PAPER

We had some interesting experiences with paper while we were in South Africa.
The first one was when we went to visit one of the men from our church who managed the Mondi Paper factory in Richards Bay. It was a gigantic operation and we were really impressed. We watched the very large trucks of trees as they were delivered to the plant. They came from forest all over South Africa. According to our friend, Mondi owned more property than any other company in South Africa. They were second to the government in their land holdings.
We passed their forests in many different locations. What was interesting was that all the trees looked exactly the same. They did that to make the best use of the land and to make the harvesting of the trees much easier. The trees looked like each one had its branches in the same place and they just seemed to fit together so well. Our friend told us that they took a perfect tree and cloned it thus providing the model for all the rest of their trees.
The trees were put into a floating place where they headed towards a shredder that pulverized the trees. Inside they went through a number of different processes which purified the pulp. At the very end the pulp had become white and the last thing that was done extracted the water from the pulp and changed the pulp into flat sheets that looked somewhat like Styrofoam.
The reason that they had changed the pulp into these light sheets was to reduce the cost of shipping. Most of these sheets would be taken to the docks and shipped out primarily to Japan. Japan has a great need for paper but is lacking the necessary trees to make its own paper. The Japanese companies would received these sheets and the first thing they did was to reinsert the water into them thus enabling them to make paper out of them.
Another interesting thing that we observed at Mondi was their computer room. Most of this operation was controlled by computers and this meant that they were in a very large room. The whole side of the room was a bank of computers and almost all of the operators were Indian. Just as in India, the South African Indians are proficient in computer science.
A second experience we had about paper was up near Kruger National Game Reserve. We stopped to see a beautiful water fall. As was true at most scenic spots there were a number of kiosks on the edge of the parking lot. It was possible to buy all kinds of souvenirs there. At that particular one, there was a man who had a number of attractive paper items. Most of them had art work of some sort on them. There was a box of note cards that had very attractive pictures on them. I asked this young man (either Zulu or another people group) who had done the art work. He indicated that he had done all of it. I was impressed because it was so beautiful which meant that he had to be very talented.
I could tell the paper was different so I asked him what kind of paper it was. He indicated that it was elephant dung. That was a little shocking as you might imagine. He indicated that it was purified and was perfectly clean. We bought some of the cards to bring home with us. We also later discovered that there was a large amount of paper that was made from elephant dung and discovered that it was available at many souvenir places.
The first time that I needed to get paper for our computer printer, I found out that I did not know where to purchase it. There was one store at the mall, but it seemed like the paper was sort of expensive. We later found a store on the edge of town that was more of an office supply place and really enjoyed going there and seeing all the products they had. It was there that we bought most of our paper needs for the time we were in Richards Bay.
In this experience we discovered that it was necessary to speak up and ask when you don’t know where to get what you need. I asked one of our church people who had a computer where he purchased his paper. It is a great reminder that we don’t have to worry about sounding dumb. The people know that we are foreigners and therefore dumb to start with. They are glad to help us out of our ignorance in any way they can.

Homesick for South Africa

When we came home from South Africa, Catherine was asked to speak to a number of ladies’ groups about our experience there. We put together a Power Point presentation showing pictures of the land and the church where we were. In it Catherine said that of all the places we have been it was the one place she felt “homesick” for.
It is hard to explain. We had wonderful people in our church. It was really very exciting to be there so soon after apartheid had ended and feel the oneness in a congregation which had Afrikaans, English, Zulus, Indians, and colored all worshiping together in a spirit of love and fellowship. It was not that there were no problems, but they did not seem to be as many problems as would be true in the ordinary American church.
We did not have any idea that the country was such a beautiful land. It had everything from estuaries to beautiful mountains. It had wild animals in a natural state. It had bountiful varieties of birds. It had flowers and landscapes that were lovely. It made you feel like you were in a tropical land and at the same time, you almost felt like you experienced some weather that was like a mild winter. It had thousands of miles of coastline and areas that seemed like desert.
The problems of the nation were complicated and significant. It was hard to see the pain of unemployment at unbelievable levels. Companies wrestled with what to do about the years of a white dominated work force being infiltrated by eager largely untrained personnel. There was a very high crime rate. We knew very few families who did not have tales of family members who had been shot or stabbed out in open streets. In spite of all the bad statistics, we did not observe any of those problems.
The country has had a recent unexpected change in leadership that makes people feel frustrated by the necessary changes that have taken place. We can only hope that this fairly stable government may be able to survive the puzzling changes at this time. There are a number of significant companies which do international business. A weak dollar is not a help to those businesses who do most of their business based on the exchange with the dollar. A weak dollar means that they do not get as much money for their products.
This is a wonderful country to visit. There are five or six major areas for the tourist to see. It is a shame to only see one or two of them, but it requires significant time to take in all the land. It is not a place to just drop in and fly out. It would be great to be able to dedicate five or six weeks to a South African visit and divide the time for visiting five or six major areas of the land.