16 June

The temperatures have not improved this morning, and I deeply regret not taking Elna up on her offer of a space heater, especially after the hot water cuts out in the middle of my shower. I send Alisa (recipient of a nice long hot shower) to track down the heater, but no one is in the house, and Elna’s clinic is closed. We soon realize that it is Youth Day in South Africa, commemorating the Soweto Uprising, and as such it’s a national holiday. Having left all of our breakfast stuff in the house, and now being locked out, we’re forced to head out to find food. Since I am still on a quest for a South African track top we head to the Sandton City mall again, to see if the forecasts of more apparel coming in stock today are true.

Quite the opposite. Nothing new and everyone telling me that they are ‘finished’. I have heard that term often while in South Africa and it is quite a unspecific term. We never know if they are using it in the context of ‘out of stock’ or ‘never coming back’. It is quiet odd that all of these retailers would have nothing on hand during the biggest event in the country’s history. We found it much of the same during the Rugby World Cup in 2007, so maybe it is a South African thing to sell all of their stock in the run up and then to order no more. I stop in the Apple iStore to use the internet to try to track down another local sports shop as I am tired with the mall people. One young Afrikaner tried to tell me that adidas never sold official track tops and that the knockoffs he had on hand were actually made by a company owned by adidas. When he tried telling me that you couldn’t get what the players wore, I looked at the kit that I had on, an authentic players jersey, which promoted him to start to change his story, but still made wildly inaccurate statements that continued my frustration of trying to find simply a warm jacket to wear on these below freezing days that is not a chinese knock off. I had seen great ones at the airport, but of course in the XL variety.

Our Google search yields a place not too far away, yet of course no answer on their phones, so we stop back at Elnas to see if she has returned (no), and continue on to Fourways. First stop yields nothing, but are told to check the Sweat Shop. Odd name, but there we find success! A white adidas South Africa pullover in my size! They are also more knowledgeable, but tell me they expect no more South Africa gear…or to check the airport (been there).

However, with South Africa’s performance tonight, perhaps there will be no new order of Bafana apparel…

A stop at Pick’n’Pay and then home where Elna has returned and we settle in and begin to upload photos and videos of the past 3 weeks. Elna’s internet is about par for South Africa. This country was not made for sharing full size pics, and even more so not for my HD videos. We are still at it at this late hour, and have given up on updating our iWeb, as that has crashed numerous times and gives me the error that it is out of space. Alisa’s MBP is not easily handling the HD video in iMovie either, so YouTube will most likely get our uncut videos until we find a better Internet connection. We will post links to everything that has been uploaded soon!