Monday, June 11
We left early Monday morning to drive to Rosendal, a small town in the free state a couple hours Southwest of Johannesburg. This town is so incredibly small, gave a whole new meaning to a one dirt road town.
We ate lunch at a tiny little shop where I had vetkoeks (pronounced fet-cooks, translated means fat cake). This round doughy bread had scrambled eggs, minced meat, peppers & onions!
We then went to a man named Frick’s place called Benjamin’s where we met the three individuals who we would be splitting up to interview. Jacob Malani is a traditional healer/policeman, Michele Nigrini is an artist, and Pastor Shannon and Corne are missionaries.
We then checked into the guest house where we would be staying, which had a great view and was just down the dirt road!
I was put on video for Michele the artist, and got to work with our facilitator/fixer for this trip, Hanne. She was a producer/director at SABC in South Africa and moved from Cape Town to Rosendal because she is in the middle of screenwriting and enjoys the seclusion.
Afterward we had hot chocolate at Benjamin’s as the sun was setting and played some cards outside before heading to dinner. Once the sun sets in Rosendal it is so incredibly cold, and the one space heater in the room did not really help the shivers that ensued throughout the night.
Tuesday, June 12
A plus to the cold and early rise was seeing the pretty sky for sunrise outside of our little house!
We then walked down the road to Frick’s for some tea and rusks which are hard little biscuit cookies that are so yummy to dip into the tea.
We then went on a walk with Hanne and her two dogs which was one of the highlights of my trip so far. Not only was the walk so beautiful, but we kept picking up different neighborhood pups along the way and it warmed us all up by the end!
We then ended back at Frick’s for some breakfast, which was a waffle topped with eggs, peppers and mushrooms and of course some vetkoeks on the side! What is cool about this town is that there are two places on each side of the town which serve breakfast, so to make sure they do not compete, they made their menus completely different so they don’t offer the same foods.
After breakfast we headed with Jacob to the caves for a hike which was really interesting. He placed 1 ran coins before we headed down a ladder to let his ancestors know that we were entering, and when we entered the cave to the water we each threw in a coin and said our name and ‘I am here’. This was a really cool moment thinking back because not often can you say that you walked in the caves of Rosendal, South Africa with a traditional healer/policeman.
Afterwards I headed back to Michele’s to get more b-roll and cutaway shots for my video before lunch. We all went to Jacob’s house to see his room with his things for healing and for those who were doing that story to get more content.
We came back to the guest house where I washed up (they only had a bathtub so I channeled my youth and got a cup to pour over myself-it did the trick!). We went to dinner at the place we had been going to eat since there isn’t many options (not an issue though considering this place & especially the chips were so so good). This night we also experienced too very different bars on each side of town, one frequented by whites, the other blacks. Really different experiences and vibes overall, and interesting to see the separation that is still very present here.
We went back to the boys guesthouse and had a fire and smores (Hanne got us the only bag of marshmallows in the area) and had a nice reflection of our trip thus far. Once again it was incredibly cold outside and I had another shivering nights sleep.
Wednesday, June 13
We woke up pretty early again to drive to Bloemfontein. The eight of us headed to the war museum while our two professors had a meeting with the university for collaboration for next years trip. Afterwards we drove to Musiccon, a music school, where I shot video in the hour time span we had. It was really quick and really different than anything I had done before since it was more of a news style, so I am interested to see how the clips turned out and I put it all together!
We then took the long drive home (about 4ish hrs) where I slept, watched the prettiest sky as we drove, listened to some great south african tunes, and fell asleep at the b&b feeling very thankful for the warm heated blankets.
Thursday, June 14
Thursday was filled with a full day of editing. I edited the entire Michele story so I had a draft ready, and was really pleased by how it all turned out. Later on we went to a place in small Melville called Hell’s Kitchen for some dinner and drinks!
Friday, June 15
I got back on my running schedule now that I am feeling much better and we are back in Joburg for a bit. I will say that waking up in the morning greeted by cold weather does not feel nearly as bad anymore since Rosendal.
A few of us headed to Spar to do our laundry, where we continued to work on our stories in the meantime.
For dinner we went to Stanley Beer Yard which was an outside restaurant that was really pretty and had live music. We then went next door to a place called Calexico where our professors friend was playing (spinning records) which was really cool to see.
Saturday, June 16
On June 16, 1976 an uprising took place by peaceful grade school protestors who were killed by police in the black township of Soweto. To commemorate this 42nd anniversary, we headed to Orlando Stadium in Soweto where the event was taking place to cover the story.
This event was definitley sensory overload and our group got a lot of attention as we were the only white people in the stadium, so people seemed to pay more attention to us than even the president speaking.
I took video and photos and interviewed two people about the event, as we were all getting any info we could for a joint report. When we came back we put all of our interviews and media together and then I wrote the story, edited photos, and made a short video, all very busy and fun to create.
Overall this was a really interesting experience, but I was glad to have been in the situation to feel like a real foreign correspondent covering a story and then going back and creating it for breaking news.
Sunday, June 17
This morning I had a nice Sunday morning run before a few of us headed to Rosebank for their flea market that they have on Sundays. This was really awesome to see all of the different goods and food vendors and try our best to barter!
The rest of the day was super relaxing, as I sat outside to work on my reflection and this blog post as the sun went down.
For dinner a few of us went to a Mexican restaurant where I had some yummy sweet potato tacos!
