The adventures of Hot pant, Sweets Cheeks & Trendy Knix, a Propella Shaft and a man named Shane...

I have just returned from a fab time away on hols. We had so much fun, lots of laughter and general South African Luxury. It was really nice to get a break from work. We did a lot of driving on our 10 day break around SA and I spent a lot of money on car parts to bring back to Zim. The car was amazing and did really well ... until our return -30 km's outside of West Nicholson, Zimbabwe...

Picture the scene: It is dark, there is no phone signal and we are in the middle of nowhere with Zimbabwe's bush all around us. Suddenly we heard a loud noise coming from my trusty Landy. We stopped and I had a look- dreading that it might be the fan belt- I have nothing that will substitute. I can't find anything so we cautiously proceed ... another 200 metres when, BAM, suddenly with a loud shattering noise we see a large piece of metal come up through the accelerator pedal and then drop down with a clanging thud onto the road below. Oria gracefully (!) manouvers the car onto the side of the road and we get out and look at what 'fell off' the car. A few metres back we find it- 15cm in length and 5cm thick, of a heavy metal cog- oh yes my Landy's propella shaft has just fallen off my car (this is part of the piece that connects my front and rear wheels together- see picture above)!

We set up camp, displaying various warning triangles and pray the right person will stop. But no, 4 drivers whizz past us ignoring our hand flapping motions.

Then when hope is almost lost, a round bellied Shane appears in a car ladden with goods smuggled from South Africa towing a trailer also filled to brim. He stops, gets out, looks at the part that 'fell off' my car and calmly says 'oh that's your prop shaft'. He then proceeds to get under the landy and muffles 'Yeah, I can get you going again'. This AMAZING guy, it turns out, grew up with Land Rovers. He quietly disconnects my universal joint and my 4x wheel drive so that we can drive the remaining 3 hours to home. Not only does he save us having to sleep in the bush and or possible theft attempts by getting us going again he also follows us all the way home to check we are alright- what a legend!

Zimbabweans can be truly 'Lekker bru'

Below Live footage of the breakdown and rescue...

School Trip

I went out to a rural primary school this last week to pre- test some of our public health material. 8 of us piled into my trusty Landy and headed out into the bush. The school we visited had no roof (it blew off in the rains) and the children sit on the floor. It is absolutely crazy to think that 10 years ago Zimbabwe's school system was the most respected in Africa. Today it is completely in ruins; a whole generation of children have not been educated. It is quite a frightening reality.

As part of one of the projects I run I have written a book on life skills for children from 5-18. We wanted to test out the workbooks for children aged 4-8 in a rural area. The children were sweet but is was so strange. They have not been in school so they have no concept of learning. They have not been conditioned to engage with a teacher. They just sit in silence, looking nervous- it is quite like talking to a brick wall. They don't even really know how to sing songs.

Lots of the questions for this age group in the workbook ask them to draw pictures and colour in. The children we gave the books to, did not know what to do with the pencils. They couldn't understand the idea of colouring in and just looked confused. A few children drew one straight line across the page. Isn't that crazy that children have not learnt to colour in- aged 8? They also really struggled to recognise pictures on a page- they don't have books so they have not every connected a picture to the real life object. I was left pretty stunned and very concerned- the task ahead here is enormous.

Siegfried update

Well sad news my friends; Siegfried will not be travelling with me to the UK with me when I return. I discovered that he is an African Leopard Tortoise and that this species does not hibernate. To attempt to hibernate him will cause him to die! To counter this I would have to build him a UV heated pen and he would need a large pen (since he will grow to be the size of a small dog- they are the 4th largest species in the world). Even I think this is a bit excessive- perhaps this is a hint to leave him in his natural 'African' habitat?!!

While on the school trip last week I came across another little chap happily walking along the road. Once he saw me he rapidly scarpered off and I let him / her be. He is a different species to Siegfried but still very cute. People here eat tortoise-I find this utterly terrible, maybe I should start a rescue centre in my spare time?!