The clouds and wind had departed by morning, taking away my dark mood with them. Birds were singing in the Sun Tree outside our room, a cockerel called the morning into action, the chatter of the black African community that surrounded our camp seemed inviting, instead of threatening, with the light of day. The other young travelers staying at Bambvu seemed friendlier too as we all used the community kitchen to make our breakfasts. In the sweet sunshine of the new day everything seemed better so we decided to stay one more day.

 

We walked down to Coffee Beach early to check the surf. Nothing worth considering for Bob but he seemed to think later in day it would be good for me. As we headed back up the beach two young African boys greeted us and offered to sing and dance. After a few delightful numbers their older brother joined them and the trio put on such a performance that Bob ran the half-mile back to our rondavel to get the video camera. The boys were a bit shy once they realized what a movie camera was but we still got a bit of song and dance from them. Bob also brought them some fruit bread and biltong (jerky) that we had, and some mint candies. However, the boys were disappointed not to get rand (money) and followed us all the way back to our camp with frequent requests for 30 rand ($4.50) so they could buy shoes for school. We gave the boys about 20 rand and told them to save up for shoes. By the end of the day we realized we’d been suckered as we watched the same brothers perform for a number of other tourists and later we saw them wearing perfectly good tennis shoes as they went off to play soccer. Throughout the day we were approached by at least 25 other children offering to sing and dance for us. We’d had enough entertainment for the day, however, so we declined further offers. We haven’t been bothered too much by begging, though there has been plenty of it. We are not immune to these requests but we are in South Africa and we’ve yet to see a truly hungry person. Sure, they don’t have nearly the material wealth that we do but they have clothes and food and go to school. We know this won’t be the case in Mozambique or some of the poorer countries in Africa so we are saving our generosity for the truly needy children.

 

My surf session was disastrous with waves too unruly, though not necessary too big, for me. I spent most of the hour trying to get out to where the waves were breaking but I was so seasick by the time I finally caught a wave that it wasn’t very enjoyable. I went through the motions one more time, getting more nauseous all the while in the rough water, then swore off surfing for the rest of my life…or until the next time Bob coaxes me to go out. We didn’t get back to the Bombvu camp in time to prepare for the kayak outing I’d wanted to take but after a nap we did go for a nice walk through the miles of severely overgrazed fields that make for easy walking. The rondavel lodge that is intended for guests had been vacated during the day so we were asked to move to it and out of the one we had stayed in the night before. I didn’t really want to pack up and move since we would be leaving in the morning, but the owner of the place had returned and his “house” was in the unit next to where we’d been put the previous night and my guess is that he doesn’t like company in his private quarters. As it turned out, the new rondavel was much better, cleaner, and had a great energy to it, rather like sleeping in one of our tipis at the ranch. Karl turned out to be a really cool guy with whom we had a lot in common. We hung out and talked with him for quite a while and were really disappointed when he left again to go back to East London where he has a farm.

 

After dinner Bob and I joined in with the evening’s activity which was an introduction to African drumming. Since we’ve both drummed a bit we thought it would be boring as there were several first-timers. As it was, there was about 5 minutes of instruction then we jumped right into playing simple rhythms, which was perfect for us. The talent of our instructor improvising on his drum as we students stuck with the base beat, made us all sound great. At 9:30 I was preparing for bed, wondering where Bob was, when he found me and said I must come join him in the bar where he was dancing with the local black men, and a few blondes from northern Europe. Two hours and some great fun later, I finally made it to bed.