South Africa provides a study in contrasts. On the surface it feels like Toronto, Sydney or Los Angeles with it's exclusive suburbs, vibrant harbourfront, cosmopolitan atmosphere, elegant shops and restaurants, beautifully attired people, late model cars, well kept streets and colonial and modern architecture and an almost finished World Cup Soccer stadium.
The underbelly is a little different with black townships rife with crime, a downtown that is unsafe for black or white at night, tight security around housing divisions and apartment blocks, car guards watching over parked cars, electrical and razor wire on top of garden walls, spikes and glas shards embedded around and above entry gates, an open air prison where it is unclear whether prisoners are inside or outside the private fortresses.
Depressing remnants of infamous District Six, where black inhabitants were unceremoniously thrown out of their houses during Apartheid. The houses were razed with the exception of a few churches standing desolately in abandoned acreages, with nothing but the odd tin and cardboard lean-to housing black homeless people.
Here it is said, that 'crime pays'. For every hundred serious crimes commited, the understaffed South African justice system MAY prosecute four, good odds for anyone who choses crime as a career.
Schooling, Health, Infrastructure are almost on the verge of being disfunctional. The question seems to be 'how dismal will the future of South Africa look like' if a miraculous change does not happen soon?
The rural areas of the Southern and Eastern Cape area are famous for their beauty, mediterranean climate, favourable growing conditions and peaceful daily life. Wine grows profusely in most of the valleys, but the beauty is marred by acres and acres of shanty towns made of any imaginable material that could possibly be used to construct a habitation. There the seasonal wine harvest workers live (and die). The Koisan tribes, native to the area, flock to rural employment when the city life becomes unbearable, and so do the thousands of economic refugees from surrounding countries. That makes for an oversupply of labour for a short harvest season, and some very tense and sometimes fatal problems between local workers and newcomers.
In June/July 2010 the Soccer World Cup will bring thousands of visitors to South Africa, which has built or renovated nine world class venues for the occasion. Ninetythousand people will crowd into a new arena in Johannesburg to watch the Finals. More than three and a half million tickets are being sold - somehow - over internet and otherwise, the logistics are staggering.
Many new roads and overpasses are being constructed to handle the expected massive traffic - but they pass right through and over some of the worst shanty towns in existence.
Instead of two classes of people before Apartheit with differences in Power, Justice and Privilege, now South Africa has three classes of people with slightly different rights. There is the very small ruling black class and more of the totally disenfranchised black people. The white people have become more wealthy but much less powerful; and a miniscule black middleclass is hesitantly emerging from the brew.
All is topped off by a serious braindrain from South African Universities, the impact of HIV/AIDS which officially affects 40-50% of the population, and an unemployment rate of about 50%. Life expectancy hovers around forty years.
Difficult times for a prosperous and potentially globally powerful nation...
The location of Cape Town rivals Hong Kong, San Francisco, Vancouver and Sidney for natural beauty. Table Mountain with its almost ever present 'table cloth' of snowy white clouds makes an ever changing background, seals frolic in the harbour filled with commercial and pleasure crafts, and Victoria and Albert Waterfront are absolutely delightful.
The city has frequent natural air-conditioning provided by the 'Cape Doctor', wicked South Easterlies who blast over the city from table mountain with consistent winds of 40 - 50 knots. These winds blow pollution out to sea and the table cloth clouds down the slopes of table mountain. Along the scenic coast line between Cape Town and Cape of Good Hood the Twelve Apostles, really consisting of seventeen rugged peaks, guard the rear of fabulous beaches and breath taking surf crashing into numerous rocky cliffs.
The Benguela Current flowing north in the Atlantic Ocean and the Aghula Current flowing south in the Indian Ocean meet off Cape of Good Hope and keep waters cold year round. I turns swimming into a feat of courage for bathers and navigation into a challenge for marine traffic rounding the Cape. But, surfers are happy polulating the expansive white sandy beaches, and so are the glitterati frequenting the trendy restaurants, bistros and bars located in exclusibe beach resorts.
Despite, and maybe because, of the many different faces of Cape Town, it is one of my best loved stays on the journey.
A world of contrast for me, experiencing the joys of meeting wild animals up close in Aquila Game Reserve and learning and knowing about the evocative character of the country and one of its most attractive cities: Cape Town.
