Obama - here, in the Deep South

Five choppers suddenly loomed above Muizenberg, heading directly for us. I switched my radio to the civilian aircraft frequency and heard a quick communication between 'Night Hawk' and the Cape Town Airport traffic control tower. The choppers were moving much faster than aircraft usually do around Cape Town. They swooped down over St James and disappeared into the cleft in the mountain that joins Fish Hoek to Sun Valley. Obama was in town! Two days earlier the forward party had descended on the airport in the form of six C-17 Globemasters, which proceeded to disgorge the tandem rotor Boeing Vertol C-46 transport choppers and Sikorsky VH-60 Night Hawks. When we saw them, the choppers were going to none other than Masiphumelele, where Desmond Tutu has set up an HIV clinic, just around the corner from us. From there the Pres was just a stone's throw from Long Beach, Kommetjie, one of the best surfing spots in town. They could have popped out for a quick wave! Later on we saw a long cavalcade of cars, with blue lights flashing, whooshing down the Simon's Town road en route to dinner with President Zuma at Groote Schuur. The Pres, in Simon's Town, right by our house! They must have done a quick swing by Cape Point. After dinner he popped over the road to present to students at UCT. The speech was a bit cumbersome and far too long but Obama is an orator and impresses with his ability to talk off the cuff without notes. (Here's a link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9QWco281OA). He had memorised things like greetings in local SA languages (including 'How's it?') and the name of a big local township, Khayelitsha ("I'm still working on this", he quipped). Boeing Vertol's HQ was in Morton, Pennsylvania. The QSL is from WTKZ, Allentown, PA heard in 1996. In his friendly letter, the president, Arthur Holt, mentions his links with the old Swazi Music Radio as well as the pop music station, LM Radio in Mozambique, and the SABC.