So. Soweto. The South Western Townships. Or the dusty fields on the outskirts of Joburg where the Apartheid regime dumped all the blacks so as to prevent any unwanted contact (save, of course, the 'shine my shoes, carry my bag, clean my house' interactions of convenience). Empty fields that quickly begot families living in tents, make-shift shacks of scrap, or, if god shined down upon you, piss poor government housing that could all be yours! after a mere 99 years of renting (really. 99). Down-trodden lands filled with down-trodden souls, neighborhoods smelling of paraffin and urine [View Full Entry]

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so this past Saturday I went out on a long run with my new running club- the SQWAKIES (or something like that--I think it's an abbreviation for Squeaky Takies, 'takies' being south african for sneakers...). The SQWAKIES consisted of me, Mackers, Martine, Bev and a fifth whose face is clear, but whose name escapes me (my apologies, unknown friend...) Our chosen location: Zoo Lake, a lake by--you guessed it!--the Johannesburg Zoo. And a generally nice place for grabbing a couple of beers and watching the day drift by. But no. Not today. No drifting or boozing for us. We were here [View Full Entry]

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so... in case you haven't heard, I'm running in the New York Marathon. Yes, Marathon as in 42k. Or 26.2 miles. Or damn far. The race is November 2nd and despite being pretty intimidated by the entire endeavor, I'm also almost irrationally excited. Irrational because I looked up the actual course map the other day and got some perspective on the distance... like that it starts on Staten island, runs ALLLLL the way up through Brooklyn (like 13 miles worth), crosses up into Queens, over into Manhattan, up along the upper east side, up into the Bronx, back over to Manhattan, [View Full Entry]

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Safari. Because it's one of those things you just can't leave Africa without doing. Because we wanted to see lions in action. Because we needed to get out of Joburg. Because my weekend wasn't packed enough. Whatever the reason, we decided that we must must must drive out out out to go on a one-night, super luxe safari in the open savannahs to the north. We booked our tickets with EmptyBeds.co.za, a reduced safari accommodation repackager that apparently Bainees passing through Joburg have been using for years. Unfortunately like most customer service interactions in South Africa I've [View Full Entry]

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Women's Day 10k. A fun run, but I was rather nervous. And for no real reason since I'd already run a 10k earlier that week. But I was a bit nervous. Why? Well for one, friends were there. And I have this mental hang-up because I am a 'slow runner'. So what if these friends, who haven't been runnning running running as of late, completely blow me away? Well, it might be devasting to my morale for training for the marathon. Then, number two, it was outside. And I've been running primarily inside due to the whole walk outside and you [View Full Entry]

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i was dreaming full dreams-- then i was being woken... jordan. jordan was telling me the others were up. i blinked heavy eyelids open and tried to make sense of the situation despite my grogginess. ah. we were in the drakensbergs at Lily's house and the others were already up. which meant that i was being guilted into movement. not a pleasant thought given the warmth and comfort of the bed and the still present wearniness of my limbs. but about 5 minutes later, i did manage to rise, and sure enough, found everyone out on the patio drinking coffee, seemingly [View Full Entry]

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so after over four hours of pretty hardcore hot and dusty hiking in and around Lesotho, we were ready for hot soapy showers and hearty meals. Carson and Co had kindly hooked up with homestay style accommodations with yet another ex-girlfriend of their flatmate Anatole (I live in the adjoining cottage of another one). Anatole assured us she lived about 2 hours drive from the hiking site… which in real terms meant over 2 hours and given the ghetto-ness of our horse-power challenged vehicles meant even longer. which may not seem like much of a difference to you, dear reader, but [View Full Entry]

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last weekend, after a few very harried weeks at ALA, 8 of us decided take a much needed excursion out of town. destination: lesotho. the plan: depart at the crack of dawn on saturday, drive 4 hours on the n3 over towards the drakensbergs, hike all day around in Lesotho, then spend the night at carson’s housemate’s ex-girlfriend’s house (really), then more hiking in a different part of the drakensbergs on sunday, then cruise back towards Joburg late afternoon. now the plan seems pretty doable except that Fred conveniently decided to hold a ‘soiree’ (his [View Full Entry]

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this weekend was the end of the world... party, that is. or at least that was the theme of kiran and gaz's joint birthday festival. i think the idea was roughly- 'it's the last day on earth-- wear anything'-- which i suspect kiran hoped would mean that one person would wear nothing... but didn't happen, most likely due to winter weather rather than inhibitions on the part of his extended friend base. my costume, naturally, was always fully clothed (or maybe that makes it unnatural...whatever). in fact, extra clothed. I wanted to wear all of my favorite clothing, since, as the [View Full Entry]

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last thursday, despite another late night at ala that threatened to prevent my attendance, i did manage to make it out to mackers’ new band’s first show—1985’s intro gig. a guy name huw and a guy named geoff are also in the band, and I’d been hearing about them from bev since I arrived, so I was pretty excited to see them live. unless they sucked. which would be painful since I’d have to lie to mackers that they were awesome. and because I was brining along matt and mark and then I would feel similarly guilty for bringing them to [View Full Entry]

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