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This edition: Cape Town, Johannesburg, the Cape Verde Islands (sorta), New York City, Key West, Fort Lauderdale

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And so, this morning, I got out of my wooden bunk and greeted another flawless Cape day. I left St. Johnâs Waterfront Lodge on foot. I passed Cape Town on a Wednesday: the day care center packed with of unseen, mewling children; scattered groups of coloureds in their royal blue jumpsuits, ready for menial work; well-toned young slicksters sliding by in sports cars; barefoot black children playing with a tired cardboard box in an empty doorway; elderly pedestrians (apartheidâs children) slouching down the shady side of the street, toward a thankful death; chunky African hookers plying the street for mid-morning trade; gangly Afrikaans schoolchildren in their neat white shirts and pressed trousers; empty shops next to shabby used furniture stores next to incense-billowing gay trendoid after-hours hangouts; magnificently ancient trees benevolently shading espresso cafes and used condoms; untucked backpackers in Tevas and tees; fat Mercedes Benzes cruising determinedly around bottlenecks of dilapidated minibuses.

The reason I made this journey this morning, to this internet café, is to tell you about a few unexpected side effects of extended travel. You expect photographs, and to see new things, and to drink some beers, and to learn some new words (lekker!). But there are other effects of extended travel. Things they never tell you will happen. And they will happen.

They amount to a sort of sodâs law of tourism. Things you donât bargain for.

Just a few today. Letâs lay them out:

1. YOU CAN TRAVEL 20,000 MILES AND END UP NOPLACE

2. YOU WILL GET SICK WHEN YOU CANâT GET SICK

And its inverse

3. YOU WILL TEMPORARILY CONTRACT HORRIBLE DISEASES

4. YOU WILL BECOME CLAIRVOYANT

Letâs take those one by one, shall we? It will explain where Iâve been this month.

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RULE 1

YOU CAN TRAVEL 20,000 MILES AND END UP NOPLACE

Iâm in Cape Town now. I was in Cape Town for the last Dispatch, too. Yet Iâve traveled over 20,000 miles in between. How can this be?

Itâs not one of those Mensa brain teasers. Itâs pure, ugly fact. I flew from Cape Town to Johannesburg to the Cape Verde Islands to New York City to Fort Lauderdale and from Miami to Cape Town, all in the space of 3 1/2 weeks. About two whole days of my life, sealed in metal capsules and being forced to watch "Snake Eyes."

Families being what they are, they insisted that I couldnât be in Africa during our Family Christmas. They insisted that I share in the traditional tensions. It was no secret that I was torn about coming back. Leaving in the middle of a round the world trip feels like cheating. (Itâs a breach of one of the first rules of hostel culture: "Thou shalt not take comfort in the pleasures of home until thouâs trip is thine." But thatâs another set of rules.)

I was worried that seeing my friends and the scene of my former life would make me want to abandon this crazy idea. I was worried that being swaddled in the mind-numbing ease of American comforts would lead me to betray my oath to the waiting nations of Southeast Asia. I was worried, also, because New York is FREEZING in the winter, and Iâd been living in perpetual summer since last April. And what if I found out what Iâd been missing at home?

The worst realization was yet to come. Mid-way through a round-the-world trip, I was returning to the starting point. I WOULD HAVE TO GO ALL THE WAY AROUND AGAIN! In essence, my round-the-world trip became, at a stroke, a round-the-world-once-and-a-half trip. Mercy! Ease the dagger in slowly.

On the plane back to New York City, I saw in my calendar that I was arriving home on the 225th day since leaving home. All those countries, all those experiences, all those new friends, and the semblance of a new life in Cape Town... all of it happened to me since Iâd touched American soil. Eight months. As I put it in my journal (on the wine-sodden flight from Joburg), "Home home home. Honestly, what is that?"

You donât take a cake out of the oven half-way through, do you?

I stepped off the plane at 7 am in New York City. Home! Finally÷a terrain I could navigate. After leaving Customs, the first thing I saw was a standard, everyday magazine rack. But there were SO MANY! There must have been a hundred different magazines to choose from. America, all of a sudden, became unfamiliar. I might as well have grown up in a petri dish.

The cab ride from JFK into New York City was tense. Mostly because of the driver. He made those addled Cairenes seem as sober as theology majors. As we flew over potholes with their own ZIP codes, I caught my first glimpse of the skyline Manhattan from between two crack whores.

It shimmered, and my response was involuntary. "I can always stay home," I whispered to myself.

But of course I would do no such thing.

The lights, the beauty, the Christmas tree vendors lining the sidewalks. New York was in its December glory. I loved it! After all, how could a round-the-world trip NOT include Manhattan, even if it is home? And taken in such a quick dose, it almost felt like a foreign city.

Twilight Zone Moment of the Month: Going immediately to an ATM, requesting $80, and having the machine spit out some totally weird-looking American money.

"What the hell is this?" I had forgotten about the redesign. (The moneyâs STILL pretentious and dull; have you seen Australiaâs? Itâs got windows!)

"What do you mean?" Curtis said, in a robot voice. "The money has ALWAYS looked like that, Jay-son."

The next few days were six times as stressful as my worst day traveleing in the Big Bad World. I bounced from apartment to apartment like an orphan. Although no one had seen me in eight months, none of my friends had the sense to tap each other on the shoulder and arrange to be in the same place at the same time. So it was breakfast with One and coffee with Two and lunch with Three and coffee with Four and more coffee with Five and dinner with Six (who always paid) and then maybe coffee with Seven. My friend Mark drove all the way from Cape May, NJ and I could only see him for 2 hours (for lunch, at the Market Diner on 43rd and 10 th). It was eerie to see those you adore and dream of for just two hours at a pop.

"I feel like a ghost," I said, more than once.

"I feel youâre one, too," I was told just as often.

And to make things worse, I had a splitting sore throat. Which will bring us, in due course, to Rule 2.

Naturally, the whole exercise exhausted me. Up 18 hours a day, jet lagged, nowhere to take a nap, too much diner coffee.

Hereâs what made it all worthwhile: Nobody had changed. I was missing nothing except nine more months of the same old rat race.

No one who saw me seemed like they were wetting themselves with excitement; in fact, everyone had their own problems. Rent trouble, career trouble, boyfriend trouble, health trouble. Iâd try to contribute my own stuff, but it felt like complaining. The plain fact is, you just canât tell travel tales. No one wants to hear them, really. (In fact, youâve already stopped reading this.)

Sometimes, it got creepy. At the Entertainment Weekly Christmas Party (at Laura Belle, which Iâd wheedled an invitation to), I saw a few of my former co-workers. And, horror of horrors, there was NOTHING to talk about. With me condensing eight months of whirlwind travel and Western Cape living to the succinctly understated "Itâs fun," the conversations were relinquished to the dissemination of missed gossip. But there wasnât much of it. A few people, holding gin and tonic in hand, actually updated me on things that had happened to them two months before I left America.

Now, please donât come away with the idea that Iâm feeling in any way superior to these dear friends, and that I secretly revel in the fact my acquaintancesâ lives were none the richer, but in truth I am. The day eight months of MY life pass without incident is the day I want you to shoot me in the head÷or put me in a VW Bug.

The only salient fact that emerged was that people were mildly jealous of me. One particularly unctuous ex-editor looked down his nose and asked if Iâd "gotten it out of [my] system yet." (A year ago, my response would have been to cower and wonder how heâd pegged me so well. Now, I felt only contempt that heâs so disconnected that his jealousy must take such venomous forms.)

Many people, though, told me that I was doing what theyâd always wanted to do. Friends had told me this before Iâd left, but it didnât mean as much then; I hadnât done anything yet. Now, with the clarified vantage point that only the girth of continents and near-death encounters with wild animals can bring, I understand.

Good God, I thought to myself, Iâm self-actualized! I am That Person.

Do you know how GOOD it feels to look yourself in the mirror and say, "Iâm living my life to its potential right now?" It makes me never want to stop this trip. (Of course, thereâs a line, isnât there? I would go from Self-Actualized Man to Hopeless Dropout Get-Away-From-Me Loser if I, like, grow a long beard and turn 35 in a youth hostel.)

Anyway. Long story longer. (Never try to distill a month and a half into an e-mail.)

Perhaps you wonât be mystified when I saw that by the time I left New York, I was a shell of a person. Exhausted isnât the word for it. You could mop floors with me.

Which brings us to Rule 2.

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RULE 2

YOU WILL GET SICK WHEN YOU CANâT GET SICK

Iâm sick.

And I canât be sick. Iâm going to India!

In fact, the real reason Iâm still in Cape Town is that for a while, I was flat on my back. For a while there, I felt like I was cheating because of that, too. (Maxim two of the backpackerâs bible: Thou shalt keep moving or else thou shalt work.)

I expected this flat-on-my-back thing would happen from time to time (but in a much happier way; youâll detect the irony in Rule 3). Instead, There are so many various and rambunctious African organisms on the loose in my bloodstream that when Iâm lying in bed, I swear can hear Sousa circus marches.

Yep. Mono. Also known as mononucleosis. Or, as they call it here, "glandular fever" (despite the fact you donât get a fever), which has the magical effect of sounding so radical and contagious that just pronouncing your affliction makes you a pariah.

Typically, mono is the domain of high school kids and college-age folks--folks who still pass time in mixed social circles with virus-friendly games like "Spin the Bottle." In fact, mono is also called "The Kissing Disease," which would imply that contracting it is a treat÷or at the very least a memorable experience.

About three days after returning from my month-long Namibian escapade, I noticed a sore throat was developing. For those of you who are watching this space religiously (and those of you who arenât÷why not?), you remember that Great Dane Henrik, from Daneland, had a blistering sore throat of his own for the duration of the trip. Youâll also recall that he and I were constant companions throughout. We shared seats on the bus, open patches of sleepable grassland, white water rafts, even Cokes.

Yes, even Cokes. So whereas the introduction of mono is traditionally a festive and possibly sexual activity that gradually leads to a protracted downward spiral of lackluster energy and a dwindling will to live (much like marriage, I hear), my introduction to the mono experience probably began with words along the lines of, "Hey, man, you gonna finish that Tab?"

For the record, there were two girls on the trip with sore throats of their own: Marielle and Beatrice. Neither one of them got ahold of my Tab.

Anyway. I had a week between my return from Zimbabwe and my scheduled flight to New York City for the holidays. (Weâre going back and forth in time here; are you with me?)

What is it with my lymph nodes? Theyâre flaring up as regularly as comebacks by Cher. Every 7 months. But it stands to reason; as a traveling American, Iâm being exposed to diseases we havenât even heard of. Weâve got such a lock on disease on our home turf that when our citizens travel to new locales, our bodies are bombarded with all sorts of alien infections. In places like India, the locals can eat pig shit out of the gutter with the stumpy end of a leperâs butt and then jog eighteen miles. Their bodies are used to it. Not suburb-bred me. Itâs a wonder I havenât been sicker.

To pass the time, the lymph node on the right side of my neck decided to pop out and see what the fuss over this "Cape Town" place was. To double its chances of reaching daylight, it expanded enthusiastically through two routes: out my neck and into my throat. When I slept, it would become so bored that it began to see if it could split the lining of my throat and pow-wow with my lungs.

When I looked at my throat in the mirror for the first time, I was struck with a reminder of what a strange and wonderful thing your body can be. The fact is, it is never in your control. My throat was engorged and raw. My tonsils were reclining in the vicinity of my upper tongue. What a surprise! I never got the paperwork. (Mental note to ask God: Why can we voluntarily stop the important stuff, like eating, drinking and breathing, while the nasty stuff, like halitosis, sweating, hair growth, and infection, are out of our control? Think about it.)

Still, my energy was high, so I never suspected mono. I just thought it was a sore throat, but I spent my days lightly. Writing that last Dispatch took a few of them (for you, too). Hanging out at the pool in Sea Point was another. Itâs actually a complex of three pools built right on the Atlantic Ocean and so packed with scampering children you wonder if itâs not the site of some kind of re-population experiment. Since South Africa has one of the worst UV ratings on the planet÷I think it takes 6 minutes to cook a tuna casserole if you leave it in the back seat while youâre shopping--Iâd baste myself in cream until I had the golden sheen of a holiday dinner.

Sometimes, my lymph nodeâs explorations got so excruciating that I spent the night tossing and turning.

What happened one night, in the throes of my pain, will bring us to Rule 4. Just hang on for that. (Do you like how Iâm leading you through this one?)

In New York, I had walking mono. But I didnât know it yet. And I had to perform some necessary errands. One was to get a routine checkup with my doctor since my health plan would pay for it. Another was to obtain my visa for India. But first on the list was to buy a copy of the new "Now Thatâs What I Call Music" series. Those of you who recognize this series, which is British and therefore full of real music, will no doubt stand in solidarity with me. I adore them. Forty top hits on two CDs. I donât know HOW they do it. Theyâre like mix tapes of the theme songs of my life.

The execution of this vital errand, requisite trips to Canal St. Jeans, Taylorâs bakery, Pad Thai restaurant on 8 th Avenue, seeing my friend Scottâs Broadway debut in "Peter Pan"--plus the friendship rounds, took up most of my days in New York. So the only day I had for both doctor and visa was my last day. And that day began÷you know the kind of day--with me frenetically chasing a departing bus down Fifth Avenue.

Pay attention to the moon! NEVER, NEVER do anything concerning health or government action on a day when you miss a bus!

At the Indian Consulate, I had to stand in a daunting queue÷practicing for the real thing, I guess÷and when I presented my form to the downtrodden clerk ("Six month tourist visa, please!"), she told me I had to Go Upstairs for an interview. No one else was Going Upstairs. In my naivete, I thought this was a good thing; I got to go upstairs, meet the folks behind the scenes! I expected perhaps an informational slide show entitled "Diarrhea and You" or "So Youâve Decided to Visit India and Spend Hardly Any Money" and, at the outside, a cup of juice. But Iâm also a chip for bureaucracy, so I went. I got upstairs, where the marble hall and throw rugs were, and was eventually met by a grave-faced Asian woman who looked me up and down, thinly disguising some mild pity, and then retreated with my passport. When she returned, the following Tuesday, she had marked my application with some inhuman squiggles. I delivered those to the clerk again, and was told to return that afternoon for the results.

So I went to see my doctor, whose weâll call Robbie Shapiro to protect the guilty. He took blood and rhapsodized about his own trip to India. I couldnât see him being there. Shapiro is quintessential New York Jewish, halting and cautious, right down to a hairstyle that looks like itâs trying to escape. He noodled around with my node, told me in passing that I probably had mono, and boy did his cameras start to take amazing pictures once he got to India.

Mono? Excuse me? Are you sure?

Well, the results of the blood test on Monday would sort that out; so where was I going first?

Wait. What can I do if I have mono?

Oh, just get some rest. Say, be careful with that water there! It can throw you for a loop! Need some anti-malarials? Never mind. You know, I read a great book about India, now what was it called?

Depressed, I went back to the Consulate and they gave me my visa. Only one month.

"But why?"

"Youâre a journalist."

"Yes, but not a REAL one," I protested. "I write about movies. And travel."

"You write?" she said. "Youâre a journalist."

"But I could have told you that Iâm a chef!"

She shrugged. The decision had been handed down. Jason Cochran is considered too dangerous to stay in India for more than 30 days.

I guess that I should be kind of proud; Iâve now been the victim of state discrimination because Iâm a writer. I wonder if I should inform the Index on Censorship that thereâs been a violation. But only being able to stay for a month is truly a disappointment. I donât care a scratch for the nonsense between Pakistan and India, or the digging-up of cricket greens and underground nuke testing. Iâm going for the local color.

Maybe it was the is-it-mono talking, but I quickly resigned. In travel, you quickly learn that everything happens for a reason. (That will take us to Rule 4, too. Hang on.)

A day later, I arrived in Florida, tired as that mop. I made the 4-hour drive down the Florida Keys (I barely remember it, I was so tired; I picture lots of blue water and lots off shell shops) to Key West, the southernmost point in the Continental U.S., and the official starting point for this crazy planetary koan.

Christmas was looming. Family to see. And on the near horizon, India. I had better improve, and fast. An excellent illustration of Rule 2.

I came to see my mother and my father, but ended up so wasted that I only wanted to sit around. And when I phoned my father for a get-together (after all, he was footing this bill), he had the flu. We were finally just a mile apart, Flu Man and Mono Boy, but couldnât get together.

In fact, within a week, my aunt and her family had set me up in my cousin Peggyâs bedroom. She willingly gave up her cushy quilt-swaddled bed for the sake of my health. Would YOU have done that at That Age? I was sweetly back in the bosom of family. After eight months without you around, your family knows how to care for you÷in fact, theyâre dying to. It was a truly special feeling. It saved my health. And it prepared me for the next solo nine months. My day consisted of "The Price is Right," rented videos, and being brought Cokes. My aunt, you see, is a former nurse, and can be firm. So I stayed with them. The year I traveled around the world, I spent New Yearâs in suburban Fort Lauderdale, watching Dick Clark and Blockbuster Videos. To understand how averse I was to the idea, understand that it was either that, or an exploding spleen.

See what I mean? You can travel the world and get nowhere. Rule 1 again.

On Monday, Dr Robbie called. Here comes Rule 3.

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RULE 3

YOU WILL TEMPORARILY CONTRACT HORRIBLE DISEASES

"Hi, Jason. Robbie here. Your test results came back."

"Oh, great. Do I have it?"

"Well, two things. Not so good. One is that you came back positive for mono."

"Oh, no! Well, youâre right, thatâs no so good," I said.

"No," he said. "Well, itâs a mild case."

"Okay," I agreed. (Now give me the second thing?)

"Interestingly, the second thing is I think youâve got syphilis."

I convulsed so hard the phone was sticking out my ear.

"Excuse me?" I said.

"Itâs really strange, because you didnât have it the last time you came in to see me."

(Well, DUH!!)

"Gosh," I said. I was holding it together quite nicely for such a bizarre diagnosis. "Are you absolutely sure about that?"

There was a pause.

"Because there is no earthly way," I said.

"Itâs not uncommon in Africa," he volunteered.

"It would be in this case," I assured him.

"Hmm," said Robbie my doctor. "I just thought of something. Can I call you back?"

"Please." I said, and hung up.

Meanwhile, my mother was sitting across the room. After I put the phone down, I looked her in the eye. "Yep, got mono," I said. "Guess Iâd better rest." And quickly ran away.

I assured myself, in private and huddled by the telephone, that this was just one of those things about traveling. If youâre not coming down with diseases that no oneâs ever heard of, then youâre suspected of carrying everything that IS known by doctors who always assume the worst. I was beginning to wish I HAD been a little more frisky. I mean, to come down with both mono and syphilis without the attendant recreation that traditionally accompanies them? I was robbed!

But it WOULD explain why I couldnât find my flashlight; it was The Madness. And didnât Ben Franklin have syphilis? Why didnât I have the urge to invent things?

About two minutes later, Dr. Robbie called again. "Jason, Robbie here."

"Yes."

"Robbie Shapiro."

"Right."

"Yes. Well, I looked it up in one of the books I have here," he said. "It turns out that sometimes when you do the test for mono and it comes out positive, you can also test positive for syphilis. It doesnât mean you have it."

"Oh, well, good! I was freaking out here." (Again, I was surprisingly lucid, wasnât I?)

"Yeah. Sorry. My mistake."

Me: "Gulp."

Needless to say, at the end of the day, I DONâT have syphilis. Or cancer. Or Dengue Fever or diabetes or malaria or the Shimmy-Shimmy Shake Shake of the Yellow Water. Even my mono-induced sore throat cleared up on Christmas, leaving only a lumpy lymph.

But itâs a beautiful illustration of not only the grace with which I handle extreme pressure, but the Third Sodâs Law of travel. Doctors get confused by anything that isnât a dime a dozen in their own neighborhoods.

It can be reduced to a simple maxim: Never have your implants removed in Bangladesh.

For my friend George, who feels my Dispatches need some sex, thatâs as close as we get for now. And sorry I lied, mom. But you didnât need to know.

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RULE 4

YOU WILL BECOME CLAIRVOYANT

One night during my lymphatic lamentations, when I was crashing at my friend Roelof du Plooyâs, I woke up in searing pain and looked across the room to see him talking crossly, in gibberish, to the corner of the room.

"What are you doing?" I asked blearily.

He whirled around and looked at me. "Donât do that again!" he shouted.

"Do what?"

"Time travel!" he huffed, and slammed back into his pillow.

In the morning÷-get this!--Roelof explained that he had woken to see me (or what looked like me) hovering above him where he slept. I was, apparently, idly watching him. And when he spoke to me (in that gibberish sleepy-talk that I now believe is a universal language, since Roelof speaks Afrikaans first), he told me I was scaring him, and to cut it out. That was when my image zipped back into my sleeping body÷and I woke up.

Itâs a certain by-product. Being away from everything familiar and safe means your spiritual powers, and your instincts, are honed to knife-edge precision.

Several times in the preceding months, Iâd woken in the morning with the distinct feeling Iâd been to New York City. And, what was odder, I would miss my friends far less. It was almost as if Iâd BEEN there during the night, though of course I couldnât remember anything. Maybe I thought this because my roommate Deon was reading a book on astral projection. But I thought it.

And when I asked Jessica if sheâd ever seen me in her dreams (which seemed like a lame come-on as it passed from my lips), she said, maybe, "But only to chat about small stuff." Which would be, of course, exactly what a Projected Me would come to check on. There are no big cerebral discussions in Subconscious/Paranormal Land.

My powers of judgment are acute. The minute I meet a new person÷indeed, sometimes, the minute I SEE one÷an impression leaps out. When youâre exposed as I am, youâre inclined to operate chiefly on instinct; you MUST. From a greasy street merchant in Istanbul to a new introduction in Cape Town, my brain instantly "sees" the person for what they are. The colors of their souls, so to speak, become apparent to me.

Call it clairvoyancy; call it animal. But it is.

Those of you who know me well know that I have always been able to do this, with great reliability. I can tell if a person has had a tough childhood, and if they like themselves, and if theyâre on the brink of some personal growth period÷all before they say more than their name. The talent has intensified whilst Iâve been on the road. It is now my guiding force.

"Yeah," you may say. "It sure helped you when you bought a car, didnât it?"

But I still stay she didnât know. And I still think sheâs a good person. In fact, I wouldnât be friends with YOU if my aura reading had turned up dangerous stuff.

Because I have to make so many quick judgments, and so many hair-splitting guesses at my safety in any given situation, my senses have magnified. Iâm working my instinctual muscles more every day. And who knows÷maybe theyâve saved my skin more times that Iâll know?

I donât know if everyone gets this way when they travel like this. But I certainly have. As the human souls parade past me, I have learned to accept and appraise every one I see, and pick out the ones who are insincere or possibly mean me harm.

Iâm seeing the world with my Third Eye.

When you travel around the world, itâs possible to accumulate souvenirs you simply canât get anywhere else.

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After a week of severe convalescence in the Ashanti Lodge, where I never learned any of my roommatesâ names, Iâm now reclining in the St Johnâs Waterfront Lodge, where the Argentine girls in my room scream at 3 in the morning that theyâve seen ghosts stealing their cameras. There are three pools, one billiard.

My node is now but a mere peanut, but to ward off relapse, Iâm staying out of the sun and I havenât drunk alcohol since our traditional glass of red Christmas wine. This should please my wonderful grandfather, the familyâs benevolent patriarch, whose impression (from reading these Dispatches) has heretofore been that Iâm a hopeless alcoholic lush. I WISH that were my problem. My addictionâs far more insidious: I quit great jobs to wander from dorm bed to dorm bed.

And on Monday, Iâm leaving Cape Town. Arrrrrrgh!! It kills me. This city that Iâve made a weird kind of life in has such a pull on me. Itâs a spiritual place. I donât want to leave, but finally I must. The journey must continue in other ways.

Iâll go up coast, past Port Elizabeth on the Indian Ocean, Coffee Bay, Durban, St. Lucia, Swaziland, and Johannesburg. And on 7 February, Iâll leave South Africa behind. Someday, after the pain of leaving Cape Town is behind me, Iâll talk about Rule 5: YOU WILL NOT BE ALLOWED TIME WITH YOUR NEW BEST FRIENDS. I learn this rule repeatedly, from Scotland to Manhattan to Cape Town.

But I have the feeling Iâll be back. Thatâs what you tell yourself when it hurts to go.

The worst news: Iâm off regular e-mail (I expect) until further notice.

Until 3 February, pretty much the only way to get information or love to me is to send an e-mail directly to the screen of my cell phone, which accompanies me everywhere like a dependent child. Just go to the web site http://www.vodacom.co.za/cgi-bin/vodasms.cgi and enter my phone number (746 0603) where it asks for it. The message can be up to 150 characters long÷-and I receive it instantly! Use it! It makes me happy!

I will spend 4 days in Mauritius, which is an island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar. Then Iâm landing in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) for my month in India.

Donât know about the email situation until then. Certainly the Dispatches wonât be this long for a while.

Whew, right?

Love, Jason

P.S. Dr. Robbie called again. He says he has reason to believe my uterus is inflamed.

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Day: 250 (subtracting my time in America)

Countries visited: I dunno. (Should I count Ilha de Sol in the Cape Verde Islands? We refueled there, and I had a pee.)

Remember! Go to http://www.vodacom.co.za/cgi-bin/vodasms.cgi and enter my phone number (746 0603)