Dusseldorf

This school in Dormagen, a suburb of Dusseldorf, invited us over to talk to them about life in Africa. Elvis asked the students: "So, before we tell you about Africa, why don't you tell us what you know?" The sole response (translated freely from German) was: "Uh... It's a continent?"

The grafitto is universal. I happen to be obscuring the word "Stephanie". James, a colleague from Tanzania, was pining for his significant other of that name, hence the picture. Sorry, guess you had to be there...

This woman was ... probably still is ... a reporter for the local paper. She also had an incredibly striking face which I stole from across the room while panning with the zoom.

This is your first look at Mathias Schroen (on the left) who was our minder for the junket. Tania next to him is a fraulein from Dusseldorf who works for the municipality of Dormagen who hosted us on our visit to the school and the firestation which explains the fireman next to her.

Desmond took this pic. Note the Sydney Australia tee shirt. Patriotic, that's me...

I have a problem with heights, but jumped at the chance to ride the cherry picker which was a "small" model which went up to "only" 30 metres.

I remember looking around at this point and being able to see Cologne in one direction, Dusseldorf in another, and the huge Bayer complex in another, but my fingers were too tightly grasping the edge to take more pictures.

And this is what it looked like from the ground. That's Johan Retief, Foreign Editor of the Afrikaans daily Die Burger who are supposedly competitors of the Cape Times, but Johan and I became close in spite of that.