Jo'burg in a day

I have one day in Johannesburg, a city of 8 million.  I wanted to get out of the backpackers so I signed myself for a mini-bus tour of the city.

For a tourist sum of R480 (NZ$96), you get thrown into a van and paraded around extortion hotspots for the day.  Our guide was characteristically friendly, I'm guessing due to the quantity of cash he would make from us, and the remarkably sharp wit he used against the New Yorker sitting next to me.

Johannesburg was built on gold.  It was discovered here in the form of rift gold about 120 years ago, and caused a flood of immigration from across the globe.  The rift is massive, and a hive of mine tunnels has been honeycombed for kilometres under the CBD.  A hint at its size are the dozens of hills created from the earth extrusions.  The modern name for the province takes its name in Sothu from this feature, 'Gauteng' literally translated means 'place of gold'.

But a city is a city.  Cars, traffic lights, tall buildings, all unsurprising.  My New Yorker friend remarks about how surreal it feels, since some places are a spitting image of his home town.  He then tells me about his last week in a children's conference in Jo'burg, pressing flesh with the likes of Roy Disney and other aluminates.  Then he tells me about his University major in communications, focusing on children's media.  Then he talks about what he wants to do for his spring break.  About the Danish girl he was flirting with last night.  About the hot Asian in the van.  About beer.  My New Yorker friend, you may tell, has a problem shutting up.  I, you too may tell, have a problem with his incessant yabbering.  The bus drives on.

We stopped outside a medicine shop in downtown Jo'burg and notice the sign above the wholesalers store next door.  It reads, "NON-WHITE SHOP."  The shop is filled with animal skins, hooves, heads, tree bark, and large amounts of undistinguishable items.  No-one bothers to ask what they are, the sensible notion amongst the group is that ignorance is bliss.

After the thankfully brief stop in the CBD, we're taken to Soweto.  "Welcome to my home." The tour guide tells us with a smile.  We drive in and are bussed around the township for a quarter of an hour.  Our guide is quick to dispel notions of wanton crime and poverty in the region, and we are carted through streets upon streets of red brick houses.  Home to 4 million people, it has the population of Cape Town living in a fraction of its size.  It's not Beverly Hills by any means.  The sheer scale of size makes comparison difficult, but imagine a poor but not dilapidated housing estate, then make it a thousand times larger, and you get the picture.

Shanties still exist, however.  We arrive at a one close to the hospital, and are dropped off for quarter of an hour.  Now not too long ago I may have written, in not so many words, that rich foreign tourists invading a shanty town wasn't kosher in my books.  I may have used words such as 'repugnant', and 'repellent'.  I understand then if this seems rather hypocritical, but I ask you to suspend judgement for a moment.  My opinion remains unmoved.  People do need to be educated about the conditions the poor live in, however invading some old lady's house to gawk and take pictures was revolting, and left me with a bitter taste.

The group is led through a street, and pointed to the infrastructure of the development.  Shanties are built with scrap metal, corrugated iron, and little else.  There is no electricity.  Food is cooked with paraffin stoves, and lighting other than the overhead pylons are provided by candles.  There is no heating, unless you count blankets and human bodies.  A few millimetres of iron ensures that these dwellings retain the heat during summer, and keep frozen during winter.  Water is provided by taps interspersed throughout the slum.  Port-a-loo's too, dot the scene.  Unemployment is high, and literacy, as you'd expect, low.

We are made to feel guilty as we walk through this place.  It's partly an unfair sentence, but we are given reprieve in the form of making donations toward the community.  The kids run out to us, hold our hands and play as kids can only do.  Some of the older ones reveal an ulterior motive.  One pretty young girl holds my hand and asks demurely: "Where are you from?  What is your name?  May I have some money?"  Declining, she moves to the next guy, and repeats her act.

It's depressing, not only to see kids beg, but to see how they have reduced us to walking cash-dispensers.  Our guide asks us not to give money to the children.  "They form bad habits.  They think they can make money this way so they don't go to school.  You must not give money to the children."  We are asked instead to make donations to the community leaders.  Many of us open our wallets, and R50 (NZ$10) and R100 (NZ$20) notes are flashed.  We are told this money will go toward developing facilities to the community, as well as paying for the children's education.  My sense of scepticism is piqued, but I let it rest.

We visit Nelson Mandela's house, converted by Winnie Mandela into a museum.  It's a small four-bedroom affair, and has been adorned with paraphernalia.  SEE MANDELA'S OLD SHOES!  LOOK AT MANDELA'S BED!  TOUCH MANDELA'S STOOL!  It's wearing a little thin now.   An industry has developed to create an icon from the man.  I call it 'Mandela Inc.'  It would be interesting to know how much money the ex-President of South Africa inadvertently pulls into South Africa from tourism in his name.  We are carted through his home to the garden outside, where lo and behold, we are offered a gift store with which to purchase Mandela t-shirts and baseball caps.  We also pass Winnie's house, but little else is said aside from, "She was married to Mandela.  Look how she still lives in Soweto!"  To live in his shadow.

Off we go again to the school that started the Soweto riots, then to the spot 13-year old Hector Peterson was killed, and where the iconic photo was taken.  Just minutes down the road, we are taken to the Hector Peterson Memorial and Museum, and left to wander for half an hour.  I end up spending it with a German girl.  While walking through the images of police and teargas, we talk about her idea that black people smell different.  We pass a glass cage with Sten guns, while we were comparing Rand to Euro.  I can't remember much of the museum.

Back on the bus, then through to the Apartheid Museum where a few of us brave souls hopped off and elected to spend the next three hours.  There were only five of us:  An middle-aged Canadian couple, and a young Welsh brother and sister, plus myself.  We form a friendly international community and have lunch together before venturing inside.

Three hours is a long time to venture, and while the museum is fascinating, it's too much.  Too much reading.  There are hundreds of displays, yet I didn't feel as though they had enough depth.  Events appear airbrushed.  Whining is never popular, I know, so let me give just one example.  I was inquisitive how they would explore the notion of how Afrikaners perceived Apartheid, how these terms would be justified, how the cultures of the time operated which made such separation a grand idea.  I hope you'll agree, it's an important question, and there was indeed a room entitled '[The] Introduction to Apartheid'.  I was disappointed to find, however, that it contained only a few minutes of news footage from the SABC and the BBC.  Little was done to rationalise the notion of separate development to a modern audience.

Time was swallowed far too quickly, so we skipped the final few rooms and made our way out.  It was a long day, so the bus was quiet for the hour's drive back to Shoestring.  I'd forgotten yet again to buy something for dinner, so I consoled myself by making a cup of tea and drinking it very slowly while everyone around me cooked their food.  The couple from Kenya and Columbia threw away a plateful of spaghetti, exclaiming, "what a waste!"  I enviously peered inside the bin and wondered... perhaps... no.  No that's revolting.  I remained hungry for another night.

I make my way out of Jo'burg tomorrow, and north 250km to the Limpopo district for several days.  From here on in, I know I'll be leaving civilisation and start to see what the real Africa is made of.

On the move - Cape town to Jo'burg

The list of things to do in Cape Town is endless. There’s a dizzying drive round the twelve apostles to Cape Point, where it’s popularly claimed the Indian and Atlantic oceans meet in their fury. In the city there’s the array of theatre and music, as well as a visit to the Bo Kaap, the old Capetonian suburb noted for its lively colours and Dutch-inspired houses. If I wanted, I could still spend time visiting the endless list of museums that seem to make up this place, or perhaps the beaches around the Cape. I elected to do none of these and instead stay in Stellenbosch.

But you can’t blame me. The town is small to the point of quaint, the Dutch architecture is shrouded by trees, and the town itself is surrounded by wineries and mountains. It’s reputed to be the second oldest European town in South Africa. It’s rustic, and it’s beautiful.

Walking down its streets, I pass an old bookstore and curiosity makes me wonder inside. I ask about travel books on Zimbabwe and the shop assistant shows me the section on Africa. There’s nothing. Nothing for tourists, that is. I should be unsurprised, but since I’ve stayed in hotels in Zimbabwe, I know such places used to exist. Unsurprisingly, replacing the Lonely Planets and Rough Guides are books on politics. I scan through the publishing dates, find two modern books and buy them both. Today has become a reading day.

As fate has it the next few days are reading days. Guardian journalist Andrew Meldrum has written a heart-wrenching personal account of his twenty-three years as a reporter in Zimbabwe in Where We Have Hope. He was the first journalist banished from Zimbabwe under their new repressive media legislation, and he tells a grim tale of a nation once reputed to be the breadbasket of Africa becoming reduced to desolation. In short, it’s worse than you think. Even Rwanda is doing better than Zimbabwe. This is poignant, since it’s only a few weeks before I plan to be there in person. Common sense will prevail, and if the situation is such that my life will be at risk, I will have to change my plans. It’ll be a shame because I know that the people are friendly, and the country is breathtaking. Still, I prefer drawing each breath without an iron lung, so safety is paramount.

But to better things. Several days prior, I was catching up with an old friend, and we got onto the topic of music. I was asked if I wanted to accompany him on guitar for a gig he was playing in a cafe. It’s a small time thing, low key acoustics, very bohemian I was assured, which typically means loose (musically speaking). So acquiescing, I found myself in my last Saturday in Cape Town with my books packed, a guitar on my lap, and an audience of inquisitive locals in a cafe named Mamu.

It’s a spacious place, nestled in the corner of the trendy Tygerburg falls development. Even though there was no rehearsal it was fantastic to play solo guitar again. Max, a Cape Coloured and the establishment’s owner, sat by for our 2-3 hour set, and once it finished, we ended up in the nearby bar, Cubana, talking until two that morning. He spoke at length about getting mugged in Cape Town and had me crying with laughter most of the time.

“Muggings,” he told me, “they’re just business. They want something, you want something. You trade. They ask for your phone, you ask if you can have your SIM card before you give it. You ask even if you can call ahead on it to say you’ll be late and they let you. You don’t get stabbed, and they don’t go empty-handed. Just business.”

Max seemed to like my style. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was just fooling around with scales, but I was surprised when he asked for a date for a return gig. I pencilled one in for late May. It was a fantastic night, and I was chirping away to myself for the half hour drive back to Stellenbosch.

All good things, however, must come to an end. After a month I was getting too comfortable in the Cape, and needed to start moving again. One of my goals has been to perform some form of journalism while I was here, and I certainly couldn’t do it in the Cape. I booked a ticket for Johannesburg to start my second leg.

I had little sleep the night before I left, owing, I’m guessing, to the bottle of Durbanville Hills Peonage my brother and I drank to toast the end my visit. The flight to Jo’burg the following morning was therefore sedate. The hostess cracked jokes throughout the normally bland safety procedure demonstration, which seemed to be corporate policy for Kulula airlines. Oxygen masks were apparently intended to muffle our screams, and cameras had allegedly been installed in the toilets for the Capitan’s viewing pleasure.

I thus arrived in Jo’burg uplifted. It wasn’t to last. I had booked into the Shoestring Backpackers for two nights. It’s a large converted house close to the airport, and has a nice homely feel to it. In chatting to the owner (I didn’t catch his name. I hate situations like these – I never want to ask because it’s common courtesy to remember when a person tells you their name. It’s their name for goodness sake!) Sorry. He was a kindly spoken British man and fantastically friendly. About two minutes into our conversation, however, I hated him. I realise it’s a little extreme. I hate him because he told me he had agreed to host thirty teens from Yorkshire for a night. They were arriving in two hours.

Thirty stinking teenagers invade and life turns to hell. I then discover that because the backpackers would be so full (and I’d love to know why they didn’t tell me this before), I had been placed in a house across the road. I was spending the night with the neighbours. A bed is a bed. It was getting late in the day and my stomach was complaining because I had skipped lunch. While moving my bags to the neighbours, I ask the owner whether there are shops nearby I can get food. It turns out not in the slightest. So that night, while thirty teenagers feasted on a cauldron of spaghetti, I was to go hungry.

It doesn’t stop there. In I take an early night, and as I’m checking my bags, I notice immediately one of my locks are missing. Someone from the bloody airline must have snapped the lock off. I take an inventory and discover nothing missing, but I fall asleep fuming, tired, with a disturbingly empty stomach.

My plan for Jo’burg was to leave as soon as possible. God help me if I don’t.

Robben Island

There were two things I would crawl over crushed glass to do in Cape Town. The first, achieved last week, was to climb Table Mountain. It was an exceptional day. The 600m climb was steep as could be imagined, and the mountaintop a plateau, lush with flora and views to kill for. The only other thing remotely comparative would be to visit the prison of Nelson Mandela in Robben Island. I was going to be there next day.

I had been given a copy of Long Walk to Freedom, and at my aunt's insistence, had spent the night reading the book. It was a godsend. Mandela's account is moving, as he explains life and politics inside the prison. It's such a fantastic account that every so often you had to remind yourself that it wasn't a work of fiction, but biography. It was spellbinding. Without Mandela's prison memoirs, all I would have been able to do was walk through dark hallways and look at empty cells.

The ferry trip to the island was uneventful, save that I think I spotted every American onboard. Why, and someone please explain, why do the Yanks always manage to be the loudest, most obnoxious tourists you ever meet? I've met many amazing Americans, but regrettably few US tourists I wouldn't want to strangle with their camera-straps. My worst encounter was ten years ago on the long-haul from Kuala Lumpa to Auckland. An American couple were sharing the seats behind us. The in-flight movie was showing some awful slapstick, and in the quiet drone of the flight, all that could be heard for two hours were these retards, punctuating our peace with their absurd commentary.

"George! George! Did you see that, oh how funny! He hit his head on the railing!"

"Oh yeah, Martha, that was great!"

"Oh look at that! He's chasing the man round the garden now, oh that's just great!"

And so forth. I do not hate Americans, but in this occasion, I took much pleasure fantasising their life-expectancy reduced if I were to suffocate them with their sick bags. How can a plane of otherwise placid people not rise up against such annoying travellers? It's a sad fact of life that people will mysteriously continue to tolerate assholes.

We landed on the island and were ushered into buses. Our tour guide took us around the island, stopping at a few places, notably the limestone quarry which the prisoners were forced to mine, and the house of PAC leader Robert Sobukwe.

Amidst the modern history of South Africa, it has been largely forgotten in the international public that Sobukwe was the man behind much of the early protest against Apartheid. Educated in Fort Hare, and lecturer at University of Witwatersrand, Sobukwe turned to activism, and became the founding member of the PAC in 1959. Most famously, he initiated the pass law protests in townships nationwide on March 21^st, 1960.

In the spirit of peaceful mass protest popularised by Ghandi, blacks turned up to police stations around the country in their thousands without their passbooks, and asked to be arrested. In the township of Sharpeville, police, in panic, accidently opened fire on the crowd, killing 69. In the ensuing investigation many dead were found shot in the back as they fled for their lives.

Sobukwe was arrested, and eventually kept in Robben Island without charge, and in isolation for six years. His cottage was kept separate, and in secrecy from other inmates. Later, what could only be a sadistic move, wardens set up their dog kennels next to his house. Although eventually released, his health was poor and he died from lung cancer in 1978.

Robben Island is a dry, desolate place. The soil around the prison is coarse and dusty. Although trees were introduced to the island, little around the prison has been attempted to be nurtured. The vegetation, where it exists, struggles to grow, tempered by the lifeless dirt and harsh sun.

The prison was a collection of tall, thick walls and barbed wire fences. The concrete floors shone with polish, and we were told prisoners were forced to keep the place religiously clean. The corridors were wider than I expected, but the cells themselves were little more than broom cupboards. Everywhere were heavy barred doors. The prison was old, and every piece of metal was rusted and peeling.

Walking through barren hallways, the story of the prison seems like a distant memory. The walls and cells don't do justice to Robben Island at its height. Every aspect of the prisoners lives were subject to torture. Prisoners were given ill-fitting clothing, were denied newspapers and other reading articles, were allowed only two half-hour visits a year, were underfed and forced to hard labour. They were both verbally abused, and some beaten. The prison was designed to destroy the body, crush the soul, and break the spirit.

To bring it to life, our prison guide was a man named Vincent. A short man, Vincent wears thick glasses, obscuring his eyes. He is missing his front teeth, and speaks slowly. Vincent was a university student, and a member of the ANC. He was arrested for recruiting South Africans to the then-banned organisation, and himself sent to Robben Island in 1980, still a teenager. He was released in 1991 when he was 30, eleven years after incarceration.

He takes us through A-section, and shows us the cell he was locked in. He tells us that while he's still on the island, the cell will always be his. He shows us the thin mats they slept on, describes the gruel they ate, and the battles they fought to improve conditions. Black, coloured, and Indian prisoners were given different portions, the rationale being that different ethnicities preferred different food, but the reality being that all things being equal, black people were given less.

In the final years, political prisoners were given more freedoms. They had a tennis ball, which they had cut a tiny hole into, and would stuff with messages for other prisoners. They would throw the tennis ball to different block sections to keep other prisoners informed of events both inside and outside the walls.

Vincent leads us to the infamous B-section, home to the leaders of the ANC. Vincent walks us to the courtyard where prisoners chipped stones for their first few weeks. Mandela, a lawyer, and founding member of Ummkhonoto we Sizwe, the military arm of the ANC, never gave up fighting, and in his years on Robben Island, had managed to bargain many improvements for political prisoners. Eventually, he was given permission to tend a small garden in the courtyard. It was this garden that we were standing in now, a small patch of green amongst the grey.

One wall of the courtyard was built while Mandela was in prison. He had hidden his memoirs in the courtyard, and was alarmed that the wall's foundations were being dug at the same location. The game was up, and some of the memoirs found. Vincent smirks as he tells the story, then leads us away, through the different rooms of B-section before stopping outside Mandela's cell. It's a tiny thing, enough room to lie down, and still touch your head and feet on either side. A bed, a desk, a stool, and some lockers. That was the life for the president of South Africa for nearly two decades.

Taking us to the games room, a late addition to B-Section, he sits us down to finish his own story. He was released from prison in 1991, and served firstly with the ANC, but later with the Independent Electoral Commission as a community project manager. He was sent to the townships around Cape Town to teach people about what it means to vote, and about what it means to participate as a citizen in the new republic.

But with the election over, Vincent returned to Robben Island. It's been his home for many years of his life. We're told that political prisoners return to put to death the memories of their horror. I ask Vincent why he returned, and after a long pause, he answers.

He's not bitter, he tells us. He then talks of the machines of government and fear that produces the police that arrested him and the wardens that abused him. He talks of forgiveness, of how he had to forgive so that he could move on. He then tells us about his decision to return to Robben Island as a means to serve his time retelling his story each day.

The ferry takes us from the island as another arrives. It's a tale worlds apart from western life. Thousands of visitors tour Robben Island each week. Thousands, tens of thousands have probably already heard Vincent's story, yet, I imagine, it hasn't lost its potency.

In 1991, all political prisoners were freed from Robben Island. Nelson Mandela, in becoming President of South Africa, ordered the island to be closed as a prison, and reopened as a monument for educating the world. In 1999, the United Nations ratified this decision and declared Robben Island a world heritage site.

Cape Town and Table Mountain

After a quiet few days in Stellenbosch I decided to do the tourist thing in Cape Town.

I’ve been given a car to use for my time in the Western Cape, a godsend. While I could be in the heart of the city at a backpackers, staying in sleepy Stellenbosch has been good for the soul. I've been living in the chaos of my aunt and her family, which has been a joy, even with the 7am wake-up calls by my ten-year old cousin.

But enough, to the city! I take the N2, purely because my innate sense of direction led me to the wrong turn-off. It still goes to the CBD, but it passes the township of Khayelitsha. It's the first slum I've seen in Cape Town, and it strikes me that nothing appears to have changed since I last saw it ten years prior. Sheets of ruthlessly attached corrugated iron still form the bulk of the dwellings in this dusty area. Tall pylons have been erected with floodlights atop to illuminate the township by night. As a white person I know I'm not welcome, so while curiosity wants to drag me through its streets, self-preservation keeps me at arm’s length.

The tourist office offers 'township tours', where I can experience the real township culture. It seems repellent, to reduce a poverty-stricken area into a tourist destination. "Now look at these people, hut dwellers -- the real thing, but keep your distance, half of them probably have Aids! Now to your left you'll see glorious Table Mountain...." It sounds callous, I know. There might even be more to the story, but doesn't anybody else feel, well, like it’s a little repugnant?

Hypocritically, I'm seized with the need to take a photo, so with one hand on the steering wheel I fish my camera from my bag. With my eyes glancing in front for the traffic, and to the left at the township, I wait for a gap in the median barrier, to freeze the moment in pixels. Only later I discover I managed to snap a crisp photo of my passenger door.

Off then through the maze of streets to the waterfront, then off through the maze of shops to the Robben Island ferry. I've been told a visit to the facility is a must for any visitor. It was declared a world heritage site in 1999, and ex-convicts now operate the tour, explaining their experience of apartheid and prison life. The boat leaves on the hour, but due to its popularity the waiting list is several days. I scrape a booking for the following week and leave a tad dejected.

So I negotiate the insane Cape Town traffic and park in the CBD. By some miracle I park in a building containing a travel doctor. In my wisdom, three days before I left New Zealand, it occurred to me to check into the doctor for shots. She almost had a fit when I told her I was intending to visit Zambia, screaming something about yellow fever and excruciating death. The nurse she sent me to filled both my arms with enough drugs to kill a herd of buffalo and in this stupor, I was sat down for a full hour to explain the many, many ways in which I will die in Africa. I promised to buy the shopping list of medications she gave me. To be fair, I got malaria tablets and something antiseptic to wash my hands with. As I die of Ruptured Brain Fever or something equally unpleasant-sounding, I'll be sure to tell her I was sorry.

The travel doctor in Cape Town laughed at me when I asked her about yellow fever. Maybe they're made of different stuff here. To contradict my death-obsessed doctor in Wellington, this one assured me that malaria was the highest risk I'd be facing. It was a little too easy, so I promised myself a second opinion later.

There's a castle somewhere in the city. It's called the 'Castle of Good Hope'. Quite why, I don't really understand. To me the concept of a castle means fearing for safety, if-shit-hits-fan-I'll-be-in-here. It's large enough so that even someone like me can find it, so with this intellectual motivation I decide to pay it a visit.

Of course, my bumbling predictability takes me the indirect route, and I end up walking the streets and end up inside the railway station. I've been told this is a popular area for muggings, so I hold my bag tight and although I'm a few skin tones paler than any person inside, I make look like I belong. Crime in South Africa is massive, and has very little indication of reducing. 2003/4 stats reveal that 2,800 murders and 6,300 rapes occurred that year. Half a million South Africans are the victim of crime each year. Aside from the 36,000 assaults with intent to commit harm, and 52,000 'regular' assaults, the most alarming statistic for me was the one with the vague description "all theft not mentioned elsewhere." Since 1994, it has risen from 58,000 to 121,000 incidents, a staggering amount by any standard. The only two crimes that show any decrease are theft from work premises, and theft from cars. I've been told this is due to ADT, a security company so proficient that they've been employed to look after the police.

In the station I stumble upon the Greyhound bus company and spend a little time looking at options for travelling north. It's all pretty cheap (less than NZ$100 to travel from Cape Town to Johannesburg). I've been looking for the bloody castle for over an hour now, so while I'm chatting to the booking agent, I swallow my pride and ask for directions.

Eventually I make it, and find that it's worth the visit. Built in the late 17^th century using Dutch design, it has five star-shaped ramparts, with a generous courtyard and manor in the centre. Everything is painted in a dull yellow, I was informed, because it doesn't retain heat and reduces the glare from the sun. After walking round the ramparts and through the cobblestone path between buildings, I take a seat at the cafe to rest my legs.

An elderly lady strikes up conversation with me. It turns out she's from Zimbabwe and is spending a little in the Cape, away from the insanity of Harare. She tells me that it's now a bombshell of a place. Most of the shops have empty shelves. Power doesn't work for days at a time, and those who require it now use generators. I ask about petrol, having heard that the World Bank won't help Zimbabwe with buying gas. It's in short supply, but she tells me a thriving black market exists in the country which fills enough engines to make vital services run. Most of the country hates Mugabe, but are too passive to stage a coup. She speaks fondly of the Shona, the largest tribe in the area, "a gentle people," she tells me, and wishes that they could group together knock Mugabe out of power. Apparently his party is in the minority, but like many similar situations, he still manages to dictate a nation into ruin. You can't help but feel for the people in this country. It is one of the poorest nations in the world now, having suffered for almost three decades under Mugabe's rule.

Leaving the castle, and becoming predictably lost, I find my way inside the Slave Lodge Museum. It's almost closing time, but the receptionist lets me in anyway. As the name suggests, the building used to be the slave house of Cape Town, so it's with no lack of irony that it is now an exhibit to showcase the plight of slaves in the Cape. I've spent most of my years in University learning about textual analysis, so while I pass through the exhibits with empathy, I can't but help feel as though I'm being given a politicised version of events. I'm not justifying centuries of abuse, but I feel like I was only told a part of a story.

Nevertheless, I leave the museum enlightened, but tired. I make my way to the Cape Sun lobby, and relax for an hour with a beer before renegotiating the traffic back to Stellenbosch and a good night's rest.

The next day I do little, choosing to rest myself for my Table Mountain experience. The following day, however, I'm up bright and early and travel back to Cape Town to climb Table Mountain. I take the popular Platteklip Gorge route (a two hour ascent, guaranteed sore legs), then spend the day walking on top of the mountain gazing at the views below. Words don't do justice to the mountain, so photos can be found on my flickr site.

I have one more week of the Western Cape, and plenty to do in that time. Then I head north to Pietersburg, Pretoria, and finally to the climax of my trip, Harare.

The white perspective

I haven't done the family thing for a number of years, ten or thereabouts. So when I arrive at my cousin Tania's for a braai, I'm a little nervous.

Not dissimilar to the kiwi barbeque, the menu is filled with meat: chicken, ostrich, steak, lamb, and of course, the spicy borewors sausage which has become a staple of South Africa. In New Zealand this is a bland and unappetising mix of meat and gristle, but in its homeland, my goodness! I'm not a major meat aficionado. I eat mostly chicken, and whatever else is thrown my way. But this, this sausage would test the resolve of most vegetarians. On your fist bite you understand that this is not your typical forty percent flour, sixty percent hooves and bones. This is like eating a full meal, thick with chunky meat, imbibed with spices, wrapped for convenience into long rolls. It looks revolting, I mean, turds immediately spring to mind, but I can't give it enough credit. It's truly amazing.

Boerewors consumed, the day progresses and I'm introduced to many family members I haven't seen in years. I make conversation and they ask about New Zealand. We talk cricket and rugby, and they share their sheep jokes with me, which after two weeks in the country, I admit, is starting to become a tad predictable.

Afternoon turns to evening, and we settle with coffee, then liqueurs. I've been meaning to ask Afrikaaners how they feel about the new republic after twelve years of ANC rule. I try out my question. It was like throwing a toddler into a pride of lions.

They complain about the usual: crime and corruption. I'm expecting the type of doomsaying that I've been used to in New Zealand, so I'm surprised at the depth the conversation reaches.

They loved Nelson Mandela, and they like (in part) Thabo Mbeki. They understand the prejudice of Apartheid, and readily agree that it created many social evils, much of which through their upbringing they were (apparently) blissfully unaware of. But they rue the notion that they are planted with the 'racist' label. They tell me that beyond the international media's lynching, many Afrikaaners ensured that the coloured and black families they knew were being looked after. Jounalist Max Du Preez agrees in his account of the Afrikaaners, Pale Native. He writes of the contradictions which the Afrikaner lives within: to care deeply for black families around them, yet unswervingly support the notions of Apartheid.

In speaking with my Afrikaans friends, they explain that they don't hate the change of government, but they are angry because they believe that corruption and bad decisions within the new government is crippling the country. It's economics, not ideology that upsets the modern Afrikaner.

Afrikaners feel as though they are given the brunt of the work needed to keep the country afloat. They complain that twenty percent of the country (the statistic they quoted me, I'm guessing it's the amount of white South Africans around. It reveals much of the attitude that they deny) are footing the bill for running the entire country. Khayelitsha cannot afford to pay their electricity bill, nor Soweto, nor Mitchell's Plain, so those that can afford, are given the burden of paying other people's bills.

Also, with a reported quarter of South Africans unemployed, and no social welfare to feed them, crime is a paramount concern. Gang culture is rife, and theft is reduced to nothing more than a tax-free income stream. I get the impression that the modern treatment of the white South African is akin to the rich fat guy you knew in high school. Everybody gets their turn to dump on him, his lunch is stolen, and his teachers yell at him when he complains. Attacked from every side, yet tolerated for the content of his wallet, it's understandable that bitterness has arisen.

These Afrikaans people understand the juxtaposition they are in. They understand that South Africa needed a transition of power, they just don't believe it's being managed correctly.

The ANC government legislated affirmative action policies to redress the power balances. Essentially it means that colour, then skill, are the criteria for employment in most businesses, the goal being to give people access to jobs otherwise inaccessible to them. It sounds great, but it in practice results in employees with inadequate skills to perform the jobs required of them. We're talking about office-workers who don't know how to cut and paste data in an Excel spreadsheet. Of course, it's a double-edged sword. The Apartheid government created the Bantu education which subjugated black and coloured people. With no humour, I can say that they are now reaping the reward they sowed.

But as a result of unskilled labour receiving skilled jobs, the country is suffering. The Human Development Report, a UN-backed performance indicator combining literacy levels, life expectancy, GDP, infant mortality amongst other statistics, shows South Africa in sharp decline since 1995. AIDS is still a critical condition in the country, but it doesn't make news anymore because it won't pull the audiences it once used to.

As an aside, the term 'affirmative action', is probably the most disgusting use of politicised terminology I've seen since The War on Terror. George Orwell would be turning in his grave at this abuse of language. The gargantuan use of positive-sounding words to hide what is essentially a painful process ought to make anyone's ears prick. In my case, it's my gag reflex.

South Africa is a nation undergoing change. The problem is not the ideology of freedom, equality and the like, but the way ideologies of redressing power has crept into things of different substance. GDP does not see colour. Neither does international trade. The Afrikaners, due to their education and wealth, can see clearly see this calamity, but like the boy who cried wolf, have been silenced due to past transgression. They can only look on, and pray that people with the right calibre can take the country by the reins and steer it to greener pastures.

Cape Town by night

I’ve spent a week in what is considered the jewel of Africa. Cape Town is a city boasting a population of four million, matching that of New Zealand. It’s a breathtaking oxymoron of affluence and slum dwarfed by Table Mountain, which towers above the city like a god overlooking its subjects.

My Cape experience has been spent with my brother Adrian as my tour guide. Last I saw Adrian, he was bordering on manic depressive and saving money to leave New Zealand. You can’t blame him. His experience of Aotearoa was five years of Rotorua, Manukau, and Drury (which sounds exactly like the name suggests). Consequently, he’s not too disappointed to be out. Adrian has become the self-confessed kingpin of the nightlife. He’s taken the week off to show me the highlights of Cape Town, which to him means the clubs.

So the last week has been a dreamscape of sound and light. I’ve been whisked from bar to club to VIP lounge through the course of seven days. Some of these places are your typical dives you can see kids press flesh anywhere in the world, but since Adrian knows every owner, every bouncer and bartender in the northern suburbs, he’s been able to let me peer behind the sweaty bodies and pickup lines, and shown me the heart of the scene.

We’ve drank until four in the morning with one of the Greek owners of the Buena Vista Social Cafe, a high-class Cuban bar in the recently developed (and upmarket) Tyger Falls district. The previous night Adrian walked me straight through to the VIP lounges in Vakka, and Ku De Ta (coup de état for the phonetically disinclined), where he showed me the porn lounge. Offset in pink, it comes complete with bed, a steal for NZ$400 a night for the discerning, and most likely indiscrete adult. He chats to the owner, who tells him about the problems the bar has had with drink spiking. Security is everywhere, but he can’t seem to find the culprits.

Whisked away, and several nights later we make it into the prestigious Rhodes House, home to Cape Town’s rich and famous. Rhodes is a 19^th century building, absolutely majestic, and has been converted into a plush club. Seven bars, private rooms, two DJ’s, and a clientele you would saw your right arm off and lather the stump in vinegar to meet. If you’re not a model, don’t even try and get in. I don’t consider myself unattractive, so I smile gawkily at the faces around me. It seems this is enough of a turn-off to them, as I flash my off-white canines. Nothing much happens for four hours, but I learn that Westlife dropped by earlier that week. It’s another way of saying ‘out of your league, boy’.

And again, security is everywhere. They stand in the background, keeping a sharp eye on the night’s proceedings. By day security guards patrol the car parks. They’re hired to look after stretches of road, or blocks of parking buildings. You can almost guarantee when you park your car, a guard will show his face and flash a smile, a sign that he’s got your wheels under wraps, and when you return, he’s the one you tip for keeping it unmolested. Guards patrol the malls, the clubs, the streets. They walk perimeter around housing estates, and in tourist areas. It’s bizarre at first, but like anything else they eventually fade into anonymity.

I ask people around me about the security, and they shrug. It’s the price of affluence in a third world country. Safety does not appear to be a natural way of life, but carved out by the small army of guards that maintain the border between the have and the have-not. It’s uneasy to see how naturalised to this life people have become. Everyone talks about security, and the dis-ease between these two groups.

It’s also interesting to note that for most, it’s stopped becoming a disjuncture between ‘black’ and ‘white’. It’s probably overstated in international media. A black social elite has arisen, and your wallet, not your colour, has become the new entry requirement. They’re in the bubble of affluence, and help to protect its borders.

It hit home when I saw a security van armed with a team of Kalashnikov wielding guards. It was daytime in the CBD and the van pulled up to a bank. The van was armoured not just to the point of military-spec, but designed and purchased from the defence force. They wore flak jackets and worked like a platoon from the marines. I watched as they staged a retrieval of what I suppose was cash from the premises. Guns at the ready, you realise that these guys are armed with high-power machine guns in a crowded street with live ammunition, and the desire to use it if necessary. And the kicker was that no-one but me paid them the slightest notice.

In the papers today

I'm living in Africa now, and it shows everywhere. Picking up a paper this morning, I see President Mugabe makes a cameo. Zimbabwe, in an effort to withstand the flood of terrorist activities, have begun jamming overseas radio broadcasts. Since they also happen to have shut down 'insurgent' radio stations within their border, they appear to be left with, oh, wait. They have nothing left but government-operated radio. The Cape Times quotes Zimbabwean Deputy minister -- and get this -- of Information and Publicity, who plays down the notion of suppression of freedom, justifying that, "We cannot allow foreigners to invade our airwaves without our authority."

Also, on Zimbabwe, the Cape Times notes that the ex-British colony has the world's worst inflation: a whopping 600% annually. The stories you hear from the place scare me. No food, no petrol, no law. I'll be dropping by in April.

Arrival

I made it. Arriving in Jo'burg airport, I realised that I had just over an hour to clear customs and check into the domestic terminal for my flight to Cape Town. An hour is the equivalent of a photo-finish in a 100m sprint. A single nose-hair's difference means boarding or missing my flight. So I ran. Every opportunity, running from passport control to baggage pickup to customs (who didn't even talk to me. For all he knew, my bag was filled with ecstasy). Oh, and if you've ever heard of Africa being the bastion of friendliness, the domestic terminal is the black hole of of despair. Even in Sydney, where I was stopped for a random check (no bending and coughing, thank God), the security officer and I were trading jokes. I made it to the security checkpoint for the domestic terminal, where the guy on security threw a plastic tray at me and barked an order to empty my pockets into the tray. When I did so and handed the tray back, he stared at me, eyes expanding, like I was Apartheid itself and yelled, I kid you not, yelled at me for my absurd belief that he would place the tray on the carriage. A natural assumption, since he was doing it for the previous dozen travellers he'd cattled through. The guy after me got the same treatment. We made it through the checkpoint, and while we reattached watches, he looked at me and rolled his eyes. "Friendly place," I replied.

I made it on the 737 to Cape Town, and took a short drive to my old home town of Durbanville. My brother picked me up from the airport, and celebrated my arrival by devouring half a chicken, and drinking until midnight at his local. He's promised to show me the night life this weekend. He drove me to his flat a little tipsy, and left me to my own devices at around 1am.

Two days later, I can tell you that this is a very different place to how I remember it. The sleepy little town I lived in on the edge of the city has woken and is on speed. Two lane roads are everywhere. Cars zoom past, with little notion of the road code. Taxi's screetch by with absolutely no knowledge of any code. I'm on foot, and say a little prayer each time I need to cross a street. I've stopped trusting pedestrian crossings, even though I saw someone take almost no heed of traffic, and just walked through one in blind faith that motorists wouldn't want to damage their cars with his internal organs.

But this place, as much as I'm surrounded by Africans, and everyone jibbers in Afrikaans, Durbanville doesn't feel all that different to New Zealand. If nothing else, with the flat, wide roads, green grass, and bad driving, I could be in Christchurch.

I go clubbing in Cape Town this weekend, and try and fill my social calendar by catching up with family and friends next week. I have a nagging need to start picking up some contacts for work, and finding kiwi's to write about. It's going to be a busy time, but after months of preparation, I've finally made it to Africa.