Lots of Gold, a famous SA Rapper, and Pumpkin Goat Cheese Lasagna

Alright kids, as promised, this blog would contain the story about meeting the famous SA Rapper, HHP (double-H P). Before I get to that, I need to tell you all about the woman in the picture below.

This was a picture from the African Gold Museum which we visited after University on Friday. The museum itself was pretty small, but chock full of some sweet gold from all over Africa. I especially liked the section on gold "totems" like we study in Native American Lit. I'm definitely going to introduce that into my Native American Curriculum in the fall. Ok, so back to the Whoopi Goldberg lookalike...she's the Queen Mum of an African tribe. She is all blinged out, but is special becuase she is wearing gold glasses. The reason for this is because in tribal heirarcy, all those below her (everyone but the chief) is not allowed to look her in the eye. They used to wear beaded shades to cover their eyes, but after the missionaries came to Africa wearing glasses, the tribes started creating glasses instead. Pretty cool.

Ok, now to the rapper. We got tickets last week to attend the premier of the Cape Town Documentary Film Festival down at the waterfront. Our tickets were for two short films: Jitsvinger and HHP. Jitsvinger was about a rapper from outside the flats talking about poverty and his rise to fame. The song featured in the movie was called MAAK IT AAN which means "Make it happen." The second documentary was about HHP, who happens to be one of the most famous rappers in SA. He won many awards including best new artist and he was also featured on SA's version of Dancing with the Stars. His documentary was all about discovering his roots, as he was descended from four different tribes. He was at the screening and answered questions afterwards. The best part was getting our picture taken with him. He was very impressed that a group of Americans were interested in SA Documentaries. We tried to sneak into another movie after befriending the volunteers, but it didn't work...

Today we headed out of Cape Town to Stellenbosch and Frankenschoek for a treat of some gorgeous scenery. Our first stop was the Stellenbosch museum which was kind of like a small version of Greenfield Village. We were quite appalled by the amount of taxadermy cats on display in the bedrooms... I also learned that it takes about 20 minutes to get a cup of coffee and a scone to go from a coffee shop. A few of us were almost late to the bus! We made a quick stop at this country store with lots of "junktiques". I've never seen a more random collection of stuff for sale. The highlight was finding the picture gem of a Nelson Mandela mask next to a Freddie Kruger Mask...where else in the world does that exist?


Next stop was Frankenschoek for lunch. The place reminds me of someplace in France and has a lot of French inspiration, as the Hugenots settled there. Lunch was AWESOME...one of the best meals ever. We sat out on a street side cafe and I had Pumpkin Goat CHeese Lasagna. Now, I know you're thinking that sounds pretty gross, but boy oh boy it was absolutely amazing! Such an interesting combination of flavors. All 5 of us were blown away by our lunch...and the best part is that it only cost about $7! The food here is cheap, which is great because it counteracts all the rest of the spending I've been doing...

After lunch we went to the Hugenots museum. I was not excited at all, until I ventured out of the museum and on to the grounds to catch this tasty bit of scenery:

So yeah, needless to say, it is beyond beautiful and I don't think I can do it justice at all through pictures or words. I'm just all about taking in these experiences and attempting to capture them on film and in words via my journal.

And last, just so you know I'm alive and well...here's a picture of me at the gardens in Frankenshoeck

Tomorrow we are off to Cape Point and Cape of Good Hope to see the penguins and more beautiful scenery.

Peace! :) and MAAK IT AAN