South Africa

South Africa. My first impression upon my arrival was seeing a giant soccer bowl counting down to the world cup’s commencement (which is June 11, 2010). The airport also had a large number of deaf people working at it, all of whom were wearing vests that let other people know they were deaf, and one of them gave me directions to the nearest duty free store with food. At this point I was sure of it – I wasn’t in Africa anymore. The following is my collection of reasons I was sure that I wasn’t in Africa, and the Pretoria couldn’t be on the same continent as Bibemi – sushi, manicured lawns, electric driveway doors, curves weight loss centers, delivery pizza, delivery Chinese, movie theaters, malls with department stores, sidewalks, Subway (the sub chain), McDonalds, KFC, and theme parks. Yes, in the 16 days I was in South Africa I saw all of these things. It was fabulous. I got my haircut and my eyebrows waxed. I further confirmed my opinion that no other country does pedicures as well as the US (Asia does them well, but the US still wins). I ate cheese and apples. I had sparkling apple juice every damn day. It was heaven. Oh, did I mention I also got an emergency root canal and went to the dentist 5 times in 16 days. Yea, that was the downer part.

Some facts I learned about South Africa – particularly the Gauteng province (I think I am spelling that correctly). Gauteng is the richest province in South Africa and it has both Pretoria and Johannesburg in it. Pretoria is the 2nd largest university in the world (after Mexico) thanks in large part to their huge numbers of correspondence students. Soweto (a large, black South African populated, suburb of Jo’burg that was created for Apartheid) has the largest hospital in the world. The discovery of gold completely changed Jo’burg. The Apartheid museum is located near both a casino and a theme park. In Soweto there is a museum about the events of 16 June 1976 and I learned that the white South Africans used the language of Africaans as a form of oppression by changing it to the mandatory language in schools and the students revolted and some died. Crazy. Jo’burg has 2.4 million people. Pretoria has 2 million people. Soweto has 5 million. Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu were both from Soweto.

There are numerous malls in South Africa. I went to three of them that were in Pretoria (Menlyn, Brooklyn, and Hatfield). In all of these malls many kids, and a few adults, walk around barefoot. It was very odd. These were rich people dressed in nice, clean, expensive clothes, shopping in a nice mall, BARE FOOT. WTF.

Other cool things I did in South Africa, besides EAT – went on two different one day safaris, ate at an Indian buffet, shopped at a flea market in the malls parking lot on Sunday morning, took a hot shower every day, watched cable tv, bought a World Cup t-shirt, went to see a movie in a movie theater (twice), went to dinner and clubbing in Jo’burg with some locals.

Oh, yea, and I didn’t do all of these things alone – although I did some some of them alone. I met lots of other volunteers who were also med-evaced to South Africa – some from Tanzania, one from Kenya, one from Zambia, one from Uganda, one from Ethopia, and one from Mozambique. Oh, yea, I knew the girl from Mozambique already. It was Gracey Uffman. Gracey was a friend from childhood in Hammond and I hadn’t seen her in 13 some years. But, there I was at breakfast one morning and she walks in. Crazy small world. She had gotten injured during a soccer game (that her team did WIN) and got sent down to Pretoria. So while hanging out with her I got to see the inner workings of a South African hospital (they are run quite nicely and even have restaurants with milkshakes and fresh juices. She had her 23rd birthday during this med-evac trip and we went on a one day safari to Plainesberg National Park (spelling might be off but you get the idea) and saw lots of cool animals – photos to come.

After my root canal, I also got my tooth bleached and my tooth buffed and the root ripped out and all that good stuff that I was sent down there to have done. It was the nicest dentist office I had ever been to – honestly soooo nice. Full of computers and scanner things for teeth and other high tech inventions. My dentist had a picture of him and Bono together at that dentist office – apparently Bono needed some work done at some point in Pretoria. Didn’t want to guys to think it was all fun and games in South Africa – just like 90% 

While in South Africa, I heard in some movie the phrase “it is a common belief among anthropologists that you must fully immerse yourself in a foreign culture before you can truly appreciate your own” and I think I have witnessed that a few times. First, being in Cameroon has really made me love and miss certain things about the US. But, at the same time, being in South Africa made me realize that while SA is amazing and beautiful and full of everything you’d want, it made me miss some things about Cameroon and Bibemi. So, I think what all these recent travels have done is simply confuse me – or maybe teach me that you can find things about any culture of place to appreciate. Who knows. Guess I will have to keep traveling to figure things out!