michi in south africa

Everyone's familiar with the unique torture of being made to look at a friends' holiday snaps - but it's nowhere near so unwelcome when the friend has been somewhere interesting and taken some lovely photos. Went over to see Michi and Eleanor last night and watched 'Monty Python's Life of Brian' (and wondered afterwards how many times I've seen that film!?), and afterwards Michi showed me some photos of South Africa - she's just returned from a month of working at the Topsy Foundation near Johannesburg, which works with rural communities, particularly children facing up to life in a country where HIV/Aids affects 12% to 15% of the population (something which will create 3 million orphans by 2010). Despite that sobering statistic, she seems to have had a great time, and was happy for me to post some photos on my blog, which I'll do over the next day or two. I'll start off with a couple of shots of Soweto and a rather beautiful snap of sunflowers taken from a moving car, as well as my favourite photo Michi took at her time at Topsy.

Click the photos for bigger images. Thanks Michi!