Greetings from the Cornerstone. It's South Africa day 2 and so far I'm pretty sure I haven't actually seen South Africa. We've been sequestered in the lodge. All of our meals are prepared special for us and served in the dining room. Eggs to order for breakfast and elegant three-course affairs for lunch and dinner. I don't even know how best to explain this place. It's like a compound--a gated group of buildings. Each building houses a single room and all the doors are left open all the time. It's nice, but kind of chilly because it's winter here. It smells like winter. The air is crisp and smells like wood smoke, and car exhaust, but mostly wood smoke.
Yesterday we went to the University of Pretoria and met with the students who are going to Kruger with us. KT and I gave research talks at a mini-symposium that they organized just for us. Oh boy. I was so glad that they did that. I don't think anyone fell asleep during my talk but there were definitely a lot of eyes glazed over. C'mon guys! It's important!
The University was pretty exciting. There were a lot of students out, hanging out on the lawn, or hanging out having coffee...normal college things. All the buildings were labeled in both English and Afrikaans--which looks a lot like Dutch. Of course, that makes sense because South Africa was colonized by the Dutch.
After we finished our talks, I had a nice lunch of slimy pasta and oily mushrooms at a campus cafe. Yum. From there we went and met with the teachers we're going to working with when we are in the schools in 2 weeks. Then, straight back to the Compound. There's a gas station across the street that we're "allowed" to walk to. I'm going to go check it out now, it'll be about the most exciting thing I've done all day.
Tomorrow we're headed to Kruger and I'm so excited to actually get out and see the country.
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