Clarens.... and finally Internet

Hey out there,

finally I have Internet again, that is sort of really good working. Nearly a week past by now since I posted last time and lots lots happened.

From Pretoria we drived down to Maseru, yes, I drove as well on the *wrong* side of the road and the car, that was already really exciting. But what was even more exciting is the landscape it is incredible wide wide wide and then you see the horizon, where the clouds touch the next mountains or hills I was totally amazed and took one picture after the other. I hope I can post one, but am afraid that they are to big to be uploaded.

In Maseru Bram and me were storming the MDTP office and the NES library for two days and I was basically following Bram who knows everybody and he did a very good job introducing me everywhere and giving me all the background details. And of course in repeating those Sesotho names all over and over again for me... Lucky as we are we were invited to attend the Strategic Transfrontier Workshop of the MDPT with both offices (Lesotho and South Africa) present. Thus I had the whole project team one day later in Butha Buthe available for questions. This was better than great!!! Especially because it was the team from both countries talking about the transfrontier strategy, exactly what I am interested in.

Yeah and this questioning, I mean once you are in, everything is fine, but these first minutes of small talk... I really have to get used to being a bit of a nuisance to those people, that I suspect have information I need. With others it is fine they open up because they are really open and interested anyway and are present in the same area. Just that they have much more expertise on it like for example Tony who answered to my blog last week (Thanks a lot Tony!!! I am coming back with some of my comments to you) So there is this balance that you need to strike. And I found out, one or two beers are always a good starter :-) I need to get some training in that though.

The meeting itself was taking up two days, and on Friday we went to the Butha Buthe office of the MDTP talking with Mathosi of how to get access to local communities. He is the head of the BB office and he is really in for helping us. The weekend in Clarens is dedicated to get up to date with my notes and all my thoughts about it. I hope to be able to give you some of those next time. In the end it is all about: "first people need to eat and then they can think about conservation", just to give you some illustrations of the comments I receive.

On Sunday night we really go local, in a community hostel, no electricity, no water... until Wednesday and then I hope to give you much more insight not only into politics (as I get now) but as well into the rural life.

Ok, three more minutes to go and then we are kicked out here...
ALL THE BEST TO ALL OF YOU