Real African Cultures

Our Zulu tour guide for the evening
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Tuesday - 0700: Another cold morning. There is no heat in the room, but my shower has a good supply of hot water as long as you are one of the first ones up. Stefan left this morning for Krugar and won't be back until I after I leave for Durban on Thursday. We said our farewells and traded e-mail addresses. We have some new guests that arrived last night. I hear that they play some kind of sport and are from Swaziland. Have not had a chance to talk to them.

12:30 - Went to "@ the net" to update my blog and then off to The Ocean Basket for lunch in a suburb of Pretoria. It is a national chain seafood restaurant. I had a salmon roll and salmon sashimi. Good portions and very fresh sushi. I was fun to sit on the sidewalk terrace sipping on a glass of South African wine watching the crowd doing their shopping and visiting. Reminded me of my days living in Oxford with the small cafes, shops and pubs on the high street. It had a very British feel to it. I walked to the mall and bought some biltong (South African version of jerky). Got kudu, springbok and ostrich. The first two are types of antelope (not so cute looking so I don't feel too bad).

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9:00 - Went to Lesedi Cultural Village. Think of it as their version of Colonial Williamsburg or Jamestown Settlement. They were reconstructed villages of the Zulu, Xhosa, Pedi, Ndebele and Basotho cultures. Got a lesson on South Africa for an indigenous perspective. I have talked to a few Afrikaaners and obviously, they have a different view of history, life and the future of the country. The focus was on Shaka and Nelson Mandela. Very informative video with real life dramatization mixed in.  Had a Zulu "warrior" as a tour guide and he walked us through each village explaining the significance of the dwellings and roles in everyday life. The most interesting fact I learned was from the Pedi village where the floors are decorated and waterproofed with cow dung. They also use cow dung to make pots. They say the cows only eat grass so the dung does not smell. The women were spreading it on the floor when we were there and I can say it is true (though it was dusk and the temperature was a chilly 35 degrees). Seems the men spend their evenings drinking home brew and smoking pot.

Ndebele woman making beadwork
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This was the first chance I had to visit a gift (craft) market where I bought a couple of small trinkets. It seemed overpriced, even compared to the gift shop at the Voortreker Monument. I learned later the the gift shop at the Monument was a new addition aimed at drawing in tourists and becoming self sufficient. Since the end of apartheid, the monument does not receive any state funding for more than obvious reasons.

The evening ended with a dance performance. The female dancers were in traditional costumes, complete with their Chuck Taylors (blend of the traditional and modern I guess). Their were only 5 in our group, so we had front row seats. A buffet dinner was included in admission. It featured "traditional" South African fare featuring wild game including ostrich and crocodile along with other meat and veggie dishes. The food was plenty, but I did not really care for the ostrich; it came from the neck and tasted a little metallic.....quite chewy as well.  I had a chance to visit with two of our group during dinner. Holly and Wes. Holly was from New York City and Wes from Australia.

Welcome before dinner
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Got back late. Had a Namibian beer called Windhoek and worked on my journal. Windhoek is a great beer from a Namibian brewery established by German immigrants to what was German South-West Africa in 1904. Windhoek has a German pilsner taste and is still brewed according to the German Purity Law of 1516, the oldest known food law.

Tomorrow I plan to visit the Apartheid Museum and take a tour of Soweto.