The ninth weekend

 

After a very busy week finally I had a relaxed weekend. On Saturday I stayed in bed quite long, and when I woke up  already Elise's sister was here for lunch. It was again pleasant to chat with her. Then I watched a movie with Jeff and Steff.  In the evening Elise and Andries went to a birthday party. Steff had a party with her waterpolo team. All evening I was at home with Jeff and Paulie. So we watched a movie again. On Sunday we had a family lunch, so Elise’s parents and her brother came with his family. Again we had a nice braai and it was really nice to see everyone one last time, because I wouldn’t see them anymore before I’m going back. In the evening we went to a concert at Kirstenbosch. Short Straw, a band that quite a lot of people know here. They played a lot of amazing songs and with their simple melodies and catchy rhythms get the people to dance. We even went up to the front to dance there! One last time at Kirstenbosch, and it was wonderful. I am going to miss this fantastic atmosphere.

Short Straw at Kirsenbosch

 





Short Straw

 

 

 



Rain Spider

Rain Spider

We came home in the evening and we saw a huge spider above our head on the ceiling of the living room. I am generally scared of spiders and it happened earlier during my stay that a rain spider was in my bathroom but at that time Jeff was so kind to remove it. But this one was even bigger, at least 15 cm big. It was quite scary and nobody did anything. Jeff said very relaxed if it is tomorrow morning still there I remove it. Everybody was just sitting and chatting in the living room and they were not interested in this spider. But I was a little bit scared and everytime I looked where it is. If  it is not there tomorrow where it will be. In my room?

 

In South Africa it is called rain spider because these spiders come in out of the rain. The rain spider is dark brown and their bodies are smooth and plump. Their legs can span more than 7 cm and are hairy to boot. It is not poisonous and not dangerous at all but it can bite. The females can get aggressive while defending their eggs. In South Africa it is common to have these spiders move into your home just before the summer rains.  My advice is if you are scared of spiders please be prepared because it could give you a heart attack when you see them at first. But they are really harmless.

Afrikaans - the youngest language

My study book

 

I have a nice acquaintance, Marcel Bas. He studied linguistics in Leiden and his passion is Afrikaans, he even started his own website " De Roepstem".  Before my exchange he explained a few things about this language and it was very interesting. I was happy that In Herschel I could follow Afrikaans language lessons.

It is a daughter language of Dutch, but anyway different.  Afrikaans also known as the Cape Dutch and it belongs to the West Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is spoken by 5 million people as a first language and by 10 million as a second language in South Africa. It is also spoken in Botswana , Lesotho, Namibia and Zambia.The name "Afrikaans" means African in Dutch. It was originally used by the Dutch settlers.  This language was considered a Dutch dialect until the beginning of 20th century. In 1925 was officially recognized to be a distinct language from Dutch. It has a rich vowel system with short and long vowels . The basic vocabulary of Afrikaans is Dutch in origin, but you can recognize the English and German effects. There are some Afrikaan words which sound very funny for us. When somebody looks a little bit gray in his face and says "Ik ben aardig", he doesn't want to express he is kind, but that he feels sick.  You could react by saying that he has to take a "blaaskans", which means he has to take some time to recover. You can travel in Africa by "Duimgooien", which means hitchhiking. But you also can hire your own "motorkar", but be careful for a "papwiel", which is a flat tire.     

It is quite interesting that " Afrikaans Language Monument" is built on a hill in Paarl, Western Cape Province. The structure is impressive and this is the only language monument in the world.   It shows  all languages that influenced Afrikaans. It is a great symbolism of growth and development of the Afrikaans language. People are very proud of it.

 

Afrikaans Language Monument

 

Eating and drinking in South Africa

The beer is the national drink

 South Africa is one of the world's top ten winemaking countries by volume but beer is the national drink. "Casle Lager" is the most popular beer and it produced by SABMiller. This is the largest brewing company of the world. Hansa Pilsner is one of South Africa's oldest popular beer brand. During my stay I heard more about the wines than beers, because our house is in Constantia. "Groot Constantia" is South Africa's oldest wine producing estate and it is world famous because of its top wines. The farm of "Constantia" was established in 1685 by Simon van der Stel. He was the first governor of Cape. In the 18-th century the sweet wines of Constantia received international acclaim for their superior quality. Almost all of South Africa's vineyards are located in the province of the Western Cape. The climate and the soil is perfect for the vineyards. The best white vines are: Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon  Blanc and the best red vines are: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Pinot Noir. In the XX-th century the vine industry had some difficulties, because of the Apartheid Regime. During this regime were boycotts of South African products in protest against the Apartheid system. When the Apartheid was ended the world's export market opened to South Africa.

Top wines

The African kitchen is quite diverse with many of influences from all over the world. But the  "braai" is tipical South African and the Afrikaans folk are very proud of it.  The word "braai" is Afrikaans for "barbecue" or "roast". The traditions of the braai is different from the barbeque, however the method of the food preparation is very similar.  A braai is a social occasion that has specific traditions and social norms. Families and friends like to be together outside. The standard braai meats include sosaties /kebabs/, chops, sausage /boereworst/, steaks and chicken pieces. It is really amazing how many different nice quality meat are prepared. It is common for the man to braai the food, while standing around the fire with cold beers. The women prepares salads, breads. If the food is ready the people can serve themselves. It is a buffet style. It has a special atmosphere. People come together to talk, to dance, to chill, to have fun. If you are in South Africa you definitely should try it to understand a part of their culture.

Traditional braai in South Africa

The eighth week

 

Monday  was a different school day because we went to Bishops boys school for a day. The official name of the school is Bishops Diocesan College and it was established in 1849 by the Bishop of Cape Town. It is located in Rondebosch  and the school territory is extremely large, with many different sport fields, swimming pools, beautiful buildings and boarding houses.  First we went to a chapel service, which was almost an hour. It was amusing when hundreds of boys are singing. The organ was quite loud, their voices were deep and  I enjoyed listening to them.  After chapel Mr Court paired me with one of the boys from grade 11 - Sean.  We visited some lessons and I found it quite interesting. We had lunch at the boarding house. It was really cool. I wish that we had something like that in the Netherlands. We walked around the campus and I was amazed how many different sport fields they have and how beautiful the park is around the school. It was interesting to experience a complete different school as we are used to. 


Bishops Chapel

 

Rugby field

 

Tuesday I just had my normal school day. During consumer studies we learned how to make a bread. I am sure that I’ll make this at home for my family. Of course I also had "Afrikaans". I love these language lessons so much.

On Wednesday all exchange students from Herschel went off to explore some more of Cape Town on a "Hop On, Hop Off" bus. We started our tour at the Waterfront. It was funny to see the city from a little higher point of view. We were on the top of a double decker open bus. First we visited the District Six Museum which shows the history of this area of Cape Town. After WW II this region was a cosmopolitan district. On 11 February 1966, the government declared District Six a "WHITE ONLY" area. More than 60000 people were removed from their homes. It is an interactive museum where you really get the feeling that you live in that area. It was sad to face the damage of the Apartheid Regime. After that we visited the oldest building of South Africa - The Castle of Good Hope.  This star shaped fort was built in the 17th century by Jan van Riebeeck and the Dutch East India Company.  The five bastions of the Castle are named after Dutch Royals: Orange, Nassau, Catzenellenbogen, Leerdam and Buuren. The main function of this fort was to support and protect the Dutch spice trade with the East Indies.

District Six Museum

The Castle of Good Hope

After this tour we had lunch at Camps Bay. It was so nice to be there with all the exchange girls. Around half past two we had to be back at Herschel, because we went to support the waterpolo teams at “Waller Cup” at the Newlands Pool. The Waller Cup is an annual waterpolo event where all the best school teams in the Western Cape compete against each other. It was fantastic that a part of the school was there to support its teams.

On Thursday I did not go to school, because surfing at Muizenberg beach was organized for all exchange students of Herschel and Bishops. This was actually the last program together, because Sunday half of the Chilean students were going home. I loved this program so much. There were amazing waves and I could stand up on the surfboard quite a few times. It is such an awesome feeling to be on top of the waves. Once everyone was tired we had a nice lunch on the beach.

In the evening we had a "winter program" in the hottest summer in Cape Town. Maarten invited all exchanges for an hour of ice skating at an indoor rink at the + 66 Grand West Casino. The place looked exactly like the indoor ice skate rink at Polus Center in Budapest. It was fun but we were not very well prepared. No gloves! It was disco ice skating, so there were coloured lights everywhere.

Friday morning we had a normal school day but everybody was very excited because of the Matric Dance. This Matric Farewell is one of the most exciting events in the high school students life. A fantastic dinner and dance party is organized for the 12 grades students. I signed up together with the other girls to waitress at this dance. All afternoon we were busy with a waitressing training. We had to take our job seriously to make it an amazing night. It was even not allowed for us to dance or even to speak with the 12 grades students or their dates, though it happened anyway, because they started talking to us. We were wearing black clothes and we had flower crowns in our hair. It was quite tiring but I enjoyed it very much.
Especially the beginning was so special, when the girls arrived in their beautiful dresses and with their dates. One couple arrived in a red Ferrari, while others came in a tuk-tuk or a couch or even an ice cream car! They were beautiful and looked so happy. This was a "once in life time" event for the 12 grades students. It was a wonderful experience for me to be there .

Matric Dance

 

 

 

The eighth weekend

Naked Bike Ride

 

After Vicente’s party I slept till eleven o'clock in the morning. When I awoke I heard that I missed The Cape Town Naked Bike Ride. I thought this was a joke, but it wasn’t. Every year this event is organised in Cape Town. The message is that cycling should be safer and people should use it as an alternative transport for a cleaner air. Some people are completely naked, some of them has something on and some of them paint their bodies. They used not only bicycles but also skateboards. This way they want to get attention for environment issues. I really respect them! After my late breakfast Cemmie came to pick me up and we went to the Hout Bay Market together with Agnes, Anto, Pia and Trini. You can buy anything in Hout Bay. I believe that more than 150 traders are there with their products. Plus everything is much cheaper than in the Netherlands. We walked around and ate something. It was a great afternoon with nice weather and a beautiful view in the harbour.

On Saturday evening all Dutch exchange students were invited by Ziyaad, Maarten's exchange partner. He just moved into a new house and the view from there was fantastic.  We had a traditional braai. It was a lot and extremely delicious. We had fun together!

 

On Sunday the biggest city road race in the world was organised in Cape Town. More than 35000 cyclist joined the race. This year the race was announced as the "Show You Care Solidarity Ride" in honour of the fire fighters.  It would have been nice to see this but we had guests. Elise's parents arrived from Johannesburg and her sister’s family came. We went to Cape Point Vineyard together for a picnic.  This beautiful vineyard is situated on the slopes of the Noordhoek Amphitheather. We had a relaxed picnic with a lot of fun and the view was absolutely breathtaking!  When we drove home we also could see how big damage the fire had made in a beautiful nature area.

Cape Point Vineyard

 

The seventh week

 

After my fantastic weekend with white sharks,  Monday I went to school and I followed my regular lessons. In the afternoon I had music assemble. I was happy that I could finally play on my flute. I miss my Dutch orchestra a lot. Yesterday a wildfire started  at the mountains and at Hout bay.  There are quite some fires, because the fynbos vegetation  requires regular burning for  its persistence. But it seems  this fire is more extreme than usual. When we went home we could see the fire is spreading across the mountains and everywhere were large grey smoke clouds.  You could hear continuously helicopters which are carrying water bombs.  In the evening the wind direction changed and all the smoke came over Constantia, where we live. It was a very strong smoke, you could even smell it inside the house.
 

Cape Point

 Tuesday we went on an excursion with grade 9 of Bishops (Jeff’s grade). We visited Cape point. Our bus drove through the area of the wildfire. It was scary to experience this huge fire from so close. Cape Point is the southmost point of Africa and it was about one hour drive from Cape Town.  I heard  that this is the point where the cold Atlantic Ocean and the warm Indian Ocean meet.  This theory not exactly correct, because the geographic meeting point of the two oceans is 150 km further to the South-East, but that doesn’t really matter. The Cape Point has a spectacular view! Geographically it is an interesting point and it has a colourful history.  There are different kinds of rocks  as Bellows Rock and Albatross Rock. It is fantastic to see but it is very dangerous for  boats. That is the reason that the light of the lighthouse of Cape Town  is the most powerful . Portuguese explorer Bartolomeu Dias was the first to round the Cape Peninsula in 1488. He called this place: “Cape of Storms” because of strange, rapidly changing weather.  But later this name was changed to “ Cape of Good Hope”. Vasco da Gama navigated his sailing boat along the coast of Africa and he opened a new trading route for Europe with the Far East.  We could see its beautiful beach, where was not possible to swim because the water was extremely cold  and apparently it was really dangerous. It was a very interesting and beautiful day, but we were completely exhausted, because it was 43 degrees. Cape Town was the hottest city in the world that day!


Beautiful beach at Cape Point

Luckily on Wednesday it was much cooler, but 35 degree was still a hot summer temperature.  The fire-fighters were still working on the fire day and night. Some area’s around Hout bay had been evacuated. A girl from school had to leave her house in the middle of the night. 

Thursday after school we went home and we had an early supper.  At 9 pm we went to the “Moonlight Mass Night Cycle”.  This was organised at full moon and the aim is to raise awareness for cycling in Cape Town as alternative transport and to reduce air pollution. We cycled about 12 km in an hour. It was a great experience to do it together for cleaner air in town. Steff, Julien, Agnes, Anto, Pia, Vicente and Theuns were also there. It was a lot of fun together.

“Moonlight Mass Night Cycle”. 

Friday after school I had a nice afternoon with Maxime in Cavendish. We did some shopping and we ate something there.  Friday evening we were invited by Julien . He organized a farewell party for his exchange student, Vicente, but it was also a goodbye to Anto and Pia. It was a great party with some pizza and we had fun together. We could hardly believe that time flies so fast. Most of the Chilean exchange students were busy packing their bags .  We promised each other to keep a touch by facebook, whatsapp etc.  We had eight fantastic weeks together and probably this is a start for new friendships for a lifetime.