Pretoria die zweite

Hallo meine Lieben,

another hello from Pretoria. I get more and more used to the city and the way "one" behaves, this really helps sharpening observation and imitation skills. Although I found it is much easier when the people think you are a tourist then when they think you are a white South African. At least for me this works better.

Apartheid is not too long over and this is what one still can observe. Today I have been to the center of town and walked all the way (1 hour there plus 1 hour back plus getting lost here and there and this all in roundabout 30 degrees...). On my way I passed a long fence behind which primary school children where playing football or sitting in the shade. There were three groups, the first I passed was a group of black children, the second was coloured and the third white... Another thing I found really shocking was the advertisement for abortion for 250R (which is with the current exchange rate around 280 Euro) and another medical center that offered circumsicion, family planning would obviously be a nice topic to research here. I hope to be able to upload some photos next time so that you can see how it looks here.

For the research I went to the Tourist Office of Pretoria, where they had only one brochure of the South African National Parks, which they could not give away and never had heard of the Maloti Drakensberg TFCA (MDTP), at least the guy I spoke to there. Yesterday I have been to the SANparks Head Quarters with Bram, where we tried to speak to one of the managers of the Golden Gate Highland National Park (GGHNP which is included in the MDTP) but we could not be open about being researchers (because you need permission) which made the whole thing a bit difficult and not really successfull in the end. For me it was very nice to observe Bram and the ways he used to get passed this reception man, I can definitely learn from this.

Yesterday I finally heard back from one of the NGOs I contacted, the most important one and they said it would be good to meet me etc.... that is sooooooooo good, now I can just pass by them in Maseru and have one chat or hopefully more with them. Will prepare for this interview a bit more in reading more about what they do etc. to get the most out of it. From them (it is the TRC-Transformation Resource Center) I hope to get links to active local groups.

Spending some days here in Pretoria before I move on is definitely very good, so I can get much better adjusted, especially to the weather, I would not have thought that it is going to be soooooooo brilliant.

Next time you will here from me from Maseru, the capital of Lesotho.
All the best