It's been a long time since I have made a posting here, after I have tried to get help for the veterans of the war and I got so little positive response i was very discouraged with everything.
But I am doing the happy dance since yesterday, and I just have to share with all of you a wonderful story.
About just more than a month ago I received a mail from a man called Deon Lamprecht, he is a reporter for Rapport and he made the 61 mech Veterans tour with them last year. He contacted me to say that he plans to write a book about the PEOPLE of Tsumeb and that he have read my blog and want to see me and my family.
We had contact for a while exchanging mails etc. Thursday night I met him. I introduced him to my family and Saturday and Sunday I spend time talking to him.
He wanted to know about my experiences as a child, how the war effected me, US..our family. We had a lekker chat.
Yesterday he came around to take photo's, and I bribed him not to with a good plate of curry... :-) But we had a good chat and without me asking him how it came to him wanting to write this book, he told me how it all came about, and here follow the story of how my little blog started all of this.
One of the 61 Mech Vets contacted Rapport to ask if they would not be interested in sending a reporter with on the tour they did last year to write about it. Attached to this email was the link of this very blog. I can remember receiving a mail from a lady saying she was with some paper in SA.. I replied, how many mails we exchanged I cant be certain of. This Lady had read my blog, liked it, contacted me and decided the Rapport will foot the bill and send Deon on the tour. When they came to Tsumeb they met up with locals and it was there that Deon decided he want to write a book about the people of Tsumeb and how the war affected them.
A book will be written.. and I am sure, after meeting the man who will write it.. and talking to him, that it will be good book, other than the other books, this one will be about the people.. not the war as such, but the effect the war had on the people... the facts, the stories and heartache.
I am pretty proud of myself and my little blog to have started such a great sequence of events. And.. most of all.... it feels to me as if I might have found a foothold to start with my big plan of getting help to the veterans of the war, the ones who are still living, in pain! I feel like saying "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind "
