Et une « Une » pour Stan !

Sign on delivery truck: makes you long for the good old days of the 18th century France.

Me and some friends from the Mohlakano Primary School

The 'lap desks' with lots of Australia info

A group called Anuma performed a Batswana Cultural Dance

June 9

Got a nice message from a Paris AFP photo editor who said I had a picture on the front page of Le Monde, the French daily newspaper. It was of one of the flag sellers I photographed yesterday on the street corner. The editors at our WC headquarters in Johannesburg were happy.

The Football Federation of Australia planned a 10am press conference, so I planned to cover that and hopefully have the afternoon off since the Australia team practice was closed to media coverage. The Australians have been running late and I suppose nothing much runs on time in South Africa, so the combination made the event last into the afternoon. But, it was wild as things tend to be here.

The FFA was donating educational stuff to schools in this county and across South Africa and chose a school about 20 km from here. As we entered the town of Mohlakeng, people raced through the streets with horns and flags and soccer jerseys cheering the bus. I think we made a lap around the town, then found the primary school. The town seemed a mix of shacks with corregated steel roofs and ordinary middle class houses.

Hundreds of adorable children were lined up in the main school plaza, though the decorum broke when we cameramen showed up. Lots of frenzied activity until teachers got the students into neat rows again and a man led the group in a countdown- “5, 4, 3,2, 1- sshhhhh”. And quiet! This happened each time the noise level rose and was pretty successful.

The FFA and Australian sports minister gave out lap desks, basically a large oval shaped plastic disk for children to use as a desk. The top has printed on it an alphabet, numbers using soccer balls to count, rulers and lots of info about Australia. Not sure what the children thought about the Australia info. But they seemed very happy.

After the ceremonies, I pulled my car into the shade at the school to work on my computer and send photos. Oddly enough, my data card worked perfectly, much better than at the fancy private college we had been at yesterday. I made lots of friends as a small crowd gathered to watch me work. One older student took a cell phone photo of me and the group, I gave him my camera to snap a picture for me.

Finally back to the farm for lunch. I’ve got a small refrigerator so I can make sandwiches and eat here, a bit more convenient than going out.