Post 33 Build it Journey
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Today was another great day. The sun shone brightly, the sky shone a brilliant blue and all was right with the world. On top of all this today I met two absolute gentlemen.
After a beautiful and easy drive, I arrived at Bethlehem’s Build It store to meet with John Le Roux. What an amazingly humble, nice gentle man. After apologizing for my terrible Afrikaans (something I am going to be doing more and more as I enter into the Karoo and then the Western Cape) we went through John’s listing which showed great results for the store. A few changes were to be made and I left the store feeling really chuffed about our website and what it is achieving for Build It.
I then pointed the little Getz on a northerly direction and the two of us (the Getz and I) sped up to Reitz – the trip somewhat stop start as the roads are being repaired up that way. Something I don’t feel grumpy about as if our infrastructure is getting improved than that is a good thing. It’s just when no one is working on the roads and everyone is getting stopped that I get grumpy ha ha. There were people working today I am pleased to report
In Reitz (a town I believe was named after the Reitz family of Boer War fame. One of my favourite war books is Commando by Denys Reitz. A fascinating account of a very young Reitz 3 long years fighting in a Boer Commando – more often than not using guerrilla tactics – and his many scrapes fighting the British. He does not write in a bitter way and each time you open the book to carry on reading you are transported to that time and alongside him such is his writing. It is truly unbelievable that he survived the war such was his many near death experiences. He was also a ‘bitter-einder’ (spelling) which was probably caused by Britain’s scorched earth policy and first use of concentration camps which were used not to intern combatants of the war but the families of the Boer soldiers being their women and children in dreadful conditions where many of them died as a result of their treatment or rather lack of. The plan of the policy of scorched earth – burning down every house, crops, killing of all livestock – and the concentration camps caused the opposite of the desired effect to bring the war to an end in my opinion. It just caused the Boers to harden further and not give up. Knowing my personality if someone burned my house down and put my family of non-combatants in a concentration camp in appalling conditions I might just never give up either. Anyway – that’s some information about Reitz – I think J Ps – Another great book for the war buffs out there is The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer about the fighting on the Eastern Front in the second World War – absolutely awful and terrifying – but so well written and so vivid too. First World War is All Quiet on the Western Front for me. But I think I must get back to visiting Build It stores now I visited with another absolute gentlemen AJ Swart. What a great guy, very patient and just a super bloke.
We had an awesome chat also, not just about our listing, and I left the store feeling very satisfied with my day. I bumbled slowly back to my digs in Clarens with perfect weather and for once I got in early so that I could go for a late afternoon hike through the mountains of this exquisite and beautiful town. One of my best days on the trip so far.