December 2002, South Africa

okay everybody

desole pour les francophones mais la plus grande partie va etre en anglais... pas de ma faute mais etant donne le monde dans lequel on vit... ou je vis en tout cas.

Mais quand meme qlq nouvelles, a part le fait (evident) que je suis encore en vie et que j'ai encore tous mes doigts (les fautes de frappes viennent du querty).

Okay je suis bien arrive apres 19 heures de vol (par ce qui me semble tous les capitals de l'afrique) a johannesburg. je suis rentre dans mon hostal sans problemes et je compte partir de jo'burg demain pour aller a preytoria et voir aussi le departement d'education la-bas.> si vous voulez me joindre, tous les soirs je vais essayer de> trouver un > reseau mobilophonique et verifier mes messages (que vous pouvez gratuitement > envoyer par internet: www.mine.be).

for all you anglophiles out there: welcome, this is the story of my trip in south africa, where i'll be for about two months (til the beginning of december). got here okay in johannesburg (5 million inhabitants (officially, probably more- third biggest city of africa), it's quite safe (bit of a disappointement really, was expecting gangs ad shoot-outs after all the stories i've heard... no, it's quiet similar to the states (except then that there are less shoot-outs and gangs). in my hostal there's mostly people staying there for safaris and rafting tips, none really seeming to be interested in south africas way of living or organisations though. will see how the rest of the country is though. am going to the capital tomorrow (pretoria for the uncultured amongst you) and then to a national park, kruger probably. On the bright side though, am staying at this great great backpackers place the ritz (no, not the real one), but it's impressively nice. went to see the zoo and the military museum this morning (there's not supposed to be much to see in johannesburg....) and i'm tryin to blend in with the university crowd now (that's where i'm typing from). everything is heavily guarded though and i don't know if my afrikaans is up to this already. after having walked one hour to the belgian consulat (to drop of my passport and plane> tickts, am > not taking any chances here, i wanna be able to leave) have hitchhiked to the center (dispite al horrorstories and met a nice guy who wants to show me one of the "more local" neighbourhoods of jo'burg. am curious. that's all for now folks, wont be writing that many of these massive e-mails so don't worry about spamming.