So i think the situation is that 'going on strike' was outlawed under apartheid, so now in the new South Africa it's an expression of freedom as much as anything else. And so the Public workers started striking this week and the whole thing is rapidly turning violent.
Some schools were closed the first day, some stayed open. About half of our kids got sent home. Now it's become too dangerous for most schools in KZN to open as there are threats of violence towards staff and pupils if they go to school. Mad. I guess going on strike makes a point, but there's little point if it's all going to end up on the violence route. Surely we've been there before? The kids, however, think it's great! One more week of unexpected holiday!
As for myself, I've not managed to follow too much what is going on, having been really ill for the past 2 days. I'm now fully drugged up on strong antibiotics to combat a mean sore throat, and have been told to 'avoid situations that push my heart rate up' to try and bring my pulse down to a reasonable level as a brief episode of tachychardia was disturbing my sleep, and my awake times, since Sunday. Apparently there's no damage to my heart, quite disturbing nonetheless to think that a 'simple cold', as this started out, could even cause damage like that!!
Try as I might, it's quite hard to avoid 'stressful situations' in a job like mine. The newest problem is that now there are 4 people in the choir who might not have their passports all sorted in time, all unforseen problems. I'm not going into elaborate details, but please pray that if God wants these 4 in the UK ,He'll move a mountain or something.
3 of them are held up by aforementioned strike action, the fourth one is in relation to my earlier posting on Pretoria. I am speechless at the response we received from them today. I'm not kidding when I question some people's ability to read English and to work through an application appropriately. This one situation has cost us more money than should ever be necessary for an NGO to have to spend to correct a mistake by the immigration office. It is nothing less than a disgrace that is causing head and heartache for these people who only want to sing and raise awareness about the AIDS pandemic in their home country. I am ashamed to be associated with such people. What should be a simple procedure has been blown up into a major problem and it now looks like we'll have to return to Pretoria AGAIN next week... I am not a happy bunny, and I'm not the only one. I need to go now and rest so that my pulse returns to somewhere near where it should be...
