Knowing we
would need some fun to look forward to after our return from our oh-so-brief
visit with our grandson Matthew and family over Christmas, the Minister of Fun[i]
booked 9 days in Cape Town, Stellenbosch (the wine region 2 hours drive north
of Cape Town) and Johannesburg, South Africa.
Cape Town is a city of stunning natural
beauty, interesting history and culture,
and European standards of cuisine and infra-structure: comfortable,
dependable and safe public transport; clean hotel with running water, clean
floors and clean soft towels and cotton sheets; and wi-fi all around!
We had dinner at sunset on Table
Mountain,
toured the Cape of Good Hope Peninsula south of Cape
Town and saw new sea birds, including
the African Penguin
and made the obligatory visit to Robben Island, marveling at
the hardships Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners stood up under for
18 years and at the nobility and generosity with which he managed to
emerge. We ran into his name, image and
legacy throughout South Africa; this country was most fortunate to have him at
that critical time, and wise to follow his way.
His successors have been much less inspiring.
On our way to
Stellenbosch we walked through the magnificent Kirstenbosch Gardens
Its high summer in Cape Town, the hot dry season, so not the best time to see flowers or
birds! We were hopeful to see the Cape Sugarbird, but he needs flowering
proteas. But magnificent and varied trees, and a majestic location.
Our private room
in a backpackers hostel in Stellenbosch had a lovely balcony
from which we spotted another new bird, a spotted pigeon,
featuring a gaudy patch of bright red bare skin all around its eye. Also lots of mosquitoes, but that's not a malaria area, and we are
both on our meds, because our area of Swaziland does have a little malaria.
Stellenbosch is
the heart of the wine-making area of South Africa, and noted also for its
University, previously predominantly Afrikaans, but now more reflecting the
diversity of what Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls The Rainbow Nation. No visit to Stellenbosch would be complete
without a wine pilgrimage; ours was with a newly-wed German couple who didn't
care for red wines - we did not make that mistake, although the whites were delicious!.
On returning to
Jozi we took the train up to Pretoria, which was kind of forgettable, took a
bus tour of Soweto - a vast sprawling varied city of 4 or 5 million people,
where the tourists were the only whites, I'm told - and spent an afternoon at
the compelling and haunting Apartheid Museum.
While we were in
Cape Town we got a message on the WhatsApp string by which our group of
volunteers communicate[ii]
that Swazi school openings would be delayed a week, so not till next Tuesday,
January 27, to allow those participating in the Swazi traditional Incwala
festival celebrating the "first fruits" of summer to complete the
final stage: weeding the King's fields.
Seriously. In a country with 40
to 60% unemployment. We haven't had
regular class time since early November, when classes stopped for administration
and then grading of exams, and then many schools closed a week early. Very different priorities than mine.
Coming back
through Mbabane we stopped by PC HQ for Katherine to catch a Books For Africa
planning meeting. There must have been 8
volunteers in the Volunteer "Lounge" using the free, relatively high
speed 'net - no schools, so what else are you going to do? At one point I asked one from the group that
arrived last June, whom I did not know well, if she had seen Katherine after
the BFA meeting broke up and started to describe her, forgetting that Katherine
had addressed all of the new group at the end of their "Pre-Service
Training" about the initial stages of a BFA library application. The volunteer broke in "Oh I know her,
the happy one." Yup.
[i] Our positions have reversed in many, many
ways in Africa. For instance, in Denver,
Katherine planned all our vacations and I tried to make money. Katherine has a keen instinct for what might
be fun, how things work, and how to get to the beating heart of a new place. When we got here Katherine threw herself
so completely into the work that she
could hardly be troubled with plans for us.
Knowing we both needed to "get out of Dodge" sometimes, I
started making our plans for fun things.
With our limited internet availability, that can be arduous.
Bet you
didn't expect footnotes in a PC Blog.
But, consider the source.
[ii] WhatsApp doesn't use 'net; and is cheaper,
and generally more available for many of us than email, but takes a lot of
maintenance and blows up a lot, at least in this environment.
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