So we had 3 long flights with a total travelling time of 28 hours. Bonnie and I each finished a book and we watched 5 movies between us! We arrived underslept and overfed but we are here, on the African continent, in the huge (10 million people) city of Johannesburg. We are staying in a very beautiful guest house for the next 3 nights, as different members of our party arrive gradually.

Everything we have learned about Johannesburg so far we learned from our taxi driver, who was talking a mile a minute and driving very fast and skillfully through heavy traffic. He told us that it costs 10000 Rand ($800) for school fees for every child who wants to attend school and that the cost prevents many poor children from attending. (All four of his children attend school but his brother died two years ago and in order to be able to put his brother's two kids in school, he took two of his own out.) One of Nelson Mandela's big dreams was for free education but it has not happened. We were driving with him in the mid-afternoon and he pointed out to us many kids of various ages walking along the sides of the roads home from school. Some of them walk as far as 10K each way, he said, and until he pointed it out to us, I hadn't noticed they were all black. "The white kids don't have to walk" he said. They all get driven. He also told us there are white compounds with a private school and shopping and parks and recreation so that the people who live there hardly ever have to leave. There are LOTS of differences between white and black opportunities, despite the official ending of apartheid.