Maritzburg day 2

Today we had our first lecture brought to us by our director Reg who knows everything. So needless to say it was very informative but parts of it were especially interesting to me because of their relationship with the present situation here in South Africa. We learned about the different tribal groups in Africa and touched especially on the history of the Zulu people which was mostly bloody and filled with conflict, but the proud and warlike character of the Zulu people explains a lot of the conflict going on in the government here right now, especially because the current president is Zulu and is very proud of it. So learning the history and the tension and issues between the colonial and native groups here was very interesting and will help us understand Apartheid better when we get to that time period in South African history. Another thing that was very interesting about the lecture was the amount of South Africa history that lines up with American history. Colonization happened in about the same time, rebellion against the British started at about the same time, expansion (manifest destiny stuff) happened and gold was found at about the same time. It was kind of erie. Mid lecture we stopped for tea time which is my favorite thing about this country so far. We have tea time at 11am and 4pm every day and it is the best. Rooibos tea. Look it up.
After the lecture we drove to Pietermaritzburg and stopped in the train station where Ghandi was kicked off of his train because a white man wanted his seat, which was the catalyst that started his peaceful resistance movement against Apartheid in South Africa and British rule in India. It's not particularly remarkable, but it is still a working train station which is nice. After the train station we drove up toward the mountains and saw a show at a refuge for raptors and other GIANT birds. There were all kinds of owls, hawks, eagles, and gigantic vultures as well as storks that were definitely bigger than Will. South Africa has about 3 times the amount of raptors then America so it was fun to get to see all the different kinds and to get to be really close to some of them in the show.




a waterfall behind my chalet

If you ever want to see more pictures you can check them out here.