If you want Skippy peanut butter

Yesterday was great. We both met with our prospective employers, and then some of Peter's potentially-soon-to-be colleagues showed us their houses. Most of them live in 2 or 3-bedroom homes in gated compounds, surrounded by high concrete walls topped by a few feet of electric fencing.

It's clear that life in Pretoria would, in many ways, be very easy. Everything is modern, and apparently, we'd be able to get whatever consumer goods we'd need. As one of the Americans put it, "If you want Skippy peanut butter, you can get it."

We topped of our day of touring with dinner at Kream, a very fancy place in an upmarket shopping complex. Our starters were fabulous: arugula (called rocket here) salad with salami, parmesan cheese, and balsamic vinegar; seared scallops in butter and garlic. Dinner was good, but a bit heavy: filet with bone marrow and sauteed mushrooms, and kudu (antelope) kabob with roquefort sauce. Delicious red wine to wash it all down, and I think the whole thing only cost $40.

However, life here does seem a bit divorced from reality. People zoom around in new cars, on freshly paved roads, to modern supermarkets. We've seen hints of poverty, but unlike in Liberia (or anywhere else I've been in Africa), here the poverty is almost hidden - at least in the neighborhoods we visited. Occasionally we saw day laborers hanging around, waiting for jobs. A couple times we saw black South Africans peddling apples or candy or other assorted items on the side of the road. Poor neighorhoods tend to be quite far from the wealthy ones - so far that the housekeepers employed by rich people (here, that includes us) live in Pretoria during the week to avoid traveling two-hours each way every day to get to work. Apparently there are still many homes with "maid's quarters." Seems a bit outdated to me, but it's what works.

So life here would be very Western- very close to life at home. But is that really what we want? It'll be a hard decision...