Johannesburg - June 2004

Wow. So I was digging through some of my old crap today now that I am back at my parents' place in Redding for the summer, and I found the journal entries I was required to write during my trip to South Africa in 2004. Since that trip planted the seed for my interest in international development, which I will finally start studying for my masters in this year (only six years later!) I thought it'd be kinda cool to copy them into a blog entry, one city at a time, starting with Johannesburg. Ahh, nostalgia.

Sunday, May 30
Well, I'm not sure I could be much more exhausted right now. Today was our first day in Johannesburg. We arrived this morning at 7 AM after a 10-hour flight, a 7-hour layover in London, and another 11-hour flight. And I still haven't gone to sleep yet! I know that the best way to get over jet lag is to get yourself used to the new time immediately and not to go to sleep till it's time, but right now I'm kicking myself because I'm so tired. I didn't do too much today... after we got to the hotel in Sandton, I ate lunch at the mall in Nelson Mandela Square and walked around, used the Internet, etc. etc. We had an orientation meeting later in the afternoon, though, and Brooke and Susan were mentioning things that they had noticed about being in this foreign country that they would need to get used to, like cars driving on the left side of the road and stuff like that. I just thought it was funny that the things they brought up were things I didn't give a second thought to. That kind of stuff doesn't really seem foreign to me anymore. That realization struck me a little. I guess I am getting more used to living outside the US than I knew.



Monday, May 31
Today simply flew by. The day went so quickly, it barely registered. We woke up early enough to eat at the breakfast buffet before our city tour, and I was extremely pleased to find crispy bacon and pulpy orange juice. Seriously, great start to my day. Then we spent a few hours taking a brief tour of Johannesburg. Interesting city. Very dirty, in the sense that there was rubbish everywhere, but very bustling. Much less eerie than when we drove through Sunday morning. We took a trip to the top of the Carlton Center to get a view of the city and visited a shop where they sell ingredients for healing remedies. That was crazy. The smell was nearly overbearing and I somehow found myself staring face-to-face with a hollowed-out monkey. The bus also drove us through Alexandra township and the very wealthy area where Nelson Mandela lives. I couldn't believe the differences between the two. You would never guess they were in the same city. We also had our first class today. So far I really enjoy it, and it's been too long since I have been able to say that about any class. Hopefully it'll keep my interest, but I have a feeling it will, especially once we finish history and focus more on development. As a sidenote, it's interesting to be in the ethnic minority again, but this time among Blacks rather than Chinese. It was something I had never experienced before Hong Kong, but it's nice to know I have grown more comfortable with it, since it was something I had always taken for granted in the past, being in the majority.

Tuesday, June 1
Today was such a fun day and the fact that the fun was completely unexpected made it that much better. We took a tour of the underground mine at the Gold Reef theme park... the unexpected part was the fact that it was a theme park! I hadn't been on a roller coaster in quite a while so I was extremely pleased to discover Anaconda, a very smooth and very exhilarating roller coaster, right next to the gold mine. The place was empty, so I got to ride it twice and in the very front seat! SO much fun. The mine itself was awesome too. Getting to wear a hard hat and carry a flashlight and walk around a real gold mine was a really interesting experience and certainly unique. I just could not imagine what it would be like to work down there every single day for years. How oppressive. When would you see the sun? Definitely not the life for me. The tribal dance and the gold pour were also really cool, although I could have done without the reminder of just how rude and obnoxious Chinese people can be. And people say Americans are bad? Honestly. [Ah yes. I'd forgotten about this. A group of South Africans were performing a traditional dance and this huge group of Chinese tourists kept wandering amongst the dancers while they were dancing in order to take photos. After the fourth or fifth dancer ran right into a Chinese person in their path, the group got pissed and stormed offstage.] I really enjoyed the day at the Gold Reef, by far the best day yet. So many more to go! I think this trip is just going to keep picking up momentum. Just a feeling.

Wednesday, June 2
Globalization frightens me sometimes. I thought the sight of a KFC in a place as poor as Soweto was a little disconcerting, but I can't explain the weird feeling I got when I saw the Nike swoosh painted underneath the house number next to the front door of a tiny little run-down house. I realize the people in Soweto have improved their living conditions in the past decade and may be increasingly exerting their "consumer power" but really, do these brands need to be here? Faintly disturbing. About as much as some of the other things we saw, especially the bullet holes in the Regina Mundi church. That was also fascinating though. I was so glad we made the pit stop at that cathedral. Everything about it was so powerful in its own way... the broken altar, the photo exhibit, the stained-glass window, the painting of the black madonna. I just can't fathom what it would be like to live in a place like Soweto, both now and back then... to have that be my daily existence. I am so thankful I was born into the situation I was.

Thursday, June 3
Today was our visit to the Lesedi Cultural Village, where there are re-creations of the villages of the five major South African tribes. This was probably the best way we were going to get the chance to learn about tribal cultures, so it was certainly enjoyable. My favorite by far was the Ndebele, mainly due to the extremely colorful housing and dress, and I'm sure that it is placed at the entrance to Lesedi for precisely that reason, to give the most interesting first impression possible. The other villages were cool too of course... the Basotho had the cool hats, the Xhosa had the cool language, the Pedi had the cool food, and the Zulu had the cool weapons. Let me just emphasize, though, the Xhosa language: not just cool but freaking awesome. I could listen to someone speak Xhosa for hours. All the clicks just impress me. I'm not sure any outsider from another country could ever really learn that language. The trip to Lesedi ended with the Giant Ingoma, the big dance show, and a huge meal in which they served crocodile, among other things. Quite enjoyable and informative day.

Friday, June 4
Yesterday Peter [our bus driver] told Mark and Tina and I about AIDS and the sexual beliefs of a lot of Africans and he said that one of the myths many African men believe is that by having sex with a virgin, he can rid himself of the disease. This same topic came up with Irene at the US Embassy in Pretoria today and she told us of a case in which a 9-month-old baby was killed by gang rape. This has to be one of the single worst stories I have ever heard in my life. The world can really make me sick sometimes. We had to think about the world a lot today, thanks to a very informative and interesting session with Dan at the Embassy. Things like that make me really consider what I'm going to do with my life when I graduate. I'm not sure I'd like to join the Foreign Service necessarily, but something along those lines seems increasingly appealing to me. I need to look into these options more carefully. Anyway, even though the visit to the fortress the US calls an embassy was the highlight of the day, we also visited the Voortrekker Monument, which I had some issues with. Some of the friezes I just found disturbing and I thought it was incredibly audacious of the Afrikaners to build the monument in the shape of a sacrificial altar to symbolize the sacrifices they made. Yeah, all the sacrifices they made to take over other people's land and kill them. Really noble. I know I'm oversimplifying, but the whole thing just left a bad taste in my mouth. The week ended with a nice kick, though, when we went to a club called Satala. Very nice, good music, quite fun. Looking forward to Cape Town!

Saturday, June 5
Wow, it felt good to sleep in. Didn't wake up till 11:30 or so. This trip is definitely taking a lot out of me. I'm constantly waking up early and going to bed at a reasonable enough hour but still late enough to hurt a bit. As soon as I got ready, a group of us left for the Apartheid Museum. Very good museum, and everything we saw reinforced everything we've been learning about this past week. It just helped to see it all in videos and pictures. There were some things in particular that really struck me, like the reproduction of the types of jail cells used for political prisoners and the video of Nelson Mandela's first major public appearance after his release. The museum itself was horribly laid-out but I can't say anything bad about the content. Of course, after visiting a place like that, the last thing you want to do is meet a racist Afrikaner, but that is exactly what happened when Laura, Jon, Tina, and I went down to the pub tonight. Some guy from the South African bowls team made a bunch of rude comments to Laura about politics and Iraq and she couldn't help but snap at him about the fact the Afrikaners killed so many people. His reply? "Not enough of them." I wanted to kick his teeth out. And he was 26! I mean, apartheid ended when he was 16, he wasn't even old. Sometimes the world is frustrating.