There are a LOT more people on the streets during the week. Cars parked everywhere. I saw one car that someone had busted the window out of today. It was NOT the fanciest on the street. [I never personally saw any other crime, and I don't know if it occurred there, or elswhere, but the hole in the window was enlarged during the day.]

Went in to the office at around 8. Found the test equipment broke 16 hours earlier. prepared and emailed all the data, that took till lunch.

The office employs 2 additional personnel. One, is a "maid" who fixes coffee, tea and keeps the place clean, the other is a driver, and runner of errands. Can you imagine a company of just a few permanent executive employees having a "driver" and a "domestic" on call? I understand that is very common, not just in South Africa, but elsewhere in Africa, Asia, etc. There is a disparity of wages between the professionals and those who do the real work. No doubt this will improve, but small companies (and large ones) will be less inclined to hire such personnel.  I kinda felt like Miss Daisy, seeing those two talking in the kitchen waiting for me or someone else to need a ride to the store or another office.

Everybody I run into here is really nice regardless of their profession.

Two of my co-workers here in this office are of the Xhosa tribe, (same as Nelson Mandela), the X in the name is pronounced as a "click", English speaking folks can make the sound, (sounds like someone calling a kitten), in isolation, I cannot follow it with a vowel. Another is Northern Sotho, it sounds like Sootoo (or sue too) when he says it. Yet another is Zulu. Another is an immigrant from another country in Africa. (info on Xhosa: http://hyperion.advanced.org/22868/ )

I had to go to a site much closer to downtown Johanessburg. The closer you get, the more rundown it looks! It was like driving into a project in a big US inner city. But, like nearly everywhere in SA people with money live, there was a security gate for the parking lot.

In the afternoon, I called the company's other local office, I'll go there tomorrow morning. I will be driven, even tho its just a mile or so.

ALL the neighborhoods have big security fences, its almost comical to see the 3 or 4-strand (electric?) wire fence following the stone walls, up along the roof line above a windowless building wall, across the top of the steel security gate to the parking lot...etc etc.

At lunch time, I went with a co-worker to another mall, Benmore Gardens. He needed to go to the bank. There are ATMs all over the place, his card didn't work, so he had to go inside. The doors had signs directing the customer to be "buzzed" in. the office I work in has the same thing. A guard at the driveway entrance, a guard at the building entrance, an electric lock, a key lock and an alarm on the door. A co-worker said that sometime before, 3 gunmen robbed the office on the floor right above.

For lunch, I went to a chain called English Pie, and had a Pepper beef pie, not unlike the pot pies you can get frozen in the US, it was sold like fast food, cost about $1 and there were about 20 versions available. For dinner, I went to Nando's, chicken place, also more or less fast food, owned by the same group that owned Tasca's (see day 1) It was surprisingly good, and really messy. But among the notes painted on the wall: "a real Nando's fan doesn't use a serviette, he licks his fingers." (serviette is a napkin!) It came with chips, we call them fries. Go see http://www.nandos.co.za/.

I'm not eating Kudu Braai and Mealie meal, but at least I'm tryin' stuff I can't get at home.

Back in the main Sandton mall, the one with all the ritzy high-end jewellry stores, and upscale restaurants with a walkway to the luxury hotel....I found the gun shop, its just across from the grocery store. Apparently the paperwork takes about 8 weeks to buy a gun, even a hunting rifle. And you can only have one set of paperwork in process at any given time. No wonder the crime rate is about 10 times higher than Insta-check arizona! They had a really limited selection and even worse selection of accessories! But they had a really good knife selection. (It was mostly a knife shop like the ones in every US mall).

Bought some more postcards, found a 1 hr photo place, need to send photos of the test site back to US.

The guys in AZ needed to call me, the rented cell phone earned its cost!

There are almost no real pickup trucks here, I saw two old (60's) full size trucks, but nearly all the pickups are the miniature version. They call them "Bakkies". One real interesting variant that one does not see in the US is a 4-door, 4 normal sized doors, and a bed that is maybe 4' or so long, MUCH shorter than normal, almost square. The overall length is about the same as the small pickups in the US, with a cab that is as roomy as a small car in the US. A few sport-utes,  there is a Jeep dealership nearby. I have seen a coupla Land Cruisers like I used to have. No Chevrolets tho. There are vehicles, body styles and models that don't exist in the US. Cars are right-hand drive.

That's about enuf for now.