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<\/a>But we got here, eventually, and had arranged a tour with my guide from four years ago, targeting some places I had not seen last trip\u2014Table Mountain and Stellenbosch\u2014together with some sampling of the famous vineyards of South Africa.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nSunday, I had wanted to take the cable car up Table Mountain, but it was Sunday and mobbed; if we\u2019d gotten into the lines, we\u2019d probably still be waiting for the ride up. \u00a0Table Mountain, which looks like a table (it\u2019s Our guide has an interesting perspective on South Africa, being descended on her father\u2019s side from the original 250 Huguenot (French Protestants) welcomed by the Dutch in the mid 17th<\/sup> century to help establish the colony as an agricultural way station on the route to the Indies.\u00a0 Grow crops and raise beef, and reprovision ships on the route, and you can settle in French town; even then, the Dutch (better known as the Boers) had thoughts about who belonged where. The Huguenots brought viniculture, and thus was born one of South Africa\u2019s prominent exports.\u00a0 Though not being able to label bubbling wine \u201cChampagne\u201d \u2013I learned that\u2019s protected by the treaty of Versailles (since the US never signed it, Taylor can label its New York bubbly Champagne), the region produces world-class wines. One, pinotage, is a local contribution, grown from pinot noir and another variety, perfected by a professor (we\u2019re not all theoreticians) in 1925, but not commercialized until the 1960’s, as well as a mix of mostly dry and some sweet wines.\u00a0 We hit three of the wineries, one for lunch, about two short of what is \u201crecommended.\u201d (Can you imagine the consequences of sampling 5 wines at four wineries?) We learned about the varieties\u2014four of chardonnay for example, and why this area is so good for growing wines, and how different wines depend on process, weather, kind of wood, how long aged, shape of bottle—an education no doubt.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n Our guide,who speaks Afrikaans, a simplified descendant of Dutch with no genders, which is one of the major languages in South Africa (there are 11 or so), told us about her family\u2019s history during the Boer War.\u00a0 We know it primarily because of Baden-Powell, the general commanding British forces during the siege of Mafeking; as a result, he thought British boys needed to become more \u201cmanly\u201d and started Scouting for Boys (resigning from the Army in disgust after World War I to turn scouting into a force for peace).\u00a0 Christelle\u2019s \u201cgrannie\u201d and her family were put in concentration camps (the Boers fought the British for nearly ten years in the second Boer War).\u00a0 She said they survived because her aunt was a nurse who was able to get extra food rations.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n For South Africa, the result of the war was the peace among the whites that led to the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1911.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n The other discussion in the winelands had to do with the important issue in the \u201cbiggest election in South Africa\u2019s history\u201d\u2014land reform, since the vineyards are large plots of land in a country where 73%\u00a0 of the land is still owned by whites.\u00a0 One of the 3 parties, a new populist May 6, 2019 School started today when we officially gathered the 30 faculty who are on this trip for what was our (so first day of schoolish) introduction to the teachers, each other, and the topic of the course.\u00a0 Professor Rolfe, our host from the University of South Carolina, spoke for about an hour and … Continue reading “School Started Today”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-southern-africa-2019"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1722"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8522,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1722\/revisions\/8522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.iwu.edu\/factrack\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>sandstone peak has eroded, and it is flat, marking<\/a> Cape\u2019s location as one of the most memorable physical locations for a city);\u00a0 alas, we contented ourselves with the view from the road, a trip to nearby Signal Hill (where Carolyn firmly said\u00a0 No Way to my plea to test paragliding),\u00a0 thence to the \u201cGreen belt\u201d and the winelands around Cape Town.<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/a>spinoff from the ruling (since Independence in 1994) African National Congress has introduced a \u201cland seizure without compensation\u201d amendment to the current constitution.\u00a0 The political situation is quite complex, since the parties list their candidates (all 400 apparently, in order of preference) and the election is based on the number of votes for the party.\u00a0 If you poll 60% of the vote, you get 240 seats in Parliament. And the party votes for the chief officer.\u00a0 The theory is that everyone gets represented.\u00a0 It will be an interesting time to be here.\u00a0 We\u2019re doing a tour on Wednesday, partly since most businesses will be closed in this national holiday.<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"