Durban Field Trip & Kat & The Kings

I will start with Kat & The Kings, because I can still hear the music and visualise the inspirational dancing. Kat & The Kings has come home to Cape Town and is playing at the Fugard Theatre. Written by the amazing team of David Kramer and Taliep Petersen and first staged in 1995, the original production was invited to London and after a successful run there, went on to Broadway to further international acclaim. 

Lucky for us, Peter & Helen Bing support the Bing Stanford Cape Town Centre by sponsoring cultural events for the students and staff and Tuesday night, May 22, Kat & The Kings, was one of these. 

The Bings also send all the students and some lucky staff on a Field Trip each quarter; the latest took place last weekend, 18-20 May, leaving Cape Town for Durban at 11am Friday, returning 60 hours later on Sunday evening. So much to see, hear and do. We were picked up by Imraan, Langa and Shola of SIT (School for International Training: Durban - Social & Political Transformation) at Durban's new King Shaka airport north of the city. 

First stop, the Phansi museum and its collection of Kwa-Zulu-Natal beadwork, carved statues and artifacts, the most striking being the life-size puppets depicting the various dress and status of the men and women of some South African tribes. Soon we were back in the buses on our way to the Moses Mabhida stadium built for the 2010 soccer world cup with a clever design of a skycar to carry visitors to a viewing platform on the top.

After our 360 degree view of the Durban skyline, Tim and I left the group and headed for Chelsea Villa, a Durban B&B not far from the students' backpackers, The Happy Hippo. We checked in and met up again at the Happy Hippo for introductory talks by John Daniel & Imraan Buccus of SIT. Dinner at Ushaka Moyo at uShaka Marine World - fine food, lots of dancing - rounded off the day.

Saturday morning began with a tour of the striking Juma Mosjid Mosque on Dr Yusuf Dadoo St. Imraan talked about Islam and Muslim heritage in Durban. Afterwards we crossed the street and met our next guide, Richard Dobson of Asiye Etafuleni, at the entrance to the Victoria Street Market. We spent the next two hours walking about the vast expanse of interconnected stalls, with Richard explaining the history and significance along the way.

Lunch at the Little Gujarat vegetarian restaurant - most of us had the meal that has made Durban famous - Bunny Chow - a huge chunk of hollowed out white bread filled with delicious curry. Very yummy, very filling - I'd need to be very hungry to order it again!

Then it was time to take the students to their home stays in Cato Manor where they were to spend the night with a Zulu family. After seeing them all happily connected with their Zulu mama, Tim and I made our way back to our B&B for some R&R and a night out dining at the 9th Avenue Bistro run by the talented husband and wife team, Graham and Gina Neilson. Food was good, atmosphere too. Graham watches the tables from the open kitchen checking everyone is happy and Gina keeps the floor running very smoothly. Our waiter, Keric, paid just the right amount of attention. The only complaint I had was the price of a glass of their very average, and only, Sauvignon Blanc wine offering by the glass, Splattered Toad from Cape Point Vineyards. It cost as much as a bottle does in Cape Town. Obviously one is not meant to order wine by the glass at 9th Avenue Bistro. 

Sunday morning and it's time to collect the students from their home stays and meet Scott Couper at the Ghandi museum on the Inanda trail. I could fill many pages with all of Scott's accomplishments; suffice it to say that he gave up his one 'Sunday off' (he is a United Congregational church pastor) to take us on an incredible journey. First the museum, then Gandhi's house, on to the Inanda Seminary for girls where he is the Development Officer and his wife the chaplain. A quick tour of the school followed by lunch with some of the Seminary students after which we were back in the bus onward, to Groutville, and the Albert Luthuli museum, our last cultural stop. On the way back to the airport we looked in at the Ballito beach scene. Too cold for swimming but nice to be at one of the east coast's famous beaches.

Back to the airport and home again - photo album is here

We have our last "Dinner with the Stantons" this evening with three of the students and the resident assistant, Amy Herbertson. We're getting close to the end of the program (June 15) which is always sad.

Lots to catch up

First some photos

1 year old Cameron in our pool clad in full baby wetsuit while dad braves the April chilly water

Naz, Gareth and Cameron with Tim looking on from behind - More photos of Gareth's visit here.

Nathaniel turns 7. 3rd from the left with party friends, on his birthday cruise to Seal Island in Hout Bay. More photos here.

Stanford students still keep us busy with lots of fun functions.

Darling Brew at Pieter Dirk Uys's Evita se Perron, before the show Icons & Aikonas. From left, Rose, Irene, Sherry, Tim, Parth & Francisca

After the show - one time neighbours in Pinelands. For info on Pieter's work, go to his website

That covers highlights of April and May. March was spent wrapping up the first quarter and enjoying a two week break before the start of the second quarter during which Tim nipped off to a conference in Bali, and I stayed home.

The blog has been abandoned these past couple of months and I blame it on entirely on Tim’s ancestors and my inability to focus on anything else. Over the past 6 months I have met more than 2,000 people, dead and alive. I've become familiar with the lives of some incredible people and places. Too bad most are long gone and the places forever altered. Tim has a host of fascinating and sometimes famous ancestors.

Lucy Jane and her father, Luther Derwent

Part of the joy of tracing family is meeting descendents of long lost cousins. A couple of days ago a parcel arrived for me here in Cape Town, South Africa, from San Diego, USA with over 200 pages of Stanton genealogy from Tim’s 3^rd cousin once removed, Ruth Lewis. Some lovely personal stories from great aunts and uncles who took time to record their memories.

What I set out to do was trace Tim's 8 great grandparents and their families, and that has largely been done. I have often got sidetracked along the paths of some of his 16 great great grandparents, and filling in those details can be very consuming - they had so many children in those days!

I have to confess that many discoveries would not have been possible without the help of Tim’s 5^th cousin once removed who lives in England and is related to Tim’s mother's maternal grandfather, Luther Derwent pictured here on the left with his daughter, Tim's grandmother, Lucy Jane Derwent.

The week after Gareth, Naz and Cameron left, my sister came to visit for a week and we enjoyed loads of outings and plenty of time to chat, plus two movies. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Iron Lady.

To end, here's a photo of a recent "Dinner with the Stantons" taken by a waiter at the Vineyard hotel where we dine every week with four students, meeting them in small groups. We love the evenings, the chance to chat informally, and also to hear their stories.

02 May 2012 - Tim, Sherry, Allie, Irene, Hahn and Nayeli at the Vineyard Hotel

60 hour Field Trip to Johanesburg

Sandwiched between 6:30 am on Friday Feb 9th and 6:30 pm Sunday Feb 11th, sleeping two nights at Die Agterplaas B&B for the students and Heidi Holland's The Melville House for the staff.

We flew Mango airlines to Lanseria, visited the Sterkfontein Caves, the show Umoja at the Victory Theater, Constitution Hill (Womens' Jail, Mens' Jail and Court), Soweto's Hector Pietersen Museum, Apartheid museum, Vootrekker monument and the Sammy Marks museum.

Some photos

Dinner with the Stantons and a London Grandson

13 Feb 2012 - Our weekly evening meal at the Vineyard Hotel with four Stanford students studying in Cape Town.

From the left, Tim, Irteza, Matt, Sherry, Tadeo and Jessica, photo thanks to Irteza's camera and our waiter Bradley

And how about this for a cutie on Valentine's Day

Cameron Lloyd in London

Kistenbosch Concert and Cape Town Grandchildren

Having fun at Kirstenbosch one Sunday evening - photo by Irteza Binte-Farid.

With Prudence Carter, Stanford Faculty in Residence, at the end of a musical evening.

Picnic at Kirstenbosch - an evening organised by Prudence with most of the students and a picnic supplied by Lindi Kriel, the students' wonderful caterer.

Photos of my gorgeous grandchildren at our pool

Nathaniel

Ayanda

 We set off tomorrow for our Field trip to Johannesburg with the students - loads of culture and learning for 60 odd hours - back Sunday evening.

Cape Town Stanford Program First Quarter 2012

Year 3 of the Cape Town Stanford program is well under way. I posted photos to a Picasa album of the Orientation lunch, 9 Jan, and our Welcome Dinner on Saturday, 14 Jan with appropriate explanatory comments. The latter evening was a lot of fun and educational too.

Those were the highlights of the past two weeks. We are still without a phone and have limited internet connection, paying way too much money for bandwidth, cursing any sort of automatic updates even when they are crucial to the integrity of my computer. So this blog is brief!

Christmas 2011 to early January 2012

The morning of the day before Christmas was our last at home in Inverness. Tim had to fetch a rental car to get us to the airport and had the bad luck of some crazy driver reversing into the newly rented Mazda. This held up our departure for an hour or so while Tim filled in claim forms etc, etc – just what he needed in those last stressful packing hours!

Once that was done we packed the car and headed for Palo Alto where we met Aaron Kofman and Christine Dehnert, two of the students who came on our second trial program in 2008 and who are now both marching through Medical School. We hadn’t seen them for a couple of years and really enjoyed meeting them for coffee and a catch up.

Christmas Eve we had a fabulous family gathering with Tim’s daughters at Caitlin & Randy’s home, with Erin and Dario, mum Cathy, and the twins, Will & Kai as well as Dario's daughter Amelie. We splurged on Cioppino for dinner, my favourite seafood stew, a San Francisco invention despite the Italian sounding name.

Christmas Day saw us at the airport at 6:30 for our flight to Denver and then on to Tampa. We had upgrades to business class and were really looking forward to our flight. We boarded, settled ourselves into the comfy seats, accepted the champagne offered – even though it was a little early for alcohol, it was Christmas Day after all – and felt very pleased with ourselves. Until the captain announced the plane was not going anywhere and we were all to deplane! Everyone on board had to get re-assigned flights creating a madhouse at the customer service desk.

We couldn’t get to Tampa via Denver but were offered a different routing on a different airline where our fancy status counted nil. We were lucky to get those back seats in economy and finally touchdown in Tampa before midnight to face the two hour drive to Boca Grande where Tim’s parents live and where we planned to spend the week.

Tim’s mother, Lucy, fell in early December and shattered the head of her femur which required an operation to pin together. And resulted in a very different and restricted life for Lucy. Despite this, she was in good spirits, as was Tim’s dad, Jim, adapting to his new role of caretaker. Tim’s brother, Peter, was also visiting – a week of family richness.

Boca Grande is gorgeous in winter, lovely sunny days and marvelous birdlife.

So many ospreys, already nesting, this one deceptively checking me out.

On New Year’s Eve we set off on our trip to Cape Town sad to leave Lucy, Jim & Peter behind. The flights to London took off on time and we were able to revel in the splendid comfort of business class this time. We checked through security in London where Gareth fetched us from the airport and whisked us off to The Orchard pub near Heathrow, a lovely country home atmosphere where we whiled away several hours with my son and his family before boarding our 8pm flight to Cape Town.

Naz, Gareth & Cameron on a magical New Year’s Day!

Overnight we were thrust into the Southern Hemisphere, early daylight, long summer evenings and sunny weather.We have moved into the little home we’re renting until we leave in July. I was upstairs on the deck earlier to get this rooftop view of the mountain we hike on as often as possible, just a short walk from our ‘home away from home.’ That white patch in the middle of the green forest is a rocky scree – that’s where we were this morning. There is a trail above the scree that takes you up and over to the other side where you look down on the city of Cape Town – a hard hike with a wonderful reward.

 The third year of Stanford's Bing Overseas Studies Program in Cape Town starts on Tuesday with a lot of new faces to get to know. It's back to work for both of us.

Hoping for a peaceful and happy year for all.

Bald Eagles

This morning Tim spotted a pair of Bald Eagles on a Douglas Fir tree down in front of our house, sunning themselves on the top branch, checking out the low tide marsh. Too far away for a good photo but this at least proves they were not the "ones that got away."

We leave tomorrow for Florida and then fly to Cape Town on New Year's eve for another two quarters of students, classes and very full lives.

The past month has been quiet for me. Tim went to Cape Town to prepare for his Community Based Research course and other matters needing the Director's attention. On his way home he stopped in Spain for the Islam Conference convened by Stanford's Spanish Centre. Students studying in Stanford's Europe, Russian and Washington DC centres presented talks on Islam in their host country. A brief stop at each end in Madrid, three nights in Cordoba, a short trip to Sevilla and one to Granada - a Spanish intensive - too much for five days so a return trip is on the wish list.

I was meant to go but had an embarrassing fall on our driveway and was laid up for two weeks unable to do much more than hobble around the house. All is now healed in time for our departure.

Happy Christmas to all!

Day of the Dead

November 2nd is traditionally the Mexican holiday remembering friends and family members who have died. I think it's a wonderfully respectful way to honor our ancestors. November 5th this year was my own personal Day of the Dead when I attended the Ancestry.com/Californian Genealogical Society "Day" at the Hyatt hotel in San Francisco.

I have been searching for my long dead ancestors for the past ten years and here I was suddenly surrounded by a thousand other eager ancestor hunters, all of us signing up for lectures in various aspects of research. I was not alone in my fetish! It felt wonderful to talk with other people who were just as immersed in the past.

Tim and I made a two day city sojourn out of the excuse of my Ancestry Day conference. We took the ferry from Larkspur to the Embarcadero, walked the short distance to the Hyatt, wandered the city, met Glenn & Mary for a meal at Piperade, took in the marvelous Maharaj Exhibition at the Asian Art Museum, sat at the kitchen counter at the Boulevard Restaurant and generally felt the excitement of being tourists for a couple of days.

Tim is all smiles to be at the same counter at Boulevard Restaurant where plans for his Service Learning book with Dwight were hatched on a paper napkin several years ago

Friend Maggie Bassendine from Northumberland happened to be in San Francisco the same weekend at the AASLD Liver Meeting. She joined us at home for five days the following week where we explored the Point Reyes peninsula as if we were seeing it for the first time. First a lunch at Nick's Cove to celebrate Maggie's birthday.

Tomales Bay from the deck at Nick's Cove

Next day was perfect for visiting Chimney Rock - the Pacific ocean on the left, Drakes Bay on the right

Tim and Maggie rounding the steep Pacific side of this eroded land spit walkway to Chimney rock viewpoint

Have to have the photo ops!

Tidal streams in the mudflats of the Estero

It rained one whole day so it wasn't all sunshine and outdoor fun, but mostly we were lucky with the weather. Tim left for Cape Town on Saturday and Maggie for London/Newcastle on Sunday. After dropping Maggie off at the Larkspur Airporter, I headed straight for the Station House Cafe to sit, watch, listen and be overwhelmingly in awe of my all time favourite musicians, Laurie Lewis, Tom Rozum, Nina Gerber and Paul Knight on one of Paul's great evenings.

Tom Rozum, Laurie Lewis, guest star Maria Muldauer, Paul Knight, Nina Gerber at the Station House Sunday Nov 13

The first half of November was good. I guess the ancestors were pleased with us!

October in Inverness/Point Reyes

Perfect October weather meant lots more hikes for us this month interspersed with friends from near and far.

Early October we spent a night in Palo Alto so Tim could fit in all his Stanford meetings as well as enjoy a fun social evening with visiting Centre Directors - Santy from Madrid and Karen from Berlin at the home of Bob Sinclair, Executive Director here on the home campus, and his partner, Ai Leen.

Two days later we were having lunch at Kenwood in Sonona followed by a tour of White Rock, one of Napa Valley's wineries, with Andrew from Kyoto.

White Rock founding owner Henri behind the wines, Tim in the middle and Andrew on the right - time to buy some wine

The following Sunday we hiked to Arch Rock with Cape Town Stanford students Claire Gibson (2008), Bridget Connolly and Lucy Litvak (Spring 2010). Photo thanks to passing hiker.

Tim, Lucy, Sherry, Claire, Bridget

 
And the following weekend we did our annual 13 mile trek from Bear Valley to Bolinas on a beautiful warm autumn day. Lots of photos here.

From left, Doree, Anne, Chris, Bill, Tim, Lori, Sherry - Megan met us at Bass Lake

In between the fun of hiking we actually did get some planning work done for courses in Cape Town in 2012. And we booked some flights, not for the 6 months in Cape Town yet, but first things first. Tim will go to Cape Town Nov 12 for a week of meetings and will meet me in Madrid for the conference Islam in Europe hosted by the Madrid Centre taking place in Cordoba over Thanksgiving. Stanford students abroad will deliver papers relating to their courses on Islam in the country of their residence this quarter. We'll have side trips to Seville and Granada with expert guides. Sounds amazing and I just had to join this adventure.

I guess I should end on a birthday note because Saturday 29th October was a pretty magical day on the San Francisco Bay. Tim and I had lunch in Sausalito with Steve James, Tony Bucknall and Tim Jacques who were on a 9 hour layover in San Francisco travelling from Auckland to London. Added to the party was an Aussie friend of Steve's and the Brazilian girlfriend of his nephew, both living here in the Bay Area. We had a perfect window table that seemed to dangle over the water. The cosmopolitan company and lively conversation interspersed between ferries and yachts and water sports and stunning views seemed quite other-worldly.

A birthday to remember, but I forgot to take my camera ...