Back in Africa

I've finally made it back to the region of the world I love the most - Sub-Saharan Africa. It's inexplicable to most people, and even to myself I can see no rhyme or reason to it. Why would someone want to work in a region that is fundamentally politically unstable, perennially at war, without potable water, rife with poverty, a myriad of parasites, communicable diseases, and the present absence of a viable infrastructure? Perhaps I feel that just my physical presence here is welcomed and my interest in most of a continent of people I've never met is appreciated. More often than not in China I felt as though I was a nuisance or an intruder - an outsider poking his nose where it didn't belong. Only in one organization in Hong Kong did I get fair treatment and open access to the majority of their services, the rest of China was far from a waste - but I should have been more critical of my time in certain places as in the end I should have left China after three months, not four. But in the end I did make it to the World AIDS Day Concert in Johannesburg in South Africa on time.

The 46664 (Nelson Mandela's prison ID #) concert was quite amazing and had a number of Zulu, Afrikaans, British, and American artists which incuded a sermon by none other than "superstar" Annie Lennox where she proceeded to cast a shadow of guilt on the crowd for not supporting HIV/AIDS work - a bit strange given that we were all at the concert whose funds were being donated to fight HIV/AIDS in Africa. Mandiba, the Zulu name for Mandela, also gave a speech which is probably to be his last public appearance. At 89 and secretly to be suffering from Alzheimer's, I can't imagine he would be able to make another speech like that again. After Mandiba's speech, Akon performed - probably the musical highlight of the night. Each performer had the stage for 2-4 songs, with Peter Gabriel (why?!) taking the maximum allowed time. The only exception was the last artist, Annie Lennox..who seemed to go on forever. After 5 songs, none of which anyone seemed to know, a girl from Chicago I was with named Ramanda remarked "Jeff, you gotta go tell Annie that this song isn't 'Sweet Dreams,' I think she's confused." In the end we did get our "Sweet Dreams," but only after 7-8 songs of Lennoxian hell. The next day I made my way to a drag race.

The first thing I noticed about the event was that it was all Afrikaaners, descendants of the european settlers that came to South Africa as long as four centuries ago. Overweight, sunburned, blonde hair and blue eyed whites in wife beaters filled the stands of the slightly run down race track. The only difference between home and this little place in South Africa was Bud Light was replaced with Black Label and English with Afrikaans. Oh, and race relations were much poorer here as well as evidenced by the references to the "monkeys" working the bar. I was a bit shocked to say the least, but as segregation ended only 13 yrs ago in South Africa, I should hardly be. The races were uneventful other than that, one motorcycle made it over 185 mph. No accidents or deaths - where's the fun in that? The next day I flew to Lesotho.

Flying into Lesotho from South Africa on my tiny propeller driven plane went off without a hitch - the first thing I noticed upon descent was how the country looked exactly like a greener version of the American Southwest. After landing I realized this country's main airport was about half the size of Bowman Field. It has one airstrip and the total size of the terminal was surely no larger than 10,000 sq. feet, which of course was a bit of a shock after being in Hong Kong's new airport which is the largest building in the world.

As some of you may know, my family has been fostering two children from Lesotho for more than two years. I've been staying with one of the families of these two kids in a village outside of the capital city. The other day I went to the mountains to visit a Canadian NGO called "Save Lesotho," I'm not sure if Lesotho needs saving..but the work they do is good nonetheless. At the moment I'm shopping around for work as it were, but I've already found people respect me much more here than they did in China and I can tell I do know enough about the field to make meaningful suggestions on how to better run their services here. Well, that's enough for now - hope everyone has good holidays & new year.


Jeff