Firstly, a link to the text of my second and last Handong column for LeTourneau's YellowJacket newspaper: my weekend visit to Busan.

Mid-terms are almost over for me. One more (Korean History) on Tuesday. This week marks the beginning of the semester's second half. I've had all the time in the world for keeping my desk tidy...



Church was good. The assistant pastor Prof. Schoenhoff, a German/Canadian/American guy (hard to pin nationalities on some of these Handong people), preached on Philippians 2:1-11. He used the example of Canadian maple trees to relate how we should "tap into" Jesus to put others above ourselves. I wasn't exactly sure how that related, but it was interesting and an uplifting sermon.

Last week, John (an Uzbek student) and I watched... wait for it... How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days.

This was voluntary, and no girls were in the room. Actually, one was in spirit, since John said his sister would make him watch it someday. We laughed so hard; I will make no judgments here on Matthew McConaughey's courting methods, but dang it, he deserved the girl after all she put him through.

Two Fridays ago I finally visited a Korean Wal-Mart. The trip over was cool; I sat beside this Mexican girl and brushed up on a bit of Spanish. I also know the Swahili word for "hello"... in two dialects.

The Wal-Mart wasn't so special, selection-wise, but the inclined escalators were fun. I bought some strange chocolate-covered donuts, as is my wont; also some bread that doesn't taste like the machine it was made on.

Did you know tuna and bananas go well together? I didn't.

In my psych class, we've discussed memory and learning. It's amazing what you can learn when there is the desire to learn; interest is a key factor in memory. I have studied a little for Korean History, and will soon study much more, but admittedly ancient and medieval Korean studies don't hold my interest of late.

However, Prof. DeVries handed out a copy of Tennyson's Ulysses in history class. I read it over last weekend and liked it so much, I started memorizing it. I'm about a third into it now.

Prof. DeVries links its meaning to the restless search for opportunity in the culture of American settlers. He doesn't hesitate for a moment to link Socrates and cowboys in a long chain of western civilization.



Tonight, Jordan and I went for dinner and a movie. He's the other American dude here, from Cedarville University. Both of us forgot our cameras, but I promise soon to have more pictures for you.

Until I do, feast your eyes with a link to a blog run by a guy named Andy in Korea. There are some pictures of Handong people on there, some of whom I know, along with copious amounts of Andy's devotional musings.

Several posts down, as of this writing, he got a highly flattering mugshot of me. Of more interest is the following pictures, of the DeVries family. Mr. DeVries is my teacher in American Society in Historical Perspective. Cool guy.

As I was saying, Jordan and I went dowtown. We had huge hamburgers from TGI Friday's, which was most delicious. Good conversation. And then, we went to the theater and saw 16 Blocks, a good Bruce Willis movie that I actually like better than Inside Man, despite the +10 baseline-coolness factor of having Clive Owen in your movie.

This was one of those random Sunday night things that I really appreciate doing. It really is sad how much time I spend just in my room here.

One of the things I do in my room is play Eve Online. It's an MMORPG that actually works on my laptop. I would show you a picture of my spaceship, but alas, it was destroyed today by pirates.

And now, for the necessary Ox-In-Downtown Picture (TM) that must accompany every post.



Apparently this man decided that having an ox and cart was cooler than having a car. He actually travels around town like this and does his business. Pretty cool.

I could talk about school and term papers and studying and all those things that take up most of my time, but I'd rather not. It's Monday morning and I should get some rest.

Plans are beginning to formulate, on the horizon, for some more travel in Korea. I'm trying to make sure I can actually afford some of it, but happily, I think travel and accomodations in this country are quite cheap. You can travel halfway across the country by bus for less money than a taxi ride across town.

We shall see what happens. ^^

I submitted a column on my experience thusfar in Korea to LeTourneau University's YellowJacket newspaper, which was distributed yesterday. The text may be viewed here.

My regular lunch: spicy noodles and a slice of bread. The cleaning ladies in our building had seen me preparing the noodles in the lounge a few times now (apparently I always do it during their break time) so today they decided to offer me some of their snack. It was a type of Korean sweet potato, which one of them had baked. It was very good and went scrumdidleeumptiously with my noodles.

It occurred to me today, during team meeting, that my diet consists of little more than carbohydrates in one form or another. I shall return from Korea a pudgy, rotund little man with puffy cheeks.

The chopsticks are nice wooden ones I got on the ascent to Yongdosung Park in Busan with my roomie. (See my newest Flickr set) I cannot recall ever buying a metal fork for myself, but these chopsticks rule.
















I'm firing a homemade Korean bamboo bow

I've been at Handong Global University for two weeks today. Classes look to be good this semester:

Law & Contemporary Issues
Introduction to Korean History
English Morphophonemics
American Society from Historical Perspective
Introduction to Psychology

My teachers are of multiple nationalities, and only two are Koreans.

The campus itself is quite new, but they are building new things constantly. The surrounding area is also quite nice, as evidenced by my latest Flickr madness.

I took a walk around, so actually the first you get to see is a bunch of off-campus stuff and no people, but at the end there are some pictures of campus. I'm not into taking pictures of people until I get to know them a later better... you know, politeness and all those concepts.

I had captions for them, but then the power to my laptop mysteriously went out. And by the time I logged back into Flickr I was in no mood to redo them. So, put on the Flash slideshow and enjoy.

For being a "global university," the college is, perhaps unsurprisingly, quite Korean. The I-House (my dorm) has an English-speaking-only rule, but I routinely hear other languages. I think it's strange to see so many English letters and numbers on signs even in Pohang; the United States doesn't randomly have signs and food products with other languages on them.

Other little differences... they do take off their shoes in the lobby of the dorm, so socks or inside-only flip-flops allowed in the rooms. Handong has a "freer" academic environment than LeTourneau, in the sense that they are not quite as strict about being on time to class, and an honor code among students means they are not monitored during tests.

Dorm life is a bit more structured than LETU; you need permission to leave campus at night or stay off-campus, and everyone must be in their room for a roll call at 11 PM. I always am, but the announcement over the intercom is kind of annoying.

I am currently doing six hours work a week as an English tutor/discussion leader. I am privately tutoring one fellow who responded to an ad my roomie put on a forum, and I'm leading two bi-weekly groups of eight students in open discussion. The discussion thing will start next week, but I've already met three times with Myung Kwon, who has basic speaking skills. We talk about lots of things... I try to mix it up; he's studying for the new speaking portion of the TOEFL test.

It's actually extremely easy to find a bit of work like this as a native English speaker.

I've met tons of people, but the hard part is remembering their names. People routinely greet me by name and I grin and say "Hi!" and I'm thinking "I have no idea who you are."

Or, when I do remember a face, I think "I know who you are, and I care about you!" but if you don't remember the name, that just doesn't cut it.

Now the all-important music question. I found ONE guitar and ONE piano, but both have a caveat attached. The piano is in a building that is always in use. I checked it a few times a day every day last week and wasn't able to play it once. I think I have an alternate scoped out in the recently opened international student lounge.

The guitar is sitting in its stand in a nice little cafe in the student offices building. There's a little stage and a mic stand and an amp, but I can't imagine when any of these are put to use in this little cafe. The owner doesn't speak English, but after my third visit for cheap coffee this week, she kinda figured out I was coming more for the guitar than the drinks. The first time I think she was worried I would bust out the Dashboard, but now she might like it, or at least doesn't mind.

There are two English-speaking churches in Pohang. One is in town, and I have no idea where it is. The other is the Handong International Church, which meets on-campus in the chapel building.

In conclusion, I leave you with a typical piece of Korean appliance (made, of course, in China). My new alarm clock. It's one of the old style round analog clocks, with two bells on the top and a vivacious little hammer between them, just dying to ring out and send you scrambling from bed. Behind the hands, ominously visible above the morning alarm marker, it says, in tiny letters, "I'm the happiest man in the world."

Why, I can't imagine, if indeed the happiest man in the world must deal with this alarm clock. Perhaps it's the alarm clock's bid to redeem itself in its owner's eyes, as if it's begging not to be shot or thrown across the room.

Or maybe it means nothing. :)

Hi.

I'm alive.

I'm in South Korea.

Just letting you know. More to come, honest, I just need the chance to sit down and write something worth reading. :)

It's Sunday evening in Indiana. It's cold, still, so I haven't gone outside much while here. There has been very little snow this winter and basically none while I've been around.

I'm just beginning to make some preparations for South Korea. I leave on Thursday, March 2, in the morning, so tomorrow I'll have to start getting ready in earnest, deciding what goes and doesn't. I've been sick since coming to Indiana, but today I felt better, so it was nice to enjoy a full meal.

My student visa status is still up in the air; I've found Koreans at my college and at the consulate in Chicago to be difficult to speak with. To remedy the situation, I'm trying to learn little bits and pieces of Korean when I can; my first goal is to learn their writing, which I think I can do before I leave, though I will know no vocabulary.

If the visa does not go through, and things go badly in Seoul, they have every right to send me back across the Pacific, where I would die penniless, heartbroken and friendless, ending my own misery under the wheels of the nearest San Francisco electric tram.

Well, it's a bit of an exaggeration... mostly the death part. But I am uneasy.

Apart from this little dilemma, I am excited by the prospect. My flight goes from Chicago to San Francisco to Seoul. From there, I ride a shuttle off the airport island to Gimpo Airport, where I fly to Pohang, and am then picked up by the college, I hope.



And the rest, I just see when I get there. I cannot find any decent pictures of the campus or my dorm or anything, so I will be sure to take pictures and post them for you. I hope to post somewhat often here, as well as a few columns for the esteemed LETU YellowJacket.

Classes... I still don't know what I will be taking. On the bright side, my financial aid worked out really awesome this semester and is now all finalized and Handong is paid. Took long enough. :)

I uploaded to Flickr, with titles and descriptions. You can enter the set's first picture and hit the right-hand picture to move forward through the set. Alternatively, Flickr has a slick Flash slideshow if you don't care for the descriptions.

Enjoy.

Written in Africa, but posted only now, because I couldn't check my LETU mail or access anything on the blogger domain, until now.

Ah! My last Monday in Africa. Life in the Barn continues inexorably on. The weather has taken a rainy turn for the last week, so the archaeological work has slowed a bit. I did, however, enjoy helping some other students with their projects (which still got us in the rain) such as trying to find baboons, leopard tracks, or most interestingly of all, termites.

Nils and I ran his little termites through these mazes to see if they learn patterns or anything. I don't think they do. Three maddening but hilarious hours watching these brainless creatures crawl through a maze... anyway, we had a good long talk about universities and I think I am beginning to grasp the German educational system. It's very different, though I think becoming more like, that of the United States.

I also helped Karin look for leopard tracks and set up cameras. She got a totally sweet close-up of a leopard at night; apparently it was photogenic enough to pause for two takes, flash and all.

The archaeological work here has been interesting, and it's certainly a cool place to do it, but I'm a tad disappointed with the lack of supervision here. If you have a graduate project and want to organize your work and just go for it, it's great. But for wee undergrads without projects, like myself, sometimes it's a bit... open-ended. It would be cool to do something in grad school that would bring me back out here for longer, but somehow I doubt that would work out.

There's been three new students arrive since I've been here, and all three are German girls! What is it with this place and Germans (and girls for that matter. Hello LeTourneau?) I think four of us, myself included, will leave in this upcoming week, so that should put the Barn back down to "normal" size. The Barn's a bit crowded now, but never for very long.

Nils took some quality photos of baboons grooming each other on these rocks. He's one of those kindred spirits who toys around with Photoshop... so naturally we had to do a picture with several of us sitting on the rocks, "grooming" each other monkey-style, so that he could incorporate us into the pack.

On Thursday I went up to the peak of Mt. Lajuma for a third and final time. It's different everytime you go up. This time a storm was coming over our backs, over the mountains and on into the farmlands to the south. It was awesome, to look up and see the blue erased by clouds, to see the shadow advancing over lands miles away, to see rain and lightning in the distance.

I went with Tazz and Molly. Molly left Saturday, so Friday we had a goodbye braai (like bright without the T), which is the South African word for barbecue. Names for the festivities included the "Molliday" or "Molly's Braai Braai." You are speechless, might I say, stunned by our wit.

We had grand plans of playing a soccer game, and cooking outside over the fire and then it rained. Before it did, I struggled long and hard to make a bed of coals with wet wood, and very nearly had it, when the rain put the nail in the coffin. We cooked steaks over the stove, but it's so hard to stay up late past that at the Barn -- it gets dark and you just want to crash.

~~~~~~~~~~~ (Continued in the States) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, my last town day, spent again at the same cafe except this time I got TWO milkshakes... I didn't have to spend much money of course on much else. I was stymied in my attempts to blog and answer emails and such because of blogger and LETU mail all deciding to be down at the same time.

Then there was only half a week left... two *more* German girls came, but then two were going to leave the same time as me, so I guess it evens out. Some previous "barnie" students visited on my last day; after dinner we crashed their braai and sat around the fire laughing and talking about animals and stuff. Erik recounted being attacked by a black eagle, and these two other Dutch guys roasted these humongous steaks. They talked back and forth in Dutch a lot, to the point where my German pal Nils nudged me and said, "OK, now I know how you feel all the time." Europeans are, quite typically I think, much better at being bilingual than the lazy Americans.

The last few nights we really enjoyed looking at the stars. I learned some more about Orion and the Horsehead Nebula, which Nils enthusiastically pointed out from the star chart he printed on Monday. I found the Southern Cross, a pretty cool looking cross constellation you can't see in the northern hemisphere. Cool stuff.

I left Lajuma on Thursday the 16th, not entirely looking forward to 30+ hours of non-stop traveling. It turned out alright though.

I rode the 5-hour bus ride from Makhado to Jo'burg, and the taxi to the airport with Inga; I think we both appreciated having company for the trip. I met her brother, helped her get some ticket hassles sorted out since her English wasn't so good, said bye and then it was off!

I had a nice relaxing time in Jo'burg International, but after that, I had no time to even stop for a drink in Heathrow or Dulles in DC. Run run run to catch the plane, but I actually got all my flights and miracle of all miracles, my luggage was waiting for me.

I should *not* have been on the plane for Indy out of DC, but God was merciful, that truly is the only explanation for it. You have no idea how happy I was to be on that plane and not spending who knows how long in the airport. At the very least, airports aren't such a mystery anymore.

The Kangaroo Cake. It was shaped by a deliberately drawn cardboard model and cut to match.

Molly and I met an American couple staying as tourists at one of the lodges here on Lajuma. They are from Baltimore, newspaper journalists covering southern pan-Africa. They'd lived in Johannesburg for nearly a year now and seemed to have a good grasp of happenings and society in the area. An enviable job. It was good to talk to other Americans.

Hard to believe my time in South Africa is already half gone. It really is too short a time to do something like this... oh well, there's always next time, right? :D

This internet cafe is a funny place. If you stay two hours, you get a free coke. Just now, a flock of uniformed schoolboys descended from outside to play Warcraft 3, babbling in Afrikaans with the occasional reference to "night elf" or "shaman."

Afrikaans is an interesting language to listen to. German, obviously, has a few sounds we don't use in English, but Afrikaans really sounds like English. It feels like you should understand what people are saying, except, you don't.

The radio DJs here freely switch between English and Afrikaans, either catering to speakers of both languages or assuming that everyone knows both. Most of the songs, of course, are in English, indicative of the British pop charts, I think, after listening to some of the songs. There's also some local music in Afrikaans.

My German is coming along painfully. I think I'm stunted in the area of languages, or perhaps diligence. I can count to 17 or 18 (though I can't pronounce 16) and I say simple greetings -- danke, gutenacht -- but most importantly, I'm learning how to insult people.

Some of the LETU crowd knows German is a harsh-sounding language... you needn't resort to nasty words when insulting unsavory characters... so I'm learning the word for "matchbox," which sounds despicable and suitably insulting.

**************************

After last town day, we spent Tuesday at the Barn. The archaeologists were tired and spent the afternoon reading and cataloging several dozen pottery shards we'd collected. I measured their thickness and took photos.

Wednesday (Feb. 1) we got up and piled into the van. Botswana day! Me, Tazz, Molly, Karin, Katie, Inga, Christina and Ian drove north across the Limpopo River to a private nature reserve in Botswana called Kwa Tuli. There, we were greeted by our guide, known simply as Jerry. We drove out to one of the nicest campsites I've ever seen... again, I apologize I can't show pictures right now because of the internet here.

It was really really good to chill after being tired for the last several days... my sunburnt shoulders were peeling and all sorts of unpleasantness.

The camp consisted of a common area with hot water and gas stoves, completely furnished: plates, cutlery, mugs, couches -- and I nearly did a jig -- a beat-up little guitar.

The tents had beds, furniture even, with porches and bath tubs and mirrors and dressers... they were more like little cloth houses. I have this sweet video clip touring the inside of one.

Due to the sleeping arrangment, I volunteered not to stay in a tent and tossed my stuff in the common area. My bed was a hammock... which I liked a lot. The skies were brilliantly clear both nights, and the wind blew just enough to sway me a bit -- just lovely.

How shall I describe the terrain... at the risk of deeply insulting my numerous Botswanan readers, let's just say: take South Africa, remove all the grass and money, add more monkeys, and you have Botswana. I thought South Africa was a poor country, but as African countries go, I take that back. Thus was my short and inadequate impression of Botswana.

On Kwa Tuli, the terrain was, to me, quite ravaged. Most nature reserves seem undisturbed, with terrain taking your focus from the occasional lucky peep at a frightened animal. This was completely different.

Tracks, dung, animals were everywhere. The landscape was devoid of grass, the shrubs eaten by kudu and impala, all the large trees were knocked over and stripped of bark by the elephants. It wasn't a forest so much as a playground, or warzone, for the animals. Of course, some of the recent change is due to artificial influences, but I still question how so many animals can survive in that landscape.

It happened to be very dry while we were there, so most of the elephants had moved off. We saw a few of them on three occasions, once briefly at night and twice from a great distance. Kudu and impala (both deer-like creatures) were incredibly numerous; on the third and final day, we hardly took note of them.

With the exception of a morning hike on the second day, we rode about the reserve on a "safari" truck: a 4x4 Toyota Land Cruiser with a roofed observation deck. And, other than chilling at the camp, that essentially describes our trip. It was lovely, but we were ready to go by the third day.

Tazz and I tried repairing the little guitar but only succeeded in proving the inevitable... one of the tuning pin gears wouldn't stay fastened and the strings kept coming undone. In the end, I played it with only four strings... not quite the full sound you expect from a guitar.
On the up-side, I had less fingering to think about and could focus on getting some new sounds from those four strings; now I have some new ideas... so if you want to practice, break a few strings and try it out. :D

We left Kwa Tuli at 9 AM after a morning drive-about and accompanied our guide Jerry to his hometown. There, we got to see the town chief officiating a dispute. The people sat in a circle around him while he heard all sides and made a decision.

Electricity, of course, is hard to come by and very expensive to set up. We saw a butcher at work on a cow in a field, hanging the legs from tree branches. A shiny red hide dried in the sun. There was a little more grass. Donkeys and goats roamed freely. A water tower leaked.

Jerry showed us his home, commented on the gearbox he couldn't find to fix his tractor. He wore his .375 bolt-action bull rifle on a leather sling for a few minutes, just as he had on our morning walk, before remembering to take it inside. We ate a bite of fruit from a tree in his yard and said hello to his wife, who came in from working on a field.

I'd noted a little silver star pinned to his shirt. It was a sign for his church, which he was quick to show us. Apparently, he is also a part-time pastor at a Christian church in the village. Before Ian could stop him, Jerry launched into a 10-minute sermon.

He used examples that would make sense to Africans, rather than some obviously unfamiliar biblical metaphors. You could see the glint was in his eye. His words were suddenly more urgent and passionate than anything he'd told us on safari. Ian finally segued the discussion into a comment on the time, but Jerry wouldn't let us go until he'd prayed.

He told us how they prayed... stand in a circle, close your eyes, fold your hands into your armpits and in this way, he asked God to give us a safe journey back and keep the river down for our crossing back to South Africa. Not my expected goodbye with a safari guide.

The drive back was without incident... the river had risen but we were still able to ford across. We didn't have lunches so I drank Mountain Dew and ate chips all the way back... they're tasty but ugh... not by themselves all day.

**************************

After we got back on Friday afternoon, I went for a run, took a shower and started cooking chili and cornbread. Someone has to educate these Europeans on Earth's finer delicacies... it turned out alright, considering I lacked some unimportant ingredients, like CORNMEAL for the cornbread and CHILI POWDER for the chili. Maize bread and red onions in the chili... every dish we make is a rough South African equivalent. ;)

Saturday I hiked up to the peak of Lajuma again, this time in the morning by myself. I got up without a hitch, enjoyed the view and had a couple wrong turns on the way down. Two hours later than need be, I made it back. You know how the Psalms talk about your tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth when you're really thirsty? It's true.

Sunday Alandra and I cataloged one of the larger sites of the area. It's a wash-out area at the bottom of a small hill, forested. The site is a low rock wall, crumbling in one part, sheltered against weather. There are a number of potsherds, beads, bracelets and an ax head.

I got sunburned all over again and I have a nasty cold and I nearly ran out of food (lots and lots of peanut butter and tea :D ), but most of those are my fault so I will just prepare better next week!

Miss you guys.

I have been taking pictures and movie clips like mad, but I can't stand to wait on them to upload on this bad internet that costs me money, so unfortunately, you have to wait until I get back to the States.

Spent January 23, 24 and 25 hiking around in the Soutpansberg mountains, which surround Lajuma. Our current task is to find sites, which at this point consist of small weather shelters in the rocks.

The other two archaeology students and I split up and searched different approaches of an area before meeting and deciding where to go next. After seeing several sites previously found, Molly, Alandra and I split up and found six new ones on Wednesday... and I found one! It was so cool. Most of these sites are mini-caves -- literally, just rock overhangings that we know to be sites by potsherds we find.

We hike up to a nearby ridge, which has an awesome view at the top. We've spent the first part of these surveys in some forest-entangled rock formations, looking for likely sites. The last part we spent in the "moonscape," a curious field of big rock formations pockmarked by rain. In the course of looking for sites, I've definitely done some free face climbing.

We had hot weather on these days... I am very sunburnt. :D

The weather varies wildly -- hot and sunny one day, cool and clear the next, rainy for three days and then hot sun again.

So far, a typical day shapes up to be: breakfast, do work for a few hours (finding sites, recording them, whatever else), lunch, break for a few during the hot hours, then back out before dinner and dark. We usually spend the evening playing card games or word games. People also read a whole lot. Today two of the Germans here finished Harry Potter books. Alternately, if the previous day was hard, we just slack off for the morning and get out early in the afternoon.

I'm going to buy a power adapter for my laptop today so that I can use my laptop without borrowing someone else's... you have no idea how good it is to listen to my own music (as opposed to... ahem... random European pop.) :D

I miss my guitar badly.

It's weird, using your time here. In one sense, it is so easy to become bored and think you have nothing to do, but at the same time, the time always passes quickly and easily. I've never been in a situation where both seemed to be true at the same time.

I especially enjoy how easily my body clock attunes itself to the sun. I can easily get up with the sun and I usually go to bed by 10 PM. It gets dark, I start yawning and after a hot day in the sun, it seems only natural to go to bed "so early." It seems unthinkable most other times, but that's how it is here... I like it.

Town day is the exception to the routine. On Mondays, we do shopping and stuff. I was surprised by Makhado... it is very clean, relatively safe and has most things you would expect to find in an American town. I bought a very nice pair of flip-flops for 30 rand, which translates to less than US $5. Apparently, South Africans really like chicken, so there are multiple KFC's and other chicken shops in town. There are lots of pedestrians and when I am being heedless, I still step into the street as cars are coming since I don't expect them in the opposite lane than the United States.

After waiting ten minutes in one check-out line, the power went out all over downtown and I had to leave the merchandise in the store. It seems our power problems at Lajuma are not isolated. Ian was able to fashion a homemade pelton wheel so we have had power for a few days now... which, though nice, is surprisingly expendable if need be.

*********************

South Africa is very much a country in political flux. They established a permament, modern government only seven years ago. There is a native African backlash after apartheid, which to my understanding is a white-controlled attempt to split South Africa into little white and black states. This created tons of problems, obviously, since whites and blacks have been inseparable in South Africa since the first Dutch, German and British settlers. Now, many Dutch-named towns are being renamed to traditional African names (Louis Trichardt becomes Makhado, Pietersburg becomes Polokwane).

The government is also presiding over land disputes -- sometimes local Venda people will lay claim to ancient lands that a white farmer has had for a few generations. Often such disputes are difficult to justly decide, and obviously the issue is extremely emotional on both sides.

*********************

Thursday was Australia Day. It's the Australian equivalent to July 4th... though apparently the event is the day upon which the British invaded Australia. I need to read up on my Australian history -- in any case, we celebrated the day with an outdoor barbecue and a kangaroo-shaped cake. Ahhh, international holidays... so many poor jokes being exchanged.

Speaking of international... there are nine students currently at the Barn and six of them speak German very well. They'd roll their eyes at me for ranting on this... and I won't for long, but certainly, English is not the default language here. I'm picking up a little German but mostly I'm getting very good at smiling and nodding even though I don't understand a word of it. To the other students' credit, they are very often good at laboriously keeping a conversation in English for the benefit of the Australian and two Americans.

*********************

On Friday evening, Alandra, Nils and I made an evening hike to the top of Mt. Lajuma. As far as I could tell, it's the highest peak around. We packed lightly and made it to the top for sunset. A little summer haze made for a clear sunset that shrunk with the receding sun. We played with our cameras til after dark and then made dinner.

Alandra is Australian and has spent her share of time in the outdoors... she has a degree in archaeology and spent some time as an outdoor tour guide. Nils is a German, though after a few years in the United States, his English is very good. He is studying termites (and I would argue Harry Potter too -- he's in the last book now). The two of them, and the ensuing banter, make interesting and hilarious hiking partners.

The night was clear and we laid in our sleeping bags looking up at the stars. I must have seen so many at some point in my life, but it hadn't been for a while. And some of these were new stars for me, since many Northern hemisphere constellations never show down here. I did find Orion's Belt, but mostly I focused on objects revealed only from the lack of artificial light.
The Milky Way was clearly visible, as well as two other fuzzes of light that we thought to be other galaxies. I saw half a dozen shooting stars. The wind was constant and cool at the peak, but we found shelter inside a crescent of rock near a fire ring.

I woke an hour before daylight. The Milky Way was gone, wiped up apparently by the growing light in the east. We got up at 5 AM and again pulled out our cameras. Again, the haze confined the first point of sunlight to an obscure spot, but as the sun grew, it stretched gold around the horizon until its arms were on our right and left... without being over-poetical, it really looked like the sun embraced the mountain.

Greetings,

I'm writing from an internet cafe in Makhado. Wow... it has been an amazing trip so far. It is so surreal to be in Africa of all places; it's very much like I expected in some ways, and very different in others.

Flying down was quite an experience... I had two delays (all of which were Indianapolis Airport's fault) which ultimately delayed my arrival in South Africa by 24 hours. At least with my time in London I went sight-seeing... I figured out the subway system pretty quickly and could get where I needed on there.

The buses, however, are a different story. I never understood them so I would randomly hop on a bus and just see where it took me. That was one of my favorite parts of London... just sitting in the top level of those red, double-deck buses, watching these mad mad mad drivers nearly kill themselves repeatedly in tiny little one-way lanes.

I am sorry I do not yet have pictures to show you of South Africa... I'll have to figure if I can bring some next week on a USB drive to put on this computer and upload somehow. Working with my laptop has been hard generally just because we have not had power. The hydroelectric dam here at Lajuma broke before I came and there is some problem in power line that prevents the normal generator power from reaching the Barn (which was once a barn, :D ). So... no power.

The weather is awesome. It's misty, humid, hot. Very summer and I love it. Summer is my favorite season and I'm happy to have summer twice in a row this year. :)

I just now got my baggage. It was delayed in London, so my first few days here were without luggage. The operators of Lajuma kindly provided me with the necessaries so I've been fine. I won't say, though, how long I've been wearing this pair of socks....

Most things are rather cheap to buy. I'm surprised at how many places will take credit cards. There's two KFC's here in town. You can buy almost anything you would at an American supermarket store... on the bus ride down, the movies on the bus screens were Mission Impossible, the Matrix, and this despicable movie I won't credit by naming. They were all American films... Will Smith music videos were on this huge screen at the Johannesburg bus station... only now I begin to see how thorougly American pop culture infiltrates other places.

I was very sobered to think that the music, movies, books, clothes, etc. that Americans create are extremely influential, not just to Americans, but by people all over the world. In fact, I was rather ashamed, talking to a South African student on the bus ride, to hear that she knew of Oprah, though not anything about our currency, our major cities, or even the name of the country ("your country, it is the United States of... what?"). I wasn't quizzing her, but she wanted to talk about it when she learned I was an American student.

So here were people, knowing next to nothing at all about the United States except how it was being presented in the Matrix.

I want to write more on that but I'm going to have to save it for later... hopefully I can type it out on my laptop when we have power.

The place where I am staying, Lajuma, was once a farm, which in the South African sense means it was private property used for something pastoral/agricultural, not necessarily farming. We live near the top of a mountain.. actually the backyard consists of a short grassy area that is abruptly stopped by trees that rises up into a cliff a few hundred feet high.

I have not had a chance to hike around much, but looking for sites will ensure that. Yesterday, I went out with the two other archaeology "students" here... neither of them are students in the strictest sense. One of them is just getting experience, like me, after graduating with her Bachelor's and the other likes to travel around a lot and do assorted projects related to anthropology, zoology, biology.

It's a very international group of people I'm with. There's nine of us... I am one of two Americans. We have an Australian and everyone else is Dutch or German, so Molly (the American) and I do not understand many of the conversations that go on. We're learning a couple of words though, but as you all know, my astounding language abilities enable me to remember these words FOREVER. ;)

So yeah, the three archaeology people went out and we catalogued two known sites. They are both little cave shelters. So many huge rocks fell from the top of the mountain so they are dozens and dozens of little caves in the Soutpansberg mountain range. It is soooo cool to climb into a little mini-cave, where it is so cool and moist from the outside air, and see pottery shards that are very likely untouched since the original inhabitants hundreds of years ago. This is a very remote area, and since there is no gold or anything of extreme monetary value, it is not difficult to find undisturbed sites.

The people who lived here took shelter in any little nook they could find, so we search each one for rock art or potsherds. We fill out a couple forms, map the site with GPS, draw a sketch, etc. It's not incredibly exciting work but I like the area, and I expect to do other things later on.

The other students here have been very hospitable to me. Last night we had an outside barbecue and cooked brats and steaks and rolls over a fire -- they were very accomodating with food since I only had some bread and tuna from my last few minutes in Makhado on Friday. Today... I will buy mmmmmmmorrrrreeee.....

I think next week we will do a weekend trip north to Botswana, a nearby country... I really don't know much about it, except that it's insanely cheap and apparently has very nice accomodations.

I will take lots of pictures soon and hopefully even some silent movie clips on my camera to give you an idea of the place.

Animals! The animals are amazing. I've seen baboons and little samango (sp?) monkeys since getting here. The baboons are big, loud and they sound frighteningly similar to people. Seriously... you are quite sure you heard repeated human yells coming from the forest and it turns out only to be a baboon. The little monkeys take to the trees a lot over the Barn, constantly knocking branches down and making a huge racket at night. Thankfully it doesn't happen often.

I've also seen leopard tracks and tons and tons of birds. Walking around is incredible just because you are constantly hearing a myriad of different bird calls. I'm not a huge birder but I think I see a new one every time I walk out... fast ones, weird ones with huge tails, all kinds.

I've been writing emails like crazy and now I have other work to do before we leave the 'net cafe... I will update again next week. God bless!

Hello all,

I haven't posted in a while, I know. Muchos apologios.

You are very impressed with my Spanish.

I spent a week in Texas, helping pack up the house in Shiloh for our new leasers. We had a nice Christmas with my grandparents, aunt, uncle, their family. I got many wondrous gifts: clothes, Star Bucks gift certificate, even a NEW Santa hat WITH a light-up whirligig on the top.

I spent the next few weeks just chilling, really. Reading a lot, playing some Dungeon Siege. Several days ago, the sun came out and I aired up the bike tires; rode around Kokomo like the good old summer days.

Candace and I just arrived back from the Covenanters' Young Adult winter conference. Nearly 100 students from all over Indiana, Kansas and Pennsylvania came for a weekend of seminars on sex & marriage. It's a topic I've heard lots at LeTourneau, in chapel and elsewhere, but it was good to hear them preached in the context of Song of Songs.

I played tackle football with twenty other guys, and I am so sore it hurts to get up and walk. Good times. I also played guitar with the illustrious Porter, Harrison and Olivetti, all of whom I immensely enjoyed watching and playing with. Always learn more guitar in an hour with those fellows than in a week of my own playing.

It was good to see faces from Covfamikoi, the Reformed Presbyterian summer family conference. To all of you at CYA, it was a pleasure and I regret not being able to spend more time with you.

So 48 hours from now, God willing, I'll just have come to the Atlantic towards London. I explained this little trip a few posts back, but now, for pictures, because that's all you wanted anyway.


So here's my flight on a world map. Dad just sent me an email from a couple he knows in London, who had recommendations for my layover. I'll be there for 9 hours, so I thought why not go see stuff. I'm thinking British Museum (a little bit!) and Trafalgar Square.


I'll fly into Johannesburg, and bus up into the mountains in the north of the country. Again, my famed squiggly mouse tracing capabilities pictured above. Click for a closer look.

I'll be with the organization represented here on the InTeRwEb. Click on the Research page to see my mansion, affectionately known as The Barn, because, well, it is one. Two days ago, they asked me to bring them a pelton wheel. Apparently, the students living in the Barn get their electricity from a small hydroelectric dam in a nearby waterfall. Last week, a key wheel disintegrated and they need me to bring one from the States. Hopefully this one lasts longer.

I'll be doing survey and site preservation work, partially in the western Soutpansberg mountains (rugged and dry), partly in the Limpopo valley (wetter, mosquitoes) with perhaps some weekend trips to nearby parks or previously excavated sites.

I will have access to email once a week; I would very much welcome mail to

and that first I looking letter is actually a J.