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Blogs from Johannesburg, Gauteng, South Africa, Africa - page 47
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Published: November 3rd 2006Africa » South Africa » Gauteng » Johannesburg
September 23rd 2006
History doesn’t repeat itself, it rhymes. (Mark Twain) Greetings from South Africa. We are still in Johannesburg, for a week as of yesterday, and it is beautiful. We have been busily looking for opportunities and trying to talk with people, even with the internet down for 3 days and the cell phone snafus. Our phone can apparently receive international calls but not make them until we switch from a prepaid service to a contract service, which requires an address. Also, the service is spotty in this country. We plan to use Skype for international calls (phone calls over the internet), and I have been told that if you are also on the Skype network, we may be able to make calls for free. We are occasionally having translation issues, which is to be expected, even in ... read more
beginning to learn the basics
Published: November 3rd 2006Africa » South Africa » Gauteng » JohannesburgSeptember 18th 2006
Pioneering is not moving from one place to another. It is moving from your old self to a new self. (Horace Holley) Bahá’í pioneering is when a Bahá’í moves to a new place, makes it his or her home, and proceeds to serve the Faith there in whatever way possible. It is not missionary work in the traditional sense, because there are no paid missionaries in the Faith, nor paid clergy at all. It is more like emigrating with the purpose of serving God by serving humanity. Our goal is to be Bahá’í pioneers. All of this weekend the NSA of South Africa has been meeting here, and they have been very kind and of great assistance, making many wonderful suggestions as to where to settle and how to find work. As new people in Africa, ... read more
September 16th 2006
After spending almost three wonderful days in Amsterdam we boarded the long flight to Johannesburg and arrived in the early hours of Friday morning. This time I gave up trying to sleep and watched several movies - but don’t ask me what they were! The Virgin Atlantic flight was so much better than US Airways in cleanliness, quality of food, and service, it was amazing. Watching the sun come up as we approached Johannesburg was really beautiful. The dust that sits in the African atmosphere was lit by the sun and created a bright orange belt and streaks of brilliant pink and gray-blue that stretched along the entire horizon. We caught a cab to the Bahá’í Center, which is in a community called Northriding in Johannesburg. The Bahá’í Center is a former school that the National ... read more
They heard I was coming...
Published: September 6th 2006Africa » South Africa » Gauteng » Johannesburg
September 5th 2006
So apparently my infamous reputation beat me here...and my host mother was nowhere to be found the day we were all supposed to go to our homestays. So me and my homestay buddy Erica got split between two other houses. I ended up in Dobsonville, one of the sections of Soweto where about 12 of the 18 of us were. I lived with Winnie, a spunky 60 some year old woman and her 10 year old granddaughter Zuki. Thank god her name was Zuki, because I had no chance at being able to say any of the other names of people I met. Zuki's mom and 2 month old brother KK (they laughed out loud and then gave up when we tried to say his real name) also lived in a back seperate part of our ... read more
August 31st 2006
Apparently saying "I know what time it is" a cool way to say you know what's up. Or they just like to see us all look ridiculous. But in reality I have no clue what time it is. it seems like I've been gone for ages...when in reality I haven't even been gone a week. But I'm sure you all miss me so much that you think so too. Or at least I'll keep telling myself that. It's been a crazy whirlwind first several days. We had two birthdays in the first three days, have been to two different cities, several speeches and about 3 museums We got in Sunday evening after 18 hours flying...which I was happily surprised with. I didn't feel too tired, my luggage all showed up and even though my seat was ... read more
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August 25th 2006
So it's go time. After a minor flight debable...realizing that my flight home was wrong and having to fed ex my paper tickets back to Canada on Wednesday...I now have my tickets in hand with 12 hours to spare. I leave earrly tomorrow morning...it would really just make more sense to stay awake if it weren't for the fact that I have to make two connections before I can peacefully sleep in my tiny chair for the 15 some hours to South Africa. right. I spend my first 10 days or so in and around Johannesburg and head to Namibia on the 6th of September where I'll be until the end of November. I should have pretty good internet once I'm in Windhoek...so keep those emails coming. And for those over ambitious few, here's my mailing ... read more
August 19th 2006
Friday morning we flew Air Mauritius from Mauritius to Johannesburg International. We arrived at our hotel around 1:30pm which was close to the airport. We then headed to a large shopping mall where we spent the afternoon after a meal at Nando's restaurantant. The mall had over 250 stores and was quite nice. We were quite impressed with the infrastructure in Johannesburg especially with their motorways. After a quick pizza dinnner we headed back to the hotel for a early night. Saturday morning we headed on a tour of Johannesburg. First we visited downtown which was interesting. Numerous times our tour guide told us to keep the cameras and video camera down as we were going through rough areas. He mentioned they will break the glass if they see valuables at a traffic light. There were ... read more
July 23rd 2006
We made it to S. Africa and boy did we have a blast in the Hluhluwe Imfalozi Game Reserve. We saw 3 of the Big 5 within 5 minutes of entering the park. Those are the Rhino, Buffalo and Elephant. Saw tons of animals but no cats. We're waiting to see those in Chobe, I guess. We did see 3 African Wild Dogs -- twice. That is a very rare sight as there are only 35 in the park and 500 in all of S. Africa. The lodge we stayed at was very nice with "over-the-top" quality food. Brady stuck to pasta for pretty much the entire time. In addition to the animals listed above, we saw tons of birds and many different kinds of antelope, zebras, giraffe, warthog, crocs, monkeys, baboons. They were all extremely ... read more
July 22nd 2006
Sorry the late listing. I have had no access to the net and in fact I am not even sure if this listing will show as the net access I am using is some old-fashion thing called "dilup" apparently! Anyway, I flew rather uneventfully home with my recently injured (possibly broken metatarsal) foot and passed through Joburg in my shortest ever visit to South Africa. One thing worth of note is that Joburg International has, as well as the normal international duty-free and obligatory African curio shops, a small place (turn left after passport control) where you can get a 20 or 30-minute chair massage! I highly recommend this as a way to kill half an hour and prepare for your long haul flight back to London! (Just dont trust the women who work there to ... read more
South Africa, the north east
Published: August 16th 2006Africa » South Africa » Gauteng » Johannesburg
July 6th 2006
We were quite scared of Jo'burg, so landed, collected our hire car and pretty much bypassed the city, stopping only for a tour of Soweto. This was very good, if somewhat intrusive, but we got to see the township - from its millionaires row with Winnie Mandela's 24 room house with pool to the poorer areas where they had only recently had water provided. From Jo'burg we drove across to Kruger National Park, enjoying the scenary as we went. Really good views across the landscape - better in the morning as it was burning season so in the afternoons the valleys tended to fill up with haze.The animals in Kruger gave a fabulous performance, which we watched from our car. A herd of elephants crossed the road just infront of us soon after we entered the ... read more
