Because I've waited so long to contribute it is hard to know where to begin. The rest of the family has been doing a wonderful job in sharing the events of the last month or so. So, as I try to catch up and fill in the gaps I may jump around a bit.
Africa is a mix of huge, vast, wild, free and picturesque land with a fun loving, confident, knowing, multilingual and sophisticated people. If one can be spontaneous and open and yet refined and cultured at the same time, that's how I would generalize the people here. When we first arrived here I would just gawk at the many people (almost all black) walking the well-trodden paths on both sides of the road. My feelings were a mixture of extreme sympathy and extreme vulnerability. Its taken me about 3-4 weeks to calm my anxiety to a reasonable level to view these people as just people going about their business, on their way to work, school, or shopping. They are not the ones to feel sorry for and my guess is they would be terribly offended if they thought one was feeling sorry for them. There is PLENTY of poverty evident in the townships, and I struggle every day here in what my part is to be of help and assistance. Do I feel safe? The answer is yes. Is there many, many protective crime prevention devices used here. Yes, again. At first I had a difficult time seeing past the decorative bars on the windows, the ignition de-emobilzer and central locking in the car, and the high security gates and fences almost everywhere one can afford them. Just yesterday one of the gardeners came on our balcony and through the gated padlocked door was asking for money - this is an older man that I have said hello to many times in the past month. Even two weeks ago I would have jumped through the roof with fright. So, although I will handle the situation differently next time as I don't want any workers thinking they can come on our balcony asking for money, I didn't feel my safety was at risk in the least. He has the right to ask for money if the opportunity presents itself and I have the right to say "no" (firmly). My assertiveness skills were in need of an upgrade and one must be assertive to survive here. I know after that you want to know: did I give him the R10 (about 1 dollar) he needed in order to pay his electricity bill? Yes and no. The young man that ended up interpreting for us gave him the R10 (he lives permanently with his family in one of the 4 flats here) and then I met him later and gave him the R10. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to see that freely and openly giving money to whomever asks is the absolute wrong thing to do - but how to give responsibly is a tough question to answer. The South Africans I have spoken too seem to struggle with this issue also.
Okay, so that was a heavy way to start, but those of you reading know that the safety issue was my main concern.

On a lighter side, cooking… Well, I thought I knew how. I also thought we ate on the healthy side compared to most Americans. We hardly ever buy prepared family size lasagna, chicken, and all the other countless pre-made dinners one can get in the stores. I felt I cooked from scratch, most of the time. I got here and was literally shell shocked in the Pick-n-Pay grocery store. First of all the carts are made so they can hold only 2 two-handled baskets. Just as Bob mentioned earlier people are buying for the next day or two - things will go bad if one buys to far ahead. Back to what I call cooking from scratch. I didn't. I'm finding that back home I used prepared sauces (ketchup, BBQ sauce, salsa, soups, dry soups, etc.) in many, many recipes. I tried to buy a prepared chicken marinade - which looked yellow in color but ended up tasting like what I would call BBQ sauce. The pizza sauce is very sweet, and once getting past the initial difference and knowing "using less is better than more" we all have acquired the new taste. The pizza here is great, different, but great. Wonderful wholesome dough, very light on the sauce, very heavy with the toppings (tuna being a popular item), and very light on the cheese. The mozzarella is much more moist, which makes it harder to grate, but it has a ton more flavor, so you really need just a little sprinkling.

Got to go for now. Piet, our laundry guy, just brought us our freshly cleaned, folded, and organized clothes (all our clothes and towels for the last week) with an invoice for R109 (for about 10 dollars a week, I got used to this part of my experience immediately.