Blogs from Oudtshoorn, Western Cape, South Africa, Africa - page 8

There are many impoverished townships scattered around South Africa. During the apartheid era, many blacks and coloreds were forcefully removed to some of the lands that were a lot less fertile. I've past many townships during my trip through South Africa. People live in tiny shacks that are constructed out of corrugated metal sheets and each township has a population of tens of thousands of people. Friday night, Amy and I decided to take a tour of the Bongolethu township just outside of Oudtshoorn. The population of Bongolethu is about 15,000 which is considered small and 93% of the men, women, and youth are unemployed. Our guide's name was Thando (pronounced ton-do) and he was very enthusiastic about his township which he has grown up in for the last 25 years. He told us that Bongolethu ... read more

I've had two full days of work so far not counting orientation day so I'll give a quick run down of some of the tasks that I help out with. We've been split into 3 groups and each group is paired up with a curator. Wednesday: Amy and I were paired up with Francois, the animal trainer. We mainly worked with the cheetahs and the tigers. Our morning consisted of cleaning all of the cheetah's cages, draining and cleaning the tigers' pool area, and cutting up large chunks of meat for the cheetahs and the tigers later on in the day. We also cleared away a lot of brush that was intertwined in a fence right next to the lion's den. There's a male lion, named Charlie, and three females who have names but are collectively ... read more

I just realized that I didn't explain the title of my previous post. The Karoo is the region of South Africa that is known for its dry, deserty climate, its vegetation, and it's flat expanses of land. We are located in the Klein (small) Karoo. The Big Karoo is located farther north.... read more

After the delights of Hermanus, we moved to Swellendam - best described as rural. You couldn't fault the view, if you could see it through the cloud of mosquitoes, so we swiftly moved to ostrich country. Oudsthoorn is a nice little town, built on the wealth of ostrich feathers. The last big boom came to an end in 1914, so they have now diversified into eating them as well as selling the feathers - a damn fine chilli the mince makes! The area is known as the Little Karoo or desert, as the mountains block the weather fronts coming in from the sea and the fields around town are full of ostriches. The town is full of grand buildings or "feather palaces" as they are known and for the first time so far, you actually feel ... read more