Wednesday April 8
Have a sleep in today as we have nothing on until 11 am. Breakfast at 8 am then a bit of washing and tidying up and repacking as we finish this part of our Safari. Tomorrow we fly to Joburg where we stay at the airport overnight and the fly to Nairobi.
On our way to have lunch with a family in Chinotimba township we stop off at a market area where people make their living by selling everything. We have a demonstration where an artisan takes a piece of tin and some wire. He cuts the tin into a long rectangle, moulds the ends by hammering over a piece of old railway track, then brings the ends together and moulds a seam so he has a cylinder. He then cuts a circle of tin and bends the edges so that it moulds into the cylinder to form the bottom of the bucket. He then forms an edge on the top and winds wire around the top and closes the edges as he goes over the wire and the finished product is a bucket with a wire handle for carrying water. Thula our guide tells us the artisan learnt his trade from his father and this is how he provides for his family.
We then move onto our lunch. The six of us are all together and our host is Chikopo. She tells us about her family and serves us as to their customs. We have a refreshing welcome drink and then she brings a jug and bowl for us to wash our hands, she kneels before us and starts with the men first. When serving the meal the men are served first. We have a type of polenta made from maize presented to us on a plate, and there are seven bowls on the table in front of us which contain chicken, beef, kale, kale peanut flavour, carrots and beans and a type of anchovies and black eyed peas. Chikopo serves each one of us by spooning an amount from each bowl onto our plate. She then instructs us on how to eat with our fingers! We take a piece of the polenta and then add some of the other substances to it and then place it in our mouth.
She is a lovely host and the time passes quickly as we talk about her family and our families.
After lunch we have free time until our farewell dinner tonight at 6.30. We have a relaxing afternoon enjoying the bottle of red left over from yesterday and then adjourn to the bar for another red for the boys and gin and tonics for the girls.
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