Downsizing

This is my last night in the house in Forest Town - tomorrow I'll move my one suitcase and five boxes of stuff to a third-storey flat a bit further north - deeper into the enclave of the privileged rich - between the Rosebank Mall and the Sandton City Mall (these are the major reference points). I've failed to settle down here - I wasn't getting used to the bars on the windows, the electric fence going off in the rain, and the night-time return home fearing the dreaded "driveway robbery". I'm moving to a guarded complex, which also has ahigh wall, an electric fence, cctv cameras etc. PLUS a guard on the gate - but at least my flat is above this ground-level security system - so there are no bars on the windows, no "trellies" on the doors, no alarm system to go off whenever it feels like it - and there's a clear view of the sky and trees in the gardens across the road. Oh, and there's also a communal swimming pool, which will come in handy over Christmas (ho ho ho).

I suspect my fellow expats think I'm wimping out - why settle for 80 square metres when you can have 300 and a live-in maid and a gardener? You just need to wear your panic button around your neck all the time and you'll be fine. Well I don't need that much space - and I'll still have a spare bedroom for visitors; and a few pot plants will satisfy my rudimentary need for contact with nature. I'll miss the garden here a bit - but the main attraction is the birds (yellow, red, long-tailed, crested, etc), and I'm told that they'll come to a bird feeder on a balcony - they don't need a garden either as long as they can eat. I'll be much happier feeling that once I've closed my front door I'm safe and don't need to worry about invaders coming through the windows. Better a safe wimp than a brave potential victim, that's what I think.

Above: a resident in the garden; and a rainbow above the garden this afternoon after a massive storm - the storms are spectacular here.

More extremes

Today I went to Montecasino - yes, Montecasino, Johannesburg - an entirely spurious Italian village housing a real casino and dozens of real restaurants and real shops. The experience is surreal - there are fake pigeons on the balconies, a fake municipio (town hall), a fake campanile (belltower - when the bell chimes the bell rocks a bit to make it look real, but it's actually a recorded broadcast), a piazza surrounded by eateries - and a group of singers churning out famous Italian hits like Funicoli Funicola.

The casino section is roofed over, with a fake Italian sunset on one wall and twinkling stars in another corner. Almost the weirdest part of all this, for me, was that many people prefer to eat inside, in the fake penumbra of a fake Italian evening, rather than sit outside in the healthy South African sunshine. This is presumably partly due to the fact that the indoor air conditioning brings the temperature down by ten degrees (today it was 30 degrees outside; sorry). Disneyland meets plastic Siena. Bizarre. Part of the attraction of these places is that there are vast underground car parks where it' s easy to park (the staff selling tickets greet you with a resounding Buon giorno!), andthere's heavy security at the entrance; once inside you're completely safe, to enjoy your fake Italian meal in a fake Italian setting in a fake climate - then you can wander off to do some slot machines.

Later (this same day) I went to the very wonderful Walter Sisulu botanical garden, where you can inspect hundreds of real exotic South African plants, climb up a real cliff next to a real waterfall, and inspect the real nest of some real Black Eagles - which really do fly down and carry off the real Guinea Fowl innocently pecking around in the real grass on the lower levels. Fake Italy, real South Africa... guess where I saw more people.

(Above: fake Italy; fake storks under a fake sky; real weaver bird nests; real waterfall.)

Mda's Madonna

I've only read newspapers and work-related stuff since I got here - except for the very wonderful "The Madonna of Excelsior" by Zakes Mda (short for Zanemvula Kizito Gatyeni Mda), who was born in SA but spent a lot of his life abroad because of apartheid. Mda is new to me - a colleague lent me this novel and I didn't know what to expect - and I was immensely impressed by a lyrical blend of historical fact, political commentary, and a touch of magical realism. The story revolves around a real incident in the 1970s when the police arrested several white men and their black domestic servants for having sex together (the mixed-race children were held as evidence) - which was illegal, of course, at the time. Read it if you haven't already. There's a lot of insight into the politics and sociology of race and culture, some of which is uncomfortable reading for an Englishman, e.g.:

"....We put these friendships down to the old love affair between black people and Afrikaners that the English found so irritating. Even at the height of apartheid, blacks prefered dealing with Afrikaners to the English-speaking South Africans. The English, common wisdom stated, were hypocrites. They laughed with you, but immediately you turned, they stabbed you in the back. The Afrikaner, on the other hand, was honest. When he hated you, he showed you at once. He did not pretend to like you. If he hated blacks, he said so publicly. So, when you dealt with him, you knew who you were dealing with. When he smiled, you knew he was genuine. One could never trust the smile of an Englishman."

Albie

This evening I met a man who is so famous in SA he's refered to in the media as just as "Albie" ("like Elvis", as one of his friends said) - Albie Sachs, fighter in the freedom struggle, imprisoned, exiled, and now a Justice on the Constitutional Court. An attempt was made on his life by the SA security forces in 1988 - a bomb was put in his car; he lost most of his right arm and the sight in his right eye. When he meets you he promptly holds out his left hand so you know what to do. Tonight he was helping to present a new book on the art works in the Constitutional Court, and his presentation was generous to a fault - he made the choir sing a few times, encouraged the audience to join them on stage, called up everyone he recognised in the audience to thank them and hug them, and said almost nothing about his own role in creating the art collection. He passed on a nugget of wisdom from his grandmother - "never steal anything, except books" (which must have made the publishers nervous - there were stacks of the new book everywhere). An extraordinary man. I felt the power of his enthusiasm for life - and his survival - just in those few minutes.

To get a sense of Albie's intelligence and charisma, try a part of this interview. He also talks about the bombing.

Gold Reef City

(See below for minimal narrative.) Photos above: the Anaconda ride in the theme park (Joburg centre in the background); fountain at the entrance to the casino; kitsch decoration...

An amazing irony is that the money for the casino, theme park AND the Apartheid Museum was put up by the Kroc brothers, who made their fortune selling skin-lightening products for black women - products which turned out to have toxic long-term effects.

Soweto

Today I went to Soweto to see the Hector Pieterson Museum - a very moving memorial to the 13-year old schoolboy who was shot during the Soweto uprising in 1976, and a very effective exposition and condemnation of the whole apartheid system and the increasingly violent lengths the regime went to in repressing protest. The schoolchildren were protesting against a new law mandating that half of the teaching in their schools had to be in Afrikaans - which very few of them spoke - and so they sat in class for week after week not understanding what half of the teachers in front of them were saying, and slowly realising that they would inevitably fail the subjects being taught in this alien language. (They wanted to go on being taught in English - another colonial language, but one that they at least already understood.)

A small detail which is also indicative of the pathos and desperation of those times is that Hector's original surname was Pitso - his family changed it to Pieterson in the hope that they'd get better treatment as being less "African" and more "coloured". I don't have any photos from the museum (not permitted) but there are some above from the streets of Soweto. Note the nearly-completed new Soweto football stadium where the final of the World Cup will be played in 2010 - and note also the "informal housing" in the field in front of it.

Just to rub in the extremes of poverty/ money here, on the way back I stopped at the Gold Reef City complex - which rather oddly includes the excellent Apartheid Museum (take a look at the web site to see the Flash creativity, as well as the content, of course) along with a theme park with thrill rides and a casino - which is of course decorated in high kitsch. A city of contrasts indeed.

Differences

A tiring aspect of moving to a new country is that you have to form completely new habits. For a while, you're doing everything for the first time: getting money out of a bank, driving from home to work, going around a supermarket, buying milk - the most banal things are all slightly different and require more concentration than usual. It's exhausting. Then habits start to form and you stop paying so much attention - but this has a downside, because you start to take for granted all the small (and large) differences which were so fascinating to start with. So - I want to note here now and then some of the small differences that strike me in SA, before they go unconscious and I stop noticing them. (Also, so I don't only record things I happen to have a photo of...)

For example:

Traffic lights are called ROBOTS (this is sometimes painted in large letters on the ground to warn you they're coming up).

Pickup trucks, delivery vans etc. are called BAKKIES.

There are intersections at which no-one has right of way - everyone has a stop sign; everyone stops in fact and there's an etiquette about taking turns to cross over (imagine this in Italy!). It seems to work.

When you turn the ignition on in your car, all the doors and boot automatically lock. This is a safety feature.

If someone wants to say "it's not a serious problem" they'll say "it's not a train crash". If they want to say "oh well it's a way to make a living" they'll say "oh well it puts porridge on the table". (In fact there's a whole book to write, or has probably already been written, on colourful expressions here. There's a good web site glossary.)

The earth is a deep ochre ORANGE/ RED, not brown. This is noticeable from the sky, when you're flying, and at any construction site, and in flower beds etc. (photo above)

The "bungalows" in the northern suburbs (i.e. single-floor villas) often have skylights in the roofs to let in some extra light; these can be disguised as light fittings - in fact in my own house I didn't understand at first where the light switch was for this odd light which was on during the day but faded at night.... (photo above; note the huge fridge on the right and the "trelly" in the background - trellis security gate on an external door)

The SKY seems to be enormous compared to how it looks in the northern hemisphere. I don't understand how this is possible, the horizon must be the same distance away - perhaps it's something to do with cloud formations (I don't think I've seen a completely clear sky yet) - but there seems to be lots of space up there. There's a lot of space down on the ground, too. Johannesburg is a city of eight million people which has spread out horizontally in every direction, and why not? - there was nothing at all here 120 years ago; apart from the business district, most buildings here are just one or two stories high - and there's always somewhere to park your car. Imagine that in any European capital!