history class!

We are just coming from the 11th grade history class, where we were invited as guest speakers. We went there already last week, but since we didn't have much time, I did not manage to speak. Today, it was my turn.
The students seemed extremely interested - there was complete silence in the classroom.
We had a map of the world in the classroom and first I asked them if anyone knows where Estonia is. Nobody knew. So, I asked them to guess on which continent it is. Surprisingly, the first guess was Asia (do I look Asian?). Luckily, the second guess was Europe. So, I showed them the location of Estonia on the map and spoke a bit about the country. Mostly, I concentrated on the history of Estonia, especially the Soviet time because I find similarities between South Africa during the apartheid times and Estonia during the Soviet times.
In the end, there was time for questions - one of the questions was: is Estonia a republic now? Since Tobi was also there with me today, the students used the chance to ask questions about Germany. Germany is a very appealing country to South Africans, everyone wants to go there - apparently they think that it's something like a paradise.
Something hilarious from last week when Tobi was speaking about Germany and German history to the same 11th grade students. He had been speaking about 20 minutes, about the WWII, the Nazis, Hitler etc. (by the way, they are currently learning about WWII in class). In the end, there was time for questions. One of the questions was: "Does Hitler still rule Germany?!??"
I feel really grateful to the history teacher who invited us to his class. I would like to go to more classes to speak about my country.

***
Something interesting which we have observed here - people are empoyed to do really small jobs - for example, there are 15 people employed to cut grass on an area less than the size of a football field or dig a ditch - in Europe, big machines would do the job instead, or just a few people. But I like the solution here - to employ as many people as possible, since unempoyment is a major problem here.
Also, when you are parking your car, doesn't matter where (street, in front of a shopping centre...), there's a "parking guy" who "takes care" of your car. Later, you just give him some tip. In the gas station, you don't even have to get out of the car - the guys there just fill up the tank, pump the tyres and check the oil if you want to. Before leaving, you just give them tip.
***
I finished reading Nelson Mandela's "Long Walk to Freedom" last night. The books is just great! Mandela is truly a hero. I got a good overview of South African history by reading this book. I really recommend it, if anyone is interested. I think I'll buy the book because I want to read it again after some time.

bush camp!

Saturday morning Tobi went to Esangweni - a delegation of some computer experts was visiting the school. Since I thought I could not really contribute much to there, I didn't go (and I was really tired from the previous night - we went out at Long Street and returned at about am)...

When Tobi got back in the afternoon, we went to the place where Lucka works - about half an hour from our place (she organises camps for children). The camps are held on the shore of a lake called Zeekovlei. While we were there, the rowing team of the camp was about to have their training. We joined them - the boat was quite large, we were about 15 people inside. Each of us had a paddle - the boat was moving really fast! But paddling was very exhausting..
When we got out of the boat, we were quite wet..

Then we went to Lucka's place and saw Nele (Lucka's tandem partner) - she had arrived a week ago. We spent the night at their place. I couldn't sleep very well, because it was very cold..

Yesterday we drove to Stellenbosch. The weather was just perfect - it was warm and there wasn't a single cloud in the sky. First, we just walked in the town - it was smaller than I had imagined. The streets were quite empty, because it was Sunday. On our way back we stopped at a winery called Spier and did some wine tasting. For me, all the wines taste the same - I can only distinguish between red and white wine and sweet and dry... I guess I'm just not a wine person..

We spent last night in a bush camp on an island on a lake called Rondevlei! We were taken there by boat at the sunset. One of the reasons why we wanted to spend the night on the island was that we wanted to see hippos - they live in this lake. Unfortunately, we didn't see any..
Again, I slept just a couple of hours, because it was freezing cold (despite wearing all the clothes I had + the sleeping bag..)
But altogether, it was fun!

Photos from Stellenbosch and the bush camp here (last pages of the first gallery).
***
Today, I ate my first fatcook at school - fatcooks are something like pies cooked in vegetable oil. Usually, they are filled with meat, but I asked for a plain one. It was delicious!
***
We finally managed to publish the next issue of the school newsletter today. If anyone is interested, here it is.

It's raining again

Today a sports day was supposed to take place at a stadium not far from school. But because of heavy rainfall during the night, the stadium was so wet that the sports day was cancelled. Because of the sports day, all classes had been cancelled as well... So, the school is almost empty now. It looks like a short day for us today..

We still don't know our plans for the weekend. If the weather doesn't improve, there's not much we can do. There's the plan to go to Stellenbosch tomorrow - it's a town not far from Cape Town and known for it's many wineries. Wine degustation is not too expensive there. We only have one problem - nobody wants to be the sober driver on a wine tour.. :o)

***
A few words about something very interesting which I haven't written about before - the local languages. There are 11 official languages in South Africa - Afrikaans, English, IsiNdebele, IsiXhosa, IsiZulu, Northern Sotho, Sesotho, Setswana, SiSwati, Tshivenda, Xitsonga (I don't know the names by heart, just copied them from an encyclopedia...). The major languages are IsiXhosa, IsiZulu (spoken by the Xhosa and Zulu people respectively). Afrikaans is the mother tongue of 13% of the population and English the native language of only about 8% of South Africa's people.
Traditionally, Afrikaans was first spoken by the descendants of the Boers (white Dutch settlers), now called the Afrikaner. Afrikaans has also become the language spoken by the "Coloured" population (in the Western Cape province where we are, they form the majority of the population). The Xhosa people have traditionally lived in the Eastern Cape but many have come to the Western Cape in search of work. Khayelitsha, the township where we work, is now home to the Xhosa people. Their language is very interesting to us and rather difficult to learn, because of some special click sounds. The Xhosa and Zulu languages are closely related, they belong in the Bantu language family. There are at least 3 different types of clicks, depending on the position of the tongue. I've tried to produce these sounds, but it's far from perfect. So far, I don't know much more than the most basic words, such as "Molo" (hello) and "Molweni" (hello, to a group of people), "Kunjani?" (How are you?) - "Ndiphilile" (Fine).
Afrikaans is similar to Dutch. The people to whom Afrikaans is mother tongue, also speak English, but they have a peculiar accent, which is sometimes difficult to understand. In the beginning it was very difficult to understand the Xhosa people when they were speaking English - their accent is very strong. But now we are more or less used to it.

our Beetle got serviced..

This morning we drove to Brackenfell, the town where we rented our Beetle. Because we had already driven 3000 km with the Beetle, we had to take it to service. It took them much longer than we expected. We got back to school only in the afternoon. But they did a good job - they changed the oil, one tyre (which had a nail in it!) and more stuff. They even washed the Beetle! I've really fallen in love with this Beetle - it looks cute and driving it is fun too!

Very very busy..

There's so much to do here at school that we have no free moment! Especially today. That's why I won't manage to write much more today..

We just went with some students and teachers to a HIV hospice nearby. There were adults as well as children there... All the children were orphans.. The living conditions in the hospice were very good, and the children looked healthy.... but the thought of it...

The Esangweni students had prepared a performance for the people at the hospice - they acted, recited poems and danced. Unfortunately we had to live early because we had the webpage group meeting back at school. But we took photos and filmed the performances.

Robben Island..

Friday was a short day at school - only 45 minutes in the morning! Since Tobi is not here, I invited Karen with me. We drove to Esangweni and picked up Mr. Nobatana, the teacher who had invited us to Robben Island. The ferry was supposed to leave from the Waterfront at 11, so we didn't have much time - I had to drive quite fast to get there on time! Luckily we made it! It took about 40 minutes by ferry from the Waterfront to Robben Island. It was very windy on the sea and the waves were huge - some people who stayed outside got soaking wet! The boat was jumping high on the waves and people were screaming..
When we got there, we had 3 hours to explore the island before our boat back.
We were lucky, because we got a personal tour of the island - all the others went in a big tourist group. Mr. Nobatana had been in prison there for 6 years. So, he knows many of the former inmates who are right now working as tour guides on the island. And so we got access to all areas!
The living conditions in the prison were appalling... The inmates slept on the concrete floor, they only had a thin matresses.. Beds were brought to the cells only in the 1980s. The cells were extremely small and besides the matress, there was hardly anything in there. The food was scarce and there were different meal plans for black and coloured inmates!! It is hard to imagine how people survived in that prison.
On our way back, the waves were so huge and the boat was jumping so much that people got seasick, including me..

When we drove back, Mr. Nobatana said that he had an appointment in town - he said that it would take only 10 - 15 minutes. We said we would wait for him. We waited for one hour and he still didn't show up.. And I didn't have his number either. So we left.. I feel really bad about this.. I have to find him now and ask about it..

***
I finally found a place to go jogging - the UCT (University of Cape Town) stadium! It's about 5 minutes by car from our place. I've been there two days already and probably going again today..
***
On Saturday, the weather was quite nice. So we went to Camps Bay to watch the sunset. But we couldn't enjoy the sunset because it became really cold.. and for another reason - there are people there who want to sell things or just ask for money and since they realized that we are not locals, they all came to us! They were mainly selling small figures and keyholders made out of beads. It was really getting annoying. One guy even scared us a bit - I had bought a small bread and placed it next to me - the guy approached us from the back and suddenly yelled: "Give it to me now! I'm hungry!" - I didn't give him the bread and he didn't go away either - until some locals, who were sitting close to us told him to leave us alone.
***
I'm reading Nelson Mandela's biography, "A Long Walk To Freedom" right now. It's very interesting. I really recommend it.

***
Robben Island pictures here.

***
I'm getting spam to my blog comments! I deleted these and hope that I won't receive any more...

some observations...

Yesterday we went out to Obz Cafe to watch football. There were at least 7 Germans at our table. Everyone, except Tobi, spoke German and just ignored me! That wasn't too nice. Actually, it seems that I've met more Germans here than South Africans.
***

Today, Tobi is going to Germany for 4 days, to his sister's wedding. I'm taking him to the airport and then coming back to school, because there are 2 classes I have to give today - teachers training and webpage group. Tobi is coming back on Tuesday.
***

It occurred to me why I feel so cold all the time - it's not all about the cold and rainy weather. We have that in Europe too and it's much colder in the winter. Except for one thing - no matter how cold it is outside you always know that when you go inside, no matter where - it's warm! Knowing that there are plenty of warm places to go keeps you warm! But here, there's no central heating anywhere and so it's almost as cold indoors than it is outdoors, just except that there's no wind and rain inside (actually, in the case of my room it's not true - there is rain inside! when it's raining heavily, water is leaking from the ceiling above my window to the floor and into my bed!)
***

Another thing which I though about concerns people living in shacks in the townships. Actually, I haven't written about that here yet..
The townships are located southeast from the centre of Cape Town. The largest of them is Khayelitsha (where we work), with 1.3 - 3 million people, the exact number is unknown. The other major townships are Nyanga, Guguletu and Mitchells Plain (the latter is a 'coloured' township, the others are black). How the townships were started? When the apartheid began, the whites dislocated all black and coloured people from their homes and placed them outside Cape Town (far enough so that they would be conveniently out of sight, yet near enough to use them as cheap labour force...). In order to enter white areas, the blacks had to have a special permit. The townships were growing (they still are) because unempoyment is a major problem in South Africa and people come to cities in search of work.
One of the major problems in the townships is housing - millions of people live in shacks.. A shack is a hut built of whatever material people can gather (cardboard, wood etc.) and can afford to buy. The shacks are of different sizes, but usually they are very low, small and built close together. There is no water, no toilet, no washing facilities inside - usually there's a toilet and a tap of cold water outside, shared by several families.
As for the vegetation in the townships, there are practically no trees; there are some bushes; the soil seems to be quite sandy. It is said that Khayelitsha is one of the most polluted areas around Cape Town. I don't know the exact reason why, but I can only guess - the cars that the township people own are old and thus use mostly leaded fuel; people don't really think about the environment, because they have more essential concerns - such as surviving, staying healthy and getting enough food. Another thing - people keep animals (cows and goats mainly) in the townships - that is probably making the soil even more poor. The animals are walking freely on the streets. One more thing which might add to the pollution - the airport is close to Khayelitsha. And this is really something which is not fair, because it's mostly the white poeple who fly, the township people just cannot afford it..
Among the shacks there are also better houses and in some areas of the townships the living conditions are not so appalling. The government has built and is continuing to build houses in the townships - the plan is to replace all shacks by 2010. This is rather unrealistic, I think. Those brick houses built by the government are way too small for the whole family to live in. So, people often extend the house - in many cases, the extension is a shack.
When entering Khayelitsha, there's a sign 'You are entering an Urban Renewal Area. ' And below it, 'Together, building a stronger nation'. It is interesting to observe how people are addressed in different cultures- in Europe, we are much more individualistic, while here, it's more about collectivism and about belonging to a group, especially among black people to whom the community is a very strong social structure. Another example - on buses going between Cape Town and the townships it's written - 'Golden Arrow (the name of the bus company) - The bus for us'. In Europe it would definitely be - 'The bus for YOU' ('you' as an individual).
Seeing and experiencing life here has made me view certain things from a different perspective, made me more open and willing to share things (including space around me.)

When driving to and from Khayelitsha, we are passing shacks every day. It's such a contrast between the townships and Cape Town, especially the rich areas there. When seeing the shacks, a strange (and sad) thought occurred to me. The shacks are really small and built of whatever material people can find. Most shacks are tilted and look like they are going to fall apart soon..When you go inside, the ceiling is low and it's quite dark inside, usually a single light bulb being the only source of light. There's no heating of course. So, in a way, a shack reminds me of a play house built by (white) children at the back yard or in the forest. They would be really excited about it and play 'home' there for a while. But as soon as they get bored, cold and hungry or it gets dark outside, they go to their 'real' home which is big, warm and there's always food there. Only when they feel good again, they would go back to the play house and the game will go on...Except for the people in the townships, this is no game, it IS THE REALITY! And there's nowhere to escape from it! And this is what makes me very sad.
Yet, I am amazed how the people have managed to retain their sense of humour and their ability to still enjoy life..
There is a part of Khayelitsha where the living conditions are extremely bad - we've been driving through it several times, because we are usually giving a lift to some of the students (apparently, some of them are living there). In that area, people are protesting against the government - they have been promised brick houses, but obviously there has been a delay in building the houses. So, people refuse to keep the area clean - they litter the streets and throw stuff out of their windows. A while ago, they even burned a bus there (an empty one fortunately). The streets in that area are sometimes so littered that it's difficult to drive there..

This morning..

..we filmed our way to school! The video is really nice. Can't wait to show it to you!

When we got home yesterday night, we discovered that the tap in the toilet was broken and water was flushing down the sink....about one litre per second!! And there was no way to close it! The first thing was to locate the tap providing water supply to the whole house. With some luck I finally found it at the back of the house and closed it. Since calling the emergency service (plumber in our case) costs here, we had to try to fix it ourselves. We tried all the tools we could find in the house, but still couldn't open the tap. However, later in the evening we got some additional tools and managed to open the tap. Tobi discovered that the rubber under the tap was broken - he just replaced it with a new one and now the tap is fixed!

On Friday we are going to Robben Island! In case you haven't heard of Robben Island - it's an island off the coast of Cape Town and it used to be a prison during apartheid and even before that. Political prisoners were kept there, including Nelson Mandela, who actually spent 27 years in prison!! (not all of it on Robben Island though). Nowadays Robben Island is not a prison any more, but a major tourist attraction - there is a ferry going to the island and you can take a tour there. And the tour guides are former prisoners.
Last week we learned that one teacher of the school was a prisoner there for 6 years during apartheid, because he was a member of the African National Congress and involved in the liberation movement. So, he offered to give us a tour of Robben Island. And because he used to be a prisoner there, he now can get to the island free of charge (otherwise you would pay 150 Rand per person = about 300 EEK) and bring guests with him. I can't wait to go!

We are invited as guest speakers to the 11th grade history class next week. The teacher would have liked us to come already this week, but we felt we needed some time to prepare. They are currently learning about World War II. It's going to be difficult... In my case, I definitely have to take a map of Europe to the class, to first show them where Estonia is..

Cold, cold, cold...

It seems that now we are experiencing the real South African winter.. it's cold and raining all the time.. Hopefully, it will be better soon.

Saturday night we went to the birthday party of the daughter of one of the teachers at school. It was her 2nd birthday. First, there was a party for the kids and then later, for adults. There were lots of kids and they all wanted us to take pictures of them - and so we did! I'm uploading just a few of them now. We also had a camcorder and so we filmed the birthday party.

On Sunday we went to Khayelitsha again - there was a "Cultural Day on Performing Arts Against Crime & Drug Abuse" - it took place in a sports centre in Khayelitsha. There was no heating inside and so it was cold like hell - we stayed there almost five hours. The performances were nice - there were plays, music, dancing. One of the students from Esangweni - Siswe - performed there. He was dancing & singing - I really liked it. Because we (Tobi, Karen and I) were the only white people there, we were quite popular - people took pictures of us with their cell phones.

We took lots of photos during the weekend + video clips, so it was difficult to choose what to upload. The new pictures are here.

nobody knows about Estonia!!! :o(

Yesterday night our landlady taught me how to make jewelry from beads! Some years ago she used to make lots of neclaces, bracelets and earrings from beads and sell them. But the business wasn't too good, because everyone is doing it here! I wish she was in Estonia! We don't even have a bead shop....
So, yesterday I made my first necklace and a pair of earrings!

***

Now about something which is becoming really annoying already - people have never heard of Estonia!!! It's unbelievable... I still haven't met a South African who knows anything about Estonia! Everyone is asking "where are you from?" and when I say "Estonia", I usually get the answer "Oh, ok" and a strange look. And I can tell right away that they have no idea what I'm talking about. Some people then ask "Where is it?" and others are afraid to admit that they've never heard of it. So, I ask them myself "Do you know where it is?"

Actually, I've learned that it's not so bad to be asked "WHERE Estonia is?" - it's much worse when people ask "WHAT it is? Is that a country?!?".
When people ask where Estonia is, I always ask them back: "Do you know Finland, Sweden...?...(in most cases people know Scandinavia) Well, it's near there.. It's a very small country, only 1,5 million people.." (I never mention that we are close to Russia, unless they ask themselves). I've said those sentences countless times already..
Ok, I understand if the South Africans don't know about Estonia - I don't know the location of all African countries or the names of their capitals either.
But it's much worse and it really makes me sad when some of the Europeans I've met here have never heard of Estonia!! Hello, did you know that there are some new members in the EU?!?
And I wish I had brought more material with me to introduce Estonia to people. Especially, music and films so that they could hear how nice our language sounds (By the way, just yesterday I was asked (by a European!) - "So, you are using the Cyrillic alphabet there, right?")!!!

In some cases, when I feel it's really no use explaining some people where I'm from or there simply isn't enough time to do that, I just say that I'm from Europe and hope that they don't ask any further questions, because I'm getting tired of explaining it all over again..

Silvermine nature reserve & "adventures" with our Beetle!

Yesterday we went hiking near Cape Town, in Silvermine nature reserve. The weather was really cold and windy, but the views were amazing!

Later, we wanted to see the sunset at Camps Bay. We drove there and just as we were about to go to the beach, we discovered that we had left the keys inside the car! Luckily our Beetle is really old - we opened the hood and broke a small shield next to the steering wheel from outside - from there, we tried to take out the keys, but our hands were too big to fit through. Finally, we borrowed a wire from the parking guy and managed to get the keys!!
During the process, we broke 2 small parts (don't know how to call them) and some tube (which we taped later) - we'll try to fix them and hopefully the car rental won't notice anything!!

Check out new pictures in my gallery.

rainy Cape Town...

The weather is really bad today - we got quite wet when walking in Cape Town.

I went to a swimming pool (indoor) in Cape Town in the morning. It was definitely a strange experience - I was the only person in the whole swimming pool!! The water was rather cold, just 19 degrees, so I just swam about half an hour. Normally you can have a shower after swimming, but there were no showers there!! In fact, there was a sign in the women's locker room saying "Soap and shampoo not allowed"!

Then, I went to a bead shop on Long Street - I was a bit confused there, because the choice of beads was just enormous. But I bought something and now I can start making earrings and necklaces...

Yesterday we went to the cinema at the Waterfront and saw "Hotel Rwanda" - the movie was very touching and very well made. For those who haven't seen it, I really recommend it.

Hermanus

Yesterday we drove about 2 hours outside Cape Town to a small town called Hermanus, known for the fact that during the southern hemisphere winter (which is now), whales come close to the shore there. So, basically it's all about whale-watching in Hermanus. We took a walking path along the coastline - and we saw the whales!! Although, I have to admit, we saw just an occasional tail or fin... Just as I took out my camera to take a picture, they disappeared... So, you need lots of imagination when you look at my pictures of the whales.. :o) I'll upload them on Wednesday..
In the afternoon, it became so windy in Hermanus that the wind almost knocked me over, not to mention that my mouth and eyes were full of sand..
We were driving back in the dark - the roads here are very good (and very hilly and curvy!) but the drivers are crazy! Many of them don't switch off their high beam lights when they approach you!
And we are still discovering 'new' traffic signs which we haven't seen before.. :o)

July 29 - Aug 6

It's been quite a few days since I last wrote the blog - the Internet at Esangweni went down last week. There was something wrong with the Linux server. The internet is back now, but it's very slow for some reason...

We had a great weekend! Although I was still exhausted from Friday night - we went out to a bar at Long Street - the drum music was amazing! On Saturday we planned to go swimming but when we got to the pool, it turned out that it was closed for a week - there was no reason given!
At night we (Tobi, Karen, Lucka and I) went to a gospel concert in Bellville (about 30 min drive from Cape Town) - it took us some time to find the place. But the concert was just amazing, it was a choir called "Desire". Tiina, I wish you had been there - you would have loved it! I bought their CD for you + I have a CD of another choir! Also, I recorded parts of the concert with my digital camera - but the sound is not too good there.. The concert lasted 4,5 hours!! I was a bit surprised about the reaction of the audience during the concert - they were quite noisy and when they liked some song or parts of it, they raised their arms, stood up and danced!! Very much unlike European audiences!

31 July.. it's already the end of July... time is going too fast! It was a great day, the weather was perfect. We climbed Lion's Head! It took us less time than climbing Table Mountain, but some sections were more difficult, because you had to climb vertically. Luckily, there were chains and ladders. I really enjoyed the climb! Now the plan is to climb a mountain every weekend! :)

The views from the top were amazing.. and we did some crazy tricks there -it looks much worse on the pictures than it really was!! The only thing I didn't like was that it was much too crowded at the top (and on the way to the top)...Many people were climbing with their dogs, carrying the dogs on their backs as they climbed the parts with ladders and chains! :) Afterwards, we drove to Muizenberg and Kalk Bay, went to a beach and had dinner.

I'm quite used to the school now, the groups are doing fine and we are having a great time with them. We met with the movie group on Monday morning at 7.30 to film students coming to school. It was freezing cold outside, but almost all members of the movie group showed up! We even managed to film something, but the shots were quite shaky (we didn't have a tripod) and the kids just loved the zoom function (although we told them not to use it too often!)!

A student from school, Mandisi, took us to a beach in Khayelitsa. It was nice there, but the beach was rather deserted and it would probably be dangerous to go there alone. But it was a good relaxation & we got some great pictures!

For those who know a bit about computers, here's something quite funny - the principal's computer was brought to us - they said it was too slow and asked us to do something about it. What we discovered was quite 'interesting' - the computer had Windows XP with 32 MB of RAM!! :) After adding more memory and removing a bunch of viruses (there was no antivirus software!), the computer worked just fine!

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Yesterday was an exhausting day - but it was really great! We had lots of stuff to do at school. During the lunchbreak we attended the meeting of the HIV group of the school. The group is planning to visit an HIV hospice next weekend - we are planning to join them.
In the afternoon, we had two classes. First, there was training for the teachers - we taught them how to use a computer program for educators. It was quite difficult to teach the teachers, because they were incredibly noisy during the training - much more than the students! :o)
Right after the teachers training, we had the webpage group for the advanced learners. We taught them CSS - at first, they were really confused about it - but when they got it, they were really happy and excited about it! I was really glad in the end!
At 5, when we finished, we were invited by a caretaker at school to his place. He lives about 5 minutes from the school. He showed us his house - it was not a shack, but built from brick - although he had extended the house himself - the material used for the extensions was mainly cardboard...
It was amazing to hear this man talking about his life and experiences inSouth Africa. He has spent 10 years on Robben Island as political prisoner.. Right now, he's really struggling to survive - he is working only 2 days a week and his salary is no sufficient to support his family... He has 4 children, 2 of them living with him... It was amazing to see how the man had tried to provide his children with things necessary for life... Experiencing something like this makes you see life from a different perspective...

There's no school until Wednesday - they have holidays here..

still no Internet...

There is still no Internet at Esangweni.. The server is fixed but there are still problems connecting to the internet. I'm writing this from an Internet cafe.

I've done lots of interesting stuff last weekend & it has been really interesting at school too... I'll write about it when we get the internet.
Also, I've taken lots of pictures, which are waiting to be uploaded...