On this day in history....

Thursday September 30th, 2010



For no other reason than the fact that I can never think of good blog titles, I have titled this blog "On this day in history....", so On this day in history: We saw a variety of historical and educational sites today.



After breakfast at the B&B and a few different attempts to get money from the atm for Grandpa (finally successful), we went on a guided tour of the Bo-Kaap neighborhood, a neighborhood of cobblestone streets tucked into the fold of Signal Hill of Table Mountain. The Bo-Kaap neighborhood is famous for its streets lined with buildings that are painted in an array of bright colors. Bo-Kaap is a known as a predominatly Muslim neighborhood in Capetown, although there are Christians as well. The community members residing within the B0-Kaap neighborhood tend to be descendants of slaves, who were imported to South Africa by the Dutch, in the 1700's. The slaves tended to be from Indonesia, Java Malaysia and other areas of Asia. They were/are known as Cape Malays, although not all are of Malaysian descent. The slaves were political exiles, convicts, skilled craftsman, artisans, famous scholars and religious leaders.

We started the tour at the Bo-Kaap Museum, where we met up with our tour guide, Shereen Misbach-Habib, a member of the Bo-Kaap community, and a political activist who fought to end the apartheid. We walked through the museum with Shereen, sat and talked with her, got a ride to Shereen's car from her daughter to Shereen's car/house, drove around the Bo-Kaap nieghborhood viewing the sites, visited a cemetery in the community, stopped at Shereen's Mom's/Sister's property (restaurant, garden etc.), saw the 12 p.m. firing of the Noon Cannon and went back to Shereene's house for tea and traditional Indian food, consisting of cucumber and tomato salad with ground black pepper and sea salt, veggie samoosas, spinach balls and koeksisters (the sweet donut type dessert I have previously mentioned). We also had red grape juice and tea.


After our tour with Shereene, she dropped us off at the Jewish Holocaust Museum, which ended up being closed because of a Jewish holiday. We walked on to the South African National Gallery. The current display there is of South African art. I was glad we went there and saw it, before the display ends on Sunday. I have really found my enjoyment of art museums to be greater than I initially realized.



After the National Gallery, we walked through the Company Gardens, stopping off at the outdoor cafe for coffee and a snack. The gardens were beautiful, and seemed to be a very popular place for people to rest, work and play. The oldest tree in the Company Gardens was a pear tree, which was 300 years old. The tree was protected by a fence and had large metal braces holding it up. Grandpa, Grandma and myself all agreed that unfortunately, the tree did not look healthy.



After the gardens, we went to the Slave Lodge museum. Over 3 centuries, The Slave Lodge has had a variety of names including Government Offices Building, Old Supreme Court and SA Cultural History Museum. The Slave Lodge, is the original name of the building, and now the current name of the building. The Slave Lodge was built in 1679, and was initially a windowless, brick building.



For dinner we ate at an Asian restaurant, Chef Pon's, which had dishes from a variety of regions in Asia. I had a chicken/prawn noodle dish, Grandma had a seafood mix entree, and Grandpa had wonton soup and a prawn entree.

The night of course ended with the customary rounds of cribbage :D