Our week in Charleston was enhanced by the companionship of Gloria and Charlie Burton who joined us for five days. An impromptu visit from Gloria's sister Nanette and her husband Richie was a delight and they joined us in a tour of Magnolia Plantation featuring America's oldest gardens (c. 1680) and garden tour (c. 1870.) The beauty of the gardens awaits around every corner, and a tram ride brought us through wet lands teaming with waterfowl, alligators and turtles.
A tour of the Charleston Tea Plantation (the only tea plantation in North America) brought us to the 127 acres of Camellia Sinensis tea plants that are grown in the heart of South Carolina's Lowcountry, complete with a tour of the Tea Factory where the all natural tea is processed. In addition to learning about the process, the delicious tastings of the variety of teas was a treat.
The Gullah also called Geechee, are African Americans who live in the low country of South Carolina and Georgia including the coastal plain and Sea Islands. They are the descendants of the slaves brought to this country who have preserved much of their African linguistic and cultural heritage. The name Gullah is thought to derive from "Gola" an ethnic group living in the boarder area between Sierra Leone and Liberia in West Africa. Sierra Leone, the "Rice Coast" with it's farms where rice was cultivated for 3000 years, is an area that was "home" to the majority of the individuals who, with their skills of rice cultivation and tidal irrigation, became the slaves with the muscle and mind who virtually assured the success of the Carolina rice plantations. The Gullah speak an English-based creole language containing many African loanwords and significant influences from African languages in grammar and sentence structure. A fascinating "Gullah tour" brought us to a greater understanding of the complexities of the trials that the slaves faced and their amazing endurance and ability to survive the overwhelming adversity of slave life while maintaining ties to their heritage.
As mentioned in a "The Ultimate Gullah Cookbook,"
Gullah "Sayin' Grace: Gawd beeba great and e beena good
En we da thank e for we food
By e hand we be fed
Gi us Gawd we daily bread
Amen"
Our knowledgeable tour guide explained to us about the origins of "Porgy and Bess," the 1934 musical composed by George Gershwin. It was based on the novel "Porgy," written in 1925 by DuBose Heyward, who was a native of Charleston; the African-American life of the fictions "Porgy" was based on the real-life Charlestonian Samuel Smalls who lived in the tenements of Cabbage Row.
The Gullah tour also brought us to the magnificence of the Angel Oak tree on Johns Island, thought to be between 500 and 1,500 years old, making it one of the oldest live oaks in the country. At 65' it's relatively short but it does not lack for foliage coverage with its tree trunk size branches covering an impressive 17,000 square feet (.39 acres.)
Gloria and Charlie were wonderful companions during our stay in Charleston, we enjoyed all the new experiences and sharing the traditional Charleston carriage tour and the boat trip to Fort Sumter; of course there is also all that wonderful "low country culinary excellence that we so enjoyed.
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