I was born in Grahamstown which is surely more than enough reason for stopping by on the great Braai4Heritage tour of South Africa. Apparently Jan feels that the heritage of South Africa’s free press, and the future of our democracy, is intrinsically linked with the continent’s largest media and journalism faculty, here at Rhodes University. Whatever. I was born here and that’s enough for me.
Grahamstown was founded by Lieutenant-Colonel John Graham in 1812 as a military outpost of the British, at that time locked in regular border skirmishes with the local Xhosa. By the middle of the 19th century, Grahamstown was second only to Cape Town as the largest city in the then Cape Colony.
In 1904, Rhodes University College was established and in 1951 the institution attained full university status. Today, Rhodes has the largest and most well-regarded media and journalism department in Africa and it is here that many of our best journalists studied and where many a top journo of the future is currently learning their trade.
It’s these future journalists and media personalities that Jan really came here today to meet. Heritage needs to be well documented after all.
I don’t know whether it was “˜for the cameras’ or perhaps because we didn’t provide a cooler box of beer to go with the boerie, but, pleading their heavy workload, most of these apparently very hard working students were eager to get back to their assignments and didn’t linger once they’d had a quick bite. I don’t remember being so conscientious in my varsity days. Have times changed that much? Perhaps Rhodes students are just particularly hard working.
Jan did manage to persuade a few to stay behind for a quick interview and followed by a brief tour of the university grounds. With a constant drizzle falling it was a pretty damp, if cheerful affair, and I was keen to get back to the guest house to catch up with my ridiculous backlog of work.
Jan and Faan had their own reasons for wanting to finish up early. They’d decided to ditch Grahamstown that night. It was time to go experience the “˜heritage’ of Jeffery’s Bay. The kind of heritage best experienced with a new Spider Murphy surf board.
Jeffery’s has perhaps the best wave in Africa and is regarded as one of the best right-hand point-breaks in the world. It also boasts the only annual world tour championship sporting event to be hosted in South Africa, the Billabong Pro.
Heritage enough for you? Or just a good excuse for a really good surf?
Frans and I opted to give J-Bay a skip and use the extra few hours in Grahamstown to catch up on work and get a decent night’s sleep. Of course we still found time to grab a pizza and quick pint or two (just two) at Grahamstown’s legendary (only decent?) student bar, the Rat & Parrot, before heading back to our comfortable guest house, Jenny’s B&B to work and sleep.
By eight the next day we were in the bakkie and on our way to join the others for an awesome day in Baviaanskloof, part of the Cape Floral Kingdom and thus included in the broad World Heritage Site that also encompasses Table Mountain and six other fynbos regions of the Cape.
