Patensie Plaasbasaar - the epitome of church bazaars

Most people have been to their local church or school bazaar where the old tannies man tables with vetkoek, curry and rice and pancakes and kids run around while their parents buy food and chat to their neighbours who they never get to see due to the 6 foot wall separating their homes.  Last weekend I got to go to the Patensie Plaasbasaar, the NG Kerk Gamtoosvallei-Oos annual bazaar and I have to be honest here.  It was the mother of all church bazaars and makes our little city church bazaars look like a Micky Mouse tea party. 

 

The Gamtoos Valley is a major citrus and vegetable growing area and is often referred to as the food basket of the Eastern Cape.  Knowing that the first question people asked me when I came back was if there was fruit and vegetables on sale. Seriously?  Is the sea wet?  There was lots of fruit and particularly vegetables on sale.  So much so and at such low prices that people bought wheel barrows full with the farm workers assisting going flat out all day, wheeling people's purchases to their cars (or bakkies as is the case in most of the people from the valley who came).  And making some seriously good tips along the way.  

 

Coming into the Endulini Citrus packhouse where the bazaar was held the first thing you saw was the tea garden and all its cakes, and tarts, and cakes and... did I mention tarts?

 

  

 

I don't just mean any cakes and tarts, but cakes and tarts that would make most bakeries and coffee shops green with envy.  Green I say. Lime green with some frog in a blender green thrown in for good measure.  These cakes weren't just thrown together, they were made with exceptional skill and effort by people living in a farming community.  For the sake of the tea garden the cakes were cut up and in plates already, selling at R15 a piece.  The only problem was deciding which one to choose.  Not quite a piece of cake.    

 

One of my favourite things at the bazaar was watching these ladies making rooterkoek.  Roosterkoek, for those who don't know it, is bread rolls made over the coals and normally prepared along with a braai.  The roosterkoek table was where I bought my lunch of warm roosterkoek with farm butter melting and running over my fingers, topped off with whole fig jam and cheese.

It truly was a treat watching these experts at work.  They were churning out dozens of roosterkoek and as fast as they were making them, people were buying them.  During the auction later on they stopped making roosterkoek because they thought people were done buying and suddenly found themselves out of stock.  Didn't take long for the next batch to be rolled, cut and made though.

 

Other tables at the bazaar was heavily laden with all kinds of traditional bazaar goods. 

Bottled onions, bottled beetroot, jams, lemon syrup...

 ... breads, cakes, rusks, koeksisters...

 





 ... pancakes (and what is a church bazaar without pancakes?), jaffles, salamis, cheeses and biltong.

The most popular part of the bazaar was their farm breakfast which was served all day, buffet style.  Bacon, mince, sausage, patties, baked beans, egg, breads with farm butter, jams and cheese served with juice, all for just R40.  This was well topped off with a dessert from the pudding table selling at R10 and R15 per container. Baked puddings, jellies, instant puddings, more baked puddings and custard.  Like Oom Oubaas of 7de Laan on television would say.  "I had to stop myself before I chewed my lips off." 

 

 

 

 

 

 During the day the stage was used for a proper farmers auction with sheep, goats and chickens, kudu hunts, wire cars and several other items up for grabs.  I couldn't really compete with some of the farmers' wallets but did enjoy the banter going on between some of the guys on the floor.  The auction was followed by a boere-orkes. Uhm, ja.  Not sure how to translate that into English.  Its a traditional Afrikaner band led by a concertina player.  Not really something that is popular with the younger crowd these days, but still very special to hear live. 

Outside the kids did the standard jumping castle thing with a sweets and kiddies table nearby to keep them all sugared up.  One of the local farmers did tractor rides into the orchards which clearly was supported more by the city kids than the farm kids who get to ride on tractors whenever they want. 

 

I wouldn't have know of the bazaar if it wasn't for Nichola Uys of Nikalandershoek.  Nichola is the driving force behind the Gamtoos Tourism Association and invited us out to the valley for the weekend.  While we were there we stayed in her cottage on the citrus farm Nikalandershoek.  The cottage is self catering and the ideal spot to base yourself to explore the valley or just chill away from the city rush.  Breakfast at Tolbos in town, lunch at Padlangs just outside of Patensie and late afternoon strolls through the orchards with outings to the Baviaanskloof, Kouga Dam, Queen Victoria profile and Hankey in between.  Truly a plattelandse experience with a good farming flavour in the mix.  Next year we'll definitively be returning for the Plaasbasaar with heaps of our friends in tow.  They didn't want to believe me before hand that its going to be a great experience and now they have to wait a year for the next one.

I am an African

I am an African.  My ancestors may have come from Europe in the late 1600's but that doesn't mean I still have links with that continent.  My parents were born in Africa and so was my grandparents and great grandparents and so I can go on.  I am of the African soil and is as much an African as any other person who lives on this continent.  In 1996, Thabo Mbeki, then vice president of South Africa under Nelson Mandela, did a speech in parliament on the occasion of the passing of the new Constitution of South Africa.  The speech was called I am an Africa.  SA Tourism used part of the speech in a promotional video and every time I see it I get quiet, contemplate and realise just once again that, even though I am white, I truly am an African. 

  

 

Earlier in the week I was invited to a musical at Diaz Primary School in Algoa Park here in Port Elizabeth.  The play was called I am an African.  I wasn't quite sure what to expect but went with an open mind.  I was blown away!  The 1 1/2 hour production consisted of nearly 200 kids and told the story of South Africa's democracy.  Starting with Mandela's arrest the storyline includes the Soweto uprising, Mandela's release, inauguration and receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, SA hosting and winning the 1995 Rugby World Cup and the hosting of the 2010 FIFA World Cup.  The kids threw everything into it and I have to highlight at least one boy and one girl with exceptional singing talents.  The school is currently trying to get a spot at a theatre in the city to expose the play to more people and I really hope that they get the support (both financially and in audience numbers) they need to pull it off successfully.

 

 

Citrus Festival photos gallery

The annual Patensie Citrus Festival took place on 15 June 2013 in the Gamtoos Valley west of Port Elizabeth.  The Gamtoos is mainly a farming area with beautiful scenery, not forgetting true farming hospitality, so I take any excuse I can get to visit.  After really enjoying the 2012 festival we decided to head out there again this year and bundled the family in the car on the Saturday morning, headed out to the countryside.  Here are a some scenes from the festival.

 

Tourism Indaba 2013

I want to share a couple of scenes from the recent Indaba with you, but first a quick generic explanation to those who don't know what Indaba is.  Tourism Indaba, hosted by South African Tourism, is an annual tourism trade show that takes place in Durban in early May.  Indaba is the biggest tourism trade show on the African continent and one of the top three internationally and brings together product and destinations with buyers from all over the world.  But Indaba is so much more than an exhibition.  It also includes speed marketing sessions, workshops, launches, awards, functions and lots of technology.  This year SA Tourism launched their #MeetSouthAfrica campaign just before Indaba with 15 international bloggers travelling all over South Africa blogging, Facbooking, Tweeting and Instagramming about their experiences.  This was followed by a travel bloggers conference on the day before Indaba where some of the bloggers told delegates more about how bloggers can benefit tourism products and destinations and obviously about their trip.  

 

Delegates received a warm South African welcome at the airport as well as entering the Durban ICC

The exhibition space is split between the Durban International Convention Centre and the Durban Exhibition Centre as well as outside exhibitors in between

 

 The Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism (seeing that I don't blog for a living I need to earn my daily bread somewhere) stand with my colleague Seekoei (the name he goes by online) manning the front desk

 



On the left a delegate is trying out the interactive video wall on the SA Tourism stand while on the right is a chalk drawing outside the Heritage and Cultural Pavilion

 

Sand sculptures done between the ICC and DEC

The Heritage and Cultural Pavilion was a new (and popular) addition to Indaba 2013 and showcased some of the country's top heritage and cultural attractions.  Although there were brochures available, all the information was on display on iPads on the wall as well as through Poken scanners. 

Cape Town Jazz Festival

I'm not a Jazz fan, not by a long shot.  For some reason, perhaps because of watching too much television, when I hear "jazz" I think of a smoke filled bar with a lady hanging onto a mic accompanied by a piano, sax and double bass.  So when I was invited to Cape Town on a blogger tour which included the Cape Town International Jazz Festival I wasn't too sure what to expect. Jazz? Festival? Me? That's going to be an interesting experience.  Am I sorry I went? Not at freekin all.  It was an amazing eye opening experience.

 

This year was the 14th addition of the Cape Town International Jazz Festival (fourteen I tell you, and I'm only getting to attend it for the first time)  which took place at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC).  I wasn't sure what I expected as far as numbers, but the festival attracted in the region of 34 000 people over the two days.  That is huge.  Throngs and throngs of people enjoying what is probably some of the most relaxing music there is.  Why do I say relaxing?  The first thing I noticed and asked my host was why people are just standing there?  I'm used to lekker Afrikaans music with a beat to which you tap your foot and dance along with.  Jazz music fans don't tap per se but rather gently rock from side to side like pine trees in the evening breeze. 

 

The festival featured 40 international, African and local artists and five stages spread around the venue with the main stage being in the CTICC's main hall.  The Manenberg Stage was my favorite stage, not because of the artists that performed on it but rather that fact that it was an outside stage located between two overhead freeways which means that motorists coming into the Cape Town City Bowl got a taste of the festival even if they weren't attending.  Not that they would have been able to change direction and pop in as the festival was sold out long before it even happened. 

My, and I imagine most other, highlight of the festival was US artist Jill Scott and her band's performance. Wow! Wow! and one more Wow!   Scott is a three-time Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter, a New York Times best-selling poet and critically acclaimed actress.  Now I have to be honest, not being a jazz fan I probably wouldn't buy her CD, but seeing them perform live absolutely blew my mind.  She was so much more than that what I imagined a jazz artist would be (see first paragraph) plus I got to tap my foot and enjoy the beat she ads to her music. Sorry about the quality of the photo. I was standing way back.

One of the fixtures of the Cape Town International Jazz Festival is the Duotone Photographic Exhibition and features photographs of the past and documents the emergence and growth of global jazz popularity.  This year's exhibition was a tribute to legendary South African photographer Alf Khumalo and displayed some of his best jazz inspired photographs.

The last picture? Proof that I actually was at the Cape Town Jazz Festival.

 

Disclosure: I visited the Cape Town International Jazz Festival as guest of the Tourism Grading Council of South Africa during a fully hosted blogger tour of Cape Town.  I received no additional remuneration to write this post and all views expressed are my own. 

The KidZ are Ironkids

This past weekend (12 - 14 April 2013) was Ironman weekend in Port Elizabeth which, in addition to the main Ironman event on Sunday, also included an Irongirl 8km run on Friday and Corporate Ironman and Ironkids on Saturday.  Both Ironkids and Irongirl are the biggest events of their kind in the world.  Just for those who don't know what Ironman is, its an ultra triathlon with competitors doing a 3,8 km swim followed by a 180 km cycle and ending off with a 42,2km run.  Ironkids are open to kids between 6 and 13 years old with the 6-9 year olds doing a 60 m swim and 1,2km run and the 10 - 13 year olds doing 100 m and 2km respectively.  Somewhere the organisers slipped up this year though and all the kids ran the same distance.  I'm not complaining too loudly as I followed Chaos Boy on foot from the swim to the end and aren't really in the same shape he is for a distance run. *wink* This year both the KidZ took part in Ironkids with Chaos Boy doing it for the first time while Drama Princess also took part last year.

 

 Because it was Drama Princess' second time she was quite at easy with the whole process, even taking the opportunity to smile and wave at dad while waiting to go to the swim start.

 

Chaos Boy was a little more nervous.  He's not a very good swimmer and had a long discussion with one of the volunteer helpers.  Apparently he asked if he had to dive in and she said that he could also just jump in.  He then asked if its fine to just climb in which he subsequently did when the whistle blew.

The kids were split into groups of twenty at a time.  Each group had at least 10 lifeguards swimming with them and helping out the kids who can't swim that well or who got tired along the way.  Drama Princess (8) made sure she grabbed herself a lifeguard from the get go.

As Chaos Boy (11) is in an older age group the lifeguards don't dive in with them and watch them carefully from the side.  When they noticed that he just paddled along they kept a special eye on him and kept asking if he was alright.  After a bit he shook his head and two guys dived in, one then helping him through to the end of the swim.  I take my hat off to these youngsters, jumping in and out, swimming with the kids and then running back to the start for a good three hours straight.

The run went a lot better with both the KidZ not having any problems with that.  The Damselfly tracked Drama Princess on the run, following her to the end, while I did the same with Chaos Boy.  Following them was more to see how they do as there were marshals, volunteers, scouts and police personnel along the way to ensure that all the kids stayed safe.

 

I am so proud of both the KidZ for taking part in this fantastic event.  Chaos Boy isn't really the sporty type and after watching his sister last year wanted, to our surprise, do it this year.  He did extremely well and, to be honest, I had a tear in my eye when he wasn't bothered with the other kids diving in and swimming right out from under him.  He just did his thing. 

Unlike her brother, Drama Princess is very sporty and competitive.  Daddy's little sports star.  This kind of thing is just down her alley and she couldn't wait to take her medal to school to show her teacher and the head master.  I'm sure we will be back again next year.