Finally – some internet access

I have been here a week without internet access- even the fairly nice hotels we stay in are not as well equipped with internet as the budget hotel in Istanbul.

I am sometimes flabbergasted at the wonderful trips I get to take in the name of work. This is one of those times. The flight down from Dubai was in a window seat. The air was clear and it was daytime, so I could see the continent unfold from dry desert sands to scrub bush to the green around Kenya. It was awesome. We were too high up to see animals or people, but could see some roads, and in the united Arab emirates there were some sand drifts like we get snow drifts in the winter. It was a real treat to see Dubai from the air – just like the pictures you see, lots of development, in a particularly orderly fashion. The subdivisions they are building will be spectacular places to live if you could stand the heat.

After a night in joburg I flew to phalaborwa- billed as the gateway to kruger, south africas famous large game park, which is a big attraction for tourists. This little airport caters almost exclusively to that crowd. It is small, open air, with bronze castings of typical park animals scattered around the grounds. The bathroom sink was a backward facing slab with little nipples that produced water when you turned the mushroom handle on the left..

Our work here is to meet with various representative groups to understand their training and organizational needs so that when their repatriated land is turned over to them they have a chance of being successful with it. So we meet with very interesting types. The business group ( primarily women who run little tuck shops on the side of the road) youth groups, various administrative bodies including the tribal chief, men’s groups, traditional healers, health care workers etc etc. it is quite a privilege to be able to meet with all of these people – an opportunity joe tourist does not very often get.

Our meetings in the phalaborwa region were with the mishishimale community. They will be repatriated back to land they were booted off of 50 years ago and since had become a crocodile farm. But when the previous owner left a couple of years ago he took all the crocs with him, so they have to decide whether to raise capital to buy more crocs, or to do something else. It is a beautiful farm, has some accommodations for tourists ( currently not used) and when we were there, a family of hippos, a peacock, and a pack of about 12 warthogs. When we met with the business group it happened to include a lady who made handicrafts, and we bought some lovely things – I got a wonderful wall hanging with guinea hens depicted for 80 rand ( about $15), and some amarula nuts, which taste a bit like pistachios, and grow on a tree outside where we were meeting.