All About Me...Well maybe Just A little Bit

If you click on my profile, you will see my name is Frederick Stanley. My friends call me Stan. Others call me...I don't think we need to go there. I live in Berlin....NO NO not that Berlin; Berlin Eastern Cape South Africa. Berlin is roughly 40 kilometers from East London. (Almost 25 miles)

We dont have traffic lights, there is one four-way stop street; most drivers consider the sighn a guide line! There are no banks a few A.T.Ms. One day some bank robbers came to town. I dont think were bonafide bank robbers, they only stole an ATM. I mean REALLY. On pension days there are two ways to avoid the long,long,long Ques by ATMs. Go at four in the morning or wait a couple of days. What about cash-back. Only one supermarket offering that service, the lines are even longer. Being a state pensioner (70 yrsold ) I am speaking from experience, it can take the whole day to draw the princely sum of R1780 (a little over $100, even less in Sterlin or Euro)

Being a state pensioner I am getting health care from the state hospital; Frere Hospital in East London. There is only one to avoid the longer ques there. Get there early,very very early. I normally take the 4:30 A.M. Train which takes about an hour, even then I am around twentieth in the que.

The first time I took the 4:30 train, I was apprehensive, with news coverage, and stories of train violence. Getting into the carriage I tried to make myself inconspicuous, well as much as the only white person on the train. I sat looking down onto my lap,my hands in my pocket, when I felt a tap on my shoulder, I looked up, a black gentleman had his right hand outstretched, I took the hand and he greeted me.

“Molo Tata” (Morning Granddad..rough translation.

This happened often, everybody not only greeting me but the other commuters as well.

How often arent we inffluenced by negative media, making us our own biggest enemies


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

About Topic Of Cancer

I was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2014. If I had acted on my own gut feeling six years prior in 2009 when I was experiencing erectile dysfunction. If I had consulted a doctor I would have known earlier. So why didn't I go to a doctor? My then partner told me it was all in my head. After my diagnosis from a specialist my motto is; “ If you haven't walked the walk, don't give me the talk!” GO FOR REGULAR CHECK UPS, the sooner the cancer is detected the sooner the treatment can start, the greater the chance of full recovery. When I consulted a doctor for traces of blood in my urine, after walking distances stronger discharge of blood, he referred to a hospital with the specialist who confirmed it was bladder cancer. The same night I told my wife, family, and friends. I told them I would be going in for surgical procedures the next week. I googled bladder cancer read through several articles from different sites. I was feeling relaxed going into hospital, because...
Read more

This Is Life

Short while after a second procedure on my bladder, to remove the rest of a growth, tests had confirmed it was high-grade cancer. Someone asked me. “ So how's life treating you?” Wobbling my left hand, “comme ci comme ca.” Both phrases I have used countless times throughout my life without thinking twice about it. Didn’t then either just carried on with my routine for the day. However in the early hours of the next morning, when I went to bed, I was starting to drift into what I call neither world, neither here nor there. It is between being awake and sleeping, my body relaxed mind at peace with myself. It is also when I am most vulnerable to unwarranted fears and unwanted thoughts. It was then a thought lay on the empty stage of my mind, like a white plastic carrier packet laying on an empty street at night, in the circle of a street light, waiting for the wind to sweep it up. The thought was waiting for me to carry it away. Knowing from past experience trying to...
Read more

Coming To Terms With Cancer

When I was twenty-one I had a poster on my wall, Max Ehrmann's Desiderata. I played the seven Coming To Terms With Cancer single several times a day reading it out loud in time with the record. A year later I was held in detention by the drug squad; on unfounded charges, I may add. During the month in which I was the states guest, I found comfort and inner peace by constantly reciting the poem. After hearing I had bladder cancer, I left the hospital to take the train back home; Berlin Eastern Cape. While waiting an hour for the train, and the hour ride back home, I silently recited Desiderata : It is an inner peace I find by reliving the times I have drawn strenth from that poem
Read more