Thanksgiving with the De Sole Family

Alright, after the famine it is time to feast! In both the literal and figurative senses. I know that I have been lax about my blog updates in recent weeks, so here you get two updates in as many days. But in addition, this post is all about my Thanksgiving dinner... which was literally a feast after surviving Maru-a-Pula cafeteria food for a month!

Last week I bussed down to Pretoria (now officially named Tswana--but violently opposed) to meet up with the De Sole family. Natalie De Sole was visiting her parents, who are American and Italian but stationed in South Africa, and they invited me to join them for the weekend!

Unfortunately, my bus broke down three times on the way to Pretoria. Three times! I don't know how to describe this saga, except to say that we were stuck in the middle of nowhere waiting for a local mechanic for two hours when we broke down the first time, and then another hour after our second brake-down. The funny part is that the bus only managed 10 minutes of progress between these first two inadvertant stops! Luckily for us, we finally made it to the convenience store for water and some calories... we were a bit cranky at that point, though! It was very hot out, and we were stuck in a disappearing bit of shade under a tree. With concerned mothers telling their children not to go into the shade because there might be snakes. Great, huh? Actually, it was very interesting to observe the other passengers. Some of them just accepted their fate... (after all, as they say in Blood Diamond, "This is Africa") while others made a big stink about the delay. I would have been more upset myself, except that I didn't have a bus or plane to catch at the destination. But anyway, I have become much more relaxed about that sort of thing in general.

We finally made it to Johannesburg Station (3.5 hours late) where we let off many of the passengers on our bus and continued on (or back, as it was) towards Pretoria. Unfortunately for us, the bus broke down again... and right smack-dab in the middle of the freeway entrance ramp! So not only were we stuck for another hour waiting to get the bus moving, but we were also blocking the entrance to the freeway and making the inevitable 5pm traffic jam even worse. Luckily, we did eventually make it to the station... about 5 hours late overall... and even luckier for me was the patience and good-nature of the De Sole family about all the confusion! And the dinner they served (home-made pizzas, italian-style) was absolutely fabulous, so it was a really nice end to a rather frustrating day.

The rest of the weekend was busy but less frustrating :). On Thanksgiving itself Natalie and I accomplished some shopping at the Menlyn Park shopping mall in Pretoria. Now, this is basically a monstrously large shopping center, but somehow my usual impatience didn't surface during this shopping experience and we managed to find all the right shops. And what was even more strange? I actually found clothes that fit! If you've ever been shopping with me, you'll know that I have a very, VERY hard body-type to shop for... being both short and Norwegian-shaped doesn't agree very well with American ideals of fashion. But apparently it does agree fairly well with African styles, and we had a very productive morning. It may seem like I'm going on about this in unnecessary detail, but it's just that I'm so excited not to be forced into wearing every hot-weather outfit in my wardrobe twice each week :).

Thanksgiving dinner was very nice as well. We were invited to the home of another US expat (something to do with either the Embassy or USAID, I'm not sure which) and it was a nice evening. A bit strange... there were many families there of mixed nationality, which was wonderful from a social standpoint, but I don't think I've ever celebrated Thanksgiving with so many people from outside the US! And I've certainly never schmoozed with Embassy folks before, so it was a really interesting experience. The dinner was lovely and I got my yearly pumpkin pie fix, so all in all I am considering the holiday a success.

Friday morning the De Sole family and I took off for Mphumalanga, which is basically the province North and East of Joburg. Our destination was the Blyde River Canyon, which is a beautiful spot! Overall, Mphumalanga is a beautiful province and much more like my home climate in Portland. In fact, it was cool, misty, and even rainy almost the whole time we were there! But despite all of this it was a beautiful spot. The first day was mostly driving to reach the area but we did stop to view a nice waterfall with a fun name (Mac-Mac Falls).

We stayed over Friday night in a cute town called Pilgrim's Rest. This was an old gold-mining town that has been converted into a historic tourist town. Very cute, despite the somewhat overpowering feeling that everything is made especially for tourists. In fact, you hardly see any evidence that there is a real town at all, and many of the employees have to live over the hills in a poor district that wouldn't be acceptable to the town's image. We had a nice dinner there (although my fish and chips came as a whole fish fried up in batter... at least I couldn't see the eyes gleaming at me because they were covered in batter!) and stayed the night in a historic hotel. It was fun... Natalie and I had a footy bathtub in our room and lamps that were converted old oil lamps. There were also candles and matches around the room which I thought were decorative until the power went out briefly at the restaurant we dined in for dinner. So there is at least one aspect of the rustic mining town left!

The best parts of Pilgrim's Rest were the jacaranda trees and the cemetary. Jacarandas are beautiful big trees that cover the ground with a beautiful carpet of purple flowers, and there were jacarandas lining most of the streets in the town. That leant a very idealistic feeling to the place, it was beautiful and very peaceful. The cemetary was fun because it was the historic cemetary and had graves from as far back as the 19th century. The story goes that a robber was killed in the nearby pass and they had nowhere to bury him, so they put him up on the top of the hill (you can actually still find the grave, it is marked oh-so-cleverly "robber's grave") and that was the start of the cemetary. It's a really interesting place though... lots of infants (very sad), men in their 30's (mining accidents and "skirmishes"), and interesting grave stones with prayers, etc. There are many nationalities represented, as you would expect in a gold-mining town that experienced a gold-rush) and many languages on the gravestones. There is also an interesting insight into the peoples' culture because the graves are all clustered together around the Robber's Grave except for the Jewish graves. They are in their own section that's separated by a row of shrubs. So apparently being buried next to a Robber was better than being buried next to a Jewish person? Interesting.

We headed off towards the Blyde River Canyon the next day, stopping at a few very lovely viewpoints. The problem was, even though the viewpoints themselves were beautiful, we couldn't see the views themselves for the fog! We did wait very patiently and get a few nice vistas when the fog would momentarily clear, but it wasn't the picturesque place we'd imagined from Pretoria when planning the trip. Instead, we had some interesting conversations with the ladies and gentlemen selling crafts in the parking lot, and Natalie's mother had an excellent time learning to play some wooden shakers and dance a bit :).

The nicest views of the day were at the Bourke's Luck Potholes, which were at the junction of two rivers. They are really interesting geological phenomena, and the best part is that you can view them from literally any of the 360 degrees that you choose. We were gawking and taking photos when Natalie's father pointed out a baboon... which was climbing among some boulders in the middle of a rushing river as if they were nothing. And it proceeded to jump across a VERY large gap to what looked like sheer rock wall, then scamper at least a hundred meters up the wall in less than 30 seconds and howl at us all for invading it's territory. Such a cool sight! I haven't ever seen an animal do something that impressive in person before. I was too busy gawking to get any photos, so you'll have to do without on this one. But believe me, it was amazing.

At the end of the day we stopped in a cute little cafe for lunch (Natalie's parents don't seem to need to eat ever... so our meal times were a bit odd!) where they made their own ginger beer. That's a drink I approve of, although it's a bit strange if you're expecting root beer! And that was it except for the drive home. During which Natalie and I may have almost driven her parents crazy... for all our chatting and singing and pillow-fighting (yes, that's right).

We ended the weekend on Sunday morning at yet another Pretoria mall. But this time we weren't in it for the shopping, we were looking for local music. And we found some good stuff! I think between the two of us we bought six or seven CDs.

Luckily for me, the return bus trip was uneventful. The only odd bit was that I hadn't actually arranged a lift home from the bus stop in Gabs. I anticipated a slew of taxi drivers harrassing me as I stepped of the bus (as there had been the first time), but the only one there got snapped up by someone else, leaving me a bit stranded. I did eventually get ahold of my friends at MaP... and crashed in my bed, only to wake up very few hours later for Monday morning classes!

Mosquitos with Striped Legs

Yes, that's right. The mosquitoes here do, indeed, have striped legs.



White stripes on black legs... it's a bit creepy looking actually, and while they're not as big as the buggers from Minnesota, they certainly pack a punch! And by that I mean they are eating me for lunch on a regular basis, or perhaps a midnight snack would be a more appropriate meal! I am really having terrible trouble with that. But luckily my body is adapting to their poison and the bites now fade really quickly, so I'm not constantly scratching like I have fleas :)

The mosquitoes aren't the only little buggers around with more than four legs. There are a ridiculous number of spiders here--correction, REALLY REALLY LARGE spiders--and they seem to enjoy hanging out in my bathroom! I am the only person living in my building, so I am also the only one who gets to take care of these things. Luckily, I have been informed that they are probably not poisonous... how comforting! And then there are the myriad moths, flies (who are so persistent I think we could learn a lot from them), millipedes, scorpions, cockroaches, termites, and other friends that all happen to exceed my allowed number of legs. If you ask me, anything more than four legs is trouble once you leave the hypothetical world and are talking about real life!

But aside from my non-mammalian roommates, life here in Gaborone is pretty good. I am living in an annex off of the girls' boarding house at the Maru-a-Pula school and eating meals with staff and students... turns out this is a very good deal for my budget! With the money I'm saving on room and board I'll be able to buy a laptop. How exciting! Actually, you can check out my future Watson-mobile at this link: http://store.shopfujitsu.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buildseriesbean.do?series=U810. It's going to be great... it will let me access all my data much easier and I'll be able to finish my transcriptions without relying heavily on the technology available at the schools I visit. AND it's just about the smallest laptop EVER.

Work has been a bit crazy! I have been teaching music appreciation courses to groups of Form 2 and Form 3 students (that translates roughly to 6th and 7th graders) and we've been having fun. I just got my first batch of papers to mark (grade), so it's been exciting to be a "real" teacher instead of just a practical teacher. Although, my attention to detail might actually make life harder for the students because I'm a picky teacher. When I assign a task, I expect to get what I asked for! But aside from this torture that I'm putting them through, we're having a good time.

I don't usually have a full schedule with these classes, so I've been spending some time covering for other teachers that are absent. I've done some History classes, some Drama, and I'm helping out in Phys Ed when I get the chance. So far we've done golf, kickball, and (of course) ultimate frisbee. I love this part of my day actually, it's a relief to get out of the classroom for a while to see the sun and just interact casually with the students. Not that I'm an expert at much when it comes to PE, but I do know the basics :).

The Maru-a-Pula school is surprisingly American. Now, maybe you'd expect this from the fact that the Headmaster is an American, but I have been reassured that this has been the case since long before he took over here. The school is very casual compared to most boarding schools in this part of the world... the uniform is very casual and the students don't even have to tuck in their shirts! This is a BIG deal here, believe me! And the school day ends early, 12:45pm, followed by mandatory after-school activities. I think this seems very American... most other African schools I've seen focus purely on academics. But there is a bit of necessity there too, since the school is only partially air-conditioned and it is just simply too hot to continue with classes after lunch. But the consequence is that we start EARLY. I haven't ever had to be up so early since high school myself! Staff briefing is at 6:50am each morning, and breakfast is at 6:10, so if I want to eat in the morning I have to really kick-start my day. All-in-all it has been quite an adjustment for me!

Marimba has been going very well so far. Although I had a bit of a slow start because of a long weekend and then the end of after-school activities for the term, I have spent increasing amounts of time with Alport Mhlanga in "lessons" during the afternoons. Whoooooo, it's so amazing to have the personal attention, but man is it intense! I've never been pushed so hard or fast on the marimba, and it's crazy to move on as soon as I get a grasp on a part or an exercise. For some of you, you'll probably laugh at this, but I'm not used to studying the marimba as such an academic instrument! It is good for me, though. I'm learning all sorts of things, mostly exercises for my left hand to catch up with the facility of my right hand. Turns out that marimba music is only right-hand dominanat in the Pacific Northwest, it sure wasn't in Cape Town and it isn't here! So my lame-duck left hand has to catch up. The problem is, I've developed a sore wrist and I don't know what from. It might be the marimba, but it also might be the typing that I'm doing. The school computers aren't set up well for prolonged typing because the keyboards are too high. But anyway, I'm coping with my wrist and doing the best I can!

In my spare time I have been borrowing a friend's mbira and tinkering around on it with the marimba songs that I know... it's almost hypnotizing sometimes with those circular pieces like Nehmamusasa where you can't always tell even where the beginning of the cycle falls. But I do chuckle a bit thinking of the F-perspective and the C-perspective now and again :).
I have also been dropping by the Chemistry tutoring sessions every Thursday afternoon to get my nerd-fix... which is always fun for me. And three weeks ago Saturday I went out to a town called Otse where there is a school for mentally and physically disabled children. This is a regular service activity run by MaP and it was fun to go meet the children and play with them a bit. It was also nice to see some of the countryside.

For Thanksgiving I got to go on a real trip, though! Natalie De Sole was in Pretoria visiting her parents (who are stationed there since last year) and I was invited to join them for the weekend. This is a whole story on its own, so it will get its own post... but it was a great weekend.

My wrist won't let me type any longer, so that will have to do for now!

And that's the news, folks!

Grrrrrr

My apologies to everyone who is waiting for me to post on my blog more about Gaborone and the Maru-a-Pula school. Unfortunately I just wrote a very long post that got deleted by blogger just as I was about to publish it... and I haven't got the patience to type it all up again just now. So, more tomorrow or over the weekend. Sorry, everyone!

Sarah

Gaborone

I have finally moved on to my second location--the Maru-a-Pula school in Gaborone, Botswana. Thanks to my wonderful contact at the school, Alport Mhlanga, they have me all set-up with a room in the boarding house, meals at the dining hall, etc. Now, this isn't the best arrangement sometimes, especially because it is very quiet in the "adult" area of the boarding complex, but I think it is still better (and cheaper) than finding a room on my own. Unfortunately, the dining hall doesn't cater to vegetarians... and they look at me a bit funny when I ask them if this or that dish has meat in it... but overall I think I'm happy with the arrangement. The only downside is that there aren't any cooking facilities available to me to supplement the dining hall fare, and the location of the school isn't convenient to any of the major commercial areas in Gaborone.

I've been sticking to campus for the most part since I arrived late on Tuesday night. This weekend will see me jumping right into Gabs, though, because it is actually a four-day weekend. That's a long time in a place you don't know at all! But the only scary bit are the combi taxis, which are similar to the minibuses in Cape Town. I'm not so intimidated of them as a form of transport, just that I don't know which route to take which direction, and I'm not so sure of myself with just jumping on. But I hope I'll figure it out this weekend--I certainly won't have much else to occupy me.

The weather has been a funny combination of hot and cold--the rain comes suddenly, without any warning, and just pours buckets of water. This is pretty unusual, I have been told, especially at this time of year, but it is nice because it makes everything nice and green. Apparently, this school campus hasn't seen so much green for ages! I am always impressed by plants that can survive in such harsh climates. And maybe I will also envy them in a few days if it gets seriously hot! I don't know how bad it gets, but I have been warned several times. The other problem with that is my wardrobe... I don't have too many nice teacher-y outfits for super hot weather.

I've gotten to see a bit of marimba so far, and I'm teaching some music classes to kids in grades 7 and 8. It will be interesting to see how my "professional" schedule shapes up over the next week or so! But the long weekend really puts a kink into that, because you can't establish a schedule when half the week is cancelled. Oh, well!

More updates next week, and hopefully some pictures as well. Wish me luck!

Non-marimba?

Well, this post will mostly be dedicated to the non-marimba activities that I have filled my life with here in Cape Town! Although I started off this project full of marimba ambitions, I have found that there is simply too much music and culture here to ignore the rest of it... and yet again, I have discovered how completely ignorant I am. It turns out that most musicians here don't play just one instrument... they play marimba and also drum, or steel pans, or mbira, and so on. The result? Being only a marimba player in this music culture has made me feel a bit less worthy in the world of African music! And my classical background is only marginally helpful in restoring my reputation :).

Last week (edit: two or three weeks ago) I spent a lot of time tutoring English and Math at Sithembele Matiso Senior Secondary School in Nyanga township.


My learners are the most lovely group of kids, they are in 11th Grade and they have some, but not lots, of English. Each one of them has this thirst to learn, though! They really try to catch each bit of information that you throw out to them. This makes it a bit ironic that most of the exam texts that we read are about how English language is the key to passing exams, getting ahead in life, etc. And the rest are about other "cultural" problems. Sometimes it's like everyone is afraid to use the word "race," even when it is warranted to describe a particular problem in the townships... and even on this blog post, I hesitated before writing it because you never know when someone will take your words and twist them in a way you didn't intend. Anyway, these learners are lovely. And they start their year-exams at the beginning of next week, so they needed all the extra boost they could get from us!

This past few weeks I have attended steel drum lessons run by a wonderful man named David Wickham. He heads up the Steelband Project, which is an organization that both teaches and performs on the steel pans. Apparently, the steel pan is another instrument that is attributable to the infamous Tracey family. I got to meet Andrew Tracey last week, he was in Cape Town to check out the Steelband Project and I chatted with him for a while. I am hoping to set up a visit with him at Grahamstown University later in the year to see his collection of African musical instruments and check out the International Library of African Music.

Anyway, the Steelband Project is doing great things. The rehearsals that I attend are bands of underprivileged youth--one group is part of a catholic youth project that takes in students off the streets, and the other is a group of kids from Langa, the oldest (and most musical) township in Cape Town.

These photos are of the street youth playing steel pans... they get so into it! And it's a very different sort of thing from the marimba. When kids play marimba they get excited because they are moving and hitting a big instrument and making lots of sound. The steelpans are much more delicate, so when these kids enjoy their rehearsals it is really the music itself that they're enjoying. Very cool to see!

The steel pan is constructed in the conventional manner for mallet instruments. Instead of having a linear pitch/space relationship, with adjacent notes sounding adjacent pitches in the scale, the steelpan pitches progress around the circle of fifths. This makes a lot of sense in terms of chord patterns and progressions, but it sure wreaks havoc on my melodic brain! I have played a bit at a few of the lessons and I was completely terrible at it until my brain shifted over to "circle of fifths mode." Regardless, it was quite fun.

I also spent a morning picking the brain of my drumming instructor from the drum circles that I attend in Observatory every week, Patrick Dilley. I went to his flat to look at some drums (which I have a beeeeeaaaauuuutiful one of now! See my photo below!) and we ended up talking music and drumming and musicians and Africa for the whole morning! It was very instructive to get inside his head and hear what he thought about the musicians in the area. Apparently there is a problem with integrity and loyalty in South Africa... any musician who sees an opportunity grabs it, whether it means switching to a rival company and disregarding years of training and assistance or even moving overseas. Makes sense to me, actually, but it still blows for him. I got to play on his balafon while I was there... it's a West African marimba-like instrument with gourd resonators. It was a beautiful instrument but the pentatonic scale really threw me a curve ball. I couldn't seem to find any melodies that were compatible! Too bad, really... but maybe I'll just have to travel to Ghana and get some training :).

A few weekends ago I went to the famed Castle of Good Hope. Actually, it's not really famed at all... it's just a castle in the middle of the city. But it was worth the visit, if only to get the view from the walls. I really enjoyed the museums on the Castle grounds and I might go back to take one of their guided tours. It's one of those places where there's not much to see but there's a great deal of history that makes the sights more interesting. That Sunday we went out to drive a beautiful road called the Franschoek Bus. The road goes out around Franschoek and through some gorgeous scenery. It was a cold day, so it felt nice to be warm and cozy in the car. We even got snowed on for a few minutes! It was very slushy snow, though.

Since then I've also been on a tour of the Winelands outside of Cape Town. The wine industry here is flourishing, but I think it is still trying to find it's identity. Unlike most wine regions, there is no specialty wine that is grown in each region. Instead, all the wineries simply pick a few to specialize in. That means there is a wide range of wine tasting available to a tourist here, but it makes me wonder what grape really grows best here, or if the microclimate of each farm is really so different that you can grow anything you want in different areas. Somehow, I think that as the wine industry matures here in the Western Cape there will be a specialty emerging. We had a good time on the wine tour, but the weren't stunning. Many of the reds from the region are too fruity for my taste and the whites too... tasteless. But there were also some jewels hidden in between... the Pinotage is very nice from some of the farms and I had a wonderful Mourvedre. Anyhow, it was a nice tour!

Goodness... there is still so much more to say and I am out of energy to type it. So I think I will leave the rest for another post... which will come soon, I promise!

Smile and Say Hello

I was thinking today that it has been quite a while since I posted to this blog in leisure... so perhaps it is time for me to share some of my ponderings.

For quite some time I have been thinking about the simple poverty of the wonderful people that surround me. And more than that, I have been thinking about the blindness that is bred into the wealthy so they don't see a problem in their fellow South Africans' way of life. And yet, despite this divide, there is such politeness here, such manners. There is a wonderful sense of respect and propriety. Not everyone carries this sensibility, but the good seem to outnumber the bad. Even when you encounter a beggar on the street, he or she will start by saying something incredibly polite, "excuse me, lady, but may I ask you a question?" The contradictory nature of this question is a bit comical if you think about it, but still--very polite.

amaAmbush Marimbas is located in the Azaad Independent Youth Services Center in District Six. Now, for those of you who have not been to Cape Town, District Six is an area just outside the city center where a township community was brutally evicted. Because of the racism and terror that are a part of South Africa's past, this site has become a memorial to the problems facing the country. Much of the district remains open land, grassy space with the remnants of paved roads in places, but it isn't really cared for by anyone. There is a rickety wooden sign as you walk past one of these grassy areas notifying the public that this site has been selected for a memorial park to commemorate the struggle. The sign reads "A nation of people, not races" and everyday I think about how the sign's state of disrepair erodes its real message. But I have been distracted from my original purpose in describing District Six. The area itself is not very safe because there is all this open land--meaning no houses or shops. Across the road on my walk to work is the City Campus of Cape Peninsula University of Technology, but it doesn't really improve the safety of the area because it is simply a long fence from the street I commute on.

When you meet someone on the road in this area, you take a good look at them. Most of the time when I don't trust someone walking towards me I simply cross the road and take myself out of their way. But sometimes you get so caught up in being cautious and mistrusting people. I know that every now and then I simply need to remind myself that the good people outnumber the bad ones and that all I really need to do is keep smiling and saying hello to the people who deserve a bit of kindness.

The other day I met someone who completely backed up this belief. I was walking away from Azaad when I was overtaken on the sidewalk by a dark-skinned man pushing a toddler in a small stroller. The first thing I thought of was, 'is this a gimmick? Is he going to mug me while I'm thinking how cute his boy is?' Instead of an undercover mugger, he turned out to be a very nice man named Matthew. He first said hello and asked me about Azaad, as he had just seen the students leaving for the day and was curious about the center. Now, Azaad is run-down enough that I think anyone would be curious about it after seeing loads of teenagers leaving... it just doesn't look nice enough to be a university. But anyway, we started chatting about Azaad and he asked me what I taught there. So the conversation turned to the marimba and we talked about traditional music and Zimbabwean music, and it turns out that he has family in Zim. And then he asked me what I was doing in SA and I asked about his family, and in the end we had a very nice chat. Surprisingly, he even offered to give me the address of his family in Zimbabwe so that I would have a safe place to stay if I visited. What a nice guy! And I was worried about being mugged.

Now, for those of you who are worried that I will be jumping into a car to race off to Zimbabwe with a guy I hardly know, don't fret! I am (surprisingly) a bit smarter than that. But I think it's an excellent example of the kindness that exists here on an everyday basis. It's so different than back home, where we never would have had that conversation at all, and certainly not ended it with such a generous offer.

Azaad offers another example of the daily kindness of South Africans in the most unlikely place! My students are rough characters there, but they are so polite to me. Even though sometimes they're typical teenagers and talking during your explanations or joking around in the corridors, they will still turn around and say hello when I approach, ask me how I'm doing, or offer to hold the door. Now, perhaps that's because I'm a marimba teacher and not an English or Math teacher, but I think it is because these students understand the concept of respect. Even when they don't act respectfully towards you, they at least know what they're doing... although that doesn't make disrespectful behavior any less disrespectful!

Everyone I have talked to at Azaad worries about how I will cope with the classes. It's funny, really, because I haven't really had any serious trouble with them at all. Over and over, teachers, marimba folks, the cooks, caretakers, etc. tell me that these students are "a rough bunch" and ask me how it's going for me--in such a tone of concern. Maybe they think I can't handle the gangsters... and maybe I can't. But the wonderful part about it is that the students themselves take care of me too. I don't know how I have managed to come off as a delicate little thing, but my students really try to help me by managing their unruly peers and letting me know when someone's trying to pull a fast one on me. The classes I get are almost always engaged by the marimba, with at most a few that are indifferent musicians or troublemakers. And the ones that are really involved understand that the screw-ups only take away from their chance to play and learn marimba. I don't think that any of them will ever read this blog, but I hope that they know how much I respect them for having the guts to stand up to their peers. That is the hardest thing to teach back home...and I know that helping me with a class isn't the same as holding up to peer pressure involving gangs or drugs or anything, but it is a step in the right direction. Maybe it is my youth that makes them want to help me. Maybe it's that I'm short, female, white, blonde-ish, etc... but whatever it is, I sure appreciate their help and respect them for it.

Every now and then I will meet a random person on the street who turns out to be absolutely wonderful, and it will remind me to have a bit more faith in people. Although safety is a concern here, I think we can get too caught up in it. Do you ever wonder if the people you meet on the side of the road can tell what you're thinking? Sometimes I wonder what my face is telling people. When I squint in the sunlight, do I look stressed or afraid of them? When I'm tired, do I look arrogant or bored? You never know when the person you encounter on the road might be a mugger, but you also never know who they are at all. Maybe that person will grow up to cure cancer or AIDS. Maybe they will be the next Gandhi or Nelson Mandela. You can't know if they deserve your inadvertant glower or grimace, so why not smile and say hello?

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- We have information for 53 countries in Africa. You can choose a country from the list below.

ALGERIA: El Watan, El Khabar, Liberté - ANGOLA: Presa Escrita, Journal de Angola, Angola Press - BENIN: L'Araignée, Press Benin, Sonangnon - BOTSWANA: Botswana Press Agency, The Voice, Gazette, Mmegi - BUKINA FASO: Le Pays, Sidwaya, L'Observateur Paalga, L'Indépendant, AIB, - BURUNDI: Abarundi, Info Burundi, ARIB Flash-Info - CAMEROON: Le Messager, La Nouvelle Expression, Cameroon-info - CAPE VERDE: A Semana, Ewpresso das Ilhas, Cabo verde online - CENTRAL AFRICAN REP.: Centrafrique Presse, Le Confident, ACP, ID+ - TCHAD: Tchadien, Ndjamena Hebdo


CONGO: Legi Congo, Congo plus, Les dépêches de Brazaville, Mwinda - DEM. REP. CONGO (Zaire): Congo online, Radio Okapi - DJIBOUTI: - EGYPT - Equatorial Guinea - Eritrea - Ethiopia - GABON: Agp, Internet Gabon - Gambia - Ghana - Guinea Bissau - Guinea - Ivory Coast - Kenya - Lesotho - Liberia - Libya - Madagascar - Malawi - Mali - Mauritania - Mauritius - Morocco.


- Mozambique - Namibia - Niger - Nigeria - Reunion - Rwanda - São Tomé and Principe - Senegal - SEYCHELLES: Seychelles Nation - SIERRA LEONE: Concord Times Newspaper, Standard Times press, Cocorioko, Stat House - SOMALIA: Somaliland Times, Wardheernews, Hiiraan Online, Ogaden Online, arkacadey.net - SOUTH AFRICA: IOL, The Times, News24, Iafrica, Cape Argus, Business Day, Star - SUDAN: Sundan Tribune, Darfur Genocide, Sudan JEM, Free Sudan, Rayaam - SWAZILAND: Swaziland Gov., Times, The Swazi Observer - TANZANIA: Arusha Times, Tanzania News, IPPmedia, The Express Online - TOGO: République Togolaise, Le Togolais - TUNISIA: - UGANDA: Monitor, Sunday Vision, New vision, Ugandalink, Bukedde - ZAMBIA: Zambia Daily Mail, The Post, Times of Zambia, Zambia News Agency, The Zambian - Zanzibar - ZIMBABWE: Zimbabwe Independent, The Standard, The Zimbawe Times, Zimmirror, Zimbabwe Daily News, Financial Gazette, New Zimbabwe, Zim Online.