Aloha meets Ubuntu

photo: Jason Patterson

I first started following the voyage of the Hokule'a last year at the suggestion of a friend who knew how much Vince and I enjoy the sport of sailing. At the time, the Hokule'a had just embarked on a historic leg of their worldwide journey, namely from Hawaii to Cape Town.

Their voyage is significant on many levels, but perhaps most notable is the fact that this particular leg signified the youngest culture (Polynesian) arriving at the cradle of humanity where the oldest cultures of mankind originated. This "reverse-migration" story with people returning to their roots piqued my interest even more than the sailing. I have been tracking the voyage ever since!

The crew of Hokule'a made landfall on the African continent in mid-October arriving in Maputo, Mozambique. From there, they made their way to Richards Bay in South Africa before stopping in Mossel Bay where they visited Pinnacle Point, an archaeological site where some of the oldest known hominin fossils have been unearthed. From there, Hokule'a rounded Cape Agulhas, the southern most point on the continent of Africa.

photo from TEC FB page

Along the way they picked up National Geographic photographer and The Explorers Club Fellow Dan Lin (right) who is from Simons Town, South Africa. Lin and TEC Fellow Nainoa Thompson (left) sailed across the southern tip of Africa and into the Atlantic Ocean aboard the Hokule'a with #ECFlag 124. This marks the first time in known history that a vessel from the Pacific Islands has ever reached the Atlantic.

Hokule'a finally reached Cape Town more than a month after landing in Africa where they were greeted by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in the spirit of Ubuntu for which he is a proponent. I had hoped to be in Cape Town to welcome them too when they arrived in port, but a little thing like moving to Asia at the end of November put the kibosh on that plan. 

However Vince was in Cape Town last week for work (and a stop over at the Royal Cape Yacht Club for a farewell drink in order to watch a friend's son race). He managed at least to make it over to the V&A where the Hokule'a is docked during its stay in Cape Town. The crew was not in to say Aloha to, but Vince kindly took a few pictures of the vessel for me to see. Amazing!



 

"Aloha" is a Hawaiian greeting and farewell that conveys affection, peace, mercy and compassion. "Ubuntu" is a Nguni Bantu term roughly translating to "human kindness." It is an idea from the Southern African region which means literally "human-ness", and is often translated as "humanity towards others", but is often used in a more philosophical sense to mean "the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity. 

I would have loved to have been there to see Aloha meet Ubuntu in person, but unfortunately the timing was just not on my side. I am encouraged though to know that at least it did happen.

 





To read more about the voyage of the Hokule'a check out these articles in:
The New York Times
and
National Geographic.

To track the voyage in real time, visit their website tracker, 

(Please note that the Polynesian Voyaging Society owns the trademark for the image of the voyaging canoe Hōkūle‘a™)

The Lucrative Load-shedding After-Market in South Africa

Eskom load-shedding flashlight shweshwe fabric

We went to Makro today and I couldn't help but notice the incredibly lucrative product market that has sprung up as a result of Eskom load-shedding.

In addition to the usual diesel generators and storage batteries, flashlights and 9 volt batteries one finds at Makro, there is a whole host of portable solar powered products that are now standard fare at South African hardware stores.

Portable solar generators, portable solar chargers, solar lamps, etc. ... I mean I guess it's good because it is bringing the concept of "getting off the grid" straight to the consumer, but it would be much better if it was partnered with a wholesale government economic strategy and policy, heh.

a loadshed survival shelf @ Makro

I found out from my bead guy Arnold the other day that the real reason we are having all this load-shedding is because South Africa has not been paying Mozambique back for the power we have used that was generated by their World Bank-funded hydro-electric plant, and have therefore been cut off from any future power until we pay up. It is just as plausible to me as the 20 year lack of maintenance due to apartheid that Eskom has been using as their poor-ass excuse.

Hopefully South Africa has been backing some of these solar-powered after-market products in an attempt to make some fast cash in order to pay back its World Bank debt. But that would be clever and therefore highly unlikely.

Jock of the Bushveld

Last night we finally watched the film version of South Africa's legendary book, Jock of the Bushveld. Our friends Johann and Louise lent it to us months ago as a must-see while we are in South Africa. So last night we gathered Lou & Serge up onto the couch for a double date night and popped in the DVD.

Written in 1905 by Sir Percy Fitzpatrick, it is the true story of the relationship between Fitzpatrick, an Irish immigrant who came to South Africa to find his fortune in the goldfields of Pilgrim's Rest, and Jock, the runt of a litter of Staffordshire Bull Terriers born in Kruger National Park. Fitzpatrick saves Jock from drowning and the two become inseparable through their adventures in the bushveld. Jock becomes a powerful hunter and protector and Fitzpatrick surely needs it in his new role as a goods driver from the goldfields through the wilds of Kruger to the Mozambique port.

The story reminded me of course of another noble dog book, Jack London's Call of the Wild. Like Jock, the star of this American classic is a powerful dog named Buck. Buck is half St. Bernard and half sheepdog and just like Jock was saved by Fitzpatrick, Buck is saved from mistreatment by John Thornton. Jack London wrote his novel in 1903 after his own experiences in the Alaskan Yukon during the 1890s Klondike Gold Rush.

Since Fitzpatrick's is a true story, there is actually a "Jock of the Bushveld route" in Mpumalanga which identifies many of the landmarks Fitzpatrick chronicled in the book. Now that we've seen the movie, I will have to look for some of the plaques when we go back to Kruger in August.

I've blogged about it before but I do like to use books as literary guides to the places we travel. We all read The Call of the Wild before our family traveled to Alaska in the summer of 1998 and we followed much of the same trail Buck and Thorton traveled in the book through Juneau and Skagway and up to Whitehorse.

We took a helicopter to the Mendenhall Glacier outside of Juneau and we hiked on the glacier itself. We kayaked in Glacier Bay and cruised up to Skagway where Alex and Nick became Junior Rangers at the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. We even took the White Pass & Yukon Route narrow gauge train from Skagway up and over the very same Klondike Trail that London and his fellow prospectors hiked and crossed into the Canadian Yukon.

In Fairbanks we visited a dogsled farm where we met an experienced Iditarod racer and her pack of dogs. It was summer so we couldn't take her dogs out for a spin but we did drive a sled ourselves later one Christmas in Vermont.

kayaking in Glacier Bay

waterfall in Glacier Bay

Nick driving a dogsled in Vermont

It really brings so much more meaning to the experience of travel when you can relate it to a book with larger than life characters such as Jock and Buck, Fitzpatrick and Thorton. Wish we could take Lou & Serge with us on our next trip to Kruger but unlike the bushveld in 1903, now there are no dogs allowed!

Holiday food is life!

One way that people like to celebrate their holidays is with food.

Easter 2012 menu from NY's Osteria del Circo

Back in the USA, the Christmas holiday meals we prepared over the course of the season were strongly influenced by our families' heritage. Seven fishes for an Italian Christmas Eve (me and Vince). German crown roast of pork on Christmas Day (Vince) and borscht and chicken Kiev for a Russian Epiphany (me again.)

Easter cuisine was kind of up for grabs. We would typically go out for brunch in NYC as our main meal of the day followed by a light supper later that night at home in NJ. Could be to a French restaurant, Italian, Greek or our old standby, the Russian Tea Room - any cuisine that includes a strong Easter menu. Thanksgiving was without fail an all-American turkey. And Independence Day? That would be a barbeque at the shore on the Fourth of July.

If we were traveling during the Christmas or Easter holidays, we would naturally check out the local customs and fare. Like oysters for a French réveillon on New Year's Eve. Last year we were in Mozambique for Easter so Easter lunch consisted of king prawns straight off the fishing boats!

An Easter supper in our NJ dining room

... and another Easter supper in our NJ kitchen

This year for Easter we stayed put in Joburg. We had Easter Sunday lunch at Mosaic with Eat Out Chef of the Year Chantel Dartnall at the Orient Boutique Hotel in Pretoria. But before that, we indulged in some traditional South African Easter dishes which we made at home.

First on Good Friday, our one meal of the day was poached kingklip. Along with Ash Wednesday, Good Friday for Catholics is a day of abstinence which means in addition to being meatless, it is also limited to only one full meal for the whole day.

After our Good Friday dinner, we prepared pickled fish from the leftovers for Holy Saturday's dinner. The suggestion and recipe for this Cape Malay Easter classic came from a blog called Scrumptious South Africa.  Award-winning social media strategist, cook, food writer, recipe developer, professional freelance journalist, editor and blogger Jane-Anne Hobbs Rayner (that's alot of hats!) also included a bonus fish paté recipe for the leftovers from the pickled fish dish. This recipe keeps on giving!

Eating pickled fish is a South African Easter tradition. Celebrated Cape Malay cookbook author and chef Cass Abrahams, of German and Xhosa extraction, was raised as a Christian in Johannesburg and converted to Islam when she married into the Cape Malay community. Growing up, her Christian family would eat pickled fish and hot cross buns for breakfast on Good Friday before going to a prayer service - a very long one in the Johannesburg City Hall - and have the same afterwards. Pickled fish with hot cross buns? Abrahams believes this cross-cultural tradition started in Cape Town's District Six where Muslims, Jews and Catholics once lived closely side by side.

On Easter morning we broke our fast with Jane-Anne's Hot Cross Buns Bread and Butter Pudding with Pears. It is an excellent way to use up those left-over Good Friday hot cross buns and it was delicious!

Why did I never think of using hot cross buns this way? It reminded me of Craig Claiborne's Egg Nog Challah French Toast recipe (NYT Cookbook, 1992) which we make every year on Christmas morning!

Of course the best part of making holiday foods from heritage recipes other than your own or eating the local food of a country you visit or live in during a holiday is that the food then becomes a part of your holiday tradition. We can make this hot cross bun recipe every Easter morning from now on and harken back to our first Easter breakfast in South Africa. And we will.

Mexican Hot Chocolate from Azteca

Hot Cross Buns Bread and Butter Pudding with Pears and a Caramel Amarula Sauce

Amarula Hot Chocolate with an elephant Peep and choco-rhinos!

"glub!"

elephant Peep eye!

And after Easter ...

Easter Monday egg salad and ham hot cross bun sliders

pickled fish pate and beetroot hummus on baguette slices

Happy Holidays from The Explorers Club

The Explorers Club started a new tradition this year. Headquarters in New York asked Explorers Club Members around the globe to share our experiences with our fellow explorers by contributing photographs for a special holiday gallery which they are sharing on The Explorers Club website.

This is an African photo collage I contributed to the gallery. Rhino darting in Marakele National Park, gorilla trekking in Volcanoes National Park, meeting meerkats in the Kalahari, climbing dunes in Namib-Naukluft National Park, getting wet at Victoria Falls in both Zimbabwe and Zambia and diving in Mozambique.

Happy Holidays from all of us at The Explorers Club! Keep exploring!

Boa Páscoa in MZ

Our private lagoon

Our Easter hut master suite

Our rustic kitchen

Our Easter orchids grew in the trees!

We found a Catholic Church right in our little beach village.

It was decidedly lower key than St. Patrick's Cathedral.

But the music was just as awesome ...

Mozambican Easter bonnets in church ...

and in the Easter parade!

After Mass we took a boat across the lagoon to the Indian Ocean for some snorkeling and scuba diving ...

Beyond that spit of sand, the Indian Ocean!

nature's decorated eggs

Instead of pastel colored Easter eggs, we had colorful fishing boats for decorations.

Fishing boats meant that instead of our usual Easter fare like salmon, veal and lamb, we had Mozambican prawns, calamari and langosta in stews, curries and on platters. Fresh off the boat!

Found so many of these large seeds from the Monkey Ladder trees on the beach. After I clean and polish them, they will make great decorations hanging on next year's Easter tabletop tree.