AFRICA PART TWO: A Lekker Day at the Cow Farm

As mentioned in a previous post, I’ve joined Grahamstown’s hiking club. The hiking club is not only a good way to socialize and see the country, but it’s also great bang for your buck. It’s generally difficult (and can be unsafe) to get around South Africa without your own car. The club organizes group hikes (safety in numbers) and provides carpool transport for a small (very small) fee.

On Sunday, I went on my first hike with the club. I made my way to Pick & Pay at 7:40am where I found an eclectic group of people that ranged in both age (from single digits to a few grey-hairs) and nationality (Swedish, Swiss, and another Canadian, whose husband sported a "Hockey Night in Canada" hat!). We drove 20 minutes out of town to Radway Green, the farm of Rodney and Leonie Yendall. The Yendalls had a pineapple farm, but switched to cattle farming a few years ago because pineapple farming was no longer sustainable. Their farm was surrounded by game farms. Leonie, who has lived in the area for 20 years, guided us on an improvised interpretive walk.

It quickly became apparent that I was, for the first time since arriving, in the midst of several Afrikaans speakers. Afrikaans developed from the High Dutch of the 17th century but has also incorporated vocabulary from French, English, African, and Asian languages – it’s a strong and very expressive language. South Africa is very colourful linguistically; it has 11 official languages! They are (as listed in section 6 of the South African Constitution): Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, siSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga, Afrikaans, English, isiNdebele, isiXhosa and isiZulu. Languages are clearly an important part of the culture as they are one of the founding provisions of the Constitution. It’s incredible the rate at which people switch languages, both in real life and on television. Accents also abound.

We roamed around the Yendalls’ property for about 5 hours, with a short tea break beside a stream. It was a lovely hike and I am sure to head out with the hiking club again. Here are some pictures of the completely lekker day!

(For those of you who don't know, clicking on a photo will enlarge it.)