Mother and Son Make The World Their Classroom for a School Year: September 23, 2014

September 23, 2014

Woke this morning to train stopping and going. It pulls over for some stretches of time and when you begin to wonder why so long, a speeding train goes flying by. Just layer in bed for a while lulled by the train back to sleep. Then turned on my ipad and picked up where I left off last night of “The Last Train to Zona Verde”. I think the interesting point he is making in his book is how important it is to keep the histories of some of these tribes and people of Africa, how many of their histories haven’t been written down, especially in some of the languages that aren’t written. How visitors have helped to do this, write their stories. It makes me want to be better about telling the stories of people we have met. Our drivers for one I have learned more about the country from them, and interesting to hear their different point of views.

We enjoyed a tasty omelet this morning and visited with Karen and her husband from Washington DC who are taking 3 weeks in Africa. Fun to visit and they were excited to hear about our plans. Sam has become a bit of a celebrity on the train, being the only child and the only one taking a year abroad. He is taking it in great stride ;)

After breakfast we went to the caboose of the train that is open air and enjoyed visiting with a man and his wife from Cape Town here celebrating his 50th birthday. He was incredible knowledgeable about nearly everything- we have met the Scott MacRitchie of South Africa ;) He explained more about ore and how they find diamonds and how they mine for gold. Johannesburg was essentially a gold mining town that was colonized during their gold rush. We also spoke with him what it was like to grow up white in Cape Town during Apartheid and how when he went to University that is when Mandela was released, the big change in the government and how it really was overnight eliminating the laws and then it takes time for change. He said he works with many people that still discriminate. That his generation is the one that it changed with, his children they don’t have it- his kids go to public school and most of their friends are Indians and Blacks and there isn’t an issue amongst the kids but for many black families they still live in areas where they don’t have good schools or secondary schools- not enough teachers, or facilities or money to properly educate all the kids in South Africa- which without education progress is difficult. It was nice of him to spend so much time talking to us and sharing his experience and perspective.

After our lunch of ostrich (tough- didn’t care for it, and hearts of palm salad, we arrived in Kimberly. The home of the Big Hole- the first diamond mine in South Africa where a large glass looking pebble (21 carats) was found by a child in 1866 and unkowningly given to a traveler who after a couple years it was identified as a diamond which began a huge rush to Africa, over 50,000 people. Diamonds had been found in India and in Brazil but this was the first in Africa. Over 14.5 million carats of diamonds have been found in this mine. This mine was on DeBoeres property, a farmer who was overrun by miners. A couple mine companies came out of this property and later became the DeBoers Consolidated Diamond Mines. They are known all around the world. We learned about and then went into their museum where we saw many different colors of diamonds. Learned about there are only 16 red diamonds in the world. Learned about Clarity (how clear or how many inclusions does it have- how well is light refracted through it) , Color (variety), Cut (many different cuts) and Carat (weight- which was originally based on the weight of what Indians called the carat seed which 1 carat weighs 200mg. We learned that diamonds come from volcanoes which bring them from close to the center of the earth up close to the surface through lava explosions. They are encased in what they call Kimberlite a bluish stone that miners dig out, crush and then spray with water and lay in the sun and the stone turns to dust and what is left are diamonds. Diamonds are the hardest mineral on earth and you can only cut a diamond with another diamond.

Leaving Kimberly we went to the back of the train with some new friends from Singapore, including Eunice and maybe 15 of her friends that are around 70 years old and go on 1-2 major trips all over the world. They are a wonderful group of interesting and well traveled and friendly ladies and a couple of gentlemen. We witnessed thousands of flamingos across a lake outside Kimberly. They coated areas of the lake in a pink blanket. Very stunning.

We have thoroughly enjoyed our time on the train. Very relaxing to come back to our room and have the windows down with the cool evening breeze coming through our cabin. It makes us excited about the Maharaja Express!