African Silk Experiences

On Sunday morning I arrived in Johannesburg airport after an overnight flight. I had luckily managed to catch some sleep, but I had also been awake enough of times to peek out of my window and be stunned at the what I felt as an absence of lighted settlements which can always be seen from above when flying over the so-called developed countries. Of course I had seen night images taken from space, and I knew, and I have heard the somewhat deprecating expression “dark continent”, but it is one thing to hear that, and to see it with one’s own eyes.

Upon arrival I was met by Sandra who took the large suitcase with the German Guild’s quilts that will be shown at the South African National Quilt Festival starting today, and a few personal items which I wouldn’t need in the African Wilderness, and then set off on another, much smaller plane to to go East.

At Phalaborwa Airport we left the plane and I immediately thought that this airport would jump to the no. 1 position of my inofficial list of favorite airports in the world. 

(Not that I have been to enought to really have a representative listing... It replaces the Santa Barbara, CA airport, in case anybody is interested. And come to think of it, there is an airfield in the town where I live, too – but I have never left from or arrived there…, and this would turn into a totally different story.)

Picked up my rental car, no problem, started driving on the left side of the road, mostly no problem, and had been wise enough to print out a route plan before I left home because my cell phone navigation system would have been no help at all, and the car (smallest one available) came without one. So except for the fact that I kept hitting the windshield wipers when I wanted to switch on the turn signal, which is really due to the fact that it is a Japanese car and not that it is a right-side-dreiver, and that I wasn’t always sure whether I had progressed up to ‘first’ in line at four-way stops, no problems, I arrived at my accomodation (Kubu Safari Lodge in Hoedspruit) less than 2 hours after landing.

Right the next day I went on a guided trip to Kruger National Park, and we saw a lot of animals, including a pride of lions after breakfast kill, and a 20-head elephant herd crossing the road right in front of us to reach a water hole.

I just love Zebra camouflage and am still trying to
figure out how to use them in a quilt design

The next day I took myself in the car to do the “Panorama Road”, up Abel Erasmus Pass, and then along the Blyde River Canyon, which, according to the information signs is the third largest canyon in the world. 

In Graskop, a town on the southern road of the round trip, I stepped into the showroom of “Africa Silks” (www.africasilks.com). Here the women demonstrate some of the techniques with which the pieces for sale are made, including the preparing of silk duvets. 

Some were weaving scarves on looms. One was spinning the cutoffs from the duvet production together with a thread to make new material for weaving scarves.

And all the time they were singing while working. Willing enough to stop and talk to you, explain what they were doing, and then they would rejoin the song. Beautiful voices, and the singing makes for a magic atmosphere in the workroom. The lady who filled up my tank at the gas station sang, too, while fiddling with the nuzzle. And they do that here at the lodge, hen cooking, when brushing the dust off the walkways. I wonder how it would change Germany if people were singing while working.