Back home again!

It's a week since we left Cape Town and in another week we set off to France so this halfway mark is a good point to post an update.

There were some great highlights in our last week in Cape Town amidst the stress of packing up our rental house. We spent an evening with a few of the students staying on for the winter at Ganesh restaurant in Observatory, watching Brazil play North Korea on the big screen - by now we were all soccer addicts! And a last meal at our favorite local restaurant, the Wijnhuis, on Thursday evening, wishing Nan a happy 40th birthday for Friday June 18. I can't believe I have a daughter of 40!!

Friday morning we rushed to the airport to catch the flight to Singapore for arrival early Saturday morning. We headed straight to the hotel to catch up on sleep. Our host, Eddy Chong, picked us up, groggy with sleep, and drove us to lunch at Food for Thought - a restaurant with a conscience in this bustling capitalistic city! After lunch, Eddy dropped us at Raffles hotel and we walked around a bit before meeting up with him again for tea with a couple of his colleagues.

That evening we ate Peranakan food at our hotel restaurant, a fusion of Malaysian and Chinese flavors, which we followed with TV soccer until the early hours of the morning until we finally fell asleep. We woke on Sunday morning, too late for hotel breakfast, so made our way to a Starbucks for morning tea and coffee and bagel; boringly safe!

We thought of all sorts of tours we could do after breakfast but finally settled on getting a taxi to Clarke Quay and walking up and down the river. We stopped at IndoChine restaurant for the most delicious fresh rice paper veggie rolls, sitting outside across the river from the row of quaint shophouses on Boat Quay, all that remains of the Singapore working dock of old. The buildings now house a long row of restaurants, each with eager staff tempting you to sit down for the special of the day. This is a 2003 photo but shows the shophouses against modern Singapore.

Sunday evening Eddy took us to his home where his wife, Yan, and their son Nathan, and Christine in the kitchen, treated us to a superb meal with little dogs, Buffy and Bella, sitting obediently on their chair, near the table, observing us patiently. A real honor to be guests in their home.

Monday was the work day, the reason Tim was in Singapore. But first, in the morning we met up with long time friends and colleagues, Cheng Chye and Hwee San, for a tour of the school where they now teach, School Of The Arts (SOTA). Cheng Chye and Hwee San were both at Raffles and were responsible for our great trip to Cambodia and Thailand at the end of 2006.

That afternoon Tim was to address students and interested philanthropists in a talk about Service Learning at the National University of Singapore's Business School's Centre for Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy where Eddy works. Eddy collected us around noon for lunch with the Director of the Centre, Albert Teo who had ordered the most incredibly scrumptious dishes for us to enjoy over an hour or so of good conversation.

Tim's talk was excellent, but somehow all that lingers of our three days in Singapore is the food we sample in that city. After goodbyes with Eddy, we met up with Wilson, another friend from the old 2003 days. Wilson whisked us away to a Chinese neighborhood where we feasted on countless incredible dishes - so very yum!

Next morning we rose at crack of dawn to catch our 7am flight to Narita and then back to SFO - a long day, but spent pleasantly relaxed over movies and more good food on United airlines.

We've been home 5 days now and it feels like we couldn't possible have been away for seven months. We're really enjoying the long summer days, the peace in our rural home, the sounds of the birds in the garden, and the long familiar hikes out here on the Point Reyes Peninsula. But we miss the vibe of Cape Town, the walks up Palmboom Road to either fetch the newspaper in the morning, or take off on a hike in Newlands Forest; the proximity to the shops and restaurants, all a short walk away; and of course we miss our friends and family.

In some way I feel divided, half of me is here, the other half in Cape Town.

Farewell Dinner and Soccer Frenzy

June 10th arrived, the last day of the program and the excitement of the Bing Farewell dinner at Addis in Cape is in the air. Everyone is looking forward to the Ethiopian food and ambiance, a super end to the 11 weeks in Cape Town for the Stanford Spring Quarter students. Some lovely photos tell the story of the evening.

The whole of South Africa has been awash with flags; on cars, windows, walls, wherever. All the different countries, on sale at traffic lights from street vendors and at most shops - it's the rage. I bought one US and one SA flag and drove to Welcome Glen to visit Nan and Daniel feeling proudly SA and US. On my way home, the US flag flew off it's holder - not even an hour old!

I'm not all that impressed with vuvuzelas, but it seems I'm in the minority on that score. As their populararity increases, we're bombarded with ear splitting eruptions at all times of the day and night, whether there's a soccer game on or not!

But, if that's what makes Bafana Bafana (ranked 80) play like they did against Mexico (ranked 16) in their 1-1 draw, roll on vuvuzelas! What an exciting game - the opening South African goal such a winner from Siphiwe Tshabalala, later named man of the match. How terrific to be the first to score, and how nearly that was the one and only. But Mexico, deservedly, retaliated, 11 minutes from the end, with their own excellent shot straight past Bafana's keeper.

That was Friday. Saturday saw us meeting up with an old Kent school friend of Tim's, John Watkins, and his partner and son to watch the US play England. Disappointingly, England scored in the fourth minute and we thought the US was in for a drilling. How jubilant we felt in this tightly marked game when the US scored the equaliser. We watched on a huge screen in a bar/restaurant called Arnolds in Kloof Street.

I'm hooked on soccer and can't wait to follow the matches.

The end is nigh!

Three weeks have zipped by since my last post and in two more weeks we'll be in Singapore for a few days, en route home. I am in my usual pre-departure panic at thought of packing up for 5½ months - what to take to California, what to leave behind here?

In the meantime, to catch up on what we've been up to these past three weeks, we had an unplanned visit to Johannesburg for a friend's memorial the weekend of 20 -22 May. Sadly, South Africa's former Leader of the Opposition in the days before democracy, Van Zyl Slabbert, died at 70. Seems so young for such a great mind to leave us, but he had not been well and was not improving. He had a wonderful birthday celebration in February which, with hindsight, was his farewell to friends, I guess.

We stayed with my sister and husband, Gill and Michael, in Joburg which was super, especially for Tim as he had not seen them for a couple of years.

The next week we had the last student dinner at the Wijnhuis,our favourite local restaurant. Followed by another student wine tasting evening, see pics at link, excellent again, thanks to Chris Wiehe. And, to end the week, the students' cultural evening - an outing to the town of Darling for "Koeksisters for Zuma", a show by Pieter-Dirk Uys. We got there early, in time to explore all the marvelous memorabilia he has collected and displays in this converted railway station that is now his very own theatre, "Evita se Perron" (He plays Evita Bezuidenhout, wife of the ambassador to Bapetikosweti, and Perron is the Afrikaans word for (station) platform - a play on Argentina's Evita Peron.)

Pieter has the wonderful ability of tuning his show to suit his audience and played up to the students beautifully. The theatre is very intimate, the stage a slightly raised part of the restaurant. The food is served before, during the break, and after the show. Altogether a fabulous evening's entertainment. Here we are sampling Darling Brew before the show started and with PDU after the show.

The third week, last week, and two highlights involving the Stanford program. One was having Tim's staff to dinner here - long overdue! The other was going to the Stanford Centre on Thursday evening to be an observer at the Financial Self Sustainability Forum that two of Tim's research students convened. Wow, what a great gift Craig and Ken gave the eight NPO leaders who were there - getting them acquainted, raising challenging issues in their businesses, thrashing out different ways to approach the issues - what we saw and heard was most inspiring. Here they are in the large lecture room at Waverley.

Sunday May 30th my aunt, Ruth Jeffery, celebrated her 96th birthday at a wonderful gathering at her farm, Timberlea, in Stellenbosch. She was surrounded by four generations of family on a glorious sunny winter day and spent hours basking in the delights of close relatives. Here she is looking not a day older than 80!

Each week these last three months I have fetched my grandchildren from school on Thursdays and taken first Nathaniel, who finishes earlier than Ayanda, for a bite to eat followed by some play on a jungle gym. After a couple of hours we go back to school to pick up Ayanda and treat her to a scone and milkshake. It's been a chance for good chats with them both and a lot of fun for me. And I have sure got to know the tea/lunch spots in the Kommetjie/Noordhoek part of the Cape Peninsula.

Friday next week kicks off the World Cup Soccer with one game here in Cape Town, and another in Johannesburg. On Saturday the US is playing England in Rustenburg, NW of Johannesburg. Tim and I will watch on TV with US friends at the Mount Nelson Hotel, cheering on our side who have a big team to tackle in their first game.

There are a bunch of "friendlies" being played as warm-ups to the competition and I see the US played Australia in the Johannesburg area last night and beat them 3-1 - good for the US!

Two games will be played in Cape Town before we leave: Uruguay vs France next Friday and then Italy vs Paraguay, Mon June 14. All around the country 20 of a total of 48 group matches will have been decided before we leave so I am sure we will be drawn into the excitement. Here's the link to the match schedule.