@ the Farms

We departed Friday morning at 10am and crawled through terrible roads and construction stops to arrive at our destination at about 2pm.  Upon arriving at Winnie and Marnos’ farm we had a lunch of sandwiches and headed straight out for a farm tour.  We saw their kudu and eland antelope and fed the eland corn from our hands.  We saw horses, chickens, turkey, goats, springbok (antelope), Holsteins, and the dog, Charlie.   We asked Marnos how long we’d be at the milking house and he said, “Oh five minutes, half hour.”  This is a prime example of the use of African Time, haha.  At our tour of the milking house, we all had a chance to milk by hand and taste the home-squeezed goodness right in our mouths, courtesy of Marnos.  The milk was warm and rich-tasting deliciousness.  The mess all over my face was not ideal, but I just wiped it off with my shirt- farmwoman in the making =D haha.

After the tours, the other host family came over for a chicken braai.  We had a “salmon loaf” that was gelatinized into a mold and looked so beautiful and served with herb-buttered crackers, wine, beer, an orange nectar beverage that was fabulous, and South African version of Cheetos and Doritos to hold us over until the 9pm dinner.  One student was so hungry and tired from the day that she elected to hit the hay rather than wait for dinner, but she woke up refreshed with an 11-hour night of sleep under her belt.  After dinner I went with a group of students about 16 km (which took at least a half hour because the dirt, rocky roads are so terrible) to a bigger farm where I slept in the big house with one of my flatmates, Laura.  About seven guys slept in the guest house right across from the big house, and a co-ed group of about eight slept at the couple’s son, Dawie’s, four bedroom home about 3 km away which was a restored beautiful farm home that the grandmother lived in.  

We woke up for breakfast around 9.  Breakfast always begins with cereal of cornflakes, bran flakes, or crispy rice, followed by a bigger course.  We had egg, cheese, and tomato sandwiches very similar to grilled cheese on Saturday and Sunday morning.  After breakfast we hopped in the back of the bakkies (pictured below) and toured the shearing barn.  Although the farm supports ostrich, Angora goats, Merino sheep, and cattle, the farm’s primary income comes from mohair made from Angora goat wool.  Next we took about a 45 minute drive through the enormous plot of farm land up to the top of a mountain.  The bakkies proved a rough ride, but it was a beautiful view of the Winterberg Mountains, untouched due to their inaccessibility.  The first girl and guy each to reach the top won a bottle of wine.  I didn’t realize that Fracious was serious about that until he presented the wine bottles in a ceremonial manner to the winning lady and gentleman, otherwise I may have tried harder :/  

After the mountain, we had a picnic in the veld (field) of sandwiches, apples, and juice.  After our long morning, we were eager to get back to relax.  We dipped our feet in the pool, played with Dawie’s new puppy, Mika, played cards, enjoyed tea with desserts created by a former-caterer, yummmm, and went to the rifle range.  We shot a 22 and watched Dawie shoot an elephant rifle that was loud and huge!  Some of the guys wanted to try and the second one to try became a member of the “Half Moon Club” when the scope sliced his brow open and he was taken to the closest hospital, an hour away, for stitches.  I had a walk around the property near sundown to relax and read some of Long Walk to Freedom in preparation for a presentation this week.  Three hours later, when the hospital group returned, we had a steak braai, with au gratin potatoes, Hawaiian sweet bread, pasta salad, and 7-layer salad.  It was hardly discernible from a 4^th of July cookout.

After dinner we did a night game drive to try and spot some bucks, but the wind was incredible and all the bucks were bedded down.  So, we hit the hay after another long and enjoyable day.  We woke to another fabulous breakfast back at Winnie and Marnos’s place.  Then we drove about a half-hour to a hiking trail to swim to a “waterfall.”  Although there has been plenty of rain this year, last year was the worst drought since the early 80’s and the ground must just be soaking it up, because there wasn’t even a trickle at the “falls.”  We hiked in over 90 degrees through these ENORMOUS spider webs with black and yellow striped spiders whose bodies ranged from nickel-size to fifty-cent-piece-sized.  Then we immersed ourselves in murky water (thank God for my weirdo hike-swim-anything shoes!!!!) in which an alligator-looking animal which Marnos claimed, “It just looks like an alligator, it won’t bite” had just submersed itself in the brown water.  We swam through a gorge to an island, climbed over the island and swam another length and just took some pictures at the site of the would-be waterfall.  We swam back, changed out of our wet clothes in the bushes, tended to one of the girl’s cut foot from the jagged, rocky bottom and began the trek home.  

We had a great time.  Enjoy the pics below.

The eland, Tiny, that we fed.  Eland and the largest antelope in South Africa, and he is half of his full size.

kudu, horses, and Charlie Brown on Winnie and Marnos' farm

A kudu behind the house peeking at me.

A Holstein and two calves grazing.

Getting the motion down.

Getting some milk straight from the source.

Marnos is showing me the motion, haha.

The trophy room and bar at Aurelia and Francious' home.  Francious and his eldest son, Dawie, shot all of these animals and are good friends with the taxadermist now. A lot of the antelope, and even the zebra made into a rug were shot on their own land, but they also travel to Namibia, Botswana and Swaziland to hunt.

The gorgeous patio where we had breakfast, with vines draping over the whole structure.

The bird, with no name, and a side view of the patio.

Francious showing us the Merino sheep wool.

Ostrich

The view on the way to  Dawie's house from his parent's place.  Dawie's place was empty for 15 years after his grandmother passed, and he has just refinished all the floors and made a beautiful home for himself.

Francious hires men from Lisutu on 6-year contnracts to sheer all of his sheep by hand.

The wool

Dawie's house.  The tusks are impostors crafted by his taxidermist friend.  He has a four bedroom house with a wrap-around porch.  The ceilings are original.

The view from the porch.  The bakkies we took up the mountain.

Dawie's office

The office from another angle.  The ground eagle is really cool.

Heading up the mountain.

Almost to the top, ya right, it always looks closer than it is.

A view from the top.

Another angle

"Aaaaaaas youuuuuu wisssshhhh"

Wildflowers that I picked on the way down.

An old tractor on the farm- check it out Ken.

Mica, caught eating the zebra rug.

The huuuuuuuge garden at Francious and Aurelia's.

They have gorgeous roses

A picturesque bench

Foggy

It was a gray day today.  We woke up to a cloudy, drizzly morning and headed down to the beach for a marine bio sampling day.  We took four cylindrical samples of sand, called cores, at ten different sites.  We loaded four samples into a sand bag which, when full, weighed between 40 and 60 lbs.  I dragged it into the ocean and sifted out all of the fine sand to leave crushed shells and snails.  We were sampling for an honors student who wanted us to measure snails with a caliper for a study she’s doing.   It took us about three hours to take 4 cores at 10 different sites.  I was completely spent after dragging all of those heavy bags of sand around.  It was fun when a little wiener dog ran through our sampling though.  Even though the wieney was at least three times the size of Grac(e)y, it reminded me of her.  There was also some other dog walkers who brought dogs of every kind by.  

After the sampling, we walked back across the street to Langerry and I wrapped a towel around my body to minimalize the soaking of my mattress and collapsed into a deep sleep that did not reprieve until 1:30 pm when we elected to walk down the boardwalk in the incessant drizzle for some lunch at a small café.  I had a Mediterranean veggie Panini with Bos, the uniquely South African rooibos tea that I have learned to love.  After lunch I walked to school to return 6 library books about travel and recipes in South Africa.  Then I took a kombi home, made a light dinner, and we went out to Belizza tonight.  We danced the night away, and now I am home to get a good night’s sleep before we head to the farm tomorrow morning.  We will be there until Sunday, so don’t miss me too much, haha.

Love,

Linds

Hott

It was 81*F at 11am, whooo wee.  The nights lately have reminded me of sleeping in the upstairs bedroom at Mom's house on Omaha Street.  The nights that are so sticky that even the sheet feels like it's suffocating the prospect of peaceful sleep.  The greatest difference is the occasional breeze that breaks through the open windows as respite from the dogged heat in PE compared to the constant hum of a fan to cool the night in the States.  We all had reading to do this morning, so we slathered on the SPF 45 and ventured up to the roof to read our lit.  At 1, Taylor and I booked it to class.  Considering it usually takes almost exactly an hour to walk to campus, I was pleased that we had a few minutes to spare once we fought the incredible wind blowing us in the opposite direction from campus.  Lit was mostly a discussion of Disgrace by Coetzee.  He is a prized South African author, and the novel is the epitome of South African literature, addressing questions about all aspects of the human condition.  It is an easy read with so much depth.  I would recommend it to anyone interested in questions of race, sex/gender, relationship to “the other” including people who are different or even animals, and much more.  After class I went to volleyball and came home to veg out.  I am very tired tonight after a long day yesterday and the sun and wind picking on me today :)

 

Now, I am listening to a playlist of Friday of Country Fest 2011 as it is my method to discern which day I would like to attend with my sissy (who I miss dearly).  Friday sounds like it would be a great day with shows from Steel Magnolia, Gary Allan, Miranda Lambert, Justine Moore, and Craig Morgan.  Sorry to say for those of you who don’t enjoy the cold and snow, but it’s very hard to remember that it’s not summery weather at home.  I often imagine grandparents at the fair, floating down at Riverview, and wonder when the county fairs are scheduled, and then I remember that it’s March.  

Culture for Bruce

Mary West, our literature prof, spoke about the themes of community verses the individual in Disgrace.  I anticipated the other themes she brought up, but the individuality theme came out of nowhere for me.  She asked us, upon reviewing the book again, to see how Lurie, the main character, changes from serving his own needs, regardless of the consequences, to living within a community and taking responsibility for his actions’ effect on others.  She said he changed from having a Western idea of individualism in which he just felt entitled to whatever he wanted to, embracing the idea of African communalism.  It is truly a concept one cannot ignore while living here, but I still did not pick up on it in the book.  I thought that his impulsive and reckless actions came as a result of letting his pure emotion guide and justify any action.  

I felt myself becoming very defensive when Mary West described a selfish and community-destroying man as embodying a Western individual.  She has accused our class of failing to understand certain South African points of view, and I think she fails to see the very important way that meeting individual needs allows one to serve communal needs.  Those who take care of themselves first are often heckled as being selfish, but if one is not okay with herself or does not take the time to know who she is, how can she adequately aid another?  I am saddened at the picture of the Western person that Mary West drew, and her obvious pessimism about American altruism and sense of accountability while ignoring our dedication to service demonstrated by our weekly service.  I am not saying that individualism is better than communalism; I just want to point out that we are not evil Americans because we are an individualistic culture.

What a day

Service was really successful today, as we met with Reney and Nicolette, our supervisors at House to establish our roles there and their expectations for us.  We know now that we can lead lessons indoors or outdoors with the children as long as we communicate with Connie, the playschool teacher, when we want to work with the kids.  It will be much more productive for us to go into the Playschool with a plan, and knowledgeable of the disciplinary procedures, in order to decrease the chance of attachment by just cuddling and coddling the kids and rather teach them a few things and have, as our Irish friends say, “some good fun,” haha.  We also painted one more bedroom and I thoroughly cleaned some kitchen cupboards in addition to the meeting.

After a hot, hard morning of work, we hurriedly read the rest of our reading assignments for afternoon class, took a kombi to class, made it through class, and stopped at the grocery on the walk back home. After I had cut up some sweet potatoes (which are white in SA) and butternut squash (commonly referred to as pumpkin here) and put them in the oven, I realized a text sent hours ago from an American, Sarah, that I met at a “church thingy” on Monday night.  She is from the University of Alabama, and she invited me to pizza, which I had ironically been craving (NOT a normal craving for me).  I jumped at the prospect of a spontaneous meal and the chance to meet some more people, so Laura, one of my flatmates, and I quickly got ready and walked about a half-hour down the road to meet the ladies for some dinner.

We got to Brightways, the ladies’ flat, and a South African student, Charmaign, picked us all up and took us to Roman’s, a pizza shop.  It was BOGO (buy one, get one, like Payless shoes :P), so I got the small order with a Sweet Chili Chicken pizza (sweet chili sauce, chicken, feta- the most common cheese in South Africa) and a Seafood pizza (calamari, mussels, shrimp with olive oil, and oreganium (oregano to Americans)).  I was fortunate that a Lindsay-style Amusement Park called Superspar was next to the pizza joint.  I stole away from the pizza date for a small while into the novelty-food-wonderland of the new-found supermarket entirely pleased with the discovery.  

I discovered such exciting things that they deserve their own paragraph.  (How’s that for a topic sentence, Aim? Haha)  I found 100% fruit juice (the only way to go ;D ) juice boxes of litchi juice (the alleged nectar of the gods I discovered on the Addo tour) to control my portion sizes, chocolate pudding that requires heat for the starch to take in the milk- not quite as simple as the sugar-free fat-free instant Jell-O pudding, but I am excited to try it!, and some sweet chili flavored “smooth cottage cheese,” which I put in quotation marks because it is more like flavored sour cream than cottage cheese.  Sweet chili is a popular flavor here and is often put on rice dishes.  It is even the most common Doritos flavor, taking the supreme level of the Cooler Ranch Dorito in the States.  The smooth cottage cheese is a wonderful lunch!  I spread it over whole wheat crackers and top it with cucumber slices for a fresh-tasting summery meal.

I arrived back at the flat with the notion that I’d be going to bed, but I relented to flatmates’ peer pressure, with the convincing argument that we can catch up on sleep in the morning before afternoon class, and went to karaoke night at Captains, the closest bar to our flats.  We went to the SAPPC (South Africa Party Planning Committee) Secretary of Defense and Treasurer’s room to fellowship with some of the students we are less familiar with on the trip.  After the first noise complaint of the night most people left, but my flatmates and I went out on the balcony for a while before heading out.  When we got to Captains, we were sad to see an English Premier League soccer game between Chelsea and Manchester United (a BIG game) rather than the usual karaoke.  

At half-time the DJ appeased our pleas and the fun started.  I am a karaoke observer, as I am never inebriated enough to get on a stage to sing in front of strangers, although I don’t think it would take me very much.  I had my first shot last night, courtesy of Nick Zweber, SAPPC Secretary of Defense.  It was called a springbok, named after one of South Africa’s antelope and also the name of one of the most famous South African rugby teams.  It had mint liquor and Amarula, the rum whose claims to be the “spirit of South Africa.”  It went down like coffee.  After my shot I just danced to the karaoke for a while, and came home relatively early to end a llllong day.

P.S. One month down, ahhhhh!  It went SO fast.

Marimba makes me move!

I smiled ear to ear during the whole marimba workshop so I wanted to share it with my follower :D  I hope it loads alright for you.