3.30.2007

Back to Manenberg's

Hi, everyone - sorry I haven't written in a while. I have been positively swamped at work. 8:45am until about 10pm each day, with a couple hours break at random times in between. When I do have a break, I normally take a nap. I have about a one hour break at the moment, so I thought I would say hello to everyone and let you know I am still alive and kickin.

The past few days have been hectic, but there has been some fun involved. I have been back to my old haunt, my home away from home, Manenberg's. I went for a glass of wine with some folks on Tuesday night, and I ended up being pulled aside by one of the managers to do an interview with the Financial Times about why I choose to spend my time at Manenberg's rather than anywhere else. I gave a nice plug for the center, and maybe my name will end up in the paper. It also earned me a couple free drinks with the owners last night!

And last night was awesome. We wrapped up our session at the GSB around 10pm and decided to head out for the evening. The group was headed to Manenberg's, but I knew there was a private function for a large South African corporation, so I thought I couldn't get a large group in to crash the party. I let them go on to see what they could figure out while i finished up some work. I went over to the bar, and my contact let me in the back door. It was quite the swanky affair - open bar, live music, hundreds of people there. (I didn't take photos - I crashed a function with a bunch of Parliament and labor leaders - I figured they wouldn't appreciate me posting their photo on the Internet that I took at their party that I crashed.)

Anyway, the group actually did manage to make their way into the party thanks to my co-worker Melody who worked some magic with one of the owners. Everyone ended up having a great time. I left about 1:30am. Some stayed til 4am. I don't have the stamina to do that anymore. It was a great night though - I never knew party crashing could be so much fun.

Tonight, after the closing celebration for the first retreat, a group of about 20 of us have a reservation at The Green Dolphin at the waterfront. It's an upscale jazz venue, and with it being the Cape Town Jazz Festival, a lot of the musicians migrate to other venues after they perform at the main festival. So, tonight will be a long night, but fun I am sure. Tomorrow I plan on sleeping in a good bit, doing some laundry, and probably doing some shopping.

Saturday evening I have two events - a social with last year's ELP class from 6-8 at the Radisson Hotel, then Melody and I are off to the Jazz festival on Saturday night. I will also get to see my friend Elelwani at the festival, which I am VERY excited for. It is a yearly tradition for me to go "the jazz" with her. This will be our third year to go together!

I shuold hopefully have some good pics to post in the next day or so - just be patient with me. I'm exhausted! After the "relaxing" day of Saturday, it's back to the grind on Sunday with our Reunion Retreat beginning. That goes through Tuesday night, and I leave to come back home on Wednesday! YAY!

That's the long of it, folks. I miss everyone at home SO much, but I will definitely make the most of my time here. Later taters...

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