Aug. 7, 2021

I came out of hospital on Monday, 11^th July, the day the nonsense (violence and looting started). We weren’t sure if we would make it home because of possible roadblocks, but we did.

It must be understood that it was not the whole of South Africa that was on fire but on those two parts, Durban and Joburg, where there are many Zulus. The rest of South Africa went on as normal. The supporters of the former president, Jacob Zuma, (much like Trump) had organized an insurrection (Like Jan. 7^th) hoping to unseat Cyril Ramaphosa, the president who took over from Zuma who was given a 15 month jail sentence for contempt of Constitutional court. His supporters were angry that the Ramaphosa government actually put him in jail. There was a group of dissidents who carefully planned this insurrection, targetting  certain main malls and other places, hoping that it would catch on and bring the country to its needs under Ramaphosa’s watch which would be his demise. In some places people defended their malls and their turf with sticks and brooms and whatever saying no looters a re going to loot our places. The A2 , the arterial road between Joburg and Durban was blocked off and many trucks were torched and looted so that drivers, when things calmed down a bit, were still frightened to return to their trucks again. Most goods come from the port city of Durban, including petrol, so for some days there was a lack of goods like bread, milk, mealie meal, etc. including medicines (pharmacies had also been looted), supply chains had been broken and had to be restored. This was amazingly done very quickly, and in a few days things were more or less operating well. There is a hunt on for the planners and instigators. I hope they get a very severe penalty. It was, as usual, the poor people who suffered the most as they don’t have friends who have friends to help..Enough of that.

One of the after effects of the op was a difficulty in swallowing, so that although I was hungry, I could only eat a very little, as much as the esophagus would allow. Even water had to be swallowed in sips which added to my constipation problems. The surgeon said that the retractors that kept the esophagus from getting in the way (He went in through the lower neck) while he worked on the spinal column and cord.

I ran out of steam…will try to continue tomorrow.