Margret Sloan

I’m a little nervous about my nephew’s plans to go to South Africa this summer as part of his college studies. The news there has not been good this week, with a lot of violence and even riots over a wave of African immigrants.

My nephew is a real sweetheart - a humanitarian and he has always had a strong interest in helping people. The college program takes a lot of precautions to protect the students, but such an unstable culture as the African countries exhibit makes me very concerned. He’s leaving the U. S. at the end of the month, so it occurred to me that something he might appreciate taking with him would be a calling card. You know, the prepaid phone cards that let you make international calls at very cheap rates?

I found an internet site that sells the phone cards in different denominations and has different types of cards, from single use to ones you can reload. From reading about the rates between the United States and Johannesburg, it is much much cheaper to call FROM the U. S. to South Africa than to call the U.S. FROM South Africa. So I will get him a card with at least 20 minutes of calling time that he can keep in his wallet and in case of emergency he can at least call home and let us know he needs help. Otherwise, because of the expense, his mother should call him at a pre-arranged time to save money, so I’ve buying a calling card for her, too.