South African Memory

My friend, Sharon, recently sent me a picture of myself from a trip I took back in 1989 when I visited her and her husband in southern Africa.  They were living in a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa at the time and together we visited a range of places in South Africa and Zimbabwe.  Her gift got me digging for some of my own pics and re-remembering of one of our little adventures.

 Ah, how old pictures stir the memory. During my extended visit to South Africa, my friends (and hosts) planned a couple of adventures for us to enjoy. One was a getaway to a Bed & Breakfast on a homestead outside of Worcester, South Africa.

 The farm was set in the middle of a great valley (pic #1) and was first established by Dutch colonists in the 17th Century. The family lived in a modest contemporary home on the farm. They converted the original structure, built in the 1690's to a guest cottage. It was small and cozy and very well appointed. it was so much nicer than those original inhabitants could have ever imaged, but still it was awe-inspiring. Like being allowed to spend a night on the Mayflower replica in Plymouth, Massachusetts--only it wasn't the replica!

I seem to remember that the ground floor was divided into two rooms: a sitting room and a bedroom. Through a trapdoor in the wood plank ceiling with the use of a crude wooden ladder, you could access the attic, and the owners of the B&B had made that into a second sleeping space--the space I slept in. It was too small for me to stand up in except at the apex (I'm 5'11"), and the ceiling of the space was the roof!--the underside of the thatched roof. Talk about super cool! I remember laying there on the little bed and listening to the sounds of the valley. The night was filled with insects chirping nearby and Baboons calling out in the distance.

 After breakfast, the farmer took us up a rough dirt road to a point along the edge of the valley (pic #2). We disembarked and then began the most amazing hike. He guided us up a ravine carved into the side of the valley by millennia of rainfall. As we hiked, the path went from expansive to narrow following the rut created by a stream. Sometimes we would encounter a pool that reflected the layers of pre-historic geography and present day flora (pic #3). At one point we found the skeletal remains of a baboon left in the cleft of a rocky outcropping.

 Eventually, we reached the plateau and were able to look back down into the crevice of the earth we had ascended (pic #4). And along the way there were encounters with the national flower of South Africa in it's natural setting. The proteus flower is like none other, and it is magnificent (pics #'s 5 & 6).

 Finally, this is a picture of my friend Sharon (pic #7), who was one of my hosts on that trip with the ravine and valley in the background.

Some want everyone to think the world is a scary place. But I know that it is scary. And amazing. And beautiful, interesting, historical, geological, biological.... Filled with people and animals and plants who are overwhelming benign, helpful, generous and gracious. That's my experience...and I'm sticking to it!

Cecil Angst

Garden Safari: "Hello, Mr. Warthog."

The line from the post's title comes from a walking safari I participated in at Hwange NP. As we rounded a corner in the trail we were suddenly confronted by a Warthog approaching us from the direction we were walk toward. Our guide calmly turned to us and said, "Don't move. Stay calm."

Then he turned to the warthog and said, "Hello, Mr. Warthog." To wit the warthog stopped and lifted his snout to get a good smell of the air around him. The guide continued in his gentle African lilt on the English language, "How are you, Mr. Warthog? How is your family today? Fine I trust. Are you heading off to see them?" As he spoke the warthog calmly continued on his way through the midst of us and out of sight. 

Once he was gone, the guide explained that Warthogs are not particularly aggressive as long as they are comfortable with their surroundings. The thing that works against them is that they have horrible eyesight. So they must trust their senses of smell and hearing to alert them to the presence and deportment of other creatures around them. A sudden movement could be interpreted as threatening and provoke an attack. By remaining calm "Mr. Warthog" quickly ascertained that we were of no particularly interest. "Good day, Mr. Warthog."

The 12 Most Amazing Places I Have Been

The end of the year just seems to demand the making of lists!  I present my 12 most amazing places that I have ever been in alphabetical order:

 Alps in Winter (by train), Switzerland

 Arches National Park, Utah, United States

 Fundy Bay, New Brunswick, Canada

 Greater Corn Island, Nicaragua

 Jessamine Creek Gorge, Kentucky, Unites States (Yes, that's me on the rock!)

 Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica

 St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City

 Sugar Loaf Mountain, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

 Table Mountain, Cape Town, South Africa

 Toroko Gorge, Taiwan, Republic of China

 Tortugero National Park, Costa Rica

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe: The Concept

Thank you, Robert Mugabe; may your legacy never fade from the minds of those who assume your powers after your passing, and may that elevation to a higher estate of consciousness be to you a reward and blessing that arrives sooner than later.

Window Magic

windowmagic, originally uploaded by Randuwa.

The widow is at the top of my stairs in the hall. It's covered with glass beads. The elephant is a carving that I purchased in Zimbabwe in December of 1990. (The tusks are "real"--whatever that means).

Strange week deserves at least one strange post...

Zoo Stories

detroitzoo1968
Originally uploaded by Randuwa

It's summer time and the living is easy! Besides books to read, DVD's to watch, and Gardens to tend; there is this beloved home of mine to clean.

1968 - And while cleaning today I happened upon this photo. Taken in the Spring of that year, it’s me (1st kid on the left) and four of my classmates on our first grade field trip to the Detroit Zoo. Other than the photo, I really don't remember that much about the day...my mother was a chaperone (probably the person behind the camera), the animals were in these cages without bars--if I remember that correctly. It was my first experience of a zoo, but not my last.

1983 - I was hired as a summer youth director by the Epworth United Methodist Church in Savannah, Georgia. It was my first experience as a church employee and my first extended visit to Georgia. I have to assume that neither are typical of either experiences, but at the time it was all I had to deal with.

The job turned out to be nothing more than a glorified baby-sitter for a mostly bunch of spoil white kids in one of America's most putrid backwaters of 19th century blue-blood hegemony....but I am starting to tell another story, so back to the zoo.

In my role as naive tour guide and recreational planner I scheduled a visit to the Columbia, South Carolina Zoo. The core audience for this day was the church's primary children. On the day of our departure we were joined by a flaming redheaded adolescent cousin of one the kids. His easy southern grin and crystal blue eyes naturally captivated me. Little did I suspect.... He turned out to be one hell of a total terror. At one point in our visit, I literally had to climb into the artificial habitat of some sort of a condor and drag him off of a faux concrete butte for his (and the bird's!) protection.

It was then that I removed my belt. I grabbed him by the back of his pants and before the assembled church group and God as my witness, I strung my belt through two loops on my pants and 2 loops through his and told him, "That's it. We're attached at the waste and this is as far as you're getting away from me again."

It was the last time I every saw that kid or his cousins at church.

1990 – The real thing: I had the pleasure of traveling to Africa. I visited the nations of South Africa and Zimbabwe, and while in Zimbabwe spent two days on Safari at Hwange National Park. I remember the drive in as the Landrover rambled along a dirt road phalanxed by herds of giraffe and zebra, while an horrific thunder storm spat flashes of lightening and rain and hail stones all around us—YES, golf ball-sized chunks of ice in the heart of Africa.

Once there, we road out to view animals on the first day. We saw huge heards of herbivores: Gnu, Impala, Grant’s Gazelle, Zebra and all animals with new borns in tow. At one watering hole we sat still and watched the most amazing heard of Elephants arrive and drink and bathe. At another point, we encountered a lone male. Apparently somewhat frisky, he quickly sprouted a fifth “leg” – and it was an honest to God LEG! In its proportions.

On the second day I participated in a walking safari and we encountered a wart hog up close and personal – the walk was cut short when our tracking of leopard turned into the Leopard’s tracking of us.

2000 – It was part of my Birthday Present. My ex- and I visited the New Orleans Zoo in late January. As zoos go, not the worst place for animals to live. As our trip went, one of my more pleasant memories was this wonderful exhibit of Louisiana flora and fauna, as well we, a Central American habitat. The primates were the worst aspect of the zoo – never an excuse for treating cousins so poorly.

2001 – For years my ex- and I planned monthly outings with his grandmother. In the summer of 2001, these excursions included a visit to the Baltimore Zoo. One of the oldest zoological parks in the United States, it was a great walking experience. The zoo part, which is to say the animal part, was less spectacular.

I remember feeling very sorry for the penguins and seals as they lethargically hung around their concrete ice berg. We spent some time around the chimpanzees who weren’t all that available or interested in us (in most zoos, it’s the primates that I pity the most). And there was this interesting prairie dog exhibit, but the prairie dogs were all as fat as Santa Claus! Chubs ready for leather bars, but hardly representative of their cousins in the wilds of Kansas and Nebraska!

Zimbabwe Memoir #7

Zimbabwe Memoir #7
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.

While in Harare, a friend of the family in whose home we were staying arrived to greet us and see if he could be of any assistance. My travelling companions were still in the throws of their gastro-intestinal illness, and so I was left alone to accept his hospitality. A young man, just graduated from High School, he proceeded to show me around "his" world.

The top picture is of the main build of his private High School. We attended a portion of a cricket match there. Very white, blacks were only working the grounds and serving.

When he finally asked me what I wanted to do, I asked about markets where I could purchase printed frabrics -- the budding quilter that I was at the time. And after some coaxing on my part, he took me to the open-air market in the central photograph, where I eventually purchased cloth from the vender in the bottom picture.

Being in both South Africa and Zimbabwe when I was (November/December 1990) I also experienced the vast contrast between race relations in the two neighboring countries at that time. In South Africa, whites were mostly aloof and blacks treated whites with a cool, well practiced respect. In Zimbabwe, the only thing that mattered was whether or not you had a VISA/MASTERCARD and were planning to use it. At least, this was my perception of the black Africans' public attitudes.

And since I used my VISA card, I was treated generously wherever I went in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe Memoire #6

I am reminded of an evening in Harare as my mind considers the pure evil that is racism, and how it permeates peoples who live in far flung places and whose means are far from the lavish wealth of our grace laden nation.

You may recall that I alluded to trouble regarding the lunches offered to me and my traveling companions while touring Lake Kariba (Zimbabwe Memoir #3 ~ August 3, 2005). In fact, my friends became ill with some intestinally based bug that lasted for the majority of our brief stay in Harare, while I remained healthy and free to roam. In Harare we stayed in the home of a friend of one of my traveling companions, Mr. O, a friend who was not in the country at the time; therefore, it was a little like a B & B with a few servants to make the stay effortless. The main man was a black Zimbabwean named Mr. I, who also resided in a little cottage on the grounds of the home. The owner was a successful Dentist of European heritage. It was our last leg of our tour of the country and actually a very nice way to end the visit (for me).

There, I was the ultimate stranger. I was only welcome via my relationship to Mr. O, and I not only didn't know the absentee host...I didn't know anyone! On the first evening of our stay, the brother of a member of my friend's church in Claremont, South Africa rang to invite us all over to his place, but only I was in any condition to accept. So bored with hanging around the place, I accepted to his enthusiastic "Grand!" Within minutes he pulled up in a mostly open jeep and looking every bit the twin of the English character actor, Terry Thomas (right down to the gap between his front teeth and the bushy moustache), he shook my hand as I climbed aboard and off we sped.

He lived in the home of his family. His parents had left for life back in England amid the deteriorating state of things in Zimbabwe, and his sister immigrated to South Africa after marrying. His home was nice, but not nearly as nice at the Dentist's, where I was staying. The main house (a sort of bungalow design) fit the lot snuggly and then in the rear there was a modest courtyard with a few simple single rooms detached from the main edifice lining the back of the property. Most of the "yard" was tiled like a patio.

Immediately upon my arrival he called out to the three Zimbabweans with whom he lived. Each resided in a separate one of the detached units in the back, and all shared the living, cooking, and toilet spaces in the main house. Two were beautiful young men, both students at the University, and the third was an older woman who also maintained the cleaning, cooking, and laundry in the home for room and board and a modest salary. In spite of the fact that it was well after dark, hot tea was offered and accepted, and the woman went to fetch it. I was introduced to all and the young men spoke of their studies and hopes for the future. When the tea arrived, one of the young men was dispatched to bring a telescope into the courtyard where we were gathered and amidst the fellowship and hospitality we took turns looking at the surface of the moon and Mars.

Interior lights and candles created an ambient glow similar to that of being at a campfire, and as the conversation took center stage again, the woman coyly asked me a question. "Do you think I am beautiful?" It quite took me be surprise, as vanity was just not something I had any experience of in Africa to that moment. I remember registering the question with a slight jerk -- the way you respond to anything that you find hard to believe, and I said, "Of course you're beautiful." She smiled like a shy school girl (a grown woman of I would assume at least 50 at the time), and responded, "Oh, No, good sir; I am too dark. I am not like the pretty women of Cape Town." My heart was pierced with sorrow; I will never forget that moment.

Today I live in a very diverse community just outside of Washington, D.C. People with whom I come in daily contact are from every conceivable corner of the world. I am often the only white in the store; and when others are present, we are rarely the majority. I have come to see people as simply beautiful. And that night in the golden glow of the flame, looking into the impossibly deep eyes of those three black Zimbabweans, I was so beguiled and blessed by their open hearts, their generosity of time and presence, their patience with me as I attempted to see what they could see in the lens of the telescope.... it was a magical moment by all accounts. And yet, there reared the evil presence of racism.

I do not remember what I told her. No doubt because whatever it might have been, I ought to have remained silent and simply wept. It was a comment that words could not fix, and so the companionship of tears would have been the only "voice" worth hearing.

I've been crying a lot lately.

Zimbabwe Memoire #5

matopasnpzimbabwe
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.

The first place that I visited in Zimbabwe was the southern city of Bulawayo. At the time the second largest city in the country after the capital of Hirare. Perhaps owing to the timing of the end of the dry season, it presented itself as a rather beige and dusty place.

I had the privilege of staying in the home of a retired British couple, who knew no end to the concept of hospitality. On our first full day there, they took us to Matopas National Park just south of Bulawayo. There we toured in their jeep and eventually hiked around.

The fame of Matopas is based on its natural rock formations. Huge stones found perched upon other bolders. Many have names, like the one in the top photo -- "Horse-rider". It was the place were I saw my first rhinocerous in the wild.

As we penetrated the park, we eventually reached a unique grave and monument. The final resting place of Sir Cecil Rhodes. The namesake of both colonies of Northern (Zambia) and Southern (Zimbabwe) Rhodesia. The basis and namesake of the Rhode's Scholars. Historically, an important person. Yet his grave was hewn into a piece of granet in the middle of nowhere....

What will future generations make of this? What should they? Explorer, Oppressor, Imperialist, Adventurer.... How do we judge a man against the backdrop of his age?

How do we judge ourselves?

Zimbabwe Memoir #4

dawnonlakekariba
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.

As long as my thoughts are near to my time on the shores of Lake Kariba in Zimbabwe, let me share this photo. I took it in the morning as the sun was rising over the lake.

Zimbabwe Memoire #3

karibamotel
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.

The fourth leg of my tour of Zimbabwe was a day spent on Lake Kariba. It's the largest man-made body of fresh water south of the Sahara, and second on the continent to only Aswan in Egypt. The day consisted of a boat trip across the lake with a brief visit to one of the islands that the dam created called Zebra Island -- where we only saw these awesome storks, and some comorants.

On the return journey, we were given box lunches by our hosts. Now I must say that Lake Kariba was hands down the most oppressively HOT place I visited in Africa. The lunches contained hard boiled eggs, an orange and a ham sandwich dressed with mayo. Now I'm no rocket scientist, but the only thing I ate was the orange. My companions chose a more trusting posture and devoured it all. That was a mistake on their part.

Afterward, we settled into our motel. All I could think of was taking a swim in the pool to cool off. The pool was very alluring, unfortunately it was also lined with black volcanic-appearing rock. When I dove into it seeking respite from the heat and found myself in a steamy bath, I don't know which was more acute; my surprise or my disappointment.

Appearances really can be deceiving!

Zimbabwe Memoir #2

duskonthezambezi
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.

Zimbabwe is an utterly beautiful nation. And this image is only one example of this exquisite palate.

The third stop on my stay in Zimbabwe was Victoria Falls National Park. On the evening of our second (and last) day there, we (that is Mr. and Mrs. O and I) took an evening boat trip on the Zambezi River below the falls. The main purpose of the event was to see Hippos in their natural environment -- which we did. But a clearly unexpected gift was this cloud formation against the setting sun.

I remember thinking that this was one of the truly magical moments in my life, and sharing this photo with you only reiterates this conclusion.

Zimbabwe Memoir #1

zimbabwemap
Originally uploaded by Randuwa.

Told you that I have been to many places! My trip to Zimbabwe was in December of 1990. It was part of a more extended visit to South Africa. In ten days, I got to see many parts of this beautiful nation.

Everywhere I went, I experienced such kindness and generosity. I traveled with my college friends, Mr. and Mrs. O. Our first stop was in the southern city of Bulawayo, where we stayed at the gracious invitation of an elderly Britisher couple -- the parents of a woman who attended the same church as Mr. and Mrs. O, in South Africa.

They were amazing people, having lived in Zimbabwe for over 30 years, and following its transition from the British colony of Southern Rhodesia, to it's then indigineously controlled nation of Zimbabwe.

At one point, we lamented our circumstances, which denied us a visit to the "Great Zimbabwe ruins" at "The Great Zimbabwe National Monument," and our male host decried, "The great Zimbabwe ruins? Just look around you!" And this seemed very accurate as we experienced both power and water outages, and drove past the carcasses of abandoned and "stripped" vehicles/busses along the dusty roadsides.

So they took us to the lesser known "Khami ruins" at the Matobo National Park. There I walked around similar circular and ancient structures and met my first rhinocerous in the wild. Also many baboons who inhabited the abandoned ruins.

And that was 15 years ago! I mourn Zimbabwe...a nation under the control of a despot leader. God, deliver the people of Zimbabwe ~ now that's a prayer worth repeating!