I have now been here for just over 36 hours and am making arrangements to leave asap. Though joburg isn't near as bad as what all the guide books make it out to be it isn't my type of place. I went to the Apartheid museum yesterday, in all my schooling we never learned much about Africa. Sure we learned about african geography and a little about ancient Egypt, but I can't recall ever looking at contemporary politics. The system of apartheid was formally introduced in the 40's and lasted until 1993. The shear brutality and insensibility of the doctrine is overwhelming. The amount of people that died when the government all but fell apart in the 90s also blew my mind, I never heard a thing about this in any class I ever took. The saddest part about it is that I think I knew more about apartheid from Lethal Weapon 2 than from any other source. At the museum, the introduction started out as what I would consider mildly racist against white people. Not the information persa but how it was put forth, that being said I'm surprised there wasn't more of a backlash against the whites. I guess I would have expected something more akin to Zimbabwe's stripping of land from white farmers. Furthur on in the museum it detailed the various anti aparthied movements for example the ANC and PAC, both of which formed militant wings after being declared illegal, Mandela was trained in sabatoge while working with the ANC. In a BBC interview which was shown at the museum on loop, Mandela says that non-violent protests cannot win and that violence must be used, but only in destroying property not harming anyone personally. Possibly one of the most memorable exhibits was a bank of 3 large screen projections of video shot during the early 90's of thousands of Zulu marching/dancing in the streets with traditional zulu weapons, the neo-fascist AWB strutting around in black and practicing mounted manuvers from both horses and vehicles. The museum really hits to the core of a person, at the beginning you purchase a ticket an are handed an ID, you give the ID to a security guard at the start of the museum and the group will probably be split up into "Whites" and "Non-Whites" for a taste of Apartheid. On a whole it was very similar to the Martin Luther King Museum in Memphis.
As for the hostel, Diamond Diggers, I am not impressed. By far the largest of any I have stayed in thus far the listed amenities include a gym, sauna, hot tub and 3 kitchens. Sounds all peaches and cream huh? The hot tub is drained, the sauna goes up to perhaps 85 degrees farhenhiet, and when I braved a run through the alley in naught but my board shorts and room key I was mightily disappointed. This was only made worse when i went for a shower afterward and found that when I turned the handles in stall one the water came out in stall 2, ask me not how this happend because I'm still utterly mystified. Finally I found a shower in another building in which the handles made water come out. I won't even try to say the water was warm, but whatever a shower is a shower no matter how short. I have mentioned this before, but the seemingly subservant attitude of the black workers in the hostels is amazing, here especially. A black gentleman was cooking his dinner the other night and asked if I had any salt I could spare I said sure and handed over my shaker. After i finished dinner I came back in and found he had cleaned all my dishes. Quite strange cause I pick up after myself and when people dot on my I feel uncomfortable. Then again last night I came in ready to cook my dinner and found that he was using the stove cooking his own dinner, no biggie I thought I'll come back. He started to remove his pots from the stove so that I could cook. Finally, after some serious discussion I convinced him to finish cooking then I would cook my own food. Of all the things I expected in South Africa to remove me from my comfort zone, a battle to force someone to finish his own dinner before me was not on my list. I'm serisouly starting to get the heebiejeebies. I've seen poverty before but not so close to nice stuff. For example in mexico there is usually a buffer zone or for lack a better description slow degridation of living areas. Yesterday there was a very heavy fog all around joburg and as I sat in the dinning room drinking my tea for the morning I watched someone just accross the road in an abandoned house huddled next to a fire for warmth. I'm talking less than 100ft from where I was, and yet on either side of that area were nice looking houses. Of course those houses like the hostel compound are ringed with either multi-level razor wire, think checkpoint charlie, or electric fences. Seriously whoever makes that rolled razor wire is a billionare from SA alone.
I've been reading up on Zambia and the more I read the more I am intrigued. originally I was planning on only spending a week there but I need to leave SA. Okay I'm off to go buy a phone card to make some plans about travelling and then my return trip to cape town. And yes Scott you can use any of what i write in emails on the website or whatever. If you like instead of having to copy it all you can just post a link to my blog. Whatever is easiest. When I head to Zambia I will probably be out of contact for perhaps the rest of my journey. I'm not sure about that but if this is my last one until cape town yes I'm probably still alive and making a nuisance, just out of comms. I'll try to post something from Lusaka though. hey mom i think we need to get a map of southern africa, not just South Africa cause I'm going furthur than I thought. Au revior.
