A Farewell Friendsgiving

Ros and me

I have to admit, I had my doubts we could pull it off.

We had invited 25 guests to Valley Lodge for a final Friendsgiving in South Africa ... on the eve of my leaving the country to fly to the USA, the movers and packers coming to pack and ship our household goods to Singapore and the USA, and the dogs and Vince leaving for Singapore the next day.

Especially since at the last minute I was invited to be inducted into La Chaîne des Rôtisseurs at the Westcliffe Four Seasons. I had to dash out for two hours at the height of rush hour and leave our guests in the middle of the festivities to take my oath and receive my sash. How rude! And a little hectic to say the least.

But it all worked out! So thankful we braved it.

Menu - our farewell cocktail? A Singapore Sling!

Friendsgiving Bunting by B's Pin-Cushion in Parkmore

Balloons from The Balloon Stop in Parkmore

Jonnie was one of three American guests invited for dinner

deep fry (photo by Theresa Vermeulen)

pre-dinner party (photo by Theresa Vermeulen)

Bye-bye tree! (photo by Theresa Vermeulen) Enjoy it Strauss family!

(photo by Theresa Vermeulen)

Fried Turduckenwors: Turkey, Duck, Chicken and Boerewors!

Dinner is served buffet-style (photo by Theresa Vermeulen)

speeches (photo by Theresa Vermeulen)

(photo by Sarmistha Bhattacharya)

we're going where? (photo by Theresa Vermeulen)

Farewell speech (photo by Theresa Vermeulen)

Happy Friendsgiving! (photo by Theresa Vermeulen)

And thank you Marguerite for the beautiful beaded lariat you made for me using some of the flamingo feathers I brought back from Tanzania. Everyone loved it!

The Profusion of Africa in One Ring

I bought a cabochon-cut Tanzanite stone in Tanzania in August at the Cultural Heritage Center in Arusha. And when I returned home, I brought it to my go-to jewelry artists at Tinsel to have it set.

I thought about a pendant but I already have a pendant from Tinsel. So I decided on a ring instead. But Tanzanite is a soft stone and if it is set in a ring, it must be well-protected from harm or else you risk chips, cracks and absolute destruction. So we decided to have it set in an over-the-top African Safari cocktail ring. It is deep-set and protected by a menagerie of African animals cast in silver.

It is surrounded by an elephant, ...

 a chimpanzee, ...

a leopard, ...

 a lion and a meerkat, ...

 ... and a Cape Buffalo!

The actual finger ring ...

is a conga line of crocodiles!

Ain't nothing gonna harm that Tanzanite!

 It is the profusion of Africa in one ring!

The artist and designer is Mariet van Zyl and she created a series of similar pieces which portray The Profusion of Africa in One Ring.

one in oxidised silver

and another in gold-plated silver

You can see (and purchase) her work currently on display at the Tinsel Gallery along with other artists' pieces in an exhibition called Precious Obsession.

Except for my precious obsession. To see my ring, you are going to have to invite me over for cocktails!

Homo Naledi is a Star!

For a self-proclaimed anthropolgy / archaeology nerd like me, Africa is the place to be!










Not only did I get to visit Oldupai Gorge last month when we were in Tanzania, but I came back to South Africa just in time to hear the announcement of the research results from the Rising Star expedition in South Africa's Cradle of Humankind.

In a press conference from the Maropeng Museum on Thursday, September 10, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence, Explorers Club Member, Wits University Professor and Rising Star Expedition leader Lee Berger - who happens to have been born in the USA - announced ...

... a new species of hominin discovered in the caves outside of Johannesburg had been identified  - Homo naledi! (If you haven't heard the news, then you must be living in a cave yourself! It was splashed all over the international media for days.)

The unique combination of character in Homo naledi skulls and skeletons means that it is unlike any other hominin species and therefore has been classified as a distinct species.  

The word "naledi" means "star" in the Sotho language and Naledi has been assigned to the genus Homo. It shares some features with australopiths (like Sediba, Lucy, Mrs. Ples and the Taung child), some features with Homo (the genus that includes Humans, Neanderthals and some other extinct species such as H. erectus), and shows some features that are entirely unique to Naledi.

Vince and I went to Maropeng in the Cradle of Humankind to meet Naledi in the flesh ... well you know what I mean!















The exhibit was very well presented. Along with an actual fossilized Homo naledi skeleton, there were 3D reconstructions of individual skulls, hands and feet presented next to their respective 3D counterparts of Australopithecus sediba, Homo erectus and Homo sapien. This really helped to show the distinct differences between the species.











The exhibit also included placards with typical questions a visitor might have. How do you know that this is a new species? How do you know it belongs in the genus Homo? Where does Home naledi fit within the human lineage? This is complicated stuff! And yet the answers were very clear, concise and understandable to the lay visitor.

And just in case you wanted more detail, there were a couple of  representatives from the Rising Star team available to answer questions and expand upon the placard explanations.

This was very lucky indeed! One of the excavators, Lindsay Hunter will also be in charge of the design of a future educational exhibit for the museum. We have a friend visiting us in October who is a museum education consultant out of Kansas City. We will definitely be getting these two together!

cover art by paleoartist John Gurche

Naledi will continue to be on display at Maropeng only until October 11. For those of you who can't make it to the Cradle of Humankind before then, you can read about the discovery in the October issue of National Geographic magazine with Naledi on the cover. I've already got my copy!

35th Anniversary Dinner in Zanzibar

For our 35th wedding anniversary celebration on September 6th, we had an al fresco candlelit seafood dinner on Pongwe Beach served under a moonlit sky in exotic Zanzibar.

Could it get any more romantic than that?

You bet it could! Vince brought some tunes and a Bluetooth speaker and we slow-danced barefoot on the beach to some classic Motown!

The main course was a huge seafood platter consisting of fresh lobster, king prawns, squid, slipper lobster, crab claws and broiled kingklip!

Finally we took a moonlit walk on the beach before bed.

















Sweet dreams!

That Time I Was Forced Into Piracy ...

me and Captain Ali

After seeing the dhows sailing around our hotel in Pongwe Beach and cruising in the harbor at Stone Town all week, we were keen to sail in one. We made arrangements with Captain Ali from our hotel to take one of the hotel's resident dhows out for a sunset cruise on our last evening in Zanzibar. In retrospect, one should never wait until the last night of a trip to do something on your must-do list of things you really want to do while you are on vacation. I know this. I made that rule up. But I thought it would make a nice farewell memory on our last night in Zanzibar. Well it did, but not for the reason you think!

We made arrangements to meet Captain Ali on our beach at about 4:00 and the three of us all proceeded to take the short walk together on the beach over to Pongwe village to launch the boat. When we got there, the captain told us to wait for him on the beach for a moment while he ran into the village for something. Okay.

He returned about twenty minutes later and informed us of the bad news. Some sneaky boys from the village had absconded with the dhow that we had reserved to take some Italian tourists on an ad hoc spending-money-making snorkeling trip. Did we want to go out on the motor boat instead? Uh no. I want to sail on a dhow.

I have to admit at this point I got pretty pissy and I started reenacting one of my favorite scenes from Seinfeld. You know the one where they go to the car rental counter only to find that the reservation they had made did not really hold a car reserved for them.  

Jerry: I don't understand. Do you have my reservation?
Rental Car Agent: We have your reservation, we just ran out of cars.
Jerry: But the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the reservation.
Rental Car Agent: I think I know why we have reservations.
Jerry: I don't think you do. You see, you know how to *take* the reservation, you just don't know how to *hold* the reservation. And that's really the most important part of the reservation: the holding. Anybody can just take them.

Well it worked. Captain Ali came up with an elaborate plan to take the motor boat out to the coral reef where the boys had brought the Italians snorkeling and commandeer the boat back from them. We were going to be pirates!

When we got to the reef we found the two dhows anchored with the snorkelers in the water. Captain Ali dropped anchor on the motor boat too, and to our surprise, he dove into the water and swam over to the two dhows leaving us all alone in the motor boat.

He tried to convince the little would-be pirates to surrender the dhows willingly, but one of the boys was having none of it. He pulled up the anchor on his dhow, hoisted the sail and escaped with a couple of the snorkelers still on board.


The second dhow was not so lucky. Captain Ali dragged the dhow over to the motor boat like Gulliver did with the Lilliputians in Gulliver's Travels.

The Italians got off the dhow and climbed into the motor boat and were very apologetic about the whole "misunderstanding." They clearly had no idea that the boys had stolen the boats out from under us for their nefarious snorkeling scheme.

We got in the dhow just before sunset with Captain Ali at the tiller and one of the former pirates manning the sail.

Vince and one of the pirates

I really had to resist the urge to say to him a la Captain Phillips, "Look at me. I'm the captain now."