Post 10 - Cape Town

Cape Penninsula (Cape Town)

We started this trip by going up the Garden Route from Port Elizabeth to Cape Town, which was why we were showing you pictures of Storms River and Knysna. This entry is about a few of the things we saw in Cape Town and some of the pictures. You would notice that I don't have many pictures of the city but that is just me not being as interested in cities in general.

The backpacker lodge is an interesting place because it is in an area that is doing various environmentally friendly things. The lodge itself composted organic wastes from the kitchen, which they used in their garden. To illustrate the unusual nature of the area, there were horses in a field nearby and they got out frequently. It was all the instigation of the large work horse could push the gate or fence over when it wanted to be grazing quietly down the avenue. There are not a lot of wandering work horses in our neighborhood (probably not in your either) so driving in the morning requires some caution that more drivers on county road 51 by our house could use. There is more that I could say about the lodge but I will move out keep the entry from being too long.

The very next day we caught a commuter train part way down the peninsula and got off at the last stop - Simonstown. The bus caught up with us there and took us on to Boulders where saw wild South Africa penguins nesting, walking, resting, and other penguin stuff. This was a nesting site and they have protected it to help maintain the population. I read in the paper yesterday that the populations in Algoa Bay (This is the bay that we are living on.) are down 50% and apparently around S.A. There are a number of potential reasons but global warming may be a prime candidate for the decline here since the sardines and anchovies now school many kilometers south of the bay. They would a prime food source during nesting but now they are too far south for the parents to feed and get back in time to regurgitate the remainder for the young. At any rate it was great to seem them so close. The picture shows the young which are nearly as large as the parents but grey in color.

We drove on south around the eastern shore of Cape Peninsula with great views of False Bay. This is the huge bay that shows up on even large scale maps. The water was not particularly clear because the wind was really blowing from the SE in what apparently is typical Cape Town fashion. We arrive at the lighthouse at the end of the peninsula, where most of the students walk up to lighthouse, while a smaller group goes on a walk lead by a Gary (A relative of Alan’s.) down the hill to a beautiful beach between cliffs. I follow

with a few who wanted to catch-up. I did not go down the walk to beach because frankly it was quite a way down and I could see everything that I wanted from up on top.

Cape Town is a very windy city and we got the feel of it this first day touring the area. This spot is up by the lighthouse at the very end of Cape Point. The picture looks empty but there had been several people around and I had concluded that I could not stand up and take this picture because I could stand still because of the strong wind. I had to sit down behind the rock wall and point up to take the shot. I had just helped an Asian women take one and she had a hard time hanging on to the pole. One of our students got blown over in a gust. They were not hurt but surprised - yes.

This is a rock dassy, which, believe it or not, is related to elephants. I am sure you can see the family resemblance. They live in rocky areas all over S.A. where you know their presence by the white color stain on the rock visible from long distances. This stain is caused by the strong urine that they excrete. They are a favorite food for eagles and a host of other predators. From my brief encounter with two on the trail I can see why their population is holding steady may be increasing even though there are many things that eat them. I was walking up the trail and some others were coming down and these two found each other on the trail in spite of our very near presence and carried out the “multiplication” act. It was fast but they were clearly not shy reclusive about it.

The plant life on top of Table Mountain is very unique. It is what is called fynbos (Afrikaans for fine bush), which also extends along the coast to Port Elizabeth. It is one of the richest floral regions of the work with 8600 plant species with 70% endemic (live only here) and Table Mountain and Cape Peninsula are part of that zone. A case in point is this plant, which I thought was most unusual. I took this picture of one up on the cliffs on the walk down from Cape Point. They always note how unique the plant life is on Table Mountain but low and behold I found it down along the shore here is P.E. Actually down the shore away from the city. I guess that means it is not so unusual but it certainly looks strange in comparison to any plant that I am familiar with. I hope I can find the name and family before I leave.

We drove on up the Peninsula toward the popular and trendy beaches on

the Atlantic side from Cape Town. This is Camps Bay at sunset. We waited in a park for the sun to go down and see the light change on Table Mountain and the sun to sink into the Atlantic Ocean. It was quite beautiful. By the way in that low point between the two mountains, you can see the cable car going up to the top on the right. (Not visible in this picture because they stop it before it is this late.) It was off this side where I repelled down the cliff.

That is all for this segment. One more Cape Town entry will show a few things from Table Mountain and Robins Island. Good by for now!

B.

AIDS haven experiences

So today I trade places with Bruce. I went, as we usually do for ½ a day at the AIDS Haven where there are older people (over 18) and children. The children are orphans of AIDS parents. Right now there are approximately 6 infants, 7 or 8 preschoolers, about 5 school age kids and maybe 10 adults, many of whom are hospice patients. The college students often take the nursery kids and the preschoolers to play. Other students were working in the kitchen and in a house on the compound that we are preparing to paint. Each Monday morning there is a little religious service attended by the children and their caregivers. I love the music involved as the children get right into the swing of things and the caregivers are good singers. Even when they sing in Khosa it is great to hear. It would take you back to your Sunday School Days (or Religious Education Days). “Jesus Loves the Little Children”, Jesus Loves Me, This I Know” and one that I didn’t know “Telephone to Jesus, telephone to Jesus, telephone to Jesus everyday” and then all the children say HELLO! I discovered that one of the infants died. She was extremely emaciated and her mom is here as well but appears to be reacting well to antiretroviral drugs.

What I usually do at the AIDS Haven is give hand and arm massages to the adults. Some will have none of it but some find it nice. The object is to soften up hardened tissues, promote circulation and the one that motivates me…the healing powers of touch. I have no thoughts that I am actually “healing” but I hope it is doing the other two and that the patients find it comforting. Today I stopped a room I had not been before. I asked the man if he would like a hand massage…now you have to understand that many of the patients speak minimal English…He appeared to say, “Yes” so I commenced. He was seated on the edge of his bed and I also rubbed his feet as I had too much cream on my gloves. I asked if it hurt and he indicated that it did…His hands were starting to curl…first the little fingers and progressively through the index fingers is common…he had only two fingers involved. He looked at me intently at times and other times stared in a vacant, lost way. It wasn’t until I was doing the hands of his roommate that the first man was blind. I knew that there was a blind patient but I never guessed it was he.

The blind man’s roommate didn’t feel like he would probably be there next week. He was very thin and weak. Bruce and I did actually get to take one patient, Dion, home to his family after his TB was under control and the regime of HIV antiretroviral meds was in place. ND

The grey man

The man was all shades of gray and brown such that he blended together from his curly hair to his shoes. He was just walking below us as we were standing on our balcony in the deepening twilight. Where he was headed I do not know but it prompted me to write this short piece. This is a homeless man who I first saw at the little mall in Summerstrand where we go to the grocery store. He was in at the mall parking going through the garbage searching for cigarettes, some remainder of a soft drink, or whatever he could find, I presume. But I have never seen him begging. Begging is very common here. I don’t know how he survives. Now this man is white, most are black, but with all the dirt and grime on him and his clothes it is a hard to tell. Some how he is getting food for he is not getting weaker but he is not getting fatter either. Recently, I saw him coming from the downtown area headed out along Beach Road toward Summerstrand Mall. How does one get to this point in one’s life? How does one survive?

Begging is very common in P.E. and I presume in South Africa in general. It was in Cape Town but again that is a large city which tends to attract the homeless as in any country. It was in Graaf-Reinet where a man saw when our tour bus came in and who followed us for some time hoping someone would relent and give him money. Frankly Graaf-Reinet was not that large so it must be all over SA.

One young man (I would estimate in his teens) begs at the intersection at a robot (stoplight in S.A.) coming from another smaller shopping center. He clasps his hands as if in prayer and rubs his stomach. I have not seen anyone give him money but he must get something for he persists nearly every day. It is one of the most difficult things that I do - is to drive on. Of course, if he were the only one, one would give him something but he is not.

There are certain intersections that attract a large contingent of “sellers” and beggars. The sellers will be offering auto plug-in rechargers for cell phone, a package of garbage bags, a newspaper (in the mornings), and whole array of other items. At the same intersection, I have seen an older white man begging and all he does is have a cardboard sign that he has his short story printed on it. He unfolds it for people to see and stands between lanes while the light is red. He moves to the side once the light changes and starts over again. I have seen someone give him money.

At another intersection on an off ramp, which I take to go to Pendla Primary School in the township, I find there are always men selling newspapers, begging, or simply hoping for a job for the day. The light is long and one can spend a seeming long time not looking at them in order to not attract their attention. It is something that I will not miss.

I didn’t know how much this bothered me until I sat sharing this with Norma. I guess that not being able to help hurts. But I think that it is also the realization of just how precarious life can be. I could be the grey man some day. (B)

While Bruce was pondering on the “need” on the street, I was reveling in the gifts of the street. In the Humewood Hotel next door there was African music and dance presentation going on their veranda and I was leaning over balcony and moving to the beat. It is such richness, a gift and it is tumbling out into the night for my pleasure. My heart was made glad! (N)

Such a contrast! (B)

Post 9 - Vic Falls and Chobe

Victoria Falls and Chobe National Park

From Port Elizabeth to Jo’burg to Livingstone in Zambia we flew. We were in search of the falls that Dr. David Livingstone (of “Dr. Livingstone, I presume”) described when he found it in 1855. The natives knew it was there all the time and called it Mosi-oa-Tunya which means “the smoke that thunders” but Livingstone renamed it for Queen Victoria. Livingstone is widely revered here as he was a dedicated preacher against slavery.
From Livingstone we went out into the bush to Thorntree Lodge. It is a small lodge right beside the seasonal high water mark of the great Zambezi River. Each accommodation was a spacious “hut” with a conical thatched roof. There are nine huts that sleep two each. They do not accept small children we think because of the quiet ambiance and the fact that they are right on the river banks with crocs and hippos around. Our “hut” had the requisite white bed spread with fresh flowers and mosquito netting draped around it so that it could be pulled down when your room was prepared for the night. They would slip into the room during dinner, pull down the netting and light a mosquito repellent coil. It also had an outdoor shower and an indoor Jacuzzi tub and the whole of our “hut” was shaded by large trees with a “monkey” fruit tree on one side. The fruit looked like a small green orange outside which had orange colored interior and was segmented like other citrus. The Vervet monkeys were mad about the fruit. They frequently jumped onto the roof after harvesting the fruit and would sit on top eating it. While sitting on the veranda we could sit facing the great Zambezi River, which was less than three yards from us. As it was the end of the rainy season the river was full to overflowing in some places but huts did not appear to have been flooded so they have the maximum water height gauged correctly. Besides monkeys there were hippos in the area since one walked out of the river near one of the other “huts” and another time one swam by the lodge as other guests were waiting for dinner. Hippos are rather bad tempered and so running into one on the path would be an experience to be avoided. The staff asked guests not to walk on the paths alone at night because of the hippos and maybe snakes (?). In the morning there were elephants eating small trees in the area around the outdoor pool. They were not wild but from the elephant stables (footnote 1) near our lodge. The food was good, the wine South African and all was right with the world!

So we started our adventures the first day by going on a cruise up the Zambezi complete with cocktails and snacks and who should we meet? Four charming people staying at our lodge from Minnesota! There were only about 14 people there and 6 of us were from MN. In fact they were from Brainard. We saw hippos, Impalas, Cattle Egrets, a type of Bee Eater nesting in the river bank and a Hamerkop (another large bird) who’s very large nest we saw near the lodge. They take shiny objects and put them in the interior of the nest. And for evening entertainment while on board we had rain and a thunder storm with appropriate fireworks.
The next day we went on a game drive where we saw all there was to see…that is to say white rhinos, giraffes, hippos, zebra, warthogs, impala, a marabou stork and a Southern Ground Hornbill, which are about the size of a turkey with a red head and they make a raucous squawk. Then we went on to Victoria Falls for a tour there. We had briefly seen the falls and the narrow canyon it falls into as we were coming in for a landing in Livingstone. This time of year it is hard to view the falls from ground level in front of the falls because of the volume of water crashing down which makes a cloud of heavy mist…like rain falling. We walked around viewing the falls from points further back where we were able to get some reasonable pictures but the path on the other side of the gorge was so wet and misty that you could hardly see any thing or dare take your camera out for a picture. For the walk near the falls, you can rent rain coats, shoes and camera bags on the way up to the walkway across from the falls. Bruce and I wanted to feel what it would have been like for early viewers of one of the Seven Wonders of the World. I can tell you straight away that it was VERY wet. The wind swirled the droplets around so all sides were drenched! It was like a very heavy rain storm. The view, however, was magnificent from all the different vantage points. The drop is 330 feet and it is approximately 1 mile across. The noise is thunderous and the cloud of water rises above the terrain so that it can be seen from miles around. It was amazing and humbling. We worried that we shouldn't go when it was so full but it is far more spectacular now then in October when it is only flowing over one side near Zimbabwe. Now that would have been disappointing.

The next day was our adrenalin day…remembering that I can get an adrenalin rush from looking out of a second story window…this does not have to be a lot! [This picture is of the bridge where they bungee jump from below the falls.] Bruce and I went back to the waterfront above the falls where he took an ultra light flight over the falls and canyon. It was cloudy and they were lowering so he was the last one to go up that morning. He found it great fun and I am sure generated some adrenalin. [Yes that is him in the back seat.]

Then we toured a village which like some townships had no electricity, out houses on the perimeter of the village and 3 bore holes for water which were donated by an NGO. The family compounds were tidy. Several of them were making a frothy beer called chibuku or “shake-shake.” The lad from the village that gave the tour noted that it was brewed in a large cooking pot with the grayish mash fermenting away as it sits there. The one we saw had not been going long enough since it was not yet bubbling…”two days more”, he said. He noted that few of the visitors to the village try the brew as there was no top on it and it did not look appetizing (read: looks vile). I do not have a picture of the brew and am only showing the cooking area under the eves of the hut.

Now it was time for my adventure. I chose to ride an elephant…remember the elephants around the pool? There were 7 of them of which one was a baby and took only the trainer on his back. The full grown ones took two to three people. They had a nice elephant saddle on them which is good, as some folks from SA warned us off doing this because if you ride it bare-back you encounter the considerable sharp vertebra of the creature. The elephants plus riders went out on a walk and one thing I noticed right a way is that giraffes look different when you look across at them rather than up at them. Also the African elephant has a trunk with two tips one top and bottom at the end which pinch together thus allowing them to pick up things that are small. His feet are very soft and they don’t make much noise when going through the bush. They eat something like 100 lbs of foliage a day. It was great fun and we will enclose some pictures from our adventures on the blog.

Now we were off to Botswana where we will stay on the Chobe River, which eventually runs into the Zambezi, and see what Chobe National Park has to offer. Between game drives at 6 AM and boat tours at 3:30 in the afternoon we saw all there was to see except a hyena. A cobra, probably a spitting cobra, was swimming across the river. (There was very high water and the island across from us was underwater and he was probably escaping). We saw loads of impala [They are in the picture on the left. They are one of the most common animals in the park], kudos, pukus and other antelopes as well as zebras, baboons, wildebeests, giraffe, crocodile, water monitor and mongoose. We saw four of the big five: lions, panthers, elephants, cape buffalo but no rhinos in Chobe. We did see them in Zambia where they are guarded by an armed guard but allowed to roam within the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park. They had had 5 rhinos there but through misfortune lost 3 of them. We met some interesting folks from Britain and ended up having several meals with them. They may even come to visit.

I forgot to mention that in order to cross the Zambezi River between Zambia and Botswana you must take a ferry, if you are a truck…there were as many as 15 trucks trying to get across from either side. The ferry can take one at a time. It takes about 20 minutes for the ferry to cross. Some times it can take up to two or three days for a truck to get across. We, however, did not have to cross that way. The company that moved us around, Bushtracks of Africa, dropped us off at the river and a nice fishing boat with an outboard motor took us across where their guys picked us up on the other side and drove us to the Chobe Marina Lodge, which is located on the banks of the Chobe River.

Here is a note that travelers to this area should know about before arriving. I say this because it does not show up in the guide books and the group arranging this trip were not aware either. It is a bit of a scam on Zambia’s part. We paid a fee for a visa when we entered Zambia. This was done through the lodge before our arrival. We were listed in a notebook that this was covered before entering otherwise you had to come up with the money in dollars, euros, pounds, or rands to enter the country. It is not a security check but rather a way to get money from the tourist. There is also a airport tax payable on leaving which fortunately was handled through the lodge or the travel agent. I am not sure. It is the payment of $100 apiece for Americans (90 pounds for Brits and $25 pp for other nationalities) to cross Zambia from Botswana or wherever to get to the airport. The problem, besides the unevenness of the fee, is the lack of information about it. We found out that we would need to pay $100 from the guide when we crossed from Zambia into Botswana. If we stayed in Zambia for another night it would be the $25 fee again. We converted some of our rand into dollars in Chobe but as it turned out we could have used rands so we lost a little money on that exchange. Because of all the fees we were a bit short of cash and were a bit concerned before we finally got out of the country.

It was a beautiful trip and I don’t begrudge them the money since Zambia is so poor but it would be nice to know in advance that you would have these additional charges. Who knows if we will ever get back to the banks of the Zambezi again!

Footnote 1 - Hey wouldn’t you like to clean that stable?! Norma wanted me to move this comment away from the wine and pleasant scene being painted in the paragraph. In fact she sort of raised a stink about it. BE

We have more pictures to share but I will put them into another post.

A poem on faces

Norma wrote this poem because of what she is experiencing in South Africa. I liked it and thought that I would share.
------------------------------------
Faces

From round to lean
From lily white to ebony
Dimples that make you grin
Deep dark frowns
Shimmering smiles
Eyes fiery with tightly curled lashes
Eyes grey and tired
Race by
Stroll by
Eyes meet and recognize, with fascination, the other.


This happens daily here in PE. Streams of faces I meet while walking!

Post 8a - Knysna

Cape Town Trip - First Day

Knysna, Storms River

What if I told you to jump off a bridge? Would you do it? What if you had to pay money to do it? That is even more insane - right? Would you do it? That is exactly what 23 of our students did our first day on the trip to Cape Town near Storms River. They even claimed to have enjoyed it! Adrenalin rushes come at a high price at about R550 or just under a hundred dollars not counting the cost of the DVD of your final moments before, during and after the fall. It recorded that fateful moment just before you leap into space or were you pushed… I am certain the devil him/herself didn’t get that many opportunities to consider her/his descent as a fallen angel. It is the highest (216 m or approximately 642 feet) bungee jump in the world at the Bloukrans River Bridge which is just west of Storms River. I guess that means that you have more time to think about the course of your life so far as you fall into the canyon below. Now I know that the thick rubber band seems relatively safe or at least any fatalities seem to be unreported but I fail to see the fun. NO I am not getting old! It is just that over the course of a couple of years, so to speak, I have learned that falling usually has unpleasant consequences and is therefore to be avoided. [I am featuring no pictures of this event. It is too gruesome! (I am sure that there are some pictures on the student blogs if you can stand.)

This is how Norma, three students and I avoided the fall by getting dropped off at the Tree Canopy slide, really zip lines between platforms on trees while the rest of the group went on their merry way to jump. If you have never done a zip line before, it can be scary but at least you are not free falling and you have time to examine some great trees that grow along the coast near Knysna such as yellowwood, stink wood and others. We saw a Knysna Lourie (I have found some differences in how to spell Lorie) which is quite colorful especially when it flies. Here is a link to a site to give you a better view. [http://alexanderbeutel.tripod.com/world_of_birds/index.album/knysna-lorie?i=3] We have found some variability with how well it displays on systems. I hope it shows well on your system.

The last picture of the three is the intrepid five some who went on the canopy tour.. It was very interesting and lasted longer than the bungee jump.

Jessica and Todd stopped at Storms River and talked about how pretty the area was so we were pleased when Alan Sparg, our tour director, put it on the schedule as a stop. This is a picture of the Storms River Canyon. The walls are nearly vertical with some vegetation on them but bare in others. There was a cave in at one point but I do not have a great picture of it so it will not be included at this time. There are a number of areas where the rivers have cut very narrow canyons into the rocks. It is a beautiful area. The rocks on the coast are really great.

This view is across the Knysna bay toward the heads or cliffs that guard the entrance to the bay. We took an evening cruise out on the bay but could not go into the gap because the tide was running out and every so often you would see a large swell rise up and break in that area. It is very dangerous. Fisherman loose their lives every so often because they need to go out to work and don't make it back. It is such a pretty area that is rapidly growing so consequently one that is under a lot of pressure to development. Their problem of destroying the area that people want to live in looks like what we do back in the U.S.

The downtown harbor is lovely but developed. Just by chance they were having the national water polo contest, for the more mature fellas, in the harbor while we were there. There are a lot of different contest that demand athletics skills and endurance in S.A. While we are gone the S.A. Ironman contest was going on at Hobie beach practically in front of us. There are a lot of people staying very fit.

We stayed at a caravan park in Knysna, which had cabins such as the one on the right but others were in small trailers that had a room permanently built on to them - unusual. At least at this point it seems unusual. We had a view of the bay from the front of this cabin, from which I took the picture of the Knysna Heads. I now will show the next picture because in a way it epitomizes the contrast in S.A. The fence topped with the barbed wire. I will take time in another blog to talk about this as a feature of S.A. but also in many third world countries.

We will complete the rest of the trip to Cape Town in the next blog but Post 8b. Until then we hope you are all well.

B & N

Post 7

Post 7

It’s a warmish 75 degrees and gray with 30 percent chance of rain. A gentle wind…they don’t call Port Elizabeth the “windy city” for nothing. I can hear the tide coming in with gentle lazy crashes…that is when there are no cars or motorcycles going by. I feel kinda gray and sluggish too but I need to catch you up on our trip to the Karoo.
So what’s a Karoo anyway? Well to quote the Lonely Planet guide on the subject it “is a vast semi desert stretching over miles of the great South African plateau inland from the Cape coast. The Karoo’s southeastern extension is in the Eastern Cape (which is the province we live in) and includes the exquisite town of Graaff-Reinet, ….It is one of the region’s most intriguing areas, with an overwhelming sense of space and arid beauty that stands in sharp contrast to the cheery holiday atmosphere of the western coastline.”
From here the eloquence quickly evaporates as I reminisce on small pieces of what I did on my summer vacation written on wide lined paper in the third grade.
First stop was a cheetah breeding farm. They take injured animals for rehabilitation as well as breeding for sale to game farms. We got to feed bread to the black wildebeest (a very short and knobby looking fellow) and the kudo. Then we went around to where we could pet the cheetahs. These are not tame cheetahs and these cheetahs would not be sent back to the wild. These had some malfunction like being blind in one eye or a limp. In any event we were quietly let into the enclosure and the cheetah lay down and we lined up to quietly approach her and pet her head. When she became restive we paused for a bit before resuming petting. I touched her head as though I were petting our kitty and she purred. I was pleased! The other noise that they make sounds more like high yelps and rather bird-like. I heard this when we went to Kragga Kamma Game Reserve here close to PE. The cheetah cubs were fighting over a carcass. At this stop I bought some prickly pear jam. It has nice sweet flavor but is full of tiny little seeds. Eating a piece of toast generously slathered with jam would give you enough roughage for a week!
On from there to a small farming community and it’s township. The township is where the blacks live. We went there to see a very unusual business. There is a man who digs worms and sells them to fishermen. If that were all it wouldn’t be a very big story but these worms are more than three feet long. They were amazing! It was unclear on what kind of fish was caught with these beauties.
From there we went to Noorspoot Guest Farm, a fully functioning farm. They had sheep and were moving into game animals as well as adding the holiday stays. You could tell those farms who had moved into game farming because they had fences twice the height of regular farm fences. Game farming has increased as more people want kudu and other venison species and warthog for their braais (barbeques). I can recommend both…the tenderloin of warthog is very tasty! Bruce and I were put up in the honeymoon suite in the original family home…the family has been here for about 200 years. The room was the size of Rhode Island and included a claw footed tub with a decorated screen around it. The bed boasted a down comforter that was another enterprise they had started. They had a lot of geese. So many businesses were needed to keep the farm functioning because of droughts that come and last for years. Remember the “semi desert”? We had a lovely braai with a whole sheep and some kudu and some sausages….sausages are always included in the braais. Much later many, not me, went out gaze at the stars through a 10” telescope. Sadly, there were some clouds but all seemed to enjoy looking at the stars in the southern hemisphere. They certainly weren’t bothered by ambient light. Some even stayed up and caught the total ellipse of the moon.
On Saturday we found ourselves in beautiful Graff-Reinet. It was a lovely little town that we didn’t stay in long enough. It is the 4th oldest town in SA. There were several museums we visited and discovered that many fossils from prehistoric animals were found in the vicinity as well as many homes from the early 19th century. We went out to the local tequila factory and looked at the process. They cannot call it tequila so they call it agave which we would know vaguely as the century plant. Farmers are beginning to grow the agave for the distillery. Mexico has a lock on the name tequila so they call their brew agave.
Finally that day which proved to be partly cloudy we wound up in the Valley of Desolation on a high cliff above the canyon floor. We were there for sunset and before that sun disappeared we were getting chilly and hungry. The sunset made us forget all of that. Sunset was through some clouds and so was particularly spectacular. As we looked down into the canyon and the valley floor the terrain became pink and orange on both sides of us. And if that were not enough, the full moon rose behind us just as the sun was setting. It was magnificent! It gives me chills just recounting it.
Before going home we went through a wonderful cave that had lots of stalagmites and stalactites and wonderful formations and then we went to an ostrich farm where we stood on ostrich eggs (to prove their strength), learned about ostrich breeding and many took a ride on an ostrich!...OK…I just sat on his back and had picture taken but the riders looked hilarious! By the way, it was still cool and having your knees under the ostrich feathers was soft and warm. We got home late and fell into bed!

Right now I am looking at a sail boat catching the last rays of the sunset in its sail coming into harbor. Every Wednesday the yacht club goes out and asks for crew. I know Bruce is going to get there soon. It is a very picturesque scene!
ND

Blog for some pictures: http://bndickau.blogspot.com/

More Karoo

We are going to try to add more pictures of what happened in the Karoo. I hope that this time I will not have the problems with the pictures that were such a tussle last time. You can see that Shivan was standing down the slope taking a picture of the sunset after our hike up the mountain to the west end where we could get the best view of impending sunset. It had been cloudy all day but began to break up just to the west so the sunset was more spectacular than usual. This was good since it was very cool. I won't say cold to MN and WI 'ites but it was cold for the clothes we had on. In the end it was worth it because the view was super!

It is still hard to see but I did a photo (below) of a S.A. map in my apartment to show where we were when we were in the Valley of Desolation in the Karoo. This is in a park just outside of the picturesque town of Graaf-Reinet. (At the end of the pen) It is the fourth oldest European city in S.A. They have kept the architecture of the Cape Dutch houses of course I didn't take any pictures of the houses because it was raining much of the day. There are a number of interesting museums as well. Norma and I explored the Old Library museum which had information on Robert Subukwe who was the founder of the Pan African Congress. He was one of the people most prominent in forcing the changes to happen in S.A. He spent much time in jail needless to say. An interesting aside is the fact that his children were raised in the US with the help of Arthur Ashe the tennis star. It had some other local history, some fossils and an excellent section on the rock paintings done by the San in the area. We all thought that we would like to explore the town further if given the chance.

The next morning we headed down to the Klein or Little Karoo to see the caves and the ostrich farms. It also is a semi-desert valley but smaller and it appeared greener because they had had some recent rains that started the greening process. We stopped at an ostrich farm where some sat on and others actually rode. They normally wouldn't have as many ride as our group but most got a ride that wanted it. No ostrich tongues were hanging out so they seemed to be okay.

They have little shelters for the nest to keep the temperature down so more chicks will hatch. It is an A-frame structure that the ostriches can stand in and is open on both ends. The top left picture was the female moving away from the nest. We had to hold thorny branches to keep the male away should he decide that he was not happy with our being near the eggs. Fortunately, he didn't care. He probably thought that we were just some more crazy tourist. The students stood on the eggs and they will not break. This is due to a thick shell and good distribution of weight from the sand on the bottom side.

The top right photo shows the guide putting the saddle on one ostrich. Notice that they have it blindfolded to keep it calm while this was being done. The two bottom pictures contained Laura and Norma sitting on the bird but they didn't go for a ride. Riding on an ostrich is not easy because you feel like you will be falling off at any moment. They have plenty of help so if you look like you might fall someone comes over to help.
Linda was visiting us at the time so here is her picture on a "mean" looking bird.

The last part of the trip was a tour in the Cango Caves. Most of the group went through an area where they had to crawl through a tight area. About four stayed with Norma and I and we went on a more conventional tour of the main part of the cave. It was a very nice cave.

In total it was a nice trip but the bus ride back after the ostrich ride took a long time. We got in at about 11:00 P.M. We had work at Pendla and The House the next day so it was a short night.

I am running behind since I have the Cape Town trip to describe but I don't know if I can get it out before we leave for our Easter Break in Zambia and Botswana. That is it for now.

B.

The Karoo

Norma did the most recent post on our trip to the Karoo and the Klein (little) Karoo in the latest post. I had too much grading an other work to help put it together but I still want to share some pictures of the area. I did a quick and dirty photo of a road map of the areas that we are talking about so if you have a reasonable map of S.A. you can find the areas.

The Karoo is a vast semidesert area surrounded by mountains that are often flat topped. This area had been buried under the sea for millions of years but over time was raised to a position higher than it is currently and was eroded down to its current position. You can see the folding in the rocks very clearly in some areas.

Because it is semidesert, it gets very hot in the summer and very cool in the winter (not MN cold however). It was hot the first day but day but we brought rain and cooler temperatures.

The picture on the right is what you see as you are driving up the mountain to this high valley on the side of the mountain. The picture on the left is an overview of the valley with two of our students getting their pictures taken on the edge. Many did more hair-raising poses that I didn't want to watch. We heard two troops of baboons having a "discussion" over territory at the bottom of the valley. I could seem them but it was quite far away and they blended in very well so I picked them out only when they moved. It was a cool evening since it had rained during the day.

I will have to come back to this topic again because the program is not now letting me put the rest of the pictures into this entry. I have lost one picture three times as I have tried to get it positioned properly. Needless to say I am not happy about how this program works.

More to come...

Post 6

Post 6
03/09/07

We have not gotten a post out in a couple of weeks because lots of “stuff” has been happening on the weekends and the weeks are busy with school so “nothing we remember” happened. Last weekend we drove to the Karoo, which a desert valley surrounded by mountains. It is quite a beautiful place and we will talk more about that later. The weekend before we had Xhosa food and went to shabeen in a township at the invitation of two of the locals on Saturday and got up early Sunday and went out on a boat to some islands across the bay that have penguins and sea birds. We were to do some snorkeling but the weather was windy and the sea choppy so we did not do much of that. I will put some pictures of that experience on the blog. My task for this morning is to grade their first short paper for class since they have another one due next Thursday. The other task is to take Michael to the doctor because he has been feeling crummy for a couple of days and has now started to break out in a rash so to the doctor we go this morning. Later: He has chicken pox. BD

We will play tag team on this message. I will start with the on the township activity. Noxolo Mqayi (Noxi) who is the assistant to the Dean of Arts and herself working on a Masters in Social Work invited us out to her flat in New Brighton for dinner and an evening at a shabeen in Motherwell. Both of these locations are in the black townships. Her flat is in a complex called the Railroad Flats which are fairly long buildings, four stories high and about 6 buildings make up the complex. It stands out in a sea of one story houses and shacks. Originally they supported some rail yard activities as workers’ accommodations. There was a fence around it, as there are fences around most houses and flats. The flat had a balcony from which you could see the Indian Ocean and some views of less affluent neighbors. She shares this flat with another black woman who also works at the University.

We thought we were going to see how some native dishes were made but, in fact, she had already prepared the dishes. One was corn and beans making a sort of porridge and very nicely flavored and the other was tripe. Most of our students gave it a try, though they were in accord that having once tried it they didn’t have to repeat the experience. In the late afternoon the kombis (think of 15 person van’s that in the worst of times can hold up to 28…which is of course illegal…the potential capacity has undoubtedly the stuff of urban legends). At any rate the trip to Motherwell took us to a section of the township that was distinctly middle class. Shabeens used to be unlicensed pubs in a person’s home. Now shabeens are licensed but still appear in residential neighborhoods. Let me let you see what I “saw” on arrival. I saw many black men socializing looking up at these bus loads of white youngsters. Honestly, I panicked. We got off and I went to several small groups of our students and said the most outrageous threat I can ever remember making. “If you leave these premises I will kill you!” People greeted us with handshakes and embraces. We made our way into the shabeens where the music was so loud with a live DJ and the accents were thick that conversation was nearly impossible. I became more relaxed after I got to a back beer garden like area and could talk to people.. The young women received a lot of attention … some of which not altogether appreciated but manageable. Bruce had a long conversation with a man who took him by the hand and wanted to show him his nearby house. It was a grand visit for him (by the way, I did warn my husband as I did the students). Most of the people were just glad that we showed up and that we came out to see how they lived which was not much different from middle class folks elsewhere. Topics of discussion ranged from politics, education and the high unemployment rate in SA. A young man approached me calling me “grandma”…”mama” and “gramma” are signs of respect…He was a vibrant, smiling lad who said, “Gramma, I want to trade ages with you.” My first thought was great! So I gave him a hug and put my hand on his heart and said, “I can’t trade ages but you give me energy and I will help you find wisdom.” Then I hugged again. There were tears in both our eyes.

The timing of the kombis is always subject to “African Time” which says things like
“6 o’clock for 6:30” which means that they might be there at 6:30. Well the kombi to take us home which was to arrive at 11:00 came at a little after midnight by which time I was more than tired! The students’ account of each of their experiences was very powerful!

I will carry on about the Karoo in the next correspondence. ND

a few large game animals

We took the students to Kragga Kamma Game Park a little way outside of P.E. and got close up and personal look at some wild animals of Africa. Since it was such a nice experience we took Jessica and Todd there even though they had seen these animals in Kruger but these views were much closer.

Springbok - floppy eared

The animals shown above is a springbok which is the national animal for South Africa. They are quite prolific so they have a nice population at the park. The little fellow in the middle is one the guides have gotten to know because it has a floppy ear. None of the rest have one so it serves as nice marker.

Giraffe - Mrs. things are looking up!

The park has a pair of giraffes with two young, one male and one female. In this case the mother gave birth to just one at a time. The animal pictured above is the female (mother), which can be identified because they have a hairy fringe around the horns on their heads. It is hard to see in this picture but I know that this is the mother because the father had a much darker color coat. They are a very funny animal but graceful when they walk or run.

I'm a gnu how are you?

These are familiar animals to anyone who has watched wildlife films of large migrations of animals in Africa. The vast migration of wildebeest is about to be a thing of the past. Hunting and more importantly the loss of habitat has caused most of the herds to shrink. They have a small herd here in the park and they seem to be doing well considering there were several young around in the herd. Interesting looking beasts but this was as close as we could get to them.

male ostrich

There are a number of ostriches in the park, which you will see as you drive around. They have built a little shelter to protect the female when they are on the nest. The females are greyer so they blend into the ground consequently they sit on the eggs during the day when they cannot be seen easily. The male does the night shift on the nest when they would not be noticed because of their black feathers. When things are going to get amorous the males legs turn red. I don't remember what triggers this or if it is seasonal. I will have to check and report back. I will keep it G-rated. There are some ostrich farms around but the emphasis is more on the meat than on the feathers which is what started the farming in the first place. Like all things there is more to the story than I can relate right now.

White rhinos

Both the rhinos above are white rhino (They are a male and a female.). I suppose you think that just because they look gray that they should be more like black rhinos or may be a cross but no it is not the case. White rhinos and have a square lips to help them graze on grass as they mover their heads from side to side. The black has a pointed lips and lives in brush since they are browsers so must be more weary because they can't longer distances. There can always be a predator sneaking up on you.

I have more pictures particularly cheetahs eating, which I will get off later.

Post 5

Post 5
23.02.2007

This post has been delayed for a week but we will catch-up with some of the news with this post and I will post some additional pictures on the blog.

Some of you may know that Jessica and Todd have been traveling around S.A. for about two weeks before they visited us. Originally they landed in Cape Town and looked around before driving up to Johannesburg to meet Todd’s father, brother and his brother’s friend. They left J’oburg to head for Kruger National Park to go on a couple of game drives. They had a good time and saw the big five which are rhino, elephant, lion, leopard and water buffalo. (By the way we had to look this up because neither of us was sure what constituted the Big Five.) They saw a rhino crossing the road in front of them on part of the trip. The park is getting overrun with elephants so they are everywhere. They are very destructive to the trees and shrubs so the park is deciding what needs to be done to control the population. As part of their trip getting into Kruger, they saw Blyde River Canyon, which is the third largest canyon in the world. They said it was very picturesque. From Kruger they went to the coast and scuba dived for several days at Sodwanna Bay. The diving was very interesting with the various corals and many different kinds of colorful fish. Some place along there, they took a course on the reef fish which meant that they now might know what they were seeing. This made it more interesting. On to Durban they went where they looked around for a day or so and put their guests on a plane for J’oburg and back home. Durban has a high percentage of people with Indian heritage so Jessica and Todd were looking forward to some good curry. They did find it. They did another dive near Durban and were going to do yet another but it was too windy so they headed down to P.E. Now the lady at the auto rental place told them that it was only a five or six hour drive. Obviously she had never driven it. The road is a two lane that goes through very hilly country with pot holes and cattle on the road, with very little shoulder and large trucks in a hurry so by the time they arrived here they were pooped! During the trip they found that it was over 900 km (over 600 miles). No wonder it took them all day to make it. They arrived about 10:30 PM and had trouble finding flats so the trip took about 10 hours. Yup, it was just an easy day’s jaunt.

We have gotten through the second week of classes and had our first days working with Pendla Primary School in New Brighton, a township, and the House of Resurrection, an AIDS hospice. I think those going to Pendla got the biggest surprise even though we talked about what is was like last fall before we came. You can not picture it until you are here. There is a fence around the school yard with barbwire on the slanted metal piece at the top of each post. There is some grass and weeds around the edges of the yard but mostly it is bare soil, which is very rocky and has a lot of glass scattered over it. There is no play equipment. The arrangement of classrooms is in a “U” shape with each building on the sides and end containing several classrooms which face out on the grassy court yard. This is the nicest grass in the school. The roof from the classroom continues out over the walkways to provide cover but otherwise it is open. At the top end of the “U” there is another building with the principal’s office and a room that has some miscellaneous stuff such as a copying machine and a fold up gas cooking stove. They have two sets of toilet buildings in the back with one for the intermediate grades and one for the primary students. The primary toilets mostly work and are a bit cleaner (this is relative) partly because the teacher hands out a little toilet paper for each student to use as part of letting them out for recess. Otherwise they are locked. The intermediate grades are open and in worse shape with no toilet paper and the stools having newspaper stiffed down in the bowl. A large number of stools do not flush. There are sinks but no towels of any kind. The smell is not pleasant. There appears to be no janitorial service whatsoever judging from the amount of dirt on the floor but time will tell if this is true. The children will, at the end of the day, pickup in the courtyard and will help sweep out the classrooms. I don’t think much other cleaning gets done. There are some shipping containers turned into additional rooms for the lunch preparation in one, computers are in another, library in another and one other that I don’t know what is in it. They had four computers at one time but two were stolen and only one of the two left works but there is no software for it. We are not certain how comfortable the teachers are with computers so utilization is an open question.

They are starting the school year without a full roster of teachers because of three retirements and one young teacher quitting during the summer. The school system has been slow to replace them and is an issue for most public schools around P.E. and in fact may be S.A. One teacher should have retired but is staying on to help until they get her replacement. Maybe two classes have a reasonable size but others are very large. The seventh grade has around 70 students in it. Can you imagine teaching that many students especially seventh graders? The teacher runs the classroom with an iron hand so things are not as out of control as you can picture a classroom back in the states with that many students. Monday we were there and everyone was interviewing to fill the positions. Our students were trying to keep the children occupied, which was a challenge! A couple tried to teach but the students were much too worked up to listen plus they do not look at them as teachers so listening to our students is not something that happens. Now try to tell a small child what to do when you only speak English and the child only speaks Xhosa. This is most true from kindergarten through second grades, since do not speak English and begin learning after those grades. Tricky! Our students come home drained because of the effort they put in to the process. Even when things are going well, teaching is a draining process, a fact not appreciate unless they have taught before. We hope that the hiring and class sizes gets worked out soon so things start getting into a routine. It will make it easier for the students to help the teacher more.

There are always broken windows in the classrooms so two students and I have started to fix the windows. This will not be too expensive so we could start on something and decide what other things were feasible to do. There are leaks in the roof, a switch or two that doesn’t work and of course the toilets to fix. We will have to decide upon what projects to do because there is only so much money. BD

Bruce goes to Pendla while I go to the AIDS Haven House of Resurrection. It is a cross between a nursing home, a hospice and an orphanage. It was previously a convent and about 8 years ago became an AIDS facility. It is sponsored by the Anglicans. It receives no public money from the government although they keep hoping! They do receive money from cooperate entities but, of course, never enough. Last year the government closed a nearby hospice that was publicly run. Now some of those patients are at the Haven.

Our students work caring for and loving on three groups: the infants (there are about 6), the toddlers (there are about 8…they move quickly so it seems like more), and about 6 school age children. They also help in the kitchen. There are also about a dozen adults. The facility, though very simple, is clean and friendly. I looked around to see what I could do and found that I could do hand and arm massages. I worked on three folks last Monday.

The people I met doing this were very interesting. Enoch was emaciated man of perhaps 40 years. He clearly wanted company and so I was welcomed. He had just come back from the hospital because his foot which was badly encrusted with scabs. He and I worked at conversation although we frequently misunderstood each other. I have always wondered what it felt like to be a masseuse and know, at least, one small part of another’s body intimately. Enoch’s hands and arms I knew intimately. I could feel very small muscles and it was amazing how small his bones were. His hands felt swollen to me. When I pushed on the fingers they felt full without much give. He has no feeling in the ends of his fingers and two fingers are clenched tightly into his palm. His hands and arms were very dry as with most of the patients. He apparently has no one left in his family. He asked me for an apple*. He wanted one to taste. I will take him one when I go again next week.

Dion, who I had spoken to last week, was my next patient. He had just taken his meds for AIDS and for TB…this is his second bout with TB…and he was groggy. He is the one who pesters the Matron to go home. He is hoping to get his Subsidy (like social security) reinstated…but that has not happened and he does not dependably take his meds. He is an interesting mix of races. His mother is Chinese and his father is Xhosa and something else. This gives a very angular appearance to his disease wracked body. Last time I had met him he was very loquacious and told me his father was coming soon to pick him up. He had reading material by his bed and seemed very alert. I did a pretty quiet rub and he fell asleep toward the end.

Bed 1, a female who had just been bathed, was the next on the list. She had her eyes closed when I started. She tried to communicate faintly but I could not understand her and she gave up after a while. She was very dry with some open fissures in her skin and I was told I could do her legs as well but I did not because I couldn’t...I couldn’t tell if I might be hurting her. She was not skinny and so it felt like arms I have rubbed before with flesh and a bit of subcutaneous fat. She had trouble rolling to her side and it evidently caused her pain. When I was nearly done she took my hand and held it tightly for about 20 minutes. Touch is a very powerful sense.

We had a church service in the very small chapel for internment of ashes. There had been a number of deaths during the past year and the Matron said the ashes were “stacking up”. Some of our students were very moved. There was no one there to remember the dead except the staff and perhaps the toddlers who also attended. A minister came and the service was filled with song. There was a lot of children’s hymns…it was the first time in a long time that I heard “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam”. ND

We do not have any pictures of either the school or AIDS Haven because taking pictures at this point seems intrusive. I do hope that we get some pictures before we leave so everyone can see for themselves what both places look like.

*Very nice apples are grown in South Africa.

Some pictures for P.E.

I will show you some views from our balcany of our flat. The view across the park is very nice toward the dunes and the Indian Ocean. The path along the edge of the park has venders selling a range of items from homemade leather shoes, plastic shoes, bags of various sorts, African carvings on walking sticks and animals, bead and metal work, jewelry, clothing, food, etc. It all shows up mid morning on Sundays and ends by 4:00 PM. We have gone there frequently some of us more frequently than others.

If you walk further down the beach, you get to some rocks, which are not particulary spectacular but adds a little splahing when the waves get up. By the wasy this was a calm day in P.E., which is a very windy city. I am in my office the wind is whistling through a space in the window frame and this is not as bad as it has been at other times.

The Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University's south campus is where we are located for classes and our office. It is an interesting campus which originally was Port Elizabeth University but it was consolidated with a technicon next door north campus), a campus in the down town area (2nd Ave.), one in the township (Vista) and two further down toward Cape Town in the city of George with two more campuses there. One does specialize more in the study of forestry work. The south campus has a large area set aside for wildlife and we will get a tour next week so I can report more after that tour. As you can see in the attached picture that next to this one building Weaver birds built nests. They are quite the feat of engineering but this is not their breeding season so no birds are in the area. The picture below shows the center of the campus as it steps down via terraces toward a dinner area who's roof is part of a large plaza in front of the library. There is a lot of vegetation, which surprises most students.

This is small path that goes between the International Education building and the library. Once day I saw a couple of monkeys in the bushes here but they are never around when I have the camera.

I will send more pictures every so often. I have more of the campus but they are not on the computer at the moment.

BD