I’ve always been a sucker for dictatorial poses – with back lighting, of course. But for the sake of this post, lets call that my ‘I’m confused by so much these days’ face.
I’ve worked a lot. I spent a morning at a Lion Park. And were about caught up. Adventure? Excitement? The Jedi craves not these things… but I sure as hell do. Unfortunately, they’ve been in shorter supply then I would have liked. However, there has been a heaping handful of interesting ‘cultural experiences’. From the way used car salesman leave you completely alone to shop, but will talk your ear off about society to the way that racial interactions – to a foreigner’s eye – are still a very Very strange bag. Below is what happens when I sit down to write about a few of those experiences, and random tidbits, and everything goes wrong. But what the hell, I never did re-writes in school, why start now? Be warned, it gets choppier and incoherent-er from here...
‘The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn’t exist’ The damndest thing that Joburg does is convince you that it’s a fully functional first world city. If you just squint your eyes like this, tilt your head just so, and look straight ahead, you might just believe it. But, as soon as you bring it all into focus, the blur in front of the house is the electric fence. The people waiting to cross the street are trying to sell you phone chargers, maps, socks and anything else you might need (a beaded springbok?). The radio playing the top 40, with the Ryan Seacrest show in the evenings, is doing the traffic report, letting you know how many cars are on fire on the side of the road, and which traffic lights – they seriously call them robots… how cute is that? – aren’t working this morning. This is a perpetual problem. ‘Robots’ just don’t work consistently here. It wouldn’t be so disconcerting if we were talking about one lane dirt roads with beat up old pick ups. But these are wide multi lane roads at major intersections, and they just don’t work. And that’s kind of South Africa in a nutshell; just when you forget where you are, the light goes out, the car next to you is frustrated so it goes the wrong way in the other lane and no one flinches.
Funny Things They Say that are funnier then things we say:
‘Cuz I’m from America damn it’ division:
Bru - Dude‘Cuz I’m from America damn it’ division:
Braai - BBQ
Merc and BM – Benz and Beamer
Robot – an occasionally operating alternative to a ‘Pointsman’
Pointsman – A guy who directs the lunacy that is joburg traffic; employed not by any sort of government agency, but rather a private auto insurance company that is trying to keep the roads safe, and hence pay out less claims. (big kisses to the free market on that one)
Lekka – better then good, more ethnic then great.
I lost my phone – it was taken off me by force.
Oak – guy; must be derived from ‘Bloak’, because obviously that was just too much to say…. Lazy good for nothing foreign abbreviations.
Hooting – Honking, which I guess is kind of a funny word too..
Zed – ‘Z’: damn colonialist influences
Things I wonder about but can’t be bothered to google’ division:
Howzit – Did they steal this from Hawaiian’s or vice versa?
Train smash – as in ‘It’s no big train smash.’ i.e. train wreck. This one really keeps me up nights. There is just no way that on two different hemispheres people each coined a phrase involving the destruction of a train as a descriptive metaphor for a ‘big deal’ or ‘total mess’. It couldn’t have gone down like that. So, did someone from home coin this phrase, and somehow once it got over here the word ‘wreck’ was simply inconceivable? Or did a traveler in the states use the expression 'smash' and completely befuddle the person they were speaking to? 'Smash' - you know, um , like a big, uh, well they're all.. its like wrecked, you know? How could this happen...
Practicum
Oak ‘A’: Bru, the flat’s a mess, no way in hell were gonna have this clean in time for the ‘Boks match and the braii.Oak ‘B’: Settle down bru, its no big train smash. The maid will clean it. Its gonna be a lekka party! … Lets go drive down the wrong side of the road at completely unreasonable speeds to the grocery store which closes ludicrously early in the shopping center that will have dozens of cars and no stores open past 2 on a Sunday, to buy some biltong and Hansa. Then when we leave the center the guy in the semi official looking vest will direct us out of our spot, motioning for us to back up, turn the wheel and such, even though there will be no one anywhere in our vicinity, and we can tip him a few rand because we just don’t have the heart not to, even though it is simply not a service that he is providing, it’s the mocking shadow of a service. We can cruise past all of the day laborers that are helpfully holding sign explaining what their trade is “painter’, ‘roofer’, ‘guy who holds sign’ and stop at the robot that’s shockingly out of order where we can peruse the handfuls of DVD’s, buy some plastic hangers and give our trash to the guy with the trash bag at our window collecting the rubbish from the ubiquitous ‘Mercs’ and ‘BMs’ in hopes of a few rands, which by the way are gaining strength against the dollar daily, and really pissing off the Americans that haven't sorted out buying a car yet and are watching the price rise daily. Oh, and after we sit in a dead stop on the freeway even though there's no discernible reason why it would be so crowded right now, we can drive to Soweto, where even though we’ve lived a half dozen stops off the N1 from it our entire lives, we can tell you exactly how many times we’ve been there – and that number will surely be counted on one hand, generally on a choice finger or two. Once were there we can go to a shebeen or two, then maybe over to the Rock where we can ‘vooma’ and ‘cut the cake’ all night, before we cruise downtown to the Tower that used to be the place to live, but now is notorious for its Nigerian drug kingpins and the open air center of the building where people are known to ‘fall’ from 30 or 40 flights up. Or maybe we can go there earlier and catch a soccer match at ellis park where 20 rand can get us in, and 12 can get us a beer. On the way home we can crank 101.9 chai FM to find out whats new in Israeli politics and obscure klezmer hits and we can go get in the crazy long line at Mcdonalds at 2am…
Sorry, I don’t really know what just happened there. Just know it was worse for me then it was for you. Also know that KFC is huge here, but a local chain called ‘Chicken Licken’ is far better. For reals.
Also know that people say things like:
Africa’s not for sissies, we get good diseases down here. We have AIDS.
– in response to a mention of the swine flu.
One (or maybe two) last Socio-Economic-ish Rant(s)
Did I mention that according to some 5 year old data, Gauteng ( How ting ) Province - which encompasses Joburg and Pretoria, not only accounts for 30% of South Africa's GDP, it accounts for 10% of Africa's. Africa. The continent of. Its just crazy. So when I say that I zip over to Monte Casino for a movie and then to one of the restaurants around the corner that remind me of home - I mean that these places could easily be down the street from your house: if your house is in a nice area of your town. And if the employees of said place had to take a 'taxi' from their township, probably a solid hour each way, to work for between $2 and $4 an hour. The disparity between the haves and have nots are stark.
I was at a used car dealership this week where the owner pointed to a tiny bridge off of his lot where he said 50 people lived. He said it with great empathy. He mentioned his thoughts about emigrating, but that this was home. We spoke about expansions to his business that he'd been working on for three years. Two reasons it was still 'in the works': He won't pay bribes, and he's white. The second part of that touches on the most interesting topic that I keep hearing about: Black Economic Empowerment (B.E.E). Or as some whites have described it to me, 'reverse apartheid'. My favorite take is from an Indian friend here who was 'black under apartheid, and white now'. In other words, when it was whites only, he was considered other. Now in the time of BEE, he is considered other. Its a confounding situation for all involved. They tell you right off the bat that its not affirmative action; decide for yourself. In the same conversation with a white South African you can hear 'It's been 15 years already' muttered the same way that a white American might say ' It's been 100 years already'. Point being this will be a loooooong process where truth and reconciliation will take more then a trial. In the meantime it makes for compelling - and often extremely awkward ('look, don't get me wrong, I'm no racist, but....') conversations.
What does this all lead me too? Why its elementary my dear Watson. As in elementary school; primary education. As in, its not free here. Wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few, and the masses are left to pull themselves up - without a public education system for their children. There are some scholarships, and 'public' schools are less expensive, but in a system where education is mandatory through age 15 or grade 9, but is not free - the hand wanders to the head and begins to scratch incessantly. In a photo below you'll see my warehouse crew from the confed cup. At least 3 of these guys are fathers. One of them has a 7 year old. He and I were talking about his son, when I asked about school. He told me how much he had to pay to transport him there, pay for books, tuition etc. Let me back up a step. All of these guys were working this job for the month that we needed them, because they had no other employment, this was an opportunity for them. Unemployment is rampant here and these guys were happy ot have a paycheck for a month. Which brings me back to my conversation about his child's education. He has no steady employment, lives in a small house in Soweto with his mother, girlfriend (who he has been with for 8 years but can't marry yet because he cant afford to pay the the lobola) son, and four others, and spent his first paycheck on a piece of furniture for the house. I watched him go many days without eating at work in order to pay his taxi fare(22 rand) to and from before he was paid. And yet, this government cannot provide his son an opportunity for a better future; primary education is not free. I don't pretend to know or understand the intricacies of finance, taxation and spending that are at work in this country, where millions will watch a soccer tournament next year. But I understand all too well that without primary education for these children of the townships, any of you will be able to come visit this country anytime for the rest of our lifetimes and these same problems of race and wealth, poverty and crime, will still exist.
I guess my point is that its an interesting place. A generally frustrating, occasionally beautiful, surprisingly friendly, and overall confusing, disorienting, interesting place.
