Almost 100%

We're both getting stronger and putting the worst of the illnesses behind us. Dean definitely suffered a bit worst than Paula, but Paula was still very unwell. We are so grateful to Felicity for taking Joel off our hands on Wednesday, there's no way we could have got through the day without her support. Dean said his tummy felt like the roundworm he had in Tanzania whilst the diarrhea was like his Shigela dysentery he had in Zimbabwe, sounds nice doesn't it!

Dean did a bit of work this morning and went to support the Chris Nissen crowd in court. This was all a bit messy as Dina's husband was charged with assault against one of Patrick's grandchildren, and Dean is friendly with both parties. Unfortunately, Dean wasn't able to stay for the proceedings as Donovan's case was delayed, so we don't know the outcome yet but the judge was definitely a bit quick to dish out jail terms (more on that in a moment).

Whilst at the court, Dina informed Dean that Gert had died on Tuesday night, whilst far from unexpected it is still sad that nothing could be done to help him. This takes the total number of deaths in the community to about 20 so far this year. Given that CNP is a small community of about 1000 people this is a significant number of deaths.

More about that judge... Whilst in the court, Dean observed one case in which a young man had been caught shoplifting the day before. The man stole two chocolate bars worth R20 (£1.80), he pleaded guilty, apologised to the court and this was his first offence. The judge took these facts into account and sentenced the man to a R200 fine (£18) or 10 days in prison. As the man is unemployed with no means to pay, he was immediately taken into custody! Dean was gobsmacked! We're not condoning crime but have to say that the punishment was far in excess of the crime. No wonder South Africa's prisons are desperately overcrowded. The nonsense of this situation is that it will cost the state way more than R200 to accommodate this man for 10 days. What a crazy situation.