Here is an update on what I have been doing last weekend;
(Monday, August 15, 2005 3:23 PM)

On saturday I went to a local Rugby game which was the Lions versus the blue bulls. The lions are the local team. Rugby is really intense live The standium is huge compared to the "Rogers" centre and it only hold Rugby fans, it is caled the Ellis Stadium which is right near the University of Witerstand. I than had a bri (which is a BBQ) with the Alberton President of the club. Had lamb chops for the first time. A bunch of rotarians want to take us out sometime to eat Mompali worms which are worms about the size of our longest finger. I hope I don't have to but if you have to you have to.

On Sunday I went to Church in the East end of Jo'burg with Arthur; it is a Liberal Catholic Church. he was so genuine and so insightful. I met the first person who actually knew where Kitchener was. She is a very old lady but extremely bright; she has invited me to go to a Grand Orcashra performance in Jo'burg sometime this month.

We then where invited to have dinner with Lilly and her husband; they are a chinese couple who are art of the Bruma Club. They brought us to a resturant which was located in China Town. Oh was the food like Ouane's wedding al over again. I thought it would be 10 plates like the wedding so I trie saving room but it still kept on coming. It went all the way to 15 courses. There was everything from seafood to, pork, chicken and tofu. It was yummy; I felt like I was going to explode.

Since we where already in Jo'burg Arthur and Don decided to bring me to the Bruma Market which is were a bunch of vendors set up and you have to pay to get in. It was okay but it wasn't as good as the Rooftop market in Rosebank. We than went to the largest mall in the Southern Hemisphere which I have no idea what the name of the place is because it I was so tired from the long day. We ended up just having coffee and tea at a nice cafe called Brazillian.

Today I went for a jog with Don up the country road. It is so much harder to breath here because the altatude is so much higher than Canada. I thought I would have time to sleep so I was ready to jump into bad and wake up whenever and take a shower. But at the last moment I was told that I had been booked for a bus tour to Jo'bug and Soweto. (Jo'bur is the short form for Johannesburg) On the tour I got to cross the Nelson Mandela Bridge which was just recently built in 2003. It isn't that big but it crosses over the huge train station at the bottom. To get to the Bridge you must g through Braamfontein which was one of the three farms that would eventually create Jo'burgs main industry of mining. I than go a bird's eye view of all of Jo'burg through the top floor of th Carlton Centre. It is 50 stories high!! When I say we it means me and the tour guy because I was the only one that woke up that early for the tour. So many people went on the next one. After the Carlton Centre I went to the Ferreira Mine Stope which is found underneath one of the major buildings. It was only descovered when the building was created.

We then went off the Soweto which is a major city that holds both the rich and the poor. During the whites rule the plague had been killing many in Jo'burg so many whites said it was because the blacks where the ones that were causing it. So all the blacks where shipped to Soweto which means South Western Township. It's population is larger than that of Jo'burg. We past the biggest public hospital in the Southern Hemisphere called the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital.

I then ha the oppertunity to see the slums of Soweto called the Motsoaledi Settlement which was so touching. The conditions where a bit better than what the show on World vision except for the fact that right across the street the rich live. I was able to go into one of the tin shacks; it was tight and it often hold up to seven people. Flies where everywhere and every 10 houses had to share a bathroom which is emptied every six months. But they do have clean running water.

Soweto as one street called Vilakazi which is famous for two people;

Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmon Tutu. The both were born and grew up on he same steet. I had the oppertunity to see Winnie Mandel's house; she is Mandels's second wife which he later divorced. She built the house with the money that was to be going to the poor. Many of the funders thought the it would be safe with her for the fact that her husband was in jail.

My last stop was the HEctor Pieterson Museum. He was a young boy who was shot and killed in the corner of Moema and Vilakazi by police during a peace protest for eduacation. This occured on June 16 1976. It was a graphic museum both visual and written. On the walls there are actual quotes from whites and black about the issues of Apartaid. Many of them were very ignorant. There were actual boards that said Blacks are crap; Blacks whould be killed; Blacks Dominate. All those things.

I hope this updates you on what I have been doing lately. I hope you guys don't think I am dead. I miss you guys and I hope you do to. Love you all. Talk to you later and hope to here back from you.

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Bounmy Inthavong