Day 2

Sat through a staff meeting with the rest of the L’Abri staff today; One white dude (Rod, who happens to be the guy in charge, one asian/aus, and ~20 zulus :S Finally got home @ about 10:30pm exhausted, not being able to totally shut out the knowledge that it would have been 8:30am in Oz...

Observations from today...

·         Was 5 degrees at about 10:30pm

·         Guard wearing a shot gun outside casino, all black staff with predominately white patrons

·         Vehicles unable to leave casino without a visual inspection from a guard

·         Even in post-apartheid South Africa, there are still overt classes, ‘black’ & ‘white’, to which I am accordingly considered as ‘white’ (which I don’t doubt will amuse mikey no end :P)

·         As a foreigner, I will be (incorrectly or not) seen as someone who is vastly wealthy and as a possible means by which some try and escape the worlds they are confined too

·         As exotic as Africa is, and as developed as South Africa is, a South Africa this far out from apartheid is still a very seriously screwed up place for blacks

·         HIV is such a real issue here; huge campaigns to urge people to go in for testing (“test one, bring five”), it’s quite bizar to be in a society where a rather demonised virus (for us in Oz) is extremely common place

·         Everyone keeps remarking at how quickly my time here will go, even though my body (feeling the ravages of time (zone) travel) at the moment still feels every minute passing