now the 35-year-old engineer from Thailand, who is a contract worker in Botswana, is broke after parting with more than R1.7-million. In October last year, I got an e-mail from a man claiming he was the son of a dead Ivory Coast genera
www.sundaytimes.co.za/2002/04/14/news/news05.asp

Location: Sunday 14 Apr 2002 National news. Cheated of R840 000 in 'risk-free' swindle Nigerian 419 Scam NICKI PADAYACHEE. A South African woman was on holiday in Britain when a Nigerian 419 syndicate initiated the con that saw her and five friends swindled out of R840 000. The woman, who cannot be named, lives in Benoni, east of Johannesburg, and was in Britain visiting a friend at the time the scam started. She is a witness at the trial of Amaruche Odonoko, who was arrested this week on char
www.sundaytimes.co.za/2002/04/14/news/news04.asp

Location: Sunday 14 Apr 2002 National news. Fraud suspect wets himself after high-speed car chase Nigerian 419 Scam NICKI PADAYACHEE. I was with Superintendent Johnny Smith and other policemen when they told an American computer engineer that he was a victim of a 419 scam this week. Conned out of $7 000 (about R78 400) Kris (he wouldn't give his last name) then helped turn the tables on the Nigerian syndicate involved - by risking his life in a police sting. Kris had flown out fr www.sundaytimes.co.za/2002/04/14/news/news03.asp

Location: Sunday 14 Apr 2002 National news. Police bust R43m Nigerian scam Nigerian 419 Scam 419 racket is turning SA into extortion capital of the world as criminals flock here to do business NICKI Police have cracked a massive fraud scam involving a Nigerian syndicate which allegedly conned people out of R43-million. A key figure, Amaruche Odonoko - a 29-year-old Nigerian - was arrested on Monday, together with his 23-year-old South African wife. Police claim to have
www.sundaytimes.co.za/2002/04/14/news/news02.asp

Clem Tholet, whose illness I mentioned last week, has made a remarkable recovery within 10 days, and has now been moved to a general ward where he is sitting up, giving the nurses a hard time, and swearing at anything which incurs his displeasure! This is largely, I am convinced, due to the prayers and positive energy from many of you, especially those who sent me notes, which were passed on to Clem and much appreciated.

South Africa was lovely and I enjoyed every moment. I enjoyed my trips in the "people's taxis". Husband and I am now Ma and Pa to so many taxi drivers that I may have to stay in Europe instead of returning permanently next year.

All the shopping malls amazed me, we have nothing like that where we live! Art went to buy the paper at one of the malls and couldn't find the exit. Hilarious stuff, getting lost in a first world shopping mall in a third world country.

Another thing that cracked me up were all the brought along barbies at the cricket. There they were busy frying meat, having a sip or two of beer and while managing to keep an eye on the game. With cricket now also being played at night, I'm talking major entertainment here.

Lots of tourists everywhere and they keep those cash tills ringing. The prizes still amaze me and being back here and seeing how much everything cost, I almost don't want to go shopping.

What I also noticed was how much cleaner it was. Sure there are much to be done, but everywhere clean up operations are taking place.

In Cape Town beggars are now being removed from the streets, and plans are underway for dealing with the street children as well. I saw very few of both anyway.

All over things are moving in the right direction, there's a positive wind blowing through the place and people are far less uptight than before.

Geez, I'm really proud of them and I thank my lucky stars to be able to say "that's where I belong" and what's more that's where I'm returning to.

At the end of this story, it gives you two options. I think you will figure out what option I chose.....

At the end of this story, it gives you two options. I think you will figure out what option I chose.....

A cold March wind danced around the dead of night in Dallas as the Doctor walked into the small hospital room of Diana Blessing. Still groggy from surgery, her husband David held her hand as they braced themselves for the latest news.

That afternoon of March 10, 1991, complications had forced Diana, only 24-weeks pregnant, to undergo an emergency cesarean to deliver the couple's new daughter, Danae Blessing.

At 12 inches long and weighing only one pound and nine ounces, they already knew she was perilously premature. Still, the doctor's soft words dropped like bombs. "I don't think she's going to make it', he said, as kindly as he could. "There's only a 10-percent chance she will live through the night, and even then, if by some slim chance she does make it, her future could be a very cruel one".

Numb with disbelief, David and Diana listened as the doctor described the devastating problems Danae would likely face if she survived. She would never walk, she would never talk, she would probably be blind, and she would certainly be prone to other catastrophic conditions from cerebral palsy to complete mental retardation, and on and on.

"No! No!" was all Diana could say. She and David, with their 5-year-old son Dustin, had long dreamed of the day they would have a daughter to become a family of four. Now, within a matter of hours, that dream was slipping away. Through the dark hours of morning as Danae held onto life by the thinnest thread, Diana slipped in and out of sleep, growing more and more determined that their tiny daughter would live-and live to be a healthy, happy young girl.

David, fully awake and listening to additional dire details of their daughter's chances of ever leaving the hospital alive, much less healthy, knew he must confront his wife with the inevitable. David walked in and said that we needed to talk about making funeral arrangements.

Diana remembers 'I felt so bad for him because he was doing everything trying to include me in what was going on, but I just wouldn't listen, I couldn't listen.' I said, "No, that is not going to happen, no way! I don't care what the doctors say; Danae is not going to die! One day she will be just fine, and she will be coming home with us!"

As if willed to live by Diana's determination, Danae clung to life hour after hour, with the help of every medical machine and marvel her miniature body could endure. But as those first days passed, a new agony set in for David and Diana. because Danae's under-developed nervous system was essentially 'raw,' the lightest kiss or caress only intensified her discomfort, so they couldn't even cradle their tiny baby girl against their chests to offer the strength of their love. All they could do, as Danae struggled alone beneath the ultraviolet light in the tangle of tubes and wires, was to pray that God would stay close to their precious little girl.

There was never a moment when Danae suddenly grew stronger. But as the weeks went by, she did slowly gain an ounce of weight here and an ounce of strength there. At last, when Danae turned two months old, her parents were able to hold her in their arms for the very first time. And two months later-though doctors continued to gently but grimly warn that her chances of surviving, much less living any kind of normal life, were next to zero.

Danae went home from the hospital, just as her mother had predicted... Today, five years later, Danae is a petite but feisty young girl with glittering gray eyes and an unquenchable zest for life. She shows no signs, what so ever, of any mental or physical impairment. Simply, she is everything a little girl can be and more - but that happy ending is far from the end of her story.

One blistering afternoon in the summer of 1996 near her home in Irving, Texas, Danae was sitting on her mother's lap in the bleachers of a local ballpark where her brother Dustin's baseball team was practicing.

As always, Danae was chattering non-stop with her mother and several other adults sitting nearby when she suddenly fell silent. Hugging her arms across her chest, Danae asked, "Do you smell that?" Smelling the air and detecting the approach of a thunderstorm, Diana replied, "Yes, it smells like rain." Danae closed her eyes and again asked, "Do you smell that?" Once again, her mother replied, "Yes, I think we're about to get wet, it smells like rain.

Still caught in the moment, Danae shook her head, patted her thin shoulders with her small hands and loudly announced, "No, it smells like Him. It smells like God when you lay your head on His chest." Tears blurred Diana's eyes as Danae then happily hopped down to play with the other children. Before the rains came, her daughter's words confirmed what Diana and all the members of the extended Blessing family had known, at least in their hearts, all along.

During those long days and nights of her first two months of her life, when her nerves were too sensitive for them to touch her, God was holding Danae on His chest and it is His loving scent that she remembers so well.

Wendell Hansen lived in our neighborhood and was a classmate of mine from grade two through high school. Wendell liked to play with girls at an age when most boys wouldn't be caught dead even playing with a sister.

He "played house" with them and even played with dolls, never interested in playing ball or other such "manly" sports. In high school he was the only boy enrolled in Home Economics. Of course he was tormented by other boys, including me, who called him a "sissy" because he refused to fight.

After graduation in 1936, I went off to college and Wendell was forgotten. In 1941 I went into the Navy. Three years later I was on an APAH (Attack Transport Hospital), loading troops in New Guinea for the Leyte invasion, when I received a letter from my grandmother with a newspaper clipping enclosed.

It was an account of the Bataan Death March and said that one of the Marines, a medic, who had not survived was Wendell Hansen.

I guess I should have been ashamed to let my fellow officers see me crying, but I was weeping bitter tears, remembering how I had labeled this brave man a sissy.

That day changed my life. I couldn't make up for that terrible mistake of my youth, but I could damn well be sure that I never made that mistake again.

Now at eighty four, I have many treasured friends, young and old, who enrich my life immeasurably. I think I can thank Wendell Hansen for that.

Maybe someday I will.

~ Written by Burt Barrows ~

Note: Burt Barrows is a 52Best reader and wrote me the above as a Comment to last week's story. I asked his permission to use it this week and he replied: "it is all right with me. I just read it over myself and have tears in my eyes. You can tell that this one came from deep down inside. It will be the first time I have ever told the story since it is still painful to remember."

"You say pot, I say middy; you say potato cake, I say scallop; you say vanilla slice, I say, well, snot block. Let's call the whole thing off."

One of the challenges in migrating to Australia is to learn to speak vernacular Australian. That is what the bewildered New Australian calls the initially incomprehensible language that sounds like English but is not. Australians call it Strine.

It took us some years to become comfortable with it. Then I was sent overseas to Japan and Europe as part of a team to negotiate the purchase of a continuous caster for the steelworks that employed me - in today's money, about a billion dollars' worth.

And suddenly I found that my fellow Australians would carry on commercially sensitive conversations across a conference table from Japanese and European negotiating teams without fear of being understood. What became even more surprising was that we could do much the same in the north of England.

It took me some time to realise that a cockatoo is not always a bird. It took one of my young engineers at the steelworks, who had grown up in Balmain (a dockside suburb of Sydney) until he was nearly at the end of high school to discover that a cockatoo is also a bird.

We have a doughty animal in Australia called a wombat. As many motorists have found out to their considerable cost, a wombat crossing a road at night is a walking rock. It is a sort of vegetarian version of a badger.

I was told that the wombat eats roots shoots and leaves. It took a couple of years before I realised that every word after "wombat" is a verb.

Australia's rich linguistic tradition varies widely from state to state.

How on earth can South Australians call fritz what the rest of the country know as strasburg or devon? Why do Queenslanders insist on calling bogans bevans? It says peanut butter on the label, not peanut paste.

To help Australians from various regions of the country understand each other a new interactive website has been established by the Macquarie Dictionary and ABC online.

Australian Word Map provides definitions, maps of where words are used and regional equivalents.

While some words were used in places across the country, others had never been heard outside a single town.

In Bunbury in Western Australia, a haircut is a "ginder". That much I knew. I carried out an assignment in Bunbury and struggled more than somewhat the first time that I needed one.

One of my personal favourites is the Victorian description of a vanilla slice as a "snot block".

The rest of the country is totally grossed out by it, but Victorians say, 'oh yes, we've called it that for years'.

Other words arose out of the particular ethnic group who settled the area and many date back to the convict era.

The word "gammon", which means to hoodwink someone, was used by convicts at Sydney Cove, spread to indigenous communities and now is used by Aborigines in Queensland and Darwin and elderly people in country NSW.

Some of the words have caused arguments on the website.

The site had togs and cossies and got an indignant email from South Australia saying it had not mentioned the fact that they call them bathers there.

But for anyone who has cause to attempt to converse in the vernacular with Australians or who is thinking of migrating to Australia a visit to the website might be appropriate. It is at:

www.abc.net.au/wordmap

For that matter Australia has its own dictionary - the Macquarie Dictionary, which can be found at:

www.macquariedictionary.com.au/

As a small example:

galah noun 1. a fool; simpleton. 2. a show-off. --phrase 3. mad as a gumtree full of galahs, quite stupid. [from the name of the pink and grey cockatoo, from the Aboriginal language Yuwaalaraay]

galah session noun a time set aside for the people of isolated outback areas to converse with one another by radio. [from the noisy sounds made by large groups of galahs].

My apologies to Charles... he sent his column in good time.. too good in fact for me! I did a huge clearing out of my attach file in Eudora and managed to delete the column for this week. Got carried away there with my Internet spring-cleaning! Sorry Charles!

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I… I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." - Robert Frost

Let's be objective and think like accountants. At the crossroads, where two roads diverge at an angle of only 5 degrees, one might well imagine that the difference is minuscule; in fact, the "high road" may be fraught with frustrations, difficulties, adjustments and high monetary costs. However, with time, the difference increases exponentially. Something like compound interest. Eventually, the two roads lead to destinations that are so completely different as to be almost unrecognisable. This is a true analogy of immigration. When one first emigrates from South Africa, there are sometimes doubts, usually frustration and always high costs of adjustment. But within a few years, one's lifestyle and net worth are evidence of a wise choice. The pain of discipline weighs ounces, while the pain of regret weighs tons. The falling Rand, ever-increasing violence and ever decreasing quality of life in SA, as opposed to an increasingly high quality of life in a first world country, would make a compelling argument to anyone with who was objective and realistic about the situation. So, next time you're faced with a mob of whining "when-we's" toting their boerewors and displaying SA flag stickers on their cars, remember why you left and realise that what Peter Drucker said is true: "The best way to predict the future… is to create it." Let's be thankful to have escaped the coming disaster in SA. Let's build successful lives based on the future and an "attitude of gratitude".

Okay, here's an example of stress. One of my sources of inspiration is Blue Mountain's calendar of events, holidays and special days. On this calendar I happened to read that April 17th is Stress Awareness Day, and I developed this issue accordingly. Then, this morning, on the Web, I discovered that Stress Awareness Day is designated by the UK-based International Stress Management Association as November 6. This means that for all my many UK readers (and whomever else is covered by that word "international") I am off by half a year. What to do?

Actually, I've decided that rather than add to my own stress by re-writing the newsletter, and because stress is a year-round problem for so many people, even if I end up doing two issues a year on stress, this would not be too many. So, how do YOU deal with stress?

There are many anti-stress techniques, some of which I will mention here and more of which are covered in the books recommended below. But first, here are some questions to ask yourself when you feel stressed:

Who or what is it that says that things HAVE to be the way you are trying to make it (by whatever struggle it is that is stressing you)? Is this source really the ultimate authority? Why?

If you don't get it done... will the sky fall? Will your world be different tomorrow? In two weeks? In a month or so?

If a door closes because you don't get it done, is it possible that an ever better door will then open?

Why are you doing this? Is what is happening right now bringing you closer to what you want for yourself, or is it leading you away from it?

You get my drift. When we are stressed, the walls of our thinking start to close in on us so that we lose the big picture. Although some people will tell you that they do their best work under stress and with deadlines looming, for the most part this may, for some, be effective with meaningless or fine-detail tasks, but it does not usually work well when we need to retain our image of the big picture.

There is an old and oft-repeated story that when a person is ploughing furrows in a field, if s/he looks closely at the ground in front, the resulting furrows will be wobbly and inefficient. Only by including the big picture, and by setting one's eyes on a single, distant marker and aiming directly for that, is one able to do one's best work, ploughing furrows that are straight and clean. Somehow, when we straighten ourselves up and look at the goal further away, the small stressors in the immediate vicinity fall into perspective, which often gives them less power over us.

Another thought - give up "the need to know." The need for certainty always brings stress, for there is so much that we can never know for certain. Many of my readers know of my fascination with the 4-camera peregrine falcon birdcam at http://birdcam.kodak.com. Along with this site is a discussion board, and I am often amused by the urgency of people's need to KNOW how many eggs will be laid, when the next one will appear, where both the birds are at all times, etc. Yet this urgency comes from events that don't affect the lives of the contributors in any direct way. How much more do we cling to our need to know about our own futures, and the events and behaviors in the lives of those near and dear to us? The truth is, we cannot know what the future holds, and clinging to the need to know can heighten our level of anxiety to the point that it destroys our ability to enjoy life as it IS, which is the only certainty that we really have.

Other stress-reliever thoughts:

Take time to meditate. Exercise. Trust the goodness of whatever or whomever you see as your Creator. Journal. Make room in your life to sing out loud, to dance with abandon, and to laugh (though always with, not at, other people).

If your stress causes difficult in sleeping, breath deeply from the abdomen. Count each exhalation up to ten, then start again. If even that does not work, try the "Alexander technique" in which, one by one and starting at your toes, you tighten, hold, hold, and then relax each part of your body until every part of you has tensed, held, and relaxed. Unless there is something seriously wrong, you will soon sleep.

The Top 10 Ways to Cope when You are Overwhelmed at Work

In these days of downsizing, many workers are carrying a heavier work-load than they used to, and feeling overwhelmed by it. The more overwhelmed we feel, the less well are we likely to deal with the problem. Often we get into a state of mind in which we are convinced that nothing will help. At that point, stop, take a deep, slow breath, and commit to trying at least four of the potential solutions below even if you don't think they apply to your situation - not all of them will. They largely fall into two categories - how you think about the situation, and how you deal with it.

1. Avoid getting into a victim stance.
Once you start being a victim you adopt a role of helplessness in which you can do nothing to get yourself out. Remember, there is no knight in shining armor to rescue you. It is your situation, and you, more than anyone else, have responsibility for changing it.

2. Stay in the moment.
Do not get caught in the trap of thinking about all the other things that will need doing when you finish what you are doing at that moment. We finish each task much more quickly and easily if we focus solely on it, instead of at the same time worrying about what else we need to do, about the situation in general, and about whose fault it all is.

3. Take time to list all the tasks on which you spend time and decide which ones are not essential.
Your first impulse will be that every one of them is absolutely essential. Move past that to decide which tasks are not. There will probably be some that you decided to do because that was the ideal way to do it. Remember that every task serves an end result. In most work situations it is the result that must be achieved, not the process. The process can often be shortened without damage to the result.

4. Let go of control issues.
How much of the pressure you are feeling really comes from outside, and how much is actually from you?

5. Delegate.
Decide if there is anything that can be delegated, or that more fairly belongs to someone else's work load. Do not just dump it on them, but discuss with those involved how work may be redistributed more fairly.

6. Come up with your own suggested solutions to the work-time crunch and take them to your boss.
S/he will probably be delighted that you are producing, rather than asking for, ways to solve the problem.

7. Keep in mind that work loads are often cyclical.
The fact that you are rushed off your feet this week does not mean the situation is permanent. What can you legitimately put aside to catch up on when things slow down a bit? (This is NOT the same thing as procrastinating.)

8. Take your breaks.
Five minutes away from the work situation will do far more to clear your head and your attitude than the work you would achieve in that five minutes if you did not leave your desk. Lunch-breaks exist not just so that we can eat, but so that we may take a mental break. Put something in your office or work situation to remind you of pleasant things and take you out of your frantic mind-set. Read or listen to something that will inspire you or bring you peace.

9. When you leave work, leave your work behind.
Do not let your work problems rent space in your head during the time when you are not supposed to be working. Some people find it even helps to develop a mental ritual, a metaphorical shaking of the dust from one's feet, somewhere between leaving work and getting home. I know of one counselor who, as she drives across a bridge, mentally tells her clients good-bye. As she drives back the next morning she greets them again.

10. If you cannot find any way to change your situation, and continue to feel trapped, remind yourself that you chose this job.
Remind yourself why. Has it now become something different from what it was when you were hired? Do you still choose it? If not, start updating your resume. If you choose to stay, remember that you are there by choice, which must mean that in some way the positives still outweigh the negatives. Try to focus on the positives.

RECOMMENDED READING

Choosing Happiness: Keys to a Joyful Life by Alexandra Stoddard

"Bursting with creative ideas and brimming with illuminating anecdotes, this concise, joyful, and practical book shows how to find -- and forge -- happiness in the large and small events of everyday life. Based on her more than thirty years as a noted thinker and speaker on personal contentment, Alexandra Stoddard shares what she has learned about the small but significant changes you can make in your mind, heart, and surroundings to be happier day by day." To learn more and/or order, click on

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0060008040/personalandcareeA/002-8534146-380480

Slowing Down to the Speed of Life: How To Create A More Peaceful, Simpler Life From the Inside Out by Richard Carlson, Joseph V. Bailey Yes, I know, I've been recommending this book for ages, and will continue to do so. I suggest that almost all my clients read it when pressures start to mount. As the reviewer says, "This is the book for you if you've ever had the urge to tell off your boss, quit your job, hurl your Palm Pilot into the trash, and move to a farm. Written by bestselling stress consultant and psychotherapist Dr. Richard Carlson Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, it advocates the cultivation of a personal mindfulness and "thought navigation" to foster a sense of mental calmness and increased creativity and productivity." To learn more and/or order, click on

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0062514547/personalandcareeA/002-8534146-380480

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
This is another excellent book that I recommend regularly. No, it is not specifically about dealing with stress, yet if we could all use its techniques to get things done I can almost guarantee that our lives would be a great deal less stressful. The reviewer says (rather un-grammatically g), "Yes, Getting Things Done offers a complete system for downloading all those free-floating gotta-do's clogging your brain into a sophisticated framework of files and action lists--all purportedly to free your mind to focus on whatever you're working on." To learn more and/or order, click on

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0670899240/personalandcareeA/002-8534146-380480

Copyright Diana Robinson, Ph.D. 2002. This newsletter may be reproduced or transmitted in its entirety only, including this copyright line. I enjoy receiving feedback, suggestions, and questions for Grounded/Reaching. To give feedback, please e-mail me at mailto:Editor@ChoiceCoach.com.

Our Legal Beagles are available for all your relevant queries... please continue to send in any queries you have for them and we will get them answered for you free of charge!

We have expanded our circle of helpers to include New Zealand and Europe. Remember that sometimes it takes a while for the relevant 'Legal Beagle' to answer. Also please remember that the advice is offered as a free service, THOS and SAW are not personally responsible for the content.

Remember to check out questions and answers on the Web site before you send your query in - it might be the question you are wanting to ask!

A new service for SAWmail subscribers and Web site members!

Travel Beagles are able to answer your travel queries... so send them a query that you haven't been able to resolve and let's see if they can help.

Please remember that these 'pleas for help' are published in good faith. I print them for you to read and choose to answer or not.

These requests are from subscribers to SAWmail and or members of the Saw Web site. I print them in good faith.

Nobody looking this week.

If you would like us to put your request for a friend and or partner, send your details and interests to the usual address, saw@thos.co.za and I will put your request into the next available edition for you.

PLEASE NOTE: If you have a query for a Legal Beagle please send it to me at saw@thos.co.za, do not put it on the Help Desk. I do not have the time to check out your queries each day and I am the one who has to send them on to the Legal Beagles... they also do not check our Help Desk on a regular basis!

If you have a problem with your password or want to change your email address or any other details, do not put your query on the Help Desk... you can change them yourself by going to the SAW site and following 'instructions'.

Dear all
You should receive the April newsletter by email within a few days.
If not, please contact me on saclub@btinternet.com which will be the future email address, as this one will be discontinued.

Best wishes

MIKE

NEXT MEETING
Saturday 27 April at 20h00
Restaurant La Petite Siréne 8 rue Maccarani, Nice parking Grimaldi opposite the restaurant
25 Euro for Scandinavian buffet
1/2 bottle of wine included
Please confirm to Judit by 22 April latest
* 061 656 5035 jk.nc@wanadoo.fr

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Canada - Toronto

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THE EIGHTH ANNIVERSARY NATIONAL FREEDOM DAY AT THE PARK AT MEL LASTMAN SQUARE
5100 YONGE STREET (NORTH OF SHEPPARD)
APRIL 28, 2002
11:00AM - 4:00PM
MUSIC, SOUTH AFRICAN FOODS, SOUTH AFRICAN BEER, CHILDREN'S ENTERTAINMENT AND
LOTS MORE:
FOR THOSE WHO WANT TO RESERVE TABLES TO SELL PRODUCTS PLEASE CALL FOR MORE
INFORMATION:
(416) 269-7763
(905) 799-0494
(519) 668-1493

Cheers
Charles
Charles Clayton
caius@attcanada.ca
http://members.tripod.com/saontario
905-8494603

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UK and Europe - from Voetsek

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This news from Voetsek (www.voetsek.co.uk)

SA Jol, Bournemouth by the Sea 26 and 27 April
Monthly SA Jol at The Bantu Bar in Bournemouth by the Sea. Exotic Limbo Dancers plus Fire Juggler, "Dronk Gat Corner" Game, Braai on both nights, African Jello's, Castle Beer, Biltong & Droewors. £9.50 pp. Accom. available. Contact Angie for tickets on 01202-786678.

SA Day Luxembourg 27 April
In conjunction with the South African embassy in Brussels and the South African Ambassador we would like to hold the first ever SA national day in Luxembourg. As this will be quite a large event sponsors, people to help on this day and any ideas are needed. Lux News will be a sponsor with all the advertising and they will put in an article in the Lux News for a few weeks before time also with a colour spread of South Africa and South Africans. Any further info, please contact Pat, Elaine or Tracy at padasilva@bankofny.com

London Irish RFC Antipodean Rugby Day
5 May 2002, Madjeski Stadium, Reading
London Irish RFC has a large Southern Hemisphere playing contingent including Springboks Brendan Venter, Naka Drotske & Hentie Maartens. London Irish are organising an antipodean Rugby Day which will include lots of rugby and boerewors rolls! More details to follow! http://londonirishrugby.rivals.net/

To celebrate South Africa Day on the 27th of April, top SA band 'Dorp' will be performing along with 'Oil & Water' and 'Santa's Boyfriend' at the Underworld, 174 Camden High Street Camden NW1. Doors open at 19:30, first band will start at 20:00. Tickets: £10. Free Apple sours, prizes and more. Check out www.black-pepper.net for further info. Tickets can be booked on the site or by calling 020 7932 3753.

Sorrows and Rejoicings
Tue 23 - Sat 27 April, 7.30pm
Sorrows and Rejoicings, the newest work by acclaimed South African playwright Athol Fugard, sifts through the rubble of the apartheid era and reveals a new landscape of faith, forgiveness and emotional freedom. Ticket prices: 12.50 (£10.50), £10.50 (£8.50)Regional exclusive: this is the only opportunity to see the play outside London. See www.warwickartscentre.co.uk

Special Offer: Get two tickets for the price of 1! Call the box office on 024 7652 4524 and use the booking reference VOETSEK.

If you were wondering why I haven't used a joke you sent in; some of the jokes I receive are just not suitable for general publication. So send me suitable jokes and I will publish them and acknowledge their origin.

No jokes received this week!! Actually I did receive a couple but they have been published before. Sorry everyone... !

This from my recipe file, from Diet for a New World. This has practically no fat in due to the cashews instead of cream or oil. Make sure you use raw cashews, not roasted and or salted ones for this recipe.

Broccoli and cashew nut soup

1 cup raw cashews
5 cups vegetable broth
2 medium potatoes, unpeeled and cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1 bunch broccoli, coarsely chopped (about 4 1/2 cups)
1 tsp. dried basil
1 tsp. sea salt (opt)
1/4 tsp. black pepper

Put the cashews and 1 cup of the broth in a blender, and blend until smooth. Put the remaining 4 cups of broth, onion, and potatoes into a large pot. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook for 5 minutes. Stir in the broccoli and basil and return to a simmer. Cover and cook until the potatoes are tender (about 10 minutes). Stir in the reserved cashew mixture, as well as the salt and pepper. Remove from heat and transfer about half of the soup to a blender and puree. Return the puree to the rest of the soup, and stir well. Enjoy!

The Democratic Alliance has repeated a call for the release of a document which exposes widespread corruption in South African football, and asked the government to explain why they are reluctant to make public a report that would "damn" the country's governing body "for good". http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=4&art_id=qw1019477340417S163&set_id=6

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Barbarians have a place for Rassie

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Rassie Erasmus, the Springbok flanker yet to play a competitive game in 2002 because of injury, has been included along with fellow South Africans Braam van Straaten, Adrian Garvey and Thinus Delport, in the Barbarian squad to tour England, Wales and Scotland in May and June http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=4&art_id=qw1019478420552S163&set_id=6

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Disillusioned Platini to quit Blatter

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Michel Platini plans to quit his job as a special adviser to Fifa president Sepp Blatter as he is standing for election to both the Uefa and Fifa executive committees - constitutionally a correct move, but one that masks the football great's disillusionment with the management crisis at the head of world soccer's governing body.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=4&art_id=qw1019477521426S163&set_id=6

Are you a member of a local sporting club? Would you like your results published in SAWmail and/or on the SAW Web site? Please send the details of your club to me at the usual address... saw@thos.co.za

For direct correspondence, send me a message at saw@thos.co.za That's it folks! See you next week.
Maureen