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....
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