Friday 7 September 2007

Back in Pretoria


New for this blog is that it will now be partly in English. My apologies for not updating it often nowadays I will try to improve... I have just come back to Pretoria after a short visit in Sweden where I was involved in the organization of a symposium for post graduate student in ICT for Development (ICT4D). The Symposium was in held in Karlstad and was great. It was the second year it was organized and it is one of the academic highlights of the year, as I cant think of a better opportunity for networking and sharing ideas with people of similar interest. My own presentation went quite well and people at least pretended a bit interested in what I do. One of the highlights was the crayfish party at Gudruns palace of Värmland.

After the symposium I went to University of Joensuu for a couple of days and it was nice to meet my colleagues over there. One of the most important things on the agenda was the twinning of the kids'club activities in Joensuu and Pretoria. All in all even the visit to Finland was a success.

What bothers me though is that I went all the way to Sweden without meeting my mother, I hope she will forgive me? Everyone keeps telling me that it was a very terrible thing to do but one week is a very short time for squeezing everything into. It is with double feelings I am back in Pretoria, on one hand summer has arrived and I am looking forward to the continuation of my work here with the kids on the other hand I am starting to get a bit tired of Pretoria.

When I came back I had got a new flat mate as Stephan had moved out and Leah had moved in. Although I will miss the TV and the coffee machine I will not miss the fog of smoke that often met me as i came home. Leah seems nice but feels a bit strange with a woman in the house.

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