The Beginning: Food, Organizations, Settlements

Hello all, I'm sorry it has taken so long to get this up and running.

I'll start with the highlights of South Africa.

We arrived in Johannesburg and were greeted by one of the program leaders, Linda, and our drivers, Passat and Moeketsi. They took us to our first guest house which was a Christian place for retreats etc. This is where I learned some key things about southern Africa (mainly food related).

For one, unless you are at a nice restaurant your coffee is instant coffee. As much as everyone talks about how amazing coffee is in this region, very few people have the real stuff. I guess it's all gone to the US???

Also, be prepared to drink whole milk and be prepared for it to be warm when you pour it on your cereal. Quite a surprise in the beginning.

Third: porridge, porridge, porridge. You will eat soft, warm, sweet porridge for breakfast and hardened mealy meal for dinner.

Finally, you may not survive in southern Africa if you are a vegetarian. It is very much a meat loving culture and there are few sources of protein besides beef or chicken. Every vegetarian in our group ate meat in the first week of being here.



For the first week in Johannesburg we traveled around the city and spoke with activists, politicians, and religious figures. The viewpoints ranged from people who are actively seeking to transform the country into a socialist one to people who are working hard to expand the free market. We also learned about individuals working for AIDS awareness and the anti-privatization of basic needs like water, shelter, and sewage. In South Africa most informal settlements are overcrowded and lack these basic resources. The first day we visited a settlement like this called Kliptown. The people who live here definitely cannot pay for privatized water so they drink dirty water or just barely drink any water. In these communities sewage runs through the dirt streets and while we were there the kids just played in the water- dirty or clean. There were hundreds of kids just roaming around and playing together with few adults around. Kids followed us throughout our tour and held our hands- I think they just needed some attention. They were all so sweet and goofy and didn't seem to be too concerned about their situation.