I need to interrupt the continuity of this narrative to report something extraordinary. The something is called Piet. Piet is a South African. He is not the person from that country who we usually encounter as an expatriate. He is the person we read about all those years during the struggle against apartheid who was waging a desperate personal struggle against inevitable social change and stil lives in the land of his birth. We met two days ago. He is staying at my hotel and his job is building cell phone towers all over the country. Piet is evidently very good at what he does. He is a diminutive man of 55, perhaps 5 feet 6 and sports a scraggly salt and pepper beard. He drinks hard, smokes a lot, works outdoors and has the complexion of old saddle leather to prove it. He has some very specific ideas about race relations.
All his life Piet was a farmer and, from what he tells me, a modern and successful one. He married and raised his family on the land as his father and grandfather had done before him. At some point life became a war that he was bound to lose but he knew nothing else except to fight. Having been in the army he trained his wife and children in the craft of arms maintainence to the point that they were competent to resist the endless armed attack on his propery by members of the African Natioinal Congress. We in America see the ANC as heroes that were eventually successful in liberating millliions of blacks in South Africa. And rightly so. Apartheid was an immoral system that stamped out the future for millions. However, this is the first chance I have had to hear the story from someone whose only intention was to preserve his property and protect his family. Fortunately Pete and his family survived the violence but they lost their farm and were forced into the city. Hearing him tell the tragic story of being a victim of history one cannot help but sympathize.
As we sat at dinner the other night Piet introduced me to a brand of African moonshine called Konyagi. It has a subtle gin flavor but mixed with water is alomost imperceptible - to taste that is. The effect on consciousness is equal or better than anything you have ever drunk, smoked or sniffed. Over a bottle of this stuff we got into the subject of race relations from an American and South African point of view.We were joined buy a young South African couple who, by the way, are absolutely magazine cover good looking, in town to build churches for the Jehovah's Witnesses. Don't let that fool you, they are by no means teetotalers. Their names are 
Tony and Ann and they represent the new South Africa. They are the product of a politically correct upbringing dedicated to solving South Africa's problems in a generation. Good luck. Piet is an old time Afrikaner. His second language is English. Tony and Ann are English first and offspring of the old leftists. But they too have seen their country deteriorate under the new order. Ordinarily these people would never have anything to do with each other but being trapped at a dinner table in the middle of nowhere necessitated conversation. And what a conversation it was. I took on the role of moderator.
And then it was time for bed. It was an evening well spent. Back to the medical happenings in the next post.
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