Leaving our Middelburg hosts behind we pile into the 16 passenger Toyota van belonging to the Middelburg Primary School for the 2 hour drive to Centurion, a suburb of Pretoria , which will be our stop for the next two days. Our driver just happens to be the principal of the school who has taken a day off to make this drive. He is not a Rotarian but a “ friend of Rotary “ and works with the Middelburg Rotary club on projects around the community.
I sat up front with Reiner and had a great discussion about his school. He has 1500 students, preschool to Gr 7 spread over 3 campuses. Even though it is a public school only about 5% of the school’s budget is provided by the government education department. The vast majority he raises through school fees, daycare programs and fund raisers. Very interesting chap. One of the most interesting aspects is his hiring and training of teachers. He says he doesn’t rely on teachers trained in university. They have no practical experience. He hires privately through job fairs, employment ads and referrals and trains them himself. While working as classroom aids over four years, they take correspondence education courses and at the end of 4 years he gives them jobs as fully trained teachers. He currently has 12 student teachers doing this and will hire 3 of them for next term and add 3 additional to replace them as trainees.
We arrive in Centurion just before noon , the meeting place being Irene Farm, a working farm in the heart of the city. Beautiful fields and barns. Lots of livestock. We enjoy an outdoor lunch then we meet up will our host for the next two nights Kim and Glen Geyser. Kim has her own business importing and distributing arts and crafts supplies. Vicki was in 7th heaven exploring her office and showroom. Glen is a retired South African Airlines pilot who now works for a private VIP charter company out of Britain. Some of their clients include The Rolling Stones, Guns and Roses and the Chelsea Football club. Soon he is off on a lengthy trip where 7 people have chartered the aircraft to to run 7 marathons on 7 continents. Some people just have too much money.
After getting settled in and changed we head out to a Rotary Club of Centurion dinner meeting at which we do our club presentations, exchange club banners and then eat and drink the night away.
The following day we are up and at it early and are off to a school project in an area of squatter camps. The students at this school are from families where the parents are undocumented illegal refugees from Zimbabwe, Malawi, Losoto and other poorer countries around South Africa. Even though the unemployment rate is high at around 25%, South Africa is still the economic powerhouse of Africa. In this area most of the employment is associated with the landfill site nearby where people toil as garbage pickers, sifting through the trash is search of cans, glass, paper and cardboard. As they are undocumented, their children cannot go to the government school so they come to Ditshego school ( means “laughter” in the local dialect) until their parents can get registered and documented.
They have about 50 Students full time plus an after school program and six orphans. They feed them daily with produce from their own garden. They have been gifted 2 “tunnels” which we would call greenhouses. They have ample water from a bore hole/ well so the tunnels are all irrigated. One of the Rotarians, a young lady who has a passion for viticulture, has plans to set up a “black soldier fly larva” farm to provide well composted soli for the gardens as well as insect feed for their chickens. This will enhance not only the soil of the garden thereby increasing the productivity of the garden but also the egg producing efficiency of the chickens. A great project to support. We passed the hat right then and there, raised 1200 Rand, ( about $ 100.00 CDN ) and presented the money to the young Rotarian who went out and immediately purchased the fly larva. Rotarians are people of action right.

Our next stop was the Freedom Park, a wonderful interpretive center showcasing the eight armed struggles of South Africa from the Anglo Boer War of 1902 ending with the struggle to end apartheid which occurred in 1994. The Park has a large outdoor space and a memorial wall with the names of South Africans and foreign combatants on the South African side during these conflicts. The other part of the Park is an indoor museum/interpretive center which uses”magic realism” to tell the story of South African history from the migration of Homo Sapiens out of Africa to today. Fascinating place. The center’s mandate is to “Liberate the African Voice” Not enough time to do it justice.
Today we spent the morning at a South African Curio show where we purchased incredible examples of South African souvenirs. For about 1.5 hours before we headed for th3 airport, our host Glen to us to a nearby South African Air Force museum. Very interesting aviation artifacts.

Soon it was time for our group to split up and go our own ways. Vicki and I are going to explore Johannesburg for a few days then fly down to Cape Town on Monday. Til then, thank you for allowing me to share our experiences. Tonight my muse is particularly insistent that I get everything out. I appreciate your patience as I have rambled on quite long enough. Dankie.
ps. Pretoria is known for it’s jacaranda trees and the city is awash in purple.

pss. We had an incredibly articulate guide for our trip through the Park. He made it a truly memorable experience.

Saying goodbye to the Kruger, we loaded the van for a 4 hour blast into Middelburg, our stopover for the next two nights. After arriving later than expected we joined the Middelburg Rotary Club for an evening of bar b qued hamburgers, fellowship and Rotary Club presentations which are a feature of Rotary Friendship Exchanges. Middelburg is a farming, mining and industrial city of approximately 100,000 people located about 3 hours north east of Johannesburg.

After a great evening of fellowship we joined our new BFFs Anton and Rhonda and tottled off to their place for a well deserved sleep.
I arose at 5:45 this morning for a brisk walk with Anton and his dogs around the neighborhood. The wind is cool and the skies are threatening rain. The rainy season is due to start any day now and they are desperately praying for rain. After a hearty breakfast we are off to visit a large primary school located at the nearby township. Thushanang Primary school is populated by 1500 children from the nearby township. The student body and staff are 100 % non-white. The students are well behaved and neatly dressed in their burgundy school uniforms. We were greeted by a group of students waving SA flags as we were trooped in and escorted to our places of honour for speeches and performances from the school choir, dance teams and the competitive robotics teams. The choir is especially entertaining, beautiful voices boys and girls harmonizing and dancing to the rhythms. Very moving. Apparently the school’s choirs regularly win province wide competitions. After touring some of the classrooms that are sorely in need of desks, tables and in particular science lab equipment we met in the principal’s office where a plea was made to please assist if we could with a project to supply the school with these much needed resources. So great is the need and so great is the potential of these eager children. I spoke with one very articulate Gr 7 girl. I asked if she had plans post high school. She replied “ I would like to be a doctor”.

it seems all we have been doing between visits to Rotary projects is eat. We left the school and made our way to the local Chamber of Commerce building for lunch. A long table was set and 30 of us sat down to a “meat meal”. Steaming platters of ribs, sausage, chicken wings, little Vienna sausage, meat balls and some very big French fries. Not a celery or carrot stick in sight.
We returned to our host’s for a post luncheon nap and a quick change then off to the district governor’s dinner with the District 9400 Governor Dr George Senasha. Brilliant man and very inspirational. We presented our club banners to Middelburg club president, had another great meal and pleasant fellowship and then off home for a nice sleep.
Tomorrow we are on the road again, not quite as early as in the past week. Next stop is the Rotary Club of Centurion, a suburb of Pretoria. Sad to think that our friendship exchange will come to an end in 3 more days.
LEARNING AND INNOVATION GO HAND IN HAND. THE ARROGANCE OF SUCCESS IS TO THINK THAT WHAT YOU DID YESTERDAY WILL BE SUFFICIENT FOR TOMORROW…William G Pollard, American Physicist and Episcopalian Priest 1911-1989

Stretching 360 kms north to south and an average of 65 kms in width, the Kruger National Park covers over 19,000 sq kms of bush in northeastern South Africa on the border with Mozambique. Named after Paul Kruger, the first president of the South African Republic, it is home to over 140 species of mammals including the Big 5: lions, leopards, elephants, rhinos and water buffalo. To see all of the big 5 is considered a rare treat. we saw three; lots of elephants, lots of water buffalo and one lonely leopard. Some of our group of 12 saw all 5.
The numbers are somewhat dated as the last census was completed in 2011 but the impala are the most numerous at about 152,000. We would pass them grazing along the roadways in groups of 30-50. They would look up at the car as we passed. They possess such an aura of innocence on their cute little faces then reality come crashing in when you realize that they might possibly be dinner for a lion, leopard, or hyena by the end of the day.

We did a “self-drive” tour for about 12 hours. We were up Saturday morning at 5 for a quick breakfast of coffee, tea and “rusk” which is a dry biscotti like biscuit. Out the gate of the Skakuza camp at 6 we just wandered the roadways with our eyes peeled for game. We saw great herds of elephants, 15-20 grazing in a group. Herds of zebra too numerous to count and graceful giraffes feeding on the higher branches. We saw hippos in the water holes, kudus with beautiful spiral horns, blue wildebeests and mean, ugly looking warthogs. Less plentiful were the nyalas and the not so common, common duikers.

The Kruger is a birder’s paradise. From beautiful iridescent blue Cape starlings and lilac breasted rollers to helmeted Guinea fowl to white backed vultures, Marabou storks, Southern ground hornbills and the red faced bateleur. So many varieties and so little time. You could spend days doing this.
On Sunday we had a much needed sleep-in til 7:00 AM. Laundry day, lunch on the restaurant deck overlooking the elephants eating and splashing in the river and some afternoon pool time. At 4:30 we queued up and boarded an open air safari bus with 20 other game gazers and headed off for a sunset/night game tour.
We saw many of the same creatures on this drive as we did during the day. We say a few lone hyenas loping along beside the road. At one point one of them came very close to the bus and passed right across our path. Giraffes walking down the middle of the road and a family of warthogs, a mother and 5 piglets crossed the road in front of us and moved off into the bush. One brave little fellow stopped to stare at us to make sure we weren’t following. Close to the end of our drive we spotted a beautiful leopard resting in the grass very near the roadway. We sat quietly for a few minutes but it was obviously nervous and kept moving in the thick grass. That was the highlight of the evening drive. Continuing across the river there were 4 giant egrets, their bright white plumage standing out starkly again the dark foliage of the trees at the river’s edge..

We return to our camp where the rest of our group are just finishing up dinner. They had saved a portion for us so we chow down on salads, sausage and lamb chops with a birthday cake for dessert. We sang old rock and roll songs then rocked and rolled over to our rondoval and into bed.
Our time in the Kruger has been much too short but we have a schedule to adhere to. Next stop is a two day visit with the Rotary Club of Middleburg, just about 150 kms northeast of Johannesburg. Until then,

We arose early again this morning for further explorations of the geological features of the Blyde River Canyon. Known as the Panorama Route, this drive presents stunning views of the Blyde River Canyon and the forested lands below. The canyon is the third largest on earth but does not compare in size to the Grand Canyon in the US. The canyon passes a feature of 3 hills that resemble 3 African round houses or “ rondavals”. When you see the picture you will understand why. We also visited the Pinnacle, a large rock pillar rising some 30 meters above the forest floor. Our third stop of the day was to the Bourke’s Luck Potholes. These depressions and holes in the canyon walls were created by the grinding of hard rocks against the softer stone of the river bed and have resulted in a variety of pools, channels and waterfalls. If you have visited the Sooke Potholes you will have some idea of the attraction although these on are much more impressive.

Much of our travel yesterday and today has been through very hilly countryside covered in timber plantations, orange groves and closer to the town of White River, macadamia trees. Oranges and macadamia nuts are a big export crop. South Africa is now the largest producer of macadamia nuts in the world. There are mile after mile and 1000’s of hectares of pine and eucalyptus plantations. The plantations are in various stages of reforestation. The pine in particular grows very fast. 15 years from planting to harvest. The pine is used for some furniture manufacturing but primarily for pulp. The eucalyptus being a hard wood is used structurally in the gold mines to support the tunnel roofs.
In the town of White River the hillsides are covered in fields of blueberry bushes grown under sun shades.
White River is our stop for the night and we arrive at the meeting point for a hook up with our White River Rotary club hosts . We were introduced to a lovely couple, Eric and Susie Howlands. They are about our age or a little older. Susie is the farmer of the family, cropping organic salad greens, macadamia nut and figs. They plant seedlings every week which are ready for harvest in 6 weeks so there is a continuous cycle of planting and harvesting 12 months of the year. Susie also manufactures pesto sauce using macadamia instead of pine nuts and mayonnaise under her own brand. She both retails and wholesales these products. Eric operates a company that supplies equipment and enzymes for the treatment of sewage waste. Eric is also president of the White River Rotary club. For a couple in their late 70’s they are incredible bundles of energy.

Last night we were hosted by the club for a braai, a South African bar b que. Great chunks a chicken and beef roast cooked on a charcoal fire, potluck salads, plenty of beer and wine and a birthday cake for dessert. All wrapped up and home in bed by 10:30, exhausted but happy.

This morning I beat the alarm set for 6:00 AM by 5 minutes. We enjoyed a light breakfast on the veranda overlooking the farm, birds chirping in the bright morning sun. Soon we were of to meet our fellow travelers, bid our hosts a hearty thank you and off we went.
Today’s destination is Skukuza in the heart of Kruger National Park. We arrived at the entrance gate at about 11:00 AM, filled out forms to record our names, paid our fees and in the gate we went. Skukuza is about 35 kms from the gate but it took us 3.5 hours to travel that distance. It is about 35 degrees Celsius under a bright sunny sky. According to Noel Coward “Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun” but here wildlife abounds. We hadn’t gone a kilometer from the entrance when there was an elephant. A little later on a giraffe and THREE little ones. We saw hundreds of impala standing wearily 20 feet from our car. Wildebeest and kudus were more rare but we did see them. And this was just on our drive in to our lodgings.
We have checked into the Skukuza Safari Lodge and we have been assigned our own rondaval for the next two nights. RONDAVALS are a traditional African round mud house with thatched roofs. Our unit is a round, cement walled cottage with a kitchen, nice bathroom and AIRCONDITIONING. As mentioned earlier it is warm here. So getting settled in we enjoyed a drink on the deck overlooking the river, watched a herd of elephants splashing across just up stream from us and watched the sun go down. This is what they call a “sundowner” We are up at 5:00 for a 6:00 AM departure for a day’s long safari drive. Lots of pictures and stories again tomorrow I’m sure. Goog night from the Kruger.🙏

I am getting behind on my blogging as we have been so busy doing fun things. Today we did a practice run for out trip to Kruger National Park which we will visit on Friday. We headed out this morning to visit a game farm about an hour south. Upon arrival we were greeted by a lemur who entertained us by leaping from car to car. Inside the reception building we met a 4 month old lion cub who was spread out on a sofa in front of the fireplace. We were gathered up by a young man with a baby ferret on a leash sitting on his shoulder chattering away to us. Our “guide” Maurice ran through the rules for us and then off we went for a walking tour of the farm. No cages but rather fenced enclosures, almost like pens. As this was about noon most of the animals were in huts or shelters but we did see African foxes, jackals, hyenas, tortoises, warthog, wild boor and a number of birds. The most impressive was the lion pair, male and female. They are the parents of the for month old cub we encountered in the restaurant. Unfortunately these animals are not in their natural environment but it was an opportunity to see them up close and learn about them in anticipation of of real safari on Friday. We made our way back to the reception/restaurant building for lunch and an opportunity to play with the lion cub. He is still on a bottle so one of our team was able to feed him.

Last night was our first “Rotary meeting” During a Rotary Friendship Exchange it is traditional to attend your host club’s weekly meeting, do a presentation featuring you club’s projects, give effusive thanks to the host club and exchange club banners with the host club president. As our team has Rotarians from 5 different clubs the presentations got a little long but it really was a very enjoyable evening. The Rotary Club of Vanderbiljpark is a small club but have an impressive list of worthwhile projects that make a significant impact on their community. One of the goals of a visit such as this is to identify opportunities to collaborate on projects in the local community. Often exchanges are with clubs that don’t necessarily have the financial resources to contribute; manpower and local knowledge combined with foreign dollars can do wonders. In fact, when we we visited a facility for severely challenged children last Saturday, I spoke with the director about their wish list and she identified possible ways in which we could have in an immediate way. I passed the hat amongst our team and raised $500 CDN to give to the director for the purchase of some needed kitchen equipment. Rotarians are doers.

We rose early this morning for a farewell to our new BFFs and our host for the last four nights, Esme and Desmond Young. Lovely people. Desmond was a Professor of Chemistry and Esme is a PhD in Chemistry now both retired. We joined the rest of our team for a 450 kms drive east towards Kruger National Park. Tonight we are in the town of Graskop, home of the famous Graskop Gorge, a geological feature that has created a deep canyon in the South African escarpment. It has been developed as a tourist attraction with a very nice restaurant, elevator ride to the bottom of the canyon, elevated boardwalk along the creek flowing through, zip line, giant swing and of course gift shop and local artisan market. After a walk through the lush vegetation we climbed into our van for a short ride to our accommodations for the night, the Autumn Breeze Guest house. Clean, very rustic and a very good restaurant. Our group feasted on alligator, ostrich, wildebeest kabobs. I had a nice curried lamb dish, Vicki enjoyed her trout accompanied by snail and the table shared a big five pizza, the big five being lion, leopard,rhino, elephant and African buffalo. Much wine was consumed by some, lots a laughs, sharing of expectations for Friday when we will have a chance to see the Big Five up close and personal in their natural habitat. Now to bed as we are on the road again early tomorrow. Good night all.

Today we had 3 very interesting and informative experiences. First off we visited a sustainable farming operation run by Vanderbiljpark Rotarians, notably Rita Benecke whom we helped celebrate her 80th birthday on Saturday. Rita is a local mover and shaker, head of the Benecke Group of Companies. The operation is completely organic and grows a wide variety of vegetables as well as starter seedlings for 44 other gardens run by community groups such as churches. They also operate a “soup kitchen”, literally a large commercial kitchen were they produce 1800 liters of soup PER DAY🥰. The soup is made in four large stainless steel vats and the cook was just beginning today’s batch. The soup is distributed daily to charities such as Meals on Wheels, schools, churches and real soup kitchens. While we were there a young man was loading the trunk of his car with 5 gallon plastic buckets of hot soup and loaves of donated bread and butter. He will travel to one of the client churches or schools for immediate distribution.
After our tour we journeyed deeper into the “Township of Bophelong” Bophelong means “Place of Life” in the Sotho language, one of the 12 official languages of South Africa. Townships are communities on the outskirts of the cities where the blacks were only allowed to dwell. The most famous is Soweto near Johannesburg. Since the end of apartheid, blacks are not confined to the townships. Those with the economic means to do so will move out and into the cities proper. Those that can’t, including poorer whites, continue to live in the townships. In fact they are growing as the economy deteriorates and the gulf between the haves and have nots continues to widen.

The destination was a restaurant where we would dine on a selection of local cuisine. Interesting and very tasty to say the least. Chakalaka,a spicy mixture of beans, onions, peppers and carrots; pap, a creamy mixture of corn meal similar to polenta; potjiekes, a stew like dish made with a variety of meats and vegetables and potatoes and the requisite “Brazilian”, South African bar b q, in this case chicken legs. All of this washed down with jugs of homemade ginger beer. The restaurant was actually a night club, complete with a bar extending the length of an entire wall, leather sofas and a dj booth. Probably a rocking place in the night time.
After a post lunch chill out then a little dancing on the nightclub dance floor to get the blood flowing and the food settled we headed to an after school program run by a local newspaper publisher Simon. As the presence of a group of Canadians was a hot topic in the township, he wanted to interview us and as I am the team leader I was chosen to speak for the group. He asked what my impressions of South Africa were and I repeated my earlier assertions that I was impressed by how welcome we were made to feel and also how proud South Africans seem to be of their country. We went on to talk about the power and magic of Rotary worldwide. I suggested that if you want something done, get a Rotarian excited about it and it will get done.
We visited Simon’s after school project were he provides space and guidance for up to 90 school children from about 1:00 PM to 6:00 PM every day. He personally picks up all the children from their schools and then drives them all home afterwards. He is assisted by older student helpers and is doing this on a shoe string for funding. I suggested he needed to enlist the support of the local Rotary club.
After being entertained by a group of boys who sang us a lovely song, we piled back into our van, headed back home for a nice quiet evening and bed to recharge for another busy day tomorrow.

About 65 million years ago a large meteorite slammed into the earth in an area we have come to know as the Yucatán peninsula. The resulting ash cloud that was flung into the atmosphere and encircled the earth blocked out the sun and eventually led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Almost 2000 million years earlier an even bigger meteorite slammed into the earth in present day South Africa near the town of Vredefort. The meteorite was an estimated to be between 20-25 kilometers in diameter and created a crater up to 300 kms wide. The rebounding of the earth after impact caused and uplift of material now known as the Vredefort Dome, a series of circular hill formations northwest of Johannesburg. Archeological evidence suggests that the only living organisms around at this time were simple protozoas which would have been destroyed in the cataclysm. Who knows what they would have evolved to had this not happened.

Central to this area is a town called Parys. It is to here we journeyed for a bit of shopping therapy and some light refreshments. Parys is a town much like Chemainus but it has become somewhat busy with traffic with lots of commercial trucking using the Main Street. You have to on high alert when crossing the street as traffic flows on the left hand side of the road.
Later we returned to our cars and drove for about 30 minutes to a beautiful venue located beside the Vaal River. This river flows through north central SA and is about 1450 kms long. We spent the afternoon on the banks of the river just upstream from the “barrage”, a weir/dam the forms the Barrage lake. The river is lined with massive estates and monstrous homes. This venue is an open air party place. We were served a traditional lunch of oxtail stew and homemade breads with local wine and beers. A formal welcome from the District 9400 Friendship Exchange Committee chairperson was warmly received by our team. I was asked during an earlier conversation what my first impressions of South Africa were. In response I said two things. Number one was how much we appreciated our warm welcome and secondly how evident it was that South Africans are very proud of their country.
We capped the afternoon off with a nice cruise up the river and back and then a short drive home and early to bed for another busy day.

We can learn a lot from trees. They are always grounded but never stop reaching for the heavens.
This morning we were picked up by our individual hosts for the next 4 nights and headed southwest from Johannesburg to a small city about the size of Nanaimo called Vanderbiljpark. Along the way we stopped to visit a home for severely disabled people aged 0-99. Yes 0-99. These children (mostly) primary suffer from cerebral palsy. I say 0-99 as most of them come as infants abandoned by their mothers because of the disability and will spend all of their lives here at this home. This facility is run by a charitable organization and rely pretty much on the donations of generous patrons. Very small stipend provided by the government for food. The place is a clean, bright happy place, well staffed with dedicated people. In honour of visit today we planted two fruit trees, one pomegranate and one pear.
Back on the road again after our tour and a lunch of “ funeral sandwiches “ we arrived at our host’s home for a brief rest then off to a special 80th party for a longtime member of the RC of Vanderbiljpark, Rita Bebecke. Rita is a very important business person in the country and owns a number of restaurants hotels and inns. 150 people joined at the Old Valtonian’s Sports club for a special birthday day dinner and we were very honoured to be included. Now we are back at the home of our guests, ready for bed to wake energized for another exciting day tomorrow. A cruise on the Vall River in the offing. Goeie nag sorted drome ( check Google translate under Afrikaans)

After a 29 hour journey from Vancouver through Toronto and Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, we arrived at our hotel in Johannesburg to begin our 2 week Rotary Friendship visit to District 9400 in South Africa. An evening over a lovely buffet dinner with the rest of our tea, we retired for the night and a 10 hour sleep..

We rose this morning with no jet-lag and we’re met by our host team and we set out for the day. More to come.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton