4th of July, SA style

Yesterday was the 4th of July. To make us Americans feel at home, GPact planned a "braii" (thier word for bbq). This began right after class. Since it is winter here, the sun goes down around 5pm and nights start early! The braii was a lot of fun- tried Springbok (some sort of antelope meat) for the first time. After a few hours, a group of us went to a show called "For Letta" Letta is an incredible female songwriter in South Africa--a legend as Ace and Felix put it-- they had been hyping up this show for weeks, so we were all very excited. It was a full band and 3 singers- the man, Ringo, is a very famous star in his own right. They were all incredible- they played only Letta's original songs as a tribute to her work (although I'm pretty sure she is still alive) The show was so much fun- After that we met up with people at The Rat and then ventured over to Friars. Good times, good times, very good thing that today was our free day to sleep in...

It was nice to have the day off. Today was the last real day of the festival so we did a lot of shopping and ate a lot of vendor food. I will miss the chicken samusas, I wish I could have bought like 10 of them and saved them for throughout the week! Also tried Venisson Pap Stew- delicious! While eating a man came up to us and asked if we had plans for the afternoon. He offered us tickets to see his band play. Get this- they are called "South Jersey Pom Poms"! The story is that when the band first got together, one of the guy's friends was studying abroad- from Jersey- and gave him an old cheerleading shirt of hers- He wore it to practice and they decided to take up the name! Yeah South Jersey!! A lot of people had plans to go into the township this afternoon, but Lauren C and I went. They were really good--a nice bluesy/indie band. I probably should have taken more advantage of the performances at festival. I only saw 4 shows--"The Sky's the Limit" which was a play..."Best of Bamba" which was a comedy show...and then the two musical performances "For Letta" which was more authentic African and then "South Jersey Pom Poms" today. The festival was awesome. We are so lucky to be here in Grahamstown for it. Can't believe we have been here for 10 days already...

Going back to Res to get ready for the night- and then off to Long Table for the last dinner of festival.