Expo pics

Stoep Miesies

Yes its been a while.

I left teaching after almost twenty years, ten of which I spent at the same school where I worked my butt off, only to realize that I was stagnating, and the strain of pretending to be marginally interested in yet another meeting where I simply zoned out and the talking heads would disappear, while I dawdled around in my cluttered mind ,( trying to find some escape) was beginning to take its toll. After all, as an actress I only perform if you pay me.  It was easier than I thought.... I resigned and moved...and here it started... The year of the Big Test.

I applied for as many jobs as I could, found some, and then it would all disappear again.

And then the Land Expo happened and things were looking up, finally!

I played the Miesies on the stoep of her house in Triomf, a white suburb that was created on the ruins of Sophia town.

This Miesies spent her days crocheting on her stoep  and interacting with large groups of people that came to see and experience this amazing exhibition of our troubled past. My biggest regret is that I couldn't play the Shebeen Queen, jiving away with the talented dancers. ( The white thing becomes tedious at times*)

Many wonderful moments, many excruciatingly sad moments.... The old lady who looked at me in horror, with tears streaming down her face...she lived in Sophia Town and was evicted from the house that her husband built. She was confused and believed that she was back there and that  I took her house.

The Old Age Homes that visited... many old people that immediately went into subservient mode when they saw me sitting there. To them it was what they were brought up to believe and they would never make the shift in their psyches, it was to late.

The young people that glared and hated, the guy that spat on me...

The blankets I created while sitting there caused a stir and people wanted to buy it. Some people asked if they could crochet a bit as they were missing their grandmothers who used to do this. A few men wanted to show me how they could crochet as well.

One Gogo walked past and said: ' Ooo the Miesies must crochet for the stressa!'

The Miesies engaged with many people who wanted to play the 'Miesies and the Maid/Gardener Game' They were remembering the  bad old days....give job Miesies, food Miesies, old clothes Miesies, a place to stay Miesies.... My pass is in order Miesies.

The audience carried Pass Books as of old. This Draconian Law was a shock to the many young people that visited the Expo. Some of the older audience members either laughed and played along or reacted strongly against it. Nightmares re-visited.

I admit that I also flirted with some really hot job seekers and promised a piece job or posed with various  customers who wanted to defy the Immorality Act.

The 'Whites Only' bench from the Archives created a huge amount of discourse...

Girls with booties and weaves draping themselves over the Bedford with the dispossessed looking on. 

I was attacked by journalists and interrogated about my heartlessness in the face of the evictions of the time. As I pointed out to a rather virulent journo from America, I was simply an actress sitting there and represented a white lady in her new house in Triomf, and how very blessed he must feel that he came from a country like America, where discrimination and slavery didn't exist...(sorry Mr Martin Luther King) AGH!!

The exhibition was enormous and powerful, and yet some of it left me angry and saddened.

During the Apartheid Years, many people of all colours and cultures, were united against this evil enemy, yet the whites were not represented in the Exhibition. 

My friend, whose daughter used to hide under the bed when there was a knock at the door because her Dad was black and Mommy was white?

Smuggling in my friend for a visit, him pretending to make a delivery, complete with a box in his hand, before the neighbours called the police. As it is my Father was informed of his wayward daughter and warned that he might lose his job if I continue to see this undesirable person. It was very difficult to reconcile a life at a multi-cultural  University with the stark reality of the Apartheid Laws out there.

One lady was utterly distraught about the fact that there were no record of any white people during the Struggle.. She had a white lover during those times, and they were caught under the Immorality Act. He was arrested and she never saw him again. She never married and she was still crying about him. What happened to him? He was the love of her life and he was presumably tortured and killed. She has lived with this for 40 years.

 The fact that I met and spoke with Don Materra was one of the highlights of my life. He is just simply awesome and inspiring.

Watching the video footage of people being displaced , packed up like their furniture in the Bedfords. Lines of Bedfords transporting their grim cargo in the dismal, sad rain of Cape Town.  District Six residents clinging to family and friends with Police guarding  and escorting them to God knows where.

Children taking sweets from a young white guy sitting on top of a Kasper. The confusion on his face and the trust in theirs.... White boys had to go to the army. It was the Law. If they defied it they went to jail. Remember the End Conscription Campaign?

 An old man and his wife holding on to each other, preparing to leave. He's holding her handbag and she is clutching an umbrella that she is to numb to open, the utter devastation on her lined face still haunts me.

Women digging pit latrines in KZN with dust swirling around them on a God forsaken piece of barren land.
 A little boy holding his puppy and staring at the camera.


People setting fire to their homes before they leave.

A thin woman rummaging through the rubble that was her home before the bulldozers destroyed her life, while some official moegoe smirks and points at her.

A beautiful man with long fingers smoking his pipe, clutching his panga..

People running  around throwing stones at the Army, destroying schools, protesting against 'Bantu Education'

On the set of  my stoep , I was flanked by a huge picture of a woman in 1978, watering her garden in Triomf.  Everybody thought it was me on the picture. She was also blond.... 'Do all white people look the same?' Apparently we do, as one woman pointed out to me. 'You all look and are the same'

I had many hours to observe and ponder and I still wonder about the lady in the picture. Is she still alive? Does she know that her smiling face was being used as an example? Was she aware of Sophiatown and the anguish Triomf caused to many? Did she care?

A father and his children passed by and he pointed at me and said: 'See that woman?  That is what they are like, look at her nice house.' The kids stared at me and he shook his head and made them stand next to me with their arms around me...... May I point out that the nice house consisted of a minuscule patch of grass, an old tricycle, a hose pipe, two lawn chairs and an umbrella. Hardly the lap of luxury and yet...

The most virulent attacks came from white English people that honestly believe that only Afrikaans people were racist.  I didn't feel like rehashing the Anglo Boer War, but let it be noted that thousands of black mothers and children died in the Concentration camps.....while the war raged on, people fighting over what was not theirs to begin with.

The sound of the Expo was at times explosive, traditional music, poets, bus loads of people arriving generating immense energy, and I sat in the middle of it all, listening and watching the Shabeen dancers jiving away. It was wonderful to see the older people's faces light up at the sound of Mathlatini and the Mohatella Queens and the African Jazz Pioneers.  One old lady visited with me on my stoep the entire day and insisted that we go dancing at the Shabeen. Yes, the Miesies can gooi!

Stoep Miesies is evolving into a One Woman Show as the Expo was cancelled due to budget constraints.

We are not done yet.

Spread the Love*

Enjoy the Pics&*

Just take a seat ( I think NOT)

                                          Just take a seat....

........innocent words, one can almost imagine it to be welcoming,......but alas, NO.

I had to go to the Domestic Violence Court. First time in my life. I have been very blessed, I have never been beaten or assaulted by a demented spouse or lover, unlike thousands others.  It took me almost ten years to take a stand in this particular case.  The words: 'cease and dessist' have been bandied about.

The rest of the sordid details will remain buried in a lonely, sad little closet..

.....BUT

..and here's the

thing..

You have to go to a Building, to an Office, and Fill out Forms, and Sacrifice Precious Emotional
 Energy in the process. Thus, you need to pace yourself....focussed and professional. You must cling  to
every shred of dignity you can muster, as this encounter is not for the faint- hearted.

ENTER OFFICES OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE:

 When I  managed to locate the hallowed office, I was  directed to a rickety lift,sagging with sad looking women clutching  files. It was most interesting that the biggest and angriest woman in the group clutched a Winnie the Poo folder. Yet here she was, scowling fiercely and shouting in Xhosa into her cell phone. The word 'Stressa' was screamed repeatedly down her victim's ear .
 We entered the Office and was met by an excited guard with a clicking baton  in his hand. He was clearly in love with his noisy appendage, and he reveled in the power of sliding it across the various bodies in front of him. One young woman told him to stop waving his little wand and that she was really uncomfortable about being prodded by it. He found that hilarious. The young woman shook her weave and dared him to touch her.....things were getting slightly out of hand and his female assistant came to the rescue, by grabbing our bags and rummaging in it as if it was her own bag, which caused the weaved beauty to click her tongue loudly while she wiggled off in her tight jeans. The wand-waving guard's eyes literally misted over as he watched her retreat, and I felt a frisson of sympathy for the poor thing. Conversation was limited as a couple of women sat around, clutching their handbags and picking at their nails or working their cell phones.
One rail thin and deceptively timid woman started telling me some of her story, clutching an ominously thick folder.
 The sadness in her eyes was eclipsed only by disillusionment and exhaustion  and her long, tapered fingers never stopped tapping against the faded leather folder in her hands.
 She carried the folder like a shield.

The main reason that we had time to chat about her x-husband terrorizing everybody he comes into contact with, was the fact that the statuesque clerk was sitting on a chair, removing her slippers and squeezing her feet into a pair of extremely high-heeled, beige shoes. This took about a half an hour, ( a full thirty minutes after they opened, I might add).

 She then trawled around the dreariest office on this earth, looking for a place to store her slippers. Black and pink slippers.... She found her little spot in a filing drawer,there was also a feather duster in the drawer. The window was streaked in thick, very old, grey pigeon poop, providing a dramatic back drop for the collapsed air conditioner hanging half off its hinges, with strangely enough another feather duster stuck behind it.
A torn piece of paper bore the legend: LUNCH FROM 1 - 2

This earth shattering announcement was stuck next to a peeling poster, illustrating the different kind of abuses one can be subjected to and how to recognize the signs.......... I tried very hard not to see the beige atrocities as a sign of impending doom.( Beige is not a colour anyway, its a state of mind. A really dreary and bleak state of mind, in this case.)

The rest of this hovel had the same poop- streaked and broken equipment backdrop for an old wooden counter, where you stand and fill out various forms.

I completed mine as best I could and presented it to the stony faced clerk. She glanced at it, paged through it roughly and said: 'You didn't do it right'
'Oh, I said, and smiled as best I could,' Shall I re-do it?'
She shook her head and literally rolled her eyes.......
I bravely forged on, having come thus far, trying to ignore the exasperation in her eyes.
Me:' Should I re-do it? Should I be more specific?'(Didn't quite know how much more specific I could be  as I had evidence and everything....)
Clerk: 'I know the Magistrate, and you don't want to listen to me.'

Okaaaayyyyyyy.........my palms were beginning to sweat and I wasn't sure if this place was regressing me to hot menopausal flushes or if I was attacked by a swarm of airborne germs from the filthiest carpet I have ever seen.

'Wearing really ugly shoes that are to small for you will do this to you', I wanted to caution her, but I restrained myself.

She pointed at the name of my tormentor and asked : 'Who is this? It's not a man?'
'No,' I said, and I think I made a pathetic attempt at giggling, which was wildly inappropriate at that moment.
She gave me a suspicious look and made a funny sound in her throat, which made me feel slightly better over my sad attempt.
She shoved the offending document at me and said: 'Do what you want'
I looked at her rather pointedly.....'Don't tempt me dear......' ( Once again I was composed...)

I returned to the horrible counter, trying to ignore the fact that my hand was sticking to the toxic surface and scratched off some incoherent account of my dilemma.
I once again approached the Oracle and she shrugged and took the pieces of paper.

This depressing bomb shelter made the Traffic Department look like a Carnival.

There was nothing in it, or about it, that in any way conveys empathy, or God forbid, sensitivity.

If I was a freshly traumatized woman who had suffered greatly, and I had to walk in there, I would have been crushed to a pulp.

It felt like a set out of a Quentin Tarantino Movie where the victim sits bound to a chair whilst staring into a bright light while his toenails are being pulled out and rats are gnawing at his remaining limbs.....
Not a glass of water,not a box of tissues, and it hasn't been cleaned since it was built obviously.

In a country where abuse is a National Sport, (with a whole month devoted to Abuse against Women and Children), I find this utterly unacceptable and quite frankly, I don't understand it. The place itself is abusive!! It is an insult to the clients walking in there. What about all the hours devoted to Therapy and Counselling that so many people participate in to improve this situation? What does it help and what does this all mean?
And WHY?????

It is demeaning to say the least, and I will write a vitriolic missive to the people concerned.

Oh, and by the way, I was granted an Interdict........
Put that in you horrible beige shoes and smoke it YO!

Spread the Love**

manic mall moments-Psycho Killer - Talking Heads

(To Donovan)****

I am a goddess in my fifties, I have learnt some of life’s hard lessons,

 ‘I've stood in a riot, facing  angry, drunk people spewing their hate over me
 I have given birth, I spent 19 half hours in labour with my first child and it was hell.

  I have survived menopause and all its ugly manifestations,

 I have travelled fearlessly on my own and cleaned more vomit and dirty nappies that I care to remember.

 I am a strong woman who will stop at an accident and help, no matter how much the blood and the carnage….I flinch not!

 but yet……I  can’t walk into a Mall without breaking into a cold sweat.  It envelopes me like a wet blanket, making it difficult to breathe. A numbling sense of dread and foreboding come over me and I immediately lose 10% of my sight.....things go blurry...

First there is the whole looking for parking gedoente……the sound making weird echoes in the Undercover Parking  lot… scenes from cop movies flashing past….the girl always gets killed in the parking lot where  a psychopath waits  behind a concrete pillar, clutching  the weapons he brought to inflict effective damage...

Or, just as you turn the key, the car explodes because you are somehow a threat to an insane Drug and Prostitution Cartel.
 The same insane Cartel who stole your identity off the net and have ordered drugs and executions, for which you will be held accountable, but unlike the movies where the gorgeous girl immediately illicits sympathy from a highly effective Police force,  I am somewhat  of a challenge and not glamorous enough apparently, to warrant the attention of Denzel Washington.

  Nooooo, the likes of me must be satisfied with an unfocussed car guard, jabbering away and totally missing the point.

I  always fear that  I will lose my car, and this has indeed happened before…..but we were warned not to use the remote, as this apparently tell the thugs that are hiding in the shadows, where exactly your car is.

They will then rob you (after stabbing you repeatedly with a screwdriver). I don’t like being screwed
without my permission.

My entrance into the gaping mouth of the Mall Monster is not smooth, as I can’t walk on those slippery floors……I am thus forced  to walk very slowly through this hell.

The sound and sight of children whining, screaming, music from shops competing, people josting around each other pushing trolleys.......... so that you are now aurally as well as visually assaulted…
…..smells of concoctions and brews that are being prepared, clash with each other…

The glazed look that some people get as they wonder around, clutching ice creams and eating biltong, as they stare longingly through the shop windows at stuff  they can’t afford and that they most likely don’t  need.

The overpriced coffee…….the endless sales and promotions….

The humiliation of being told by an inhumanely thin and petite girl that the shop doesn’t have such big

sizes…..(Are you really proud of being a size nought?) I don’t say it, she is actually quite pretty...

Some over-eager foetus accosted me the other day, telling me exactly how badly I looked, and how much sun damage my skin has suffered, and that I should stand still (in the middle of the Mall), so that he can analyse me. I think the poor thing is still trying to expell  the image of me glaring at him, from his hopefully troubled sleep.

  How dare you!!

I tried to storm  off in a huff, but I had to execute a walk-skate move to propel myself forward, as the floor was not designed for humans, it was originally a skating rink for penguins apparantly.

At some stage of the game I habitually lose all sense of direction and purpose. Shop assistants  follow me with my goods as I promptly forget everything I bought on the counter.

I usually manage to find an exit, and wrap myself around the nearest pole to smoke like a dragon. This cause some shoppers to look at me with disgust and pity. ‘Old, mad woman sucking on sigarette eeeuw’

Looking for a bathroom inevitably mean escalators and I will land up between a funky person and a woman with a pram, said pram stuck with wailing toddler inside. Who can blame?

Nooooo!! Do NOT spray your skanky perfume on me!

No I will not worship at the altar of Consumerism and Madness that is the Mall. This is the freedom of age.
If I don’t like it I won’t do it. There must be some perks to getting older, honestly.

Finding my car again is a feat in itself, and the guard gives me a long-suffering look.  His eyes are saying:  'Another spoilt, pampered woman who has a meltdown over the colour of her nailpolish'

I dont have the mental energy to do anything but smile....I'm out of here!!!

All is not lost and I discovered a Shopping Centre, it is flat and friendly, there are actually two floors but I ignore the bottom floor….

Shopping with my daughter means that we have to go to the Make- up shop,as a matter of principle.

  And there I found her……the Manageress of the shop……..A veritable vision of pink,  engulfed in a cloud of some intense floral scent ……. Her elaborate, frosted curls were tortured into submission with a variety of pins and clips, all very pink and decidedly girlie. I must add that she was in her mid-seventies.

This candyfloss- goddess with the stiff quaff, was bedecked in pink, in your face pink…

Her eyes looked as if she allowed her talented little grand daughter  to colour it in, lines of colour, and Petal Pink lipstick adorned the smiling mouth.

Her array of pink bangles jangled away as she beamed at my choice of eye shadow…….

The softer pink twinset and pink cotton pants flowed down to the kitten heels, that had her pink tootsies peeping out.

I revelled in her gutspa and zany pezazz

She was at one with herself and enjoyed herself thoroughly.

To add to the pleasure of this encounter, we discovered a Coffee Shop with an outside stoep.

 I immediately made a beeline for it, and as I was sipping the filter brew, I heard the distinct lilt of a West African accent. My heart melted and I must confess that I flirted with the most charming and focussed car guard ever!

These two incidents pleased me thoroughly, so I shall return to my peaceful centre....and isn't that a good place to be?

Spread the love and be blessed and fabulous**

What was her name?

We have just celebrated Easter, and for many people it was a  wonderful time of being off work, children went on Easter Egg Hunts and the Easter Bunny is seen all over the show. If you were fortunate enough to bribe or emotionally blackmail someone into buying you a Lindt Bunny .....great.  I was not successful in my attempts, but gorged on the old standby, the marshmallow egg. YUM!!

I also, for the first time,  focussed on where the Easter Celebration originated from, and it was most interesting.
Here is what I learnt: 'Easter was originally the Celebration of Ishtar, the Assyrian and Babelonian Godess of Fertility and sex.After Constantine decided to Christianise the Empire,it was changed to represent Jesus.'

For Christians this Celebration is pivotal to their Faith and some will not indulge in the frivolity of Easter Eggs and silly bunnies. They feel affronted by this' debasing' of the Crucifixion and subsequent rising from the dead by Christ. As a believer, I do respect their opinion, but I honestly just love the chocolate!

Whatever your belief or opinion, here is what I encountered over Easter time.

The morning after Good Friday,  I was awake very early. It was a beautiful and breezy-fresh morning and not quite light yet. All was well and I enjoyed the serenity and quiet of God's New Day.....until I read a small article on a blogsite. The article would probably go largely unnoticed in South Africa, as we are subjected to this kind of depravity on a regular basis. An image popped up......

This was not a South African girl. She was at most 19 years old, naked and on her back with her legs splayed ,...... a piece of wood protruding from her vagina.

She was dead, and I pray and believe that she went to her Heaven.
 Her name was not provided.  Were they trying to preserve her privacy? Really?

If you take into account the history of the celebration of Easter, this girl becomes (in my mind) a parody of the Godess of Fertility. Broken, degraded, tortured......

She was someone's child, maybe someone's sibling, she had a name and she had dreams and aspirations.

 She had a story...........

 I was overcome by the spiritual implication of the desecration of something so beautiful and alive as this young woman.
 The deed, the motivation behind it.......the Evil that came out to play, because the Evil was welcomed in by someone..  Did the perpetrator wish to make a statement? Why? Where is this person now? Does the scene replay in the obviously disturbed mind of the killer?
Where is this child's mother? Was this girl someone's mother?

 I may never know the truth behind it, but I hold on to my Truth that Christ died for her, a brutalised human being, and He died for the killer as well.

Spread the Love and Keep your Lights on****
The Lord's Prayer played by Marcus Miller on Clarinet is like a balm to the Soul**

Keep your lights on -Carlos Santana with Everlast

                          To my soul brother who loves God and loses himself in the Nightsky

 Many years ago I read an amazing book. It is called 'Tramp for the Lord' by Corrie ten Boom. She is a
Dutch lady, who with her elder sister and Father were incarcerated in Auscwitz for harbouring Jews. She survived this hell, but her sister and father died there. She subsequently became a 'tramp for the Lord' and preached her message of forgiveness all over the world. All her belongings were in a suitcase and she lived in Faith and Trust in God.
One day, after bringing her message of forgiveness, she was confronted by her tormentor. The man that tortured her 82 year old Father to death.  He stood in front of her, tears streaming down his face, begging her forgiveness.  And right there, she realized that she couldn't do this. The irony of her preaching forgiveness and her own unwillingness to do so, did not escape her, and she asked the Spirit of God to help her. Her arm eventually lifted (not from her own volition) and she greeted him and waited for God to speak the words that she couldn't utter. God helped this faithfull child of his, and the words came......and the last of the poison left her.......and she was free..she was walking in the Light..

Another of her experiences stayed with me as well. She told of how the women were lined up every morning, early...and made to stand on the parade ground in silence for hours... Women died and fell down and was taken away to be dumped like garbage. They were officially in Hitler's Hell and there seemed no way out. She prayed fervently through out this early morning humiliaton and begged God for Relief.

 One morning, very early,as the group of miserable prisoners stood in silence, they heard the beautiful song of  a Nightingale. The bird swooped and sang in the blue sky and one by one the women looked up....up ....up.....away from the misery and deprivation.....away from the hate and the pain........their souls soared with God's creature and they felt His Upliftment and Care.  This Nightingale came back every morning to entertain and sustain the souls of the women  .Their collective Spirit was lifted and every morning from then on was spent in deep meditation and wonderment.   It became a Holy time of the day and God made His presence clear to all.   Death became a Graduation.   They knew where they would go to and they knew that what was happening to them was temporary.

We don't all land up in a concentration camp, but we sure go through our own hell at times. Living in South Africa is a stressfull experience to many. (Come to think of it, living in this world is very stressfull ) Our crime statistics are incredibly high, we have become the rape capital of the world..The Spirit of this nation is troubled by violence and phobias.

And of course not everyone in South Africa wants to kill and rape, but it would sure help if we could recognize the Spirit of people that cross our paths. Again I pray for the Spirit of discernment.

This leads me to the title of this blog. The deep,haunting- husky sound of Everlast combined with the wailing guitar of Carlos Santana playing 'Keep your lights on' Yes!       (Somewhere here I can hear children singing 'This little Light of Mine)'
Would it not be awesome if we all kept our Lights on?

 Show who we are so we don't waste time having to rifle through our psyche to unearth that which are kept in the dark....all the lies and the deceit out there.... taking ownership... 'In order to shift from Duality to Unity, all that has been held in the dark must be brought to the Light'         (@Nilini)

'Lovers keep your Light on, Killers keep your Light on, Children you better keep your Lights on'
'There's an Angel with his hand on my head, saying I have nothing to fear....Let your Light shine into my home...'

I share a love of the Milkyway and the Northern Lights with my soul brother. I have looked at so much footage of Aurora Dancing in the Night Sky, sometimes with a stray meteor in the picture and a spectacular Milky Way for good meassure, altogether a Cellestial Light Display that makes me thank God for Keeping His Lights on for us. We need to know that He is there if we have difficulty seeing him on earth. He makes me look up.....up.....up....away from  sadness and cruelty and makes me want to join in the dance of the Northern Lights lighting up in the sky.....contemplating the fleeting time spent on earth and Eternity ahead.

It is because our time here is fleeting that I want to preserve and live each moment, I want to see people loving each other, caring for each other and strengthening each other on  our individual  journeys.

Could we not have 'An interplanetary Party? (great song by the way, Mr Santana) Yes, a party where all 'God's children will live in Peace with no boundaries'


Doing the Celestial Shake.......and Keeping the Lights on**
Spread the love ooo

Traffic Department Blues

A long line of people...... Their eyes start to glaze over after an hour, no-one knows exactly what's going on as no-one explains or communicates with the masses..... I watch a young girl walking at a snail's pace, pulling a cleaning cart behind her. Her eyes are much to tired for her age, the place is sucking the energy out of everyone......

I am flanked by two men and they both suffer from severe halitosis which is making my seven hour wait an absolute hell......

Inside the place a group of weary people sit and wait to have their eyes tested in order to obtain a renewal on their driver's license...... there are 6 booths, yet only one person is working.....very slowly...

Another consultant slowly drags herself into the booth, while slurping her coffee and eating her breakfast, which causes a further delay as she sips and chews continuously...... she manages to test her poor victim's eyes and then gets up, yawns, and drags herself out of the room, she disappears for the rest of the day........

I have to use the bathroom... I locate it eventually, a miserable hovel of a building, no locks on the door, filthy inside, and walk into a huge man who tells me that men and women share the toilet......I don't want to die at the Traffic Department in a nightmare bathroom.....


I get back to my seat, and the next thing a belligerent character starts shouting at me for pushing in........ I inform him that I've been there since before 7, but he continuous to yell at me, (at this point I am suffering severe withdrawal symptoms as I stopped smoking...) I eventually lose my temper and shout back at him.
Its horrible........

An old man lights up and I have to forcibly restrain myself from grabbing the cigarette out of his hands....... I contemplate whether I should buy a loose cigarette, and have to immediately visualize myself as a non-smoker........breathe.......water.......breathe.....

My license expired seven months ago.....I didn't realize this fact......I am praying hard that whoever helps me does not insist that I re-do my Learners and Drivers.....at my age.....ridiculous........

I want to complain about the lack of service, but I have to eat humble pie.......I can't afford a fine....

My ID photo is horrendous, I look like a hag, no soft lighting here.........I pay an exorbitant fee to the entrepreneur outside taking ID photos, for the privilege of having this image from hell glued onto my new license.....

Wafts of smoke are driving me crazy......It smells horrible ......water.....breathe........

I am eventually seated inside, as halitosis boy comes to call me......

I land up with a really pleasant lady who tests my eyes, and she tells me I passed the test.

She wants to see my old drivers license and my stomach flips over....
Thank you Lord, she barely glances at it, which means  I will pay the normal price for the document.

A group of people enter the eye-testing room, and the big man that oversees it all tells them to turn around and face the door......'You must leave! Go back to your seats outside, no-one gave you permission to enter here'
The tired group grumble and turn around in shame, they leave and some people start to snigger....
An obese man devours a few packets of chips, he gobbles it up and there is chip shrapnel everywhere..

Breathe........water..........

There are no windows .....a faulty florescent light flickers insanely, which causes my eyes to start burning.
I feel very sorry for anyone who suffers from epilepsy..

I start to compose a blues song in my head, I want to wail in despair. It won't help.

I stand in another que for an hour, waiting to pay.

Hell is indeed alive and well on Earth.

Spreading the Love more than ever and so very grateful that I don't work there.