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Sat 13 Oct

We left for Doxa about 8:30. When we arrived at WCC, all the food stalls were already up, and most of the other attractions, including businesses from Kleinplasie. I drove in to the 2nd stage in the parking lot opposite Milk and Honey. While L-A went to the Art room 2, I worked with Bernadette to get my computer plugged in to the board, and then got my guitar and a mic ready for our performance at 12:30. She had thought everything out very well, so the equipment and tools I had brought for use in emergency would not be needed. . At 9 am I played Andre's opening announcement, and then spoke for a few minutes of welcome to visitors. Then I started playing music on my computer from the Foobar2000 list. The whole day proved to be highly enjoyable. A great variety of creative people showing their talents, and an excellent selection of food stalls and other vendors which I wasn't able to spend time with in detail. Only 50 tickets had been sold in advance, but another hundred were sold on the day. People came intending to enjoy themselves. There were lots of attractions for children, including goat petting. Once things were running smoothly with the DJ music, I went to see how L-A was doing in art room 2, one of the Sunday School rooms. She was fine, and the art in the room was all prophetic and pretty good. Hers is a unique style and I love it. So did many others, but sad to say not enough to buy. In fact no art was actually sold at the festival, though it was appreciated. Very little food was left by the end, and there had been huge amounts. Every so often someone came and asked me to make an announcement. There were 7 performances on the main stage, including the Sunday morning and all were excellent and were appreciated and applauded heartily. The second performance was by Worcester Primary School Choir, and I was intrigued to see Pastor Folla in attendance with them as a coach. At around noon someone disconnected our power supply. My computer battery is shot so the computer crashed. Normally this isn't a problem, but in this instance, all the Foobar files disappeared and when I tried to reload them something very strange went on in the transfer process. When I attempted to play any of the files I got an error message. Something in Foobar had been corrupted, and stayed corrupt even when I reinstalled it. So I reverted to playing the tunes from the original subdirectory. They wouldn't play sequentially, but this wasn't apparent to the listeners. I switched between Windows media Player and the VLC player which allowed for overlapping the transitions. Around noon, two 'judges' visited all the food stalls to come up with winners in three categories: taste, stall decor, and team spirit. The prayer group I am part of led by Carlo Van Wyk carried off the prize for best decor. Several stalls sent food over to me as thanks for the music! At 12:30 it was time for L-A and me to perform 5 prison songs - words by inmates and music by me. We miked the bodhran and L-A sat on the edge of the stage. The words of the songs I sang tell the Gospel story in different ways. There were about 5 more live performances during the day, and all had merit, particularly Johan Groenewald on keyboard, and later his son Olaf on guitar, but none received the appreciation they deserved. At times I went and sat in the closest chair and clapped every song, and this generated some response from the 'audience.' We are learning about the local customs and culture. I went over to chat to Carlo and bought poitekos - which included the potatoes and mushrooms that I had provided. At around 4:45, Bernadette suggested I pack up. I had played all 55 of my selection. As I walked to the gate with equipment to go in my car, I saw Godfrey waiting in vain for someone with a car to get his jewelry polishing kit home. A friend had his bakkie but hadn't come to collect him. So I took him home with his stuff, and then on to our home with my stuff, only to find that L-A had our house keys in her purse. Back to Doxa we went and had a coffee before going into the church to watch Joe Niemand's fine performance. Heather joined us and translated some of Joe's between-song talks for L-A, who repeated them to me. I enjoy music whether I understand the words or not and I can see why he is a much loved entertainer on the Christian circuit in South Africa. All-in-all it had been a fantastic day. Carl Greyling's vision had been realized. Since he is in a wheelchair, that is a huge achievement for him personally. We went home, had some supper, and I started editing and posting today's photos.

Done