Alive and almost well

Yes, we know, it has more than two weeks since our last entry. Although you may be thinking that we’ve been lounging on the beach or on safari seeking out rare animals and birds, nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, the last two weeks have been the most hectic of our trip. After spending Easter weekend on the shores of Lake Victoria in Kisumu, Kenya, we had one last day in Kampala. We started the day with a visit to the U.S. Embassy, where the metal plate in Laurel’s arm set off the metal detector (which it has not done in any airport anywhere in the world) putting the U.S. Marines on full alert and requiring supervisor approval before we could enter. After running around doing errands and packing up all of our stuff, we threw ourselves a little going away party at our apartment at the Mosa Courts. Our guest list included many of the attorneys and academics that we have met over the years. We even had a few law students crash the party because they wanted to get some legal writing advice.

Very early the next morning, we left for the Entebbe airport for the last time during this trip. We’d been in Uganda for so long by this point that we were a bit sad to be moving on, but the porters at the hotel seemed pretty pleased to get packing up and moving all of our luggage for the last time. Although our flight to South Africa was just a few hours, when we arrived we felt as if we were a world away. The Joburg airport reminded us of Amsterdam airport; the multitude of multi-lane, pothole-free highways leading to Pretoria reminded us of Los Angeles; and the weather, cool and cloudy, reminded us of home.

This part of our trip is being hosted by the U.S. Embassy in South Africa, and the Public Affairs Section could not have given us two better hosts for our weeklong stay in Joburg and Pretoria. Mary Ellen Koenig, an American, and Rina du Toit, a South African were extremely well organized, but they were also great fun. They did, however, keep us extremely busy: On Friday, we did a day-long workshop for magistrates; on Saturday we visited Wits University, which is where we will be holding our summer school program in June and July; on Sunday, we participated in a conference for women judges and magistrates; and on Monday we did another day-long workshop for magistrates. We had a change of pace on Tuesday, when, instead of talking still one more time about audience and purpose, small-scale organization, and sentences, we had meetings with academics at the University of Pretoria and the post-graduate Law Education and Development program, where we made presentations on effective teaching methods and development of legal writing curricula. Finally, on Wednesday and Thursday we did a session for the Law Society of South Africa, with a lively group of attorneys, some of whom also teach on a part-time. The only downside to the week was that both of us came down with a particularly nasty stomach virus. As a result, our experience with the local food has been primarily limited to ginger ale and dry toast.

On Thursday afternoon, we took what we think is our 18^th flight: a short flight from Joburg to Durban. Although the tourist brochure advertises Durban as having 365 days of sun a year, we arrived during a major rain storm and fell asleep to the sound of rain on the roof. The good news is that, because we have presentation all day everyday for the next six days, the weather doesn’t really matter, and we have been assured that, by the time we get a day off on Thursday, the sun will have returned and we will have the opportunity to see this beautiful coastal city at its best.