(Retro- blogging)

Wonder- boom! A fitting name for a gate through which I was to make my first foray into the wonderful world of African safari. It was early September, almost 2 weeks after I got here, and Leslie and I drove up to Madikwe game park, which is situated in northern ZA, just south of the border with Botswana. And I would have gone to Botswana and had a coffee there with Brian and Jenny when they went at the end of the weekend, but I brilliantly left my passport at home. Smart, driving around a foreign country sans-passport. Go me.

But the trip was still great. We drove most of Saturday morning - I took a few pictures along the way, but the one thing my camera couldn't really capture were the literally hundreds of people we passed on the trip that were thumbing rides. Probably thousands is more accurate. Its just part of life here, they don't have cars, so they stand out in the African heat and try to get a ride. And here we zip past in our air-conditioned Toyota with an empty back row of seats. But you can't pull over and help them, because a) its not safe, b) it would be totally out of the ordinary and who knows how they might react to a white person doing that, and c) its not safe. People just don't do that here. Not one of the people we passed trying to get a ride was white. I resolved then and there on that drive that if I ever live here, I will own a pick-up truck, and I will give rides.

So, yeah. We arrived early afternoon at the gates to the park, and then took the poorly-kept dirt/rock road back to the particular resort that Jenny had booked us at. Saw a lot of stuff on the way in - the first wild thing I saw up close was the springbok, fittingly, followed soon by a kudu, up real close.

Then a joey, standing right by the road.









Then some zebra (I've learned its properly pronounced "zeb-ra" not "zeeb-ra"). Then we were at the lodge, and Brian and Jenny pulled in a couple minutes after us, in the ugliest car in the whole of ZA.

We were greeted with moist towels and champagne (or juice, I can't remember which), had a nice light lunch of fish cakes and salad, settled into our rooms (which were extravagantly 5-star African bush-lodge awesome), and marveled over what is my new favorite thing that I will have someday - a shower that opens via sliding glass door out onto the deck with an incredible view. So its kind of like showering outside, except you're enclosed enough by the way the building is designed to have sufficient privacy. If you don't mind some animals watching you bathe.


Checked out the pool and the view of the valley a bit, and then it was time for our first eveing game drive.

















This is basically what I saw for the majority of the gamedrive. This is basically what you see for the majority of any gamedrive - the rest of the people in the Land Rover in front of you (if you're smart enough to sit in the highest row, in the back, where you will get the best pictures and also run the risk of being gored to death through the seat by an angry elephant tusk, which I later came to find happened a couple weeks before we got there to some poor dude), and the general landscape. Actually most of the time you're searching the landscape for animals, but it takes a while to find some.


This was our guide. He is holding a piece of crap and explaining the wonderful world of the dung beetle to us. He was very knowledgeable about the terrain, wildlife, plantlife, and everything else, right down to the crap.






The first thing of any significance (read: not springbok) that we saw was a crazy looking bird (that's its actual, real, scientific name, I kid you not).

Then we pulled up right next to a family of lions. Because, apparently, this is what people do every day in places like this. I was sitting, literally, 5 feet away from a small pride of wild lion. Me: wow. Lion: yawn. Needless to say we took a lot of pictures / footage. That was pretty much the high point of day one, and the trip so far, for that matter.



This is him about to pounce and devour us as we lie twitching and screaming in pools of our own blood. Or yawning. You decide.










MMMbeeeer. Or, as they call it on safari, a "sun- downer." I still call it MMMbeeeer.





Dinner was tres awesome, as the French say, and I will allow it to speak for itself:




























There was one couple off having dinner in a secluded area of their own, they were on honeymoon or it was the wife's birthday or some such nonsense, but anyway it meant that after dessert we were treated to some real live tribal singing from the local kids who worked the kitchen / tables, which was pretty neat. I caught some of it on my camera's video function, but the light was pretty poor. Then we sat out on our deck and saw stars I've probably never seen before that night. That was a nice evening.


WAKE UP ITS MORNING ALREADY. Time for morning game drive. Now its me doing the yawning, but only until we cruise up next to mother elephant and her extended family. She looked not very happy with us, but didn't make signs of a charge, so we got some good shots. There were maybe 30 of them or so altogether, and unlike how you normally find elephant (eating, eating, and then stopping to eat, after which they eat some more), these guys were on a mission for something or other - we followed them for a few km across the plain, maybe they were headed to water, we never found out because we ran into another family of lions that had just finished a delightful breakfast of wildebeest.


Hi I'm a wildebeest.











Hi, we're lions. That red stuff around our mouths? That's the wildebeest.








Saw a few more zebs, wildes, joeys, and other stuff on the way back but nothing much new. Once back we had a late, oboxiously large breakfast - basically they serve you all this food - cereals, muffins, meats, cheeses, fruits - and then they come out and ask you what you'd like for breakfast - eggs, omlette, ham, toast, fried tomato, etc..















So you can get some idea of the main lodge...

Where we ate














Stairs to main lobby















One of the decks














Stairs up to the pool

















Another deck















Then it was time to pack up and go. On our way out of the park, we came RIGHT up on a family of elephant trying to find some shade in the trees next to the road. I mean we were very close, but they didn't seem to mind, probably because it was too darn hot to be chasing away any smallish shiny silver human mover things.


I drove Leslie to JNB where she hopped on her flight back to the states, and then I was alone here in SA, which was an interesting feeling. Brian and Jenny, meanwhile, drove up to the Botswana border, had coffee in Botswana, and then drove back to their place in Joburg.

But at least I didn't have to bribe the police after being caught speeding.
















(Editor's note: I've been going through all kinds of hell and high water trying to get this stupid spacing right on posts with pictures lately so that it actually appears half decent in FireFox. Need to figure out a way around that, but in the meantime, if the post looks all funky to you, its probably b/c you're viewing via Internet Explorer. Which is your loss.)

(Here's another new theme I'm kicking off here on the blog, similar to retroblogging. This one will be known as "story time." You get the idea. Might be real, might be fake, but most likely, its the former. And for these first few ones I have in mind, they're most likely an adaptation of an email or IM conversation I've had recently. You'll know its story time, because it will start with "It is now time to talk about...", which happens to be my favorite way to start any story. Enjoy.)

It is now time to talk about the hallucinations.

I'm on a malaria medication whilst here in Africa, you don't need it for most of South Africa (except Kruger park, where it is carried prolifically by the M.O.U.S.'s, or Mosquitos of Unusual Size, as they are known here. Seriously, Brian and I saw one eating a bee. A BEE.). Anyway, you do need it for much of the rest of Africa, like Kenya, and Zambia, both of which I've spent time in recently and still have to blog about.

So, the medication. First off let's point out that it won't prevent you from getting malaria. Only copius amounts of deet and running faster than the bugs can fly will do that. So there's that. It does lessen the effects of the disease, if you get it, which some locals argue might take you longer to realize you actually have it, which is detrimental, if you don't get to the doc sooner rather than later, to get tested and treated if in fact you do have it.

But everybody takes it, so, whatever. Basically there's two types, the once-a-week-you-might-have-hallucinations-type or the once-daily-other-probably-less-noticeable-side-effects-one (no hallucinations with that one). Shakespeare said "Know thyself," (although I once had a friend try to tell me it came from the Bible), and, well, having my horrible memory, taking a pill every day for a month and a half just isn't going to happen. I'm lucky enough to remember to take the thing once a week. Well, no, I'm not even that lucky, as you'll see shortly. Maybe its because there's no such thing as luck.

Early on, however, this malaria med had not been too hard to remember, because every Saturday night was hallucination night! Yay. Pass the popcorn. The first time I was supposed to take it before leaving for my London / Nairobi trip, both of which I've spent time in recently and still have to blog about. But I forgot. So I found myself debating whether or not to take it on the flight up to London (an overnight flight), but I very smartly didn't. Having my first dose at 37,000 feet over western Africa probably would have ended not very well, and by "not very well" I mean "in a London prison."

The first one in London actually wasn't that exciting. I was exhausted from the trip and my first day in London, so a couple of vodka cranberries and the pill and I was out for the night. There may have been some minor Mary Poppins related stuff (the animated part, in particular, also Dick Van Dyke dancing in that stupid outfit) in my dreams, but that's about it. Pretty tame.

The next week I was back in SA, after the brief trip to Kenya, and there were some pretty intense thunderstorms. And by "pretty intense" I mean "the worst I've ever heard in my life." Put the midwest ones I heard as a kid to shame. That was, suffice to say, a long night. I probably had about 60 dreams of nuclear holocaust, most of them beginning with me fleeing a glowing, flattened Manhattan in the background as my skin started to fall off.

The following week, I'm happy to report, was much worse, however, because it was just windy, and I had left the kitchen windows open. That's not so bad. Unless the kitchen windows have those thin-metal blinds, and the wind keeps banging them around all night long. And you're living in a country that has bars on all the doors and windows and you're inside a complex with a security guard and walls and electric fences at the top of the walls, and you regularly hear stories of break-ins and robberies and hi-jackings and whatnot. So that night I was up at least 3-4 times, in my shorts, ready to kill the non-existant-villans who were breaking in, with my flashlight, before I figured out that it was the wind. Each time, lights on in the whole place, search it for bad guys, ready for them to pop out of every closet, and then somehow I turn off the lights and go back to bed without thinking to close the window. I wasn't thinking very clearly.

Then, the 4th week, no weather, I figure I'm set. No nuclear bombs going off nearby because the weather is nice out, no people breaking in because the kitchen window is now closed, I'm going to finally have some more peaceful hallucinations.

No, instead, I get scorpions shooting across the floor. I had forgotton about the insect / spider problem here - they're bigger and they're more a part of everyday life, shall we say. So that's what the brain went with that night. Took me a while to get from the couch to bed, where I slept on top of the covers.

I've learned that London was the best idea. Now I won't have this pill with less than a little wine in me first, so I know I'm gonna crash immediately.

Last week wasn't too bad, nothing that I particularly remembered the next morning, although I was due for another one this past weekend and I've forgotten it for 3 straight nights now, so tonight is the night.

Not sure why I couldn't get the fun trippy mushroom hallucinations - not that I'd know what they're like - but I'd imagine recreational drugs make you see happier things. I certainly don't see happy things. Mine seem to be mainly related to stuff that you should naturally have a healthy fear of: anger-of-God thunderstorms (and/or nuclear war), break-ins, and the pervasive spider problem. Apparently, though, after I deal with it the first time, I'm fairly certain my brain can cancel it out for next time, seeing as I haven't had any repetition.

Maybe tonight I'll get ones about having to write a deliverable about a subject I have no experience on. Because there's been some of *that* going on lately, too.

I have, somewhat recently, come to the rather clear realization that I have a fairly textbook case of introversion. That is to say: I am an introvert. (I say that in the same manner I might had I just stood up in a big empty church basement with a group of 20 other people sitting in a circle holding styrofoam coffee cups - "Hi, my name is David…and I am an introvert.")

I have yet to conclude whether it is a good thing, a bad thing, or perhaps some of both. I think the most likely conclusion, however, is that it is in fact, none of the above. Its just a thing.

There is a day that I remember - a few years ago at most - that for me, is the best illustration I can possibly conjure to describe how I best relate to people. If a person (any person) could understand how and why I felt it was a such great day, I think they would, perhaps, "get" me a little better. And I think a lot of people do not "get" me - this is the typical claim of the introvert. We don't feel "got," and its usually not a good feeling.

It was while I was still living in the NYC area, a surprisingly warm weekend in the middle of winter. My friend Rebecca had come up from Virginia or Philly or wherever it was she was living at the time, and she had her aunt and sister with her. I don't remember where they were staying, but I do remember heading out for beers in Union Square with them on the Friday evening, at the Heartland Brewery. I got the coolest picture on my phone of Sarah, Rebecca's sister, drinking a beer (she was underage, so it screamed of scandal and I swore I would send it to her parents). It was just a really nice evening. It was right about the time that Rebecca and I were realizing what a great friendship we really had. We were friends - and only that - but just that, all the same.

The next morning, Saturday, Sarah and the aunt were off to do the touristy bits of the city, and Rebecca just wanted to hang out. Which is what I enjoy most and am most likely to be found doing on any lazy winter Saturday - just hanging out.

I remember it was warm enough that we had the door to the roof deck open and the sun was filling the apartment. I remember that Rebecca was reading something, likely a book, and I was busy cleaning up my messy desk and goofing around on the internet.

I wish I could remember the rest of the details, because it really is one of my favorite days that I can remember, but I can't - and I actually am glad, in a way, that I can't. The details don't matter here so much as the emotional memory I have of that day: I was at peace. I was busying myself with minor things, stumbling upon things forgotten, allowing the mind to mull over the week before or ahead. I was taking time for the brain to do an internal audit of sorts. A defrag. A disk cleanup.

It wasn't that either of us were doing nothing at all, although we both might very well have been, at some point. It was that regardless of what we were or were not doing, there was not the slightest perceived need for communication about the doing or lack thereof. There was just peaceful quiet.

But not the peaceful quiet that comes when you are totally alone. That can be a good (wonderful, even) peaceful quiet. I crave those peaceful quiets, from time to time. I crave them in small ways, daily - when the brain knows its time to shut down the computer and go forage for food. I crave them in big ways, often - when I've had wonderful weekend with friends, but its just time to go back to my home. These peaceful quiets are good, and necessary, and exactly what I am not talking about here.

We had the peaceful quiet of the presence of another person in that same state of repose.

Presence.

There's something about presence.

I am sure this occurs within marriages, and although I wouldn't know, I would hopefully speculate. But this, I do know, can happen amongst friends. Yet it hasn't happened to me much, which is why that day stands out. I have had other occasions, but I've found that very few people in my life can understand the unique pleasure that comes out of so many contiguous moments being shared, and perhaps even relished, in silence.

Silence.

There's something about that too.

Do you know those people who can't sit at home without having the television or stereo on - some form of background noise even if they aren't dedicating themselves fully to the medium at the moment? I don't intend to vilify - I've been that person myself at times, but you know what I'm intimating - that constant need for aural stimulation. The car radio must be on, even if low; the television providing some din of life in from the corner of the room, combined with the soothing high-pitched electronic buzz that our generation has come to accept as a very real and necessary part of life. It is noise for noise sake - it is the absence of silence.

We've been stimulated, as it were, to the point that we can't stand *not* to be stimulated. The lack of it causes us to seek it out - we turn on the internet or reach for our cell phone or even for the latest magazine - something to focus our brain on so that we don't have to face the horror of focusing it on nothing, and perhaps hearing the ripples what lies beneath the surface.

And this is how we cut ourselves off from our own spirit. As long as we can keep the brain occupied, there's no time for reflection or introspection, no time for self examination or perhaps critique, and thus no opportunity for spiritual and mental growth. Instead you just stay there in your perpetual state of placated dormancy (not altogether unlike the humans in The Matrix, if a pop-culture reference isn't too ironic at this point).

There is something about being able to return to silence - and we do so very much have to return to it. The world we live in is structured primarily around the absence of it, and so we must make the conscious journey to those times and places where things stop speaking to our brain and it can deal with itself on its own. There is something about those times that makes them so very peaceful - even in those times where the reflection might bring up some past hurt or wrong that needs to be dealt with - even then, there is the underlying peace that, finally, it is being acknowledged. There is peace in the silence.

Its that beautiful peace, when combined with the wonderful presence of another person sharing it - that is my perfect day. There is no need for words, just the implied trust and comfort in the mutual understanding of the relationship with the other person, regardless of its contexts. A "poignant form of intimacy," as a friend once put it.

I've had many moments of personal reflection on my own, over the years - some pleasant, and some not so enjoyable - but what have been fewer and further between are the instances in which I shared the experience with other persons. I had it with a friend on a long road trip to see my sister and a football game - time to just watch the scenery roll by and think. It happened with another while she cooked us a Sunday meal and I enjoyed my book in the sun. And with another in a canoe we shared floating through silent river valleys. I can think of a couple of friends who have, at the best of moments, looked at me with a smile that says more than words could, and yet is free from the need of them, at the same time.

This is how I best relate to people. When I can be with you and not feel a need for words, or at least very few of them, I am at peace.

I wouldn't argue on behalf of introverts - that they are able to more easily reach this state of quiet repose, or that they are better in some way because of their awareness of it. Rather, I'd simply offer that the typical introvert senses a need for this more deeply - perhaps not even consciously, but often we find ourselves longing for those environments where the quiet can be bathed in. In fact, sometimes, the situations that prevent the comfort of quiet very often can become stressful for us.

And, as much as I'd like it to be the answer, I don't think requiring everyone else to understand and pander to how I'm psychologically structured is the correct response here. While I do believe that society at large does need to be more sensitive to much of the aforementioned, the pessimistic part of me doesn't expect people to change much. So, here are a few things I've been trying to implement in my life in order to mitigate some of the challenges that introversion often fosters:

1. Eye contact. I've been trying to use it more frequently in conversations with people to help them feel acknowledged. Further, I've been playing around with this in the context of what I'll term "experimenting." Its interesting to hold a person's gaze until they look away. It changes the dynamics of a situation - be it the gas station attendant, a co-worker, or a girl at a bar. Its something that takes concerted effort, but I am making it, when I remember to.

2. Small talk. I have always, and likely always will, have a severe distaste for small talk. I do not feel the need to state the obvious, repeatedly, every day. To talk about the weather when every human with the basic functioning senses already knows what the freaking weather is like. BUT...many people find small talk to be the lubrication of conversation - the initial part of connecting with other people that will eventually allow you to open into the deeper things. And, so, I've been working on this too - voicing thoughts that I normally would have just let slip by without a word spoken. Trying to compliment things I admire. Trying to find interesting things to share in the monotony of the day. I am working on all these and more.

3. Being more up-front about who I am. Like this post for example.

4. Asking questions. Questions that I might not really be curious about, but trying to develop a genuine interest in the little things about other people. Questions that encourage other people to open up about who they are and what cooks their bacon. Questions that take the focus off of me and helps me to more genuinely care about others.

So, this is where I'm at. Its a growing, evolving thing, but at least now I'm beginning to see it for what it is. Take this post, itself, for example. I've had it mostly written for over a month now. I've been reading articles and writing in discussion forums and getting lots of good input on the topic from friends and strangers alike, but I haven't felt like the post was quite ready, because it feels I learn something new (even if its small) almost every day, that applies to this situation that I will refer to as "life."

I've been thinking of this as my "Introvert's Manifesto." But it just can't be that, because once I post this, I'm going to go out and spend an evening mostly alone, and then a day following with friends and co-workers, and I'm going to realize something else about how I and they approach the world, and how that's different, and how that's ok. This post can never be what I want it to be. I'll never really be able to communicate exactly what I'm trying to say here, at least not in this life. And that's fine.

Sometimes, when you're down in the count, its just a really comforting thing to stop and realize that you get to play in the game.

The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving.- H. W. Westermayer

It would seem that the ingratitude, whereby a subsequent sin causes the return of sins previously forgiven, is a special sin. For, the giving of thanks belongs to counter passion, which is a necessary condition of justice. But justice is a special virtue. Therefore this ingratitude is a special sin. Thanksgiving is a special virtue. But ingratitude is opposed to thanksgiving. Therefore ingratitude is a special sin. - Thomas Aquinas

Once, when my feet were bare, and I had not the means of obtaining shoes I came to the chief of Kufah in a state of much dejection, and saw there a man who had no feet. I returned thanks to God and acknowledged his mercies, and endured my want of shoes with patience. - Sadi

Buenas turkeys and happy thanksgiving, folks.

Haven't been able to get around to any decent blogging time lately and there certainly won't be any time before Saturday as I'm fully booked between now and then, unless I get a few minutes to put the finishing touches on the introvert's manifesto that I've mentioned previously.

Work has been going well, albeit a little behind schedule. I'm wrapping up my first deliverable and starting my second this week, and will definitely have to pick up the slack with this second one and knock it out a bit faster than originally planned, which won't be easy, as this will the more difficult one to write.

Its cool to be working so hard for a client that I daily wish I could do even better for. I could get used to this.

My new roommate and the consultant working on our project, Paul, showed up this week. We won't be rooming together til the end of the month, and until then I'm still in my own place with the deck that I will miss having. Turns out I didn't lose my apartment-with-great-deck karma when I came here. Actually, the one at the place Paul and I will be sharing isn't half bad either. Actually, we have two at the new place...

Zambia was pretty cool, the week before last. I'll be writing about that once I get the pictures up, etc.. Which, if we work chronologically, won't happen until after I've blogged Medikwe, Cape Town, and Kruger. Oy.

I was pretty sick the weekend after we got back from Zambia and thought it might be Malaria from Kruger or a really bad strain from Zambia, but the first test came back negative and I was feeling better a day or two later. Not sure what that was about.

I've been back on the running horse, pretty regularly - have been getting in 5 miles a weekday, but I figure that's close enough to what I was at before, given that I'm running at 5k feet higher than I was back in the states. It makes a significant difference, especially given that my route now is pretty much 100% hills. Its also a social experience here - there are a ton of bikers and a handful of other runners out from 5:30-6:30am, which is usually about when I'm running. The sun comes up at 5 here - wakes you up pretty dang early. Anyway, the foot is feeling better, and I'm enjoying being out again. And I met one of my neighbors last night, she's pretty cool and invited me to check out her running group, so now I have friends to run with, hopefully. She said they do 18-kilo time trials on weekends - 11 miles sounds just about right to me.

What else? Tomorrow is dinner with Gib, the guy who leads the entire Accenture Developing Partnerships group. I was in charge of picking the location, so we're going with the Butcher Shop, which is supposed to be the best steakhouse in Joburg. Looking forward to that.

Thursday Tracy (the other manager here on the project with me) and I are headed to the Webb's for a Thanksgiving dinner that evening. David Webb is one of the pastors of the Every Nations church I've been attending down in Joburg, and he and his wife invited us to spend the evening with them and a whole bunch of other Americans they are having over that night. They're from Virginia originally, I think.

Friday our client, Gerard, has invited us - Tracy, Paul, and I over to his family's place for a little impromptu Thanksgiving celebration with them. Their daughter is in school in the states and has educated them on the holiday - and they seem keen to the idea.

Saturday I'm going to catch up on work and enjoy an evening to myself for a change. And maybe blog.

Its raining here in PTA again. Not one of the epic thunderstorms like before, but rainign all the same. Hope it lasts til morning so I can run in it, but given that's unlikely - it only rains at night here for some reason

I just booked flights home (woot). Will be in the states for almost a month - which is in a way great and also a bit of a bummer - I'm loving it over here, so I might try to fly back a little earlier. Anyway, here's the plan as it currently stands (read: ticketed).

12/11: Depart Joburg (JNB) in the evening. Fly northwest for 6,000 hours.

12/12: Arrive NYC (JFK) early morning. Hopefully grab a shower / change at somebody's place, maybe meet up with some peeps for lunch.

12/12: Depart NYC (LGA) mid-afternoon. Arrive Denver (DEN) mid-evening.

12/13-14: Work in DEN.

12/14: Depart DEN mid-evening. Arrive Sacramento (SMF) late evening.

12/14-27: Home in Cali.

12/27: Depart SMF early morning. Be delayed ridiculously in O'Hare, have flashbacks to previous project. Arrive NYC (EWR) early evening.

12/27-1/8: Kick it NYC style. Jason and Jules' wedding on the 28th. Hoping to get a standby flight back earlier than 1/8, but this is unlikely, so I will probably be working out of the NYO for a bit.

1/8: Depart JFK early evening. Fly southeast for 5,900 hours.

1/9: Arrive JNB early evening.

I love my job today.

Retro- blogging is a term that I invented (as far as I know) when I started reading Brian's blog posts about our weekend adventures that he was finally writing, a good deal after they happened. I am now commencing the same, and I'm using my Flickr photo sets, which can be found here, as a guide.

I first arrived in Joburg in the afternoon of August 20th - a Monday, and spent the following week working with Leslie at our offices in Brooklyn (yes, irony, I am working in a neighborhood called Brooklyn). Leslie was off to Kruger that weekend, and I stayed in town to settle down and get my bearings a bit. Friday night I packed a bag and headed down to Brian and Jen's place. Brian and I went out for dinner and then hit The Blues Room afterwards, where we experienced some incredible music thanks to the fact that it was SA's annual jazz / blues festifal.

The next morning we woke up and headed for Soweto - the SOuth WEst TOwnships of Joburg, hence the name. Apparently the clever naming conventions for certain parts of cities isn't germain solely to Europe and the northeastern US. Soweto is where the Apartheid museum is. You might think you don't know any Afrikaans, but the entire world knows one Afrikaans word: apartheid.


The first thing that struck me when we drove up was how very empty the parking lot was. That was my first realization that Johannesburg, for all intents and purposes, is not really that much of a tourist town. The foreigners I've met here by in large part, so far, have been like me - here for work. The city simply does not have a tourism draw like Cape Town. 10AM on a Saturday morning and not more than a couple dozen cars in the parking lot. Sad, in a way, but at least we would have the museum to ourselves.

The tickets (you either got a white or a black one) determined which door you got to go in, and what you got to see upon entering. We were able to come back to the start of each, but it was an interesting design for the entrance. And the interesting design wouldn't end there - practicaly the entire museum was extremely well thought out - architecturally, aesthetically, artistically. When I got home I researched it a little and found that the design was undertaken by a consortium of architects, and the exhibits were similarly fashioned - by teams of curators, filmmakers, historians and designers. The whole museum, although it operates in a not-for-profit manner, was originally built by a private consortium as part of their bid to build the casino / theme park that sits across the parking lot from the museum.


I think the pictures say a lot, although I feel like I only got a fraction of the museum captured in them. It was a detailed, mostly dismal walk through the history of this nation, from its societal origins, to its dramatic shifts, to the mining societies and the following years of oppression. It began with the smack in the face of what life in the worst times - not too long ago - was really like: separate entrances, the endless signs, the quotes that simply shocked you at what passed for "normal" at the time. The word "classification" took on a whole new meaning.


Once through the entrance, the museum essentially did a flash-back to the roots of the people of South Africa, black, white, and "coloured" as they term it here - you're either one of the first two, or you are something else (a mix, or another race entirely). It didn't take long to move through the history of the country into the more modern times, when things truly started to spiral (not to gloss over the fact that the more ancient history wasn't a bowl of cherries either, of course).

Some of the worst parts of the earlier clashes of the 20th century were well documented, at least photo- graphically speaking. There was an incredible array of thoughtful, poignant photography of the strife and the people behind it. I recall being simultaneously shocked by the depravity that men (mainly of my own skin tone) would sink to, and deeply impressed by those rare white individuals who were willing to stand with the resistance and refuse to quietly accept the status quo of the time. I don't diminish the struggles that the black man has had in South Africa, but I can't, at the same time, imagine how alone those very few white men - who were fighting against "their own," after a fashion - must have felt.




One of the really gripping things about the experience was the transition from black and white stills to black and white video, to color video. Watching and listening to this piece of history in the same media that I would go home and watch the news on that very same evening was a definite gut check - the turmoil and turn-around that has happened here occurred, in large part, during my lifetime. The wounds are still fresh.


It was an emotional experience. It makes you question yourself and fear what your own sinful nature is capable of.

So I've actually been working on some posts but for various reasons haven't been able to get any of them to completion stage (complex material, lack of sufficient bandwith on the internet connection, etc.). Hope very soon to have some stuff up on my first few trips since getting here, but I'm off to Zambia for the next 3 days for work, and have no idea what connectivity there will be like. If not before then, it'll happen this weekend...

Picture time. Who wants to read what I have to type when they could be looking at pictures instead, right?

In the spirit of truly catching up, I'm going to rewind 2+ months to when I was still in the US, and still had a cell phone with a camera in it. What follows are a few selections from the stuff I saw in the past year or so that I may or may not have remembered to document for blog purposes.

Once I run through these, I'll start going through my flickr sets (to date) and begin putting together some recaps on what I've done so far...more to follow soon.


This is from the night before I left the states (we are working in reverse chronological order here, fyi). Peter, Jonny, and I went to see Rage Against The Machine playing one of their 4 reunion shows, in the McCovey Cove parking lot in San Fran. It was pretty much one of the coolest nights of my life. We got Taco Bell, I slept for 2 hours, then we got up and Peter took me to the airport and I came to South Africa. Best weekend ever.

This was on the BART platform heading into town for the show. It reminded me of NYC (where I've taken similar pictures), but it also had that out-in-the open BART station feel. Whenever I have a bad day I try to remind myself that I sleep in a bed.







Robbie and I went up to Mossy and Grandie's place during my last week home and Mossy cooked my FAVORITE. Yums.



I took this on what I honestly hope was my last trip through security at O'Hare International, ever. I had just gotten through another retarded wait in the priority security line, which is a joke in and of itself. But this was just too classic TSA to pass up. I was kind of afraid I would get nailed by security or the cops for taking pictures of them, but I went for it anyway. What you are looking at is TSA rookies, studying. Not in a classroom, no, they are flipping non-chalantly through their training manuals, at makeshift metal desks, in the middle of the busy O'Hare terminal 3. Wow.

Now we're back to pre-leaving-NYC. Suin and I somehow got into a mostly-empty Waverly Inn, on a Friday night, no less. Still not sure how that happened, but as you can see, we battled the Australian Tiger Prawns, and won.








I wish this one had turned out. It was so typical of Hoboken. It was one of those bar sidewalk signs advertising the specials inside. What was special about this one is that it pointed out that it was the anniversary of Alcoholics Annonymous, and then listed the drink specials they were offering to celebrate that fact.




There's a lot of great architecture in NYC, but this fuse of old/new construction, at 15th and 9th, is pretty much my favorite.














The marketing major in me loved this ad campaign on the sides of NYC's buses this past summer.










The appropriately French french onion soup that Tank ordered when we went to Tartine, the Monday after Memorial Day. We hung out in the village all day and I was reminded how much I love Manhattan.











If Cregan plays his cards right, Titus will be the next Tiger Woods and he'll be set for retirement (and maybe I can get good seats at the Open?). He's pretty much the coolest kid in Hoboken, I can't wait to get back and hang with the fam.










Typical NYC straightforwardness.

So the town where I'm actually based here in South Africa is called Pretoria. Its the executive (administrative) capital of the country (Cape Town is the legislative capital, Bloemfontein is the judicial capital). Its situated in the same province as Johannesburg, about 50-some kilometers north of it. Gauteng is the smallest province in ZA, and it is also the highest populated (roughly 10 mil?), and the best. They're fairly proud of their provinces here, which is kind of cool. (and no, I still haven't bothered asking why its abbreviated Zed-A)

Pretoria is situated in the highveld - well on the edge of it and the bushveld. The highveld is a high (surprise!) plateau area in ZA about the size of Belgium, and Johannesburg is also situated on it. I think Johannesburg is at about the same height above sea level as Denver, and Pretoria's at roughly the same height.

While its got less to see and do than a Johannesburg, based simply on its smaller size, it still feels fairly large and has quite a number of varying neighborhoods to be explored. I'm staying in the nicest one I've seen, to date, which is a blessing indeed - in a complex on a hill on the far western side of Pretoria, and the neighborhood is called Waterkloof Ridge. There are a lot of Jacarandas in the neighborhood, which makes it quite pretty - Pretoria is called the Jacaranda City, in fact, named for the trees that for a few weeks every year have the most amazing purple blossoms you could imagine (pictures on my flickr, soon). They are out in full force right now, so it is cool to be here for that.

Even in the nicest neighborhoods, however, all of the apartments / condos / houses / what have you are all situated within security complexes (read: surrounded by tall walls with electric fencing on the top - often with a night security guard at the front gates, etc.). And there are bars on every window and every door in your place, and that's just life here. You get home, you lock yourself in, until the next morning, when you let yourself out for the day. Its like a self-induced jail, but you just learn to deal with it.

That said it is quite a nice complex I'm in, and when I'm diligent I get out for a run in the morning on the hilltops above the city, which is pretty freaking cool. Still doing light runs because I haven't shaken the plantar fasciitis in the foot, which is now going on 3 months old. I should probably give it a name, since its like a part of me now. I think I will call it Rip. Rip, my foot pain. I miss my physical therapists.

The one big surprise I had about Joburg was that it is NOT a tourist destination. This first really hit me when Brian and I headed to the Apartheid museum - there weren't 25 cars in the parking lot, late on a Saturday morning. When people come to South Africa they go to Cape Town, or on safari. If they see Joburg at all, its only passing through the airport on their way to points elsewhere. And it really is a vibrant city, with much to offer (in a very South African way, mind you).

Pretoria seems a little more laid-back than Joburg. I feel more secure here - a little - not much - sense of less crime / more safety, but its not to be taken for granted. It doesn't feel so oppressively big that you could accidentally make a wrong turn and end up in the wrong neighborhood, whereas there are parts of Joburg where I have done just that. Pretoria feels manageable, which is a nice transition to the country. Not to say that I don't think I could handle Joburg - many people do it just fine...its just that I like it here. That's all.

April. Early April was the last time I got two blog posts out in as many days.

The shame.

Well, that streak is over now. What's next? More lists about posts that I'm claiming I'm going to write in the future, that's what. Its later than I had hoped to start blogging tonight so I'm not actually going to try to give one of these following topics the thought and effort that they deserve this evening, rather I'm going to preview-list them.

- The church in ZA (so far). Two things in particular I want to write about are the missional slant and an orthodoxy seemingly unaffected by western shifts of late (prophecy being one of the situational examples that comes to mind).

- Being here to witness how the country as a whole reacted to the Springboks' victory in the Rugby World Cup. It truly was the opportunity of a lifetime.

- The travel lifestyle and the lack of community it fosters. How I've dealt with that in the past, how I'm dealing with it now internationally.

- Book recaps on a few other ones I've finished recently.

- At least a couple of other things that I can't think of at the moment. I really need to start carrying the mini-notepad around with me again.

I am going to make (yet another?) attempt at returning to semi-regular blogging. I think weekly is an ambitious first goal.

And I do think this is actually a good time to give it a shot, now that I'm done with my first 2 months which involved some sort of travel almost every weekend. Which was fine, and in many cases awesome. I've been on 3 safaris, saw England, Kenya, and Tanzania for the first time, saw Cape Town and areas surrounding, and have gotten very familiar with Joburg (headed down there for my first official braai, after which I'll be watching the Springboks take the rugby world championship.

Also, I have a South Africa 2007 iRB rugby ball that my friend Carolien, who knows famous rugby players, is going to get signed by Brian Habana. Contingent on them winning tonight, it will become either the coolest thing I've gotten on my trip yet, or the second coolest (the lion's tooth from Masai is pretty freakin cool).

So, here's what I have planned in the near future of the now-undead blog. Let's hope.

- Finishing up a few of the drafts I've had sitting out there for months on end, including a quasi-book-report written when I finished "A Sacred Romance," and one of those list-of-things-i-like posts, which I just barely started back in May.

- Pictures from the trips. I'm going to try to pull out some of the best ones I've gotten from the trips so far, and perhaps get some brief synopses of said trips typed out as well. And link back to the flickr sets, for those who haven't seen them yet.

- Pictures from my cell phone, before I left the states. Kind of a reflection back on some of the good things I've missed since I left.

- The introvert's manifesto. More on this soon. I've been realizing a few things since I got here.

- Thoughts on ZA so far - which will probably turn into reasons why I really like it here.

I'm looking forward to a few weeks of settling down in Pretoria, catching up on local life, organizing the general disarray, catching up on my guitar and Afrikaans.