That's All Folks! Final pic's and some 'fun-factor' moments

What a month! This final post includes some final pictures from South Africa and a few favourite fun moments along the journey.

Rob forgot that when you zoom in with the camera lens that "objects may seem closer than they appear" - this lion jumped and roared and Rob thought he was coming in the window!! FAST REFLEXES!

Posing poses...

Penguins - ok, they are just really cute. Check out Rob's new favourite animal to film...friendly

Garden  route...actually full of brilliant rock formations and yes, I tossed in some flower pictures given it is called the garden route. They aren't Danny Kilroe (Vancouver photographer extraordinaire!) but kinda 'perty' just the same.

token "Rob is happy in his pool" pictures...plus one beach!

I-phone panoramic picture function...4 in one is the best we could do. You?? 

Ronnie’s SEX Shop

Nothing sexy about it but the name actually. Route 62 winds through mountain passes and dessert-like valleys and along the way is this little shop that used to be called Ronnie’s Shop.  Ronnie’s friend knows that sex sells so one night he modified the sign to include sex and it quickly became a “must stop” for tourists looking for somewhere to stop along this majestic drive. Ronnie let us know that we could “keep yer pants on fellas, don’t want yer knickers, just the ladies braziers” which was kinda obvious when you looked up on the rafters. Beer tasted good and Ronnie’s business seemed to be booming! Been 2 weeks of driving this car around South Africa - Rob's a good navigator and well...I got used to driving on the other side!

I had to talk Rob off the ledge after too many hours of winding roads (and my driving??)

That's All Folks!!



Robby planning our final details to get home to Vancouver - while sipping his last South African glass of wine and overlooking setting sun on Table Mountain in Cape Town

I'm a believer - Part 2 (a little more serious)

I’m a believer – Part 2 (a little more serious!)

April 28

 

“Violence is not the answer…Xenophopia is not the answer” campaigns have emerged over the last week throughout South Africa. Most obvious to us are the radio ads and electronic signs on the larger highways.

I’ve spent years studying and learning about building communities and I can’t quite wrap my head around the complexity of South Africa. There are so many lessons to be learned here regarding people and ‘change’.

The Nobel Peace Prize 1993 was awarded jointly to Nelson Mandela and Frederik Willem de Klerk "for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime, and for laying the foundations for a new democratic South Africa"

You can listen to his Nobel Lecture - CLICK HERE

 This is our brief tour of Robben Island - where Nelson Mandela spent 18 years of his imprisonment

Our guide shared his experience of his time in prison

Pictures don't capture the 'feeling' while visiting the site. I was amazed to learn that there are nearly 200 people who live on the island and work there that include both previous prisoners and guards. Their families live there together in complete harmony. They model reconciliation.

We visited the District Six Museum - it tells the stories of how it became the sixth municipal district of Cape Town in 1867. It was a mixed suburb of freed slaves, merchants, artisans, labourers and immigrants, district six was a vibrant, close-knit community. From the perspective of the 60,000 people who were forcibly removed to outlying areas in the 1970's, it was an island of tolerance and freedom in the growing sea of apartheid oppression and injustice. The apartheid government declared it a whites only areas in 1966 and started to flatten the buildings to rebuild.

Cape Town, like much of South Africa, is very much in transition. The history is barely separate from the present day.

As we toured Cape Town I thought about all of the change that has taken place balancing ‘modernization’ with celebrating and maintaining ‘traditions’, if that is the right word.

I believe in the need for community leaders to inspire change and build bridges to unite people where there were great divides in the past. Recently, I worked as part of the Reconciliation Canada team in Vancouver and was fortunate to have had some insightful conversations with Chief Joseph and his family. I couldn’t help but bring a new lens to the information shared with us on our visit to Cape Town, Robben Island and as we met South Africans traveling around the Western Cape.

“Let us find a way to belong to this time and place together. Our future, and the well-being of all our children rests with the kind of relationships we build today.” Chief Dr. Robert Joseph.

South Africa is not alone, reconciliation is important to Canada, to the USA with recent Baltimore Riots. This is one of Nelson Mandela's quotes that inspires me to keep doing the work we do.