Stoic.....thats how I l have always liked to think of my self....uncomplaining......patient.....meek (after all the meek will inherit the earth" they tell me)......resigned even......

civilised certainly...........but always patient, always polite and always smiling.............but

NO.... NO ....NO ...NO...NOT ANY MORE !!!

Whatever happened ? I ask myself....why this dramatic metamorphosis....why this incredible change in character from a sweet smiling little woman into a demented, screaming, maniacal imbecile, snarling, biting, spitting, fighting !!!!

Need I ask ?

Perhaps it all started in a petrol queue one sunny day somewhere. When I needed the loo so badly eyes were swimming, the sun was burning a hole in my arm, the combi behind me was determined to take my space, and the pump ran out just as I reached it ?

Was it the three hours I spent at the Beitbridge Border post, standing in a queue a mile long, snaking outside across the melting tarmac with the temperatures in the hundreds.

My fellow queue jumpers (sorry I mean my fellow queuers) had no idea of what space was mine and what was theirs, and insisted on cuddling up to me in spite of the heat, and the customs officer, in spite of being paid as a Civil Servant, was definitely an Uncivil Servant.

Perhaps it was my character building encounter at the Carbon Tax counter in that amazing rabbit warren of a building at the top of tenth avenue, where the only lady serving a forty- person- long queue, was inputting data at the rate of one symbol per five minutes !!

On the other hand it could have been my determined stand at obtaining a Death Certificate at that most hideous of all hellholes, the Births and Deaths registry office behind the Drill Hall.!!

Sometimes I find myself muttering obscenities at the goods on the supermarket shelves, as I peer at them short sightedly, hoping, praying, begging that the figure I am reading is not the price but instead, could it possibly be the "sell by" date ?

Often these days I find myself mouthing indecent swear words at the taxi drivers and making horribly rude gestures under the dashboard, while trying to keep my eyes on the road so as not to invoke a road rage reaction in the combi in the next lane, that is trying to force me off the road to pick up a passenger.

Yes, I have changed, we have all changed, but we must try and stop this change, from the person we would like to be, into the person we have been forced to become via circumstance.

So grit your teeth Kriel, stand your ground. Make sure that everything you do is civilised, everything you say is Ladylike, everything you think, has Godly proportions.

I will not bow to this subversion of my senses, I will not allow anything that is savage and uncivilised to encompass my life.

Democracy will triumph, civilisation will triumph, we will go forwards and not backwards.

"Believe and Succeed: Courage does not always roar.

Sometimes, it is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, 'I will try again tomorrow'."