Cape Town for longer - woo hoo!

Thuli and I spoke yesterday and unfortunately she is still having difficulty finding a place for me to stay. She has a trip to Jo'burg planned for two weeks, but she'll be continuing to work on housing arrangements. In the mean time Ursula has offered to put me up for as long as I need and continue to work with her business and projects.

That'll give me more time to work with the youth here. I have some ideas on projects that could incorporate some of the things I worked with the Nazarene youth, the United Way and the lacrosse game my friend Miguel Pires and I started at our high school in Northern VA.


Reverend Patrick and I spend the day together yesterday. We went and got a personal tour of one of the World Cup stadiums that's being built for 2010 (reconstructing an old stadium). Patrick shared how he used to play and many of his teammates went on to pro sports while he went in a different direction. Certainly no regrets though, he's done some great things for the community!

We also visited Father Patrick's Salesian Institute youth project (Irish priest from my mom's home town). He works with an excellent project involving street children. The teens come there off the streets age 17-24 and get cleaned up if they have drug problems or other issues. They then sign an 18 month contract where they work 8 hour days for room and board to learn life skills. Then they get help finding a job. The project has had a 100% success rate in finding work for the youth because they come out with such great skills.

We got a nice birds eye view of the beautiful city from a top one of the many hills in the area. Had some excellent fish and callamari on the Water Front. There Patrick and I shared a few ideas and I have projects in the US and with the University that hopefully he and I can see to fruition over the next few years to help churches and the community here.

Last night's discussion was our final stop, it was on reforming the electoral system. It was quite interesting to hear the ideas presented and hear the different struggles going on here.

There was discussion of should the major political party be divided and a one created, should there be a parliament with equal representation for accountability, how do they merge race and political direction and other ideas. It was really interesting to be there! I can imagine many countries including the US went through these exact town hall type discussions, but it was interesting to be in one in a country so early in its democracy.

I haven't been able to spend the day at St Joseph's because of various meetings going on this week, but hopefully some time I can go. I'd also like to see more of the Salesian Institute.