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.

Studio progress report

Here are a few more photos showing recent progress on the Cape Town Studios.

The metal outer skin was cut away in preparation for the windows...

...the double panes of glass were inserted into the frames. Each pane is also double glazed, making quadruple glazing to remove outside noise.

On the opposite side, two studios have panoramic views of Table Mountain, in the distance.

Doug, from the USA and Jay Jay, from Johannesburg, work for RCS, the company supplying the software for the playout system. They took over the large meeting room in the basement for the two-week installation process.

Andre and, new employee, Michael, working in a small edit suite, with no windows.

The studio furniture is now being assembled.

Curious houses and other oddities

Here are a few examples of building creativity near to where we live.

What do you think this is?

...and this?

...and this?

In reverse order, this last one is a bus shelter, with two single bricks knocked out at eye level, presumably for use as peep holes when it's raining.

The second one is a letter box, not a kennel or the smallest house in Cape Town!

In fact, as I jog round the neighbourhood I notice some really interesting and creative letter boxes. Few homes have a regular letter box in the door, like in England, either because they have gates or to save the postman walking down the drive. Here are a few of the most quirky ideas...

...a converted milk churn...

...a concrete structure...

...a little house...

...a piece of plastic pipe... (which the paperboy hasn't used!)

...a barrel...

...a (very small) hole in the wall...

...and an untidy collection of metal boxes.

This last one is situated just outside the main gate of our apartment block and contains our box (number 30).

A previous occupant must have lost the key one day and prised open the door. Now it doesn't lock and we have not bothered replacing the padlock, like most of the others. Fortunately we don't receive much mail.

On the other side of the white wall is another gate, which is the exit gate. On Saturday a removal van got stuck trying to enter through that gate...

After a great deal on shouting and maneuvering, it backed out again, leaving chunks of rendered concrete scattered over the ground. Then all the loading took place in the car park, outside.

So, to the first , which I'll repeat here...

It is a model of an African bush house, made from a telephone directory. The roof and sides are constructed by folding each page in a certain way. Eddy, the electrician who's been working with Andy, makes these as a hobby. I was fascinated by the way the dark lines appear, demonstrating the uniform layout of the book. Eddy gave us this one, as a gift - I fear that it will be too heavy to take home!

Whale-watching wonders!

It has been a desire of mine since coming to South Africa to experience a close encounter with a whale, to marvel at their size and majestic movement through the water, and to be captivated by their displays at the surface.

Last Saturday, I had my chance, as Andy and I travelled, almost to the most southerly tip of Africa and boarded a cruise to Dyer Island and surrounds, on a whale-watching trip.

Our boat was called, Whale Whisperer. It took about 20 people, plus a skipper, marine guide and video photographer.

Southern Right Whales have no dorsel fin and can be identified by their V-shaped expulsion of water from their blow-holes. I really tried to capture one in a photo - to no avail.

Another characteristic of the Southern Right is huge Callosities on their head and face. These are scaly, white areas of whale lice which form in the same places that hair forms on our head and face, with males having more callosities than females, particularly on the chin and upper lip, rather like a beard.

At one point, after the boat's engines had been switched off and we were drifting, a pod came quite close and rolled over and over each other, in a courtship dance - it was fabulous to see.

This is my photographic 'piece de resistance', a tail out of the water, known as 'sailing'.

We also saw lots of fins and 'spy hopping' which is the opposite to 'sailing', as the head comes out of the water. Their eye is very small in comparison with their head size, and not often above the water, so making eye contact with a whale is a very rare and special moment - yet to be realised!

Our friend Stuart had gone shark cage diving and this is an example of the type of cage he stood in hoping to see some Great White Sharks. Unfortunately, his trip was cut short due to rough seas, so he never saw one. We however, did see two shark fins approaching one of the many shark cage diving boats in Shark Alley, a swath of ocean running along the southern tip of Africa.

Dyer Island, situated in Shark Alley, is home to 40,000 Cape fur seals: they covered the rocks and filled the sea, swimming very close to the boat. They were so cute to see and hard to accept that many of them would become a shark's dinner!

The final leg of the trip was to a rocky outcrop where African Penguins are breeding. You can just see some on the left hand side of the light-coloured rock. African Penguins stand only half a metre tall and we have seen them much closer at Simon's Town, where there is a penguin sanctuary.

We bought a DVD of our trip which includes some wonderful footage of all of the above and more.

Equinox or Equilux?

Today is 21st September, which I always thought was the September equinox, when there are equal amounts of daylight and night everywhere on earth. Wrong! I will explain after I have shown you some gorgeous photos that I took this morning...

...the sun is just creeping over the Hottentots Holland Mountain range, and a bird in mid-flight - quite accidental..

...the rising sun is shining on the duck pond, making it look like a pool of gold...

...a family of ducks swims into the golden light.

Earlier in the week I was looking for the sunset time for Cape Town, so that we could take Stuart and Doug (from the USA, here installing the playout system into the computers) to the beach to watch it. Glancing through the week's forecast, which included the sunrise and sunset times, I noticed that Wednesday, which was the 19th, was the closest to 12 hours of sunlight and 12 hours without sunlight, which puzzled me, as I knew the 19th was not the equinox.

Researching this a little more I discovered that the name for that day (when sunrise and sunset are closest to being 12 hours apart) is called the equilux, a new term to me. Also, the actual equinox is a single moment in time — it does not take the whole day. This year it occurs at 9.51 on 23rd September.

The reason that there is more sunlight at the moment of equinox is because of refraction of the sun's rays through the atmosphere around the curvature of the Earth, which increases the further away from the Equator you are located. So here in Cape Town at a latitude of -33 degrees the difference is about 7 minutes. So what is equinox, I hear you ask? It is the point at which the sun is observed directly overhead of the Equator producing zero shadows. Another piece of trivia, which may come in handy one day!

So, returning to my original story about watching the sunset over the Atlantic Ocean. We got caught up in the post-work traffic and pulled into the beach car park just as the sun had almost disappeared below the horizon. I didn't even have time to get the camera out!

Nevertheless, we trekked onto the sand and pointed out Robben Island and the classic view of Table Mountain, which the area Table View is named after. The lights were already coming on in the city and the mountain was in seen in sillouette against the dusk skyline, and we shivered in the wind!

I did take a photo, but it was blurred (must have been the wind!), so here is one you haven't seen before, taken from Robben Island. The light on the mountain is a reflection from my flash off the window of the coach we were travelling in. I rejected it, but as I'm into 'arty' photos today, maybe it will fit!

Busy! Busy! Busy!

A few more snaps - for those following the progress with avid interest!



The server room, nicknamed the 'fridge' now taking shape.

Carpet and very expensive wall boarding in one of the studios - and Stuart, coming out of the server room for five minutes, to warm up!

The gallery around which the studios are located. When I first saw this, it reminded me of a prison landing with lots of little cells. I hope the future presenters don't feel that way!

Habitat for Humanity

Last Friday I was involved in building a house for a lady called Cynthia, who lives in the Mfuleni Township, Cape Town.

This wooden shack is where Cynthia lives with her four children.

I worked with a charity called Habitat for Humanity. During the week, eight houses were built by volunteers working alongside the home owners. Although they are given the house, they have to own the land upon which it is built, attend a training course for financial management and other practical skills and assist three other homeowners in similar projects, before being able to build their own house. The volunteers, in this case came from eight churches in Cape Town who each raised R55,000 for the materials and provided the labour for one week.

When I arrived on Friday morning the house looked like this...

By lunchtime the roof was finished and the path had been laid and set.

Then we planted a tree and flowers along the path.

These were the tools that Henreitte and I used; pieces of aluminium. Rather rudimentary, but surprisingly adequate for the task of loosening the sandy soil and removing weeds and rubbish.

The township is a sprawling mass of small houses and wooden shacks. Most of the red-roofed houses in the foreground are habitat homes.

Some of the beautiful children, with a teenage volunteer, playing nearby.

The best bit! Gathering to pray with Cynthia and give her a Bible in her first language; Kausa, signed by every volunteer. What a privilege to be there!