This may be lengthy, but I decided to keep one record of my trip, rather than one "private" and another "public" account. Skim the boring stuff, but I think you will find at least some of this stuff very interesting. Also, I'm copying this over from Word and not editing it, so my formatting sometimes might not translate. Day 1 (Wednesday, June 3): From Atlanta, my flight to Cape Town had to make a stop in Dakar, Senegal, for fuel and a security check. That leg of the trip, from ATL to Dakar, was supposed to last a little over 8 hours, but I think we landed at least a half hour ahead of schedule. Those jets are amazing. They cruise at 550mph, at 38,000 ft. Amazing. I was very lucky in regards to my neighboring passenger. He was an older gent, named Julian Richter; South African by birth, American by citizenship and by choice. We exchanged many "splendid" conversations on the plane. First of all, he was able to tell me about the sites and attractions in Cape Town. Then he gave me a run-down of the country's history, along with his own personal story. He is now a doctor in San Diego (a rather prestigious one by the sounds of it), but he got his start under conscripted service in the South African Army back in the '70s. He told me about the South African-Angolan War, of which he was a part. After the war (and being of a liberal mind) he did not want to raise his children under the system of apartheid of the white regime, so he moved to San Diego and has been there more than 30 years. He also mentioned that his family is very close to the Bill Walton family, so he was eagerly anticipating watching Luke Walton in the NBA finals. He had his MacBook Pro with him, and he showed me the purpose of his journey. Julian is a photographer by hobby. He travels all over the world to capture exotic animals with his camera. He has been all over Africa, India, the Arctic Circle, and Yellow Stone, just to name the few that I remember. His pictures are extraordinary: leopards, lions, polar bears...surprisingly close shots. You all should check out his website: "gallery.me.com/jplichter" - Take a look at the album with the leopards, and the album, "Khajuraho." I had never heard of the site but the pictures are extraordinarily fascinating. (PG-13) We landed in Dakar around 5am their time, which was around 1am at home. As I had not gone to bed before 3am the entire previous week, I was relatively awake. But for the flight from DKR to CPT, also roughly 8 hours, I slept almost the whole way. Day 2 (somewhere between June 3-5...I was never quite sure): I woke up about an hour before hitting our final destination. We landed in a cloudy Cape Town around 5pm, and it was already fairly dark. Clearing customs was incredibly easy. There was a sign that said "If you have anything to report, go left. If you do not, go right." I am convinced you could carry anything in to this place. After changing out some cash (which by the way, the dollar is way down right now...a few months ago it was 11 rands to the dollar and now it is 7.5...but it might be a good thing, because if the dollar was still that high I'd be buying way too much stuff), I met the taxi driver and two other recently arrived interns. The drive from the airport to my house was a quick 20 minutes. We passed a famous stadium, Cape Town University, and horrifyingly compact slums on the way into the city. It was difficult to get a feel for riding on the left side of the freeway, beyond the fact that there really are no road rules in this country. It's a wonder anyone survives. My house, "The Abalone," is beautiful. I haven't asked, but I have a feeling it's very old. (If I buy a camera I will post pictures...you can find pictures online if you google search "abalone guest house cape town") It is a tall 2 story with rooftop access, and the roof is my favorite place in the city so far. I have a 360* view of the city, bay, and mountains, and not even pictures could do it justice. (I did not discover the beauty of the mountains until Day 4, when the sun finally peeked out.) I met two of my house mates (the other is arriving next week) and the house dog-"Congo." Congo is a funny whitish blondish lab, and strangely acts like a cat. He rubs up on your legs and lays outside in the sun all day. And he loves to hang out in my room with me. My room is big. I have a king-sized bed and a TV (but with very few watchable channels). When I first walked in I was thinking, "Oh no. I am supposed to have a room-mate, there is only one bed in here, and all the other house mates registered are girls..." To the relief of half of you, and the dismay of the other half, I have the room to myself. That first night I got settled in, and watched some TV upstairs with a house-mate. Because I had just woken up on the plane ride, I was not anywhere close to tired, but I crashed around midnight. Day 3 (Friday): I woke up at 2:30am (7:30pm at home), starving, and wide awake. I watched some TV, read, and listened to music until 5am before I fell back asleep. So when my alarm rang at 8am, I was exhausted and hit the snooze. When it rang again, I just turned it off. Melanie, my agent for the placement company, was supposed to pick me up at 9:20 to take me to my first day of work, and needless to say, I slept through 9:20. I was woken up at 9:40 by a knock on my door. I had a phone call from Melanie. She, like everyone in the company and everyone in the city, was running late. I assured her it was ok, as I had just then woken up. We arrived at my place of work, the Scalabrini Centre, around 10:30am. I hadn't eaten in 20 hours, and before that I'd only eaten Delta Airlines food. Yum. I met the staff of the center, learned about their programs, and learned what I will be doing-assisting at the "Employment Help Desk." I will help refugee clients file the proper paperwork with the government, develop their resumes, and locate jobs for qualified clients. I will be specifically working on a new program, whereby we place a number of refugee educators in the schools of the surrounding townships. After a term volunteering, the principal can decide if the teacher is suited for full-time (paid) employment. The center wants me to drive out to the townships (which are pretty scary, from what I've heard), to check up on the teachers. A lot is riding on this first "test run" of the teacher placement program, for if it fails, the schools will probably not let any more refugee teachers into their system. While at the center, several staff persons gave me a run-down of the problems in the city, specifically for refugees. Maybe some of you had heard of the following incident, but I had not: Last year hundreds of thousands of refugees were forced out of the townships and rural areas by the native populations. They had nowhere to flee but the cities, and Jo-burg and Cape Town became flooded with the homeless. It was less violent in this area, but roughly 20,000 were killed in the riots around Johannesburg. I've heard two stories of why this happened. A white lady at Scalabrini said that the people of the townships were frustrated with the South African government, and took out their frustrations on the foreigners. But a refugee man that works at my house (Martin. An awesome dude.), and who was living in the townships when this broke out, told me (technically, this conversation happened "Day 4) that the South Africans were sick of the foreigners taking their jobs and their women. He learned it first hand, quite literally, for he was stabbed in the hand during an attempted mugging. Just because he was Zimbabwean. But Martin was proud to show me his scar and proclaim that the other man did not get any of his money, which happened to be the last that he had. Returning to the events of Day 3, just in the several hours I was there, many interesting people came through. I have a feeling this summer (winter, here...I've already confused several South Africans using the term "summer" in reference to the present time) is going to be interesting. One guy came in, asking for special privileges to the help desk. He was always too late to be helped. (There is a policy that all clients must arrive at 9am to be placed on the list.) He claimed that he has been driving every day back and forth from Bloemfontein, realistically a ten hour drive, just to get help with his resume. The lady that I was shadowing, who is a spunky Italian, laughed at him and told him that he had to be lying. She asked him three times where he slept "last night," and every time he would say: "Bloemfontein, I drive from Bloemfontein." She had to walk around the corner to keep from laughing in his face. I followed and asked her if she gets a lot of crazies, and of course, her answer was: "Yes. Every day." Early in the afternoon I stopped by the Connect-123 office (the placement company), conveniently situated across the street from Scalabrini, for the official orientation. Immediately afterwards, I got some food at a diner. A very good meal here costs R40, the equivalent of about $5.50. I decided I wanted to see the city, so I set out on a completely random adventure: Quickly I came into contact with the beggars. There are many, many, many beggars. One young man, with a busted eye, showed me that he had a half loaf of stale bread. He asked me to go to the corner store to buy something to put on it. After conversing with him, I appreciated his non-threatening tone, so I decided to get him some butter. I made him stay outside, and I went in and purchased the equivalent of $0.45 of butter for him. I talked to him a few more minutes outside, and when I told him I was from the states, he smiled and started chanting, "Obama! Obama! Haha!" Everyone here adores Barack Obama. A few more blocks down the street I saw some slow moving police cars, lights flashing, and an apparent ruckus right behind. As I stopped to see what was coming, I almost got caught in a huge protest rally. I'm not sure what they were fighting for, but one of the signs said: "Save the doctors. They save you." I dashed across the street to avoid the commotion, crossing right in front of a TV news crew. Hopefully my video clip made it on the program that night: an overdressed and terrified white kid booking it to get away from an angry crowd. I walked further into the heart of downtown, perusing the selections of the street vendors and window shopping. When I realized I was the only white person amongst a crowd of thousands I decided to mosey on out of there. A few blocks over was the "main drag." Unfortunately there were no good guitar stores, but I walked by all the popular restaurants and pubs. I was surprised to see a real live Turkish Bath on one corner. Some reflections after my first day out in the city: I saw one Ford today. Out of the thousands of cars that sped by, one Taurus. There are a lot of Toyotas, Hondas, Bimmers, Mercedes, and VWs... People walk on the left side of the sidewalks as well, which is difficult to get used to... Everyone wears nice shoes. Even among the "homeless," most people dress their feet first... It won't stop raining here. I live on the side of a mountain and I still haven't seen it... There is a huge Muslim presence here. Many businesses have "halaal" posted somewhere on their sign-especially in the downtown area. It's kind of like when American businesses stamp a fish on their signs or work trucks... You can feel the racial tensions. Blacks look at whites with contempt, and whites look at blacks with distrust. The homeless and the beggars don't bother blacks, but they stare down every white that passes. Imagine the fact that it took the US 100 years to get from the abolition of slavery to actually granting black rights. Then consider South Africa. Apartheid ended just years ago. Granted, the country has elected only black presidents since, but the memories of racial injustices are fresh in the minds of many blacks... The dog, Congo, is my best friend. He likes to walk into my room and follow me around the house. He makes the Abalone feel like home. My house mates, Katie and Katie, wanted to go out on the town Friday night, so we called a cab (you don't want to walk around this town at night) and went back to Long street (where I was previously that day). We ate dinner at this authentic African place, where you could order ostrich, impala, or really any exotic creature. Knowing I'd be able to get in on my friend's game steak medallions (impala, I believe), I ordered African Chicken Curry. I know, a little safe and a little lame, but it was good. My friends were amazed by the low prices, even in a classy restaurant. Each of our meals cost around $12, but one remarked that you couldn't touch anything like it in the US under $40. Afterward we walked a few blocks to "The Dubliner" pub. On the way there I developed my response for little kids begging (I've been told that they are part of gangs, and it's all a scam): I speak to them in Spanish. One kid, saying something about food, was taken aback by my response. "Lo siento, amigo. No hablo ingles!" He did not say much more, something about he knows how to say food in Spanish. At the Dubliner, I was able to catch up on my NBA basketball, and a group of fellow Connect-123 interns randomly met up with us. (Kind of impressive, considering Cape Town houses some 3.5 million people.) One kid is from Hastings, Nebraska, so we talked Husker football. We had a good time there, enjoying the music of a mid-90s power-pop cover band. They played all-American music, so it was amusing to see an infinitely diverse group of pub-goers sing along. The cab back cost R19, less than $3 total, for all of us combined. Cheap. As quite a crowd had gathered on Long street by the time we disembarked, I asked the driver if it was always that crazy. His response: "Oh, tonight is quiet!"

The bobs plotter scratches beside the precedent.

I have played many RPG video games, and Final Fantasy 7 is by far the best I've ever played!