Day 1 (Sat. January 22) Madison-Johannesburg Fawn and I arrived at the Dane county Regional Airport at about 10am. Fawn is Fawn Youngbear Tibbets, a Life Sciences Communication major and transfer from College of Menominee Nation's sustainable Development Institute. She's a skilled videographer and a whiz at editing.  Fawn and I are headed to Quelimane, Mozambique a town on the Indian Ocean near the Zambeze River, to do some community-based journalism training. We've been invited by Terra Institute, a Mount Horeb-based non-profit organization that works with disdvantaged communities around the world and helps them with land tenure issues. ORAM, an indigenous group based in Mozambique, wants to train a group of their journalists to bring attention to their land issues and create reports for the outside world. It was a long, LONG packed flight with disappointment once we got to Johannesburg. Fawn's luggage did not make it. We checked our bags at the same time and mine got there so I'm mystified as to what happened to hers. Second bit of bad news...my debit and credit cards didn't work at the phone company store where we purchased an international SIM card. However, Gildo, a local J-Burger, pictured here, came to our rescue. Gildo had gone to school in Tulsa for business and gotten his MBA in Oklahoma City. He insisted upon paying for our card and calling minutes. Fawn tried to stall him while I went to find an ATM so that I could withdraw money to pay back, but his taxi arrived and off he went. He'd said that he had good experiences with Native Americans in Oklahoma. It sure was a nice welcome to South Africa.  Our friend Gildo How 'bout them Packers. All my careful planning to make sure I could access the Packers-Bears game online was for naught. In the end, I skyped home and my husband turned the laptop with a webcam on it toward the TV. It was kind of fuzzy, but I got the general drift and the audio came in loud and clear. Whoo HOOO Packerss! Can you say Superbowl? We leave bright and early tomorrow for Maputo, Mozambique. | draft | 3:29:00 PM | by Patty Loew |
Fawn Looking for her luggage
