2009 NEH INSTITUTE
Tuesday, June 23
Fly to Cape Town via Amsterdam.
Wed., June 24
Arrive in Cape Town.
Thursday, June 25
Orientation at the University of the Western Cape (UWC).
Friday, June 26
Seminar 1: History
Saturday, June 27
AM Visit Robben Island in Cape Town harbor. A prison here dates from the days of the East India Company and lasted until the mid-1990s. Nelson Mandela was its most famous inmate.
PM Greenmarket Square to visit the Saturday market where wares from all over the continent are for safe.
Sunday, June 28
AM Free
PM Visit the Castle of Good Hope. This is Cape Town’s oldest building, completed in 1679 and which for 150 years served as the heart of the Cape administration and the center of social and economic life. It now contains a Military Museum, the Secunde’s House (deputy governor) with original furnishings and paintings, and the William Fehr Collection, one of the country’s most important exhibits of decorative arts.
Visit the District Six Museum, on the site where lived a vibrant community of about 55,000 residents, mostly Colored/Mixed Race people, whom the apartheid government forced to move out. The entire area was bulldozed, but was never developed. The museum houses a collection of documentary photographs, a huge map of the area before the bulldozing, and a collection of original street signs. It’s a most moving experience.
Monday, June 29
Lectures
PM Visit the South African Museum and the Company Gardens.
Visit the Slave Lodge Museum.
Tuesday, June 30
Seminar 2, Culture and Society
PM Take the cableway up Table Mountain
Wednesday, July 1
9:00-10:30 Drive to the Heart Transplant Museum at Groote Schuur Hospital; visit the replication of the operating theater where Dr. Christiaan Barnard and colleagues performed the world’s first successful heart transplant in 1967.
Thursday, July 2
Seminar 3, Religion and Education
PM Visit the Bo-Kaap (Muslim) Museum
Visit St. George's Cathedral (Anglican), which was Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s church before his retirement.
Friday, July 3
8:30-9:45 4th lecture
10:15-11:00 Teachers’ presentations
3:00-4:00 Visit the Jewish Museum.
Saturday, July 4
AM and PM Visit Stellenbosch, one of the oldest towns in the interior of the Cape, established in 1679 by Governor van der Stel. See the Village Museum which features four adjacent historical buildings in different architectural styles, all well preserved and furnished in period style.
Go on to Franschhoek, established by French Huguenots at the end of the 16th century; visit the Huguenot Museum which gives comprehensive coverage of Huguenot history, culture, and their contribution to modern South Africa.
Sunday, July 5
AM and PM Visit the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Point. At the latter take the funicular to the top of the original lighthouse.
Visit Boulders Beach (where lots of African penguins frolic).
Monday, July 6
AM and PM Khayelitsha and Guguletu, two townships near Cape Town where the apartheid government forced Africans and Colored/Mixed Race people to live.
PM Get ready to travel.
Tuesday, July 7
Visit Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point on the continent, where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet; climb to the top of one of the oldest light houses in the country and visit the museum.
Go on to Arniston, a charming fishing village where a row of limewashed cottages is now a National Monument; women of the village will fix dinner for us.
Wednesday, July 8
Go on to Mossel Bay and visit the Bartholomeu Dias Museum complex which features a replica of the vessel that Dias used on his 1488 voyage.
Go on to Tsitsikamma National Park on the Indian Ocean.
Thursday-Saturday, July 9-11
Attend the Grahamstown National Arts Festival (you’ll all find these days a highlight of the six weeks). One of the world’s largest festivals, it features jazz, drama, dance, cabaret, opera, visual arts, crafts, films, and a book fair.
Sunday, July 12
Go on to Umtata. Visit the Nelson Mandela Museum, opened in 2000 by Mandela himself. It’s the most extensive exhibition of Mandela, his life and work, in the country.
Monday, July 13-Tuesday, July 14
Drive to Durban. Visit a Hindu temple.
Go on to the KwaMuhle Museum, devoted to 20th century urban social history. It’s Durban’s newest museum. Among the highlights are exhibits showing the methods under apartheid whereby the city council financed African affairs without spending taxes paid by white citizens of Durban. There are also fascinating exhibits concerning the hated pass system and workers hostels (dormitory-like dwellings where men lived while working on sugar plantations or in the mines, only visiting their homes once or twice a year). The museum itself is housed in the former Bantu Administration building.
Visit the Victoria Street Market, center of Indian products from spices and incense to silk, brass ware, and ceramics.
Wednesday, July 15-Thursday, July 16
Drive to Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve It’s the oldest game reserve in the country. (We’ll almost certainly see elephants and other big animals. There are always lots of giraffes too.)
Friday, July 17-Saturday, July 18
Drive to Babanango.
Visit the battle sites of Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift, the former where a Zulu army inflicted a humiliating defeat on the British and the latter lost 1,200 men; the British defeated a Zulu force at Rorke’s Drift later that same day in January of 1879. There’s an excellent field museum at Rorke’s Drift.
Sunday, July 19-Monday, July 20
Stop at Dundee in central Zululand, the heart of Shaka’s empire in the early 19th century; visit the Talana Museum, consisting of nine historic buildings, still standing from the battle of Talana Hill, the first engagement of the Anglo-Boer War in 1899.
Go on to Didima Camp in the Drakensburg Mountains.
Tuesday, July 21-Thursday, July 23
Drive to Johannesburg. Visit the Apartheid Museum
Visit Soweto and see the Mandela house, now a museum; the Hector Pieterson Memorial and Museum; and the Regina Mundi church.
Drive to Pretoria; visit the Union Buildings and the Voortrekker Monument and Museum. Then back to Johannesburg.
Friday, July 24-Saturday, July 25
Go on to Gaborone, Botswana
We’re still working on what we’re going to do in our brief visit to Botswana. One thing we’ve arranged is a session with the head of the Peace Corps in the country.
Sunday, July 26
Leave Botswana and back into South Africa, spending the night in Mafikeng.
Monday, July 27
Go on to Kimberley. Visit the Open Mine Museum and the “Big Hole.” The latter is the world’s largest human-made hole. Much of the museum consists of a collection of historic buildings of diamond mining in the 1860s and 70s. Exhibits also show the diamond mining process and DeBeers Hall displays a collection of diamonds.
Tuesday, July 28
Drive to Matjiesfontein; this is a small village that has not changed much in over a century; nearly every building is Victorian with a grand railroad station, now an interesting museum, tin roofs, pastel walls, and well-kept gardens. The Lord Milner Hotel is like stepping backward into another era.
Wednesday, July 29
Return to Cape Town via the scenic highway leading to Paarl where we’ll visit the Afrikaans Taal Museum.
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Thursday, July 30
Back in Cape Town.
Friday, July 31
Seminar 4, Government and the Economy
Saturday, August 1
To be determined
Sunday, August 2
AM Visit Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, among the most outstanding gardens in the world. Featured are fynbos, plants native to the Cape, the most famous being the proteas (South Africa’s national flower).
Monday, August 3
Retrospective Look
Tuesday, August 4
Leave for home