Dec 2006

Entry # 31A – Arriving in Spain and Pueblo Ingles

31A – Arriving in Spain and Pueblo Ingles

Wednesday, November 22

I did my typical procedure when I arrive in a new country early in the morning - customs, immigration completed, I found a free map from the tourist information desk, exchanged money and went off to find breakfast.

I decided that I would most likely get a better deal exchanging my money in Spain as they would need Rand, so I waited until I got to Madrid. During breakfast of yoghurt and coffee, I consulted my map and found the three locations I would need in the next two days; my lodging, the welcome lunch and the bus pick up location. Luckily, I was within walking distance for my lunch and a quick taxi ride for the bus pick up.

I don’t remember the Madrid airport from the last time, but it appears very new, very clean and full of the color green. We walked for miles as we exited the plane through vast walls of pale green glass.

As I exited to find my taxi, I was met with a line of at least 200 people all queuing for a cab. I timed myself and within 10 minutes, I was in my cab a heading into Madrid

PHOTO – taxi queue

Madrid is very clean, spread out and has lovely balconies on most of the buildings. It really reminds me of Paris, except it is missing the tower and the river through the middle of it.

My lodging at the Hostal Lido is basic and clean and on a side street. As I got out of the cab and into the lobby, after I confirmed that this was the correct location, I approached the elevator. It was tiny and would not fit my bags and me at the same time. I proceeded up the stairs, when I nice Spanish Man stopped me and helped me with my bags. My Spanish is coming back quickly and I feel much more confidant about speaking it now.

I took a wee nap as I was bushed after two days of late nights and not much sleep and went out at 3pm to see what I could. I opted for the double-decker bus and took both routes to get the lay of the city. The city is currently getting ready for Christmas and every plaza (and there are lots of them) and main street has people hanging lights or decorations. I decided after my bus ride to see the Palace Real (Royal) tomorrow and go back to the Plaza Mayor where I had visited last time.

I was cold after the ride on the top of the bus and found a Starbucks. I mainly went in to see if they had WiFI, which they have had in other counties. No Wifi, but I did get a latte. On the way back home, I located an internet café just around the corner from my place and went in to check in with my mailbox. The café also has business supplies and DHL, so I will use them when I return for one night to clean out my luggage before I move on to Romania. I also bought a pencil as I have had difficulties with my suduku when using a pen. After the fact, I realized that I had bought a pencil and a sharper, but my pencil has no eraser. ????

Thursday, November 23 – Happy Thanksgiving

As I began walking to the Palace and the Plaza, I was keeping a lookout for a store that I spotted from the bus yesterday. It had lots of purses and luggage and I was hoping that it would have a little leather wallet similar to the one that I am carrying that is falling apart. The Plaza Major is not as large as I remember it, (Ah, youth and your eyes) and the center was loaded with trucks unloading decorations. Not the picture I remembered. I walked the perimeter and found an incongruous Ben and Jerry’s store at one of the corners. I also found breakfast of coffee, juice and the mandatory churros. Fried bread in little sticks that had my stomach rolling within 3 hours. Oh, well, it is tradition, so I had to try them.

I found a wonderful music store on the way to the Palace that had a marvelous display of all types of instruments in their windows. Did you know that a form of the bagpipe is traditional in some Spanish music? Neither did I.

The Palace Real is large, white and the official residence of the King and Queen of Spain, but they don’t live there. They only use it for state functions. I rented the audio phone and wandered through the rooms. Beautiful and brightly decorated, I bought post cards instead of trying to capture them on my camera. In addition to the official apartments, there was a temporary art display (not that interesting) and a wonderful display of old jousting equipment and suits of armor. I left the Palace in drizzle and began walking to lunch.

Casa Patas is where we would meet for lunch and a flamenco show. The group is made up of Canadians (8 from the same book club), Brits, Aussies, Welsh, and the US. There will be 25 Anglos and 24 Spaniards. The staff is Scottish, British, and Canadian and they are all former volunteers that so loved the project after their week, they decided to stay and work in Spain. Lunch was Paella, the national dish, and it was wonderful. I told someone that the last time I was in Spain, all I ate was arroz con pollo (chicken and rice) because that is all I knew how to order. I was determined to eat more widely this time. Our Flamenco show turned out to be a guitarist who was amazing. I sat close enough so that I could watch his hands as he played. It was lovely. I will definitely try to find a CD with flamenco music before I go.

After lunch and the show, a group of us went out to a bar and I got a chance to spend more time with some of the participants and staff. Trudi, her brother Phil and Phil’s son, Shannon are originally from Texas. Trudi and I found out that we have the 1300’s of Logan Street in Denver in common in that she is a consultant for Starkey International, the butler school right next to PERA. Small world. She is lovely, vivacious and will be good fun. Phil is a card and has done Pueblo Ingles (PI) 5 times before. I think he likes it. Shannon, who is living in Alaska and was a former rock band artist, fire fighter and currently is a university guitar teacher and works during the summer for Alaska fish and wildlife counting salmon. Others around the table were Luke and Jez (both staff from England), Richard (former volunteer and currently a makeup artist for the Lion King in Germany), Christine (staff from Canada), Enya (staff from Scotland) and two other people that I can’t remember. Very smoky as Spain still had lots of smokers and most of the staff also indulge, but good fun and lots of lively conversations.

I got back to my room by 8 and turned in early, as I need to be up, showered, packed, checked out and breakfasted by 9:00 am tomorrow.

Friday, November 24

Check out and found that my wonderful sister had paid for my hotel room. Do I have the best sister or what? Found a taxi to the Plaza Chamberi where we were to meet the bus and I appeared to be the first one there. Finally located other PI volunteers and left my luggage with them to find coffee for Sally and myself who is from London. Found a local café for coffee and located the rest of the herd swilling coffee. It was overcast and a little drizzly.

We loaded on the bus and found that we had 6 Spaniards who were also coming with us. My seat partner was Jose Santos, a young man with beard and long hair that sort of looked like Christ. His English comprehension was very good, but he was shy about speaking and a little slow to begin. I found out that he is a computer programmer and a Madrid Rat, meaning he likes the city over the country. Our bus stopped at 11:30 in Avilla for our only rest stop and a light lunch. Jose bought me a coffee and I bought him my new favorite candy, Kinderjoy (the chocolate egg with a toy surprise). From our stop, you could see a small monument with 4 columns, which is where St. Teresa of Avilla had her visions. The wind was fierce so most of us huddled inside until it was time to get back on the bus.

After our break, the Spaniards were encouraged to talk to someone new, so I was by myself for the rest of the trip. LOTS OF RAIN as we approached Salamanca and lots of standing water in the low-lying areas. The countryside was lovely and rolling with lots of trees and farms that mainly seem to be free-range pigs and bulls. I learned later that they are called Iberica Pigs, they are predominantly black and are fed on acorns. The pork from these pigs is considered a delicacy and is more expensive that the Serrano pork, which is usually commercially fed.

2pm we arrived in La Aberca to lots of RAIN RAIN RAIN. We all took our luggage and waited outside on the porch trying not to get wet until they called us to go to our rooms. As I watched the pairs of people going off to the different cottages, I asked the universe for a room next to the main meeting area and a room to myself, as I could tell that my cold was progressing. I was the last one to be given my key and I was placed in cottage number 24, right across from the meeting room with my housemate, Fermin (50’s business man), who had been on the bus with us and who would be living upstairs from me. I did not know until I got into our house that everyone has his or her own room. Thank you universe!

There are 25 cottages in the hotel complex. Each little house has two floors. The Spaniards are upstairs and the Anglos are down stairs. Each of the bedrooms has its own bathroom with showers and lovely hand made bedspreads on the beds. There is a common living room and little kitchenette, tv and phone. We will be called at 8:15 on the phone every morning for a wake up call and again at 4:30 in the afternoon to bring us back after our siesta.

Next came lunch and based on the room arrangements and the quality of our food, I could tell that this will be my most luxurious of all my placements. We had a welcome siesta session until 6pm. When the phone rang to call us to dinner, I was a little disoriented. We found that the phone rings about 6 times, not quite enough time for either Fermin or I to get to the phone to listen to the automated recording. If you don’t answer in time, the phone system waits about 2 minutes and tries again. If you don’t catch it, it rings louder the next time it calls. We plan to try and get to it at the first ring from now on.

We met back at 6pm and had a session of human bingo, where we had to find someone in the room who fulfilled the question in each of the squares. Some of the people we had to find included someone with a tattoo, had bungee jumped, was a Libra, did not own a cell phone, played a musical instrument, or spoke more than two languages. It was a fun 30 minutes getting to talk to most of the people in the room. We had several people with the same first name (i.e. we have 3 Jesus, so they are labeled Jesus F., Jesus L., and Jesus S. We also have a Susan, Sue and a Susie. During this time, we were all given a Pueblo Ingles fleece jacket which most of us donned immediately as it was still raining and cold. We also received the blue Pueblo Ingles exploding pen. When you go to write with it, the spring is so strong it rockets the top off the pen and all the contents fly through the air. If you are lucky, you can find all the little pieces that are required to make the pen work.

The one challenge to some of us will be our meal timings - Breakfast 9am, not bad, lunch 2pm, okay and dinner at 9pm. They claim we will be so busy that the time will just fly by. We will see.

My stomach was rumbling most of the day and I had my second-for-the-year case of diarrhea. Not as catastrophic as the one in Peru, I had several trips during the night to the little room, but managed to sleep in between. I was also on the way to developing my first real cold for the year. Probably a combination of exhaustion, 4 nights with poor sleep and the change of temperature and from summer to winter within 2 days.

Saturday, November 25 – Rice, I will have Rice, Thank you.

Runny stomach and cold in full glory today. Carried Kleenex wherever I went and felt ookey. We received our general normal schedule for the next few days.

9 – Breakfast – first conversation of the day – tables of 4 with two Anglos and 2 Spaniards
10, 11, 12, 1 – One-on-one with a Spaniard, with some hours of free time depending on the day. Some of the sessions might be a telephone conversation or a conference call with three Spaniards and one Anglo.
2 - 3:30 - Lunch – more conversation – tables for 4
3:30-5 – Siesta – YAAH!!!!!!
5 - Group activity
6,7 – One-on-one sessions
8 – Group activity or evening presentations
9 -10:30- Dinner – more conversation – table of 4
10:30-1:30 - Liquid English – social time, party or off to bed

During each of the one-on-one sessions, we were asked to explain and use in a sentence an assigned phrasal verb and idiom. Formal English lessons were a very distant memory for me, and I honestly did not remember ever being taught phrasal verbs. In the blog to come, after the Spaniards name, there will be the phrasal verb and idiom that we worked one.

My specific schedule for today was -

10 – Jesus S. – Read between the lines and Ask for - Very vivacious and funny guy.
11 – Free time - rested
12 – Maite – Blow Out and On Edge – Worked for the truck division of Volvo now owned by Ford – discussed the loss of her husband and her child.
1 – Gerardo – (sorry can’t remember the phrasal verb or idiom) - Auditor for Deloitte – discussed our mutual admiration for the LOTR Movies

5 - Group activity – 2 truths and a lie – 4 Anglos, 3 Spaniards – we had to come up with 2 statements about ourselves that were true and one that was a lie. My three statements were I had one brother and one sister, I had lived in Thailand and that my father was in the Navy. The others in our group would ask us questions to see if they could tell which one was not true. When the other Anglos were talking, I totally missed guessing on all the other Anglos and every one missed my lie. We never even got to the three Spaniards.
6 – Fermin (my roommate)– Think Ahead and Think on your Feet – We discussed the history of Salamanca
7 – FerNANDO - Blow up and Crack a Joke – Guardia Civil, Environmental issues

8 – Entertainment - Car problems in Spain, Shared Birthdays, Rain Storm

The entertainment was a humorous play acted out by several of the participants about the dangers of pickpockets in Spain. As they moved so quickly, we could not see the true action, so they kept rewinding and redoing it in slow motion. The actors were fabulous. (We would see a lot of the actions, costumes used, and key phrases and words over the next week).

The rainstorm was another group activity and was amazing. Jez lead us through four different movements done in unison and if you could close your eyes and listen, it very much sounded like a rainstorm approaching, in full bloom, and then moving away.

Due to my head cold, I have been asking that the one-on-one sessions be at my house in the living room. It is much quieter and I don’t have to shout to be heard. The group rooms can become very noisy with 24 couples trying to talk. Many groups opt to take walks in the neighboring countryside. Until I feel better, I will remain inside.

I ate rice all day and tea, which was fine and all I wanted.

Sunday, November 26

Stomach settled and I decided to eat the meals today. During the breakfast hour, the menus for lunch and dinner are posted. There are two options for both starters and mains and you indicated the letter of your selections next to your name. Then, at the meal, you pick up the colored tags for your selections and put them at your place setting.

10 – Telephone Session – Cuti – Guardia Civil – Put Away and Raining Cats and Dogs – We each had a little script and he phoned me from his house. Our topic that we selected was that I was calling about finding a place for my daughter, Felicity in the summer Spanish language course. He was excellent and would volunteer information and expand on the topic without nudging. Very fun.

11 – Jose Santos – we walked and talked – Put off and In the Dog House – A self proclaimed computer nerd, we discussed his culinary abilities, dating and family logistics. It is fall in Spain and when the sun comes out, it is beautiful with lots of orange and brown hues. We walked down a back lane along stonewalls that separated the pastures to a small waterfall. The water was not too cold.
12 – FREE time - took some medication and rested. Felt much better
1 – Lourdes – Put on and Shake a Leg – Fire Station Administrator – Evolution of Spanish Language and English slang for going to the bathroom. I.e., when is it appropriate to use the word pee?

5 - Group activity – Book Club – The Hockey Sweater – Lead by Sandy, we went through questions about the Hockey Sweater Book, and then the group moved into a political discussion about Quebec in Canada (and its hopes for independence) and the similarities to the Basque region of Spain in relationship to the rest of Spain.
6 – Dani – Call on/off and Down the Drain – Accountant – Continuation of the political discussion, he recommended the book, Cathedral of the Sea, a novel about Barcelona
7 – Rafael – Call up/back and Jump the Gun – Security Royal Family and Bomb Squad – This man had not spoken English in over 3 years and was amazing. He has had the most incredible serious of jobs as the chief of security for the Spanish Royal Family, international business man in South America for multiple years and chief of the bomb squad in Madrid. Rafa, as we all began to call him, is a HOOT, very lively, always ready with a smile and a joke and an absolute pleasure.
8 – Entertainment

Group 1’s presentation was a news program about Pueblo Ingles, very good. Thinking back, I wished I had been in group one, if only to get the presentation over with early.

Bob, a returning PI Anglo lives in London and is a balloon artist and talked about his work and passed around photos of his more elaborate works of art.

I had told Christine, our Master of Ceremonies, that if she was stuck for entertainment, I would be happy to do a monologue. I did Annie from Quilter’s, and I am sure most of the Spaniards found it very difficult to follow, but the Anglos enjoyed it.

Jez lead us in another group activity that had us on our feet doing weird movements and chanting a rhythmic nonsense verse - A Tea Ta Too

After dinner – the Quemada Ceremony – Grain alcohol, sugar, coffee beans, lemon rind and incantations from two Spaniards and one Canadian (dressed up and reciting poetry) to drive off the witches. The lights were turned off as the stuff boiled in an open skillet with a blue flame. Very strong stuff, I took 3 sips and went to bed. Apparently I missed the dancing that happened before they closed the bar at 1:30 am.

Monday, November 27

Stomach fine – cold has progressed and is now a dry cough

10 – David – Boil it down to and Hard Pressed - Guardia Civil
11 – Enrique – Break Down, Come in Handy - Banker
12 – Free Time !!! – catch up on the blog and tea
1 – Free Time but I went to the presentation of some of the Spaniards. Jose Santos (Mafia Game), Jose (Shopping Center development), Fermin (Toledo) and Jesus S. Jesus did a fabulous PowerPoint that incorporated the book, the Hockey Sweater and one of our idioms Read Between the Lines. Brilliant. I hope to get a copy of it.

3:30 – Short meeting during our siesta time for Group 4 to discuss our presentation for Wednesday night – rough start but we ended up with the plan to develop a jeopardy game parody using idioms and phrasal verbs.

5 – Group Project – Each group had to Invent a new product and then present it to the group complete with product, slogan, jingle, poster, and 30 second advertisement. Our group developed the magical PIG Hat – Pueblo Ingles Gorro – Gorro is another name for pig that is the emblem for the region. A fun project
7 – Luis – Take Care of, Spread Like Wildfire - Chemical Engineer – Formerly from the Basque region, he is very hard on himself and is rather a perfectionist and kept consulting his Spanish/English dictionary. He has a heart of gold and once he lightened up, his conversation really flowed.
8 – Free time to get ready for Miguels Birthday party

Dinner – sat in our group and Tracy and I roughed out our sketch for Wednesday night - Idiomepardy

Miguel’s birthday celebration – Miguel from the Guardian Civil turned 29 today and we had a small party for him. He received some presents, including a dancing partner made totally of balloons from Bob. I danced until 12:30 including line dancing, pasa double, disco and group boogey. Fun, loud and highly entertaining. Some of the group did not make it to bed until very early!

alskdfljasdl;jEntry # 30C – The Last Days in South Africa

Monday, November 20 – Last day in Joburg, maybe! Strange energy in me today and lots of little obstacles that showed me that I was to slow down and chill out!

I woke early in order to get my laundry dry and found that even at 7am, the dryer was in use. I have been frustrated by the automatic key gremlin both last night and today and every time I left my room, my key no longer worked. This meant lots of trips up and back to the office (usually in the rain) to have the key remagnetized or replaced. Finally the manager came with me and the key would behave itself. (Little Creep!)

At this point, I decided to take myself to breakfast (yes the potatoes had the little faces again, and no I did not get a picture) and then sit with my laptop in the laundry room in order to be there when the dryer stopped.

After an hour of proofing my blog entries and still no stopping of the dryer, I asked the housekeeping staff member who was ironing in the room how long the dryers took. She said that the towels were most likely dry and unloaded the machine. I loaded my little bit in and she said come back in 30 minute. I took my shower and was a few minutes late getting to the laundry and found her folding my dry laundry. What a nice lady.

I packed up and was ready to check out and leave my bags at the desk until my shuttle at 3pm to the airport. Just as I was checking out, the power failed, so they were not able to process me out. I sat on the couch and read my LPSpain book and drank tea. After an hour, still no power. I decided to walk across the street in hopes of power and lunch and to do a little last minute shopping. Power was on, shops had what I needed and I had a fabulous last lunch at Kauai, the wonderful health food chain that I first found in Cape Town. YUMMY. I hope we get them in the US soon.

Back to the hotel to find the power restored and my bill waiting. I blogged a little more and then it was time for Nigel, in his wonderful silver Camray, to whisk me off to the airport.

I arrived by 4pm and immediately went to the VAT inspection area. I handed him a huge pile of receipts that I had organized the night before and figured out all the VAT. He asked me to show him several of the things in my luggage, all of which I found with no problem. He kept finding all the candy and ice creams that I had on the bills and asking if I still had them. I said, no not even the sticks.

Then I went off to find the post office that was in the basement of the international terminal. I bought 5 of their mailing boxes and proceeded to unload my second daypack and my smallest rolling suitcase into the boxes. Within two hours, I had all the boxes mailed and they began moving slowly across the globe to the US. I find I am still running around madly my last day doing posting things, but with the tax refunds needing to see the items before you leave the country, there is no way around it.

I could not check in my bags until 6:45, so I had some time to kill so I ate a late lunch and then got in line. This will be my first time on Iberia Airlines, the official airlines of Spain. My two bags were 27kilos, which was over, and there was some hushed discussion about me needing to pay extra, but as the trainee did not bring it up immediately, they did not charge me. I left with my stuff and then found I could not find the gates. I had to go back and found that the hallway to the passport control was directly behind the ticketing desks. Using your eyes can be a good thing.

Passport control, no problem, security, no problem, passport stamping, no problem and I had 2.5 hours until I had to be at my gate. In the JoBurg airport, you don’t go to the gates until you are ready to board. At least that is what the sign said, but when I followed the sign, I found that everyone else was already at the gate. One busload had already gone to the aircraft so I stood with my Suduku book and waited. We were told that there would be a 15-minute delay. After a short time, people began filing back into the waiting area from the debarkation doors. They had unloaded the plane because there were mechanical difficulties and because I was close to the door, I heard that we would not be flying tonight.

The time was now 11pm. We followed the staff person back through the convoluted terminal and had to go back through passport control. There was one lone person at the booths. I was number 2 through the line. The first woman was an American, Marla aged 41, who was making a connection. There was some confusion at the passport desk and they asked us all to come back. At one point, the man said that even though we had been stamped back in, because the immigration man had not received written notification from Iberia about the problem, we would have to be unstamped and them stamped again. A woman went off like a siren and the arguments and angry voices began. Marla and I pulled away from the group and continued to discuss her mother’s cancer and her years as a Big A women’s basketball coach.

Finally, our luggage arrived and we took our trolleys with luggage back into the ticketing hall to wait for hotel vouchers. The time as 12:15 am.

As the delays continued and no formal announcements were made to the group as a whole, tempers were short and patience was stretched. At one point, they had not found any hotels that were willing to take any of us. I asked if there was anyplace in the terminal where we could at least curl up or spread out over seats. None available.

Marla had an in at the Intercontinental at the airport that she was going to try and I stayed in line.
At 1:30 am, I was given a voucher for the Durial Grand hotel – which sounded like it would be a very nice hotel. A group of us that had just received our vouchers were lead by a staff member on a convoluted walk to where the shuttle vans would pick us up. Thank heavens a staff members escorted us because in our blurry state, we would have not found it.

At 2am, I arrived at the D’Oreale Grand at the Emperor’s Palace Casino and hotel complex near the airport. It looked wonderful and we would also be given dinner, breakfast and lunch and soft drinks.

PHOTO ROOM IN D GRAND
My room had a king size bed and all the niceties, plus WIFI in the room. I logged on and contacted my hostal in Madrid and told them that I would be late. I went to bed, exhausted.

Tuesday, November 21

I woke at 6:30 and got back to sleep until 8:30. When I called the desk, they had no news from Iberia so I took a shower and went off to breakfast. WHAT A FEAST! A luscious buffet with fresh fruit (including guava), breads, juices, eggs and all the fixings, cheese and deli meats, cereal and even a sushi option. I sat outside and indulged. YUMMY!

I went back to my room to read and fell asleep until the phone rang at 1:30. They said that we could get back to the airport and Iberia would try and reticket us. If we choose to stay, as we had missed the check out time, we would have to pay 100 rand an hour to use the room until this evening. I was packed so I went back to the airport.

I was reticketed for this evening, but still no guarantee that we would fly. I found a café and drank two iced coffee/chocolate shakes and internetted. I finally got my hotels straight for England.

I saw a line forming near where I was to check in at 6:45 so I joined it. I was behind a wonderful Spanish woman, Alice, who is a PhD, who had a hard night and was being given special consideration. She and I got an early check in which was lovely and we didn’t have to even stand in the line that was forming. She left to go back to the hotel and collect her hand luggage and have a nice dinner. I found that we will be sitting in the same row and as she wanted a window and I had it, I agreed to change with her. If possible, I may also ask for a window but I didn’t want to approach the line that was ever growing. If not, I will be happy with the aisle and my sleeping pill.

New EU rules for flying include putting everything from your carry one luggage that has any liquid in it in a large zip lock bag so that they can inspect it. The bottle of water that I had before I went through security was taken, but I can buy another one on the other side.

Alice had already rearranged so that she had a window by the time I met up with her at the gate. As we boarded I saw that we were in a 2 seats, 4 seats, and 2-seat configuration. I still had my window seat but with the plane absolutely full due to two days of flights in one airplane, there was no hope for more room to spread out. I got to my seat and found that the fabric panel that holds up the magazines was broken so that kept hitting my knees. The movies were the second pirate movie, 65 Minutes and something else that I missed. Dinner was fine, I took my sleeping pill and tried to get comfortable. It didn’t work, so I watched most of the pirate movie and then must have dozed off. We landed after our 10 hours flight and I was back in Spain, having not been there since 1977.

Thoughts as I leave South Africa

I am really glad I came. The information on South Africa had made me rather wary of what I would find. Generally, the literature is correct that you can go through South Africa with no problems. One of the reasons that I feel that I was successful is that I was ultra vigilant with my property and that I have the most amazing contingent of angels guiding and protecting me. As you read in some of my blog entries, not everyone that I met or lived with had the same experience that I did.

South Africa is probably one of the wealthiest and most western of all the African countries. That being said, there is still a lot of poverty, not nothing when compared with other African countries so I have been told.

I found the people to be a little standoffish at first, but friendly if you make the first move. I don’t feel that I really had a chance to get to know many South Africans, as almost all of the people that I stayed with were expats from other countries. Most of the staff at CARE was foreign, the staff at SANCCOB was Afrikaans, and the people at the lion park a mix of both.

The thing that I have mentioned before and what impresses me tremendously is that South Africa is growing and changing now that Apartheid is gone. Still young in their development, they are working very hard to do what is best of the country, with the understandable stumbles and lurches as they move ahead. The new government is doing its best and working to build houses for the poor and to bring some basics like water and electricity to all.

With unemployment over 40% within the black communities in the urban areas, there is still a need to help the people find work that will allow them to make their own way. Numerous college graduates aren’t able to find jobs within the country and there is large emigration from South Africa to places like Australia. I have seen people doing very small jobs like sweeping the street, selling things on the corners just to have some income. I heard stories of people being able to make more begging and panhandling than with a real job. We had been told to not give money to the kids on the street or in the townships as that encourages them to skip school (which is mandatory up until you are 18) to try and earn money.

The landscape is amazing and from the areas that are remaining of the bush that I saw, wonderful and exciting. The animals, of course, were the main reason for my coming, and they are as magnificent as you have heard. Many of them are making a comeback, but more still needs to be done to preserve their habitat and at the same time giving the people living off the land a chance to make a living. Not an easy situation to comprehend or solve, but necessary nonetheless.

I learned that the true natives in South Africa were the San and that all other tribes moved into the area within the last couple hundred years. The Bushman (formerly the San, I believe) are being shuttled between South Africa and Namibia. They are being paid to do nothing and live in little villages for tourists to see how they live. As most of the land is now “owned” by some concern or another, so that the Bushman can no longer be nomadic, therefore their livelihood is dependent on government handouts. The governments find them a financial burden and restrict their movements. One South African woman, of Afrikaans descent, said that they go every year out in the bush and try and meet with them. They are told by officials that they cannot see them without an appointment and some of the Bushman individuals will be brought in closer for the tourists to see. Going to the actual village is not allowed.

As I mentioned before, it is a country that is young and changing. There is so much to see and do here and the exchange rate is VERY favorable to us in the US. I know that I would like to rent a car when I return, but I also know that I will not drive in the cities.

Recommendations if you are planning to come to South Africa.

• Read as much as possible about South Africa and the Apartheid era that you can.

• Go on a township tour with a private guide if possible in order to spend more time there. The package tours tend to limit the amount of time you can spend at any one location.

• Go to any site that has history about the Apartheid time, Apartheid Museum, Hector Pierterson Museum, District 6 and Robben Island.

• If you want to see animals in the wild, go to one of the big national parks (Kruger or Addo). You may not see as much, but the animals will be native to that area and not brought in from other areas to lure tourists.

• If you go on a wildlife drive within the National Parks, make sure that you will have unlimited time at waterholes or at lookouts. If possible, stay overnight near one of those areas, which is where you will see the most animals at dawn and dusk.

• Try the African cuisine when you can. It is fabulous and varied and not as hot or spicy and you would think. There are plenty of options for western food as well, but treat yourself.

• GIVE YOURSELF PLENTY OF TIME TO ENJOY ONE SITE AT A TIME. I don’t recommend the Jane way where I had booked myself so tight, I had no opportunity to linger or retrace my steps. I WILL NOT BOOK MYSELF SO TIGHT AGAIN.

• I came in the late winter going into spring and summer. The summers are hot and rainy. The winters are cooler, windy and dryer. CAPE TOWN IS A WIND TUNNEL. Bring layers and dress appropriately.

• You will need malaria medication in Kruger.

• You should be able to drink the tap water all over. That being said, bottled water is available everywhere.

• Come and enjoy the best of South Africa and learn about these amazing people with their incredible capacity to forgive and move on.

Thank you South Africa, especially Nelson Mandela, Rev. Tutu, and all those that made the difference, sometimes at great personal sacrifice to move the country forward. I will return with more time to spend and lots more film in my camera. Keep up the good work and I look forward to reading of your advances and successes in the future. Best of luck on the UN Security Council and please help all of us understand and remember what it took for South Africa to change from a nation of oppression to one of freedom.