Month: December 2004

 

I’ve finally finished unpacking and organizing all the crap I’ve acquired over my vacation. 7 days ago, I was hiking (more like stumbling along in determination) across the top of Table Mountain in Cape Town, SA.


South Africa is an amazing place.


You can feel the life and optimism of a country that is emerging from years of oppression, division, and embargo. As I walked around Cape Town, I found it amazing that only 10 years ago the mix of people I was seeing in one place was not only unlikely, but quite possibly illegal as well. Nelson Mandela is worshiped to an almost ridiculous extent (I saw Mandela fridge magnets), but what was accomplished was definitely a miracle: a revolution without upheaval. Not to say that there aren’t problems. While driving to the Pilanesburg Preserve, we saw shack town that had build up around platinum mines. On the Cape peninsula amid obvious wealth and prosperity are shanty towns where running water consist of a barrel at the top of a hill with a pipe running down. (And interestingly enough, I always saw at least one guy who looked like he was taking a leak by the side of his house). Yet the winds of change and the march or progress cannot be stopped. The day before Calvin’s wedding, we had a BBQ in a rather nice house in Soweto. Now students of history will recognize Soweto as the township that gave birth to a student uprising protesting the enforced teaching of Afrikaans and in general the substandard education provided to the black population. Reading any guide book will have you convinced that it’s a 3rd world hole in the ground filled with beggars and tear inducing poverty. But that’s no longer the case. There are tracts of neighborhood that could pass for a lower middle class suburb in the U.S., and signs of the influx of new wealth are seen as often as not. Though it pains me to say it, Apartheid might have had one good legacy: the separation of races allowed a greater sense of community and home to build up, so that capital flight is not as much of a problem. Now that residents have access to better opportunities and more pay, they can bring that income back to the community and build it up.


That’s just some of what I was thinking about on the trip. I’m tired now, time to get some sleep. I’ll come back with more of my thoughts later if I feel up to it. I’ll post pics then as well.