Valentine Celebrated In Aberdeen

The Secondary School in Aberdeen celebrated Valentine by having a dance for the learners in the school hall, and by choosing a Miss and Mr Valentine.
The event was organized by Mrs Jackie Muller and Mr Marius Frazenburg. The music for the dance was arranged by Mr George Ngeju. Seen in the photograph from left to right, seated are Kay-Lee Muller 1st Princess, then Pruchenda Afrika Miss Valentine and Veronique Jantjies 2nd Princess. In the back row, from left to right are, Ignatius Pieterse, Mr Valentine Shane Klaasen, and Emile Beyers.

Article By: Joan Tinker

Bringing Rain To Our Region

I spent four years as an apprentice in the Native American Indian Church. On many occasions over that period, I heard the Chief say that on that particular night they were going to ‘bring rain’ [our worship services lasted from sunset to sunrise]. Never once, after stating such intent, did they fail. One year all the Native American Indian Churches decided that the drought was so severe, that they were going to collectively bring a deep-soaking snow to the whole of Arizona – in mid-March! Snow in the desert at that time of year is unheard of. By morning, when we walked out the tipi, the ground was a carpet of white. That day I drove eight hours to attend another church ceremony in the northern part of the State – and there was snow on the side of the road all the way.
I once asked my teacher, the late Cheyenne Elder, Colin Kingfisher {pictured above}, how they managed to communicate so successfully with The Great Spirit – which is their chosen name for God. “Very simple,” he replied with that humorous glint in his eye. “First you have to learn to speak in the language of The Great Spirit – which is not with all these fancy words you use. You modern people have so many words you have to be lying a lot of the time,” he chuckled. “And anyway, when it comes to prayer, many of you modern people have forgotten what role words and rituals play in praying. You now use these things to try and communicate ‘meaning’ – whereas we use them to communicate feeling. Even though it looks like we are communicating to The Great Spirit with our tongues and deeds, we are not - we are always communicating directly with the emotional energy that we hold within our heart. The heart is our tool of direct communication with our Creator – not the mouth.”
He then went on to explain that Native American Holy men and women do not pray for rain – they literally pray rain. “You will not hear us asking for rain – but you will hear us speaking words that celebrate the many wonderful feelings of receiving rain. We do not come to The Great Spirit from a place of fear and lack, but from a place of gratitude and abundance.” He explained that ‘communicating the wonderful feeling of receiving rain’ is always the sole intent of their prayer. He said that to intentionally bring rain, they go to their holy place - be it in a tipi or upon a piece of open ground they consider sacred - or even in their back yard - and there they bring the awareness of the feeling of receiving rain into the heart.
“When we pray for rain, we do not use our words to ask for it by explaining to The Great Spirit that we are having a drought. Instead, we use our words and rituals to bring into our heart the feeling of rain falling from the sky, the feeling of the wet mud, cold and squelchy between our toes, the feeling of our rain-soaked garments clinging cold to our skin, and the feeling of the sight of children playing joyfully in the puddles. We don’t ask for – we celebrate the receiving of. This is the essential difference between our way, and yours. We do not come to The Great Spirit with a heavy, burdened, fearful heart, but with joyful gratitude for the abundance of receiving. This is the way we are in all our praying.”
“To accomplish these feelings,” he continued, “we remember the last time it rained and how wonderful it felt to smell that first aroma of rain in the desert air. We remember the sound of raindrops dancing upon our rooftops and the crashing laughter of The Lightening and Thunder Beings as they deliver us this wonderful blessing. Listen,” he said. “This is the great secret of all rain-making…I will tell you.” He then paused momentarily, the way he would when seeking to gain my full attention. “Go to a place that is sacred to you and hold the feeling of receiving rain in your heart for as long as possible, joyfully and abundantly. Bring no other negative feelings of lack with you, no feelings of sadness or fear into this felt-prayer – otherwise what you receive from The Great Spirit are events that bring about such negative feelings. Remember, the real rain dance always takes place in the human heart – nowhere else.”
Sometimes we have to go thirsty before we are prepared to drink in a new point of view. I wonder what would happen if everyone reading this letter sipped deeply upon the wisdom of Cheyenne Elder Colin Kingfisher? What would happen if we spent a few moments a few times a day holding within our heart-space the feeling of receiving an abundance of rain throughout our Karoo region? How does it feel to drive along the roads between our Karoo towns and see all the dams full and the vegetation glistening green from the moisture of an abundantly replenishing rainfall?
We all know how good it feels when it rains in The Karoo – how wonderful it smells and how happy our heart is to wake up in the morning hear and the sound of raindrops dancing upon our rooftops. It takes nothing from us to spend a few moments emptying our heart each day of our drought-full fears, and instead consciously filling it with the gratitude and joy of the feeling of receiving replenishing rain.

Article By: Michael Brown

Comments From Aberdeen Municipality On Advertiser Articles

1. Mr Clive Kombani stated that the ‘Public Works Department’ would be responsible for clearing the dump site, and for clearing the rubbish distributed through out the area. A bull dozer would also be used to clear the dump site area.
2. Mr Kombani was aware of the broken fencing problem, and said that it would be repaired.
3. The illegal dumping site would be bull dozed and the illegal entrance made by the removal of stolen fencing, would be repaired and closed.
4. The Municipality would open a police docket at the Aberdeen Police Community Centre with regard to the stolen fencing which has been missing since October 2009.The Municipality’s insurance company would be advised that the fencing had been stolen and should be replaced.
5. The resident of Auret and Main Street, who has failed to keep their residence in a clean manner, will receive a letter of complaint from the Aberdeen Municipality. The resident will also be requested to clear their property of rubbish immediately.
6. Water restrictions appear to be assisting the water pressure and water flow in Aberdeen. The spring water or “eye” which is a natural water flow is in the process of being cleaned. This should hopefully result in future ‘lei water’.
7. The area where the large haulage trucks “overnight” is private and not municipal property, and should be maintained and cleaned by the owner.
Hopefully, the above issues will be attended to and resolved.

Comments Submitted By: Joan Tinker

Aberdeen Fonteinbos! “To Be Or Not To Be?” That Is The Question...

Standing in front of the entrance to the Fonteinbos just outside Aberdeen on the N9, the feeling of desolation, abandonment, and neglect is prevalent.
The entrance to this designated area for wild animals to live peacefully and in harmony with nature and man has been vandalized, neglected and obviously forgotten.
A building to the right of this sad looking entrance has had the roof removed. Perhaps it is a lack of official control, poor official management, insufficient funds and just total lack of interest to the people of Aberdeen, to the local farming community and to the associations who supposedly promote Aberdeen and its surrounds to visitors and tourists?
In the past two years, influential qualified people have been invited to Aberdeen to try and see the potential of the Fonteinbos and to convey their advice to the government departments responsible for undertaking a project to rehabilitate and promote this area. If it is to be believed, finance was requested from the government to secure this area, to build camping sites, walking trails, biking paths, build a tourism bureau and the many other wonderful projects. Exactly nothing appears to be happening, so is this project “to be or not to be” or will it remain forever in the pipeline of the mind?

Article By: Joan Tinker

Back Yard Rubbish Greets Visitors Entering Aberdeen From Graaff-Reinet Slipway

A disgusting dump site in the back yard of a house on the corner of Auret and Main Streets greets visitors as they drive into Aberdeen. As the speed limit in this area is 60 kilometers per hour, it gives every available opportunity for the visitors and unhappy Aberdeen residents, to have a good look at the rubbish. Piles of empty bottles, old basins and goodness knows what else, has been discarded out of the back door of this residence. All this rubbish is not contained by the inadequate fencing and large cacti, but blows across the road and ends up on the nearby National Road. Although numerous complaints have been received by the Aberdeen Municipality, all they have done is write a letter to these ‘rubbish offenders’ requesting that the dreadful mess to be cleared away. As usual this is as far as it goes in Aberdeen. Any other Municipality would have gone in to the property cleared up the awful mess and sent the owners an account. A Ratepayers Association would certainly have brought pressure to bear on these people.
Across the road from this ‘House of Litter’ is an area where trucks passing through Aberdeen ‘overnight’. Here too, the rubbish and empty bottles lie unattended. This must certainly be the dirtiest town in the Karoo!!

Article By: Joan Tinker

Shocking Fencing Situation Along The N9 Entrance Into Aberdeen From Willowmore

Approaching Aberdeen from Willowmore direction by road, approximately 70 metres of fencing on the outskirts of Aberdeen Town has been removed, and this gives access to animals to wander onto the N9. This area has also been illegally established as an alternative dumping site!!

Further along on this same N9 route, approximately 70 metres of broken and destroyed fencing also gives access onto the road by animals. This should have been reported to the Roads Department by the Municipality a long time ago. The speed limit along this road is from 100 to 120 kilometres per hour, which is fast enough for some unsuspecting motorist to possibly have an accident trying to avoid an animal.

So, if you are traveling on this route from the direction of Willowmore into Aberdeen, and you see this road sign as pictured, please slow down to a comfortable speed which might enable you to avoid whatever crosses the road in your path.
Once again this only goes to show a monumental lack of control, neglect and poor management by the appointed people, who are supposed to keep Aberdeen clean, well maintained and law abiding.

Article By: Joan Tinker

Frightening Environmental Disaster At Uncontrolled Aberdeen Dumpsite

The entrance to the dump site off the N9 is strewn with rubbish, just dumped at intervals on the sides of the dirt road to the dump site itself, by lazy, unconcerned and uncaring Aberdeen, Lotusville and Thembalisizwe residents. The litter is blown and distributed by wind all over the area causing a health hazard to the town and surrounding areas. Rubbish fills drainage systems, coats the fencing with plastic bags of all colours, shapes and sizes, with contents unknown. Plastic containers roll around in the wind and discarded tires, broken cardboard boxes, old magazines, tin cans and stale food are amongst the more seemly of this disgusting litter that is practically on the N9 and is also moving up the opposite hill side.
There is no security or gate control to this site and definitely no apparent organization. No notice informs the public of times when and where designated dumping is permitted, and where it is prohibited, so residents dump rubbish when and where ever it suits them.
Fencing to the area surrounding the dump site has either been broken, trodden down into the ground, or it has been stolen.

The view from the dump site area stretches for miles around, with plastic bags containing who knows what decorating the Karoo.

At some stage a toilet facility for the “unseen workers” was erected at the dumpsite. This is a solemn monument to the site itself. The building speaks volumes. Graffiti covers the filthy dirty walls. The door to this disgusting non functional toilet facility has been stolen, as has the toilet, which gives an excellent view of the rubbish piled up inside. To venture in further than the open door way, would be a grave health risk.
An aerial view of this site should be sent to Mayor Daantjie Japhta who basks on the pages of the Advertiser as having the 'most functional Camdeboo Municipality'. Congratulations Mayor!
It should also be brought to the attention of Mr Monde Longbooi, who should assist Mr Clive Kombani with this massive problem which is already out of hand. How long is it since any official of the government environmental or health services has paid this dump site a visit? It would also be a good idea for all residents to venture out to the dump site to see exactly how they are all living on the edge of a health and environmental disaster and how their rubbish is being distributed over the Karoo, because the rubbish does belong to the residents of this town.

On Tuesday 2nd February, when the truck arrived at the dump site and tipped off the load of rubbish, people suddenly appeared from behind the tall dump and started sifting through the bags. Then the municipal employees on the truck unloaded old computers and other electrical goods. Local children, who should have been at school, started breaking up these electrical goods, and taking parts of the equipment.
This practice of ‘going through’ bags of rubbish is a health risk to these people.
The Aberdeen dumpsite should be managed and secure. Guidelines for the disposal of domestic waste should be clearly adhered to, and detailed planning should be put into place. Collection, transportation, treatment and final disposal of rubbish, is obviously not being managed. There could be hazardous waste in the rubbish bags, and this would only be known to the disposer of such items, so control and security of this dumpsite is vitally important.

Article By: Joan Tinker