Innibos music festival

We started the day early again (seems to be the thing to do around here) by going to the morning security meeting at Innibos, which is the region's largest music/cultural festival. The Innibos festival is focused on Afrikaans culture, so it's very specific. But it's been going on for six years and has grown steadily each year -- now they're up to about 120,000 attendees.

Almost all the music is performed in Afrikaans, which was pretty cool. I caught a minute on video (below). A lot of the tunes were really schmaltzy but at least one of the acts was pretty good -- Snotkop. Funny name, eh? The show had a really interesting format where they had all the bands on stage at once and they brought people on stage from the audience who got to pick which song they wanted the performers to perform. It was fun and interactive (and I didn't mind that it was all in a language I didn't understand...in fact, that made it more interesting to me.) Joanne did a nice job of describing the format of the show and posted a couple photos.



I got to try a couple of South African carnival food specialties -- Roosterkoeke (which was a nice grilled bread filled with the stuffing of your choice, such as sausage or cheese etc) and Spitbrei, which was basically just grilled meat on bread (only the guy insisted we put mint jelly on it, which I could have lived without.)

We heard a couple more bands, including one that had perhaps the worst lyricist I've ever witnessed (I think he might have been Belgian singing in English). All of his songs were pedantic, literal and cliche. However, his back-up band was incredible -- they had a stand-up drummer from Cuba who was rocking out. Terrific. After a while I found myself able to tune out the singer and focus on the beats, which were complex, polyrhythmic and multilayered.

It was definitely strange to be in a place with nearly no black people. The festival caters to the whites because it's all about Afrikaans culture. So with the exception of a few black families and festival staff, it was all white. I can't tell you how strange it was to be in a crowd of 40,000 white people in Africa. Everyone on the CSC team definitely noticed it.

As for the Business Against Crime project, we're making some progress. Today I drafted the outline of what will be our final report and sketched out a little more detail for what will go into our deliverable to the client other than the report. We're nearing the halfway mark, so we need to stay focused on actually pulling together our final work in time.

I think this weekend we're heading to Swaziland on Saturday and to a safari on Sunday. Oh, and the Americans on the team are going to put together a little barbecue for tomorrow night in honor of July 4th. Should be a hoot.

Me, falling off of a cliff

So here's the video of me going off the edge of the Big Swing -- a 68 meter free fall in Mpumalanga, South Africa. You fall straight down backwards and then bounce around a bit at the bottom. Amazing!

I went to Mozambique today: SHTAPPEN'S

The name of this bar we drove past today in Mozambique would make a good summary for the day.

Actually, we used a much stronger word.

We went on a day trip today to Mozambique. The whole day started off on bad footing when our guide showed up a half hour late in a nice big bus and promptly told us we had to switch to a tiny van. but first we went and gassed up the big bus (one supposes for some other, luckier tourists) and then drive to some guy's house to make the switch. Basically, an hour of mucking around before we hit the road.

The then "two hour drive" turned out to more like three and very chaotic hour-long border crossing. I don't want to kvetch too much, but the day trip was not great. Mozambique is a total hole -- especially on a Sunday in winter. We went to a boring deserted train station ("one of the main tourist attractions in Maputo") and drove around the dodgy downtown area. It's no wonder that the town is a craphole -- the Portuguese got kicked out in 1975 and hardly anything's been built or repaired since then. It reminded me a lot of the films I've seen of Cuba -- lots of patch work and decay.

What else did we experience? Getting shaken down by some AK-47-carrying police (one of us took a picture of them from a distance, then they wanted a bribe.) Missing the market which apparently closes early on Sunday (remember how we left an hour and half late?) A crazy and semi-scary reentry into South Africa at night at the Mozambique border. Spending about ten hours of driving in a cramped bus.

Ok, now I've vented...here's the good part:

• I have a Mozambique stamp in my passport
• Ate some decent seafood
• Walked out to the edge of the Indian Ocean (I dipped my toe in!)
• Played with some kids on the beach who wanted to show us their kool karate moves
• Took some interesting photos
  
• We got back in one piece and Mary organized a great dinner for us

Also, I'll say that it refreshed my memory about how awesome it is to be from New York, where everything is well organized and safe. I might not have said such a thing a couple weeks ago. And the day trip also reminded me how great South Africa is -- and how well organized and safe it is. I might not have said that a week ago either.

We encountered more hostility today (in the form of people giving us the finger, interrogating us, intimidating us, begging aggressively etc) than we have in the whole time we've been here in Africa. It's just a different world in Mozambique. As a touristic day-trip, it really stunk (and I'm fairly certain our guide fleeced us a bit too). But at least I've had the aperture of my personal perspective broadened once again.

A day of danger: chimps and cliffs

A quick post because I am soo tired. Today we saw chimps and jumped off a cliff.

In the morning a group of us went to the Jane Goodall Chimp Eden, where abused chimps are taken care of by a dedicated staff in an incredible facility. They have about 30 chimps in all. I had no idea how dangerous chimps are until the guide showed us her stump of a finger where a chimp had bitten off half. Apparently they also like to hurl rocks at tourists (video to come!)

In the afternoon we headed up to a gorgeous gorge (cliche, I know...sorry) with an incredible view...and jumped off of it! It's an attraction called The Big Swing. First, you do a zip line across the gorge, then you do a 68 meter, 3 second free fall backwards into it from another platform. That's like a 23 storey drop. All I can say is that the experience was dreamlike. I often dream of flying and the free fall into the gorge was as close as I've come to the sensation in reality as ever. I laughed the whole way down. And yes, I was scared shitless at the moment I jumped.

After the incredible gorge experience (I am still laughing every time I think about it -- it was THAT good) we headed up to God's Window -- which was also incredibly beautiful. It's a high point and canyon with a celestial view of South Africa.

I have some great photos and video (thanks to Chris, Zach and Caroline) of Anil, Scott and myself on our high-speed journeys into the chasm, which I'll post later -- just putting up a few shots now because it's late and tomorrow we are getting up very early to go for a day trip to Mozambique.

Busted!

No, Anil and I have not been arrested :-) Actually, one of the advantages of hanging around with cops is that you get to ride in their cool cars. In this case, it was Commander Cornelia's a tricked out BMW 5 series...hot!

We met this morning with a private security firm affiliated with the police -- they seem like really good guys who want to make a difference in the region (along with, of course, making a good living doing security.) They were so interested in our project and really willing to help. We learned from our client (Business Against Crime) that this region is different fro the rest of the South African states in that there is an unusually high level of cooperation between the state police and the local security firms. Before I left the US I'd seen a documentary that presented these firms in a very negative light -- and it's true, there are some fliy-by-night operations out there. but there ar also a buch of firms that are really doing good work in conjunction with the state police and filling gaps in under-serviced areas.

One of the things my little team is going to do is to build a prototype web application for smart phones that will help people report security incidents and get help etc. It will be a like an iPhone application. Believe it or not, we learned that the local phone provider has already deployed a 3G network in the area (that's the super-fast wireless network) and they are introducing iPhones and other smart phones to the market now. I say 'believe it or not" because the state of Mpumalanga is quite rural, but that doesn't mean the people here are happy with slow wireless!

In other news, we have been making group meals with everyone...tonight is my turn. I'm making veggie lasagna, salad and garlic bread. We have a few people who are vegetarian and, well, it's hard to go wrong with lasagna. So easy and I can serve the whole group in one shot. Also, we've been eating soooo much meat...it'll be nice to have something alittle lighter.

Just now I was teaching a few of the other people on my team how to use the Sony Vegas video editing software -- they are so excited about it and it's fun to teach them. It's nice to actually know what I am doing for a minute and feel like an expert on something. Being here is great, but very foreign -- even when I was teaching the software one of the people had it in Spanish, so it was a bit of a challenge to teach it without really being able to read what was on her screen.

Oh, and driving has been fun. The GPS has been indispensible and now I know how to drive on the left side of the road :-) Which some people claim is the right side of the road.

Ok, time to put away the computer and get some lasagna in the works!

Stars, wireless providers and a safari

The funny thing about the southern hemisphere is that the stars are actually different. You look up at night, see a zillion stars and then you realize you are on the other side of the planet.

Back on earth, this afternoon we had a very promising meeting with the largest local wireless provider -- if we can get them to work with us on this project, it would be a major windfall. I think the meeting went really well; the head of their regional marketing group liked our ideas, spent more than an hour with us and agreed to help us out initially. We'll see whether they come through or not, but it looked good.

Elsewhere on planet earth, this morning my little team got a special treat. Those two lovely SAP (South African Police officers) husband and wife couple, Ozzie and Cornelia took us to a private game reserve. We had to promise not to disclose the name or location because it's the private property of some gazillionaire they know -- he has more than 200 rhino (each of which cost about 200,000 rand) not to mention Kudu, Giraffe, buffalo, warthog and roan antelope...to mention a few. The owner of this private reserve protects these rhino by removing the horns -- this way, poachers are disinterested. He also makes sure the property is free of predators that would harm them. It was simply incredible. We were just a few feet away from these animals.

At one point the rhino actually charged me and Anil...we thought we were done. but it was just trying to intimidate us (it worked) and it stopped short of us by a few feet -- a thin wooden fence was between us. Gulp.

Here are the rest of my photos from today.

Another amazing day...and a lizard in my room

I can hardly describe all the stuff that happened today...but let me try a few bullets.

• Yoga in the morning and then a jump in the freezing pool
• Met with the South African Police force
• Went on a massive tour of the crime-ridden, under-serviced rural South African areas with two really cool cops
• Listened to the cops' mind-blowing stories about everything from narcotics busts to how to evade a rhino on foot
• Saw the cops' incredible collection of weird artifacts, evidence and zany items (including the elephant tusk)
  
• Visited the old 10111 center (the South African equivalent of 911) and then visited the new 10111 center, which is under construction...they were literally hanging the big flat screens when we arrived
• Ate a pretty gross chicken sandwich
  
• Went back to the office and planned our next steps, consolidated a bunch of information
• Jumped on a trampoline with Anil outside of the super market
  
• Saw a little lizard in my room
• Decided it was a friendly lizard
• Ate some pizza and hung out with the other CSC folks