Folks,

I was met at the airport, and we went straight to the offices of InTouch, the company I have been in correspondence with. Good thing I had a shower ..

The company have arranged to put me up in a hotel for a week, until I find another place. Very nice of them ..

The company is very closely associated with Vodacom, a large cell-phone provider in South Africa. They have a number of products - two voice applications, running under OS/2, one for dial-a-share-price, the other for dial-to-get-your-current-bank-balance.

Israel ? I thought it was South Africa ..

Flying courtesy El Al from JFK, takes a day and a half. Larry thinks it is a ridiculous amount of effort and time for a small savings on air fare .. but it is really a part of the trip.

JFK - ElAl security must have interviewed me for a whole hour - I got to JFK 2 hours before my flight, and was so close to missing it that my clothes will arrive another day. How do they make money ?

Folks,

In the hope of adding meaning and relevance to my life, I am going to Cape Town in South Africa to work in the telecommunications field. If you know me at all, you will know that I have wanted to be involved in telecommunications in the third world for quite some time.

Well, I finally got off my butt and organised it ..

I am going on a Work-Seekers permit, that lasts for 3 months, to go find a job. There is a company I have been corresponding with for a few months, that wish to hire me. They do cell-phone programming for the second largest service provider in South Africa, and are a small startup. They are therefore close to the business I wish to be in, and will make a good start for me.

Folks,

It seemed fitting that now I am back in England I saw a Zulu version of Macbeth played at the new Globe theatre in London.

The Globe was the name of the theatre in which Shakespeare made his name, as resident playwright and director, on the south bank of the Thames. The original site is now partly covered by the Southwark bridge, so they have rebuilt it, as far as it can be determined, in the identical style. It has been the personal project of an American, Sam —-, and is now the centrepiece of a new arts development south of the City of London.

Folks,

Jo’burg is the hub of business, and money, in South Africa.

Similar to New York City, it has the feel that if you are asleep, you are missing something. Even the tiny shabeen-style bar at the backpacker hostel, with only tourists in it, feels bigger and more lively than others in RSA. You would not believe the parties we have had there …

I sucessfully sold my motorcycle to another tourist here, yippee. Josh is a 7th grade teacher from the Bronx, and was travelling with an old schoolfriend - I helped them buy another bike here as well.

Folks,

I spent a few days in Pretoria, back to the big cities. I can buy Mitchells Bosuns Bitter again, but I still have not found any other beer that is rumoured to be brewed here.

I visited the huge Voortrekker monument, built to fulfil a vow made by the Boer pioneers on the eve of the battle of Boold river, where it lookefd certain that the few hundred voortrekkers would be certainly defeated by an army of 5000 Zulus. However, due to superiour weaponry and good camp placement they survived, with only a few casualties, while thousands of the enemy filled the river with blood.

Folks,

I am in Northern Province, back to SoSutho-speaking locals, towards the north of south africa. Yesterday I and the managers of the backpacker lodge where I am staying went to visit the widest baobab tree in the world (I do not think they have looked very hard for others), in which, and I mean IN, there is a small pub, that can seat about 12 people. It is on private property, and we were disappointed to find that beer was not being served.

Folks,

Being unable to enter the park by motorbike, I joined a tour. $150 and four days later, I am back in Nelspruit, after an excellent tour with a very knowledgeable guide.

The “Big Five” animals for hunters, lion, rhino, elephant, leopard and buffalo, are all represented in the park. We got excellent viewing of all except the leopard - notoriously difficult to find. There were, of course, many other antelope, zebra, birds and other animals too numerous to mention.

Folks,

I went down to Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, for a few days last week. Rather than deal with the hassle of vehicle papers, I left my bike in South Africa (White River, at the house of a motorcycling friend I met in South Africa a couple of months ago) and headed to Mozambique by the minibus taxis that all the black people use.

Mozambique has been in civil was for much of the last 20 years, so the infrastructure is creaky to non-existent. Water is only available in Maputo for half the day, as they lose too much underground otherwise. Power cuts are frequent.

Folks,

A few more impressions after being here a few days -

Even the rural areas seem relatively affluent compared to rural South Africa. Much, I am sure, because of the low population here.

Large British influence here - Barclays bank, many ex-pats, Universal English, little or no Africaanse.

The government is a mess. The King, who did not like the last constitution, and so summarily dissolved the government and put together a ’traditional’ system, that basically means he (and his mother) have complete power. There is a very slow process right now to design a new constitution - don’t hold your breath. Political parties are banned.