The past few days have been a well deserved mental break for the GSE Team. After two packed weeks of visiting Rotary projects, doing vocational visits and giving presentations, we spent a great weekend with the Rotary clubs in the Helderberg Basin region near Capetown and the visiting GSE Team from Germany.
On Saturday, we had the opportunity to visit the Solms-Delta Winery near Stellenbosch. This was a great experience, as the visit combined wine tasting and a bit of local history and socially responsible farming. The owner, who is the nephew of one of the Rotary club members, is a pretty amazing person - in addition to making great wine, he created a museum to highlight the region's history and affects of apartheid. He also told us about a plan he is implementing to give the farmworkers part ownership in the company.
Sunday also proved to be super fun with a visit to Spier, where they have wildlife encounters and a raptor show. The highlight of this day was getting to pet a cheetah. The cheetah was supervised by a trainer, so it wasn't exactly out in the wild, but it was still very cool. The cheetah was purring and the trainer explained that cats can either purr or roar, and that the cheetah is one of the cats that purrs.
Later Sunday evening, the Helderberg Rotary Club hosted a dinner for us and the GSE Team from Germany. The highlight of the dinner was when our team leader, Randy, led us in singing some great American hits, including "Take Me Home Country Roads," "This Land is Your Land" and "Folsom Prison Blues." We had an all-star international singing cast with our friends from South Africa and Germany, who were very familiar with these songs.
Cheetah petting
Me, Jenny and Sarah at Spier, where we got to pet cheetahs and hold owls.
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