West Virginia in South Africa

This last Saturday I experienced West Virginia in South Africa or better known as the Cherry Festival in Ficksburg, Free State. The Free State is an interesting mix of cultures, on the one hand you have your Sesotho speakers and on the other you have your Afrikaans speakers. Two very different cultures and approaches to life. The Cherry Festival is basically, as far as I can tell, a good excuse for the Afrikaans speakers to get together and just party for the weekend; drink lots of beer, cherry wine, cherry liquor, cherry mampoer (brandy) and eat lots of biltong (beef jerky), and other assorted meaty items. The Cherry Festival consisted of several tents full of the above mentioned cherry liquor products, several belt buckle stands, a formula one t-shirt stand, blitong stands as far as the eye could see, a variety of non-politically correct t-shirts stores (e.g. t-shirts with the old apartheid flag and 100% boer written underneath...sort of the equlvalent of the stars and bars flag of the confederacy with 100% southern written underneath...not too kosher!). I swear there were surreal moments, minus the obvious language difference, when I could have been out at the state fair in West Virginia or western Pennsylvania. Lots of heavy overweight people with a fashion sense straight out of 1986, admiring the tractor display (John Deere and CAT, of course) and the motorcycle cage. The only major difference I could detect between the US and here was the penchant for short (the type that highlight the thigh and package area) shorts and socks pulled up around the ankles or knees among the men (not incredibly attractive on men with pot bellies or any men for that matter outside of soccer players). The most fascinating part of the festival for me was that there were no cherry pies or tarts to be found anywhere!!! A couple of docs from the hospital and myself went on a mission to find a pie but to no avail! We had to settle for cherry cider and a sampling of other cherry liquor products.