So the title's a little melodramatic, but can you blame me when I was on a bus for 18 hours straight? It did get me from Cape Town to Johannesburg, however...
Sadly, public transport in Africa is one of those things I'm going to have to love -- or perhaps tolerate -- because that's all we'll be using in Mozambique (Mocambique, en Portuguese).
Speaking of which, having taken two useless languages in my life (Latin and French, as well as a smattering of Afrikaans I've picked up, enough to know that if someone says "ek is omgelukkig" they are unhappy) has not prepared me for the Mozambique experience. "Fala engles?" may become my new favorite sentence. The answer, I fear, will most often be "nao".
Anyway. So, Johannesburg. The bus ride was incredibly long and made a little worse by the fact that the air conditioner was on the entire time, and it gets really cold at night. Even in layers, with a blanket over me, I was freezing the entire time, so I didn't get the sleep I needed. Still, I saw a genuine African sunrise over the savanna (I've heard that term applies to any flat, dry area in Africa) and watched as we pulled into town. I've heard some really awful things about Jo'burg, which is a little unfortunate because they have so much stuff to do there. Then it was on to Pretoria, an hour's drive north, and we passed the tremendously affluent suburbs (where the white people live).
OH. RACE. I have to say, my faith has been (somewhat) restored in humanity since beginning this trip. Maybe it's because of the location of my study-abroad program -- in Stellenbosch, an affluent Afrikaner bubble, nothing at all like the "real" Africa -- but I haven't seen too many middle-class black people. Sadly, in South Africa, criminals = black people. Not that criminals are always black people, but that that's sort of the conception. And in Stellenbosch, an area with wealthy Anglos and Afrikaners and poor blacks, it's kind of true. Just because, you know, poor people, economic frustrations... crime. I'm not expressing myself well. But it's kind of ridiculous and leads to a sort of racial profiling that, while I know it exists in America, makes me uncomfortable. If I see a poor-looking black guy standing on the corner in Stellenbosch, I know I'm going to get hassled. The cute little kid running around? He'll hassle me too, and perhaps even muster up a few tears while begging me for five rand. It's ridiculous, of course, to racially profile and everything, but I had never been hassled by a white person.
Until yesterday! We were walking with this Dutch guy we met on the bus ride from Cape Town, and we passed Pretoria's city square where a woman was following me, going, "Miss? Miss?" and then mumbling something while shaking a coffee cup at me. My usual tactic is to avoid eye contact entirely, possibly mumbling, "no, sorry" as I walk away. But I saw her out of the corner of my eye and had to turn around. I mean, unless my eyes were playing tricks on me, she looked white. I turned around. She was white. The Dutch guy was all, "you okay?" when he saw my shocked expression, but I wasn't really shocked by the poverty. Whatever, I've been hassled before. But this was my first non-black beggar. Landmark!
Pretoria has really convinced me that South Africa does, in fact, have a black middle class. And a black upper class. I saw a black guy driving a fancy Mercedes -- you would never see that in Stellenbosch -- and tons of trendy younguns who didn't once try to ask me for money. Which probably was a smart idea because 1) I looked frumpalicious in my four-years-old black sweater whereas they were all bedecked in designer, and 2) I didn't really have much cash on me. Double win. Also, Pretoria has also convinced me that South Africa is PRETTY. I mean, the architecture. The landscape is gorgeous, but I already knew that. But per my earlier complaints about Cape Town lacking historic architecture, I say to Past Sarah, relax. You just... have to travel east for 19 hours. But there's some amazing British centuries-old buildings, including the First National Bank, the court where Nelson M. (we're on intimate terms now) received his life sentence, and a statue in the centre of Paul Kruger. Sadly, we missed the anthropology and police museums, but we walked around probably four hours just traveling from the hostel to the city centre.
Four hours is a long time. It was ample time to assure me that 1) I'm completely out of shape (what's new?) and 2) that I wore the wrong footwear. However, saying I walked until my feet bled makes me appear like a badass. And the appearance of something is all you need, really.
Pretoria is also not very white. At all. I know, I know, what continent am I on, again? But Stellenbosch, in the affluent areas, is like 99.99999% white. Even Cape Town city proper is pretty white. But we'd walk around and not see another whitey for probably ten minutes until we spotted a beaten-down-looking woman waiting for a bus or something. I have never felt so white in my life.
The Backpackers was nice -- taking a shower after two days without one feels glorious -- and rather uneventful except for a guy from Zimbabwe who slept in a bunk under mine and didn't subscribe to the idea of deodorant. It could have been a long night, but I passed out before my nose had sufficient time to complain. Still, staying somewhere for something like R100/night ($10-ish) is amazing. You get a place to sleep, a shower, all you'd get in a hotel, only at a fraction of the price. I guess you pay for privacy, and I think in a few years I'll tire of the whole hostel thing. Certainly with kids, hostels would be out of the question. But I'm young, unattached, so there's no reason to not use hostels. This is what I tell myself whenever I realize that vacations = no privacy. I'm pretty much a loner at heart (my revelation after 18 or so years). I can turn on the extroversion when needed (though for the last few months, I've been lazy about it, so I haven't), but I'm shy and self conscious. And I love my privacy. And I sometimes hate people. So really, hostels are a great test of will for me. I'm trying to love them. But I appreciate family vacations much more now (upscale hotels). At least you're not living with perfect strangers that way.
Speaking of strangers, that's who me and Nick are with: a couple from outside Nelspruit (a few hours outside of Kruger National Park). They seem nice, though if I never reappear, please assume I've been killed. J/K. Probably. The man, Hettie, made us some vetkoek (in English, "fat cake") which is the universal fried bread dough thing. Sort of like a donut, but not sweet. And you fill it with mincemeat, which is surprisingly tasty. We get a bedroom AND bathroom to ourselves, which goes well above and beyond the average hostel, no matter how quaint. Oh, and he's like 60. The tip-offs: he said he usually eats dinner at 4 p.m., and when I told him I was tired since we woke up at 6 this morning his reply was, "What? That's not early... we usually get up at 5:45". Considering I'm too tired at this point to go out on the town like normal kids my age, I think this is actually a good thing.
Hester (his wife) and her daughter were speaking in Afrikaans, but the drawback of having taken one Afrikaans class and not having taken it very seriously since I only needed a 50 to pass, was that I couldn't understand a word of what they were saying. No, wait. A few words. There was a "vandag" (today), a few days of the week, "omgelukkig" (which I remembered from our "emotions" segment). Congrats. A semester of learning a language, and all I have to say for myself is "Ek is jammer, Suid-Afrika".
If all goes well, we should be staying in Kruger Park tomorrow. I'm excited, because this is infinitely better than a safari -- we drive a car (Fossil Rim-style) through hundreds of miles of trails where animals roam freely: lions, giraffes, rhino, hippos (but only at night!), elephants, buffalo, hyena, kudu, etc. etc. etc. And -- this is the first time anyone has warned me about this, and perhaps the last -- Hennie told us to be careful and look both ways so that we don't get charged by an elephant herd.
Yay.
P.S. I apologize for the recent lack of pictures. As soon as I have a reliable computer, I'll upload some of the better ones.
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