A small village with a massive heart

This initial info is from Martie a friend from Clarens who with the Engel Volkers team as well as a number of volunteers in Clarens have shown again what a Huge heart and a great community Clarens is Wow guys I am proud that I know you guys and while I may be in Port Elizabeth my thoughts are with you in their initiative. “Well done”

SOCCER IN CLARENS

We are absolutely stunned by the overwhelming people in this small village of Clarens. No big city can offer the spirit of this place! People are excited about the Kopano effort and are ordering the yellow Kopano jackets. We are now challenged with the fact that the number of jackets that we have ordered may be too few. Please get your orders to us as soon as possible as the jackets are being delivered this Friday the 4th of June.
This week we have graciously received:
300 metres of yellow fabric from Jeanette van der Merwe for the yellow flags for town
About 50 tennis balls from the Tennis Club. Thanks guys!
More shade cloth for the soccer posts from Bana Bahlokong
More netball and soccer balls from Laura Boland
Coen Pretorius and Sakkie van den Berg made the big screen and Dick Meyer spray painted the screen. Skills for Africa boys made soccer and netball poles
Orpa Olivier – R500 and Sunnyside Guest farm –R500
Clarens Brewery-R1000 and Rob and Mandy Prior – R1500
Country Mart – R1000
Clarens Interiors – R500 and from Old Mill Bottlestore a R1000,00

We had our fourth practice of the Soccer Diski Dance on the square this Friday and this time there were 220 people. Christine Walwyn was the oldest member of the community to attend along with many different families - moms and dads and all the kiddies. We had our first big screen event on Thursday the 27th of May which was supported by 150 people.
Our appeal to you is:

Get the CD with the Diski Dance for R10,00 at the Engel&Völkers office. Learn the dance and come to the next session at 16h30 Friday on the square. The practice starts promptly at 16h30 and ends at 17h00.

Order your yellow windbreaker jacket for R160,00 and sponsor your staff too. Contact us to get your order. Our jacket is warmer and will also serve the purpose of marking you out as being part of our united support for the Soccer World Cup 2010. The jackets will arrive next Friday, 4 June 2010. No more jackets will be available after that. Beanies and scarves are available to order for R40,00 a beanie and R60,00 a scarf. These are made of a very high quality fleecy fabric with the Clarens logo on them.
Sponsor a few of the 3000 kids with a yellow beanie. We still need R30 000,00 for this.
We are in desperate need of the following: whistles, stopwatches, buckets, measuring cups, cold drink containers, polystyrene cups, art paint, A4 paper, face paint, crayons, tennis balls, mini soccer balls (hand ball), cold drink, sweeties and oranges.

Contact the following people: Ds. Sakkie van den Berg 0726060213,
Martie du Plessis 082 5741433, Kobus Basson 0828978325 and Meschak Mpahang: (Sau):073 841 4798

Was in Jozi on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and you can keep that place, apart from it having my family there I think that it’s a “kak plek” (for those Pommies out there its not a nice place) you may as well go live in the UK, oh silly me, many have already done that. Walls are 16 foot high with razor wire, people live like prisoners, I saw no scooters up there, PE has thousands, the only really cool thing I saw was the road from Edenvale to the airport (approx 5-6kms) that is lined with hundreds of flags, it’s an awesome sight.

Port Elizabeth has the biggest South African flag in SA at present, its situated on the Donkin reserve and is 8 x 12 square meters, we will also have the biggest screen for a fan park at 75 square meters, they are busy setting it up at the moment, cannot wait to go and watch matches there.

Face book In Pakistan is apparently banned or in the process of being banned, I would have thought in Pakistan it would have been called No face book anyway as most of the lady users would not have been able to put there picture up anyway. Can you imagine the status info on people pages. “Don’t children just Blow up so quickly” “My husband has an explosive temper”, “Really feel sexy today, changed my contacts”

The SWC is now only 5 sleeps (actual games starting, don’t count a concert as the SWC), Friday is the Bafana game and opening ceremony and Saturday I will be at the stadium with Tania, Ryan and the NOSA family to watch a SWC game in my own country, “who would have ever thought that SA would be hosting the SWC “? Its AWESOME and feel sorry for all the ex-pats out there who are not part of this history, they may be wearing shirts and watching from afar, but they will not be able to say “I WAS THERE TO FEEL 2010” Cars in PE are flying flags, people are wearing soccer shirts, there is a warm fuzzy feeling of unity at the moment, hopefully we can keep that going after the SWC.

Ironic that to date the biggest balls up to date regards the SWC have been the two times they opened the tickets to the public and the computer systems have crashed, this South Africa has nothing to do with as is controlled by FIFA and administered by a Pommie company (and I thought that everything in the UK was better than SA, obviously not!). as from Thursday SA will have a new President, albeit an interim one, but Sepp Blatter will be I charge and the interim government of FIFA will be in charge

Next week on Tuesday and Wednesday that are expecting 100 000 visitors to arrive in the country, so is you see a stranger say Hi and show them we are the best country in the world. “Make the circle bigger”

Got a GPS for my scooter this week, was not expensive, just a little cumbersome, but I am sure I will get used to it.

Got a picture of the biggest Vuvuzela that is in Cape town and will be blown every time a goal is scored in the SWC, its been erected on the end of an old highway, pretty awesome and I am sure will make a BIG noise.

Taxi drivers in PE are on the whole not that bad, but on Wednesday on the way back from work with Ryan on the back of the scooter, “yep no cars for us to get to work” we can only afford scooters. Anyway nearly taken out by a taxi that did not see us, so after I gave the gent (and I use that term loosely) a large chunk of my mind and pulled off another mentally challenged resident tried the same with his taxi, this gent however better watch his rear view mirrors as he was nasty and made certain indications as to what he would like to do to me as he drove past. (So you see things are not always 100% in the country, but at least we talk about them)

Have you noticed that after all the commotion from the Ventersdorp ‘we love SA” brigade about revenge, the country would burn, how ET was the man etc etc since it was revealed that he may have had a liking for dark chocolate and boys at that, there has not been a peep out of them. (Why so quiet troglodytes??). I was told that ET did in fact have the nick name “Ruiter in Swart” (rider in black) or was that “Die Swart ruiter” (the black rider).

My book should be published in a short while so PLEASE buy a copy so I can say I have sold at least 10. It’s at the publisher at the moment o in a couple of weeks it should be ready to sell. I am going to look for outlets in Clarens to sell for me as it will be a great book for visitors to the area and has lots of interesting info. The book is called “The Clarens Chronicles”

Work is great, challenging but I am really enjoying it, the office has got such talented people in it that the standards are high and that makes for me wanting to achieve more than just the pass levels for courses. On Friday I present my first ever course (by my lonesome) was great, know I can (and will get better) especially with the support of the people in the office. Whatever happens at the end of the 6 months I know that I will have come along way over a short period and can only thank Ryan, Theuns, Mike and the team at NOSA for that.

Sports for the week
Proteas made it 7 games in a row against the Rasta boys and hopefully they will take that form into the test series
Boks narrowly beat the Welsh 34 to 31 on Saturday, Wales are always a hard team, but the ref was also kinda on the Welsh side, did you see all those “we love SA but not enough to live in the country supporters” ?
Bafana won 1/0 against Denmark (number 36 in the World) yesterday, well done boys, know you will make us proud in the SWC

So that’s about it for this week, be good and have an awesome week and remember that “Fear is temporary, Regret is forever”

Ciao
The Village idiot.