Greetings world.

I've now been here about two weeks. Here's what I've learned so far:

-"Howzit" is a standard greeting.
-"Just now" means sometime in the future.
-"Robots" are traffic lights.
-"Load shedding" means that you won't get to watch the DVD today--*laughs* Actually, it's something to do with the fact that South Africa doesn't have enough electricity to go around, so sometimes the power just goes off rather randomly.
-Cricket is not as easy as it looks--found that out playing Live Action Cricket with some other Americans--hah!
-Seagulls like burnt potato skins, or at least will eat them when you've made it clear they won't get anything else from the braai!
-"Mr. Fix-it"=trash TV and stupid too. Don't see it.
-kudu biltong is just as tasty as kudu burgers.
-no matter where you go, shops near tourist sites will ALWAYS be horrendously overpriced.
-never go to an upscale restaurant with 60+ people without warning them ahead of time. That happened when we visited Stellenbosch. It took an hour and a half for my table to get their food--and we weren't the latest group to be served! It wasn't the restaurant's fault--they were just really overwhelmed!

Stellenbosch is a farming area--it also has the University of Stellenbosch. We visited a union office and learned about the issues with abuses of female farm workers. Many still only make R40($6ish) a week and also are often evicted from their homes due to alcoholism. The deal is that they used to be paid in bottles of wine, especially if they worked at a vineyard, so the farmers kind've caused the problem. The Western Cape province has the highest rate of fetal alcohol syndrome in the world--crazy, eh?

-when crossing the street, look right, look left, look right again, look left again--and then just walk out fearlessly and hope nobody hits you. This jaywalking philosphy works particularly well when there are others in front of you.
-you can buy white rice flour for waaay cheaper than my region of the US.
-texting rules, because airtime is expensive. However, people from anywhere in the world can call you and it never charges your cell phone.

-There's a lot of confusion over identity here--more on that in a later post.

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure,
whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”- Philippians 4:8

Byes!