More Rellies!

My lovely host and hostess
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Once again my mother has aranged for me to meet more relatives David and Wyn Appleton.  How lucky am I.  They were amazing!  Thanks mum!  Although we spent only 2 short weeks together it felt like a month (in a good way right David?).

My trip to South Africa was very enlightening.  I admittedly did not know much about the past troubles of this country and it's present face to the world would not reveal to the everyday tourist that some serious problems still do exhist as I was reminded of in Cape Town and again here in Joburg.  It is such a beautiful country and very first world in many ways, but the divisions although not any where near what they used to be still visibly exhist.  I am not sure if I am protraying my thoughts clearly and David and I had many frank discussions on this subject and decided that being a white person it is very difficult to discuss the state of South Africa without appearing to be a racist.  I most certainly do not think I am, nor have I ever thought of myself as a racist and coming from such a multicultural society as I am afforded in Canada my travels have yet to reveal a cultural situation where I felt that I was in anyway uncomfortable with, but in South Africa, as a white person I just felt racist being white.  I am not sure how, or why and I definately tried to not be one, but I just sadly felt it, I am not sure I could overcome it enough to ever live here.  That said, I did love every minute my time in South Africa, particularly those spent with Wyn and David.

Although we spent only 2 short weeks together it felt like a month (in a good way right David?)

Me soaking up some rays and champagne at the dam
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Wyn and David live in Joburg and have a home at a dam about 1 hour from Joburg...now by Dam, they mean there is a Dam and the 16 km of water that it creates is also called the Dam...my confusion lay in the fact that we would call the Dam, the Dam and the body of water a lake, but hey when you are in South Africa...do what they do!

I arrived on a Wednesday and David had kindly arranged plans for me on Thursday.  He was to take me to tour the Aparthied Museum and then for me to meet him at a place called Gold Reef City which is a Wonderland kind of place where he was the manager for 15 years until his retirement a few years ago.  He still consults there occasionally and obviously still has some clout as he scored us a Gold Reef City Golf Cart to drive around in.  I felt like a movie star!  I met him for lunch after a very interesting and somewhat overwhelming kind of morning visiting the Aparthied Museum.  I was very happy to have seen it and was interested to learn over the next few days that many South Africans have still yet to have gone.  Infact even more interesting, in my discussions with Wyn and David and their friends, that many white national (by this I mean people who were born in South Africa) South Africans did not really have much exposure to the difficulties (I realize that is such an inadequate word, but forgive me) that Aparthied caused.

Wyn and David and their Beautiful roses
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The museum is a must see and was very well done.  It is such a feat to have created such a place of beauty that can be appreciated by all sides of the situation.  It was a mixture of written, pictorial and audio visual in presentation and was frankly stunning and vivid in many ways.  I spent 3 hours there, but could have easily spent the day, although the information I received was plenty and a day would have been overwhelming.

The next day we headed out to their home at the Dam and we were treated to 3 glorious days of sunshine in which we ate and drank wine, boated and drank wine, Braiied (BBQ'd) and drank wine, had spa services and drank wine, are you sensing a theme here...South African wines are delicious!

The Dam!
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On the Monday I headed out to the Drakensberg Mountains in the Kwazulu-Natal Nature Conservation area between Joburg and Durban and on the border with Lesotho the mountain kingdom surrounded entirely by South Africa.

I returned from the Drakensberg for an afternoon with Wyn and David and their granddaughter.  We had a lovely lunch and they drove me in nightmare traffic...although this is Joburg....traffic is always a nightmare...to the airport.  It was a tearful goodbye, but I look forward to seeing them next year when they have promised to come to Canada so I can return the favour.