Aids is not witchcraft

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Besides the interesting and obvious issue of AIDS being associated with witchcraft, I think this sign is interesting on another level. The western eye would immediately see this as targeting gay men. But I don't think it is. In Malawi (and many other countries) it is very common for straight men to hold hands in public. Just this weekend Claudia and I saw a very tough, macho looking guy holding hands with a friend walking down the street. I don't think a Malawian looking at a picture like this would associate the two men as being gay. Yet the more I look at the picture, the less certain I am of the artist's intent. The eyes, the posture, the message - I just don't know!

Gluttony Night

Just saw this article on BoingBoing about eating a 100 patty In-N-Out Burger.

Check out the picture:



This brought back fond memories of "Gluttony Night" - when a bunch of guys from my dorm decided to do an eating marathon of our favorite junk food dives. Let me see if I remember:

6 Inches of Subway sub
3 Tacos from Tacos Mexicos
1 Chili Cheese Burger from Tommy's
1 Chili Cheese Fries from Tommy's
1 Gigantic Cinnamon Roll from Donut Man
1 Double double from In-N-Out

Boys - you know who you are - am I missing anything? I remember lying in bed that night feeling heat pouring off of my body as it tried to cope with all of the calories. Those were the days...

Also, I think BoingBoing doesn't give proper respect to In-N-Out. In-N-Out deserves a lot of praise for always using fresh ingredients, paying their workers a living wage, and for making cool t-shirts.

Update

Looks like I was wrong. Despite many In-N-Out adventures, and even a birthday party where the "cake" was an In-N-Out 4x4 with candles, In-N-Out played no role in Gluttony night. Thanks to Adam and the Juice for clearing this up. Instead we had chili cheese fries along with our chili cheese burgers at Tommy's - what was I thinking you don't visit Tommy's without getting the chili cheese fries!

Wireless Networking in the Developing World

Rob Flickenger - Wireless Networking Uber Guru and some friends have
just released a book that I can't wait to read.

Wireless Networking in the Developing World

I think this book was written for me!

I have read other Flickenger titles, and found his work incredibly
practical and very motivating. Look out Malawi...

Download it here.

Some excerpts from the press release:


London, England-- Imagine trying to piece together a wireless network with no manuals, sporadic and slow access to the Internet, inadequate tools, a shortage of supplies, and in the most inclement weather. The authors of a recently published book, "Wireless Networking in the Developing World" don't need to imagine. They have been doing so for years.

In almost every village, town, or city in the developing world, there are people who can build just about anything. With the right know-how, this can include wireless networks that connect their community to the Internet. The book addresses what Rob Flickenger, the book's editor and lead author, calls a chicken-and-egg problem: "While much information about building wireless networks can be found on-line, that presents a problem for people in areas with little or no connectivity", said Flickenger from his workshop in Seattle. The book covers topics from basic radio physics and network design to equipment and troubleshooting. It is intended to be a comprehensive resource for technologists in the developing world, providing the critical information that they need to build networks. This includes specific examples, diagrams and calculations, which are intended to help building wireless networks without requiring access to the Internet.

In the developing world, one book can often be a library, and to a techie this book may well be a bible. Access to books is difficult where there are few libraries or book stores, and there is often little money to pay for them. "Our book will be released under a Creative Commons license, so everybody can copy and distribute it free of charge....

The book has been released under a Creative Commons license, meaning that it is free to download, print and modify, even for a profit, as long as proper credit is given and any modifications or copies made are shared under the same terms. For Flickenger, who has already published several successful books, publishing a book for free has been an interesting endeavor. He explains, "the Book Sprint team felt that the need for a freely available collection of practical information greatly outweighed any short term profit." ...

The authors also hope that by releasing the book into the "Creative Commons" that it can be improved, expanded, corrected and translated.

Those aren't berries!

This past weekend we were driving down the highway and I saw some people selling berries. We had bought some really nice raspberries on previous excursions so I was happy to see another opportunity for it.

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But as we stopped the car and the boy brought over his bowl, I realized that those weren't berries he was selling - they were bugs! They look like fried flying termites, but I don't know for sure. It would have been fun to try them, but somehow my brain was on berry mode, and not ready to switch to insect eating mode.

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I am told that fried insects are actually quite tasty and a critical source of protein when crops fail. Unfortunately, many Malawians starve instead of eating them. What would you do?

January Issue of Wired

I love Wired. Most of the articles eventually come out online, but there is something special about the glossy over size pages full of glitzy geekporn. Gadgets, graphics and games all meant to entice geeks to upgrade. One of my favorite computer science professors at UCLA told us that Wired should be required reading for every IT professional. He went on to say that the writing was pretty much useless, but by flipping through the advertisements in Wired you had your finger on the pulse of the new economy. I subscribed for a number of years, but have really missed getting it while living abroad for the past 5+ years. Despite, what my professor said I find most of the writing top notch.

Recently one of the OIBM board members was visiting from the US and brought me the most recent issue of Wired. I have finished reading it cover to cover (the back cover has an oddly sexy advertisement for a toilet) and wanted to offer it up to someone else in Lilongwe. First commenter can claim it!

Practical strategies for breaking the cycle of food insecurity

A while back I included a guest post from Stacia and Kristof Nordin called Man should not live on Nsima alone. They just included me on another one of their excellent editorials. The ideas put forward give me much hope for Malawi, but they are just as applicable in Los Angeles as Lilongwe. Anyways, enjoy - and thanks Stacia and Kristof.



"In New Year messages, East African leaders warn that millions of people in the region face hunger because poor rains have affected vital crops and pasture."

"In an ironic twist of fate, the drought-ravaged Nsanje district in southern Malawi experienced its worst flooding in almost half a century. At least 2,000 people were displaced as the river Ruo burst its banks to flood six villages."

"In the northern region, rainfall distribution has been uneven and erratic. There are also reports of a windstorm in Nkhata Bay with people displaced and seeking shelter in churches and schools."

Once again the news media are reporting about the 'food' crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa, this year worse than the other years' crises, but all the same, another annual crisis. We hear about rationing of food aid, the need for hundreds of metric tones of maize, and the potential for thousands of people to starve. The list of culprits includes drought, floods, poverty, not enough seed and synthetic fertilizer inputs, lack of government action, or the effects of HIV. Unfortunately, this is a pattern that continues year after year, with the exception that each year it gets worse. It seems like our development and relief structures have at least succeeded in creating a sustainable food crisis.

With the chronic pattern of food insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa, are we really rethinking our strategies toward reversing this trend? Are we learning lessons from these patterns? It doesn't seem like the majority are. Instead of re-thinking the solutions, programs are continuing with the same activities but just spending more money and time on them - it is like yelling the same message again, but louder, to a person who doesn't speak your language; it won't help, you just lose more energy in the process and confuse and possibly irritate the other person. Instead you need to learn the other person's language.

Much to the glee of industrialized nations' subsidized farmers who produce too much and need to move it out and to the companies who make synthetic fertilizers, programmes continue to handout food aid, seed, and synthetic fertilizer to address the food crisis and its list of contributing problems. There are thousands of people spending millions of dollars and expending massive amounts of energy and time on the wrong things.

People often blame the Weather:

Granted, climates are changing, but the floods and droughts aren't solely the weather's fault. Low rainfall doesn't always cause a drought nor does heavy rainfall always cause a flood. It depends on the conditions on the ground as much as how much rain falls. Much of Sub-Saharan Africa is naturally a low rain climate - and it can be sporadically dry followed by a heavy rain, then dry and heavy rain again - that's the weather's pattern at our time in history and we should be planning for it.

I recently had an e-mail conversation with a group of people who make the maps of the rainfall in Malawi. They had sent me the map showing that almost the whole of Malawi, except for the Southern tip, had a normal rainfall pattern this last growing season. I asked them if there was a mistake, saying that I thought there was low rainfall as the media had reported 'drought'. They replied that the map only shows the rain for the whole season, it doesn't take into account the timing of the rain - the pattern of heavy rain followed by dry spells pattern. So I replied again saying "Then the problem was not the amount of rain we received; the problem was what we did with the rain when we got it."

So what are we doing with the scattered rain that we receive? Unfortunately, our shift in agriculture and life styles has drastically altered our environment, damaged our soil, and removed the diversity of plants and animals that used to help us cope with high and low amounts of rain. Areas that used to soak up rain and allow it to sink into the ground water, cleaning it and filtering it through the earth's layers, are gone. Areas are now cleared of plants, trees and animals and ploughed every year, or paved with roads, or covered with buildings, or as is popular around Sub-Saharan Africa, swept and burned rock hard. In these conditions when there is only a little rain, the soil, plants, and tress become dry very quickly resulting in drought, and when there is a lot of rain, the soil can't soak it up fast enough and the plants and trees aren't there to help, resulting in flooding.

Last year at our house, which is also a demonstration plot for sustainable agriculture and other sustainable living systems, there was drought on all the pieces of land around us, but our land had no drought. Instead, it grew into a jungle of a wide variety of different foods, medicines, and building supplies. Our harvests were abundant when our neighbors suffered. We also spent less money, time and energy on our farm. Why? What was the difference between what we did and what our neighbors did?

The solutions are (1) to take care of our soil and (2) to create systems that can withstand the natural pattern of weather - and this is true for all areas around the world, the only difference is in the designs; each design will match its own local conditions. The soil must eat a wide variety of foods for it to be healthy - just like we need to eat a wide variety of foods for us to be healthy - and this cannot be achieved with synthetic chemical fertilizers or mono-cropped agriculture! Synthetic fertilizers are similar to a multivitamin pill or medication - they treat the plant only, but do not feed the soil; if the plant, tree or animal is left in a deficient environment, it will become unhealthy again. Mono-cropped agriculture provides us with a very limited nutrient base for our bodies and our soil, so each year both are depleted.

The key concepts we need for designing our areas are:

* Conserving the soil by covering it with organic matter (alive or dead) and reducing any disturbance to the soil structure, such as digging;
* Feeding the soil by having a wide variety of plants, trees, animals and insects living on it then returning to the soil at the end of their lives;
* Avoiding any synthetic poisons or chemicals that will disturb the things living on or in the soil;
* Choose a wide variety of plants, trees, and animals that are appropriate to the weather patterns in the area and to provide us with a wide variety of useful products (foods, medicines, clothing, etc.)

The solutions are all around us wherever we are. Start looking more closely at the environment around you, starting at your own home and moving outwards. There is a lot of waste that we send down the sewer, into drains or into trash piles that could be re-designed to be a resource to help buffer low and heavy rainfall. There are a lot of ways that we can design our living areas, such as:

* Using a variety of different useful trees lining the roadsides, instead of just ornamental species;
* Creating road designs that harvest water along the edges instead of pushing it downhill to accumulate at the bottom and eroding as it goes;
* Planting parks full of useful species where people can pick fruits as they enjoy the park;
* Filling agricultural fields with many different species including inter-cropping with trees and other permanent species;
* Reducing the digging of soil by inter-planting with species that dig deep (trees for example) or wide (yams for example), species that dig to different depths in the soil, and by using mulching;
* Designing office complexes, schools, homes and other buildings to harvest water and to reuse water as many times as possible;
* Reducing and eventually eliminating the use of synthetic poisons and chemicals and instead using improved designs to prevent disease and insect damage and to boost harvests;
* Converting decorative flower gardens and patches of grass into decorative edible landscapes;
* Working with your community to harvest all the organic waste at the open market, the supermarket, restaurants and other food selling and eating places;
* Instead of sweeping the dirt, design walkways and use the dirt to make gardens appropriate to your area;
* Share writings like this with your colleagues along with a personal note from yourself;
* Try a new local food once a week (maybe you will like it so much that it will continue to be part of your diet!);
* Add a local seed variety, along with education, to the packets that you provide to farmers / gardeners.

The ideas are endless and they are feasible! You can add new ideas in small steps to your own life and then start sharing the ideas and results with others. If you are tired of the sustainable food crisis, join us in redesigning our plants, trees, and animals to achieve health and wealth.

Stacia & Kristof Nordin, nordin@eomw.net
Post Dot Net X124 Crossroads, Lilongwe, Malawi (Africa)
+265 (0) 1-707-213 or 9-333-073 or 9-926-153

Not the only guy from Reno in subsaharan Africa

I have been to a number of countries and on the road you always run into people with whom you share some sort of connection: "Oh, my inlaws are from Stuttgart... I went to UCLA too... We lived in Oxford for over three years" and so on. But it is quite rare to meet someone from Reno, let alone Nevada. I think there is less propensity for international travel there, especially off the beaten path sort of travel - which is the best kind of course. So I was surprised to hear that two people who graduated from my small high school (Bishop Manogue) are working next door in Mozambique:

Manogue graduates teaching, learning in Mozambique

Wireless Mesh Networking in the news

It sounds like some companies are trying to capitalize on the wireless mesh networking. The idea is pretty simple - let neighbors with broadband connections join them together to increase the total bandwidth that is available to them. The situation in Malawi is different of course, because hardly anyone has a broadband connection. For us wireless mesh networks are virtually the only way to get a decent internet connection. The trouble is you still need someone to have a connection - and that is what is so expensive.

Last week I was fed up with internet and just decided I would pay the money to get a slow, always on point to point wireless connection. I called three different companies. The cheapest price I found was through Skyband which charges $1100 for the setup cost, then $350 per month to get a 64kbps connection. I have therefore relented on my plan. I do know of some neighbors with one of these point to point connections though - so I am hoping to convince them to allow me to setup a mesh network and share it (including costs) with me.

Anyways, here are the articles about wireless mesh networking that Jesse pointed out to me:

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/16/business/wiboost.php
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/16/technology/16mushroom.html&cid=0
http://www.cio-today.com/news/The-Promise-of-Wireless-Mesh-Networks/story.xhtml?story_id=100007PWQ2J4

Malawi Blogger Brai

It has been over a month since our first Malawi Blogger get together, so I think it is time to do it again. This Friday evening, will be Malawi's first ever Blogger Brai held at my house. It is a strictly BYOB event. This means you must bring a blogger if you want to burn beef on the BBQ. We'll get going around seven. Post a comment below if you are planning on coming to give me an idea about numbers.

Directions to my house:

From the Capital Hotel drive up Capital Hill and turn right on Chayamba then left on Blantyre. Turn right about half a kilometer after the four way stop (there will be sign for Kuka lodge). Our house will be on the right side 43/2/223.
(Click here for a map with a blue pointer over my house)

Perhaps you don't have plans for Friday night, but are not yet a blogger. No problem - just go to Blogger and set up a free blog and write your first post. Then come to the brai and tell us about your experience.

My favorite Martin Luther King quotes



Happy Martin Luther King day. Here are a few quotes from one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century.

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

"If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live."

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

"When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative."

"I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law."

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. "

I can't recommend highly enough reading Let the Trumpet Sound a great biography of Martin Luther King.

You might also be interested to know that today is a public holiday in honor of John Chilembwe in Malawi. Read more about him on wikipedia, but basically he was an American educated Malawian who led a small violent revolt against colonial injustice 50 years before Malawi gained independence. (Jesse has a much better post about John Chilembwe .

Malawian Art

I just bought some hand painted cards in town and I wanted to share them. I think they are a beautiful example of Malawian artwork.

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The first one was created by Gilbert D. Mpakule from Zomba, Malawi. He has an email address - if you like what you see let him know: gmpakule@yahoo.com. As for the second I can only tell you that it is signed by "Chambers" - I bet Gilbert could pass on any messages though.

Managing the Geekery

Jesse (of LoungeChicken fame
and also my partner in Lilongwe website consulting) and I were recently
discussing the best way to track important technology trends. It is
difficult in Malawi, because for us internet time is a premium and there
is so much exciting stuff to try and stay up on. Without question you
need to use an RSS reader (see yesterday's post). My blogroll (on the
side of my blog) is not a helpful indicator because it is far too long.
Rather here would be my top picks for any nerd's Geekery:

http://slashdot.org/
I have been reading slashdot for almost a decade. It was a blog before
the word existed. It feels like it has lost its focus a bit lately, but
perhaps that is just relative to the new kids on the block. Any big
technology issue (and a lot of other good and bad stuff) will hit Slashdot.

http://www.boingboing.net/
BoingBoing is not a technology blog, its more pop culture for the
technology set. BoingBoing makes geeks cool.

http://digg.com/
Digg is sort of like slashdot but with more mayhem and a lot more
stories. If you want to know how to do cool JavaScript hacks or be the
first to hear about Google's new beta mind reading application tune in
here. Sadly, I only get to it every week or so.

Honorable mentions would have to include the following (not necessarily
geek chic) blogs:

http://www.worldchanging.com/ - Hacking the world for justice and beauty
http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog - Africa news and blogging inspiration
http://www.williamgibsonbooks.com/blog/blog.asp - Rare but crazy gems

Consumption and creation of blogs for newbies

A number of my readers are new to the world of blogs and blogging, so I thought I would post a few tips to help them get up to speed.

Reading blogs is fun - but subscribing to blogs is even better. Perhaps you have your favorite blogs bookmarked and from time to time you click through your bookmarks and look for new posts. There is a better way.

You can subscribe to all of the blogs that you follow in one place. As soon as new content is posted to any of the blogs that you have subscribed to it will be collected and ready for you to read. That way you never miss a post and you don't waste time loading a blog that hasn't been updated.

In order to subscribe to blogs you need an RSS Reader. I use Bloglines.com which is a web based RSS Reader. With a free account on bloglines you can subscribe to an unlimited number of blogs. Then to see what new blog posts you have to read you just go to one place - bloglines. Since it is online you can check from any computer - it is similar to checking your email on a website. Another good option is to use Thunderbird to subscribe to blogs. In case you aren't already using Thunderbird for email, let me just say that it has all of the features of Outlook Express but is much better.

Once you have your RSS reader setup, you just need to find out the address of the RSS feed for the blog you want to subscribe to. Most blogs have a link in the menu or at the bottom. Mine is on the side - the link looks like this:

http://www.vdomck.org/blog/feed/

You can paste that link into your feed reader (For bloglines you do that here). Bloglines also has some special forms that help you find feeds if you are having trouble.

Once you start reading blogs you might want to start writing them as well. Start by adding some comments to the ones that you are already reading - authors love feedback. Almost all blogs let you post comments. Then go to blogger.com and get your own blog. Its easy, looks great and completely free - thanks to Google.

The MW top level domain

Recently, on the IT Malawi mailing list there has been some discussion about domain names in Malawi, and how organizations are using long and ugly .com domains instead of .mw addresses. Here are my thoughts:

The mw domain is totally underused. But there is a very
simple reason for this:

From http://www.registrar.mw

Registrant agrees to pay a registration fee of One Hundred United States
Dollars (US$100) as consideration for the registration of each new
domain name or Fifty United States Dollars (US$50) to renew an existing
registration. The payment must be made payable directly to "Malawi
SDNP".


The Malawi Sustainable Development Network Programme has a monopoly on selling mw domains, and they sell them at more than five times the market price for domain names. What makes this even more sad is the fact that SDNP is a United Nations funded program.

I have built a number of websites for Malawi based businesses, and
everyone has wanted a .mw domain but nobody is willing to pay $50 per
year for a .mw name when they can get a .com or .org for $8 from
godaddy.com (but only if you have a credit card which Malawians do not).

Perhaps there is justification for these outrageous prices, if so I look forward to seeing some SDNP comments below. Otherwise, reduce the prices, or even better allow professional companies to resell the mw domain.

Region free DVD player

This is just a quick post to help those of us who buy or borrow DVDs from different parts of the world. People are always asking me how I manage to watch my American DVDs and the British ones that the video store rents without using up all of my laptop's region switches. The simple answer is download VLC - Video Lan Client. VLC is an open source media player that can play just about any video format you would ever want to play including DVDs. The best part though, is that it can play DVDs from any region without requiring you to change the region set on your hardware (which is usually limited to a fixed number of changes). Since it is open source there are ports to most operating systems including Windows, OSX and Linux. Happy DVD watching.

Alternative travel destinations in Malawi

Thanks to news.google.com and its ability to customize what news is displayed - I just read this strange but interesting article:
Malawi My Country First in which the author suggests creative things for Malawians to do in Malawi on their holidays.

I thought it would be interesting because we rarely see Malawians at any of the standard tourist destinations like the national parks or forest lodges. It was more interesting and much more confusing than I imagined - but offers some very alternative ideas with destinations not even mentioned in Lonely Planet or Bradt.


In my mind, I can picture myself doing lots of things really, like taking a basic bus ride, all the way to Livingstonia (drop off at Chitimba) and hoof or hitchhike to my favourite place, Vunguvungu, at the crossroads soon after the picturesque 21-hair-pin bend Gorodi Road before climbing to the Dr Laws Plateau. There I would sit under the grass-thatched shack and bang the cheap mkontho hard with the friendly and warm village folks, the hard-working and educated Phokas that I know!
We would hammer the brew hard, sing our way into early evening, and they would escort me as I wobble my way up the plateau to the Guest House, where I would find some ripe bananas waiting for me, supplied by some old, well-meaning friends who would know that I (“Nyasulu”, as they corrupted my name) am in the vicinity.


If you have other alternative destinations add them to the comments below!

Images for Web 2.0

I expect a lot of useful things to emerge from the hype surrounding "web 2.0". Among other things the web will become editable, semantically searchable, and just plain cooler. My contribution to the coolness category is a way to zoom in on images using just a bit of javascript. I think there are plenty of applications for this, but first an explanation.

The javascript to do this is just under 100 lines, but most of that is an attempt to handle any sort of image thrown at the script. The concept itself is pretty simple.
* Create a div the same size as the image, put the image inside it
* Hide any content that is larger than the div (overflow:hidden)
* Scale and move the image when clicked

Figuring out the calculation for moving the image was the hardest. I worked it out on paper, but had apparently forgotten most of the transformation logic of 9th grade geometry. (twice the coordinate clicked minus half the width of the div if you are curious)

Download the javascript file for zooming images.

To use it, you just add an onLoad event to your image that calls makeImageZoomable:

<img onLoad="makeImageZoomable(this)" src="GreenMarketSquare.jpg"/>


Cool eh? But zooming in on an image that is already at its native resolution isn't that useful. Instead it would be great if you could have a zoomable high resolution image scaled down to fit your page requirements. Then when the user zooms in more detail is revealed. Just add a style tag of your desired width or height and this script will take care of the rest:

<img style="width:500px" onLoad="makeImageZoomable(this)" src="GreenMarketSquare.jpg"/>


If your image is saved as a progressive jpg things are even better as the user will see a decent version of the image before the entire image has completed the download.

Here is an example that shows it in action. (It isn't going to work in IE because buttons are handled differently in IE and I didn't feel like fighting IE's incompatibilities - bug me enough and I will do it)

I am also working on a GreaseMonkey script that will allow you to zoom any image on the web - stay tuned.

Chicken revenge

This Calvin and Hobbes is just too classic - and even funnier after you see live chickens in bags, hanging from handlebars or strapped to the roof of a minibus.

A visit to Cape Town

In December we decided we needed a break that would allow us to indulge
ourselves in some of the things that Malawi doesn't have. We originally
planned a weekend in Johannesburg, but then heard that the Drakensberg
mountains (near Joburg) are even more beautiful than the Alps and the Rockies so we added a day and changed our itinerary. But then Claudia managed to get a few more days off, and for only marginally more airfare we could go all the way to Cape Town. It was at this point that people started telling us about Cape Town. The way people described the restaurants, the scenery, the wine - they were all superlatives. Multiple well-traveled people told me it was their favorite city on the planet. But after not having left Malawi or Zambia for one year I couldn't even imagine a movie theatre in subsaharan Africa. Therefore my expectations were high even if my imagination wasn't able to keep up.

Cape Town delivered. Our highlight was probably the food. We ate really
really well. Most of the time we chowed down at Pan-Asian restaurants,
but there was also a great German restaurant (Paulaner Brauerie), and plenty of outdoor cafes in decidedly non-Malawian environments (skyscrapers, live music, strolling shoppers). We have never been into sushi before, but it was such a novelty and so tasty that we had it three times. Our favorite meal was at Haiku, a restaurant with 4 different kitchens for each of their Asian specialties. The food was unique and the atmosphere was uber cool. We also visited beautiful wineries including Waterford, which had a wine and chocolate experience - wonderful!

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We also drove to the Cape of Good Hope, watched a movie (Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe), and enjoyed a Latino concert in beautiful gardens with the spectacular Table Mountain as a backdrop.

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The strange thing about Cape Town is the absence of black Africans. It was really weird. Despite the struggle against apartheid, or more likely as the result of decades of successful apartheid, Cape Town feels like a very non-black town. There are a large number of mixed race people (called coloureds) but they are significantly poorer than the white people. It was common to be in a restaurant with all white people being served by white waiters, cooked food by coloured or asian chefs and having our dishes washed by black workers.

I have read Mandela's biography, A Long Walk to Freedom, and we visited the desolate island prison where he spent 30 years of his life preparing himself and training others in the miraculous and relatively peaceful revolution that ended apartheid in South Africa. But after seeing Cape Town (and even the airport in Joburg), I think it will be a while longer before equality reigns let alone true reconciliation. Then again, I suppose this is a struggle that the whole world is experiencing.

Africa Quiz

How much do you know about Africa? Take the Africa Quiz that Ethan Zuckerman and friends recently created. It doesn't take long - just 10 questions. I scored a 60. Good luck!