Advertisement
Published: November 9th 2007
Diversity Can Be Amazing And It Can Be Challenging
Kel has written a section below on South African culture which will explain the title of this blog better than I can. Instead, I’m gonna continue to focus on some of the most fun I’ve had on this whole crazy one year tour.
SAFARI! I was such a skeptic when Kel brought up this safari idea, but thanks to her persuasiveness we came anyway. I now have to admit, she was completely right. Hands down, I can say that my time in Kruger National Park was the most fun, the most surreal and most amazing time I’ve had, ever! If you are into animals, photography, or both, you have to find a way to come to Africa. The experience was just amazing!!
Getting Up At 5am After our three nights in Timbavati Private Game Reserve, we hopped into a minivan for a three hour drive further north to Sabi Sands Private Game Reserve. Named for its two major rivers, the Sabi and the Sands Rivers, Sabi Sands is probably most famous for the fact that Sir Richard Branson’s game lodge is located
there. Did that have any effect on us, no; but, it was funny to see his name on the Land Rovers that kept passing us during our twice daily game drives. It continued to make me giggle that he felt the need to let everyone know that it was his game lodge. Narcissistic, hmm??
The daily grind at our new game lodge was exactly the same as our previous one with a game drive at 5:30am and another one at 4pm. Interestingly enough, the land only a few hours drive further north from our previous camp was completely different. Here there were hills and green, green valleys unlike the nearly flat, almost savannah-like land in the Timbavati.
I would have to say that it does get a little tiring getting up at 5am everyday (I think I just heard groans from friends back home who get up early every day for work). With four hours of game rides in the morning and four more hours of rides in the afternoon, driving around looking for wildlife almost starts to seem like a job. I spent every afternoon working on the pictures that you see here on the blog and
then ate dinner at night before passing out in bed at an incredibly early hour.
By the time our days in Sabi Sands were done, we were both actually a little tired of game drives. Despite all the fun of seeing these animals in the wild, we found that six days is just about as much as we could handle. You know that you are getting tired of something when things that should excite you become rather passé. Seeing elephants, giraffe and impala became run of the mill by that last drive on our last day. It was definitely time to go.
While I found myself slightly jaded about the drives I was still incredibly sad to leave. There is something amazing about having a pride of 8-12 lions standing less than 6 feet away from you. Watching a leopard stalk through the underbrush in search of some food was an absolutely surreal occasion that I just can’t translate into words. Will I come back to Africa? The answer is absolutely! Thanks to Kel’s resolve and persuasiveness I can honestly say that South Africa’s wilderness is the number one destination I have been to in my whole life.
Kel and I are already planning our next trip here while this year long journey isn’t even finished.
Daily Sightings Evening 10/26: Buck, Elephant, Cranes
Morning 10/27: Waterbuck, Giraffe, Hyena Pack, Wildebeests, Monitor Lizards, Millipedes,
Evening 10/27: Antelope, Rhino, Monitor Lizards, Crocs
Morning 10/28: Giraffe Family, Hippo, Leopard, Warthog
Evening 10/28: Giraffe, Hippo, Lion Pride
Morning 10/29: Warthog, Lion Pride, Cape Buffalo, Leopard, Monitor Lizard
A Long Road to Understanding by Kel While my #1 interest in South Africa was the safari experience (which Mike has now seconded as truly amazing!), I also wanted to better understand the country as it has come out of apartheid. As a disclaimer, I - as a white, foreign person in 2007 - couldn’t even get in the neighborhood of true understanding of what went on under that unjust system but I can try to convey what I heard and experienced while in South Africa. Apartheid, as most folks know, was a government sanctioned, national set of laws and culture that essentially separated blacks from whites and gave whites full democratic freedom while limiting (severely)
the ability of blacks to have jobs, own property, vote and participate in any way in the growth of society. People were relocated out of their homes/neighborhoods even into the 1960s (starting the immense poverty you still see in townships today), were restricted where they could travel - thus limiting where they could work - and were denied education, health care and more. After years of struggle to gain rights in South Africa, under the leadership of Nelson Mandela and the ANC (African National Committee) party in the late 1990s, blacks are now participants in government, business and daily life as full partners in the society. However, while apartheid is officially abolished, the impacts can still be seen today in how blacks & whites interact in the country.
When we were driving from our 1st to 2nd camp on the safari, we drove through many townships, essentially the equivalent of a ghetto in the States or in Europe . . . but far poorer. Corrugated metal shacks with no indoor plumbing, businesses run out of shipping containers, trash and discarded items laying about - and within driving distance of lovely cities and safari camps like the ones where we
stayed. As two white people driving through, we could almost feel the frustration and anger that exists in these places, and the people living there have every right to feel that way. While there is a new black middle class coming up that is taking advantage of education and business opportunities, there are thousands for whom those opportunities aren’t coming anytime soon. The impacts of long term generational poverty are just too strong to overcome in a mere couple of decades.
We had the chance to talk with a great couple from South Africa (white) and tried to understand what the change has been like for them as apartheid went away and new laws for equality and justice have been implemented. While they were completely supportive of the change, it was a mindset and expectations shift in how they viewed the world that had to move too. That’s hard for anyone as an adult, no matter how positive the change is.
One of the unfortunate changes in South Africa in the last few years is a really high rate of crime . . . not just crime, violent crime. South Africa is the murder capital of the world
and rape and murder are in the news every day. Just before we got there, a very popular reggae star was murdered in front of his children by robbers who were trying to take his car and cell phone. The headline in the paper said “Why didn’t they just take the car?” Talking to our new SA friends, that’s the sentiment shared by all. Crime happens, and especially in areas where poverty and luxury live side by side. Robbery is going as some people take the easy way to get what they don’t have. But in SA right now, this is accompanied by violence, a lot of violence. People have security fences, dogs, private police in their neighborhoods and more just to attempt to feel safe. No matter how much they do, they still fall short of true safety and therefore live in constant fear of what may occur outside their gated communities, or maybe even inside as well.
From our conversations, it seems like a lot of this violence has to do with the built up frustration and anger of people who were held down for so long. People are lashing out - with both black and white
people as victims - because there’s still a lack of opportunities and chances to get ahead if you’re poor and black. Racism exists in the States today (and in every country in some shade or form, just depends who’s on top/bottom) but for the most part, it’s not a simmering cauldron of frustration and mistrust. In many ways, South Africa still feels like the pot is on the fire and will come to a boil. Even in daily interactions with black SA folks as a white person, there was an artificial politeness that didn’t seem completely genuine. I understand why a black SA person would choose that “mask” of politeness and respect that they have good reasons for not truly trusting and engaging with a white person as a stranger. As an American, it was tough to have that distance, because we’re used to interacting with anyone as a peer. We always do our best to treat everyone as equals and respect their points of view even if it feels uncomfortable or artificial.
I’m really excited for South Africa and see great potential as the black government continues to grow and expand its experience in leadership. I’m also excited
for the kids who are now growing up in a post-apartheid society and what that will bring to their leadership when they grow up. But I’m sad for the people who are frustrated and angry and for the people who are living scared as SA experiences the pains of serious systemic and cultural change. My heart is with the people of South Africa as they move through the stages of honesty and forgiveness and someday, hopefully, trust.
Special thanks to Kel for putting her two cents in…it’s nice to have a different writer sometimes! Hope everyone back home is doing wonderfully. We are so excited that we will be home in only a few weeks. Thanks for reading!
Note: Make Sure To Check Out The Extra Pages Of Pictures
Advertisement
Tot: 0.285s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 17; qc: 98; dbt: 0.1627s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
capsfan2002
capsfan
Photos
What great photos!!!!! Had to rate a few... Keep blogging!