STOCK THIEVES

I have been a bit busy the last week with various projects and surprise calls by people.
Monday and Tuesday I had to go out and cut firewood for the week; part of the fun side of living in the countryside.
And then on Wednesday we had very cold weather with the berg winds blowing cold Cape weather up from the south and covering the berg in snow. All day we could see the snow falling on the mountains, just south of us, a bitter day.
That night bought more bitterness for our two neighbours.
The farm caretaker on the north had five cattle stolen and the farmer to our south east had eleven stolen. Both these people are black people who rely on their cattle as their family wealth. A theft like this would have cleared their futures out completely. It takes years for them to accumulate their small herds. The cattle thieves are from Lesotho, which is less than twenty kilometres from here, on the other side of the mountains.
On Friday morning I had a phone call from the community watch. Cattle thieves from Lesotho have taken 156 head of stock in this area alone, since the beginning of the month. I have been asked to write an article for the newspapers that will embarrass the government. They make so many promises and do nothing. These thieves have bankrupted large farmers as well as the smaller guys.
A few months back, further south, 500 of the small holders and farmers got together after the government had done nothing about stock losses.
They went across the international border, into Lesotho, and raided the raiders!
Cattle, goats, sheep and horses were herded back into South Africa. There was a huge international (between the two countries) outcry. But, if the South African government had acted as they promised that would never have happened in the first place.
So look out for the blog. I will be giving the blog name out in the next few days.