Don't worry Mom, I'm in great hands here.

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Exiting Tel Aviv was barely marginally less of a hassle than entering. When you go through Ben Gurion security they have different lines which they designate you to, and I am thrown in the third one while all the Jewish looking people go straight ahead through the first one. I am the only person in my line, and I am also the only person who actually has their bag completely taken apart at the inspection table, while all the Jewish looking people go straight ahead through to check-in. It's a good thing I arrived like 3 hours early. The entire process involves a system of many stickers on which are written and circled some sort of code in numbers and letters. I also forgot to mention there are like, 3 checkpoints where this happens. I get to practice my lying.

Guard: In Jordan, did you stay in any private homes?
Me: No.
Guard: Did you meet anybody in Jordan/Egypt/ Syria/Turkey?
Me: uh... No.
Guard: Are you still in contact with anybody in those countries?
Me: No.
Guard: You traveled by yourself and didn't meet anybody?
Me: Yep. You know, that's me... *shrug*

Something funny is going on with Israeli detector machines. Have you noticed that if you put in a bag, then a laptop in a tray, and another bag, your two bags will come out first while your laptop comes out 10 minutes later? The conveyor belt never stops moving; I want to rewrite this into an Encyclopedia Brown short mystery. I look at the machines and believe they are much bigger than those at other airports and in fact, there is definitely enough room on the sides for little men to be sitting in them taking things apart. That seems a little silly though, no... to put people inside the machine to screen? I only notice this strange phenomenon and have time to ponder it because they send all my belongings through the machines THREE times. It's cool though, as I mentioned there was nobody else in my intensive-screening line so it's not like I had to wait.

The guy handling me is quite young and obviously a newbie at this, he is a little too friendly and smiling a little too much at me, and I have come to doubt that any Israeli would ever hit on a non-Jewish female as I can't bear him small Jewish children. I decide to try my luck, twiddling my thumbs I ask the guy taking my backpack apart if there was a particular reason I happened to be the only person getting this thoroughly checked through. Me, in my little light fabric clothing which couldn't hide any explosives, and my small unintimidating North Face backpack. Flittering of the eyelashes continues (hey, it doesn't hurt). He told me he couldn't tell me as that would be revealing their security procedures with a grin. I give up and silently answer for him, "It's because you are obviously a gentile, a very deeply-tanned gentile who after thinking about it, looks kinda Muslim to me." Who knows, maybe I look Indonesian or something. Hey man, I understand. You guys have a lot of people around the world hating you right now. It's funny because once you are in Israel, at all the internal checkpoints all it takes is a wave of the golden American passport and they let you through without barely looking directly at your bag. Is this what 7 billion USD a year buys us?

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After 9 hours of Hebrew movies on a plane where I am positively the ONLY Asian person, I arrive in Johannesburg airport where Tim comes to pick me up. The Johannesburg airport is surprisingly new, shiny, and modern, unlike the rest of the city. I realize that actually, I have taken at least 2 or 3 flights a month for the past couple years and I can't even remember the last time somebody not holding a sign picked me up from an airport. Perhaps it would have to be Christmas 2006 coming from Hong Kong when my family picked me up at Houston Bush Intercontinental. I'm sure some people get picked up regularly at airports, but I have a feeling that I am not so much of an exception but more of the norm, which is sort of a sad realization these days. I take a couple minutes out to imagine myself in that one scene at the airport arrivals hall in Love Actually.

I met Tim in Australia back in Christmas 2007, diving the Great Barrier reef on a liveaboard out of Cairns where he is a Dive Master Instructor. Tim is from Botswana and is home for a month or so. I can't say I've seen him since December, but we've kept in good contact about diving some more together and so when I got a message in Paris asking if I was interested in diving Mozambique it was a no-brainer. Really great guy, laid back but somehow still stays extremely responsible with things. He also has a massive tattoo on his back and a newer one over his entire upper right arm, so walking around with him I feel like by default ups my street cred by a small percentage. I think if he were black it would up it by a much larger percentage, but you can't win 'em all.

Johannesburg in its Winter/Spring boasts 30 degree Celsius weather in the daytime and nothing but totally clear skies yet. I wish I could say that I was tremendously enjoying my down time here in Johannesburg. I wish that I could say the days were full of discovering my first South African city, visiting museums, seeing monuments, meeting locals, frolicking around in the bush with lions and tigers and bears. That though, my dear friend, would be a huge lie. Because in fact, there is nothing to do in Johannesburg besides get mugged, get raped, or get shot. (As these are the statistics I have on hand,) 18,793 people were murdered in 2004/2005 in South Africa, which comes to 55.8 kills per 100,000 people. The next highest kill rate nation was Russia at a pathetic 22 kills. I have never really been scared to walk around in any city, but I actually am here. I am scared shitless. They have even advised me against jogging outside of this gated community in which we now laze around. My risk/benefit analysis also has discouraged me from using a camera in public, so no pictures of this ultra-exciting routine so far.

So, I am not supposed to be still sitting here on my fourth day in Johannesburg at Tim's brother's high security bachelor pad. The original plan was that we would be diving in Mozambique already with Tim's dad and Todd, Tim's friend from Australia. Unfortunately their car broke down on Friday and has been in the shop with a dodgy Dutch woman, which results in me hanging out with three big South Africans and an even bigger Australian all day long while we wait to have it fixed. All three South Africans have tattoos, I have yet to notice one on Todd. Tim's dad (who I still refer to as "Sir" which he finds hilarious) has grey hair down to his shoulders. Todd has blond dreadlocks down to his shoulder blades. Cajun, Tim's older brother, is built like a Hawaiian Iron Man. All four men are very manly, eat a lot of meat, can barely cook, and grunt often. Entire days are spent drinking Capt 'n Cokes, listening to blues, playing darts, eating jerky, and grunting in the sun in the backyard. Sometimes we lay out by the pool. Once in awhile a manly problem comes up and I watch them solve it. Yesterday they closed a leak in a cylinder with some mixture of glues, which is supposed to keep said cylinder from blowing up our jeep on our drive into Mozambique. Every night so far we have grilled large pieces of meat in the backyard save one night let's call "Packet Pasta Night." Tim says when we get to the Kalahari, he'll teach me to make fire with sticks which I am pretty stoked about.

In our current situation we have been watching a great deal of TV as you can probably imagine. Some interesting things about South African TV:
- African soap operas are in English, but they need to use English subtitles anyways as the South African accent is so hard to understand apparently even for locals
- news headlines are basically lists of every possible way to be murdered, in every situation, in every pocket of Johannesburg and suburbs
- there must be strangely a heavy concentration of insurance advertisements
- have never seen public ads encouraging "Get tested for AIDS!" nevermind five of these in each commercial break
- Judge Judy has made it to the dark continent

I have also now read the January 2008 South African FHM about four times, in which my favorite article is "33 MAN MISSIONS YOU MUST MAKE BEFORE YOU DIE; Don't be one of those miserable old toppies carrying on about all the things they regret not having done. Get out there and live, man - here's 33 ways how." Just for fun's sake I will supply a sample so you can perhaps gauge your own masculinity, if perchance you are as bored as I am:

1. Suffer alcohol poisoning
3. Dive with Sharks
8. Be in a threesome
12. Make a porno film
14. Build something with your hands
16. Spend a night in jail
18. Plummet from the skies
21. Fight crime
22. Fire a gun
23. Eat your prey (my personal favorite)
25. Get robbed (a close second)
26. Stand up to your father
27. Be in a band
29. Bench your body weight
30. Be alone in a foreign city
32. Ride a wave

Today I was running errands with Tony (Tim's dad) and we were stopped twice on the highway for random checks, basically just slowed in traffic and motioned on the side in a makeshift lot. They do this to screen for people with outstanding warrants, fines, and hijacked cars. Tells you something about the situation here. On the way back, Tony told me about the time a couple years ago he was almost hijacked here in Jozi driving a Merc at night. In the two lane road, a car swerved ahead as if about to do a U-turn, cutting off both lanes. The driver got out and stood on the side of the road while the passenger ran around to the back of the car. They at first didn't think anything of it until Cajun saw that the guy had a gun, and Tony pulled a pedal to the metal and tried to swerve around side and run over the passenger who was standing in the ditch on the side. They had two shots fired at them from about 45 degrees a meter from their car by the driver. One bullet went over the windshield and the other hit the rim above the driver window which you would touch if you were the driver holding your hand up to wave at somebody. They were pretty shaken up after that.

I have recently also learned that there is actually a gang in Capetown named "the Americans." I wonder if my passport earns me some protection ins with them.

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Comments

[Mike]

There is actually a lot to do around JHB, just start by not being so afraid. The Crime rate in JHB is only marginally more than that of Washington DC.