Sukkot/Liftoff

A quick few days here in Jozi.  Went to a bunch of shuls (there's about four on every block around here), had some nice meals in various sukkahs around the nearly-exclusively Jewish suburb of Glenhazel, and hung out with Leor Hurwitz (whose house I'm staying at) and his friends.  One interesting thing I want to note about the Jewish community here in Johannesburg is that they actually have a Jewish law permitting them to break the rules of Shabbat in order to set their house alarms.  The thieves and criminals eventually figured out that all these religious Jews weren't setting their house alarms on Friday nights and began attacking then, so the order went out.  Just another example of a community adapting to its surroundings.

Last night was interesting.  Caught a ride with a friend of Adam Kesacoff and met her and her friends at a few bars around town.  Wasn't bad, just sort of out of the ordinary for me, but I guess different strokes... Something to do.

One thing I must mention here is that tonight I went out for kosher Nando's with Leor.  Nando's, for those of you in the States who haven't been exposed yet, is a chain of fast, quality, delicious gourmet Portuguese chicken restaurants, and it is also proof that a higher power looks favorably upon this earth and its inhabitants.  The food is tremendous, as I quickly learned in Perth, and I was very pleased to be able to further the breadth of my Nando's exposure here in Africa.

Tomorrow, however, is the big day.  I leave around midday tomorrow for the Venda region: a rural area of northeast South Africa up around the border with Zimbabwe.  There is a tribe known as the Lemba people who live up there and who have claimed Jewish heritage for years.  Someone got around to doing DNA testing on these people and determined that yes, they were in fact at least hereditarily Jewish.  I am to meet a guide named Mashudo Dima in a small town called Thohoyandou, about 45 minutes from the town of Louis Trichardt, and from there, it's anybody's guess.  Depending on my reception with these people, I may be there for a day or two or perhaps the entire week.  Whatever I don't spend with them I'll spend driving through the Kruger National Park, so I have my backup plan ready to go.

So that's that.  No internet for the next week or so, that's for sure.  It's National Geographic time.