Friday Island and FASCINATING birds and fossils woooo!!

And finally the time came for us to reunite after one long and hectic week of school!! I think we were all ready for this break!  As we are now quite used to the South African time schedule, I was casually picked up around 10ish Saturday morning, July 30^th.  We picked up a few others and then we were on our way to Friday Island.  On the way we stopped at the !khwa ttu san village, the San Cultural and educational center.  Here we learned a lot about the lifestyle and language of the original Bushman people.  We were given a language lesson is attempts to teach us some of the ‘clicks’ sounds that are used in their languages.  Its pretty difficult, and it was pretty fun to hear a group of 16 just clicking and clocking trying to make the correct sounds.  Our guide also found it amusing, but at least we tried.  I brought home the pamphlet so I can show and try and teach some of you if you’d like to try!  We were then taken on a tour, some walking and some driving around the village to see what the land was like, that these indigenous people inhibited and how they made a suitable living.  We drove through the beautiful terrain seeing the large and vast landscape of grassland.  We learned a little bit about tracking, which was a very important tool for these people.  Villagers used the tracks when hunting to find food and also in knowing what animals were near by to help stay safe.  The Buschman were very resourceful people and made use of every part of the animal in some way or another.  Obviously the meat was cooked at eaten, the layer of fur in some animals was used to make clothing, the skin was helpful in building and up keeping of places of shelter, bones were made into weapons, tools and even jewelry.  The women of the tribe would gather all the scraps and fins ways to carve, shape and create beautiful necklaces and beaded things.  One particular resource was the ostrich egg.  This extremely large, and actually the largest bird egg not only served as many meals but once emptied and cleaned out was commonly used as a water bottle for the hunters.  It was large enough to carry a decent supply and was easy to transport/hide under a small bush if the hunters ever needed to run from a dangerous situation.  Along the way we were shown what plants were edible or used as spices when making food.  I tried one that tasted sweet kind of like candy!  It was really good lol.  Then we were taken to a traditional village of the forefathers.  There was a circular formation of 5-6 small teepees huts all facing inwards surrounding a fire pit.  When we got there a small fire was burning.  It was explained that a fire was usually kept going at all times as a way to keep warm.  The fire was tended to as needed as according to the daily temperature.  Next to the fire was a large piece of animal fur filled with small tools and supplies used by the villagers.  We saw traditional clothing, hunting bows and arrows, musical instruments, jewelry made of animal bone and cracked ostrich egg, and some other neat stuff.  It was pretty fascinating to see what these villagers could make of the things that they had.  They were indeed very handy and creative, working only with the natural resources they were provided. They found ways to die the jewelry, make thread, sharp tools clothing, and shelters.  This completed our tour and we then headed back to Friday Island for dinner and the sunset! 


Now let me just tell you that we have been spoiled with breath taking scenery and the most outstanding sunsets I have ever seen and tonight…even capped that!  We headed to the beach while it was still light out and some crazzyy Americans decided to go swimming…I was not amongst them, instead I stood in as their photographer.  I went in up to my ankles, till a big wave came – and that was quite enough, it was freezing, and when we, as in Americans from Michigan say freezing, its not a joke.  We then walked along the beach playing on the shore and it the sand, enjoying life and taking tons and tons of picts of course.  But honestly, the pictures don’t even do justice.  It was something you just had to see, the picts are pretty fantastic tho.  It’s really a cool thing to watch the sun set over the ocean and into the water.  Once the sun hits the edge of the horizon, the rest sets so fast!  It’s incredible!  I can’t wait for these to upload!  It came time for dinner but you couldn’t tear some of us away from the beach.  Finally it was dark and we feasted!  After dinner we all got drinks and hung out together, and roamed the beach.  I have only once before in my life seen so many shooting stars in one night and that was in 2004 at Arches National Park in Utah.  This was one of the most amazing and clearest skies I have ever seen.  The coolest part is that the constipations that we could see are not ones that we can ever see from the northern hemisphere.  You could even see the Milky Way!  I don’t think that is something that I have ever been able to make out before.  Mother nature is my home girl..this night was one of my favorites!  Its pretty amazing how spectacular natural beauty can be, I think it’s the most exceptional beauty there is!


After a late night we woke up in the morning to pack up head out for a few more activities and then head back home.  Our first stop was West Coast Fossil Park, where we looked at fossils…shocking!  I don’t know if it was cause we, or I, was tired or maybe I don’t really think fossils are that cool…. but this was BOOORINGGGG!  Ha well I mean some of it was interesting but for the most part I think its so hard to believe from finding tiny little pieces of ‘rock’ that are turtle shell or whatever and then somehow they created a shot necked giraffe that once lived long a go….ummm ya, not for me.  Lol so enough about that, we then went to farmstall, where there are cool birds and white tigers.  We were supposed to see the tiger show but shockingly we were late and missed it.  So instead we looked at some pretty cool birds for a time and I played on the sea-saw.  We left to go get dinner, when Stephanie (the red van) ran out of gas…little did we know this was just the beginning of a long series of problems good old steph was about to have…But not to worry, good old Daphnie (the white van) came to the rescue and we were on our way in no time.  We then we headed to Table View beach for a reflection.  It was super windy and the tide was getting high, so we hade it super fast.  Some nice words word said about the week past, Corvell reminded us to do our homework (womp womp) and we prayed for a positive (short) week to come looking forward to our long weekend ahead of us and in the mean time to keep our heads high, fight through the difficulties and learn as much as we could! 


I got home not too late hung out with the fam and headed to bed early to start of a new week right with lots of energy!  Monday was going to be an important day, we were having the advisors of the curriculum committee come in to evaluate the progress of the school and to make sure everything was on track and that Brooklands was staying successful as it had been and should be!


More to come soon!


Erin