The Long Awaited Field Trip

Disaster struck last weekend - the weather gods must have been in a bad mood because they posted forecasts for temperatures in the Cederberg (where we were headed for the weekend) in the mid to high 40's Celsius, or over 110F. We had to cancel our plans much to the dismay of all eager to get away from city life for a bit.

Tim hurriedly consulted with staff and our rock art guide, Pieter Jolly, and came up with an alternative outing, keeping the emphasis on art of the San people (which is why we were going to the Cederberg!)

1:30 pm Friday we gathered around the bus with Pieter and set off for the Ixiko South African Museum in Cape Town where we spent an hour or so poring over the excellent rock art displays.

Back into the bus, always expertly handled by our driver, Sipho Mpepho, who has been driving Stanford students since the first pilot program in 2006. Down the peninsula we drove, to Noordhoek where Tim had arranged accommodation for all but four of us at Monkey Valley resort, while the four boys chose to stay in the lodge at the nearby Noordhoek Farm Village. These boys like sticking together.

After checking in and tea/scones, Grant held a class followed by some free time to explore the beach before dinner. Monkey Valley is set in a well established and secluded grove of Milkwood trees, one of my favorite coastal shrubs. They were in flower and the smell, for some, was a little unpleasant!

Our wooden cottages, with evocative names like Hornbill, Leopard, Falcon, Albatross and Dormouse, all seemed to be in perfect harmony with nature. What a treat after the disappointment of the cancelled Cederberg outing. Dinner was nothing to write home about but Pieter followed on with an outstanding slide show of some of his photos of beautifully executed rock art.

Saturday morning we hiked a short way to Peers' Cave which contains traces of human habitation dating back as much as two hundred thousand years. Unfortunately, modern graffiti blasphemes the walls today, but on the plus side, some cave paintings can be seen high up, above the defaced area. It's nice to know something from the Middle Stone Age remains in this much used cave. And it felt good to think that humans were living in this huge overhang so long ago, hunting small antelope in the fynbos, searching out edible plants, collecting shellfish and catching fish from the two water masses, False Bay to the east, the Atlantic ocean to the west.

Back for more meeting time with Grant, a fascinating session on South African humour with tea with delicious muffins. Lunch followed after which we lounged around the pool and deck until it was time to head off to Hermanus, the second leg of our improvised field trip.

Hermanus is a popular coastal village with sea, surf, beaches, mountain, lagoon and glorious walks. The bus took the students straight to Grotto Beach. Saturday was the hot day: 35 C at the coast and 45+ inland. Grotto beach, with stretches of white sand as far as the eye can sea, was the perfect antidote to 2+ hours in the bus on a very warm day. Lots of frolicking before returning to the village and checking into the Hermanus Backpackers.

Meanwhile, Tim, Pieter and I had driven to Hermanus in our own car. Grant and his family did the same and we congregated at the B&B we'd booked into, The Potting Shed. Pieter had been allocated the Loft room - oops, on the hottest day of the year? No, that wasn't going to work. Fortunately the owners were pretty flexible and gave us keys to an apartment they manage which was ok for the night. Not quite Monkey Valley, but it was cool and we were close to the sound of the crashing surf.

That evening we gathered for supper at the Hermanus backpackers. Chicken or Vegetable Potjie was the order and heaped platefuls were dished up to the hungry horde. The last activity on Saturday took place in a large front room at the backpackers that we cordoned off from other guests. It was a game of Double Jeopardy. Questions/Answers were setup by Grant and some of his students, and the whole game masterminded by Anna with a computer and LCD projector. Students got together in three groups and in this complicated game of "What question goes with this statement?" hands went up, voices too, answers delivered, and all the time Claire kept score. Lots of laughs!

During the night we couldn't believe it rained. And continued to do so on Sunday morning which put a damper, literally, on plans to hike in the mountains, although some of us managed a nice coastal walk in between showers. Others walked around the town, and Tim took a group to the town of Stanford to check out a community project there.

We all met for lunch at Bientang's cave. This was the final touch to a very pleasant weekend. Bientang was the last "Strandloper" ("Beach Walker" Khoi person) who lived in this cave, harvesting seafood. The rock shelter is enormous and the cave where Bientang is thought to have lived is tucked into a low crevice, behind the restaurant bar area. Whoever thought students were disappearing behind the bar for 'refreshments' was wrong - they were seeking solace in the ancient cave.

Tim left for the US on Tuesday afternoon - lucky him to be back home for a bit. Enjoy him, all who see him!

And now, what you've been waiting for, photo's of the field trip!

Oh, and one last titbit (we're in South Africa and that's how it's spelt here!) - we learned that on Saturday it was 45.5 C and Sunday 43 C in the Cederberg - big relief we changed the plans!

!Khwa ttu and Pieter Dirk Uys

The students got their first introduction to South African culture on Saturday when Sipho Mpepho, our wonderfully reliable bus driver, took us to the San Education and Culture Centre, !Khwa ttu, 70 kilometers up the coast, near Yzerfontein. We arrived in time for a lesson in the San Language, attempting all the click sounds with great enthusiasm!

!Khwa ttu has a most informative photo gallery where I could have spent much more time, but the tractor-trailer was waiting for us. We boarded and were taken to the start of a short walk. First we learned how to track animals from their hoof prints. Then we were shown how to trap animals. We learned a bit about plants that were useful to the San and ended our walk at the San village where we sat in a circle in the boma listening to San stories, some translated from different San languages.

On our way back to the craft shop we passed a sizeable herd of Eland, an animal important to the San people. Some zebra and springbok too.

Heading for 5:30 pm, it was time to move on to Darling, a small town where South Africa's famous satirist, Pieter Dirk Uys performs in the theatre he created out of an abandoned and disused railway station called "Evita se Perron" (Evita's platform) at Darling's old station.

At 7 pm on Saturday evening Pieter performed Elections and Erections beginning with a Hillary Clinton skit that got us off to a good start. He knew there would be US students in his audience and he interacted with them during the show. It was great fun to be in the cosy theatre, sitting at tables with drinks while the show went on right next to us. A buffet style dinner was served afterwards.

And then Sipho brought us all safely home again. We are so lucky to have him as our regular driver.

Here are the photos! Enjoy!

Coming up next is the weekend field trip to the Cederberg. Watch this space!

Disas in Myburgh's Ravine and Wednesday dinner

Myburgh's Ravine is not described in many hiking books because it is a dangerous route in the Cape's wet winters. But in the summer, when most of the Cape Peninsula looks extremely parched, perennial water drips down the craggy cliffs to nourish the moss and ferns and other plants, and you'll find many folks clambering up the rocks to see the Disa Uniflora thriving in this small, damp ravine.


On Friday, while Tim was hard at work,I persuaded my long ago hiking friend, Peter Rex, to lead me up the ravine. You would never guess Peter's age the way he scrambles up cliffsides and over boulders as sure footed as a rock rabbit. At 78 he puts me to shame. Peter and I met twenty years ago when we were neighbours for a short while. In those days, if there was ever a difficult hike I wanted to try, I'd ask for Peter's expert guidance. It was very pleasant to be able to pick up on our old friendship again. Photo below shows the steep ravine walls on the left, Peter in the middle and some Disas on the right.You'll have to double click on the photo to see it in a decent size - I can't manage to work out how to get a collage to look as big as a single photo.


One more photo from last week - the four students who came to supper on Wednesday evening with Claire Gibson, their R/A, and Mary Simons, UCT lecturer in Political History of South Africa for the previous program's students. Mary wasn't feeling well and left before this photo was taken.



So there you have, from the left, Andrew Linford, Claire Gibson, Tom McAndrew, Tim, Craig Dabney and Jonathan Rich. It was Jon's birthday so we celebrated with some candles and a big carrot cake!

Into February.

Ten days since my last post and time rattles on. Last week my African Genocide class studied the San extermination in South Africa while this week we looked at the Aborigines in Tasmania and Australia with thoughts of how the genocides in these two continents compare.

We've now studied the Germans extermination of the Herero people, the Dutch trekboers encroachment into San territory and their commandos that slaughtered the San; the San's attempt at resistance, and their eventual extermination after the British took over the Cape. The Brits also decimated the Tasmanian aborigines and were pretty successful at breaking down the Australian indigenous peoples' way of life and more.

Next week we're off to the Canary islands to examine the Spanish invasion of the closest of the seven Canary islands to the coast of Africa, and the earliest genocide of the modern era.

We are such a cruel race.

On to more cheerful stuff. Billy and Breda went back to Ireland on Monday so Tim and I hosted a great evening of fine food last Friday with Chris Wiehe our guest of honour. Since our arrival in December, Chris has been generously serving us wines in his role as the Vineyard hotel's sommelier at his Monday evening winetastings. We were quick to introduce Breda and Billy to these merry evenings, and have enjoyed Pieter Jolly's company there too. So the Vineyard support group got together with Claire, Stanford's student Resident Assistant who brought her boyfriend Joe (who runs the Stanford Sierra camp when he is not on holiday visiting Claire).

Friday's food: bruschetta to start from Claire and Joe. Geelbek (I hate calling it Cape Salmon, its "English" name) brilliantly braaied by Tim and checked for doneness by Chris, sauce of tomatoes,chillies, chorizo and prawns by Breda, veggies by Sherry. We wined and dined sumptuously with Billy throwing in the odd joke, and Pieter adding his stories. To end this wonderful evening, Breda had made a magnificent Summer Pudding - lick your lips delicious!



On Saturday morning it was drizzling so Tim and I decided to wait til Sunday to hike - who wants to get wet? But it poured with rain on Sunday, and this time we really should have stayed at home, but we'd arranged to meet a friend so we pushed ourselves up to the contour path in the drenching rain. We were sopping when we got home, but it felt pretty good!

Saturday night we hit the movies with Nan and Daniel. Up in the Air - we enjoyed it, but felt a bit sad at the end. So much more to life than collecting frequent flier miles!

Sunday I picked up Ayanda and Nathaniel and met Nan and Daniel at Muizenberg. We played Putt-Putt. Great fun, and not without a few temper tantrums as Ayanda adapted to failure at a few very naughty holes that kept jumping out of the path of her well aimed ball.

Tonight I am slaving at the stove again for another of our student dinners. There are only four guys in the group of twenty four students and all four signed up for "Dinner with the Stantons" on the same night, and that's tonight. I'm cooking a huge curry for large appetites.

All for now....