The story goes on

We are waiting for a Salesian priest, Father Michael, to find us here at the waterfront so we decided to duck into a net place and blog. I have heard from some of you that you enjoy the blog of our tales of Africa. We are trying to give you a flavor on the western cape as we see it. Many people shop as we do...there are super markets like we have and we just went into a Hallmark store tobuy some materials for my placement tomorrow. They have a KFC, golden arches and subway and people love them. We have not gone there but the younger set have gone. One of the girls said today that she cannot wait to go to Taco Bell.

I wanted to tell you about the spirit in the townships that we learned about on Sunday. 6 of the our group went to the township in Kaialensha. They slept at Vickie's b and b nd loved it. They talked to the locals who actually were looking out for the white girls and did not want anything to happen to them while at the b and b. vickie began this b and b in order to put money back into th townships. The girls said tht the people down there were friendly and told them that they have a community built in their neighborhoods. Some of the neighborhoods in the dwellings take pride in the area and keep it clean on the dirt roads. Now there are some that do not, but this one did. The government is trying to build stone dwellings as fast as they can before the World Cup comes in over 300 days. The gov. does not want tourists to have a bad idea of the Cape. Now who goes first to these comes under a neighborhood vote. we do not see how they will achieve this task because here are so many families to move. When we drive to and fro from work we see he lines of latrins and water spickets and women with their buckets to fill up and wash...Some townships do not have his. Some of the men and women do want tobetter themselves and find work..HEre is the problem. Some must care for the little brothers and sisters or daughters and sons. Work is seasonal when out in the fields or working on roads. And the story goes on and on.

Today I was forced to sit in on a boring staff meeting...the Captain of the Salvation Army has taken a liking to me ( I will not join) and ask or my ideas. All I could think of were my women waiting to talk to me and here I was stuck. Groan! So I contributed and she wanted me to stay and send Art home. No way! I brought over two blank books to have people sign in and then I will put their photos next to the writing. The ladies have made beautiful pages. I do not want to read their work until I get home.

Tomorrow we are finely going to hear African music and see African dancing. Our driver plays pop music all of the time, he loves Lional Ritchie. I think I have told you about Faried, our Muslim driver for work and tour guide on the weekends. He did provide two days of great tours of the western cape, and all for $25 to $40 per person. This was all day tours. The African sunset last night that we saw facing the Atlantic OCean was spectacular for sure. Art's fingers were snapping away

One of the high lights was to see the Nelson Mandella statue in frontof the prison where he was released...It was powerfull. Our guide told us that on that day, there were so many people that it took him hours to walk out nd get into his car. People wanted to touch him.

We also learned of Steven Biko who died for the cause..There is a movie with Denzel, about this wonderful man who fought for tht rights of the Blacks.

We will not be able to blog until next Friday because we are v ery busy this week with ev ents. We will sendout aol writings from the house. Stay welll.......Dianne