some people do trance festivals for spreading global love and peace on sunny saturdays. others go up that road again into boerenland. i belonged to others last weekend. friday afternoon bou and me left for the well known malmesbury-moorresburg-piketberg-citrusdal-clanwilliam route that would end in namibia if only i ever had the chance to do the other half of it as well. the original plan of staying in the gekko guesthouse shortly before clanwilliam turned out to be a rather bad one - lonely, self-catering and a hostel owner who was catering himself a lot at his bar. what else to do than going into downtown clanwilliam and checking into one of these flower/rooibos/mission stations-tourists-appeal guesthouses? we did. the basically only (nice) restaurant was crowded, so we went into the only bar - de kelder (clanwilliam features however approximately 4 liquor stores). on the way there i gave bou a lecture about the stars in the southern hemisphere sky, knowledge i had acquired a few weeks before when i visited the planetarium in the (otherwise less thrilling) south african museum. in de kelder, the rugby game between the kavaliers and blue bulls (bottom and top of the list) was being broadcasted, so bou could give me a lecture on rugby in turn. i'd consider it an interesting-yet-stupid and refreshingly brutal sport. the boeren from clanwilliam were happily cheering for the blue bulls who won the match almost unbeaten. bou and i went eating a small lamb (healthily sized portions) in the restaurant, shared a bottle of wine and were determined to go to bed early, as we had our appointment with willem 'full of kak' at stellar the next day and would be leaving earlyish as well.
somehow it all went wrong. we don't remember where, though. all of a sudden we were back in the kelder, i was surrounded by boeren, pouring me jaegermeisters and other unspeakable stuff and additionally out of the blue i was able to speak their language. i vaguely remember it was somebody's birthday, i danced boeren-style with various natives and had to constantly fight off the 'gaan ons vryen?' questions. straightforward people, the clanwilliamers!
(and they're having an impressive dam at the N7)
nothing would help better than a healthy nutritious afrikaaner breakfast - bacon and eggs soaked in fat. mwaa! with the appropriate afrikaaner-couple sitting at the table next to us, talking about their disappointment with the flowers being out of season and their plan to go to wupperthal to have a look at the mission station and referring to themselves originating from the transvaal and insisting on that name...whatever. we hit the road. somewhere between clanwilliam and vanrhynsdorp we came to a halt - the place is called trawal, the winery stellar, everything else is history. it is basically impossible to use words to describe willem - he is one of these persons that needs to be 'experienced' and indeed full of kak (and genius). we spent a very enlightening day at the winery, in the vineyards (organic), the cellar and the rest of trawal which is literally in the hands of willem and his family. pure genius, but i think i mentioned that before...we left with a donation of 160 wine bottles (for the ftsa opening cocktail) and a new resolution: back in germany, i will only buy stellar. fair trade at its best.
sunday martin and i went to century city - out of simple professional interest (martin is studying urban planning). i thought it was gross, but martin was highlighting that approaches to public spaces are being made, like pavements. which were completely useless - martin and i were the single only pedestrians in that place...also nice: the almost metaphorical implications to the buildings, such as the vodacom 'temple', designed in roman-imperial fashion. like that you at least know who's ruling!
century city ends up in disneyland canal walk, the largest shopping mall on the african continent (and probably the most useless one as well. due to lack of public transport, the masses that should flow in there and capitalise around somehow don't arrive there). a sunday in the mall! we are so integrated! i even had a steers burger - a once in a lifetime experience, i will not go there again. but it was fitting, sitting below the yellow arches of the competitor...
martin and i kept wondering how many settlements had been evicted for this ladida, but apparently there weren't many people living - the area on which century city was built just used to be wetlands before - very sensitive eco-systems...and it's still being built anyways, but never forget: first the fence, the rest comes later! in sum, another nice trip of spreading germanness in the places where it maybe shouldn't be spread.
apart from that i'm managing very well without having a real place to stay. martin was so kind as to take me in for a few nights, so were bou and arianna (although they are more used to my presence), even 'the zimbabweans' - my neighbour however was a disappointment in this respect, but for one night (and no more) that was ok as well - unfortunately her never-paying-rent-housemate never moved out neither, but brought her boyfriend over instead. when i came home that night, being promised to have a place to stay, all i got was the one person couch, occupied by the two cats and one dog, and when i woke up the next morning, not-moving-housemate and boyfriend were, yes, copulating. right next to me, i had to try hard not to laugh too loud. so that was the one and off new place. i shifted my stuff to the emg office and am now residing in the midst of victorianness (aka the 'loft'). mid of next week i can house-sit jessica's place in kalk bay, i hope for good weather.
ftsa cocktail...mh, that was yesterday. nice networking event - i promoted wupperthal and stellar to people involved in shoe and carbon-neutral products respectively...i somehow also handed out several of the donated wine bottles and bashed the disguise-fair-trade-farms who care nil about bbbee and standards but still get through with what they're doing (and making a (white) owner very rich). after the training visits with lazarus this week i discovered two more wine farming enterprises which are generally more supportive to the cause...at least.
as the hired guy from obs armed response was 45 minutes late, willem had to play the fierce bouncer until his arrival.
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