Long Drive to Bothaville, Free State

By Wandile Sihlobo

2:35pm, Johannesburg, South Africa

6:30am, Bothaville, Free State.

Day 2: Getting ready to kick it off, Bothaville, Free State

My first Congress attendance at Grain SA, 2013; We left the Pretoria offices on Tuesday afternoon at about 2pm, my heart was full of excitement for networking and just to experience on how is the whole event going to be like. I left the Pretoria with Ms Nita van der Merwe, we had a nice drive talking about the Congress, and drove pass Johannesburg.

At about 30 minutes’ drive after passing by Soweto, in the middle of nowhere, things started to get hectic “I call it…A test of character by God”.

We heard a weird sound from the car and decided to pull off to the road side, only to find out that one of our back wheels had busted. We took a while confused, none of us knew how to change a wheel, and even though I’m a man…I didn’t know. After a while I decided to men up and change the wheel, few minutes some gentlemen pulled over to help us through. Few minutes after that, thinking we were sorted, only to find out we used the wrong wheel bolts, out of lack of knowledge. Mr Wessel Lemmer and Ms Fundzani Sundani also stopped by to assist, and there was still no progress, but in God’s grace Mr Lemmer’s brother came to rescuer us.

After 6 hours we managed to get to Bothaville, had a nice evening catch up with colleagues in a nice farm Bed and Breakfast. Wednesday morning was a first day for the Congress, oww man…from my experience, I think everything was WOOW, well organized and had lot of experienced folks, and just to internet with farmers and some of the Gurus of Agriculture and Agribusiness was a beautiful thing.

Overall, I would like to congratulate everyone who put an effort on making the whole Grain SA Congress 2013 a success. It was more educational and had more fun on the dinner day. Can’t wait for next year’s event!!!

Just have to note that, it was not so cool waking up early morning, but it was worth it, managed to see this beautiful country sunrise before starting off a long fruitful day.

“Always Giving Thanks To God The Father For Everything, In The Name Of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” ~ Ephesians 5:20