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Africa
After the Owl House, we headed for Ganora Farm to camp the night. The dust road there was lined with majestic sisal plants – and it poured heavy rain and hail all the way.
Bea and Mila ran outside to taste the rain, the sun came out and we swam in the small reservoir, the sun set and we went for a walk – all within an hour.
Hester, the owner of the gorgeous sheep farm, kindly let us camp on her land. We crossed a river three times, went up a small escarpment and camped on a ridge surrounded by open plain.
This morning Ralph set up his desk to do some work before it got too hot, and when it got too bright…
In the shade of the Landy, the girls and I started to read “The Road to Mecca” a play about the Owl House, written by Athol Fugard (one of South Africa’s most famous playwrights). It started excitedly as we took turns reading the parts, but things then faltered — the lines of authority are too blurred — my instinct to work out how to best teach as we go along, in response to the girls delight/dismay, is proving NOT VERY GOOD!
Today we saw rock paintings from over 7,000 years ago. We spent half an hour staring at little men shooting buffalo and creative made-up animals. It was amazing!
In Nieu Bethesda we visited The Owl House, the home of artist Helen Martin. For the last 25 years of her life (starting at age 50 in 1945), Helen created a cement and glass sculpture garden in her back yard. The sculpture garden is world famous as an example of Outsider Art, but I was more interested in the interior of her home, unchanged since the time of her death. Each room is a fantasy of light, colour, texture and eccentric details. Photos of naked women peer over green haired trolls. Her pantry is filled with the ground up coloured glass she used to cover the walls. I felt right at home!
On the stoep of Dani’s trout Fram, Mila explained about Helen Martin’s glass covered walls:
She got hundreds of glass bottles, and smashed them, so they were all about 2mm long on each side. Sometimes colors were mixed together, but mostly they were separated into just one color (see left hand photo below). Then she stuck the glass on the walls, with the pieces of glass very very close together. In the entrance hall she made a colorful sun on the roof! I wonder how she got it on the ceiling?
Helen must have felt a bit scared living there, because there was quite a big chance she’d bump into something (I do that all the time!). Or if you’re angry you might hurt yourself, because there’s so much glass, and when you’re angry you don’t really think about what you’re doing. And anyway she wasn’t that careful because she went blind from getting too much glass dust in her eyes – she could have worn goggles.
(p.s.) It wouldn’t have been that amazing if she’d made it out of glitter, because anyone could have done it, but you have to be brave to do it with glass.
Bea and Mila catch me posing like a moody twit (smile).
On Night 2 we ended up camping at Finchley Farm in Willowmore, another unexpected Karoo oasis. The heat was still oppressive at 6pm, so we cooled off in the lovely little stone swimming pool. The farm owner, Joanne, kept two rescued meerkats…aw cute. They rooted for worms between our toes (not impossible even at this early stage of the journey).
Bea held Flower, Mila held Mishkin, and suddenly Mila was howling, as Flower lunged forward and bit her arm. We sterilised the cut and checked whether rabies was any kind of concern, which it wasn’t. Whilst we marveled at Mila’s wound, four impressive puncture marks, Bea admitted to being “a little bit jealous”. (smile)
The next morning the girls weren’t allowed to play with the meerkats, but Ralph played with them with a kikoi, just as he had done 5 years ago with some Kalahari white lion cubs. That time Mila had cried (a family legend), this time she laughed!
We’re steaming northwards (see the “Where we are” page)- first night Bontebok National Park. 2nd night on a sheep farm near Willowmore. Mpandingare can cruise up to 100kph on the open road, and we’ve got Bea & Mila doing schoolwork on the long legs. We’ll be adding Bontebok, Hartebeest, Ostriches, Meerkats, Tortoises & Springbok to the fieldguide later in the week. Right now we are in a small padstal – Bea and Mila are playing with the pet meerkat – supercute. We’re on our way to the Owl House in Nieuw Bethesda – sleeping on another farm tonight.
Three hours north of Cape Town, we spent our first night at the Bontebok National Park beside the Breede river.
We were all a bit grumpy and very hot and tired and I was trying not to panic at the difficulty of balancing work/play/play as work/work as play.
A big beautiful mountain tortoise ambles by. Should we observe it? Photograph it? Should I draw it myself? Encourage the girls to draw it? Blog it? Research it? Write a story..? Feed it lettuce? Iceberg? Romaine? Yikes. When in doubt, jump in a river!
Swimming in the river sorted us out in the short term and Ralph encouraged me to Not Panic, that we would find a flow. Writing now a couple of days later, we are definitely finding more of a flow. The girls are able to do their basic schoolwork on the long car journeys so that they can play when we set up camp, and I think Heidi’s advice to cram for a few days then take days off will suit all our temperaments.
Before sunset we walked the Aloe Trail (1.8km) in the hills behind our campsite.
We saw a scary looking flying beetle dragging a half-dead huge hairy spider down his hole. Turns out it was an assassin beetle who injects his victims with poison and then sucks out their insides. Yum. Time to head back to camp for dinner!
I’ve known a girl called Tali for at least six years. She lives here, in South Africa. She used to live in America. We had a great sleepover the other night. Then she came over for dinner on Friday night. She is a bit older than me and she has a brother called Gian (Gee-Un). Gian is six and a half. Her parents are Lawn and Heidi.
I’m soooo excited to start our huge adventure.
On the 6th January I went surfing from 8 to 10am. English time: 6-8am. Californian time 10pm-12am. It’s actually quite easy. The water in Cape Town is really warm on one side, but on the other coast, the water is really cold. We went in the warm section on a beach called Muizenberg. I bought a water proof video camera. It’s so cool.
Surfer’s Corner, Muizenberg South Africa from Mpandangare the Great on Vimeo.
On Friday Ben the Mechanic, an old school Cape Townian with a bar in his garage, smoking a pipe at 9am, spent 3 hours showing us how to deal with potential problems that could arise with Mpandangare the Great:
eg.
White smoke coming out the bonnet at a slow speed
White smoke coming out the bonnet at a fast speed
White smoke coming out the bonnet at start up
Black smoke coming out the bonnet at a slow speed
Black smoke coming out the bonnet at a fast speed
Black smoke coming out the bonnet at start up
Grey smoke… etc
The permutations were daunting but Ben (actually his name was Dave) gave us brilliantly useful tips on how to troubleshoot none of which I understood and all of which I have already forgotten.
Although I maintained an enigmatic silence throughout, Dave at one stage drew a little diagram and said “Lisa, even you will understand this”. I mumbled something unconvincing about sexism.
Anyway I loved his teaching style – to debunk engineering myths by asking us rhetorical questions eg. “Is a Landrover always in four wheel drive?” with a nifty preemptive response: “Up yours!” Maybe I will try his technique when home-schooling the girls …
Below – means to an end.
