The journey begins! Hofmeyr and Aliwal North

With the project work plan, budget and cash flow having been finalised, the last activity in the preparatory phase of the project was the briefing of the six (6) participating NGOs on the project objectives, activities and deliverables. This activity kicked off on 5th August, 2014 with a trip to Hofmeyr where the Hofmeyr Advice Centre, one of the participating NGOs, is located. Hofmeyr is about 350 km from East London.

The three of us, me, Pinkie and Vuyo, left East London, with Pinkie driving an ECNGOC Toyota Avanza,  at about 10:30hrs on a bright Tuesday morning and headed for Queenstown, about 188 km from East London. In Queenstown, we took a left turn, the R67, just after the second traffic circle on  the Aliwal North bound road. We encountered some road works soon after forcing as to take a detour to Whittlesea instead of driving straight to Taarkastad. I think we missed the road that should have taken us back to the Taakastad road after the road works. We ended up in Whittlesea and had to ask for directions to Taarkastard. We were directed to a dirt road that would take us to  Taarkastad road. We passed through the Bulhoek Massacre Memorial Site before reaching the Taarkastad junction. I have always had this interest in places of historical significance and I made a mental note to learn more about the Bulhoek Massacre Memorial Site.

We eventually got to the Taarkastad road junction, passed through the sleepy town of Taarkastad and arrived in Hofmeyr, an even more sleepy town than Taarkastad. About 17 km of the road from Taarkastad to Hofmeyr was untarred. We found the Hofmeyr Advice Center officials waiting for us at their office. I introduced the project and the officials, Mr Nkosinathi and Mrs Mosintu who            informed us that a project such as this was long overdue as financial management was the weakest link in their operations. The Hofemyr Advice Center only had the Internet Café as the only project running at the moment. The had previously run Human Rights and  HIV/Aids awareness projects in the immediate past.

We proceeded on to Aliwal North were we would spend the night, passing through Steynsburg and Bugersdop. We arrived in Aliwal North around 19:30 hrs and I immediately hit the sack. Old age was creeping in slowly, I guess. The following morning, we found our way to Ikwezi Mphatlalasane Old Age Care Centre. We met the Coordinator, Ms Sabi Zingani . The project was introduced and we hit the road for East London.