Staying Optemistic in Monwabisi

Sometimes, this is an extremely difficult task. Its hard to see the discrepancy between the millionaires play ground and the shacks, and wonder how people can not understand the problem. This picture is a view from Signal Hill, where they fire a cannon every day at noon, and you can hear it throughout the main parts of the city. We've had some good, and interesting dining experiences while in Cape Town, yesterday we went to a fancy Thai restaurant, ordered dinner for 7 and two bottles of wine, and the final cost was 800 rand, or roughly eighty dollars, including gratuity. It was delicious, and I'm going to have to try more Thai food in the future. Most nights we watch movies because the night life is pretty slow, and there isn't much to do that doesn't involve going to bars. We have a projector screen we set up on the porch, and watch tv shows and movies when its nice out.

The Co-Researcher project has been working out really well. All of the project groups enjoy working with them, and we're beginning to become friends. I can have a small introductory conversation in Xhosa, consisting of Hello, How are you? Good, and you? etc. Matt is working on an interactive audio dictionary to put online so that we can all learn the basics and maybe some additional interesting words. The co researchers love laughing at our attempts though, but they are always willing to help. As a group, we've decided that we are most likely combining the efforts of all the groups and making a publishable atlas of current situations and possible redevelopment strategies for the park. along with a human component, consisting of photos of people and their life stories. It will be a source of pride for members of the community and will also be appealing to possible donors to the cause and useful for the government. We've learned that in many cases, the civil services of Cape Town have no idea of the problems with bathrooms and electricity, and the photos the energy and water teams have taken are helping them realize they exist.

Yesterday, I went with Marco to the public library again so he could work on the contact database and I could work on the graphics of the communication network, which our advisors have pushed. It was productive, and on the way back we had an interesting experience with a cab driver. When he found out we were Americans, he immediately asked what we thought of Obama. We replied, and he went on about how he had wished McCain had won because Obama had no respect or experience, and was not militaristic and would have no control. He also said that South Africa does not have an active armed force, which I hadn't known, and that since they eliminated it the country had fallen into chaos. This is the opposite end of the spectrum from our sponsor, Di, who was estatic that a black man was leading the United States. So there is a wide range of opinions on the matter, as there are in the US.

A scary incident today reminded us all that we aren't perfectly safe here, when one of the students got very sick quickly and couldn't breathe. He was with co researchers in the middle of the settlement, and we didn't know where our advisors were, as they had also left with co researchers. Luckily, they were able to get him back to the Indlovu Centre and an electrician was nearby with a car, and he was rushed to the hospital. But, since Di was not there today, we have no transportation other than Fachme. (yes thats our bus drivers name, and YES we make jokes about it all the time. Even our advisors love to pronounce his name strategically.) Hopefully he will be fine, but its scary. This is the same guy who a woman threatened to kill a few days ago when he wouldn't give her cigarette money because we are always strictly instructed never to give to beggars and to tell them we are giving our time and hard work. It has been a long week, and the weekend is much needed, and I'm excited for the wine tour at Stellenbosch tomorrow.

Also, there is a famous around the world sailboat race at the V and A water front now for the next few weeks. I think we'll be checking it out soon.