Cape Town!
Hello from Cape Town, South Africa!! I never found an internet cafe around the port of Mombasa; we didn't have much time after our overnight safari adventure. We have arrived 26 hours late in Cape Town. Yesterday, due to high winds and fires on all(?) the mountains in the city, we spent the day going back and forth out in the bay, far enough away that we could barely tell a city was on the land. Until our unexpected vacation yesterday, the most recent leg of the journey has been quite hectic, with several guest speakers, including Lee Hirsch, cool and laid back, plus the director of _Amandla!, Revolution in Four Part Harmony_, about the collapse of Apartheid in South Africa through music. The movie quite impressed me, especially when I used headphones to listen to the audio. (Thanks to Hitomi for renting it before the voyage even started!) Lee Hirsch is a cool guy - very approachable and happy to chat about anything. Most nights he joined us to boogie down on the dance floor, and he even DJed for a while. He invited us all to his suite to hang out and stuff. He's definitely not full of himself about his movie; when I was hanging with him, he never even mentioned it even though it was in the back of my mind the whole time: he spent 10 years on this super-cool project that has documented a revolution, and affected millions of people in very positive ways. Classes have been going quite well for me. Fantastic Rabbits rival Cheerful Dancing Fellows (the name of one of my classes last voyage) as far as bonding goes. Fighting Goats seem more bonded than Happy Wonderful Girls did. (my shy girls' class from last voyage) I am quite pleased to say I am quite close to having pictures online! I wrote a program that changes image filenames to a more human readable name. If I can find a cafe with a fast connection, I'll get them uploaded. We put on two big Events recently: GET Language Olympics, a day of fun and loudness on the pool deck with almost all the GET students participating... and the Charity Auction, where we raised 450,000 yen ($4500-ish). I was much more involved with the Charity Auction: we do a one minute skit for each item up for bid. For the day in the suite with bath, Dan came up with a genius plan. We put a table on its side to represent the bathtub. He got behind the table, and I walked up to the tub wearing just a towel. I scooped up a bowl of blue ribbon to represent water, and then when I got into the table/tub, Dan tossed more blue ribbon over the side as the water overflowed. Phil had the great(?) idea of Shaving Our Chests for Charity. Carl and I decided to join the fun, so we all went up onstage wearing wigs on our chests. Phil actually wore a wig plus whiteboard with hair drawn on it, which was erased onstage to represent the shave. In reality, we set up the pricing so I would be shaved for 5000 yen, Carl and I would be shaved for 10,000 yen, and all three of us would be shaved if we were sold for 15,000 yen. For a while, it looked like Phil would get away UNSHAVED, which would have been a grand irony. But, at the last second, CC Rie went for the kill and bought us all. I bounced cheeringly off the floor and ran offstage with glee. ------------- All the above and previous email was written prior to our arrival in Cape Town. Cape Town!!! The city reminds me of any western city with streets and CD stores and taxis. All the stores facing Long Street (which Lee described as "just like Bourbon Street at night") have balconies on the second story, but varied architecture past that. Wood, stone, brick, iron all merge into this mosaic of cultures. We're about to go out and about; actually I don't see my peeps right now, but the good news: I've got pictures: http://robnugen.com/images/travel/Pb/52nd_Dec-Mar_2006/pre-Cape_Town/ I hope everyone is blessed with love, light, music and joy. - Rob!