BMac Abroad

Funemployed

2009-06-24T03:11:00.000-07:00

It has been far too long since my last post but not having a computer makes updating this blog rather difficult. Fortunately, as of last week, I have purchased a new computer and once again have the internet at my fingertips. Actually, calling my new laptop a computer is a bit of stretch seeing as that it is no bigger than most hard back books and weighs less than Bernie Madoff’s wallet. Called a netbook, the new laptop is a significant downgrade from my beloved but now stolen Macbook but it is capable of the basic computer functions I need for my travels: internet, webcam for skype, word processing and a hard drive that can hold more than a 100 songs and a few pictures without running at a sloth running through rubber cement speed. I actually think this is going to be better for the rest of my travels because of its ridiculously small size and weight (who am I kidding, I miss my Macbook more than Phil Mickelson misses opportunities at the US Open). But enough with the tech talk, a lot has happened in the past month in Cape Town including my move plans to move from the Mother City at the end of the month.
For starters, my time at the South Africa Human Rights Commission has come to end. As you may have picked up on in one my last posts, I was rather frustrated with the lack of work being accomplished in the office on a day to day basis. This, coupled with the realization that I was missing out on Cape Town opportunities because I was stuck in an office doing nothing (nothing actually being an understatement), I decided to give the job a two week grace period to see if conditions improved. Surprise, surprise, office productivity came to more of a standstill than I ever could have imagined and after two weeks I graciously thanked the Commission for my time there, said my goodbyes and haven’t looked back since. So for the past month I have been unemployed (if you count an unpaid internship being employed) and enjoying every minute of it.

Being funemployed actually requires a lot more effort and planning than one would imagine in order to stave off the boredom that can result from not having daily responsibilities. Luckily Cape Town has so many different activities at its disposal to keep one entertained that I have been able to stay quite busy, even finding that as my time here comes to an end there will still be plenty of things left undone. Below, in no particular order, is a list of a few of things I have been up to in the past month.

1) Scuba Diving. Not having done a dive since acquiring my open water PADI certificate while swimming with whale sharks and manta rays in Mozambique, I decided it was time to progress in my new found hobby. Cape Town has a plethora of diving along its lengthy coastline and the winter months provide prime diving conditions because the visibility is the best it will be all year. My first dive however was at the Two Oceans aquarium in the huge tank used as a home for sting rays, one large sea turtle, various types of fish, some of which were the slightly smaller than Gary Coleman, and five ragged tooth sharks. Needless to say I was terrified of becoming the shark meal of the week but I kept telling myself that the aquarium wouldn't offer such an opportunity if death was a possibility. My fears certainly didn't subside when the dive master's method of preventing any curious shark from coming too close was a stick no bigger than a baseball bat. Really, this is supposed to stop a 2m long shark from taking a chomp out of my leg? Thankfully the peg leg/club never had to be used and the half hour dive was extremely enjoyable, even when the sharks came within a few feet of my head. We even had an audience of school children "oohing" and "aahing" over our dive, one of the kids, as over heard by a friend of mine, saying to his classmate how brave we were. I would have gone with naive or stupid but I'll take a compliment when I can get it.

My next dives were part of the Advanced PADI Course that I started in Mozambique. To get this certificate, I needed to have completed five speciality dives out of a list of around 15. I had already completed my deep dive so I signed up for a wreck, navigation, naturalists and peak buoyancy dives. Cape Town waters are much colder than anything I encountered in Moz and the visibility does even begin to compare but the dives were still great. On my wreck dive I managed to see one very inquisitive seal (which I wasn't too happy to see considering they are the primary diet for Great Whites), an octopus and jelly fish the size of a basketball. I am hoping to continue my diving education (next step is the Rescue Course) in hopes of one day becoming a dive master. Although an ambitious goal, diving has quickly turned into one of my new favorite hobbies and I am looking forward to many more diving adventures.

2) Surfing. I finally decided to jump back on the horse after my disaster attempt of trying to surf in Mozambique except this time lessons were definitely going to be involved. A good spot for beginners is a place called Muizenberg which luckily happens to be only a half hour train ride away. For my first time I went with a some friends for a group lesson from the Surf Shack. I wouldn't call my surf performance a success by any stretch of the imagination but I was able to stand, albeit for only a couple seconds, by the end of the day. I found it very weird that I could enjoy something that I failed at over 90% of the time but I left the beach that day loving surfing. Since then I have tried to go at least one or two times a week for a morning surf, getting better slowly, let me re-emphasize slowly, but surely every time.

3) Cape Town Sightseeing. For some reason or another, I found that after living in Cape Town for the past few months there were far too many things I had not done or seen. Looking back, I managed to check off a lot of Cape Town "must do's" including: Robben Island, climbing Table Mountain and Devil's Peak, visiting a slew of musuems such as the Castle of Good Hope, the District Six Museum, the old Slave Lodge, the SA Natural History Museum, the Jewish Museum and its Holocaust Centre. It would take me far too long to write about each experience but the high lights included the two hikes (both were on picture perfect days) Robben Island (even though the tour itself was too rushed but thankfully saved by the tour guide who is used by the Museum for touring all the foreign dignitaries including Obama last fall) and the District Six Museums (including the awesome bakery next door that served delicious cheesecake and brownies).

4) Watching American Sports. I know, this one probably seems pretty lame to most people. I am living in Africa and shouldn't waste my time watching Sportscenter USA at 8AM and again at 7pm. Some people might even argue that I should instead focus my sports obsession on the local South African sports which are insanely popular all across the country. But for me, soccer will always be the sport than can end in an unsatisfying tie, rugby will always be the sport I have to argue against with American football and cricket will always be the sport that makes less sense than Paula Abdul judging a singing competition. I love my American sports, miss them more than anticipated and have no shame about staying up until 3AM to watch the Derek Fisher perform post season magic again and the Lakers smush the Orlando Ron Jeremy's. I circled my calendar five times over when I found out I could watch the NBA draft live and enjoyed every minute of staying up from 1AM to 5Am to watch it. A small but worthwhile price to pay for some home-cooking comfort. Being able to watch ESPN has been an unexpected bonus I pray for in thanks every night before I go to bed. Seriously. Please, no judging.

5) Preparing for post Cape Town life. In the first week of May I did a road trip with a group of friends along the Garden Route, a stretch of highway that takes travelers through various small South African towns each chock full of various activities and adventures. Some of the high lights on this trip included bungee jumping from the highest commercial jump in the world, riding an ostrich and cage diving with crocodiles. But the relevance of this trip to my last month in Cape Town has to do with the fabulous bed and breakfast we stayed at in Knysna, the ranking "best town" in South Africa for the past two years. I managed to stay in contact with the owners of the Bamboo Guest Lodge following our trip in the hopes of maybe finding some work in the town later on down the road. Soon enough I got a call back from Jaynie, one of the owners, offering me a job working at the bed and breakfast both as a helper for day to day operations as well as help on their expansion of their business next door. I quickly agreed to the offer and will be moving to Knysna July 1st, just in time to help with the nation wide famous annual Oyster Festival. I am hoping that the festival provides more than just an opportunity to gorge oneself on oysters considering that I hate the taste of the "boogers of the sea' but I am looking forward to the new chapter of my African adventure.

Again, these are only a few of the things I have been doing in Cape Town for the past month. I guess my next post will be from Knysna and I promise to include pictures. If anyone is curious, there are some pictures of facebook that capture my last month in Cape Town. I'll let you decide which ones correlate with the above stories and which ones involve late night shenanigans at the local bars.

Speed Bump, Not a Road Block

2009-06-04T01:09:00.001-07:00

With everything going as well as it has been on my African adventure so far, I figured sooner or later I'd cross paths with some bad luck. Unfortunately the bad luck I was anticipating turned out to be really bad luck and now I am left without my laptop and the back pack I have had strapped to my shoulders since my junior year of high school. The story goes as follows:

On Sunday, I had just got back from an Internet cafe and brushing up on the latest worldly current events. Since I no longer work at the SAHRC, my free Internet connection no longer exists and I have to resort to the occasional internet cafe, not bad but not ideal either. When I got home I put my bag with my lap top in it on the floor and then met up with some friends to go to a braai (the South African word for BBQ). This was around four and in less than five hours I'd be back in my room only this time the value of its contents would be significantly less.

I had left my window slightly cracked like I had done 90% of the other days I had been living in Cape Town, thinking nothing of the consequences especially since burglary bars still gave me the comfort of safety. Needless to say, I was in a state of utter shock when I returned to my room and found my covers thrown around the room and my backpack missing. I ran to the window to find the burglar bars still intact but the window wide open. I couldn't figure out how the theft had occur ed until I noticed a large stick laying just underneath my window. I went outside to find a robber's weapon of choice, a large stick jerry-rigged with a wire hook used to lift my back pack and its contents through the window and somehow through the burglar bars.

Getting your possessions stolen sucks, plain and simple. Especially when your possessions include something sentimental (my back pack) and something expensive (my computer). It has taken me a few days to come to grips with my loss and the realization that the case I opened with the South African police fruit has less of a chance of bearing fruit than Christopher Reeves to star in the next Superman film (filing the report was actually hilarious, Barney Fife even would have laughed at the "investigation"). The worst part about this whole incident is that everything else had been going extremely well, including finding a paying job starting in July. I hate to have to cut this post short but I thought it was necessary to explain why I haven't written in a while and why my posts will be more sporadic until I get a new computer of some sort. I hope this message finds everyone well and I promise on the next post to only include stories that are interesting and upbeat.

Mitchell's Plain

2009-05-20T05:10:00.000-07:00

After looking over my blog posts from the past two months I realize that I haven't talked at all about my internship in Cape Town at the South Africa Human Rights Commission. In fact, it struck me that anybody reading my posts would probably assume that all I have been doing so far is traveling around Southern Africa and having as much fun as humanly possible. Not that that is entirely inaccurate, but I have been spending a large part of my time in Cape Town with my internship and I would be remiss not to write about my experience at the Commission so far. Unfortunately this will be kind of tricky because in recent years the Commission has had some some loose-tongued interns who apparently got a little too comfortable talking with local reporters. These comments blew up in the local media and the Commission got in some serious hot water causing them to tighten their strings around their interns. I highly doubt that any serious South African watchdog or media outlet has been monitoring my blog, but in the slim possibility that someone stumbles across this post, I am going to have to censor some of my comments and observations of the work I have done and the work that the Commission engages in. So without further ado:

I have been working for the SAHRC for just about two months now and so far my experience has been far from what I was expecting. In fact, to put it bluntly, it has been extremely disappointing. I work in the legal branch of the office (the other side of the office is Parliament which deals more with political issues such as drafting legislation and writing reports on various human rights issues) and we are responsible for handling all of the human rights claims in the Western Cape, the province that encompasses Cape Town. With around 4.5 million people living in the Western Cape, you can imagine just how many cases we receive on a daily basis (last I checked our back log was somewhere around 500 but could easily be double than that). Further compounding the problem of a extremely large case load is that our office only has one actual lawyer to go along with three legal interns including myself who has never had any sort of legal training. We are completely under staffed and, along with the inefficient bureaucratic process we have to go through to manage a case, getting concrete, actual help to complainants is close to impossible. This has been an especially hard pill to swallow considering the multitude of human rights violations people are reporting, ranging from elderly family members dying due to horrible health care conditions to abuse in the prison system to babies losing fingers and toes because of insufficient primary health care services.

I have also been struggling to deal with a laid back working environment that seems apparent in not only our office but in companies and organizations throughout Cape Town (this gathered from stories I've heard from other interns). Very little seems to get done on a daily basis, an infuriating reality considering the dire need of help many complainants are seeking. Also, in my first month of working, there seemed to be about a holiday every week. I didn't have a full week of work because of holidays until a little after a month of interning. I can't say that I didn't enjoy my time off or take advantage of the various long weekends, but constantly having days off didn't seem like the solution to the problems that face South Africa as a country. Don't get me wrong, I am all for holidays and taking time away from work, but the number of vacation days here seems entirely too high and too often. And apparently April is not even the most laid back month, that distinction going to the middle of December to the middle of January. I can only imagine what happens (or doesn't happen) in South Africa during that country long respite!

I think this is where my self-censorship will have to kick in otherwise I could go on for pages upon pages about my internship. I hope this gives you all somewhat of a sense of what working has been like for the past few months, but if not I promise to divulge more over a beer or phone call in the future. I also hope that people don't think my time at the SAHRC has been all bad because there have been some bright spots. I am getting to learn first hand about the South African Constitution, easily one of the more progressive and democratic constitutions in the world (on paper at least, its application is a whole other story), I have been a part of the very unique South African legal process, witnessed local court procedures, listened and counseled tons of walk-in-complainants all of which have their own heart breaking story or problem, and visited a local township for an educational lesson about what are South African's guaranteed constitutional rights. This last incident has continued to surface itself in my thoughts since happening last week, giving me a vivid insight to how hard life is for people living in townships, especially women still grappling with a history living in subservience.

I, along with a few other interns, would be tagging along with the SAHRC's educational director Raynold to Mitchell's Plain, one of the largest townships in all of South Africa about twenty kilometers outside of Cape Town and home to almost two million people. Raynold had been contacted a few weeks earlier by the director of a shelter for abandoned and battered women and children to host a question and answer session about their human rights. Raynold had also coordinated another question and answer session with a community center in Mitchell's Plain that specialized in helping people and their families deal with mistreatment by the local police. Myself and the other interns were responsible for assisting Raynold in any way that he needed us but for the most part we were there to observe.

It took us a while to get to the first stop, but eventually we found the center for abandoned and battered women and children. We arrived to a host of gazing, smiling little children, clothed in little more than tattered rags. Most of them were playing on the remains of what appeared to be a jungle gym with a few toys, including an appendage-less baby doll, strewn across the grounds. They all desperately wanted to shake our hands, each exchange bringing a few more inches of smile across their already beaming faces. I couldn't help but wonder that if a handshake could bring this much happiness to these kids lives, what else could I give them to bring them joy? A dollar? A new toy? An hour playing soccer together?

After navigating through the throng of children, the director of the center introduced herself to all of us and led us into the main building to where Raynold would be speaking. We entered a worn down concrete building that, without actually seeing people living and cooking in some of the rooms, could have easily been mistaken for a property abandoned many years before. Trash littered all corners of every room, chunks of concrete lay crumbled throughout the walkways and ragged curtains replaced doors whose only evidence of ever being there were hinges loosely hanging on by rusty screws. We came during the day so I could not tell how much electricity surged through the building but the throng of loose wires dotting the crumbling walls and empty light sockets made be think that this place becomes pretty dark at night. We finally were led into a large banquet hall where Raynold would be speaking. It was easily the room in the nicest condition and seemed to double as a church. Soon after entering and settling into our seats, about twenty women from the shelter came and sat down, ready to hear what Raynold had to say.

Raynold did a remarkable job of explaining the basic human rights guaranteed to all South African citizens in the constitution. Probably the most beneficial part for the women was his advice on the different organizations available free of charge to help them with human rights violations as well as the procedures they could take when searching for help. I couldn't tell how much knowledge these women took away from the session because most sat their with blank faces, but the director could not stop thanking us after Raynold's talk was over. Raynold said that his was probably the first time these women had ever heard information like this but the hardest part would be for them to exercise these rights. Lots of women in South Africa, he said, were still living under the culture of male subservience that they had experienced during apartheid. That was why, Raynold remarked, that none of the women had asked any questions and remained completely silent throughout the presentation. They were still afraid to speak their mind and voice their opinion, a silent wound still plaguing many South African women.

We left the center with a goodbye just as cheerful as our entrance. As I left wishing I could do more to help these people, I realized just how many times I have felt that way since being in South Africa. There is almost a constant sense of wanting to help people out here coupled with an overwhelming awareness of not knowing where to start and which issues to address first.

Our second stop provided a much more enraged audience and it was easy to understand why after hearing the crowd's various stories of police mistreatment and abuse. At first people were hesitant to ask Raynold questions after his speech on what South African's human rights were, but the crown soon opened up and spewed forth some of their shocking, unimaginable encounters with the police. Some of the more startling moments of the meeting were when people would say that they had no idea they were guaranteed these certain rights and that the police were by law not allowed to act like they had been. Most of these people had never been taught their constitutional rights an as a consequence had been being abused by the police force meant to protect them.

Every person's stories were in their own sense awful and unsettling, but one woman's story particularly stood out. About halfway through the question and answer portion of the meeting, a coloured women stood up to speak her mind. From her hesitant standing up to her soft, mildly trembling voice you could tell how hard it was to speak in front of the crowd but you could also sense her determination to tell her story. She started by telling the room that for the past 18 years of her life she had been physically and mentally abused by her husband, a police man in Mitchell's Plain. At first she had been hesitant to take any action against him, but soon she couldn't take the pain anymore and tried to get help help through the legal system. As she was telling us all of this she started choking up and then, almost instantly, she broke down. She cried and cried for almost a minute, everyone in the room not moving a muscle as she vented. It felt like this this was the first time she had publicly talked about her abuse of the last twenty years and her emotions seemed to come gushing out in every tear. After a minute or two of crying, however, a sense of determination swelled across her body. She stopped sobbing and slowly began telling the rest of her story, with each sentence growing more confident and empowered. She confessed to how she continued to receive no help from the proper authorities because her husband was in the police force and had many times almost given up life. As she concluded her story, it was clear she did not have a question to ask but that she just had wanted to use her time to vent and make people aware of her situation. She had been able to throw off a history of submissiveness that continued to plague so many South African women. I wish we as the Commission could do more to directly help her situation but I feel that allowing her a podium to speak her mind might have helped her in more ways than we could have imagined.

We concluded the day by agreeing to set up a educational session much like the one we had just given to the Mitchell's Plain police force. Community members would be in attendance at these meetings and the hope would be that in the future, residents could combat police abuse more effectively by knowing more about their rights and police limits. Unfortunately, knowing the way the Commission works, this might not take place for a couple of months and for sure not during the rest of my internship. I was again left with the feeling of wishing I could do more and then realized that this feeling isn't going to go away any time soon.

Surviving Mozambique - Part III

2009-05-05T04:45:00.000-07:00

Before I get to my next, as promised, here are some pictures from Tofo:

These first two pictures are of the beach we were staying on, the second pic being the view from the balcony of our backpacker's bar. As you can tell, we were roughing it.

This next pic looks at the tall grass fields that lay just behind the beach. The fields were endless and looked magical when a gust of wind swept through them, especially during a sunset. The boy in the picture saw me taking photos and insisted he be in one of the photos. Got to love his stance.

This is a picture of me being immature in my dive suit before my first deep dive, the one where half of the ocean decided to make an appearance.

Lastly, this picture comes from the really nice dinner me and a few friends had on our last night in Tofo, the one following the full moon stroll on the beach while avoiding the army of crabs. From left to right, there is Elsa, Jules, myself, Simon, Emily and Chris. Now on to Part III.

Waking up at four in the morning has never been a pleasurable experience. Waking up at four in the morning following about 45 minutes of sleep after a night celebrating the end of our vacation in Tofo to a scene of dark, blurry mayhem didn't change my opinion. Our bus back to Tofo was leaving in a half hour and from what it appeared, very few people were packed or awake. And we all still had to walk twenty or so minutes with all our bags to meet the bus. Terrible start to a journey back to Cape Town that had many more surprises and trouble left in store.

Although I lacked judgment in staying out late and doing what young people do at beach bars in foreign countries, I did manage to make a good decision by packing my bag the night before. Myself and about half of the rest of our group was out of the hut door by a little after four, stumbling as fast as possible along the sandy path towards Fatima's and the soon to be departing bus. My group managed to meet the bus with a few minutes to spare but once on board we were immediately presented with a slew of major problems:

a) we had reserved 17 seats on the bus and there were only eight or nine seats left i.e. Fatima's had overbooked
b) the rest of our group was nowhere in site and as far as I knew probably attempting to figure out whether they were dreaming or actually having to wake up to get on the bus back to Maputo
c) our driver was stubborn and unsympathetic to my attempt to raise points a) and b) with him
d) barring throwing myself under the wheels of the bus in the hope the driver wouldn't roll over me (which I am not so sure would have even worked), the bus was leaving with or without the rest of the group)

And leave without them we did. I felt terrible that we couldn't do more to stop the bus from leaving but even worse that now they would have to make the long, bumpy hot ride back to Maputo crammed into the back of Sean's truck (they ended up fitting nine people, two in the front, four in the cab and five in the covered truck bed. And the truck's size had more in common with a Hot Wheel than a F-150). I even managed to secure a seat upfront where I could stretch my legs out and it was next to a vacant seat. The situation was far from ideal but much better than I thought considering how the morning had gone so far. Oh how fortunes can change in the blink of an eye.

Within five minutes of thinking the ride back to Maputo would be manageable, our bus driver pulled over for an unexpected stop. I turned by head around to see a mother and her five infant children clamoring on board, trying to find any open seat available. My empty seat was an easy target but after a further look, no other seats were available. The only open space was the standing room only entrance into the bus equipped with a fold down iron bar that I assumed could be used for a seat if you don't mind metal pole jabbing at your bottom for an eight hour bus ride. The lack of seating did not seem to deter this woman at all and within a minute of uncomfortable re-arranging, the bus had started up again and we were back along our way.

The mom took the empty seat next to mine and took three of her children with her - one in her lap, one on her leg/lap, and one on my leg/her lap. The other children found some luggage to sit on behind us, a seating arrangement that didn't seem too bad especially considering what their brothers and sister had found. Cramped wouldn't even being to describe the situation because not only was I more uncomfortable than Yao Ming flying coach surrounded by contestants from The Biggest Loser, but the family of six smelled absolutely terrible. Think hot garbage mixed with a humid port-a-potty at a summer concert mixed with morning breath following a night out at the bars. And I'm not trying to be insensitive American because I'm guessing their living arrangements are beyond anything I could possibly imagine, I'm just trying to convey what I had to smell for eight hours on a bumpy, rugged Mozambique road. Compounding all of this was the arrival of the sun and its ability to turn the bus into a traveling sauna.

The eight hours back to Maputo felt more like eight days. Time didn't just pass by, it slowly oozed by as we made our way through Mozambique jungle. The humidity on the bus made the sweat on my body feel more like molasses, gradually dripping from my pores. The kid that used my leg as a seat eventually used my whole lap as his resting ground. I didn't mind giving his mom a respite from trying to take care of all her children, and I could never be mad at a little cute, especially one as cute as this one, but body heat and weight of another human did not make the bus ride any more enjoyable. When it didn't seem like we would ever get to Maputo, the city's outskirts started to pass us by and I knew we were within an hour of escaping the bus ride from hell. Unfortunately, one more surprise was still left in store for me, courtesy of the cute kid bouncing along on my lap.

We must have been only half an hour out of Fatima's when I noticed a slight warm, liquid sensation on my foot. I looked down to find the mother sitting next to me holding up her child and wiping a wet streak on his leg and crotch with a cloth of some sort. Befuddled at first, the realization of what just happened struck me rather calmly: the kid had just wet himself and consequently my foot. As if this bus ride couldn't get any worse, I had just been peed on by a kid I had let use my lap as a seat for eight hours. What's next, our bus breaking down and having to walk the rest of the way in a freak torrential rain storm? Here are pictures of the mom, her children and me in our cramped quarters on the bus (the expression on the mother's face tells it all).

Thankfully that peeing episode proved to be the last incident on our way to Maputo, finally arriving at Fatima's a little after 1pm. We met up with the rest of our group, the ones crammed into Sean's truck, and we all shared horror stories from the past eight hours. The rest of the day we spent getting ourselves together and having bizzare Easter Sunday dinner at a Portuguese restaurant that only spoke Portuguese (side note - Easter has always proved to be one of the more interesting holidays for me which is unusual since I am not very religious. Easter highlights, in no particular order: (1) my dad telling me the Easter bunny did not exist and that he was just an evil concoction of the corporate world that caused people to lose sight of the true meaning of the Easter holiday (2) getting lost on Mt. Rainier and having to spend the night in the snowy woods with no tent and very little food (3) holding hands with John Wooden during grace at my friend Imp's family dinner freshmen year (4) the bus ride from hell). After returning from dinner where we were convinced at least half of us were going to get food poisoning, most people turned in early because we had another early morning wake up call to catch our Grey Hound to Johannesburg. Sadly, no amount of sleep could have prepared us for the problems we encountered on the way to Jo-Burg.

Monday morning started unusually efficient. Everyone was packed and ready to go at seven thirty, the Greyhound was waiting for us when we left Fatimas, and we only departed fifteen minutes after our scheduled time. The only red flag of the morning was a slight overcast looming over Maputo, very different from the past nine days of blue skies and sunshine. It was if God or who ever lives upstairs was trying to warn us of the upcoming disaster but we were all to content in our air conditioned carriage to notice. And then we hit the border.

We had all been told that the border crossing while entering Mozambique would be much harder than trying to leave the country so most of us were optimistic when we approached the border. All of us had to leave the bus and our Greyhound stewardess led us into a line to wait for a passports to be stamped. The line didn't look too bad but the sheer number of people waiting around this grass field seemingly in the middle of nowhere with only a few tents to service people seemed a little odd. We eventually changed lines and were supposed to be close to getting our visa's stamped when the madness began.

Out of nowhere, the people in line behind us broke rank and surged to the front creating a triangle wedge trying to squeeze into the front of the line. We all stood around looking for some sort of authority to take charge of the situation but that soon proved to be futile. No longer in a group, a few of us, including myself, managed to make our way to the front of the line but still behind twenty or thirty pushy, agitated Africans. Everyone was shoulder to shoulder and before I knew it a gentle push from behind turned into a pulsing shoving match throughout the crowd. We were standing in the non-Mozambique citizen line but the citizen que a couple dozen feet away didn't have as much patience as ours. A few tried running past guards and under rope, only to be met by guards brandishing large bull whips which they were not afraid to use. Police started swinging at anybody within striking distant, women and children not excluded. One person even claimed to see a woman holding her baby up in the air to try and prevent a strike only for a police man to still swing his whip at the mother and child. Our line was still pushing and shoving but it paled in comparison to the violence taking place within a stone's throw.

The physicality of the crowd caused or group to be completely separated but me and my friend Shaun managed to keep our ground upfront. After another hour of waiting, pushing our total time at the border to two hours, we were finally able to get our passports stamped. Relief swept through my body only to be quickly exorcised by the realization that we would have to wait for the other 10 plus people in our group, some of whom had been forced to the back of the line. It then hit me than any hope of making our evening flights back to Cape Town were out the window and all of us had to reschedule. Fortunately I had plenty of time to figure out what to do because we sat at the border for at least another four hours before our fortunes started to change. This picture was taken from the Greyhound, looking out on the mass of people that seemed to be growing by the minute at the border (and this picture isn't even a close to accurate representation of the total number of people).

Our Greyhound stewardess came to the group's rescue again, this time providing us a police escort to take all of us to the South African side of the border crossing. Apparently she thought we were all going to miss our international flights back to America and had called Greyhound to arrange or special transport (she later shared a grimacing chuckle when discovering we were all only headed back to Cape Town). At the South African border station, the rest of our group received their visas within an hour, only one person having to bribe a custom agents for a visa extension. After five grueling, scary hours at the border we were back on the road to finish the rest of our eight hour ride back to Johannesburg which we still had six hours left. This was going to be a long day.

Not much can be said about the rest of the ride except that it felt like it took much longer than six hours (which it did because of three accidents, one of which was a three car pile up engulfed in flames). I ended up catching a cab and staying at Paul and Marion's house for the night along with my friend Lauren while the rest of the group made a mad dash to try and make their flights out of Jo-Burg. My flight took off at one the next day and although Paul, Marion and the kids were still on Easter holiday, I thoroughly enjoyed the comforts of a clean bed and hot shower. Miraculously flying back to Cape Town went off with out a hitch and by four in the afternoon on Tuesday I had made it back to my house in Observatory. I immediately crashed on my bed once getting home, trying to recollect the last 60 hours of traveling. Thankfully I only got to leaving Tofo before falling asleep, sparing myself the nightmare of piecing together what just happened. Hell of a way to end an otherwise great vacation,

Surviving Mozambique - Part II

2009-04-24T03:22:00.000-07:00

With Maputo in the books, the beaches of Tofo were the next destination for our adventure in Mozambique. While Maputo was only a brief one day-two night stay, we would be staying in the Bamboozi backpacker lodge in Tofo for six days. Now I had heard of Maputo before beginning my travels to Mozambique (and by hearing I mean I knew it was the capitol city and kind of understood its role in the country's history) but Tofo I knew nothing about besides the brief run-down I read in the information brochure all of us going on the trip were given. And even that tid-bit of information I breezed through, focusing solely on the fact that Tofo was rated one of the top ten scuba sites in the world and that all the pictures of the beaches could have been used for National Geographic covers.

We left for Tofo around 7am, all of us feeling surprisingly upbeat considering the hour most of us went to bed and the empties of 2M, Manica and Laurentina's (the three local beers) littering Fatima's picnic tables. Our group of 17 (the other members were riding in Sean's truck that was towing his boat to the new dive shop he was starting just outside of Tofo) crammed in with a few other Fatima patrons into a chicken bus that I can best describe as the buses elderly people are transported to and from the "home" in except any sort of luxury has been replaced by crammed seating and floorspace covered in all of our luggage. Not nearly as nice or spacious as the Greyhound but we were at least spared having to watch Land Before Time 9 or Beethoven 3.

The drive itself took about eight hours and for the most part was fairly pleasant. Our driver had a penchant for driving with a lead foot throughout the trip, disregarding the dangers involved with passing cars around blind turns or the numerous pot holes dotting the Mozambique highway. For some reasons he decided to mix his Speed Racer mentality with frequent stops along the side of the road, sometimes to fill up on gas and other times either to pick up a couple pounds of dope (not confirmed but likely) or twiddle his thumbs. The road respites did prove to be the most interesting moments of the trip, whether we were all barreling out and overwhelming a convenient store bathroom or gazing out across stunning panoramas of the Indian ocean complete with kilometers (damn, I'm slowly moving over to the dark/metric side) of white sandy beaches and endless palm tree forests. Other than making the mistake of having a breakfast beer and the ensuing bladder issue around hour four, I would consider the trip a success although my tolerance of long bus rides was slowly diminishing.

After eight hours, our bus finally reached the parking lot of Fatima's in Tofo. We would be staying at Bamboozi backpapers a couple of kilometers down the beach so after collecting our luggage, we all ran down to the sand and took our first footsteps in the Indian Ocean. The water was warm but still had enough of a chill to provide relief from the blazing Mozambique sun and the view was just as the breath taking as I'd imagined. I couldn't believe that I was going to be spending the next six days here, definitely one of those pinch/smack me in the face moments I'll remember for the rest of my life.

I would have to write a small novel to cover all of the madness that ensued over the rest of the week so I have chosen to mainly focus on the scuba diving in Tofo since it provided some of the more fun/interesting/scary moments of the trip.

Scuba Diving. Before leaving for Mozambique I still had not completely finished my open water certification so I would be doing my last two dives in Tofo as well as four more dives of my choosing that I bought as part of a package before the trip. Six dives in one of the top ten dive sites in the world seemed unfair for only having two dives under my belt but little did I know things were not going to go as according to plan. My first dive was going to take place on Tuesday, a double tank dive that would finalize my open water certification. Adding to the last few skills of open water certification, we would be learning how to perform a dive from a boat as well as entering the water from shore. The dive master went over these skills in a brief run down as we were all kitting up, none of the directions seeming to be that difficult to execute. Before I knew it, our dive group was alongside our pontoon boat getting ready to go out to sea. It was then that I started to notice, either from the looks on my instructors face or the intensity of the waves crashing in front of us, that things might not be as easy as anticipated. This is where being naive worked in my favor because if I had known how big these waves really were and that we probably shouldn't be trying a shore entry in the first place, my inexperienced self would have been back up at the Bamboozi bar enjoying an ice cold 2M. Instead, I took up my position at the front of the boat and tried not to look like I was about to lose my lunch.

Getting the boat into the water and climbing on board went off without a hitch. The skipper was yelling at all of us to strap in our feet and hold the safety line tight, all of which we had gone over in the pre-dive prep talk. Thankfully I secured myself quickly because a giant wave came crashing over the boat pretty much as soon as we got in the boat. "Fuck, that was a big wave," seemed to be the consensus look on the rest of the group's face. But even this moment was short lived as our boat took another beating from a crashing wave. After the second wave I thought that this was just how shore entry's took place and I started to settle in to the onslaught of punishing waves. Everything seemed to be going fine, I even nodded my head and laughed when my friend Chris said it felt like we were in a Nave SEAL mission, until the motor cut off. Followed by the skipper and dive master exchanging looks of panic. Followed by the dive master turning a shade of white I thought only ghosts were allowed to have. Followed by a wave I have since liked to describe as the one that flipped Tom Hanks raft in Castaway only times a thousand. Followed by it breaking right on top of our boat. Followed by sheer pandemonium.

In an instant, I was thrown all the way to the back of the boat, hitting my head on something large and extremely hard before being tossed into the water. The boat's center console had been completely ripped off by the crash, taking no prisoners on its tumultuous journey to the rear of the boat. My dive instructor suffered a deep cut from the consoles freshly torn fiber glass, which thankfully, along with the quick growing bump on the side of my head that reached the size of a small peach, were the only physical injuries of the debacle (the nearest medical facilities were back in Maputo where I imagine procuring a thermometer for a temperature check would take three days). Getting the boat back to shore proved to be fairly easy since the wave had pushed us far enough back into shallow water that we could walk in the boat the rest of the way.

The initial moments immediately following the crash were a little hazy and hard to recall today. It was very similar to scenes in a war movie following a bomb exploding. Everything was really quiet and my vision after emerging from the water was blurry. No one in our group panicked and we were all able to get the boat back to shore where we immediately started to take stock of the situation. We had just survived a wave that had the force to rip apart a boat and were able to talk, even laugh, about it a few minutes later. I am convinced in Maputo that we all slept walk one night and saved all the children from a burning orphanage because our karma must have been through the roof to get that lucky and have no one seriously injured. Hell of a way to start a diving trip.

I am not sure why this experience didn't deter anyone, including myself, a little more from attempting to dive again but I am glad we decided to jump back on the horse. Every single shore entry after that went off without a hitch (ok, so one of our launches was the victim of another massive wave break but the damage wasn't nearly as bad for the boat and no one suffered any wounds) and everything seemed worth it once underwater. The visibility on these dives were unbelievable, allowing us to see gorgeous reefs and a plethora of a sea life I thought only existed in Finding Nemo. I went on a total of four dives (losing a boat on the first dive meant less dive opportunities for the trip) but the best one by far was my first deep dive allowing me to go to 30m. The previous deep dives of the trip saw manta rays and sharks so I was hoping I would only be so lucky. Let's just say it didn't disappoint.

My nerves were pumping as our boat reached the drop point and we went through our last pre-dive safety checks. Usually once entering the water I mellow out and enjoy the tranquil calmness of the ocean, but being my first deep dive, my heart rate didn't get back to normal until we completed our descent. I was actually so nervous about losing my buddy on the 30m drop to the reef floor, taking in too much air and ruining the dive for the rest of the group, and dealing with the effects of nitrogen narcosis (think being drunk without consuming alcohol, causing some divers to do weird things like trying to breath without their respirators) that I completely missed the shark seemingly waiting for our arrival. Soon my nerves evened out (which I am confident would have been impossible had I seen the shark) and the rest of the dive seemed as if I was living a movie. A giant sea turtle entertained our group for the first few minutes of the dive before swimming away much faster than I thought turtles could travel. The flora of "Sherwood Forest", the name of the dive site, served as the perfect picturesque background to schools upon schools of tropical fish that all seemed to move in perfect synchronization. I even spotted a few moray eels lurking inside of coral, by far a much uglier creature that I had imagined. The highlight of the dive took place right before we surfaced as my eyes followed the fingers of a few pointing members of our group. Above us, about 6-8m up, was a giant manta. And I mean giant. It flew (its fins moved like a birds wings in slow motion) effortlessly right above our heads for a couple of seconds before disappearing. I would say a breathtaking experiencing but being underwater you kind of need all the air you can get.

Upon reaching the surface I thought our dive was over which would have been fine considering all that had just taken place. But as we were boating back to shore, our skipper stopped the boat unexpectedly and told us all to put on our fins and snorkels. There was a whale shark nearby and he was going to get us close to it. True to his word, within minutes I found myself swimming within a few meters of a massive, deep gray with white spots, underwater behemoth. Objects underwater appear bigger than normal but I'm sure that this whale shark would have given any elephant I had seen at a zoo a run for its money. The whale shark moved much faster than I had anticipated, having to use up all my energy to keep up with it as it moved so effortlessly among us. Then, one of our more adventurous members decided to touch the tail, prompting the whale to slap him around a few times before bolting off into the depths. A great end to probably one of the best dives I will ever have in my entire life.

Obviously I did a lot more than scuba dive in Tofo but the length of this post might be straining the average person's attention span. For a quick summation on the rest of Tofo: attempted but miserably/comically failed at surfing following the worst lesson you could possibly imagine from an instructor that resembled the scuba teacher in Along Came Polly; consumed my fair share of Tipo Tinto, the red tinted local rum that came in overly recycled plastic bottles and looked/tasted more like gasoline than anything; had an amazing seafood dinner following a full moon stroll where we had to avoid thousands and thousands of scampering sea crabs; many late evenings dancing to the one local band at Dino's Beach Bar and Fatima's (they would alternate every other day between the two bars); sleeping in malaria tents and a heavy dusting of bug repellent to avoid the blood thirsty prevalent native mosquitoes. Everything about Tofo was ridiculously awesome, the only blemish being the abruptness with which it ended. Our last night in Tofo we spent partying, disregarding the 4am bus ride back to Maputo we all had to make the next morning. Little did I realize how big of an oversight that would turn out to be, especially considering how grueling the voyage back to Cape Town turned out to be. Until next time.

(sorry for the lack of pictures, my internet connection at work is extremely slow and it takes forever to upload a picture. double pics on the next post, I promise)

Surviving Mozambique - Part I

2009-04-20T01:31:00.000-07:00

I can't believe a week has passed since returning from my week and a half vacation to Mozambique and I haven't written about any of my experience. In my defense, I think my body has finally recuperated from the gauntlet of traveling about three thousand miles by land, air and sea, scuba diving at depths of 30+ meters followed by airplane flights at 30,000 feet, a daily dosage of malaria medicine and its various side effects including the most vivid, intense dreams I have ever had, and sustaining an intermittent diet of local Mozambique delicacies and their interesting take on "fried" foods. Recalling my Mozambique adventure has been a bit of a muddled whirlwind, but I think I have managed just fine with the help of my fellow travelers (two heads are better than one even if everyone's memory is in a bit of a haze). Because so much went on, I have broken the trip into three sections: our short stop in Maputo, the capitol of Moz, our week long trip to the beaches of Tofo, and the insane, grueling, mind fuck odyssey back to Cape Town (and that is putting it lightly). With all that to cover, I shall begin...

Following my brief but enjoyable visit with Paul and Marion in Johannesburg, I met up with the rest of the Mozambique group at Park Station to board our Greyhound Bus that would be taking us to Maputo. Everyone looked slightly more groggy than myself but I guess while I was enjoying a leisurely family dinner the night before, they were all doing what young people do on a friday night in a foreign country. I had never been on a long distance bus trip before but my initial opinions of our road carriage were better than I imagined: fully air conditioned, functional bathroom, a mini fridge, TV's and onboard movies, and fairly comfortable chairs that reclined more so than airplane seats. The next eight hours were going to go by in no time, right?

After a few hours I realized that my prediction was about half right, half extremely wrong. Eight hours of anything is generally pretty boring and sitting on a Greyhound was no exception. The scenery was beautiful but for some reason the bus windows soon became heavily enveloped in a thick sea of condensation, severely impairing our vision of the passing landscape. I then took to reading my book but I couldn't even do that once our the in-road entertainment began. Movies on buses are different than planes where you have the option of listening on headphone because the sound is distributed throughout the cabin whether you want to listen to or not. I had never considered how much of a luxury this was until Dr. Dolittle 3: Tail to the Chief fired up and I had to sit through one of the more painfully bad scripted/acted movies of the last decade. Thankfully it was followed by a Disney movie about a dog from outer space which was then followed by the the original 1960's Love Bug movie. Greyhound was really firing on all cylinders, pulling out all the stops to keep their passengers entertained. When Hancock came on as the fourth movie I was slightly relieved to be watching a movie that didn't make me debate whether or not I'd rather be plucking back hairs from obese hospice patient that smelled like moldy mayonnaise, but by that time I had made some ear plugs from balled up bathroom tissue and could finally read. Soon enough our eight hours were coming to an end and we were passing through the outskirts of Maputo.

Entering Maputo was an extremely eerie experience. I had very little knowledge of the city, only getting a mini history lesson from Paul the day before and a small puff piece about the current situation in the SA Airway magazine, but nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. Knowing that Maputo is the country's capitol, I guess I had some expectations for what a capitol city should look like, but I was shocked to see one of the poorest, run down cities I had ever seen. There were skyscraper and buildings everywhere, what I would expect from a major city, but every infrastructure looked as if it had not been tended to or cared for for twenty plus years. A large number of buildings were only halfway completed and I am sure never would be finished any time soon. The poverty level seemed even higher I was able to walk around the part of the city where our back packers lodge resided. The streets were in shambles, the side walks looked as if an earthquake had followed month of heavy duty blanket bombing, and trash was literally everywhere. And this doesn't even comment on the people, most of whom looked as if they had been wearing the same set of clothes week in and week out since the Portuguese left in the 1970's (I am promising myself to read up on the history of Moz, it sounds fascinating). There were very few indicators of wealth I came across during my stay in Maputo and even they were surrounded by such high levels of poverty that it was hard to differentiate between the two.

For the next two nights we would be staying at Fatima's Place, a large back pakcer lodge that could accommodate around fifty people. Fatima's also provided a small but painfully slow restaurant service as well as a bar that ran out of beer within the second hour of our groups arrival but our group couldn't care less, all of us just being glad to no longer be on a bus. No one even seemed to mind the warmer beers they ended up serving us later but we all seemed to groan a little when our all-inclusive meal wasn't served until 9 but thankfully the menu of chicken, curry and matapa (a local cream of spinach like dish) were delicious. That night most of us headed out to a club in Maputo called Coconuts, a very upscale, expensive club that did not fit in at all with the rest of the city. I couldn't stop wondering how a place like this existed around the city's poor conditions or how any of the natives could afford to party there when everyone in our group said it was more expensive than any place they had been to in Cape Town. Don't get me wrong, we all had a great time enjoying the five or six bars situated throughout the club, an always packed dance floor with a fog machine that was used more often than all of the Senor Frogs in Mexico during Spring Break, and a large pool that some of us may or may not have used later in the evening, but being surrounded by such wealth in a city so poor was unsettling. The most telling moment of the rich/poor discrepancy was leaving the club and the taxi scene that awaited us. The throng of taxis waiting to take patrons home were all old, beat up cars none of which had batteries. In order to leave, everyone had to push the car until the driver could start the engine and then wait for everyone to jump in.

On Sunday, Fatima's had organized a guided tour of Maputo. After a brief run with a few mates to sweat off the libations of the previous night, our group embarked on the city tour around 10 AM. I am usually a sucker for touristy activities like this and I can even get through a shitty tour guide by focusing on the sites and sounds of the tour. Unfortunately, our tour guide stayed out way later than we all did at Coconuts and woke up to a morning breakfast granola of Valium and Codeine because he lacked any sort of pulse. Compounding the low energy level was a total un-interest in his job and a complete lack of knowledge of the city of Maputo. The only saving grace of the tour was that it was so so so bad, we all could laugh our way through the five hour excursion and be grateful to have experienced such a train wreck. There were some good parts, including a walk through a fishing village on the outskirts of the city and stopping at some of the blown out buildings used during the filming of Blood Diamond, but overall the experience was pretty abysmal. Here are two pictures from the fishing village.

Thankfully the day did not end with tour (which was delayed at the end because one of the drivers smoked weed before leaving our last stop and was too high to drive faster than 20 km/h, no joke) and our Sunday in Maputo was saved by dinner at the fish market. Located in a series of small restaurants, vendor stalls and an open courtyard full of picnic tables, the fish market is one of the more popular attractions of Maputo. How it works, customers walk throughout vendors selling various seafood caught fresh from the Indian ocean that day. You then pick what you want and a 'runner' from a restaurant will come and take your catch of the day to cook on the spot at his place. Our entire group came out for dinner and we all had a blast waiting the two plus hours for our seafood feast to arrive (I am slowly getting used to Africa time but I don't think it will ever be second nature for me). I can't tell if the food tasted good because we were all so hungry but I am convinced it was some of the best sea food I had ever tasted. I guess the constant presence of beer including the giant pitcher a restaurant agreed to fill for $10 might have effected my palate as well but who's counting? We returned to Fatima's after the feast, most of us staying up late trying to sap the bar of its limited beer supply, but we had an early and long bus ride to catch to Tofo in the morning which I'll get to in my next post. Below are two pictures from the fish market. I had to get a picture of the kid in the Spider-Man shirt and the size of the picture had to be documented (check out the painting behind me of the guy doing the same thing, complete coincidence I swear).

Living on the Corner of Disa and Trill Avenue

2009-04-03T02:21:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe I have been in Cape Town for two weeks already but when I look back at all that I have done, two weeks hardly seems like any time at all. I am actually back in Johannesburg for a brief visit with Paul, Marion and crew before I head off to Mozambique on Saturday morning (more on that in a minute) and it has certainly been great being back among familiar, friendly faces. It almost feels like I never left, fluidly slipping right back into the routine I had established only a short while ago. Paul and I went on one of our "dark and early" runs this morning (I don't know why it has taken me this long to understand that running with people that are training for one of the more prestigious ultra marathons in the world is a bad idea) and I just returned from Jo's all girl school musical production of the Jungle Book. Although I've never been one for musicals and I have recently been having a bad string of run ins with little kids, I did enjoy the precious attempts of synchronized dancing and singing as well as some of the more meticulous jungle animal costumes I have ever seen. Plus, how could I turn down Jo's invitation this morning at breakfast to watch her and her mates don monkey costumes, complete with giant ears and floppy tail, and parade around on stage to the tune of "It's the Bear Necessities." Wow, I come off like a pretty big softy in that last sentence.

However, one of the best parts of being back in Jo-Burg is remembering what its like to live in a nice, clean, quiet house that not home to cockroaches or giant spiders. Not to say that I don't enjoy my home in Cape Town, more that I am enjoying taking advantage of the respite Paul and Marion's wonderful home is providing. But seeing as I've never delved into any details about my digs in Cape Town, I'll give you a brief description and a few pictures of my house so you all can understand a little more of where these feelings of euphoric relief are coming from.

My home on the corner of Disa and Trill Avenue (I knew I was destined to live in Africa after discovering I lived on a street that shares the name with a Bun B album) is actually much better than I have made it out to be. I have my own, fairly large room that at the moment looks like an over sized prison cell seeing that it lacks any sort of decorations and my one window is enclosed with re-enforced steel bars. Thank god for my pink, orange and purple duvet cover, it really brightens up the room and goes well with the pinkish orange towel I recently purchased (damn,I really am turning into a softy. At this pace I'll make Liberace look like Rambo and will have started watching Oxygen movies on Saturday nights). In the middle of the house is a surprisingly large kitchen, complete with a full size fridge and freezer, an oven smaller than what you would take camping, and an assortment of pots and pans that has clearly been collecting since the Dutch first arrived in the 17th century. One of the best parts of the house is a quaint courtyard located just off of the kitchen where we hang most of our wet clothes to dry in the always whipping Cape Town wind. Perfect place for a BBQ, or braai as they are called in South Africa, even though we have yet to use the grill. There are two bathrooms, both of which are more than fine strictly on the sense that they provide hot, decently pressured water.

Now the bad news. Apparently the last set of residents were more messy than most and had a habit of leaving food out in the open or not washing their dishes sufficiently enough. This behavior soon attracted the attention of hungry cockroaches that could easily move in and around the house due to the deteriorating bottom inch of some of the walls touching the outside. With a never congested highway to get to an always present supply of food, cockroaches have now become official residents, even going as far to take up residence in the fridge where more open containers of food can be found. The current set of room mates, myself included, have much better sanitary habits but the damage has been done. Regardless of how many bottles of Doom we spray or bug bombs we drop, the cockroaches are here to stay. Unfortunately the house bug problem doesn't limit itself to one species, an unpleasant reality I stumbled upon after a night out at the bars. I come home and flip on my light switch only to find a spider the size of Shaq's hand perched along the wall next to my door. I am fairly confident the spider lacked any venomous bite, but any bug bigger than the sole of my shoe makes me a little uncomfortable. Especially when it resides within a few feet of my pillow. Although I took care of the spider with a few swipes of a rolled up magazine (notice the plurality of the verb, it was a tough S.O.B.), I can't help but think there's an angry older brother lurking somewhere beneath my bed ready to crawl around my face whenever I'm sleeping. I have never been scared of bugs, snakes are what turn me into a crying ninny as most of you know or have had the pleasure to witness, but this episode put me on the edge. The only other bad part of the house is its proximity to a very busy, loud train station. There seems to be a constant flow of foot traffic and screeching train brakes waking me up at 5:30 every weekday and persisting until I finally roll out of bed around 7 to get ready for work. However I can't complain too much since it does only take me fifteen seconds to reach the train which I take into downtown for work everyday. Also, whenever I start cursing how close I am to the train station, I pop outside and take in the stunning view of Table Mountain from my front yard. Hard to complain when that view stares back at you every morning.

The description of of my house would be incomplete if I didn't include the best part: my room mates. Lauren, Liz, Sarah and ZaZa (who has since moved out) are all great and have made my adjustment to South Africa that much easier. Ever since ZaZa left us last week, I am now living with all girls which initially scared the shit out of me. After living in a fraternity house in college, I never in my wildest dreams could imagine living with one girl and now I am living with three. I always assumed that I could never live with girls because a) the constant smell of "girl" always circulating through my lungs, b) the never accessible bathroom which, even when I could get a five minute window of opportunity I would be result in me being accosted for leaving the seat up and toothpaste uncapped, and c) the inability to watch Sports Center because Grey's of Next Top Model was on (the list goes finishes at dm) but I decided to save everyone's time by providing only three). But my room mates have been anything but my greatest fears and I consider myself extremely lucky to be living with them. Not to say that I don't miss watching sports all day and knocking back a few cold ones with the guys, but I think I'll walk away from this experience with some valuable lessons and easily a more feminine perspective on life (crap, another reference to transformation. I need to grab a twelve pack and watch a couple Wrestlemania's as soon as I finish this post soon).

That's about it for the house but I realize that I haven't spoken on any of the things I have been doing in Cape Town for the last couple of weeks. I also realize this post is a little on the long side so in attempt to not bore any one with another thousand words or so, here's a brief summary that I'll make sure to expand upon next time:

1) Visited Clifton beaches, easily one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever been to or seen in pictures. Compounding its beauty are the luscious green hills that sit behind the beach and further aback are Table Mountain, Lion's Head and the Twelve Apostles. Look for pictures on-line because none words of mine can capture this landscape. Further on down the road and assuming I have enough money to invest in a vacation home, Cape Town beachfront would be my first, second and third choices

2) Went to a famous township braai called Mzoli's. Imagine the best day party you have ever been to, multiply by ten and then add ridiculously good food (that is if you are a carnivore because they only sold meat). Combine that with a phenomenal, friendly atmosphere where even though I was one of five white people in a crowd of three hundred I never felt uncomfortable. I have pictures and will post them soon.

3) Hung out a few times with an old friend from Oxy who is studying at University of Cape Town, Ben Flitter. Haven't seem in him about two years but we picked up right where we left off. He will be here until June and I imagine some of our adventures might be the focal point of a post or two down the line, including our planned trip to visit the highest commercial bungee jump point in the world. Don't worry mom and dad, I've heard its safe.

4) Got acquainted with the local Observatory bars that are a two minute walk from home. That's right, two minute walk. Hard to beat multiple neighborhood bars pouring dollar beers and offering cheap food specials almost every week night. If they only carried American sports 24/7 my heaven on earth would be complete.

5) Started my job at the South African Human Rights Commission. I have a lot to say about my experience working there so far but I will hold off and give it a few more weeks before I offer any substantial observations.

6) Got certified to scuba dive.

As I mentioned earlier, I am off to Mozambique for a ten day Easter holiday vacation. I am going with a group of about twenty, half of which are other interns with the VAC that I have been getting to know the last two weeks. The other half are friends of Sean who, among being one of the creators of the VAC, runs a dive shop in Cape Town and is driving out with us to start a second shop in Moz. The beaches we are going to are rated as a top ten scuba diving site in the world due to the warm waters (24-27 degrees Celsius), 25-30m of visibility and a diverse array of marine life including a large population of whale sharks and manta rays. Sean has organized a few dives for all that are certified and when not diving I plan on taking part of the awesome deep sea fishing, surfing spots ideal for beginners and a local rum that is supposed to pack a pretty punch. Life in Africa sure is hard.

Cheers

Making Tracks from Jo-Burg to Cape Town

2009-03-31T00:59:00.000-07:00

After being in Cape Town for a little over a week, I am finally getting adjusted to my new "home" and what it is like living abroad half way across the world. I have begun to realize that it is certainly not easy to pack up all of one's things and start fresh in a new, foreign city without a familiar face or travel buddy for comfort, but I have enjoyed the experience so far and look forward to each morning and what adventures I may embark upon. And it definitely helps being in one of the most beautiful cities in the world and meeting some extremely interesting and gracious people.

I arrived in Cape Town last Friday evening after a much better than anticipated ride aboard the Premier Clase train from Johannesburg. I am not sure why I held low expectations of the train even as it promised to be a trip of luxury, but these feelings of doubt were quickly washed away upon boarding and touring my new mobile living arrangement. I reserved a single cabin and albeit the room did not offer much in the space department, it was very nice and resembled a four star hotel room. Just smaller. A lot smaller. But I would take small and clean over spacious and Days Inn dirty and day of the week. After my traditional new hotel room routine of jumping on the bed (not recommended seeing as the bed was more of a couch and I hit my head on the ceiling and fell on my bum in one motion) I made my way to the lounge and dining cars for complimentary champagne and snacks. I immediately posted up at the full service bar for my first glass of bubbly and introduced myself to other passengers while others slowly trickled on board and into their respective cabins. I quickly discovered that easily over half of the passengers were 55 or older, including a large contingent of elderly Japanese men and women, each possessing a camera larger than my head (which is saying something). But instead of cursing my luck for being stuck on a train full of blue hairs, I grabbed complimentary glass of champagne number two and made my way to the dining car for cake and a medley of beef jerky and assorted nuts. While devouring the carrot cake and complimentary glass of champagne number three, the train whistle blared overhead and screeching brakes slowly released us from the tracks. Our trip to Cape Town was underway.

After complimentary glass of champagne number four and a few questioning looks from the wait staff, I struck up a conversation with an American couple that turned out to be from Washington state. It was very comforting talking to Americans for the first time since arriving in South Africa even if their lives in La Connor were as foreign to me as break dancing is to Stephen Hawking. I soon made my way back to the bar for complimentary glass of champagne number five (please no judging, even though I was riding on luxury the trip was still going to take over 24 hours) and sat in one of the lounge's booths to take in the scenery as we made our way out of Johannesburg.

I spent the rest of the marathon train ride chatting it up with the other passengers, reading some South African literature I picked up in Johannesburg and gazing out at the various landscapes we passed along the way. Most people were extremely friendly and more than willing to talk and inquire about what a big, thirsty American passenger was doing all by himself on the way to Cape Town. All the groups on board made me think how much fun a trip like this would be with a couple of friends or family, especially with the five course meals we were treated to through out the ride and the ridiculously cheap bar ($1 beers, $7 bottles of wine) open from tip off to the final whistle. The highlights of the meals were always the desserts which I generally wouldn't say considering I'm not a sweet guy. Maybe the wine always hit me at the end of the meal and food started tasting better, but I thoroughly enjoyed the traditional South African pudding (which was more like a soft, moist cake like brownie swimming in warm vanilla custard) and the decadent tiramasu topped with a fresh fruit medley.

The route from Johannesburg to Cape Town is fairly straight forward, taking us through the Great Karoo Desert for a majority of the trip before going under and passing through the mountain ranges just east of the Cape. The Great Karoo did not provide the best visual entertainment of the trip considering it is a massive, desert like landscape with shrubs and small trees dotting the terrain, but I did appreciate the majesty of its size and scope. After a semi-restless night of sleeping due to a screeching brakes and a brief but violent thunderstorm, we broke into the mountain ranges around a beautiful burnt orange sunrise accompanied by a full service English breakfast. Definitely a much more aesthetically pleasing portion of the trip and my first introduction to the country's vineyards, something I plan on taking full advantage soon enough.

Around twenty five hours after leaving Johannesburg, Table Mountain emerged on the horizon. All the months of planning, researching and exchanging emails had finally reached fruition and I had arrived in Cape Town, my new home for the next few months or possible year. Disembarking was surprisingly void of any confusion and I was soon waiting on the curb for Sly from the Volunteer Adventure Corp to pick me and take me away to start my new life on the Southern tip of Africa.

Farewell Johannesburg - Hello Cape Town

2009-03-19T02:19:00.000-07:00

My time in Johannesburg is rapidly coming to an end and in a few hours I will be boarding a train to Cape Town. I thought a train across the country would be much more interesting than a quick flight but seeing as I've never been on a train for more than a few hours I could easily see myself watching the clock and hating having to smell the over sized family that is roomed next to me and decided to sit with me at every meal. I will be riding on the Premier Classe, a luxury rail service that seems a little too fancy for my taste (check out their website for pics www.premierclasse.co.za) but they have guaranteed three meals and complimentary champagne so I'm in.

Having to say goodbye to my host family was not fun this morning, they have been more gracious, generous and hospitable than one can imagine. Fortunately, a few of them have upcoming travels to Cape Town and hopefully we get together and this time I will be able to return to the favor. I'm especially looking forward to when Sam, the oldest child, comes to Cape Town with his schools rugby team for a tournament. Planning on getting pretty rowdy and embarassing the crap out of him. I'm thinking body paint, posters and at least three cheers (any suggestions would be greatly appreciated).

Contrary to popular belief, I have kept myself very busy in Johannesburg and have not spent my days bar hopping with local rugby teams. But instead of boring everyone with the details of everything I have seen and done, I recant with a brief JoBurg highlight reel.

Johannesburg Zoo with Tom
Last Thursday was going to be a down day for me seeing as it was the day after my rugby adventure but I was then awaken by a thunderous commotion from downstairs. Apparently Tom developed a case of sore throat and swollen tonsils overnight and was too sick to make it to school (but unfortunately not too sick to add to my morning head throbbing). After stumbling downstairs, it was soon apparent that Tom's "illness" did not take away from his eight year old energy level or desire to seek attention. I decided, after approval from his mother, that we would take a trip to the zoo and see if that could help his sore throat, or, more importantly, tire him out a little bit.

But as we were about to leave, Tom decided that he needed a more grown up appearance to look at zoo animals. Tom comes running into the kitchen for lunch with a blue magic marker beard all over his face, looking like a cross between Tom Sawyer and William Wallacae. I wasn't sure if Tom regularly donned make-up before public outings so I asked him to explain his new, very blue image. Without missing a beat he replied, "I wanted to have a mustache so I could look like you." Yes, I have been growing a mustache since I left the States but by no means has it grown to a length to be deemed commendable and certainly not enviable. I'm not sure why I decided to grow out my upper lip, I guess I thought having a mustache while traveling abroad and meeting new people would make things more interesting (I know, pretty lame), but if I had known my attempt have negatively influenced an impressionable youth the razor blade would have come out while still in London. I know imitation is supposed to be the best form of flattery but being flattered I was not. More like embarrassed. Below is a picture of their maid Liza attempting to get off Tom's mustache during the ten minute scrub session.

The zoo proved to be quite fun although as soon as I walked through the gates I realized the absurdity of my visit. Gazing and gawking at indigenous African animals held behind their iron cages and bulletproof glass cages seemed odd considering I was actually in Africa and could actually go and see these creatures in their natural habitat. Why travel half way across the globe to see caged African animals when they roam freely a few hundred kilometers drive away? (side note - I am getting sick and tired of adapting to the un-American measurements that the rest of the world apparently uses. I realize I have to adapt sooner or later but converting to centigrade and meters is harder than jerking off a cheetah with a handful of tacks in a phone booth) It didn't help that the lions, rhinos, elephants and cheetahs looked more doped up on sleeping pills than Heath Ledger (too soon, yeah, you're probably right) and rightfully so. I imagine that they were not only depressed, but kicked in the balls pissed off that they were so close to home yet stuck in captivity for the enjoyment of lazy tourists.

Instead of sulking in the realization of my situation, I decided to make sure Tom had the best "sick day" possible. Not a hard task considering his sheer excitement at every animal cage we passed, but I made sure to rent a golf cart, have two rounds of ice cream and ride carnival rides until our stomachs hurt. A great day but I couldn't help wondering how much more fun it would have been had I let Tom display his blue mustache to the public.

Soweto Bicycle Tour

For my last weekend in Johannesburg I reserved myself a spot on a 4-hour bicycle of Soweto. Seeing as I had spent a majority of my time in the city's suburbs with an occasional visit into the city, I felt that I had not experienced the lifestyle that a large minority of South Africans face. Soweto is also so important historically and culturally that missing it would have left a huge void in my trip. Not to say that a four hour tour would qualify me as an expert in what it means to live in a township, but I would at least develop a greater understanding of a culture I had only read about in books.

Immediately upon hitting the turbulent pavement of Soweto, I appreciated being on a bicycle rather than a traditional air conditioned Land Rover tour of the township. I was able to not only receive an informative, personal tour from two life long Sowetans, but being on a bike enabled me to acutely experience township life through all five of my senses without the barricade of an automatic car window. Our tour took as to the traditional highlights of Mandela's and Desmond Tutu's home and the Hector Pieterson Memoria but we also stopped at a local Sowetan burger joint (even though the burger we ate resembled nothing of a quarter pounder with cheese), a shabeen (watering hole) and one of the shopping malls in the area. I did not anticipate the level of development in Soweto and certainly did not expect to see malls complete with banks, fast food joints and Pick n' Pay grocery stores as well as BMW's and Mercedes speeding down the main roads. Yes, an alarmingly high level of poverty of which I had never seen before persists throughout the township, but parts of Soweto have achieved levels of wealth I previously thought unimaginable. Whether or not that misconception can be blamed on my ignorance, I think a large population of people would have shared in my discovery.

The highlight of the trip, which would be hard to pinpoint because there were many memorable moments (beer and pool at The Shack, standing next to where Mandela used to live), had to have been our first stop and my introduction to a traditional breakfast and drink. Oliver and Tobela led me and Mark (the only other tourists, a fifty year old guy from Holland that lived in apartheid SA for five years) to a rusted tin shack in the middle of Sowetan hostel. We were beckoned into the dilapidated structure and told to sit along one of the wooden benches positioned along the walls. When my eyes adjusted to the dark scenery, I notice that Oliver and Tobela were no longer present, replaced instead by a group of elderly men ranging from fifty to seventy (although I wouldn't have been surprised if one or more claimed to be ninety) and a swarming throng of flies. Although awkward at first, soon enough the group of men began asking us questions about where we were from and were more than happy to tell us about their lives and what they were up to. Then the food came.

Oliver comes in with two medium sized plastic buckets full to the brim with some kind of stale white liquid. He then drops to one knee and goes into detail about the porridge and homemade beer we were about to share. The porridge is similar to pap, a popular South Africa dish that to me best resembles a stiff, congealed bowl of grits, except that it has more of an oatmeal consistency as well as acrid taste. I tried my best to take a large gulp but it tasted pretty foul and certainly did not sit in my stomach well. Next up to drink and pass around the circle was a homemade beer which I was greatly in need of to wash down and get rid of the porridge taste festering on my taste buds. Although it wasn't a great beer, it hit the spot and I took two huge gulps before passing it along. I credit my college years of drinking Natty Light to being able to enjoy this brew because thats kind of what it reminded me of except a little thinker. Not a beer pong beer by any means. But regardless of how each drink tasted, the best part was the communal aspect of our drinking and the converstions we shared. Not an experience I ever thought I would have but one I would easily do again.

Below are a few pictures from the trip. Taking pictures while riding a bike is ridiculous hard but I managed to snap a few good ones.

So as not to ramble on too much further, here are a few other pictures and highlights of time in Johannesburg:

Trip to Constitutional Court
South Africa's equivalent to the US Supreme Court, the recently constructed Constitutional Court resides very close to downtown Johannesburg and was built on the same site as the Old Fort turned jail that kept prisoners during apartheid. When I went for my tour I was fortunate enough to not only be in a group all by myself but I had one of the best tour guides I have ever had. Lekota was extremely knowledgeable about the history of the prison that held Mandela and Gandhi and answered all my questions expertly. The Court itself is beautiful, built with some of the same bricks used in the Awaiting Blocks for prisoners of the old jail and decorated with lots of local artwork. Below is a picture of me and Lekota infront of the court where all the judges preside.

Maropeng - Cradle of Humankind
Really cool museum and caves located about an hour outside of Johannesburg. This is where the oldest hominid fossil was ever found and the museum covers this discovery as well as give a good history of the Earth's formation and evolution of life. The caves were a nice respite from the humid temperature of the day even though the tour itself wasn't all that exciting.

I could have written about so many more experiences (like being razzed by a famous South African comedian at his show for being the one American in a crowd of a couple hundred) but I have to end this post sometime. Next up I'll cover my luxury train ride and first weekend in Cape Town.

Cheers

From Boot to Cock to Mouth (And mom, don't worry, I didn't get arrested and have to bribe the police with sexual favors)

2009-03-15T09:56:00.000-07:00

Johannesburg has been treating me great so far. I have been able to see most of the major attractions the city has to offer and am constantly learning about the country's culture and history from a variety of different people and perspectives. However, my most entertaining/never-thought-I'd-see-this experience came after attending a local university rugby game.

Paul, the dad of the family I am staying with, works at a financial consulting company called Vestac that he and another guy started six or seven years ago. They seem to be doing pretty well (check above house pictures for verification) and he invited me to his office on Monday afternoon to show me around the place. It was incredible to see how many clients Vestac works with seeing that only two people run the company although it did not come as too much of a surprise because Paul may be one of the smartest people I have ever met. Anyways, back to the story, Paul also employs a university student part time to help with some of the busy work around the office. Byron and I went out to get lunch for the office and before I left he invited Paul and I to his rugby match on Wednesday and then for me to go out for beers with the team following the game. I was pumped seeing as a) rugby is one of the most popular sports in SA and I need to start learning more about it b) as great as Paul and Marion have been I was desperately in need of hanging out with people my age and not watching the Disney channel with their eight year old son Tom and c) I've heard rugby players like to drink and I had yet to experience Jo-Burg's pub life (I ended up going out to high end club on Tuesday but that's a different story).

Paul, Sam (their 15 year old son) and I went to the rugby stadium at University of Witwatersrand to watch Byron's team Commerce take on the Medics. Byron is part of a league within the university where each of the different graduate programs (here called faculties) have a team and play against each other. The stands were around half full but it was the first time since being in Johannesburg that I was around a racially mixed crowd. Fans were grouped in bunches cheering for their respective teams and I noticed a beer in nearly every persons hand.

Byron's team won convincingly 19-0 although it was hard for me to declare a winner after watching both teams beat the shit out of each other for 80 minutes. I was surprised there were not more injuries due to the brutality of the match but I guess one guy being sent to the emergency to check for a broken collar bone isn't all that unusual. Bottom line: fun sport to watch, drinking is encouraged as a spectator, have no desire to play it myself.

I wasn't sure when the festivities would commence and certainly did not expect to have a beer in hand ten minutes after the final whistle blew. Paul and Sam said their goodbyes and before I knew it I found myself surrounded by twenty guys from Byron's rugby team, two flats of beer (recently purchased from the stadium vendor), and sitting almost directly in the middle of the stands. The tradition of "fines" was soon to commence.

I'm still not sure if "fines" is something performed after every South African rugby game or if Byron's team just had a drinking problem, but the rules of the game were soon detailed and the games had begun. After assuring everyone had a side beer, the captain of the team would call down groups of two to five players depending on position and they would stand before the team each with beer in hand. The captain would then call out each of them out one by one and the rest of team would nominate them with a "fine". A fine could be anything from a recognition for a good tackle or run, or, as more commonly applied, an acknowledgment of when somebody played poorly or made an ass out of themselves. Basically, a time to cheer or jeer your teammates that usually resulted in a brutally honest insult followed by the rest of the team laughing uncontrollable (for instance, the team thought it especially funny when, during my moment in the spotlight, I was given a fine for being an American). Once everyone in the group was given their respective fines, the captain would pick a player from the stands to lead the rest of the team in various raunchy songs (the subject matter ranged from "sticking it in your grandmother" to having sex with a baboon) while those recently fined had to chug their beer. This was performed over and over until everyone had been called to the front and assessed their fines.

Now, as most good drinking games go, the rules change the longer the game continues and more beer is consumed. Instead of just chugging beer after the end of your fines session, the captain may propose for you to drink another beer for any reason that comes to mind (drinking to slow, spilling, breathing) and would take his proposition to vote, all of which resulted in an overwhelming "YEY!" from the team. But the funniest evolution of "fines" dealt with how you drink your beer, because just chugging would soon not suffice.

The captain introduced "left, right, left" to one of the bigger players on the team, meaning he had a beer in each hand and had to drink from the hand everyone was yelling at him to drink from. "Fines" even included a grueling relay race up and down the bleachers with beers to chug at the top and bottom and empty cans to be dodged from hurling teammates. With the first round of flats quickly demolished and a new round on the way, rules and order fell way to just drinking and, unfortunately, the captain calling for and the team echoing "boot to cock to mouth."

Some players already had the bad luck to have to drink a beer poured out of a recently played in, sweaty rugby boot, but the ante was taken up a notch when someone pulled out a beer bong with a red, white and blue dildo attached at the end. Apparently a recent addition to the "fines" meeting, players were instructed to get on their knees and take a beer poured from the athlete-foot infected boot, into the bong and out of the patriotic colored sex toy. Furthermore, guys taking the beer were encouraged to enhance the spectacle with the use of hands or facial expressions (sorry, you must use our imagination for this). No one was spared from the spectacle and each attempt seemed to garner a louder and louder applause from the team. And just like the rest of the meeting, all of this was performed in the middle of the stands, surrounded by hundreds of gawking spectators.

Following "fines" and me deciding that if all rugby matches ended like this maybe picking up the sport wouldn't be such a bad idea, the whole team went to a local pub called the Jolly Roger to continue in the festivities. I took full advantage of the dollar to rand conversion rate and made sure to buy beers for the team in thanks for letting me tag along for their post game rituals.

I will be leaving for Cape Town on Thursday but will make sure to give a post about the rest of things I have been doing in Johannesburg. I'll try and include my attendance at a local comedians one man act where I was singled out for being American as well as the perils of traveling with a mustache. Hope everyone is well and emails are always appreciated.

My Inaugural Post

2009-03-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

Greetings friends and family! Sorry that my first post has taken so long, I have been quite busy since leaving Seattle a little over a week ago but I have finally made it to South Africa and now have some free time to update you on all that's been going on. But before I get to SA, I must say a little something about my brief detour in London. inaugural

I would recommend visiting the city to anybody if you have the time and money because there is so much to see and do that you need to spend at least a few days there as well as be prepared to drop some serious dough. Bar tabs add up pretty quick in this town but but once you tell yourself you're only here for a few days, the beer will flow like wine. The city also has a ridiculous amount of tourist activities and if it makes me a nerd that I filled my days visiting museums, smirking at the proceedings of British Royalty and poking around old churches, then so be it. But as interesting as London was, I wouldn't have had the time that I did without my host Gemayal. It was nice enough that he put me up in his flat and insisted that I sleep in his bed while him on the couch, but he also took me out to some sweet bars, translated English english which is very different than english back home, and helped me get around the city when I was confused. His room mates were also great and had no problem putting up with me for my stay. I also got to hang out with my Uncle Rob and his family who recently moved to London. He has a one and a half year old son named Dillon and it was the first time I got to meet my cousin who, because he can't pronounce his own name, calls himself Ling Ling.

This picture was taken when I was on a river boat cruise along the Thames after the sun had just set. I think I took about fifty pictures of the Big Ben considering I have been wanting to see it ever since my grandmother gave me a Big Ben puzzle when I was four (and subsequently, every year after I have received some sort of Big Ben gift). I was bummed that I didn't get to go in the tower but nonetheless, still in awe.

This next picture was taken at one of my favorite tourist attractions in London even though I had never read of it before I accidentally stumbled upon it on my way to the National Art Museum. The Texas Embassy Cantina, located in the heart of London, is a Texas themed restaurant that served as my oasis in the middle of a full day of touring. The story goes (check their website to be accurate) when Texas was an independent republic, a few Texans visited London and established an embassy. England wanted Texas to remain independent forever and offered to defend the country when need be but eventually Texas became a state and the embassy closed in 1845. Now this restaurant stands as a memorial to this unlikely friendship but more importantly it provided me with a home away from home. The restaurant was decked out in all kinds of Texas decor, had only Budweiser on tap and was even showing a Duke/Virginia Tech basketball game, a novelty considering US sporting events are hard to come by outside of the country.

But after all the London sight seeing and bar hopping, Thursday evening rolled around and I was off to Heathrow for a ten hour flight to Johannesburg. The flight wasn't bad at all considering the couple I was sitting with moved two hours into the flight and I could stretch out on the entire row and before I knew it I was going through customs at the Johannesburg airport.

While in Johannesburg I would be staying with family friends Paul and Marion, and their three children, Sam 15, Jo 10 and Thomas 8 (I think). I know these people because when Marion went to study in the US during college, she lived with my grand parents in Texas. I had only met her once before when she and Paul visited my family when we lived in D.C. but I was so young I barely remember. Their visit coincided with my fifth birthday and she still has pictures of that day, me wearing a full on Ninja Turtle outfit and cake smeared all over my face.

When I arrived at the airport, Paul and Marion had sent their driver Edward to pick me up. I had never been picked up by a driver at an airport before and it was pretty cool, even if the sign read "Ben O'Neill." We loaded my bags in the car and drove to Paul and Marion's home located a little less than a half hour from the airport and fairly close to down town Johannesburg in a suburb called Houghton. I knew they lived in a nice place but I didn't realize how nice until I got there. I've attached a few pictures of their beautiful home but a picture really doesn't do it justice to how nice this place is. One of the best parts is the view off of their backyard, a sweeping panoramic looking north over a forest, spanning miles and miles.

In my next blog, which I promise won't take as long to post as this first one did, I'll include more of the things I have been doing since I've been in Johannesburg. Today I'm off to the Apartheid Museum and later this week I'll be doing a bike tour of Soweto. I hope this post finds everybody healthy and well, and if you get a chance any updates through email would be great.