Day 3, Peripherally productive part 2

I mentioned in the earlier post that we got a bunch of IBM swag together as well, there's a picture of it below all gathered on the table.

Another look at the folks gathering around the table with all our stuff.

This is the area that we typically work in, notice all of the freaking laptops everywhere. At one point, there were eight of us around this table all with our thinkpads open, most of us blogging about our experiences. Also in this photo, those not blogging are in the back cooking dinner. We have some great "cooooookers" who made an amazing meal for us to eat. Spaghetti, garlic bread and salad. The rest of us either entertained them through pretending to help, and then really just taking pictures of them cougaring, or trying to rinse the dishes later.

We had a wonderful time shopping. As I also mentioned, we had over $500 dollars raised by ibmers, all of which went to school supplies, soccer balls, pastel paints, watercolors, calculators, colored pencils, hoola hoops, and english language posters. And yes, I look like a turtle in this photo, a crazy turtle.

A closer up look at the cart, we also got a whole volleyball set and of course an american football. They also play a game like netball, which is a cross between basketball, and ultimate frisbee (you have to put a ball through a hoop, but you can't move when you catch the ball.)

If anyone was curious what the meditation sessions look like, here they are below. I'm on the left, with Vero-chan next to me, Ethan about to sit down, Anil on the podium, and Craig hiding behind Anil.

One of the more interesting things here is the parking lots. Almost everywhere you go there are private security companies that have uniformed people in parking lots to watch the cars that expect a couple of rand (maybe fifty cents) to watch your car. There's a big problem here with smash and grab where people will just smash your window and take your stuff out and run away. It actually happened in a major parking lot the other day to one of our client's parents. Anyways, I love these folks, so I posed with this guy and told him to look strong with me.

For three of the days that we've been here, we had a nice Audi A4 to drive around, so here's the men of MEGA rocking it out, too cool for Nelspruit.

Technology here is entertaining. Here's our music set up, Ethan's Ipod attached to a boombox via a late 90's cassette adapter so we can have some tunes.

And since it's getting late here, I'll leave you with this, a beautiful moonrise off in the distance. This is the view off our deck with Nelspruit in the distance.

Also, I'd like to take a minute to thank everyone for reading the blog and sending me encouraging and passionate comments. It makes me want to share the experience all the more and work harder to find the real moments of south african life so that you can all be a part of it. Tomorrow is going to be a real big day, meeting with our client in the morning at 8 (after yoga) and then the school visit for the afternoon. I hope that we'll have some great videos, photos and memories to share.