Electioneering and Wine Country

Hey! While the American media was following the life and times of Miss California, South Africa held a presidential election. This historical presidential election was quite different than the one I took part in last November, but very interesting nonetheless. It’s interesting, I say, to study the multiparty system, and in South Africa, one votes for the party and not the candidate. There are 9 provinces in SA, so one votes both provincially and presidentially. Jacob Zuma and the ANC won with over 2/3 majority, meaning he can do basically whatever he wants. The ANC is Mandela’s party that liberated the people from  apartheid. Within the ANC, there are two major tribes: Xhosa (Mandela) and Zulu (Zuma). I’ll keep my political views out of this, but I’ll say I hope Zuma fulfills his promises to the people who elected him. Another thing I’ll say is I am shocked at the poor voter turnout. I thought the U.S. turnout was bad enough, but voting day is a public holiday in SA. I’ll never understand why people living in democratic countries don’t vote…

Now to something totally different. If you didn’t know, South Africa’s wine country rivals those in Europe. Stellenbosch offers tourists excellent wine tasting, and wine tours are popular among study abroad students, so I hopped on the bandwagon with my friends and spent the weekend there. The weather was perfect and the weekend was relaxing , but I realized I know absolutely nothing about wine. We toured four vineyards and tasted an array of wine and cheeses. To someone like me all the reds taste the same, all the whites taste the same, and I can never remember the name or taste of a wine I consumed five minutes earlier. Throughout the day we had the opportunity to taste about 40 wines, but I probably capped at about 8. I felt goofy swirling the wines and discussing the fig, berry, or rose petal tastes, which I couldn’t taste at all. I opted for a tall glass of orange juice at the lunch we were provided, and even though I’m no wine connoisseur, I had a lot of fun venturing though wine country with my friends. 

Some kids are buying bottles/cases to bring back to their families as I opt for postcards. It’s probably better that way because I wouldn’t trust myself to pick out a nice wine.