Let me start by saying that exploring the African bush on foot is a lot like walking around Johannesburg. My first impressions were that both require:
1. A high level of awareness.
2. Backing slowly away from threat displays.
3. Not going out alone at night.
4. A local guide. Preferably with a rifle.
That being said, we stayed in Jo’berg with our good friends Bruce and Mark, a married, gay (get it together, California!) couple who have been together 17 years. Bruce, a South African native, has recently returned to Jo’berg after launching a successful restaurant in London and Mark— get ready to squeal all you Jews out there!— is a gynaecological surgeon. They are both doing what they can to uplift the lives of those around them— not by blind charity but by paying the college tuition of their workers, and their workers’ children. By providing safe, affordable housing to their lovely housekeeper, Rosie. By making sure the local guards are paid a living wage— and that by shaking down their stingy neighbors. It’s bloody heartwarming is what it is. And okay, so they have electrified fences surrounding their well-appointed, art-infested house (as do most their neighbors) and a rotating cadre of Zulu guards living on their street, but the overall vibe is surprisingly normal. In at least one suburb, everybody smiled, waved, knew each other’s name. They looked out for one another. There were black and white staff at the restaurants, serving black and white and mixed race tables. The crime was certainly there in the papers, on the streets after midnight, and in the townships, but there was also an over-riding sense of hope, urgency, and normalcy. Statistics aside (South Africa is ranked #1 per-capita worldwide in violent assault, armed-robbery and rape; #2 in murder after Colombia) we quite enjoyed our stay in this young, intense and house-proud nation, one which boasts perhaps the best constitution on the planet. Recently a priest was thrown in jail for refusing to marry a gay couple. Imagine.
Still, I don’t think I’d feel comfortable flying into Jo’berg for the first time, getting a hotel and renting a car. Too many places to make a wrong turn. Too many intersections teeming with beggars, some obviously pretending to be blind and most claiming refugee status from the train-wreck that is Zimbabwe.
As the saying goes:
Swaziland is a kingdom run by a king.
Monaco is a principality run by a prince.
Zimbabwe is a country.
(say it a few times until the penny drops.)
The food was amazing, though you really have to get your meat on to appreciate it’s full glory. Kudu biltong. Ground beef, banana and chutney boboti (bah-booty!) Springbok carpaccio, which made me feel the way I do about sushi, only about a mammal. For the vegetarian, however: hope you like Greek salad!
The prison on Constitution Hill— where some the worst abuses of Apartheid were perpetrated— made for a humbling day-trip. There were the overcrowded, segregated cell-blocks that held Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. Here was the infected gruel they ate. This is where they were stripped, searched and beaten in full view of other prisoners.
“Hold on, when was this place finally closed?” I asked the guide.
“1983.”
Oh. That’d be when I was playing Pac-Man at the car wash, then.
Overall though, I felt a raw, untamed edge to the whole of South Africa— from Jo’berg to the Kruger and back— which kept me on my toes almost the entire time we were there. After the relative security of London, it was a welcome buzz. I woke up alert, excited and ready to face the day. And whether it was the Cape buffalo snorting at our open car from three meters away or the shady dudes with bloodshot eyes checking me out as I walked with Mark to the grocery, I always felt completely aware. And in that way safe. Well, safer, anyway.
