Transkei, the place to die, not!

When we lived in the former Republic of Transkei, (now part of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa), there were occasional stories of Dead people coming to Life. One time the coffin bearers were carrying the coffin of a deceased young lady to the Umtata Cemetery, when they dropped it and the women came back to life. (Sadly she died again a week later.) And in a land saturated with witchcraft and animism, this scared the daylights out of the living as you would expect.
I was reminded of this event upon reading a recent Newspaper article about an event in nearby Libode (approx. 30 Kms from Umtata, now spelled Mthatha.) Here is the report:
“By SAPA, 2011/07/25 'Dead' Man Wakes Up in Transkei Mortuary
A 50-year-old asthmatic man presumed dead by his family woke up inside the morgue of a private undertaker at Libode in the Transkei region on Sunday afternoon.
The man, whose name has been withheld, lost consciousness while asleep at his home in a nearby village on Saturday evening, said Eastern Cape health department spokesman Sizwe Kupelo.
"His family thought he had died," Kupelo told Sapa."The family called a private undertaker who took what they thought was a dead body to the morgue, but the man woke up inside the morgue on Sunday at 5pm and screamed, demanding to be taken out of the cold place."
He had been there for nearly 24 hours.Kupelo said the two mortuary attendants who were on duty at the time ran out of the building thinking the screaming man was a ghost.They called for help, put on brave faces and went back to find that the man was indeed alive.
"We sent an ambulance to the funeral parlour to take the man to Saint Barnabas Hospital because he had been exposed to extreme cold for nearly 24 hours," Kupelo said.
He warned the public not to assume that a sick person had died and call a mortuary.
"Doctors, emergency workers and the police are the only people who have a right to examine the patients and determine if they are dead or not," said Kupelo.”
Now the above may sound funny to us at this distance, but to the people there, it would not have been funny at all. Especially for “the corpse”! Fortunately this story had a happy ending -this time!
But happy ending or not; Funny or sad, the real lesson here for us all to learn in every part of our lives, is to NEVER PRESUME ANYTHING!
Again never presume anything, but always have everything checked out by those who are experienced in that or those, particular matters.
In the above story, “The body” passed along through various people, but none of them were actually qualified to make the pronouncements that they did!
What about you and I? Are we always qualified to make the assumptions and pronouncements we make? Or should we be more careful in future and leave such assumptions and pronouncements to the experts? Over to you now for your comments.

Can you too not see the Stable Door?

Sometimes it is said of unobservant people that they are so blind that they wouldn’t see a stable door unless it hit them. I don’t know about you, but I am thinking that I too fit that Category. I can’t say that I am particularly happy to admit this but it turns out to be true in my case.
When in South Africa, particularly in the rural areas with the African people, they nearly all had normal-door size, two-piece Stable type doors on their Mud-brick homes. This was very practical as it allowed fresh air and light, into these smallish round huts that only had two small windows opposite each other and the door. It also allowed this light and fresh air to enter the huts, whilst at the same time restricting the chickens, dogs, pigs, and occasional goat, from entering their homes.
So in South Africa we were used to seeing these doors and even our last home there had a set on the Kitchen door. (Although I hasten to add we lived in a normal house and not a mud brick, grass roofed Hut! Occasionally slept in them, but never permanently lived in one!)
However here in Australia, they are not that common at all, particularly in the city and suburbs, like where we are now. However I did ‘notice “ one the other day. I say notice, because after living in this house for over 3 months, I suddenly discovered that a door I normally use at least once a day, if not more, was of this two–piece Stable–door type. It was the Garage side door. However it had been fixed in such a way that I never noticed that it was actually a 2-piece door, and only discovered by accident when I touched what I thought was a solid board only to find it was only fixed at the top and acted as the swing bar that either kept it all together or let each part go its separate way.
Apart from being rather embarrassing that I had been using it regularly, literally months, without recognising its true purpose and value, I also had to wonder how many other otherwise equally obvious things I was missing out on, perhaps even to my deprivation and loss?
What applies to me, may even apply to you too! Are there things around you that you see regularly but fail to fully recognise and appreciate? Maybe you too might need to make a new journey of discovery too? Not into the outside world, but just out, in and around where you are now? What say you? Are you prepared to make that journey and to try and see things through fresh eyes and recognise and give everything its true value, worth and due? Over to you for comment!