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Blogs from Eastern Cape, South Africa, Africa - page 50
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October 14th 2006
From Grahamstown we began to travel down from the mountains and towards East London on the coast. Here we traveled through King Williams Town, which was established by the London Missionary Society in 1826. During the apartheid era it had been one of the major cities in the black homeland of Ciskei, and we could tell that this community was not as developed economically. The city was one of the centers for black resistance against apartheid and it is here that Steven Biko is buried. Biko was a young South African who was a spokesman for the Black Consciousness movement and urged blacks towards non-violence and to take responsibility for themselves and their future. Biko was beaten to death while in police custody in 1977. While in East London we were guests of Bahram and Simin, ... read more
Lovely, lovely Grahamstown
Published: November 3rd 2006Africa » South Africa » Eastern Cape » GrahamstownOctober 11th 2006
Choughi and Amal have spent their lives as pioneers throughout Africa, and he is the descendant of one of the first Babis to leave Iran and begin teaching the Faith in Egypt. Choughi is a retired physician and has on occasion received requests from the Universal House of Justice to take up residence in countries where he and his wife were needed. They are now retired in Grahamstown, where they have a son and daughter-in-law who are both working for Rhodes University. They also have two grandchildren here, which means that Grahamstown’s entire Bahá’í community is six in total. This changes occasionally as Bahá’í students arrive to attend Rhodes. The National Spiritual Assembly (NSA) of South Africa had asked us to consider settling in the Grahamstown in hope of establishing a more vital community. We were ... read more
Port Alfred and Grahamstown
Published: November 3rd 2006Africa » South Africa » Eastern Cape » GrahamstownOctober 9th 2006
Today we started off driving north along the coast to Port Alfred where we had arranged to meet a local artist named Edmund. Eddy, as he is called, is the only Bahá’í in Port Alfred, and he took off work to give us a wonderful tour of the town and to have lunch with us. Eddy is a painter who incorporates human figures and architectonic forms in his work. We had lunch at a small restaurant next to the beach that was being pounded by the storm surf. It is an amazing and beautiful coastline. After lunch we drove inland to the city of Grahamstown, which is where Rhodes University is located. Here Choughi, a Persian/Egyptian Bahá’í, met us. He took us to his home where his wife Amal, who is a Persian/Palestinian, hosted us for ... read more
Getting to know PE a bit
Published: November 3rd 2006Africa » South Africa » Eastern Cape » Port ElizabethOctober 8th 2006
Yesterday we tried to visit the Nelson Mandela Art Museum, but it was closed. We managed to find a couple of other galleries and visited a wonderful city garden that was full of plants that you could only imagine coming from another planet. Today our hosts also took us to a nature preserve full of many more exotic plants and birds. Our second night in PE, we attended a devotional meeting of about 25 people that included Christians, Hindus and Bahá’ís. The feeling of fellowship was very positive and quite welcoming. The hosts for this gathering were another Persian Family, Abbas and Sepi and their two daughters. As the evening moved along and we got to know them better, Abbas, who owns his own engineering firm, talked with me about a job working for his firm ... read more
October 6th 2006
Today we headed south from Bloemfontein to the southern coast. The grassy landscape gradually became more mountainous and greener. We passed through Olifantskop (elephant head) Pass and into the area occupied by the Addo Elephant Reserve. This is absolutely gorgeous country, all green and full of trees. Unfortunately, when we stopped to photograph it, we discovered that our camera had stopped working. We saw hillsides covered with blooming aloes of various kinds, and among all the hardwoods were interspersed various large succulents and cacti. In the US we have “century plants” that have large leaves and 15’ flower stalks; we saw hundreds of those with their stalks starting to come out. Apparently, they bloom more than once a century here! We decided to save our trip into the elephant reserve for a later visit and proceeded ... read more
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October 1st 2006
We were up & in our Safari jeeps by 5:15,and headed to Hluhluwe national park. The reserve opened at 6:00 and we had a freezing 35 minute ride in a open jeep. The sunrise was beautiful. Hluhluwe is a much larger preserve with elephants and cats in it. We saw some beautiful views in the park from the lookout. There were herds of elephants wandering to the east. And then we saw zebras, more nyalas, and more and more elephants. We spent about 3 hours searching for the elusive lion pride that was spotted here yesterday. We stopped a picnic area in the park, and had our huge lunches that were packed for us. Two sandwiches, fruit, yogurt, cheese, sausage, muffins, nuts, a chocolate bar, and juice. And then there was the cooler full of soda, ... read more
September 25th 2006
A joke I heard from the municipality mayor’s driver, Billy (a.k.a “mayonnaise”): “What’s more dangerous than running a robot in Jo’Burg??? ....Stopping at one!” Hilarious - they call traffic lights here “robots”. The part Billy thought I would find funny is that nobody stops at red “robots” in major cities at night because that’s where car-jackings often occur. You just drive up, look around and zip right through…kind of like cheating at a stop sign back home. It took me 3 days to figure out Billy's nickname was “mayonnaise” by the way. I just couldn’t understand anyone’s pronunciation and I just assumed his nickname was some meaningful tribal name, not the type of condiment Brits put on their chips. I digress… Ok, new discoveries over the last two weeks: First, you should never feed monkeys. I ... read more
Strange things in Port St Johns
Published: October 1st 2006Africa » South Africa » Eastern Cape » Port St Johns
September 23rd 2006
Well Arrived in Port St Johns to a hostel called Amapondo. Port St Johns is a place full of old hippies and the pace of life there is slower than a a drunk snail's. It's a really lovely little town with not much going on but is full of character - and characters! It was their holiday weekend when we were there, so lots of festivals and events were going on. I got talking to the owner of the hostel who was I think on his 10th joint of the evening, and he asked if I was a sporty type of person. Wondering how he could have known that I was, I was intrigued so told him I play the odd game of tennis and hop on the mountain bike now and again. In response he ... read more
September 20th 2006
Hello again!! I've done quite a lot since the last blog effort so will try and tell you as much as possible without boring you! Well Cintsa, as lovely a place as it is, turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. On first inpsection the place was really cool, right near an amazing beach with a really nice little chalet for us to stay in. We decided we were going to go horseriding along the beach the next morning and were so looking forward to it. All the comments in their book said it was one of the most amazing horse rides they'd ever been on. So with high hopes we turned up the next morning only to be told that it was too windy and that the horse riding was off. With hardly ... read more
Finally in Africa..........
Published: September 5th 2006Africa » South Africa » Eastern Cape » Port Elizabeth
September 5th 2006
Well, I am finally in Africa. The past week has been so amazing, and tiring, that I find it hard to find time to write. We flew into Johannesburg a week ago and have been on the move ever since. Today was amazing, we went out on the Indian Ocean and cruised beside a pack of about 20 dolphins - I can't even describe the feeling. Being out on the open ocean in Africa with dolphins frolicking infront of you and beside you is the best feeling in the world. The guy that took us out said he hasn't seen a pack of dolphins in months and that he was really "stoked" about our encounter today. He said we were extremely fortunate to have that experience. We sat and watched a southern right whale and her ... read more
