Tzaneen

Some pictures of Tzaneen, my shopping town (PC talk for the nearest town that has things for purchase beyond the minimal selection of the village). As I mentioned before, Tza is about 55+ km from my village and the trip via koombie (12-14 person van that serves as public transport here) takes from between 1-3 hours. The two hour difference is caused by having to wait for a taxi to pass on the main road (somewhere between one minute and 1.5 hours) and then wait for it to fill (same bag).

All in all, Tzaneen is a pretty amazing shopping town. There is a lot of money there due to the large farms nearby. According to a nearby PCV it has the largest collection of millionaires in South Africa outside of major cities. As a result there are many expensive stores outside of which I can be found, nosed pressed on the window in a Dickensian fashion. But it also means that we have access to a wide variety of goods and services, some of which is occasionally affordable on my rather petite stipend. Like cheese. And amazing Indian food.

Go here for some boring, impersonal, and, as it is a Wiki page, probably questionable facts on Tzaneen.

Some photos:










For a while during the spring Tzaneen was covered in these flowers.






Ethan at the pond/standing marsh near our friend's apartment.


Satvik, the backpackers just outside Tzaneen we stayed at over Halloween weekend.