Africa for Beginners? I think not.

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It can all be explained - I've come down to Durban with Dr. Tim and Rob for a two-day AIDS conference. However, that I find myself entering South Africa for the third time in a month is mind-boggling. (How I find myself staying in a old people's retirement community is comical to say the least, but at least I have had some time to think.)

What do you think of when you think of viable destinations in Africa? If you're like most people I know, South Africa pops up first. Images of the cafes and bars in Capetown swirl with thoughts of bungee jumping and shark-diving. Big waves of J-Bay pound down on rhinos and leopards peeking at you from behind some bush in Kruger. Happy drives along the beautiful Garden Route, happy blacks, tour buses and rugged jeeps, binoculars, and game lodges. Your mental soundtrack is doubtless filled of lions roaring, that windy-flute tooting, some tribal hooting, and those African bongos going berserk on the side. e.g. Africa for Beginners.

I'm not sure if I have had a totally different experience here in South Africa but as stated, this is my experience. I'm sure many people come to South Africa and leave completely in love with it. Maybe though, I didn't come with the thought of only staying for one week and to then be gone. Maybe though, I didn't stay only in the Four Seasons and the 5-star honeymoon lodges. Maybe though, I didn't speak only to really happy South Africans. I sure haven't exactly had the safest experience here either.

In my mind there are at least four very serious issues here in South Africa that aren't made all too clear to us overseas. Firstly is the crime. Sure, you hear stories about places, you hear x and y are dangerous. But too many times have I traveled in countries that were supposed to be "really dangerous" only to find that I felt completely safe, even when I wasn't paying attention or had my ninja senses on. Before coming to Africa, I remember Joey B told me over a plate of fajitas in Paris that "traveling in Africa is just like traveling anywhere else, really." Dude man, now that I'm here, I do not agree (Why would I trust that judgment from a guy that nearly died of hepatitis in Nicaragua anyways!) Nobody told me that robberies are so bad that every single parking lot has an attendant that you need to tip to look after your car when you are in the store. It's apparently a whole syndicate really, these guys have certain "areas" and they pay the big stores to have the right to watch over the cars in their section. Nobody told me that taking taxis from Destination x to y isn't even really safe in Joburg; stories of tourists being taken by their taxi to an armed robber who relieves them of their valuables and their lives... stories of taxi turf wars and passengers casually gunned down. I didn't even feel safe walking 5 minutes down the road in Randburg/Sandton to an internet cafe at 8am, and if you knew me you would know I just don't scare easily (that and I am probably too trusting and completely naive.) And when everybody you meet tells you "don't walk here and there past this time, don't walk here and there by yourself as a female, or a male, don't walk here and there at all... don't drive there either..." it kind of takes the fun out of traveling. People: South Africa is NOT like everywhere else. You don't pay attention and you WILL get fucked. (Before anybody from South Africa starts flipping out on me by the way, I want to say I feel I can at least comment on the dangers and crime rates here as I was personally mugged at gunpoint and I want to bitch about it somehow.)

The second issue that nobody really portrays well enough is the obvious racism that still lingers. With this one, I don't want to seem like I am pointing fingers whatsoever. I just want to state and detail what I have noticed here that I wasn't as certainly aware of before I arrived, if not just for people who haven't been here yet so they can get a feel of what I've seen so far. Blacks and whites; they don't mix, at least they don't in public. I'm not sure I saw the whole picture as I have only been in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal, but at least on this side of South Africa the racial divide is as clear as night and day. Not too surprisingly perhaps as the end of Apartheid only came less than 15 years ago. White people are the ones buying the services, black people are the ones serving them, in stores, restaurants, at home... I've noticed when white people speak to black people, they do so in a somewhat to slightly condescending tone, if not condescending then in a joking or teasing manner. Grown black men and women constantly refer to me as "madam." Dear lord! Blacks here occupy the roles that many Mexicans in the American South or Cali do, or that many Blacks do in the North. The difference is in America you also have whites doing some of the same jobs. This is not so in South Africa and it is something that is very obvious to me. Past just social interactions and class systems, I am constantly taken-aback at the outwardness of racist remarks. In two different countries from three different people in one month have I heard the joke "What is the matter with Africa? - The Africans!"

I am sympathetic to the fact that the transition of power from the expat white community to the local blacks is doubtless a difficult one. The problem South Africa faces is that many of the executive and higher-level jobs are (in the same way Affirmative Action in the US works) given (according to some of the people I have spoken to) BLINDLY to Blacks who are in no way qualified. "Blacks these days can take jobs just because they are black." And this makes some of the whites here very angry and constantly on edge about their country spiraling down the drain. To illustrate this on another level, some people have been telling me that when the whites were in power, facilities and systems were put into place which now are being abandoned and not in use anymore because the blacks can't utilise them. This was one major complaint in countries like Mozambique, which thirty years ago may have been much more accessible for tourism, and now are actually harder for people to get to (flight schedules, ferries, roads, hotels shut down.) I'm not here to judge the whites (and I don't feel like offending people just today over this); when you hear this side of the story the situation with racism is somewhat understandable but still made me a bit uncomfortable coming from a country who to this day struggles with shadows of racism (on a much smaller scale.) I don't really want to write an entire entry on this one topic and most of this was written for the Apartheid for Dummies beginner, but rest assured you would see for yourself how much conversation and debate can stem from this issue here in South Africa, how much deeper you can dig, if you had the curiosity (and tolerance) to hear and learn.

The third issue I was jolted awake to is the political stability of South Africa, or the lack thereof. South Africa is supposed to be THAT country that we can visit in Africa. It's Africa for Beginners. Chances are if one of your friends had ever gone to Africa, he will have at least been in South Africa if not only in South Africa. Dudes, have you seen the news lately? I was in Joburg ten days ago when the then-President Mbeki resigned; Mbeki was the second post-Apartheid president after Nelson Mandela and had been in office for nearly 10 years, he was due to come out of office anyways come Spring. With Mbeki went a third of the cabinet resigning with him. The favored and very likely next president of South Africa in 2009 is ANC party leader Jacob Zuma. Let's talk a bit about Mr. Zuma, an ex-freedom fighter who has been charged with 56(?)counts of corruption, fraud and racketeering. He also denies the HIV/AIDS problem in Africa and believes you can prevent AIDS by showering after you have sex, and eating beetroot and potatoes. This man also has a strong following who see him as "the champion of the poor," who gather and protest against his corruption charges. And THIS, my friends, is supposed to be the leader of the most advanced of the African nations. THIS is Africa for Beginners! Amidst all this political fever, I am anxious to leave South Africa as I wouldn't want to be caught in another Nairobi episode...

And last but not least is the extremely serious HIV/AIDs situation here. 60% of all people living with HIV right now are here in sub-Saharan Africa. Highest infection rates are concentrated in young people, the age group required to drive any future economy of these countries forward. South Africa has the highest number of infected, though at 20% of the population is not percentage-wise near the highest. Some sources say Botswana has the highest infection rate around 40%, but some say Swaziland. In Big Bend (Swaziland) alone where I stayed upwards of seven days, the infection rate is 50%, a figure derived from actual testing conducted by medical staff I actually know. 50%! Are you digesting this figure? This means that standing in a line to buy a Kit-Kat bar at a corner stand, either the guy in front or the guy behind me has AIDS. Walking down the street, every other person you pass is infected. One of every two hands you shake in day to day correspondence is HIV positive. Did anybody tell you THAT before you came to Africa?! I could write a whole other entry on AIDS in Africa but I'm getting really hungry and also suspect this one has gone on longer than most of your attention spans.

I've had a good (not spectacular time) in South Africa, and those are my main take-aways. This doesn't mean to say that it hasn't been rewarding, hasn't been interesting, or hasn't taught me anything. If anything, I'm happy to have spent some time traveling when I don't feel totally at ease, totally happy or totally gelling spiritually with the locals. I'm happy to have spent some time traveling where moral standards are questioned, where I actually REALLY value my life, where I have seen another (albeit darker) side of a seemingly OK country. Happy, but... I've had enough.

There was a story told at the AIDS conference. One of the doctors had a doctor friend phone him for advice in the midst of an unraveling emergency. There had been a bank robbery gone wrong, and one of the gunmen accidentally shot his comrade. The bullet entered and exited the chest clean through and lodged itself in the liver of a second man. In this case, are HIV prophylaxis to be administered for the man shot in the liver?

Only in this Africa for Beginners would this really be a legitimate ER question.

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Comments

[greg]

Hello Amy, I have followed this section of your blog to see what your thoughts were of SA, Mozambique etc. and I find of your comments pretty fair and well considered. It’s interesting to see how we are perceived, as it helps me to get perspective on where and how I am living compared to other people. It often takes the perspectives of others to highlight one's blind spots and prejudices. One thing I do know about living here in South Africa, is that it is not boring. I am challenged on a daily basis by my own racial views; the need to keep safe while still trying to be free; trying to be assimilated into the nation as the white African I am (not an expat, but a 17th century settler); trying not to resort to stereotypes; trying not to get caught up in negativity and endless tales of robberies and house invasions (after all, everyone has a crime story, and people now compete to recount the most vicious of them); trying to make sense of the incredible poverty/wealth gap I have seen EVERY day for my whole life, and above all trying to find a way around the self hatred and guilt that is the inevitable by-product of being hated for being white, a coloniser, the colour of Apartheid, monied, having a car. So while it's certainly not boring, the challenge of living here makes me tired. The simmering rage, the racial remarks made around the braai after a couple of drinks have loosened the tongue. Parents spewing vile racial filth in their houses and their children lapping it up to perpetuate another generation of haters. It's a very weird reality to live in. When I went to London for the first time I could not believe that the rubbish removal men were white. To be white in South Africa meant, and probably still does mean, that there is a level below which you will not go. Below that, those are "jobs that blacks do". I realised that even as a University educated person from a liberal family I had been bent out of shape. I was warped. It was then that I realised that South Africans (all of them) suffer from a terrible twisted malaise which is difficult to cure because it has been forged in such a perverse furnace. Anyway, thanks for your observations. I suppose I am always a little disappointed when someone does not rave about our country but you've seen a good cross section of what it's really like here beyond the fantasy, and you've been honest enough to voice your reservations. Respect! Greg

[Ross]

I was also interested to hear what a foreigner had to say about South Africa and was also rather disappointed that it wasn't a bunch of rave reports. Ofcourse I already knew everything you had to say but I was kind of hoping that stuff would go unnoticed by travellers. As you say, most of it does go unnoticed because those people just stay for one week at some 5* hotel, but you have exposed a few serious issues. We can't deny our problems and thankyou for informative as opposed to slating opions. I've also had the opportunity to see South Africa from an outsiders perspective since being overseas for 2 years and realise I was living with blinkers on, not unaware but rather choosing not to face up to reality. I still plan to settle in South Africa because I have an emotional attachment that anyone has with there own country and I hope that the situation there only improves because it has so much to offer. I still think it is a fantastic holiday destination for anyone as long as you're aware and you stick to the main tourist routes and take the attitude that we are a work in progress. Thanks for all your blogs, very inspirational!