Imminent Irena and everything in between

After a terrific weekend of game drives, good food and cyclone Irena scares at Tembe Elephant Park I came home to find security guards chasing (no jokes literally chasing) a little vervet monkey around the premises. The monkey who took refuge in a tree close to the house of Baby Spice and Ton-dawg was followed by the security guard, their catapult and promises of monkey friends if it came down (by monkey friends the security meant monkey meat for “KFC” as he called it). Luckily for the monkey Ton-dawg was near by, she stopped any security shenanigans with a inarguably logical argument “My house. My tree. My monkey. Please leave my friend alone… Bye bye”. I didn’t hang around to see what became of the little monkey, all I know is that is was the prelude to another week of laughs in The Voomles.

On Monday I came to therapy department to find that it was flooded. Why was it flooded you may ask? Contrary to popular belief Irena had not entered the building - this week "Irena" has been blamed for everything! One guy passed the flooded department exclaimed “oh I see, Irena (the cyclone) came to visit over the weekend; but she saw that no one was home so she left a message”. Instead of a visit from Irena we had a special someone. This special someone left the tap open when there was no water; at some point on the weekend the water came back on and flooded the department as a cloth was left in the sink covering the plug hole.

Me with an abnormally large head looking confused at the river flowing from the therapy door

Seeing as our department now looked like Therapy Island operation Sponge was put in place. Everyone was recruited for the clean up. The original disaster management crew comprised of our 2 cleaners, myself, The Chrin, the senior physio and OT as well as our 2 translators. Water was dispersed by using mops and brooms, water was collected using scoops and water ploughs were created out of blankets. At some point the legendary Mam July recruited 5 Pink Ladies as well as a few people in suites to assist in the operation. 45minutes later order was restored, and another Manic Monday ushered in.

Figure 1. Therapy Island-My artistic interpretation of Mondays flooding. A) Mam July sweeping the water. B) Army of Pink Ladies C) Colleague standing on the table making a phone call D) Person ploughing water E) Patient sitting on a chair surrounded by water