Diary day 9 - South Africa March 2002

Today is the day for our big trip to Dabulamanzi Combined School. It's now 11 minutes after 7 in the morning, and David has just left with Fabia. Marilyn and her mother Marge will go on the trip as well, so we can expect a very nice family-day. I think we have about 130 km to the school, and from there we'll go another 50 km to a reservation with cave paintings. We also hope we will see eland antelopes.

We had a nice drive up there. We used Marge’s car, and she drove all the way. It was interesting to watch how the landscape and temperatures changed as we moved up into the mountains. We came to the school after a couple of hours. Marge and Marilyn would go on their own, while David and I visited the school for 2-3 hours. David had spent a lot of time on phone calls to the school to make an appointment. He had made an arrangement with the headmaster, but when we got into the school, we realized that this headmaster was not there at all. He had left for a meeting, and nobody knew we were coming:
It turned out that this was not a big problem. They found number 2 for us, and he introduced us to one of the teachers, whose name was Gu-gu.
The year before she had spent 3 months at a school in Columbus, Ohio in USA, and she told us she would take us on a guided tour on the school.
She was a very nice lady, and she introduced us to 3-4 different classes. We had a very warm welcome in every class we came into. I told them a little about Denmark, and I believe they found it interesting to have an international visitor.

This school is a so-called farm school and there are about 600 black Zulu learners. The school is financed by the parents and by private sponsors. The standard is high and it has a very good reputation in the area.

I must admit that everything here was extremely different from what I am used to in Denmark, and I think the learners looked at me in wonder. We could very easily have spent the whole day there, but we had not got the time for that. We thanked Gu-gu for showing us around and continued our trip.

On our way to the reservation we passed a number of villages, and with their round huts they looked exactly like my childhood's conception of a negro village.

We had lunch when we arrived and Marilyn and Marge had made a huge picnic basket. We were very hungry. Because of the height the temperature had dropped, and it was rather cold. Actually we had to put on an extra jacket.
David and I started on foot for the caves with the paintings. It would take us about 30 minutes. David thought we were late and set of at a murderous speed. I did my very best to follow him. It was a very scenic walk. We were there in good time, and we talked a little with a young Hungarian couple.

A little later our Zulu guide/guard arrived. He was interesting and exciting to listen to, so we enjoyed the 45 minutes with him and his show. The paintings were not looking to good. David had been there many times before, and he told us, that people did not treat these paintings the way they should.

We looked into the souvenir-shop. It was not very impressive. A lot of the souvenirs can be found in each an every shop, so you have to be lucky to find something special.

On our way home we passed a lot of the children who came to the cars to ask for money and sweets. We gave them a couple of chocolate biscuits. Marilyn told me that they brought their cast-off clothes to this place. Everything could be used. We found the time to visit some of David and Marilyn’s friends. They lived on a strawberry-farm. We had a cup of coffee and a cake there. It was really in the country side.

It was a long ride home, because it grew dark, and we were a little tired. Before we left David had talked with the Hungarians again. They told him that they had rented a car, and they also told him, where they had planned to go.
- Not a good idea, he told them. He explained to them, the in the area they talked about, there were roads where you simple do not come when it's dark. The risk of hi-jacking was to big.

David also explained that they all know someone who has been, mugged, robbed or who has been hi-jacked,
- You get immune to these things, he said. The local people are aware of the dangerous no-go-zones.

After our arrival to David's home in Durban we found out that Marge had a puncture on one of her rear wheels. When this was fixed (I held the torch) we had a late dinner before we went to bed around 10 p.m. after an extremely interesting day.