South African Culture - past and present

My friend Hendriette home-schools her teenage children. A former music and maths teacher, she and I have quite a lot in common, and I really enjoy spending time with the family (her husband, Hannes, works with Andy at CVC).

Last Friday I accompanied them on an educational trip to Worcester, a small town about 100km from Durbanville. We visited a living museum called Kleinplasie, which demonstrates the lifestyle of the early Dutch settlers.

Our journey took us east of Cape Town over the Hottentots Holland Mountain range, where we had panoramic views of the wide valley below. The town of Paarl (it means pearl, which is what my mum, unknowingly called it!), is built in the shadow of enormous granite boulders, the landmark of the town.

The early trek farmers overcame massive obstacles when they ventured into the 'hinterland', creating a path through the mountains, taking their families and possessions on these carts.

This thatched home, known as a Kapstyl House, is an example of the type of temporary dwellings they built on arriving in an area they could settle into.

They built water mills, which powered the mill stones, which ground the wheat, which the settlers used to bake bread.

Once a week the museum staff light the bread oven and we looked forward to eating some fresh bread. It takes several hours just to heat up the oven. Then the coals are removed and the bread is baked. Sadly this was not due to be ready, until we after we left.

There were over twenty different buildings, some of which had been reconstructed on the site, showing how the farmers used the climate, the environment and their skills to cultivate crops and fruit in the lush valleys behind the mountains.

Worcester is on the wine route, so grapes were one of the earliest fruits cultivated here. However, I was surprised to see this floor, which was constructed using apricot stones set in cattle dung! It was really pretty and didn't smell.

Besides numerous chickens and ducks there were a few more unusual animals...

...huge African tortoises....

...a couple of very fat and ugly pigs, whose faces were almost obscurred by their enormous bodies...

...and a large white turkey with its tail feathers fanned out.

We left the museum and drove a further 50km to the tiny hamlet of Magregor to visit a friend of Hendriette, called Amanda - an amazing lady with a fascinating story, which I would love to tell, one day.

It was a lovely day and I learnt so much about the early Afrikaans culture, the later hardships of black africans and the present lifestyle of ordinary South Africans.