Hot and Humid in Durban

We have been in Durban for a few days now after two weeks in Cape Town.
After 5 weeks in South Africa the drama is finally over. I hope so at least. We had major problems with the woman we came to work with, Jared tells people it was personality conflicts, but we tried everything we could to make it work and it just couldn't work. I don't usually say that people should be medicated, but this woman needs to be on meds to make her moods a bit more stable. Such severe mood swings are not normal. They got so bad that some of the episodes could be classified as verbal abuse. So we parted ways.

We had to retrieve the rest of our luggage from her house, so we rented a car. I haven't really driven in South Africa before or anywhere where its left-side driving so I was very nervous. Since we've been here, I've been concentrating on things being on the left, so it would be easier once I drove. It went really well! It started off with some problems getting the car into reverse. It was a manual, and although I have a manual transmission in the States I couldn't figure out how to get the bloody thing into reverse. Someone else at the backpackers was helping us, but he couldn't figure it out either, and so asked a maintenance man on the side of the road how to do it. Turns out since its a chevy, there is this ring to life up on the gear shift and that allows the car to go into reverse!

It felt great to drive, I've been so worried about it. We had the car for the entire day so drove up north into the Valley of 1000 Hills which is very pretty and then to the big Hare Krishna temple in Durban. I spent some time with the Krishnas when I was here before, so it was nice to see their temple here. The Durban temple is the largest Hare Krishna temple in the Southern Hemisphere, there was also a restaurant in the basement. I love Hare Krishna food. It is so good. I think that is one of the main reasons I hung out with them before--because their food was so damn good. It has this particular taste to it, they put a lot of love into their food, and also offer it to Krishna before anyone eats any of it. We spoke to a monk who does a lot of community work with their Food for Life program. They take food to impoverished areas, and also to distribute their message. He said everything has been stolen from him several times doing this work, but that he loves it and is committed to doing it.

I am starting to feel more at home in South Africa. The first part of our time here was so hectic that we didn't enjoy ourselves so much. We feel much freer now, and are having a good time. Today we visited the Durban Botanic Garden which is absolutely gorgeous. I finally saw a baobab tree. I have been wanting to see one of those for a long time but haven't made it far enough north into Africa to see them. They also have a great orchid garden. It was beautiful. So cool to see tropical plants I grew at The Oregon Garden growing so big and tall. We had struggled for the lotus' to survive in Silverton, and here they were 4' tall! Both water lettuce and water hyacinth are considered major invasive here, and I've been the water hyacinth clogging some rivers. Both these are used ornamentally in Oregon still, but they die off every winter so haven't become a problem there.

We also went to the movie theatre and saw the new James Bond movie Quantum of Solace. I saw the last Bond movie, Casino Royal and loved it. Jared got to hear me talk about Daniel Craig a lot but he didn't see it. He knows what I was talking about now! Yum! Good movie.

Tomorrow we are going to try for the Indian Market I think. Jared's spent some time in India so we'll see how it compares.