I am now connected to the internet. Thanks to the help of my Dad, I have a dial-up connection at my house, that is painfully slow by any of your spoiled Western standards, but is so very awesome by my new "African standards". I'm charged as per use, so I won't be an internet junkie by any means, but it will enable me to stay better connected with all of you and have more consistent blogs! That is most likely all that I will really be using it for..that and the odd moment of weakness whereby I check out news sites or peruse Facebook for some juicy back-home updates. I'm only human.. In truth I'm both ecstatic and disappointed with the availability of internet and certain modern luxuries here. In my naivety, I wasn't aware that there would be internet and photocopiers (however ancient and back-dated) and grocery stores with cereal and peanut butter here. I was expecting..a lot more rustic..a lot more difficult. I was expecting hard-core. Having it not be that tough, while making my time here more comfortable and less shocking, does exactly that-my "Crazy Hardcore African Endeavour" is more of a "Less-comfortable-than-home-and-frustrating-but-not-altogether-hardcore-or-crazy-African-Endeavour". This is Africa, but for me, and for many of you I would imagine, it's not at all the Africa that we imagine. We think of Africa as so far behind us in terms of development, and in some cases that is true, but, at the same time, it is 2009 here too..and it's a small, small world..most of what we have in North America bleeds over into Africa and develops, in its own ways, here. Cell phones, internet, Coke, digital cameras, toasters and mp3s. Most of what we have at home, they have here. At first I wanted to reject a lot of it, and "rough it" like I expected that I would have to, but what's the point in fighting it...this is Africa, and this is what I came here for. That being said, it is bizarre sometimes, driving 6 people (or 7) in a taxi with no seat belts into town, past thatched huts and livestock-cows, donkeys, goats-meandering on the roads (yes, making driving-and passengering- a sometimes frightening and dangerous experience..using horns are a big thing here, while actually slowing down, isn't) and then buying Kellogg's Corn Flakes and Coke in a grocery store with your Visa. It's this masterful combination and contrast of traditional and tribal Africa, and industrialized, modern Africa. A confusing symbiosis for sure, but it works.

Wow...somehow the topic of having internet spun madly out of control and warped into some sort of philosophical mess of word vomit, I apologize. I was in such a good mood after getting my internet up and running that I decided to walk into town to get some Coke Zero (HUGE discovery-one of the shops in Okahao sometimes has Coke Zero, meaning I can get my cooldrink non-water fix without rotting my teeth out of my head) and peanut butter. No Coke Zero (did I mention that stock in many stores fluctuates greatly and is terribly inconsistent. They might have it one day, and not again for a few weeks. Luck of the draw...it makes everything so much more exciting!), so I settled for Pineapple Fanta-a new obsession of mine- and, get this, chocolate-chip peanut butter. Now these people understand innovation. It is awesome. On my walk home I was descended upon by 6 little girls, ranging from ten to maybe three years old. Not an adult to be seen. They just started walking with me. They spoke enough English for me to get names out of 4 of them, Loide, Maria, Hilma, Hilga and to tell me that they like soccer. The rest of the conversation was pretty one-sided, met with blank stares of awe, or giggles. Two of them attached themselves to my hands, and we just walked. I felt a bit like the pied piper (I don't know at all if that's the correct reference), leading my parade of shoeless children down the road, skipping, dancing and singing "Skiddamarinky-dinky-dink" down a dirt road. I felt so young, and so..just happy. I love it here. My new friends left me, with a "see you later" just before I turned off the main road down my school's dirt road to my home. I wish I had a camera with me, but I have a feeling I'll be seeing more of them over the course of the next year.