To Think You Have Little Or A Lot by Easton

When you think you have little or if you think you have lots and still are not grateful, you then arrive in South Africa and then you realize how grateful we really are.

Arriving in Cape Town and being told by our taxi driver to be back at our hotel before dark and "it's winter lady!"to my mom meaning it gets dark around 6 o'clock because it was winter. Cape town is a very nice city. Well at least down by the water front and in the rich white neighbourhood areas. We went to Robbin Island where we first learnt about Nelson Mandela the famous prisoner held there that spoke up for the blacks during the apartheid and wrote the book The Long Walk To Freedom during his time in jail. We also went to the District 6 museum where we learnt about district 6. District 6 was all blacks and coloreds that lived in that area of district 6 and every person in the area of district 6 was relocated and there house was demolished. All of that empty land after the houses were destroyed was turned into a European neighbourhood , office buildings and stores all for the whites only. In the museum their was lots of street signs from that area and signs saying whites only, non whites are not allowed and lots of signs like that. We also went to a fort that was the Dutch east trading company's, there we saw the changing of the guards. Our last thing to see in Cape Town was Table Mountain another wonder of the world. We took the cable car up to the top and saw the astonishing 360 degree views of the ocean , Cape Town ,mountains and the famous port. We also rented a car and drove up the astonishing, ocean road and headed inland through some mountainous terrain. On the way we saw whales ,seals jumping and flopping in the waves ,rock hyraxes or dussies which look like a gopher/rabbit but it's a close relative to the African elephant and there is no resemblance. We saw some beautiful and some very sketchy towns. In a town called Graff Reinet we went to a peak of a mountain called the Valley of Desolation where it was snowing a bit being that high and it was very windy. The Valley of Desolation is a national park so in that area we saw wildebeest, meercats ,more rock hyraxes or dussies , wildebeest and lots of ostriches. There were lots of deer/elk like the duiker which are tiny , kudus that look like a big elk and the beautiful springboks which bound like springs hence the name springbok. The springbok is their national rugby team logo. We saw quite a bit and did pretty good being that we had our own car, it was super cool and like our own little safari. When we arrived in Johannesburg we did a tour to the Sterkfontein Caves where we learned about the evolution of human kind. The caves have full body fossilized skeletons including the amazing discovery of Little Foot a full body skeleton that is currently being discovered and will take years to excavate it all. We also did a tour of Johannesburg and poor Soweto. In Johannesburg we went to the Hector Peterson museum and it just happened to be his memorial and a big memorial was going on. We went to the old fort/ prison/ hospital and is currently a constitutional court. We also went to apartheid museum where we learnt lots about the apartheid. The last thing on the tour was very poor Soweto. Where we had the chance to go in one of the tin huts that are the size of our laundry room and that is for our dog. We met the mom and the 4 kids that all sleep in that small house. The dad was not there at the time. The mom and dad sleep on the small bed with probably one kid and the 3 other kids sleep on the floor. The shack has no water or electricity and their only source of light is an oil lamp. We gave them an apple plus some small things it was quite hard to see and it did not seem fair.

Our last activity in South Africa was the amazing safari where we saw so much , zebras , giraffes , crocodiles , females lions a male lion on the middle of the road and a cub lion. Some leopards , a warthogs , rhinos , hippos , cape buffalo , steenboks , baboons , vervet monkeys , elephants , antelope such as ( lots of the most common animal the impalas , kudu, waterbucks , Duikers , steenboks). We also saw the black backed jackal which is like a fox or a coyote. My favorite animal we saw was the almost extinct wild dogs which are excellent trackers and hunters. We saw a pack of six of them cross the road and they are very stealthy. It almost looks like they should be on mission impossible but for dogs. There are only 250 wild dogs left in Kruger National park and there are many Impalas. The safari was awesome and so much fun.

South Africa was nice to see how a lot of people in the world have to live. It's very hard to understand why it just can't be an equal world but it just happens to be that way for some odd reason. I know that I feel different after seeing how a lot of people live and it is very sad and I know most of the people reading my blog do not see how bad it really is but I hope my blog gave them and idea of what it was really like. YOU SHOULD ALWAYS THINK YOU HAVE LOTS AND DO NOT BE GREEDY AND IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE LITTLE, THINK OF THE FAMILY LIVING IN THE TIN SHACK THE SIZE OF YOUR LAUNDRY ROOM. Now we are off to the big apple where I have always wanted to go to the Hershey's store.


Easton