Home, Sweet Home

We made it back to Chapel Hill safely and just in time for the first day of fall semester classes for me. And Noz is back in clinic and working on his research. The journey home went smoothly. We took the way-too-small plane back to Jo-burg (I broke my no-propeller rule to go on safari) and then it was London... Did some lovely shopping at Harrod's in Heathrow. And then RDU. Never been in the customs line there and it was crazy-long. I was a bit embarrassed for my home airport, but remain proud of their few international flights nonetheless.

I'll be posting a few more entries this week and then wrapping the blog up. It has been a great learning experience and I'm glad I'll always have it (please, Google) as a way to remember my first trip to South Africa. It won't be the last.

Guest Blog by Noz: Most Incredible Nature Experience EVER

Editor's Note: This blog contains questionable language and may be offensive to some Europeans. I apologize for the lack of photos. Our Internet connection is close to being dial-up and is extremely slow. I will post a lot more when we get back in two days.

Today was the most unbelievable nature experience of me and E's lives.

We are at Jackalberry Lodge on the Thornybush Game Reserve, one of the world's best. Highly recommended. The Drakensberg Mountains (like Grand Canyon, South African-style) sits as the backdrop. It's private, so there are hardly any other lodges or vehicles around. The lodge has only like five chalets/huts, which are amazing. We wake up at 5 am, drink a coffee or tea with rusks (sort-of like biscotti), then take off for four hours of driving and tracking animals. Then we take breakfast, siesta, lunch and then head out around 3:30 pm and track through till nightfall, about 7:30 pm. Then eat a 5-star dinner (usually some beautiful lamb or beef or wild African animal) around a boma (camp fire). Then to bed by 10 pm to do it all over again the next day. Everyday has been a new and incredible tracking day. We have seen lion, ellies (elephants), leopard, cheetah, buffalo, white rhino, black rhino, giraffe, crazy birds, etc. Although its amazing to see these animals from just feet away, we hadn't seen much action. No fights, no mating, no hunting. Mostly just lounging, eating, sleeping. But today--our final full day here--was the day of all days.

Most people think two nights are long enough to see everything, but we are staying four nights. The Italian family that was here earlier thought it was crazy that we would stay so long in one place (they said it in their slightly arrogant, but nice, Italian way). We were woken up by the lodge staff--"Knock-knock--Dank yoouu" in their SA accent. We were still half-asleep, but then we heard a male lion roaring, which really woke us up. He was probably miles away, but their roars travel mad miles across the bush. So cool to wake up to lions and not roosters.

We set out at the break of dawn in the open-top Land Rover (the kind that I always wanted when I was in high school b/c I thought they were so cool) with Van (our driver) and Adam (our bushman guide tracker who sits on an extended seat off the front bumper). We are riding with a family from Paris--parents Brian and Marlena, daughter Victoria (who is a chic French aspiring photographer), and son Oscar. Victoria has a bad-ass Canon with a scope that's about two feet long. I am a bit embarrassed of our Canon Powershot (only really good for Maria Sharapova commercials). I love the French. Soo "joie de vivre". Everything is "magnifique" or "increyible" with them. So much more full of life than the American counterparts. We first run into a family of giraffe eating leaves off tall trees. There were two young babies with the mom and dad giraffe--so cute. We move on. We spot leopard tracks and cheetah tracks. At this point E and I are well-trained to know our tracks. Apparently there is a leopard with two babies, so we started tracking them, but unfortunately after about 30 mins of tracking, we find that there tracks lead into a deep ravine type area, too crazy for even the Land Rover. A little disappointed at this point. E and I are starting to lose a little faith in the tracking abilities of our guides and our mood is sub-par. We are a bit tired (not that we really physically do anything but eat and ride in the jeep), and a bit pessimistic about not seeing cats in action.

We hear there are black rhino several kilometers away. OK, pretty cool. So we go see them. Black rhino are endangered, only about 2,000 left in the world. They are beautiful. But, they just eat and sleep. No action again. Maybe we just won't see anything crazy-exciting while we're here. Maybe the Italians were right. Maybe 4 nights is "Oh, that's crazy" and 2 nights is all we need to see everything there is to see. We move on. There is word that a mother cheetah and her three female youngsters are spotted. I must say it is freakin' hard to find these elusive cats. They don't mind human presence, but trying to find them out here in the bush is crazy-difficult. We tried for hours every day to find these cheetah, but have come up empty-handed.

After several kilometers of driving in excitement and anticipation, we roll up to the area of where they were spotted. We see a decent-sized herd of impala--not really a big deal b/c there are so many around here. Van, our driver/tracker, makes a comment about the impala with a hint of implying that the cheetah may be ready to hunt. At this point, I am excite. I want to somehow herd the impala over to where the cheetah are, but I know I can't mess with nature like that. As we move on past the impala for another kilometer or so, we see the cheetah on a small termite mound/hill. A beautiful mom cheetah with her three young females. Just as we pull up, mom is "mobile." She trots down the hill and through the bush--headed toward the impala. The youngsters wait for awhile and eventually start following her, but well behind her. She is on the hunt! We go off-road and literally follow behind Mom. We see her crouching, stalking quietly toward the impala herd. She spots a young impala.

Then bam! She takes off like Usain Bolt on the juice. She chases the impala, knocks it down once. The impala gets back up and takes off in the other direction. Mom takes off again and after a 40 meter dash, she pounces on the impala, this time for good. She bites down on the impala's jugular and slowly puts it in a sleeper hold. At this point I have crapped my pants. This was a childhood dream come true. Cheetah is pretty much my favorite animal. I used to draw them all the time in 1st through 3rd grade. Maybe I'll start drawing them again in my free time.

Now the mom calls over for her young. A minute later, they come running over. The impala is still barely alive. The mom wants her young to finish the hunt. So the young gals pounce on the impala, and get into the jugular, and then start pulling at it from both ends. They start digging in, and you can just here the meat shredding, the bones breaking, the blood running. We are literally 10-15 feet away. The Japanese in me came out and I was taking pictures and doing Flip video simultaneously while watching and taking it all in. I give high-fives to the Frenchies, who are behind us saying, "ooh que magnifique" "ooh que increyible" and other french phrases that I couldn't get. Victoria has by now taken 500 shots with her crazy Canon. We have about ten due to the Powershot shutter speed. We are trying to become better friends with her so that hopefully we can use our USB later to get her photos. Her's are so much better than ours--not even a comparison. It's like watching grainy TV in our apartment versus watching HD on Naoshi and Debbie's 60" flat screen. Up above there are already 15 vultures circling. Another Land Rover carrying a different lodge's guests are here, so we have to pull out and give them a turn to watch the feasting. (The photo below kinda sucks so small, but if you look close, you can see all four cheetahs. The one on the right is eating the impala.)

It is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see a start to finish of a mom cheetah hunting for her kids. I can't describe into words how awesome this was for E and me. We are as satisfied as the momma cheetah now. Our safari trip is complete. If I don't see one more animal on the two remaining game drives we have, I will be cool with that. With our faith restored a million times over in Adam and Van The Man, we take morning tea in an open area over looking the bush and mountains behind, take a leak behind a bush, then make our way back to the lodge. (E's too scared to pee in the bush, and has been getting mad at me about how it's unfair that girls can't do it like guys can. Then Marlena has no qualms and goes behind a bush to drop her draws. I love it. She don't give a F. Joie de vivre. She just saw a cheetah killing an impala. That's getting back to nature.)

We will never forget this day. We lived an episode in Planet Earth, Nat-Geo-style. Can't beat that, son.

Somewhat Random Observations & Notes

I love the way South Africans say goodbye: "shop, shop".

Chutney from a bottle is really big here. I love it. It's like a spicy version of Indian chutney. Kind-of. They use it like ketchup here. Need to try to find it in the U.S. when I get back. Maybe eBay.

Speaking of ketchup, it's not called "ketchup" here. It's tomato paste. And what we call tomato paste, they call spaghetti sauce. It all works out in the end, I guess.

I'm wondering if it's a good thing to have Internet in the middle of the bush whilst on safari?

Focus Group Wrap-Up

Noz and I have arrived in Hoedspruit at the Thornybush Game Reserve safely and are enjoying Jackalberry Lodge very much. It's so quiet and peaceful here, and we've already seen so much wildlife on our two game drives thus far.

Before I get to all that though, I just wanted to wrap up my thoughts about my focus group research. I haven't had reliable access to the Internet for almost a week now, so I apologize again for the lack of updates. Ironically though, now that I'm in the African bush, I have wireless Internet! It's slow, but works. So, I'd like to update my last week in retrospect.

My final focus group session was last Friday in the township of Emalahleni, which is in Mpumalanga province right outside of Witbank. It's about a two-hour drive east of Johannesburg. It was a somewhat challenging last session due to the language barrier. Although the youth spoke English well, they felt it wasn't advanced enough to fully express what they wanted to share so we worked through an interpreter. It worked well, but took twice the time because everything was said once in Zulu by the youth and then interpreted in English. I had to cut some of my last questions due to time, but in the end, it was a very productive last session. The examples I received of real problems youth have faced and used MYMsta to help solve/alleviate were very powerful -- rape, drug addiction, physical abuse. I will be forever grateful to these youth for their honesty and openness. They really welcomed me into their lives for the brief moments I had with them and I am still humbled by their graciousness.

I just tried to upload a few photos I took with the youth and the youth centre coordinator, Yvonne, after the focus group, but it looks like my Internet connection is good, but not that good. Taking way too long to upload. I'll try again later.

Noz is here!

Just a quick update. I haven't had Internet access since Thursday, so I haven't been able to update lately. I apologize. Noz arrived yesterday though, so I'm so happy we're together once again.

I've moved out of the cottage and we're now chillin' at the Holiday Inn. The nicest one you've seen in your life! It's like a luxury hotel here. (But still the cheapest I could find in the Sandton area. Luxury hotels are a dime a dozen around these parts.)

Now that we're at the hotel, we have limited access, so I will try to update the blog as much as I can while we're here. We leave for our safari Wednesday morning and can't wait!

Orange Farm Focus Group

Yesterday I had my third focus group (out of four) in Orange Farm. It is the largest township/informal settlement in South Africa, located about an hour southwest of Jo-burg. No one really knows how many people live here, but it's probably somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000. It's gigantic. (Try typing in Orange Farm, South Africa, in Google Maps or Earth and you'll get some idea of its size.)

The participants in this group were a bit older than in my past ones and because Jo-burg has an interesting culture all its own, it was interesting to hear the differences in how they use their mobile phones and MYMsta. However, there were still a lot of similarities and I'm starting to reach what is called "theoretical saturation" in focus group research. Basically, I'm hearing the same things over and over with the different groups. This is good because it means there are some conclusions and recommendations I can make knowing the opinions of users are on my side. Here is a photo of me with some of the young people from the focus group.


After the focus group, an amazing thing happened. Without any qualifications whatsoever, I judged a dance competition! Not quite sure how it happened, but I had quite a lot of time to just hang out at the Y-Centre afterwards because my dear driver, who also took me to Free State, had other LoveLife travel duties to attend to and was picking me up at 5 p.m., which is when I've been finishing up. However, since the participants were a bit older, I didn't have to wait for them to get out from school and walk to the centre, so we started earlier. So, I had this time and, since the centre was bursting with activity, I just made my way through the facilities/grounds, stopping to chat with people and play with kids there. Here are some boys I met outside. They were a bit shy (especially the one on the right) and could barely speak English, but they could strike a pose! One thing that really struck me was the first boy's clothes. They were pink and white, and meant for a girl, but they were just warm clothes to him.



There was a dance class going on in the room I held my focus group in after I left, and I stayed there to watch the girls get down! And get down they could. The youngest of them was about six, the oldest probably 11, and they were are so adorable. I would clap and tell them how wonderful they were -- some of them would get so shy while others would revel in the attention, but each would just smile so brightly. It really warmed my heart. Their smiles were just so beautiful that I could almost look past their tattered clothes and bare feet.


After staying for a bit, I went back outside and talked to a couple of men who were outside on the basketball court. They seemed fascinated by America and asked lots of questions. Do you have these kind of shacks in America? Can you give me advice to help me find a job? What are you doing here to help people in Orange Farm? These were all hard questions to answer, but I tried my best.

All of a sudden though, the group of dance-class girls ran to me and took my hands, pulling me and saying, "Come with us, come with us!" I went and their dance teacher, who couldn't have been older than 18, informed me that I was going to judge an informal dance competition for them. It was really fun, but I tried to get out of choosing just one group to win! I really didn't want to choose, but the teacher made me do it. In the end, I went with the youngest two girls who danced together. Here they are.


As I asked to take these photos, all of them crowded around me to see themselves in the digital viewfinder, and started asking me questions, touching my hair, hugging me and holding my hands. Their affection was so genuine and contagious, and I just melted.

I kept thinking that these sweet, innocent little girls are just like my precious nieces, Sasha and Kailee. They just want to be loved and deserve every opportunity in the world. But, the road ahead just seems so difficult for them and the injustice of that really hurts. There is hope though. I have great hope for these girls and their families, and that's why I'm here.

My final focus group is in Witbank tomorrow in the province of Mpumalanga.

Kudu Biltong = Antelope Jerky

Yes, this deserves its own post. New food obsession, people. Biltong. I think some South Africans would cringe if they heard this, but it's kinda like South African beef jerky. Except theirs isn't just about the beef. In fact, I've been snacking on a bag of kudu biltong for the past couple of days. That's antelope. And there is ostrich, springbok, shark biltong, and chutney and garlic-flavored varieties where that came from! There are whole shops dedicated to biltong here.

The first kind I had was at Gwen's aunt's home this past weekend (I know, I still owe you all a post about that). Here's a photo. This was fairly fresh, smoked (pretty sure that's an oxymoron) beef biltong. The outside was jerky-ish while the middle was like the texture of prosciutto, but thicker. You pick your own piece off a rack and then the shopgirl/boy shaves it up for you a la fancy deli meat and drops it into a brown paper bag like this. Not very photogenic, but oh-so-good!

Free State Focus Group

I am really tired from waking before 5 a.m., jumping on the plane from Cape Town back to Jo-burg, then hopping in a car for the three-hour drive to Free State. I really wanted to update the blog with photos from Cape Town, as well as today though, so I'm hanging in there. I'm tired, but inspired. :)

The Youth Centre in the province of Free State is in Kutloanong, a township/informal settlement in a rural part of South Africa. Basically, this means a large mass of what South Africans call "wood shacks," though they're really usually made of tin from what I've observed. Just pieces of found materials and old tin, and that's all. All of them are tiny or small, almost always perfectly square or rectangle. Right next to each one, or maybe every other or so for those who must share, is a similar structure, though taller and much narrower. These are usually outhouses. Many of these people live without running water or even electricity.

I had another successful focus group, and feel really blessed all is going well so far. The participants were wonderful today and have really cemented the fact that LoveLife's MYMsta social network is a really powerful tool. They all find it so valuable. There are a few things that can be improved though; I hope to shed light on them through the voices and opinions of these youth.

I got to spend more time today talking to the youth after the focus group, as well as walking around the township a bit. So many little kids running after our car as it passed, smiling and waving. It was heart-breaking to just wave excitedly back, and not stay and play with them all evening. I was almost overcome with emotion a couple times during the day, just wishing I could do more to help these kids realize their big dreams and ease the constant struggle to thrive that they face each and every day. Sometimes the township is a joyous, energy-filled place, but is also wrought with violence, crime, hardship and pain. Today was a day I will never forget.


Stay tuned as I'm going to try to add a few videos I filmed in Kutloanong in the next couple of days. For now though, here is a group photo we took after the discussion. Tomorrow I'll be heading to Orange Farm, another township about one hour southwest of Jo-burg. We passed through it tonight and it is immense.

World Cup-Crazy

When I was in Cape Town the past couple of days, the World Cup seemed to be everywhere. Here it was, in the windshield of my cabbie's car with the stadium being built for the Cup in the background. Granted, it's somewhat-everywhere in Jo-burg, but in Cape Town it seemed much more in-your-face. It made me really excited for South Africans here. They will have a great opportunity to share Africa with many, many people from around the world, who will then share it with others. I hope they take time to discover all the beauty South Africa has to offer with its scenery and its people. Here are some photos of Green Point stadium, which is smack-dab next to the ocean. It will make for some beautiful shots during the tournament.



It's a little scary though because, from my experience, there seemed to be only a few two-lane roads going to the stadium. Obviously, traffic will be a nightmare. Not sure anyone will care though. It's the World Cup, after all. And, as you can see, the stadium is not quite finished yet. But, have trust. They'll get it done!

I wish I could come back next year to be here for all the excitement. I had to settle for buying my nephew, Alex, a World Cup 2010 T-shirt.

Langa Focus Group

My first focus group today went really well. Thank you all for your support. If they all go like today, I will be in good shape. As one of the LoveLife Youth Centre staff drove me into Langa, I had a pretty good feeling about everything, and it worked out somehow. I didn't have much time to take photos, but here are a few of the center and its facilities.



I had nine youth come, which is great. For focus groups like this, anywhere from 6-10 is good. The youth were really inspiring, energetic and wicked-smart. They gave me great feedback on MYMsta and thoughts/ideas I think LoveLife will appreciate. I had such a good time meeting them all. Below are a few photos of a couple of youth who participated in the group. They use a small radio studio LoveLife has set up to teach teens how to produce their own radio pieces. I also took a few photos of younger kids playing foosball with another one keeping score for a ping-pong match.




A couple of them asked when I was coming back, and I really wished I could tell them I was. Maybe someday...

Somewhat Random Observations & Notes

It turns out that I'm not special at all because I have a skeleton key to the cottage. EVERYONE still uses skeleton keys here it seems. Electric fences and skeleton keys. So interesting!

Learning some colloquialisms. Instead of saying "blah, blah, blah" or "etc., etc.," to cut short what could be a long list of things while talking, people here say "what, what, what". I love it and have started saying it myself. Try it. It's fun.

I <3 Cape Town

Have been slack on the updates for a couple of days, I apologize. I'm in Cape Town now! I got in early today and barely checked into my hotel before I was out and about, exploring and trying to make the most of my short time here. I got to go down to the waterfront and stare in awe at the beautiful seaside landscape here. The waves were crazy-crashing and so beautiful with Table Mountain (first and center photos) just a glance away too. I have some photos I will share with you tomorrow when I get back to Jo-burg. (I also owe you a post about my weekend in Pretoria with Gwen's family!)



I really like Cape Town. Jo-burg is a great place too, but just a bit intimidating for the foreigner. I like that I can travel alone more at night here and feel comfortable doing it. It's also just a gorgeous place with very friendly folks.


When I went shopping at the Red Shed Craft Workshop at the V&A Waterfront yesterday (I took the ocean photo above there, right across the street) I spent about 30 minutes talking to a word-turning artist, Ken. He makes lovely pieces, like bowls, vases and other decorative things by carving local and indigenous woods like yellowwood (South Africa's national tree) wild olive and yellow stinkwood. The way he does it is almost like pottery. So beautiful and the perfect unique souvenir from my time in South Africa. My favorite ones were made from wild olive, so I bought two small pieces. They are truly one-of-a-kind and I felt really good buying them from such a kind person and wonderful artist.

Somewhat Random Observations & Notes

In South Africa, they call stoplights "robots."

Roobios is an African herb they use a lot as a spice, healing agent and tea. It is so good. I'm obsessed and drink about five cups a day. Apparently it has five times the antioxidants of green tea (not that I'm giving it up), and it's naturally caffeine-free. Love it.

There are Filipinos in South Africa! :) I'm staying with Gwen (one of my colleagues) at her aunt's home in Pretoria (suburb about 30 minutes north of Jo-burg) for the weekend. Her aunt is Filipino. A full post about it later!

Tomorrow's Another Day

When I told people who had worked in South Africa that I was coming here to do my thesis research, they told me that I may have some issues with bureaucracy. I understood what they meant and prepped myself accordingly, but what I didn't realize is that it's nearly impossible to be my usual Type-A self here in Jo-burg. I've had to really put all that aside and just resign myself to long waits for updates and information, constant follow-up and Murphy's Law (what can go wrong will go wrong). Still, today was challenging even with that mindset.

Working with a NGO, it's difficult to ask for much when you know they're restricted in terms of both resources and time, and you may not be their highest priority at the moment. They are all wonderful people and are helping me coordinate my focus groups for next week as much as possible, but it's still falling on me to do a lot of coordination. And it's a bit daunting to recruit teenagers for these groups in four locations all over South Africa when I barely know how to pronounce the provinces they're in. So, a couple of times today, I thought to myself, "Why did I think this would be a good idea again?" I have to remember though that I'm here precisely because LoveLife doesn't have the resources and time to do this work, though it could really help improve their mobile social network and communications -- and therefore, help prevent HIV among young people here. Having this kind of data could really help improve their chances of getting better grant funding.

I did make some progress today though. I finally nailed down the locations and days I'll be doing the groups. Ideally, this would have been done before I even came (!), but because I just got my South African study approval, etc., I am happy it did happen today.

Here's my schedule for the focus groups next week --

Tuesday: My first group will be in the Langa township near Cape Town (I'll be flying there Monday to see a bit of the city beforehand since it's a public holiday, of course! Less time for me to do the groups!)

Wednesday: Second group in a rural part of Free State province. A driver will take me there straight from the airport when I get back from Cape Town. It's about a two-hour drive from there.

Thursday: I'm back in J-burg to do another group in the Orange Farm township south of the city.

Friday: I head to Witbank, another rural area in the Mpumalanga province.

Is this humanly possible? Four focus groups in four different South African towns/cities in four days? We'll find out. The hardest part will be recruiting and getting youth to the locations and engaging them in a meaningful discussion about how and why they use this mobile social network, and how it can be improved. Luckily, this is a MOBILE social network, so I do have all their phone numbers and can text them too. I hope to have kids lined up tomorrow.

I'm was feeling a bit defeated earlier and am still pretty freaked out because of everything that needs to be done, but tomorrow's another day. I am hopeful it will all come together.

Somewhat Random Observations & Notes

My key to the cottage is a skeleton key. I really love that. I have a proper "keyhole" and everything.

Ethics Approval

Just a quick note to celebrate the fact that I now have official IRB approval. IRB is the review process you have to go through as an academic researcher to make sure your study involving humans as research subjects is ethical and appropriate. I had double-ethics-duty because my study is international, and I just received my South African approval today. It was a very long, tedious process, but I'm happy to say I finally have approval. Which is good because I'm already here!

Thanks to everyone for the support and kind words over the past several months as I waited to get this piece of paper. Of course, I already have an amendment to make to it because I am adding different locations within the country (I originally was only going to do the research here in Jo-burg), but now that I have approval it makes that easier too.

The Cottage

I am living in a picturesque little "cottage" here in the Craighall neighborhood in northern Johannesburg. It's actually attached to the house you see here. It's basically a small wing of the house. I thought I would share a few photos. I am very lucky to be housed here by LoveLife. They rent it out from the main house owners for the short-term volunteers that come from all over the world to see and experience the great work they do.




You can imagine how it's an ironic place to live while doing this work though. Only about ten miles from here is one of the largest informal settlements or "townships" in Jo-burg called Alexandra. If you've read The Kaffir Boy, which is an autobio by Mark Mathabane, that is where it takes place. You should read it if you haven't yet. (But, don't use the word "kaffir" ever, it's like the "N" word in South Africa.)

Many of the youth I am working with only see homes like this from outside the tall, cold, concrete walls that surround them all. This is one of the most striking observations I have made here. The almost-obsession with security. In addition to the walls, there are electric fences above the walls. Alarms. And guards. Lots of guards. Two sets you must go through on my street alone. I'm told much of it is not really needed, but was built right after apartheid "just in case." But, why is it still around then, I wonder? And how long will it be?

I find it so sad. It creates physical distance and that's isolating. More than that though, it makes you feel like you shouldn't trust a soul here... and that's just so far from truth. The people I have met here are incredibly lovely, lovely people. So friendly and welcoming, and truly the bright spot of my stay so far.

Kailee is here!

I need to interrupt this South African stuff to let you know I have a new niece! I'm an aunt once again. I'm so lucky and blessed to now have two beautiful nieces (new baby Kailee and Sasha) and three handsome nephews (Alex, Blake and Casey).

She is just several days old and was born 7 lbs. 5 oz. I just missed her birth, which was pretty heartbreaking. I'm counting down the days until I get to meet her. Here is a first-look photo of her adorable face. Kailani is doing well after spending a couple of days in labor. Go girl!

I'm here AND I have Internet!

I read a lot of blogs. Many blogs. Food/cooking blogs, travel blogs, news blogs, fashion blogs. And I've even ghost-written a couple for a past PR client or two (not necessarily proud of that though). But, I've never actually written my own blog. I've started a few, but then realized I wouldn't read them if I were you... and gave up.

Not sure if this has changed really, but since I've been asked by several of you if I would be chronicling my time in South Africa via a blog, I thought I'd give it another shot. And I'm kinda happy that I won't be here long because I'm not sure of how good a blogger I'll be. But, here goes!

So, I'm in Jo-burg. I finally have Internet at home that I know I can use without being charged an arm and a leg. No one really has broadband/high-speed Internet at home here yet because it's so expensive. Web usage usually takes place on cell phones, which brings me to my research here. Most of you know that I am here to conduct focus groups with South African youth about MYMsta, the world's first mobile social network working to prevent HIV/AIDS. It's run by LoveLife, an NGO here, that is responsible for a multifaceted, national HIV/AIDS prevention campaign targeted at youth. You can learn more about them here: http://www.lovelife.org.za/.

Getting my research off the ground from concept to reality has proved challenging so far. I've been working on human research ethics applications since the beginning of the year and am still having some issues getting approval. I need this before I begin speaking to youth, so it's critical that it happen within the next few days. I've had good meetings with the folks in charge with media and communications here though, and they are really helping me get a handle on coordinating the groups. They even want me to travel to different parts of the country to do the research, which is really exciting. We'll see what happens, but I may be going to visit rural areas around Cape Town and Durban, as well as the province of Mpumalanga to do focus groups next week. I'll keep you updated!