Friday, October 17, 2008

haha..oops

I realized right after I updated that I completely forgot to talk about bunny chow, and I couldn't fix it cause I had to leave. If I have time I'll try to talk about it at the end. My bad.

Yesterday we traveled about 40 minutes out of Durban to visit The Valley Trust (TVT). It was created in the in the 50s/60s originally as a health clinic and has evolved into a large organization for rural development. They train people in the community to be community health workers and teach people how to cultivate land and create a sustainable community. It was interesting, but I think we're all a little sick of these intensive lecture workshops, and to be honest, it's getting hard to focus.

Today we went to ACCORD, which I can't remember at the moment what the acronym stands for, but it works with conflict resolution within Africa. It was orginially started at the end of the apartheid and worked on finding ways of resolving conflicts between different groups. They hold workshops to create peace-keeping faciliators and encourage reconciliation. They're currently working with a large number of African countries including the DRC, Burundi, and Somalia to name a few. It was really interesting, and it works because of their grassroots focus and their patience. We had lunch at the Gateway mall, which is the largest mall in the Southern Hemisphere. It's massive. My lunch consisted of sushi and cheesecake, a winning combination. But yeah the mall has about 300ish stores, an Imax theater, the largest indoor climbing wall, and a surfing simulation thing. We're planning on going back there at some point to explore some more. We finished our day back at SIT with our weekly group seminar discussion.

Ok, so now I'll talk about bunny chow. I don't really know why it's called Bunny chow, but it has a cool history to it, and is a unique part of Durban. Basically, it's any form of curry (veggie, chicken, whatever you want) served inside of a hollowed out loaf of bread. It's very tasty, but I learned that it was created during the apartheid era to serve blacks and coloreds. Since they weren't allowed in certain restaurants, they were created as means of getting take-out food. That way the people could still enjoy the food from the restaurant but wouldn't be breaking any of the apartheid laws. And it still remains a really popular dish today. You can get it at basically any Indian restaurant you go to. Well, it's almost time to go. I'm hoping to play ultimate this weekend, but we'll see what happens. Sala kahle!

1 comment:

Mom said...

Ah, mystery solved! (about the bunny chow) Pretty inventive if you ask me, although I don't see what is has to do with bunnies. Probably means something different in South African. Wonder if that's how Panera and Atlanta Bread Co. came up with the idea? LOL, Mom