South Africa is Amazing

Sorry that it has taken us a few weeks to begin telling you all of our adventure. There has been far less time to spend using an Internet connection than we orginally hoped. So after some troubles regarding our connection in Frankfurt, we arrived in Cape Town, South Africa on Nov. 2nd (Jenny kept telling all the airline reps that we're on our honeymoon and it helped get upgraded twice!).

So far, we've spent some time in the beautiful city of Cape Town and explored its natural and cultural aspects. Even though 10 years has passed since the end of Apartheid, the level of racism hasn't really changed all that much. Instead of Apartheid there is now affirmative action that forces ALL companies in South Africa to maintain the same level of cutural diversity in the workplace as in the country. This means that workforce of every company in the country MUST be at least 80% black. What this has basically done is discouraged every yound white person in South Africa to stay in the country since its near impossible to get a job. Now, I'm not suggesting that what happened under Apartheid was right, but two wrongs don't make a right either. I think that the government must take a long, hard look at the current situation and push for educations reforms. The only way to really make this country work is through time and education. My suggestion would be to force stronger education requirements to the people as a whole and perhaps subsidize univerisity enrollments for those that are financially under-privileged. This is a topic that Jenny and I TOTALLY disagreed with. As a whole, the country is econonically challenged since the most qualified person for each job may not be hired due to affirmative action. Again, two wrongs do not make a right. I will now stop pontificating and will return back to our scheduled program...check out the penguins!


Back to our scheduled program....After a few days in the wine country, we made our way east toward some deserts and mountains. This was not a well traveled path, but really are enjoying our travels. The rural mountain and country side has given us a time to really take in the fact that we're in Africa! Essentially, we're heading to a game reserve near the border with Mozambique. All is great, but the drive (so far we're up to 2,500 kms) was a bit tedious. It wasn't the animals that were tough, but the hundreds of thousands of rural-type people that walk on the roads. It is really amazing that no matter how much I thought South Africa was a developed nation ala Europe...it's much more like Africa. Lots of poverty in the rural areas and they don't get many turists, but all in all everyone was very nice.



Our car (named Tazz) has handled well despite the puny engine and lack of air conditioning. Some hills are too much for Tazz and we give her some words of encouragement to get us over. Thank goodness we can hook up our Ipods to break some of hte monotiny...we've been listening to Bill Clinton's "My Life" that we down loaded before we left...it's spoken by Bill, so it makes it kind of cool.

More when we can...Alan

PS - I won in our first Casino....so may recent loss streak is now over! Lastly, we are tied in Backgammon...although, I think Jenny is winning on pure luck. She's one hell of a roller!