Filed under: food, garden, harvest, South Africa, travel | Tags: ELCA, ELCSA, fruit, garden, hardware, shopping, South Africa, tools
Fifteen people from the Shetek conference of the ELCA flew to South Africa on an agricultural mission that departed on January 31, 2011. Our stay was centered on the Kwazamokuhle Centre, a collection of buildings used as residences, workshops and storage facilities. They also have a chapel, a library, a store where they sell the products produced on site and the guest house that we stayed in. The centre is owned by the Ondini Circuit of the ELCSA and is used to help support pastors and provide showplace projects for the circuit. I was never really sure how much was owned by the church in the area, but it was over 160 acres in size.
The village of Loskop is the nearest settlement to the Kwazamokuhle Centre, but is not much of a market town. A few small shacks set up as bars or vender stalls and a gas station is all it really has. To do any shopping nearby you need to travel to Winterton or Estcourt. Both are sprawling communities with many stores and houses.
Most of the stores seem to be owned by non-Zulu people. The arabic community has a large presence there. Many shops close down at 5 for evening prayer. Very little business is done on Saturday.
I took a few pictures of the items at the stores where I shopped. To convert the prices on display from Rand to Dollars divide by 7.26.
hand tools
hose clamps
Of course I went to the hardware store first.
Tape
brass hinges
Grinder disks and farm boots
Limbing saws
A small machete
Pruning saw
Glue
small bolts
more bolts
sink trap
Electric drill
Electricity is 220 volt in South Africa and runs off a large three prong round pronged plug or a smaller two prong round pronged plug.
A common three prong switched plug in
Apples
I did get a picture of the price on these apples.
Rand notes are beautifully colored. Each is it's own unique size.
I never saw anything over a R200 note, valued at about $27.50, but they should exist.
Rand coins are of varied sizes and colors
Coins of from R5, valued at about 70 cents, on down were common. They call coinage of less than a Rand, cents. I did see one 1 SA cent piece. It was about the size of a shirt button and worth a little over a tenth of a U.S. cent.
the farmers market
We did visit one farmers market kind of place. There was a lot of fruit for sale, as well as pots, gourds, doghouses, clothing, beadwork, woven goods, stone and wooden carvings, metal work and plastic trinkets. Everything was marked as to its seller and you paid at one central place before you left.
venders stalls
More stuff
and more
Checking out
Of course shopping was not my favorite activity, but you have to do some of it along the way. I’ll show you more of our work in the next post.
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