From the US State Department regarding South Africa:
- Level 4 restrictions
- Do not travel to South Africa due to COVID-19.
- Exercise increased caution in South Africa due to crime and civil unrest.
- Violent crime, such as armed robbery, rape, carjacking, mugging, and “smash-and-grab” attacks on vehicles, is common.
- Demonstrations, protests, and strikes occur frequently. These can develop quickly without prior notification, often interrupting traffic, transportation, and other services; such events have the potential to turn violent.
Before we left:
There was concern. Many of the news sites did what they do, sensationalize and try to get clicks. Still, hearing of changing entry/exit requirements and given the fact that the current requirements were confusing enough, we thought there could be issues returning even if we figure out how to leave. We left anyway.
I’ll use the term township a few times below. Here’s a very quick definition for you if you are like us and didn’t know what they were. From Wikipedia: In South Africa the terms township and location usually refer to the often underdeveloped and racially segregated urban areas that, from the late 19th century until the end of apartheid, were reserved for non-whites.
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Setting the table:
My beautiful wife and I have enjoyed the wonderful blessing of travel for a few years now. She coached me up from being afraid to fly over ocean to just yesterday (this was written while still in South Africa so please forgive these references)swimming in the ocean under a black shark flag. Turning to my seasoned Fish Hoek resident while recently out of the water I asked, “What does that black flag with the white outline of a shark mean”? He turned and said in the most casual tone, “That just means conditions are too rough for the shark spotters to see the sharks.” To that I replied, “They’ve seen big sharks in the bay we just swam”? Somehow more casually than the first sentence, his second was, “Yeah. Great Whites.”
We’ve traveled a bit, but even the tiny amount we’ve seen of South Africa defies meaningful description and comparison. It is a place where one can find themselves lost in thought often. It inspires contemplation almost constantly where my beloved Caribbean inspires umbrella drinks and naps. The beauty is indescribable in both picture and word. We’ve thought and said multiple times, “How do you take a picture of that”?
South Africa is also a country of extreme contrast. Stunning beauty and opulence far outside our reach paired with abject poverty and hopelessness developed and refined through obvious oppression over centuries. One of my favorite comedians Dave Chappelle described racism he felt in a southern US state as “stewed to perfection”. If that was a crock pot of racism, the racism and oppression here has to be a 5 course, 5 star meal at the finest of locals. I’ve been thankful for traffic twice in my life. The first was during the reopening after the worst of COVID. It was great to be on a morning commute with other people again. The second was yesterday. There was a police roadblock outside the Grassy Park township on our way back to our B&B outside of Muizenberg. This was not a roadblock like we see stateside where basically 100% of the people are stopped and checked. This was almost the exact opposite. Almost everyone was told to drive through. The line of cars that were pulled over were all driven by black motorists and judging from the conditions of their cars, all very poor. Our Cape Town former local turned to us and said, “Random you say?” It was the least random thing I’ve ever seen.
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Downtown Cape Town (First couple days):
We gave ourselves a day and a half to recover from the jet lag and spent that in downtown Cape Town. The first thing that struck us was this crazy contrast. We landed in the evening past dark. No checked baggage, flew through customs and the rental car was a breeze. Travel becomes easier when media terrifies people through sensationalism driving reservations for some people we talked to down by 60%-70%. Anyway, driving into downtown was pretty normal except for the left side driving. We made it downtown and started to find our hotel. During this process, we went from driving down a street of a quintessentially international metropolitan city, made the wrong turn and found ourselves in Thunderdome. The transition took half a block. Open fires, people milling about, and two white tourists who clearly made a wrong turn in their rental car was not a good equation for us. A U-turn was instantly initiated and we eventually made it to our hotel. Note: “Right on Red” while a great idea in the states does not readily equate to left hand driving without extreme skill or stupidity. Luckily I excel in the latter with just enough of the former to pull it off.
The next 12 hours saw Stef get some sort of stomach bug and was hold up in the hotel. Being that I have almost no ability to relax, I decided to set out on my own and hike the closest hill which happened to be Signal Hill. Knowing nothing, I set out (see comment above regarding stupidity). Later I found out that I hiked through a neighborhood which is one that is best matched with white tourists and daytime. The odds would not have been as good for me would it have been evening. It was an interesting area on the front end of the gentrification curve. I often felt out of place and uncomfortable walking by myself through this part of Cape Town. The obvious reason was skin color. Mine was very much in the minority at times (as in at certain intersections I was the only white person). This was the first time in Africa where I really felt tension in myself. An inability to square my conservative world view with an environment that questioned it. Are my world views right? Wrong? Is there a right view that can be universally apply to post-colonial countries? Can enough nuance be applied as to not destroy the world view? That guy is glaring at me in a fairly un-chill way, I wish this light would turn, and a thousand other thoughts and questions presented with no answers. The hike was nice, on the way back I saw someone with a needle in their arm and eventually made it back to the hotel with some stories for my sick wife.
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Big animals:
We spent one night in Aquila with Stef on the mend. Again, the beauty of the mountains outside Cape Town cannot be adequately described or communicated through picture or video. Cliffs rising thousands of feet all around, rivers, crazy vegetation and baboons on the side of the road. We found out later that my wife was right and we shouldn’t feed wild baboons even though I wanted to know if they would enjoy pringles. She got lucky on that one. As we continued, the mountains fanned out to revel a fertile valley. South African wine country. I’ll describe that in the next section. This is all about the big animals. After the fertile valley we arrived at Aquila. A wonderful cabin with hippos grunting in the “front yard”, which if memory serves is something like 60,000 acres. This is a fairly manufactured event where the workers throw fruit and veg out a bit before the trips so we can “stumble” upon elephants and such. Still we saw all sorts of animals and some completely wild like more baboons. It is interesting to see lions from an open air bus a few feet away. They could have easily killed us all, but I understand they were recently fed. Good thing.
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Wine and the worst poverty we’ve seen to this point:
Back to the N1 for our trip to Franschhoek. I saw this on the way to Aquilla, but Stef was asleep still recovering from her stomach issue. I turned to her and asked if she was awake when we drove past De Doorns and she said no. Again as with the stunning beauty, I can’t describe the striking contrast of breathtaking grandeur of South African wine country which in my opinion surpasses anything seen in Napa, that shares a property line with thousands of people living in sheet metal shacks without running water. On one side of a property line there is a vineyard with the grand gates and tree-lined drives. The other side is every bit 3rd world poverty with tall fences and razor wire separating. If you wish, google “De Doorns South Africa”. You’ll see stories and pictures highlighting the beauty and the wine and make no mistake both of those things are worthy of much being made of them. Select the satellite view and see what can be seen on the “Stofland Primary School” side of things. You may notice the street view from the N1, “cuts out” for certain stretches. Spoiler alert, this is where the living conditions appeared to be especially horrible.
- There is a sadness here. In talking with Stef and Cole it feels like just as the beauty is not describable there are problems here that are so big that they would require even bigger action to resolve. When talking about those big solutions, it’s amazing how quickly problems with each solution present themselves and make almost every solution a non-starter. I’m 20 pages into a book on the history of land in SA. In the preface, the author outlines a fabulously complicated and subjective 7 step plan for a fair plan to unite SA and provide some pathway out of the crushing poverty so many here endure. Most governments can’t synchronize traffic signals. Feels like a non-starter type of plan to me, but maybe it gets better.
- There is also a feeling of self-consciousness as a white tourist. I would like to have spent more time exploring this feeling while in country, but alas I’m still a US citizen and must return to work and life in the states for now.
Franschhoek may be as close to perfection as can be found on earth if you are white. Since my wife and I are white, we enjoyed UNBELIEVABLE wine that was crazy cheap. Talking $6 for some of the best I’ve had. The scenery was stunning. Huge mountains surrounding us, lush valleys, vines with new grapes starting to form, world-class food, English Premier League on the tele at a time later than 6:00 AM, and the security of being on the right side of tall fences with razor wire. The time we spent tasting wine, reading a good book in the sun and watching Newcastle United get smoked 4-0 won’t soon be forgotten. As good a time as we had, leaving the city and seeing the associated township with mind-blowing poverty is also part of that memory. Questions like, Are we helping to perpetuate this inequality? Are we part of the problem? Is being a tourist helping the country as a whole, or only making the rich richer? Are any of these things actually bad? Would stronger ties to a capitalistic approach help or hurt? Are we bad people for enjoying the “white” aspects of this place? Should we be doing something different? Is it even our place to be asking questions like this? and a hundred other questions bounce in our heads with no reconciliation or finality as we drive to our next destination.
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Muizenberg/Fish Hoek/Cape Point:
We left Franschhoek and had a lovely drive planned along the coast. Taking the R45 to the R310 down through Stellenbosch to the coast. Then over to Muizenberg. We planned on taking our time and stopping as the views of the ocean provided their photo opportunities. As we crossed the N2, anticipation for ocean views was starting to percolate. We came over a hill, I don’t remember where, and caught our first glimpse of the Cape Flats. I’m not going to describe it here as with the other townships, I know nothing of them other than perhaps a bit of scale. What little I thought I knew about townships with regard to scale was redefined in an instant and I was back to knowing nothing, and a feeling of sadness mixed with some concern for safety. Our backpacks were placed in a location acceptable for wine country, but not for here, and the smash and grab concerns heightened.
I write this from the pool area at our last B&B. Colona Castle. This is less a castle, and more a multi-suite B&B with wonderful staff and a view that is again completely indescribable. Giant mountains to the left, giant mountains further away straight on and to the right. A lake in front with downtown Cape Town beyond and the ocean to the right. Oh, also a huge cliff behind. This is where we met up with the aforementioned Cole. He took us to Cape Point on one of our first journeys. Unbelievable views. The most amazing view by far was 10 baboons on top of a white SUV ripping off bits of rubber and windshield wipers. Also making love on the hood. While I feel bad for the owner who will return to their vehicle to find no windshield wipers where there were windshield wipers just a few hours earlier, scratches and defecation, it was also one of the most Africa things we’ve seen on this trip. I have a video.
We met a local family who Cole and his family have known for years. We talked and prayed with and for them. It was a wonderful evening. The Eastern Food Bazar was fantastic and something we would have never seen but for our friend. Many other memories have been made on this all too short trip.
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Thoughts:
I’m very glad to have a few minutes to document these memories and feelings while still in the country. I don’t want to shake the feeling of sadness and lack of understanding. I have made zero progress trying to square my tendency toward the pull yourself up by your bootstraps US mentality with the in your face results of centuries of racism and oppression. We took lots of pictures, but none of the townships. It’s fun to try and capture beauty and positive memories in picture and video no matter how poor a substitute for the experience. Trying to do that with the townships felt disrespectful in the moment and triply-so thinking back on it. A picture or video could never capture any meaningful percentage of what these places are. As I wrote that last sentence, the questions come again. Why am I projecting the idealization of what I think life should be on others? Is that racist of me? Is this an elitist view I have? Who am I to think I have a single answer to any problem I don’t understand in the first place? and a hundred others pour out like a river with no good answer other than the answer for every problem in this world. Never before have I seen the hopelessness of humanity illustrated so plainly and the truth that the only place of true and lasting hope is in Jesus than I have in this trip to Africa.